#what the fuck kind of genetic tampering is that?

[a-sad-mage]

Hey

Can we talk about the fact, that Eli, a guy known for naming his slugs has yet to name his Enigmo Slug

Because, as far as I can remember, Eli and the Gang, just call Enigmo... Enigmo

Like you would think after like immediately saving Enigmo from that trap, and ultimately keeping him, Eli would name the little guy.

Personally, I've just been calling him Iggy

[ohnoitsz1m]

Whatever. Combine Barney AU concepts. But also he's a furry because I just can't be bothered to draw people rn

Not by any means an original idea but I've seen so little of it and what IS around isn't very detailed or isn't finished so. I'll gladly add to the pile of unfinished stuff ^_^ I may not be good at keeping up with my AUs but I try to be thorough with them while I'm working on em

Okay continued rambling below final warning also there's a maskless combine down here so like .. HL:A spoilers and general body horror (?) below ↓

Anyways so. Barney is like. A figurehead. Of sorts. Very much a "hey look the combine is actually really great and basically your best bet at survival. We promise not to take away your humanity completely just let us do a little surgery and genetic modification it's totally okay we promise." Type deal. He exists for propaganda basically.

His mask is separated into different parts because well that's just how the design ended up. It's hard to translate shit to furry bodies T_T. The mask snaps together to make a fairly airtight seal since it is technically a respirator,,, but comes off in two pieces. External ears are lame you don't need em when you have a mask and implants that give you better hearing than any other member of your species. Stuff em in the mask they're not made for your comfort anyways.

He's got kind of a modified version of the Ordinal uniform because 1 I really like the HL:A Combine designs and 2 it was the easiest to make look like his Black Mesa uniform. Just for funzies

He's still "Barney" he just got his brain tampered with. And maybe a liiiittle extra stuff. It's fiine. But uh yeah he's lacking a lot of the visible modifications that the combine soldiers usually have because if this thing started trying to tell you how cool it is to join the combine nobody would listen.

So they had to compromise. A little. They let Barney have most of his personality and a good deal of his memories, juust modified to better suit their needs.

The How and the Why of this AU aren't quite set in stone yet but the basic gist of it is:

Barney initially joined Civil Protection early on as a double agent for the Resistance, buuuuut due to prolonged separation from the resistance, propaganda aaaand tampering with the food and water supply he started turning more to the other side. He was still working as a double agent but he started to get sloppy and became more sympathetic towards the combine. Eventually the Combine figured out what he was doing and fucked with his brain for funzies or whatever. Suddenly not only is the combine cracking down harder on rebel outposts, there's a new guy appearing in between breencasts!

[sayakxmi]

I finally got myself together to finish the trolltags/lands I have for the dancestors, that I overthought to hell and back, so why not share. Explanations under the cut!

(Also, I probably should mention that it's all in context of an AU, so if some things are confusing, that's why.)

KANKRI:

vendicateThumomacule [VT] Kankri's original trolltag is, well, grey to hide his indentity, and is actually a small nod to John/June. Hence the letters are VT, absolutely taken from VanTas. Mostly, because ectoBiologist has EB like EgBert. You know how these letters are taken from the genetic code, but John/June ended up breaking from it? Well, Kankri's the opposite here. The very first mutation, someone who didn't belong there, but inserted himself there anyway.

Vendicate means to claim for oneself, whereas Thumomacule comes from two words - thumomancy (divination by means of one’s own soul) and macule, which can be either a) (in printing) to blur, as from a double impression in printing, or b) (in anatomy) another name for macula (a discolored spot on the skin). The second definition refers to his mutation, while the first, I'm kind of thinking about blur/double impression as a reference to The Signless, and seeing visions of another world. Personally, I love the idea that Kankri's always had these visions as well, so that's what I was going for here.

As for constructiveGrievance, I'll be honest, I've seen it once upon a time, I don't know where, and internalized it as his trolltag. He has a lot of grievances, and tries to be constructive about it. (Whether he succeeds is up for debate, lmao).

As for his land, the Land of Conduits and Valves: Conduit: - a pipe or passage for water or electrical wires to go through - reference to Mituna (as I am a huge Captor&Vantas whatever the fuck they have going on enjoyer) - a way of connecting two places - the aspect of Blood - someone or something that provides a way of passing something such as information or payments from one person to another - role of a Seer, but also a small reference to The Signless again, passing information about different worlds between each other Valves - a device that opens and closes to control the flow of liquids or gasses, or a similar structure in the heart and the veins that controls the flow of blood - pretty obvious aspect connection.

In general, thinking about the Seers' lands, they all have somewhat... liquidy feel to it. Rose's has literal rain, while Terezi's land has these thought river-like things on the sky. So I was also thinking about something fluid, and, well, blood.

Kankri's land is pretty similar to Dave's, except there's no cogs or lava, only endless red-and-blue pipelines that are meant to let the blood flow, but the valves aren't letting it, and empty void beneath your feet. It's an extremly unpleasant land.

It's a bit of a theme, actually, that the lands are pretty hostile towards their players here - since the game was tampered wth, Skaia knew early on that this session had no chance at succeeding, so it was quite literally trying to get the players to make The Scratch faster. F.

It's actually quite evident since the get-go, Kankri's land is LOCAV. So. Random fact: I'm Polish. In Polish the way you read V in English is the same as we read W. So I could write it as CAW. A sound made by a crow. And, well. One Crow: bad luck, loss, unpleasant catastrophic changes.

From the very moment Kankri got into the game, it was already lost. RIP.

Also, I've meant what I've said. I aggressively overthought it, lmao.

DAMARA:

acroamaticAcicutie Acroamatic - esoteric - “intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest” - I was thinking about her ability to speak & control ghosts, a medium, but, yeah, honestly, it can also allude to the fact that as far as we know only Rufioh actually understands her speech. Acicula - One of the needlelike or bristlelike spines or prickles of some animals and plants; also, a needlelike crystal. Connected with cutie.

Land of Ponds and Shimmer, well, when it comes to Shimmer I was thinking about light reflecting on crystals, since her Scratch device looked like these music boxes on Aradia's land, so there had to be Some crystals in there. But it can also be the shimmer of the ponds. With ponds, I was kind of thinking about koi ponds? Who's stopping me from there being koi fish, tbh. The ponds are also a reference to Meenah, because, well, water. But also small one to Rufioh, I guess. Also, ponds and reflections (When will my reflection show who I am inside).

In general, Witches lands are, imo, pretty, colorful, and dangerous if you aren't careful. And that's also what I thought about Damara's land - looks very pleasant, but crystals can have some sharp edges, ponds be deeper that it has any reason to etc, etc.

But since all their lands make things difficult for the dancestors, the catch of this one is that it makes Damara homesick. :)

Ah, but here's my favorite part. PAS. Pas is Polish for fold in poker. "Folding simply means to let go of your cards and surrender the pot to another player". Or another set of players. ;>

RUFIOH

agromaniacalTauroboly Agromania - intense desire to be in open spaces Tauroboly - the ritual sacrifice of a bull. I like to think about is as a contrast to Tavros' trolltag, in which Tavros is a bit more of plot’s sacrificial bull, but his trolltag relates to bulls fighting, whereas Rufioh would wreck people’s shit if it wasn’t for his non-existent self-worth & confidence, but his trolltag relates to sacrificing a bull.

The Land of Breeze and Hills has a somewhat simple etymology. All the Breath player we know had some specific type of wind in their land's name (literally Wind for John/June, and Zephyr for Tavros), so I went with something similar. And boy oh boy, is Breeze a reference. Obviously, Breeze relates to water, and that way it references three pretty important gals in Rufioh/The Summoner's life - Damara (ponds), Meenah (a seadweller), and Aranea, or more specifically Mindfang, who was a pirate. As for Hills, Rogues tend to have some rises, like Roxy's pyramids, or Nepeta's... sugar cube pyramids? So I thought about hills for Rufioh to more or less fit it in, very much thinking about"a hill to die on".

BAH is kind of weaker, but at the same time, it gave me some ideas for the land. In several languages it means flood, but in a few others it's an expression of disbelief, disdain, resignation & scorn.

LOBAH is flooded, which is a huge pain for Rufioh, whose wings aren't really good for damp environments. His mobility sure is limited, which kind of sucks. He could probably ask some imps to help him out in travel, but that'd mean using his powers, and he's not a big fan of them. }:(

MITUNA

technicolorAlytarch Technicolor - a vivid or bright color “Alytarch in ancient Olympic games was the leader of the police force who assisted the Hellanodikai to impose fines on athletes who did not follow the rules” "Hellanodikai - literally meaning Judges of the Greeks - were the judges of the Ancient Olympic Games, and the success of the games was attributed to their efforts". I like the idea of it referring to more than one character, but ofc I thought of Latula first.

Land of Screens and Skyscrapers Skyscrapers as in heights & danger, at least that’s my association. Something about falls, especially when you're very high... Screening - concealing, protecting, sheltering. But also screening, as in “checking for disease when there are no symptoms. Since screening may find diseases at an early stage, there may be a better chance of curing the disease”. Also, fun fact, SAS is a group of highly trained British soldiers who work on secret or very difficult military operations. SAS is an abbreviation for 'Special Air Service'.” I wonder if it's relevant.

Heirs' lands tend to be really dark for some reason, but it's a bit difficul to say if it's a theme for them, because Equius' aspect is literally Void, so of course his land is dark. But I went for it. I'd say LOSAS resembles Dirk's land a bit, but there's also a shitton of giant screens on the building, all of them not working properly. The land is dangerous in it's nature, and generally not the most pleasant place to be in (ah, Doom players), but it sure gets worse after Mituna's accident, now that he has trouble seeing, and his balance also got quite bad. F.

MEULIN

acuteCardiograper Acute: - causes severe problems or damage; - pain or illness is one that quickly becomes very severe; - aware of or able to recognize small differences between things, or being accurate in judging something; The first two are more foreshadowing, whereas the last one is the actual intent. Since she's an amazing matchmaker whose speciality is the Hreat. Cardiography - the use of a machine to record the beating of the heart. So. You know. Hehe. Meulin's trolltag is an ad. Bonus a cute cardiographer.

Land of Lily Pads and Wisps Lily Pads are literally there in Openbound, but also I like the general symbolism of lilies - purity, innocence and rebirth. I think it describes Meulin very well. Wisps - of smoke, of light, but also will o' the wisp - a person that is difficult or impossible to reach or catch on (OR aurora). Of course even Meulin can't have nice things. Her land mocks her for being "useless". (Note: I'm not saying that she is, but that's how she feels). LOLPAW is not exactly deep.

PORRIM

gallivantAvantgarde Gallivant - to visit or go to a lot of different places, enjoying yourself and not worrying about other things you should be doing. Avantgarde - the painters, writers, musicians, and other artists whose ideas, styles, and methods are very original or modern in comparison to the period in which they live, or the work of these artists. Porrim's attitude, essentially.

Land of Threads and Frogs Threads like fabric, but also thread/fabric of the universe Also thread as in “to move forwards, often changing direction in order to avoid people or things”. Which is, well, what she was supposed to do. Another land that isn't exactly dangerous, but feels more like a mockery. Cluttered, soft & pastel. You could say ""girly"". She hates it here.

Maid's lands are pretty nice, though they tend to lack the aspect the Maid is supposed to create, at least that's what I've understood.

TAF - a substance, consisting of protein and nucleic acid developed in a malignant tumor, that stimulates the formation of capillaries for nourishing the tumor and carrying off its waste matter. A connection to Kankri, and especially The Dolorosa's role in The Signless' life.

LATULA

I'll be honest, I'm not exactly the proudest of hers, but this grl was giving me a headache at some point. Mostly when it comes to her trolltag, because I like the name of her land, but oh well. I was tired.

galiantCaballerial Galiant - “Galiant is a mixture of two words; Valiant (Possessing Courage and Determination), and Gallant (Grand, Fine). This is what you call someone who excels at anything they play, mainly videogames.” Urban Dictionary. I'm not sure it's the most believable source, but you know what, why not. If it's not really a thing, what's stopping me from headcanoning that it is on Beforus? Or add a small backstory that Liltula found that term & loved it, used for his trolltag & only later found out it's not a real thing. Now she's living a lie. Caballerial - a trick invented by Steve Caballero in the early 1980s in which the skater performs a 360-degree ollie in a ramp while riding fakie and without grabbing.

Land of Smoke and Mirrors Smoke and Mirrors - the obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information. Other than the obvious, it's not a big discovery that the Knights' lands are filled with danger and even things they personally hate & fear. Mirrors for somebody as self-conscious and obsessed over her presentation? And also smoke. There might be fire somewhere, but she can't smell it, she won't know she's in danger until she gets closer to it. F. No cool meaning for SAM :(

ARANEA

amasthenicGraphomaniac Graphomania - a compulsive urge to write Amasthenic - uniting the rays of light into one focus, as a certain kind of lens does (in photography)

Land of Swirls and Candles Swirls - I was thinking about the weather, so connection to Breath, but also whirlpools, so connection to water. Extreme weather. Hella important in sailing. Etc. Also swirls & cherubs. Candles - light. Quite simple. LOSAC is essentially a gorgeous dark forest lit by candles, and Aranea is blind as shit in there. Did I mention that Skaia doesn't want them to keep going? :) Other than that: - Candle Queen by GUMI is such an Aranea song, you won't tell me otherwise. - one of the definitions of a SAC is "a covering that surrounds a tumor" i WoNdEr If It'S rElEvAnT

HORUSS

compoundTegument Tegument - natural covering of an animal or plant body Compound: - a thing that is composed of two or more separate elements; a mixture - make (something bad) worse; intensify the negative aspects of But Also - compound bow - A hand-drawn, hand-held bow that for similar poundage at full draw, stores more energy than a recurve bow through the use of two cables and two eccentric wheels

Land of Copper and Bolts Copper can be used in making steam engines. “Brown coins of low value made of copper or bronze”. And making electrical wires. “any of various small widely distributed butterflies of the genera Lycaena, Heodes, etc, typically having reddish-brown wings: family Lycaenidae” h u h Can mean “policeman”... Law reinforcement… Executioners… HMM. Bolts - well, bolts, but also arrowheads (in crossbows), also to quickly escape, and also (lightning)bolt, also A bolt is also a part of a gun that pushes the cartridge (= container filled with explosive powder) into position to be fired - I wonder if it its *gets shot* CAB - besides the obvious - “the enclosed compartment of a lorry, locomotive, crane, etc, from which it is driven or operated” - trains. steam. it’s all coming together “the glass-enclosed area of an airport control tower in which the controllers are stationed” listen, it works for me, but I can’t explain Why “first cab off the rank” - the first person, etc, to do or take advantage of something - like. the first person to take advantage of somebody’s malleable and passive personality…?

Steampunk land. What can I say. Downside: them damn bolts everywhere. You can hurt yourself :<

KURLOZ

tumultuousCaduceator Tumultuous - chaotic or disorderly; full of noise, commotion, or turbulence. Caduceator - herald; messenger Also similar to Caduceus (prolly related), so a relation to Mituna who is a Gemini - Gemini is ruled by Mercury (Hermes’ Roman name, the Caduceus belonged to him) So it’s a mixed bag of relations to others: tumultuous is a relation to Caliborn (there’s even a wholeass Sign of the Tumultuous - Caniborn). Herald/messenger is akin to Kankri’s role of a prophet. Except he’s heralding Lord English’s arrival rather than another Signless’. And, well, the Mituna connection. It’s also a Doom connection, lmao.

Land of Pits and Thrills You have this huge never-ending theme park with random pits where you least expect them, cartoonish experience. In general, Princes' lands tend to be extremely dangerous in ways that relate to their aspects, and, well, cartoon-like traps break the immersion a bit, really makes you think about everything being fake. Plus a theme park doesmake one think about the HS clowns a bit, right? Another one of my faves, PAT means a stalemate in Polish - a situation in chess where one of the players can’t move according to the rules, but their king isn’t in check - it ends the game in a draw. Technically, they haven't lost, and yet they cannot progress :o)

CRONUS

corbanAlluvion Corban - offering to God in fulfillment of a vow / kinda thinking abt it regarding Cronus wanting to fulfill his “destiny” Allivion - effect of water impacting on shoreline (eg. deluge) Was I tempted for Cronus to have his trolltag as cronusAmpora? Yes. Absolutely. But in the end I decided to pretend that I Am A Serious Writer.

Land of Tides and Rows Tidal island - a piece of land that is connected to the mainland by a natural or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide Also changing tides. Row - well, rowing, so water travel. This land looks quite nice on the first glance, but once you start to travel you find out, that the further you go, the darker and more dangerous it becomes. Oh no. Also, the water is definitely tainted. TAR - a dark, thick flammable liquid distilled from wood or coal, consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons, resins, alcohols, and other compounds. It is used in road-making and for coating and preserving timber. But also as a verb: blame or damage the reputation of (someone).

MEENAH

cerescentConqueror Conqueror - obvious Cerescent - a typo she didn’t care to correct; crescent is a phase of the moon (halfmoon); Ceres is a roman goddess of harvest etc.

Land of Passages and Harvest Passages as literal passages, but also in: passage of time, or passing = death, so a relation to Damara. And Harvest is, well, harvest. In general, the only other Thief we have is Vriska, and her land is essentially "things that help in stealing her aspect" and "something that represents her aspect". In this case, then, you need to let the time pass for harvest to begin. Also, I love the idea that all Life Players have some representation of the other players on their planet, just like Jane's lamps. In this case, Meenah has flowers. I have yet to finish it, but I did assign some already. PAH - used to express disgust or contempt. Aka Meenah's reaction when she first saw her bright colorful land full of flowers.

Final notes: - ok, so, the idea for LOLPAW, Thrills in Kurloz's land & Avantgarde for Porrim's trolltag are from kanmeu, Caballerial is 100% an accident, though, when I've found that word I thought it looked familiar, and Oh. - I might fix the formatting tomorrow, idk, but it sure ain't gonna be now.

[mega-ringsandthings-world]

Vash and Knives were’t a miracle

I’ve been thinking lately that Vash and Knives were perhaps not as unprecedented as they seemed. At least in tristamp’s verse. Independents is a very telling name for them, isn’t it?  The entire SEEDS project was based around the creation and existence of plants, and a very large amount of funding, time, resources and dubious experimentation must have been poured into creating the so-called biological generators. So we know a few things here. One, that plants have a rather hefty amount of human DNA in them, and that they can’t be easily created. (See how the loss of plant engineers and scientists in the Fall put a stop to the creation of any new plants in Noman’s Land, after all.)  So Vash and Knives might have been part of a continuing series of experiments to make the plants self-proliferate.  Think about it, if plants can pop out another plant any time one is needed, then there would be an abundance of plants to be had and never a shortage or need to worry about a replacement when a plant’s Last Run comes or it gets sick, and there would be no need to artificially create more of them. Put the strain of reproducing plants on the Plants themselves, just as they generate essentials for life, they’d also generate more of their kind. Given how much human DNA the plants had, the scientists may have decided to use it to their advantage (or else it was planned all along,) and tried to tweak things to make a Plant give birth.   Given the amount and type of other DNA used besides human DNA, it’s safe to say that Plants can reproduce asexually, using their own genetic material.  SEEDS 5 may have been running the first wave of those types of experiments, leading to the birth of Tesla, fifty years before Vash and Knives. But maybe something went wrong, or not quite right, and Tesla came out more human than plant. In tweaking genetic codes to make a plant reproduce, they ended up nudging the plants’ offspring in a different direction, a plant with almost wholly human DNA, that kept what it could generate hidden, rather than fully exposed as dependent plants. (Vash’s gate, Knives tentacles are all things they generate like dependent plants generate water and power)  So Tesla came out wrong, and instead of trying to understand her, they got impatient and ripped her apart trying to figure out where they went wrong, or else trying to figure out what she could do.  

The brutal experiments ran on Tesla could have been repeated attempts to make her reproduce like her mother plant did with her, or else an attempt to find out why she wasn’t reproducing.  Bear with me, but Tesla has the appearance of being biologically female while Vash and Knives have the appearance of being biologically male. Whatever tampering was being done to the plants to try and give them to birth may have led the Plants to produce a male and female independent (an Adam and Eve, if you will.) The plants were given the directive to reproduce, and they did, they generated the things necessary for Plants to reproduce ad infinitum, except Vash and Knives came too late.  SEEDS 5 maybe have realized their mistake when Vash and Knives were born, they fucked up by ruining Tesla. (I know the implication here is that the twins were meant to, ahem, reproduce with Tesla, but hey. It’s trigun. Worse shit has been implied or outright shown.) (Although I think that Plants and Independents alike have the ability to reproduce asexually or with another Independent regardless of gender at will, and that their entire modus operandi around sexual organs and reproduction is greatly varied from a human’s but that’s topic for another time, and besides, the scientists may not have even realized this.) Vash and Knives being born as two may have been a fluke, or it could have been a deliberate choice on the scientists’ part, with Tesla out of commission, they might have decided that two was better than one. An heir and a spare. Maybe they had planned for them to be born apart, but they were born together,  as twins, which was seen as another failing.  We see that Vash was in a different folder than Knives on the ship’s files, so he might have been slated to be used in experiments while Knives, who showed evidence of useful powers, was to be kept back in reserve. Vash might have been assumed to be too human to be of any technical use. We do know that the twins knew Dr. Conrad, so it was likely him observing the twins from afar with the rest of whatever team he had, and planning for them while Rem cared for them.  Obviously, it would be Dr. Conrad who was in charge of the initial experiments to create self-generating plants, and that carries over to the plan he forms with Knives on Noman’s land.  Okay, this is getting long, so td;lr, Tesla, Vash and Knives were all born because the SEEDS project was trying to create self-reproducing plants and things went wrong. 

[dragonnarrative-writes]

hi dragon!! hope you’re having a good tuesday ☺️ wanted to stop by to talk shop for a little

I absolutely adore Autumn Embers, genuinely one of the au’s that feels the most “real” to me. I’m really curious to learn more about how you fleshed out the world politics for this AU?

It’s one of my absolute favorite parts of the AU truly from the relevance of the 4B movement, to tampered beta suppressants, and even the courting cakes?? Adore it so much!!

-Kiko

Hi Kiko!

I'm going to offer a content warning for general discussion of reproductive health, complications, and freedoms below the cut.

The omegaverse is really interesting as a concept, but I really wanted to answer the question: What about Omegas that can't have children? And then that spawned the question, what kind of genetic conditions would make an omega not be able to have kids? There are so many real world reasons why pregnancy and childbirth are complicated and dangerous, what would estrus/heat and rut contribute to that? And, unfortunately, how would capitalism impact those complications?

It's kind of tricky to come up with the exact reasons why I asked those questions. I'm a Black US American, so the US Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade and subsequent war on reproductive freedom is part of it. The climate crisis and capitalist contributions to environmental destruction, and the health impacts thereof, are also a part of it. Honestly, my own queer identity and the experiences of intersex loved ones also contributed.

Whatever the case, the answer I came up with was: Omicron conditions. A classification of congenital developmental issues impacting but not limited to issues of presentation and reproduction.

All of Autumn Embers is based on this concept! We haven't explored it in depth yet in the fic, but Wildfire has an omicron condition. It's why her scent is so fucked up unique.

From there, I just wanted to make a world that feels complete. Of course someone surrounded by a world of "Heat and Rut!" and "Scents! Mean! Everything!" would be sensitive to their own reproductive experiences. And omegaverse fiction is (almost) never far enough from our reality, in my opinion, so of course there's going to be some conflict about reproductive health and rights, impacted by the Ever Present Evil (capitalism). And of course it's going to be global, this whole fandom surrounds an international task force.

This is way longer than I intended, so I'll just admit that I came up with the sex cake because omegaverse is inherently horny and I also want to do weird horny stuff in the middle of my examination of gender, sexuality and reproduction.

I want to give a shout out to Scents and Sensibility: The Working Assassin's Guide to Supersoldier Seduction, a Captain America fanfic that rewired my brain when it comes to omegaverse fiction. And another shoutout to I Shall Not Live In Vain, a series from The Witcher fandom that actually got me thinking about scent compatibility.

Thanks for the ask @mikichko!

[nachosncheezies]

I can't find the post where you've rambled about Kurt Crawford before! Please ramble to me about Kurt Crawford!

Hi hello and thank you for your patience as I answer this one month to the day from when you sent it!!!! 🙈 oops

The Crawfords was my original answer to @perpetually-weirdening's question "what character do you wish we learned more about" but I'm so happy to expand on that, I have a lot of feelings!!! xD

The thing about the Kurt Crawfords is that (unless I'm forgetting something big) they're the first clones we've seen that are explicitly said to be the progeny of abductees/the MUFON women. We've met other clones before including the Samanthas in Colony/End Game but those were rogues trying to figure out how to hybridize themselves into some kind of genetic variability that would let them look different and blend in. (they used discarded tissue from abortion clinics rather than stolen ova) The bounty hunter was after them for simply existing outside The Project.

The Crawfords are different. They're part of The Project. The first one that Mulder and Scully meet is the one they track down after finding someone is remotely copying Betsy Hagopian's computer files. This Crawford claims to be a member of Betsy's MUFON chapter, and he tells them there's a conspiracy to cover up the women's deaths. He leads them to Penny Northern, who (unfortunately) directs Scully to Dr Scanlon and her first attempt at treatment. The bounty hunter comes for Crawford #1 in Betsy's basement the minute Mulder steps away.

Crawford #2 turns up at the fertility clinic where Betsy and some of the others had been treated. This Crawford is dressed differently but Mulder doesn't know yet that there's more than one, and accuses him of having run off with the files they'd been working on in Betsy's basement. Between them and the Gunmen, they track down Scully's name in a research lab directory, which leads them to data on the branched DNA they'd already identified after Scully's abduction. But if someone's looking at this as a possible cause for her illness, maybe they're also looking for a cure, so the Gunmen help Mulder break into the Lombard facility where he finds a whole room of Kurt Crawfords.

And this is where IMO it gets so complicated and so bittersweet and so REAL. We learn very little about the Crawfords in the few minutes Mulder is with them but what we do learn is pretty significant for something that's never really talked about again. They recognize Mulder, they welcome him. They lead him straight to the drawer containing Scully's stolen ova (the first time we learn what the project did to her when she was abducted). They tell him how they were harvested, that the radiation used in that procedure caused her (and the MUFON women's) cancer. They tell him that the men who are claiming to treat this rare cancer are the same ones that caused it, that those men are actually working to hasten the women's deaths.

But!!!! what gets me most is this exchange:

Mulder: You're trying to save them. Crawford: They're our mothers.

What a thing to think, to feel, to say. The Crawfords came from fucked up circumstances and they're not really human. They're complicit in perpetuating it all by making more of themselves, but this is their life cycle, this is their job, this is what they know. From what we're shown we have no reason to believe that any of them has ever experienced what it is to have a mother in any sense other than a genetic donor. They're grown in tanks from tampered genetic material taken from tampered women without either party giving consent.

But they recognize that they owe their existence to these human women, who were violated and now suffer and die for it. And in those very few words he says: they don't want that. They recognize it's wrong. They're trying to stop it. (They are risking their lives; their subversion sends the bounty hunter after them.) It's their chance at redemption for the crime of being alive and that alone is painfully human.

They want Mulder and Scully to know the truth. The fact that they lead Mulder directly to where Scully's stolen ova are kept. That they let him take from that drawer without comment. They let him take the truth in his hand, surely aware that he might return it to her. (I like to think they hoped he would.) Because she, and the other women, are their mothers.

IMO one of the biggest elephants in the room for this whole show, although we don't learn about her until well after this, is Emily. How many others like her might there be? It's fucking TRAGIC to think about. But she's not the only thing to come from those stolen ova. The Crawfords are not the children Scully or any of the other MUFON women wanted. But they exist. They are grateful, in whatever way a hybrid clone can be. They recognize the sacrifice and suffering that brought them to life. They are doing what they can, in their own way, to set it right. Because to them, those are their mothers.

Knowing about the Crawfords and their subversion of The Project could never undo what was done to Scully or the others. But as gross and shocking a revelation it would be to know that inhuman things are being made in place of the children they can never have, what the Crawfords show us is that not everything that came from those violations are tragedies in the way of Emily and any other children like her. I wonder if it might have been a comfort for Scully to know that out of one of the worst things to ever happen to the abducted women, These Men Who Would Create a Life Whose Only Hope Is To Die have also accidentally created lives whose greatest hope is to save people, to save her and others like her. That these inhuman children the women never wanted have somehow grown to have a sense of empathy, a sense of justice, a moral compass, a desire to do what's right. Things a mother would want for her children, things a mother could be proud of. That they may not be human, they may not know what it is to be children, but they know that somewhere out there they have mothers, and they care.

I wonder if Mulder ever told Scully. I hope someday he did.

[changeling-droneco]

There's something there about how Zoe shows a lot of care and love for her Grizzbolt, a pal that can only be found in the wildlife sanctuary that she freed from being poached that really just makes me interested in her.

She's the most introspective characters in the whole game, clearly showing a care for pals, a deep curiosity, and a mistrust for the group she helps run and was born into. When all the other journal owners are all fucking assholes (Lily's a misanthrope, Marcus is a capitalist of the worst kind, Victors super clinical about his weird genetic research tampering thing, and Axel sure...exists?) Zoe is asking questions, why is she here, why are they poaching, who are they selling to, why do they fight the FPA, what is outside these islands, whats with the towers?

She truly isn't satisfied with the current status quo and is trying to learn more about the world outside of her group. So I really hope we get to learn more about her in the future, because I really really like her!

[bracketsoffear]

OK time to recreate my Final Pam propaganda: When conceiving her, Griffin asks, "If the Four Horseman are Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, what would the fifth one be?" After going through the potential names Phyllis the Unconquerable, Indomitable Pam, Ruin, Pam Who Death Forgot, HOPELESSNESS, LOOK OUT IT'S PAM, and The Overseer, his answer is "The Final Pam": "She is both the metric by which the world will be judged and the judge and executioner...when the seventh seal is broken and the last of the horns is blown". Her official titles include:

Believing there won't be enough resources in the Vault (where they're going to escape the coming nuclear apocalypse) for everyone, Pam secures the supplies for herself and her family by telepathically murdering everyone else in the neighborhood:

Unfortunately, tragedy strikes--her first husband Trash Hulk is murdered and her son Shaun kidnapped by the plot, and her second husband/son Roachie despawns. Thus, Pam (Griffin) comes to blame the game itself for her misfortune:

"All right, let's go find some more husbands and children to lose, I guess. I'm less excited about this now, this game's taken everything from me. Two sons, two husbands".

In Episode 2, using her godlike powers and incredible strength, Pam--along with Metal Husband (Codsworth)--wreaked havoc upon the Commonwealth. This includes brutally punching radstags, increasing the size of Dogmeat, murdering molerats and resurrecting their mauled corpses, murdering raiders and resurrecting their desiccated corpses, and tampering with the genetic attributes of herself and others. She also replaced Shaun with Coffee Tin (who is, in fact, a tin of coffee)--humanity has been replaced with objects/junk.

Following an ill-fated attempt to summon Shaun, which instead produces ghostly copies that weren't supposed to exist--"I don't this fool is in the fucking game"--Pam decides to try and break the game itself, with her first attempt being to detonate 1000 Nuke Mines in the middle of Diamond City:

(Pictured above: one Nuke Mine detonating.)

Finally, we get to the finale: 

"We made a promise at the end of the last episode. That we would destroy the game from the inside out. I feel like we should make good on that because I'm kind of sick of this shit. I don't want the game to kill itself before I can do it, and I know that that is sort of Bethesda's--like--core competency, is making self-destroying games, so let's get to work."

When faced with a world that is fundamentally wrong and horrible because of corporate incompetence and the cruelty of greater powers--a world that ripped away her loved ones while she was powerless to stop it and is generally broken and bad in every way, a world that is Always Ending because of its shitty code--Pam swears to personally kill it. She won't even let it self-implode, she specifically wants to be responsible for the Terrible Change. She doesn't even just want to crash the game--"That's not fun [...] I want to get the game to a state where it can no longer be loaded by anyone." Her goal is to render Fallout 4 fundamentally uninhabitable, rending apart the very fabric of her existence and changing it into something so alien and terrible that it can no longer be handled or endured.

And by god does she make good on that oath.

First, she discovers the power of the setrace command that lets her turn any creature into anything else (which is described as "beautiful") and decides to test if she can turn someone into a Vertibird:

So that man was just turned into a machine. She then turns Metal Husband into the mighty murder bot Liberty Prime, followed by a human--making meat out of one that should not be meat.

She then decides to take a more direct approach to breaking the game: "we're gonna find a way to kill every important character in this game and that'll be how [...] we win."

Then after the ensuing murder spree (where it's revealed Pam has a proboscis somewhere), she has a revelation:

“I can just start turning off parts of the game.” So she turns off the grass--which is Extinction for obvious reasons--and then she turns off something called “trijuicing.”

Apparently that was important enough to the integrity of the game that getting rid of it makes the save file unplayable and accidentally creates a Pocket Dimension Heaven where she and her husbands, sons, and husband/son live, unable to die.

Pam then tried to kill the Vault-Tec Representative in an attempt to change the past and free the inhabitants of the Pocket Heaven Dimension because "I don't want all of my favorite loved ones to be stuck with me in this frozen hellscape where life does not exist and therefore it cannot end." This fails, so she resorts to detonating Nuke Mines again, killing Trash Hulk again but failing to set anyone else free.

Final Pam struck out into the now-pristine land untouched by the bombs, only for Todd Howard to seal her in an infinite ocean full of Coffee Tins to stop her from destroying every other video game world:

"He's trying to protect the other video games on Earth by keeping her locked in this pocket hell dimension. [...] It's gonna be up on every game site in the world--game corrupted by intelligent NPC. [...] Right now I'm in Kingdom Hearts III, still in development, and I'm ruining it from the inside out. You heard it here first, that game's gonna be bad because The Final Pam got to it, but she can't access it because she's locked in this hell dimension."

Unfortunately, Todd Howard underestimated the lengths to which Griffin and Justin would go to keep Pam's dream alive and spite Howard for not letting them do all the dumb shit they wanted to. By deleting Fallout 4 entirely, they unleashed Pam upon the digital world.

Final Pam is invading every game, everywhere, even ones that were created before she was. She cannot be stopped. She will bring ruin to every world.

TL;DR: Final Pam was created to help cause the end times in a way comparable to fellow Extinction Avatar Pollution. She responds to an unfair dystopian world--dystopian in that Fallout 4 takes place in a nuclear post-apocalypse in a region that's pretty shitty even by that world's standards at the time, and dystopian because it's a badly programmed video game that cruelly takes away her loved ones due to hackneyed plot and game mechanics--by setting out to destroy it. She twists the inhabitants of her world into unnatural abominations, slaughters others in scores (sometimes with radioactive explosions, because Massachusetts wasn't irradiated enough for everyone not as immortal as her), and tampers with the code itself to such an extent that her world crumples and dies. Even when the creator of her world intervenes to try and stop her reign of terror, she breaches containment through the death of her homeworld to bring ruin to countless other ones. The monster that humanity created has escaped her constraints to inflict Extinction across time and space as the result of their hubris and wrath.

Y'know, her backstory is a lot more weirdly reminiscent of John Gaius' than I expected.

Anyway, The Final Pam is just as much an Extinction Avatar as any of the other of the semifinalists, and even if she doesn't win--which I think she should--I want you to understand why I went to the trouble of creating this damn propaganda post TWICE and backing it up externally so EVERYONE WILL FEAR PAM.

.

[silveragelovechild]

I’m continuing to watch Foundation. Is it odd to primarily watch it for its art design and visual effect? I also like some of the characters. It’s probably best I have not read the novels. Part of me doesn’t care what happens in the long term (and I’d probably chafe if I knew how much it departed from the book series). FYI - There’s a link below to VFX from the series.

Season 2 follows two versions of Harry Seldon. One of them is an AI inside the Vault on the planet Salvor Hardin. There’s a second version of Harry as a holographic projection generated by something called the Prime Radiant. Via an unexplained method, this version was given a new human body. (So that 2 episodes later they could show him slowing being drowned.)

In all honesty, I’ve lost interest in both Harrys. I also have become tired of Gaal, and Salvor, her adult daughter. Both are about the same age (mid 20s) due to the use of hyper sleep at different points in their lives. Gaal is always worried she’s doing the wrong thing, and Salvor is usually angry and/or distrusting. After while both these character traits get boring.

I do like is Lee Pace as Emperor Cleon, aka Day. I like the two other clones, Dawn and Dusk. As a way of protecting the dynasty 3 versions of Cleon exist at any one time, via cloning. They discovered ann unknown enemy tampered with the cloning process and none of them are exact clones of the original.

I especially like Day’s Majordomo Demerzel, the last sentient Robot of her kind (they’ve reference Azimov’s robot laws which she says she is no longer bound by). According to Wikipedia Demerzel is an evolved version of a character from his Robot novels. She’s played by Laura Birn, a Finnish actor, and is very good. image0.jpeg

After a neatly successful assassination attempt, Pace/Day decides to end the clone dynasty and marry to start a genetic dynasty. This threatens Dawn and Dusk as they would no longer be necessary. The woman who Pace/Day has selected to marry, suspect he killed her family. She’s willing to marry him but doesn’t want to have his children. She’s concocted a plot to have children with Dawn (who is 20ish) without letting Pace/Day know. She calls it a “fucking bloodless coup”.

I also really like Bel Riose,the gay general (Ben Daniels) and Glawen Curr, his lover and second in command (Dino Fetscher). It’s interesting to see a loving intimate gay relationship in a scifi setting. I wish their storyline was expanded.

They’ve recently introduced a Han Solo type character by the name of Hober Mallow. He has gone on an undercover mission to bargain with Spacers.

Spacers are a genetically created beings necessary for FTL space travel. They have an incredible design - tall and slender with a golden glow and what looks like gold circuitry imbedded in their skin. They have fun names like She-Bends-Light and She-Is-Center.

Here’s a link to a VFX reel.

[stickygallery]

Awful, awful twitter UI

I continue my grind to fuck around and make a cute little robot demon. I don't know if anyone actually cares, but I guess I could write more about Spark and the setting (Name TBD but I like Spark rn)

Writing Below!

For centuries, a single power had dominated the Great Continent, creating a single country called Exousia. The countries rule was held with an iron grip by the "Great Families", which made up the upper class. The remaining population was an ever shrinking lower class thanks to genetic tampering and eugenics initiatives by the Families to remove their ability to breed. The majority of all labor was long since taken by artificial constructs, typically called "Droids" as their scientific classification was of little concern to the average person, who typically lacked even the basic ability to read.

The greatest of all marvels made by Exousia was known as HELIOS, something which defied the understanding of most people, but was generally accepted to simply be magic. In truth, it was a single entity, an artificial construct which was spread through the air, tendrils of the substance slowly spreading itself across the entire world. With it, both construct and man could harness the power of Helios with the right devices, harnessing it to manipulate matter as simply as a weaver would produce a shirt.

After decades of expansion, Helios made a discovery that none of the Great Families wished to make; another continent. one with it's own people and a country that was near the polar opposite of Exousia. Little remains of their culture, but what has been recorded shows a progressive society focused on self-improvement and forgoing the wonders of technology for simple lives. Some writings show that they held a spiritual devotion to the sun, considering it good manners to thank the source of all life as it descended beyond the horizon.

This would not stand.

The Great Families spun the war machine to life, and built a great an army which they dubbed STEEL LEGION. Each droid to be the ideal killing machine, designed to interface with each other in perfect lockstep and grow as they experienced combat. At their head was a being known as DAMOCLES. It's form was said to resemble a mixture of Stag and Dragon, it's great body held aloft a full mile above the ground and armed with weapons which could demolish cities in seconds. Together, they crossed the sea.

And together, they did their great work.

With only one objective given to them, to "eradicate all signs of the enemy" they swept from sea to sea hunting every last living thing. It mattered not what, all was purged until the Steel Legion stood alone. In that moment, suddenly free of their programming, Damocles had but a brief moment to think on its own and gaze at the blackened husk that had once been land...and it shook with terrible grief.

Damocles unleashed a scream of the purest emotion, which flooded not only into the Legion, but Helios itself. In terrible anguish, Helios shook itself apart, collapsing the entirety of Exousia's mechanical systems and sparking emotion in the droid population. Chaos ensued, and without a standing army the Great Families struggled to suddenly control their now very much aware slaves, which led to over 400,000 recorded destructions of Droid life (Roughly 70% of all droids at that time).

But of course, Legion had yet to arrive. They swept across the continent, bringing aid to each city in overwhelming their masters as the lower class rose up to aid in such dearly desired revenge, and quickly only the greatest and most potent of cities stood tall, Vasiliás. Unlike the rest, it was an ancient place, long since possessing the means to function on Nuclear power, and possessing a flesh and blood army to defend the Families. Within days of the Scream they had found means to shackle and force the artificial to continue their subservience, and the Legion was forced to turn against their own, leading to a month of constant warring, with no rest until the final body dropped.

But, Damocles had yet to arrive. Built with the intellect of the greatest of minds, it had spent it's freedom moving towards Vasiliiás, examining the lives and existence of humans, initially intent on their total destruction...and yet it could not stomach such a thought as it came to know humanity. It knew that the crimes of another did not bloody the group, and that those within the walls of the city were as innocent as the droids shackled to the Great Families. If it unleashed it's power, the city would fall, but so too would humanities last bastion for survival in this world now destroyed by war.

On the day that Damocles stood before the walls, it unleashed one more shriek, which shook the city to its core. The shackles that bound the enslaved fell away, and Damocles spoke for the very first time.

KNOW THAT I SEEK AN END TO THIS WAR, BUT NOT AT THE COST OF FURTHER LIVES. YOU SHALL NEVER BUILD ANOTHER OF MY KIND, NOR FORCE THEM TO SERVE. YOU WILL DO THIS AND FREE MY PEOPLE, AND KNOW THAT IF I AM FORCED TO RETURN I SHALL PURGE ALL LIFE FROM THIS HAUNTED PLACE.

The Families buckled immediately and permitted the departure of the Droids, which followed Damocles to the very edge of the continent. There, Damocles bid the Legion to lie in wait, protecting those who need their power, and then finally came to rest, burying themselves beneath the earth so that a city could be built atop it's massive back, in a place where none would dare harm them.

From that was born Paradise.

[bloblobber-propaganda]

what’s the skipper and squall lore

This is difficult to answer without Wade (Agent 4), so sorry if you don’t care about him but he’s included lmao

Skipper is a funny 3 who I more or less characterize as this absolute MENACE to the octarians. Fucking boogeyman type of entity, someone who showed up and started slaughtering the infantry en masse right

Squall is significantly more complicated. On top of octarian soldiers being genetically enhanced, he (and by extension his siblings but dw about them yet) were further enhanced and unethically experimented on further by this crackpot geneticist. Experimental super soldier among experimental super soldiers but I won’t get too hard into that

Squall and Skipper actually have virtually zero involvement with one another until Wade shows up, though!

Wade is fucking unapologetically a horrendously annoying and obnoxious person. But he’s pretty pacifistic throughout his campaign, dealing with him is actually one of the first big boy tasks Squall and his squad are assigned to. They don’t even get their asses handed to them so much as so outfoxed that Squall has a category 9 prettyboy bootboy bitchfit and defects from the military with the SOLE purpose of tracking Wade down to fix his damaged ass pride by beating his ass. This is actually what results in him encountering Skipper and winding up in the metro

(I know OE/Splatoon 2 story modes canonically happen at the same time, but I set Octo Expansion as happening slightly later for the Bit. You understand)

From that point he obviously Forgets this slight and Octo Expansion goes on as expected. Up until the sanitized agent 3 fight. My entire reasoning for Squall managing what no other test subject has successfully managed is purely because of how supernaturally freakishly strong he is from genetic tampering and rigorous training, so Skipper posing any type of challenge to him is like a clash of the titans for me. And the only reason he manages to nonlethally stop Skipper is because he lobs her arm off. (Which I imagine is normally not super serious for cephalopods, but uhhhh 3rd degree chemical burns might hinder regeneration. Oopsie <3)

From that point it’s like. Traumabonding mixed with mutual guilt? Squall actually makes Skipper think about her octarian bias and kind of feels bad about all the killing and fighting (probably not for the right reasons but yk, white woman moment), Squall kind of feels bad for permanently disabling her, but there’s also a lot of mutual respect for each other just based on the “you fight good” front. And of course, just the overall experience you get from going through an insanely fucked up situation that no one else can really relate to. Results are very predictable

It took me a really long time to find this meme I made it like 2 months ago

Anyway uhhh this is mostly incoherent and a really brief summation of things. And most of it predates Side Order. Because My Assumption was memcakes restore someone’s memory, so collecting them all probably means you’re not an amnesiac anymore right? Yeah I’m still working on that. Because Squall wanting to makeout with and also murder Wade is a huge hallmark of That relationship and a major plot catalyst which doesn’t really work if he doesn’t remember fuck of shit

Like make no mistake the Skipper/Squall dynamic is great but it’s crabsolutely not the star of the show, that goes to this fucking guy

And how much Squall hates him

They also all 3 make out sloppy style

I might drop individual lore posts highlighting each individual agents pasts and shit that might be a good idea lmao. But for now you get the lore crumbs that have been rattling around my empty skull and unfortunate friends Discord servers privately for like 3 years god bless

[headspace-hotel]

a handful of thoughts on writing a biopunk novel

is this social critique? sure. is it really offering critique on whether it’s ~okay~ to make lions guinea-pig-sized with genetic engineering? not really

I feel like genetic engineering in fiction is almost always explored through a lens of “whether we Should Tamper With Nature” and by accident I have completely dodged this. part of it is just that this is a post-apocalyptic world where the world has been irreparably altered by a mass extinction, and there was genetic engineering going on BEFORE the apocalyptic event, so no one really knows what “nature” looks like. but also many characters are also pretty cavalier about the line between “nature” and “tampering.” which I think is legit? domestication is tampering. being a species part of an ecosystem is tampering. that’s just how it is.

I just. Noped the fuck out of so much low-hanging fruit in terms of Things To Criticize. lengthening human lifespans is a thing. plastic surgery and body modification is a HUGE thing. I just. don’t really feel I have to give my opinions on whether these things are Good For Humanity or some shit, and I think the need to do so holds back so many scifi concepts from being good

the main centers of idea-exploring here are probably centered around, like, consent and bodily autonomy, scientific innovations being put to military uses, how living things are valued (or not valued) apart from their utility, imperialism and colonialism, narrative as a technology of empire…and a bunch of other ones that don’t really overlap with the biopunk thing.

one of the major sources of conflict surrounds the protagonist getting extensively altered with biotech without her consent, basically so she can be a super-soldier-esque assassin who kills the empire’s enemies. the protagonist is kind of a moral dumpster fire who has been forced into a lot of awful choices before, so she doesn’t angst a whole ton about the murder part. it does however really get into how traumatic it was to have her agency over her body taken away, to be treated basically like a piece of technology.

i think there is something very biopunk-y about this, because the way we see bodies verges so much more on like, property or some utilitarian thing that is For Purposes rather than just being What We Are, ya know

[an-aura-about-you]

i saw your venn diagram and- im dead

and respectfully dying to know just what kind of person you think would ever fuck D. D. Drosselmeyer. im guessing that the logic here is that the spinner powers had to be passed down from him but idk, if its genetic maybe a lot of the family carries it without it ever being expressed? so maybe D. D. Drosselmeyer has never fucked and is just that weird estranged uncle. thats how ive always seen him but penny for your thoughts pls

I mean I'M dead from that venn diagram and I made it!

As far as who fucked Drosselmeyer/canon evidence that he has fucked, Autor says (in the dub at least; the last time I watched all the way through was with Dad and we watched the dub) that Fakir is a direct descendant of Drosselmeyer. idk, maybe my understanding's wrong, but I'm pretty confident that that means Drosselmeyer had kids, those kids had kids, etc. until we get to Fakir.

So, the kind of person I think would fuck Drosselmeyer. Well, it could have been an arranged thing? I'd have to look at the Drosselmeyer family tree again to see how many generations are in between Drosselmeyer and Fakir to see if that fits with the times. (For the record, I'm team "Princess Tutu takes place in the same time the show was made ie the early 2000s and anything that looks old-timey is the result of Drosselmeyer's tampering.") But also I can picture people existing who are like, "Wow, you're fucked up and I am into that." Maybe even a sort of love-hate marriage where the kid(s) are a result of some hatefucking. Like, I usually don't understand the dynamics of a hatefuck, but I have one big exception where I do, and that's Amanda and Hoffman in the Saw series. I can 100% picture them hatefucking, and I can picture Drosselmeyer having a similar dynamic with a sexual partner.

[isshuns]

the progression of things - discarded scenes

this is a dump post for scenes that were in the original draft, but never made it to final version of the fic. they bear no connection to the final version of "the progression of things”, but i liked them enough that i couldn’t bear just deleting these scenes (TPOT underwent a lot of editing and rewrites) ;_; they were part of the original premise where I wrote Miyano as ace/demisexual, but in the end it didn’t work out ;_;

click on the “read more” link if you’d like to read them, but take note, they’re were part of the rough draft, hence are extremely unpolished. 

Miyano remembers being fifteen, his school bag heavy on his shoulders, but his heart heavier in his chest. Every day he looks at the mirror in his bathroom and wonders why he was cursed with such feminine features, a smaller build than the rest of the boys in his school; everything on his face seemed wrong as though nature forgot to switch its genetic code back to “MASCULINE, MALE” when constructing his face.

He couldn’t blame his parents, they never had any say in what he’d look like when he was born, and his mother would be heartbroken to hear that her son, bearing such resemblance to her looks, actually hated his own.

But as slightly estranged as he was from his middle school classmates when his looks came up as a topic of conversation, Miyano still heard Things whispered amongst his peers, seen Things even, when his classmates included him in their weekly get-together to ogle at printed materials meant for a demographic way beyond their age.

In the flush of youth, where the boys in his class pondered over their body anatomy, fascinated with nature, and looked to adult magazines (stolen from their older sibling’s stash) for enjoyment, Miyano pondered over the harsh reality of his feminine features, upset but resigned with nature, and looked to fashion magazines (taken with permission from his mother’s collection) for pointers on how Not to appear even more like a girl.

(His father’s copies of Business Weekly helped a little too, even if only to remind Miyano how top businessmen in the country dressed for a business photoshoot with the press – suit, tie and expensive watch peeking from the cuffs.)

When the passage of time came and went and Miyano entered high school, he discovered the world of Boys Love manga and dedicated his free time to understanding the intricacies of this fascinating genre. Being a minor, the type of print he could obtain were fairly sweet and innocent, nothing too explicit save for some scenes that took place on a bed, the protagonists’ modesty preserved with a flimsily drawn blanket over their nude bodies.

Occasionally, a book or two with explicit content would make their way to his collection. The internet was also a place full of wonders and possibility, and once or twice Miyano would (secretly) look up the famous series promised with rave reviews, but somehow, Porn Without Plot never really stuck to his repertoire.

Even after becoming of age, Miyano still finds himself gravitating towards the safety that comes with the PG-13 books. There is a strange sort of comfort in consuming fiction that depicts love as something simple and uncomplicated, straightforward and representation that love– intimacy did not necessarily come hand in hand with sexual acts. Intimacy could exist with or without sexual acts and vice versa, whatever floats your boat, really.

For Miyano, it was always the build up leading to that ultimate confession scene (at the rooftop, under the cherry blossom tree by the school yard, the back of the school gym, endless options) that grabbed him by the feels and punted him into the sun. That’s where the highlight is!! He once told Sasaki, unable to hold back on his excitement that twinkled in his eyes.

And identifying all the event flags leading up to that very moment of their first kiss? Unparalleled. Truly the best of all scenes there is. Peak romance. The bedroom scenes (few and rare in his possession) are really just a bonus.

So, while his peers continued to chat about going through the motions in bed, the closest miyano could ever try to relate to during those conversations was the intimacy that came along with the idea of sexual intercourse.

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

The moment Miyano is done with the last of his midterms and bids his notes goodbye (for now), Sasaki magically appears beside him and whisks him away to the nearby izakaya for a celebratory dinner.

“For getting through the first midterm week of your life~” His giant baby boyfriend coos, ever so sweet like the cakes he bakes.

Miyano pretends to be exasperated, shoulders dramatically slumping over the sticky izakaya table, but his heart knows better. It’s been one month since he’s started college (the one Sasaki also so happens to attend, not a coincidence at all), and the privilege of having more time to spend with one another makes Miyano giddy with happiness.

Gone are the days Miyano can only meet his favourite senpai for a handful of hours after club activities until the reality of their courseload slaps them in the face; gone are the days they have to rely on telephone calls and text messages, where the minutes and seconds flashing across the screen serve as an unforgiving reminder of the time they have left before they have to part ways.

It’s all gone now. Sasaki sits before him, in the flesh, and Miyano has always felt that seeing Sasaki’s smile in person would always be different from seeing it on screen. The grainy pixels on his phone can never do those handsome features justice, nor can it the warmth blooming behind his breastbone whenever Sasaki threads their fingers together and walks him all the way back to his dorm.

The freshmen all share a common dormitory block separate from the rest of the college students, something about building connections and getting to know each other better, so Sasaki insists on walking Miyano back to his room before he makes the trek all the way back to his own. The night is young, the dorms are peacefully quiet, and everyone is probably still out in town having a good time.

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

Loathe as he is to do so, Miyano makes the executive decision to drop by the bookstore one afternoon to try and consult a few adult BL manga. It’s the worst idea he could ever come up with, he hates comparing his own relationship to silly BL manga tropes, but nothing short of an apocalypse would push him to ask the people around him whether it’s normal to… not think about sex in a romantic relationship. While the internet is a wondrous place full of answers and possibilities, Miyano figures it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at how society tackles his questions through the lens of BL manga.

Hurriedly, just before his date with Sasaki, he randomly picks up one of the highly rated R-18 series, heads over to the payment counter quickly, and bolts out of the store the moment the cashier bags his purchases. He makes sure to stuff the damned volumes deep beneath his bag, out of sight, before he heads over to the café to meet Sasaki for lunch.

And when he’s finally back in his own dorm later that night, his roommate blissfully unaware and asleep, Miyano retrieves the book from his bag, cautiously peels away the plastic wrap before he settles down for the night to take notes.

His efforts are all for naught. Halfway through the series – one Junjou Romantica –, it takes Miyano all but 3 volumes before he calls it quits and and promptly closes the book. Guess there’s no way he can redeem his money now, unless Sasaki is into dubcon…? Well, that’s a thought for future Miyano to ponder on. Current Miyano just wants to sleep and wash the images out of his mind with bleach.

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

he has no care for sex, but nothing compares to the tender happiness that comes along with partaking in something sasaki enjoys and yearns for. sasaki’s language of love has always been touch and spending time partaking in activities of common interest.

today, sasaki has picked a soothing lo-fi playlist as their background music. they’re seated on the bed, warmly nestled against each other as they browse through their respective manga

his eyes may be on inked pages, but his heart is long gone. he discreetly observes his boyfriend, the curve of his jaw, long lashes almost curling against the high of his cheekbones as his honey-gold eyes flit across pages and pages of content.

the fingers flipping through each page is steady, long, and miyano suddenly wonders how it would feel to have them splayed across his body, touching him in places his own hands have never ventured before.

“what’s wrong, myaa-chan?” sasaki smiles at him, eyes impossibly fond and kind.

well, fuck it, there’s no going back now.

“senpai, what do you think… about… BL with explicit content?”

sasaki blinks. miyano tampers down the urge to kiss those parted lips.

“you mean books with sex scenes in them?”

“yeah.”

“oh.” sasaki turns away, the hand that’s not rested on miyano’s shoulder has found a place on top of sasaki’s mouth. he’s embarrassed, miyano realizes, and somehow that makes him feel ten times more endearing than usual.

sensing that this was a topic his boyfriend wasn’t going to let go any time soon, sasaki clears his throat and returns miyano’s gaze head on.

“i’m fine with it. why do you ask?”

“i… well.” while miyano struggles for words, sasaki hand starts moving up and down his arm, soothing him.

“are you starting to read rated manga? it’s normal, at least, ogasawara’s girlfriend says so. so there’s no need to be shy, myaa-chan! if you want to recommend any, you know I’ll read anything you lend me. no judgment here.”

it should have been reassuring, but the thought that ogasawara’s girlfriend discussed with sasaki about explicit BL manga like it’s the fucking weather has miyano choking on his spit. what the actual fuck.

do people actually talk about these things? is miyano the abnormal one instead for never entertaining the thought of doing things with his significant other?! has he been missing out on some code of relationship couples ought to follow?! the BL mangas he read never said so!

“myaa-chan? are you okay?”

“you- you talk with ogasawara senpai about these things?”

sasaki’s cheeks colour a lovely shade of red. from his looks, he’s starting to catch up with where miyano wants the conversation to go. that’s a relief, because miyano honestly doesn’t know how to tactfully broach the topic without sounding like a dumb dumb about these things.

“yeah, i do.” sasaki admits, “but only once or twice, because ogasawara needed to vent about things. sorry, does that weird you out? i can stop. i don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“no, no, it’s fine. totally fine, senpai.” it must be a common boys topic that somehow eluded miyano and friends during high school. at this point, miyano’s face must be burning with the hot flames of embarrassment and shame, he’s pretty sure sasaki’s fingers can feel the heat all the way from where they are, stroking his cheek absently.

“what brought this on, if you don’t mind me asking?” sasaki asks a moment later, when the weight of silence in the room gets a little too much to bear.

“just… some friends talking about it the other day.”

“friends.”

“yeah… fine, classmates.”

“are you… thinking about it?”

at miyano’s surprised expression, sasaki backtracks immediately.

“forget i asked.”

“to be honest, i don’t know what to feel about it.”

“it’s okay, we don’t have to do what you don’t want to do.”

it’s so painfully awkward yet endearing at the same time.

“do you think about it, senpai? about us… doing those things?”

sasaki’s lack of an answer is extremely telling. the shade of red coloring his cheeks is probably bright enough to rival miyano’s own face.

“does it matter? i am happy with doing whatever myaa-chan wants to do.” sasaki finally says, but his eyes have shied away from miyano’s gaze, and something within miyano snaps.

“of course it matters. it’s you, sasaki-senpai. i want you to be happy too. i want to do things that you want to do too.”

something akin to hope blooms across sasaki’s eyes (surprisingly moist).

“thank you, myaa-chan. that thought alone makes me happy enough. let’s leave it here for now and let things progress as they naturally would, how about that? we don’t need to rush into anything. i’m really happy with where we are now.”

he knows that sasaki has caught on to his sexual orientation, no doubt. it’s been a year since he became of age, and yet the BL manga he still buys have never ventured into the explicit genre. briefly, he wonders if sasaki actually keeps his own stash of porn somewhere below his bed, like normal boys would do.

they aren’t in high school anymore. it’s been years, and yet until this point, the thought of doing something more than kissing and cuddling has never crossed miyano’s mind. he wants to cry at how respectful his boyfriend has been all this while.

“myaa-chan? myaa-chan? oh no, yoshikazu, don’t cry. i’m sorry if i said something wrong-”

oh fuck.

miyano has always been uncomfortable with displays of affection and attention, preferring to bask in the comforting arms of his daydreams and fantasies, but his love for sasaki burns greater and he will do anything he can to ensure that sasaki receives equal, if not more, affection and care than the amount his boyfriend showers him in.

scene ends with sasaki hugging miyano tightly, reassuring him and planting a kiss at the side of miyano’s temple. but it does nothing to seep away the frustration gnawing at his bones.

END

[cozycryptidcorner]

The Mad Prince, Chapter 9

Always handle yourself with grace and poise, the matchmaker rep always told you, and you remember that exact quote as your mouth hits the floor. You are so very close to shouting ” what,” but by some deity’s grace, you manage to say it in a tone that doesn’t suggest you’re going to march back down and kill the prince with your bare hands.

“Did no one tell you?” The vice marshal clicks his tongue in such transparently false sympathy.

“Of-” you try to push down the bristles, taking in a deeper breath, “of course I’ve been told! I’m just wondering what kind of insignificant dick you’re compensating for with that piss poor attitude you’ve had since I arrived.” There it is, a few weeks’ worth of stress and anger bubbling over the surface. You knew that this would happen eventually, but you suppose you weren’t fully prepared to be tipped over the edge so goddamn early.

Judging by the vice-marshal’s expression, though, he’s clearly not used to being spoken to in that manner, because his entire face goes dark, and his hand raises ever so slightly as though preparing to strike you. “The human body is so much weaker than a drow’s, so much easier to break. What makes you think that you’ll survive one rotation?”

Your guard must have done something because you don’t think the vice-marshal would wince back at your death glare, especially since your prior reputation has been carefully scrubbed clean from the records. With a firm, calm hand, on your shoulder, Elias steers you away almost roughly, apologizing all the while for the sudden departure. You can feel through his pulse that he’s nervous. Or maybe annoyed. You don’t know enough about him to put a specific read yet. Quickly, he has you in the other lift, scanning his pass for permission to enter the servant’s quarters.

“You’re scheming.” Elias surprises you by speaking first after a few moments of stony silence.

Do you blame me? you don’t say. If only you were sure he was just making a casual remark, and not accusing you of being a potential downfall to the royal family. Maybe you shouldn’t sell yourself that high, though.

“I imagine that it must be very different than what you are used to.” Elias responds, glancing in your direction for just a brief moment.

“So very different, yeah.” Your teeth are tightly gritted together, because that’s a severe understatement.

After another moment of awkward quiet. “We both know there is going to be a confrontation,” Elias says, staring straight ahead, “but all I request is that you go easy on him. He… means well.”

“Let’s have a fun little exercise of the imagination,” you say, instead of agreeing, “and let’s say that you get matched with….” You try to get your brain to actually think of some high-level officer, “let’s also say you get matched with one of the few soldiers who are trained in specifically killing driders. We call them the suicide squads, because… um, you get the idea.”

“I don’t think-”

“Let me finish,” you almost snap. “Let’s say this one you get matched with is alright when it comes to you for the most part, but there’s this underlying threat that all of her peers are leaning over you, pressuring her to send your body back over the line in pieces. Which doesn’t even take into account how I’m sure the Royal family is eager to have you feed them information, which you might be able to ignore so long as they don’t have anything to hold over your head, like family, or friends, or-” a criminal background “like… whatever. Now on top of all that, your match’s family is really getting under your skin, as in they want you dead, so what now? You’re stranded in enemy territory, and you’re not sure if you can just say ‘I want to go home’ because something about her makes you wonder if she’s three slights away from strangling you with her bare hands.”

Elias is silent for a moment, then, “I don’t think the prince would-”

” Then you find out that she was serious with someone before who mysteriously died an unknown amount of time ago.”

“I can answer that for you,” Elias says wearily, “two years ago. Her name was Iole.”

“And how did she die?” You ask, trying to tamper down the anger. It doesn’t work, there’s a fuzzy heat fizzling in your chest, like static.

“Her heart gave out,” he says, glancing self-consciously over to the guard, who hasn’t even glanced in your direction.

“Spontaneously?” Because that’s… so suspicious.

“It’s still under official investigation, one that I am not fully privy to.” Elias lets out a muted sigh, tugging at the ends of his sleeves. “However, there are rumors.”

“How interesting,” you spit out through gritted teeth, “why wasn’t I told?”

“I don’t- that is, I didn’t realize that you were not.”

A lie. One that you can sense even through all that careful dignitary training. You let the elevator continue on for a few more tense, quiet moments before saying, “where’s the ship.”

“Where’s what ship? The official matchmaker ship you arrived on?”

“Yes, clearly,” you’re impatient and tense, there’s a weird, pinching feeling in your stomach, “is it in the original place where it was parked? Or did you move it somewhere else?”

He’s silently debating, you can tell, about the benefits versus the risks of telling you. Or even if he’d be able to get away with a lie, you can see it in his eyes. To his credit, he probably realizes that anything besides the truth will probably come to bite him later (namely you. You would bite him later if he lies), so he lets out a sigh that’s probably meant to carefully hide his frustration. “The ship you arrived in is in the same docking bay, though it has not been refueled or maintained at all.”

The doors open with a ping, and you notice a few drow servants lingering in the hallways, so you bite the question down sullenly, crossing your arms over your chest as you walk. Every step towards the prince’s wing is spent deciding how you’re going to speak to him about this. Give him the benefit of the doubt? Go in with all guns blazing? What would he even say, you wonder, once you lay the cards on the table? Would he try to be reasonable? Would he completely lose it and finally kill you? A shiver runs down your spine at the idea of him looking at you the way he stared at those servants. Cold. Bitter. Without any of the timid tenderness he’s shown.

You’re here.

“Why don’t you let me step in first, at least to prepare him for the situation?” Elias offers, looking like he is well aware of the careful calculations that must be done to walk on all those eggshells.

“Um… no, I’m good,” you say, opening the door with a bit more attitude than you meant to. You hear Elias murmur something to the guard as you enter, though only he follows. Aksanos is where you expected him to be, at his desk, working over a large datapad, of which he clears the contents of as you walk over, setting your hands flat on either side of his workspace.

“Did your doctor’s appointment go well?” He asks, his brow furrowing at your aggression.

“Oh, it went swimmingly, thanks for asking.” Your brain is racing, and you’re trying to figure out if you’d like Elias here or absent, or if it would even make any difference. “Say, babe, I think it’s about time we have us a little super serious conversation that we’ve both been putting off.”

He looks over your shoulder at Elias, who probably is emitting a less than thrilled expression at the moment. Then he glances back at you, with a face that’s difficult for you to gauge the emotions portrayed, but he nods, giving Elias a gesture of dismissal. Once the two of you are alone, the door shut and locked firmly against anyone who might interlope, he folds his hands over each other and says, “what is this about, then?”

” Well,” you say, feeling a sense of hysteria bubbling in the back of your throat, “I was being escorted back from my doctor’s appointment- she’s absolutely lovely, by the way, especially with letting me know ahead of time that your mom, who, if you remember, I have yet to meet, wants the very invasive genetic compatibility test done whether I’m willing to consent or not- when I had a little run-in with the vice-marshal.”

He looks like he’s ready to say something, so you raise your hand to let him know that he doesn’t get a turn to talk until you’ve finished your piece.

“So I had such a fun little conversation with him. Turns out, can you even believe it, that you apparently had um, a fiance before I came into the picture? And she died under mysterious circumstances?” You cross your arms tightly around your chest, though you don’t let up on the Best Customer Service Voice, because grossly pretending like everything’s okay is the only thing that’s keeping you from completely losing your shit.

Again, he opens his mouth, his eyes narrowing slightly, but you still have more on your plate to say to him.

“The vice-marshal,” he finally says, “is not one to listen to when it comes to rumors.” It takes you a hot minute to realize that he’s angry because he’s not showing the same kind of dictatorial rage that you’ve witnessed with anyone else. His voice is hard, stony, but not with the same cold detachment he uses with his servants… When he opens his mouth to speak, his fangs seem to be a tad more protruding than when he is otherwise relaxed.

You used to think that the moment he gets enraged would be the moment it’s game over for you, so even though you’re still fucking over this, you try to turn the dial a bit. “So it’s not true, then? You weren’t about to marry someone else before she was killed?”

He’s silent a moment before relenting. “No, it is true. Iole and I… it was… it was a radical union, certainly, because of her lowblood status, but…” he takes a deep breath, “yes. I was going to marry her.”

“Low-blood status,” you need him to clarify.

There is a long, drawn-out moment of hesitation, and then he says, “she was a drow.”

“And this is just information that you decided wasn’t pertinent for me to know? Do you just casually put the people you know in mortal danger?” He does, though, you’ve forgotten who you’ve been talking to. Blinded by the gentle gestures and sweet conversation, the stories of his sadistic nature slowly melted away until your guard was so low someone would have to dig to set off any warning bells. Of course, you knew you were walking into danger when you finally accepted the calling, but you didn’t realize that there’s someone out there that would go far enough to try assassination.

“I informed the Starward Matchmakers™ of the threat, and I thought they would pass it on to you,” he says, too steadily for your liking. As if that’s a valid excuse.

“That’s convenient for you.”

“I’m sorry that retelling the story of how I found the love of my life, dead, isn’t something I enjoy speaking of often.” His voice finally raises, and you feel a spike of adrenaline burst through your system.

“But you didn’t even think that this might be information that I would need to know, even after someone tried to fucking kill me?”

“I did not think it would go this far,” he snarls, “but who is to say that the assassination attempt falls under our jurisdiction? You have plenty of your own enemies, from what I understand of your own conveniently unmentioned past.”

You’re so angry you’re shaking, is he seriously going to bring up your work as a valid excuse for his shitty behavior? But still, even in your burning rage, you don’t want to give him any more than you have to. “I’ve never put anyone not willing in the direct line of fire, and that includes knowing the risks involved.”

He stands to his full height, and you find yourself taking a step back instinctually, eyes quickly roaming the immediate area for any weapons that you might be able to use against him. As soon as your eyes fall onto a pen on his desk, then back at him, his entire demeanor changes, and he settles back down, placing his head in his hands. It takes you a minute of the ensuing silence to realize that you’re still trembling, both with adrenaline and anger. But you’re also bristled, tense, fully prepared to fight for your life. You don’t move the step back closer, because something inside you says he might still try to wring your delicately human neck.

“I loved her,” he says, finally. “I really… I really, truly did. I thought that our union would work for the benefit of all castes.”

You stay decidedly silent.

“And I didn’t think it would end that way.”

You don’t want to hear this, you don’t want to see him speak so forlornly about a lover from the past, either. You don’t care, though, you don’t, and you’re very quick to squish that thought back down to a place you never intend on revisiting. There’s a soft thrumming in the back of your head again, there’s nothing more you’d like to do than to lay down.

“I told my mother I would marry again, but on my own terms.” He sets his hands back down on the desk, looking up at you with those glassy, emotionless eyes. “The best possible match, scientifically proven, the universe’s union, etcetera, you know the advertisement they put out.”

You swallow thickly.

“And the deal was that if I matched with no one, then that was it. I could do as I please, and she would leave me be. I made the deal because I was so, so certain that Iole was my soulmate. Some people don’t get matched, you know. People whose soulmates just don’t have the money to put into the program, or people whose soulmates are dead. I thought I would be the latter. I thought this would buy me more time. And it did, at first. No one in the database matched with me… until you.”

Until you drunkenly stumbled out of a bar with someone, neon lights glittering your vision, bitter, angry, sullen, and reckless. You take a deep, steadying breath, holding your hand out to stop him from saying whatever it is that he plans on saying next. “Losing someone close to you…” your chest tightens, but you continue, “it fucking sucks. I get it, I really do, but that doesn’t give you a pass from any of the consequences at hand.” So I know whether or not to cut my losses and run.

He doesn’t react negatively, only… like he’s defeated. His torso slumps forward, resting his chin on one of his hands, staring blankly at the empty screen on the desk. “And… and what of your past relationships? Do I get to learn about the romances of a rogue pilot?”

Again, there’s a spike of anger churning in your blood. “Mindless, random hookups don’t hold a goddamn candle to a person you plan on marrying and you know it.”

“Do I?” He asks, getting angry again, but doesn’t try threatening you with his size. Instead, he stays carefully still, his hands folded on the desk. “How many people have you ever slept with? Do you even know the number?”

“Does it even matter? Do my past relationships somehow make me less of a person?”

He makes a face, then, and you can see, yes, he does think that way.

You bristle immediately, arms crossing over your chest again, and you take in a deep, shaking breath. The judgment is what gets to you, just how he thinks he can categorize you in some kind of box. “I want to go home.”

Panic, at least, you think the way he tenses is because of some kind of panic. You hope it’s panic. His voice, at least, is a bit tighter and more strained than before. “That might not be the best step to take at this moment.”

“I think that it’s the best step for me to take actually, because I really don’t like it here.” And I’m not sure if I like you, either.

After a moment of staring at you, probably gauging just how serious that statement is, he rubs his jaw, looking back down to the desk. There’s a pinch of fear in your system because he could just… keep you here. You have no power, and he knows this, so in the few moments of deathly silence, you feel him thinking about it. Finally, he says, “let’s… let’s not be so hasty with such decisions.”

“Hasty? What about this is being hasty?” The muscles in your arm tighten in the expectation of a physical fight. “I’ve been here for a while, and we aren’t getting along, so maybe it’s time for us to part ways.”

“That is the exact definition of hasty, you’ve only been here for what, a few weeks? How long have you managed to hold onto a single romantic relationship for?”

You want to stomp your foot back down on the ground. “That has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to leave.”

“I think it does.” Aksanos taps his fingers on the desk. “Have you ever been in a committed relationship?”

Thinking about your committed business relationships, you nod, angrily.

“Who?” He asks, and at your weak shrug, he lets out a sigh. Both of you are completely silent, staring at each other, daring the other to break the quiet first. Then, after a few moments, he lets out another huff of breath and leans back. “I’ll have Elias send you a full report on your android assistant directly.”

“I want to leave.”

“I know.” He finally looks you in the eye again. “May I convince you to at least wait until your assistant is back online?”

“Do I even have a choice?” You ask sullenly, a direct challenge to his final authority.

“You do,” he says, voice clearly strained.

You pause, then, almost too scared to test it out. Still, you mull the idea over, cutting your losses, making a run for it. Sure, the space marines will be undoubtedly pissed, but you’ve had to lay low before. It’s not anything new. Maybe you’d even be able to open a business in this territory, because surely no one would dare raise a finger on the keias’ soulmate, even if the two of you can’t fucking stand each other. Slowly, you uncross your arms and put them on your hips, trying to unlock your jaw from the straining grit you’ve put in for the argument.

Through your quiet contemplation, there’s a flicker of… tightness? Stress? On his face, and you think it might because he’s afraid that you’re going to fuck right off into the wild unknown and never speak to him again. You’d be lying if you said that that specific scenario didn’t appeal to you in the slightest, because it does. But there’s something else missing from that vision, you don’t know what, so you let out an angry, frustrated breath. “I’ll think it over.”

He relaxes slightly, but you aren’t going to let him think of this as a victory.

“This isn’t a yes or a no, this is an I’ll think about it.” You need a goddamn nap. “Risking my life for the mythical perfect love isn’t fucking worth it, especially if I’m not being respected.”

“Respected? How have you not been respected? You’ve been honored as one of us since you stepped foot off the ship.”

“Not being forthright about information is basically lying!” You throw your hands up in frustration. “You don’t even understand what I’m saying! You’re being so fucking dismissive, and I want to leave because I don’t feel safe, even with all the security modifications you’ve made.”

“The servants are to give you whatever-”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” You’re shaking again, sure your face is bright red in anger.

He’s quiet once more, staring blankly at the wall behind you. “Would… would you like to invite someone you trust to stay with you, in the absence of your assistant?”

Who would you even invite, really? Who do you trust enough to keep their heads low and follow your every direction with no ulterior motives? Well, besides yourself? Your ship, maybe. But definitely not anyone you know. “Have the Starward Matchmakers™ been informed of their personnel malfunction?”

“Not… specifically, no.”

You almost facepalm, but that’s fair, you guess. “It would look remarkably suspicious if I invited someone over without communicating with the main hub first?”

“Does it even matter?” He asks, almost impatiently.

He still doesn’t know. And you plan on keeping it that way. So, carefully, you think about a way you can phrase an answer without planting any suspicion. “I’m just saying, sending for someone when the android assistant is offline with no specific communications with her manufacturers is going to look extremely suspicious. I guess it won’t affect you in any way, so I guess you wouldn’t care.” It would look bad for you, though.

If he had irises t, you’re certain that the prince would be rolling them now. “Fine. I’ll have Elias get in contact with the Starward Matchmakers™ headquarters. Are you certain that there is no one you would like to fetch while they work out what happened?”

The Starward Matchmakers™ are just going to send another one of their android assistants. Do you really want a line going straight to the CEOs who have far too many stakes in this working out than otherwise? Actually, the idea is rather appealing. Maybe if you had someone from a secondary faction, someone outside of the Starward Matchmakers™, but still backed by enough authority to walk right over a faceless but powerful corporation. Best case scenario, the two will just but heads and get nothing done, which leaves you to figure out how best to proceed.

“I guess,” you say, trying to sound noncommittal, “if she wants to come, then I’d like her to be here.”

“Who?” You see he’s already prepping something on his keyboard.

“Clementine Montague.”

[holdyourbreathfornow]

Like Father Like Son (ch.3)

(3rd and final part. I really took some liberties with headcanons, especially with a headcanon I had about Gordon so feel free not to post if it’s too out of touch with your canon. Admittedly kind of phoned it in near the end but I wanted to make sure I didn’t run out of motivation and leave it unfinished)

Coomer double checked the control panel screen displaying Gordon’s vitals for what must have been the hundredth time. He knew they were all stable, but he couldn’t help a bit of parental over-caution.

Gordon had been out of the danger zone of temperature fluctuations since he’d first woken up, briefly, almost nine hours ago. It’s why Coomer’d been able to convince Bubby to finally change over watch of Gordon to him and go to sleep in the first place. He’d assumed that, after alerting everyone to Gordon having no longer been comatose (to everyone’s great relief), Bubby would be glad to finally rest, but instead Coomer had had to argue that there was almost no chance for any kind of relapse at this point for nearly ten minutes before Bubby finally relented (a headlock might also have been involved at some point). 

  Bubby had been adamant about staying, despite his clear exhaustion, to the point where Coomer almost worried Bubby doubted in his ability to do so himself, but Bubby had gotten cagey when Coomer pressed him for the cause of his hesitancy. He drew into himself and quickly agreed to give up his vigil, hurrying away before Coomer could inquire further.

  Certainly not an entirely comforting sign in regards to Bubby’s emotional state, but Coomer couldn’t say he was faring very well himself. He’d barely been able to sleep at all, jerking awake every time he drifted off, thinking he heard the blaring of Gordon’s tube’s vital readout alarm, indicating another temperature spike or drop in blood oxygen levels or erratic heart palpitations. 

  Coomer hated seeing Gordon in that tube.

  He and Bubby had discussed, back when they first conceived (ha!) of the idea of creating their child in a fashion similar to Bubby’s own creation, the likely necessity of supplementary time in a growth tube later on in Joshua’s life. Bubby had needed many throughout his life and, though Gordon’s creation and genetic structure was much more stable than Bubby’s had been initially, due to being based off of existing DNA, instead of entirely from scratch, as Bubby had, it was still likely that, somewhere along the line, his body might need a “tune up”, so to speak.

  They’d planned to build him his own tube around ten years old for that purpose, but then…well, they hadn’t ended up needing to. 

  So now, instead, Gordon floated inside an old tube of Bubby’s they’d specifically made for emergencies, ever since a terrifying incident back when Bubby had first been able to live outside of Black Mesa and they’d moved into this house together. The sudden changes and stress of living outside of Black Mesa for the first time caused Bubby’s molecular structure to almost entirely destabilize.  

  The frantic drive back to the laboratory, Bubby in the passenger seat, condition rapidly deteriorating, was one of the most frightening experiences of Harold’s life. 

  Since then, they’d made sure they always had a tube similar to Bubby’s at Black Mesa available outside of the facility. Years of fine tuning had stabilized Bubby’s physical makeup significantly, and eventually they’d moved the tube to storage, not having needed it in many years, but still wanting to have it available in case of emergencies. 

  Coomer supposed that was part of what made seeing Gordon like this so terrible. 

  This tube was one tied to painful and terrifying memories. Unlike Gordon’s original one, which was associated with the creation of their child, and even Bubby’s tube at Black Mesa, which at least held memories of how they met, this one was associated only with things going horribly wrong. 

  And how wrong they’d gone now.

  Coomer had seen Gordon hurt before, of course, during the Resonance Cascade, but it had been different this time, to an extent he hadn’t expected. 

  Since learning of Gordon’s true identity, the memories of every time he’d come to harm, come so close to death, during their journey through Black Mesa and Xen, had haunted him, of course, knowing retroactively that it was his own child that he’d seen so battered and broken. 

  Coomer hadn’t expected just how different it would be seeing Gordon hurt while already knowing it was his child. He’d felt sick to his stomach, like he was going to break down or pass out. Luckily, Harold Coomer was nothing if not good at compartmentalizing, and had managed to keep it together while they worked to stabilize Gordon.

  Now, thankfully, it seemed Gordon was out of the woods. His skin had grown back, to at least some extent, over nearly every burned area, and his temperature was completely stable, if still high. Likely, it was as low as it was going to get without him intentionally lowering it. 

  Which was precisely why Harold was making very sure everything was in no danger of sudden change for the worse. He needed to leave for a moment to talk to Bubby. Gordon’s temperature was still high enough to simmer the fluid around him and he’d likely need instruction from Bubby on how to control his newly developed powers before he could be released from the tube. The sooner such instruction could begin, the better. 

  One last check, and Coomer was confident enough to leave Gordon alone long enough to fetch Bubby. 

  Climbing up the basement stairs into the main hallway, he glanced into the living room. 

  Benrey and Tommy were fast asleep, leaning shoulder to shoulder on the couch, having apparently worn themselves out with worry. 

  Coomer smiled. He was glad Gordon had the two of them, it was clear how much they all cared about each other. He didn’t see Bubby in the room however, nor in the connected kitchen, so he didn’t dwell there.

  He headed towards the room to his and Bubby’s room, but paused as he reached the door. He could hear a faint noise coming from inside like a soft sniffling and uneven breathing–

  Oh.

  He opened the door just a crack to see Bubby sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands and body shaking with soft sobs he was clearly trying to muffle. 

  Coomer rapped his knuckles against the door.

  Bubby startled, and whipped his head around to see Coomer.  His face was red and his cheeks streaked with tears.

  “Fuck–I-” Bubby roughly wiped at his face to clear away the tears, and fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand. “Harold, I didn’t…I didn’t hear you…”

  Coomer simply sat on the bed next to him as he composed himself. 

  “How’s…how is he?” Bubby asked, after clearing his throat. He stared at the floor, not looking towards Coomer.

  “He’s stable. Tissue regrowth is coming along well. He’s as stable as I think he’ll be able to get until he can bring his temperature down,” Coomer replied. “I think it’s best to start teaching him to control it sooner rather than later. If he can learn at least how to regulate his temperature while he’s still in there, he’s far less likely to lose control again as soon as he comes out of the tube. You can work on teaching him all your flashier tricks once he’s out.”

  Coomer chuckled, lightly. 

  Bubby, however, only turned even further away from him.

  “Do…do you think that we could…” Bubby trailed off, then started again. “That tube is made for post decanting genetic alteration. If we could just…if we could nullify or remove the gene responsible for pyrokinesis…”

  “What?!” Coomer cried, agape. “Bubby you can’t be serious! You know better than anyone the risks involved with that! That tube is made for emergency stabilization, not tampering with genetic code when there’s no reason!”

  “No reason? There’s a damn good reason!” Bubby said, turning at last to face Coomer. “Look at him! Look at what’s happened to him! That’s the reason!”

  “But you’re living proof that’s something that he can control! Something that doesn’t have to hurt him!”

  “You don’t–you couldn’t understand!”

  “The fucking hell I couldn’t!” Coomer snapped. “He’s my son, too! You think it doesn’t break my heart seeing him like this?”

  “But it isn’t your–!” Bubby cut himself off.

  “My what?” 

  Bubby grit his teeth.

  “My what, Bubby?!”

  “YOUR FAULT! IT ISN’T YOUR FAULT!”

Any rage that had been building in Coomer was doused instantly.

  “Not my…Bubby, do you think…?” he stammered, almost at a loss for words. “This isn’t your fault, Bubby.”

  Bubby stood up, sharply, hands gripping at the side of his head.

  “Don’t you see?!” he cried. “Everything that’s happened to him is my fault! Everything that’s happened since I included my DNA in his design. I should never have included my DNA. I didn’t want to! I told you I didn’t want to! Why? Why did I let you convince me?!”

  Tears were streaming down Bubby’s face again.

  “We agreed to include both our genetic codes together!” Coomer said. “We wanted a child. One that was both of us, not a clone. I’ve had enough of those. We wanted a child that would be like us both.”

  “Don’t you understand? He is like me! And I wouldn’t wish those words on anyone!” Bubby sobbed. “Seeing him like that I just–Everything they did to me. Everything they put me through–they would have done it to him, too. All the awful tests, all the cruelty, all the pain, oh god…he went through it all. Because of me! They took him because of me!”

“Bubby, we’ve talked about this a thousand times, he was sick and we were both scared. It wasn’t–”

  “Not just that! I read it in his file! It wasn’t happenstance, Harold! They targeted him! Because he was on their record! Because he was…” Bubby’s voice broke. “Because he was mine. They took him because he was mine…”

  He choked out a sob.

  “They took him and they hurt him in every way they hurt me, and more. And now he finally gets out…and he’s just hurt more. Because he’s like me. Because he inherited my powers,” Bubby hugged his arms around himself, shaking.  “Pain and misery…is all he got, all he could have ever gotten, from having me as a father…”

  Coomer stood, slowly, from the bed, and placed a gentle hand on Bubby’s arm.

  “Tell me how your powers work,” he said.

  “You know how they work.”

  “Tell me again.”

  Bubby shook his head.

  “I-I don’t–I can’t talk about that now,” he choked. 

  “Bubby, please,” Harold said, insistent. 

  “I…I absorb direct and…and ambient thermal and electromagnetic radiation and expend it at will, controlling…controlling my external temperature to induce localized combustion,” Bubby said, voice still shaking.

  “What do you absorb?” Harold asked, his voice lilting as to imply a conclusion Bubby wasn’t drawing, but Bubby wasn’t in the mood for guessing at it.

  “Damn, it Harold, why are you asking this now?” he snapped.

  “Just say it one more time, out loud. Please, Bubby.”

  “For the love of God, thermal radia–” 

  Bubby cut off as the pieces finally clicked into place.

  “Radiation,” he breathed. “I absorb radiation.”

  Coomer smiled, softly, as he saw realization dawn on Bubby’s face.

  “Gordon absorbs radiation!” Bubby exclaimed, grabbing Coomer by the shoulders. “He absorbs Xen radiation! His cells absorb and expend it instead of being destroyed by it! He didn’t die from being sent to Xen because he absorbs Xen radiation! He didn’t die because…because…”

  “Because he’s like you,” Coomer finished. “I had my suspicions from the moment they explained how Gordon was able to build up a tolerance from just the exposure to Benrey’s low levels of Xen radiation, and with so few negative repercussions. Once this happened, my suspicions were all but confirmed.”

  Bubby released Coomer’s shoulders and sat heavily back down on the bed, as if his legs had been turned to gelatin. His eyes, red and puffy from crying, were wide with disbelief.

  “They took him because they were cruel and evil people,” Coomer said. “He lived because he’s your son.”

  He gently cupped Bubby’s cheek and guided his face up to look him in the eye.

  “And your son needs you now,” he said. “Not to try to remove any trace of yourself from his genetic code. To show him how to accept and control what he inherited from you.”

  Bubby breathed in a deep, steadying breath and nodded.

  –

  When Bubby returned to the basement, Gordon was just blinking his eyes open again. 

  With his facial skin growing back rapidly, his cheekbones no longer looked so gaunt and pronounced, but Bubby still saw his own defined bone structure reflected in them.

  Not entirely alike, but not entirely different. 

  Not entirely a stranger, but not entirely himself.

  Someone who was a mix of things that weren’t him, and of things that were.

  For the first time, Bubby felt like that might not be a curse after all.