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eschergirls · 4 years

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Originally published at: https://eschergirls.com/photo/2020/04/22/totally-true-gender-science-pc-zone

From Jess Morrissette on Twitter (with permission):

"For some women, the 3D space and layout of an area in a game like Quake is not immediately obvious to them. Tunnels which lead off from a room, or even the entire architecture of the room, may be 'invisible.'" Source: "How to Get Your Girlfriend Into Games" (PC Zone, May 1999).

Holy s- this piece. And way to go with the "As your experiences in bed have undoubtedly told you, there is no bigger turn-off than a complete systems failure" part that seems to insult the presumed-to-be-male audience too? -_o And the "science" snippet that says women can't play FPSes because we can't navigate 3D space, but women are good at adventure games because women talk more than men... but remember gamer guys, don't complain about women being bad at things because you used to be a girl in your mom's womb once! Holy cow, PC Zone, not helping.

Transcription for screenreaders (big thanks to Bella (@MoviePosters00) for the transcription):

HOW TO GET YOUR GIRLFRIEND INTO GAMES

You've been playing games for years, but just imagine what they must look like from a non-gamer's point of view. They suck. The graphics are crap. Look out of your window — that's good graphics. These just look shoddy and blocky in comparison.

And what's with all the violence? Why do you have to kill everybody? Why can't you just talk to them? And what are these locations? Cathedrals? Dungeons? Catacombs? God, it's all so dark and depressing. And why are there so many blokes in these games? And what the hell am I doing spending hours playing this when I could be out talking to people, reading books, watching films, living life... This is how girls think.

Girls and games rarely mix. They rarely mix because you — man, boy, bloke, fellow, chap, me lad —you designed them.

Unlike most other examples of popular culture, computer games are predominantly designed and programmed by blokes and so inevitably appeal to men and the male tick-list of desirable experiences: being a superhero, being competitive, being murderous, and doing things fast.

Sure, we play the odd puzzler like Tetris. And yes, we can be found occasionally talking to elves in adventure games. But on the whole, we want violence, people's heads exploding, fast cars, big jets and gouts of hot arterial blood splattered against cobblestones. We want wars and vast armies of ourselves crushing other vast armies of people different to us into the dust.

She thinks: "Why play stupid computer games when you could be making me a cup of tea, paying me some attention, taking me out (or whatever your relationship revolves around)?"

You think: "Why waste valuable time attending to you when I've got to complete this freaking level?"

She strops. You grit your teeth. You feel bad about playing so you grab what gameplay you can in unsatisfying snatches, standing up every five to ten minutes and stroking her hair.

You say: "You okay?" She says: "Yeah. Guess so." You sprint back to your machine for another five-minute burst. Suddenly it's 2am. She's face-down asleep and you're having just one more go. Relationship: terminated.

Obviously, the ideal situation would be for both of you to like games. Those with PlayStations will probably have already experienced a touch of curiosity about games from their partners. But if the PlayStation is designed to be simple and appealing, the PC is a horrible beige monolith, forced to do games as an afterthought.

But it can be done. You can get your girlfriend playing games. We at PC ZONE have designed a 12-Part System. It takes some planning and no small amount of patience. We can't guarantee 100 per cent results but we believe, if you follow this plan, at the least, she will have some idea of why the hell you play games in the first place.

THE 12 RULES OF GIRLFRIEND GAMING

Step-by-step techniques for getting your girlfriend into games

1 CHOOSE WISELY

There's no point throwing her directly into Falcon 4 or Dark Reign II. Keep your game choices simple and realistic. Choose a game with strong interactive qualities and with real-life locations. There aren't, however, many good girl games on the PC.

PC ZONE chooses:

Half-Life

The hazard course is a particularly good starting point. It takes a while to get going but once they're hooked, they'll never stop.

Tomb Raider III

Despite what feminists say about her bosoms, girls like playing girls. Especially strong, agile ones.

Motocross Madness

Great driving game set 'outside', with hyper-realistic graphics. Exhilarating and amusing.

Creatures 2

Yeah, yeah, they "get to raise babies". Easy joke.

Worms

Because you can name the worms and then blow them up.

Quake II

Multiplayer especially. They'll hate it at first but try and try again. They'll get it.

Grim Fandango

Interactive, movie-like, funny, with a plethora of locations and mysteries. How much more girly can a game get?

Others (recommended by visitors to our website)

Puzzle Bobble, YOU Don't Know Jack, Baku Baku Animal, Civilization, SimCity 3000, Sam & Max, Broken Sword, Little Big Adventure, Settlers 3, Caesar IA Fallout 2, Zork: Grande Inquisitor

2 SET UP YOUR ROOM

Rule number one: tidy it. Rule number two: tidy it again (and vacuum this time). No-one wants their first introduction to games to happen in the midst of a smeg pit. Clear the mugs away. Wipe all those shavings and toenails off your desk. Clear the cigarette butts, bits of paper, Blu-tack and Coke cans out of the way. Get a nice clean mouse — not one clogged up with three months' worth of dried skin. Clean all those manky half-moons of crap off the keys on your keyboard, too.

Use Stanislavski's Circles Of Attention technique to minimise her distraction. Turn off the main light in your room and erect a side light which creates a pool of illumination around your computer. This makes the computer screen the centre of focus and mutes any peripheral distractions. In short, she has nowhere to look if she gets bored.

3 SELL HER THE GAME

Talk to her in language she can understand. Remember: you are a computer games geek.

She is a proper person who cares about things like emotions and novels. Don't use jargon. Ramp up any 'interactive' elements (talking, speaking, puzzle-solving). Play down hyper-violent aspects (flying globules of gibbage, explosions with true particles, realistic death throes). Once she's over her initial reluctance, she'll be as bloodthirsty as anyone, but you have to get her there first.

Half-Life

You want to say: "Next-generation first-person shoot 'em up with strong narrative elements."

You should say: "011, it's an amazing unfolding story with you playing the central character."

Motocross Madness

You want to say: "The real-time shadows are unbelievable and on Voodoo2 it uses tri-linear mapping for a super-realistic fractal landscape."

You should say: "It's really realistic and it's set outside."

Worms Armageddon

You want to say: "It's like that tank game you used to play in school where you'd enter the trajectory and balance it against wind speed."

You should say: "It's like Tetris."

TOP TIP If you're ever in any doubt about how to describe a game, just say: "It's like Tetris." Whatever you do, though...

4 DON'T OVER-HYPE IT

"Oh God, this is the best 3D shoot 'em up ever. The graphics are unbelievable. It’s such a brilliant game. It rules." Do not say anything like this or you'll create preconceptions. A game will have to have reality-quality graphics and the most involving storyline ever known to grab her after that sales pitch. To the uninitiated, compared to reality, a good film or a great novel, games - all games - suck and blow (at the same time).

5 HAVE A GOOD MACHINE

Don't waste your time trying to convert her to the Dark Side if you're packing a five-year-old PC with a green screen and Sinclair BASIC. Who wants to see a glut of piss-poor pixels masquerading as people and locations? Get 3D acceleration. And get it now. Get RAM. Get a nice big monitor and some meaty speakers. If you're going to use a joystick, get a big, firm one she can grasp (yes, insert crap joke here).

Get a joypad if you can. Remember, computers were never designed for games. It may be more versatile in the long term, but a keyboard isn't as forgiving as a joypad (plus you get to see her 'girl-steering' the pad in mid air when taking corners in racing games). The mouse is a brilliant 3D navigation device, but not at first and certainly not for someone used to pushing icons around a flat screen.

6 ENSURE EVERYTHING IS RUNNING CORRECTLY

As your experiences in bed have undoubtedly told you, there is no bigger turn-off than a complete system failure. Blue screen General Protection Faults are the gaming equivalent of a hair-trigger ("Oh sorry, I just GPF'ed"). Create a load of shortcuts on the desktop and configure keys/joystick/sound/video in advance - you don't want to stop the action over and over to adjust CD music volumes or the 'crouch' button.

Don't decide to check your email. Don't receive any phone calls. Don't schedule a clan match. Don't invite your mates over for a pissing contest. Make sure it's just you and her.

7 DON'T TAKE OVER

This is Five Gold Rings of the plan - the most important piece of advice. Resist the temptation to dominate proceedings. As she tumbles - for the fortieth time - headlong into the lava, do not snatch the mouse out of her hand and show her how it's done. Encourage. Encourage. Encourage. Every fibre in your body will be screaming for you to take the mouse - don't. Take a deep breath and count to ten. Better still, go outside and scream into a pillow (perhaps two. Eiderdowns). The more you interrupt and cajole, the less she will become immersed in the game and the more you will fail.

8 REASSURE HER

Like any newbie, she needs constant reassurance.

She says: "I'm crap."

You say: "No, you're not just schooled in the conventions of this medium."

She says: "Oh, I can't do it"

You say: "It took me a while to get the hang of it, too."

She says: "What's the point? I don't get it. I'm not doing it anymore."

You say: "There's a really brilliant bit coming up. Just stick at it."

She says: "I'm bored."

You say: "There's a bit like Tetris coming up in a sec."

She says: "Where's the bit like Tetris?"

You say: "It's coming in a minute, okay?

9 DON'T PATRONISE HER

"Ooh, you're doing really well," you say, as she dies on the Half-Life hazard course 50 times in a row. She's not stupid. She knows the difference between succeeding and failing. If she has developed black-ball trouble or a psychological block, change the scenery. Try a different game or a different level. Surreptitiously turn God mode on. Anything.

10 MAKE IT PART OF AN EVENING

Don't just announce that tomorrow night, you'll be playing computer games together. Or lock her in and force her to sit in your chair for hours. Go out for some beers first, or get some wine in, or whatever your relaxation method of choice is. Don't push it. Imagine this is like date number two or three. You wouldn't slap it on a tray and say "Let's go," would you? Maybe you would, but pacing and timing and bit of restraint are going to get you further.

Also, get some snacks in. PC ZONE recommended snacks for girlfriend gaming: Tooty Fruities.

11 POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

It is a psychological fact that people will do things they don't want to if there's a reward for them at the end. You may have to trade. Say you'll go to see a film with subtitles with her if she spends an hour playing games. Or that you'll cook something other than corned beef curry. Or that you will finally pull out those dirty socks that are stuck like cardboard behind the radiator. There has to be a trade. You don't get something for nothing. Hopefully, to use an unfortunate comparison, like Pavlov's dog, every time she hears the ping of the SimCity 3000 menu options or the splattery fine red mist of giblets hitting cobblestones in Quake, she'll start salivating.

And finally...

12 DON'T BE SELFISH

Now you have succeeded in getting her as addicted to games as you are, you must nurture her interest. This means sharing your machine.

Remember, girls always win at beat 'em ups. You can revise all the best, most shimmery combos and special moves but she, just by randomly banging the joypad, will triumph every time. If you lose, don't tell her it was "a crap game anyway". Be gracious.

Maybe you should invest in another PC and set up a network. That way, she can play, you can play, and you can settle washing-up arguments with the railgun. Ah, bliss...

Oh, and don't forget to delete that porn.

AND NOW, THE SCIENCE BIT...

Blokes don't like talking about their emotions and girls can't park. Crass sweeping generalisations or statistically proven sweeping generalisations?

A variety of behavioural differences have been reported for men and women, and researchers have zoned in on 'parallel parking' as an example of the differences between male and female thought processes. Men can often 'see' the space, in 3D, in their brains. Women can perceive the gap, but need to talk about it in order to understand its relationship with the length of their car. They ask themselves questions and come to a conclusion, which takes longer than the male approach, which Is just to pile in there and use the alarms of the vehicles in front and behind to judge distances.

This car-parking phenomenon also has an influence on the way women perceive computer games. For some women, the 3D space and layout of an area in a game like Quake is not immediately obvious to them. Tunnels which lead off from a room, or even the entire architecture of the room itself, may be 'invisible'. This is not, as your grandfather no doubt maintains, because "women are stupid" but simply because they have a tendency to perceive 'negative space', the gaps between objects rather than the objects themselves.

The widely-held belief that women only like adventure games can be explained by recent studies, which found that women spend 43 minutes a day making personal calls and men only 22. Women speak, on average 9,000 words a day, while men utter a mere 2,000. Generally speaking, women communicate more and enjoy the act of talking and interacting more than men.

Anyway, before you start moaning about crap girl gamers or bad parking arguments, remember this: until six weeks into your mother's pregnancy, you were a girl. Then your defective X chromosome kicked in. Everything went haywire and for some reason your nipples weren't absorbed. Your clitoris, however, remained and grew and grew into your penis. Just remember that.

PUT TO THE TEST

We put PC ZONE's 12-Part System for getting your girlfriend into games to the test. We took a bunch of girls, various games, applied the system and tried to convert them to the Dark Side. Here's what happened...

NAME: Paula

AGE: 27

JOB: Make-up artist

STANCE ON COMPUTER GAMES BEFORE: "Boring waste of time. A typically mindless male pursuit."

STANCE AFTER: "No different. The kind of thing you do in the absence of any other stimulation or activity. When you're trapped in the house and there's no alternative. It makes me want to go and read a book."

VERDICT: Thoroughly resisted conversion to the Dark Side.

NAME: Vanessa

AGE: 22

JOB: Model

STANCE ON COMPUTER GAMES BEFORE: "I've only played PlayStation games before. I like martial arts games."

STANCE ON COMPUTER GAMES AFTER: "I really enjoyed them, but I still prefer games that get my adrenalin going."

VERDICT: Converted.

NAME: Mandy

AGE: 27

JOB: Hairdresser

STANCE BEFORE: "I've played puzzley games like Tetris. I get quite addicted, but how blokes can play them for hours or weeks strikes me as strange."

STANCE AFTER: "It's tempting once I get started."

VERDICT: Not much change

NAME: Emma

AGE: 24

JOB: Archaeologist

STANCE BEFORE: "They're all full of blood and violence. For boys who haven't grown up. I like building games like SimCity."

STANCE AFTER: "A bit disappointed you can't shoot people's legs off, but yeah, good fun."

VERDICT: Success.

NAME: Helen

AGE: 28

JOB: Stockbroker

STANCE BEFORE: "They are quite good, but far too complicated. A solitary, masturbation-type thing."

STANCE AFTER: "Yeah, good. I like them. Although I don't think I'm going to develop a habit or anything."

VERDICT: Our job here is done.

Quake ll

PAULA: "It's quite dismal. I don't have any sense of where I am. I'm just running around mindlessly. (Picks up some health 'biscuits.') Have those things disappeared because I picked them up? I don't know where I am. Am I trapped underground? Don't know where I've come from, don't know how to get out (she spends minutes shooting wall fillings). How do I know that's a door? I don't really understand the rewards. I get mild satisfaction from shooting someone. And blowing their head off."

Motocross Madness

PAULA: "I like the outside setting and the freedom. It's exhilarating to move over nice bumpy terrain. It doesn't look that realistic".

VANESSA: "I love this. It's more me. I love racing. The graphics aren't that amazing. I do like the crashes, though. It's wicked. I could play this for hours. It's brilliant. Wheeeeee (performs enormous, deadly cartwheel which should splatter drivers against the rockface like a plum). There's so much open space all over the place. I even like falling off."

MANDY: "It's a bit samey. What are you supposed to do? I like having race-oriented goals. I wouldn't buy it. It's got really weird, illogical controls."

EMMA: "Don't think much of the ground. How are you supposed to know where you're going? I've never been on a bike before... Oooh! I'm doing a wheelie! (The girls clap.) Why is it so sunny? It wouldn't be sunny. It'd be all muddy, like on KickStart, with people standing around who you could hit."

Pacman

PAULA: "Immediately challenging, but there's a really depressing quality about it. The `so what' factor is very strong. The graphics are shit - just lines and dots on a bit of paper. Don't care whether I win or lose. (Indignant) How old is this game?"

Half-Life

PAULA: "Much more exciting than Quake II. More problem solving - more appealing in that sense. The tension is greater and there's more suspense. The usual dismal, claustrophobic setting. It makes me feel anxious and tense. Ah! Ah! (Genuinely screams loudly when she sees a zombie.) That's horrible! I get bored when I go round and round in circles. It makes you aware of how mindless it is. It's quite satisfying - oh (plummets 10,000 feet to her doom) but it's quite satisfying to kill a bizarre monster."

VANESSA: "Feels more real than on the PlayStation. It's quite exciting - all these holes to jump through. It's exciting to use all these fingers. I hate it when I lose. I love guns. I like holding the gun. I thought I just came up the ladder. Why should I go down again? I wish something more exciting would happen. This is boring."

MANDY: "This is good. I like this. I like the fact that you're making progress. I'm excited. I like the way his arm moves (she ducks to avoid low pipes on screen). Quite impressive, but I couldn't play it for hours."

Grim Fandango

HELEN: "Superb. I like things like this. I like shooting things, it leads you into the scenario. You have to find something, secret things (she is getting visibly excited). There's a mystery. That gave me a rush of pleasure (she finds the way out of the first room). That looked like it should do something. I want to go back and see."

EMMA: "it's the kind of game where you'd suddenly realise it was 2am and you had to get up for work in the morning. I like the music that's on in the background."

MANDY: "There's so much more to see - it's a lot more interesting to look at. I like the detail. You're not just doing the same thing over and over again. It's good because this isn't the kind of game where my boyfriend could phone me up to brag about his high score. Yeah, he does that"

#PC Zone #Magazines #video games #submission #link #general sexism #double standards #representation

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pkg4mumtown · 4 years

Text

Welcome to Hawkins PD (Ch. 5)

Chapter Title: We’re Your Family Now

Chapter 5 of 9?

Read Chapter 4 Here

AN: *drags self to computer to post this* I’ve literally worked on this one word a day since the last chapter. At least it feels like that. I either catch up on work and neglect art/writing or neglect work and have to work weekends. RIP. More soft shit, they’re still being chickens lol.

Warnings: awkward!Hopper? Cold weather? idk

Summary: You get to the station early one morning and are met with a pleasant surprise.

Taglist: It’s still just you, girl @kingphillipblake lmao

Over the weekend, I busied myself by making the trailer more homely and tried not to think about my boss or whatever had happened in the bathroom. I almost dreaded seeing his grumpy face at work on Monday, but then again, his face seemed to always be like that.

As was usual all week, I got to the station early for my run except I was far less cold than my first day. I let my mind wander as I watched the puffs of warm air leave my lips, letting myself fall into a trance to ignore the pain in the lower half of my body. I cut the run short as the cold air started to burn my lungs and spotted the Chief’s Blazer as I approached the station. I slowed my steps down as his truck door opened and he stepped out in Hawkins PD sweatpants and a jacket, not unlike myself.

A small smirk graced his lips as I approached, soon hidden by his mustache and coffee cup. He furrowed his brows as I headed for the front door, calling out my name to stop me.

“Hey, wait,” he called out, “am I late?”

I turned, laughing slightly and miming looking at my wristwatch but not really reading the numbers, “I start at seven-thirty sharp, Chief.”

Hopper made a face, checking his own watch and seeing that he was fifteen minutes late, “Jeez,” he rolled his eyes sarcastically.

“You know,” I trailed off, pursing my lips and thinking over something, “I think I can spare another fifteen.”

The corner of Hopper’s lip turned up as he opened his truck and placed his mug on the seat before slamming the door shut. He took a few steps toward me, so I bounced away on the balls of my feet, tilting my head toward the sidewalk.

“Try and keep up,” I teased.

Despite my teasing, I kept the same pace as him since I technically did invite him. He breathed heavily through out the jog and I didn’t blame him one bit. I heard him trying to control his breathing as I talked to him and I immediately felt bad, but he did have the ability to decline the run.

“What did you do this weekend?” he huffed, trying to take slower breaths so he wasn’t breathing so heavily as he talked.

“Uh, just cleaned a lot,” I shook my head, “that trailer was a mess. I’m sorry.” I laughed at his exasperated expression, which soon turned into large puffs of laughter. He started coughing, his throat probably numb from the air which was mixed with his smoking habits that have caused his lungs more years of abuse than mine.

“You don’t have to stay at this pace with me,” he took a shaky breath in and released a painful, growling wheeze.

“I invited you, Hop, it would be rude if I left you,” I nudged his arm with mine playfully.

The Chief slowed down to a walk; the heaving of his shoulders more evident when his entire body wasn’t in motion. He hunched, bracing his hands on his knees with the station just in range for a burst of running. The front and back of his sweatshirt was soaked through with sweat, turning it a darker gray and making it cling to his torso.

“I’ll tell you what, Chief,” I sniffled, cringing as the cold air was having more of an effect on me than I’d like. “Winner to the station buys coffee and donuts today,” I turned to him with a huge grin on my face and my hands on my hips in a challenge.

He turned his head toward me, his mouth parted and breaths huffing gently as he finally got his breathing under control. He pushed off his hands and stood up to his full height with a soft grunt, “Alright, you got a deal.”

He stuck his hand out, which I took and shook firmly. He tilted his head to either side, his neck cracking eerily loud.

“3…” I counted down, dropping into a loose running stance, and watching him do the same, though slightly more tense. “…2.”

Before I could get to “one”, Hopper took off in a sprint. His long legs aided him in creating a large amount of distance between us quickly. I stared as this huge man lumbered down the street as fast as he could go, my jaw dropping in surprise before by brain caught up. I finally broke myself out of my surprise and took off after him, able to catch up because of the academy training. I passed him just as we entered the parking lot, pushing as hard as I could to grab the door first since my arms were shorter than his. I stuck my hand out, ready to grab the door handle when I felt a strong hand grip my wrist and yank me backwards.

“Hey!” I shouted as I stumbled backwards hard enough that Hopper could get in front of me and turn around until his back slammed against the front door of the station. I tried to catch myself before I crashed into him but couldn’t stop my legs fast enough. I caught myself with my hands against his chest, cringing as the glass doors wobbled ominously.

Hopper sucked his lips into his mouth, trying to hold back a smile but failing and laughing out loud. I felt his chest vibrate against my hands and I had to stop myself from staring at the look of amusement all over his face.

“What!?” he chuckled at the incredulous look on my face.

“You cheated!” I slapped his chest softly and pushed myself away from him, forcing Hopper against the door briefly.

“I’m the Chief,” he smirked matter-of-factly. “I’ll, uh, expect my coffee and donuts when I’m dressed.”

Hopper winked and opened the door of the station, sliding inside and leaving me outside by myself.

Around lunch time, I yawned widely and kicked my feet up on my desk to rest my eyes for a bit. It had been another slow day with nothing better to do unless we felt like looking for lost gnomes for the eightieth time this month. I blindly reached for the newspaper from this morning and laid it over my eyes to block some of the sunlight.

As soon as my eyes closed, I felt something hit my arm. I knitted my brows together but ignored it until I heard something land on my desk. I sat up, letting the newspaper fall from my face with an annoyed glare gracing my features. Before I could lay my eyes on anyone, a wad of paper hit me square in the face. I clenched my jaw, seeing Hopper leaning against the wall of the hallway that led to his office.

He silently tilted his head toward the hallway and disappeared. I rolled my eyes, jumping up and following him while straightening out my uniform. I found him sitting on the corner of his desk, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for me. I closed the door behind me and stood awkwardly as I waited for him to speak.

“What are you doing for Christmas?” he asked after an awkward pause, not even looking at me as he asked the question.

“Um…” I trailed off and shrugged, not even knowing myself despite it being in a couple days.

“I assume you’re not going home. Not with how you described things…” he chewed his top lip, scraping his teeth over his moustache briefly.

“Definitely not,” I grimaced.

“Well, uh, no one really comes to the Christmas parties here anymore, plus I have my daughter. I—would you—if you want, you could celebrate with us. My kid, her friends, their parents are all going to my friends’s house. Uh, Joyce, you’ve seen her around I think,” he stumbled repeatedly.

“I don’t know…”

“I just don’t want you to be alone,” his voice evened out and softened, his eyes finally meeting mine. “We’re your family now.”

His soft voice had a strange effect on me, as I stood there in silence. His words meant more because he sounded so sincere compared to his usually loud personality. I felt tears prick the corner of my eyes and made a rash decision to step forward and throw my arms around his shoulders in a tight but brief hug. Hopper was too shocked to do anything but stand there, even as I released him and stepped away from him.

“I’ll be there,” I gave him a small smile. “Just give me the address and, yea, I’ll be there.”

I opened the door and made myself scarce, seeing his contemplative face as I shut the door and plopped myself back at my desk.

#jim hopper fanfiction #jim hopper x you #jim hopper x reader #chief hopper x you #chief hopper x reader #chief hopper fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction

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largehearts · 6 years

Text

schi/sm.

And in the winter night sky ships are sailing, Looking down on these bright blue city lights. And they won't wait, and they won't wait, and they won't wait. We're here to stay, we're here to stay, we're here to stay.

Howling ghosts they reappear In mountains that are stacked with fear But you're a king and I'm a lionheart.

Keith will not admit that he’s been counting the days, but – yeah, he’s totally been counting the days, and now the first half of the two months is almost up. It’s been a sunny day, and with this thought in the back of his mind, it’s no wonder Keith’s been having a fine time of it. Coupled together with the best possible mark one could get on the flight simulator in his pocket, and the fact that he even had lunch with a few classmates (though one of them kept glaring at him for some reason, a cargo pilot whose name Keith doesn’t remember), he’s in a particularly good mood when he gets back to the dorms, the same small handful of rooms he’s been sharing with his brother for the last three or so years. (Shiro could have moved out, when he finished his studies and got promoted, but he wanted to stay together with Keith, and didn’t want Keith to be singled out among classmates for living at the officers’ quarters, so they just stayed. Keith himself really doesn’t give a damn where they sleep, when both of them spend almost all their time in the simulator, on the range, the training decks, or the library.)

While figuring out what to have for dinner, Keith switches on the TV for some background noise. He doesn’t really pay attention to it, focused instead on whisking together some eggs to scramble. Only when he hears the word Kerberos does he turn, a sudden, excited throb in his chest.

What he sees turns excitement into cold, hard dread in a matter of seconds.

“… missing, and all crew members are believed to be dead…”

Over the sound of the bowl of eggs crashing to the floor out of Keith’s hand, he almost misses the next phrase.

“… Pilot error.”

It’s all happening too fast, the newsreel only a few seconds, for Keith to really process what he’s just heard, but he knows one thing: those two words ignite a deep-seated fury in him, the likes of which he hasn’t felt in years. What?! There is no way – no fucking way Shiro – !!

Shiro…!

He doesn’t even bother cleaning up the remainders of his half-made dinner. He grabs his keys and his jacket, and sprints down the corridor, quite literally seeing red, and not quite hearing the small handful of concerned voices calling after him.

“Is that Keith…?”

“Hey, are you okay, buddy? Where are you going? It’s almost curfew…!”

“Keith!”

“Did you guys see the news?!”

It takes the better part of a minute to start the hoverbike, though Keith’s senses are so jumbled it seems to him the vehicle doesn’t want to cooperate – he doesn’t realize it’s because his hand is shaking so badly he can’t quite find the ignition with the tip of the key. Eventually, he jams it in its place, and the bike roars to life like it has a hundred times before, with Shiro at the wheel and Keith the passenger. (The thought is a pang of – something. Not quite pain; not yet. Keith almost smiles as he thinks of all those times; he used to sit in front of Shiro when he was too small to do otherwise, up until that accident where Shiro braked too hard and Keith smacked his face into the dash. Mom was so pissed at him. It was funny. Later, when Keith grew taller, and Shiro still took him riding despite the incident and the dressing down they got for it, he sat behind his brother, arms around Shiro’s waist.)

Keith jumps on it on his own now, revving a bit before speeding towards the main buildings of the Galaxy Garrison. Technically, Shiro didn’t let him use the bike while he was away, but Keith has been taking it out every once in a while anyway, knowing Shiro wouldn’t really mind if Keith took good care of it. To start off with, if nobody touched it for two months, the battery would be dead when Shiro came back – and secondly, when it comes to sheer skill, Keith is actually less likely to crash the thing than even Shiro himself. Keith has played this argument in his head every time he used the bike in the last few weeks, and, like he’s on autopilot, it climbs back to the forefront of his mind now, replaying the same words as if he expects to have this conversation with Shiro in a matter of a month or so.

As if his brother isn’t missing in action.

The campus is big; even though the hoverbike is fast, it’s still completely dark and well past the start of curfew by the time Keith pulls into the parking lot of central headquarters. Perhaps it’s the looming nature of the building that finally brings back the earlier sense of dread; a chill runs down his spine as he looks up at it, and he slips inside quickly and quietly, then takes the stairs three at a time anyway, uncaring of being discovered at being at a place where he shouldn’t be at this time of the evening.

Strangely, out of the few faculty members he meets on his way, nobody tries to stop him. If he was any more clear-headed than he is right now, Keith would realize they all know what happened; two of the female teachers he passes just look at each other, a strange look on their faces Keith only later realizes was upset mixed with pity. He doesn’t really pay attention right now, though; his defense mechanism is the single-mindedness with which he stomps towards his goal.

“Commander Iverson!” Somewhere, he knows he is being incredibly rude, just bursting through the door without even knocking or saying good evening, but – he is really beyond caring. “I just saw on the news – the mission – what happened?!”

Iverson only looks startled for a moment, then stands from his chair, shutting his computer. “It is past curfew, cadet,” he says cooly, and Keith knows it already, even while hanging onto the last threads of his composure, that this can only go downhill. “You should be in your quarters.”

“I know,” Keith swallows, forces himself to add, “sir, but I need to know – ”

“You do not.” Keith feels like his air flow was cut off, he falls silent so quickly, face paling. Is Iverson really not going to tell him…? Why –

“Sir, I just – the news said – ”

“If you watched the news,” Iverson cuts him off again, a vein starting to visibly jump on his forehead, “you know all there is to know that isn’t classified.”

It’s that last word that really does it for Keith.

“Pilot error?” he bursts out, his voice simmering with the anger he feels, all of a sudden back at the forefront. He doesn’t care that it’s his commanding officer he’s shouting at at the top of his lungs. Hell, he barely even sees Iverson standing in front of him; he doesn’t really see anything from the blind rage that’s burning him up. “Pilot error?! How – how dare you! There is no way Shiro crashed that ship!” Iverson opens his mouth again, but Keith yells over him, fingers curling into fists at his sides. “My brother is your best fucking pilot! There is no! Way!!”

“Was, you mean,” the Commander manages to get in.

Later, Keith genuinely cannot recall the next few seconds. It’s like his brain just short-circuits as the volcano of his rage erupts; he only knows what must have happened because he looks at his bruised knuckles later and sees the evidence.

He raises his already curled fist and socks Iverson in the eye, hard enough to bruise.

The next moment he really knows himself is when he’s being held in a vicelike grip by two other senior officers, with both his arms twisted behind his back. Iverson is still standing in front of him, though looking decidedly worse for wear, with his left eye swollen and a trickle of blood starting from his nose and dripping over his mouth as he shouts.

Over the curious ringing in his ears, Keith can’t make out the entirety of the Commander’s speech, but the gist is clear enough. Keith has brought shame to the Garrison, and earned himself a dishonourable discharge. He is to be escorted back to the dormitory, where he is allowed to gather his belongings, then off the premises, where he is never allowed to enter again.

Someone brings Shiro’s bike.

Keith doesn’t know who, nor does he care enough to pay attention. It’s kind of a daze now; the anger is still there, barely manageable and only because he managed to expel a little bit of it. It wasn’t worth it, and he knows it, but still he can’t yet find it in himself to regret this. He gets a ride back behind Ryu, the senior range instructor. She gives him another one of those pitying looks, then doesn’t speak to him at all during the whole ride, nor later when she stands in the door and watches him gather his – their – belongings.

There is no point to leaving anything behind; it’s not like Shiro is coming back.

It’s starting to feel really weird, the way Keith knows he should feel something, several things maybe, but he’s still too numb for it to be anything other than a statement of fact. For the moment, he doesn’t allow himself to slow down to examine any of the ice chips of confusion swirling inside him. He goes through his own room methodically, emptying every nook and cranny, and then proceeds to Shiro’s, where he does the same. He could wonder if he is missing anything, it’s not like he knew his brother’s every secret, but the rooms’ layout is actually the exact same, and Keith is almost completely certain he’s found every hiding place in his own, so the likelihood of missing something important in Shiro’s is relatively low.

Save for one brief dusting stint about a week ago, Keith hasn’t actually come inside Shiro’s room during the other’s absence. Even when the two of them were at terrible odds with each other, Keith was never the kind of person who would disrespect privacy. He had no reason to dig through Shiro’s stuff until now. He doesn’t really do that now, either; he just packs it all together with his own, the clothes, the books, the small handful of knickknacks Shiro has gathered throughout his decade or so living here, the disk drives of computer data (and some movies Keith pirated for him and watched together with him on some evenings), the laptop itself.

Surprise is the first actual emotion that penetrates the cloud surrounding his head; it comes when he finds an envelope addressed to him. It’s propped against the window in the corner of the sill, semi-hidden behind the curtain. With the first feeling, the second comes – curiosity – but Keith stuffs them both back down with the same motion he stuffs the envelope into his jeans pocket, to look at it later.

When he finally steps back out into the living area with two stuffed duffel bags on one shoulder, a third one in his other hand, he finds Ryu in the kitchen, washing out a dishcloth. It’s only then that Keith realizes she has mopped up the ruins of his dinner, threw away the shards of the glass bowl too. He’s not quite sure why this is the thing that finally gets to him enough to cause his eyes to sting.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” she says at the main gate ten minutes later. “Take care of yourself.”

“Thank you, sir,” Keith replies, throat tight. While they wait for the gate to be opened, he steps a foot down onto the ground; the balance of the bike has become a little precarious with this much luggage. Ryu looks like she wants to say something else, but in the end, she just nods, and motions forward, to where the way has been freed for him to leave, then turns around and leaves where she’s come from, back to the main building.

Keith drives for the better part of an hour before he stops to take a break. He’s unsure of where he is or where he’s going, and he still feels numb rather than anything else, which is starting to bother him a little. Sure, maybe a truck stop on the interstate in the middle of Arizona is not the best place to have a meltdown; it’s probably just survival instincts, right?

More just to do something with himself while he catches a breather than anything else, Keith tugs out the folded envelope from his pocket, and tears it open.

It’s a single sheet of paper, with one lonesome line in Shiro’s neat handwriting, and a couple of numbers.

Well, at least Keith knows where to go now.

It’s a shack.

A run-down dump is more like it, Keith thinks, but it’ll do for a place to stay for tonight, whatever this actually is. At least, he is fairly certain it’s a safe place, considering Shiro’s message said in case of emergency.

He probably didn’t anticipate Keith getting expelled being the emergency, Keith thinks vaguely as he drops the duffel bags next to the door of the single-room house, and looks around. There is an eerie quality to this place, he decides, wherein it feels both strange and familiar at the same time.

This doesn’t last very long, however. Within a few minutes of poking around, Keith comes to the startling realization that the sense of familiarity comes from many of the things inside being familiar. The shelving in one corner used to be their pantry at home, and the stereo was their father’s (and before that, their grandfather’s, it’s an incredibly, laughably old thing that was probably at their house before Keith was even born). The small coffee table and the foldout couch turn out to be from Gran’s place – Keith thought Shiro threw all of it out when Gran passed away.

At first, the numbness starts to fade gradually. Keith begins to feel like his chest is just a little too tight to breathe comfortably, and now he realizes his hands tremble as he holds them up in front of his face. But it’s the picture that does away with the rest of the fog in one fell swoop. Keith finds it on one of the middle shelves, framed in a simple black wooden frame. He remembers it being taken; it was the day of that stupid hoverbike accident. They had already planned an actual family photoshoot for the day, which was part of the reason why their mom was so furious with them, even after it turned out Keith didn’t sustain any serious injury. She still looks a little irked in the picture, even though she’s smiling; their dad looks vaguely amused, Shiro himself sheepish, and in the middle, there’s Keith, grinning like he’s proud of himself, a thick white stripe of gauze taped to his nose.

He stumbles onto the sofa rather than sits down on it; he can no longer see where any of the furniture is, and it’s sheer dumb luck he doesn’t knock his shin on the coffee table. Still holding the picture in one hand, he shields his face with the other as he stoops forward, teeth gritted as he cries in choked, gasping sobs.

He’s gone. Shiro’s gone. He’s never coming back home. He’s gone –

It shouldn’t feel familiar, but somehow it does, and maybe that’s the worst part of it. Keith should have been too young to remember what it’s like to be completely alone in the world – and yet he does. In all honesty, anyone would say he’s still too young, at all of seventeen, to experience it. And Keith hates how he remembers this feeling, but doesn’t remember either of his birth parents – hates how it brings him a little bit of comfort that maybe this will help him figure out how to deal with his life from now on, when there is no comfort on Earth he actually wants right now – or even deserves.

Oh, God, and I got myself kicked out – Shiro would be so pissed with me. No, that’s not quite right – Keith is pissed at himself, Shiro would be… disappointed. Right, like that’s better.

Well, at least nobody is here to see or hear him break apart completely.

It’s – not really a beginning, when the new day breaks. It still feels very much like the end of something. If Keith wanted to be really melodramatic, he’d say the end of his life as he knows it. (It’s true; he doesn’t remember anything from before he got adopted, so his brother has been a constant throughout the entirety of his memory.) But there is – something about watching the sun rise in the middle of the desert with not a soul nearby to witness it – or witness Keith’s messy hair and still tear-stained face as he climbs up onto the roof to watch it. There is no good purchase on the walls, so he has to give himself a boost from the seat of the hoverbike. As he looks back down at it from the edge of the roof, he stifles a sigh before sitting down. I guess that’s mine now.

He knows the momentary peace he feels spread in him as the sky lightens will not last too long. Everything is still too raw; there are moments in which it still feels like a bad dream; like he’ll wake up any moment in cold sweat, back at the Garrison, then go wake Shiro even if it annoys him, just to see him there. He’s not, though, and when these moments pass, Keith still feels suffocated. And of course, on top of everything, there is the aimlessness. He will have to figure out what to do next. Whether he should even stay out here.

But for now, for these few moments of stillness, Keith feels like he can breathe a little. It has never happened before that nothing happened, is what Gran used to say. As silly as it sounds, it is idiosyncratic of her, and Keith knows it to be true. Even if he can imagine crystal clearly Shiro’s expression if he heard of Keith’s discharge, he knows his brother would not want him to give up.

As long as he keeps looking, he’ll find something.

#drabbles #!!keith #rebloggable #aND now that i managed to make myself cry

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crystalcell · 4 years

Text

Old Ch1 wip

This is an older version of my first chapter that I plan on revamping in the future.

Enjoy!

---------

The world was a dark and empty place. It was because only so much could be filled at a time, and that made the world both serene and lonesome. Sometimes I dreamt about simply floating through the void like I was just some asteroid myself.

But the nothingness around me would probably be soul-crushingly lonely, so the dream almost always implodes on itself as my mind begins to think about all the things that could happen in empty space.

———————

My day begins with the tune of flutes coming from my alarm clock speakers, the gentle sounds both sudden enough to wake me and soothing enough to, ironically, not be too alarming.

I reflexively hit the 'snooze' button as I finally begin to process my surroundings. When my brain catches up with my body, I turn my alarm off properly, but the bed's too comfy to leave. I don't really attempt to break free from the soft embrace of my bed covers, sinking further into the synthetic fabric. It's only when I hear the louder sound of a bell that I begin to actually wake up.

"Rise and shine, Aóde!" The cheery synthesized voice almost seems to vibrate through the walls of my room. "Don't want you to be late for school!"

Ah yes. School.

It is indeed a school, but at the same time, it really isn't.

It was originally my idea to attend an actual learning facility, but it's recently become more of a hassle than it's worth. My parents aren't too keen on me abandoning my only real chance to interact with the world outside our house and the doctor that easily, but I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready to experience the world outside like others do.

I found myself finally out of bed, stumbling towards my bathroom as I prepared to look alive. When I make it to the bathroom, I take a good look at myself in the mirror, to see if I looked like a disaster or not. My membrane is a bit foggy, making it a grayer shade of blue than it should be, and my cilia are all out of place. But with the help of a brush, I can get most of it under control.

I start to run the water to the shower, washing away grime and flakes with liquid soap and a brush. The water dribbles out from the showerhead, running over my head and off my body. I intently watch it go down the drain as I'm lost in thought, and yet my mind is empty. When the time finally comes back to me and realize I need to actually leave, I dry off and get dressed, and prepare to eat breakfast.

Sitting at the table was my meal for the day, as my parents had already left for work sometime before. Today, breakfast is a sweet fiber bake and carbohydrate spread with eggs and a glass of dihydrogen monoxide, or water, for those not in the mood to be facetious. I eat it up like I hadn't had anything in cycles, down my immuno-suppression pills with a heavy swig and prepare my supplies for school. I wave goodbye to my parent, but I know it'll only be a few hours 'till we see each other again.

I turn on my comm, and class begins.

"Hello, class! And welcome to today's lesson: Anatomy!" Prof. Derad's cheery voice bursts from the speakers, dripping with enthusiasm. The screen itself displays the colorful caricatures of a homon person and various recognizable organelles like the nucleus and mitochondria, all dancing to the upbeat tune that plays in the background.

[yay] one of my classmates, named Erec apparently, comments with more dubious amounts of enthusiasm. Perhaps the jaunty music already got to that one.

"Yes, it's very exciting, isn't it?" Prof. Derad says with a laugh before continuing with the lesson.

"Now we all know that every living is made up of cells, just how you and I are cells ourselves. But what's inside all of us? Well..."

It goes on to talk about the various organelles and parts within a given homon body, though leaves out a bit to still have material for the week. We're treated to class activity similar to jeopardy that isn't super hard but still pretty fun. My team gets pretty far, but our competition wins by a landslide near the end. It was all in good fun, though I'm sure others are at least a little salty about it.

When its time for the first break of the day, I get up to make myself a sandwich, cutting several slices of protein filament and a few bits of lactose while I watch an episode of something I've been hooked on for the past week.

The classes are, as usual, somewhat dull lectures bolstered by much more engaging labs about what we're currently learning about in biology, such as how much cytoplasm a given homon has, a more complex lesson on the function of various important organelles, and we even watch a little video on the complexities of Homo ambiguus biology.

When the day is over, we're given homework to label and name the organelles in the homon body and state their purpose. It's not particularly difficult, but I check my books just to make sure I didn't mix the vesticles with standard vacuoles and get it done within an hour. Most of the work was done by a computer, but it's not like they could tell. Hopefully.

When I'm finished, I go downstairs to clean up the 'debris' left from me snacking all day. It's as soon as I've put away dishes that the home phone begins to ring.

"Hello!" I say as I answer the call

"Hey, Aode!

M. Sahline: "Hey, Aode! How's your day been?"

Aode: "Yeah, it's been good."

Aode: "So, how soon 'till you're here?"

M. Sahline: "Probably in twenty minutes."

Aode: "I'll be ready by then. See you then!"

M. Sahline: "See you then. Goodbye."

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

"Doctor's visit?"

"Doctor's visit."

With a sigh, I begin to put on my personal shell, it's uncomfortable tightness and chill hugging at my membrane as stick on each plate. I put on my favorite white sweater and blue shorts over my protective black gloves and tights. As someone who could kill with a single drop of cytoplasm, I and my parents aren't willing to take any risks.

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

I wait in my room for the time being, staring out at the blue sky watching the tails of ships coming into orbit and far away satellites dance around the planet. The window is just slightly open, letting in some fresh air I was long overdue for.

Their car comes along just a bit later than usual, but the weather is perfectly fine—a gentle breeze lets the long sleeves of my sweater sway in the wind, and rays from the sun warm the cilia strands on my head.

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

As we drive, I absent-mindedly watch the people that drive by us and that traverse the walkways. I even see somebody who looked like the most conspicuous person I've seen outside of movies. Maybe they're filming something nearby.

—————

The clinic isn't a particularly large building but is extremely well-staffed. But even though I've been going here for years, I was never that close to any of them. I think I was back when I was younger, but they kept talking down to me like I was five even when I was fourteen and the closeness just faded from age eleven onward.

—————-------------

"Now I'm taking a cytoplasm-sample."

I barely even cringe as the needle penetrates my membrane. I watch the blue fluid enter the syringe as I have countless times before with a detached interest. But underneath that boredom is a primal fear that I can never truly escape from. All it would take is enough of my bodily fluids to come in contact with another person's surface, and death would surely follow.

Though as I watch Dr. Kana work, I can't help but notice something is off.

"Are you alright?" I ask tentatively, trying to overcome my desire to at least give the doctor a gentle pat on the shoulder.

"No, everything's fine," Kana says quickly, "It's just been a long day's all it is."

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

The injection by the doctor is rougher than the one from before, stinging slightly.

I hold my arm tightly, though I let go after a few moments to let the doctor bandage it.

But the moment never comes.

I begin to feel tired, and the last thing I see is the face of Dr. Kana tearing up before everything goes black.

#scifi writing #biotech #prizmsphere #wip excerpt

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