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theamityelf · 3 months

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Okay, I was asked which canon DR characters would serve as animatronics to the DR protags in the FNAF AU, which opened up a new world to me, so let's do this:

First of all, Komaru. (The other protags will get separate posts.)

Komaru I think would have the Warriors of Hope as animatronics. She's in a Security Breach type setting, which is already fun because she could either be (as the original premise suggests) the security guard or (as the game Security Breach suggests) a random person who isn't supposed to be in the Pizzaplex after hours. Maybe a scenario where Komaru is just a rando in the Pizzaplex and Toko is the Security Guard trying to get her out of the building despite the malfunctioning animatronics.

(For the record, in another branch of the FNAF AU, Toko is FNAF 3. She passes out from a ventilation error and Syo demolishes Springtrap, the end. 🤣)

If Komaru is the security guard, then her objective isn't to leave but instead to help the animatronics fight off whatever virtual presence is hacking their system and making them act violently toward everyone, including her.

Narratively, Masaru is the Chica equivalent, in that he's the first threat Komaru faces. I'm going to say he operates similar to Foxy from the first game, in that he's the fast one of the group. He's the one you need to either be paying attention to or have really good reflexes. Once he's rebooted and back to his normal self, he goes around dismantling STAFF bots to make Komaru's job a little easier, in that she no longer has to evade them. He has star-shaped shades and he still has his red hair. If all the animatronics are animals, he's a rabbit.

Jataro stations himself in the security office so he always knows where everyone is. He doesn't attack by himself, but he plays blaring music from the loudspeakers in whatever room Komaru enters, so the other animatronics always know where she is hiding. (This is why Komaru probably reboots him either first or second. He is really bad for her stealth, and because he stays in the security office, it's easy to find him. Ironically, it's almost like he's playing FNAF against her.) He's the least popular character in-universe, so he wears a Masaru mask from the gift shop. The Pizzaplex is full of unsold plushies of him that have had their heads ripped off by either Jataro himself or Kotoko. If all the animatronics are animals, he's either a tortoise or a groundhog.

Kotoko operates similar to Monty, in that she's the bruiser of the group. Where Masaru is fast, Kotoko is strong. She can pry elevator doors open, throw tables, and stuff like that. Komaru is just running through the atrium and Kotoko is lobbing STAFF bots at her. I'm going to say she's highly susceptible to music, and specifically lullabies. It's impossible for Komaru to reboot her before Jataro, because she needs Jataro to play a lullaby in order for Komaru to even approach Kotoko. Her branding is very pink. If all the animatronics are animals, then she's a coyote.

Nagisa is the Freddy equivalent, in that he's the animatronic who is helping from the start, but he has a different mechanic than Freddy, in that he will act against Komaru when the other animatronics are watching, so not only can't he be used against them, but he is in fact dangerous when they're around. If all the animatronics are animals, he's an owl.

Monaca is interesting, because I could see her taking on the role of Gregory in a way. Maybe Komaru finds her in the Pizzaplex and is like "Little girl, where are your parents? You shouldn't be here alone after hours?" But when she tries to approach her, the animatronics attack and Komaru later finds out that Monaca was the one who hacked their system. Maybe Monaca is living in the Pizzaplex to escape her awful family and is using the animatronics to protect herself so she can't be made to leave. Or maybe Monaca is also one of the animatronics who was hacked, and she's the last one who needs to be rebooted. If she is an animatronic, and if the animatronics are animals, then she's gotta be a cat.

Nagito is the Daycare Attendant. Sun and Moon, Hope and Despair, c'mon. Sometimes he's accompanying Komaru through the Pizzaplex cheering her on, and sometimes he's siding with the other animatronics and putting obstacles in her path.

#danganronpa #komaru naegi #danganronpa fnaf au #fnaf #toko fukawa #genocider syo #nagito komaeda #masaru daimon #nagisa shingetsu #jataro kemuri #kotoko utsugi #monaca towa

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rotgsecretsanta · 1 year

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2022 Secret Santa Masterlist

Here are all of the works posted for RotG Secret Santa 2022!

Prompt 1: A day in the life of the Man in the Moon Fic by fanarchoslashivist

Prompt 4: Arrietty/The Borrowers AU where small fairy sized Jack is secretly living at the north pole; plays amongst all the model toys, enjoying snacks left out by Phil. Art by Tenchikotheartist

Prompt 5: Based on the prologue comic: What if North had made Pitch agree to become a Guardian? Era Of New Ideas by Sylphidine

Prompt 6: Bunny & Jack brotherly bonding Collector’s Edition by storminfrost

Prompt 9: Forgotten memories Pitch and anyone Echoes of The Past by frosted-night

Prompt 12: Jack, Bunny, and the Groundhog arguing over the weather Seasonal Dispute by Sarsfe

Prompt 13: Jack's Christmas gifts to Pitch Keepr of Fear: The King of Nightmares by jaimistoryteller

Prompt 14: Jack and Bunny investigating a crashed spaceship Art and Hollow Spaces fic by ave-aria

Prompt 15: Jack and Katherine in ugly matching sweaters. More chaotic the better Fic by fosermi

Prompt 17: Jack Frost and his army of penguins and polarbears Art by nimohtar

Prompt 18: Jack Frost meeting Jack Skellington Jack’s Halloween by jaimistoryteller

Prompt 21: Jack is like a stray cat who has multiple homes that are unaware of each other. Often found sleeping in a pile of nightmares, tooth fairies, easter eggs AND christmas elves because it's warmer and he can get free snacks. He is a repeat offender and isn't sorry, will pretend he hasn't been fed in forever to dupe people into doting on him. Only Sandy knows that Jack is playing them all. Is It A Con If It'd Been Freely Offered Anyway by LinesAndColors

Prompt 22: Jack or Pitch or both! Techwear aesthetic Art by mrsketchy Art by ksclaw

Prompt 23: Kozmotis teaching Emily Jane to sail A Wild Ride with Papa by Jamie_Aizen

Prompt 24: Man In The Moon and Jack Frost doing dumb sibling stuff Art by fanarchoslashivist

Prompt 26: Pitch, having turned from his evil path, reconciles with North about all he's done to the Guardians. I was wrong (and I’m so, so sorry) by storminfrost

Prompt 27: Pitch being a fashion icon (optional Sandy or Jack posing in the background like a model). Art by ave-aria Art by thyphrog

Prompt 28: Pitch Black as a nightmare centaur (bonus if he has way too many legs like Sleipnir) BONUS bonus if he is like a real horse that gets startled by dumb things (a plastic bag or sudden noise). BONUS BONUS bonus if Jack likes to sneak ribbons onto his tail despite getting kicked (pin the tail on the Pitch anyone?) Art by bunnimew

Prompt 29: Pitch playing the lyre with fireflies around him on a starry night. Art by mrsketchy

Prompt 33: Pitch with a fancy gothic outfit Art by aroace-ghostface

Prompt 38: Sandy's Christmas eve rounds Help Me To Dream by Sylphidine Dreams of Christmas Night by Sarsfe

Prompt 40: Sandy having a nightmare either being caused or being consoled by Pitch Bitter by LinesAndColors

Prompt 41: Sandy just chilling on a dreamsand cloud and looking up at the night sky Fic by fosermi

Prompt 44: Sophie and bunny arts and crafts fun Art by fanarchoslashivist

Prompt 45: The Guardians and/or Pitch have Wanted posters! Art by purblzart

Prompt 46: The Guardians reluctantly accepting Pitch as a part of their "family" after Jack convinces them to Game Night by Eastofthemoon

Prompt 49: [No Ship] Jack has gained the power to shape shift into winter animals. Chaos quickly follows much to Jack's amusement. Sprinting through a Winter Wonderland by BirdBrainedInsomnia

Prompt 50: [No Ship] Jack with pink hair :D Easter Herald by jaimistoryteller Art by ave-aria

Prompt 53: [No Ship] Pitch tracks down one of his missing Nightmares in a barn with a mother cat and a newborn litter of kittens Art by ksclaw

Prompt 55: [No Ship] Sandy falling asleep at inopportune times. Plan Your Naps by bunnimew

Prompt 56: [No Ship] The Burgess kids make holiday presents for the elves and the Yetis, and leave them for Santa / North to pick up Operation Christmas Helpers by jaimistoryteller

Prompt 61: [Jack/Bunny] Soulmate AU Fic by fanarchoslashivist

Prompt 68: [Jack/Katherine or No Ship] A wholesome gathering of friends and family by the fireplace ☺️ (DEFINITELY platonic relationships prioritized, though Jack x Katherine can be added if the author/artist wants) Twelfth Night On Guardian Street by sylphidine

Prompt 71: [Jack/Pitch] Blackice, android!pitch and mechanic!jack au Soul Survivor by bunnimew

Prompt 75: [Jack/Pitch] Ice skating date! Canon or AU. A Date at Moonset by jaimistoryteller Tales of Burgess III: On Friends and First Dates by nimohtar

Prompt 80: [Jack/Pitch] One or both as royalty Neon Escape by bunnimew

Prompt 82: [Jack/Pitch] Request: fluff, Jack/Pitch, family. Nopes: dub/non con, hurt no comfort, MCD that sticks, Tooth/Jack unless part of polyam6. Art by bunnimew

Prompt 85: [Jack/Pitch and No Jack/Jamie] Jack discovers one of Pitch's favourite places to be is an amusement park, and he wants to go with Jack (can be themed/halloween, up to you). All that FEAR. No genderswap. No mpreg. No MCD. Thrills, Chills, and Skills by bunnimew

Prompt 89: [Jack/Sandy] Sleeping together Art by ave-aria

Prompt 91: [North/Bunny] The Guardians are celebrating Christmas together. Ending of Christmas Eve's Rounds by Sarsfe

Prompt 94: [Pitch/North] Anything Pitch/North Art by ksclaw

Prompt 96: [Pitch/Pitchiner] [NDU] Memory Retrieval by sylphidine

Prompt 98: [Pitch/Sandy] Vampire!sandy and priest!pitch au. OTP Art by winterswrathe

Prompt 99: [Pitch/Tooth] Pitch and Tooth as a duo of glamorous jewel thieves. Art by fangirl530

#rotg #rise of the guardians #RotGSecretSanta2022

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nothingunrealistic · 1 year

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also love the like meter and assonance of shadowbox and double-cross, sounds dramatic, does something in the material directly prompt the lively Sound in the title or is that just how the wip labeling shook out? while wasting all my time could perhaps also be dramatic phrasing, but knowing of, say, characters like taylor, am i right in suspecting that the naming of That is actually abt anything that ends up being unusually chill

both those titles are from song lyrics, so [vibe of fic] to [vibe of title] isn’t a direct connection — more like [vibe of fic] to [vibe of a song that describes or otherwise ties into the plot / setting] to [lyric from song that balances all those elements] to [vibe of title]. i’ll elaborate

shadowbox and double-cross is an au on the premise of “what if it was sacker who investigated and approached taylor in 2x10 & 2x11 instead of connerty?” (answer: she would be more effective than he was, but she wouldn’t necessarily get taylor to flip on axe capital.) the title is from smooth operator by sade, a song chuck mentions in 4x11 to describe sacker’s deftness and subtlety in pulling off schemes.

and wasting all my time is The taylor 6x10 time loop fic! they’re stuck reliving the day of the party at prince’s apartment! they don’t know how they got into the loop but they've seen Groundhog Day and they can guess that some kind of self-improvement is necessary to get out! and they’ll throw anything and everything at the metaphorical wall to see what works! (such as: desperately trying to hook up with philip!) the way this ends will probably depend on how season 7 goes, but i sure have a lot of ideas about the beginning and middle, even if they’re more fleshed out in my head than anywhere else. the title is, naturally, from just what i needed by the cars.

(send me an ask with the title from my WIP folder that most intrigues you, and i’ll post a little snippet or tell you something about it!)

#inbox #unproduciblesmackdown #billions #taylor mason #kate sacker #sometimes i write #when i first read this ask i fully went >:) at the the last line. ohoho they don't know that “wasting all my time” is Not Chill At All!!!#wasting all my time

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thehumantrampoline · 11 months

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Ok, I realized this is reaching WAY back, but I still love this fic a lot, so BTS for Until At Last We've Got It Right? ^_^

hahaha FAIR, Until At Last (Groundhog day AU Les Miserables for those who haven't been around here that long lol) IS still one of my favorites and for a long time it was the longest fic I'd ever written lol so even if just on that basis I'd be proud of it. A lot of what I could have said once has leaked out of my head because it's been TEN YEARS can you believe it, damn, and predates... all my other les mis fic actually?? Including all the valvert I eventually wrote, so how about the valveriest scene in that one hahaha.

“A God-blessed fight, we said,” he says in a hollow voice. “I am beginning to think we were wrong. Rather the opposite. I don’t mean to sound alarmist,” he says, turning his eyes upward, “but I’m beginning to think we’re in Hell.”

There is a pause. And then, from his shadowy corner, Javert starts laughing. Not a quiet laugh like Jehan’s, but grating and wild.

“Beginning?” he says, and when the boys turn to look at him his eyes are shining horribly. “Only just beginning? I had it figured out three goes in.” He laughs more. “Beginning! Obviously we’re in Hell. Where in God’s name did you think we were?” he demands. “Marseilles?”

I can't believe this is the first fic I wrote Javert, much less the rest of them, I HAD been thinking about the weird self-contradictory system of mundane and divine justice in his head for... another ten years at that point I think. Give this man a chance to go to Hell and he'll do it!! he wants to go to Hell so bad!!!! also I never get to write snarky Javert because I'm too busy writing him having crises but we all know he's got snark in him, I DID love that Marseilles line even though like. why did I pick Marseilles. We'll never know

Many of them look disturbed, and Enjolras looks about to silence Javert by force, so Valjean grabs him by the arm and drags him out into the alley they know so well. As they go, Javert is still laughing.

When Valjean lets him go, Javert staggers into the wall and thumps against it with his back, whereupon the laughter suddenly halts. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the wall as one final chuckle escapes. Valjean stares at him.

“You don’t actually think that, do you?” he asks. Javert’s eyes open.

“Of course I do,” he says simply. “I just told you, I had it worked out by the third time round. I have maintained some of my wits, at least, in my advancing age.”

Valjean goes on staring, at a loss for words.

Like. They're such different people but they're the same person. But they're so different. But they're the same. I love Valjean just totally befuddled by Javert's worldview, like? They both love justice but Valjean's idea of justice is second chances and Javert's idea of justice is No Second Chances Ever. No wonder the idea of doing all this over and over Until At Last We've Got It Right (lol) fucks with Javert so much more even if he wasn't already a walking mental health crisis.

“It’s quite the ingenious punishment for me,” Javert says with a grim cheerfulness terrible to see. “All your mercy, all your righteousness. The worst night of my life. It is cast in a bit of an ironic light, of course, if you’re damned as well.” He shrugs. “If it’s any comfort,” he adds, “I was very surprised to find you were. I figured whoever was right or wrong, one of us to Paradise and the other to the Pit.”

Look I was and am and always will be obsessed with the way Valjean's mercy at the end of the story doesn't ACTUALLY change Javert's worldview all that much? He just swaps their places lol, it's still No Second Chances Ever but now that goes for him since Valjean was right all along. SOMEBODY still has to be right and somebody has to be wrong and him and Valjean have to be on opposite sides. He still can't imagine mercy being how the world operates any more than he can imagine it in how HE operates.

Valjean’s expression is pity and pain. “Why,” he says, “do you think we’re in Hell?”

“I’ve already submitted my evidence,” Javert replies briskly, mirth gone now. “I find myself in my perfect Hell, and conclude that Hell it must be. I die, I wake up here. I die again, again here I wake.”

“You died?” Valjean interjects with alarm. Javert ignores him.

“As you heard, those revolutionary idiots are reaching the same conclusion. Took them time enough. God-blessed fight indeed!” he snorts.

“Even if we have died, which I do not remember doing, why Hell?” Valjean insists. “Why not Purgatory, at least? We have both been good men, walking in the path of God. Why should you be so sure—“

“Because suicides don’t go to Purgatory, Valjean!” Javert snarls.

Valjean goes still.

LIKE I just want Valjean to get to react to Javert's suicide. At all. Ol Vicky disappointed me so I have to do it myself. Why wouldn't he be upset whether they have a weird tragic homoerotic fixation on each other or not?? And Javert not mentioning it until he's pressed both because he was ashamed of that surrender/mortal sin but ALSO because he knew how Valjean would react. Like he did. He did know.

Javert huffs an impatient sigh. “As I said, one to Heaven and one to Hell. Either you were the criminal I was bringing to justice, or the saint I was persecuting. If you were good, I was wrong about… everything. And then what? Take you in and send a good man to torment and death, or let you go and forsake… honestly, all I’ve been or done or known.” He shakes his head at Valjean’s stunned silence. “You unmade the world. Did you expect me to thank you?”

Valjean looks at Javert like he’s trying to look straight through his skull and into his thoughts, see the few ones Javert hasn’t spoken, untangle the bewildering ones he has, but Javert turns away.

The conversation seems to be over.

Like!!!! I am un-fucking-done at the idea of Javert killing himself because it was the only way he could conceive of letting Valjean go, but also at the bonkers bananas concept of him like. making the judgement FOR God almost, just to make sure it sticks and I'm the one damned I'm gonna commit one more unforgiveable sin, HAH, get out of that one, now I'm definitely going to Hell! like the man has a bizarre mobius strip of a theology and I want to study him like a bug. Which I guess is why I went on to write four more fics containing these two just dueling worldviews, including one where Javert literally refuses to go to Heaven. He's terrible and I just think that's neat.

#original posts #suicide mention #ask box #ualwgir #wow that's a tag I haven't used in a while lol #my fanfiction

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gogglor · 3 years

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Cap-Ironman RecWeek: What-If Wednesday

Time for another installment of @cap-ironman rec week! Today’s theme: AU’s.

I know AU’s in different settings are half the reason most people read fanfics, but they’re not really my thing on the whole. AU’s where different choices are made, or different events transpire? Absolutely. Coffee shops? Not my cup of... you know.

So, here’s my AU recommendations for mostly “turn left” scenarios. This time with an under-the-cut break so I don’t take over everyone’s timelines (sorry about that last post). Also with some summaries truncated for length.

Alone Like This

Author: GotTheSilver

Word Count: 7,452

Summary: Steve, post waking up, runs away from SHIELD, and Tony's the one who tracks him down.

Why You Should Read It:

First off, GotTheSilver’s been consistently and regularly putting out solid Stony since 2012 and not only are they not stopping, they’re only getting better. This writer doesn’t get nearly the fanfare I’d expect in Stony circles for someone who puts out this much good stuff, and here’s hoping this post can be a part of changing that.

While I am always a sucker for enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, there’s something to be said for stories where Steve and Tony hit it off right away. And watching these two very different people look at each other and see the same sense of being lost, then finding each other again is... excuse me, there’s something in my eye, ignore me.

Second Chance Lives

Author: raeldaza

Word Count: 43,872

Summary: Tony's gonna die of palladium poisoning anyway, why not join a pointless expedition to recover Captain America’s body? And after, well, why not dedicate his last few months to making sure an American hero settles into his new life? What else is he going to do, get drunk at parties?

Why You Should Read It:

This writer doesn’t write a lot for the MCU but when they do, dang.

“Tony is the one helping Steve acclimate to the new century before Avengers 2012″ is a whole genre of Stony fanfics that scratch an itch I didn’t even know I had before I started reading fanfiction, and this is one of the best ones out there. It’s got it all - Steve poorly coping with his PTSD, Tony poorly coping with his immanent mortality, some breathtakingly poor communication between the two most emotionally stunted men in the MCU, and a cat named Roomba. What’s not to love?

Should You Choose to Accept It

Author: elwenyere (look, you’re gonna be seeing a lot of them this week, sorry-not-sorry)

Word Count: 27,106

Summary: After a terrorist attack and a field operation gone wrong, the Avengers realize that Nick Fury's secrets are just the start of a much bigger mystery. Steve and Tony try to keep some things from each other as well, but that can't possibly affect the mission — right? Mission Fic + Getting Together (or Mission: Getting Together) that mashes up elements from Iron Man 3, CA: Winter Soldier, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season one, and Mission Impossible 3.

Why You Should Read It:

You can see my post yesterday for singing El’s praises, but what I really liked about this fic was how how damn creative it is. The CAWS/IM3/AOS mashup is everything I wished the actual MCU gave us and more, with well-developed characters and an exciting story to put them in. And because it’s El, you know the banter’s gonna be on point, the way the characters care for each other is gonna be emotionally constipated but touching, and the pacing’s gonna be exciting enough to draw you in and keep you there. Also, this fic doesn’t have nearly enough kudos so please go read it and fix that or I’m gonna have to try to hack AO3 and that’ll just be embarrassing for all parties involved.

What Happens In Vegas

Author: sabremc

Word Count: 161,951

Summary: “What the hell, Tony?” Rhodey demanded brusquely. Tony winced and drew the phone away from his ear. “You’ve got cops and Feds all over the hotel. I’m watching you perp walk out of the police station on repeat on CNN. They’re saying you tried to bribe Stern? Fox News has you selling weapons on the black market, and God that picture they’re using is the one from Bali in ’09. You look like shit. They wheeled Stern out and put him in an ambulance, by the way. Got some paparazzi swearing you decked the guy. Now they’ve got ‘copters following it like he’s OJ.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, Sourpatch, I’ve got it covered. Uh, though, I should probably tell you that, purely in the interests of national security and the greater good, I kind of had to fake marry that stripper-gram you sent. Thanks for that, by the way,” Tony added quickly.

Why You Should Read It:

If you’re deep enough into Stony to see posts like this on Tumblr, you probably know sabre’s what we in the business call a “big name author.” They’re prolific, they’re popular, and most importantly, they write words good (technical term). Seriously, sabre just keeps cranking out high quality stuff over and over again, raising the bar for the rest of us like a jerk (not really. I’m not bitter they write stuff so good I wish I’d thought of it first. Not at all.)

I never read stripper!Steve or stripper!Tony as a rule, but this came so widely recommended that I broke that rule and boy am I glad that I did. This is also the only fic on this list that’s a true-AU, with Steve being a non-powered vet from Afghanistan who left his army career to help Bucky and is stripping in Vegas to raise money for a prosthetic arm. He’s booked to do a private show for Tony, shenanigans ensue, and now they’re fake-married. This fic’s got some top-of-the-line banter and character development, but I particularly love it for its rich setting. Sabre paints a Vegas not just with strip clubs and blackjack tables, but KISS-themed minigolf, romantic dinners on the Eiffel tower, gaudy hotel lobbies, and making out on giant ferris wheels. It’s such a richly developed playground for the characters to play on, and through it, Steve manages to find a life for himself he’d given up on, and Tony finds multiple ways to show his kindness and depth of feeling for Steve. I know the word count’s long for this one but trust me, you’ve gotta read this fic.

Wait & Sea

Author: Lenalena

Word Count: 53,244

Summary: In which Tony and Steve get sent on an undercover mission aboard a cruise ship to make contact with Hydra. In this AU the military has kept the discovery and defrosting of Captain America a secret, so Steve and Tony have never met before. Yet they are to pose as newlyweds....

Why You Should Read It:

This one’s old and popular enough to be considered one of the “classic” Stony fics, and for good reason. Lenalena doesn’t write too often and not as much as they used to, but the fics they have up there are an absolute delight.

This is another fic that I skipped a bunch of times for being outside my comfort zone, but when I finally read it I saw why everyone’s so wild about it. In this story, Steve’s defrosted a bit earlier and not revealed as Captain America. He and Tony are sent undercover to sniff out Hydra shenanigans on a cruise and, because it’s fanfiction, they’ve got to pretend to be a married couple while onboard. There’s tons to love about this fic, but the things that bring me back to reading it over and over is first, Tony’s kindness and the way he’s attuned to Steve’s feelings, which... God, just inject “kind, observant Tony” straight into my veins, please and thank you. This is also another really rich setting for a story, and Lena knows how to fold the the hokeyness of the cruise into the seriousness of the mission and the depth of feelings Steve and Tony are finding for each other in a really beautiful, layered way. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s steamy, it’s gripping... why are you still reading this here? Go check it out for yourself!

Ashes to Ashes

Author: dirigibleplumbing

Word Count: 51,582

Summary: After regrouping following some surprise time travel, the world's heroes and sorcerers come up with a plan to protect the Mind and Time Stones by taking them into space in opposite directions. The result involves a lot more time loops than Steve would like, but at least they're getting a second chance to stop Thanos. (As well as a third, and a fourth...) And if Steve takes the opportunity to try to reconcile with Tony, too—well, they have the time, and Steve's going to make the most of it.

Why You Should Read It:

Dirigibleplumbing’s another name in Stony fanfics that does not get nearly as much fanfare as they deserve. They’re consistently a really creative voice in Stony fanfics and I always look forward to their stories showing me something new. Go read all their fics, I need more people to geek out with me over them.

I tend to limit myself on Steve-and-Tony-mend-things-after-Civil-War fics not because they’re not good, but because they’re so heavy, and also the Sokovia Accords have five hundred layers of crap in them that no good fic could possibly hash out well. This one, though? When you add in the Infinity War/End Game fixit? Poetry. Art. Music to my ears. DP wrote a really engaging, twisty story where it’s hard to predict what’s coming next, in spite of it literally being a pseudo-Groundhog day scenario. The characterizations are great, the story is engaging, and the feelings are big and sad and eventually happy. Go read it, you’ll love it.

I have tons of other recs for this category but this seems like a good place to stop for today. Tomorrow’s Alternative Media Thursday, and I’ve got some real gems I’ve been saving for that day (aaaaand possibly a self-rec or two ;)

#capimrecweek #tony stark #Steve Rogers #stony #fanfiction #MCU #ficrec

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prettylilhalforc · 3 years

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Forged in Conflict

After many a late night flitting between tumblr, Borderlands, and discord discussions with the lovely @lorecraft my brain could not shake a Luckyverse Borderlands AU with Triple Frontier boys.

Am pleased to present the first chapter of Forged in Conflict!

Summary: Dahl 12th Company, TangoFoxtrot Brigade have been assigned to secure an old asset planetside. Intel has it that a bunch of bandits are wreaking havoc on dig sites around a local settlement. Idiots trying to bust open an derelict mining facility for tech. Amateurs trying to on sell to Atlas.

Should be simple enough, right? Standard in and out.

Secure the asset, eliminate the threat, back to base in 72 hours flat. All wrapped up like a present on Mercenary Day.

Warnings: Military, allusions to violence and conflict, food.

Rating: M at most given the military themes

A/N: This will be more of a slow burn fic with each of the boys meeting their match. Cannot wait to introduce Lucky, Echo, IRIS and Teflon. This is gonna be so much fun!

Any and all feedback is most welcome!

Chapter 1 - Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

The scent of stale sweat hangs heavy in the recycled air. Hundreds of warm bodies fill the mess hall leaving little space to maneuverer. Unit upon unit of troopers lining the facility in orderly rows. Packed in tighter than vacuum sealed standard issue MREs.

Happens like groundhog day. Same routine over and over again.

Wake, eat, drills, eat, sleep.

Leaves him feeling little more than another cog in the fine-tuned military machine that is Dahl.

It’s stifling. Suffocating.

Maybe he’s just been stuck on base for too long. Maybe he just needs to head planetside. There’s this voracious itch that always rears its head between deployments. An uneasy tension sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach. Gnawing, screaming at him that more needs to be done and sitting here is just wasting time.

What good is a weapon in a fight if left unfired?

This was not what Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia signed up for when joining the Corp. Pipedreams and promises of jumping around the system, liberating settlements from the greedy grip of Atlas. Putting down bandit scum.

Life on Pandora prepped him for action, for violence.

Not the bureaucracy of the corporate military industrial complex.

Hoo’ fucking rah.

“Need some motor oil?”, a deep voice cuts through Pope’s musing, Ironhead giving him a knowing look.

“Wha-?”

Santiago’s eyes refocus. Physically shunted back into reality by a light shoulder check from the young blond adjacent to him.

“Can practically hear the gears crunching in your head, Pope.”

Will. Now there’s a company man through and through. Six foot and build like a brick house. Keen blue eyes that shine with something purely predatorial. Nothing gets past his gaze. Lives and breathes the life.

Nerves of steel and unwavering discipline earnt him the well-deserved moniker Ironhead.

Regimented. Reliable. Never fails under fire.

Dahl ‘til the day he dies.

“I hate being… stuck. Feel useless.”

Elbows braced on the slick steel benchtop, Pope runs both broad hands through his salt and pepper undercut. Pulling at strands. Trying to find a physical reset to pull him back from the frustration welling in his chest.

“I geddit. It’s driving me nuts, man, sitting here not doing anything.”

Now, Ben, the boy wonder, is pure unadulterated chaos. If Ironhead is a Doberman, then Benny is a damn Retriever chasing down a car on the highway. Kid had a good heart and boundless energy. Though doesn’t know do with it half the time.

Doesn’t think too often, just feels. Get’s him all sorts of situations.

Fortunately, The Miller boys made one hell of a team in combat. The Hellhounds from Hieronymous. Ironhead’s tactical efficiency paired with Wonderboy’s unbridled fury burnt through scores of Atlas platoons on tour. It was enough for brass to look the other way when it came to the frequent indiscretions they found themselves in.

“You hear that Lima Charlie got shipped to Elpis after Zarpedon’s crew went dark? Fucking bullshit man. Why do we get stuck here while- ”

“Better not let Redfly hear you saying that, hermano, especially after last month’s stunt. You’re lucky all you got was a week in the hole.”

Fish interrupts Ben with a look that can only be described as fatherly disappointment, grease-stained hand waving his fork about to about drive point home. Though underneath the worn cap his warm eyes give away everything, brimming with mirth.

Before Atlas. Before the exodus.

Pope swears he would have lost his humanity years ago if Fish hadn’t have kept him grounded. Practically inseparable, the two pulled each other out of scraps since they were knee high in Haven.

Frankie, ever the voice of reason, reminded Pope why they joined the Corp in the first place.

The guy was too honest for his own good. Has a big heart and wears it on his sleeve for all the world to see.

Made cleaning house during poker night a walk in the park.

“Yeah yeah, flyboy. Wouldn’t have been a problem if that snitch from Whiskey Kilo kept his big mouth shut.”

Benny petulantly spears at a suspect lump slathered in gravy on his tray, nostrils flaring.

“Well, it’s certainly shut now. Wired shut. Heard from Ty in medbay Phillips won't be having any solids until next month” Pope can’t help but chime in, it was a small comfort to know he wasn’t the only one grappling with the inertia being stuck shipside.

A collective chuckle erupts from the group and with that Benny's pout is wiped clean. Boyish face cracks into a smug grin.

And who could blame him?

Kid has a left hook that would floor a bullymong.

Conversation soon flows easily, falling into hopeful speculation about the next operation.

Tensions have escalated as of late between major intergalactic powerhouses. The system is on the precipice of a second Corporate War.

It's not just Dahl and Atlas duking out for supremacy across the stars.

Hyperion has begun to stake their claim, planet by planet. Peacocking with the latest in loader tech. Bunch of Machiavellian suits parading around as soldiers. Would sell their own grandmother to make a profit. And what they couldn't buy, they were willing acquire through "aggressive negotiation".

And Vladof, bunch of commie bastards, took glee in sabotaging years of blood, sweat and tears for the sake of glorious revolution. Whatever that meant. Why waste manpower when you can incite the masses to do your dirty work for you?

The desperate push for colonization in the most bizarre locations didn’t make any tactical sense whatsoever.

Something bigger was going on than just a turf war over resources. Not when this many players had come to the table. Stakes must be high.

“Nice to know that you boys are itching for action.”.

By pure reflex the four rise to their feet. Backs straight. Eyes forward. Jaws tight.

Chairs clatter across the hull floor, food all but forgotten.

The crimson glare shoots pure ice down Pope’s spine. Every damn time feels like someone walked over his grave. No matter how long he served, could never get used to it. Cybernetic eye picking apart every detail of the crew before him with clinical precision.

Captain Tom ‘Redeye’ Davis.

Takes a particular kind of individual rise through the ranks in the Corp. A certain cold bloodedness that makes a man willing to put the mission above all else. Hardly a surprise for a seasoned Dahl Mercenary. Redfly had a track record that would make any C.O. green with envy.

The company couldn’t fault him, no matter how harsh his methods. Ran tight crew and expected nothing but excellence. The Corp chewed up and spat so many bodies in the field, there was little room for complacency.

Or mercy.

“Fortunately for you, Brass has something that will scratch itch. Section-312, Intel Room 4. I expect you all there at nineteen hundred TangoFoxtrot. Copy?”

“Sir, yes Sir!”

“At ease soldiers.”

Will shoots Pope a wry smile that spreads across the crew like wildfire. It says it all.

Ask and ye shall receive.

#triple frontier fanfiction #borderlands crossover #Dahl Corp #goblin tries her hand at letters

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darkwingdukat · 3 years

Text

WIP Meme

I got tagged by @animatedamerican

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Hm I think if I only did WIPs I started to write, it would be only a couple. And if I did WIPs I actually might follow through on, it’ll be one (1) fic. So instead I’ll list the ideas I spent more than a week thinking about writing/maybe even started for my last three fandoms:

7 Times the Losers were there for each other

Stan Uris Groundhog Day AU

Leverage

Continuations of Operation: Cereal

Nate Finds Out

Hardison’s birthday surprise

Dude that’s ****

Wes’ Family

Nana fic

Uncle Marion/returning to Oklahoma

Parker gets a girlfriend

Supernatural

Misadventures in dog ownership

Dean/Cas femmeslash

Superbufferage

the sprawlicule

I’m counting Operation: Cereal as one entry, so tagging seven people: @impishtubist @sleepymccoy @5x04dean @ceilingninja @castiowl @editoress @kennexthewhitecheetah

#fic meme #no but please anyone send in something you're interested in knowing more about?#some of these are really funny #AJ writes

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bowtied-pasta · 4 years

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okay this is weirdly specific but i had this idea LMAO maybe some soulmate AU stuff (hcs or a fic, whatever you’d like!) where the reader and tim/masky are soulmates and the reader was involved in the whole marble hornets operator thing but she died and they wake up back in 2006 and the reader is like oh it was just a really detailed dream huh but it wasn’t actually a dream they just gotta keep reliving it until they realize they’re meant to be together LMAO SORRY IF THAT WAS TOO SPECIFIC

This is super interesting... its like the movie Groundhog Day.

I dont actually know enough about MH to write much about this, but I do think it would make a great fic.

I do think if the reader themselves is the only one that remembers what happened before it would be really interesteing... like... the reader would be the only one to remember when and how certain people die/disappear.

Would they try to stop it from happening or would they eventually break and just keep going with the flow? Kinda like those dark angsty undertale fics. 🤔

#soulmate au

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adiduck · 8 months

Note

86!mav flirting with tg:m!ice?

JFIFJARIFJAEIAJWFIAJFIAE;

WELL, NOW IT HAPPENS

[Today, 1412]

Ice: Does it count as cheating if younger you hits on me? Asking for science.

Mav: 🤣 Rock his world, baby

[1417]

Ice: Update: he blushes a lot faster than you.

Mav: Oh my god tell me you took a picture

Ice: No, he ran away. Good thing, too. What was Stinger's favorite saying? Writing checks your body can't cash?

Mav: 🤣

Mav: Be right back, have to go find him and smirk knowingly

#adi is a writer #wip snippet #icemav #operation groundhog au #ask game

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aboyandhisstarship · 4 years

Text

Kindergarten AU: car crash

Thanks to @dysphoric-artist for the prompt and proof reading

still written in a diary style and () are still kid adding his thoughts in after the fact

anyway without further ado lets hop into it

Ok now, you may not unreasonably say something along the lines of “Mike, you have literally died, hundreds of times. A good chuck of which happened when you were just a kid…how are you not 8 different kinds of traumatized.” And I thank you for your concern (weird guy who is reading my diary…really who does that you would have to broke into my room and stole this thing…which is uncool in every state) to be frank, I am traumatized…but I can’t really tell anyone why, what am I going to tell a headshrinker?

Headshrinker: so Mike…why don’t you talk to me about the tragic events at your kindergarten….”

Me: *bursts out laughing* which one…the time I got killed by the principle…or bugs, or monty, or Cindy…or the janitor…or those weird monster things (this would go on for some time)

Headshrinker: uhhh, I think you’re crazy…off to the crazy house! (ok in fairness I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work this way…but I’m not exactly keen to find out.)

“Ok Mike” you may retort, “They might think you’re crazy…but you could be a superhero! Like the Flash, or Batman! They could call you….Reapto!” (First off Random guy, Reapto? that’s the best you can come up with?) I tried that once to be the big hero…it can be rather hit or miss.

High school parking lot:

Nugget said with a smile “if friend Mike, Friend Carla and the Pretty Lilly would be willing to accompany Nugget, we will indulge in some super…”

Nugget was interrupted by the loudest car screech I ever heard, my eyes went wide as felt massive pain and the air forced out of my chest.

I shoot up hyperventling as my alarm went off screaming a little bit too loudly “FUCK!”

My mother bless her soul, responded with an “I know you don’t want to go to school today young man but I will not tolerant such language.” (yea that was embarrassing)

I shook my self-off, and considered putting on a tally before deciding that it was a one off death adding to my journal *Don’t go to the parking lot after school Dummy* (normally I leave myself notes like this…and normally they are a lot more helpful, like don’t mix the red and green flowers it blows up the room you know useful stuff)

Hallway, My high school:

I had been glancing at my watch about 4 times and Carla (Perceptive as she is) finally snapped “goddamn it Mike you got a date or something?”

I smiled awkwardly “what me no!?”

Lillie frowned “alright you are sketchy…”

Nugget nodded “friend Mike is definitely hiding something.”

A second later a car came crashing into the school slamming through several walls, nailing all 3 of us I paused briefly musing “man I didn’t think the school was this badly built,” Before hitting the ground hard.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm and groaned grabbing my pillow throwing my face into it saying “not again!”

Before throwing himself out of bed grabbing his marker he added two marks onto my skin

5 loops later:

Ok I didn’t know the school was this badly built, guess what no matter where I was I got taken out by that car, the bathroom, Boom, the library, boom…I even skipped school once…I may have gotten grounded but I laughed thinking I had in fact won, only to get hit by a different car crossing the road, and looping. (I sometimes wonder if the universe hates me…)

But before I died I did get some valuable intel, I saw the death count (the entire school by the way…yea after this I wrote a strongly worded letter to the school board…again) but also the names of the folks in the car, two high school seniors…(now for the sake of timelines I can’t tell you who they are, but mike they didn’t die! Yea yea…just trust me the less anyone knows about the other timelines the better off we all are, tried that once when I first started looping…the planet literally exploded, so no names) so these teens who I dub….Bob and Bertha crash and kill the whole school…and I need to find out why.

So I approached the gang saying “alright sit down.”

Monty asked “what this about mike.” His voice clearly impaintent

so I lifted my arm showing the tally’s, that was it they were all ears as I explained “alright in exactly.” I glanced at my watch “4 and half hours, a car comes crashing into school and kill literally everyone, we need to stop that so ideas?”

Jerome proposed “maybe tell them?”

Buggs shook his head “real high and mighty types won’t listen to us.”

Lilly sighed “well they crashed into the building…so they clearly were not leaving it…”

Billy nodded “that’s right, that means they left are coming back for someone or something…we figure out what and bing bang boom.”

I pointed out “has it literally ever been that easy?”

Ted smiled “me and penny can think about cars, figure out what caused it.” Quickly blushing

Penny also blushed “I would love to Teddy…”

Felix cleared his throat “perhaps me and Cindy can get close to them ?”

Cindy smiled brightly (she had grown out of her bitchiness, but she was natural born queen bee, even if she was cool with us all the snobs and assholes in school love her.) “I can reach out…maybe find out what they have going on and more intel.”

I nodded “right find out what we can but tell me before it happens, so I can write it down.”

Everyone responded “right!”

I spent most of the loop with Monty and Carla using their connections to figure out if they were getting any drugs or other fun stuff to explain there “Skillful” driving (got em….yea ok not the best burn)

Loop 12th:

I woke up with another groan “If I have to read another book about cars I am going to lose it!”

He glanced at his notes the car (a 66 Camaro…I swear those two are like a couple form the 60’s) and the other intel he had gathered from the others (they had indeed been indulging in drugs those bad bad boys and girls…ok I’m not one to talk, seeing the number of crimes I have technically committed…but those were other timelines…and you know what let’s not go down that rabbit hole) but the issue was simple, they had indeed nought some weed from Carla and monty’s secretive network (I never asked) but had not in fact gotten it yet, so the question still stood as to what exactly caused it.

Nugget hole:

The Lair (Ozzy wanted to call it that) is what we call our base of operation’s, I have been spending my time shooting down ideas that we already tried and smiling with evil glee whenever I make ted and penny work together (honestly I want to yell make out already whenever I see them) but then it hit us, instead of stopping the car crash maybe we should stop them leaving.

Now mike, you are likely saying, I literally thought of that after like the third loop, first off no you didn’t you liar, (seeing as we didn’t even know who they were then) also, this loop was different normally there are multiple things that need doing to affect a change in the timeline, so it is almost never that easy (ohh jee mister principle, the star athlete and his girl are going to skip class and kill us all ohh geee, yea real convincing huh?) there was of course the factor, that our group (ok just me) were not exactly popular around school or town, they called us the kinder busters (pretty badass name right?...yea I don’t dig it either) so people consider us bad luck (to be fair…we did end up at two schools run by crazy kidnappers in a row…if that is not unlucky I don’t know what is.)so we needed a couple of people that will actually be believed, now 3 guesses of who my friends who Is the most likely to believed about that kind of thing?

Cindy? Well no seeing as she has her queen bee rep they may think that she is “fronting” (there words not mine…I shuddered just thinking about them trying to street)

Bugs? (HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA *snort* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA…wait your serious… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA)

Carla or Monty (better, but no joy they are bit to up to something…we need purist faces.)

Ok by now you have either guess correctly (good job!) or are yelling at the page, “stop teasing me mike and tell me!”

And naturally the answer is Ted and Penny, (I mean have you seen those faces! Who could say no to them?!)

Of course I had to convince them to do it.

Nugget hole:

Ted asked “are you sure about this?”

I smiled “of course I am…ninty percent sure this will work.”

Penny smiled “relax Teddy this will be fine.”

I pulled out 5 dollars “here you go get yourselves some ice cream afterwards.”

Ted pointed out “you know I’m a billionaire right…”

Penny took the five dollars saying “deal! Come on Teddy.”

Now you dear reader may be sitting there thinking “that was easy, that’s it, what no boss fight, no dramatic showdown, no sweet groundhog day style montage where you do whatever you want?” (that was happened…more on that later)

My rebuttal to that dear sir, is screw you let me have this, alright most of time when I start looping I have to fight monsters and a whole thing so I think I earned a nice break, but you might be sitting thinking “that was anti-climactic! Did Ted and Penny at least go on a date!?”

My answer to that is a yes… and no, you see both told me (under the promise to never tell a soul after the loop) they also sadly made me promise not tell the other person, now you may say Mike…after the loop they would not remember, you can pull a sneaky and just tell them that they like each other, and while you are right I don’t for a couple of reasons, number one being I keep my promises, number 2 is they would think I am messing with them (I know right those oblivious idoits.)

But sadly this journal is not a relationship journal of ted and penny (sorry guys, but this supposed to be a record of loops) but I will quietly disclose that they may have been a kiss on the cheek (I screamed I tell you) of course they are still claiming to be friends in front of us but I don’t buy it…anyway I should proably end this entry…

So thanks for reading? (I mean you are reading a private journal…so I don’t know why you are reading this)

Mike June 26 20XX

#kindergarten game #nugget kindergarten #monty kindergarten #ted kindergarten #carla kindergarten #penny kindergarten #lilly kindergarten #Ted X Penny #Kid Kindergarten #Cindy Kindergarten #as always feed back and prompts are welcome #this verse is really fun to write for so fire em my way

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chernoblank · 4 years

Note

Some day, tell us about stories incubating in WIPland, like a Neutral Evil version of you

Oh sure! I’ll do it for Chernobyl, since it’s the fandom we share.

WIPs I abandoned (enter at your own risk):

5 times two of Boris, Ulana and Valery almost had sex with each other, and the one time they did

All pairs, Abandoned at 5k

Technically I DID publish the second part of this as my latest Valana (Deer in the headlights), but it was originally divided into 5+1 parts. In each of the first 5, they fantasized very vividly about fucking the other until something made them snap and realize they’d been imagining stuff, which is very very embarrassing, and entirely inappropriate. So all the parts had smut, except some of them were imagined.

Valery fantasizing about Ulana when he asks her to go to Moscow in the bar scene

Ulana fantasizing about Valery when he hosts her in Moscow

Boris fantasizing about Valery one time they got drunk in Pripyat

Boris fantasizing about Ulana after they fight in the abandoned building

Valery fantasizing about Boris in Vienna (this was going to include an actual kiss)

And 1. Ulana and Boris get together, in the depressing aftermath

I mean, in theory I’d still love to write all this (especially especially the Vienna Valoris, possibly going all the way), and it was only abandoned last month, but the lack of feedback in the fandom (plus considering I write het) made it not worth the effort, really. Also, this fic was supposed to use a lot of ideas from the other discarded WIPs in this list.

Boris and Ulana hate sex after the abandoned building

Uloris. Abandoned only at 500 words, but I had it all mapped out until the end, very annoying

After the tense meeting in the abandoned building, they have to stay in Pripyat for one night, and Boris corners Ulana and pushes his way into her room. They fight some more, Ulana goads him into admitting he’s into Valery, it’s very dub-con that turns to very very very con in the middle of it. They are really enjoying themselves but then they notice a movement in the balcony: Valery heard fighting, thought it was maybe the KGB attacking Ulana so he tried to come in the room, saw what was happening, and stayed for the show. He is now calmly smoking a cigarette. It was going to end with B and U very mortified but also wondering what this means for the future. This was abandoned because I found a more satisfying way to write Uloris, I guess, but damn I really liked this idea.

Groundhog day AU

Valana. Abandoned at 900 words because lost motivation

This was a groundhog day AU where Valery relives April 25, 1986 over and over until he figures out what it is he has to do to stop the disaster. He tries many things, like going to Pripyat himself, trying to reach Boris (and getting ignored). Nothing works. One day he decides to just take the train to Minsk on a whim, he buys flowers for Ulana and shows up at her lab. She knows his name but thinks he’s lost his marbles, but Dmitri convinces her to at least listen to the man over coffee. I was going to have him convince her that stuff is going to happen at Chernobyl, and you know her, she jumps on her car, they have a long drive there and manage somehow to stop the stupid test. Over the course of their daytrip, he confesses the groundhog day situation, Ulana doesn’t’ believe him at first but he sure knows a lot about her and there’s a lot of familiarity there, and it was going to end with Ulana asking if they were something, in his alternate universe (they weren’t, but Valery wished they were).

It had lovely things like:

“There’s a man here to see you,” Dmitri says, sounding a little bewildered. “He has flowers.”

“What?” Ulana says, lifting her eyes from the paper she’s reading. This sounds like a joke, but Dmitri has the sense of humor of a dried cod. “Who?”

"Valery Legasov, from the Kurchatov Institute.“

"Professor Legasov?” she repeats, disbelieving.

"That’s what he said. He has flowers. For you.“

"Yes, I got that the first time. But why would he be here? We weren’t told he’d visit.”

"He’s here to see you.“

Alright: she needs to put a stop to this, because Dmitri seems to be developing a belated sense of humor, and yes, it’s true she hasn’t been out with a man in over five years, but she isn’t about to the laughing stock of her equally awkward assistant.

"Send him in,” she says. “And make yourself scarce.”

"Understood,“ Dmitri says, and winks at her.

Let’s Be Alive together, part 3

Valana. Abandoned at 4k, sigh. Loss of motivation, lack of feedback

Well, this one was always meant to exist, as I always meant to do a Valana trilogy. It was going to follow after the other 2. But yeah, almost no one reads Valana, it makes me annoyed to look at the low kudos every time I post one, so I gave up. It was also very difficult to write emotionally? I left them in a very difficult position in Part 2, and Ulana really doesn’t feel like forgiving him. I also did it from Valery’s POV and boy is he a difficult character when he’s a dick (which he was for a large part of this fic). It was all “but she’s so UNFAIR, why does she come to my house and fight with me” etc etc. I was not impressed with him. Anyway I think I was making some progress towards reconciliation, but just… gave up.

The gist of it was this: when Ulana visits Valery in Moscow, after he refuses to lie and they have their awful conversation, she has a plan B: let’s warn the operators of the other power plants about the graphite rods so that at least this mistake is never repeated again.

“Sure,” he says, as petulantly as he can manage, and crosses his arms across his chest. “Let’s hash it out. What are you suggesting, that we drive around the country to every nuclear plant with an RBMK reactor, knock on their door, and tell them, ‘By the way, did you know there’s a deadly flaw in the equipment you handle every day?’”

He has to give it to her: she doesn’t miss a beat as she answers, “Essentially, yes. Are you with me or not?”

“And Charkov and the KGB will just smile and nod as we go on our little crusade?”

“Oh, they’ll notice us. I don’t think this crusade is a return trip, Valery.”

So off they go, and I took painstaking care to map out where the RMBK reactors were and what was the best route for them to go. Essentially a long road trip where they will slowly make up (because boy is Ulana still not fond of him right now). Of course, Charkov notices what they are doing when they are on the way to the last few plants, but they are intercepted by Boris instead (this was close to Ukraine) who yells at them for being stupid and finds a way to smuggle them out of the country, at great risk, so that they aren’t caught by Charkov and co. Valery and Ulana live out a few years together, moderately happy.

The Great OT3, aka the Canadian escape

OT3 for real! Poly. Abandoned at 5k because of serious characterization problems.

Around late 1987, Valery is miserable in Moscow, a Canadian secret agent acoasts him on the street and offers to smuggle him out. He agrees on a whim. Once he arrives in Canada, he finds Ulana there, who explains that Boris arranged for this with some of his contacts (through her, as not to be implicated himself). She decided to join him on a whim too.

I described it to @pottedmusic yesterday so I’m just going to paste what I told her here with some more details.

U and V slept together at least once during the canon. V and B were veeeery close to things but never really got anywhere. V is bi and willing, but B never indicated he was anything other than het so V gave up during the series.

V and U get hitched because of cabin fever while waiting for their refugee paperwork. B was going to try to join V but he was undecided because of his family, so V and U aren’t really expecting him. But he does come, and agreements have to be made.

U isn’t thrilled about V/B but he got them out of the country so of course he has to live with them. And well, B is old and sick (but getting better, all are getting ~magically better~) so it’s not like they’re having vigorous sex every night - never mind his het sexual hang ups. I thought something with a lot of emotions, cuddling in bed, talking a lot etc. V is very patient and knows whatever time together is a gift. V and U, otoh, have much more of a sex life and B hears sometimes and doesn’t like it but also DOES, you know? I stopped a long time before I got there at all, but I was going to use the het sex to lure Boris in and make him more comfortable with the idea of Valery as a sexual being. And U and B didn’t have a sexual element in the past but were going to grow into it.

I was going to have them relocate to Alberta, where there is a nuclear station, it’s suitably snowy. They would all live in the same house. Because paperwork made it easier, Valery and Ulana were a married couple (this was awkward at the beginning and is what precipitated their getting together). When Boris comes, Ulana suggests he could be her father on the paperwork, which everyone hates, but it kinda works. So they all live together.

It was going to be 1. Valery POV, mostly Valana, until Boris arrives, at which point it becomes 2. Boris POV, Valoris + Valana, and finally 3. Ulana POV, Uloris and OT3 happily ever after for 10 years.

I do love this AU a lot. I wish I had managed to find a way not to make them sound OOC. As it is, I hate everything about this and can’t even find anything worth quoting from it.

Drabbles from Discord that I was supposed to develop more, but never got around to:

Minister/Miner, first time

In a scenario similar to the ot3 above, where they are all together and live with each other, Valery and Ulana compare notes on Boris and the way they all have sex with each other

So there you go. For the ones I still like, I wish the fandom was still active (and cared about Ulana in sexual configurations)

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theemptyquarto · 6 years

Text

#55

A John Watson’s Groundhog Days AU ficlet, this time from a prompt by @marcceh. No ships, rated M but really only for bad language. And of course, Major Character Death, though in this AU it really never sticks.

John really, really had thought he’d got it all to work this time.

He’d taken Jefferson Hope out (it turned out you couldn’t not, Sherlock was absolutely up his own arse at that point in his life and was 100% going to take that pill.)

He’d kept her brother from murdering Soo Lin Yao (that had always bothered him so much, and it bothered him even more after Mary, another woman running from her past who John couldn’t save.)

He had not retrieved the Bruce-Partington plans without Sherlock’s help (at least two occasions of being shanked by Joe Allen had turned him off of that route.). But he had phoned in an anonymous tip that had saved the lives of that poor blind woman and eleven of her neighbors.

In all, quite a successful go-round so far, John thought smugly on the way to Sarah’s, before turning a corner and getting a needle stuck in his neck.

Now this wasn’t fair. He’d personally returned the missile plans to Mycroft, and the pool bit was supposed to happen two full days ago! John mumbled, “You know Sherlock’s bluffing too, right?” but he wasn’t sure if it’d been comprehensible.

In the event, here he was, groggy, Semtex-clad, coming to on the filthy floor of a community swimming pool changing room, staring down the barrel of Seb’s gun.

Again.

Colonel Sebastian Moran was what Sherlock had described as a dissolute and dangerous son of a very notable family, a master marksman, with no fear and no conscience. John, not that anyone ever asked him, would have described him as the sort of upper-class toerag who probably took ears back in the ‘Stan.

He glared up at the older man. Fucking Morans. At least three of the family he’d met were shitheads, murderers or terrorists, and every iteration of Sebastian in particular was an absolute wanker.

“You’ll go out there when you’re told,” Moran said in his posh colonial-imperialist drawl, “You’ll say what you’re told. And if you do that maybe I won’t trim the wall with your brains and blow you and your buddy to kingdom come.”

“Yeah, yeah,” John said, climbing to his feet and brushing off his coat, “I know, I’ve got it, fuck off.”

Moran angled his head curiously, but said nothing more. They waited, and he heard Sherlock’s voice echoing in the empty pool outside the door. Moran gestured with the gun and John walked out.

Through the earpiece, Jim Moriarty, murmured, “Evening, Sherlock. This is a turn-up, isn’t it?”

“Evening Sherlock this is a turn-up isn’t it,” John repeated dutifully.

“John,” Sherlock stammered, “What the hell-?”

“Bet you didn’t see this coming,” Moriarty whispered.

“Bet you didn’t see this coming,” John repeated.

“Now unzip your coat. Let him see the bomb,” Moriarty chuckled.

And John decided: Nah.

“Yes, it’s true. All this time John Watson, your unassuming flatmate, was in fact... I, Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime,” taking his hands out of his pockets and holding them out as if to acknowledge the applause of an audience.

There was an extremely gratifying silence, in the pool and in the earpiece. John grinned, and kept going.

“I get that it seems sort of weird... I mean, most multinational crime lords when faced with you interfering with their operations would realize that the point is to make money and then just kill your arse but no, not... Moriarty. I climbed right out of my metaphorical spider’s web and just decided to spend all my time trying to fuck with you. Because that’s how I roll.”

Sherlock stared at him, mouth slightly open, and said hesitantly, “John, I don’t... I don’t understand?”

“Really? I thought what with me being the kind of guy who meticulously preserves the shoes of my murder victims as a happy memento of my teen years-”

“Wait, you would have been a young man, not a teenager at that poi-” Sherlock interrupted.

“SHUT UP SHERLOCK. And you being the kinda guy who stores heads in the fridge and gets hard at crime scenes I really thought you’d, yanno, get me... but I just couldn’t quite work up the nerve to ask you out on a date. So I had to threaten to kill a lot of people in my mincing little voice-”

At that point Jim kicked the door open and stalked onto the pool deck, glaring at John.

“What the hell are you saying?”

“And who are you?” Sherlock asked.

“I’m Jim Moriarty,” Jim spat.

“Ignore this miserable prick, Sherlock,” John replied, “I’m Moriarty, he’s an actor called Rich Brook. I hired him to seduce your girl. But he was kind of shit and over the top about it, no BAFTA for you, sir!”

“Oh, fuck you, I was amazing, he had no idea,” Moriarty shouted.

“And he’s only got the one testicle.”

Moriarty stood stock still and took a gun from a holster at his back.

“Who told you that?” he asked, in a quiet, lethal voice.

“Molly.”

Moriarty sneered, and aimed the gun at John.

“She wouldn’t know.”

“Told you you sucked at your job. She must find it out at your autopsy. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s a reasonably common birth defect. Funny as balls, though. Well. Ball.”

In a cartoon there would have been steam coming out of Moriarty’s ears. Sherlock was seeming to catch on to the fact that something was the matter and warned, quietly, gesturing to John’s chest, “John...”

John glanced down at the red laser mark and rolled his eyes.

“You know that isn’t how real snipers work, right, Sherlock? Lasers go in straight lines, bullets go in curves.”

He walked past Sherlock and stared up into the dark void of the balcony that surrounded the pool. More red pinpoints appeared on his chest.

“Oh, come on, they’re playing us, Sherlock? You see this? Right here?” John gestured at the swirl of laser points covering his body, “It’ll be the hot Christmas decoration of 2015, you mark my words.”

“Sebastian,” Moriarty pronounced, “Kill me this bastard.”

“And in fact,” John roared, not really paying attention anymore, just pointing up into the dark balcony, “Anybody who needs a laser scope to make this shot on a still target from twenty paces away, Moran, is no master marksman but in fact shoots like a pissy little bi-”

BLAM.

John awakened from dreams of the war, in sheets rank with his sweat, his leg in agony. Psychosomatic or not, the pain always felt real when you were in it.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, John sat up and pulled his cane over towards himself, in preparation for the problem of standing.

“Really need to work on the temper,” he said, to nobody in particular.

#quarto's fics #john watson's groundhog days

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agent-hood · 5 years

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Canon guide

(Following @missredherring ‘s lead, here is my quick guide for the @the-roanoke-society secret Santa, et al. Please hit me up if there’s anything else you’d like to know as I love talking about these nerds)

Agent Hood (Parker Jensen)

Physical: Lily Collins

Personality: it’s very hard to get past her ‘professional’ personality- which is pleasant and eager to please but very uptight. Once you get past that, she’s a very caring friend and quickly ‘ride or die’. Given her ‘incident’ (in which she was stuck in a temporal loop of constantly dying- think the worst ‘Groundhogs day’ ever) she is now unable to sit still for too long and even more desperate to foster a connection with the other agents.

Abilities: Initially thought to have none, but she is immune to fae-magic and is training to extend that to other types.

Background: Raised by their single mother (a former agent of Roanoke who’s ‘retirement’ included a memory wipe), family was instilled as the most important thing early (unfortunately ‘self-reliance’ came as an unintended second importance in an effort to make things easier for her mom). Always eager to be taken seriously, she was very studious and mature as a child, which didn’t make her any friends, but her twin kept her from being lonely.

Agent Thorn (Carter Jensen)

Physical: Brendon Urie

Personality: Fun, popular, and delightfully detached from reality- he is the go-to ‘party guy’. But treating him a little more seriously reveals he is a very sweet and sensitive guy who only ever wants to make people happy (often at cost to himself).

Abilities: A prodigy despite being half-fae and raised completely human: he excels at glamour magic and plant control, but sprouts thorns or coughs up rose petals when overcome with emotions.

Background: Grew up thinking he was adopted, a mix of memory problems and only one child being very clearly fae made for a lot of confusion and so were told that the twins were initially ‘switchings’ (a old fae practice in which human children are taken and a fae one is left in its place) and that Parker was returned, this led to a deep feeling that Carter did not ‘deserve’ his family who he loved dearly.

Being on the society’s radar since childhood (as are most human-raised supernatural children), Roanoke made multiple attempts at recruitment but was only successful following Agent Hood’s ‘incident’.

Technical Officer Rook (Ivar Mayhew):

Physical: A ‘thicc’-er Charlie Cox (like not Joe Maginello levels of beefcake, but a good mix of muscley, tall, and squishy)

Personality: affable and easy to get along with. His background with the military and Borley gave him an appreciation for having his cohorts back, both in and out of the field (he took several certification courses in dealing with PTSD). Always happy to lend an ear, help you move, or buy you a pint.

Abilities: although no longer able to ‘shift’ (at-will or otherwise), he still retains the heightened and increased strength from his werewolf lineage.

Background: Born to a well-off family, his father was a respected figure in the Royal British Airforce, and his mother was from a long line of werewolves. Ivar inherited his mother’s gift and followed in his father’s footsteps- joining the army and quickly moving up to special operatives, where he was recruited by Borley.

At Borley, he was injured during an altercation with the Wild Hunt; a severed sciatic nerve left him paralyzed and unable to ‘turn’. Although an installation of electrical nodes restored his ability to walk, his subsequent treatment at Borley disallusioned him to his associates at Borley (including his *ex*-finacé/partner) and transferring to Roanoke as a technical Officer: too reliant on maintaining a charge to be anything more than tactical support in the field.

Hampton the Bargheist

Personality: A very good dog- literally the goodest boy. One big, happy, pup.

Abilities: A psychopomp- guides the souls of the recently departed to where they go next. To help with this, Hampton is able to ‘appear’ where he needs to be (similar to teleportation but less obvious). Being a baby psychopomp, it is unknown what further abilities he will develop.

Background: Adopted and rescued by Agent Hood as a newborn puppy, once he began ‘working’ he appeared on the society’s radar and Parker was recruited (she wasn’t giving up her puppy and they needed to keep an eye on his development).

Physical: a Newfoundland (or any other large black dog)- now double that size because he is massive. 200 lbs and 4’8 at shoulder height.

Wishlist: I’m happy with anything, but I’m partial to my dummies getting their friendship on with the other Roanoke inhabitants

Aesthetic/AUs/etc: Thorn is a glittery, flower-crown mess while Hood is partial to red and Rook brings out the flannel in her. As for AUs- is it too obvious to say fairytales (you can run the gamut with them- red riding hood, Hansel and Gretel, etc)

#agent hood #technical officer rook #agent thorn #hampton the bargheist #the roanoke society #canon notes

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kinsie · 6 years

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Overly Belated Game Impressions from PAX Aus 2018

Every year I go to PAX Aus with some close friends to check out the Incredible Future of Games that everyone else already checked out six months ago. This is usually coupled with checking out some wonderfully well-preserved old games and hardware, along with some typically wonderfully weird indie stuff I've never heard about before. Every year, I've written up a little review of things I've played (or watched get played) on an old private forum some friends maintain, but this year, I've figured, fuck it, I might as well post it publicly, right?

Not Indie Games

Super Smash Bros Ultimate sure is a Smash game. That's not a bad thing, but since this was the same demo build from E3 (so before the Castlevania reveals) there wasn't a huge amount of surprises - just a damn good fightfest. Amusingly, the demo booths were split into two groups - For Fun (items on, Switch Pro Controller) and For Glory (items off, the new Gamecube controllers). New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has a nonsensical name and spawned an even more nonsensical meme. The demo had six levels to play - three from the base game, three from the Luigi expansion - with both the new and old characters to play. It doesn't look like anyone other than Toadette can get the meme crown, meaning players using that character won't have to jostle for powerups in multiplayer. I didn't play Pokemon Let's Go Eevee because the queue was like 90 minutes long, but my friend braved it and gave it a resounding "ehhhh" with a hand gesture resembling a teetering see-saw. Apparently the co-op stuff wasn’t available in the demo, either, which concerned my friend since that was specifically what he was interested in.

V-Rally 4 looks nice aesthetically, but the gameplay seems pretty "eh". The name seems to be about the most interesting part. Dragonball FighterZ for Switch seems like a pretty decent port. I don’t know much about the source material or original game, but it ran fast and I didn't notice any obvious hitching or whatever.

Luigi's Mansion for Nintendo 3DS is... a 3DS port of the Gamecube launch title. It ran at a solid 30fps... a whole lot better than I recall Luigi's Mansion 2/Dark Moon running, but I was also using a vanilla 3DS for that game while the demo units at PAX were New models.

Indie Stuff

The Xbox Adaptive Controller was present as part of a demo setup for a version of One More Line. I wasn't expecting to have to push the Big Novelty Button as hard as I did, I thought it'd be a lighter touch for some reason. Although I know the button kinda isn't the point of the thing...

Supertrucks Offroad is a PC adaption of a mobile take on old top-down racing games. There's promise here, but the current handling and physics leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully it continues to develop and evolve.

Infinity Heroes is a card game with some simplified mechanics and animated versions of all the card graphics. Has potential, but still plenty of rough edges and pre-alpha grit to sand out.

Metal Wolf Chaos XD sure is a port of an Xbox game. It feels pretty well done, all things considered - the framerate is great, the controls are responsive, and the English subtitles are sometimes even connected to what's being said by the characters!

Ghoul Britannia: Land of Hope and Gorey is a point-and-click adventure game that, unexpectedly, uses a Fallout-esque isometric perspective instead of the usual side-on.

Table of Tales is a VR tabletop RPG where you control an entire party of Scoundrels by moving pieces around a constantly-changing board and playing ability cards. Since it was a VR game, there was a long sign-up queue to play, so the developers set up a little booth where Arbitrix, the game's DM (and, incidentally, a mechanical talking bird), would cheerfully explain the game for you. He said my goatee was perfect for a pirate adventure. It was probably intended as a compliment.

Supermarket Shriek is very similar to a game I prototyped years ago, except it's got a Supermarket Sweep theme and shrieking goats. Also, it's actually getting finished and has more than one level, which is another differentiator. Use the shoulder triggers to make the characters inside a shopping trolley scream their lungs out, propelling the trolley and allowing you to steer it through silly retail-themed obstacle courses.

You probably think, based on the squat protagonist and camera angle, that Tunic is a riff on Zelda: A Link to the Past. Surprise! It's actually a riff on Zelda: Ocarina of Time! The combat is very similar, with a dodge/roll button and Z-targeting (although I guess it's more RT-targeting now) that jumps to the next enemy upon beating your current one. I can't say enough nice things about the graphics... One thing that's interesting is that the entire game is in a fictional language. This includes stuff like the pause menu!

Dash Blitz is a pretty amateurish attempt at a Smash-esque platform fighter. The "feel" just isn't there, sadly.

Nom Nom Apocalypse is a top-down dual-stick roguelite about fighting off food monsters. It looks pretty interesting, but sadly I didn’t get to go back and give it a hands-on look.

Henry Mosse and the Wormhole Conspiracy is a good old-fashioned point and click adventure. The graphics are wonderfully drawn in a cartoon style, but they suffer from really puppet-y animation like an old Flash cartoon, and it breaks my heart.

No Moss Studios bought along Beam Team, a couch co-op game about fighting a giant donut that I didn’t get to try, as well as a collection of weird little Patreon-funded oddities like Sprout Up, a simple little mobile game about weaving through vines, and My Magpie, a bird-aiding simulator of sorts.

Little Reaper is a platformer with a fun movement twist in that you can throw your scythe - which travels in an arc like a hammer in Mario - and teleport to where it lands. I'll have to give this a closer look.

Mars Underground is an Earthbound-esque RPG-style adventure game with a Groundhog Day-style conceit of being stuck in a time-loop. I can't really say it struck me, to be honest.

Scout's Honor is a co-op party game where four players team up to set-up a camp-site in a limited amount of time while dealing with hazards and such. It looks kinda cute, reminds me of Overcooked a bit.

Ice Caves of Europa is a rather odd-controlling game where you pilot a hover-drone controlled by an artificial intelligence. This one probably takes a bit more time to wrap your head around than a convention center allows.

Introspect looks really cool - a Shadow of the Colossus-style boss rush with an emphasis on movement tricks and agility. I didn't get to play it while I was there, but the developers were handing out download codes for the show floor build. It seems pretty fun, although it still needs a good deal of polish.

Soundfall is a dual-stick rhythm-shooter where you have to get to the end of a course before the song ends, with rewards for shooting and slashing to the beat ala Crypt of the NecroDancer. One to watch.

Ticket to Earth is a tactical strategy RPG ala Fire Emblem with a tile-matching mechanic that makes how you move to your enemies even more important by limiting your movement and charging your special abilities. The comic artwork is nice, although the talking heads only seem to have one or two facial expressions.

Nova Flow is a first-person speedrunner that reminds me of a blend of Mirror's Edge's DLC maps and that one paint game that got incorporated into Portal 2. One of the demo levels was apparently one of the hardest levels in the game, and the developer was quite impressed at my getting within inches of completing it before the demo timer ran out...

Dawnblade seems to be an attempt at doing the whole Diablo thing on a phone, with the player hacking their way through short, pre-made maps. Visually, it looks like any of a million other games riffing off of Warcraft 3, and it seems to have some weird mobile game trappings like a stamina system to limit the amount of time you can play in a period of time.

Little Bit Lost is a survival game where you've been shrunk down to the point where ants tower over you and are powerful monsters. This one felt real early. It has promise, but needs a lot of polish to truly deliver on it.

Rogue Singularity is a 3D platformer with procgen levels. The feel didn't gel with me, and I can't really say I liked it all that much. It didn't help that the Switch port I played seemed to lack anti-aliasing entirely, giving the entire scene an unpleasant jagged look.

Ashen looks utterly fascinating - an open-world Souls-esque action RPG with Journey-style "passive" co-op where you can occasionally meet other, anonymous players out in the world and either help them or leave them to their fate. It looks really pretty.

Speaking Simulator is a hilarious puzzler where you have to manually operate a human mouth in order to say Entirely Normal Phrases in order to convince people that you are absolutely a human and not a murder robot in disguise.

Untitled Goose Game had a massive queue that I was absolutely not going to fuck with. :(

yeop

#gaming #paxaus2018

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agent-nova · 6 years

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First Day on the Job [Prey AU]

(Just wanted to have some fun with this! Might keep going... I have some other events written, but I don’t plan a full retelling...)

“Good morning, Eleanor. Today is Monday, March 15th, 2032.”

Ellie reached over and shut off the alarm clock. Feeling drained, as if she’d slept for only an hour instead of the usual eight, she stretched a bit and set her feet down at the edge of the bed. An alert of a message coming through shook her out of her morning musings, and she leaned over to pick up the device and listen.

“Hey, Ellie, it’s Alex. Just wanted to congratulate you again. So sorry your family won’t be able to make it out to the launch tonight… Listen, I’m sending over a helicopter to pick you up, it should be there about now…” Ellie heard the chopper passing over her building. She got to her feet. “Get your suit and head to the roof. Can’t wait to bring you into this world.” The message ended.

Ellie had finally done it- she would be boarding a shuttle that would take her from earth to Talos I, a state-of-the-art facility orbiting the moon. Privately owned, the Talos I was a paragon of research and innovation, as were the people on board. Transtar only recruited the best of the best. And after these preliminary tests, Ellie would too be counted among their number.

Ellie didn’t rush, hoping to keep her nerves at bay. She sipped from her mug of coffee as she reviewed her emails. A quick rinse in the shower left her feeling much better. She donned the suit before slipping out into the hallway, leaving her apartment behind, for now. Transtar promised to check in and keep things as they were until she returned from Talos I.

She passed a maintenance worker, Patricia, who was working in a section of the wall, the wood panel sitting off to one side. The Hephaestus “Heffy Twist” Wrench in Patricia’s hand seemed to be doing the trick. She sat back on her knees to greet Ellie, directing her to the elevator. She, too, had heard the helicopter.

As Ellie set foot inside the testing facility, she paused, recognizing the large man standing across the room as Alex, but the man standing beside him was not someone she knew.

“Ah, Ellie, welcome—these tests are easy, just par for the course here at Transtar—you’ll be through in minutes,” Alex quickly explained. He turned to his taller colleague. “Ellie, this is Charlie, the Talos I’s chief operative, responsible for security, operations, and day-to-day processes. He’s here to make sure your new room aboard the Talos I is to your liking.”

Ellie approached Charlie, smiling politely. As he looked up from the data pad in his hands, he smiled widely. Whatever trepidation or concerns Ellie came in with had all disappeared.

“Hello, Ellie,” he greeted. His voice caused her face to go pink in response. His eyes were a shining blue, kind and observant. He had large, full lips, surrounded by a well-groomed beard. His hair was cropped short, most likely for ease and quick maintenance. His pronounced cheekbones and strong nose were matched by a straight brow. He was quite tall and had broad shoulders, creating an imposing presence.

Ellie was in love.

“Hi, Charlie. I hope I’m not too much trouble,” she spoke, catching sight of a pink tint in his own cheeks.

“None at all. Why don’t I wait until after the tests? We can, uh, get together and discuss things over lunch?” He suggested.

“That would be great, thank you,” Ellie beamed. New job, a lunch date, of sorts, things were definitely improving exponentially.

Alex cleared his throat. Charlie didn’t look away, and if anything, his smile grew larger.

“Now, if you’re quite finished for now, Mr. Hesketh, I think it’s time we begin the tests,” Alex raised an eyebrow.

Ellie nodded and began following Alex over to a side door. She glanced back over at Charlie briefly and noticed something in his expression, something close to sadness in his eyes. Ellie brushed it off. It probably had nothing to do with her.

The testing room was cold and plain, Ellie on one side, and staff on the other side of thick glass, using a speaker system to communicate instructions and listen to Ellie’s responses. Alex had made sure to warn her that the tests themselves would seem a bit...unconventional. Ellie waited impatiently, wondering what they would ask of her first. She wasn’t prepared for their unusual request.

She obediently moved the three boxes outside the circle near the glass, wondering if this could be some sort of coordination test. She had no clue. If she thought the first test was strange, the second was absolutely baffling. A lone desk chair sat in the center of the room. She was given only nine seconds to find a hiding place. Naturally, she crouched down behind the chair, listening to the administrators on the other side of the glass as they pondered her apparently unusual choice.

“She...She’s hiding behind the chair.”

‘Oh, the horror,’ Ellie wanted to sigh. As she stood, she very nearly asked if they were done, feeling embarrassed enough. Perhaps this was some sort of onboarding hazing attempt by Alex.

The third test was just as confusing, having to jump over a low barrier to reach a button on the other side of the room. Simple enough, but not to their satisfaction. What was she missing?

She was finally led over to another room, where a computer sat waiting. She was instructed to answer the questions to the best of her ability. The lead administrator of the tests approached, trying to sound as if he hadn’t just seen the most pathetic display. She felt foolish.

The man asked for his coffee and instructed her to begin.

The screen changed, and the first question appeared.

‘You’re planning a vacation. Go somewhere familiar you know you love, or try something new?’

Familiar

New

‘Hmm, perhaps somewhere new,’ Ellie mused. She would be leaving that afternoon for the Talos I, a decidedly new place, though it wasn’t going to be for a vacation.

‘You’ve been sentenced to death for your actions. How does this make you feel?’

Afraid. I don’t know what will happen.

Angry. No one has that right.

Calm. It was worth it.

“Well that took a turn,” Ellie mumbled. Still, she answered to the best of her ability. ‘Angry,’ she suggested to herself. For regardless of the circumstances, she wouldn’t think someone else could decide that for her. Unless she… well, she wouldn’t so it didn’t matter.

‘A runaway train is bearing down on five people who are tied to the track. You can cause the train to switch tracks, but there is one person tied to the second track.’

Switch tracks.

Do nothing.

“What?” Ellie’s eyes widened at the suggestion. She didn’t feel as though she had a right to choose. She knew nothing about these people. But arguably, the loss of many versus the loss of only one… She chose to switch tracks, though she felt a little sick at the choice.

‘A runaway train is bearing down on five people. You’re standing on the platform next to an enormously fat man. Pushing him into the track would stop the train.’

Push the fat man.

Do nothing.

Flipping a switch was one thing, physically causing someone’s death, absolutely not. She chose to do nothing.

‘A runaway train is bearing down on five people tied to the track. You could stop the train by jumping onto the track, but you would die.’

Jump on the tracks.

Push the fat man.

Do nothing.

Self-sacrifice. That she could do. It was the easiest one for her to answer. She’d jump.

Once the questions were answered, the screen changed to a Rorschach ink blot test. Before Ellie received any further instructions, however, there was a commotion on the other side of the glass. What was once a standard-issue coffee mug had transformed into a strange, black, fluid creature which attacked the man on the other side.

Before Ellie could think to do anything, the chamber filled with a knockout gas and she passed out.

“Good Morning, Eleanor. Today is Monday, March 15th, 2032.”

Ellie sits up, vague memories of the previous day in her mind. Surely her clock must be wrong. Her neck is stiff, and she feels horrible. A quick trip to the toilet proves she didn’t get to have that lunch date she was hoping for. Maybe she could find Charlie again, find out more about what happened during the test. Ellie didn’t want to believe what she saw.

She checks her messages and blames a computer glitch on the fact that Alex’s voice message replays again, as if happening all over. ‘Groundhog day,’ Ellie jokes to herself. She gets her coffee and goes to check her computer, expecting to see an explanation for the previous day’s events. She secretly hopes to see a message from Charlie, too, offering to make up for their missed lunch.

She nearly drops her mug, however, as she opens her emails.

From: January To: Eleanor Graves Subject: DANGER. LEAVE NOW. EOM.

The same message is waiting to be viewed six times over in her inbox. It’s unsettling, to say the least. Perhaps this was sent to everyone. Maybe all of this is some elaborate prank, or possibly an extreme stress test. She needs to proceed as if nothing is wrong. Continue through her day. If she shows she can be calm under pressure, she would be fine. That’s all this is, it has to be.

She steps out into the hallway, only now it’s dark. The maintenance worker is lying on the floor, the panel left open in front of her. The illumination of her flashlight shows Ellie a grotesque image, the maintenance worker reaching out towards Ellie while all warmth and shape has been stripped away.

Fearing the worst, Ellie bends down and lifts the Hephaestus, “Heffy” Twist Wrench and holds it protectively. She doesn’t know what she will even do with it, but it feels better than walking down the hall with nothing.

Except, there was no hallway. The usual turn that led to the elevators was gone, walled off as if it never existed. Ellie was trapped on her floor. She needs to find a different way out.

She returns to her apartment, eyes settling on her view of the city through the large floor to ceiling windows. She immediately runs over to the sliding glass doors and attempts to push them open, however, they don’t budge. She glances at the wrench in her hands before winding up and smashing through the glass.

An observation room waits on the other side. Bright industrial lights are aimed at the glass she’s just smashed through. There’s no city, it’s not even outdoors. She’s not in her apartment, but a mockup. It’s staged.

Ellie steps over the threshold slowly, eyes scanning around the room, noting the many warning signs regarding unnecessary noise and monitoring tips. She’s been under observation, but for how long? And where is everyone?

#agent nova #prey au #charlie hesketh #this game is insane and I love it #Ellie would THRIVE here

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