Calibrations Spill-Over Post

[thespaceopera]

[ Since Recaptcha is striking in the older posts, feel free to continue calibration-related threads here.

We suggest that you add a comment to your old thread with a link to your new one, and vice versa, so it's easy for your threading partners, and the AC mods, to switch between your original thread and its continuation. ]

→ Calibration post A-M
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Comments

ahsoka tano | cont.

[resnipstance]

[Ahsoka's calibration starter is over here!

Feel free to use this comment for continuations or for new tag-ins!]

Belthazar | cont.

[arcanepower]

[Calibration threads are here! Feel free to tag me back here instead of recaptcha!]

cheese

[arcanepower]

(previous thread)

[Thankfully the feathers seem to be cooperative. However, there's another memory waiting for the pony...

Belthazar is slightly taller and dressed in blue robes with gold lining. There are obvious patches where he's repaired tears over and over, loose threads where the hem has begun to separate. This is a different house-- grander, with more books and more dust. Everything is sorted and dusted to perfection.

An elf with scraggly white hair and deep wrinkles sweeps into the room. His robes are much fancier and of a scarlet color with gold everywhere. He wears no jewelry.]

Belthazar! What are you doing in my library?

[The boy bows lowly, ears pinning against his head. His tone is very soft and unoffensive.] I was organizing the books by genre, sir, like you ordered yesterday.

[The magister seems displeased.] What? Why are you doing that? I never asked you to do that. [Belthazar's expression is that of hurt and shock, but the magister goes on.] I need you to go to Orgrimmar and fetch me the reagents for a golemsblood potion. I need it by tomorrow, do you understand?

[Belth hasn't straightened from his bow.] Yes, Magister.

Good. Now go. When you return I will have you reorganize the library by last name, like I insisted.

[Belth skirts around the magister and disappears out the door. When he's out of earshot, he grumbles to himself.] Hmph. Crazy old coot.

[The memory ends shortly afterward. The tiny Belthazar is gone, but there is a nice warm light around the door.

It seems he's free to go.]

caesar

[arcanepower]

(previous thread)

[Along the way he ends up passing over several bodies. One of them is a woman with dark curly hair, just one among many. Time seems to pass as he goes, the death knights retreating and taking the shadows with them.

But the bodies remain. The survivors try to piece things together and clear rubble. Some people just lay down and cry.

Caesar will find himself at a corner where the wreckage of a small house lies. This wouldn't be a surprise, as he's seen a lot of destruction today, but a child bursts out of the cellar and scrambles to his feet.]

Caspa? Caspa!

[The boy is about eight years old and desperate with messy hair and big ears. He turns to Caesar.] Have you seen Caspa? My sister, she was just here... before the monsters came.

Caspa! Caspa!

wanda

[arcanepower]

(previous thread)

I believe you.

[He's cuddling against her feet now. His small hands dig into his hair as the marching gets louder, and louder, so loud that it makes the entire place shake.]

My book is on the shelf but I can't reach it from here. It's the red one. Could... could you hand it to me?

[The book he's talking about is a red tome of some sort with pretty Thalassian words inscribed in gold on the front and side.]

[catamite]

(continued from here)

[he's still worried about getting in trouble, but his curiosity is seriously beginning to win out over caution.

so, after hesitating for a few moments, he peeks into the door.]

James Barnes/Winter | cont.

[reconstitution]

[ Winter's calibration thread is here. Feel free to continue here, instead! ]

'^'/

[shoujoreject]

[It's been a long time since dreams felt so sinister for him. Heavy doors, something that delineates... he isn't quite sure, staring at it. Something medical, something monitored, but in the confines of a bank vault? No, it's nothing good.

The machinery brings back memories of old, long-faded nightmares of his own, things he pushes aside with the ease of someone used to compartmentalisation. That came long before his arrival here on the ship some hours ago...

And then he's inside, the door's sudden creak causing him to jump, to look back. Creak, clack, groan - and then, static. Something that makes the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end, something he can't define. On further inspection, the place is even stranger. A movie projector, nestled opposite the machines - and why? - and then his footsteps carrying him forward. It's all a terrible idea, surely. But there's no way out - a quick review of the door told him that much.

So he explores, ignoring the dread that builds in his chest and worsens when he steps around the wall to the little nook. The disheveled chaos of someone looking for something and to no avail. And in it all, the cold fear that runs much deeper than the bone-chilling temperature of the room.

No. Not there. At least... not yet. There's a long pause, a pregnant not-quite-silence before he turns around - and at the sight of Winter there, pacing the wall near the door he had looked toward just moments before, he nearly screams. This isn't... this can't...

The man doesn't even seem wholly solid, pacing like an agitated cat, and he's sure even this is a bad idea... but he has to do something, and leaving his back open to someone he doesn't know seems like an even worse idea. Maybe... maybe it's not...]

... Are you... waiting for something...?

[His voice is as small as his stature, a pretty, small thing who looks about as dangerous as an injured doe. His approach is slow and wary like one, too, as though ready to bolt - as though he thinks he could outrun someone so much bigger and likely much more adept than he.]

[tothefly]

((continued from here))

[The first glimpse of landscape isn't recognizable, not really. Mountainous. Rocky. Abandoned. It isn't until she sees the vehicle that she begins to realize what this is, what it has to be. They'd picked up the jeep in Odessa, after catching a ride across the Black Sea on a smuggling freighter. Were headed down towards Romania to a safehouse. She'd been up for two and a half days by that point, making sure their trail was covered, and she'd been reasonably sure up until the tires blew and the jeep flipped that she'd done her job perfectly. Maybe he'd gotten lucky. Maybe they'd been sloppy. Didn't matter.]

[She'd slipped her seatbelt, cut the engineer's, grabbed him, made a run for it. Quiet, discreet, quick, slipping out and making for the nearby foothills, but he had a broken leg. Compound fracture. They couldn't go far. She'd made a stand. Radioed in for an emergency pickup. Kept guard, waiting.]

[He'd appeared out of nowhere like an angel of death. Just a figure in black, save for the sun glinting off that metal arm. No face, just a mask and goggles. She'd forced him into cover, let herself hope--and then there was nothing but searing pain through her midsection and the collapse of her target against the back of her legs, sending her falling to her knees.]

[Back in the vault, she lets go of the casings, lets go of her shirt hem, feeling the ache of an old wound echo. She looks at him, eyes unreadable--but not free of emotion, for once.]

You didn't finish the job.

[To be fair, the engineer was the job, not her. But still--leaving a witness. Maybe he'd expected her to bleed out. She nearly had, by the time the backup team found her.]

nightingale, continuations

[experiencepoints]

[Starter over here. For continuations or new..]

Robin

[experiencepoints]

[from here]

Older. This is me from my more recent memories... I don't know exactly, but I get the feeling that this is me from not long before I died.

Leanne | cont.

[survives]

[From here.]

Adrasteius

[survives]

[From here.]

I don't know! It's just...

The Cardinals are in charge and none of us has anywhere else to go anyway, you know? I can't just... leave!

Finrod Felagund cont.

[faithfulwisdom]

[Original Calibration here.

Continuations or new tag-ins welcome.]

Beverly Crusher

[faithfulwisdom]

[From here]

[Finrod nods in response, but has little time to say anything more; the room begins to dim around them and it's not long before Beverly will find herself thrust into darkness.

The smell is what comes into the memory first- the dank scent of stale air and decay. The sight that soon follows is no more appealing. It's a dungeon, almost archetypal in its appearance- the cold stone walls, the occasional rat skittering by, and, of course, the prisoners chained to the walls.

There are only two now, though there were many more in the beginning. A man, bearded and unkempt, but with an oddly noble bearing, and one very familiar elf, pale and gaunt. Both men keep staring at the entrance to the dungeon, as if expecting something in particular. Something dreadful, from their expressions. Finrod's face is grim, his jaw set and the light all but gone from his eyes.

And, as if on cue, the door bursts open and a giant wolf comes rushing in, a large fearsome beast with the unmistakable look of a creature who has just been given his meal. It lunges toward the man- but it never makes contact.

Finrod, realizing the wolf's intentions, had pulled at his shackles, straining against them, cutting himself open on the edge of the cuffs. But finally, through some miracle of adrenaline, luck, and, perhaps, destiny, the chain rips free from the stone, and he hurls himself at the attacking animal.

The fight is a flurry of teeth, claws, and hands- a desperate, frantic match that is nearly impossible to follow. But at the end of it, the wolf lies dead on the floor. And Finrod- Finrod lies beside him, mortally wounded, his lifeblood flowing out of him at an alarming rate. Still, he manages to look towards the man and utter a few last words.]

I go now to my long rest in the timeless halls beyond the seas and the Mountains of Aman. It will be long ere I am seen among the Noldor again; and it may be that we shall not meet a second time in death or life, for the fates of our kindreds are apart. Farewell!

[And with that, the vision slowly dissolves back into darkness, until suddenly, with no warning, Beverly is back in the storehouse.]

Natasha Romanoff, pt. II

[tothefly]

[[Calibration starter here.]]

Souji

[tothefly]

((continued from here.))

She's always believed in the latter. Used to be she could accept the cost, justify the expense, but the last few years have established that no, it's not worth the blood she's spilled. She'll carry all of it til the day she dies, but maybe...well. She's not naive enough to think she can save the world, but she thinks that maybe she can square things, in her own way.

She shrugs. It's an answer she's still working out. "You do what you can. I've got a very specific set of skills. I'm just trying to use them for better reasons, now." There's still blood on her hands, but at least this blood isn't innocent.

Beverly Crusher | Continued

[dancingmd]

{calibration starts here}

Natasha

[dancingmd]

{from here}

[Beverly takes Natasha on another roundabout tour of the corridor. She stops at a door and gestures for Nat to go first. As soon as she crosses the threshold, another memory begins, in quarters similar to those she just saw, only more updated and much more spacious. Everything is in monotone dull pinks and purples, and the furniture is all geometry and clean lines. Port windows show the star field beyond, and sitting at the glass-topped dining table filled with plates of food is a teenager, wearing a grey turtleneck sweater with three stripes across the shoulders, in blue, red, and yellow. He's staring in disbelief at Beverly, still in uniform, but without the lab coat, and her hair is different, straightened and cut shorter than she has it now. She sets two beverages down, one at her place and one in front of the boy. He shakes his head at her and says:]

No way, mom. The captain's always been bald. It's a universal constant, like gravity.

[Beverly barely manages to hide her smirk as she sits down across from her son.]

It's true. And if you think that's weird, you should have seen his mustache phase.

He had a mustache?

[She nods gravely.] It was awful. Thankfully, it was a brief time. So brief that we never got photographic proof. And so, Jean-Luc’s mustache only lives on in legend and myth.

[He tilts his head and frowns.]You're pulling my leg.

I am not. Why would I ever do such a thing? I am your mother!

Exactly.

[He grins and takes a sip of his drink while his mother huffs indignantly, though it's patently clear that she's not really upset. In fact, Natasha will feel the familial warmth and love that permeates every part of this memory. A soft golden glow falls over everything and the scene fades away, leaving her standing in the corridor once again.]

closed to isaac.

[versusnurture]

( FROM HERE )


That's pretty crazy.

[The crooked smile gets a little crookeder. Her teeth aren't any sharper than they were a minute ago, but the way they glint in the light, it kind of looks like they are.]

I'm not that kind of crazy. I'm the kind that didn't used to have any self-control at all.

[frigidaire]

[ there's something about her that disturbs him, that sends a ripple of chills up his spine, making him more alert. he's not sure what it is, though. is it her smile? something about the way she grins at him. Wait... are her teeth sharpened? no, definitely not. ]

Yeah, control isn't always easy to learn. I'm still working on it. [ because right now he'd like nothing more than to go back home and beat the ever loving life out of a few people. the thought alone wires his muscles tight with tension. the anger rolls off of him in waves, even when he otherwise appears calm. ]

So I guess we're both a little crazy.

closed to cole

[deshabille]

( FROM HERE )


[A little smile.] That's enough for you, is it? [She knows it is.]

No, I mean - seen by other people. Is it private? I can try to respect that, if it is.

[killedwithlove]

[He nods.]

That is enough for me.

It's just horrible. You can see it if you want to leave.

Nyssa and Loki

[complicatedliar]

(Continued from here)

[The question elicits a sourceless, quietly mocking laugh.] Always about size, is it?

[More echoes in different voices, sound much more distant, move with the air that breathes between the shelves.]

And all he can use is a woman's weapon. Pathetic.

Why can't you be more like your brother?

Why must you be so dishonorable? You'll shame father. You'll shame me.

Want for a bit of flash and a weapon other people think is more impressive, rather than actually accomplishing one's purpose.

[sinuosity]

All a woman is allowed is a dagger? Pathetic.

​​[ She has her bow, and both swords here, and her hand drops protectively to the hilt of one. ]

Any weapon can accomplish one's purpose if one uses one's mind. You can drown a man in a bottlecap if he lands the right way.

Kurt Wagner continued

[digthefuzz]

Nel

[digthefuzz]

[Continued from here!]

[Kurt answers the question with a pair of thumbs up.]

Do it to it, man!

[Now enjoy Kurt's delicious burger memories.]

[huaaaaagh]

(Continuations for Kirito's Calibrations)

[huaaaaagh]

((From this thread))



[Kirito glances down at that, clasping his hands together in his lap. Evil... maybe he thought that once. But after their last meeting, his attitude was a bit more complicated.]

I don't think so, either. If he did, he'd have been watching from the sidelines where it was safe. His intentions were more like... he wanted people to share his world, his vision, the way he saw it. Not just playing a video game for fun. Living and breathing this world, every day, fighting for your life, not just for points or to win. He wanted this place to be reality, not virtual reality. In that sense, he succeeded.

Robin & Crowley

[birdsbirdsbirds]

(continued from here!)

[of all the Gods in all their Kingdoms, is this what it's like to be on the other side? he's watching this person he barely knows panic over something he doesn't personally understand--their moment of immortal storytime completely forgotten in the face of blind terror.

and for some reason, he thinks with sudden clarity... what would Tek do, in this situation?

oh. right.]

No, no, listen.

[he puts his hands down on Crowley's shoulders, just firmly enough to try to ground him. he can't help but look kind of perpetually surprised, still, but at least he starts talking in complete sentences.]

I pushed the button, the guy clawed dramatically out of the answering machine, sound of a thousand nightmares blah blah blah, went to grab at me, and then he just--disappeared. Nothing, okay? No leaving, no puff of smoke. He was just gone. The button's not glowing anymore, but I don't think he was ever actually there.

[oh, he pulls up a shred of logic, look at that:] Besides, he thought I was you. Which is... probably a stupid mistake he wouldn't make, right?

[onlyanapple]

[Crowley takes in a deep, shuddery breath that he absolutely doesn't need to take. Okay. No. Right. Robin's making sense. Of course. Of course. ]

No. Not even he's that stupid. Okay. Okay. This is probably some....fucked up head thing. Right?

Coil

[mortalcoil]

Continuations from THIS calibration

[mortalcoil]

(continued from here)


[the kid's brow furrows even further, and he hunches defensively into his shoulders.]

It wasn't okay... I shouldn't have done it.

[but probably not for reasons that are sane or normal at all.]

Nel

[catamite]

Continuations from THIS calibration

[catamite]

(continued from here)

[the sea of dancers do try to pull him in, but his sights are focused enough so that none of them can quite block his way or grab him to draw him into the depths. instead, he makes it to the mouth of the dark hall, which is just as eager to swallow him up. from there, it seems like a corridor that leads to bathrooms and smaller private booths, and maybe even another open dancefloor beyond that. he gets a moment of quiet and stillness to himself as he escapes the chaos behind him.

but then, things get a little strange, as he is suddenly somewhere else. it's hard to tell whether he's been transported somewhere, or if the space around him changes and he really hasn't gone anywhere at all.

either way, the club disappears, and he now finds himself seated in a slick black monster of a vehicle with a nighttime cityscape visible outside. it's a limousine, or some similar machine of luxury, judging by the way that he and the other occupants are seated on a cushioned circular bench that curves around so that they are all comfortably facing each other.

while a few seem to be nothing but bodyguards, three of the occupants are perhaps familiar. two of them are Robin and Tekhetsio... though a little more imposing than they are typically seen around the Fleet. and these two figures are obviously mere shells of their actual selves, grinning hollowly while seeming completely unaware of Felix' presence. and the third figure--fully present and mercifully separate from Felix' mind this time--is Nel.

he's dressed up in his best mesh and leather, dolled up with liner around his eyes. ready to serve. he's got a recognizable haze to his eyes, but he's still in prime condition to work.

the elf is seated on Robin's lap, straddling the taller man and looking coy. for that first moment, he seems to be doing well. however, this only lasts until he's totally thrown off his guard when the man leans forward and suddenly kisses him on the mouth. and the elf's resulting expression of startlement and worry gets a round of chuckling from men.]

Tek

[heresyandlace]

Continuations from THIS calibration

[unmaker]

(continued from here)

[with a quietly proud little smile, he rumbles in his throat and sort of wiggles and shifts around where he's at.]

I'm going to practice so much. And someday-- there is this village near my home. I'm going get good enough to visit it.

Tek and Cole

[heresyandlace]

(continued from here)

[he smiles a little at that thought.]

Not many would agree that mercy could be served with a knife.

[and the whole thing has piqued his interest enough that he begins to curiously glance over the rest of the space now.]

...Is that why you're here, then?

[killedwithlove]

Death can be a mercy. There are things much worse than Death.

[Anyone who has truly suffered knows that.]

No. Maybe. I don't know.

Felix Harrowgate

[lord_wizard]

Continued from this calibration.

for Robin

[pharaohlighting]

[That at least gets a snort of dark amusement out of him]

If you want. I ain't gonna stop you.

[He doesn't move to make room, but there's plenty to be had either next to him or on the edge, depending on how friendly Robin wants to be. Nothing Robin can do to him can compare to what he'd get from his master, and that alone makes him decide to chance at least this.]