#but there are certain functions that could potentially be triggered or turned off on command with extreme practicw | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kyber-queen · 3 years

Text

to build a home (rex x jedi!reader)

Summary: A slight rewrite of the ‘ARC Troopers’/Invasion of Kamino episode in season 3, where reader is a Jedi general who has worked alongside the 501st in the past. After a dramatic battlefield encounter, the reader confronts questions of the clones’ place in the universe as well as their own burgeoning feelings for a certain clone captain.

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: Medical stuff, mentions of drowning, mentions of blasters, rex is awkward and fives is a lil shit, slight suggestive content, a kiss perhaps

Author’s Note: this one’s for the lovely @porgnugget !! this was originally gonna be a quick blurb to pull me out of my writer’s block but oops anyways I hope you enjoy!!!

***

You stared out the bridge port, watching as ships emerged one-by-one from hyperspace to surround a watery-blue planet. With each new starship, your heart sank. This battle wouldn’t be easy, but then again, easy battles were hard to come by these days. You’d been temporarily assigned to the 183rd, and your men were already weary from two months of slugging their way through the outer rim under Separatist fire. They had been eagerly awaiting their return to the capitol, but after your head communications officer received word of an imminent Separatist attack on Kamino, just about every man in your unit was eager to come to the aid of his brothers.

You heard rustling from behind you, followed by the two consecutive thuds of standard-issue boots fixing themselves to the ground. The trooper they belonged to issued you a respectful salute.

“Sir, the Council requests you answer their holocall immediately,”

You had figured your weak excuse for rerouting your unit wouldn’t hold for long.

“Transfer them through,”

As the stern blue faces of the Jedi council materialized before you, you steeled yourself in preparation for their reprimands.

“General, you’ve received explicit orders to return to Coruscant at once. Why, pray tell, is your starship about to breach the Kaminoan atmosphere?”

Master Windu glared down at you expectantly.

“With all due respect, Master, this is the home of the men we fight alongside each day. The 183rd has expressed their commitment to defending this planet, and it is my job as their interim General to honor their desires whenever possible. I and the 183rd will be assisting with the defense of Kamino,”

Windu glanced at Master Unduli over his shoulder. Before another Council member had the chance to speak, the transmission crackled. The Separatists were jamming your signal. Your comms went dark.

You glanced over to the officers piloting the ship. Their hands danced from button to button, working to maintain communication with the ground forces on Kamino. The comm failure had settled it—you were going in.

“Prepare for entry,” you called. A stiff nod from your commander reassured you that the officers had heard you. You turned in a swirl of deep brown robes and made your way to the armory. You had troopers to prepare.

***

You hit the ground from about twenty feet above, using the force to cushion your fall. Confident that the LAATs would find their way into the heart of the battle as planned, you set off on foot for the nearest row of battle droids. As you dodged the seemingly endless stream of blaster fire, you took note of the troopers already facing off against the waves of separatist droids. You recognized the grey armor of the Kamino guard, as well as the deep blue of the 501st. You’d worked alongside the 501st several times before—you searched for a certain familiar face in the crowd.

You were already sure General Skywalker and General Ti were nowhere in sight. You deflected a few blaster bolts while planning your next move. You spotted four troopers aiming for a new line of droids, close to the edge of the platform. One of their brothers lay motionless behind them—they were probably in need of backup. You would make your way over there after you took down a few more rows of droids.

The adrenaline of battle roared through your veins. Your saber swung with a precision you were only able to master with the cacophony of blaster fire rattling in your brain. You heard shouting in the distance, but it didn’t seem to register. All you could focus on was the glide of your saber’s blade through the unforgiving metal skin of the nearest droid.

As you neared the small squadron of troopers, their shouts gained clarity.

“…we’re cutting it close, here. Steady trigger fingers, men,” one of them called.

A glance over your shoulder caused your stomach to flip. The voice belonged to the trooper in the center of the formation—his single pauldron and jaig-marked helmet identifying him in an instant, even through the blaster-fire haze of the battlefield. Rex. A formation of super battle droids closed in on the position his men struggled to hold. You deflected one last blaster bolt before charging in their direction.

You watched what happened next in slow motion.

A droid raised its fist at a trooper in all-white armor. The man didn’t even seem to notice. He raised his blaster, aiming at a droid to his left as his right side remained open for what had the potential to be a deadly blow. The droid swung. Rex dove. He yanked the trooper out of the droid’s trajectory, though the side of his helmet failed to escape its swing. The metal fist landed its blow with a sickening thunk, Rex’s body falling limply at the edge of the platform as his helmet clattered uselessly to the side. His unconscious form slipped. You jumped.

The three other troopers watched in awe as you leapt over a row of battle droids and into the churning Kaminoan waters. You hit its roiling surface feet-first, searching the whitecaps for a glimpse of white plastoid. Clone armor was built to float, right? You took a stroke to your left, dragging yourself through the water urgently when you spotted a glimpse of Rex’s blue pauldron through the waves. You vaguely felt your outer robes drift away, carried off by the tumultuous current. Your hand latched onto the blue plastoid, and you pulled hard. Rex had landed face-down in the water, you realized. You gulped.

Pulling his back to your chest, you kicked backwards as hard as you could in the direction of one of the durasteel supports. You called on the force to be present—you were going to need it if you were going to successfully haul Rex’s unconscious form forty feet upwards. You ducked underwater, shifting your grip on him so he was held in a makeshift fireman’s carry. You secured his body to yours with the force, invisible hands gripping tightly to the arm and leg slung around your shoulders. You grasped the first rungs of the ladder. You climbed.

With aching hands and trembling muscles, you hauled yourself foot-by-foot to the top of the platform. As soon as your fingers curled around the last rung, it was as if all the strength had been sapped from your system. Your chest burned with exertion. You rolled Rex onto his back, crawling beside him as you began your examination.

“He took a hit to the head, fell into the water. I was able to pull him out, but I need a medic,” you explained.

The three troopers stared, shocked. Had you really managed to drag a 200-pound man forty feet into the air from the water?

You glanced up from Rex’s face, noting the lack of movement from the three other men.

“I need a medic, now,” you ordered.

One of the troopers charged off. Satisfied that he’d retrieve someone far more qualified to administer first aid than you, you turned to the man before you. Rex’s face was pallid and sickly-looking. Alarm clawed at your insides. You felt for a pulse, and to your relief, the beat of his heart rose to meet your fingers steadily. His breaths were shallow and inconsistent, though—they sounded to be thick with seawater.

Remembering your training, you pinched his nose closed. You used the index finger of your other hand to tilt his jaw open, before taking a deep breath and sealing your mouth over his. You exhaled, watching carefully as his chest rose in response.

“Wake. Up,” you urged.

His pulse still beat strongly against your fingertips. A good sign, if nothing else.

You leaned down once more, praying to the Maker that he would breathe already. You exhaled, channeling much-needed oxygen into his flooded lungs. Minutes passed. His pulse grew steadier against your fingers.

You administered a final rescue breath, leaping back as if stung when you felt a splutter of air and water against your parted lips. Rex’s eyes fluttered open. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but curled in on himself as a coughing fit overtook him.

Scooping a hand around Rex’s shoulder, you pulled him onto his side, straining against the dead weight of his body. His chest shook as he expelled a sizeable puddle of water from his lungs.

You looked up at the rest of the battle for what felt like the first time in hours. There wasn’t a functioning droid in sight. Several troopers, their armor adorned with 501st blue, stared unabashedly at the scene before them. You looked back down at Rex, your cheeks warm.

“You gave us all quite a scare, there,” you murmured.

He stared at you with wide eyes, his face growing red. Panic jolted through your system. Was he choking?

“Rex? Are you alright?”

He blinked, shaking his head to himself as he hauled himself into a seated position.

“Yeah, General, I’m alright,”

His voice was rough and wavering, almost grating against his throat—from the saltwater, you assumed. You fell silent, focusing just a little too intently on his face.

Sensing that the imminent danger was over, chatter erupted from behind you.

“Some first kiss, eh, Cap’n?”

“Just like a fairy tale,” another trooper added on with a chuckle.

“Always thought you’d be the knight in shining armor, though—the General here dove after you before we even saw you fall,”

Blood rushed to your cheeks. You glanced at Rex out of the corner of your eye before quickly looking away.

“Fives, Hardcase, enough,” Rex grumbled. He made a move to stand up, rising shakily until you slung his arm over your shoulder in support. He stiffened for a moment at the contact before leaning into you slightly.

“Do you know where your medic is?” you questioned quietly.

Rex nodded over to his right. You ushered him through a few stumbling steps before the medic—Kix, you recognized—swooped under Rex’s other arm. Rex turned to you, his lips parting as he mulled over what exactly to say. His brows furrowed, and a new round of flush colored his skin.

“I—thank you, General,” he murmured. His eyes met yours for an instant, just before Kix pulled him toward the Kaminoan medbay.

***

You saw Rex again a few hours later.

A gentle knock sounded against the durasteel wall of your temporary quarters. With a wave of your hand, the door slid open effortlessly.

“Sir, I have your copy of the casualty reports,”

You turned around sharply. Your expression softened. Rex stood in your doorway, extending a stack of flimsi in your direction.

You took it with a quick nod of acknowledgement. Rex lingered in the doorway—you knew he could have easily asked a subordinate to deliver the reports, yet here he was. A wistful half-smile graced your lips—you were glad he came. You had missed him. You motioned for him to take a seat at the small table near the corner of your room, murmuring something about ‘old times’ sake’.

The two of you quickly fell into the routine you had established for yourselves when you worked alongside his unit—after a tough battle, you always seemed to end up together. At first, Rex tended to sit quietly alongside you. He wouldn’t offer much in terms of conversation, but his presence was always strangely comforting as you both silently mourned those you had lost that day. You weren’t quite sure when it happened, but eventually, the two of you began to share little fragments of your lives with each other. Your friendship grew stronger. Just before you were reassigned, you found yourself seeking him out daily—it was almost strange for you to admit just how reliant you had become on your conversations with the Captain.

Rex pulled out a chair and settled himself down.

You talked for an hour—you hadn’t seen him in months. Wartime seemed to stretch out the days until they felt endless, and you were both eager to hear how the other had spent their time. You explained your experiences in command of the 183rd, and Rex discussed his increasing responsibilities as Captain. He actively skirted any discussion of the day’s rather tense events.

“You did well today,” you offered. A couple of the men had quite generously filled you in on their Captain’s heroics after he was carted off by the medic. “I know it mustn’t have been easy, with your home planet in danger,”

“Thank you, but Kamino’s no home to us,” Rex responded. “It’s where my brothers are, and it was them I was protecting. Not Kamino. The Separatists threatened the one thing I had that’s worth defending—my family. It sure wasn’t easy, but it was a necessity,”

You nodded.

“I understand, in a way. I was taken from my parents when I was young, and the Order filled the void their absence left. We aren’t allowed partners or children, so the Order’s all I really have. If they were threatened, I suppose I’d put my life on the line for them, too,”

Rex propped an elbow up onto the table.

“What’s it like?”

You tilted your head in confusion.

“Having the Order as your family?” Rex clarified.

You smiled softly, memories both blissful and bittersweet flooding your mind.

“It’s different, I guess. The Council can be cold, sometimes, but the Order did its best to raise an honorable Jedi. I do my best to remember the lessons my master taught me. The temple was my home for a long time—though not so much anymore. What about you?”

Rex thought for a moment before chuckling to himself.

“The closest thing we clones have to a home is 79’s. Kamino’s got a lot of bad memories attached to it—the longnecks were indifferent to us at best, but most of ‘em just treated us like livestock. At least you feel human at 79’s,”

“What’s it like, there?” you questioned.

“Loud,” Rex grinned. He sobered after a moment, his gaze drifting as he lost himself in thought. “Civvies’ll show up from time to time—makes it feel a bit more normal—but they’re only ever there for the spectacle of it all. Most of ‘em are just there to find someone to spend the night with. I’ve never been able to…” Rex trailed off uncomfortably, directing heavy eye contact towards the back of his hands. “…but some of my vod will. They know they’re being used, so they use ‘em right back. For most of us, there’s no real chance of a family outside our brothers—the Republic’s made sure of that,”

Disdain tinged Rex’s tone. It was rare for him to express anything other than loyalty to the Republic, but thinking back on the regulations preventing the clones from entering relationships, or having children, or even showing their faces to civilians while on duty, you couldn’t say you blamed him.

You hummed in acknowledgement.

“But it’s not always like that, is it? So meaningless?”

Rex shrugged.

“Most of the time, it is. I’ve only met one brother who’s been able to get out, to build a life and a family outside the GAR. I’m happy for him, sure, but I won’t lie and say it wasn’t hard to see that other path and still follow the one that we clones are meant to follow. I think it’s the hope that’s worst in the end—hoping this blasted war will end, hoping someone other than your vod and a handful of Jedi’ll understand that you’re human. Unless you’re really in the thick of it, unless you really see that we’re flesh and blood, you just don’t care,”

You nodded, reaching across the small table to hold one of Rex’s hands in your own. Your heart ached for him. His expression softened slightly as he looked down at his hand in yours.

“I’m sorry about my brothers, by the way. The teasing today was—”

“It’s alright, Rex. I did what I had to do,”

You instantly regretted your phrasing when Rex’s hand fell slightly slack between your own.

“You saved my life,” he murmured. “I can’t thank you enough,”

He squeezed your hand before gently resting it back on the table. He rose from his seat, glancing at the chrono on his wrist.

“It’s getting late—I should get back to the barracks,”

Your gaze lifted to trace the sturdy lines of his face. His eyes met yours, his expression indiscernible, and in an instant, something clicked. The absence of his hand in yours felt like the loss of a limb.

He took a step towards the door. You stood up from your seat.

“Rex, wait—just…” you trailed off, reaching forward to catch his hand lightly in yours.

A hand—your hand—rose to cup his cheek. His breathing slowed in response. Taking a cautious step forward, you leaned in just close enough to feel the warm exhale from his nose against your cheek. You paused. You would leave it to Rex to close the gap.

After a second that felt like an hour of hesitation, Rex’s lips met yours. Maker, he was soft—yet still steady in his movements. You loved him, you knew it in an instant. Little fragments of each other’s lives had never been enough—you needed him, in his entirety, in every sense of the word.

Just as your thumb traced the sharp line of Rex’s cheekbone—just as Rex realized that he was finally kissing you and you were kissing him back—he pulled away.

His brows knotted in confusion.

“You didn’t mean to—”

“I meant it,”

You realized your hand was still intertwined with Rex’s. You held it like a lifeline.

His eyes—oh, his eyes—glimmered like the flicker of a flame in the dim light of your quarters. He didn’t back away. In that instant, Rex knew that he’d remember this moment for the rest of his numbered days. You meant it.

As his lips met yours for the second time of many, Rex figured there were an awful lot of ways to build a home.

***

Taglist: @peacefulwizardfox @a-lil-perspective @marvel-starwars-nerd @nelba

#rex x reader #captain rex x reader #clone trooper x reader #arc trooper fives #clone trooper hardcase #captain rex #my fic

295 notes · View notes

razieltwelve · 3 years

Text

The Real MVP (Final Rose)

Deep within Averia’s Semblance, in the alternate universe that served as a mental representation of Saviour, were countless mini-Dianas. Each was hard at work on a task of utmost importance.

There was Mad Scientist Mini-Diana who could be recognised by her lab coat, safety goggles, and maniacal cackling. It was she who was tasked with overseeing the various processes responsible for Saviour’s never-ending quest for perfection. Whether it was developing a process for transmuting water into napalm or creating a subroutine for chopping people’s heads off in a musical manner, she would stop at nothing to succeed.

There was Romantic Mini-Diana who was responsible for turning Saviour’s essentially limitless processing power toward romantic endeavours. Whether it was how best to woo someone or how to unleash the most smouldering of smoulders, she had a whole slew of processes ready to go. Sadly, despite her winning smile and romantic reservation of a table beside one of the many, many seas of multidimensional... stuff that dotted Saviour’s realm, she was horribly underemployed.

But not all Mini-Dianas had such illustrious purposes. Most of them dealt with much more mundane matters. There was the Mini-Diana who ran the trash disposal subroutine, which let Saviour dump garbage in other dimensions. There was the Mini-Diana who kept Saviour’s armour looking nice and spiffy. It wouldn’t do for the Semblance to look bad in battle.

And then there was a certain Mini-Diana who was one of countless Mini-Dianas that served as janitors. Given all of the amazing stuff that Saviour could do, it made sense that random crap had a tendency to accumulate. It was their job to keep the Semblance’s mental representation free of garbage, so the Semblance could function at full efficiency. It wasn’t the most awe-inspiring job, but it was honest work, and the Mini-Dianas who did it could honestly say that without them, the whole thing wouldn’t work nearly as well as it did. Why, there was a whole branch of the janitor Mini-Dianas responsible for keeping Saviour’s realm free of anything Gary-related.

Of course, since Averia was a softie when it came to her sister, anything Gary-related wasn’t actually thrown away. Instead, it was painstakingly processed, catalogued, and then stored away in case it was ever needed. It wasn’t like they could run out of space. Saviour’s realm was as big or as small as it needed to be.

This particular Mini-Diana, however, wasn’t part of the Gary patrol. Instead, her task was very simple. There were a whole host of mental switches and triggers associated with the various subroutines, processes, and commands that helped govern Saviour. Her task was to check up on things. It wouldn’t do for any of the switches to get stuck, and with how Averia had a tendency to just layer new orders on top of older orders, someone had to go in and make sure that there weren’t too many conflicts. She wasn’t the only one responsible for checking, but she liked to think she was the best at it.

It was usually boring work, but this Mini-Diana went about it with a smile and a skip in her step. Most of the time, all she had to do was some dusting and testing before she went on her way. The only complication was how many places there were for her to check, some of which hadn’t been checked in years. It was a sad fact, but Saviour tended to prioritise combat over everything else. Oh well. It wasn’t her job to question why things were the way they were. She was a janitor. She’d leave that sort of thing up to the higher-ranking Mini-Dianas. Staffing issues were for other Mini-Dianas to handle.

On this day, however, she noticed something odd. It had been ages since anyone had come down to check on the Friend-Foe Identification System because, quite frankly, there had been no indications whatsoever that it was malfunctioning. The reports from upstairs had all been good. Whenever they encountered an enemy, it either died, was captured, or otherwise dealt with. Likewise, their friends and family were all protected. There had been zero reports of the system malfunctioning.

But this Mini-Diana noticed something. Amidst all of the switches that governed the classification system, one of them seemed to be stuck. She frowned. That didn’t make much sense. If a switch was stuck, they should have noticed something weird by now. At the very least, there should have been some aberrant behaviour.

Mopping the floor on her way to the switch and doing some dusting, the Mini-Diana opened up her scroll and peered at the map. According to the map, the switch that was stuck was related to friend classification. Frowning, she opened up the file on the switch and read more.

Apparently, the switch wasn’t just some random switch. It was actually quite important. It was the switch that allowed people to be moved from ‘friend’ to ‘potential romantic partner’. For a moment, all the Mini-Diana could do was stare at the stuck switch in disbelief.

What the? How had no one noticed this was stuck earlier? This wasn’t like the time the switch governing whether or not Averia liked pickles got stuck. That could be overlooked, and it wasn’t like Averia’s preference for pickles was a big deal, the occasional burger at Gary Burger aside. Besides, that switch had only gotten stuck for about a month before one of the others had noticed it.

This switch... this was a big deal. As long as it was stuck, it wouldn’t matter what someone did. If Averia had already classified them as a friend, they’d be stuck there forever. They could crawl into her bed naked with rose petals scattered everywhere and...

Oh crap.

The Mini-Diana hastily pulled up a series of memories on her scroll. Since Saviour had perfect recall, it was a simple matter of requesting clearance. Since the memories in question weren’t considered particularly dangerous, she was able to get clearance from one of the other Mini-Dianas without any fuss.

Elsa had once crawled into Averia’s bed naked with rose petals... and Averia had just stared at her, asked if she was cold and then wondered if someone had tried to shove a rose bush through her window.

That wasn’t just oblivious. That was... yeah. The Mini-Diana immediately sent queries over to the Mini-Dianas in other departments and sighed at the response she received. Apparently, they’d just been following orders. After all, the Friend-Foe Identification System was a pretty powerful system. It wasn’t like they could just ignore it and do whatever they wanted.

The Mini-Diana looked at the switch. It looked like it had been stuck for years. How could no one have noticed? It was probably because of how well the system had been performing in most other respects. Out of the countless switches in this area, it was the only one that was stuck. In every other circumstance, the system was performing precisely as it should.

The Mini-Diana squared her shoulders. She might be a humble janitor, but she took pride in her job. She’d get this switch unstuck, so the system could perform properly!

Yet multiple efforts failed to so much as move it. Nothing she tried worked. In the end, she decided to do the only thing she could think of. She walked back to the end of the corridor and then turned before breaking into a sprint. With a mighty cry, the Mini-Diana through herself at the switch. She slammed into it and bounced off, and for a moment, she thought she’d failed.

And then the switch gave a loud clank and moved into its proper position.

Success!

X X X

Averia blinked.

“Averia?” Elsa asked. “Are you okay? You kind of just... twitched.”

“It’s nothing.” Averia shook herself. “You know,” she said. “That dress looks good on you.”

Elsa blinked. “What? I mean... it does?”

“Yes.” Averia nodded. “It matches your eyes.”

X X X

Author’s Notes

That is the story of the MVP Mini-Diana. She would later receive a promotion to admiral and get a spiffy hat. As to why she was promoted to admiral, it was because she thought the rank sounded cool. She now runs the maintenance department.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

#final rose #fanfiction #mini diana #averia yun farron #elsa

13 notes · View notes

labyrinth-archive · 4 years

Text

The Doctor and Mrs. Smith Fandom: Doctor Who Pairing: Eleven x Clara Length: 6,000 words Warnings: None Also on Ao3 Summary:

“So, what do you say, Miss Oswald?” the Doctor asks, and he’s got that look in his eyes again, half-mischief, half-madness, all magic. “Fancy becoming Mrs. Smith?”

“Is this a proposal, Doctor?”

“’Course it is. That’s why I’ve got a ring.”

Filler scenes for the The Crimson Horror, the episode where the Doctor and Clara pretend to be married, because it’s a crying shame we only got five minutes of those two being giddy, fake-married idiots.

There were things in space that were magnetic, the Doctor told Clara once, as he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pointed upward with his other, toward a delicate cluster of silver stars that shone in a scarlet sky. Certain celestial things had this force around them, he’d explained, that couldn’t help but draw everything else to them.

The Doctor, Clara thinks, is the same way. He’s like something luminous that belongs up in the sky, and every Wednesday she steps onto the TARDIS and gets caught in his orbit as he whisks her away to anyplace on Earth or anywhere ethereal. And maybe he feels as much of a pull toward her as she feels toward him, Clara thinks, as she stands on the steps of the Maitland’s and waits for the TARDIS.

After all, this man has all of time at the tips of his fingers and all of space as his backyard and yet every week he comes back to her, like he feels there’s something magnetic about her too.

The TARDIS appears then, flickering in and out like an old movie screen until it grows solid and steady, and when Clara opens the door and steps inside, she sees the Doctor’s bent over the TARDIS console, the glow from it shimmering across his face like a nebula.

“London,” he says, without looking up.

One word. Two syllables.

Clara has no idea how he can take those simple things and make it sound like he’s promising her something dazzling.

Not that she’d ever let him know that.

“London?” she questions, overly casual, as she steps toward the thrumming TARDIS console.

“London in 1893,” he adds with a flourish, and then he finally does look up at her, and she can tell he’s wearing that look, the one where he’s grinning and there’s stardust in his eyes and the promise of adventure on his lips.

Clara tries to keep the smile that’s threatening to spill across her face under control as she says, “That’s a very specific year.”

“Nah, not really, just made it up on the spot. We could go to 1891, if you’d like.”

And this time Clara really can’t contain her smile. She can feel it spread across her face, unbidden and giddy and bright. This is the effect he has on her, the effect he always has on her.

Clara feels like she should probably mind.

(She doesn’t.)

“Alright, then,” she says. “Show me Victorian London.”

“Okay,” the Doctor says as he steps out of the blue TARDIS doors and peers around at the mist filled sky and cobblestone roads and quaint little town signs. “Not London 1893. Yorkshire 1893. Near enough.”

Clara is both unsurprised and unbothered by this. At least it’s not like the time he promised her a San Francisco pier and then landed them squarely inside Alcatraz when it was still a functioning prison.

“You’re making a habit of this, getting us lost,” she says as she comes up next to him. Despite him insisting that he’s flying toward someplace specific, Clara’s still not entirely sure he’s really, actually picking a place to land and not just blindly flicking a switch and pulling a lever and flinging them around just for the fun of it.

“Sorry,” he says blithely, not sounding sorry at all. “Hmm,” she hums, and almost absent-mindedly, the Doctor reaches out for her. Clara feels his arm wrapping around her, the weight of it warm and comforting as it comes to rest along her shoulders, and then he pulls her close to his side, tucking her under his arm as they walk.

There he is, doing it again, Clara thinks, drawing her into him like he has some sort of gravitational pull. And perhaps this is why Clara doesn’t care that he hurls them blindly into the unknown. Because whether they stand in Venice or on Venus or anyplace else, he’s always there, right by her side, and 101 Places to See are only as good as the person you see them with.

Besides, as long as the two of them were together, what could go wrong?

It’s as Clara’s thinking this, ironically, that there’s a blood-curling scream, echoing off the cobblestones and slicing through the fog.

The Doctor turns toward her, smiling widely, “Brave heart, Clara.”

# They’re in a morgue. There are cold, crimson colored bodies on slabs and pictures in the eyes of dead men and a man called Edmund who led them there, spinning them a tale of something sinister.

(“They call it The Crimson Horror,” Edmund tells them gravely, pointing to the dead, red body found in the canal that triggered the scream they’d heard. “You’ll never look at that shade of red the same way again.”)

According to this Edmund, these bodies have started to regularly appear in the Yorkshire canal overnight, and though no one else believes him, he thinks the person dumping the bodies is from a community called Sweetville, owned by a woman named Mrs. Gillyflower.

The Doctor, it seems, is absolutely delighted by this. Sweetly named towns that hide something sinister and cadavers that glow red in the dark are apparently all hallmarks of a great trip, because the Doctor’s enthusiastically babbling a mile a minute as he peers through monocles and swipes off samples and starts mixing substances in a makeshift chemistry lab he’s found on a table. Clara, Edmund, and the mortician are all temporarily forgotten as the Doctor conducts his experiments and comes to conclusions.

The red, the Doctor finally decides (if Clara’s deciphering his half-unintelligible, half-overly excited muttering correctly) is some kind of chemically created poison, and it’s only when he’s pouring a beaker full of ruby liquid into a cup with smoke curling out of it that he pauses to look up at Clara for the first time since they got there.

“We’re in a morgue,” he says.

“I noticed,” Clara replies, studying a dead man’s red fingers through the silver monocle the mortician handed her. “A bit hard to miss, what with the corpses and all.”

“No, I mean,” the Doctor jerks his arms about in the way he does when he’s trying to explain something, and the liquid in the beaker he holds bubbles ominously at the movement, “we’re in a morgue. Highly doubt you wanted to spend your day in Victorian Yorkshire here.”

Clara shrugs, “I’ve been on worse dates.”

The Doctor blinks, mouth coming open before snapping shut again. He looks to Clara like he’s torn between wanting to fluster and sputter about how this is not a date, and being morbidly fascinated with finding out that a visit to the morgue’s not the worst date she’s ever been on.

He chooses the latter option.

“So,” he says, putting a drop of something that smokes and fizzes into the beaker, “what was the worst one?”

“Tommy Johnson. Drank too much. Hit on the waitress. Threw up on my brand new boots,” Clara says, shuddering at the memory. “This is definitely only the second worst date.”

The Doctor hums, staring at the bubbling beaker in front of him, and then, quite unexpectedly, he goes, “Want to make it the third worst?”

Clara tilts her head, raises an eyebrow, “What’d you have in mind?”

“Fancy a trip to Sweetville?”

“Sweetville?“ Clara repeats flatly. ”The sinister little village all these red corpses supposedly come from? That will most likely want to turn us into red corpses as well?”

“That’s the one,” the Doctor confirms, and with that he looks up from the beaker and at her. He leans forward toward Clara, crossing his arms on the table, his grin widening as his eyes lock into hers, and it feels a little like a dare. And it’s not in Clara Oswald’s nature to back down from a dare like that.

Clara mimics him, placing her elbows on the table, leaning in closer to him just like he’d leaned toward her, and then she gives him a daring smile of her own. “Let’s do it.”

The mortician in the background mutters something under his breath, and it’s hard to tell from his thick accent, but Clara thinks it sounds suspiciously like, “Stop flirting over the corpses!”

(He is ignored.)

# “Wait,” Edmund says, “there’s a problem.”

“Isn’t there always?” the Doctor replies quickly, and Clara can’t tell whether he’s being serious or sarcastic.

“Mrs. Gillyflower just recruited a good number of people to live in Sweetville. She’s no longer accepting applicants, especially not from single folk,” Edmund explains. “Rumor has it, though, that if one of her people spot a married couple, and they deem them worthy, they’ll occasionally offer them a spot.”

There’s silence for a minute as they all mull this over, and then the Doctor turns to look at Clara, and when he does, Clara can already tell that he’s about to suggest something completely, totally, utterly mad.

“What do you say, Miss Oswald?” the Doctors asks as he grins at her, and he’s got that look in his eyes again, half-mischief, half-madness, all magic. “Fancy becoming Mrs. Smith?”

Clara smirks, raises an eyebrow, “Is this a proposal, Doctor?”

“’Course it is,” he says, holding up a silver band in his hand that he’s somehow procured out of thin air. “That’s why I’ve got a ring.”

Clara, the Doctor, and Edmund are in the process of discussing plans and pointing out potential problems, when Clara turns her head to look at a map of the town and feels one of the buttons on her high velvet collar come undone in the back.

Victorian clothes, Clara decides, are as nonsensical as they are pretty. She doesn’t think she could ever live out her life in the Victorian era.

“Top button,” Clara commands, turning her back toward the Doctor, and dutifully his hands come up, and she feels his fingers brush against the back of her neck as her finishes buttoning up her collar.

Button done, Clara turns back around to find Edmund staring at them.

“You sure you two aren’t really married?” he asks.

“Positive,” Clara says, at the same time she hears the Doctor say, “Absolutely not, no.”

Edmund stares at them in utter disbelief, as if the idea of The Crimson Horror’s more believable than their protests.

(Clara tries not to think about that too much.)

“Anyway, the plan,” she says, putting them back on track, “is to attract the attention of one of Mrs. Gillyflower’s recruiters in town and secure an invite, yeah? So, how do we do that? Where do we find them?”

“I don’t think we’re going to find them, Mrs. Smith,” the Doctor says, bending his elbow and offering her his arm, “I think we’re going to let them find us.”

# “So,” Clara says, as she walks down the quaint Victorian street, her hand nestled in the crook of the Doctor’s elbow, “this plan…” “Yeah?”

“If you can even call it a plan -“ “Oh, it’s definitely a plan. You want to hear about plans? I once went onboard a cyber ship with nothing more than a hunch and a licorice twist, so trust me, Clara, when I say I’ve had plans much, much less pulled together than this.”

“Now that I believe.”

“Oi! Watch it!” “So, this plan,” Clara continues, completely ignoring the indignant look the Doctor sends her way, “is just to walk through town and hope to get recruited?” ”Edmund said the past three couples to move to Sweetville were reportedly found and recruited on Main Street, and so here we are. And look at us! New, fresh, walking slabs of flesh, ripe for the picking, or killing, as it were - “

“Really not making me feel good about this - “ “How can they resist us? Trust me, Clara, they’ll find us. When have I ever been wrong before?” And before Clara can answer with an itemized list, the Doctor says, “Oh, here we go.”

Clara blinks, nearly getting whiplash from the sudden change in his tone, but she notices that, up ahead, there’s a lady walking down the street. “No idea if she’s one of Mrs. Gillyflower’s or not, but we’ll pass her by and say a few words,” the Doctor whispers. “Get ready to look married and willing to move to a sinisterly sweet looking community, Mrs. Smith.”

Before Clara can ask exactly what a happily married, eager-to-move-to-a-horror-town woman looks like, the lady gets closer, and the Doctor pastes on his biggest, brightest smile, and moves his hand to wrap around Clara’s waist, pulling her ever so slightly closer to him.

“Hello, there,” the lady says, smiling at them as she approaches. “Are you two new in town?”

Clara‘s completely, utterly, and totally unprepared for what happens next.

“Eh oh, we definitely are,” the Doctor says, in what perhaps is the fakest, most outrageous Yorkshire accent Clara’s ever heard in her life. It’s half over-excited, half over-exaggerated, and all together hilarious. “And we’re enjoying this cozy little town, aren’t we, love?”

Clara nods, desperately trying to keep a traitorous, treacherous bout of laughter down.

She’s failing.

The Doctor must sense her losing it, because Clara sees him raise his eyebrows at her, and she can feel his fingers tighten around her waist in warning.

“Aw, how lovely,” the lady coos, thankfully not noticing that Clara’s half a heartbeat away from dying from laughter. “You two haven’t been married long, have you?”

“Nah, not long now,” the Doctor replies, plowing on in his heavy accent. “Feels as though we’ve only been married minutes though, doesn’t it, Mrs. Smith?”

Clara makes a garbled, choking noise, a pearl of laughter escaping her lips in the process, and she hurriedly and hopelessly tries to turn it into a cough.

(She can’t help it, his accent sounds absolutely ridiculous.) “Ah, right then, better get the missus indoors,” the Doctor says, “sounds like she’s coming down with a bit of a cold.”

Hand still on her waist, the Doctor half-drags Clara down the street, away from the lady, and they don’t even make it half a block before Clara loses all self-control and nearly doubles over with laughter, clutching onto his arm to keep herself upright. “What was that accent? Was it even an accent?” “It’s a Yorkshire accent.”

“That’s an insult to everyone with an actual Yorkshire accent. You sound like you’re talking with a jammie dodger stuffed in your mouth.” “Clara,” he reprimands, still using that terrible accent he seems terribly proud of, “I’ll have you know that my accent is flawless.”

“Cheekfulls of jammie dodgers, actually, like a chipmunk.” ”Oi, is that any way to talk to your new husband and apparent the love of your life?”

“It is when he sounds like that.” He glares at her, she grins.

“You can’t be very mad at me,” she informs him. “Your arm’s still around me.”

He blinks, like he’s forgotten. “Cover story,” he says primly. “Right.”

“Shut up.”

(He still doesn’t move his arm.)

# “You’ve got to do the Yorkshire accent too, you know,” he whispers to her as he pulls out her chair in the tea room on Main Street, where they’ve decided to see if they can attract a Sweetville resident’s attention. “No,” Clara says, taking a seat. “Absolutely not.”

The Doctor scoots her in closer to the table, his hands curled around the back of her chair, and then he bends forward, and she can feel his lips close to her ear and his breath hot on her cheek as he whispers, “It’ll be fun.” Clara turns her head, nearly bumping her nose into his chin, “I think you and I have different definitions of fun.”

“Come on, Clara,” he pleads, as he moves away from her, walking around to the other side of the tea table and plopping down in the chair there, a tangled blur of limbs and hand motions. “You’re my Yorkshire wife, from Yorkshire! We both have to be Yorkshire. The key word here being Yorkshire.” “Are you sure you said the word Yorkshire enough times there, Doctor?”

He waves his finger around the tea room in a circle, like his hand’s imitating the kind you’d find on a clock, “Any single one of these people could be from Sweetville. So you’ve got to do an accent, and you’ve got to start it now. When the waitress comes, give it a go, eh?” “I’m not doing an accent.”

(She does an accent. It actually is quite fun. She’s never admitting it.)

# They’re being watched. Clara can feel it. She just can’t tell who by. But there’s a distinct shiver down her spine that has nothing to do with the autumn wind, and a deep, instinctive urge to stop and turn and look. This was the plan, after all: Get watched, get followed, get invited. Clara’s certainly not getting cold feet, not when they’ve gotten this far, but there’s a distinctively uncomfortable feeling to being watched like you’re the little rabbit in a nature documentary, and there’s a great big fox around the corner. The Doctor must feel it too.

“You know what the best thing about a plan is?” he asks her. “What’s that?”

“It working,” he answers. “And do you know what the worst thing about a plan is?”

Clara huffs out a quiet laugh, watching as a puff of pale fog escape her lips, “Let me guess, it working?”

“Bingo,” he says, and then he pauses, sniffs, licks his finger, sticks it in the air, and says, “Ah, looks like rain.”

And with that announcement, he opens up the umbrella he’s brought with him from the TARDIS, and no sooner than he has, does rain start to fall, glittering in the glow of the streetlights and dusting the pavement around them with raindrops.

Clara has no idea how he does that.

“Funny story about this umbrella,” the Doctor says, and she has a feeling he’s trying to distract her from focusing on being watched, “well, when I say funny story, I mean funny story if you’re not a tremendously grouchy actor. I borrowed it from Gene, when he was on one of his movie sets. Bit temperamental, that man, but a superb dancer.”

“Doctor, are you telling me you stole this umbrella off Gene Kelly while he was filming Singin’ in the Rain?”

“I had to, there was a misplaced alien Slider cat loose there, trying to soak up the warmth from the set lights. If you watch the movie closely, you may still be able to spot it,” he tells her. “Anyway, yeah, kept the umbrella, I was going to give it back, but not with Gene yelling at me like that. Figured I’d return it later after he’d had some time to calm down. We can take it back to him, if you’d like, after we’re done here. You might like him, Clara. Just don’t try to take any of the movie props while you’re there. He’s rather touchy about that.”

Clara laughs and intwines her arm with his, leaning in close to him under the shelter of the umbrella. It’s then that she catches their reflection in the rain-dotted shop window they’re passing. There they are, reflected in glass, the Doctor and his Mrs. Smith, her in velvet and him in tweed, walking a little too close to each other, her arm wound around his. It strikes her then, how much they look like an actual couple. Clara had wondered, honestly, if she was going to feel uncomfortable with pretending to be married, or nervous. And she probably would be, if it was any other guy, but it’s not any other guy, it’s him. It’s him and it’s her and it just somehow feels right.

(This idea that they’re this comfortable together pretending to be a couple should probably surprise her more.

It doesn’t.)

# They’re still being watched, and possibly followed, but when they duck into a bookshop, Clara completely forgets about who’s following her. Or why she’s even in Victorian Yorkshire in the first place. And how can she remember silly things as insignificant as that? It seems impossible when she’s surrounded by so many books. Clara closes her eyes and inhales deeply, enjoying the comforting scent of fresh paper and ink and leather bound covers, and then she’s moving down the aisles, getting lost in a maze of books, and dragging the Doctor behind her, one hand clasped in his as she pulls him along, and her other hand reaching out to the shelves as she runs the tips of her fingers down the book spines as she goes.

She finally stops in one aisle and spins around in a half circle, soaking it all in.

“I don’t even know what to look for,” Clara suddenly admits as she spots a card advertising the ’brand new’ book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. “What was going on in the world of literature in 1893?” “Ah, 1893. A good year,” the Doctor says, pulling a book out from the shelf, lifting it up to his nose, and inhaling, like he’s at a wine tasting instead of a book store. “Somewhere out there, writers of the golden age of detective literature are being born, and Arthur Conan Doyle is getting ready to surprise fans by resurrecting Sherlock Holmes, and Oscar Wilde’s new play is premiering.”

Clara listens to him, a small smile on her lips as her eyes browse the shelves, and then she sees it, right up there, toward the top. Could it be?

Clara reaches for the book that’s caught her eye, but she’s far too short, the tips of her fingers not even coming close to reaching it, and she harrumphs in annoyance.

It’s then that she feels the Doctor take a step closer, the warmth from his proximity seeping into her clothes and onto her skin as he comes to stand behind her. He stretches his arm up and easily grabs the book she was reaching towards before depositing it into her waiting hands. Clara looks up to thank him, but he’s distracted, watching something else by the counter, and Clara knows she should be paying attention too, but she just can’t, because she’s holding a vintage copy of one of her favorite books in the world.

It’s an 1893 copy of Pride and Prejudice. The cover is a pale, robin’s egg blue, embossed with a bright gold that glints off the bookshop’s lighting and makes Clara’s breath catch beneath her collarbone. She runs the pads of her fingers over the cover, nearly afraid to touch it. If she were back home in her proper time, she’d never, ever be able to afford it or even hold it in her hands. And it’d be old and weathered, if she got it the long way around, but here it is fresh off the printing press, new and pristine, and absolutely beautiful.

Clara’s not sure she can let it go. “Doctor,” she whispers, eyes still on the book, completely absorbed, “can I -“ But she’s interrupted.

“Hello,” someone says suddenly from somewhere behind her, and Clara jumps, hastily placing the book back on the shelf before turning around to see a woman standing close to her. The woman must’ve been who the Doctor had been watching, and Clara can see why. There’s something eerie about her, almost as if she’s a wax figure come to life. Her skin’s a little too glossy, her eyes a little too blue.

“Pardon me,” the woman says, “but I have an invitation to offer you on behalf of my employer, Mrs. Gillyflower.” # “Oh, yes, Doctor and Mrs. Smith,” Mrs. Gillyflower tells them as they stand in her Sweetville office, being interviewed. “I think you’ll do nicely.” “Grand! Smashing,” the Doctor exclaims happily, in that terrible, no good, very bad accent of his. “Eh, the missus and I couldn’t be more chuffed, could we love?”

At this, he brings his arm up and slides it around Clara’s shoulders, half-hugging her close to him, as if he can create a cocoon around her with his arms if he tries hard enough. Clara turns to look up at him, raising an eyebrow. She hasn’t, in all honesty, seen this much hammy overacting since Artie’s disastrous performance as Peter Pan in his school play when he was seven. The play had been tedious, and the urge to groan nearly unbearable, but she’d loved Artie anyway.

(She thinks she loves her idiot, fake husband too.)

# The sky looks like it’s a breath away from pouring down rain, and Mrs. Gillyflower’s leading them through Sweetville. There’s something disturbingly perfect about it, Clara thinks, as she walks past it’s garden and mill that both look a little too flawless. It all reminds Clara of a plastic dollhouse she once had when she was a little girl, where everything was plastic and perfect and pink, unlived in and unreal.

Her grip tightens around the Doctor’s arm as her eyes get drawn up toward the brick chimney on top of the community mill. There was something very wrong about the chimney, something Clara couldn’t quite put her finger on. Clara didn’t even know a chimney could look wrong until she saw that one. “The name,” Clara says suddenly, “Sweetville.”

Mrs. Gillyflower glances at her, “Yes?”

“Why not name it after yourself? After all, it’s your creation.”

“Gillyflowertown, no, Gillyflowerland,” the Doctor says, his accent getting lost a bit in his excited ad-libbing. “You could have rollercoasters!”

“It’s named after my silent partner, Mr. Sweet,” Mrs. Gillyflower says cagily, ignoring the Doctor’s roller coaster comment altogether. “But you needn’t worry about that. All you need to know is that we only recruit the brightest and the best.”

As Mrs. Gillyflower says this, she reaches out to pat Clara’s cheek, and the gesture somehow feels sinister. Clara’s breath catches, her posture stiffens, and then she senses the Doctor protectively taking a step closer to her.

Magnetic, she reminded herself, they were magnetic, him and her. And as long as he was there by her side, she’d be okay.

It’s only when Clara turns to see men with gloves coming toward her, and feels hands on her shoulders ripping her away from the Doctor that she remembers that not everything magnetic can’t be pulled apart.

Clara’s screaming and screaming and screaming, and all she sees is crimson.

And then all she sees is black.

# The world is dark and dizzying and Clara is falling. The last thing she remembers is being frozen, of her world turning black, but now she’s thawing, and she feels like she’s made out of ice and wax. She’s barely awake, darkness and sleep still wrapped around her mind, but she feels herself tipping forward, her legs coming out from under her. Clara tenses, bracing herself for impact, but before she can hit the floor, she feels strong hands catch her around her waist and pull her into a warm embrace. There’s the feeling of tweed under the tips of her fingers and the sense somewhere in the back of her mind that she is somewhere safe, so it’s really no surprise when she opens her eyes and sees she’s in the Doctor’s arms.

Clara thinks that she’s never laid eyes on anything better.

He smiles, “Hello, stranger.”

Clara smiles back, and it’s like it’s automatic, her lips curving upward even before her brain can catch up with what’s happening. She doesn’t even feel fully awake yet, like she’s still in that soft, hazy place between waking and dreaming, but she’s dimly aware of the warmth of his hand on her face, the way the tips of his fingers rest in her hair, and the feel of his thumb brushing gently against the edge of her cheekbone, over and over again.

“Doctor,” Clara says happily, and before she can fully wake up out of this post-unfrozen haze and change her mind (because, really, Fully Awake Clara would probably reprimand her later,) Sleepy Clara reaches a hand up and taps him on the nose with her forefinger, a giddy smile coming across her face when she does.

“Mmhmm,” the Doctor hums in apparent amusement, mirroring her own smile as he stares down at her. She still feels somewhat unsteady from being frozen, and he must be able to sense it because he’s still holding her up, and he shifts to slide his hand from her side to the curve of her spine.

They stand there for a moment, grinning at each other like idiots, like the universe has narrowed down to them, just them, but then something catches Clara’s attention out of the corner of her eye, and it’s enough to make her realize three things at once:

One - They were still in Sweetville.

Two - They were still in danger and her and the Doctor (probably, maybe, very likely) shouldn’t be standing there as if they had all the time in the world.

Three - There was a lizard woman in a dress standing there too.

“What’s going on?” Clara whispers.

The Doctor smiles, and Clara notices he still hasn’t bothered letting go of her.

“Oh, haven’t you heard, love?“ he asks in that terrible, terrible phoney accent of his that she’s secretly missed. “There’s trouble at the mill.”

The Doctor’s talking a mile a minute and he’s got that look on his face again, where Clara can practically see the cogs turning like clockwork in his mind as he tries to figure things out. He’s frowning now, and pacing back and forth and back and forth.

“A parasite’s created this red poison, and it’s been hanging around, lurking in the shadows of Sweetville,” he says, still pacing, a dizzying blur of flapping hands and long legs. “As has Mrs. Gillyflower.”

“Doctor,” Clara says slowly, her thoughts coming together bit by bit, like a constellation connecting, “I’ve been thinking. The chimney I saw - “

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says repeating the word like it’s some sort of touchstone as he continues pacing and Clara hums in annoyance. “We’re way past that now. Yucky red parasite from the time of the dinosaurs pitches up in Victorian Yorkshire.” He makes a face, “Didn’t see that one coming.”

“Yeah,” Clara agrees, “but the chimney -“

“But what’s the connection to Mrs. Gillyflower?“ He asks, still not stopping in his movement. “Where’s she keeping it? What’s the -“

“Doctor,” Clara says, and this time she reaches up (and up, because no matter how high her heels are, he still towers over her), and firmly places her hands on his shoulders.

The Doctor stills under her touch, like he’s a runaway ship and she’s his anchor, settling him in place.

“An empty mill,” Clara says, hands still on his shoulders, holding him there with her. “A chimney that doesn’t blow smoke.”

She watches as her words sink in and his eyes travel up to the ceiling, where they stare for a moment in thought, before coming back down to her.

“Clever clogs,” he decrees.

Clara tilts her head back, grinning up at him, “Miss me?”

In reply, the Doctor reaches for her, cupping her face in his hands, and she can feel the warmth of his palms against her cheeks, the tips of his long fingers brushing against the tender skin behind her ear. And Clara can’t help but smile as he leans in to press a kiss to her forehead.

“Yeah,” he says. “Lots.”

The poison’s found in the mill, Mrs. Gillyflower falls to her death, and the inappropriately named poison-creating parasite Mr. Sweet ends up smashed and scattered into a hundred tiny little pieces all over the floor.

Clara can’t bring herself to feel very sorry about that fact.

Now Clara’s back in the TARDIS, sitting in front of the vanity in the wardrobe and undoing her bun, her hair spilling across her shoulders as she does. It’s then that she hears footsteps approaching, and when she puts down her hairpin and glances back up in the mirror, Clara sees the reflection of the Doctor entering the doorway.

“You’ve been gone a bit,” Clara tells his reflection, not bothering to turn around. “You get things sorted?” “Yeah, and then some,” he says, and then, completely unexpectedly, he adds, “Now, hold out your hands.”

Clara’s guard goes up, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. The last time he’d told her that, he’d dumped a handful of murky teal water and a sticky alien octopus in her cupped hands.

Clara hadn’t cared much for the surprise.

She swivels in her chair, the fabric of her dress twisting around her legs as she turns toward him. “Why?”

”Got you something to make up for the, you know,” he flaps his hand as if he can wave the whole situation away with a flick of his wrist, “almost dying thing.”

“Doctor, if you got me a present every time I almost died, you’d have to buy me something every Wednesday,” Clara chides lightly. “Besides, I wasn’t really scared. I knew you wouldn’t let me die here in Victorian times.”

At her words, his face goes pale and his posture turns stiff, and he stares at her both in a way that’s sharp as if he’s trying to spot something in her eyes, and in a way that’s hazy, as if he’s not really seeing her at all. Her words must’ve meant something, Clara realizes, she just doesn’t know what, but that look on his face that’s halfway between anger and heartbreak scares her in a way she doesn’t like, so she tries to pull him out of it.

“Doctor,” Clara says, trying to snap him out of whatever mood he’s in or flashback he’s having, “you going to give me my present now? Or are you going to keep me waiting?”

The Doctor blinks, shakes his head.

“Right,” he says. “Hold out your hands.”

Clara complies, and then the Doctor places her present in her hands, and Clara finds herself holding a book.

No, Clara corrects herself, not just a book, the book, the edition of Pride and Prejudice she’d admired in the bookshop. She blinks for a moment, shocked into silence and not quite believing what she’s holding.

“Uh,” the Doctor says, twitching nervously when she doesn’t say anything, those ridiculously long arms spasming awkwardly at his side. Somewhere in the back of Clara’s mind, it registers that he’s waiting for her reply, that she should be thanking him, but all her words get jumbled up before they can even reach the tip of her tongue because her brain is still catching up to the fact that this is really, truly, actually happening.

“Was that the wrong book?” the Doctor asks, “I’ll admit, I was a bit distracted by the nutty agent of the even nuttier Mrs. Gillyflower, but I thought that - “ Clara doesn’t let him finish his sentence, instead she leaps out of her chair and up in the air to fling her arms around his neck. She collides with him, and he nearly tumbles over at the force of her hug, but he rights himself, catching her around her waist as he laughs, and she‘s close enough to him that can feel his laughter vibrate through her body, and it feels safe and warm and happy like nothing else she knows.

“So,” he says, “right one, then?”

“Definitely, definitely the right one,” she confirms.

She tucks her face into the crook of his neck for a moment, her cheek brushing against the soft tweed of his coat, and then she pulls away, her arms unwinding and sliding down his shoulders. The movement causes something to catch the light, sending a shimmer around them, lighting up the wardrobe before disappearing, and Clara’s confused for a moment, before her eyes land on the ring on her finger.

“Ah,” she says, her right hand reaching toward the ring on her left one. “Guess I’d better give this back to you then.”

“Yeah, you’d better,” he hums in agreement, before adding, “Unless…”

She cocks an eyebrow, “Unless?”

“The 1920s.”

“The 1920s?”

“The roaring 20s in Los Angeles,” he elaborates, and she can already hear the excitement bleeding into his words, feel the energy radiating off him like a fire-cracker, lighting up the night. “1927 specifically. Prohibition, speakeasies, and…a hotel that’s rumored to have many guests check in but only half check out.”

He pauses there, and his words hang in the air, both an invitation and a challenge, an adventure and a dare, and there’s also the promise of both something dazzling and something dangerous.

“So,” the Doctor says, flashing her a smile, “fancy being Mrs. Smith again?”

He holds his hand out to her, waiting for her to take it, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Clara thinks she should probably feel wary of the danger. She doesn’t, though. She feels like she’s coming alive. This pull he has towards her is something magnetic, something electric, and Clara knows she can’t resist, so she reaches out and takes his hand.

“Go on, Doctor,” she says, grinning as she feels his fingers closing around her own. “Give me another adventure.”

And so he does.

84 notes · View notes

niqhtlord01 · 5 years

Photo

(Photo by barbarian_j-d9levbi) Niqhtlord’s wondrous world of aliens present “An introduction to Alien Species”

Species: Predatoria

Biology:

The Predatorian species are a race of humanoid figured fish people resembling upright sharks that have evolved over the millennia to grow additional extremities such as arms and legs at the expense of their tails, though there are recorded a few Predatoria that have kept their tails.

Predatorian’s have the unique ability to retract their finger and toe webbing at will turning powerful flippers into full dexterity hands and feet with control over every toe and finger.

Depending on the individual Predatorian some are able to breath oxygen through their gills with relative ease, others have been noted to be able to breath oxygen normally as well but require to take breathers from a special neck brace filled with water from their homeworld, and there are those that require the specialized neck brace 24/7 to remain above ground. Scientists have speculated that this may be a result of the depth of water each individual resided in for the majority of their lives with more oxygen rich water residing near the surface allowing for easier breath while heavier water resides in deeper portions of the planet leaving said individuals to breath through the neck braces. These effects often force the Predatorian body to adept which results in specific changes that can not be altered. As a result of the intense gravity, Predatorian muscles are nearly ten times stronger than the average galactic life form. Their genetic makeup compresses several dozen layers of muscles over each other to the point that they become so interwoven that even though a knife may break the skin it snaps upon contact with the muscles. As a result surgery often requires special living crustaceans from their homeworld to be used as scalpels as only their claws have evolved to cut through the muscles.

With regards to the Predatoria brain scientists have been astounded by the possibilities it opens. It appears that all Predatoria, regardless of age, have a perfect memory and can remember anything that they have experienced during their lives. Be it a physical encounter, a face of a stranger, a the words of a book read in school, anything and everything is remembered. What may seem like a potential overload of information also has a genetic fail safe in place to stop Predatoria from going mad. They possess the unique ability to manually shut down portions of their brain as to not per-say forget something, but to have it never have existed at all. The process in which they can achieve this level of mental control is unknown, but it has been proven that they can deactivate and reactivate portions of their brain and memory at will. This gives them the false appearance of being slow or dim minded when in reality they are searching their memories and reactivating which ones are relevant to the current situation why deactivating those that are not. Incidentally the Predatoria are acutely aware of this and when giving themselves names tend to keep them short and simple as longer names can trigger secondary memories as understandings behind each meaning become active.

Homeworld:

The Predatoria homeworld is roughly 95% water and under higher than normal levels of gravity. The landmass has remained relatively devoid of higher forms of life and has remained largely jungle rich fields with the exception of the newly created star port and small settlement adjacent the star port.

The majority of lifeforms reside in the natural oceans clustered into coral cities that dot the underwater landscape. Much of the infrastructure is carefully created organic materials that have been bred by Predatorian’s for specific purposes and it is rare to find refined materials within the underwater domain.

Orbital scans show that much like any other world the landscape under water has mountains, hills, ravines, plains, and other naturally formed landscapes.

Industry:

All trade is conducted on the surface at the star port under strict regulations. No machine is permitted to enter the waters of the world as Predatoria see their oceans as sacred and any outside material as sacrilege to enter. They have been more relax with offworlders taking a swim in their oceans, but react harshly in the event they leave trash behind as punishment for littering is having the limb in question that littered devoured by a swarm of Shredder fish that strip flesh from bone in seconds.

To this end the rare metals, gems, and food found in the ocean is entirely harvested by the Predatoria population. It remains unknown how the Predatoria conduct these practices as any attempt to send recording devices beneath the waves have been crushed by the pressure or eaten by curious sea creatures.

WARNING: While not impossible to visit the planet for tourism purposes it is advised that offworlders refrain from swimming. Due to the intensity of the planet’s gravity if not careful a person could be pushed down into the water and drown. To swim through the oceans of Predatoria would be the equivalent of swimming through sand underneath ten feet of additional sand.

History:

Initial contact with the species remains unconfirmed. What is known is that first contact was made by a group of outlaws on the run. Their ship had been damaged in a recent scuffle with the Cosmic Federation’s police forces and landed on the Predatoria homeworld to make repairs. The ships engines sent disturbances through the water as it passed over it alerting the Predatoria who quickly came to investigate. Initial contact was somewhat hostile as the outlaws, startled by the appearance of the Predatoria, attacked and killed several that had come ashore to observe the new comers. The blood of the dead slowly dripped back into the sea triggering a blood frenzy among the people at the death of their own. Within hours swarms of Predatoria began emerging from the ocean seeking revenge and quickly slaughtered the remaining crew just as they set off a distress beacon. With the intruders dead the majority of the Predatoria retreated back into the ocean while several remained out of sheer curiosity to inspect what the outlaws had left behind. Several days had passed when one of the Cosmic Federation’s police ships landed on the planet to investigate the distress signal. There they discovered several Predatoria studying the outlaws ship, though they still only had the basic understanding of its functions. Unlike the outlaws the police force had been trained in “new contact” scenarios and was prepared. The officer in charge ordered that one of his men send a signal to the Cosmic Federation for a diplomatic detail while they initiated friendly talks. Several of the Predatoria had retreated back into the ocean when they saw the police forces, thinking they were the same as the outlaws that attacked them before. The remaining ones had taken up the weapons of the outlaws and mimicked what they had seen them do. Some of the officers wanted to fire but the officer in charge ordered them to place their weapons on the ground and show no hostility. From this point forward additional diplomatic talks were eventually held and through trial and error an understanding was established with Predatorian’s.

Current Status:

Lacking space fairing technology, the Predatorian’s were not able to become a member of the Cosmic Federation. However, they were given the status of a “Protectorate” allowing them to trade with the Cosmic Federation as well as being protected by the law. With the general desire to make refined metals from their homeworld it is unlikely that the Predatoria will ever develop space fairing vehicles, though this mater seems of little importance to them as they have embraced interplanetary communication and can easily negotiate travel from another species if desired.

With the sudden influx of interplanetary trade Predatoria culture was hit with new technological wonders that attracted several thousand of their species to leave their homeworld for the first time.

Given their natural physique, many of their kind have been recruited into manual labor positions as a single Predatorian can do the work of five power loaders.

A somewhat ironic turn of events has also brought the attention of the criminal underworld as Predatorian’s are brought in as added muscle or bodyguards. Some underground fight rings even trade in captured Predatoria slaves, though due to the cost needed to contain a single Predatoria only the more high end fight ring establishments have been crazy enough to attempt this.

Some have used their skills and knowledge to become powerful crime lords themselves with their own private pocket underground empires.

Wars:

As of yet there have been no recording of major conflicts instigated by or against the Predatoria. The nature of their homeworld and positioning of their critical facilities underwater greatly inhibits enemies from attacking them as they would be fighting the planet itself. Blockades are also useless as the planet is near entirely self sufficient with the exception of technology brought in from off world. The only instances of aggression that have been recorded are often from individual members of the species. Such individuals include one Mr. Fig, second in command of the Amelia Starfeld, pirate queen of the asteroid fields. Mr. Fig was at one time a considerable pirate in his own right before joining the crew of Amelia Starfeld with a list of wanted posters and misdeeds long enough to fill several books with bounty notices alone. The exact reasoning behind the sudden joining is unknown, but there are rumors with regards to a certain lost card wager. Since joining her crew he has proved an able bodied second in command and a staunch bodyguard, saving his captain’s life on several occasions. The second individual is slightly less known, going only by his alias “Mr. Big”. His true name has never been discovered while his alias was given to him by a human child who is by all means his second in command. Mr. Big may be considered by some politicians as nothing more than a common criminal, but that is only to downplay the reality that he runs one of the largest private armies past the Sleisian Belt. Earliest records list him on board a slavery ship bound for a massive auction. The guards threw a young girl into his cell thinking he would eat her on the spot and it would amuse them. He did not eat her, if for the only reason at the time to pass the boredom of being alone in the cell. This proved beneficial as the young girl was able to memorize the access code to their cell door by listening to the subtle tones of the keypad outside that even the Predatorian could not distinguish and free the two of them from their cell. Proceeding swiftly they freed many of the other prisoners and instigated a ship-wide riot that saw the death of every slaver. Afterwards the little girl refused to leave his side and he had grown rather fond of the young girl and took her on as his daughter. The pair then took the ship to the nearest black market and sold it, using the profits to fund what would become their criminal empire.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #story #history #biology #wars #Predatoria #Predatorian #lore

298 notes · View notes

besthomesystems76-blog · 4 years

Text

Residence Automation Guide 2020 Smarthome

The perfect sensible dwelling devices can elevate your own home's IQ, from safety cameras and Wi-Fi locks to leading edge light bulbs. 5 finest places to shop for good gadgets : If out there to buy any of those new linked units for the house, here is our advice on the 5 best retailers that can assist you find the precise gadget or gadgets for your smart house. Good fridges have an internet-linked touchscreen on the entrance and a few embody inside cameras to reply the age-old shopper's conundrum of "do we've got milk at dwelling?". Mike great job on the blogging and for sharing this with all of us. I'm undoubtedly going to point out this to my hubs as I'm not a techy…I'm in awe of these which can be. Anyway, thanks for this nice abstract…that comment about not getting off the couch to dim the lights for an impromptu movie night…or turning the Christmas tree lights on with a distant…all sounds extremely attractive to me.

How we Picked the brands

We selected the manufacturers which offered options for wired products and retrofits (wireless products) that could cover all job needs and most home automation options, including lighting, ac, motorization, A/V control, security system, energy conserving, metering, software and program, logics and timers, sensors and health, and more. Details can be viewed by you from The Best Smart Home Devices

Occupancy-aware control system: it is potential to sense the occupancy of the home using good meters 12 and environmental sensors like CO2 sensors , 13 which will be integrated into the constructing automation system to trigger computerized responses for vitality efficiency and building consolation functions. Once you get extra comfy with your gadgets, apps like If This Then That (IFTTT) allow you to create your individual voice commands. You would possibly program a smart assistant so that the command, "It is movie time" dims the lights, turns in your TELEVISION and makes certain there isn't any music playing anyplace in the house.

#Smart Home Systems

1 note · View note

caninegoverness · 3 years

Text

To start off my weekly Q&A and advise blog post, I thought I’d start with a question that I get a lot. It’s one that relates closely to my weekly dog fact #DBFweeklyfact (https://www.facebook.com/CanineGoverness). What does a service dog do? Well, this can be answered by first telling you that there are 8 different types of service dog (SD) in North America, as well as those with mixed jobs.

One type of SD is the Autism SD. This is part of what Billie does for me. Generally speaking, these dogs work with autistic children and adults who have a difficult time in public settings. Sometimes, they help their handler (and maybe their handler’s aid or parent) to stay calm during a walk, or something similar. They can also help their handler avoid sensory overload or reground after a minor panic attack caused by sensory overload. Or they can help their handler interact with the neurotypical world.

Another type of SD is the Hearing Dog. These SDs help their deaf or hard-of-hearing handlers respond to all sorts of sounds from the doorbell to the fire or smoke alarm. They can also help their handlers by alerting them to the sound of an ambulance coming up the street, or let them know that there is somebody behind them who is trying to get their attention.

Then there’s the Alert Dog. These SDs alert their diabetic handlers to the smell of blood glucose levels falling beyond a certain level. These are also the SDs who are being trained to alert to other illnesses that involve things like changing hormone levels.

A similar type of service dog is the Seizure Response SD. These dogs are trained to alert other people when their epileptic handler is having a seizure. Or they can be trained to get help when their handler is unable to get to a safe place.

Similarly, Allergy Detection SDs are trained to let their handler know when there’s a specific allergen in the food or environment that could cause serious harm them because of their allergy. Unfortunately, I don’t know very much about the specifics of this type of SD. But I do know that they do some pretty great work.

Mobility Assistance Dogs are another great type of SD. These guys help their physically disabled handlers move around in the world. Some of these SDs are trained to help pull their handler’s wheelchair, or they can help stabilize their handler while sitting or standing, or they can help their handler with other balance issues. These dogs are also often trained to help their handler pick up dropped items, open doors, and press buttons that would otherwise be out of reach.

Another type is the Psychiatric SD, also known as a PTSD SD. These amazing dogs are similar to the Autism SD in that they help their handler stay calm or reground after something triggers panic. And before you ask why the military has their own type of SD, they don’t. Psychiatric disorders and PTSD don’t just happen in the military. Like most other things in life, the cause of a person’s disability is unique to their own situation.

To get back on topic, there’s the Guide Dog. A guide dog is an SD who helps to guide their blind or visually impaired handler through the world. Similar to hearing dogs, these highly trained dogs alert their handlers to visuals that may otherwise be dangerous. Most guide dogs are also trained to do something called intelligent disobedience (Billie also does this if I have a panic attack). This is when the dog will ignore their handler’s “Forward” command at a cross walk in order to prevent an accident, or they may refuse to turn when they see a potential threat that their blind handler doesn’t.

And finally, another question that I get a lot, what does Billie do for you? Well, I have several disabilities that are interwoven. The first is Asperger’s Syndrome, commonly known as a high functioning form of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For this, Billie helps me stay calm in social situations. I also have GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and Catamenial Epilepsy. For these, Billie knows most of my anxiety triggers and she helps me avoid or adapt to these. This in turn, helps to prevent my hormones from getting too far out of control, which could trigger a seizure. When I do have a seizure, Billie is also trained to get help if it’s needed and help me recover from the side effects that my seizures cause. In ‘short’ her specific task is “tactile stimulation for the disruption of sensory and/or emotional overload”. This means that despite my ‘not looking disabled’ Billie is a real service dog, and damn gorgeous one too!

0 notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Hearthstone: The Best New Core Set Cards

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In case you haven’t heard, Hearthstone is getting a new “Core Set” of cards that will offer new, returning, and veteran players the chance to use a curated collection of minions, spells, and heroes that better fit the modern game and enable new design decisions in the future. The Core Set will be free for all players and will be available to unlock at the start of the next expansion rotation. You can check out every card in the new set for yourself right here.

While some of the cards in the Core Set are returning favorites from previous releases, it’s the brand-new and heavily modified cards that are catching everybody’s attention at the moment. These cards won’t just help form the foundation of Hearthstone‘s competitive meta in the coming years: they’ll offer entirely new strategies that could prove to be viable regardless of what other cards come and go through expansion rotations.

There’s no shortage of noteworthy new Core Set cards, but here are some of the ones you’re definitely going to want to try for yourself.

Kor’vas Bloodthorn – Demon Hunter

Kor’Vas Bloodthorn checks all the major boxes for both Demon Hunter and powerful Hearthstone cards in general. With its low-cost, charge ability, and lifesteal functionality, this is one of those cards that’s simply “good” in nearly every situation.

One thing we’re all going to have to keep an eye on is this card’s unique return to hand ability. It’s entirely possible it will be enough to make Bloodthorn the star of a potentially devastating one-turn kill deck.

Vanessa VanCleef – Rogue

First off, I love that card art. Second, and more importantly, Vanessa VanCleef’s ability is a fascinating concept that fits perfectly into the Rogue class as well as a variety of possible decks.

What’s great about this card is the way that it forces your opponent to suddenly think about the order they play their turn in a way that they didn’t necessarily need to do before. Even if they deny you their “best” card, VanCleef has the potential to add enough value to your hand to make things very uncomfortable for them.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Aegwynn, the Guardian – Mage

This card may not look like much on the surface, but it honestly gives Mage players a few of the things that they’ve been missing out on due to the class’s spell-heavy Basic and Classic card sets.

Aegwynn is a fairly stated card that greatly increases the value of minions in a Mage deck. It fits perfectly into the midrange plans of most slower Mage decks, and that Spell Power ability is going to be very handy for players looking to quickly end matches with a devastating barrage of spells.

Pursuit of Justice – Paladin

What makes Pursuit of Justice special (and potentially devastating) is the fact that it’s a low-cost spell with an effect that lasts you throughout the remainder of the match.

For aggressive players, the benefits of summoning recruits with more attack should be obvious. However, old-school Paladin control players will no doubt remember that recruits could sometimes automatically win slower matchups due to their influence on the “inevitability factor” of certain contests. This card is only going to speed up that inevitability factor.

Crimson Clergy – Priest

While recent Hearthstone expansions have done a better job of giving Priests effective early game cards, the class is always searching for a new one-drop that better lets them set the pace for the rest of the match.

Crimson Clergy could be that card. It’s going to be interesting to see how many times players are able to actually utilize this card’s effect in an average match, but even if Clergy dies fairly soon after it’s played, it still forces opposing classes to play off their back foot in a way that they rarely had to worry about when facing Priests.

Novice Zapper – Shaman

I’m not sure if Novice Zapper has the support it needs to really thrive at the moment, but as a standalone card, this new addition to the Shaman library certainly has nightmare fuel potential.

Aggressive Shaman players will certainly benefit from what this card offers, but Novice Zapper’s stats and abilities mean that it has the potential to really shift the momentum of a match in several common scenarios.

Lord Jaraxxus – Warlock

Lord Jaraxxus may not look “new” on the surface, but a closer look reveals that the card no longer sets your health to “15.” Instead, you gain 5 armor on top of whatever health you already have.

It’s difficult to overstate how much better that makes this card. I’m going to be very interested to see whether or not this card survives for long in its new form considering how easily it allows Warlock players to command the late game in slower matches. The fact that Jaraxxus can no longer be summoned from your hand or deck as a “Demon” card is just the cherry on top.

Bloodsail Deckhand – Warrior

Like the best fantasy villains, Pirate Warrior is one of those deck types that is always threatening to come back and set the world ablaze. When it does return, Bloodsail Deckhand is going to be a big contributor to the archetype.

Even as a standalone card, this one might offer the right combination of tempo and value to make it worthy of inclusion consideration for any Warrior players running a least a couple of weapons in their deck.

Taelan Fordring – Neutral

Here’s another card that doesn’t initially seem to pass the eye test. Hearthstone history has taught us that more expensive cards with low stats have to bring something pretty special to the table in order to see play.

However, I think Fordring offers something special. That “Taunt/Divine Shield” combo is traditionally pretty valuable (even at this cost) against aggressive decks, and the ability to draw the highest-cost minion from your hand is one of those triggers that can either be used for combos or simply to transition into the late game a little more effectively.

Ysera the Dreamer – Neutral

While some of Hearthstone‘s re-designed Dragon Legendaries are either seemingly worse than their former designs or need to be played with a little more before rendering a verdict, Ysera feels like a strict improvement in the ways that matter most.

While you only get four cards out of Ysera and it’s no longer possible to give two or more copies of the same card (unless you find a way to play this again from your hand), the new version of Ysera feels better overall and actually fits quite nicely into some existing decks. There are absolutely some situations where this card isn’t necessarily better than its predecessor, but it is noticeably better in the most common ones.

The post Hearthstone: The Best New Core Set Cards appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2NwRSdn

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

hemsworths-chris · 7 years

Text

crack shot - drarry

for sarah (@oikawanotes); the mafia au you asked for! happy birthday, my fave bowl of soup ♥♥

“he’s here, sir.”

the voice is a familiar one, thin and sharp, coming from the doorway. he doesn’t look up at first, instead continuing to sign his name onto the sheet of paper before him. the fountain pen - dark green, almost emerald, rimmed with gold - catches on a groove on the table, leaving an unsteady impression on the surname.

a trifling matter, he supposes. after all, the name itself is worth its weight in gold, regardless of appearance.

(and the fact that the groove in the otherwise gleaming mahogany is the remnant of the point of a knife being thrust into the table to emphasize a point - just a hair short of where a man’s finger was - doesn’t hurt, either).

he signs his name with a flourish, before slowly placing the pen back onto the table. the name stares unflinchingly back at him, emphasized against the crisp white.

draco malfoy.

steepling his hands, he finally cast his gaze upwards at the man standing patiently before him.

“send him in.”

it isn’t often that he accepts new - recruits, he supposes the word would be.

their organization (if one can call it that), hadn’t been intended, hadn’t ever been meticulously planned out piece by piece, but it had fallen together like it had been. a chain of dominoes, each component more lethal than the last - encountered in dark alleyways and the back of auditoriums. not friends, never friends. henchmen. assets. pawns.

and at the very top of the chain, the last piece to fall should it all come crumbling down, is the son of one of london’s most dignified philanthropists.

(and in the process, one of london’s most powerful political players).

lucius malfoy was a name you only knew if you were allowed to. immeasurably wealthy, uncaring of the unsavory rumors abounding about how he’d acquired his coin (god knows too many are true), able to afford his son (or rather, force onto his son) an oxford education, and a moderately inspirational father figure.

the time when draco was twelve years old and had accidentally walked in on what he’d assumed to be their butler of sorts forcing a man onto his knees and his father putting a bullet between the man’s eyes had been especially - ah, enlightening.

even at oxford, he’d never really been considering a life of organized crime - organized political scheming was more of what he’d expected. and yet, here he is.

life works out like that, sometimes.

it’s turned out well enough for him, though. he has men willing to fall on their swords - turn their semiautomatic pistols on themselves, technically - at his beck and call, and london’s his to command or burn. really, things could have ended up worse for him.

just look at harry potter.

similar roots - dignified family, old money, oxford education. he supposed that potter’s legacy is a far more reputable one, but one significantly less amusing, as he calls it. once or twice he’d met the boy (a man, now, but he’d never quite grown out of that lanky and gawky stage he’d hit around year eight so - a boy, still) at some government function or gala, but really there was nothing to see there. just a wallflower of a kid with hair quite unbecoming for the son of the founder of a company for hair products. exceedingly ordinary, by draco’s standards.

less ordinary, perhaps, when he’d made his way onto the national news after the murder of his parents. the spotlight of countless interviews and constant recognition fell on him, and even years after the incident, he’s never quite been able to escape its shadow.

(that meant, of course, that when you were connected with the right people, you’d know the right things. especially about potter.)

and when draco had heard that the name harry potter was making its way through the ranks as a potential asset - well, needless to say, his attention had been piqued.

it’s a well-known that potter has never really been the same after the grisly deaths of his parents. what’s less well-known to most that he’s been hunting for a means of revenge ever since.

least-known of all is the fact that the potter heir is standing right outside the door of the head of one of london’s most effectively notorious (and notoriously effective) crime syndicates, waiting to be let in.

at draco’s assent, the man motions to the person outside the door, and harry potter sweeps - stumbles, really - inside the room.

strangely enough, the first thing draco notices is: he hadn’t bloody changed.

same idiotic blue v-neck sweater, same preposterous glasses almost falling off his crooked nose, same laughable hair that looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane, an earthquake, and a storm all at the same time. outwardly, he’s the exact same fucking person as the dork he’d left behind at his college graduation.

but. draco’s gaze is sharp, and there’s no way he can miss the way potter’s eyes scan the room, the way his posture straightens when he sees and recognizes the man sitting at the desk, the way his gaze, once unsteady and carefree, now has a certain focus about them reminiscent of shattered glass.

draco cocks an eyebrow.

“fancy seeing you here, potter.”

“funny, i could say the same.”

you would.

potter makes to pull up a chair, but a glare from draco nips that action in the bud.

“so. what do you think you’re doing here?” an invitation, a rejection, an interrogation, a loaded gun.

“haven’t the slightest idea.” the safety of a gun being flicked off.

there’s a note in potter’s breast pocket, a telltale sign that he does, in fact, have the slightest idea. probably slipped discreetly to him on the sidewalk, or left with belongings that he probably wouldn’t recall ever leaving unattended, maybe even accompanied by a tip of a hat from across the street. signs of an extended offer he hasn’t rejected.

he stands then, getting to his feet leisurely like he has all the time in the world. and he does, technically. potter’s gaze runs up his neatly pressed and well-tailored suit (and for all the world, draco has no idea why the notion of potter’s gaze on him makes him want to fidget), before meeting draco’s own.

(his eyes are the exact same fucking shade of emerald as they’d ever been.)

“well, in that case, allow me to ask you why there’s a pistol tucked in your waistband.”

there are many qualities one could say draco malfoy lacks, but let it never be said that he isn’t observant.

potter’s eyes widen minutely - as if he’d hoped that draco wouldn’t notice - and his hand twitches towards his torso.

“er -”

“that isn’t a problem,” says draco smoothly. frankly, watching potter squirm is almost enjoyable for him, and he doesn’t bother to hide his smirk. “in fact, i’d like you to take it out.” by no means is he asking.

potter does so slowly, but with more ease than draco had expected. judging by the way he holds it - carefully, but not gingerly - he’s done so before, and the gun currently between his thin fingers appears to be loaded. hm. he isn’t a total idiot, after all.

“close your eyes,” he says blandly. after a moment’s hesitation, potter does so - or tries to pretend to. it’s obvious that he’s squinting. when he notices draco looking, his eyes finally close tightly.

“now, i’d like you to shoot the target on the wall.”

his fingers tense against the handle of the gun, but the action isn’t one of fear. it’s one of anticipation.

for the first time today, potter smiles.

“sure.”

he pivots on his left foot, more rapidly than draco could have ever expected of the scrawny oxford business major, so he faces the the ringed target not quite below him. quick as a flash, he raises the pistol, not even bothering to adjust his angle, and pulls the trigger.

the report of the pistol is a familiar sound, one draco has heard more times than he’d like to admit. but the sight before him is one he never imagined.

harry potter holding a semiautomatic pistol, bright green eyes triumphantly fixed on a target ring. and a clean hole, slightly smoking, right through the crimson center of the target.

it takes everything draco has to not let his surprise - his awe, really - to show on his face.

he’s a crack shot.

he’s a fucking crack shot.

“well.” it’s potter’s turn to smirk, now. “i do believe that’s a hit.”

half an hour later, potter leaves the meeting with a spring in his step and orders to remain where he is until further instructions.

draco watches him leave, and wonders how the hell all that happened.

#drarry #draco malfoy #harry potter #fanfic #my writing #merauders #userbonnie #ctaeth #hp #userjilys #padfootd #userpetuniaevans #hiddenpolkadots #*#mine #it is our queue that defines us #snapslikethis

44 notes · View notes

striving-artist · 7 years

Note

I'm not sure if you take prompts but I had this idea where the avengers have a stimulation where they have to fight against each other(one of them will be the villain and the others fight against them) and Tony never participates but one day he gets super angry at them and just crushes all of them and achieves world domination? Like either with the power of the iron man suit and his weapons and cages or with his connections and money and intelligence. Just BAMF Tony and the team terrified.

Normally I don’t take prompts. This one worked for me. So. Enjoy?

Iron Man was a menace, and taking him down rose on Steve’s to do list with each wave of robots he fought. They were endless, clever, zippy things. They hovered mid-dair and used some kind of pack or swarm mentality. Two dozen launched themselves at the team as they breached the perimeter, and it nearly ended the assault on the spot.

The hole in the surveillance had lasted all of ten minutes. Long enough for Natasha to get them past the fence, not enough to get them to the next potential safe point.

Clint was already limping.

Thor eventually built up enough electricity in Mjolnir to fry the entire swarm, but he had to wait until they were all covered to do it right.

None of them got away unscathed. The injuries only goaded them onwards: They were going to finally take Iron Man down.

***

It was his own fault for getting drunk and nostalgic and building a holodeck.

It wasn’t cost effective, and probably never would be. There wasn’t a commercial market for it. Or, there was, but he couldn’t get the price point below a hundred thousand a simulation. It kept the Avengers fit though. They could run simulations beyond their previous capacity, and prepare for potential wars. They could practise. They could train.

Now that Bucky was Bucky and no longer an ice pop, they could work him into the fold.

Usually, they ran against simulated opponents. Friday ran the enemy, and each time Tony reprogrammed the system to make them harder to beat, harder to predict. But the team knew that not even brilliant AI could compete with human thought. It was best for them to spar against each other.

Well. “Spar.”

One or two of them would be the Villain of the month, and the rest would try to defeat them.

It was a point of pride, and betting. They wanted to be able to defeat their teammates, just for bragging rights, even if it did imply that the Avengers had lost to Evil. The team got into it. They planned and plotted. They gave themselves fake names for the event. The Spider was excellent in what turned into a three day bout of espionage overthrowing a government, but not quite enough. Captain Hydra’s utter lack of deception nearly won him the day with his straightforward attack on Buckingham Palace.

They got competitive, and the winner got to claim a boom, which was about as important as the right to strut for the next month.

So, the team loved it.

Tony didn’t.

He participated when they ran against Friday, but he wouldn’t even stay in the compound when they ran against each other.

It drove the Avengers crazy.

They wanted him on their team during simulations, sure, but what they really wanted was to have him run the side of Evil.

They wanted the challenge of trying to take down a genius opponent.

Tony didn’t participate, didn’t explain, and didn’t care when they all pouted at him.

Two years after Siberia, sixteen months after the team came home, ten months after Bucky defrosted, eight months after the holodeck was functional, the Avengers declared that they wouldn’t run another sim until Tony played for the other side, just once.

Billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist, idiot.

He agreed.

***

Steve flung himself behind the wall as another explosion tore through the hallway. The heat from it licked at his arms and hurt enough that his hand itched to shut off the uplink on his neck. But that would be admitting defeat. He tucked into a tighter ball behind his shield, nose pinching with the smell of burning hair.

The heat ebbed, Steve gestured to Bucky across the hall, and they surveyed the new damage.

A twenty foot break lay between them and the door they needed. The blast had taken out at least three floors above and below, and with the debris on the ground, the run up would be rough.

Bucky shrugged, latched his weapons in their holsters and sheaths, and sprinted. He landed bare inches past the ledge, turned and taunted.

Steve’s mind tripped on memories of the first mission he took, of Bucky and Red Skull, and of a desperate leap to reach safety. He brushed it aside, believing it was a coincidence.

Anything he would have shouted across was lost to the percussive explosions beneath his feet. Iron Man was blowing the whole area. There was no time to wait, no time for fear and memory. Steve flung himself forward to jump.

***

Tony didn’t play along and come up with a villain name.

When the rest of the Avengers got their data packages, it talked about the activities of Iron Man, eccentric weapons designer and billionaire, morally untethered and brilliant. There were recon photos of the base Tony designed, and enough information that they could potentially beat him. That was part of the rules of the simulations. It always had to be possible. So the team read every word of them. The packets talked about the crimes Iron Man committed and the number of people he’d killed, and, huddled in their command center, the team didn’t mind anymore that he hadn’t come up with another name. He was taking it seriously. He had written articles and op eds. He had photoshopped images. He had in memoriam pieces about his victims. If some of them itched with a faint sense of deja vu, it was probably because those kinds of articles ran together after a while.

Name change or not, the Avengers knew this was going to be the best simulation they had ever run.

With the new sensors on their suits, they would feel pain from the holographic explosions and bullets and scrapes, but take no actual injuries. Hand to hand would end in real bruises, but it was nothing they couldn’t handle.

The system was a marvel, using something similar to the non damaging protocols that Star Trek broke every other episode. Once they disconnected the uplinks, they’d retain no pain, not even echoes.

But, the system operated on certain rules. Not even Tony could get around the laws of physics and preset conditions once it started. No one could rewrite the code and add more enemies. No one could change how much gravity there was. All the pieces were on the board when the sim started, and it played out from there.

They had done this many times. They were always excited about getting to play, and yes, it was play for them to go fight knowing none of them would die. Clint was giddy. Steve was predatory and eager. Bucky was as excited as they’d ever seen him – just barely smiling.

So the Avengers suited up, eager to finally face off against Iron Man, and bring the bastard down.

***

There were more of the tiny flying robots once they reached the control room, and Thor was stuck on the other side of the compound with Natasha, trying to override the missile launch controls.

Of course Iron Man didn’t have one plan; he had four. Minimum.

They stopped the plane from taking off, only to find there was no one on it, just a note pinned to the front of a Bucky Bear, and the engine set to autopilot. One metal fist through the controls ended that prospect, but it meant they were in the wrong place, and had to scramble for a new plan.

Bucky and Steve had a technique, not a great one, but batting through the tiny buzzing bastards got them to the next door. One punch at a time, Bucky ripped a hole in it, and Steve stood guard, swatting the robots aside. The metal arm was working fine, but Bucky’s other arm hung limp at his side, still trembling from a booby trap they’d triggered trying to shut down the gas release.

If their intel was right, – and it was, for a few seconds they’d accessed the live video of Iron Man’s inner lair – their quarry was less than two hundred feet away.

Nat and Thor and Clint would take care of the missile launch. Steve and Bucky would bring down the Big Bad, and the Avengers would win the day.

They always did.

***

When Tony tried to back out of the simulation in the week leading up to it, the team protested so loudly they sounded like he was threatening to kill their puppy. He tried delaying, bringing up the idea of improving the system first, and they declared they could just run against him twice. Tony offered to swap out with Rhodey, since they knew Tony better, so War Machine would make the more challenging opponent.

They didn’t let him.

He did try to get out of it. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that the simulation would end in anything but disaster.

So, when the system was prepped, and they were in final countdown, Tony decided to let them win. It would be better like that. He’d put up a good fight, and when the team reached him at the center of the labyrinthine compound, he’d be sure they thought he’d given it his all. He’d make it harder than it had been before, and when there was a reasonable opening, he’d let them take him down.

Easy peasy.

He even made sure the robots and tech they faced in the lead up to that final fight would be good training for them. They relied on him for tech based evil too much. They needed the practice. If he ever did turn on them, really turn, they had to be able to handle technological attacks.

He had a plan.

And he would have stuck to it, but the night before the simulation was bad. Very bad.

Almost exactly two years since Siberia, and Tony woke up shivering from a nightmare. He called Steve and Bucky at half past three, ready to beg, to prostrate himself, to tell them honestly why it was a bad idea if he had to, whatever it took to get the day cancelled. He wasn’t going to fight them again. They didn’t need to know what he really was.

Bucky was grumbly. Steve was snippy.

They were happy and cozy together, curled up in Steve’s bed, and taunting him about being afraid to face the team, afraid to lose. They told him when they won, the Avengers had already decided what they were going to ask for: Tony would have to play the Evil again. Steve said it with a grin.

Tony was an idiot.

He hung up, let himself softly cry until the chill in his bones faded, and shifted his plan.

The Avengers had never lost against Evil, simulated or otherwise.

But.

The Avengers had never fought against Iron Man, not really.

***

Vision and Wanda and Thor missed the rendezvous entirely, trapped in cells.

Clint and Nat were too badly injured to be of help on the other side of the door.

Steve was limping.

Bucky’s right arm was moving slow.

They got the doors open.

Bucky slipped into the smoky darkness first. Steve followed just behind.

They’d faced worse odds. They would win, and Iron Man would lose. And Tony Stark would have to keep participating in these games.

***

Two years ago, Tony Stark fought his teammates. Fought against his friends.

Two years ago, he pulled every shot he took.

Even when he took off the Winter Soldier’s arm, he pulled his shot.

He could have killed him instead.

He chose not to.

***

Steve cleared the smoke and found Iron Man on a riser in the middle of the room. There was a control panel behind him. There was a screen showing DC. A screen showing missile silos. One monitor showed a list of four, only one of which blinked with an error message.

The Avengers had fought Evil, real and imagined dozens and hundreds of times, on scales small and large. They’d faced what they thought was the end when Loki brought the Chitauri. They’d thought they’d failed in Sokovia. They thought there was no saving anything after the fight that tore them apart and sent the majority into hiding in Wakanda.

Steve gaped at the scene, knowing already that it was hopeless. He was the strategist, he knew. Something sickening twisted in his stomach as he realized it.

Looking back on all the times they’d barely survived, barely prevailed, it hadn’t ever been Tony that needed the Avengers. It was the other way around.

Bucky fired, but it ricocheted off the armor into the air. Steve’s thrown shield was caught and dropped to the ground.

The clang of it hitting steel at Iron Man’s feet echoed with the thunk in his memory as Steve left it behind. It wasn’t the same– not at all, the room, the moment, the energy, the constant knowledge that it wasn’t real – everything was different, but Steve could feel a hint of Siberia as the three of them stood there, waiting for a fight to begin.

Iron Man tilted his head to the side, fired twice, and turned to the launch system while Steve and Bucky lay on the ground in agony.

Iron Man typed the passcode, the missiles launched, and the Avengers failed.

***

It was a terrible idea.

The holograms dissolved after the simulation was won, leaving Tony standing in the middle of a massive warehouse, dressed in a bodycon suit, staring at the space where the monitor had been when he chose to destroy the world. Nearby, the rest of the Avengers rose, no longer feeling pain from their various simulated wounds, and gaped at him.

Thor shouted a question about the victor. Natasha answered that Iron Man won the day. It started a round of cheering and congratulations.

Tony glanced to the others for a moment, lingering on Steve and Bucky where they were still leaning into each other. Thor started orating on the excellent battle and the challenge Tony had crafted. The others joined in on it, praising how good he was at being evil. Joking how lucky they were he was on their side. They laughed. Tony didn’t. Steve and Bucky looked at him too intensely to be anything but a question.

Tony smiled at the group, feigned exhaustion, declared he would never do another Evil Sim again, and walked away, keeping to himself how quickly he could have won the game. They didn’t need to know that he had let them get past the guards outside the building. They didn’t need to know that he’d chosen not to set off one set of bombs they’d missed. They didn’t need to know how good he was at playing for the other team.

Behind him, communicating in silent looks and concerned grips, were Steve and Bucky, who were finally starting to see the ending they should have met in Siberia, if Tony had actually wanted them dead. Bucky had his hand clenching the bicep of his metal arm, recalling the pain of it being torn away, trying to stay calm.

That night, Bucky had new nightmares. Steve did too. It was no longer dreams of them losing each other, of going too far and killing Tony in an icy bunker, or Hydra conquering the world. They dreamed of Tony, unleashed, uncaring, unstoppable, razing his enemies to the ground, salting the earth, and turning to the next. They shuddered as they woke, clingy and shaking, but together.

They didn’t know that four floors up, Tony had the same nightmare, and woke up alone.

#my writing #mcu #tony stark #this is bleak?#I don't know what else to call it #post cacw pain #that's what I'd call it #I just wrote this fast bc I need to make the words go #and they haven't lately #so sorry if it's bad

190 notes · View notes

stephicness · 7 years

Note

Hello! It would be very interesting to know your headcanon about Ravus - android. And about Ardin - android, if possible, please.

Well, dear anon, if you’re talking about the headcanons I have based on the PROTOCOL writing I did for Android!Ravus, a fair portion of the headcanons originated from @chocobro-hijinks and their initial headcanon concepts for the Android!AU. I highly recommend you follow them and have a look at the headcanons they wrote for it! Because they’re the biggest inspiration for this AU and my writing for it! C:

But despite me taking a good deal of inspiration from their headcanons, I do have my own thoughts on Android!Ravus and Android!Ardyn too, especially as I was writing PROTOCOL (and potentially more to it too. I gotta find which notebook I wrote my notes in. lsejlkresj). I have thoughts on Ardyn too, but I’m not going to reveal those just yet – considering that I’ve recently spurred up the inspiration to write more within the Android!Ravus AU context, and Ardyn makes a pretty important appearance within the story that I can’t reveal yet. c:

But instead, here! Have some Android!Ravus thoughts, including a pre-story background on him and some bonus details and headcanons too~

ACCESS APPROVED – Android!Ravus Headcanons

RAV-N0X, Aeternia Build – Military Class Android, Status: DECOMMISSIONED

The History

Initially an android designed for war, the designers at Fleuret Industries wanted to create a model that far surpassed those that have come before it. Not just from FI itself, but from its competitors over at Aldercapt Corporations, for example – whom specialize in military contracted androids.

The difference between what Fleuret and Aldercapt, however, came from two things: the type of specialization for the androids and the type of intelligence used in them.

In Aldercapt’s designs, he oriented his androids around more combat technology. Able to withstand the arsenals that man could throw at it, his androids were unstoppable machines of war, frightening forces that were ultimately meant to be cannon-fodder in the end.

In Fleuret’s design, she wished to create androids that could assimilate with the general populous as spies and infiltrators. Realistic in appearance, they could extract information and use methods of mercy or ruthlessness on the enemy as needed – a valuable asset to turn the tides.

In order for Fleuret to do that, she designed a special type of intelligence for the Aeternia Build prototype, one capable of learning and adapting to the highest degree – as if they could truly pass for a human: artificial intelligence.

It was something that Aldercapt could not simulate in his war-machines, and it was a technology not seen for ages – since the retired Lucian Enterprises went out of business. One that was dangerous but desired among those within the technology world.

And so, Aldercapt attempted to steal the Aeternia Build’s AI programming for replication. During Fleuret’s first exhibition to showcase her life’s work, A;dercapt Corporations attempted to unleash a virus that would steal the AI’s information and programming.

But Fleuret had designed this AI to retaliate when it felt as if it were being hacked. She feared it would never come to it, but alas, it did. And the results of the hacking proved to be devastating.

The android lashed out, glitching and physically lashing out at Aldercapt to stop the source of the hacking while his systems shut out the virus. But seeing it as a sign of danger, authorities attempted to stop the android once and for all before it attempted to kill someone.

Backed into the corner, Fleuret’s design called for an alternative plan – should the infiltrator android ever be caught in a predicament where information could be extracted from it. So, it activated its self-destruct protocol.

Fleuret wasn’t ready to let her work destroy itself however, rushing to calm it down and override its security protocols. But alas, it was too late. The android had turned to flame, igniting its creator along with it.

Both the Aeternia Build and its creator, Sylva Nox Fleuret, had been lost that tragic day.

Because of what had happened on the day of the exhibition, Fleuret Industries lost reputation within the world of technology and was forced to discontinue its work on the Aeternia Build androids and shut down its operations with the loss of its founder. Her work was lost and destroyed with the detonation of the RAV-N0X Aeternia Build.

The only thing that remains of its legacy is a viral video, showing the monster of an android lashing out and killing its creator.

The Character of RAV-N0X

The full title for this android is the Military-Class Android RAV-N0X, Aeternia Build Prototype Concept from Fleuret Industries. However, he was programmed by his creator with a ‘name’ to grant certain people access to override his AI self-sentience. Only three people are known to have access to these commands, two of them not alive and the third being you.

When you say his name, Ravus, you’re able to command him to do almost anything, but his AI can still determine if he wants to accept the command or not. He’ll decline your commands if it puts himself into harms way or those who possess the name override.

Due an involuntary system wipe, Ravus doesn’t really remember much of his previous owners or the research facility where the Aeternia Builds were being created. He prefers to leave it that way.

Despite Ravus being seen by millions VIA the viral video of the prototype malfunctioning, the appearance of the first prototype model was far different than his current model. His secondary design allowed him to look slimmer and more handsome than the first designs.

After being repaired by you (the main character of PROTOCOL), he still possesses fairly limited functions of his left arm. Since it isn’t apart of what Fleuret Industries had, he lacks compatibility with the arm. Or so you assume. It might also be because it’s an Aldercapt-designed arm.

Due to Ravus’s highly-advanced AI system, he possesses an ability to hack into other android and technology systems and ultimately ‘command’ them. He takes full advantage of this when he spies on what you do on your computer, mostly to ensure your ‘safety.’

This hacking ability also triggers often if you and him were to argue and Cindy happened to be around. He’ll deactivate Cindy to keep her from hearing your argument before you have to shout at him to make him stop giving you more things you’d have to fix later.

His prototype design started off with a polycarbonate and metal framework, but the model you stumble upon later re-designs himself with a silicon body to replicate flesh and attire mixed with kevlar to allow even more bullet-resistance in terms of combat.

There is one one model of android that ever really saw him in use once: the LIONHEART Cor-X Model, which was a military combat android recommissioned by Fleuret to test out the RAV-N0X’s combat efficiency. The LIONHEART was able to win, but not the second time around.

Despite being an AI with the ability to learn and make its own decisions, Ravus finds it hard to do things for his own sake. Having been obeying orders from Fleuret or other scientists for most of his creation, he finds it odd that he can suddenly dictate himself as he resides with you.

Nevertheless, he attempts to fulfill his duty to you – paying you back with his service as a bodyguard and a protector while trying to do the task he was given since his creation: to assimilate to society and to learn alongside the humans.

He just has to stop frying your toasters. You’re getting tired of having to buy and replace them.

#asks #dear anon #stephic writings #headcanons #story notes #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ravus nox fleuret #android!ravus #android!AU #ravus #PROTOCOL story #notes to inspire the writing soon #aaaaaw yiss #i'm excited to get back into writing this #even though i did ramble alot #ardyn i'll reveal later in the writings #promise!

40 notes · View notes

ramajmedia · 5 years

Text

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Review: A Link Not Worth Missing

For anyone even slightly intrigued about taking on the role of a formative hominid, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a totally unique and sophisticated experience, but impatient gamers may feel shorted by the ruthless difficulty or emphasis on self-directed goals.

Innovation is built on past failure. Any written coverage of the new game from Assassin’s Creed mastermind Patrice Désilets and his team seeks no less than to upend that most pernicious standard of icon-hunting gameplay which his blockbuster series originated, popularized, and drove deep down into the dirt. Every year since, gamers have been greeted by a constant swath of open-world sandbox collectathons, with methodical upgrades doing their best to camouflage repetitive gameplay. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is far and away from that style of gameplay, with the overall sense of stunned discovery and emphasis on exploration and evolution is presented here in wholly unique manner. This is not another re-skinned Assassin’s Creed, but a tiger of an entirely different stripe.

The elevator pitch for Ancestors would probably mention a combination of survival sim with the evolution of the human species. While that description is sufficient at a baseline level, the game requires a very particular approach to that idea, one requiring contemplative distance and patient engagement with its various inner workings. Rather than commanding a specific standalone character in charge of a group, Ancestors sees players guiding a collective of primitive hominids at a point starting 10 million years in the past, awake and vulnerable in a jungle with no directed guidance as to how to progress quickly to the next stage of growth.

Related: Telling Lies Review: A Thoroughly Immersive, Interactive Story

Assassin’s Creed is probably a poor reference point, although your hominids can pursue environmental landmarks in order to trigger a spinning-camera cinematic familiar who's activated a “focus point.” Aside from these scripted instances, Ancestors does not offer any other kind of hand-holding at all. You manage a group of primitive hominids and learn what’s required to survive in the wild, which may include anything from combining various detritus to create tools or experimenting with foodstuffs found high up in the forest canopy and hoping for ideal digestion.

Some key differences separate this journey, though. Most importantly, Ancestors features minimal narrative audio and text, and the only time you ever even see words on the screen regards vague achievements (like hitting an animal with a particular rock or using a tool correctly). No, the primary narrative involves the geographical advancement of your clan as you navigate from one biome to another, and any dictated summary only happens inside your own head as you play, as the game avoids any indiscreet storytelling, content to subsist on a few wordless cinematics as you make your way further and further into the landscape.

The game experience can actually feel downright hostile at times. If predators appear and take apart your clan one by one, you may very well lose the game entirely, which may constitute a complete reset. Before you think this makes Ancestors some kind of roguelike, it’s relatively difficult for this to occur, and would probably require a particularly ignorant and unfeeling approach, but it is possible. So long as you keep a considerate eye on your fellow primates and learn how to deal with any adjacent predators preying on your clan settlement, you’ll make slow progress to each upgrade and scrap of geographic progress. Should you avoid an early end, choosing to evolve to the next generation ages each of your hominids up; elders die, adults become elders, and children turn to adults. At any time you can even select an evolution point, which upgrades your clan in accordance with specific bonuses, pushing you up a million years or more but punishing you for failing to advance in step with actual ancestral expectations.

Eventually, you’ll find yourself joyously distracted by each scrap of painstaking progress. That could mean exploring out ahead for a new settlement with a small crew of hominids, contending with threats and looking out for landmarks and clean water sources in the distance. Even after figuring out how to craft weaponry and tools, no single member of a clan feels overpowered, and increasingly hostile predators and prey animals emerge out of the unknown territories to test your skills. Hunting and attacking these creatures takes some time to get used to, but a kind of randomization mechanic ensures that slaughtering a rhino is not a simple matter of pressing a button quick enough — sometimes an individual hominid must be lost for the clan at large to persevere.

The number of progression mechanics available in Ancestors is well beyond the scope of this review, and the game seems to take delight in hiding its most essential leveling-up secrets. Progression-wise, carrying an infant primate on your back or having one close by grants you “neural energy,” and accumulating enough of it while unlocking upgrades lets you boost certain abilities or learn new ones throughout your journey. Similar to the Elder Scrolls series, performing specific actions is usually what’s needed to evolve and make higher tier basic actions available; if you’d like to stand straight and walk on two feet for a longer period, simply make a point to walk on two feet more frequently.

It sounds straightforward, but the aforementioned lack of hand-holding means that certain sections of the game can sometimes feel too vague and diversionary. Soon enough, though, players will start to put together what’s expected of them, or figure out the most ideal areas in the map for a new settlement. Patches of the environment may appear so hostile that committing to a new home is an intense strategic decision, a risky venture that can end up resulting in a few losses. Is there a Machairodus stalking a nearby watering hole? You might have to deal with it directly before breathing easy in a new home, and ignoring it to explore further on will mean contending with periodic attacks on your brethren.

If there was one word to use in order to classify how Ancestors plays, it’s slowly. Learning how different elements of the environment combine, conflict with, and compliment each other takes time. Cold rain can inhibit progress, until you find a particular plant which counteracts that status. The savanna’s direct sunlight compromises your stamina, but combining certain tools with certain resources can help protect from that effect as well. At no particular moment will any of these answers be provided for you outright — they emerge while attempting to hit rocks against plants, plants against rocks, plants against plants, and so on and so forth.

As a survival sim, Ancestors is complex and competent, but also falls prey to many of the predictable foibles and frustrations of the genre. Highlighting the specific item you wish to pick up can either be simple or close to impossible, and misdirected inputs can cause a tragic fall from a tree when swinging through the jungle or a woefully misdirected counterattack on a rhino. These instances don’t utterly subvert the intended flow of the game or its inclination to accidental mishaps, but they can be quite discouraging, especially when they tilt a carefully balanced sense of comfort to a desperate grasp for survival in a matter of seconds.

On a pause screen, players will see dozens of tips and tricks that might help them on their epic journey from point A to point B, but there are plenty of hints delivered in a more subtle and clever fashion. Catching up on sleep lets you watch your clan dream, with fluttering images revealing minor but meaningful hints as to how to get ahead, and audible cues let you know when a strike with a weapon may successfully alter another or potentially land a hit an target. The sense of learning never feels superficially coy, but it’s not unreasonable to expect that particularly vital techniques may evade an otherwise successful journey through the game, simply because you didn’t combine the correct items or use them in highly specific ways.

A wonderful soundtrack accompanies the desperate grasps and stumbles, subtly shifting with each new biome. It’s not exactly procedural, but seems like it is, drifting in and out of the action with ocarinas, flutes, tribal drums and choirs. Your hominids seem just emotive enough to be readable, visibly delighting in the sweet smell of a new edible resource or grasping at their throats when thirsty. Weather is as unpredictable as can be, and a day spent in a jungle cave settlement crafting weapons feels appropriately cozy with the heavens cracking outside, and each separate biome in the game feels carefully designed and rich with visual flourishes.

The most pressing issue with the game is its assortment of bugs, which are admittedly expected. Fellow hominids can be difficult to wrangle en route to a new settlement, and often deny eating an item or using it to protect themselves against the elements. It’s unpredictable enough to be irritating, and you may find yourself simply taking brief control of a different hominid character to self-apply a resource, but it’s sensible to expect a few patches in the coming months to periodically improve companion AI. For what it’s worth, though, they function as expected more times than not in this launch build.

This review has been careful to avoid anything in the realm of spoilers. In other games, that might constitute dramatic story beats or hidden power-ups, but Ancestors seemingly has no care for either of these. The narrative feels both personal and epic in equal measure, where fighting off tenacious predators at a new settlement can constitute a full hour of game time, and you could spend just as long trying to figure out how to extract honey from a bee hive.

There is very, very little to compare with Ancestors, and its capacity for non-verbal storytelling never seems to falter, with the path through its various territories as engrossing as it is dangerous. With numerous survival sim and open-world games available, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey truly does feel like a one-of-a-kind game, a meditation on evolution that draws equally from scientific research and the types of games most of us play these days. For anyone even slightly intrigued about taking on the role of a formative hominid, this is a totally unique and sophisticated experience, but impatient gamers may feel shorted by the ruthless difficulty or emphasis on self-directed goals.

More: Winds of Change Review: High Fantasy Undermined By Melodrama

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey releases on August 27 on the Epic Games Store, with PS4 and Xbox One versions expected to release in December 2019. A digital PC copy was provided to Screen Rant, for purposes of review.

source https://screenrant.com/ancestors-humankind-odyssey-review/

#screenrant

0 notes

unstable-reality · 7 years

Text

Static in the Signal: Chapter One

After a couple months of IRL doom...I’ve finally gotten this going!

The Alliance has been infiltrated. On Hoth, able to trust only one another, Jyn and Cassian race to uncover the mole. Sequel to The Space Between Echoes.

[AO3]

The corridors of Echo Base were busy and cramped, more so than those of Yavin 4. It wasn’t that there were more personnel, or that the passages were more narrow; on the contrary, the opposite was true. Echo was a work in progress. Half-built, half-ready. The Alliance had pushed itself. Divisions had blurred; sentients had undertaken tasks normally designated to droids. Cassian had spent more hours than he cared to scraping out tunnels, and still, there was more to be done. The base was functional, and as secure as could currently be hoped for, but it was nowhere near proper headquarter status.

He hated it. He hated the hand he’d had in creating it.

Snowflakes, riding on gusts in the hangar, clung to his beard and eyelashes. His lower back ached. It had been fine, mostly, when he’d been on his ship, but now it was a pulsing throb, heightened by the cold. There was a sensation, to the left of his spine, as if something were clicking, sliding. He felt it often. His entire hip was not quite right. He tried not to think about it. He’d try not to for as long he could manage.

He passed a contingent of droids, threading wires through a length of pipe, easing them through a hole in the wall. Sparks fanned outward, struck metal, burned hot and bright before vanishing. His nose stung. A humanoid model with a black chassis spared him a glance. It wasn’t the same face, or the same body, and it hadn’t been manufactured for the same purpose, but still, there was a closing in, a pressure on his lungs, a thickness in his throat. He shoved it back into the same place he put his pain.

A group of pilots walked toward him, on the opposite side of the corridor. They were animated, chatting, smiling. The one on the outside struck his shoulder. She looked back. Her cheeks and forehead were framed by stray curls.

“Sorry.”

He was pretty sure she didn’t know him, but he knew her. He knew everyone. Shara Bey. He gave her a nod. She blinked, nodded back. His fingers twitched toward his coat pockets. It was an old reflex.

CIC, when he reached it, was a cold, noisy mess. Divisions were on top of one another. The lighting was utilitarian. He walked past clusters of operators, past soldiers and commanders conferring; past screens, transparent save for the glowing outlines of maps. He was used to debriefing in confined spaces -- or, at least, in mostly private ones. Having to meet the General out here made the back of his neck itch. But there wasn’t much to be done for it, unless everyone in Intelligence started meeting in special quarters, and that would telecast more than they were willing.

Draven sat at a desk in a corner. He was leaning back, frowning at a datapad. The space around him was dark.

He looked up. His eyes shifted, taking Cassian in. He straightened. “Captain.”

Cassian saluted.

“At ease.” Draven folded his hands over his lap. “Report.”

Cassian’s stance widened. “I abandoned the objective. Imperials had already established a presence.”

Draven frowned. “It took you five standard days to come to that conclusion?”

“No, sir.” He felt a familiar prickle, where his neck joined to his skull. He breathed. His features held still. “I delayed to ensure I hadn’t been followed.”

“You had no opportunity to send a message?”

The prickling spread, over his shoulders and upper back. “It didn’t seem prudent, sir, no.” He was used to lying. He did it all the time. But he had only once before lied to the man sitting in front of him. It was necessary. It was right. Habit made it feel wrong, and experience made it feel dangerous, in a way that few of his gambits had.

Draven regarded him for a long moment, then sighed, planted his elbow on the arm of his chair, ran his forefinger along the skin between his upper lip and nose. “You’re certain there’s nothing that could be done? No way to dislodge them?”

“Not without drawing undue attention.”

There was a pause. The air was filled with the chatter of nearby operators, hushed and indistinct; with indicators beeping, their songs overlapping and bleeding into one another. Cassian was good at what he did -- brilliant, if he was to take the word of a certain woman in his life -- and he took precautions, and in twenty years, and even as a child, and even when his fear had all but run him and his heart had beat so loud that he’d been sure everyone could hear, he’d never been caught, apart from on Jedha.

He’d barely begun to play this game, and already he felt the whisper of a noose.

Draven rose. “Walk with me.”

They moved toward the rear of CIC. Draven led them down a small passage. Their shoulders brushed. “You know why you’re being given these assignments.”

He gritted his teeth. Of course he knew. He knew why he was no longer being sent to recruit, why other agents were landing undercover missions, why he was spending his time scouting and acquiring supplies. The things he was doing were important things, useful things, but they were also, to a certain extent, unsuited to him. He’d said it to Jyn, in so many words: punishment, fancied up in accolades. “Sir.”

“Your saving grace is that you’ve continued to get results. But make no mistake: we’re in no position to tolerate sloppiness or insubordination.” He stopped. His gaze swept back and forth, along the passage. It was clear, save for the two of them, but he stepped closer, nonetheless. “This isn’t the first instance lately where the Empire has been ahead of us. If there’s a reason for the pattern, then we need to find it.”

Cassian looked up. His hands were behind his back, resting at the spot where the soreness began, the thumb and forefinger of one hand wrapped around the wrist of the other. His heart fluttered. He waited.

“I want you to look into it. No one else is to know.”

Well, that was going to be a problem.

“Consider this the next step in regaining our full trust. If it goes well, we’ll look at returning Albarrio to you.” Draven tilted his head back. He was tall enough to look down at Cassian naturally; the gesture heightened the effect. “You’ve been one of our better agents, Andor. Don’t disappoint me.”

Cassian replied with a single, tight nod, lips drawn downward, brow relaxed. Draven’s eyes ran up and down his face. His lips thinned.

“Dismissed,” he muttered, and turned and headed off, back toward CIC.

Cassian stared after him. His mind ran laps. His heart wasn’t racing, not exactly, but it was beating faster, and a thread of nervous heat was working its way through his core. Alliance Intelligence wasn’t stupid; it wasn’t surprising that they’d noticed something, or that they’d started to suspect what he already knew. But he hadn’t expected to be made aware of that suspicion, at least not so soon. It might be a good thing. It might also be very, very bad.

At least a full minute passed before he moved, walking in the opposite direction of the General, following the passage to its end. It emptied into a lesser-used corridor. Darker than the others, colder, walls and floor left rough. It took him a moment to orient himself. He wondered if they knew something. He wondered if someone had seen, or heard. He could be more open, now, if he wanted, and that would give him access to more channels, but part of why he hadn’t sought them in the first place was because he couldn’t be sure about them. And then, of course, there was Jyn. It would make things harder for her, if they were monitoring him on this.

Shit.

His quarters were on the edge of the South Passage. Despite the marks against him, he was still a Captain, and that entitled him to a private room. It was small -- four meters long and two and a half wide -- and the heating was as unreliable as on the rest of the base, but he needed it, these days, and was grateful for it. He took off his coat. Sat on the edge of his bunk, ran his hands over his face, settled his thumbs under his chin, his forefingers on either side of his nose. He needed a shave. He needed to talk to his contact. He needed to know whether he could still trust him. The thought came, speeding along tracks laid a lifetime ago, that he might have to neutralize him.

Call it what it is, Andor: killing.

He forced it away.

There was a rap at the door. His hands fell, wrists landing on his knees, fingers dangling between them. He flooded with irritation. He didn’t want to be bothered. He wanted to sift through his thoughts, pick at this new assignment, this new potential problem, until sleep rolled over him and dragged him under. The rap came again. He squeezed his eyes shut, took a long breath, and rose.

He leaned against the door. His voice was pitched low. “Who’s there?”

“Sergeant Erso,” the visitor said, the rank sounding strange and forced.

He felt a jolt in his gut. The irritation fled. He straightened and palmed the panel beside the door, movements jerky with urgency. She was standing with her arms folded across her chest, shifting from one foot to the other. Radiating with that constant, hair-trigger energy, that livewire buzz that made her mere presence loud. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. Her hair was crusted and shiny with frost. She didn’t smile when they made eye contact, but her features softened.

“Captain.” There were other people moving about. “I heard you were back.”

Of course she had. He’d have known the exact moment she returned, were their positions reversed.

“There’s something I’d like to ask you. One of the scouts said you’d probably know.” She jutted her chin toward his quarters. “Do you mind?”

“No.” He wondered if they were really fooling anyone. He suspected that they weren’t. The calculating part of him thought it might be useful: sleeping together as a cover for conspiring. Then again, they already had a reputation for the latter. What am I going to do? “Please.” He stepped to the side, allowing her to pass. They didn’t touch. The door closed, and still, they didn’t touch. For a long moment, they didn’t even speak.

He hadn’t seen her in five standard days. He was aching from it, powerfully, all over, and yet he just stood there, looking at her. He felt awkward. He couldn’t imagine why; there was no reason for him to, after everything that had passed between them. But it was all so new, and he wasn’t sure what normal was, and he had a feeling that she didn’t know, either. They were making it up as they went.

Were they watching her? Had they spoken to her, too?

“So,” she said, at last. There was a ledge carved into the wall above the foot of his bunk. She placed her blaster and truncheon there, beside his own weapons. “How’d it go?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, breathed through his nose. Walked past her. He couldn’t be near the door when he started talking. Neither of them could. He leaned against the desk opposite his bunk, curling his fingers under the lip and crossing his legs at the ankles. “I’m not sure if ‘well’ is the right word.” He’d wanted to avoid being followed, it was true. It made sense to take the long way home. But it hadn’t been the only reason. He’d made a stop, along the way, off the record. “I was able to find out how Telara had been turned.” He paused. “They took his family. They told him they’d kill them, one by one, and record it.”

He let the implication sink in. Her jaw and shoulders tightened. Her eyes dropped.

“Wish I could say that was surprising.” She said it softly. “Did they not know who he was, until recently?”

“I don’t think that they did, no.”

“But all those years...”

He nodded. She was so close to him. He could tap her leg, if he moved his foot a hair. He could take her hand, if he pushed himself forward and reached out. His thoughts skittered back and forth. They had to talk about this, about all of it. There were things that needed doing. The mission didn’t stop being the mission just because he’d missed her. “I know. It might have been that his luck ran out; that’s the way it is with informants. He might also have been deliberately compromised.” It would fit. It would make sense. He was almost certain it was what had happened. “But I wasn’t able to determine that. There wasn’t the time.”

Her hands moved to to her lower back; her shoulders tugged at her snow-colored thermal coat. It was ill-fitting. He wanted her to take it off. “So that’s it.”

“For that, yes. For now.”

He could tell she was gritting her teeth. “It’s not a whole lot.”

“No,” he admitted. He’d have liked to have gotten more out of it, himself. He might have, if he’d thought he could get away with a longer delay. But the speculation, the direction of it -- that was a piece. There’d been times when he’d unraveled entire plots from less. “But it’s something more than we had before.”

Silence fell for a moment. There was a rumble beneath their feet, followed by a long, low groan. The shield doors were closing. She took a few steps toward him. “How, uh.” Her throat worked. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” She was trying to change the subject. “There’s something else.” Would she expect it? Did she already know? He wanted to grab her waist and pull her to him.

Her gaze roved over his face. “What?”

“Draven,” he said. “He knows something’s off. He’s asked me to look into it.”

“Are we in trouble, then?”

“More so than usual, you mean?” He found himself uncrossing his ankles, standing up, moving to meet her. His hip popped. He grimaced. “I don’t know yet.” I don’t know if I can keep you safe. And he wanted to. He’d been wanting to since before he’d even realized that that was what was driving him. There was hardly any space left between them. Her fingers brushed against his. The air was cold. He ran hot. “What about you? Anything?” He touched her hair, her face, her neck. His blood was rushing, pooling.

“Nothing new.” She took his hand. Her fingers wove between his and flared outwards. “Cassian, I’m serious.”

He sighed. “What do you want me to say?” He ran his thumb along her jawline. “I really don’t know.” Thoughts of duty were fading.

She clicked her tongue and shook her head. Her lips, however, were curving upwards. She placed her hand on his hip, passed it around to his back. Pressed her fingers into his flesh. “You should get this checked out, you know.”

She’d noticed. It wouldn’t have been her if she hadn’t. “No need,” he said.

“Hypocrite.”

He smiled at her. He couldn’t reach her knee, but he wrapped an arm around her waist, and drew her to where it touched his own. “That was different.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Her voice had gotten very quiet. Her words were captured by his breath. “You’re being stubborn.”

He sniffed. Their foreheads touched. He splayed his hands over the small of her back; she wrapped one of hers around the back of his neck. His chest was swelling. “How have you been? Really?”

“Bored.” It was half a chuckle. She tilted her head upwards. Her nose brushed his.

“That’s a shame,” he murmured against her lips. In truth, he was relieved. It meant nothing had happened, at least not to her. She leaned up and into him, whispered something he couldn’t make out, and then kissed him. Her lips were cold, at first; an artifact of Hoth, and all its unpleasantness. Friction warmed them. He held her fast. He kneaded her hip, her rear, and slipped one hand up, behind her head, under her bun, through her hair. She gripped his neck. Cupped his cheek. Hooked a thumb under his belt. Their movements were slow, languid. Their kiss was at once deep and raw and delicate.

He’d missed her. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed her. He trembled from the force of it. He broke away and buried his face in her neck and shoulder. “Jyn.”

“What?”

She kissed his jaw, his neck. One of her hands moved over his abdomen and slid upward. He pressed his lips and tongue to her neck. Her body rolled against his. He planted his palm between her shoulder blades, and let himself roll back.

“You’re staying?”

Her fingers dug into his shirt. Her thumbs moved downward, then back up, bunching the fabric. It was coming out from his trousers. It would be cold, but it would be worth it, as it had been, for the past month.

“Of course,” she replied, tone heavy and rough.

He walked her backwards, toward his bunk. He fumbled for the buttons on her coat. Her hands covered his, helped him. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and tugged, and he let her pull him, increased the pressure on the back of her head, sucked on her tongue, and pulled her right back. A gasp, sharp and sweet, rose out of her and landed in his mouth. Fire lapped at his spine.

Would they see? Would they try to take her from him? She already knew things that, as it turned out, she wasn’t supposed to know. He'd just been told that no one could be a part of it. She was already a part of it. He couldn’t not have her be a part of it. Strange, how his loyalty had shifted.

He’d never done this before.

She grabbed him, and moved in some way, and he was on his back. Her thighs were around his midsection. He squeezed them.

It was hard to think.

He wished he couldn't think at all.

#rebelcaptain #jyssian #therebelcaptainnetwork #au #established relationship #;fics and drabbles #;static #;vibrations

12 notes · View notes

enterinit · 5 years

Text

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18323 is now available

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18323 is now available Improved RAW image format support Do you like taking pictures in Raw image formats and wish that the Raw files from your camera were natively supported by Windows? Good news! Targeting 19H1, we’ve been working hard to release a new store-delivered Raw codec package that dramatically improves native raw file format support in Windows. By downloading the new Raw Image Extension (Beta) package from the store, you can now view image thumbnails, previews, and camera metadata of previously unsupported raw files right in File Explorer. You can also view your raw images – at full resolution – in apps such as Photos or any other Windows app that uses Windows Imaging Component framework to decode raw images. How to test Please note – to install the package, 19H1 Build 18323 or later is required. Open the following link in Edge to install the current beta package: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9NCTDW2W1BH8. We have also created a 19H1 Bug Bash quest for directions. Known issues Exposing camera properties stored as EXIF/XMP metadata is not currently working for some raw image formats. File Explorer hangs when the view state is changed to “Details Pane” and a raw file that activates the new raw codec package is selected. Opening some raw images in Photos app using the new store-delivered raw codec pack gets stuck at low resolution thumbnail image. Improving Light Theme We introduced the new Light Theme in Windows 10 with Build 18282 and today’s build has some improvements to Light Theme worth taking note of based on your feedback: We fixed an issue where the text in the battery flyout might become unreadable in light theme due to it being white. We fixed an issue where the scrollbar in the network flyout wasn’t visible in light theme. We fixed an issue where the autoplay icon in the systray wasn’t visible in light theme. We fixed an issue where impacting the network and volume icons in the notification area where after switching to light theme they wouldn’t update from white to black until explorer restarted. We fixed a similar issue where not all supported app icons in the taskbar would switch colors on the taskbar when switching between light and dark theme (particularly on the secondary monitor). We’ve made some adjustments to address issues where when using light theme white icons in notifications weren’t readable. We’re updating the Settings icon to now be dark grey in the taskbar when light theme is enabled rather than black. General changes, improvements, and fixes REMINDER: The new tamper protection setting in the Windows Security app protects your device by helping to prevent bad actors from tampering with the most important security settings. You may see a new recommendation in the Windows Security app suggesting you turn this setting on. We fixed an issue causing Update Orchestrator Service to stop working periodically. As a result of this issue, you might have seen an error on Windows Update Settings saying that the update failed to restart. This issue also resulted in restart using Update and Restart to sometimes just restart you back into the base OS. We fixed an issue where clicking your account in Cortana Permissions didn’t bring up the UI to sign out from Cortana (if you were already signed in). This issue also impacted the Change My Name button. We fixed an issue resulting in night light not working recently. We fixed an issue where the quick actions section of Action Center would be missing sometimes recently. We fixed an issue where closing an open Excel window from the taskbar might cause Excel to go non-responsive. We fixed an issue an issue where the WIN + Ctrl + hotkey wasn’t working. When using your accent color on the taskbar has been enabled, the taskbar and start jump lists will now also be accent-themed. For the time being we’re returning the Volume Mixer link in the volume button context menu to its October 2018 behavior while we look at improving the experience based on feedback. We fixed an issue where themes and Microsoft Edge extensions downloaded from Microsoft Store wouldn’t appear in their respective locations after the download finished. We fixed an issue impacting Action Center reliability in recent builds. We fixed an issue where you might see multiple Focus Assist notifications in the Action Center at a particular time. We’re adding Nearby Sharing to the list of default Focus Assist exceptions. We fixed a recent issue where if you used the screen snip quick action in the Action Center then the resulting screenshot would have the Action Center in it. We fixed a recent issue that could result in not being able to launch UWP apps from the Start menu sometimes. We fixed a recent regression resulting in File Explorer sometimes hanging when interacting with MP4s and folders that had MP4s in them. We fixed an issue where Cortana would close immediately if opened from the Start screen when using tablet mode. We fixed an issue impacting Snipping Tool reliability. We fixed an issue resulting in Ctrl + P not activating the Print command in Snip & Sketch in recent flights. We fixed an issue resulting in Snip & Sketch potentially crashing when closing many Snip & Sketch windows in a row. We fixed an issue where rebooting would set Nearby Sharing back to an off state if it had been turned on. We fixed an issue where the lock screen preview in Lock Screen Settings wasn’t showing in recent builds. We fixed an issue where the scrollbar in Settings was overlapping the text fields when manually configuring your IP address. We fixed a rare issue that could result in the screen locking up when using the Surface Dial. We fixed an issue where the tooltips in the Emoji Panel were truncated on the bottom. We fixed an issue where the Windows feature update might fail but would still be listed as a successful update in Windows Update history page. We fixed an issue where you might see a Windows Update icon in the notification area saying there was an update when no update was available. We fixed an issue where you couldn’t type on the touch keyboard when “Turn on Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse” since focus would move away from the text field and set to the keyboard itself. We fixed an issue on certain devices that could sometimes result in the screen staying black on boot until CTRL + Alt + Del was pressed. We fixed an issue resulting in certain devices experience increased battery drain on the last few flights when in Disconnected Standby Mode. We fixed an issue for devices with multiple monitors resulting in Task View (WIN + Tab) sometimes showing UWP app thumbnails on the primary monitor rather than the monitor where the app was open. We fixed an issue where some key labels were cut off in Armenian full touch keyboard layout. We fixed an issue when using the full touch keyboard layout in Korean where pressing the FN key unexpectedly highlighted the IME ON/OFF key. We also fixed an issue for this language where tapping the tab key wouldn’t insert a tab. Thanks everyone who shared feedback about the new Japanese Microsoft IME we’ve been working on. With today’s build the IME and settings pages are returning to the ones that we shipped with the October 2018 Update, while we take your feedback into consideration. We fixed an issue where Narrator sometimes did not say anything when reopening Action Center after it was dismissed using the Esc key. We fixed an issue where Narrator did not speak the volume level value when using the hardware volume button to change the volume setting. We fixed an issue where Narrator command read from current location did not work when on a heading in Wikipedia. We fixed an issue where Narrator announced read-only at the end for links. We fixed an issue where Narrator continuous reading command read the last word of a sentence twice on a web page in Microsoft Edge. We fixed an issue impacting a small number of users enrolled in Microsoft Intune where they might not receive policies. We fixed an issue where signing out from inside Windows Sandbox resulted in a blank white window. We fixed an issue resulting in running c:\windows\syswow64\regedit.exe not launching regedit in recent builds. Settings header rollout update: This is now available across most regions for Insiders in Fast using Home edition and Pro editions of Windows that are not domain joined. Small app update: Thanks everyone who reached out about the grid alignment issue in the Calculator – this has been fixed with the 1812 version of the app. Known issues While with Build 18323 we fixed the recent spike in Update Orchestrator Service crashes, if you’re on a base OS that’s impacted by the crash, you will still see the symptoms described above until you’re on 18323. The Windows Security app may show an unknown status for the Virus & threat protection area, or not refresh properly. This may occur after upgrade, restart, or settings changes. Launching games that use anti-cheat software may trigger a bugcheck (GSOD). Creative X-Fi sound cards are not functioning properly. We are partnering with Creative to resolve this issue. While night light functionality is back up and running, you may still find issues with other blue light reduction software not working. When performing Reset this PC and selecting Keep my files on a device that has Reserved Storage enabled the user will need to initiate an extra reboot to ensure Reserved Storage is working again properly. Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue. USB devices, including mice and keyboards, may no longer work after updating. Possible workarounds are to change which USB port it is plugged into or connect the device through a USB hub. You may consistently see black screens when using Remote Desktop, DisplayLink, or Miracast if you are on an AMD or Nvidia driver. We’re working on a fix, but in the meantime, you can work around this issue by running the following command: reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm /v EnableFrontBufferRenderChecks /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f. (Updated – thanks Rafael for the recommendation.) The value in Narrator Settings “Change the level of detail Narrator provides about text and control” might be empty. To work around this issue, use the Narrator command Narrator key + v to change the verbosity level, then close and reopen Settings app again. After upgrade, there might be two Narrator voices talking at the same time. Reboot the machine once, this issue will go away. Windows Sandbox may launch to a black screen for some users. The Insider Program Settings pages currently have a bug preventing Narrator and Screen Reader programs from properly reading the page. A fix will be available in an upcoming build. Taskbar icons may stop loading and appear blank. Desktop Window Manager will crash if multiple Office and/or video playback applications are running on the same screen on devices that have Multiplane Overlay Support. Known issues for Developers If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring – optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings. Read the full article

#Windows #Windows10 #WindowsClient #WindowsInsider

0 notes