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emergency-plan · 1 month

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DPxDC Idea

I had a little idea an have no time to actually write a fic, so I just wrote a sorta-summary and am posting it like this.

This is inspired by the game Home Safety Hotline and may contain hints to spoilers for that game. It's really clever, I really like it. I recommend you play it if slightly spooky without any "real" horror appeals to you.

Alright, Danny's been Ghost King for a few years and has realized more than just his usual rogues make their way to the living world, and a lot of those ghosts don't stay in Amity. By himself, it'd take forever to track down all those spirits and specters that are out causing mischief. Luckily, not many that escaped his notice are all that powerful and could only cause minor disturbances, just enough to get noticed by the living.

Many people outside Amity don't even recognize the activity as ghosts, so they blame other sources. Scratching in the walls is mistaken as mice, whispers and apparitions are mistaken as hallucinations and carbon monoxide hallucinations, attempted overshadowings mistaken as stokes or migraines. In this day and age, where does everyone turn to when looking for advice or how to solve problems? The internet.

Team Phantom devise a method to try and track down ghosts that are stuck or tormenting the living by building a website meant to look like a help hotline, and with some algorithm trickery make it one of the top options when searching for signs similar to ghost presences. Add some bits and bobs to make it appear as a more normal-looking website on any computer affiliated with government organizations, and you’ve got some protection from the GIW.

Calls start slowly, so the three of them can handle it by themselves. Once more people are calling, they decide to start a call center. They hired some trusted people around Amity and even a few ghosts who want to help. To get around worrying about the ghosts messing with the tech while personally taking a call, they decide to automate the system to record caller’s reports for the employees to listen to, and then send a report back, offering their services to bring the spirit back to the Realms.

It’s been surprisingly lucrative, and Danny hasn’t had to dip into his kingly funds much other than at the start. He still keeps prices low, just enough to not garner suspicions at offering a free service while paying his workers fairly (he doesn’t want to know why some of the ghosts want mortal money). What he’s started having more trouble with is not enough employees to take the calls. Sometimes ghosts lose track of time and don’t show up for their shifts (he doesn’t blame them, time gets weird in the Ghost Zone), and he’s run out of people he trusts who want the job.

Eventually he decides to put out an ad, deciding he’ll slowly trust whoever takes the job with a little more information over time, see how they react, and measure to see if they’re trustworthy.

What he doesn’t think about is how posting it on the website will let more people than just those that live in Amity apply.

Meanwhile, in Gotham, one Cassandra Cain is looking for a job. She doesn’t need the money, B gives her access to way too much, but she wants the experience. She’s at the age she’s heard most kids get a job, and she wants to see what it’s like.

And she quickly found out retail and fast food are NOT for her. She doesn’t think those conditions are fit for anyone, honestly. She’d have to see if she could get Bruce to work on that. But that still leaves her out of a job. She got overwhelmed with a lot of people, so virtual options would probably be best, and something that let her interact with people without having to speak. There weren’t a lot of options out there, and she wasn’t skilled enough with a computer yet to take programming ones.

That’s when she found the listing for the hotline call center. Based in a small Illinois town, but had virtual options, listen to recorded customer calls, diagnose their issue, and send an information packet on potential next steps. It was indirect, could also help her practice her reading, and flexible. It was perfect.

It didn’t take long to hear back after she applied (Danny was freaking out, he didn’t think anyone outside Amity would apply. He’d turn this kid down, but she’d mentioned her difficulties with speaking in her application and SWEETY YOU DONT MENTION STUFF LIKE THAT ON AN APPLICATION. But she said the job would be perfect for her and he just couldn’t…) and she got the job!

Her first day rolls around and she’s given access to the database. A lot has been redacted, but she has descriptions for common problems like mice, carbon monoxide, black mold, etc. she gets her first call recording and carefully reads through the entries before selecting the one that sounds right. She sends it off and waits for the next. The calls come a little too regularly, with too similar intervals between them, so she figures her new employer is testing how well she’s doing (Danny’s giving her previous resolved calls that weren’t anything supernatural. She even got the ants right! He had even gotten that wrong!)

Eventually, her shift ends and she tells her family how well her first day went at dinner. They congratulate her and go on patrol as usual. The next day, things ramp up a little.

She logs into the database at the beginning of her shift and noticed some new entries. She now had access to descriptions of shades, blob ghosts, will o’ wisps, and more minor spirits. She gets a recording reminding her all this info is confidential and that she’s not allowed to share it with anyone. She’s a little confused, but she reads through each just as carefully. The calls come less regularly, so she figures she’s actually connected to the system now (Danny gave her access to the most common ghosts they get calls about and is listening in while he’s handling ghosts to make sure she doesn’t get anything she’s not prepared for).

Her shift ends and over dinner, she mentions that she’s had to diagnose some odd things. They assure her there’s more pests and hazards out there than you’d expect. She doesn’t tell her family about the distraught woman haunted by the Ecto-Echo of her husband’s habit of making her coffee every morning after he passed a few weeks ago. Or the person who had a Shade masquerading as their shadow. Just about one of her caller's cockroach problem.

The next day follows a similar pattern; more entries, slightly more powerful ghosts, reminder that the info she's been given access to is confidential and could get people hurt if it got in the wrong hands, congratulated for her good work, read through carefully and learn signs of each, diagnose calls, before calling it a day (Danny was so proud of her, she'd only confused a blob ghost with a ghost animal once, and it hadn't caused him any trouble when he went to collect them).

She'd used the bat-computer to check up on some of the callers she'd diagnosed, and they seemed to be doing fine. Some had posted about their weird experiences on their social media and how her employer had somehow helped them, but often didn't quite know how (Danny liked to hide his powers, so most of what customers saw was him using ghost tech. When it couldn't be solved with just a quick souping, he had to pull a little ghostly trickery while the customer wasn't watching). She didn't know how her boss was somehow across the world multiple times a day to help clients in different countries, but he seemed to at least be helping people. She started not having any stories she could tell her family at dinner.

At some point, she heard reports that one of the speedsters probably messed with time travel again before clocking into her shift. She had almost all the available entries and had gotten very good at recognizing tricky cases. She answered a recorded call, just like at the beginning of each of her shifts, but this one was a little different. Danny had sent out an announcement to be on the lookout for a specific phenomena that often occurred after shifts in reality, as they were highly dangerous and needed to be dealt with swiftly.

She studied each entry and paused on what she was supposed to keep a careful eye out for. Revenants, corpses that came back to life, often seen shambling around the graveyards they were buried in. Something about that sounded familiar. A section in their entry said the person brought back often had a ghost in the Realms (which she still didn't know what that was) that was in terrible pain from shifts in reality trying to pull them back to their body, but the separation of dimensions preventing them.

Expectedly, she did get a call from someone convinced there was a zombie wandering somewhere along the east coast. She double checked it couldn't be anything else before submitting it and notifying her boss.

Curious, and she knew no one would be in the batcave around this time of day, she brought her laptop with her down to the bat-computer. She found cameras in the area the caller reported, and froze at what she saw. Shambling across an abandoned street was a rotting corpse. It really did look like a zombie. It was covered in dirt, wearing an old-fashioned suit, and had skin sloughing off its bones.

But what Cass could only focus on was how much its movements read that it was in pain. It was suffering in such a horrible way its mindless being didn't even deserve. It was horrible.

Then, there was a flash of green and an area of the cameras were covered in static. The glitched portion somehow read with kindness and pity. It slowly approached the corpse, simple reaching out gently (what was presumably a hand), ignoring the way it lashed out. It suddenly fell, caught and slowly lower to the ground by the strange being she couldn't see. It closed the thing's eyes before carrying it off in the direction the map said a graveyard could be found.

After that, she finished her shift and went to dinner. Her family asked if she was alright, and she only replied it'd been a long day.

She clocked in early the next day and messaged her boss for more information on Revenants. Dinner that night was one of the few times Jason agreed to come by, and if he noticed how she kept glancing at him, he didn't say anything.

A week later, she asked her boss what might happen if a Revenant was exposed to, as it was called in its entry, a "Corrupted Ecto-Spring" ("...an ugly hole in the fabric of reality that connects the world of the living to the Realms. The ectoplasm that leaks through the tear stagnates and festers into toxic pools that kills humans and makes ghosts sick."). Danny requested a video call.

#dpxdc #danny phantom #cassandra cain #i might continue this later but i REALLY need to get back to my homework #got so many ideas but no time and no energy :(#dcxdp

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fishing-lesbian-catgirl · 7 months

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When I heard that companies were reluctant to hire me, a trans women because, on top of everything else, they see us as more hassle than is worth, I imagined the hassle would be like making cis coworkers walk on the eggshells of social faux pas around trans people. I did not imagine that the hassle would come from almost every single internal system having technical difficulties because my legal name and my name aren’t the same

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macgyvermedical · 18 days

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So, in PA there is a bill in the senate called the Patient Safety Act that mandates nurse:patient ratios. Obviously, I am a big fan of this bill as it would ease pressure on nurses and improve patient safety outcomes. It is also very bipartisan, with both republicans and democrats being for and against it in similar ratios. The big criticism of the act as it stands is that there are little to no considerations for small, rural hospitals who would find it difficult to meet those ratios without going under (don't have enough nurses, will have to close beds/hospitals). I thought the solution to this was to obviously increase protections for rural hospitals (like making the ratios for them say 1:6 instead of 1:5 for example.) But this has the unintended consequence of making it more difficult for rural hospitals to entice nurses to work for them (who wants to work in a rural hospital with worse ratios when you can make more money with better conditions somewhere else?) It's already difficult for rural hospitals to find staff. Do you have any ideas on solutions to the problem? I was surprised to find out how nuanced this situation really is, and how it isn't just "put in ratios plz" and everything would be fixed.

You're right in that this situation is extremely nuanced, especially when it comes to the fact that we are (as usual*) in a nursing shortage nation wide.

Staffing ratios only work when there are enough nurses to meet demand. A lot of times the goal of staffing ratios is to incentivize hospitals to hire more nurses, but if there are no nurses to hire that doesn't work. So you have to then consider alternatives, like you mentioned- either closing hospitals, or closing beds.

Consider, though, that if hospitals go the route of closing beds to maintain ratios, the acuity (care difficulty/complexity) of those patients the nurses are caring for goes up because lower acuity patients get triaged out.

The "sweet spot" of acuity to number of patients then relies on the number of nurses available to serve a population. That means that populations with a smaller number of nurses have either a higher number of patients per nurse, or a higher acuity patient load than a population with a relatively large number of nurses.

And pretty much everywhere right now, rural areas specifically, there are just too few nurses to make staffing ratios possible at scale.

So. How do you go about providing a high standard of care for patients when there are fundamentally too many patients and too few nurses? The system needs to change. I present a few possibilities below:

Bring LPNs back to the bedside in hospitals: While I don't mind Magnet as an entity and think they do some good things, IMO they royally screwed the pooch by mandating RNs (particularly BSN prepared RNs) only on hospital floors. You can make LPNs a lot faster and cheaper (10-18months, $20,000) than you can make RNs (3 years, $40,000), or BSN-RNs (4-5 years, $80,000). And while you still need an RN license to do things like push IV meds and interpret assessment findings, just about everything else can be done by an LPN. So we need to be using that resource to make more nurses fast.

Institute Team Nursing: You know how you use LPNs efficiently? It's not by giving them a group of patients and having them run around to find an RN every time they need to push an IV med. It's either by having them as a dedicated tasker (doing the time-consuming skilled tasks like wound care, catheter placement, IV placement, etc... for many RNs) or incorporating them into a team. With team nursing, you have an RN, an LPN, and an STNA/Tech all caring for 12-15 patients instead of an RN and an LPN caring for 5 each with a tech helping. The RN does the tasks only an RN can do (assessments, IV meds, plans of care) and communicates with the doctors, the LPN does most of the med pass and skilled tasks, and the STNA does the basic patient care. Since there's 3 people working together instead of separately, it's easier to find someone to help with 2-person tasks like boosting a patient in bed. You would not believe how much time this saves and how much more patient care can actually get done.

Institute Advance Practice Providers (or at least universal contact methods): I'm not saying we have a ton of these either, but you only need about one per floor. See, I can't tell you how much time I used to spend just trying to figure out who to contact about a problem, and how they wanted to be contacted. Because God forbid you text Doctor A instead of paging or page Doctor C instead of calling. Now I work on a floor with an APP and you can just go straight to them and they can either write the order you need themselves or contact the doc who can. Probably a good 15% of my time is back and I'm not even exaggerating.

Change culture around nursing duties: this is a controversial one, but as nurses are spread more thinly than ever and medical acuity has gotten so much higher, the basic care is genuinely getting worse. I have seen this happen over the last 8 years I've been in my job. So. Re-teach families how to care for loved ones in the hospital. Make it culture that if you have a family member in the hospital someone is with them. And when I say with them, I don't mean just visiting. I mean actively caring for the family member. Helping them to the bathroom, helping them dress and eat and clean themselves. Helping them do basics. Entertaining them, distracting them, comforting them. Things we used to be able to do when our patients weren't actively trying to die at all times.

*technically, we have been in a nursing shortage since WWII. But a lot of factors, COVID-19 specifically and a shortage of student slots in RN-level nursing schools, have made things particularly bad in recent years.

#nursing #politics #nurblr #medical #hospital life

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justlike-awoman · 4 months

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Queen's chief road manager & FOH sound mixer John Harris's interview in the Roadies Page -segment of Beat Instrumental, December 1974 issue (article scanned & edited by me)

This interview with John Harris in 1974 gives very fascinating insights into the technical side of touring with Queen, including managing & transportation of the equipment, and balancing the books!

Beat Instrumental was a UK monthly pop and rock magazine aimed at musicians emphasising instruments, production and equipment.

Full transcript under the cut:

Roadies Page-

QUEEN'S John Harris (and team)

QUEEN ARE going the same way as Yes. That's not to suggest there are any musical similarities, rather the band believe in working for the future.

As soon as Yes started to earn decent money, they ploughed it all back into improving their act and giving better value for money in the hope that the public would respond. Respond they did and the investment paid huge dividends, as everybody knows.

Queen are doing the same thing. And that gives John Harris and his team quite a few problems. John is Queen's chief road manager. He's been with the band from the very beginning when they were called Smile and when the band went pro, he cast aside his college training and left his future in their hands. He's not regretting that.

John's team is a continually expanding and contracting one. His assistant is Robert Johnstone who joined the band in Scotland about nine months ago. Then there's a lighting crew (including someone to mix the lights) and truckers to do what roadies used to do a few years ago.

'The main problem is the worry,' admits John. 'It's such a great responsibility getting this lot of stuff around.’

We were talking at a full rehearsal of the band, held in a disused cinema in Ealing, West London, shortly before the band undertook their UK tour. In addition to the vast piles of source amplification, there was a massive RSE PA system, three mixers (one for fold-back mix), on-stage lighting towers, a massive mobile overhead gantry for lighting (very new), a number of high-power spotlights and a mixing desk for lighting. These are the basic units.

On stage the band's equipment is as follows. For bass there is a mixture of Hiwatt and Acoustic amplification delivering about 300 watts into a mixture of Sound City and Acoustic cabinets. Brian May insists on using Vox AC30s. He uses six of them for lead guitar. His initial guitar signal is amplified by two AC30s, the output is miked up and fed to the PA. The signal is also fed into an Echoplex and that output is, in turn, fed into two more AC30s. That output is miked up and fed to the mixer and it is also taken to a second Echoplex which is fed to the last pair of AC30s. That output is also miked and sent to the mixer.

ORIGINAL

'Brian's a real AC30 freak.' explains John. 'Most of his amps are original but we're trying out some of the new AC30s on the market and he says he likes them.' The piano is miked by a contact mike and amplified via a Hiwatt system which delivers through two Peavey cabinets. The drums are amplified via ten mikes.

Most of the microphones are AKGs with D190, D1200 and 202 models predominating.

One of John's most important tasks is the sound mixing. Because he's been with the band so long he understands exactly the mix required for their music.

'I think the most important requirement for a sound engineer on live gigs, is an understanding of the band's music. If you understand exactly what the band is trying to do in each section you're in a far better position to get the sound just right.’

John has to deal with two mixers. Both are supplied by RSE from whom the entire PA system is hired. One is a 20-channel mixer which mixes vocal and instrument mikes together and the other is a fifteen-channel unit used just for drums. The effects units are Binson and Echoplex echo chambers and the system has an output around 23KW.

The fold-back is also mixed separately, but the band adjust that from the stage. The massive lighting system that the band carry is hired from ESP.

Going on tour for Queen is a mighty expensive operation with this kind of set up. To get it all around the band hire a 32-ton artic, that costs over £500 per week (including driver). The hire bill for the PA and lighting equipment (including crews) is over £2,000 a week and during the time the band are rehearsing the cinema costs £150 a week. In addition there's the back line and that costs about £5,000.

All this is John's responsibility.

'I suppose I spend two hours each day working out the figures.

It really takes some organising making sure that the budget is properly spent. It must be said that Queen don't make anything out of touring, there's just no money in it. It's all to promote the records.

'I don't think tour rigs can really get any bigger or any more expensive. I think we've reached the end.’

#'I don't think tour rigs can really get any bigger or any more expensive. I think we've reached the end' - in hindsight this is so endearing #Queen just kept expanding their rigs against all odds!! it just kept growing and never stopped!#queen #queen band #john harris #brian may #robert johnson #classic rock #research #my scans #my stuff #my posts

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vermillioncrown · 3 months

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my heart might give out from stress

i don't want my drafts to remain in purgatory if that happens

here's a snippet from the blowjob brothers

happy vday or whatever

hlwi snippet: timkorv ceo and pa roleplay

tldr what you get when you have two overthinking maskers that are dating

(mature, allusions to exhibitionism)

Korvin is supposed to shadow Tim today as his PA. At the same time, he can stealthily join in discussions on some Wayne Enterprises & Subsidiaries’ projects for the next fiscal year. It’s dubious as hell, managerially incestuous, and not at all billable to any of the workbooks. Technically, Korvin is “Out of Office.”

Tam gives them a Look, Lucius gives them a bigger Look, and they both separately say, “Keep it out of Meeting Room 5B.”

“Pardon?” Korvin plays the wide-eyed mangénue well—first PA job fresh out of his management degree, definitely-of-course-not hired for his credentials nor family connections.

“Director Kwan-Wayne.” Lucius removes his glasses to polish them and says in a mild tone, “That 3 AM with M-Systems could have your name on it for the rest of your tenure. Clear?”

Korvin drops character for a brief moment of honesty. “Crystal, Chief Fox; keeping it contained.”

They get left alone late morning in Tim's office. Tam pointedly does not look in their direction and pushes the controls to shut the blinds.

That’s not Tim’s concern right now.

Right now, his only concern is coaxing the young and nervous PA to come play with him. Cute face, DSL, firm ass, and positively stacked—Tim has to have him under his hands as soon as possible. “I don’t have super hearing, Mr. Kwan. You’re going to have to come closer to my desk.”

His PA walks to the front of the desk, posture stiff and straight like he’s about to crumple with nerves given any leeway. He doesn’t look Tim in the eye; instead, he leans over the desk and clumsily holds the tablet out to show the agenda for the day.

“Mr. Drake, I have the brief for 11 AM printed—if I could go retrieve—”

“Mr. Kwan, no need for that; just brief me like this.”

“L-Like this?” Poor thing is flustered and baffled. Tim supposes he needs a bit of clear direction to help him along.

“Oral report,” he clarifies. And Tim can’t help it when the back of his pen traces against the younger man’s jaw. The metal tip goes up to the corner of his lips, tapping that tempting beauty mark right at the edge. All of it would look amazing wrapped around his cock. The heat would fog up those cute glasses, and if Tim gets careless with his aim? A little mess on those unruly curls wouldn’t be out of place. “Nervous when you speak, Mr. Kwan?”

“I-I,” his PA swallows, the motion framed by the turtleneck under his suit. The suit itself is nicely fitted, if a little juvenile in the fabric weight and cut; obviously a gift from someone with more means. The turtleneck pairing is tasteful, but a choice—hiding love bites? With the gift suit and his looks, maybe this type of “PA work” isn’t outside of the younger man’s experience. “I’m trying to work on. Uh. That, M-Mr. Drake.”

“Luckily for you, I have plenty of advice to offer,” Tim offers with a smile. “We have half an hour—why don’t you come around and I do that while we discuss the brief?”

His PA gives a bashful glance at the wall clock, though still frozen in his vulnerable pose and in Tim's hand.

“Don’t be shy,” Tim whispers, letting the back of his fingernails graze along the younger man’s cheek. Dark eyes follow the path his hand takes, trace it back to Tim himself. When it’s obvious that the other is fighting back a timid but interested bite on his bottom lip, Tim lets his gaze fall to “bedroom eyes” and cocks his head to beckon his new playmate over.

Their roleplay quickly falls apart after that, though because neither Tim nor Korvin can stand being Not Correct. The derailment happens at the intended coy exchange of, “‘Oh, what if we get caught?’ ‘Guess you’ll have to be quiet, sweetheart,’” and then—

“What? No, now I’m actually concerned. You’re the loud one,” is refuted with, “no, that’s you with the actual anechoic sex room.”

“It’s not a—whatever! I literally had to install a trained bypass filter on the hall cams because of you!”

Never mind the unhinged meticulousness in finding the right sounds to train said filter on— “And you got caught, so fine, we’re both loud but I’m stealthier! ...and you’re louder.”

“We have the technology to be, y’know, objective. You just don’t want to be wrong.”

“I don’t want to dignify this argument with actual data.”

“Yeah, that’s how I know you’re actually louder,” Korvin rolls his eyes, even as he continues to contort himself under Tim’s desk. “This front drawer’s in the way.”

Tim pushes his chair back and bends to look at the bottom of the drawer. “I think if you kneel further back, but then—”

“—yeah, I'd have to lean forward.”

“Oh…but that's a better angle for your throat, though.”

Korvin nods thoughtfully. “You'd have to keep me from falling too forward or chance someone seeing my hands stick out,” he muses.

“I'll keep my ankles crossed back in. Brace against that,” Tim suggests, and at Korvin's nonchalant thumbs up, he rolls back in front of his desk.

#on hlwi #phd-verse #verm bits #christ alive yesterday it was ''we're so back''#today ''it's so over''#*made it pink bc i'm losing control and need to exert it wherever idk #fun note: this is either the first or second hlwi scene written #bc it's one thing to say ''haha wouldn't it be funny if a and b got together?''#but they can't actually have fun or don't have chemistry #so the snippet was a proving ground that the development of tpac wasn't crazy #it may or may not make it into the final cut so here we go #extra extra 2024 roz and i agreed to do whatever we want and not shy from sharing stuff out of some ~artistic vision~ or whatever #like there are things to withhold if mystery and suspense are key #but otherwise don't care #hm i say it's a proving ground a lot #but each snippet is dealing with a different brain worm

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pinkrangersarah · 10 months

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what's even more unexpected than a season 5 announcement, is me actually getting back on my bullshit and thinking about max's parents. (yeah, i just rewatched parent's day and, yeah, i got a little teary eyed, don't fucking look at me.)

it's canon that max's parents are inattentive to him; they "don't care" about him. it's popular for people to headcanon that they are also physically abusive to him (despite no evidence supporting this in the show), and i remember a while back seeing some theories that his parents are actually foster parents. over the years i've come to dislike these theories, the former having nothing to back it up and the latter getting under my skin because of how the foster care system is in real life--broken, with children often falling into the hands of horrible people. i've come to really dislike media feeding into that reputation.

in trying to come up with my own ideas for max's parents, i started looking into marital traditions and the views of divorce in indian culture. max states in "camp cool kidz" that his parents left their home country (although i'm willing to bet the reason he gives isn't entirely true, if it's true at all), so we can assume that they were married in india. i found an article by shibani joshi, where she talks about her experience with marriage and divorce. arranged marriage is a tradition in many indian cultures and, according to joshi, india has one of the lowest divorce rates, and divorce can bring shame to families, particularly to women.

in her story, joshi makes it clear that she wanted to put her children first; that if she was really going to go through with divorce, it wouldn't be until after her youngest turned 18. she was afraid of what her family would think if she and her now ex-husband divorced. because of this, i'd be hesitant to make a similar case with max's parents; i wouldn't want to potentially smear a cultural tradition and anxieties of a group of people. with how max describes his parents, i wouldn't feel good about it (or perhaps i'm overthinking it).

however, what if his parents wanted to avoid those traditions? before i turned away from this fandom, i used to headcanon that they were young and naive (barely 20) when they had max. i could still see that being the case; perhaps neither of them wanting to go through with arranged marriages, despite that being a generational tradition in their families. consider max's parents leaving india to start over somewhere in america, similar to how joshi describes her father starting a new life in america.

this inevitably takes a turn for the worst, as they are still in those young "finding yourself" stages of life and, on top of that, are trying to settle into a new life in a new country with a baby. the marriage gets strained, and as the two parents take out their frustrations on one another, max is often ignored as a result. "i'm busy, ask your father." "i'm busy, ask your mother." communication falls apart and max is often forgotten about at school, the parents spending more time blaming each other rather than comforting their child. one parent signs him up for after school activities he isn't interested in doing because it's cheaper than hiring a sitter and neither parent is willing to compromise on their work schedules. his parents aren't involved in any aspect of his life, unless they are called in for it (parent-teacher conferences, "max was sent to the principal's office again"), because they are too focused on themselves and their own lives not meeting their expectations. eventually, max learns that negative attention is better than no attention at all. emotional neglect is still abuse, even if it isn't immediately noticeable.

i highly doubt anyone is going to read this, but to anyone who does: what are your thoughts? i'm 100% open to constructive criticism (especially if i've stepped on any toes in regards to culture and traditions, it's the very last thing i want to do) and anyone else's takes on max's parents. i definitely have other headcanons, but if i'm really hopping back onto my bullshit then i'll most likely share them another day.

#camp camp #cc max #holy shit me posting a cc headcanon post in 2023?#what a wild year this is shaping up to be

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toomanystoriessolittletime · 2 years

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Attraction

Summary: Dieter is in love with your voice. He just hasn’t met you yet. You are the woman who was hired to record his scripts for him so he could listen to them. But one plane ride to Spain might just change both of your life’s.

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x fem. Reader

Wordcount: 2.8k

Rating: T

Warnings: puns, dyslexia, toddlers, air plane food, fluff, some sexy talk, mentions of drugs and alcohol, a surprise end?

Masterlist

Something was ringing.

Dieter groaned, his right arm reaching over to where the noise was coming from, keeping his eyes closed until the very last moment, while he brought his phone to his ear.

“Where are you? The car is waiting outside,” the familiar voice of his new PA droned in his ear.

“Why?” he croaked, his eyes finally blinking open, finding the room in complete darkness, save for a slit of light from the bedroom window.

His PA, Anthony, sighed.

“Your flight to spain? We talked about it yesterday. Your suitcase is already in the car. Do you need any…”

“Fuck. Right. Forgot to set an alarm. I’ll be down in 15,” Dieter said and rubbed his eyes.

“Good. I have your Starbucks here.”

“I love you,” Dieter hummed and Anthony chuckled before he ended the call.

Dieter took a deep breath before he sat himself up, using the home app on his phone to open the curtains.

It was a new house. He still wasn’t used to the view. The sound of the ocean crashing against the shore just outside of his property.

Dieter had changed his whole life in the last two years.

After the whole cliff beasts disaster he went off drugs. Tried to make the relationship with Anika work. Failed. Got back to drugs. Got fired by his agency. Almost died again because of the drugs. Went to rehab.

Now it’s been three months since he was completely sober.

And he felt…. Good.

He had a new agent, a new house, he even had a fucking work out routine. Technically. He even tried going vegan for a while but he fucking couldn’t live without swiss goat cheese in his life.

He got out of bed, his limbs protesting. The air in his bedroom was cold, goosebumps erupting over his whole body. Turning around he narrowed his eyes, trying to find his airpods. He fell asleep listening to his script again.

Listening to you.

What many people did not know about Dieter (or more like what he didn’t know about himself until the tender age of 32) was that he was dyslexic.

Back in school the teachers just thought he was another dumb mexican kid not caring to learn anything. (thanks racism) Then once he got out of school Dieter always found someone to read for him.

He enjoyed reading. Always did. He just couldn’t figure out why it was so fucking hard for him. Back in the 80s people did not care about such things.

It was back when he was shooting a shity mini series he couldn’t even remember the name of anymore, that he talked to a colleague who had the same issues.

Things had changed after that. Dieter took lessons, got ebooks in a special font that made it easier for him to read. And it really got better.

But there were still days when it just won’t work. For days like that his old agent had organised someone to read his scripts for him. Much like an audiobook.

And… weirdly this woman, you, became the only constant in his life ever since you started with the recordings almost 10 years ago.

Which was funny because he had never met you.

Just your voice.

He knew your first name. That’s it.

And he built this whole picture of you in his mind.

Was it possible to fall in love with a voice?

Dieter opened the doors to his little balcony, inhaling the ocean air as he closed his eyes.

He would miss it.

Four months of shooting a series in Spain were coming up, his first project after his relapse. He was looking forward to it, as much as he was scared. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been on a set with a clear head. Without any drugs or alcohol in his system.

Instead he had organic smoothies, breathing exercises and his therapist on speed dial.

He scratched his chin, taking a last look at the ocean in front of him before he turned around and made his way to the shower to get himself ready.

You hated airports.

HATED them. There were too many people. It always had that weird smell? People everywhere seemed to be in a rush and frankly, fucking rude.

But you had promised.

You had promised your sister that you would take a 10 hour flight with a toddler, your precious daughter Maxie, aged two, to Spain because she wanted to have a destination wedding.

Yes, it could be worse as getting a paid trip to spain for three weeks, in first class, mind you, because your sister’s future husband was fucking loaded.

Just a 10 hour flight with Maxie… You looked down at her, sleeping soundly against your chest as you sat at the gate, waiting for the flight to board.

You closed your eyes, kissing her on the top of her head.

Her father, your previous boyfriend, had left you when you found out you were pregnant.

You hadn’t heard from him since. Not throughout your pregnancy, not when Maxie was born, not ever.

There were times where you wished you had help in your life. You didn’t have family living close and you did not have many friends. Your neighbour Mr. Winter had been your saviour. He was in his seventies, his wife passed years earlier, leaving him a little lonely. He had found you crying in the hallway when you got back from the appointment where you found out you would be having a girl, having no one to share the news with.

He had invited you for a piece of lemon cake, drying your tears.

Mr. Winter was the father you wished you had in your life. He was like a grandfather to Maxie and you were glad you had him in your life.

“First class for flight DT453 to Barcelona is now boarding,” you opened your eyes, looking at the people making their way towards the doors.

You watched a man in a purple sweater make his way towards the flight attendant, his ticket in his hand. He was only carrying a small bag over his broad shoulders. He had dark hair, curly and unkempt.

You looked after him until he walked through the door and towards the plane before you carefully got up from the uncomfortable chair, Maxie still in your arms as you grabbed your backpack and pulled your boarding tickets and passports out.

If you were lucky, she would stay asleep for a little while longer.

Dieter was listening to your voice, reading him the newest script of a SciFi Thriller. He had his airpods in as he made himself comfortable in his seat, taking his shoes off immediately and pulling Crocs on. He put the seatbelt on, grabbing his phone to put it into flight mode before he leaned back and sighed.

In the corner of his eyes he could see a woman walking past his seat with a toddler in her arms, getting into the row in front of him. He watched her as she put what he thought was her daughter down on the window seat before she pulled her backpack off and rolled her neck with her eyes closed. Her eyes caught his when she opened them and she blinked once, twice, before she gave him a small smile and a nod and sat down in her seat.

Dieter closed his eyes, relaxing in his seat and it wasn’t long before he fell asleep. With your voice in his ear.

Maxie thankfully slept through the beginning of the flight, giving you time to relax.

Technically.

Years ago, when money was low you had started working for a local agency making audio readings of scripts.

Apparently there were actors out there who were too lazy to read the words by themselves.

But Dieter Bravo wasn’t.

You had read about his condition and even saw an interview or two where he spoke out about it.

Of course you knew who he was. The tabloids were full of his escapades.

And now he was sitting behind you on a ten hour flight.

You had never met him. You wouldn’t say you were a huge fan but you did enjoy his works. He was a very talented actor when you ignored the whole scandals around his person. Though you had read that he had gotten sober and changed basically every part of his life lately.

“Mommy,” Maxi blinked her eyes open, her little head turning to search for you. You smiled at her, taking her hand.

“Are you ready to fly to see Auntie Sarah?” you asked and Maxi rubbed her eyes but nodded. It was her first flight.

“So you gotta sit in your seat until that little light goes off. And then we can watch Moana?” Maxie nodded with a small smile, trying to look outside.

The flight took off and Dieter had fallen asleep at some point, waking up when a Stewardess asked him what he wanted to have for dinner. He ordered the lasagna and some fruity mocktail before he groaned and stretched his muscles.

He heard a childish giggle from the seat in front of him, followed by a voice talking he would recognize everywhere.

You had just been reading to him after all.

He narrowed his eyes, leaning in closer, but yes. It must be you.

You who had unknowingly been the one constant in life for almost ten years.

Taking a deep breath he got up from his seat to walk to the restroom to freshen up. He was still unused to seeing himself so… healthy. He put on some weight and that skin routine his stylist taught him was doing wonders for his skin.

He chuckled to himself as he made his way back, asking for a Kit Kat when he passed the bar.

Some habits were just too good to get rid of.

He made his way back to his seat, the little girl who had been giggling when he left now sleeping on the seat and he decided to use this time to talk to you.

“I know you,” you turned your head around looking up to see Dieter Bravo standing beside you. You narrowed your eyes.

“That’s…. An odd way of saying hello to a complete stranger,” you said and he flinched, his hand rubbing his neck.

“Yeah. Noticed that too. I sound like a fu…” he looked at Maxie sleeping, “freaking stalker,” he shook his head and you huffed a laugh.

“Okay. From the beginning. Hi. I’m Dieter and I think I know you,” he held out his hand which you took to shake it.

You told him your name.

“I know you too. But it’s not that creepy when I say it,” you winked and he chuckled.

“That’s true. But… It is you? Right? I was listening to you reading that very very bad Sci Fi script earlier…”

“Oh yeah. Yeah that was me. I’m glad you think it’s bad too.”

“It sucks. Don’t know why my agent even sent it to me,” he shook his head with a smile.

“I mean if you’d take it it might be ending up as a decent movie,” you shrugged and he grinned.

“Was that a compliment I just heard?”

“Maybe. Don’t get used to it though.”

Four hours into your ten hour flight you were sitting next to Dieter, Maxie on your lap as you all watched Pets.

Well Maxie was watching with her headphones on while you and Dieter talked. About everything really.

He had told you about how hard it was to stay sober, but that he wanted to keep it up this time. He even told you how close he came to dying the last time and your heart broke for him.

“I don’t think you should be telling things like that to a total stranger,” you teased but he smirked.

“You’re not a total stranger. I fell asleep with you more times than I can count.”

“Oh,” you said, suddenly flustered.

“Honestly. I feel like you’re the only constant in my life I had in the last ten years which sounds… so freaking weird because we never met each other.”

“It’s not weird. I feel like I know you too. Or I thought I did? I mean… I know tabloid Dieter. But I like this version better,” you smiled.

“Thank fuck, oh sorry,” he apologized as he looked at Maxie but you just shook your head.

“She’s totally focused on the movie. She won’t hear you.”

“How old is she?”

“Two. Turning three in four months.”

“She’s adorable. You must be proud.”

“More than that. She’s my whole life,” you smiled down at her.

“Are you… Are you and her father…” he asked. You shook your head.

“Haven’t seen him since I told him I was pregnant. It was… It was a hard time back then.”

“What a… asshole,” he whispered and you chuckled, strangely taken by how he was trying to keep the cursing at a minimum.

“Yeah. But it’s his loss really. She’s perfect,” you said and Dieter nodded.

“I think you are too,” he mumbled and you grinned.

“You think?”

“Give me the rest of the flight to figure it out.”

“So have you done other audio readings?” he asked after dinner. Maxie was asleep and hopefully would stay that way for the rest of the flight. The lights were dimmed and Dieter had ordered what looked like all the sweets of the bar.

“I’ve done a couple. But yours are the ones I kept up with.”

“Any… steamy stuff?” he wiggled his eyebrows. You huffed a laugh.

“Wouldn’t you like to know…” you hummed with a teasing smile.

“Fuck yes I would,” he whispered and you bit your lip.

“I haven’t done readings,” you finally said.

“But way back I might have done some… dubbing for European porn.”

“They dub that shit?” he asked and you laughed quietly, nodding your head.

“It was only two movies and it was awkward as fuck.”

“I wonder how you…” he stopped himself, biting his lip as he looked at you.

“You wonder how?” you asked expectantly.

He leaned in, and you could feel the warmth of his body against your side. You gulped.

“I wonder how you sound when you cum,” he whispered against your ear and you shuddered. He kissed you beneath your ear before he sat back in his chair, watching you the whole time.

“I… Maybe this was….” you stuttered.

“Maybe this was?”

You turned his body towards him, looking into his eyes.

“Okay so. Isn’t it crazy that we met each other like that? And… you feel that too right? I never felt… I… Whatever this is?” you gestured between you and him.

“Yeah. I mean… Not to be too forward but I think I fell in love with your voice years ago. Even when I was fucking high and out of it, you could calm me down. And meeting you? Yeah… Yeah I feel that.”

“How long are you in spain?”

“Four months. Shooting a series. You?”

“Three weeks but…. I work from home and my sister’s husband is fucking loaded so maybe I could stay….”

“I want to get to know you. I wanna take you out on dates. I wanna get to know Maxie and feed her as much Ice Cream as possible.”

“Don’t you dare,” you laughed, but he took your hand.

“Give me your phone so I can give you my number.”

The flight was spent talking with Dieter. At some point Maxie woke up and climbed into Dieter’s lap before she continued to sleep. You were… You were as much confused as he was but he assured you it was okay and that he had many nieces and nephews who did the same.

He helped you get your things together once the plane landed and you arrived in Barcelona, keeping Maxie in his arms as you walked out of the plane.

“So…” he said.

“So,” you said, Maxie already sitting in the black car that would bring you to your sister.

“I’ll see you soon?” you asked. He nodded.

“If there wouldn’t be these two paparazzis around I would kiss you now,” he whispered and you smiled.

“I would let you,” you grinned.

“Text me when you get to the hotel,” he said.

“You too.”

He hugged you then and you inhaled his scent.

You said your goodbyes and got into the car, unknowing that you would see Dieter for dinner with your sister and fiancé later on the same day.

Because as it turned out, Dieter Bravo was the cousin of your sister's fiance Javi Gutierrez.

#my fic #dieter bravo #dieter bravo x fem. reader #pedro pascal #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction

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novankenn · 5 months

Text

Ah, come on!?!

THREE

Wolf Bete watched completely stunned as Jaune took off his VR Goggles, pulled a pillow out of the bottom drawer of his desk and fell asleep... in the span of less than a minute.

Wolf Bete: This is bullshit.

Pulling the lab coat tighter about his/her body, Wolf Bete idly started to look about the lab. Multiple monitors and screens showed stats, and had lines of code rolling past. Some even appeared to be possibly showing vitals. Which surprised Wolf a little bit. He/she was under the assumption that only they had been in the body building stage... but apparently that was not the case.

Standing up and making a considerable effort to insure the lab coat stayed closed, Wolf Bete started to walk about. Bare feet made slapping noises as they moved along the cold tiled floor. Carrying Wolf Bete along the wall of monitors and view screens, until he./she came to stop next to the only other desk in the fairly expansive room. Sitting upon it were several tablets, almost as if they had been tossed there out of annoyance. Picking one up, Wolf Bete started to read.

Wolf Bete: Hydra...hmm... regenerating grimm... hmm... eight heads... hmm... venom breath... that's so cool!

Wolf Bete lowered the tablet and gave the sleeping form of Jaune a glare.

Jaune: I can feel you starting at me. Stop it.

Wolf Bete: How could you?

Jaune: How could I what?

Wolf Bete: I'm not even done with quality control, and you're already making another... plus, this one has so many awesome powers! Regeneration, multiple heads... venom breath! Where's my special powers?

Jaune: Keep reading... and you do have powers.

Wolf Bete: But not venom breath!

Jaune: Keep reading, and do it quietly... I need sleepy-time.

Wolf turned his/her attention from the grumbling form of Jaune, who during the whole conversation hadn't once lifted his head from his pillow, and continued to read.

Wolf Bete: WHAT!?! How can you be a hydra with only one extra head? No Venom breath? No regeneration? What the hell! This is nothing like the first page!

Jaune: It's sleepy-time. Keep it down.

Wolf Bete: Seriously, dude, how could you let...

Jaune: (shooting Wolf Bete a glare from his pillow) I didn't let anything happen. I was out voted and my budget was cut.

Wolf Bete: Still...

Jaune: Still nothing. I do the best I can with what I have. If the BoD wants to yank two thirds of my proposed budget away from the development of a monster and... and... and...

Wolf Bete: And?

Jaune: Transfer it into our Mobile Applications Department to... to... (Jaune's deep blue eyes started to tear up) to...

Wolf Bete: To?

Jaune: Hire more people, so... so... so they can create larger and more DLC... (sob)

Wolf Bete sets down the tablet and turned his/her head away as Jaune starts bawling into his pillow, sobbing and choking about how he only needs one employee just to help out... just one.

Wolf Bete: Gee dude, get a gr...

PA: Proximity Alert! Proximity Alert!

Wolf Bete: What the hell is that?

Jaune: Crap, crap, crap!

Wolf watches as Jaune knocks his pillow aside and slaps on his VR goggles, before starting to type madly at his keyboard.

Jaune: Not good. Not good!

Wolf Bete: What's going on?

PA: Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!

Jaune: Shit! Shit! Shit! Fuck! Shit!

Wolf Bete: Jaune!

Jaune: Activate your armour! Someone has gotten into the lab facility! I'm activating the automated defence systems...

Wolf froze for a second and the frowned. Why was he/she naked if she/he had armour they could activate?

Wolf Bete: When were you going to tell me about the armour thing? Like I’ve been standing around basically naked and this whole time I could have been wearing something aside from your stinky lab coat?

Jaune: I don’t smell, and I’m tired, okay! Really… exhausted! So EXCUSE ME for forgetting something!

Wolf Bete: Take a chill dude! I was just asking!

PA: Automated Defences offline.

Jaune: Crap! Crap! Crap! This is SO coming out of my budget!

Wolf Bete: Seriously?

Jaune: Forget it, just forget I said anything. Are you ready?

Wolf takes a moment and thinks, instantly understanding how to activate their armour. A second later they were sporting bone white plated over their chest, waist, hips and upper thighs… the entire ensemble comparable to someone wearing a sports-top and biking-shorts, with matching armour plates on his/her forearms and shins.

Wolf Bete: Ready!

Jaune: Good! (Stands up and heads for the door.) Let’s go! We need to stop whoever this is!

Wolf Bete: You’re coming?

Jaune: Well duh. I need to observe you… make sure everything is working properly.

Wolf Bete: So you’re not going to help?

Jaune: I’m a listed non-combatant… so I can’t.

Wolf Bete: What if I start to lose? You mean you can’t even help me then?

Jaune: Not officially…

Wolf Bete: How about Unofficially?

Jaune: What are you worried about? You’re the best, most sophisticated monster I’ve ever made… so far.

Wolf Bete: That makes me… heh! What was that?

Jaune: What was what?

Wolf Bete: I’m the best you made… SO FAR? What is that suppose to mean? Like that is totally a motivation killer dude!

Jaune: It’s the truth! You’re the pinnacle of my work… but my work is always evolving! I’m always striving to be better.

Wolf Bete: So what happens to me when one of these ‘BETTER’ creations shows up? Do I get tossed by the wayside?

Jaune: No!

Wolf Bete: Then what happens? What happened to your other creations? Tell me that!

Jaune: They were retried and got office jobs at Head Office!

Wolf Bete: So you will… wait what? Did you say they have office jobs? What type of office job can a monster do?

Jaune: Well… I… um… well…

Wolf Bete: That was a lie! They’ll destroy me when you make my replacement!

Jaune: No they won’t!

Wolf Bete: How do you know? Where are your other creations?

PA: Intruder in sublevel three.

Jaune: There are none, okay? You’re my first!

Wolf Bete: Huh? How is that possible? Like… huh?

Jaune: I JUST finished my degree, and everything up until you have been theoretical prototypes… you’re my first design that the BoD has ever approved for actual production!

Wolf Bete: I’m the first? I…

Jaune: Yes, you are now… I need you to do your thing and get rid of our intru…

The sound of groaning and creaking metal caused both Jaune and Wolf to turn towards the locked steel door of the lab. A black glow surrounded the door, and the pair watched in amazement as the door buckled outward and then folded itself in half, before falling to the floor useless.

Jaune/Wolf Bete: Holy shi…

????: This is the end of the line Inner Circle! I’m going to shut down this vile hive of evil and villany!

Jaune: No…

Wolf Bete: Is that?

Jaune: Yes…

The pair watched as an armoured female figure stepped over the ruined remains of the door. Her bodysuit was a bright crimson red that matched her flowing hair. The metal plates of her armour, a golden bronze. Her facial features were hidden behind some sort of mask that covered her face, yet left her hair unhindered.

Jaune/Wolf Bete: The Red Huntress.

RH: Surrender and I will make sure the Vale Authority show you leniency, evildoers!

Wolf Bete: (Looking at Jaune) Did she just say evildoers?

Jaune: (Looking at Wolf) Yes.

Wolf Bete: I’ve just been born, and even I know that is lame.

RH: It is not lame! It’s heroic! Now enough! Surrender!

Jaune: You got this, Wolfie.

Wolf Bete: (Giving the Red Huntress a very toothy grin) Yeah, I do!

Wolf was a blur as they shot forward, closing on the Red Huntress in fractions of seconds. His/Her hands and forearms turning black and becoming wickedly curved and sharp claws. A shield of shining bronze appeared from nowhere, intercepting the attack, but the power behind the strike was enough to drive the Red Huntress back and into the far wall of the corridor.

RH: This monster is strong… I will have to be… huh?

Wolf Bete: That’s right, Red Huntress! I’ve got your number, and after I’m done beating you down, they’ll have to give me my new body!

RH: This is SO WRONG! I knew the Inner Circle were fiends… but… but this!

Wolf Bete: What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re…. HEY!

RH: (Booking it up the hall and away from the lab.) FILTH! SMUT! MY VIRGIN EYES!

Wolf Bete: You better run! I’m going to…

Jaune: Wolfie!

Wolf Bete: WHAT!

Jaune: (Turns his head, his face flushed red.) Put on the lab coat.

Wolf Bete: Why? I have my armour on!

Jaune: Ah… there seems to be an error with your armour…

Wolf Bete: Error?

Jaune: Um… yeah… um… you’re not wearing it anymore.

Wolf Bete: (Looks down and sees that they are indeed naked.) AHHHHHHH!!!

Jaune: There must be a calibration error or something… I can fix it… with a patch… but… put on a lab coat… please?

Wolf Bete: AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

(== Table of Contents ==)

#rwby #miss kuroitsu from the monster development department #jaune arc #salem #jaune is a grimm designer #anthropomorphic grimm #humanoid grimm #wolf bete #All of Jaune's sisters outrank him in the organization #salem wants world domination not destruction

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chaps-pa1 · 1 year

Text

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#speaker hire #PA hire Surrey #sound system rental

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quinnydoll · 7 months

Text

last night in Lancer

So, I set up a combat that was initially supposed to be a fairly forgettable combat with unnamed enemies, but I ended up creating a squad name, their entire backstory, and four unique callsigns with their own stories. I talked about this before, saying I'd gotten carried away, but I am now here to report that I've made these new characters extremely likeable to my players, and they're absolutely going to survive the current combat.

First off, I need to do some background explanation about my campaign.

The Havoc Coalition is a death cult type terrorist organization bent on taking out humanity as a whole. While they've had plenty of recruits who share their viewpoint, a number of their operatives in specific system chapters of the organization were sniped by the Coalition posing as an independent mercenary company. If these new recruits don't adapt to the viewpoint of the organization once they're in, they're put into a "cannon fodder" type group titled a Spare Squad, where they're loaded into shoddily constructed frames built out of literally the Coalition's spare parts and expected to die as rank-and-file troops while the "important" operatives are doing their things.

Guard Dog Squad was the first of these Spare Squads in the Hera System(the system this campaign takes place) only on the combat they were deployed in, they managed to not only survive, but accomplish a lot of the objective of the operation at the time. Of course, Havoc saw this and went "well, of course we still don't trust them, but I guess they're pretty useful. Let's load them up into some real mechs and see what they can do."

So, now currently Guard Dog Squad is perceived as the most effective squad in all of the Coalition, as long as they're supervised and compensated. Of course the Coalition doesn't trust them unattended, but if they get results, they're the most valuable combat resource they have.

That brings me to the current mission in my campaign. The Hera Provisional Squad(the Lancers hired to take Havoc out) have been assigned to gather intel about the Coalition on a shell colony serving as a communication hub for Havoc. They've blocked the long-range communication in the immediate area, but there's still a failsafe in place on the station in the form of an optical communications box that sends a periodic back and forth ping with a nearby vessel out of normal short range comms range.

Once the squad was done collecting information, the PA system on the station fired up with the voice of one of the named members of Guard Dog Squad saying "you guys are SO lucky our supervisor's on his sleep shift right now" followed by the station going into lockdown. Proceeding to the hangar, the squad was greeted by the chaff of Guard Dog Squad. These are the fresh ensigns and inexperienced meant to accompany Guard Dog Squad in combat to try to make sure they don't heel turn at the first opportunity.

About 3 rounds into the combat, via breaching pods, MORE chaff from Guard Dog Squad came in through breaching pods placed on either side of the hangar, followed by the 4 named members: Zen, Cypher, IRIS, and Dice. The Hera Provisional Squad was advised by Zen that not only were the recording systems for audio and comms down by courtesy of Cypher, the only reason they're continuing to fight the Lancers is because the camera system is still up, as that wasn't one that Cypher could cut off so easily, it wasn't a matter of running them on a different signal.

In response, Cypher kindly pinged the cameras, and a singular member of my players' squad took out all of them in a single turn, pushing their Everest to its limits. This gave Guard Dog Squad the opportunity they needed, and the named members immediately became allied.

Dice, piloting a Demolisher frame, immediately crushed the grunt next to her, and when another grunt on the other side of the map started attempting to flee, IRIS, a breacher fired her dual shotguns into the ensign's frame. No more grunts. Fun, right?

Of course the unnamed members of the squad are preeeeetty pissed at the new characters, being still loyal to the Coalition, but they won't be making it out of the facility, so it's not a big deal.

Also, I can already hear some people who know a lot about Lancer lore kicking me in replies and reblogs about the naming scheme of Guard Dog Squad, as dogs are technically extinct, and no one knows what a dog is in current year Lancer. I in fact do have an explanation which I just thought was a cool world-building exercise.

In my campaign, while no one knows what a "dog" is, there are terms that have been grandfathered into modern language simply due to their usage for things in other language, and ancient text. For example, the term "nidhogg" and its occasional use in modern English in the real world.

"Guard Dog" is a similar term in that it's lost its association with an actual dog, but is associated with a "protector" of sorts, Guard Dog Squad earned their name from their time reliably protecting the Coalition's communications hub. I hope that clears things up. It was initially just clumsy writing on my part, but I thought my reasoning made sense in the end.

#lancer rpg #lancer #tabletop #ttrpgs #ttrpg community #tabletop games

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shyphonics · 19 days

Text

Salad Days Chapter 4: When Archeologists Dig This Up, They'll Either Laugh or Cry

(babypunk!Rodrick Heffley x reader)

chapter one | chapter two | chapter three

also, please take my favorite live performance of rise above by Black Flag as a companion piece

Hey!

I do not like you college brat

I do not like you and your frat

I do not like you at the shore

I do not like you drunk on coors

I do not like your average life

I hope you do not take a wife

I hope you don’t decide to breed

Cause that’s one thing I do not need

Well, they did it. They’ve got a van full of booze, and a sense of self satisfaction.

It had taken a while to fit everything in, and the guy at the pickup spot hadn’t been very nice, but they did it.

Mike seems more calm when they show up to The Strike, happy to see them, even.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, you giraffe of a man!” He pulls Rodrick into a hug, heartily patting him on the back. Rodrick does kind of feel like a giraffe, Mike only comes up to the middle of his chest.

“Hey, if there’s anything else you need, just let us know!” Rodrick gives him a smile.

He grabs a box of bottles and heads through the back door of the bar. The guys work like ants; grab a case, march to the walk in, march back. They’re done in no time. He wonders if the delivery center is hiring, because that was easy.

Mike shoves a bundle of money into his hands, and gives him another pat on the back.

“She was right about you.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve got the spirit,” he smiles, “like a young Henry Rollins, slingin’ ice cream. See you tomorrow. Show up at 5 PM, load in here. Got it?”

“Got it,” Rodrick nods.

The spirit. He has no idea what that means, but he’s grateful for the sentiment. Especially if you’d said something nice about him… he finally has ammo to tease you back.

Mike disappears into the back of the bar, and the guys regroup to count their unexpected pay.

“Dude, he gave us a hundred dollars!” Chris says, shocked.

They recount again and again, coming to one hundred every time. They can’t believe it, and they speed away from the bar with the radio turned all the way up.

The rest of their day is spent planning. They craft the perfect setlist, they find their tightest jeans, they even find time to learn a surprise cover song. It's one he'd heard on your radio shift, and it's been stuck in his head all day.

Everything has to be perfect.

Rodrick is sure everything is gonna be perfect.

It’s only 5:30 by the time they’re done setting up, and they find themselves just standing in front of the stage, awestruck.

It’s not huge by any means, but it’s high off the ground and covered in lights. There’s a full PA system, and even a pole to hang their homemade bedsheet flag from.

The bar is empty, except for a guy in the sound booth, Jimbo by the door, and two bartenders prepping. Rodrick doesn’t see you, and immediately gets a pang of sadness.

“Hey,” he starts, leaning on the bar.

“We can’t serve yet, sorry.” A girl with tight blonde curls shuts him down.

“Oh, no, I was gonna ask… where’s the other girl that works here?”

She thinks for a moment, then makes a face of realization.

“Oh, she’s not working tonight. She’s headlining.”

Rodrick’s eyes go wide. Headlining? You? His mind is blown.

The bartender goes back to prepping without giving him a second thought. Rodrick walks back to the stage, zombie-like, deep in thought.

Now they really have to be perfect.

A few people have come in through the back, and they’re setting up portable tables along a wall.

“You guys need one?” A girl with tall, spiked hair asks.

They look at each other. Merch. Duh. They're pretty sure they have an unorganized cardboard box of t-shirts and buttons in the van. Ward had spent all his high school graduation cash on some real ones from a print shop.

Ben and Chris wedge the table out from between two vending machines, and Rodrick digs the box out of the van. It’s not a very impressive setup, but they’re pretty happy with themselves.

The doors open at 7, and it doesn’t take long for the place to fill up. Mike comes by and gives each of the guys three little paper tickets, like you’d get at an arcade.

“Beer tickets,” he says, before they can ask, “one of these gets you anything canned or bottled. Be nice to the bartenders, please.”

Ward and Ben high five and head straight to the bar, Chris heads to the bathroom, and Rodrick does a full scan of the area by the stage. Where are you? He needs to make fun of you for being nice to him, dammit.

Ward and Ben get back, looking a little shaken up.

“Rodrick, hey, do you want us to get you a beer?” Ben chuckles nervously.

“Nah, I can get it myself,” Rodrick starts to walk towards the front.

“No, no,” Ward puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You should really let us get you one!” Ben makes urgent eye contact.

“Why...?” Rodrick is starting to get freaked out.

“‘Cause we’re buddies!” Ward pats him on the shoulder.

Something is definitely up.

Rodrick pushes past Ward, walking through the tall arch that leads to the bar area. It’s absolutely packed. His heart skips a beat when he sees a flash of golden blonde hair.

Oddly familiar golden blonde hair.

The girl turns around.

No. It can’t be. There’s no way in hell that it’s-

“Heather Hills,” Rodrick whispers, grateful for the loud house music.

She’s sitting at the bar with a large group of people. Some douchebag with a double popped collar has his arm around her. They’re all laughing- the kind of laugh you do at someone. Snotty.

Any attraction he’d had to her has been completely gone for years. He feels a mix of hatred and nausea. They’re at the far end of the bar, by the door, so Rodrick blends in at the other end.

Please don’t look at me.

He gets a beer from the bartender from earlier, making sure to tip as your snarky reminder rings in his head. Also making sure to avoid Natty Light. He turns fast to get back to the stage, and right before he’s through the arch-

“Rodrick? Rodrick Heffley?”

He wheels around. She’s right fucking behind him.

“Oh, hey, what was your name again?” He rolls his eyes.

“Real mature, asshole.” She scoffs, “What are you doing here?”

“Playing a show. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Aww, you don’t wanna play nice with me?” She drags a finger down his chest. It enrages him.

“No. And you know why?” His voice goes low. He leans down so his face is close to hers, and he’s about to let everything out. Her face is smug, and she raises her eyebrows.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his back.

“Hey, you’re on in ten. Soundcheck time.” You peer around to see Rodrick's face. He looks pissed. You’re not sure what’s going on, but it’s none of your business. You’re just the messenger.

Rodrick’s eyes bug when he sees you, and his face relaxes a little.

“Um, excuse me, we were talking.” The blonde girl sneers at you.

“You can talk later. We gotta get this shit rollin’.” You don’t wait to see her reaction. You just turn around and head back to the stage.

If you’re honest, it's a little disappointing seeing Rodrick with, you assume, his very pretty girlfriend. It makes sense though. He's a nice looking guy. Your official assessment is toxic on-again, off-again high school sweethearts. Oh, well.

Just keep walking. Stay on schedule. Five bands, twenty minute sets, ten minutes for stage change. You repeat it in your head like a mantra.

Heather’s mouth is hanging open. Rodrick winces.

“Gotta go,”

He practically runs to the stage.

They’ve never done a real soundcheck before, and it’s kind of an intimidating process. The sound engineer is very no nonsense. Rodrick checks his drums one by one. Then bass, guitars, mics. Each adjustment is barely noticeable to them, and they end up just giving a thumbs up every time the engineer asks a question. Finally, they run through the whole chorus of a song to hear everything together. By that point, the dance floor is almost entirely full.

Rodrick takes a deep breath, scanning for Heather. He hopes she just left.

They've come a long way since their high school days, no longer unpracticed wannabes. Their sound has become pretty good, if they say so themselves. Tonight's only adjustment is to play faster.

The sound guy points at them, and Ben clears his throat.

“We… are Löded Diper!”

The chatting in the crowd subsides, and falls silent.

Rodrick hears snickering, and a voice saying oh my god, that IS him!

He panics, and right when the tension is almost too much to bear, a loud WOOOOOOOO comes from the very front. He looks and sees you, trying to rile up the crowd. It seems to be working. Other people are giving half-hearted cheers, which is something at least.

“That's more like it!” Ben yells, and they launch into their first song.

They only have a five song set, so everything has to count. Ben’s wails are powerful, he's really embodying a frontman. Chris is whipping his hair around, and Ward is the true picture of a bassist. Strong, still, and holding it all together.

Rodrick is hyper-focused on keeping the rhythm. And maybe showing off, just a little bit. He puts his whole body into hitting the drums, his mouth pulled into a tight “o”.

You have a perfect view from the front row, and what a view it is.

He's killing it. So focused and steady, but it looks like he's having fun. He leans into the mic to sing backup, and you get a flash of his sharp canines. You can see the muscles in his arms clenching, and the front of his hair is wet with sweat.

You feel your face getting hot, and you're reluctant to admit it's not just from the packed room. You’re suddenly faced with the very real possibility that you're very attracted to him.

He gives you a huge grin and a wink between songs, and it's no longer just a possibility. Fuck.

Blasts of air from his bass drum cool your face down, and you stare at him a little closer, analyzing.

You've been infantilising him a little bit, you'll admit it.

Kid. Cute. Baby boy.

Although you’re pretty sure the two of you are the same age, he just comes off like a teenager. You couldn’t help but haze him a little bit, especially after he just wandered into the bar with no plan. He’s really proving himself right now.

The crowd is going crazy. You’re holding yourself up on the edge of the stage, but behind you, a sizable pit has opened up. People are loving them.

“We have one more!” Ben shouts. People are screaming.

“We learned it just for you!” Rodrick yells. There’s something snarky about his tone. You like it.

You recognize the song immediately. Their rendition is just a little clunky, but it works. You can't help but smile, and wonder if Rodrick somehow heard your radio shift last night.

It's such a good choice for a first show. Perfect, really. It's like they're saying, we're here, fuckers.

You let the crowd swallow you up as you sing along.

Society's arms of control

(Rise above, we're gonna rise above!)

They think they're smart, can't think for themselves

(Rise above, we're gonna rise above!)

Laugh at us behind our backs

(Rise above, we're gonna rise above!)

I find satisfaction in what they lack

(Rise above, we're gonna rise above!)

We! Are Tired!

Of your! Abuse!

Try to stop us!

But it’s! No use!

The aftermath of their set is chaos. Good chaos, but chaos. They tear down their gear and load up the van. On their way back in, people are yelling and patting their shoulders as they walk by.

Hell yeah, dude!

Good set, bro!

It feels good.

A small crowd has formed at their merch table. Chris takes on the task of handling the sales, and before they know it, their box is nearly half gone. They hadn't expected that.

Another unexpected side effect of playing a good set: booze.

Once the merch crowd is gone, old rocker types materialize, holding out shot glasses and cans. One guy hands Rodrick a shot of something that burns, and puts a heavy arm around his shoulder. He starts up a conversation about drumming, which is really more like a monologue.

You were great out there, man. Who's your favorite? Like, who's your guy? It's Lars for me, bro, 100%. I saw Metallica in ‘88, bro. Busted a knee in the pit, and now I can’t play a double pedal no more. Where'd you learn to play like that? You could play like Hellhammer with those arms. Fuckin’ rock on, brother. Oh, hey, sorry, I was supposed to give you this lime to help with the tequila...

Rodrick’s head swims as the guy babbles, nodding his head like he's listening.

“Thank you,” he finally sighs out. He’s exhausted from just listening to the guy. He pops the lime in his mouth, and it does help quite a bit.

People just keep coming with shots, and beers, and stories, and the guys end up piss drunk before the second band is done setting up.

Rodrick smiles and looks around. He's having fun. They did what they came to do, and people actually liked it. The rest of the guys are making conversation with the other bands. Heather and whoever else had been laughing at him are nowhere to be seen, and he's happy.

Even happier when you appear in front of the table.

“Heyyy!” He yells, giving you a singular finger gun, his other hand occupied with a beer can.

You take one look at his half lidded eyes and lazy smile, and realize he's wasted.

“Are you drunk?” You cackle, “It's not even 8:30!”

He turns, and spits a sucked-dry lime slice into the trash can next to him.

“Shut up! You're drunk!” Rodrick points at you, smile still wide.

“Oh, man. You're gone. Your girlfriend is gonna be pissed!” You laugh.

The drunk-happy look fades from his face.

“My huh?”

“That girl you were talking to you. Girlfriend, right?”

“No fucking way!” he bursts out laughing, “She’s a rich, stuck-up asshole! She's an evil witch from hell!” He downs the rest of his beer.

“Harsh, but I believe you.”

Well, that settles that.

You wonder if Rodrick has ever been this drunk in his life. He doesn't seem like he knows how to handle it, but he seems to be having a good time, at least.

“Hey. You did really, really good. You killed it. I mean it.” You lean on the merch table and smile up at him.

Rodrick’s eyes are sparkling, and his smile is somehow bigger than before.

“You liked us?”

“I loved you guys. Everyone did. They're totally gonna have you back.”

He looks like he might cry.

"Hey, don't I get a shirt? Wasn't that part of our deal?"

Rodrick thinks hard, finally remembering.

"Oh yeah!" He shouts.

He ducks down under the table and rifles through a big box. You lean over and tell him your size. He looks deeply focused.

He finally resurfaces, and holds up the shirt, triumphantly. You take it and sling it over your arm.

"Thanks," you smile, "I'll wear it all the time."

He beams.

You hold out your hand, and he hesitates for a second before grabbing it.

“You wanna come stand with me? The next band is up.”

Rodrick’s heart soars.

You lead him to the middle of the crowd, where three other people are gathered, talking.

“This is my band: Maureen, Jessica, and Eddie.”

Rodrick is seeing double at this point, but he smiles and waves. He thinks he sees a girl with ridiculously long black hair, a girl with very short green hair, and a guy with little round glasses.

“Good set,” the guy gives him a fist bump.

Before they can talk any more, a microphone squeals. Everyone in the crowd is at attention. Rodrick blinks to try and focus in on the stage; the next band has set up a giant, inflatable palm tree and some yard flamingos. They're all dressed for the pool, it seems like. Big, bright board shorts and floaties. The singer is barefoot, and has a megaphone in hand.

“May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please,” his distorted voice comes through the megaphone, “The president of the United States is an insect! All your lives are a lie!”

The next few minutes are a blur of sound and color. Rodrick can’t process anything that’s happening in front of him. The music is weird, but good. Messy. The words don’t make any sense. His body is starting to sway uncontrollably, and he’s worried he might topple over.

His shoulder bumps yours, and you look up. He doesn’t look so good. You grab his hand again and lead him out of the crowd, all the way to the front patio, stopping to grab a water on the way.

Cool air hits Rodrick’s face, and he feels at ease. You help him into a low metal chair, and he stares up at you, helplessly.

“Are you good?” You push his hair up, away from his forehead, and hand him the cup of water.

“That was a lot,” he breathes, dazed.

“Chug that water, you’ll feel better,” you lean on the railing next to his chair, “and no more booze, big boy.”

“I thought I was baby boy,” Rodrick slurs, smirking.

“I think you’ve transcended that term,” you laugh, “unless you want to be baby boy.”

“What if I do?”

“You’re so weird,” you give his chair a little kick.

He sticks out his arm to catch your leg, and chugs the whole water in one go.

He lifts your leg a little higher, slinging it over his shoulder. You’re speechless. That’s pretty smooth.

"You said something nice about me," he slurs in a sing-song voice, "Mike told me."

"Oh yeah? What did I say?"

Rodrick thinks hard. What was it again?

"Something about... spirits? And ice cream."

"Okay, buddy." You shush him, "Just take some deep breaths."

It’s kinda nice, just sitting with him in silence. The last bit of daylight is leaving, and everything is shrouded in a faint blue.

“I think I like you,” he says quietly, not looking at you.

“I think you’re drunk. Get back to me in an hour.”

“Can I like you in an hour?” He holds your leg a little tighter.

“Go nuts,” you chuckle.

You don’t move your leg, though.

You sit together until the set ends, and people start to file out onto the patio.

“You wanna go back in? Your friends are probably worried.” You bounce your leg a little to get his attention.

“Yeah. I have to pee so bad.”

Another trans-am’s wrapped itself around a telephone pole

“I ain't drunk, officer, I just fell getting out of my car.”

Don't worry about it, son. We were that way when we were young!

You've got all the skills to make a damn good business man!

Rodrick stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, breathing deep. He feels a lot better after some fresh air and the longest piss of his life.

A stall door opens, and a familiar face shows up next to his.

“Heffley? Shit, that really is you.”

Bryan Kent is a bonafide asshole with a football scholarship, who'd made Rodrick’s life a living hell back home. He really doesn't feel like reconnecting right now.

“Yep. It's me.”

Rodrick turns to leave, but Bryan blocks the door.

“You're not even gonna say hi, diner dork?”

“Fuck off, Bryan. I'm not in the mood.”

Bryan pushes him, and Rodrick feels all that old rage bubbling up. He's still a little wobbly on his feet.

“Did the cops ever catch you for what you did?” Bryan takes a step towards Rodrick. He feels all the blood leave his face.

“Actually, one of my buddies from back home just passed police academy. You wanna come back to our table and put in a little confession?”

“Fuck off,” he pushes Bryan back hard, sending him right into the door.

You're waiting outside the bathroom, and starting to get just a little worried. One of Rodrick’s bandmates- Ward, you're pretty sure- is still by their merch table.

“Hey,” you smile at him, “Rodrick went into the bathroom kind of a long time ago. He was pretty wrecked, and I'm starting to get worried. Could you…?”

Ward is around the table before you can even finish your sentence.

“Don't worry, I got him.”

As Ward opens the bathroom door, another guy walks out, laughing.

“What the fuck?” Ward yells.

You come up behind him and see Rodrick, lying on the floor, face bloody. Your mouth twists into a sneer. Fucking frat boys.

You march to the front of the bar, and lean in towards Jimbo’s ear.

“Him. Out.” You point at the offender, who's still flexing his busted knuckles like a jackass. Like it's something to show off.

“Had a feeling.” Jimbo sighs, standing up.

Rodrick’s head is pounding.

He opens his eyes to see Ward, looking devastated.

“Dude, what happened? Can you get up?”

“Fucking… Bryan Kent,” he coughs out.

Ward helps him to his feet and hands him a bundle of paper towels. Rodrick dabs at his bloody nose and lip in the mirror.

Of course. Of fucking course one of those assholes would show up tonight, of all nights.

He takes a few moments to just stand there and recover.

“That was fucked up.” Ward breaks the silence.

Rodrick just nods.

They emerge from the bathroom and there's what looks to be a full on brawl at the front of the bar. Rodrick sees you walking quickly towards him, eyes wide.

“Are you okay? Jeez, look at your lip.”

You bring your hand to his face and take a closer look. It doesn't look like he needs stitches or anything, but his bottom lip is swollen, with a dark line in the middle. Blood is quickly drying up in one of his nostrils.

Rodrick jumps a little, and suddenly feels a whole lot better under your gentle touch. He gets lost for a second, just looking down at your worried face.

“I shouldn't have let you in there alone, I'm so sorry.” You murmur.

He smiles, but a yell from up front brings him back to reality.

“It’s cool, I'm fine. What's going on up there?”

“Well, we asked your... acquaintance to leave, and he didn't want to. And he's got friends.”

“Should we go up and help?” Ward clenches his fist, smiling slightly.

Rodrick’s other bandmates have joined the circle.

“I'd stay out of it, they've got it.”

You all observe as Jimbo drags Bryan out the front door by his ear. A second drunken dickhead is yelling I'm a police officer! Get off me! as a second, equally huge guy hauls him off.

Rodrick notices Heather following them out, rolling her eyes.

“Are we all good?” Someone from the stage asks into a microphone.

Oh yeah, there's still a show going on.

You all shrug, and head into the crowd together.

You take Rodrick's hand again, and give it a little squeeze. He turns to look at you, and smiles.

"Are you really okay?" You yell over the music.

"I'm really okay." He squeezes your hand back.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

#sorry if this is too long lmao #im having fun #rodrick heffley #rodrick heffley x reader #rodrick x reader #rodrick heffley fanfic #doawk rodrick #Spotify

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hexonthepeach · 9 months

Text

a gentle tongue breaketh the bone | 4: bound

pairing: fem hybrid fox omega!reader/hybrid Alpha!nct 127

tags: reverse harem, non-traditional omegaverse hybrid! cyberpunk au, pack dynamics, polyamory, slowburn/slowbuild, angst & hurt/comfort, heavy content warnings inc. torture, graphic violence, suicidal ideation, explicit sexual content

summary: the year is 2127. decades of eugenics and warfare have led to the rise of designated populations: the ruler Alphas and their rare, prized omegas sequestered from the Beta population. in the aftermath of the War of the Two Tigers, New Goryeo ushers in an Imperial dynasty determined not by birthright but by the alliance of the Syndicate's clancorps to choose the best pack of your generation. you are destined to take your place within the Imperial harem as a queen, and–perhaps–Imperatrix herself

but you have a secret, written into your skin and bones–one that could easily kill you, depending on who finds it out

ten years ago you chose your Alpha and their pack in a fateful meeting

now, you must make them choose you

[masterlist & glossary] [read on AO3] [0: prologue] [1: escape, again] [2: lost and found] [3: returned]

wc: 5.2k

chapter warnings: none, unless you count gratuitous use of wattpad tropes

recommended listening: city lights - tvxq! u-know ft. taeyong, blueblood - ive

Crown Prince Lee Taeyong [vulpin vulpes α] - (formerly) 4th in line for the throne

Winter is dry enough they go close to land for safety, windows open as Doyoung follows old streets, deeper into Zone One towards the waterline and the tallest and brightest of the megaliths, its base spanning blocks.

Outside the buildings grow taller, choked in bare mangrove trunks and vines. Dead leaves are torn down to layer cracked concrete and flooded pits, slowly burying the old grid. Outside the Dome and walled Old Seoul nature has returned with a vengeance–plantlife genetically altered to grow with violence.

If Neo Seoul isn't eroded by the sea, it will be retaken by the Wild in less than a century. Only the seasons keep it in check.

The barricaded walls of each skyscraper are flanked by pop-ups and clubs boosting sound and smell into the crisp night air. News drones flit back and forth like dragonflies on a swamp of those swarming in from the less wealthy Zones for resupply and entertainment.

There's the occasional gunshot and the sound of a throttled engine from someone showing off their fuel-run monstrosity but the real spectacle is in the sky, advertisements painted in video-graffiti on every surface, cells charged by the faintest of UV to project cold colors across the broken cityscape.

Drugs, sex, cheap food delivered at a whim, without discrimination. It's only the Syndicate keeping the sheen of civility on it, their hired armies and the NSMR indulging more than they enforce any kind of protection for the masses.

The rendezvous point is one of many clancorp enclaves, a Kim puppet company takeover of an old amusement park repurposed for gladiator spectacle. He knows this place all too well–his packmates even more.

For a small price one can rent any number of ancient costumes and join the stands to watch unmodded designated draw blood–sometimes to the death. If they don't have enough bodies they crush old vehicles together like chariots, engineered for theater in the flame from their exhausts and PA systems blasting martial music.

"Is she alright?" Doyoung asks once they've purred to a stop outside the service gate of the Lottery.

"Fine," Taeil says. He hasn't looked up once from the digital feed deck in his hand, the other still holding an IV bag to the headrest behind the small, sleeping form beside him.

Taeyong can recognize that posture for how often his own body has been in it, the awkwardness of a human spine adopting the fox's curl. Even more, the shivering from losing a fighting battle with the drugs dripping into your system.

You're chasing an endpoint that won't be pretty. And whatever actions or deliberation he wields tonight will decide how soon and how painfully that will manifest.

The job had been simple: retrieve the Kim clan's prized daughter. According to the dossier she'd flitted away in one of her usual fanciful adventures with a rogue pack.

All believable lies, but he knew Garam, knew what channels to go down to confirm that it wasn't her. No aspiring heiress with eyes on the Imperatrix title would have been so careless.

He'd still agreed to the job, more out of curiosity than strategy. At first he'd thought it was one of the other Syndicate omegas—perhaps a daughter from a less-wealthy branch with a reputation for roaming outside the Dome.

He'd sent out the ops team with that instinctual tingle on the edge of his mind, more worried about involving Nyctos in a clancorps powerplay. A risk, as Doyoung had reiterated time and time again.

But he hadn't expected you. Regrettably, neither had his enforcer.

The perfume in the air is returning with the car stopped and he coughs weakly at it, the sandalwood overwhelming his senses.

"Spray her down and change her clothes," he instructs Taeil. "And give her something to wake her up. She needs to be walking when we bring her in."

The doctor gives him a withering look, holding up his bag. "You want to do the honors? She's already taken more drugs in the past hour than our entire pack takes in a year."

"Just keep her alive. And conscious," Taeyong adds, extricating himself from your flopping tail. "There's green rooms on the first floor you can post up in. Jungwoo will lead, I'll send you the signal once it's time."

Moon doesn't answer, pulling out the port carefully from your arm, stopping the bleeding. Taeyong's ears flick unconsciously as he scents a particular strain of feline, now emitting from you with the recombinant effect of heat.

Once out of the car he breathes deeply, for the first time grateful for the awful miasma of uncollected waste and burning plastic that permeates the metropolis's exposed floor.

"What?" he asks, seeing Jungwoo's eye turned to him in profile. The younger man stretches out from his long stint in the passenger seat, his beatific face lit by the glow of the night carnival.

"I didn't say a word," Jungwoo laughs, playing with a telescopic, dark cylinder before shoving it into his suit jacket.

"You were thinking it," Taeyong sighs. "Stick with Taeil. I trust you still have back access here?"

"Yes, captain," he says, smiling. "You sure you don't need protection?"

"I need you to run interference," Taeyong says sharply. "We don't need an enforcer."

Doyoung finally exits the vehicle, still wearing the pinched expression Taeyong knows means he's holding back criticism. His dark eyes rove between the two men before returning back to the holographic readout of his tablet, so many rectangles on display that the text is barely legible.

"Too much security would be considered a sign of disrespect and weakness," Doyoung says, wrinkling his nose with obvious distaste for the smells coming from nearby dumpsters. "You get her cleaned up, we'll take care of the mess upstairs."

"Yes, cousin," Jungwoo says with a small bow, needling the elder on the point of shared relations. Taeyong watches the Canid approach the tense Lottery security and a bank of laser turrets with a self-assurance he can only dream of.

"Reconsidering the plan?" Doyoung asks, looking over his yellow-tinged glasses with their faint lines of readout from his watch dogs.

"No," Taeyong says firmly. He smooths his shirt and jacket before running a hand over his erratic hair, finding his ears flattened. "We'll perform the handoff. But only if and when I call it."

"Yes, captain." Doyoung sighs. Taeyong gets a faceful of menthol and green fields in his wake as his strategist immediately starts walking towards the heavily guarded entrance, chin raised and shoulders back.

He knows this will be a long night. Best to get it over as soon as possible, for your sake.

[two hours later]

The doors of the vacuum capsule release with a hiss–revealing a much-anticipated party of people rather than the ever-cycling sea of Beta waitstaff that had come in to change out ancient teapots and rekindle charcoal.

There's a perceptible air of surprise from the entourage, finding Doyoung and Taeyong alone. Doyoung trails through news feeds with a gentle movement of his fingertips.

"Our apologies, your highness." The family spokesman speaks but Taeyong's eyes remain fixed on the eldest Kim prince, a Duke in his own right. He lets the man bow until he feels the depth is suitable enough to offer a nod in return.

"We expect that the delay was necessary?" he drawls, contemplating his cold clay cup of tea and the untouched spread.

"We regret to have kept you–"

"Please spare me excuses," Taeyong says. "I assume you've already checked the report we sent you."

The executive nods, swallowing, while the Duke bores holes into his forehead with his stare.

"We are grateful to you for returning our daughter to us." Duke Kim nods once he's seated, testing one of the many untouched dishes on the table with his pinky.

"You can keep your guard and attendant but I want this room cleared," Taeyong says. "Your second wife can stay, too."

He watches the older woman bristle at being caught out even as she was headed for the door with the rest, pulled back to seat herself on the edge of the long booths leading to a magnificent view of the stadium below. She smooths her evening gown over her lap, eyes immediately focused on the screen over Taeyong's head.

"You'll see we prepared the contract agreement for this closure as well as some additional details. In light of changes we had to make some additions we think you will agree with, easily," Doyoung says, not looking up.

"The first amendment is a change in target. Attached to the register is our full documentation of your daughter's activities for the last three weeks, including her private social accounts and offline engagements."

The elder Kim seems to wither, colored a sickly yellow-pink from the exterior lighting. His spouse sits straighter, looking Taeyong in the eye.

"We did not say she was our–"

"A convenient loophole, yes, Duchess Kim. Or should I call you Aunt?" Taeyong asks, dripping sarcasm. She doesn't bother to scold him, clearly outranked.

"We recognize the possibility that our organization was confused on which asset was involved and the need for discretion, but the Princess Consort's involvement makes this a state issue, not a clan one."

Doyoung brushes through screens to settle on a few images, letting the room marinate in the data.

"We will assume you operated under Syndicate discretion in hiring us to retrieve the Princess. We generally wouldn't care which one. Our real concern is why you involved us when your daughter was the one to orchestrate her escape in the first place."

The silence in the room is punctuated by Doyoung pouring fresh tea from the nearest iron kettle, the tenth brought into the room by Taeyong's reckoning. He hands him a cup with the barest brush of fingers and a nod.

Taeyong drinks, finally, grimacing at the flavor–obviously some experimental hybrid cooked up for the mass market at an inflated price.

"Yes, we were asked to return the Princess Consort, quietly," the Duke admits. "We'll double your commission. For discretion. Consider it an apology for our adopted daughter's indiscretion."

Taeyong lowers his cup, uncrossing his legs.

"What is the plan for the Princess Consort when she's returned?" Taeyong asks, keeping his voice steady.

The Duke sputters, his wife sitting up straighter. "I don't believe that's your concern–"

"Unfortunately, it is, now." Taeyong slouches back, projecting disinterest. "What's the current ranking for Garam's succession?"

"Well, let's check, shall we." Doyoung pushes a readout to the main screens. "Fifth. Bordering on seventh."

"Seems that even the backalley averages have shifted without this news being leaked to scream sheets. Can't imagine the stock futures for our cousin will move less quickly," Taeyong says, his lips curling.

"I have a small investment in Garam per the family share agreement," Doyoung says, sagely. "Although she lacks finesse she appears to have the motivation to succeed for Imperatrix once she's chosen for the harem. Perhaps she wished to be assured in her status. Nothing new in the palace. But it would be a shame if this incident came to light."

"Triple," the Duke blurts out, earning a look and a head toss from his spouse. "She's just a child. It was a game to her."

"I'll ask you again," Taeyong says. "And I only want the truth, without pretense. What will you do with the Princess Consort once she's returned?"

The matriarch is the one to answer, standing up.

"My sister raised that child to be feral. Uncontrollable. She's a liability." She ignores her husband's weak response, emboldened by Taeyong's glare.

"We offered her mercy and you dump her back at our door. In heat, no less. Will you explain that to a Syndicate tribunal?"

A few moments of silence is all it takes for the mistake to settle in, regret instantly apparent on the woman's contorted face, so modded the muscles no longer respond in a human way. Duke Kim crumbles, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

"In heat?" Doyoung looks up from his tablet, pretending to finally pay attention. "This is new information."

"Indeed," Taeyong says, steepling his hands. "Are you privy to something we are not?"

"The stench on her, she has the marks–"

"Our physician did note significant scar tissue, possibly a match to a failed bond mark made many years ago. But I fail to see how we could be accused of that. And her current condition is stable."

"We have biological scans—" This time the Duke grabs his wife's wrist, dragging her to sit down.

"You did this," the woman snarls. "You could have let those thieves have her. You want to know the truth? She's ruined. She'll be culled or sold to a third-rate pack. Or off herself like her mother. What's it to you, Your Highness?"

The last words are spoken as a threat. Taeyong lifts his head, calm despite the storm inside him.

"Bring her up, please," he says, waving his hand. "We can do a physical examination with witnesses. And then we'll discuss the handover."

He nods to the Imperial attache, well aware of his folded posture and the spike of anxiety coming off him in waves. The old eunuch fingers his short-trimmed beard, thinking as his spectacles flash with messages, his other hand writhing over the tabletop to respond.

"The Syndicate has already logged a majority vote to your transmitted request," he announces. "You have approval for the examination, and the negotiation proceedings to take place between the Kim and Lee clans, with eldest patriarchs present and accounted for. Choi, Park, and Jeong have called for an emergency meeting for oversight and in-person approval."

"Any in-person meetings will need to be scheduled with advance notice for full clan representation." Doyoung responds, a little late. "She's on her way up."

The hiss of the door halts everything, but it's not your entourage. The waiter takes one look at the room and the tension and bows, stumbling out backwards.

"What do you want?" The Duchess asks in defeat. "Money? Backing?"

Taeyong turns slightly to his partner, meeting his questioning look. Doyoung is usually steps ahead, but not in this. He'd transmitted the message to the Syndicate directly for a reason.

"I propose something mutually beneficial," Taeyong says, spilling discount lapsang souchong on the ancient wood table as he sets his cup down. He waits a beat, specifically making eye contact with the Duke and ignoring his wife.

"You sell her to me."

You sit like you've been taught for court, held head high and back straight, but with the slightest sway of relaxed confidence. Your eyes don't leave the scene in the caged arena directly below the conference room, two heavily-modded designated fighters facing off in a blur of flesh and chrome.

The negotiation has been going on an hour since your arrival, after you'd been escorted to a private room to be poked and prodded by two staff physicians still in their company uniforms. The Imperial attache, Soong, records the examination with a drawling narration that makes shivers run over your exposed skin.

You realize just how gentle Taeil has been with you by the way you are groped and handled, your borrowed white gown discarded to expose your bare flesh, instruments inserted in every orifice with little warning.

Once assured that your temperature is within range and your hormones are stable they leave, letting you adjust your clothing behind a tall lacquer screen that seems an afterthought after the assault.

You're used to such disrespect. Your body had never truly belonged to you, after all.

You emerge once your heartbeat’s stabilized, calming yourself with the aid of a relaxant that’s done nothing to ease the pain of the ice bath you'd been subjected to in a grimy locker room. The medicinal balms and powders you'd doused in to obscure your scent are just as much an indignity, reduced to smelling like a pit fighter.

"She's clear, Your Highness." The eunuch coughs. "Unmarked as well, so still eligible for contract. The scar tissue is almost a decade old as evidenced by multiple layers of resurfaced tissue."

"As I said, we would not have brought a heat-gone omega to this spectacle," Doyoung says. "Perhaps we will take it to mean that Princess Lee–apologies–Duchess Kim was concerned for the welfare of her niece outside of a controlled environment."

"Thank you for your concern, Aunt," you finally speak, half-bowing in the older woman's direction. She'd embraced you when you entered but you could feel the steel in her frame, see the twitch of her lip as she forced her smile.

Before you might have felt a sense of betrayal. But you were prepared, somewhat, by the secret feed from the room played live over Jungwoo's field display. You'd heard her insults finally after years of cold politeness, unable to spare you even a kind word in the wake of her older sister's death.

Her only omega daughter, Garam, had been closer, feeding you tidbits of gossip and sticking up for you to the other court ladies at their endless functions. The fact that she'd sent you out with placebo suppressants was cruel, but not unexpected. You'd at least had your own stash to rely on.

They must have thought you'd give yourself away quickly, that they could ruin your reputation and Halatus with a single blow.

You hadn’t found out what happened to the rogue pack, yet, but looking at Taeyong's elegant profile you can't imagine he's treated them with cruelty. Even before meeting him in the flesh his reputation had preceded him in his preference for logic over violence.

It's the others in his company you were worried about.

"There's no way we'll be able to do this openly as a deal with the Syndicate. You'll need to convince them that it's in their best interest," Doyoung says.

"And how exactly is that?" The Imperial attache asks. "She was scheduled to be married into Tekhne with her cousin and three other high potentials. We've spent years brokering this deal."

He keeps looking at you with sharp eyes, as if unconvinced of your state. You let your ears and tail curl back, feigning piety.

"In exchange for our discretion on this whole matter, which is necessary to assure Garam's promotion, we'll join the bloc supporting Tekhne for ascension." Taeyong says. "The Kim family will be able to include an exclusive contract for Nyctos security as a part of her dowry."

Doyoung looks at him, whites showing around his dark eyes. You know he's a prey Alpha by how sweet his scent is–lilac and lavender with a hint of cream. It's a strange contrast to the anger bubbling right below the surface of his elegant face, carefully smoothed down.

"Wouldn't that be against your clan's vow of non-interference?" Soong barks a laugh, clearly enjoying himself.

"We can't–" Doyoung begins.

"I'm not putting anyone's reputation on the line for this but my own, this is purely business." Taeyong lays his ringed hand on the table beside the digital readout. "We've included a clause to default the contract to Syndicate control should the Kims renege on any of our terms."

You know all too well what that means, squirming in your seat.

"The rest of your clan will take this as an act of betrayal," Doyoung says quietly.

"They have no bearing on my decisions," Taeyong says. "Every Lee in Nyctos has divorced themselves from court politics with their expulsion from the Dome. And in accordance with the 2115 Peace Treaty no male heirs of our clan will be eligible for succession."

"Then what is the point of breeding her?" The Duke asks, confused.

"As soon as she entered the register we were identified as a potential pairbond and a vector for omega offspring," Taeyong says. "Projections at 89.9%."

You glance over, a little surprised.

"Now, do you agree to the match?" he asks for what feels like the final time.

"There's just a small matter of the investment options . . .”

You tune out the endless back-and-forth at the table, feeling numbness as they discuss your body and your life in the language of a financial transaction. The genetic probability of future heirs, tenth generation royal breeding (with the exception of your father, of course), phenotype expression–all just noise you've only ever heard indirectly.

You may as well be a prized broodmare sold at auction.

At least the terms don't include a future trapped in the palace with its schemes and clancorps oversight. No, you'd just hope you weren't eaten alive by a feral Alpha.

"Are you alright?" Jungwoo slides beside you, careful to not touch your bare arm but coming dangerously close when he looks over your shoulder at the fight below. It's over already, the aftermath reduced to an automated cleaner bot trailing blood as limbs are carted away.

You nod, not wanting to speak for fear of your voice trembling.

"Do you want to get some air?"

You shake your head.

Taeil intervenes by stepping up to you both, checking your pupils surreptitiously.

"We're going to have to let them return you to the Dome until the contract can be finalized. Are you going to be alright?" he asks.

You nod absently, looking up into the doctor's cool gaze. In better light you can see the faded tracks of scars across his forehead and cheek, eyebrow nicked permanently. Cat claw, and a large one.

Recognition makes your head spin. Of course, he was there. Along with another whose name you couldn't remember–you knew their scents better than some of your closer relations.

You bristle internally, anger flaring in your breast. The architects of your current situation are now complicating it again.

At least, you think, Taeyong had taken responsibility. The rest of his pack would have to, in time.

"Would you be able to escort me?" You request, dipping your chin. "I can hire you directly."

"That won't be necessary," Doyoung says, concentrating half on you and half on the discussion at the table.

"If the terms are accepted by the Syndicate," he pauses to make it clear they will be, "we will set a date to come retrieve the Princess Consort. There will have to be a ceremony, of course. As fitting the last of the immediate Lee family Imperial heirs."

You look past him at your savior himself, Taeyong's large eyes meeting yours with a twinge of sadness. You smile at him assuringly, managing politeness even though you feel drained of every emotion possible.

For a pairbond match, you could do worse. There's a bubbly kind of anxiety in your stomach at the idea of being chained to anyone. No attractiveness or familiarity or convenience can divorce you from the changes made to the very marrow of your bones when you'd been marked before.

Taeyong knows this, surely. You must just be a chess piece in a gambit, the weakest of pawns disguised as a Queen.

Perhaps if you do your part they'll be able to let you go once you've been liberated. But there isn't a guarantee.

"Since we're to be wed, can I make one request of my husband-to-be?" You ask, carefully.

Taeyong nods, swallowing visibly as you lean towards him.

"In private, please, Your Highness," you say demurely. You stand up and beckon him out of the room, thankful he waves off the others.

"Anything you say here is either being broadcast or recorded," he warns you once you're alone in the dim hallway, out of range of an unconcerned guard.

"I know." You indicate you wish to speak in his ear, forcing him to lean down to allow the soft red fur with its black tip to brush against your human nose. The sweet, herbal tones of his natural scent pull you closer, body brushing against his jacket.

"Thank you," you whisper–

–along with "I'm sorry"

–right before you sink your teeth into the warm skin, savage enough to fill your mouth with blood and fur.

"What exactly were you thinking?" Doyoung repeats for the thousandth time, voice shrill.

You lean against the autocar's open window, your face in the air, scenting a million flavors of human and designated but mostly yourself.

The perfume roiling off your body permeates the car, along with the iron tang of Taeyong's blood as he sways in the seat across from you, watching your innocent face like he intends to bury a dagger in it.

Occasionally you see a head turn on the street or hear a catcall but Doyoung is driving hazardously through the lower street level, swerving to avoid pedestrians and hoverbikes.

"I can't go back there." You state in a neutral tone, shaking your head. "They'll kill me before they let me leave."

Taeyong glares at you, lips in a pout as he holds a towel full of ice to his head. A whiskey bottle from the vehicle's stash dangles between his knees, already half-empty.

"We had a plan," he says. "Contingencies. You just leveled them all."

"The mark was to seal the agreement. I couldn't trust you to keep your word," you explain meekly, still tasting copper and spice on your tongue. It's good, a little satiation for the hunger that continues to ramp inside you as the medication wears off.

Taeil had said you had a few hours until your next dose, but within the brief chaos of getting you out of the Lottery your condition had reverted to what you’d suffered before being hit with a freezing shower, an ice bath that turned your lips blue, drowned in neutralizers and injected with three different brands of inhibitors.

"I have a much more potent treatment for you back at headquarters," Taeil says, hand on your forehead. He turns to Taeyong, repeating the gesture. "You'll need one too."

"How is that possible?" Jungwoo asks, surprise flickering over his long features.

"Not impossible." Taeyong says through gritted teeth. You thought he'd been flushed from the alcohol but clearly something is happening to his body as well.

A rut? You feel a distant horror at having triggered his during your first heat. You'd only meant to pretend to mark him, but maybe the proximity of your Alpha had caused some unintended effect.

"I'm sorry," you say, reaching forward.

Taeyong looks at your hand like it's a live snake, until he realizes you're beckoning for the bottle.

He sighs after a second, offering it to you. You sniff at it, bracing yourself.

"We'll get through it. We can delay it for a few days, probably. Long enough to establish some boundaries and rethink our approach." Taeyong groans, legs spreading. He pulls his tie loose, and immediately you scent cedarwood and blackberries.

Your mouth waters slightly.

"She looks like she's going to eat you. I thought she was bound to Johnny?" Jungwoo says, amused as he watches you across the car, tapping his nightstick against his knee in anticipation of you threatening his boss again.

There's an awkward silence, and you drink from the bottle directly, choking when the hot liquid coats your tongue and throat.

Taeil thumps your back beside you, taking his own drag before passing the bottle to Jungwoo.

"Figured it out, eh?" Taeil grunts at the younger man.

Jungwoo cocks his head, teeth barely visible behind his grim smile. "Well. She does smell like him."

Taeyong groans, leaning against the window.

"Maybe you should tell them before we get back and have to break it to the kids." The doctor directs the words at you, surprisingly.

"Tell them what?" Doyoung parrots, glancing up in the rearview mirror as he waits in line for a green light to the upper level, well above the tidemark now.

"It's a long story." Taeil caps the bottle. "Back when we were a unit in the NSMR together. Yuta and Johnny were on our team. Transfers from an overseas base doing post-war recovery to pad out their service."

"It was a standard rescue operation. Or so we thought," Taeyong laughs wryly. He looks up at you, licking his lips. "Do you remember?"

"Some," you say. "I was thirteen."

You wring your hands in your lap, thighs pulled tight together under the flimsy, blood-stained dress. You feel ridiculous. "You don't forget a bondmark."

Jungwoo's look of amusement fades immediately. "Why would he mark you?"

"It was an accident," you say. You'd never said it aloud, or even written it out, but your tone is rehearsed and cold. "He was in jimseung when he saved me. I was trapped underwater, drowning. He didn’t mean to hurt me."

"He frenzied." Taeil sighs. "Rare but not unprecedented. What doesn't usually happen is the victim of an accidental mark accepting the bond."

Doyoung responds first, smashing the dashboard with a string of expletives you hadn’t heard before. You cringe back, a familiar lump growing in your throat.

"I apologize for the burden I have placed on you," you say automatically.

Taeyong shakes his head, wincing when he feels his injury. "It was no one's fault. Truthfully we all hoped it would go away on its own."

"Syndicate science is advanced enough, they should have been able to rewrite it," Taeil says. You can tell he's questioning it himself, watching your face for a reaction.

"They tried," you say, automatically holding yourself. "Multiple bone marrow transplants. Genetic therapy. And then they kept me locked away so no one would find out. The doctors said once I had another Alpha's mark I'd be fine."

Taeil scoffs at that.

"So you rejected the treatment?" Jungwoo asks, warm gaze alight with something sinister. "Did you arrange this little reunion yourself, too?"

"Of course not," you say, startled. "I never wanted to see him again. I hate him."

"Didn't look like hate from what I saw," he says, eyebrows raising.

"I'm not in control–" Your anger bristles more quickly when you see he's mocking you. You snap at him with your teeth, pitching forward.

"Hey, stay put–"

"Stop it," Taeyong growls, ears aggressive. Both of you stop yelling at each other for a moment before you round on the leader, hackles fully raised.

"Don't you dare command me before . . . " You begin, voice trailing off as realization jolts through you.

His scent, the way he crouches into his seat rather than confront you back with your display of aggression, tail curling in. Disobedience was not tolerated in a pack by a prime Alpha, certainly not at the edge of a rut.

"Oh," you breathe.

Jungwoo breaks into laughter at that, bending over as Taeyong's face flushes scarlet. The Vulpine collapses back in the seat, looking miserable beneath his poultice.

"Well. She'd find out soon enough," Taeil assures him.

"You're a . . . You can't be . . ."

"Omega," Doyoung finishes from the front. The word hangs between you, car suddenly silent.

You'd been so distracted you hadn’t realized you'd entered a dark service elevator, lifted up dozens of stories. The silence is overwhelming as the four men avoid speaking, Jungwoo still watching you with amused distrust.

When the doors open you find yourself in a large hangar, so high that only the tops of lesser megapolis towers can be seen in the night sky. The familiar bulk of the AV sits on a narrow landing strip outside.

Taeil checks that the massive room is empty before his hand finds the latch.

"You're both omegas going into heat at the same time, with the same competing genealogy and bonded Alpha," he says, opening the door. Immediately you're hit with a familiar scent–something that your vixen knows only as home.

"Try not to kill each other."

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