#blood gulch is a better story than you think it is

[rubykgrant]

Simmons would rather talk about ANYTHING ELSE besides his own gender/sexuality... but I have some thoughts~

(mostly connected to stuff that comes up in my big RVB story-line)

First of all, his parents are just sucky people. In general. They only wanted to have kids in the hope of impressing a relative, get some of that inheritance money... however, the baby was a little over-due, the relative passed away before the birth even happened, so no extra kid added to the will. Poor baby was a "disappointment" from the start.

By the time the kiddo turned 7, the question- "What if I was a boy?" had become- "Can I BE a boy?". Mr and Mrs Simmons had actually hoped for a son anyway, so they were "accepting" of this (but make no mistake, if this wasn't something they wanted for themselves, they would have been more UNPLEASANT). Because they already moved a couple of times and changed schools, Richard was able to start over where nobody knew who he was previously. A relief in some ways, however... mom and dad were very insistent that the "past" never be discussed. Again, it was encouraging to begin transitioning (first socially, then later medically), but Richard was taught not to acknowledge he was trans at ALL, which began a lot of internalized self-resentment from the get-go.

His dad was the one who would keep on "testing" him as he grew up, purposefully putting Richard into situations where he would have to prove himself, in the most backwards, nonsensical, and frankly- sexist ways; "A REAL MAN is better at sports than girls, so prove you can win against all the girls in your PE class!" and so-on. Obviously that's BS for SEVERAL reasons, and it just sets Richard up to have a weird ego-failure complex, and also think there is such a thing as "running girly laps".

Richard was always pretty scrawny, and during highschool, he had a growth-spurt that made him extra tall and lanky. More awkward, basically. He had a flat chest all on his own, but thanks to teasing from other kids, he was extremely nervous about EVER taking his shirt off. Thanks to the weird background-sexist-radiation from his dad, he thought it was just a given that he should be interested in girls... but he's a little afraid of girls (especially all the competitive jock girls who hate his guts for making them lose during team competitions). He almost tries to force himself into having crushes, but nothing ever clicks.

Once he's out of highschool, he gets surgery (no need for top, because- flat), and is hoping that he'll be able to start having A Real Life now... but he doesn't get into college, he can't get a job anywhere, he doesn't have any friends to live with, and his parents are threatening to just kick him out if he doesn't prove himself yet again. The last option is to join the Red Army, so that's where he goes... and then ALL THAT happens.

Simmons didn't exactly "come out" to anybody while in Blood Gulch, but after the whole surgery incident with Grif, Sarge knows about Simmons' medical history, and he doesn't call attention to it. In many ways, it is similar to what his own parents did (and partially why Simmons imprints on Sarge as a father figure). However, even through all the weird insults and ramblings, Sarge ironically gives Simmons more "attention" than his actual dad. It isn't always GOOD attention, but this is also the first time somebody has known this aspect of who Simmons is, and didn't treat him differently after the fact. So. That's almost kinda-sorta good? (it is still not great, because Sarge is an a-hole, but you take what you can get).

Simmons the proceeds to spend the next decade+ bickering with Grif, and not noticing MORE is going on, because they're both stupid (affectionate) (also FRUSTRATED). Simmons is still dealing with a lot of issues that are basically set in stone within his brain. When he starts to finally have genuine friendship feelings toward Grif, that alone is weird, because he barely likes anybody, and almost nobody ever likes him. When a whole CRUSH starts to happen, Simmons does not even get it. WTF is with all these weird gay thoughts in his head? Where'd that come from? For somebody who claims to be SMART, it takes him a while to do the math on this.

Eventually, waaaaay down the road, there would be some event, maybe around the younger generation on Chorus, where people are sharing things they've learned about gender/sexuality. A few of the Reds and Blues are kinda casually like- "Oh, I didn't know there was a word for that, I guess that's me!" or even- "I don't share this often but, yeah. I'm transgender," and- "I guess some of you already know, but I still want to say it. I'm gay"... and Simmons. He is just petty enough to FINALLY say- "I'm GAYER". It also takes him a full minute to remember, and add- "Oh, uh. I'm trans, too. More trans than you. I named myself Dick. I WIN"

He also works on un-packing internalized sexism and what-not, and when he reconnects with the girls on his team, he's much less nervous and better at treating them as individual people. He's aware of how much he used to suck, and it took a long time, but he's finally doing the whole "personal growth" thing. His parents still suck, but after the extended family of friends in his life have gone through changes as well, Simmons can see where he actually belongs

#red vs blue #rvb #dick simmons

[dolphs-world]

Blood Gulch Chronicles

The first two seasons of Red vs Blue are perfect for what they are, an early web sitcom. It's really fun watching how little growing pains there are. Just about everyone's personalities and voices are so well defined. But there are still growing pains, although these are not a pain to see happen. Donut especially evolves as a character, it's hard to imagine season five Donut throwing that frag grenade. Caboose says the phrase "why buy the cow when the milk is free?". Even half a season later, he would never say that. As soon as he kills Church, his voice and personality become what we now of it today. And Sarge's voice changes a little. And that's really it, these first two seasons are perfect. And then the ending of season two, they have to join forces and Tucker finds out that they're conflict has all been a lie. This is the strongest ending of any season from this era.

Season three starts of with a bang, showing new character pairings whilst ramping up the conflict and introducing new aspects like Wyoming and the players from the real world. Even when they get to Halo 2, the story is real fun and is still all about RvB. Then Church goes back in time. Him interacting with Lopez and the audience meeting Butch Flowers is great stuff, great time travel shenanigans. Then the next half an hour is stuff we've already seen before, a glorified clip show. Why would a web series need a clip show? And it is revealed that Church is quote "the team killing fucktard". All of the time travel stuff robs the first two seasons of any narrative weight and, whilst the final shot is a very nice quiet moment with Sheila, the moral is that you can't change anything. And Church doesn't reveal any of this to anyone, only him and us the audience know. So what was the point of that? And this is when I think RvB enters a bit of a rut. A little aside, I have previously seen most of RvB, up to season 10. I remember some of the stuff from later that reframes this whole arc but I am entering this viewing without any later context. I am watching Blood Gulch in a vacuum, as I would if only this arc existed and nothing else. The worst revelation, which I know they get change their mind on, is Tucker's discovery. Apparently, now, the conspiracy about RvB is false. So, you've told us a season ago that there was the conspiracy, implying that this season is going to explore that and the conclusion is that it was a mistake. That's my issue with the rest of Blood Gulch. All setup with no payoff. Like the prophecy stuff in season four, it ends with the alien dying and Blue team deciding to return home. Half of your show, the A plot, is serious plotting that isn't fun or compelling to watch. And the Red team, the B plot, the stuff that's fun to watch is framed as not important. Admittedly, season five is much better than the last two. Both teams have equal importance and they both further the plot. But it's clear that the writers have broken the structure of the show. They can't return to the sitcom of the first era. And the ending falls into the traps of the last two seasons, focusing primarily on the Blues with the Red team in thrown to the wasteside. Whilst the stuff with Tucker is cool and I know the ending is supposed to be a cliffhanger, I just don't find the mystery of Tex defecting compelling. I know that's what a cliffhanger is, but I just found it so tired. I don't know how else to put it.

And then it's implied that Tucker was right about there being a conspiracy? I don't know, it's frustrating to watch. The show went from RvB to BLUE! (Red may be included). And it sucks, that set up to season three is so strong with them joining forces and new pairings show up. And they want to change the shows direction but just keep giving as the same stuff. Without knowing what happens next season, I would be seriously worried about this show. And that's the thing, most people prefer seasons 6-13, with the engaging plot and the focus on lore and what not. But if I had only seen the plot of seasons 3-5, I would not be hopeful.

A show changing is fine and I remember really liking the rest of the show. I just find it funny that the first two seasons don't really have growing pains but to when they decide that they want to be a sci-fi drama rather than a sitcom, that's when the growing pains set in. From what I've seen of the miniseries from this arc, I know the writing is going to get better. I just hope Red team is as much of focus. Hell, I hope Tucker and Caboose don't end up in the shadow of church. To end on a more positive note, Blood Gulch is about a bunch of people who hate each other being stuck together. But I find it fun to see whom actually likes one another. Everyone on Blue team really like Donut, which is really funny because of how no one on Red team respects him. Caboose likes Church, and deep down Church likes Caboose. And deep down, Church and Tucker like one another. But funnily enough, Caboose doesn't like Tucker? And Church doesn't like Simmons? I just find this stuff funny. Like in It's Always Sunny, another show about a group of people who hate one another, it's very clear that deep down Mac and Charlie, and Charlie and Dennis like each other. I don't know, it's fun.

I do like RvB and I did like a majority of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, 70% of it if you do the math. I just found the story stuff not compelling.

#rvb #red vs blue

[banamine-bananime]

furiously in love, as in i'm furious about it - Chucker fanmix

the playlist itself isn't in chronological but the tracklist below the cut is. yes i did paste in the entire lyrics of night watch. it's because it's them okay the entire song is just deleted chucker dialogue with foreshadowing made to make me specifically cry

Night Watch - Naethan Apollo

Yo bro, I got a question Yeah, what up? Do you think you would die for me? What kind of question is that? I don't know! We're out on this night watch all night - (oh my God) We've gotta pass the time somehow So, spill the beans

Would you die for me? Come on I don't know I don't really like thinking about dying! Wow, after all we've been through together, huh Alright, fine, I'll say this:

I got one too many things I wanna do before I die Way too many friends who didn't make it back alive I got three or more scenarios, I shouldn't have survived But, dying for a friend is a hell of way to die

I'll be okay with dying if I can go my own way While I'm fighting for the people back at homebase I will battle all night If I live to see the morning, good for me I'll still be kicking through the whole day I won't take no for an answer You'll get back home, I am damn sure And if my life is on the line, that's a bet I'll take I hope the devil is a really good dancer

You really mean that, man? I mean yeah, of course What about you? Would you die for me? Oh, hell no! Absolutely not! Wow, okay, well, I pour my heart out to you and - (what?) You're an asshole (what? I'm agreeing with you!) Shut the fuck up - (I'm stronger!) - literally shut up, I don't - (listen, I'm the better fighter!

-no, I don't wanna hear - Oh my god, don't - (if one of us is going to die, it should be you!) Don't - (we're on the same page) Don't talk to me for the rest of the night - (what's the problem) (Bro, you're, it's just smart tactics) - eat your-, eat your fucking rations, leave me alone - You want the strongest person on the team to be alive! Remember when I said, "Shut the fuck up" and then you didn't, you kept talking? I just don't get what you're upset about [sarcastic] I don't know, maybe the fact that my best friend would let me die!

in my brain-amv this is a dream tucker has after s13, in which alpha is the one with the bolded lines and tucker is the one pouring his heart out, back in blood gulch but with dreamlogic making tucker much more of who he is at present (hence "way too many friends who didn't make it back alive, three or more scenarios i shouldn't have survived" and also, you know, being the one that's more capable of emotional sincerity).

then tucker wakes up and remembers this is an altered version of a conversation he did have with alpha when bored as fuck in blood gulch. with roles reversed from what actually happened because he wishes he could go back and say that to alpha rather than having to remember both alpha and epsilon dying by self-sacrifice

👍👍👍 im doing great why do you ask. fucking help me

okay heading back in time to blood gulch to progress chronologically through the rest of the songs:

My Best Friend's Hot - The Dollyrots

My best friend's hot My best friend's hot No matter what I do you love me not Woah oh oh, woah oh oh Na na na na na not You love me not

Na na not, na na not, na na not, na na not Na na not, na na not, na na not, na na not Should I tell you now, Or go oh oh oh

Let's Be Friends - Emily Osment

Don't you wanna Don't you wanna Don't you wanna know What it would feel like?

Let's be friends so we can make out You're so hot, let me show you around

LIFE'S A BIT - NOAHFINANCE

Gotta find another way to make myself confess Moral of the story: I'm a bit of a dickhead If I dive too deep get lost in the deep end Get myself out and try not to regress I hate to say that I don't know But goddamnit I guess I'll say that I don't know Guess I'll find another way to tell you that I suppress Every emotion I'm meant to express

So many ways that I could say it So why can't I even think of one? Just say something And break the silence It's not a love song but you're alright

Can I Say Baby - girli

I'm sorta into you What does that make me? I don't wanna be sloppy But I think you're great Wanna call you babe Hope you feel the same?

We argue, we fight We only do it 'cause it's kind of nice We french kiss, we bitch But it's all gonna be alright We say mean things I snub your friends We're bad for each other But it'll all work out in the end

it'll 🙃 all 🙃 work 🙃 out 🙃 in the end 🙃. im losing my fucking mind. you know those songs you have an exact amv play in your mind every time you listen over and over. yeah this is another one for me.

Five Years - Bo Burnham

You're my best friend, I love you (love you) You know me and I know you (know you) We got problems that we've been through (been through) We got shit that we'll get through, uh You think I'm rude to you You think I am the worst Because I ask when you suck my dick You take out your Invisalign first Come on

Five years, five years Still you, still me, still here Five years, five years, baby Five years, five years

We order Chinese, I'm eating my dumplings You reach over and you take my dumpling You don't even say, "Do you mind?" or nothing Why would you assume that you're entitled to a dumpling? So I look at you, you look back at me, like, "What the fuck did I do?" If you really wanted some dim sum, then You really should've gotten some when we put in the order You say, "You're a psycho and I-I don't wanna fight So, let's just drop this, it's not a big deal" "Okay, but for the record You owe me a dumpling, I mean it, I won't forget You owe me a dumpling or a dumpling equivalent"

Speaking Tongues - Joywave, KOPPS

The palms are down, I'm welcomed back to town Sometimes I feel like they don't understand me I hear their mouths making foreign sounds Sometimes I think they're all just speaking tongues

Tell me all the things I've missed Who's been killed and who's been kissed (Drag me back, collect my thoughts)

They say I'm the only one who can be brave That I am the chosen one But there's no way, I am the only one And there's no one to save If there's nowhere for them to run

meeting epsilon. your boyfriend is dead. you know this. no like actually dead. what? everyone is talking nonsense about ai. actually your boyfriend is alive but not really he's actually a different guy and he doesn't know or like you. also you're still very much the protagonist of an entirely different - and just as annoyingly complicated - story. so have fun with all that 🙃

Doppelganger - Joshua Bassett

I guess I'm not as over you as I thought that I was I saw someone who looked like you at our favorite coffee shop And part of me was hoping we would get the chance to talk I guess I'm not as over you as I thought

Washing Machine Heart - Mitski

Baby, though I've closed my eyes I know who you pretend I am I know who you pretend I am

Merry Happy - Kate Nash

Sitting in restaurants Thought we were so grown up But I know now that we were not the people that we turned out to be

Chatting on the phone can't take back those hours But I won't regret cause you can grow flowers from where dirt used to be

Dancing at discos Eating cheese on toast Yeah you make me merry make me very very happy But you obviously, you didn't want to stick around

reminiscing about alpha

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS - Tyler, The Creator

Are we still friends? Are we still friends? Are we still friends? (Friends, friends) I said, are we still friends? (Friends, friends) Are we still friends? (Friends, friends, friends, friends, friends)

Don't get green skin (green skin), keep contact (keep contact) Don't say, "Goodbye, smell you later" (bye, later) Nah, I can't I don't want to end this season on a bad episode

getting to know epsilon, just before crashing on chorus

Can't Get You Out of My Head - Johnny Goth

I just can't get you out of my head Boy, your lovin' is all I think about I just can't get you out of my head Boy, its more than I dare to think about

Every night Every day Just to be there in your arms Won't you stay Won't you lay Stay forever and ever, and ever, and ever

epsilon peaced the fuck out. "All I wanna do is stand around and talk to my friend, but he's gone now and all I've got is you!"

Don't Look at Me - POORSTACY

Every time, I get buried next to me (next to me) I'm not afraid to call, but I don't like it when you look at me Don't look at me Don't look at me Don't look at me

I go where the wind blows, I can't let go Baby, don't let go, don't wanna be alone Girl, let's stay u (stay up) don't wanna go home

babe wake up epsilon pov song just dropped

Our Perfect Disease - The Wombats

It's always a shock when old friends pass by But with you it's no death in the family

We don't admit it but we never seen eye to eye But it's not through a lack of trying

It was the perfect disease we had Something to argue and scream about Who do I see about contracting it back And locking it somewhere it can't get ripped out?

It was the perfect disease we had And its absence lies a painful fact We all need someone to drive us mad

Don't send a helping hand, I need a battering ram To beat the reasons that I miss you so sorely I didn't say it but we never saw eye to eye Now life is care free and equally as boring

It was the perfect disease we had Something to argue and scream about Who do I see about contracting it back And locking it somewhere it can't get ripped out?

i'm losing my fucking mind part ii

Digital Silence - Peter McPoland

This is the way that it is This is the way that it always will be Something you love turns to something you miss Something you say turns to something you mean

This is the way that I know This is the way and it makes me sick I feel it inside me like a pulse It's starting to slow and the meter dips

Digital style, digital hate Digital god, digital pain Digital violence, digital world Digital boy meets digital girl Digital silence, digital yell Digital heaven, digital hell Digital start, digital end Digital birth, digital death

Ghost - Mystery Skulls

'Cause the world might do me in It's all right cause I'm with friends Cause I'm giving up again It doesn't matter

Time for givin' up the ghost Fuck, it's you I hate the most And there is no guarantee It doesn't matter

This time I might just disappear This time I might just dis This time I might just disappear This time I might just dis

uh oh epsilon

death bed (coffee for your head) - Powfu, beabadoobee

I tried to do my best, but you know that I'm not perfect

I been praying for forgiveness, you've been praying for my health When I leave this Earth, hoping you'll find someone else 'Cause, yeah, we still young, there's so much we haven't done Getting married, start a family, watch your husband with his son

I wish it could be me, but I won't make it out this bed I hope I go to Heaven, so I see you once again My life was kinda short, but I got so many blessings Happy you were mine, it sucks that it's all ending

I'm happy that you here with me, I'm sorry if I tear up When me and you were younger, you would always make me cheer up

UH OH EPSILON

Arms Tonite - Mother Mother

I fell in your arms tonight I fell hard in your arms tonight, it was nice I died in your arms tonight I slipped through into the afterlife, it was nice White light in your arms tonight I lost sight in your arms tonight, it was nice

bye bye epsilon

Baby You're a Haunted House - Gerard Way

I'll be the ghost inside your head when we are through Sometimes you scare me, but I come around to you I'll say hello hello hello hello And I'll find a way to scare you too

Baby, you're a haunted house Better find another superstition We're gonna stay in love somehow 'Cause, baby, you're a haunted house now

You Said You'd Grow Old With Me - Michael Schulte

I'd like to say, "I'm okay", but I'm not I try, but I fall, close my mind, turn it off But I can't be sober, I cannot sleep You've got your peace now, but what about me?

Thought we had the time, had our lives Now you'll never get older, older Didn't say goodbye, now I'm frozen in time Getting colder, colder

One last word One last moment To ask you why You left me here behind You said you'd grow old with me

We had plans, we had visions, now I can't see ahead We were one, we were golden, forever, you said But I can't be sober, I cannot sleep You've got your peace now, but what about me?

dr google how to get over the anger at your double dead boyfriend for dying inside your brain

Carlo's Song - Noah Kahan

We listen to, "Only The Good Die Young" And we laugh about its statement We walk in the same direction, but we both got lost And you raged in my impatience

Did you find what you were looking for? Some escape from your skin You know that place you were dreaming of Where all light comes in I hope you know I grew my hair out long And your sister's just fine I keep burning my bridges down Just to keep you alive

#rvb #red vs blue #rvb fanmix #chucker #alexa send post

[riathedreamer]

So. “Birds of a Feather”. Been 1.5 year and I don’t think I will be returning. Even if I did, it’d probably just be for a chapter or a few, and that would still leave it mostly unfinished. I mean, never say never, but well.

For those who wants to know what you were gonna get, feel free to read the post below:

First of all: content warning for mentions of self-harm.

I guess the quick story is this: I am disabled and I have a history of self-harm, and both of these elements played a big role when planning this fic. A lot of the reason why it felt good writing it, it was somewhat of a journey for me myself.

What’s going on with Simmons’ wings? I mean, that’s where I left the fic. Basically, Simmons has been overgrooming himself out of anxiety. Basically, and this is sorta mentioned in the fic already, he comes from a family who cares too much about the presentation of their wings, and as the fandom has decided, his dad is a dick. So there’s always been a pressure to keep them *perfect* but with Simmons’ anxious tendencies, that spiraled. It’s been a problem for a while, but when Grif got mites, it triggered the bad habit to the point where Simmons is just. Pulling out feathers. Too many.

What Grif walked in on was basically the somewhat mangled wings. Simmons has managed to keep it hidden since his wings are slim and he has kept them closed when in their presence. It’s reached a point where Simmons has big problems flying – that’s why he’s denied the races with Grif (before their friendship went to shit).

From here, there was going to be an arc of Grif being in that weird “we-don’t-like-each-other-but-I-want-to-help”-phase they are all suffering from in Blood Gulch, and Simmons gets a bit better, though healing, mentally and physically here, takes a lot of time.

Then comes the tank accident.

Sticking to canon, Grif gets Simmons’ parts. Simmons has a hard time explaining why, and he would not present all of these arguments to Grif, but here we go. First of all – organs, no trouble, Grif needs them to survive, Simmons will turn cyborg for that, canon explanation. The wings – well, one, singularis. Grif has one fucked up, cannot be saved wing, and one that’s fine. No one feels comfortable removing his healthy wing while Grif is unconscious. You don’t take someone’s wing when they can’t agree. It’s a weird, unspoken thing, but it’s part of the why the solution is not to take the healthy wing and turn fully cyborg.

So, instead, Simmons takes the cyborg card. A, because canon feels. B, his wings are still very fucked up, and he wants to fly again, and he does not have the patience for the healing process (yep, that’s gonna turn into a metaphor for the mental health), and c) he’s reached a point where he wants to cut of his ties to his family, and, well, the cut goes to the wings here. Becoming a cyborg is to him, and improvement. And that means getting rid of his shitty wings – then why not use the one change to give Grif one of his shitty wings. Maybe it won’t work, maybe it will. But Grif is more fucked with only one wing.

Sarge is Sarge. No trying to reason with that.

So we have Simmons getting to fly again, though it takes a while to learn to fly with metal wings. Grif … tries? But the wing he received from Simmons is a problem. A, because it still has to heal from the damage Simmons did (Simmons likes to tell himself that Grif is more patient than him, that it will heal with him), but also because it’s simply a mismatch. It’s too tall, so he ends up dragging it across the ground a lot, and it’s not as large as his own wing. Basically, Red Team is down two flying soldiers while they try to figure their shit out.

Donut and Grif sorta bond when the soldier helps him deal with the mangled feathers. Simmons has a whole arc where he is scared of testing his metal wings because his brain keeps haunting him with the idea that the metal wings won’t carry him and that means he made the most stupid choice in the world and he’ll never fly again.

And s8 would wrap that arc up with Simmons truly flying for the first time to save Grif as Sidewinder, and Grif’s healing process coming to bad halt when Meta grabbed and pulled his wing in a bad way when they went over the edge.

Simmons gets better. Grif doesn’t really. He heals, yeah, but the wing still doesn’t suit him. And he looks weird as hell too. But so does the rest of his body, and Grif tells everyone he doesn’t care. Does he miss flying like he could before? Yeah. A lot. But that’s not something he can blame on Simmons’ stupid wing (he keeps stroking Simmons’ feathers, taking care of them more than his own wings, for stupid reasons he won’t admit).

So that is the key event for everything that comes after which is mainly to follow the main plot but with *wings* and these issues.

It would have a lot of scenes with Grif bonding with soldiers on Chorus who got their wings fucked up in the war.

And, you know, plenty of angst scenes. Which would include Felix messing with Simmons’ wings, and a scene of Grif falling but Simmons catching him just in time because that would need to happen am I right.

Anyway, this all sounds so melodramatic and sweet and angst, and it sure is, just remember the ton and ton of snark and funny banter and weirdness that can only belong in RvB.

#my rvb fic #birds of a feather

[bloodgulchblog]

I feel like Pandora opening the fucking box here but I have to ask- What the fuck is Red vs. Blue. What is it? I've seen the first season twice I think but have never been able to watch past that. It's funny, sure. The first episode is iconic. But I still don't understand it, you feel? Do things happen in the later seasons? What is the appeal?

Shit, fuck, okay, so...

(This is a long post, and nobody concerned is at all surprised.)

You've seen the first season so I don't have to go over the very basic starting premise, at least. I'll try and avoid glaring spoilers.

ANYWAY.

Red vs Blue was only supposed to last for a couple of episodes, but it got away from them and the first arc (seasons 1-5) ran from '03-'07 and it's like 9.5 hours of content all together. Part way in, it found its legs and started telling a funny story about how this pile of color coded idiots in Blood Gulch got tangled up loosely in some stuff pointing vaguely in the direction of the alien war and saved the day. They go through some portals. They get wildly lost. They think they've traveled in time. There are a lot of stupid jokes that become plot points. They fight a guy who is a lot better at fighting than them. There's a big explosion. It's stupid, extremely 2000s in both good ways and terrible ways, and incredibly dear to my heart, all in equal measure.

After it ended and had been silent for a while, RT decided to continue Red vs Blue but this time it was going to have an actual plot on purpose! From the beginning! For real this time!

The way they did this was by retconning and adding onto the only backstory anyone in the Blood Gulch Chronicles had: Agent Texas was from a top secret military project (Project Freelancer) where she got paired with an aggressive artificial intelligence for space war reasons.

Seasons 6-8 (about 6 hours of content) form an arc that is called The Recollection. It starts a while after Season 5 ends, and introduces the character of Agent Washington (from the same project as Tex, naturally.) Wash is trying to investigate what happened back in Blood Gulch (and specifically where the character Church has ended up) while also contending with a mysterious, aggressive, mute man called the Meta who's been hunting down and killing agents for their AIs.

A lot of shit happens, there's A Twist that idk if you've already heard but it's fun if you haven't. It ends with some strong forgiveness and power of friendship vibes.

After that, seasons 9 and 10 are the Project Freelancer Saga (about 5 hours, can you tell episodes were getting longer) which has big flashbacks to what actually went down during the project. Season 9 is plagued (for me) by having the "current" events mostly be a bunch of stuff that happens as a dream sequence (more or less) for one character and nobody else in it is real. (It's interesting if you care about him, but otherwise it's a lot of sitting through things that don't matter.) 10 gets back to things happening in the present and it has problems from being ten pounds of plot in a five pound bag, but also I love Agent Carolina a lot and much of the plot is about her dragging the gang into a revenge quest to try to get closure so... *raises and lowers one shoulder.* (I have a lot of unpopular opinions because the flashback characters are some of the most popular in this fandom, but I think the flashbacks are one of the weakest parts of the whole show.)

The show ended there for a while, having resolved the Project Freelancer plot and given the characters a theoretical sendoff. Then, seasons 11-13 (The Chorus Trilogy, about 8 hours) were produced by a new showrunner and, quite frankly, it was better than RvB ever deserved. After heroically bringing down what remained of the super shady Project Freelancer, the gang is finally richly rewarded with being able to go home to Earth! Unfortunately, they get stranded on a colony world called Chorus instead and dragged into the civil war currently plaguing the planet. It is the best-handled arc in the whole show, really nicely done, and I very honestly think that Season 11 is the best place to start RvB if you aren't sure whether you want to or not. It stands alone really well, it came at a point where the show had matured a lot, and Season 11 actually does the work of re-introducing the characters and gives you enough information that you don't have to see anything prior in order to understand about them. If you like 11-13, then you can decide if you care enough to go back for the rest of it. If not, you can safely say you saw the best of the show.

The characters have responsibility and have to deal with what it means to have people depending on and looking up to you (especially when you're still mostly the same pile of idiots you've always been.) There's a lot of great shit in here about friendship and being flawed people trying their best. It's still dumb, RvB is always dumb, but it has a good heart.

15 and 16 were by a new guy, and were such badly-received seasons they took the guy who wrote them off the show. 16 is, hands down, the worst. 17 felt like an apology. It was really good, but oh god at what cost?

I figure if you end up caring enough about RvB you'll find out about this period on your own, otherwise summarizing it beyond "there's a lot of bad characterization and unfunny humor and there's a time travel plot, then the apology season was actually great" is wasting your time.

We don't speak of RvB Zero. It was so poorly received that neither does RT, now.

OKAY BUT WHAT IS THE APPEAL OF RED VS BLUE?

Full disclosure: While RvB matured some over time and got less bad about some of its jokes, the humor has aged badly in a lot of places and wasn't okay in the first place (looking @ u, homophobic jokes and the only black character is a guy who sleeps around and probably has a bunch of kids he doesn't support jokes, I cannot blame anyone for being put off especially by the early material) but when it's good it's witty, the breakneck pacing of jokes is great. When RvB is funny, it's really funny.

The characters are all very flawed and remain flawed, but most of them grow and you get to see them as people struggling with situations that are so much bigger and scarier and more important than the world at large has told them they're ever going to be allowed to be. The Blood Gulch crew are not just losers, but a specifically selected pack of losers. But the thing that matters about them is they can, despite their flaws and their frequently shitty personalities and their petty squabbling, band together when it matters. And when some very damaged characters who are supposedly "better" and more important than they are crash and burn and are at their lowest? The Blood Gulch gang goes "hey, you can sit with us" and offers some pretty unconditional acceptance and friendship that is pretty much lifesaving.

RvB isn't deep, the Freelancer plot is full of holes so big you can drive a tank through them, the first showrunner couldn't write female characters, I've mentioned how much of it was in poor taste, and I could go on...

But I bonded with RvB when I was young and a lot of the things in it have meaning to me, it's quotable as hell, and I owe RvB for a lot of enjoyment I had over the years messing around with ideas and characters in it and talking for hours to my friends about it.

#rvb tag #ask #measlyfurball13

[sharkface-daydreams]

Gonna send this bc Im sure you wanna talk about him (and also bc Im curious) but Sharkface

Eli can I just say you really live up to your epithet of ‘rad guy’ <3 I’m surprised when people aren’t already sick of me talking about him tbph lmfao

I would like to preface this with the fact that my memories are jank and I first watched rvb ages ago. Like Blood Gulch was actually airing ages ago. So I have no idea when I first saw Sharkface’s intro initially.

First impression: This guy is cool as fuck. What the hell. <- I assume. And also on the rewatch that made me fall back into RvB hyperfixation lol

Impression now: He’s everything to me. He’s got a lot of grey space in canon as a tertiary antagonist, but there’s still a lot that can be implied just from the limited screen time he has. They gave him a richly layered tragic setup and then gave him an unsatisfying death. He deserved better, even if his fate was still to die. The Freelancers had as much if not more death on their hands than he did.

Favorite moment: I know I’ve said this before, but the guy has literally just under 15 minutes of screen time so I think I’m allowed to claim all of it as my favorite. Minor character stan rights. (But I do want to answer this properly. So. It’s a tie between his flamethrower fight with Carolina in season 9, and his ice mountain fight with Carolina in 13. He’s stupidly extra and I love him for it.)

Idea for a story: I feel like it would be faster to list the ideas I don’t have. Most of my wips are Shark-related lol uhhhhh let’s see. What’s recent at least. OH! The Honeypot AU. I have two versions I like, one in which Price gets Sharkface to infiltrate the Feds and News by posing as a secret AI copy of York, and one version where there actually is a York AI that Hargrove’s got his hands on and they implant him into Sharkface’s neural lace for the same objectives. I haven’t really started on it because I’m not 100% sure which I want to go with and where I want it to lead lol

Unpopular opinion: My brain is so filled with my own opinions of him I have no idea what other people think of him lmfao

Favorite relationship: Sharkface/Locus :333333 Sharklix in specific circumstances. I think him being friends/FWB with Kai is hysterical and also awesome as fuck. SharkLina. Also him and Donut could be very very cute. He’s very shippable. I like the idea of him being friends with Caboose. Caboose wouldn’t be judgy about him. Would probably think it’s cool that his name is Sharkface. I like Red Team adopting him too. He’s got Red Team energy, and he’s withering without family around him :(

Favorite headcanon: Oh god too many!! Probably fluent in Chinese although I don’t know enough about Chinese to know which dialect. Nerd. Big reader. Transgender Sharkface is one of my favorite headcanons, along with having a cybernetic eye thanks to Charon’s incredible Workman’s Compensation insurance. Hmm. What else. OH. That he can cook well. Prefers gas stoves because fire. Of course. I think I also tend to hc him as a smoker, I’m not sure why as I don’t like cigarettes or the smoke as I’m somewhat sensitive to it lol there’s a lot of grey space in his character since he’s not as well developed as most of the others so there’s plenty of space for headcanons haha

Thank you for asking ^^ <3

#sir that's my emotional support shark #we just got a letter #ask games #aaaaaaaaaaaa its my boy 😭<3 #i love him i love to think about him

[kyleknight]

writing patterns tag game

tagged by @bidoofenergy thank you this is such a fun little self-insight thing

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern!

ahhh I dont have a lot of "recent" fics because Ive been so dang busy lately, Im literally sitting on 4-6 rough drafts that just need a lot of editing before I can post them but the earliest I can get to that is mid next week

I hope this letter finds you well

Dear Sir, I am Maple Prince Etho from Canada Land.

2. Blood Gulch Blues (and Reds)

There’s no way to properly begin a story that involves many, many people with many, many different life experiences.

3. love looks like this

“I’m going to miss this view,” Jimmy says, looking out in between the gaps in his coral wall at the huge thriving reef system that surrounds the Prisma Palace as far as the eye can see.

4. days of paradise

Death used to be something that Jimmy hated.

5. I am not yet allowed to hold your hand

Fwhip is pacing back and forth because, yes, it’s come down to that.

6. Time Goes On and On

“Funny isn’t it, how much things can change,” Jimmy says.

7. I am penitent, I am patient, but oh, I still want

The delegation from the Cod Empire has been here for a whole week and Fwhip still hasn’t had a single moment alone with Jimmy.

8. Ours is a Song with Drums

The sun has been down for hours now but the festivities have continued and, if anything, they’ve only become even more fueled and boisterous.

9. The Void's Favorite

The Secret Keeper couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome than this.

10. We're a Couple of Freaks

The moon hangs heavily in the sky, blood dripping from its teeth.

I definitely like to set the tone of the piece in the first few sentences. Setting, plot, and characters come later, because to me, it's important that I establish right away what kind of piece this is: whimsical, dramatic, moody, etc. Honestly, I wish this was the first few opening lines because I think my first lines have far more impact with the sentences that follow, but that's not what this game is about, alas.

On their own, I don't particularly like any of these more than the others, but I do like how "Ours is a Song with Drums" and "We're a Couple of Freaks" also establish the mood as well.

If you want to do this, give it a try, even if it's just taking a look back at your works and thinking about it.

#mani rambling

[anneapocalypse]

Wyoming is a good and underappreciated villain.

He doesn’t have a tragic backstory. He doesn’t even have a backstory because in the context of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, he doesn’t need one. He’s a man doing a job and in the end, when he explains what that job actually is, his motives turn out to be pretty straightforward and understandable, to the point that the most powerful member of the core cast hears them and says, “You know what? You’re right,” and switches sides, and the story ends.

Blood Gulch is a more complex work of fiction than it gets credit for and its ending in particular is a highly underrated piece of black comedy and it’s fucking tight.

#avian dentistry #don't mind me i'm just thinking about wyoming again #blood gulch is a better story than you think it is #i'm gonna make that a tag #agent wyoming #rvb problems

[vacation-grif]

@ohdarnitripped

Oh believe me, from Season 15, RVB’s then arc was lackluster as a whole. Especially after coming from slapstick humor that was Blood Gulch, shifting tones and filming style into what was the Freelancer Arc, then kicking your heart in the balls that even a traffic cone can’t defend from in Chorus?

The “Paradox Arc” as I will call it was a bit rough. It started off weak and relied too much on movie references, which I felt was the fault of the head writer at the time. Not that I blame him. Can you imagine making all those references just because you can? If I could do that with Kamen Rider, FUCK I would take that but it’s too niche. But like the previous seasons, the Paradox Arc accomplished building the following: The Introduction (Season 15), Rising Action (Season 16, The Shisno Paradox), and The Climax, Rrturn, and Satisfaction (Season 17, Singularity). The arc as a whole wasn’t great, but it was satisfying and heartbreaking in a way.

It was especially easy for me because I was able to watch it for the first time as a whole. I’m sure people were disappointed during those weeklong waits, and then fall off. The RTNY server was telling me not to watch Season 18 if I don’t want to die due to how...lacking (for lack of better word) it is, and even though it’s only 8 Eps long, I might as well.

But I will say that Season 17 gave us the most in-depth developmebt for under developed characters we’ve ever had. That’s definitely where it shined. From Donut tired of being the butt of the joke for everyone to tear into just because he is pink and soft, to the sibling dynamic of Kai and Grif (especially Kai which hurt me, a lot). To Doc finding peace with his inner demons. To Carolina finally burying the hatchet (I wish it was literally but that was already done to CT) with herself. To Caboose who, despite being considered somewhere on the spectrum was aware enough to understand how it meant to lose a person, and how to deal with it, in a show that kinda laughs at death if they weren’t a main character.

What I sometimes find the problem with RvB over the last 20 years I’ve watched this since I was in grade school is that RvB seemed to have a problem with balance, between this high paced action, compelling story, and character development. In one case there’s more of one than the other two. In other cases there’s more of two than the one. But in a show that’s been running for almost 20 years, i think it’s good to keep alternating between them. Gotta take that break now and then.

Since sometimes, it’s okay to take less effort into some things. And more effort into other things.

Gonna...gonna tag this in spoilers just in case.

#spoilers #red vs blue #RvB

[rwdestuffs]

RvB0: What went well, what didn’t, and all the in-between.

Since RT is making this a bit easier by releasing the complete seasons in long videos, this is arguably something that probably should be done to wrap up the whole thing, and maybe see how far the series has come.

Red vs. Blue: ZERO is arguably the most divisive season of the entire series of the show.

Now obviously, people are very resistant to change, but whereas the prior seasons had change that was received to varying degrees of positivity, it was overall, positive.

So let’s go over some history to better understand what happened.

The main aspect of the original Reds and Blues, intentionally or not, were based off of gaming stereotypes.

It’s WAY too long to describe here, so here’s a link to how it works: [here]

Seasons 1-5 is basically a showcase of these gamer stereotypes. Displaying them as their base personalities and grows them as these new characters.

The whole entirety of Project Freelancer is pretty much a deconstruction of gaming tropes. The AI are Lootboxes that give an edge to a player, they have leaderboards, and they go into lobbies with lower level players to basically flex all over them.

The Chorus Trilogy has an arc deconstructing the concept of these types of team battles, pointing out how it never really amounts to anything except profits for the one side that’s basically the third party (Think Mann Co from TF2).

Season 14 is basically a celebration, so we’ll skip that, but keep in mind Meta vs. Carolina, it’ll be important later.

Season 15 is basically an attempt to revive the series. Maybe a documentary on prior pro players, and how people might try to exploit them, or how people may have lost their streaming careers to some of the players humiliating them, but that’s a stretch. There is no real tie to gaming here, or during this arc. This is where the whole thing starts declining. A lack of actually tying it to a gaming trope arguably makes it much more different than the previous seasons.

So, where does RvB0 stand in all this? Well, it is a bit of a return to form by being a previous pro player wanting to get a new squad, but having to now adapt to a new team.

But the way we’re introduced to them is jarring. This isn’t some episode of DEATH BATTLE. We should get to know who these characters are by their interactions with one another, their dialogue, and their actions. But let’s take a look at what gaming stereotypes we’re working with here. we already covered Florida, and the Director is basically these guys’ sponsor who basically caused all of what happened. Carolina is the streamer who gets mad at losing her top rank, York is the nice guy who probably helped set up other peoples’ streaming equipment and is just a friendly guy to be around in general, South and North are what happens when someone gets a rare item from a lootbox and the other doesn’t, etc.

Shatter Squad, is unfortunately, a lot of repeat gamer stereotypes.

West is basically the dad who is an ex-pro trying to make sure his team succeeds, like Florida.

One is the competitive pro who doesn’t like having her top spot challenged, like Carolina.

Axel is the resident Cool Guy™ whose exploits are told by anecdote or flashback. Similar to Tucker, except minus the sex jokes. Or maybe he’s like Wash, in the sense that he’s an ex-pro who got out of the game but keeps being dragged back into it by other circumstances (maybe financial).

East is the new player, much like Caboose. She thankfully is different enough by way of being the stream mole who helps out the other team by sabotaging the team she’s a part of.

And Raymond is the guy who thinks that all his tech and equipment will give him an edge over his opponents, much like most of the Freelancers who had an A.I.

The action is actually good, except for one scene. The scene where East (temporarily) kills Tucker.

Like… Torrian. Torrian. Meta vs. Carolina is my favorite episode of season 3 aside from Hulk vs. Doomsday, and you have him go down to a dagger? You pretty much animated an epic fight scene with all the Reds and Blues in the RvB0 advertisement that really should have been Tucker vs. Jaune as a means of joint advertising- I’m getting off topic here.

The new characters are also a point of some good and some bad. Obviously, you can only do so much with the OG characters until it becomes stale. This is why Dragon Ball is starting to get boring. It’s also why Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is still going strong. But trying to diversify the cast isn’t going to go well with a lot of the original audience. The most progressive thing the Blood Gulch Chronicles did was have Church challenge Simmons’ stereotypical comments regarding Donut. Change won’t go over so well with the audience.

In addition, the passing of Tucker’s sword to another character wasn’t going to go over so well without a big fight scene over the sword. Again, Torrian: YOU MADE Balrog vs. TJ Combo, All Might vs. Might Guy, and Blake vs. Mikasa. Out of everyone on that team, you of all people would have been more than qualified to animate a cool fight sequence that would showcase Tucker stopping East from just stabbing him. I know that the research is left to other people, but one of the big things about the characters is that they tanked a bomb worth a few dozen megatons of TNT… And Tucker goes down… To a dagger.

The fight sequences of RvB0 are great. I’ll say that much. But after every fight, I fully expected Wiz and Boomstick to come in and explain why the fight went down the way it did. Though, that may be due to me actually being interested in RT because of DEATH BATTLE… For better or for worse…

The dialogue wasn’t that great though. A lot of the humor falls flat, and the only joke I legitimately laughed at was when a member of Shatter Squad (One IIRC) responded to Carolina’s bold and serious declaration of “We have to save Lavernious Tucker” with “Who’s Tucker?” This is a series where the comedy comes from dialogue. So slapstick and physical humor don’t land as much, and the whole thing of them making reference to their situation doesn’t let a joke land as well as it could.

People are used to the head bobs of prior seasons, so the expressive gestures is super jarring and actually makes dialogue harder because you have to accompany it with the gestures. The limitation of what they had in season 1-5 is what led to innovation. Limits are how you make something extraordinary. So the freedom of actual gestures makes the overall product feel less like RvB and more like Torrian‘s equivalent of RWBY. He wanted to make a bunch of cool fight scenes. Which like… He had the perfect place to do that: DBX. Want a character who can generate a clone and uses a bladed weapon to fight? Uh, Noob Saibot is right there. You could have him fight… I don’t know, maybe Shadow Jago? They both utilize darkness, it would be fun.

Regardless, I honestly hope that wherever Torrian takes his talents, that he’s going in a place that he likes and that can keep him and his family comfortable.

RvB0: It’s a mess, it hardly really connects back to the OG Reds and Blues, and while the new characters breathe a new life into the series that was sorely needed, it probably wasn’t what people expected. This changing of the guard type of story doesn’t really work when the previous guard doesn’t pass down the mantle.

Also, Carolina constantly calling Wash by his real name just feels like some random pandering. It used to be special that you didn’t know what the real names of the Freelancers was, but the constant use of it just feels like something to just be there to constantly use.

But hey, if you liked it, more power to you.

#rvb crit

[jokerfan99]

Slideshows (RWBY/RVB) by Necroceph

*RVB Opening Theme*

Inside the Blue base, Mess Hall

Gary: It wasn't my fault. I only help, Wyoming kidnapped the alien. Tucker: Junior! His name is Junior, asshole! Church: Not your fault, huh? What about that time when you tried to blow me into pieces, you lying jackass! Gary: Knock knock. Caboose: Who's there? Gary: You are all dirty dirty Shisnos. Ha Ha Ha. Caboose: You're mean!

The atmosphere in the mess hall is filled with insults and anger, both from the Blues and Gary. They traded words like ' Dirty Shisno' and 'Backstabbbing AI' at one another. Church said this is supposed to be an interrogation but look at the results on the reunion of two enemies. Weiss and Blake can see the whole situation and think that: "Yep they know each other." They turned away and continued to where their conversation had left off.

Blake: So, Ruby and Yang, are here in this canyon? Weiss: Yes. Blake: And they're still not happy to see you. Weiss: Sigh. Yes and... Blake: Wait don't tell me. They attacked when they saw you. Weiss: Well, Ruby didn't attack me and I was the first to punched her. But Yang, she almost tried to tear my head off if it wasn't for, Caboose! None of this wouldn't have happened, we would... Blake: Weiss, you don't have to remind me about it. Look you can't just keep hating each other forever. The past is the past. How about just give yourselves a chance to talk with each other and settle aside your differences. Weiss: Except that won't work like how you did with, Sun. The last time we met was when Ruby tried to hit me with a drip stand. Anyways, why are you doing here exactly? Another Xenotarian aid assignment? Blake: Before that, yeah. The ship I was in was flying was running out so I had to stop by here to fuel up. I found a base but the inhabitants there are... Weiss: Let me guess, they're all dead. Well we're in a war, after all. What did you expect? Blake: War? Weiss: Oh right, you may not have heard about this. We're currently at war with the Red army. Not sure why they're called that but I've been told they're a bunch of arrogant Insurgents that needed some discipline. Atlas sent me to aid the Blue Army as a support. Blake: And the Blue army are? Weiss: They're an independent military force from a neighboring colony. According to Atlas intelligence, they got a huge disagreement with the Reds to decide which property they own. Blake: That seems understandable. But I taught you can't enter the Atlesian Army after you... Weiss:... Blake: Sorry to bring that up. Weiss: None taken. Nah I still couldn't. But out of the blue, they decided to give me another chance by performing an assignment. If I transfer myself to another army, live through it and won the war, I can finally get into the Atlesian army like I wanted to! Plain and simple. Blake: Really? Wow, that's something I've never heard, Atlas would do. It's a very good second chance for you. Though I've never of any war in this sector. Weiss: Hmm, maybe the White Paw forgot to update about it. Church: Ahem!

Blake and Weiss turned to Church.

Church: Will you two shut up? We're interrogating here. Blake: Is he always like that? Weiss: Oh don't mind him. He's always a jerk. He's name Church. "Leader" of the Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. If you ask me, he's the most incompetent team leader in this base with a hair trigger temper. Still waiting for Command to accept my request to becoming leader. The dark blue one's, Caboose or Michael if the name's too weird for you. He's lacking some brain cells. Probably from a bullet to the head, but he's alright when he gets the job done. The bright yellow is Kaikaina. Now keep your distance from her, she's a disgrace to women everywhere. The only thing she talks about is having sex. But not as worst as the aqua guy named... Tucker: 'Sup. Weiss: Sigh, Tucker.

Tucker approached the two, with his eyes fixated to Blake since the time she arrived here. She looks like the type whom he can hooked up her with her easily. He delivers his signature one-liner.

Tucker: Hey, baby. Never met one with cat-ears before. Maybe you can hear the cry of nature through them asking you to... Blake: I'm married and have two children back at home, thank you very much. Tucker: Fuck... do you still wanna hang out? Church: Alright, Gary, enough with the insults. Let's cut to the chase. First off, how did you survive the blast and more importantly, where's Tex? Gary: I would  tell you, once Caboose stops attempting to punch me. Caboose: Take that! And that! And that!

Caboose's fists passed through, Gary's holographic body to no effect at all.

Church: Stop it, dumbass. Caboose: Okay. Church: Now will you explain? Starting from the time when Andy blew up. Gary: As you wish. Luckily I've prepared a small presentation designed to easily explain my creators to what had transpired from the base I was in. Caboose: Oh give me three minutes, I'll get the popcorn. Kaikaina: Wait, we have popcorn? Tucker: Of course we do. It's popcorn, not a strip club. Kaikaina: Sigh. Someday.

Three minutes later and Caboose returns with the bowl of popcorn.

Blake: I only got here and met these people an hour ago, and I don't understand what's going on. Weiss: Me too. Hey Church.  Would you mind telling us the whole story here? Church: It worked with a guy named, Wyoming and tried to kidnapped Junior. That's all. Weiss: Gee, you're helpful. Caboose: Don't worry, I'll tell you the story. Weiss: Thank you, Caboose. Gary: As you all already know, I am the one who tricked you all into thinking that I'm a computer intelligence made a dead alien race which never existed and in reality worked with Wyoming to use the alien to manipulate his race as a savior and win the war. Church: Duh, who else doesn't remember that? Blake: Uhm... Weiss: Ahem. Church: Oh except for these two.

Gary creates a holographic screen big enough for the Blues to see. There's a title at the left upper corner which reads: "My Story: A PowerPoint Journey". The first slide he showed is a crudely drawn scene as if it was made by a three year old kid in his first attempt on Microsoft Paint. This made some of the Blues to laugh, Caboose makes better art than this! It depicts what looks like the pelican flying toward a base with an unknown trifoil logo on it. The Blues have never seen it, but Blake has. It was the same design she saw from the base she landed at.

Gary: Moments after, Andy exploded. The ship veered off course and coincidently crash landed on the Project Freelancer Operational Command Center. Kaikaina: Project Freelancer? Tucker: Aw crap... there's a base full of those fuckers?! Gary: Yes. Church: What about, Tex is she alright? Gary: She was dead when it crashed. Church: Sigh... crap.

The second slide shows Tex lying on the ground with a black box written with the words... well... "Black Box" on it.

Gary: The staff managed to recover Tex's corpse and the black box containing Sheila, Omega and me. They stored us inside containment before the Director decides what to do with us. Church: Director? Who's that? Gary: He is in charged with Project Freelancer.

The third slide shows, white armored soldiers running for their live as something, what looks like a generator,  behind them gets blown up or catches fire. Drawing's aren't so detail don't blame me.

Gary: Few days after the crash, one of the base's generators overheated, causing a chain reaction that freed me and Omega. No one knows how it happened but it is suggested that this wasn't a coincidence.

The fourth shows one of the soldiers laughing evilly over his dead comrade as the base behind him was on fire.

Gary: After we were freed, Omega started possessing the staff and killed them off, one by one, until Utah was left alive. I hid within one of the computers to hide from the chaos. For days I've waited for rescue until I met Blake. Does that answer your question?

Everyone are silent by Gary's story. Some don't believe him since his a liar, others were wondering whether he's really telling the truth. But the one thing that they all agree, is that Omega is back and is now somewhere on this planet wrecking havoc. Weiss and Blake, on the other hand, was not getting any sense of this.

Weiss:... Caboose: I like the last part. Kaikaina: O'Malley's back. That's bad right? Church: OF COURSE IT'S BAD! Weiss: O'Malley? Caboose: Oh that's what we call, Omega. The angry AI that tried to kill all of us. Blake: Wait a minute, you lied about being the base's computer system? Gary: Surprise, dirty shisno. Ha Ha Ha. Tucker: We told you he's a liar. So, where's O'Malley now and don't try lying this time! I'll tear of that AI chip from that armor and smash it with a hammer! Gary: Okay okay. I do not know where he is. I haven't seen him after the killing subsided. Church: Shit. Then he could be anywhere and inside any person on this planet. Tucker: But what of that 'Project Freelancer' stuff? Sounds like a military experiment. Church: I think he's referring to that classified military experiment, Tex took part in. The one where they implanted O'Malley into her armor. Weiss: AI implantation? I heard about that back at the Academy but it's very risky. What's a research like that doing on this war torn planet? Unless... this war is perfect place to run a military experiment. Church: That sounds like a plausible theory. But let's get to that later. For all we know, O'Malley's loose out there and his probably planning to take revenge on us. And the worst part, we don't know where he is. Caboose: Maybe we can ask the white guy the cat lady brought. Tucker: Hey good idea! He was from the base and probably the last person to saw O'Malley. . So where is he now? Blake: I had to lock him up in your base's janitor's closet. Tucker: The janitor's closet? Uhh... did you notice anything... off? Blake: No, just dirty mops. Tucker: Phew! Church: You disgust me, man. Well at least we got a lead. Blake: I'd advice you guys to be cautious. He's not mentally stable right now. Church: Thanks for the advice, lady. Tucker, Kai. Come with me. Kaikaina: I'll be the bad cop. Church: And NO strip teasing! Kaikaina: Pfft, asshole. Church: Caboose, Weiss. Take good care of our guest and keep an eye on, Gary, will ya? Caboose: Can I burrow your eye? Church: No.

Church, Tucker and Kai leaves the room.

Blake: I can't believe you just lied to me. Why would you do that after I found you? Gary: Well I didn't want to stay there forever so I had to use you. Blake: And that part of you going offline was a lie too? Gary: What? No. That was not originally part of the plan. I almost died if you hadn't removed me. Weiss: This is what I hate about military AIs. They're too human like to be controlled. Blake: I taught at one point you were interested in Dr. Catherine Halsey's theory of AI flash cloning? Weiss: Heh, true. But that's because Cortana was modeled after a human brain. So, Caboose. Now can you tell us what exactly transpired here before we both came? Just tell us the whole story. Caboose: Yay, storytime! This is going to fun. So you see, it started with me arriving at Blood Gulch and this tank lady named, Sheila...

Thirty minutes of the Blood Gulch Chronicles

Caboose:... and I said, "I meant why are we up here in the sun, when we could be standing down there in the shade". And then we stand under shade. The End! Weiss:... Blake:... Weiss:... This might take some time for me to process. Blake: Definitely. Though I kinda like this Doc. He's a very nice guy despite being possessed by a raging computer program.

Clearer Version: https://www.deviantart.com/necroceph/art/Slideshows-RWBY-RVB-860686887

Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/necroceph

#weiss schnee #blake belladonna #michael j caboose #rwby #monty oum #Rooster Teeth #Red vs Blue

[rubykgrant]

(Have a tiny bit of the Caboose interview! I’ll add more to this later, because we all know how much Caboose can talk about Church, but this was a really important bit that has been rolling around in my head for a while~)

She thought she had prepared herself for this particular interview, but she should have known better; nobody is ever prepared for Caboose.

Not that it was always a bad thing, it was just impossible to fully predict what was going to happen.

“Hello!” he greeted her cheerfully.

“Hello, Caboose. I’m glad you wanted to be part of these new interviews… and I’m sorry again, about startling you that first time we met. I know you said you were fine, but I was honestly so WORRIED-”

“Aw, that’s OK, really. And you got better at talking to people. This time, when you said you had questions for me, I didn’t fall off a cliff or anything! Good job!” Caboose was clearly trying to be supportive, and it made her laugh at the irony; it was usually reporters who had to put people at ease so they were willing to open up… and yes, once upon a time, Andrews had been a bit rough around the edges when she tried to get a story. While it had been an accident, startling Caboose and causing him to stumble backwards the first time they met, she probably would have been rather forceful with her questions. Perhaps even unkind.

Well, she knows better now. Still tough when need be, but more gentle and understanding.

“Thank you. I hope I keep doing a good job helping all of you tell your stories,”

“I bet you will. So, which stories do you want me to tell? I know a lot of really neat ones…” Caboose tipped his head to one side thoughtfully.

“Well, if you can, I have some questions I was hoping you would answer- about the things that happened to you before you met everybody in Blood Gulch, and what happened after you got there. Questions bout your thoughts and feelings,” Andrews said, a tone of warmth in her voice. “All you have to do is answer honestly. It’s also fine of you don’t want to answer a question, we can skip a topic and move on to something else. Sound good?”

“Yeah, that does sound good!” Caboose happily replied. “I had my own show once where I asked my friends questions about themselves, and they would give me answers, except those were in my dreams, and that’s how I knew when they weren’t being honest, it’s really easy to tell when a dream is lying, even when they say the exact same things my friends would say when we’re all awake, because those times I can’t be sure if they really mean everything or not!”

“Oh…I see?” she didn’t really see, but that never stopped Caboose before.

“We also used to answer questions for other people a lot, but most of those didn’t really happen, and sometimes only a few parts of them were real, but it was different than when I just imagine things, because sometimes my friends also remembered the things that didn’t happen, but they don’t always remember why we were doing the things we never did, or who the questions came from, or how we knew the answers to them, but that’s alright, because we’d probably give different answers now, anyway!”

Caboose gave a single definitive nod.

“Is some of that… because of the time-traveling? The Paradoxes?” Andrews asked.

“Probably! If it wasn’t because of the pair-of-boxes before, it is now that it happened,” that actually made sense, in a round-about kind of way. If it was good enough for Caboose, it was good enough for Andrews.

“You know what, good point. Well then, let me start with a BIG question… and remember, you can skip it if you don’t want to talk about it,” Andrews reminded him, and Caboose nodded. “Alright. I think everybody who has ever met you knows how much you like Church-”

“A LOT,” Caboose said firmly.

“Indeed. My question is- why? What was it about Church that made you like him so much?”

“Hmm… well, he was just really cool. I could tell right away, Church was awesome!” Caboose told her. “I liked talking to him a lot more than some of the other people I met before I got to Blood Gulch. I don’t know what words to use to make it make sense, but Church was like… really interesting by accident. He didn’t always want you to think he was interesting, but he WAS. I wanted to hear what he thought about things, so I would tell him about all the things I thought of too. It was hard at first, because Church yelled a lot… you remember seeing him for a minute, in the time-window, right?”

“Yes, I remember. I also saw old footage of all of you at Blood Gulch,” Andrews replied. “It seemed like Church was very… frustrated,”

“Yeah, he always acted like he was mad at everybody else, and didn’t need them. But then I figured out he was mad at himself. And he thought nobody needed him,”

Caboose said that so simply, with a touch of sad fondness. For a moment, it surprised Andrews.

“Really? How- how did you figure that out, Caboose?”

“Um, well, that’s also hard to explain so it makes sense, because it just kinda made sense in my head one day, but not with words?” he gave a small shrug, not of indifference, just an acceptance of this fact.

“You mean like a feeling?” she offered.

“Yes. Just like I knew Church was cool, I knew he also felt sort of… bad. I didn’t know WHY, though. Tucker says he figured out Church was an AI before everybody else, and YEAH, maybe he DID, but Tucker didn’t know right away! Nobody knew, not even Church. But he still felt like something was wrong… Epsilon told me once- that Alpha was really good at fixing problems, but after he got hurt so many times, he felt like he couldn’t fix anything. Church didn’t remember that he was Alpha, but he still had those bad feelings… he was afraid of people needing him, and then hating him because he couldn’t fix things like he wanted. He still tried, though. One time, when he exploded, and we all thought we time-traveled away, Church kept trying to fix things so nothing bad would happen to us. He tried over and over again, but it never worked, so he finally decided to just come back and be exploded with us!”

“Now THAT sounds like one of the time-travel paradoxes,” Andrews wondered how many different versions of reality the Reds and Blues actually experienced.

“Oh, no, that was something different... but it was when Church learned the mean word from Gary, and THAT was part of the time-travel stuff we did later. And Before,” Caboose clarified.

“Alright... we might need to sort through that, eventually. For now, go ahead and keep telling me about Church,” Andrews said.

“Well, no matter how much he yelled and acted mean, Church kept trying to fix things, he just didn’t want anybody to know he cared so much. I knew he cared, though. I knew he was lonely, too. Even when he told people to go away, that’s not really what he wanted… Church HATED when he missed things. He would complain about missing stuff all the time. Church was... really, REALLY important. Not because he was the Alpha AI, but because of how much he cared, and how hard he tried to fix things, even when he said he hated everybody. That’s just what Church was like,”

Caboose let out a soft sigh, and looked down at his hands in his lap. He didn’t seem terribly upset, maybe even a little satisfied to finally explain his thoughts, his feelings. Well, that was the point, after all.

Andrews knew that Church was a tender subject, and this included both Alpha and Epsilon, who had both been their own Church. Both had also been very important to the Reds and Blues, ESPECIALLY Caboose. Andrews regretted being so blunt and callous about the loss of Epsilon after Chorus… and she hadn’t fully understood why Alpha had been so missed. The moment during the time-window conversation and all those recordings of the early days had given her a glimpse, but that was all.

“Caboose?” Andrews spoke after taking a few seconds to gather her thoughts. Caboose looked up at her with a pleasant little hum of interest. “I think you explained that so it made sense PERFECTLY,”

“Really?”

“Yes. Thank you for telling me more about Church. I feel like I know him a little better now,” she smiled to herself, and was fairly confident that Caboose was also smiling inside his blue helmet.

“You’re welcome! I am the BEST at remembering Church, after all!” he said proudly. “That’s how I helped Epsilon at first, I told him about Church, and then Epsilon told me about Alpha. Some of it was in the message Epsilon left just for me, but some of it was just when we were talking... he didn’t know what was wrong at first either, but Epsilon also felt bad. The people who made the AI hurt them, too. Then made them forget it. It’s hard to feel better when you don’t know why you’re hurt... but when Epsilon remembered, he tried to fix things, for Alpha, and the other AI, and all of us. He tried too hard, and now he’s gone... but I still remember him, and Alpha. So do my friends. And now, we can help each other feel better, and remember the good things!”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’m sure Church would be glad you remember good things about him, too...” Andrews said.

“Yep. OH, I thought of something good, like, a title for my part of the story! Most of the stories I know all have titles. Does that work, can you use something like that?” he asked.

“Sure. What is it?”

“Memory is The Key,” Caboose spoke these words with affection and admiration. Andrews had to agree, it was a very fitting title.

#red vs blue #rvb

[emptynarration]

Author already had 5 soulmarks -all platonic, thank god- so he really didn't need any more. But there it was, the sixth mark, appearing right on his neck. And clearly a romantic one as well. He doesn't want any soulmates. He wants to be alone. He doesn't want romance, he hates it. But apparently, fate wanted to smother him in love and affection, if he wants it or not. 

~

more nsfw but you can skip it

featuring resident enis mark

~

They were dating. Author had finally acknowledged it, and had officially told Edward that they're dating, and he told him he liked him -and Edward liked him as well, quite obviously, though it was still nice to have their situation acknowledged. Edward was also added to the “Author's soulmates” groupchat, being introduced to the other five without meeting them yet. Wilford was all over Edward, wanting to meet him as soon as possible, but Author was not having any of that. So, they were reduced to texting, and making sure Wilford didn't just randomly show up at the cabin to try and meet Edward. They did meet up now and then -sometimes Edward visited Author, sometimes they met somewhere to eat, or take a walk, or something or other. It was nice, like this. Sometimes Edward stayed the night, sometimes they only had sex without anything else, but every time they were happy together. No matter what they did, they enjoyed their time together.

It was the most human contact Author had had in years. Truly, he didn't think he ever had had this much human contact before. And to think he had another romantic soulmate out there somewhere... It was near unfathomable to him. At least Edward was always careful when he came to the forest. He's been told it wasn't the safest, though as long as he stayed on the paths Author had shown him, he'd be safe. Technically, Author knew Edward should be safe. The creatures in the forest corresponded with his emotions after all, and he loved liked Edward. So they should too. But, one could never be too safe. Author didn't want Edward to accidentally get hurt, so he hoped that he would just. Keep to the paths, and stay safe. And when Author just knew there was someone in the forest, and his creatures were getting to them, Author felt a spike of panic. He knew his creatures wouldn't attack Edward. Rationally, he knew that. But his gut told him to go and stop his creatures, and that could only mean it was his soulmate, which could only be Edward. Because Author only cared about Edward, obviously.

Author hurriedly pulled on his shoes, and was off into the forest. He knew where to go, because his creatures were all connected to him, and if he wanted to get to them, he could. And so he went, he hurried, he ran, because he just felt like he needed to, and if he felt like this, then he would. He could hear his guardian growling, and he just knew there was a stranger facing it. And still, he was worried, and that worried him even more. He saw the man who was facing off against the guardian, the scruff appearance he had, how he clutched at his bleeding arm, and still glared at the creature before him. “What do you think you're doing?”, Author growled, walking up to the man. He seemed surprised, looking over at Author, before his gaze was back towards the shadowy wolf-like creature. “This monster attacked me.”, the man did reply at least, making Author look over at the guardian. Yeah, he could guess why that would be, seeing how this man was a stranger in his forest. “It's not a monster, it's a guardian. Now come on, I'll patch you up.”, Author said, grabbing the other's uninjured arm, tugging on it. The man turned to look at Author, glaring at him at first- before his gaze softened lightly.

“Fine..”, he relented, and Author -for some bizarre reason- smiled lightly. Author began leading the other away, while the man's gaze stuck to the guardian, until they were out of its sight. “I'm Issac.”, Author introduced himself, because it was how he usually introduced himself -no matter if he preferred to be called Author. Issac was more anonym than Author, in the end. “A pleasure. Leon.”, Leon replied in a mutter, though Author wasn't really bothered by Leon's tone or expression. “You usually pick a fight with monster like creatures?”, Author asked, because well, he wanted to know if Leon was always this reckless. “Considering usually I fight for survival against them, yes.”, Leon replied, making Author chuckle lightly. Not the answer he expected, but a pleasant one nonetheless. Well, “pleasant”. Obviously fighting for survival wasn't pleasant.

As they walked, Leon told Author about Monster Gulch, briefly mentioned the friends he had had, and how he had found his way here. Author listened mostly silent, nodding along, though also sometimes asked something or other. He mostly didn't say anything though. Until Leon asked about the “guardians”, so Author roughly explained that they were beings supposed to keep the forest and its inhabitants (him, though he didn't say that) safe. He did mention they didn't hurt him because he lived in the forest (and so was an inhabitant, though that wasn't the full real reason obviously). When they arrived at the cabin, Leon got to settle in the living room by the fire, while Author went to grab the first aid kit he kept around -which was much better stocked than before, thanks to Edward.

“Uhm...”, Leon looked at Author when the man came back, holding his shirt up -originally to get to his wound and let Author take care of it, but... well, there was also his soulmark, and Author had a wonderful view of it below the injury. It was an inkwell -which wasn't too exciting in itself, if it weren't for the fact that it was coloured in. Blue ink and gold lettering. Judging from Leon's expression, Author was guessing it had just coloured in. “Well.”, Author breathed out heavily, walking over and setting the kit down. He shifted to pull his own shirt up slightly, twisting to take a look at the combat knife on him. Yep, coloured in, in greys and a dark green handle. “No wonder I was so worried.”, Author muttered, kneeling down on the ground to start taking care of Leon's wound. Mentioned man looked a little uncertainly at Author, probably taken aback by his nonchalant.

“You're not... surprised? Or anything?”, Leon asked, just slightly wincing as Author cleaned the blood away, and readied these needles stitches bandaids -whatever they were called. Thing is, they replaced actual stitching, which was good. “Well...”, Author shrugged lightly. “I have more soulmarks. You're my second romantic one.”, Author avoided the question with saying that instead. That, quite obviously, also made Leon blink a couple times. “Ah. Well. I have a platonic one.”, he countered, uncertain what exactly to say. It was quite alright though, since they were both a little awkward with words. “I'm. Alright with that. You having multiple marks. Have.. you met them already?”. “Yep. We're dating. He's fine with sharing too. And he's a doctor.”, Author answered, finishing up and getting back up. He sat down next to Leon then, close but not uncomfortably so. “Alright.”.

They sat in silence for a while, just staring into the flames. Until Leon fell asleep, falling against Author, startling the man slightly. Taking a deep breath, Author sighed, rubbing his face. So this was how he met his second soulmate? He wondered if Leon would go back to Monster Gulch again. Probably, he supposed, though it might be harder to stay away with having found his soulmate. Or maybe it wouldn't be as hard, since Leon's travelling around was a part of him. Author wouldn't mind if Leon wanted to stay away and only come back every once in a while. He liked being alone after all, and even with dating Edward, Author still enjoyed his solitude. And if he wanted company, he could get it. It was nice. He wouldn't stop Leon from leaving, and he wouldn't stop him from staying either. He'd stop him from staying in the cabin, but still.

He gently shifted Leon to lay down on the couch, so he could stand up. He went ahead to go grab a blanket, so he could tuck Leon in, before making his way to the study. He'd wait for the other to wake up, before making them something to eat. He was pretty sure Leon would enjoy something warm and good to eat.

He did want to wait for Leon to wake up, but eventually, Author got hungry himself. So, he went ahead to go to the kitchen, and start making something to eat. Humming to himself as he cooked, eventually turning on the radio quietly in the background. He was already talking to himself quietly as he worked, thinking about his current story he was writing. He was getting immersed in what he was doing, focused on what he was cooking, as well as thinking about his story, as well as vaguely listening to the radio. Well, he wasn't really listening to the radio, it was just background noise filling his mind like static, and allowing him to focus. Which meant he didn't notice at all when Leon woke up. Because right now, he was debating about a plot point to himself, which meant a lot of random thoughts being spoken out loud that were only half connected, and Author's full attention being on those thoughts rather than his surroundings. His movements cooking were automatic.

“Issac?”, Leon's voice startled Author, making him flinch and drop the spoon as he lost his concentration. “Sorry about that.”. “It's fine.”, Author waved him off, picking his spoon back up to continue what he was doing. What was he doing? He actually had no idea, so he had to take a step back and actually look. “I'm cooking for us. Figured you'd like something warm to eat.”, Author hummed, motioning to whatever he had been making. It certainly smelled good, that he could say for certain, and he could figure out what he was cooking as well. “It smells good. Thanks.”, Leon smiled at Author, and the man cursed himself for being his romantic soulmate, because it made him feel things, and Author did not like that. He had enough to do with his feelings for Edward, and he's been dating him for a good while by now. He felt it was unfair, how quickly he felt for Leon, and how slowly it had been for Edward. He supposed the circumstances were different too though. Leon would eventually leave to Monster Gulch again, and that sooner rather than later, so their feelings would developed faster to make up for it.

“Sit down. I'm finished soon.”, Author mumbled, Leon humming as he did as told. A couple minutes later, Author had finished the food and grabbed some plates and cutlery, setting everything down on the table, before the food was also set down. Author sat down at the table as well then, and together they started to eat. They were quiet as they ate, though when Leon commented how good it tasted, Author blushed slightly -flustered- and waved him off. That didn't stop Leon from nearly scarfing down his food like a starving man though. In comparison, Author barely ate anything, though it was more than enough for him. He never ate all that much, after all. When they were done, Leon helped Author clean up, taking care of the dishes while Author put the food away. It was a comfortable silence between them -the radio still quietly playing in the background, unnoticed by either individual.

It felt like they were dancing around each other, in a way. Neither knew the other well, barely at all, but being soulmates made them feel close already, like they had been together for at least weeks already. There was a tension between them, something the two of them were unfamiliar with, but it was making the two of them restless. Talking felt wrong. What was there to even talk about? Author found his pendant between his lips, chewing on it because of his nerves, and it brought him back into focus and able to think at least a little bit. “You can use the bed tonight.”, Author said, and maybe it was a little random, but he also wasn't really thinking about anything anymore either. “The bed? Isn't it yours?”, Leon asked, leaning against the counter with his arms lightly crossed. Sleeping in a bed did seem wonderful, especially since he hadn't done so in quite a while. “I don't really use it much.”, Author replied and shrugged lightly. He usually crashed at his desk, or fell asleep in his armchair at the very least -not as far to walk, generally. So, Leon could just as well have the bed, since he certainly needed it more than Author did.

At least, Author thought so. Leon came from a place with barely any safety ever, and now he was somewhere where he couldn't be safer -with Author, obviously. In his cabin, in his forest, which he protected. So he couldn't be safer, obviously. And now that he was safe, he could enjoy everything that came with safety. Like a warm bed, and warm food, and clean clothes. Such things. Obviously. And an arm-full of Author, apparently, because when Author got his focus back to the situation at hand, he had his arms wrapped around Leon's neck and was kissing him. Or had Leon started kissing him? Because Author was trapped against the counter he had been leaning against, with Leon's arms trapping him from moving away, and Leon was definitely in control of the kiss. Author didn't mind that though, because he was having a hard time really focusing. He was doing things, but he wasn't really aware of them. He was pretty sure he should just. Stop? He was breathing heavily when Leon pulled away, though the man stood close still, their breaths intermingling. He seemed a little surprised about this development as well, though maybe Author was just imagining things -mostly because he was mostly staring at Leon's lips, and they were moving and- wait. He was talking to him, wasn't he?

Deciding that didn't matter, Author pressed his lips to Leon's again, holding himself close to him, just wanting to be close to him. Maybe because he couldn't focus, and kissing was good, and physical contact was good, and he was touch-starved -though less now that he was actively dating Edward- and Leon was also touch-starved, so this made sense. Obviously. Leon's arms were wrapped around him now, and there was a knee between Author's legs, and Author was breathing heavily as he was kissed so deeply. Pleasure was good, especially a good thing to focus on, because that would distract him a lot, and that would mean he would be in the moment. Which made him realize there were hands on his skin now, beneath his shirt, fingers tracing along the bottom of his binder, and Author just wanted to be even closer to Leon now, just because. So he pressed himself closer to Leon, his hands going into Leon's messy mop of hair, and he noted how nice it felt to touch it, which brought his focus to touching Leon's hair, running his hands through it, feeling he texture, the softness -and also the dirt and dust in it still. Leon needed a shower.

He gasped when he was suddenly picked up, wrapping his legs around Leon to not fall, clinging to him as he was carried. Deciding that this was alright, Author shifted a hand from clinging to Leon to instead touch his hair again, and he pressed kisses to Leon's neck where it was visible. Soon Author was laid down on the bed, and Leon was hovering over him. He was pretty sure Leon was asking him something, was talking about something, and Author was merely guessing what it was about. “You can undress me, touch me, see me, please-”, Author was near rambling, because he was either going to talk or not talk, and there was no in-between. He managed to stop himself from rambling completely though, and he did notice Leon chuckling and smiling at him, and moments later his binder was off and he could breathe easier and he had Leon's mouth on him and- Author gasped and moaned in surprise, back arching off the bed already, because yeah that felt good, and Leon's mouth was really warm and wet and felt so good.

~~Nsfw stuff because yea~~

Leon continued to undress Author, which was nice, because that meant there was more skin for him to kiss, and Author's hands were still in Leon's hair. Or maybe again? Author wasn't paying attention, at least not enough to know when he started and stopped touching Leon's hair. A startled, but definitely pleasured, gasp left Author when Leon was between his legs, and his tongue was lapping at his cunt, and god that felt so good. Author was a moaning mess as Leon ate him out, feeling his warm soft and wet tongue inside his folds, so enthusiastically eating him out. Author bunched the sheets beneath him tightly into his hands, as he gasped and moaned and let pleasure wash over him. It was incredibly teasing, and edging, and Author whined loudly when Leon pulled away. But there were hands on his cheeks, and Leon was looking at him, and Author focused on what Leon was saying. Asking about condoms and lube and stuff -thankfully Author managed an answer. That did mean he was left alone on the bed though, while Leon fetched whatever he needed and wanted, but he was back sooner than Author could really focus on Leon being gone.

And then Leon was back, he was kissing Author deeply, and Author was pushing Leon's shirt off, and pulled the other off over his head, and Author's hands were all over Leon's chest to feel him. Leon happily let him, kissing Author and trailing kisses to his neck, and Author gasped when he felt the other suck a mark on his skin. Leon took that as the sign it was, which meant Leon began biting and sucking harder -harder than Edward allowed himself to get- which made Author moan loudly in pleasure. Leon littered Author in dark red bitemarks, adding blue-purple bruises on his body. Author grew more sensitive with each bite and each sucking, making him whine and whimper needily, and when Leon kissed him proper again, Author was breathless. He hadn't noticed he had managed to undress Leon completely, nor when Leon pulled away for a moment.

He did notice when Leon's cock was pressing against him though, smooth with the condom and cold with lube. That completely didn't matter to Author though, because it felt really amazing, and Author was half-aware of most everything happening by now. He could feel Leon push into him, his arms were wrapped tightly around Leon's neck, and he was making pleasured sounds as he could focus on the wonderful feeling of getting filled. Leon's cock was thicker than Edward's, Author could tell that much, and that was pretty much all that Author could actually tell right now. And when Leon began to thrust into him, Author was gasping with each movement. And there were the words again, falling from Author's lips like a waterfall, begging for more, for Leon to go faster, to fuck him harder. And Leon, having noticed how Author loved to be handled roughly, began to really slam into him, making Author sob loudly in pleasure.

Leon was grunting from the exertion, but he was very happily fucking Author as hard as he could. If only for the gorgeous picture of having the man sprawled out beneath him, eyes squeezed shut as he moaned and gasped and sobbed, hands clenching the sheets beneath him so tightly his knuckles turned white. Author looked beautiful covered in hickeys and bitemarks and bruises, his neck and shoulders, his chest, even a part of his sides. “You're fucking gorgeous.”, Leon had to mutter, because Author was extremely pretty (especially like this), and even if his soulmate wasn't hearing him, he just. Had to say it. Plus, he accentuated his words with hard thrusts, knowing Author was just overwhelmed with pleasure. When Leon sucked over previous bitemarks, and bit into previous hickeys, Author was screaming in pleasure. It felt too good, he wasn't paying attention to anything but the wonderful pleasure he was getting, and when he came Author's breath got stuck in his throat, his back arched off the bed, and he clenched hard around Leon's cock inside of him, making Leon growl as he fucked Author through his orgasm. Author was sobbing when he was overstimulated, tears were in his eyes, and he laid near limp beneath Leon as he pounded into him.

Leon groaned as he came as well, finally merely shallowly thrusting into Author, riding out his orgasm, before he leaned down to breathlessly kiss Author, swallowing up all of his sounds. When they parted, Author was desperately gulping down air, and even Leon was breathing heavily. Author whined softly, brain deciding to not function anymore now that he was thoroughly fucked out. Leon pulled out slowly, making Author whimper.

~~Sex OVER~~

Leon collapsed next to Author, who was definitely ready to pass out now. Covered in marks, he felt really good, and he was already starting to ache a little -not that that mattered, at all, currently. Instead, Author curled up, and Leon pulled him close, letting him rest his head on Leon's chest. Author greatly enjoyed that, because Leon's chest was firm and warm and wonderful, and he could listen to his heart beating right beneath him. And when Leon pulled the blankets over them, Author hummed happily, and was quick to fall asleep.

#admin writing #the author #survivalist mark #soulmate au

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

ITS EYE AGAINST I

... And me against You. Hello random people of the internet, and the select RvB audience I’m intending to talk to. Time for millions to ignore my existence, while a select few look at my fancy garbage. Now, with no sense of decorum, or tact... I present to you. That Red vs Blue seasons 15 through 17 are continuity breaking and noncanon. To be honest, I’m not overly fond of the over all plotlines and more than a few handfuls of episodes were just... dull. And that’s saying something for a series I’ve been attached to for the last decade. That isn’t to say there weren’t parts I didn’t like. There were plenty of things that were just fantastic and launched perfectly. But let’s get to the whys and hows. Let’s set out the point system: First point. The Blues and Reds, our blue visor assmonkeys... were unnecessarily stupid. They were a copypasta team, with a poor excuse to be there, that not only doesn’t fit what is already established but breaks continuity by being there. If we were to take the rest of the 15-17 series, it’d be easier to make them into alternative universe counter parts or what-ifs, from different timelines caused by the series later use of Time travel. Rather than this blessed mess. They spit in the face of Agent Florida’s workhistory. And while you can see where the idea came from, the execution and establishment was lacking. The very fact that it includes Doc already tells you that we’re not with Agent Kansas anymore, and that it utterly destroyed Doc’s history prior to coming to Blood Gulch. Second Point. The Time Travel. [frustrated exhausted ugh-ing] The best I can say is that the series analysis of Time Travel was fantastic. It acknowledged that the inclusion of Time Travel is meant to break continuity and reshape it. The difference here, is that it only broke continuity. In fact it shattered it so badly that we’d have to ask the Homestuck Fandom to pick the remaining pieces back up, and classpect it for good measure. The fact that Human History was so severely fusterclucked by our Teams already shows you how much respect Continuity got in these last seasons, as well as how much respect to Canon. And then there were the “Gods”. Just... Introducing someone for the funny designs and the fantastic graphic and digital movements is nice, but it doesn’t do anything. See every pitfall CGI and 3D ran into for the last few decades. See, RvB is meant to run along side Halo without destroying one another in an “Upstoppable Force meets Immovable Object” sort of way. And if nothing else, its already established that RvB also has ties to Marathon too (which, while muddled up, still works). And while plenty of the shenanigans were fantastic (Loved that Cyclops scene), the reason they got there was Weak, and it just utterly detonates itself like Church and his stomach bomb... Surrounded by people you hate, and being hunted down by the world’s worst player at a knock-knock jokes. The Third Point I despise Jax. ... I kid, that isn’t the third point. But I still don’t like the Jax. His growth into a terrible director was funny, but it doesn’t really save him or his purpose in the series. I digress. Its what I dub the “Super Hero Ex Machina”. In a “Super Hero Ex Machina” situation, reality crashes in, breaks both Narrative flow and rules, for drama. And example is with Spiderman and his web shooting. In his narrative, he can save someone easily from falling with his web shot. But if the Drama Machina Maker is introduced, then the reality of the situation crashes down as the force of the fall would completely shatter the victim’s skeleton if Spiderman caught them. As this is not already established as happening before, its only there to cause drama and not meant for any serious development or character arc. Or if a show adheres to keeping the status quo at all costs. Things that would realistically and permanently mess up the status quo are solved in 1 or 2 episodes. But if Reality crashes because Plot said so, it breaks the established rules of the Narrative (and pacing). Especially if said plotpoint could have already been solved in prior episodes easily. And that’s what they pulled on Agent Washington and his throat injury. Washington is an established survivor. He has survived some pretty messed up stuff, both mentally and physically, and he’s come so far as a character. To a point where he’s almost unrecognizable from when he was first established as the “Noir Detective Soldier Mercenary Man who plays by corrupt rules but still shines that hurting heart of gold once in a while”. Some of the stuff he’s had to survive, and potentially had to survive would’ve killed normal people. Even his writers had to take a step back and say, “No he can’t survive getting cut in half by a car”. RvB is good about changing status quo, and keeping to a rule of “actions have consequences” in order to both forward character and story. So it isn’t like they’re above permanently messing someone up (... Church.) But there are Rules on how its Handled. Story will establish and evolve said rules over time, this is true, but its a “more things change, more they stay the same” situation. And Washington’s injury... breaks that. For easy reason; For one thing, we already have a Freelancer with throat injuries, and he got them in a far worse scenario. Agent Maine was bloody machine gunned in the throat, then tossed off a freeway stories up from a ground we never even saw. And all he got was a messed up voice. There isn’t a good reason to give Wash that injury, realistic as it may be, besides playing it for Drama. And while such a circumstance should be given both the realism and seriousness it deserves, this only works if, you know, don’t play it to make a person or people suffer for Drama. Does this forward Character? No. No it doesn’t. The seasons retreat everyone’s character arcs. What little it does show is how far everyone has come... By making them take 20 steps back, and 5 steps forward. An ultimately useless gesture that neither show cases the human condition of “repeat until you finally get the lesson” or “sometimes shit happens”. Does it move the story? Only for drama. Which is a very weak reason. Even worse, as the series has already established that it can think deeply and use drama as a tool and not a plot point. If not for character or story, is it meant to be a metaphor? Metaphor for what. RvB doesn’t do metaphors. If not metaphor, is it supposed to be informative of the condition itself? RvB has bloody PSAs. No. A story is decent enough if it can mix those questions up without one consuming the other. But there wasn’t a point to do it. Just to see Wash or Carolina or the guys to suffer? To show that sometimes people get injuries they don’t bounce back from? Are you Kidding? We just permanently lost Church, and they set out to find the possibility of his existence again! That right there already Tells you that sometimes folks don’t Bounce Back. There was an entire Arc for Caboose, fer the gods’ sake, talking about it. CABOOSE. What the flyin Fu-- Ahem. There was already a ruling about Actions have Consequences. It was apart of the status quo that went as far back as the Blood Gulch Chronicles. Its filed under “The More things change, the more they stay the same”, and even throughout the Reconstruction series, there were plenty of characters pulling permanently changing stunts that affected them through the rest of their lives, or caused their death for it. [deep breath, lets it out] So. Inspite of my many problems with S15-17, there are things I adored about it. - Donut and Caboose’s arcs. Fantastically done. Caboose getting to the understanding he got in S14 about losing friends was heart breaking and beautiful. Donut’s may seem like retread and flanderization, but that is actually easily explained. When you’re under sufficient stress, your coping mechanisms will boost out from 10 to 100, and just because you’re now fully aware of it doesn’t mean you have the power or development yet to stop. It was a fantastic look into his character. - Sister. They made her into more than just a gimick and Grif’s Sister, which was a problem I had with her in Blood Gulch. Good patch up there. - The Background info and the details in Background Info with our main characters. Ye Gods, we got some backstory! The humor works, the seriousness works, its a beautiful set of puzzle pieces that fit snuggly into both canon and continuity. - Chrovos. Inspite of the time travel plot pitfalls, I actually really liked Chrovos. Wish they did more with them (Him? Her? I don’t remember if they established their pronouns). Did not like Jenkins, inspite of him being created out of a cut character. The Gods didn’t work very much either, and would’ve been better suited as characters that weren’t “gods”. It doesn’t help that they just... had inconsistant rules. - The Freelancers. I love the introduction to the Freelancers and all their nice armor designs. Too bad they’re all feckin’ dead. - Temple. I actually really liked Temple and the idea behind him. However, instead of the malakey we got, and the Time Travel Nonsense that could be theorized afterwards. It would’ve worked better if he had been the leader of a Cult of Personality or sorts, purposely and badly mimicking the hype of the RvB teams’ fame and gathering surviving former stim troopers. The terrorist thing could work, and so could the Church plot. Everything else was stupid. Remove the Time Travel, this isn’t Homestuck Hour. Thanks for you for your continued reading. ... oh Right, I forgot. As awesome as it was to see Locus again, the uselessness of Wash’s throat injury and how he was reintroduced makes him more into a Deus ex Machina (and not that Halo 3 Machinima from way back). Its like fitting a circle peg into a square hole... But getting it stuck halfway and ruining the children’s puzzle toy. ADDENDUM (edited) I hate Hate HATED how Vic parodied Church’s epilogue speech, and I just about wish Church would come back just to beat the shiznet out of him for it.

#rvb #Red vs Blue #Analysis #The Shizno #rvb season 15 #rvb season 16 #rvb season 17

[p-pamda]

If the hero met an Assassin

Tonight, was unusually calm in the little town of cutthroat gulch as a masked superhero patrolled the streets looking for any trolls that may need help.

he ran across a few that needed a little help such as finding a lost lusi or helping with a dispute with their friends and a some that just needed a troll to talk to. As usual the high bloods would make fun of him and give warning about him watching out about being killed but the superhero just kept his head held high as he made it look like their words washed over him but when he seen a few teals he ducked into an ally way and made his way around them.

“shit… I need to get back on my route.” the teal mumbled to himself as he looked made his way around the corner of a building, only to be greeted with trolls screaming and running for cover wherever they can find it. Not wanting to get trampled by a purple blood the teal climbed a fire ladder up the building to get to the roof. And from there he was able to see what was going on.

A few blocks down from what he can see a troll was squaring up with one of the drones that had a troll blood pinned under their hand. Fear filling his chest for the two the teal made his way down safely back to the street when the coast was clear. As he ran to the three, he got a better look at the troll that was squaring up to the drone, he had his back to him  and as his scarf blew in the wind it revealed two sheaths on the back of his belt and the knives were drawn from them.

Is this another superhero? He thought with some excitement as he ducked down near a dumpster for cover. Peeking around it he could see that the troll had a mask on their face with a strange pattern on it… it looked like the face of a bee… strange mask for a hero. He thought as he took in the situation. He wanted to help but he can’t just jump in like a lose cannon! There is a hostage that needs saving.

As he took in the situation he noticed the troll’s body posture was strange, as if they were looking at him from behind his mask, as he looked at the troll he noticed that, yes they noticed him and they were gesturing to the troll under the drones grip with their head.

Looking from the troll and then the drone you knew what you needed to do, giving the other a thumbs up you ran into the ally and made your way behind the drone and found a good hiding spot till the time to strike presented itself.

As you watched the troll, from what you can tell now is a gold blood from the scarf and shorts they were wearing, quickly moved to slash at the done, catching you off guard a bit but you steeled yourself as you watched the troll cling onto the drones hand with their knives dug deep into its metal forearm.

When it lifted its hand to swat at the gold blood that was when you made your move! Quickly you ran in, pulled the rust blood from the spot and ran to safety with them behind the dumpster and soon into the ally. The rust thanked you profusely for your help and after telling them that is what a hero does, they ran off.

You sighed a bit but then ran to see how the other troll was doing, ready to jump in to help them if they needed it! But what greeted you shocked you, the drone laid on the ground with its head sliced clean off as its body was in a kneeling position. “how the heck…” you mumbled to yourself as you got close to the drone but before you could. “I couldn’t go near that if I was you” a garbled voice said from behind you. Making you jump and look in the direction of the voice’s owner.

The owner was the masked troll, they were leaning against the building casually as if this was just a normal thing to them! “how did you?” you pointed to the drone as the body fell to tis side. “I have inside help” the troll asked as he pushed off the wall. “come on, I can tell you have questions” the troll said as they walked into the ally, you followed them for a bit till you got to the main street, looking around you thought you lost them till a tap on your shoulder caught your attention.

looking to your left you seen a gold blood was standing next to you, he had a cold look to his face as he stood next to you and you thought this troll was a stranger till you saw the scarf tightly wrapped around the golds neck.

 “you could have gotten hurt little teal” he said as he looked at you. You just grinned at him happily. “well I didn’t know what was going on till I seen the drone, and besides I am a hero! I am supposed to help those in need!” you said with a grin and soon it dawned on you as you started to hop from one foot to the other. “wait are you a superhero too?!”

you asked him with enthusiasm that didn’t faze him as he looked at you, his eyes shone in the dim light, huh strange... but you shook that off as the troll scratched his cheek a bit. A bashful look came across his face. “i-I guess you can say that” he said making you grin even more. “what’s your name?” you asked making him jump a bit. “um… it’s killer bee” he said making you get more excited. “it is awesome to meet you Killer bee!” you said as you held your hand out to him.

He looked at it a bit before taking your hand and shook it, you noticed he held back in the handshake, maybe he was afraid to hurt you? Wait would that mean! “what is your superpower?” you asked making Bee laugh as he let your hand go. “um… I wouldn’t call it a power” he said making you become giddy. “is it a curse? An experiment gone wrong??”

you asked as you hit him with every superhero origin story you could think of till you calmed down to take a breath. “or were you born with it?” you asked making Bee smile at you and nod. “yes, I was born with this ‘power’ “he said with air quotes. “but like any good superhero we don’t tell others about it right?” he said making you cover your mouth. “true superhero 101 ever tell your weakness to others” you said as Bee laughed a bit.

 “so why are you out here so early?” he asked as he started to walk away making you follow him. “I was on patrol making sure things were safe!” you said happily till you faltered a bit. “but I ran into some unforeseen obstacles on my normal route, so I had to take a detour” you said but regained your smile.

“ah I understand that” Bee said as a buzzing caught both of your attention, he pulled his palm-husk out and typed something on it before putting it away. “sorry about that” bee said making you wave your hand at him. “it’s alright don’t worry!” you said happily. “it is rude to leave others waiting for a response” you said making him laugh a bit. “that is true” he said making you laugh till a voice yelled.

“well lookie here~ seems like the freak with the cape made a friend” hearing that made you tenses up and look ahead of you. You were having too much fun talking to Bee that you didn’t keep watch of the street shit! Hearing the shrill voice Bee looked up and seen a few teals walking over. “How is the super heroing going?” one of them asked in a mocking tone making you look down a bit to rub your arm, why do the other teals always have to mess with you like this.. before you can say anything, bee spoke up. “he is doing more than you lot are, instead of harassing others like you he is out helping make a difference” he said making you perk up and look at him. “ooh ya goldie? What did he do that made a difference?” the teal asked as they sneered at you. “he saved someone from a drone and got them to safety” he said making your chest swell up with pride. “anyone can do that” the other said as they examined their nails. “if anyone can do it then why don’t you do it next time”

Bee said with a sneer making the other look at him and glared at him. “if you’re such a big shot, save someone from an attack next time, till then don’t talk big talk” he said as he gently patted your shoulder signaling for you to take the lead.

With your chest still filled with pride you lead bee away from the group but when you were out of eyesight of them you let out the breath you had been holding. “ok, never again” you said as Bee just rubbed his neck a bit. “sorry about that.” Bee said apologetically making you wave it off. “it’s alright I am used to it by now, but I still avoid them for that reason.”

 You said making Bee look sad for a moment, but he shook it off. “well… how about we try to turn this night around?” he asked making you look at him confused. “how?” you asked making bee look around a bit and soon pointed to a shop. “why don’t we get some grub cream? My treat” he offered making you squint at him a bit and pointed at him. “I only eat the superhero kind” you said making him laugh a bit. “alright you can get that” he said making you smile as you both made your ways to the shop.

After getting the grub cream you both just sat around and chatted about nothing, but soon a question was burning a hole in your pocket. “so… how long have you been a superhero?” you asked making Bee stop and think a bit. “honestly… I don’t know.” He said as he seems to get lost in thought. “at first I wasn’t meant to be a hero you know” he said as he looked at you. “I was more or less mean to be a villain” he said making you tense up. “why...?” you asked him as he just smiles at you.

“I don’t know why but things just didn’t feel right with what I was doing you know?” he said as you nodded. “I just… wanted to use that I know to help others, the guild I was with didn’t like that, so they kicked me out.” He said casually making you have a questioning look on your face.

“guild...?” you asked. Making him nod. “ya I used to live with a guild of assassins” he said as he cleaned up his mess. You just nodded but, on the inside, you were freaking out! Assassins?! Why would that type of villain be here!? Your mind frantically did summersaults till Bee spoke up again. “I left that lifestyle so that I can help others, I don’t intend to take the lives of others” he said making you snap out of your thoughts.

Hearing that you let out a breath and smiled at him. “well that’s good, because if you were a villain, I would have to stop you!” you said making him laugh and nod. “that’s true!” he said and leaned forward, his fist held up and taking the hint you hit the side of your fist with his. “oh, and the name is Sindri, Sindri Laanri” he said as you got a massive grin on your face. “Cherul!” you half whispered and half yelled. Making Sindri laugh. “It is awesome to meet you Cherul.” he said making you grin widely. You made another friend who is also a superhero! This is the best night ever!

(sorry for it being so long!!)

#submission #homestuck #hiveswap #fantroll #fanfic #i think?? #amazing! #not by me #fantrolls #pesterquest #i love this #<3 #thanks i lot for taking the time on writting it! #homestuck-boyfriends #<- creator

[stareiiez]

Flower Petals and Blood

𝐿𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝐶𝘩𝑢𝑟𝑐𝘩 𝑥 𝐹𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟

Chapter 6

Word Count: 3.4k

𝑨/𝑵:  HI! Hello, yes, it's me. I have updated with an even longer chapter for this ongoing series that you guys have really seemed to enjoy :D I’m happy for the support and love I’ve gotten!

𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: Graphic description of choking, perhaps vomit.  Nothing too extreme for n o w, just good ole choking on some flowers. 

                             ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 "What's your deal?" You complained, your feet were trying to plant on the metal flooring of the base and then on the ground when you were dragged outside the base.

Your voice was high pitched and annoyed, as you if you had every right to be a bit whiny towards another soldier. The black-armored clad female had dragged you from your doorway, leaving behind Tucker to talk to you in private. The sun beat down on to your bear head and already sweat was working its way to dampen the back of your neck and back itself. It seemed to only get hotter in Blood Gulch around 'summertime', you had a way of telling when the 'seasons' changed due to the slight difference in this area.

"Whatever you could have said, you couldn't have said in front of your other teammate." You bit out, as the grip on your wrist grew tighter. Oh right, you forgot to mention how she had held you by the arm like a child who was in trouble, then dragged you away. She should have just grabbed you by the ear and scolded you just to further add on to your embarrassment.

"This isn't about him, this is far from him. Who you do on your own time in none of my concern. He's not even my teammate, to begin with in the first place, I'm just hired to be here to replace Church's death." Tex stated, her hand had pulled you harshly forward as the two of you wandered behind the back of the Blue base.

How quick she practically threw you ahead of her had your head spin slightly as you fought to gain your balance against the quick moment of momentum. Was a conversation that serious that she had to be that bitch to pull you away from- .. from. Well, what did she step in on back there? Were you going to do something with Tucker? You couldn't even remember, the moment he set his hands on you. Your body burst into flames of heat and some tingly feeling that left your mind dazed beyond compare. You were on fire and he added more gasoline to the bonfire that screamed in your chest. He burned the bright petals away and let you live. Maybe you were just pent up and Tucker was your only scapegoat. Did you like him? Maybe. He was good-looking, funny when he wasn't talking about his dick, and caring. He worried over your condition and in that one spare intimate moment, you could feel the ache in your lungs. He made you feel, normal. Tucker made you feel something other than pain and for one painstakingly moment as the world around you spun. Maybe he was something you needed in your life.

"Something is off about you," Texas spoke once you gained your bearings, her voice brought on that itchy feeling to your chest. Her voice was nails on a chalkboard and that yanked you out of your glazed over attention.

‘Gee Tex, as if puking up petals wasn't off enough. What do you want? A fucking billboard so you can see it easier instead of looking down at me from your god damn high horse named Church?' You thought to yourself.

Acid burned in your throat as you bit down on your tongue. You swallowed the sharp acidic tang that tried to push its way past your teeth in word vomit or actual vomit. Your breath left in a quick rush of air once your gazed turned to cast the female an actual agent of the nearly forgotten Project; and you. You were just someone that knew everything about the agents, everything the Project stood for. You could spill your guts to the public, to cover what the media didn't when the Director went into hiding. You didn't hate Project Freelancer, no you loved the stories that you heard about them. You loved and looked up to the war criminals as if they were Earth's do-gooders who saw no wrong and weren't manipulated into thinking they were better than anyone. Captain Flowers even told you of his past, of him faking his death to get into this particular simulation group under a new persona. He was dedicated enough to sell his soul for Project Freelancer, and by god did that organization let him down coldly.

He was crazy. his sanity gone and down the drain, the Project fell. He was all smiles and sadistic chuckles when everyone he ever knew or cared for was shown up as MIA or KIA. His sanity was gone and switched out for episodes that he was either way too friendly that it was uncomfortable, or for others that were a bit too bloodthirsty for a canyon group of idiots. He wasn't Agent Florida, he was some other man that filled that husk and took his job with the biggest grain of salt in the salt shaker.

You just hated her. Hate was a strong word, but she was just another manipulation that was conned by the Director. She didn't have to come back, she didn't have to be here and have Church wrapped around her pink finger, but she did. Church was hardwired to chase after her, he was destined to live out the Director's love through another robotic AI copy of her. You were just here on the sidelines to watch it play out and choke to death on some fucking made-up disease. Why do you need to be the one to tell her your whole fucked up one-sided love triangle fiasco when it's obvious she is here to just intimidate her.

Like some twisted female Alpha, she wants to make sure you don't fuck with what's hers. If it's possible to give hickies and blow an AI you'd gladly track Church down and make it happen as long as she sees it. The itchy feeling bloomed slowly back in your chest, your breath stuttered just slightly in your lungs. It was starting to hurt, the itchy feeling was moving upwards, like vines of a rose garden and twinning themselves through your organs. It's sharp thorns digging into flesh and tissues.

"Well?" Tex states, her arms have crossed over her onyx chest plate. Her head tilted to assess your unarmored form, and you swear she's grinning under the visor.

"It's just a head cold." You gritted out, the lie slipped through by the skin of your teeth, the truth was biting and burning on your tongue. The acidic taste rolled on your tongue, and it was harder to swallow this time around.

There was a scoff, from the other. Texas stared at you, her gold emotionless visor was staring you down. It was like she could see past the wavering lie you had hastily said to force her to be on her way. The silence growing between you two was nothing but uneasy, and your mouth burned with the sensation to double over and puke. You wouldn't mind spilling your guts, literally, on her polished black boots before you even amused her further. You needed to throw up, petals or liquid you couldn't tell this time around, whatever Texas was staring at, you wanted her to hurry up and move on. Your upper lip quivered as another beat of silence passed and she finally broke eye contact.

"I'll just go ask Church, you two seem to be.... way more comfortable for a teammate." One finger pointed accusingly at your face.

Your lips curled up at her words. "what's that supposed to mean?"

Tension sizzled, tightened, wound around your throat, and warmed your red blood cells that coursed through your veins as Tex didn't hesitate to reply.

"Church isn't smart, he's see-through." A snort escaped your mouth, one you couldn't help to not hold back. Yeah, no shit, he's see-through, he's not even a fucking real person.

With a glare you could feel penetrate through the golden, emotionless visor Tex continued. "He likes to hang around you, he's less of an-"

"Asshole?" You quipped.

"I was going to say absolute dumbass of a dick, but that works too if you want to be basic." She sighed, "Look, for some reason Church likes to hang around you. He rants, I hear him rambling and somehow cussing you out across the damn canyon. He's loud enough for even the dead to hear." *Ha, funny.*

"And this is supposed to make me blush?"

"I'm saying that whatever is going on between you, friends, you're screwing each other or whatnot. I'll find out what's happening with you, so watch your back." Bored with conversating over an Ex of hers, and whatever the hell kind of frequent one night stand hookup partner, The Bitch in Black sauntered away with the confidence that she was so sure of herself.

Once she had rounded around the base and was, hopefully, out of earshot, you wheezed hard. Lungs ached and trembled as a sharp pitched exhale left. Stabs of hot knives sliced at warm, soft, fleshy, sacs of skin that shrunk and grew behind your ribcage. The world blurred in watery colors, and small tears pricked and warmed your cheeks as they slipped down your skin. You didn't choke on petals, it felt fuller in your throat. The object bulged in your throat and tickled your trachea. Velvet petals, earthy tasting that made you gag and try to swallow whatever was temporarily blocking your air passage. You couldn't gag, couldn't possibly cough hard enough to even move the blockage more up to the back of your mouth. You were choking to death, and you were pretty sure you looked like an absolute mess or more while balancing in the brink of death.

With another choked gag, you fell to your knees on the dusty ground and then flung your whole body crashing down violently on the sun-baked ground in desperation. The sudden jarring and slam of your stomach on the floor, shoved the last few puffs of sweet oxygen and carbon dioxide gave the gentle shove of the object. Petals tickled your uvula, and you nearly clamped your mouth shut in repulsion. It wouldn't bug, no amount of even throwing up or coughing would make it move anymore. You'd have to shove your fingers down your throat to free your airflow yourself.

A trick, one stupid college tale your best friend told you before you shipped out for the military, was tucking your left thumb into your fist and squeeze. Strong, weak, or no gag reflex you couldn't give a damn. Not taking the chance to puke your guts out and more from just putting your fingers to the back of your throat was undesirable. Squeezing your eyes shut, your pointer and thumb of your right hand ventured into your mouth. Your lungs burned, and your body shook in rebellion from having another thing added to your mouth. It was easier to fully grab the petals that constantly brushed against your uvula, they didn't tear off as you slowly pulled whatever was choking you to death or unconsciousness. Your left thumb popped in the ever-tightening grip of your fist as you retracted your hand from your mouth and pulled whatever you were holding between your pointer finger and thumb.

Air, precious, hot, sweet, cold, burning, dry air rushed and skimmed down your throat as you finally inhaled. Your passageway was clear, and you could breathe properly. You still trembled and shook with small gentle coughs that came from your oxygen-deprived deflated lung sacs. Your eyes opened against the small tears that still flooded your pupils. With your hand now relaxed, it wiped your gaze clear and you finally turned to what was damp and hanging limply in your grasp.

Against the bright sunlight, you nearly let out a sharp gasp that stretched your already sore lungs to hurt even more. There color of periwinkle blue, with a bright golden center that was small and dusted with pollen. Pollen that dusted your lips and tasted like strong, musky Earth, and a sick, oddly sweet aftertaste inside your mouth. You couldn't tell the type of flower that was shining from the saliva that coated its once open spread petals. Thank god the single flower did not have a stem, it was just the head of the flower.

You never produced full flowers, let alone formed ones before. Small petals, large petals, oddly shaped or clumped together was what you had puked or coughed up for at least two or three days. Now your disease was progressing for the worst, and you weren't sure if your body could keep up. Eyes, wide as saucers you kept the soft flower in your fingers, too afraid to gently cradle it in your open palm. You had managed to push your weight up to your knees, then onto your feet slowly after a minute or two of gaining your strength.

Your feet carried you before you could even see where you were going. It's not like you needed to, you knew the ins and outs of this god damn canyon like the back of your hand. You mapped this desolate place since the first week you ever got stationed in the Blood Gulch Canyon. You were mindlessly walking fast, as fast as you could without tripping on the uneven ground. You were heading to Red Base, Doc could still be there. He didn't hang around Blue Base as much after Sarge claimed the purple medic as Red Team's own reluctantly. "Numbers over insubordination." was what Sarge always said, when he had begrudgingly allowed Doc to enter the Red Base that day of the exchange between Blue Team and Red Team. It was humiliating for Grif, and just sad for being desperate to get what Blue Team wanted the most.

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"Doc!" You nearly screamed as you stumbled into Red Team's Base, the flower still dangling and threatening to crumple in the tightening grip of your hand.

Your voice rang out and nearly caused Sarge to fire a warning shot near your head from the sudden panic that racked his body. He only had raised his shotgun at you, but how frail you looked and near on the edge of collapsing to the ground from exhaustion; he lowered his gun.

"What are you doing here? You Blue?" His gruff voice didn't stop as you merely cast the older man a brief look while venturing a little more into Red Base.

Sarge, Grif, and Simmons were all in the Base's kitchen. Random weapons were laid out and disassembled to be cleaned probably by Sarge and Simmons. Grif was scrounging around, opening cabinets and snooping around the crappy fridge for any type of food to snack on for probably the seventh time in the day.

"I- I need Doc, he's... he's supposed to see this." Your voice was quiet, trying to sound steadfast even though your breaths were sounding airy and wheeze like.

Your hand outstretched, the periwinkle colored flower was now dry and started to crumple its sad, wilted petals inward.

"A? flower?" Grif asked, his voice full of confusion as he looked at you long enough to take in your disheveled state that held the flower.  

"It's not just a-" You exhaled tiredly, clearly not in the mood to spill the dirt of your disease to yet more people who had an even higher risk of accidentally blurting out your secret to Church.

Simmons was too honest, Grif would 'accidentally' give you away without even thinking about it, and Sarge would be more than happy to prove Church wrong if the male were to assume anything about you. Sarge would expose your secret in the process, and then somehow blame your Blue ways for having this disease in the first place.

"Just, where is Doc?"

"He's in his room down the hall." Grif scoffed before turning his attention to the fridge, his top half-hidden behind the dirty white fridge door.

"Grif! You can't just tell the enemy where our men are." Sarge scolded immediately, Grif only made a grunting noise before bending down further to reach towards the back of the fridge.

Before Sarge could make any more threats, or begin to even start to for that matter, you grabbed the withering flower and ventured further into their base. Sarge's voice was growing quieter the more you walked down the surprisingly long bedroom hallway. The army, the UNSC or Project Freelancer, must have thought a lot more people would be so willing to be stationed in the most desolate places with nothing to do but play a long game of capture the flag. Oh, how wrong the Army was to even waste money to even have that idea.

Finally, what you could guess was Doc's room. Especially since smooth jazz music was pouring out from behind the closed door, and you could even hear the cheery humming of the male with the calming beat. It felt bad for you to even knock on the steel door and interrupt whatever he was doing in his room, but you could say sorry later after you updated Doc about your disease. The volume of the music was lowered, and you could hear Doc say 'It's open!'.

"Doc?" You mumbled, once you tentatively opened his bedroom door.

Random posters of cheesy uplifting quotes, colorful little post-it's of self-esteem cheer up notes were plastered haphazardly among the posters that were glued to his walls. Typical Doc, for someone so bullied and teased from both teams, he managed to decorate his room the way he would want to make him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. He was hyping himself up every day, and that was the most precious thing you could witness. Not everyone here was in the mindset to think the way Doc thought about themselves. Doc could perhaps go crazy and yet some part of his mind was so hardwired in positivity, that he could still find good things to say about himself.

"Oh! I didn't expect to see you here!" Doc spoke up once he registered you were standing in his room. He smiled warmly, glasses that sat on his nose tilted slightly from the movement of his cheeks.

"Well I'm your only real patient right now with a life-threatening disease, I would think you would expect me." You could have winced at the dry joke you were forced to crack to not ruin the welcoming environment in his room.  "Speaking of disease, Doc I have something to show you."

"Good or bad." The male rose his pointer finger to push the clear frames more upon his nose and plopped down on his bed to sit. His hands folded in his lap like a good listening student in elementary school. Except this was a sick version of  show and tell in a fucked elementary school.

"Well.." Your hand outstretched and showed the other the flower in your hand.

It stunk of a now sickeningly sweet smell, even if it was wilting and sad looking now more than ever. The periwinkle blue colored remained bright and vibrant, but the very ends of the petals were turning into the brown color that signified its slow process of decay. The smell was new, but then again maybe it was just the stench of Red Base itself. Maybe either base smelt different, but that would be a dumb observation.

"It's a Morning Glory, its.. pretty?"

Your eyes widened from Doc's observation. "Doc, are you kidding? I've never produced whole ass flowers before! and you want to tell me the type of flower it is! Are you still fucking kidding?"

"You're right! You're right I couldn't help myself." Clearing his throat, Doc leaned forward and plucked the head of the flower from your open palm.  He held the flower close to his eyes, nose wrinkling from the scent practically smacking him in the face from how nauseous it was making him feel.

"This is the first time you've ever produced right?" You nodded, and Doc hummed under his breath. One eyebrow cocked in question as he stared at the flower.  Curious fingers pulled at the petals and rubbed them between his thumb and forefinger, now and then making a noise of acknowledgment.

"Well, the disease is getting worse, it's progressing way faster than I thought it would. Good news, you won't choke on stems yet, just fully formed flower heads."

"That means?" You asked,

“It means you're well on your way to dying."

"Wha- Doc!"

"What? You asked."

You guffawed at the man who seemed stoic for once, he seemed so calm as a sudden rush of panic racked your brain and nearly left you screaming internally in your subconscious.

"Listen I'm serious when you need to actually talk to Church about this, or else this is going to be the end of you."

In the middle of you silently screaming and perhaps trying to hold together your sanity long enough to not break down screaming in front of Doc, in the Red Base no doubt. A third presence in the room made your spine curl inwards, and the acidic taste of sourness flooded your mouth.

"Tell me what?" Church asked when he materialized in the room, his see-through form that was hinted in the same color of the Morning Glory that was cradled tenderly in Doc's hand.

Now you had another reason to hate flowers, their colors reminded you of Church.

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