If plan A fails...there are 25 more letters!!!

The color in her eyes is more green then gray/blue 🥺

Brunt’s hand gripping her so hard and so brutally, I can feel it. It’s tearing at more than her skin and doing more than breaking her jaw, it claws at her soul and forces her into a position where she no longer speaks, gasping for air and survival.

Sadness As A Gift

Words: 22,160

Chapters: 4/4

Summary:

Even if Player would give anything to be in his room right now, some things are worth sacrificing for. And for her… they would give anything, especially today.

Though the dismembered team remains haunted each hour by the same question…

How were they supposed to celebrate Carmen's birthday without her?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64169011/chapters/164666755

Original Post:

Carmen: Looking at one of my favorite painter's works: Frida Kahlo.

Me: "for god sake, enough with Frida Kahlo, ENOUGH!

Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Carmen Mondragón (Nahui Olin), Lilia Carrillo, Emilia Ortiz, Olga Costa. I don't know, whoever but FRIDA KAHLO!!! What is foreigners' obsession with Frida Kahlo?"

@flashfictionfridayofficial @frozenwolftemplar @backofthepencil11 @explosiontheory

Title: Born to Serve

Fandom: Carmen Sandiego (2019 Cartoon)

Words: 615

Triggers: implied death & cloning

It was loud.

Loud like thousands of little voice boxes were packed into her mind. Overpowering each other until nothing more than an enormous gibberish explodes in her ears. Her mind can’t take it, can’t cope. It’s too loud.

It doesn’t stop. A buzzing, hissing, needling little body was tugging at her, ripping her away from herself and life into this deep cavity of null existence. An empty space, a void occupied only by its other victims. Accomplices, competition, replicas, family, clones.

They are in this vast complex with her, staring at it with equal parts emptiness and overwhelming clarity. A loud, bolstering wake-up call spills out the truth right before her eyes. The truth of connection and conformity— the only truths in the life of a slave soldier.

That Carmen was nothing without the other Carmen’s.

Without the swarm of her fellow creations, courtesy of Dr Bellum’s gracious touch, who was she?

A pool of her own blood, bones and reshaped empathy. A meaningless vacuum that never turned off, never fell silent, and never caved until its body were sprawled out across the concrete. That was what it meant to be Carmen Sandiego.

The second truth: a clone belongs to its numbers. To VILE. To those moments when their meaningless and loud universe was lit up with commands, orders, and even the rare instinctive sensation that something didn’t belong. Something had to be righted.

Carmen wouldn’t want it any other way. She didn’t know any other way…

Looking around is a hall of mirrors— copies of her, figments of what Carmen Sandiego was where none dare to stray from the image. Down to the shade of monotonous grey that paints her eyes, she is paralysingly similar.

She’s a part of it, and it a part of her. It makes her, moulds her, embodies her— she doesn’t know who she is without the hive.

A lie burns on her false tongue.

An instinct twists her head from her neck, zapping to a place— a person that didn’t belong. Another human, another life, another clo-

No.

No, this clone is wrong. This one’s red flaps in the wind, eyes as blinding as the core of the sun, and with a heat the centre of the earth longs after. The world follows her, this smear of imperfection, empathy, love, and bolstering crimson.

There, standing dead in the centre of the room, braced against the red eyes infatuated by the outcast, and glaring with a light in her eyes that could just be the cure… is a lie.

A fault. A lifeline.

The robot’s eyes begin to burn. In comparison she feels empty. She feels undone, unfulfilled, inhumane, robotic…

That was the problem of the normal, she was nothing, not really. She wasn’t special, she wasn’t alive. She, and this crowd of hive are the aliens. Crafted out of horror and deciept and-

And before she can dwell on her own cyborg origin, carved from a piece of such a woman in an attempt to oppose and prevail over her… her insides cauterise this fuel, this strictness, this violence. A murder, a malice, an upholstering need to eliminate the one that does not belong. The original, the scar, the symbol of red in all that was grey.

The robots are not Carmen; it is false.

And that mattered. Because when this robot eventually collapses, metal crashing senselessly to the floor— not one will look back on it with remorse.

Because I am a lie.

Intention was…

Truth: existence of Carmen clones (no she isn’t just going mad)

Truth: VILE control

I just loved the way this flowed as well! It captured how she was not the real Carmen so well, as it slowly moves into realization of what she is. DAMN it’s delicious!

I love how it also captured that essence of purpose as well, the humanity that lies within her….crafted to be a slave for Vile, but also in desperate need of a reason for her fight. Somewhat kinda has that in common with the real Carmen in that way. I love how it that aspect is just fully integrated here, it’s so interesting!!!

Fandom: Carmen Sandiego

Words: 616

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Referenced kidnapping and torture

Title: What remains

@flashfictionfridayofficial

@backofthepencil11 Hope you enjoy!

@mmaricarmen23 Hope you don’t mind if I tag you

The castle loomed over them, watching as the group approaches. Shadowsan took to the side, hidden by the tree line as he advanced slightly behind the main group. He knew his objective, knew what he could find. It’s been over two years since a red spark had been taken, not just from him, but Zack, Ivy, Player, even some of the ACME agents had lost her. There might not be anything left, and yet he has to try. If nothing else, he has to try.

He breaks away from the main group, making a full turn away from the large doors signifying the entrance. He slips in through a window, blending in with the darkened corridors he now found himself in. Unfortunately, Player was unable to dredge up any floor schematics, and will have to go in blind. He turns away from where the main hall would be, deeper into the depths of the fortress. 

He creeps through the twisting halls, dimly lit as the technological upgrades give way to cold stone. Eventually, he crosses a door, wrought iron, darkened with age, contrasting yet blending with the surroundings. He quickly picks the lock, and the door gives way with an ear-splitting screech. On the other side, a gaping maw of darkness descends deeper into the earth. If Carmen were to be anywhere, it would surely be here. 

He wonders how it could have gone differently, if it could have gone differently, if Player had gotten wind of V.I.L.E’s plan that much sooner, destroyed the weapons before they could be used against those unknowing of the evils that lurk. There was nothing to be said of Carmen’s choice in that moment, she would have never thought to let the innocent suffer under the enemy, believing that her sacrifice was worth it to keep people safe. And yet now she’s locked away, or worse.

He passes by empty cell after empty cell, all the same in the gloom of the dungeon he now found himself in. A.C.M.E has likely finished up already, ensuring that they are unable to hurt anymore. But still, no sign of a red-clad thief. At the end of the hallway, lies another door, wooden and reinforced with steel. This was the end of the line, and if she wasn’t here…. Shadowsan thought better than to dwell on such thoughts.

He again picked the lock on the door, the hinges crying out as it opened. The room was barren, except for the figure huddled in the corner. Shadowsan slowly approached, carefully reaching a hand out. It was clear even in the dark the fear etched upon her face, scurrying back what little more she could.

“Carmen?”

The atmosphere shifted, a weight seemingly being removed, lightening the burden held for so long. She reached back, uncertain, and yet desperate for any contact.

“Sha… Sha…?” She stuttered, the attempts dying in her throat. Shadowsan closed the distance, gently taking her into his arms, as she grasps on to his shirt as if he would vanish if she let go. And all the years catch up in this moment, as she sobs into him, trembling to the point he was worried she might break, whispering reassurances all the while. Eventually, she calms down, curling back in on herself as exhaustion takes hold, and Shadowsan carefully cradles her, picking her off the floor to return to the light of the surface.

I love it so much!!! Him finding her and just breaking in his own way! Carmen melts and he just cradles her! SO FREAKING ANGSTY!!! I adored every bit of this!!!

That final paragraph as well is so deep and speaks as to what she went through, as he contemplates it all, he wants nothing more than to hold his child ❤️