Angst

[foundparadise]

ANGST MEME



Sometimes we all want to play some angst and see just how far our characters will fall.
- Post your characters, name and series in the subject along with any preferences.
- Go to random.org and roll.
- Play!



1. just depressed.
Things are tough, you're feeling worn out, or whatever the case, you're depressed. You need help or someone else thinks you do anyway.

2. abandoned.
You were left behind by everyone you hold dear and now you're forced to see how well they've adjusted, how happy they all are while you're screaming inside.

3. sick.
Cold, flu, or something even worse, all you can do is lay back and let someone take care of you.

4. fight.
You've been fighting nonstop with the other person and it just keep escalating.

5. break up.
You're being broken up with and they won't reconsider... Damn.

6. separated.
For some reason, you've been separated from the other person for a long time.

7. kidnapped.
You've been held captive for how long now? Maybe they've been torturing you even, using your blood to write ransom notes, threatening to cut off fingers to send next, etc. Rescue is on the way though, right?

8. beaten up.
Just because someone didn't like you or maybe they wanted something you had, whatever the case is, you're coming home sporting some nasty wounds and bruises.

9. jealousy.
You just have this undeniable jealousy suddenly and you need to let it out.

10. cheated on.
This goes beyond just suspicion and you have full on proof of what your lover has done. How do you handle it?

11. apathetic.
You're not sad, you're not happy, you just... don't feel much anymore. The sparkle of life has gone right out of you and you're just going through the motions now.

12. addicted.
Drugs, alcohol, whatever your drug of choice is, you can't fight the draw and you can't draw yourself out of the hole, but the other person is going to try.

13. bad romance.
You know this isn't good for either of you, but you can't stop now.

14. fear.
Nightmares, the feeling someone is following you, etc. You can't shake the feeling.

15. insanity.
You're seeing things and hearing them, waking up only to realize you've done things you don't remember or you're in a place you weren't before. You're losing it and you don't know what to do.

16. guilt.
It's eating you up inside and you have to tell someone about it now. You want to be punished and you won't take no for an answer.

17. loss
You've lost something dear to you.

18. wild card.
Combine some options or make your own!

Comments

Janey Howard (AU) | Fallout (tv)

[havetoadapt]

[An AU version of Janey who's alive and a little older, having been in cryo and come out of cryo at… some point, probably. Grown up a little. Had to adapt and learn about the way the world is now. This idea is also the BAREST of bones as I continue to try and figure out all the fiddly bits, so there's a lot that can be fleshed out and mucked around with.

Voicetesting.]

[robotdick]

[This seems fitting. I can write us a starter, do you have any preferences of prompt? If we do kidnapped/beat up/abandoned I can set us up with some raiders and have Nick save the day and meet her. If we want to handwave meeting, Sick/Loss/Fear would probably be good.]

[havetoadapt]

[Honestly I don't have any preferences. Both of those options sound fantastic, so whichever strikes your fancy most.]

[robotdick]

'Come to California, the Sunshine State!' they said, 'he weather is nice, the people are friendly!'

Hah! Nick should have known that was a crock the first time he heard it. The weather was bright and unforgiving, practically baking the color off his clothes, and the people were friendly right up until they ambushed a guy. When those raiders jumped him on that bridge, Nick was up a figurative river--could have tried going up the literal river except he didn't care for the idea of shorting out and sinking to the bottom.

The only saving grace of the day was that the raiders had never seen a synth before. (Must have been an East Coast exclusive, lucky him.) So they got him in that net of theirs, snared up like a rabbit, hanging off the superstructure of that rusted out old bridge and spent a good hour or so arguing about what to do with him. Nick, of course, provided only the most helpful suggestions earning him a few enthusiastic baseball bat knocks, as if he were a particularly disagreeable piñata.

The raiders were bright enough to conclude that they couldn't eat him, reached that conclusion right away. It took them a touch longer to conjure something else to do with him--they didn't know how to part him out but, after a while, one of them figured he might know a fella who could fence 'an escaped animatronic'. So, after healthy debate and some spirited attempts to crack him open and spill his candy insides, they trussed him up in a trawling chain and dragged him back to their little hidey-hole.

To their credit, these raiders weren't the worst he'd ever seen. They seemed to have a decent racket set up selling people and parts of people. Nick got lucky, largely because he wasn't what most folk designated a person.

The holding cells in this ramshackle operation were stuffed to bursting with regular folk, all of them just waiting for slaughter or sale like livestock. Didn't look like a single piece of this place was built with synths in mind...which would have been a fantastic turn of events if they hadn't left him trussed up in chain with a padlock digging into his back.

When the sun was setting and the changing of the guard happened--which was to say: most of them went to sleep except the two unlucky grunts standing watch--Nick tried to talk one of his many cellmates into freeing him. Unfortunately, the fact that he looked like a store mannequin from hell made them all extremely wary to be anywhere near him. The other cells were all jammed up against this one, though--economical, that, saving on bars by sharing walls--and if he could wiggle his way to one set of bars or the other, someone in an adjacent cell might be able to pick that damn lock for him.

"Hey--anybody want to help a guy out?"

There was a minute of silence and no obvious takers.

[havetoadapt]

It doesn’t take long for that to change, though. There’s a flicker of movement as the lone occupant of the cage to his left shifts, moves closer to the bars. She’s just a girl, her age hard to pinpoint, but she’s young, with wild, curly hair and more than a few injuries indicating that she hadn’t come quietly. (And from the matching injuries on some of the raiders she’d made them work for it.) She takes him in, trussed up like a turkey the way that he is, unfazed by the fact that he’s a synth. He’s still a person, after all.

“Come here,” she tells him, working at the shaft of her right boot for a moment to remove the lockpicks she’d hidden there. They really should have searched her better.


Janey should have known better. She should have known better. But she hadn’t. Or she had, and she’d done it anyway. Because someone was in trouble. And no matter how… cynical, and dangerous, and destroyed the world is, now, she had to do something. Or try to. (Just because she’s searching for someone doesn’t mean she should ignore the rest of the world while she does it.)

It had backfired. HORRIBLY. The raiders had outnumbered her, hard, but she’d made them regret their choices a little before they’d knocked her flat and dragged her back to wherever they were holed up. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they were up to, either, and what was in store for her if she didn’t figure a way out of the trouble she’d found herself in.

They’d taken her gear. Or rather, they’d taken her obvious gear. They hadn’t thought to give her more than a cursory once over. So they only got what she wore openly. The rest, though? Well, she had a bit of a leg up, should the opportunity arrive.

Which it did, in the form of a synth being tossed into the cage next to her and asking for someone to help a guy out.

[robotdick]

Shifting his way over to the leftmost wall was a trick, but Nick got it done The bars were haphazard, welded by someone who had never operated a glue gun let alone a torch. They were just far enough apart that he could hold onto them with either hand, bound behind his back, and pull himself up to sit. He tried to angle it right, make it easy to reach the lock, but he only had a vague idea of where it was located on his back.

"Thanks," Nick said and shot a withering look at the people sharing a cell with him. When he talks, he's mostly talking to her, but he doesn't let up on the look. "The wasteland and manners don't go together much."

It was usually kids that liked him best, both because kids weren't buried in years of jaded cynicism, and because every kid secretly wanted a robot for a friend. He had no idea which one this girl was yet, but the fact that she hid lockpicks in her boot was impressive. She was sharp...and if all those skuffs and scratches were any indication, she was one of those ant hill tigers as well.

"I'm Nick. Nick Valentine. Yourself?"

[havetoadapt]

“You’re welcome.” Then Janey’s reaching through the shared bars of their cages, turning her attention to the lock holding him in his chains to start working it open. Her touch is featherlight, delicate. She’s gotten to be a deft hand with lockpicks since coming out of cryo.

“They don’t,” she agrees absently, attention focused on the task at hand. “It takes some getting used to. Don’t know if I ever will.” She’s not really thinking about what she’s saying, focused on the lock and getting him out of his chains. (Once he’s out they can focus on getting out of their cages and out of the raiders camp. But one thing at a time.)

“Janey Howard.”

[robotdick]

Nick hasn't been successful as a detective because he's in the habit of missing strange details, unfortunately this isn't the time or place to interrogate them. He turns his head, tries to get a look at her behind him, but all he can see is her riot of curly hair.

"Pleasure to meet you," Nick says, listening as though he could assist her in any way. She's good, better than he is that's for sure, and makes quick work of the cheap old padlock these raiders had on hand. It comes free a moment later, drops one of the tow-line links, and Nick turns his attention to freeing his hands.

"Well, Janey Howard, don't suppose you know if there's another exit to this place?" Nick asks as he finally pulls his hands free. Getting the rest of the chain off will be cake, but he's not about to advertise his freedom until they're ready to leave.

"Or where they keep our gear?"

[havetoadapt]

“Pleasure to meet you too.” Janey feels the lock give and grins a little as it comes free. It’s always a little satisfying to ruin some raiders’ plans. Especially THESE raiders. She’ll happily ruin their plans. And ruin them more before the days out.

“I didn’t see much when they dragged me in,” she tells him quietly, “and there’s not exactly a clear view from our cages. But from what I’ve figured out watching them come and go, I’m pretty sure there’s at least one other exit.” She indicates a hall off to their right with a little tilt of her head. “And they’re keeping our gear in a cabinet in the next room.”

[robotdick]

"Alright," Nick says, it's both acknowledgement and congratulations. He looks at the rest of the occupants of his cell and cocks a brow. "You all hear that?"

At the address, the rest of his cell-mates seem a bit tongue-tied. Their faces are a sea of vague confusion and alarm, but nobody has so much as a nod of the head for Nick. There's a fellow in the next cage over, however, who jostles his way to the bars and starts talking in a raspy shout-whisper. He looks furious and the hands he's got on the bars are white-knuckled.

"Wait--you're going to help them and not us!?"

"Never said that," Nick replies and carefully starts unwinding the chain. No reason to start making loud or unusual noises now. "I'll get your door after hers and mine, pal."

Normally, in situations like this, it takes firing a gun into the air to get everyone on the same page. Miraculously, however, all the folk in these cells seem to be dead focused on Nick and Janey. Their expressions go from confusion to a sea of cautious optimism. Nick would sigh about the hassle of it all, but he knew the moment they dragged him in that he wasn't leaving a man in this dump.

That ambitious goal will probably require some killing and, unfortunately, he's unarmed. Good thing he just made a friend with (presumably) sticky fingers. Once he's free of the chains, before he stands back up, Nick turns to talk to Janey through the bars. Now that he's got a clear look at her, she seems much younger than his original guess. Damn it all, what is she, twelve maybe--doesn't matter--stay focused, Valentine.

"Alright, sweetheart," Nick starts, talking low as he reaches his skeletal arm through the haphazard bars of the cage into her side. He can't get anywhere near the lock, but the door's hinge is just right there for the crushing. "Lean up against the door. When I rip this off, it's going to clang around. If you're against it, it'll stop it from making a racket."

Nick manages to grab onto the hinge and his fingers give a strained hydraulic sound as he squeezes it out of shape. The metal whines as it's crushed into a neat little hand-hold and Nick braces against the move he's about do--after a second or two, his arm servos engage and he yanks that mangled chunk of hinge clear off of the other door.

[havetoadapt]

His answer surprises her. Janey had had no intention of just leaving them here… but she hadn’t expected him to feel similarly. She doesn’t really expect anyone to, anymore. It’s… a rare thing, in the Wasteland. A relic of the way the world was before the bombs. It’s good to see. Even if it does make a complicated snarl of emotions well up in her chest. They’ll need their gear. They’ll need their weapons. She tucks the lockpicks back in her boot. Focus, Janey.

“Got it.” And then she does as instructed, leaning up against the door so he can do what he needs to do. Which is rip a whole chunk of hinge right off the door. Well. That’s much quicker and to the point than letting her lock pick their way out.

[robotdick]

The hinge tears off like cardboard.

Nick would like to believe it's all him, but the metal was already corroded to hell and back. With a good run-up, an able bodied person could probably knock it off the cage. Too bad they didn't have a good run-up.

Thanks to Janey's weight against it, the door makes a single jangling clank as he yanks it, and falls right back into place the moment the hinge free. Nick waits one breathless moment, listening for the sounds of scrap metal armor headed in, but nothing. They're in the clear.

"Great work," Nick says as he drops the hinge.

A bit of stretching has his hand wrapped around the the bottom of the door and Nick mangles it as he gets a good grip. The whole door strains and groans as he pulls the bottom of the door toward him. The other hinge makes a crackling protest as the door warps with the force, but when he lets go it's all quiet again. He's got the door bent pretty far out of shape at that point, the bottom corner is almost above where the hinge had been. It makes a very convenient hole for someone to slip right through.

"Not as elegant as opening the whole thing, I'll admit," Nick says and looks sidelong at Janey. "Think you can fit?"

[havetoadapt]

Janey doesn’t move until he’s dropped the broken hinge and bent the door out of shape. Leaving a very convenient hole. Listening all the while for the sound of company. They’ll be at a disadvantage if they’re interrupted. They’re not out yet.

Close, though.

“We don’t need it all the way open. It’s open just enough.” She nods. “Yeah I do.” And she doesn’t waste ANY time in kneeling down and wiggling gracefully through the hole he’s made her. Then she’s on her feet ready for their next move.