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ariaunderground.bsky.social
Aria Underground, Roleplayer Without Portfolio
@ariaunderground.bsky.social
680 followers 1.5K following 3.6K posts
Arianwyn -She/Her. TTRPGs, music of almost any stripe, kobold enthusiast! 🏳️‍🌈
#ArisJournE to see the active process of my taking HRT. 🏳️‍⚧️
#LykaBaker to follow my sci-fi/fantasy cyberpunk romance kinda story!
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ariaunderground.bsky.social
Can you, can you at least *try* not to disgorge propaganda for one second?
"Thune moves to speed Trump nominees past democratic blockade" REPUBLICANS SAID the maneuver to change the Senate's rules, the latest step that would weaken the filibuster, was necessary to.overcome Democratic obstruction of President Trump's nominees.
February 14, 2026 at 10:29 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
All I have to say about it is look up V coding, then come back to me.

Then again, you'd probably be in favour.
A screenshot of Matt Baldwin saying "Gishes will gallop!" With a transmisogyny label.
February 14, 2026 at 5:50 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
I agree.
Effy: "In the face of a judicial review" Are you an American?
February 13, 2026 at 7:19 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Nope. Nice try though.
Aria Underground, this time with emphasis: Question - can you produce THESE leftists and prove them to be a majority that would have allowed the Democrats to stop the court packing? Follow-up questions - what were they demanding, was it reasonable, and if their votes were so crucial why did the Democrats not listen to them?
February 13, 2026 at 7:00 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
I wonder why this one hasn't been ticked off yet. Do you think you could hazard a guess?
Three dots. "We will also modernise, simplify and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process"
January 30, 2026 at 2:48 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
What about these ones? How do you think Labour is doing in regards to combating antisemitism and Islamophobia?
Ticked off, ironically: "We are committed to recognising a Palestilian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-statr solution with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state." Attributed with three dots, whatever that means, "Labour will also reverse the Conservatives' decision to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophoboc hate" A quick screenshot of a news feed kf anti-protest arrests made against Palestine Action or other protest movements.
January 30, 2026 at 2:46 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Oh yes? Did you vote for these ones specifically? Because I can't help but notice a certain pattern among most of the ones they've ticked off...
Ticked off as achieved: "We will create a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers." Ticked off; "We will set out the path to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence" In progress: "Labour will set up a new returns and enforcement unit, with an additional 1,000 staff, to fast-traxk removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay here."
January 30, 2026 at 2:42 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
No, this!
A plucked chicken
January 22, 2026 at 6:49 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
To be fair, and not to jump in where I'm not wanted, but you really didn't say that.

You might have *meant* that, and the skeet *could* be read that way, but it wouldn't be the obvious way to read it.

Perhaps "I need a definition of TERF *from you*" instead of what you wrote.
A sreenshot of Stop Disappearing Users' skeet above that has the words "needing a definition of TERF highlighted.
January 16, 2026 at 2:24 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Kylo Ren enthusiastically requests more.
December 19, 2025 at 4:47 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
A genderswapped version of the "sickos" guy going "Yes... ha ha ha... YES!"
December 19, 2025 at 4:01 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Hey, Maggie? Maybe consider that the "thousands of children" people you're talking about here are directly referencing the roadblocks the "pumpkin" and his regime have thrown up in front of trans health care. You're not in great company.

You should step away before their cult gets it's hooks in.
A screenshot of a skeet feom Maggie ( @maggie79.bsky.social ) which says; I have spoken to many people about the pumpkin running America, both Pro and Con, and it never ceases to amaze me that the Pros can believe the bull crap ideology that is out there... For instance, "he has saved the lives of thousands of children!" Really! ... WHERE???
December 18, 2025 at 3:20 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
A panel from the Watchmen graphic novel where Ozymandias says, "'Do it?' Dan, I'm not a republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting it's outcome? "I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
December 13, 2025 at 12:14 AM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
"A phrase of great power and wisdom, and consolation to the soul in times of need..."
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer stands in front of a podium that is emblazoned with the USA's crest. Behind him are rhe US and UK national flags. The picture is captioned with an excerpt from Starmer's speech and reads "there's a famous slogan in the United Kingdom"
December 3, 2025 at 9:32 AM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
A partial screen grab of the first Alien V Predator film, showing a cut-off visual of the Alien xenomorph on the top-left and the predator in the bottom left, particularly the predators ritualistic mask and claw-weapon in front of a blank white space. The tagine reads, "Whoever Wins... We Lose."
November 21, 2025 at 1:46 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
"Maybe 3 posts" is VERY different from your original sentiment, my guy. Maybe lay off the weasel words for a while, they don't seem to be doing you any favours.
Posted by John Arnold (@floyduk.bsky.social) "There seems to be a campaign at the moment od people claiming Labour are fascist and racist. I've seen it from multiple accounts. The message is so consistent in each that it looks organized to me."
November 17, 2025 at 12:04 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Final part of chapter 2 of #LykaBaker

Hope you've enjoyed so far, I'll likely continue noodling on this when I have spare time. Thanks for checking it out!
"... Yeah, actually. Not like we're gonna get popped for unlawful simulation." Lyka snorts. "Okay," Baker sends the impression of a nod, "I'll upload you in a minute - take the time to compile a list of things for us to look for, then we'll go searching for survivors and parts and supplies. Kind of nice not to have to worry about taking a pack-mule, just you and me and a bunch of cargo nets. I'm gonna drop the link now, just surface into the real and give me a thumbs-up when we're good. "You got it," Lyka said, and the link broke again. "Huh! 'The Real,' Shitcreek huffs, "Like I'm not real?" Lyka shakes her head. "Listen, it seems like she's at least trying," she says, and Shitcreek gives another synthasized huff. "Just get me the list of shit we need, okay, Shitcreek? We can work on her manners later, if we have to." Shitcreek gaives an affirmative trill, then dims into a softly-glowing red dot again. Working in the background.
November 14, 2025 at 9:15 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Chapter 2, part 4 of #LykaBaker

I've known writers who use subtext and they're all cowards!
She lets that hang in the air for a moment. To Baker's credit it's not long outside of the link. Inside the link, Lyka has to wait an indefinable time in the speed-of-information olam of the linkspace. She esitmates maybe... two seconds? Give or take. Two seconds or so of processing time, for Baker to catch up. And then... "... oh!" Her inflection rises, so it's not as condmening as it could be, but Lyka notes the time regardless. Plenty of people have faked nice before when they find out who she is. "You're a linksider?" Lyka actually laughs, "bit of an antiquated term, but yeah." "Oh, shit, I didn't mean," Baker begins the apology... first time Lyka's heard her swear, too, which is kind of impressive under the situation... but Lyka cuts her off to spare the social awkwardness. "It's fine, it's one I kind of like. Warmer than the 'acceptible designation' put out on official channels, you know? But yes, I am a," she would form bunny-rabbit quotation marks with her fingers, if she had fingers in this space, "Data-Based Life Form," So clumsy. At least 'linksider' had been a colloquialism that most of her people had liked. It implied equal peoples standing across a river from each other. Her random thought brinks forth a series of images, real and composed over time with her idle thoughts, scenes of human beings across time and the globe meeting at a bridge, over a ford, on a ferry, across an ocean. Some of them were idealistic scenes, a meeting of cultures for trade and enrichment... some were stark reminders of how the 'other' is often treated by the stronger culture. She felt her dataform shudder a little - it would be pretty much imperceptible to Baker on the other side of the link; Lyka's firewall was pretty strong, even by linksider standards. "Okay, so... that changes things a little," Baker gets back on topic after a couple of cycles of interminable meatside thinking."I'm more of a medic than I am a tech... I'm gonna need to scrounge up more parts than I got right now, too." She pauses again, and Lyka can almost imagine her looking up into the slowly-expanding debris field that had been their ship. "... I'm gonna need to go gravedigging," she says bleakly. "If I can't save your body, uh..?" She grows still, and Lyka is impressed again. "You're wondering if I want to be saved as a file?" There's an uneasy silence, and Lyka takes mercy on her before it stretches too far in the meatspace. "I appreciate the question. A minute or two ago I'd have said just let me go offline, but... I kind of don't want to leave you on your own out here for..." it was her turn to pause now. She finishes, with what would have barely been a break in the sentence to Baker's perception, "until help arrives." "If it arrives," Baker says, surprising Lyka again. The manic edge in Baker's tone and actions so far had suggested someone who had to believe the lie that help was coming or break down and despair. But apparently it was more for Lyka's effort, because that simple sentence is spoken with a grim acknowledgment of reality. "Okay, well," Baker continues, "I'm not gonna lie, it'd be nice to have some company that wasn't purely preprogrammed algorythmic routines," Shitcreek huffs, a facimile of offence. "I can upload a sim to my suit if you like... you can hitch a ride, see what you need, then we'll reintegrate and update your .mem when we get back? Plus if we get hit by a random meteor or whatever happened and both get taken out, you'll never know." Lyka considered that. She'd never liked splitting - it raised a lot of questions about linksider personhood that most meatsiders hadn't really considered - a lot of them saw it as an alien concept, but a convenience also. "Oh, can't you split off a sim to do the boring shit and go hang out all day?" And the answer is... kind of. But also, you have to reintegrate within a certain time by law, and that means getting all the boring shit memories anyway, in perfect clarity. Just like living through it regardless. Plus there's questions around legality, largely imposed by meatside government so as to control the "supply of synthetic workers." Simming and working several jobs at once came with a pretty hefty penalty, depending on how egregiously you did it. But in this instance...
November 14, 2025 at 9:14 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Chapter 2 part 3 of #LykaBaker

Hopefully what I was doing with the formatting at the beginning of Chapter 1 is more obvious now. I'm trying to find a way to differentiate between the link and meatspace, and hopefully the font and tense change makes it clear.
"Hey," Replay pulses red in a warning blip. "You're slipping toward the link, don't try and access data while Baker is working. For a start it won't work, and you'll probably fuck yourself up while you do it." Lyka laughs softly - it's funny, to hear the results of her aftermarket mods on these basic programmes. Most .exes are hardcoded not to profane, or to speak in vernacular. "Who knows if they're installed on children," was the rationale. As it is, she's not met a person who hasn't jailbroken her mods, be they damage report, news update or musical broadcast. Practically everyone in every field of endeavour has opened themselves up to small piracies and warrantee-voids. Another one of her programmes pops to the fore, this one in the gold-and-blue of Pollard Haulage. "Speaking of warrantee voids, miss Lyka," her voice is clipped, efficient and sickeningly subservient - proprietary software that would be against her contract to mod. It's jarring, to hear corporate speak in her own mind. "Unfortunately the damage to your chassis will not be covered by your insurance contract with the Ignacious Pollard Haulage Company." "What?" Lyka balks. "Bullshit! This is the definition of 'workplace injury'! How do you justify-?" IPHC-Legal-Consult.exe claps his hands together and opens them to display an extremely lengthy legal document that then scrols faster than the eye could see to page five-hundred-and-sixty-seven, with Subsection CDLXXIII, clause fifty-six B highlighted in glowing flourescent yellow that makes Lyka wince. "Ignacious Pollard Haulage Company is not liable for any injuries sustained in deceleration from interstellar speeds, nor any injuries incurred while in interplanetary space unclaimed by a colony, corporation or legally recognized freeholding. I'm sorry, miss Lyka, but the contract is quite cle-" The legal .exe stutters, then disappears. A crackle as Lyka feels someone join her in the link - Baker presumably, and her thought is quickly confirmed. "Uhhh, hey, Leeka? Oh, shit. Sorry, downloaded your contract info on the linkup, I've been saying it wrong. Lyka. Cute! Uh... so, I turned off that legal subroutine. Pretty much the definition of 'superfluous to runtime,' am I right? How're you feeling?" "Just fine, now I'm not in my body for a second, NCO..." a flicker of download, handshake protocol, permissions given "Petty officer Hannah Baker." "Just Baker, please?" That's not framed like a basic pleasantry. It's a genuine request, a note of pleading. "Alright, Baker. Thanks for the rescue - how am I looking out there?" There's no visual screen that leaps into life in front of Lyka, just the knowledge of a data download from Baker's optic nerve. She sees herself, laid out on the makeshift operating table. Shit, she's a mess. "Shit, you're a mess," remarks Shitcreek. "I've seen worse, believe it or not," Baker says with fragile optimism. "I mean... usually, when I've seen that it's been with a fully supplied med bay like a room away. But I've at least stopped you bleeding out your various fluids and your suit was intact enough to apply tourniquet seals with sufficient pressure - clever, by the way, to blow the seals on your oxy to orient you my way." Strangely, despite not knowing Baker for shit, Lyka has a moment's pride. Maybe it's just recognition of one seat-of-the-pants jury-rigging survivor to another. "Yeah, uh. Nice lash-up medical bed you get up for me." "Yeah, so... bad news time. A lot of your cranial mods are fucked, right now you can only connect via the suit port. Must be kinda like going blind, I bet. Sucks." "Beats the alternative," Lyka says grimly, and Baker laughs a strained laugh, that sounds like she's heard it a thousand times before. "Yeah, so speaking about the alternative," Baker says, her voice turning uncertain. "When I asked if you had anything I could take offline you raised your left arm, but when I went to check the connections, that's meat?" There's a pause, and Lyka kicks herself. "In fact, it seems like it's the only bit of you that's meat?" "Yeah..." Lyka sighs. "I, uh. I had to have it installed when I became a navigator - nav system require a DNA-strand-level access code to access the systems to prevent malicious tampering."
November 14, 2025 at 9:12 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Chapter 2 part 1 of #LykaBaker

I'm gonna likely slow down a BUNCH after chapter 2 seeing as I'm starting a new job this week coming, but I'm enjoying having a little side-project for all my pent up creativity.
The Link between Lyka and Baker hangs, dissipating slowly and leaving glowing absences in the air as Lyka stared at her interiority. "So we're kinda fucked, cap." Lyka 'turns,' or more accurate to say her perception shifts from the default contemplative nothing to a small glowing dot that she'd named "shitcreek.exe" when she was installing it. Her personal health and integrity wizard. The little dot even has a conical floppy hat with the yellow-black "Danger" symbol all over it instead of stars and moons. The only place you don't have to adhere to company compliance laws is in your own head, so people tend to go ham. Shitcreek claps little glowy-red hands together and then draws them apart to zoom in on a data display and in picoseconds Lyka has absorbed the information. Both legs gone, no surprise there. Heammorages in the cranium and spine, also not all that surprising. Some minor void-bite from breaching her seals, but mostly that was on the tech side, so minor and/or superficial. A bitch to pay to repair, but that's the worst of that. Small miracles. "How's brain function?" she asks Shitcreek, who clucks his imaginary tongue in a mannerism she programmed in because it reminded her of a plumber she once got in to fix a leak in her domicile. It had been kind of cute, and so had she. Drinks hadn't gone well though. She'd ended up having to pull the girl off this dude who thought that- Shitcreek waved the errant memory feed away. "Get it together, Cap, no time for reminiscing. We need you in the present, falling into the past right now's likely to kill you. I've got autonomic subroutines up so you're not gonna forget to breathe, but if you accidentally wander into something that might get you trying to link on instinct you might make shit worse." "Right." Lyka grimaces. She's not good at staying in the present, it isn't part of her skillset. And to have to do that while unlinked, with nothing to distract her? "Can you access music?" she asks, "anything to give me a backbeat, or something to focus on... or tune out, whichever's better." "You're not gonna like it," Shitcreek warns. Lyka grimaced again. "Ah, fuck. What is it?" "You know your ex partner? They were big into retrofuture polkacore?" "Oh, fuck," Hansard. They're big into the neo-neo-retrohipster scene. And not big on actual history. Lyka doesn't mind people finding their niche, but nostalgia for a nostalgia-tinted version of a past that never had been twice over? "At least ren faire revival folks try for verisimilitude," she and Shitcreek say the same thing at the same time. Lyka grimaces and Shitcreek pulses with what might be programmed dry amusement. "Who're you trying to impress with your wit, cap?" The strained tones of a synth-hurdy-gurdy starts up in the background and Lyka groans. "You focus on the lame a while and let this Baker person work, okay? We've got our own people on it too." Their own people. Her emergency failsafes, repair subroutines and optimization pathways, her "triage software package," bought and paid for by her employers. They'll be trying to preserve brain function, especially memory storage and language centers first, so that the Ignatious Pollard Haulage Company could comb through her memories to find ways this crash or... whatever.. wasn't her fault and dodge liability and insurance payouts. If one crewman had left so much as a screw unloosed or a form incomplete they'd write the whole thing off as 'human error' and cover their expenses via the ever-benevolent taxpayer's dollars. The "search and recovery" mission that would no doubt get underway as soon as the Aetherstep passed it's designated check-in time was less about survivors and more about spinning a narrative. As the hurdy-gurdy droned on, Lyka lets her mind wander, considering all the other reports she's seen about deep-space accidents. Her recall enhancer, Replay.exe, pops up in a soothing blue, scrolling through half-remembered and quarter-recorded memories of news reports she'd one-eighth listened to. Still seemed like a lot of entries, regardless.
November 14, 2025 at 9:09 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Final part of chapter 1 of #LykaBaker

We all love a beginning in media res, right guys? And that meet-cute? SO romantic!

(I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm enjoying doing it regardless.)
Lyka lifted her left arm - it had been her dominant arm before it had become her interface key, among other things. "Alright, Leeka. I'm gonna cut our link now so I can concentrate without your pain and shock getting in the way. You just relax, okay? Trust me, I'm the closest thing we've got to a doctor right now." Lyka saw Baker's nervy, slightly-manic grin before the link cut and all that second-hand adrenaline went out of her system and everything went very far away.
November 14, 2025 at 9:06 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Chapter 1, part 2 of #LykaBaker
She scrolled frantically through menus and submenus and circuitous work-arounds. She could get a direction on the signal, but her comms were fucked and beyond fucked besides receiving. But she did have helmet lights. Almost nothing else. Not even attitude adjustment thrust. But she could control her suit seals. So theoretically, if she blew some of her oxygen to orient herself towards Baker's broadcast location, she might be able to signal her. And then... not die alone? It was better than nothing. Better than waiting. She isolated the seals she'd need to override. Most likely they wouldn't be able to be resealed, but what did exposure and void-bite matter to her now? She felt a blood vessel rupture behind her eye as she forced her suit's seals to blow through s faulty connection, and felt herself gently spin in a new direction, then correct... and the suit's visor confirmed the signal source with a little glowing green dot in front of her hazy eyes. Maybe she'd mistake it for a friendly planet... maybe even home... as she died. Regardless, for now she reached up a numb and shaking hand to the manual on/off switch for her helmet lights, and began to flick them on and off in the ancient naval tradition of all truly fucked individuals since time immemorial. Blink-blink-blink! Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink-blink-blink! She went through the cycle two, three... maybe fifty times before it registered to her that the soft, shocked, hopeless tone that NCO Baker had been speaking with had changed. It had gone from a numb catalogue of horror to disbelief. Excitement, recognition. "Holy shit, is that a survivor? Hey! SOS, can you respond? My direct link is working, we can speak directly." If her own comms had been working, Lyka could've hit Baker's direct link from her ID code derived from her broadcast, but Lyka already knew that was a no-go. She blinked her lights twice, hoping that the other universal code of once-for-yes, twice-for-no would also hold strong. "Comms fried?" Despite herself, Lyka grinned. It would be nice to die in contact with someone who was on her wavelength. She flashed her light again. "Do you have propulsion?" Flash-flash. "Ok.. hold on, SOS, I'll come to you." Lyka flashed acknowledgment, then left her light on as a beacon to Baker and grew still. Nothing left to do now but preserve oxygen and-or die. It was strange that she felt so matter of fact about it... maybe the shock. She drifted for a long moment, the inside of her head as dark and fathomless as the void she was in. Baker was still talking, charting her progress towards her. Trying to keep her grounded... Lyka knew this, but just this moment of recognition was enough. She wouldn't die unseen, and she hoped she'd given the same solace to Baker. Her body jarred suddenly with a flood of adrenaline and a clicking whine in her ear. "Can you hear me?" Baker's voice was in her ear but... not the same as the broadcast. This was more immediate and visceral, right by her ear, drowning out the oxy-alert beep. "Gnuh." Lyka's tongue was thick and clumsy, sticking to the top of her mouth. "That's what I like to hear, soldier," Baker's voice was jovial, but strained. The voice of a triage medic applying as much bedside manner as she could. "I wired us up direct seeing as your comms are down." Understanding trickled slowly through Lyka's brain. She could see the cable coming from the side of Baker's neck into the suit hookup to her link mods. More confirmation that at least one of her cranial ports was still attached and working, even if using the link was like trying to see-hear-smell through a layer of frozen sap. "... you linked with a bitch with her legs fresh off?" The idea was... frankly, Lyka didn't know if she should be impressed or horrified. "Don't worry about it. Just enjoy that sweet, sweet stress cortisol with me." Baker's helmetted face swam in front of her. She looked grey-skinned and sweaty, eyes wide and bright in a way that suggested frantic calculation. "Listen, uh," Baker checked her suit. "Leeka," Lyka winced at the mispronunciation, but didn't have the energy to correct her... saviour? Too optimistic. Call it her "co-fucked." "You with me? Listen, I was lucky enough to get thrown into a shard of the ship with some intact med supplies. I'm dragging you back there right now and I'm gonna try and patch you up. Okay? You're gonna be okay." "Ssslaaaa," Lyka slurred in acknowledgment. She was deep in shock by now, she knew - even if she tried to help Baker, her half-conscious flailing would likely be more hindrance than anything. So she listened to Baker talking about... was she talking about a vid? Or did she grow up planetside and this was an anecdote? "Hey, this is important - I need to know how much of you is meat. Do you have anything I can take off..." Baker glanced down at her missing legs, "... sorry... to reduce stress on your system." Lyka couldn't tell when, but at some point during her drifting, Baker had dragged her through raw zero gravity void over to a bifurcated cargo area, and strapped her down with cargo bungees to a free-floating bulkhead, and used mag-loaders to lock the bulkhead down to the bay to make something like a stable makeshift operating area. Next to her, also magged to the metal floor-slash-wall was a small medical kit, and a much larger and more comprehensive-looking toolkit.
November 14, 2025 at 9:05 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Chapter 1, part 1 of #LykaBaker goodness - I'm gonna need to come up with a name for this, eventually.
There is a jarring sense of dislocation, then pain and the feed cuts - a moment of static as the signal is lost and then Lyka is screaming as the inputs are torn from her head one / / by / / one / with the force of velocity torquing her body around. The ship around her splits and tears open, metal and plastic sheering and splintering into a spray of debris that doesn't protect Lyka from the terror of the realisation that she can see the naked stars of the void without any separation beyond her protective void sheath. "Shit!" The word is more of a data screech than an expletive, twisted and malformed by the pain in her head and the sympathetic echos through her nervous system. With an enforced ejection rather than the usual planned shutdown and disengage, her body was wracked with spasms and her brain was just as jittery and disregulated. The fact that the input jacks had been torn from her skull ports and she was bleeding in her helmet didn't help either. That was a very present problem in her mind, but also one of the very least - she could see her ship blossoming out into the depthless abyss in front of her, the control bridge spitting her out into raw space. Debris wheeled and sliced past her as her numb hands failed to grasp her seat, her emergency straps, anything at all. Her body, wracked with feedback shock and slow to return to itself, drifted away from the illusion of safety that was her navigation post, joined by her colleagues. Some were in the same predicament as her, half-removed from their own bodies and half-still buried in an info feed that was just static and damage reports nobody was alive enough to read... some were worse off. Frozen blood glittered in the lights of fires from the destroyed deck. Lyka watched as a whole quarter-post slid into the plume of a misfiring engine, vaporising all but the sturdiest parts of the superstructure. Her body wracked with imagined agony, a phantom pain of the info-link to her "sister" navigators, technicians, coordinators. She was so focused on the evaporating ship she hadn't yet had a chance to assess herself. But as the empty ache which would have been the link receded and she returned to her body, she began to register her own problems. She could hear the strangely intimate warning-chime right behind her ear that told her that she had minimal oxygen. She could feel the blood from her wrenched and abused cranial ports leaking down her neck. She was hyperventilating, her heart was hammering. She gave a thought-impulse for her void suit to supply her with some relaxants, but all she got in response was a sharp pain like a lump of glass behind her eyelid, scraping against her brain. Her cranial connections were truly fucked, then, and she couldn't even make the most rudimentary of demands from her protective suit. As she drifted out into the new debris field created by the ill-fated Aetherstep, she realized she wasn't just panicking - she was also going into shock. The frozen blood she'd seen - some of it was hers. She only realized this because a plane of glass that used to be a holographic display sliced dangerously past her exposed body, the light catching just right to show her reflection. It had been a blessing that her nervous system had been elsewhere. She'd likely have died instantly from the shock of pain of having almost half of her body forcibly amputated. In an ugly, jagged shear just beneath her hips, her legs were gone. Just gone. Lost somewhere in the tangle of plastic and metal and bodies, bodies, bodies... The void suit had clamped seals down above the shearing off, to keep her oxygen supplies on the inside of the suit, and as part of automatic triage protocols and reduce blood loss. But Lyka recognized the fact that she was dead, and it didn't really matter if she didn't want to accept it. She looked, numb and mute, around herself. At her comrades, at her ship... split open and eviscerated by who knows what. Some small mathematical miscalculation, maybe. An astrological charting error. Unlucky confluence of debris fields. It didn't matter; the Aetherstep had joined the "handful" of "statistical anomolies" that "just happened" when it came to interstellar travel. Just the cost of doing business. She let out a slightly hysterical laugh at the thought that most likely the only acknowledgment of her death she'd get would be some frustrated insurance actuary's claim paperwork. The laugh became a choked sob, somewhere near a scream. The sound reverberated in her helmet, too close and claustrophobic, didn't release any tension. Made her aware that she was just burning oxygen quicker. "This NCO third tech Baker is the last report from the Aetherstep, if anyone comes across..." The words were jarring. Lyka blinked back the tears of frustration and terror that had threatened to blur her vision along with the pain, and tried to orient herself. That could only be the voice of a survivor. Whether they were trying to send a distress call or record an epitaph, but either way the stubborn urge for survival made her cling to the idea of... rescue? Or maybe just solace? Either way, whether this NCO Baker was broadcasting whether she realized it or not. The lump of glassy grit behind her eye screaming each time she hit a severed connection, Lyka grasped to the tenuous link she still had to her suit. If she was hearing an external signal there was still a workable data connection.
November 14, 2025 at 9:04 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Was lying in bed and Did A Thing. Hopefully inspiration will continue tomorrow.
There is a jarring sense of dislocation, then pain and the feed cuts - a moment of static as the signal is lost and then Lyka is screaming as the inputs are torn from her head one by one with the force of velocity torquing her body around. The ship around her splits and tears open, metal and plastic sheering and splintering into a spray of debris that doesn't protect Lyka from the terror of the realisation that she can see the naked stars of the void without any separation beyond her protective void sheath. "Shit!" The word is more of a screech than an expletive, twisted and malformed by the pain in her head and the sympathetic echos through her nervous system. With an enforced ejection rather than the usual planned shutdown and disengage, her body was wracked with spasms and her brain was just as jittery and disregulated. The fact that the input jacks had been torn from her skull ports and she was bleeding in her helmet didn't help either.
November 9, 2025 at 11:38 PM
ariaunderground.bsky.social
Well of course there's no grave for Dracula in Whitby. It's in Memphis!
November 8, 2025 at 1:42 PM