Little guy

What if not dead Soap, not traitor Soap, not taken-by-Makarov-and-brainwashed Soap, but a secret fourth thing: Soap who wakes up alone in the tunnel and thinks he was abandoned by his team. Add in a little memory loss for spice, shake him up and let him go.

Price, Gaz, and Ghost who couldn't stay until the cleanup/retrieval teams arrived. Who had to leave Soap's body behind and try to catch up with Makarov before his trail goes cold. Soap who wakes up alone, covered in blood but more concerned with where his team has gone. How could they leave him behind? He trusted them, thought they would never betray him... but he's here and they aren't.

Soap who knows the faces of the 141 but not their names or why it hurts to think about them. And their faces and that hurt are all tangled up in the sharp feeling of betrayal (how could they leave him?) and so he thinks they're enemies.

But also Soap who still has an instinctive, visceral hatred for Makarov and his men, so he makes himself a third variable in the fight. He pulls on a balaclava and a skull mask (the skull is important - drenched in a feeling of bittersweet love - but white is a colour not for him so he'll choose red like the blood he woke up in, lost and alone) and becomes a threat to both sides.

Meanwhile, the 141 is reeling from Soap's loss but needs to replace manpower, so they pick up some new people and... it's hard. Ghost and Gaz do not take easy to them. Even Price finds it hard to give the new guys the same leeway he did to Soap. They're all a little colder without their Sunshine. Eventually they run across Soap in the field, however.

Maybe it's just Price and Gaz at first; Ghost retreating into solo missions as he spirals towards self-destruction. They have a lead on one of Makarov's suppliers but when they reach the compound they're meant to infiltrate, they find someone's beaten them to it. Gaz is the one to spot him; alerting his captain to the red-masked figure who's cornered their target and is in the process of making him regret working with Makarov.

They'll never know what gave their positions away, but Gaz will swear down later that the shot that nicked a tree three inches to the left of his head was not a miss. That the man in the red skull had him dead in sights and, at the last second, his hand twitched to send the bullet wide. They get their target - a little worse for wear after enduring the attentions of the mysterious stranger - but they both know it's not the last they've seen of him.

Price sees him next but instead of anyone familiar he's got one of the newbies at his back and this time there's no deliberate miss. Maybe it isn't fatal but the poor soldier standing in a place not meant for them will likely never fight again. Price takes it for the kind of warning it is and refuses to allow any of the other FNGs on any mission where they might encounter the red masked man.

Ghost is the last to meet him, at least up close. Maybe he's only seen the man in passing, neither of them really paying attention to each other except that they're staying out of each other's way. He's heard enough from Price and Gaz to consider the other skull wearer as more of an inconvenient and unpredictable ally than any sort of threat, though. It's been proven more than once that, where both the 141 and Makarov's men are present, the stranger will target Makarov every time. (And if Ghost is apathetic enough by this time to not particularly care if he doesn't fall under the same strange pseudo-protection that Gaz and Price do, well... no one will call him out for it.)

But when Ghost finally meets the man with the red skull up close, he knows. He knows those hands, that posture. He knows the way Soap moves and he especially knows the eyes that peer out from behind that bloody mask. But he can't do anything about it in the moment. This is it, the final push, the last hole the rat Makarov has hidden in. Ghost has to keep his head in the game and hope that when it's over he won't have to mourn Johnny twice.

My Harry Crosby wishlist for upcoming Masters of the Air episodes:

The Tannoy Incident ™️

Croz kicking a door “to splinters” like the bamf he secretly is to retrieve a parachute for one of his baby ‘gators

Croz standing up for one of his baby ‘gators while dramatically showing off and effectively shutting up two high-ranking officers

Croz working 75 hours straight without eating or sleeping in preparation for D-Day but then sleeping through the whole thing

Croz getting into a full-blown yelling match with a Colonel over the intercom during a mission

More Croz & Rosie

Croz being promoted to Major as he’s coming in for a landing on his 28th (and supposed to be last) mission, therefore making it mandatory that he extends his tour

Bubbles to be okay :(

Rob James-Collier | Act On This: April 4th, 2023

i will forgive all of larian's sins both past and present if we get a quest to kill mizora btw

heroes

heroes when you remember you're technically a bad guy

Decided to check out the audio drama Fawx & Stallion this weekend and GUYS... guys this show is SO FUNNY. I couldn't stop laughing for the first three episodes straight.

It's the story of some wannabe detectives living in Victorian London. Specifically, they live at 224B Baker Street, just across the street from a certain pair of decidedly more famous detectives--and they're sick and tired of having all their potential cases scooped by Sherlock Fucking Holmes. Luckily for them, while Holmes and Watson are out of town looking into some matter about a dog, a new case comes along and drops--by default--into our would-be heroes' laps.

And just who are these aspiring crime-solvers?

Hampton Fawx: detective and gentleman. What he lacks in common sense he makes up for with raw theater-kid enthusiasm.

James Stallion: gentleman and detective. A loyal friend and companion when he's not being a self-important arse. Runs on approximately 20% gin and 80% spite.

and finally Madge: neither gentleman nor detective. She's just been stood up by her date and she's going to make that everyone else's problem. She'll agree to help on this case just for the Drama.

It's a hysterical romp so far. A lighthearted farce set just offscreen from Holmes' own capers (for now!). Our main trio lacks even a single braincell to share between them, but by GOD they're going to solve this case and I'm going to be cheering them on the whole way there!

From what I can tell, new episodes are typically every other Monday, but the show's on a short hiatus for the holidays, to return in 2023. The first five are currently available to listen to, though, and I highly recommend it!

In reference to this post I made about a couple of weeks ago, I'd like to go further into depth of how Hikaru's Crux was studied. In this headcanon, please be mindful of the following content warnings: child abuse, torture in a medical setting, and the ethics surrounding human experimentation in the name of "science."

When Hikaru was born and her Crux was discovered, scientists were intrigued on how this particular human could have developed another organ in the womb when her own mother, Katsumi, didn't have one. During Katsumi's entire pregnancy, the additional organ was discovered during routine ultrasounds, but there were discussions into the ethics of testing on an unborn fetus that could lead to Katsumi possibly miscarrying. Not just that, but Tamotsu, Hikaru's father, objected to the point of practically almost getting arrested for threatening to hurt the scientists that wanted to experiment on his wife and unborn daughter.

So, they held off until Hikaru was born so as to carry out their experiments when the Crux was fully developed.

This wasn't met without a great deal of resistance from not just Katsumi, but Hikaru's father, Tamotsu. The both of them vehemently argued to not test their daughter at all, thinking that she deserved so much more than being nothing more than something to gawk at because of being born with something else that no one else, at the time, possessed. For at least five years, Hikaru was able to grow up in a happy family until she was voluntarily given up to participate in the PIPE's training program in an attempt to turn the tides of war. They only gave her up on the promise that no experiments would be carried out on her because of her Crux.

The PIPE, desperate to continue living instead of losing the war against the Gnocem, promised they did. However, promises can be broken and it's one of the PIPE's horrible secrets that they've kept under lock and key this entire time.

See, after Hikaru had been given up by her parents, things were okay for a time. She was properly cared for, treated with respect, and told that things were going to be okay. That was, until, the same scientists who were intrigued when she was still in her mother's womb arrived and brokered a deal with the PIPE: they can test on her all they wanted if it'd produced the results they were looking for and that was to be humanity's weapon in the fight against the Gnocem. The deal was agreed upon and this is where things had taken a turn for the worst for Hikaru, who still was a child at this point.

At first, the experimentation wasn't that bad. Just a few shots and blood tests, really. But when that didn't reveal anything regarding the capabilities of Hikaru's Crux, they had to get "creative" with their testing and by being "creative", they resorted to procedures where sights like these [CW: needles in image] were unfortunately common practice with Hikaru strapped to a cold, metal surgical table and pleading for them to stop hurting her and that she was sorry for whatever she did to deserve this punishment.

Sadly, her pleas fell on deaf ears because it went so much further than just injecting her with multiple drugs. They wanted to see how she'd be able to heal and how much pain she could withstand. So, they went through with not just stabbing and lacerating her, but full on maiming by shooting her through her hands and feet. Again, her cries for mercy went ignored. However, these extreme methods of testing her endurance and pain tolerance finally paid off during her training regimen that she was still expected to go through. They ultimately made her stronger, and in their eyes fortunately able to withstand much more in terms of increased training.

Yet, no one thought about how she was still just a child. During these experiments and training, they slowly whittled away the bright and happy girl that started on this because she was promised that she was gonna be a hero and save the day! How could a child resist that? The PIPE and the scientists kept on saying that this was all in the name of making her a hero, like they promised she'd be.

Was being a hero worth all this pain and misery, though? That was one of Hikaru's many thoughts while she was in her room, quietly sobbing into her pillow at night until she finally was able to sleep, having passed out from the pain and discomfort she was in. Hikaru also learned that no matter how many times she cried or apologized, they'd still carry out the experiments on her, so eventually she'd just lie there and take it, trying to not make a single noise for fear that it'd only ramp up the experiments' intensity on her.

And the way that she was rewarded for this? They simply gave her treats, which were one of her only comforts. She couldn't contact her parents to tell them what was going on and the reports that they received told them that Hikaru was being well taken care of and was happy. Nothing was wrong in their eyes, even as they kept on forgetting the most important aspect of this whole matter: Hikaru was still a child. Yet, if it produced results such as giving them little victories here and there on the war, so be it — they would continue this extreme training regimen and keep on lying to her parents that she was being treated the way that they had promised. To this day, they still don't know what sort of hell their own daughter has been through and Hikaru doesn't want to upset them by telling them the truth, either, because of how these experiments gave them the stability that they have today.

As Hikaru grew up and became more powerful (along with being broken down and molded back into what the PIPE wanted of her), the experiments eventually ceased altogether, but this gave her a lasting fear of anything medical because of the hell she was put through. As previously mentioned, Hikaru is very critical of others tending to her injuries that she sustains in fights since she'd rather be the one to patch herself up because she doesn't trust anyone else to do it. Those in the medbay only admonish her for getting hurt for the umpteenth time and don't have any sympathy for her, no matter how grievous the injury really is. So, she'll often be by herself, dressing her own wounds while trying to stifle her sounds of discomfort however possible. This behavior of hers is still prevalent to this day because of how deep seated her own fear of anything medical is concerned — all because the PIPE saw her as nothing more than a weapon instead of a human being.

As far as anyone's concerned, the PIPE is heralded as this pillar of strength and hope, but no one publicly knows just what it took to get there. It's still classified information that only those who are higher up the food chain are privy to and have sworn to never reveal to the public the atrocities they committed to attain the semblance of peace that they have today. Anyone who tries to speak up about the human rights abuses they committed is silenced, never to be seen nor heard from again.

To Watanabe and others, the PIPE is nothing more than a shining beacon of peace and prosperity in the world and nothing shall ever taint that pristine image that they've cultivated for themselves all these years.

she is being a needy pest.

( yet another picrew edit i made of vivian and @spiritpyro’s hayate... because jason has yet to tell me i’m annoying for constantly posting about them. )

decided to watch the batman 2022 again and. it really was that good huh

WHY ARENT DRAGONS REAL

look, I’m tech stupid and so admittedly I don’t know how this would work, but it would be incredibly FANTASTIC if there were secure text-based/non-phone call-based ways to communicate remotely with doctors that didn’t require giving non-HIPAA-bound companies access to my personal medical data

because frankly, it sucks but yeah, I do give them access because if I have to call by phone to request each thing individually and keep track manually of when I need refills of everything (and they’re on different refill cycle lengths and from different pharmacies), I will mess up sometimes and suffer the consequences. I’m lucky, I won’t die or have my health and survival endangered or anything. I’ll just be in pain. Patient portals and communicate-via-text plans are such a wonderful sounding idea for accessibility reasons but I wish they were more secure and private...

Rob James-Collier || The Attendant

some of y'all need to learn how to accept hospitality. stop assuming people are only offering to look after you out of twisted obligation that they don't actually want to do. when you assume that, you are often denying someone the opportunity to genuinely show a friend or stranger love. even if you don't really care about what they're offering, it's respectful of their desire to be kind to accept it anyways.

i had a bunch of girls i've never met over for a women's group. every single one of them denied my offer to make them tea (despite already making myself a mug anyways), get them water, a scone, etc.

i can tell when people refuse to let me be a good host because they "don't want to be a bother". like no!! please be a bother!!! i want to serve you and make you comfortable in my home!

not to be like "we live in a society" but really do live in a modern culture than emphasizes individualism to the point where people will reflexively deny any help or kindness from others for fear of treading on their independence. newsflash: dependence on each other is what makes a community. next time someone offers you kindness, accept it instead of making excuses for why you don't need it. otherwise you've robbed both yourself of being loved and someone else from showing love.

Alaba out with a torn ACL and the cowboys getting battered what a nice last 2 hours im having