Archive of Our Own ^beta

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(Heads-up! If you haven’t read all three stories yet (consequences, consequences: aftermath, and consequences: reprisal), please come back to this when you have! There are a ton of spoilers for all three stories in each chapter, and these stories really are read best without spoilers!)

Welcome to consequences: expanded universe! 

This is a collection of bonus content associated with the consequences series, which I assume you’re familiar with if you ended up here. This whole series required a lot of planning, and grew and changed a lot as I wrote it. There’s so much worldbuilding and character development you may have not gotten a chance to see or a full explanation of, so I wanted a place I could share all that with you.

Here you’ll see some of that worldbuilding and behind-the-scenes content with character biographies, my notes I used when planning the story, and other things I’m working on such as a full timeline of the entire series in order and breakdowns of all the hints and foreshadowing in each story. I also plan on writing some one-shots/short stories exploring other characters and perspectives, as well as “what-if” scenarios.

If you have an idea of something you’d like to see, or questions about the series, please go ahead and leave a comment! I won’t promise I’ll be able to take requests, but I’d love to know what scenarios you all would like to see or what you’d like to know more about!

There’s no update schedule as to when I’ll be releasing new (or new-to-you) content in this collection, but I plan to be adding things periodically for quite a while as I still really do love this series. I don’t have any plans for another full-length story in the series, (a little hard to do with the ending I have) but you never know what could happen!

Hope you enjoy this extra content I’ve been putting together for you, and stay tuned for more!

-potato

Table of contents:

In-universe explanations/info:

• [Work in progress] Consequences series complete timeline!
• How impostors work in the consequences series
• Crew rosters (character bios)

Behind-the-scenes

• My planning notes: Consequences 
• My planning notes: Aftermath
• My planning notes: Reprisal 
• Poll statistics 
• How I wrote consequences (and how you can too!)

Cut content: 

• Unused/scrapped ideas
• Original pre-rewrite version of Reprisal 

Just for fun:

• Things the consequences series accidentally predicted 
• Which consequences series character are you quiz (Quotev link)
• Consequences series music playlist (Spotify link)

Side stories/“what-ifs”:

• What-if #1: What if Gray was never infected? (consequences: crewmate route)
• Side story #1: The silent tragedy of Yellow-Orange
• Side story #2: News Broadcast 1.5.21
• more to come!

Links to other sites where I post consequences series content (as well as other stuff!):

I have other stuff on these sites as well, but for relevance I’ve linked directly to just the things related to the series for convenience.

• YouTube (YouTube playlist of any videos I make related to the series)
• Tumblr (this is specifically my tag for anything related to the series)
• Toyhouse (This is a website that I use where you can find biographies and all the art I have of every character in the series, no matter how little they were involved. Character backstories are a bit of a work in progress at the moment though!)
• Art Fight (While most of my stuff on here is unrelated, during the event I always have an option up for drawing any of the consequences characters!)

Potential future projects (WIP):

• More side stories/what-ifs!
• Finish style/grammar edits to consequences: aftermath and some early chapters of consequences: reprisal 
• Consequences series annotated (each story highlighted with comments about specific lines, foreshadowing, hints, etc.)
• Additional artwork (+ animatics???)

Chapter Text

In the consequences series, “Impostors” can be divided into two types- alien impostors and human impostors. Alien impostors can be found on any crew or at MIRA, while human impostors are usually only found within loops/cycles.

Alien Impostors:

Alien impostors come from shape-shifting parasitic aliens that exist either independently or within a host.

The aliens are native to the planet Polus and had zero contact with humans until MIRA started sending their missions there. Alien impostors’ motivations for attacking humans tend to include revenge for the human species stealing resources from their home planet.

These aliens can “infect” humans by merging themselves with a human host’s body.

When an alien infects a human, it takes some time for it to acclimate to their host, often first taking control while they are sleeping and slowly working up to completely taking control of a given human. For some weaker-willed individuals this takes practically no time at all, but stronger-willed people it can take a while and be more sudden of a transition. It seems that through some bizarre connection, typically the longer the transition takes, the more destructive and bloodthirsty the impostor becomes.

Once integrated with the host, the alien will often take on characteristics/knowledge of both the original impostor and the person they are infecting, making each one have a unique personality and goals (thus making them sometimes difficult to organize).

In some cases, typically when it takes a while for the alien to fully overtake the host, the host will still have some consciousness as the alien is in control, and is thus forced to watch the alien do whatever they please without being able to stop them. (This happened to Gray/Tan)

In order for one alien to infect multiple humans, an alien can replicate themselves to infect others, but usually only once or twice in a lifetime since the process is very draining. (Example: how Silver was able to infect Red, Gray, and Yellow- although infecting three people is very atypical. Silver was infected by a very strong alien). The new aliens will hold the same memories as the original alien, but because of the previously mentioned personality adjustments, these new aliens will likely have completely different personalities from each other, and sometimes interpret those memories differently.

Examples of these characteristics affecting the series’ alien impostors:

• Silver’s alien, was very focused, (rather quick infection, Silver as an unemotional, not easily distracted person) who produced:
  • CONQ Red’s alien, who was more laid back and casual about getting its job done (very quick transition, has silvers’ alien’s memories, Red as a relatively chill person)
  • CONQ Yellow’s alien, who was cunning and manipulative and really liked messing with Gray in particular, also was worried the humans in the loop weren’t being punished enough (it took about a week for her to be infected, has silvers’ aliens’ memories, she was close with Gray)
  • Gray/Tan’s alien who was bloodthirsty and almost purposeless since (Tan managed to fight it off for about three months  which is unusual, has silver’s aliens’ memories)
• AFTRMF Black’s alien, who was determined and ambitious (rather quick infection, Black was the captain of her crew) who produced:
  • The CEO’s alien, who was determined to complete his mission at MIRA (rather quick infection, has AFTRMF black’s aliens’ memories, the ceo pretty much only cared about this work)
• Bonus: Olive’s alien (the guy who was infected with Silver, part of the PREQ crew we never met) got overconfident and got caught for it (relatively quick infection, Olive was rather egotistical)

Alien impostors have some special abilities as well. They are able to shapeshift and this manipulate their host’s body to shapeshift, so they can do things like that one kill animation or the shapeshifter role in the game. They also have improved strength and quicker healing, as well as improved low-light vision.

In certain light, alien impostors’ eyes may appear to have a red glint to them as a side effect of the improved vision. This is the only visible difference between humans and alien impostors.

The aliens, and thus humans infected by the aliens, are very hardy and not easily killed. So far, the only known way to kill an alien impostor is with either extreme temperatures or falling from great heights. (Extreme cold in space, Extreme heat from lava or fire, Falling off the MIRA skyscraper or airship).

In very rare cases, an alien can also abandon a human host, but they will typically only do this if they are in immediate danger of dying. (When Gray was ejected into lava on Polus). This process is very painful for both organisms, and the host does not always survive the process.

If an alien impostor is killed or abandons their host, the human host states in whatever form they were shapeshifted into at the time. (Thus yellow-orange being stuck permanently looking like AFTRMF orange)

Alien impostors technically can still do tasks, and the host often will continue to do them before they are fully overtaken. Most alien impostors refuse to do them on principle though, as they see no point in helping a crew they’re trying to destroy. The one task an alien impostor cannot do is the medical scan, as the scanner would pick up some internal anomalies.

Alien impostors sabotage using a hacked version of MIRA’s software developed by Silver on his tablet which he left on the Skeld by accident. This software was later pushed to all of the CONQ crew’s tablets in an update ordered by the CEO.

There are reports of a few humans potentially being able to overcome the alien's urges and instead take control of the alien, allowing them to keep the impostor abilities such as shapeshifting and night vision without losing their autonomy, but this can only happen in the case where the human knows they are infected and has been fully infected before, usually as a result of a time loop. Because of this, they may intuitively know the alien on a deep level, and thus can be on the offensive against it instead of the defensive. Not much is known about whether this is a permanent or temporary situation.

Human Impostors:

Human impostors are humans who have been ordered to carry out the role of impostor under threat (typically of of memory erasure, permanent death, or infection) usually within a loop/cycle.

A human impostor is given tools to be very similar to an alien impostor, all having night vision activated on their helmet visors. Additionally, human impostors on the RPRSLG crew have the ability to “shapeshift” when given the role, using advanced technology to change their suit color, voice, and even cosmetics and body shape.

They are unable to actually shapeshift and thus can’t do any of the alien kills, but are given weapons such as a gun and a knife to use instead.

Human impostors’ effectivity and motivation vary depending on their personalities and the context in which they are forced to be an impostor. Typically, most human impostors don’t take delight in killing at all.

Unlike alien impostors, human impostors actually cannot successfully complete tasks, as they are not assigned any and thus any ‘task’ they do will not register as complete. They do receive a list of fake tasks to lie with though.

Alien impostors also sabotage using a hacked version of MIRA’s software originally developed by Silver. Silver communicated with his people on Polus and was able to distribute his version to the crew on Polus, where it was only active on the tablets of people deemed as ‘impostors’.

Chapter Text

IMPORTANT NOTE: this roster contains names and images of the crew members. This is mostly just how I see them, and are not necessarily totally canon. (I didn’t include names for the characters or images of their faces in the main story for a reason- this is just bonus content.). If you have your own interpretations of these characters- great! I highly encourage it! (I’d love to hear about them actually!)

Also important to note, this list includes every character- including background characters not really mentioned in the story such as Maroon’s original crew. If you don’t recognize someone, that’s probably why. The only characters you won't see here are the employees briefly mentioned in the last chapter of reprisal.

If you’d like to see more images, I suggest taking a look at my character pages here :)

A few fun facts beforehand:

• The character’s names, with a few exceptions, typically start with the first letter/letters of their color. This is mainly because I thought it would be neat, but also loosely ties in plot-wise. Notice whose names don’t start with the same letter as their color? The anomalies and the MIRA employees!
• (Although cyan’s name starts with cy because I just really liked that name for them so I guess the color matching was a coincidence, and reprisal brown’s name starts with br because he was supposed to fit in with the normal crew)
• MIRA policy dictates that while multiple people can be assigned the same color, no two crew members can have the same ID. So, for example, while there are multiple reds and thus multiple “REDP#” ids, none of them will end in the same number. There’s a REDP1 (aftermath), REDP3 (reprisal), and REDP4 (consequences).
• The number at the end of the ID corresponds to the order in which people were assigned to the crew, P0 being first and P14 being last. This also corresponds to the order in which people are displayed on the voting screen! (This was true of the real game as well, but seems to have changed in the June 2024 UI update) This actually gives some hints plot-wise, even from the very beginning- with Gray being listed as first on the consequences crew, even before the officers.
• (Note that the organization of the IDs does get a little messed up in reprisal because people from other crews have existing IDs already, but it’s still roughly organized in “order joined”)
• MIRA policy also dictates that in order to be easily identifiable in an emergency, the captain will always be assigned black, the first officer will always be assigned white, and the medic will always be assigned pink. 
• (This, again, however is not the case for reprisal, as everything is kind of thrown together last-minute by a newly-impostor CEO that doesn’t know MIRA policy that well).
• The PREQ crew, being the first crew, were allowed to choose their own colors instead of MIRA assigning them (besides the officers).
• The colors of everyone who died on the PREQ mission were “retired” out of respect for the dead. (Black, White, and Pink being an exception because they were tied to particular roles on the crew). However, in the confusion of reprisal, the color tan was accidentally reinstated because it was considered the closest to gray’s original color. 
• (Essentially, that’s my in-universe explanation as to why there were colors that aren’t in the game- and tan being reinstated as a color is an allusion to what happened to the color tan with the actual game! The meta explanation is I needed more colors and when I started writing there were only the original 12).

Alright, that's enough yapping. Here's how I envision everyone in the series :)

PREQ “prequel” Crew:

Gold (GOLP0) - Weapons/Shields

George, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences (chapter 4-5 only)

Status: permanently deceased [during consequences: aftermath, offscreen]

George, while not originally the captain of the crew, unofficially falls into the role after the captain’s death. He is very secretive as he has been ordered to be, and takes confidentiality guidelines very seriously. He doesn’t show much emotion and tends to simply focus on business- a bit of a corporate drone. He probably has a personality hidden somewhere, but isn’t one to show much of it- even before all this impostor business.

Silver (SILP1) - Communications/Security

Steven, he/him, human infected alien

MIRA astronaut

Appearances: consequences (chapter 4-5 only)

Status: permanently deceased [during consequences: aftermath, offscreen]

Steven tends to be a rather laid-back, casual individual. He’s pretty outgoing and charismatic and generally well-liked by his crew. Despite his casual demeanor, he’s a decently hard worker, typically completing his tasks on time. Often, he’s regarded as one of the most reliable members of the crew, and is easily trusted by the others.

As Impostor (Alien):
As an impostor, Steven is resourceful and a convincing liar. He draws on the original Steven’s trusted status with the crew, as well as some of the knowledge he had about security and communications to make sure no suspicion is thrown his way. He tends to lay low and avoid actually killing unless he has to- more focused on bringing MIRA down as a whole than killing any one astronaut.

Maroon (MARP2) - Reactor/Seismology & Geology

Mo, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences (chapter 4-6 only), consequences: reprisal

Status: permanently deceased [during consequences: reprisal, chapter "RPRSLG 24.3"]

Mo is a pragmatic, street-smart woman who’s seen it all. She tends to have a pretty good idea of what’s going on in even the strangest situations, as she has a habit of having experienced it before. She can think quick on her feet and usually make logical decisions under duress, which makes her a valuable asset to the crew. As time goes on and she’s exposed to more and more death with less and less permanence, she becomes rather nonchalant about dying and doesn’t fear it much. She has a bit of a dark sense of humor, which is how she copes with some of the things she’s experienced. Somehow she manages to take everything completely seriously and unseriously at the same time- because it all matters until it really doesn’t. Deep down she struggles with the aftermath of things she’s been through, having a deep grief for some of the people she’s lost, but she doesn’t’ often show that side to others.

As Impostor (Human):
Mo doesn’t have too much of an issue with being an impostor within the loop, because by then she’s seen enough to know it will be undone. She doesn’t really consider it murder, just as she doesn’t really consider living in the loop life. It does bother her on a deeper level, but she blames those in charge far more than herself.

Peach (PEAP3) - Navigation/Astronomy

Presley, they/them, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences (chapter 4-5 only)

Status: permanently deceased [during consequences: aftermath, offscreen]

Presley is rather timid by nature, often choosing to spend time with one person they trust. They don’t have the most self-confidence, and aren’t often one to speak up in meetings or discussions. This is only further exacerbated by the events that transpire on Polus. While they used to simply be a little shy, after seeing half their crew die and almost dying themself, they become very panicked and withdrawn.

Teal (TEAP4) - Science/Computer Systems

Teonna, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences (chapter 4-6 only)

Status: permanently deceased [during consequences: aftermath, offscreen]

Teonna is very intelligent and determined to keep her friends and her crew from harm. She doesn’t believe information should be kept from people no matter what, even if she’s been instructed not to share it. She will keep working on a problem until she solves it- no matter the personal cost. Despite being very intelligent, she doesn’t pass judgements on anyone else’s intelligence, always claiming that everyone is smart in their own way.

Olive (OLIP5) - Engineering/Electrical

Oliver, he/him, human infected alien

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: none

Status: permanently deceased [pre-consquences]

Oliver is the definition of a rich kid whose parents set him up for success. A bit arrogant at times and never outgrew his “class clown” phase- except his pranks and jokes arent’ really funny and can border on the edge of offensive. He’s definitely a bit out of touch with reality (as in “What do you mean you don’t have a boat? Not even one?”).

As Impostor (Alien):
As impostor, Oliver’s personality stays about the same. His superiority complex seems to be shared with the alien inhabiting him, which only makes him more annoying. This arrogance, however, leads to his downfall.

Tan (TANP6) - Biology/O2 & Life Support

Tabitha, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: none

Status: permanently deceased [pre-consquences]

Tabitha is a bit of an introvert, but she’s willing to reach out and talk to people she feels like she’d get along with. She’s definitely a bit of a nerd but in a “cool” way, (she’s a fan of stuff like superhero movies and tabletop gaming). She’s also rather curious and would absolutely go and check out the strange noise she heard alone.

Pink (PINP7) - Medic

Pilar, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: none

Status: permanently deceased [pre-consquences]

Pilar is the medic of the prequel crew. He’d always been fascinated with going to space growing up, and was ecstatic that he could take his medical education and use it on an extraterrestrial mission. He's extraverted and had a good sense of humor, often lightly teasing other crewmembers when they end up needing medical attention. He also unofficially serves as the crew’s “morale booster”, planning events in their downtime.

Black (BLAP8) - Captain 

Blade, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: none

Status: permanently deceased [pre-consquences]

Blade is original captain of the prequel crew. He exudes confidence but actually doesn’t tend to know what he’s doing. He’s a little clumsy and awkward, but inexplicably nobody really seems to notice. He has no idea why he ended up being chosen as the crew’s captain, as a good portion of his responsibility ends up being delegated to his first officer anyways.

White (WHIP9) - First Officer

Wei, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: none

Status: permanently deceased [pre-consquences]

Wei is the original first officer of the prequel crew. She’s actually a bit more competent than the captain, but doesn’t really hold that over him. Usually, she ends up doing more captian-ing than the actual captian, but doesn’t seem to get as much credit. Funny how that works.

CONQ “consequences” Crew:

Gray (GRAP0)/(GRAP8) - General Crew

[Redacted], human infected alien human

Origin unknown due to predestination paradox 

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath, consequences:reprisal

Status: Trapped, permanently cycling though the events of the series

Gray is the same character as Tan, but has a different entry due to the color change and timeline issues. During Reprisal, Gray and Tan are thought to be different characters- but they are actually the same character at different points in time.

(As the main character of the series, a good portion of Gray’s personality is intentionally left up to interpretation by the readers.)

Overall, it does seem that Gray generally wants to do the right thing- even though figuring out exactly what the right thing is in some of these situations can get pretty complicated. They’re willing to put themself in harm’s way to protect others if there’s no other option, and seem to care about their allies/friends. Throughout the series they do become more anxious and indecisive, as they lose then regain memories and the situation becomes increasingly complex.

As Impostor (Alien):
Gray as an impostor is erratic and aimless, not really appearing to have much of a goal or direction besides causing bloodshed. This likely has to do with the fact that Gray spent so much time fighting the alien that its takeover was quick and desparate.

As Impostor (Human):
As a human impostor within the loop, Gray is rather hesitant to participate. They are incredibly indecisive on whether or not they are willing to go through with killing someone, as they don’t believe they could but also have been warned of potential consequences for disobedience. As a result of this indecision and fear of reprisal, they come off as fairly suspicious a good portion of the time. Although, they have occasional moments where they are rather competent at it, perhaps leftover instincts from the alien.

Black (BLAP1) - Captain

Blakely, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, escaped

Blakely is her crew’s captain, and one of the three people actually trained to go on this mission. She takes her position very seriously. She cares deeply about every member of her crew, and is typically willing to hear anybody out if they approach her with ideas or information. She strives to keep things organized and orderly- always following MIRA procedures and trying to keep the crew on track for success. Some of the crew find her intimidating, but that’s not intentional on her part, she’s just the one stuck enforcing the rules. She isn’t one to be publicly emotional for a myriad of reasons, and tends to bottle up her feelings most of the time, but as things get increasingly worse increasingly quickly, she finds herself showing a bit more emotion to those close to her.

White (WHIP2) - First Officer

Wilson, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, escaped

Wilson is the first officer of the consequences crew, and one of the three people actually trained to go on this mission. In a stark contrast to the captain, he is very laid-back. He looks at rules as merely a suggestion and is far more interested in running the crew how he wants- which is exactly why he wasn’t selected to be captain. Wilson’s a bit of a procrastinator, but is usually kept on task (quite literally) by the captian since they're usually working together. He doesn’t trust easily and tends to jump to conclusions and make decisions out of pure emotion, especially as the series goes on. Even when presented with countering evidence, he isn’t one to change his mind easily- as he’s almost always convinced he’s right.

Pink (PINP3) - Medic

Piper, they/them, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Piper is the medic of their crew, and one of the three people actually trained to go on this mission. They aren’t really one to tolerate nonsense, which is unfortunate as there is plenty of nonsense to be had. They are usually rather levelheaded, making decisions based on logic and efficiency, and always willing to consider another point of view if there’s evidence to support it. Occasionally, they can get frustrated when people around them aren’t thinking as logically as they are, especially when their own trustworthiness is put into question.

Red (REDP4) - General Crew

Ray, he/him, human infected alien infected human

Civilian 

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Ray is the type of guy to try to present himself as tough, but is secretly a bit of a coward. He’s pretty insecure and cares far too much about what other people think of him, typically lying to make himself sound better. He can be slightly aggressive when he or his reputation is threatened, not intentionally but as a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. He tends to be a bit more concerned about his own interests than the crew’s, and quite a few people don’t enjoy being around him, but he’s perceived more as a mild annoyance than an actual threat or problem.

As Impostor (Alien):
Impostor Ray is more confident, not caring nearly as much about others (except for avoiding suspicion). In order to avoid seeming too different from the original Ray, impostor Ray still tries to uphold some of that tough persona, but also keeps himself quiet more as to not draw attention from the crew. He’s not the most cunning or intelligent killer, but he does what he needs to do and stays out of the way so he doesn’t get caught- which seems to work fairly well for him.

Orange (ORAP5) - General Crew

Olivia, she/her, human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Olivia is a very down-to-earth, warm person. While she isn’t necessarily an extrovert, she’s almost always willing to participate in a conversation to get to know someone better. She’s a great listener with a good sense of humor, and gets along well with almost everyone. At times she can be a bit clumsy, and struggles a bit with navigating around the base and ship, but she’s actually rather intelligent.

Yellow (YELP6) - General Crew

Yvie, she/her, human alien infected human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath (as Orange)

Status: alive, escaped

Yellow starts as the same character as Yellow-Orange, but has a different entry due to the color change and timeline issues. Following Aftermath, Yellow and Yellow-Orange are considered two different characters, despite being technically two versions of the same person.

Yvie is very cheerful and bubbly, and is often regarded as one of the most talkative people on the crew- for better of for worse. She immediately cares a lot about everyone she meets, and panics if she thinks she’s done anything to hurt them. She’s the youngest member of the crew (besides the literal child), but is just as capable as everyone else. She is excited at the prospect of going to space and curious as to what the future will bring, although also rather anxious. As much as she doesn’t like troubling other people with her emotions, she wears her heart on her sleeve and it’s fairly easy to tell when something’s bothering her. However, as the story progresses, and she begins to realize the gravity of both the crew’s situation and her own, she loses a little bit of that hope and optimism and becomes more anxious and withdrawn. 

As Impostor (Alien):
As an impostor, Yvie’s nature and intentions are completely and utterly different. On the outside, she seems the same for the most part. Impostor Yvie is really good at mimicking her original self because Yvie fought against the alien for so long and thus it was able to observe her for longer. Even impostor Yvie’s fake fear is indistinguishable from Yvie’s real anxiety. However, impostor Yvie is completely different. She is cunning and manipulative, and takes a certain amount of pride in what she does. She’s there for a reason and is determined to fill out the purpose she set for herself with zero regrets or remorse.

Lime (LIMP7) - General Crew

Langston, he/him, human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Pets/companions: Mini Crewmate (see M-LIMP7’s profile)

Langston is pretty much your average young father, enjoying dad jokes and sports and playing games with his son. He’s secretly extremely anxious about his kid being here, but puts a lot of effort into hiding that so his son doesn’t get scared himself. He tries his best to frame it as an awesome opportunity for adventure, and begins to believe that a bit himself. He’s social and enjoys talking to the rest of the crew and tends to be on good terms with everyone he meets, he’s a wholesome man who’s hard to dislike.

Mini Lime (M-LIMP7),(LIMP9)- Mini Crewmate

Liam, he/him, human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath, consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Liam, despite being far younger than anyone else on the crew, tends to have a fairly good grasp of what’s going on. No matter how much the adults try to keep him in the dark to protect him, he’s intelligent and curious and is usually able to figure it out anyway. He basically considers himself a part of the crew just like the grown-ups, often starting conversations with some of the other crewmembers himself or offering to help people out with tasks since he doesn’t have any of his own. Following the death of his father, he becomes more anxious and withdrawn, looking at things with an uncomfortable mix of childlike reasoning and adult seriousness. He’s not immune to the weight of the situation, and it often shows. But through the support of some of the other crewmembers who take him in, he’s able to process his emotions and find a little stability in the chaos.

Green (GREP8) - General Crew

Gabriel, he/him, human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Gabriel isn’t exactly the most motivated individual. He’s a perpetually tired coffee addict that really doesn’t feel very motivated to complete his tasks, but will do them anyway so people stop bugging him about it. He’s colorblind (something that should have gotten him disqualified but got accidentally left off his application) which makes tasks like the wires difficult, but is able to tell who everyone is fairly easily with their distinct hats and voices. After the deaths start, because of his laziness and difficulty finishing tasks, several members of the crew find him to be fairly suspicious and refuse to work with him. The suspicion annoys him which makes him angry, only making him seem more suspicious.

Cyan (CYAP9) - General Crew

Cyrus, she/they, human

Anomaly due to MIRA time experiments 

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath, consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped but trapped in the consequences timeline

Cyrus’ defining trait is her strong sense of morality- for better or for worse. They’re firmly in the lawful good category, and are quick to panic if they’re forced to make a decision or participate in something that goes against what they believe is right. She refuses to vote most of the time, too afraid to accidentally be part of an innocent person’s death. They tend to be a bit more secretive with information, choosing to keep ideas and theories to themself or a small group of trusted people. Cyrus is fairly stubborn, a little naïve, and sometimes struggles to see things from other people’s perspectives, but really cares a lot about the people around them anyways. She’s willing to put herself in danger to help the crew, and takes in a mini crewmate after his father is killed. She forgives quickly, unless she has a reason to believe the other person still wishes the crew harm. Her inflexibility continues to be a point of contention throughout the series as the situation changes but she doesn’t change nearly as quickly. As time goes on she does learn to be a bit more reasonable, realizing that people sometimes have to do what they need to survive- and that doesn’t make them bad people.

As Impostor (Human):
When assigned impostor, Cyrus completely shuts down. She would outright refuse in a heartbeat if it was an option- and has considered doing so even with the consequences in play. They’ll usually hide in vents for as long as possible and will panic at the meeting table, even if they aren’t being suspected. Most of her effort as impostor goes to finding ways around being impostor that won’t be obvious enough to get her permanently killed. With all their knowledge and experience, they could be a decent impostor if they were willing- but they’re not.

Blue (BLUP10) - General Crew

Blayse, he/him, human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Blayse tends to fade into the background for the most part. He’s just here to do his job, and not a lot more. He’s very efficient with tasks, and doesn’t spend a lot of time socializing with the crew if he can avoid it. He’s one of the older members of the crew and prefers to keep to himself- which also usually keeps him out of drama or suspicion. He’s very skeptical of the impostors’ existence initially, regarding it as a conspiracy theory for a while until people actually start dying.

Purple (PURP11) - General Crew

Jamie, she/her, human

Anomaly due to MIRA time experiments 

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath, consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped but trapped in the consequences timeline

Jamie is a very determined and outspoken person, not afraid to speak her mind or share her suspicions. She can be a bit impulsive and defensive at times, especially when she thinks she or her best friend is in danger, but it always comes from a place of self-preservation instead of malicious intent. She doesn’t trust easily, and when her trust is broken it takes her a while to build it back up again. Despite her struggles with trust, Jamie isn’t one to hide information most of the time. She’d much rather share any theories she has with the rest of the crew- even if it ends up making her seem more suspicious. She has zero tolerance for impostors because she knows what they’re capable of- at least until things get a little bit more complicated. Her trust issues and overprotective nature are intensified by the situation, and as the story goes on these traits become more of an issue. However, way down the line after a falling out between her group of allies, some of her fears and associated behaviors are brought to light. This allows her to confront some of these anxieties and begin to build more stable relationships with those around her.

As Impostor (Human):
When Jamie is assigned impostor, she tends to be very cautious. She’s secretly also rather hesitant to complete her objective- but you won’t catch her saying it aloud. she understands, however, that temporary death is better than permanent death, and would be willing to kill someone if it came to it. She draws on her knowledge and experience and falls back on standard strategies that seem to work well. She’s also a great liar and can be fairly convincing, but will usually let a detail slip that brings suspicion on to her.

Brown (BROP12) - General Crew

Brianne, she/her, human

Civilian

Appearances: consequences

Status: alive, escaped

Brianne is typically a very laid-back, not overly serious person. She was probably chronically online as a kid, and has a large knowledge of memes and internet humor. She enjoys socializing with other people- if she vibes with them. If you’re on her good side, she’ll treat you well. If you’re on her bad side, you’ll get the cold shoulder. She isn’t the most efficient with her tasks, often procrastinating for a while, but she will get them done eventually with a few reminders. As the situation gets more serious however, she quickly begins to show more of an emotional side (which honestly, is totally warranted).

AFTRMF “aftermath” Crew:

Pink (PINP0) - Medic

Pierce, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Pierce is rather reserved, often opting to focus on his work and his tasks instead of socializing with his crew too much. He doesn’t speak much in meetings, often only talking if someone talks to him first. He’s fairly observant and sometimes catches inconsistencies in peoples’ stories or body language, but won’t often point them out aloud. Due to a quirk of the loop, he has actually forgotten some of his medical training, which makes him constantly rather anxious that people will suspect him of being an impostor for not being able to do his designated job very effectively.

As Impostor (Human):
Pierce is not a great impostor. He gets pretty nervous and is usually a bit slow to convince himself to participate, and sometimes gets cold feet after planning a kill. He continues to keep quiet and mostly to himself- which sometimes helps him avoid suspicion and other times makes him seem extra suspicious. When he does occasionally make it to the end, people are often surprised that it is him.

Red (REDP1) - Navigation/Astronomy

Rani, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Rani is an outgoing, charismatic individual who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. She can be a bit sarcastic at times, but usually for the sake of making people laugh instead of being rude. If someone gets on her nerves she won’t typically be rude to them directly, but may complain about them behind their back. She can process information pretty quickly and can figure out how things work before other people can, often helping her crewmembers re-learn how to do their tasks or showing people around. 

As Impostor (Human):
Rani is a pretty good impostor because of her social wit and ability to think quickly. She’s a good liar and can talk herself out of a lot of different situations. Of course, she’s rather hesitant to actually harm anyone, but with her memories in the balance, she’s willing to do what it takes (and regret it later). She has a pretty good record of making it to the end in her impostor rounds.

Orange (ORAP2) - Biology/O2 & Life Support

Opal, she/her, human (an alien shapeshifts into a copy of her, but she was always human)

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath (chapter 2-3 & 22 only)

Status: permanently deceased

Opal is originally a pretty easygoing individual. She’s typically more of a listener than a talker, but enjoys spending time with other people on her crew. Tasks aren’t her first priority, but she’ll get them done faster when working on them with others. As time goes on, however, and the impostors begin to kill and sabotage, she loses some of her easygoing nature and becomes a bit more paranoid- with a new goal of figuring out what exactly is going on here.

As Impostor (Human):
Opal doesn’t do well on her own as an impostor. She gets nervous far more quickly than she does as a crewmate, and often can’t figure out a time or place to do what she needs to do. However, as part of an impostor group where the impostors are working together, she’s pretty successful, as she doesn’t feel like the pressure is all on her and that she’s having to make an awful decision on her own.

Yellow (YELP3) - Reactor/Seismology & Geology

Yves, he/she/they, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Yves is a person who means well deep down, but can often put his foot in his mouth. They’re a bit impulsive and can act without thinking, but usually end up regretting their actions when they do so. She’s quick to apologize when she gets things wrong, and is usually able to smooth things over because she genuinely does regret when she messed up. He’s usually a little hesitant to believe the warnings about the impostor at first, sometimes attributing the first death to an accident, but will change his mind pretty quickly when he sees evidence. Their deductions are very hit-or-miss, they either have everything right or everything wrong with very little in between. She’s pretty outgoing and social and will often team up with others to do her tasks with them.

As Impostor (Human):
Yves is a pretty good impostor. Like many of the others, he’s a little hesitant at first, but will often decided to rush into the first kill just to get it over with. They’re pretty good at keeping an eye on their surroundings and don’t often get caught with their hands dirty. She can do very well in meetings as she has a pretty good “poker face” (more voice/body language instead of actual face), but occasionally will let something slip that gets her caught.

Lime (LIMP4) - Communications/Security

Lisa, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Lisa is not an easy person to get along with. She has a bit of an ego and always tends to think she’s right- even when she couldn’t be more wrong. She will get very frustrated if anyone calls her out, which often happens. She usually doesn’t have many friends on the crew, but will insert herself into conversations anyway with the assumption that people like her. She is also rather intelligent if she applies herself, but will often make less-intelligent choices that boost her pride.

As Impostor (Human):
Lisa doesn’t hesitate much when it comes to impostor, as she’ll do anything to save herslef. She’s an okay impostor technique wise, she’s usually pretty good about hiding her kills, but occasionally her ego can get the best of her and she’ll try something a bit too risky and get caught. Most of the time, however, she ends up getting voted out for being suspicious during the meeting- saying things she couldn’t possibly know, complimenting the impostor’s abilities, etc. She will work with the other impostors when necessary, but usually insists on following her plan.

Green (GREP5)- Weapons/Shields

Garrett, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath, consequences: reprisal

Status: alive

Garrett is a natural leader and tends to unintentionally fall into leadership positions because of his problem-solving abilities. He is a rather serious individual who doesn’t outwardly express emotions to someone unless he’s close with them, and he doesn’t trust very easily. He’s pretty logical and tends to piece things together fairly quickly even with limited information. As the story progresses and he begins to regain his memories, he finds himself having a harder time excusing his actions. Years of the loop has left him second-guessing whether or not he is a good person, especially when he’s forced to go back on a promise in order to survive. But, by opening up to his friends and helping them confront their own difficult decisions, he’s able to once again direct his anger not at himself- but whoever’s doing this to him. 

As Impostor (Human):
Garrett is pretty good at being an impostor. He can get people to trust him easily with his leadership status within the crew, and he’s good at coordinating the other impostors to work together efficiently. He thinks though his moved carefully and usually avoids getting caught. He hates the idea of killing, and usually tries to find a way around it at first, but when his memory or his life is on the line, he doesn’t feel he has much other choice.

Blue (BLUP6) - Science/Computer Systems

Blaine, they/he, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Pets/companions: Ro-Bot 

Blaine is a very intelligent and logical person with a real talent for scientific research. They love solving problems via the scientific method, and will often come up with new solutions the rest of their crew wouldn’t have thought of. He likes writing detailed logs of both his experiments and his and the crews’ experience, and ends up taking the lead on researching the loop (when he remembers to). They aren’t the most socially-skilled person, things they say often don’t come out right and they often overexplain things everyone already knows, but they’re never unkind. Despite this, he’s usually willing to try to get to know people a little bit, and for the most part people respect him.

As Impostor (Human):
Blains almost never succeeds as impostor. They’re not a good liar and have a bit of trouble thinking on their feet despite being rather intelligent. He isn’t great at controlling his own body language or picking up on others’, and often won’t even know other people find him suspicious. Only occasionally will he make it to the end.

Brown (BROP7) - Engineering/Electrical

Braylon, he/him, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Braylon is a sweetheart who cares a lot about everyone he meets. He’s rather tall and muscular, but a bit of a gentle giant who isn’t afraid to express his emotions. He gets along well with basically everyone on the crew- even people who don’t typically get along well with others. He’s very slow to anger, quick to forgive, and doesn’t like to get involved in conflict. 

As Impostor (Human):
Braylon has never actually killed anyone in all of the times he’s gotten impostor over the years. He has a habit of confessing rather quickly to the crew about half the time, even with the threat to his memory. He’s succeeded a few times because of the actions of the others, but he didn’t contribute himself.

White (WHIP8) - First Officer

Wonder, she/her, human

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: none

Status: permanently deceased [pre-consequences]

Wonder is the first officer of her crew and tends to live by a motto of “work hard, play harder”. She takes her job seriously when it’s required, but also won’t hesitate to goof off when given the chance. She’ll often involve her twin sister, the captain Blessing, in elaborate pranks under the guise of boosting morale for the crew. She gets along well with everyone, even when her pranks mage to get a bit annoying, everyone knows it’s all in good fun. When things start to get bad, White tends to try and stay cautiously optimistic, taking it upon herself to try and find light in the darkest moments, and inspire the crew to keep going. 

As Impostor (Human):
Wonder really doesn’t like being impostor, especially when her sister’s on the opposite side. She’ll agonize over whether or not to participate for a while, eventually confiding in her sister. Blessing will often encourage her to go through with it even if she’s caught in the crossfire, and Wonder will hesitantly try her best. People tend to pick up on something being different, as White will engage in much less silly antics as impostor, but she’s pretty decent at avoiding getting caught most of the time. When she and Blessing are both impostor at the same time, the rest of the crew doesn’t stand a chance.

Black (BLAP9) - Captain

Blessing, she/her, human infected alien

MIRA astronaut 

Appearances: consequences: reprisal (??? sections)

Status: alive, but fully alien

Blessing is the captain of her crew, and is known for taking everything “just the right amount of serious.” She’s serious enough that everything that needs to get done does indeed get done, but relaxed enough where the crew never hesitates to come to her with questions. She’s willing to give some leeway if tasks aren’t done, but will also remind the crew that they are where to do a job. Blessing’s twin sister, the first officer Wonder, will often drag her into so-called morale boosting events that usually just end up being pranks. While not the mastermind behind them, she often allows them to happen, and may even participate herself. However, when tragedy strikes, she immediately loses that sense of humor and becomes focused only on finding a way out of this place.

As Impostor (Human):
Blessing would usually refuse to participate as impostor if her sister is a crewmate. She wouldn’t go so far as to out herself and the other impostors to the crew, but she would make the other impostors promise not to harm her sister- and they’d typically listen out of respect for her. On the flip side, when she and Wonder are both impostor at the same time, the rest of the crew doesn’t stand a chance.

As Impostor (Alien):
As an alien, she is rather cold and calculating. Despite taking over Blessing quickly, this alien seemed to managed to keep its wits about it and not go completely bloodthirsty. She’s very determined to complete her objective, and will be frustrated at other impostors if she doesn’t deem them to be working hard enough or efficiently enough. She thinks she should be in charge of the operation, but will listen to authority begrudgingly.

”Yellow-Orange” / “Impostor Orange” (ORAP2) - ???

”Orange”, she/her, human infected alien human 

Shapeshifter

Appearances: consequences, consequences: aftermath

Status: alive, but trapped in the Polus loop

Yellow-Orange starts as the same character as Yellow, but has a different entry due to the color change and timeline issues. Following Aftermath, Yellow-Orange and Yellow are considered two different characters, despite being technically two versions of the same person.

With no memories of her own, Orange is under the impression that she is the original orange from aftermath instead of consequences. She still retains most aspects of her original personality, being outwardly cheerful and bubbly, but now slightly more anxious and avoidant. She has a constant feeling that something is not right, but no real evidence to the contrary. She’s curious and has a feeling that something big is going on with her specifically, which she’s pretty determined to figure out. 

As Impostor (Alien):
As orange, the impostor has the same clever, boastful personality as before. However, instead of putting on yellow’s bubbly, sensitive personality, it puts on a new one for orange. Since she just killed the original orange and did not take over her body, she didn’t have memories or an existing personality to go off of. As orange, she does her best to remain in the background, not contributing too much to the discussion. She gives off a vague air of “concerned about the situation” when needed but otherwise is careful not to define too much of a personality in case it isn’t the same as the original orange’s. She communicates loosely with the other impostors, but distances herself when she finds they are merely humans playing the role of the impostor. 

As Impostor (Human): 
She is an incredibly anxious impostor and completely ineffective. She will not kill anyone and would much rather forget than have to live with the feeling she killed someone. Some subconscious part of her still remembers being an impostor and how terrifying it was.

RPRSLG “reprisal” Crew:

*Reader-submitted characters’ personality descriptions are mostly comprised of details provided by the character creator with a few additional characteristics I have added for the sake of the story.

Brown “Cosytoes” (BROP0) - MIRA Intern (Informant posing as General Crew)

Brian, he/him, human

MIRA employee (Intern)

Appearances: consequences: aftermath (chapter 26 only), consequences: reprisal

Status:  permanently deceased [during consequences: reprisal, chapter "RPRSLG 24.4 | CONQ 0.0"]

Brian is a nervous, semi-awkward individual who is much more of a follower than a leader. He is a hard worker and tries his best, which is how he got his internship with MIRA, but tends to struggle to succeed. He’s pretty smart, he can work things out on paper really well and can always spot the twist in murder mystery movies- but when it comes to putting that knowledge into practice, he fails miserably as he can’t think well on his feet. He's not a good liar and has a distinct "tell" (he taps on nearby surfaces with his fingertips when lying). He has a fairly strong sense of self-preservation and can be convinced to do a lot in order to save himself, which is why he’s in this situation in the first place. Brian doesn’t want to be part of any of this any more than anyone else does, and he’s terrified people will find out his true role on the airship and hate him for it. 

As Impostor (Human):
He’s an anxious impostor but not for the reason most of his crew is, he’s more worried about being caught or ejected than the moral qualms of killing people. He knows the logic of how he should proceed, but often gets nervous and that messes him up. He’s also rather distracted by his additional responsibilities, and spends a lot of time focused on the other impostors instead of himself.

Red “You Fool I” (REDP3) - General Crew

Ethan, he/him, human

Anomaly due to MIRA time experiments

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: permanently deceased [during consequences: reprisal, chapter "RPRSLG 24.2"]

Ethan originally presents himself as a bit of a jerk and a bully. He’s overconfident about his deductions and always thinks he’s right, and won’t let anyone tell him he isn’t. Somehow, he takes the little things too seriously and the big things not serious enough. He takes being seen as suspicious personally, as he sees himself as an expert at social deduction. He’s a bit hotheaded and will lash out at other people if they threaten or even just annoy him. For a while because of the anomaly, he’s convinced that nothing he does here matters, and that he’s basically just playing a game like he would back home. (To be fair, he doesn’t have much evidence to the contrary). Slowly, as he remains in the loop, and people continue to call him out on his behavior, he sobers up a little-realizing that this is actually real and that his behavior is hurting people. Red starts to consider other people’s perspectives more. He still continues to be a bit of a jerk or an annoyance at times, especially when discussions get heated, but he starts to apologize and treat people a little better.

As Impostor (Human):
Ethan seems to get assigned impostor more than anyone else on the crew, and he doesn’t have a problem with that. He actually enjoys the role and doesn’t seem to have too many qualms with it, at least until he starts to realize that this is more real than he thought it was. As impostor, he acts pretty much the same as he always does, which makes it sometimes surprisingly difficult to tell when it actually is him.

Rose “Sunnykite” (ROSP1) - General Crew

Courtneigh, she/her, human

Anomaly due to MIRA time experiments 

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped but trapped in the consequences timeline

Pets/companions: Doggy “Fred” (he/him)

Courtneigh is a compassionate, warm individual who always tries to see the good in people. People often write her off as a ditzy blonde with a fake tan and overcomplicated name, but she’s actually very intelligent and good at problem-solving. She’s good with kids and animals, and is typically well-liked by everyone she meets. A few people confuse her willingness to give people several chances for naivety, but that’s far from the case. If someone truly betrays her, she won’t hesitate to keep them at a distance going forward. She adapts to the environment quicker than some of the other anomalies, deciding that this is “real enough” almost instantly. 

As Impostor (Human):
Courtneigh doesn’t enjoy being impostor, but she’s able to do it under the duress of the loop. She’s surprisingly good at it, and her crew doesn’t really expect that from her, so she succeeds often. She’s not proud of that at all, and it definitely keeps her awake at night, but she knows there’s no other option.

Yellow “parmeJohn” (YELP4) - General Crew

*Character created and submitted for the character contest by an irl friend

Johnathan, he/him, human

MIRA employee (Engineer)

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Pets/companions: Mini Yellow (M-YELP4) “Johnny” (he/him)

Johnathan is a man with a decent sense of humor who doesn’t like to take things too seriously- unless he has to. He’s rather social and believes a good joke can lighten the mood, especially if it’s a cheese-related pun. He doesn’t love doing tasks and will often wait to do them until the last minute, but is diligent about participating in crew meetings and discussions. A lot of his time is also spent looking after his kid, who tends to be a little bit of a troublemaker. He makes decisions quickly and doesn’t agonize over them afterwards, leading to him putting his votes in rather early into the meeting. Despite his humorous nature, he is pretty smart, acutely aware of just how serious the situation is, and is working just as much as the others to find a way out. 

As Impostor (Human):
Johnathan is also fairly hesitant to participate as impostor, but is motivated enough by the fact that if something happens to him, his kid will be alone. He’s not the best impostor of the crew, but not the worst either. People don’t typically think to suspect him so he can make it pretty far fairly easily.

Black “0LochNess” (BLAP6) - General Crew

*Character created and submitted for the character contest by an anonymous user

Apple, she/her, human

MIRA employee (Research & Development)

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Pets/companions: Mini Black (M1-BLAP6), Mini Black (M2-BLAP6)

Due to some kind of clerical error, her mini crewmates were given red suits instead of black. Since the children’s suits were not made with the same color-shifting technology as the adult crewmates’ suits, this couldn’t be corrected

Apple can be a bit of a blunt person at times. She finishes her tasks quickly and often uses the extra time to give her crewmates unwarranted advice on completing their own tasks. She has a reputation for being a bit of a know-it-all, but is pretty intelligent and usually at least partly right. Despite her reputation, she’s a strong public speaker that has a way of presenting her theories or accusations as convincing facts, but she’s not unshakable when accused. She has a decent idea of how the system works, but tends to keep that information to herself in order to avoid the crew turning on her.

As Impostor (Human):
When she is assigned impostor, dying or killing isn’t much of an issue for her as she ultimately regards everything as impermanent. She’s fairly decent at the role, usually succeeding or almost succeeding in her objective- unless he gets caught immediately.

Coral “Gemini” (CORP7) - General Crew

*Character created and submitted for the character contest by Who Am I

Alice, she/her, human

MIRA employee (Robotics)

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Pets/companions: Ro-Bot “Darkwing” (she/her)

Alice is kind, but perhaps not the most outgoing. She gets along well with most people, but tends to prefer a smaller circle of friends and allies that she knows she can trust for sure. She doesn’t talk much in meetings and will often let her friends share her suspicions and theories for her. Coral has anxiety, and her robot (which she built herself) acts as a guide and source of emotional support for her. She’s rather intelligent but tends to think more emotionally most of the time. Her robot encourages her to think more logically and helps her complete tasks, but also has a habit of trying to alert the crew when she’s impostor. (The robot is under the impression she’s helping by doing so).

As Impostor (Human):
Coral is very nervous about being assigned impostor and doesn’t think she’s capable of actually killing anyone. She tends to act even more nervous and suspicious, and is typically caught rather quickly.

Banana “Crisp” (BANP10) - General Crew

*Character created and submitted for the character contest by Insane Death Wish

Dew, they/e, human

MIRA employee (Security)

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Pets/companions: Mini Banana (M1-BANP10) “May” she/her, Mini Banana (M2-BANP10) “Robin” he/him

Dew is a bit of a loner, they’re rather quiet and not a fan of being around too many people. E is intelligent, has a good memory for details, and is pretty good at gathering information- often spending time watching the cameras or tracking people’s locations on the admin table. They usually only share information with people when they think it would be beneficial to everyone, often keeping things they notice to themself to build a case in the meantime. E is fairly persuasive and is good at getting people to believe em. They work off of a combination of both logic but also gut feelings, and are usually pretty decent at figuring out impostors.

As Impostor (Human):
Dew is able to participate in whatever role e is given without issue, as e recognizes that there isn’t really any other option. They’re a good crewmate and a good impostor, often leading to victory for whatever side they’re on- if nobody kills them for being too much of a threat that is.

White “Aster” (WHIP12) - General Crew

*Character created and submitted for the character contest by Lucid Lilacs

Alastair, he/him, human

MIRA employee (Astronomy)

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Alastair is a rather group-oriented individual. He doesn’t like to make decisions on his own, usually agreeing with the crew as a whole and voting whoever else everyone else is voting. He’s fairly observant and good at collecting information, but he often won’t raise his own suspicions at a meeting unless he is entirely certain. If he’s accused of being the impostor, regardless of whether he is or isn’t, he tends to fiddle with his gloves, glasses, or hat. However, he is much more open and willing to share suspicions to a smaller group of people he knows and trusts. He also has a passion for astronomy, and would spend his free time stargazing.

As Impostor (Human):
He is rather hesitant to participate when assigned impostor despite the loop, and opts to ignore the role altogether and work to help the crew anyway- even with the threat of consequences. Even if he did try, he know's he's not a good liar and most likely wouldn't do very well.

Pink “MoMo” (PINP13) - General Crew

*Character created and submitted for the character contest by Domo

Monica, she/her, human

MIRA employee (Botany)

Appearances: consequences: reprisal

Status: alive, escaped

Monica is a kind and friendly person who’s always willing to get to know new people. She makes an effort to find a place for anyone lonely in her group, even if they may seem a little suspicious. Usually, she’s difficult to anger, and when she does get frustrated she tends to take a walk to cool down. If someone gets on her bad side, however, she will talk smack about them. She’s good about completing her tasks, but may get distracted when trying to complete long ones. She also has a passion for botany and loves to talk about and give facts about plants. In general, she tends avoid talking too much in meetings, and instead will stay silent in order not to back herself into a corner. Initially, she is rather hesitant to vote without strong evidence, but as time goes on and she realizes there isn’t really any other option she finds it a bit easier. 

As Impostor (Human):
She’s also really hesitant to participate when assigned impostor, and would likely completely refuse if not for the threat of permanent consequences. She’s surprisingly good at getting away with things though, as her friendly demeanor makes her seem trustworthy.

Tan (TANP14) - General Crew

[Redacted], human infected alien

Origin unknown, Anomaly due to predestination paradox 

Appearances: consequences:reprisal (technically also the other two, since they’re also Gray)

Status: Trapped, permanently cycling though the events of the series

Tan is the same character as Gray, but has a different entry due to the color change and timeline issues. During Reprisal, Tan and Gray are thought to be different characters- but they are actually the same character at different points in time.

Tan’s personality is very similar to Gray’s considering the fact that they are the same person. Because of their circumstances, Tan is a little bit more withdrawn and anxious, and struggles to trust those around them because of their fear and confusion.

Other:

Mr. Fortegreen “???” - MIRA CEO

Fitzgerald, he/him, human alien

Chief Executive Officer of MIRA Corporation 

Appearances: consequences: aftermath (chapter 26 only), consequences: reprisal (??? sections)

Status: alive, but fully alien

Fitzgerald is the definition of a corrupt CEO. He cares more about making money, the reputation of his company, keeping contracts, and pleasing investors than the actual people that work for him. He’s definitely missed going all of his child’s swim meets in favor of business, despite saying he’ll make time. He’s willing to do pretty much anything to keep his business afloat, including covering up deaths associated with his company’s missions. He also has a bit of an ego, and is rather passionate about his favorite highly-specific shade of green- which he named after himself and entered into the MIRA color database despite never letting anyone else use it.

As Impostor (Alien):
As an “impostor”, Fitzgerald maintains a very similar ego and workaholic nature. His priorities are similar, but in a different direction. Now he is simply using MIRA to get done what he needs to do in terms of research, and then plans to figuratively burn the company down as part of the impostors’ revenge scheme. This has led to some questionable business decisions- such as sending a crew of mostly civilians who were randomly selected into space.

Chapter Text

(I made this three years ago so I’m going to try and remember what all of this meant)

The colors, obviously were the characters 

Each square vertically was a chapter (or maybe a story beat?) if the square was filled in, they were alive at that point, if there was nothing in the square, they were dead. 

the lighter colored squares meant either they got ejected or died in that chapter I think

X meant impostor

the dash meant they killed someone in the previous chapter. 

the thick black outlines were I think big reader vote decisions between two people.

Edit: After some thinking/discussing in the comments, this is the timeline I have concludes this likely represents:

- Red killed Lime early (this was early so Cyan could end up with Mini Lime, that was planned from the beginning). In this version Lime died first, but for whatever reason I had Orange’s death happen first instead.
- Blue ends up being ejected for that kill (one reason Blue isn’t as developed of a character is I meant for him to die early but just kept forgetting to kill him/he was in the wrong place and wrong time to die)
- Then it looks like Yellow killed Purple, which I do not remember at all- was I really going to kill off Purple? And that early? What was my plan for Purple and Cyan’s dynamic then?
- After that, Red killed Orange, triggering a vote between Pink and Green for some reason.
- I suspected that Green would be voted off there (how exactly I came to that conclusion I’m not sure as I hadn’t actually written anything yet) so I filled out the chart as if that was the case.
- Then I think what actually happened here was just a case of me miscounting how many boxes to make brown. I think Yellow was supposed to kill Brown, I just messed up on the boxes there, or it was supposed to be delayed discovery of the body or something.
- Then there was a vote between Pink and Red, and the boxes don’t really line up, but I was pretty sure Red was going to get voted off there. My intention was always for the crew to actually vote off Red before the end, but I accidentally made him too stealthy. I think at that point I realized I couldn’t be certain of the votes, so I gave him another box afterwards or something as like a “just in case he didn’t get voted off”- idk.
- Then Gray makes their first kill. This was supposed to be while they were asleep, kinda like how they attacked Brown in the final version. Bold of them to go for the captian lol.
- For some reason, Cyan ends up getting ejected for this. No idea what happened there. Also no idea who Mini Lime ends up with after this, maybe he just hides somewhere.
- At this point, if Red didn’t get ejected in the earlier vote for whatever reason, he just dies. Not sure how as it doesn’t seem like anyone killed him, and the impostors wouldn’t kill him, but he is dead by now.
- Either because of Red’s death or just sheer panic, the group calls a meeting and Yellow gets voted out, making the readers think they got rid of all the impostors- which… may have actually been the original plan I with Gray’s impostor status actually??? (Man, I’m really digging up old memories here.) The readers were supposed to vote out the other two impostors, making them think they won.
- Gray would then be alone with White (and Pink if they hadn’t been voted out earlier.) (Which is a weird combo to think of given the friend group they actually end up with in the real story). Everyone’s feeling relieved the impostors are gone when, uh oh, plot twist, Gray was the alien, loses control, and kills them.

Additionally, during consequences, I had a hidden journal entry on Quotev that could be found with some vague hints for the readers written in (not very good) poem form. I eventually kind of forgot about it and stopped updating it.

Here’s what was in that journal:

10-19-20 (A few days after the publication of chapter 2, hinting at the fact that there weren’t any impostors yet, but the new crew coming was bringing one) 
You should never trust a first impression,
had nothing changed, you all would win 
but as of now the story you know
has yet to truly start to begin
you should beware: those who return may not be the same
they may resemble those who left, but go by another name
if you are unsure what this means then it is not meant for you
but if you are aware of what this is
you have earned a hint to the consequences 
good luck

10-30-20 (After the publication of chapter 4- referencing people likely assuming the scream from the next room was someone dying)
You are given leads, but which are real?
will anything lead to the final reveal
you may think you know the fate of a guest
but perhaps you are too quick to assume
there is no way of knowing what could be
possibly happening in that room
nobody has yet been laid to rest
will that change with the next thing you see ?

11-07-20 (After the publication of chapter 5- referencing people starting to theorize in the comments, again hinting at the other crew’s previous experience with impostors, and how soon your crew will have them too)
It seems you have found a lead or two 
you may be wrong or you may be right 
but there is a warning I must give you 
as there was a deeper reason for their fright 
very soon you shall find someone was not your friend 
but how to know you now face peril 
as none of you have met your end 

be warned: the other crew will not share all

11-14-20 (After the publication of chapter 8 - referencing red fainting and wondering if he’s hurt or if he’s a threat (the answer is both), and warning that murder finally will happen soon)
Somethings’s off, and you can tell
suspicions lie on everyone 
what does it mean, the one who fell
are they hurt or should you run?
the long awaited will soon come
soon you will have to see
the sorry sight of someone leave
as the peril has now begun 

12-01-2020 (After the publication of chapter 10 - referencing everyone seeming to have an alibi and a few people theorizing about the vents- but thinking it was Pink instead of Red)
are you confused? that was the plan.
even I sometimes wonder
if by choosing early i’ve made a blunder 
yet everything is by design
and must I say you’re doing fine 
some of you have the right thought 
but the wrong person you would have brought

Chapter Text

Aftermath Planning: 

cycle with memory wipe 

once the old group left the loop started 

Winners have memory- green and orange? 

Files hidden in vent 

says 3 after what happened to orange, but when?

green and lime are siblings 

ded Orange thats the real one, other one comes up behind you.

Who are you?

Let’s just say we knew eachother in another life. Shame you won’t recognize me. 

Ah well, you wouldn’t have been happy to see me anyway. 

you’re being accused you think it’s you also

barely tie?

doppelgänger moment

I don’t know who they think you are but they’re wrong I know last time and they weren’t here

Try to take ship back?

Yellow leaves in meeting?

involve ghosts somehow 

Overheard conversation is it spreading

That’s not how it works

Then why

Plots to resolve

• Your doppelgänger, sus of you 
• Yellow being orange, green and lime confused 
• You need a button and can’t use it

• Lime’s kid vote- saves you?

• Purple lied about you
• Ghosts? 
• Files and cycle 

• Double 

cyan doesn’t wanna button because scared to vote out 

Orange doesn’t because ‘cyan doesn’t want to’

You can’t 

White can’t 

Red can’t 

Lime won’t 

Green won’t 

Little lime listens to cyan 

purple thinks others will 

Someone claims you vented or killed?

Late buttoning results in Red’s death 

20 black thrown out, end with comms

21 Green stack kills Red, kid sees and says green, everyone thinks he means lime, poll 6

22lime thrown out? Reactor, vent 

23 explanations

24 “@

25 conclusion 

On ship find pictures of the crew, one f them looks like you

Overhear Black and White talking 

Orange kills pink- other two imps are confused 

Cyan wakes up- fake memory loss?

Find out you were on last ship 

Why don’t you just tell them? You know how black reacted.

Double lime and green get brown and yellow 

Oh that couldn’t hav been me

Your doppelgänger gets Blue

You almost get voted out, limes kids vote saves you 

You’re alone because nobody wants to be near you 

Stumble on dead real orange, fake orange is yellow and you get injured because try to get button but have no button

They throw you in vent

Meanwhile gray gets red?

You find files in the vent and green Tell green story he tells you his 

Green knows it’s not you tells you about orange and you say orange is yellow 

Conclusion that you’ve messed with something 

If we can escape this, 

Win? No that just resets it.

What if we all hide here, since it doesn’t reset in here

Then we can go home

Everyone tries but it doesn’t work?

Purpose idea cyan and purple reveal themselves? 

Bathroom- caught with face

Add ghosts

Purple and Cyan’s origin 

Resolution for other grey 

I wish I could call you my old friend, but I guess that’s not technically accurate is it? 

everyone is ghosts but you and yellow 

Yellow because she left after the game was over

You because you were technically voted out, but changed the count, so when you left it assumed you were dead because voted out and restarted you 

Because at this point they’ve infiltrated the company 

To us it’s entertainment, think of itblikr a game 

No longer real aliens

“It’s a shame really. In another life we could have been friends.

Oh wait... we were.”

Although I have to say, you do bear a stunning resemblance to my old friend. 

What’s wrong? Don’t recognize me? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t. 

Sad, I had several good lines I could’ve used there. Something about an... old friend? 

Of course that means nothing to you, but to an outside observer... well you probably know who I am now don’t you? A pity Gray doesn’t seem to. I wonder what that could mean?

It’s funny. Oh no reason. You just remind me of an old friend of mine. 

Don’t worry. They won’t even know you’re gone. 

After all, I’d do anything for a friend of mine.

Glimpse purple and Cyan’s messages 

How did you get down here?

Wait I recognize that.... do you think you can get me someone’s tablet?

Why?

I have a feeling this is bigger than us.

I don’t know what that means.

What do you?

No, but I think I might know who does.

Get me the tablet.

I got the tablet, but there’s something else...

I just watched you murder someone. 

plots to resolve ver 2-

• They believe you were on the ship with them
• Cyan’s fake memory loss
• Orange being yellow- killed Orange and took their place

• Partial reset: Your doppelgänger, ghosts, yellow still being alive, ‘left the game’  “exactly how long were you here before? Enough for three games”

• Your character remembering this planet but not ship- dream was a memory 
• Cyan and Purple’s real origins- tablet 
• Getting thrown in a vent
• escape?

It’s chapter 20 so time for a few more hints to those of you who actually read the comments:

-what are the implications of it not being Black?

-It seems like you’re putting too much trust in a certain someone

-your ‘dreams’ are important 

-someone seems to know just what to say

-and finally there’s some major assumptions that both the characters and readers are making... incorrectly that is.

This was supposed to be revenge, not a spectacle!

Yellow, orig. Gray actually aliens

Orange, lime, green, just people in the system

wanting fir one imp to be yeeted so can play off as glitch in the system

We want the same thing- the cycle to stop

time travel? time bubble: self-contained in ship/etc. but you broke it because it was connected to the system, we crash landed outside of the bubble here but walked in. 

Of course the practicalities of time travel are difficult, leading to some... odd complications. For starters those two over there.... and you. Oh you. You my friend are the example of glitches in the system. Dead and alive at the same time. Human and alien at the same time. A member of both crews at the same time. Just like me. Except, see, the two of me are one. Meanwhile you have... a cosmic twin. A duplicate version of you created when you broke the system. And I had them take your place. It was perfect,

But they found ways to rebel, places where the time loop didn’t apply. Hidden deep in the vents. You see (explain memories) 

We want it to end too- if this keeps happening the world is going to rip itself apart. 

But they want to kill everyone and you want to save everyone

Why? We still want revenge. 

green attempts triple kill

Orange doesn’t 

Lime doesn’t because eyes on them

Impostors can communicate still during comms outage 

green crayon- green takes out real green crayon so it’s just lime.

Find green crayon in drawer 

Drop tablet, flicker on vitals?

fall in vents can’t get out bio lock to impostor I’d

See computer with settings, lojpgs, confirm ejects where have I seen that before 

Cyan and purple 

get green to borrow tablet 

Yours breaks oh I thought you were dead I saw on vitals and your tablet 

No

Oh good you got out I see you 

What? “Won’t even know you’re gone” wait That’s not me back away slowly they don’t know you know  

Aftermath contained. We’re restarting the loop.

ghosts - so good even the ghosts didn’t know she was gone 

but I discovered I liked the loop

Look yellow by light if lava 

White sees u vent 

some lab genius left his phone took it as an idea, a threat, so we invaded earth and slowly recreated it. We had to keep everything secret so nobody would see the similarities, but at this point it was so far in the future that nobody truly saw what we were doing. Sure there were a few thrones that popped up online, but we dealt with them. Who would believe someone who equated a giant space exploration corporation with a rinky dink video game from a hundred years ago. 

far in the future 

2018 was a funny one. became standard protocol in case of anomalies

Mission 2.018? Had to be a coincidence. 

No, someone working on the inside. Saw it as some sort of importan5 make it or break it. Dedicated fan sitestheorizing. It wasn’t, of course. Mission designed for ten and two but was thirteen and three

orange pull you forward explain 

You’re so fun to mess with

Perhaps I still have some favor for you

Just dropship on polus 

The system that resets the people isn’t the one that resets the planet, it checks for ids ? But then orange not permanent dead?

Checks for people in area including vents , to save resources it doesn’t reset objects underground 

Staying here doesn’t get us out of the loop somehow?

Things I would change:

• Ending …? portions
• Rewrite beginning of aftermath 
• Code names confusion 

Random selection browns idea

Fake plot twist they had no idea?

second in command fix to new word 

Chapter Text

RPRSLG Planning:

Red talks about color being stolen, brings up that he would have color first, goes into lobbies

blue & idk, red dies and forgets crew win?

red & green imp win 

Your round 

Rose has 4 votes on maroon 

******The reason you don’t remember anything that happened is because it didn’t happen to you 

Big brain, be sus when 

 about to vote out to split vote

Explanation for gray 2: except it’s actually gray 1 you fool (tan)

When loop resets ur brought back with same crew

But loop was broken on ship, so sent you to another crew (and presumably all the other ones, couldn’t send others b/c not dead)

But when old crew rejoined new crew/ black died in a loop the crew was “fixed”, resetting everyone- including original gray

Somewhere out there everyone who died on that ship has a double 

Psychic connection to tan

No! Uh I mean, it’s not necessary if they don’t do anything.

Ending loop resets everything don’t know how memories will appear maybe in the story how your brain rationalizes it 

mini lime returns to Dad family goes home 

***vsecond grade is big plot twist but idea second gray being there means that consequences loop reset meaning limes dad is alive 

tan doesn’t think loop just confused how they got from space to ship 

intern Brown has some idea how time loop works by breaking time loop they can reset timeline back to normal we

Maroon’s crew broke the loop on the shelf 

Brown conversation overheard 9why can’t you help me”

Brown was in vent first, black went in bit got stuck, couldn’t jump out cause they’d get noticed so had to wait for brown to leave, but brown tries to crawl away and bumped into black. Black saw other people in the room and pulled brown the other way to kill him whoke the lights were out before venting away 

Purple it’s all my fault- did the lights sabotage to Dess late situation, red used it to kill and wanted her to kill but she refused 

Tan didn’t report cause system was different 

Accuse red, vent, too a virus 

Yellow accompany kid in mini crewmate program w/ back-bofficer who adopted someone’s kids after they died

So what’s yoir story?

Tan- I uh… floated off into space.  They were quiet. It was worth it though, we got the impostors out. I was sure I was dead for a moment there, but then suddenly I wasn’t. Think that’s the loop thing people have been talking about.

Don’t you dare

We may have to consider the possibility that we have to play by the rules

c and p fight

When you threw us out it broke loop system

b supposed to be on mission but dropped out after getting suspicious, signed nda and threatened, kept tabs on 

Br death is terrifying 

Repeated deaths bad for body, start to get sick. Was ok with 5 people but this is 15 more strain on the system. About to kill brown but brown stops

Tan’s side adventure on new map when it gets released

Side stories - what if voted mini lime to eject? 

Green

***“I just had a really weird conversation with Tan… were they part of your crew maroon?”

“We had a tan, alright I think we called him gold. He had a different body type though and his voice was lower and he wore a different hat. So I doubt it’s him.”

“Do you think it’s possible for someone to chance colors? “

“Like come here with a different color than they had- like yellow turning into orange?”

Stiffened 

“What aren’t you telling me”

“Oh it’s not important it’s just a theory. I’ll uh, tell you if I figure it out I don’t want to start rumors or anything.”

Loop works differently, anyone who died got reset and sent somewhere else, but you and yellow ended up on another ship, yellow ejected? escaped? but you rapped on other ship, it thought you died cause oxygen ran out completely so it sent you to polus 

Flashback “so what do you think? Do you want to come with us?”

End that one with first part of reprisal 

Break your tablet

This argument  again?

Teal, olive, pink

next meeting bring up map in meeting as new

yellow and white definitely did space travel, banana and pink worked for mira, black was on aftermath, brown is there to observe, red and pink is anomalies, coral undetermined

Consequences timeline planning that I was doing while in one of my 400-level computer science courses in college lol. Not completely accurate to the final timeline but fairly close.

—x————

Welcome back to Mira we’re glad you’re ok

Impostors $ cyan and yellow 

When switch colors and take off helmets (what if someone’s lying? all the Mira workers know eachother and would know what they look like ) tan realization 

Cyan and purple fight, they’re separate next round, purple talks to tan later and finds out the truth, acts weird around you 

***“I just had a really weird conversation with Tan… were they part of your crew maroon?”

“We had a tan, alright I think we called him gold. He had a different body type though and his voice was lower and he wore a different hat. So I doubt it’s him.”

“Do you think it’s possible for someone to chance colors? “

“Like come here with a different color than they had- like yellow turning into orange?”

Stiffened 

“What aren’t you telling me”

“Oh it’s not important it’s just a theory. I’ll uh, tell you if I figure it out I don’t want to start rumors or anything.”

Gray 2 aka Tan:

You registered as dead so you were reset with everyone else. Protocol to reset everyone on board. When you left polus loop you were disconnected, everyone from CONQ was registered as dead and it could reset  (only person never counted as dead, purple, “killed” when exiting loop)

Loop didn’t reset yet because people were still alive (human loop resets on death, alien loop resets on ‘win’). When purple leaves the polus loop and gets disconnected, everyone is “dead” and the loop resets - including original gray 

Since you changed your ID in the system the first round, (the digital system is unaffected by the loop) it couldn’t find you, so it made a new you.

It also made a new yellow since they took orange’s place

kids aren’t reset in the systems, so not another mini lime?

When your id number was changed it made the system think you were missing? 

*** reveal there was a loop on CONQ but it wasn’t triggered because everyone wasn’t dead (non advanced  human loop), polus loop done by aliens so a win condition triggers it 

Everyone alive why not two mini lines , ***nor programmed to reset a kid (mini lime get hurt and keep it?)  

It reset to the beginning of the Skeld leaving, not before, so orig. gray was still an impostor 

***vsecond grade is big plot twist but idea second gray being there means that consequences loop reset meaning limes dad is alive

Both you and other gray pulled in because you have the same dna 

Aftermath black and white alien imps that left?

First loop you were an alien impostor, but it reset and un aliened you? Your dna was in the Mira database brought you back to how you were before. Loop not made to reset real aliens since the alien impostors left a while ago

Aliens attack Mira because yellow revealed plans at end of aftermath 

Tan getting memories of things that never happened to them 

Brown leads tan odd and kills them

Overhear tan talking about becoming infected from vent 

Why talking to us

I trust you it’s really complicated 

Weird amount of spots for crew 

Time when everyone takes off their helmets? Banana recognizes brown and that takes up most of the attention, but then tan takes theirs off

Maroon: still think I’m crazy now?

Meanwhile with the consequences crew….

A mild amount of chaos had erupted. 

For starters, their commanding officers were just gone, and nobody had any real idea where they went. This left leadership to the Pink, who wasn’t pleased with this development at all. 

The commanding officers weren’t the only people missing. Several members of the crew seemed to have vanished into thin air, and most concerningly, Lime’s kid was nowhere to be found. 

Yellow hadn’t spoken a word since finding herself back on the ship, and had since locked herself in her room. With all of her friends gone, nobody had dared to approach her- both out of awkwardness and fear.

Red, on the other hand, had become borderline aggressive. His secret was out and his progress was completely gone. Several members of the crew were eager to throw him off immediately, but a very close vote determined he would be locked in what was formerly Black and White’s room. He had held his cards very close to his chest and nobody could be certain that whatever this reset was hadn’t turned him back to normal.  

Of course, with using the rooms as prison cells, came the issue of the interconnected vents. The temporary solution was to use some repair equipment they found lying around the ship to weld the vents shut

REPRISAL OUTLINE

(1 day?) up to chapter 10 X chapter 11 Arc 1

• Cycle 1: impostor purple -> Cyan and purple fight 
• Cycle 1: if impostor not voted off, you die -> ghost stuff , if impostor is voted off, just green dies, ghost stuff later 
• Cycle 1: maroon knows about time loops
• Cycle 1: banana knows things 
• Cycle 1: start regaining memories 
• Cycle 1: mention idea of color change 
• Cycle 1: new roles reveal p1 - hint at it somehow (dead brown as angel protecting?) 
• Cycle 1: hint CONQ crew has been revived
• Black why did you do it, black because I knew this would happen 

Chapter 12- 16 Arc 2

• Brown dies - gets voted off, (puts you into question cause you vouched for him?)
• Meet with imps? Or at least white? I really don’t want to do this” 
• White hints at working for MIRA

• After cycle 2: Announcement not to go against system

• Cycle 3 2 vent chaos: hear from vent Tan saying past memories that didn’t happen to them (why tell me? because I trust you) toCyan, brown walks in and asks for Tan (someone’s looking for you), they get killed, brown is ejected. Cyan glances at vent where you’re hiding then walks awa 
• Cycle 2: new roles reveal p2 -confused why not impostor is killing someone (they’re a shapeshifter- illusion technology?)
• Brown mentions protecting cyan
• -> opportunity to vote yourself 
• You getting memory of sonetuhbg that “didn’t happen”? 
• Cycle 2: Your impostor round 
• Cycle 2: Memory of polus you changing your id, it was the impostor so you were just watching near beginning
• Find note of who else works for mira sus, think it’s impostor sus
• someone shapeshifter as someone else, kills in front of group as red, you think it’s one of the imps but it’s not (did red just go crazy?)
• Partners- brown, white 
• Next meeting you’re choosing between cyan and brown

• (kinda) gray was alien imp first round on polus reveal

• flash forwards- introduce ??? man 
• Guardian angel stops  gray from killing

green and purple debating - is it gray brown or cyan 

Brown reveals death is bad

encounter with mini lime?

Brown:

Gray’s vote is the one to push it over the edge. Brown is voted off, he’s unhappy but doesn’t reveal them cause it would break the rules.

White, to readers surprise, almost hesitantly supports Gray’s choice- white doesn’t really wanna be imp.

Gray begins to side more with the crew.

Consequences: no obvious ones initially, but gets left out of the next loop, “safeguards” in place for the next time they’re imp

Cyan:

Gray’s vote is the one to push it over the edge. Cyan is voted off.

White, to readers surprise, almost hesitantly disagrees Gray’s choice- white doesn’t really wanna be imp.

Gray begins to try and play imp.

Consequences: fallout with friends, Brown gets caught next time and your previous vote is called into question 

Skip/someone else:

The rest of the votes tie.

If someone else, they confront gray about voting for them.

Consequences: gray continues to be very skittish and anxious 

Vote ties:

Gray doesn’t vote in time. The rest of the crew ties. They are confronted about this. 

Gray is still anxious but appears more decisive, has kind of chosen an option (option left ambiguous) but doesn’t have an opportunity to carry it out. 

Decision to be crew post or or imp at next vote.

Consequences: the crew will remember this (confrontations from people on the crew questioning their hesitance, they can try to pass it off)

Repercussions (white fine chapter 

At end of round 2:

Sir, they aren’t cooperating. There was a lot of resistance from the impostors this round.

All of them, or..?

Mainly White, although I sense Gray had some hesitation too.

Make an example. 

• Looping interlude between arc 2 & 3 (how many loops tho??)
• discover too many deaths are bad

• white comes back after a round

• Gray was scientist once
• Daycare for children

 Arc 3

• New roles reveal p3 - Some claims to be in a vent but not be an impostor, you’re deciding vote (lead to think it’s engineer with the previous reveal of shapeshifter , but it’s just an imp lying)

• More tan hints

• Lights fixing in stack, someone dies , tan has to be there (polus menory)
• [???] that idiot has no idea what he’s doing 
• Final cycle: Cyan, yellow, (you?) impostor round 

• Cycle 3: Reveal that user submitted characters worked for Mira - address note
• Brown gives backstory as to how the impostor took over mira , we think that’s the big reveal but then someone offhandedly asks about tan since they’re the only one that doesn’t say what mission they’re from.

• Sabotage comms and everyone has to take helmets off? 

• Tan reveals they were consequences gray with grap0 id (cliffhanger at chapter end)

Arc 4

• Tan becomes fully alien 
• At HQ Brown mentions teleportation machine- can get to polus, how black got here and infected stuff 
• Tan once fully infected shifts to gray 
• Need to download program that recinguzes imps, using rock music he has, find anomaly files 
• Hide and seek
• CONQ crew is alive reveal, run into them on either mira or new map -> hiding in locked room, it’s the CONQ auarters? or they meet you when you land?
• Tan and gray get sent back together 
• They fight and gray ends up in teleport machine, gets sent to polus

Plots that must be resolved:

• Brown being the intern (arc 4 begin)
• The Mira workers (arc 3 end)
• Tan/gray 2s existence  (arc 4 begin)
• Tan/gray 2s alien (escape)
• CONQ crew revival (end)
• How gray got to polus (arc 3 mid?)
• The anomalies (escape)
• Black + fgreen backstory (escape)

• Dying too much is bad (arc 2 end)

• Regaining memories (arc 3 begin)
• Future memories (end)

I

Replication

It had to be me, because if I can’t prevent this from happening then tan won’t go bonkers 

Red dies. Rose dies? Purple or cyan injured and assumed dead.

get injured, go to hide, find CONQ?

Reprisal - you are going to go back to fix it, 

the others split off and find CONQ 

Reprise - you go to fix everything but get trapped 

 Bonus chapter- cyan and purple find conq, your integration into the crew?

There’s an event here, something back in September of this year. It’s like a loop, but not quite.

If we could send someone back, prevent it all from happening 

It’s too far back, it would have to be just one person

Me cause memories 

OR

This loop, it’s only tied to one person. You.

Yellow fake memories? Explain shoemwho how yellow was on a ship even though a mother crew doesn’t exist. 

Last line in afterward: every decision has consequences 

Color change round

Brown -> Tan

Maroon -> Green

Red -> Pink

Rose -> Purple

Yellow -> Banana, Lime, blue, [Rose] 

Black -> [Red], orange 

Coral -> Pink, [orange], rose, black 

Banana -> [Coral], rose, black, red, orange, white, yellow, tan

White -> Tan, [banana], blue, red, yellow 

Pink -> Rose, [maroon] , coral 

Green -> Blue

Cyan -> Lime

Purple -> Cyan

Gray -> Yellow

Tan -> Gray

Colors not used: orange, blue, lime / brown, black, white 

Chapter 23-25

24: reprisal

25: reprise 

Old stuff: 

Cycle 2: Mini lime minor injury that stats between rounds

Cycle 2: Put some spy sus on Red and rose (talking with eachother alone about real world stuff, sounds sus) “why are you doing this everyone will hate you” “it diens5 matter, I’ll be out of here eventually. None of this is real anyway” nevermind lol red got yeeted 

escape: 

Crash, reset loop and get color back somehow?

escape: escape plan (you, green, cyan, purple, tan, brown, maroon, red?,  mini lime supposed to stay back w/ yellow but he sneaks away to follow, some of these people die?)

escape: anomalies reveal (cyan, purple, rose, red, you - memory modification logs, make it seems like it has something do with forgetting things/memory stuff, mention memory implants). This doesn’t make sense, the fake memories are before any of this happened.

escape: tan’s alien is back cause they’re no longer resetting over and over, turns into hide and seek style chase (on new map??)

escape: reveal that mira can’t do memories only aliens 

escape: big boss wears fgreen? someone else in olive?

Post escape: purple injured, cyan stays behind with them? cyan and purple just gone, don’t know what happened?

When we get more info: New map stuff? (Moving old crew and loop technology to a new location?)

Cycle 3: AFTRMF Captain and first officer reveal?

Cycle 3: if new map details out reveal, hint again at CONQ crew being alive 

Cycle 3: figure out there’s a spy? Sus on red and rose ?

After Cycle 3: Too many deaths mess with your body confirm

Stuff happening to tan- they faint?

Memory: you (watching yourself) scrambling onto the ship? Alongside yellow? Meeting with yellow? You fell out of ship

Address red and Rose’s relationship - argument (this is real! Idk what you’re talking about)

You and tan same memory ?

Suit colors can be changed remotely. Easier than having to take new measurements for something as specified as a spacesuit.

Final cycle: Color change round -> take off helmets so people who know eachother can recognize eachother, brown thinks this is a bad idea, (what about the names? How do we know those aren’t shuffled too) -> Mira people recognize brown and that takes upmost attention, but at the very end notice gray 

Or everyone mentions what crew they’re from 

After cycle 2: too many deaths mess with body worry Bloody nose?

With green & maroon?

Wait don’t destroy it what if we can loop time back to the beginning?

That’s so far, I don’t think it could handle seeing everyone back… but maybe one person

If things don’t go back to normal right away, you blow up this place anyway. Set everyone free, just in case.

Burst into the offices- don’t do it, don’t do any of the time travel

Escort this person out of here, throw them on the next crew or something we can’t have this knowledge floating around. 

“But they’ll tell the others”

Get one of the aliens to try that memory modifying tech on them.  And put them at the top of their crew roster - I want to keep an eye on them.

Only you are caught in a loop

“Gray, huh? What an intriguing color.”

Tries to send you back all the way, but gray starts dying and they have to stop early, fight between green and maroon about stopping it early. 

“What happened to gray?”

“I’m not sure.” 

Brown can send a rescue team to polus 

Cyan purple red rose gone?

“So what happens now?”

“Great question. I’m not sure.”

Part of Reprisal 1.3 that I quite literally scribbled down on paper because I didn’t have access to anything else at the moment but was struck with inspiration 

(don’t judge my handwriting I was writing this frantically in the dark)

reprisal (at the beginning of the last chapter)

noun

      retaliation against an enemy, for injuries received, by the infliction of equal or greater injuries.

reprise (at the end of last chapter)

noun

a repetition.
a return to the first theme or subject.

verb 

        to execute a repetition of; repeat.

(Dictionary.com)

predestination paradox

noun

• (in science fiction) a closed loop created by time travel, in which a person travels back in time and an action taken in the past, or the very act of traveling to the past, results in the timeline from which that person originated and from which their future self will travel, repeating in an infinite causal loop.

Files organized by crew, figure out what the mission designations mean

“Why are we keeping this secret again?”

“Because if we tell the wrong person they’ll turn on us. These peop,e have a lot to be angry about, and we would be making ourselves perfect targets.”

“Alright so we know us three, who else?”

“Maroon’s probably a safe bet- she knew something about the loops beforehand.”

“No, not her. She’s PREQ, I remember.”

“Ok where does that leave us?”

“Three definite no’s, four possible no’s based on your name theory, and… five more people we have to figure out without arousing suspicion.”

“Great.”

_______

Old cut banana lore dump from the first loop kitchen exchange- I wasn’t 100% on this lore yet and it was too much info being thrown out at once 

Banana says: 

“I was working at MIRA. It was a little while after the first mission launched, nickamed the “prequel” mission since they had even bigger plans going forward or some promotional nonsense.”

Maroon let out an ironic laugh at the name, rolling her eyes. “I remember thinking that was **** even before everything that happened.”

“I think about… yeah it had to be around the same time your crew started heading back to HQ from Polus. We had no idea that the first mission had gone so poorly- from what we were told it was a success, and you had to leave early because of a mechanical failure. We quickly scrambled together a team to send back to Polus so we could continue our research there- which was Mira’s second big mission, a project codenamed “aftermath”.”

Green seemed to stiffen at the word.

“So the mission went well enough at first. They got to the planet even faster than we were expecting and were able to locate a huge deposit of the resource MIRA needed for their time-warping experiments, which was great news since the last crew got very little because of their ‘technical difficulties’.”

Uh oh time travel

“However, a few weeks into the mission, we started to get some strange interference on our communications. At first we were able to combat it, but it almost seemed like someone… or something was somehow using our communication equipment on Polus to broadcast something instead of receiving things. Soon enough, communication was cut off all together. The last thing we received was an automated report that the temporal destabilization device had been activated.”

“MIRA panicked. They had lost all communication with both the base and the ship, and the astronauts' families had begun to ask why they weren’t hearing anything from their loved ones. They managed to keep it out of the mainstream press with a lot of hush money and a promise that they were working on the problem and sending another crew immediately.”

“The problem of course was that they didn’t have another crew. The first crew had yet to return and they had very few astronauts trained and available for a third full-crew mission so quickly. They needed people, and fast.”

“So they did the contest.”

“Exactly.”

Banana sighed, painfully aware of how shady MIRA was. “The “consequences” crew was formed- perhaps reminding MIRA employees that this was the consequence of their actions. Management really liked to blame us for what happened for some reason. Of course the decision to use this crew ended up biting them in the behind as it took them about two years to get all the paperwork settled, but at this point they had committed to it already. I actually heard some sort of rumor that they actually had a bigger crew than they had planned for and it had something to do with the temporal destabilization device? I’m not sure. Anyway, they made up some excuse- testing long term space-travel with civilians or something, but really your crew was there to find out what happened to the last crew.”

Purple and cyan concerned 

“Our crew was a rescue mission?” You ask, still feeling a bit odd about calling it ‘your crew.’ “I wonder if Black and White knew.” 

“But then everything that you described happened, where one of your crewmates freaked out and as we heard ‘assaulted someone from the consequences crew’. They separated you to ‘keep you safe’, but it’s obvious that they were just trying to keep information from getting out. Your crew left, but shortly after takeoff, your communications went haywire as well, despite extensive testing.”

..

“Desperate to find answers about what happened back on Polus, MIRA stuck all of the prequel crew in a locked facility, fearing information would get out but still wanting to learn more about what happened. That’s when we finally heard about the impostors. The impostor that was still part of that crew snapped from being locked up and went on a killing spree, killing everyone from the crew. They tried to cover it up, but it was impossible. Some of my coworkers watched it happen.

“MIRA, desperate to avoid any more bad press, decided to do something dangerous- attempting to reverse time with the temporal destabilization device the crew had been researching. It turns out the device was surprisingly effective with the resources from Polus, and worked on one of the first attempts. The problem, for MIRA at least, was that everyone still remembered what happened. Obviously they couldn’t just let everyone go free because they knew too much. The device was supposed to have the ability to cause anyone affected by it to forget what had happened in the past iteration of time, supposedly to preserve their mental health. Really I think it was so they could do things without people knowing.”

Yikes 

“MIRA, at the same time was also trying to get more information on this alien species. They at this point assumed that there were more impostors out there and that they were behind the disappearances of the other crews. However, after what they had just experienced, the crew was far too traumatized to be helpful. Desperate to get some information on anything, MIRA instead did something inconceivably horrible. They let the impostor kill the crew over and over again in an effort to get more information on impostors and how the crew responded to them. That was the first cycle- or loop as you call it.”

…

“With this information, they developed new systems and upgrades, based on the way the first crew figured things out. They upgraded the poll system and ways to report dead bodies and such and kept improving it with what they found. They attempted to send these updates out to the other crews, I’m not sure who was able to receive what with the communications failures.”

“Did everyone know this?”

“No. Most people knew that there was an impostor, the first crew was killed by them, and that they tried to bring everyone back with the device, but the information we were given was that it failed. I, however, had heard whisperings and rumors that something more was going on, and took it upon myself to investigate. I’d been working there for a while and had a fairly high security clearance, so it wasn’t that hard to find out what was really going on.”

“But then I got caught. I made a mistake, looked at some information I shouldn’t, went a little bit too far. I got called into the boss’ office, and then there’s just a gap in my memory. Next thing I knew I was in a room full of people, receiving a strange message.” 

Glance to mini crewmates

“And to top it all off, I had May and Robin with me. I didn’t think MIRA could stoop any lower, but I guess they were afraid I was bringing secrets home from work with me.”

You know out last minute addition ?

Please tell me you don’t have any more bad news. This is all going to ****.

I don’t know if it’s bad news, sir, but it’s… unexpected.

Well spit it out then.

Didn’t  cycle as far back as we thought 

You know the equipment here isn’t nearly as powerful as what we have back on Polus.

Unfortunately, yes. 

Well it seems the system is not capable of reverting all previous changes.

So what? Someone’s still injured?

No, sir, someone’s… one of us.

What? But how? The other-

Was cycled by the equipment on Polus. This person was not.

Can we make contact?

It may be too early. Perhaps you should have your internal operative observe.

Good thinking. 

cyan tan you brown 

Brown kills tan 

Original plan for new map was for it to be a location where they were keeping the loop technology stuff, but the mushroom jungle didn’t seem to fit that.

Reminders 

Black’s sister died but was pushed into the bathroom stall and didn’t get reset. Determined to escape Black left the loop and “dropped dead” soon after. 

Brown is human and can stay that way if he helps imps 

Let gray go. Kill the others. 

What? Why?

Just trust me. 

And so you settled into a routine.

A feeling this is a really bad idea?

You come in here trying to bring everything down, these are the consequences. 

Going to transfer CONQ crew to fungle day of final thing

There’s a ship leaving here for a new place. Come with us.

Brown push gray out of vent 

Tan heard chat in kitchen as ghost - timing? Thought you’d know.

Allude to future again next chapter 

It has to be me - memories of everything that happened before.

Leave tan loose end in case want to expand in future?

Tan also mention headache

Unless this is something from earlier? Before the loop? That was a possibility. The crossed out names could be dead people from last time- Brown, Maroon, and Green all died then and Yellow, White, and Coral had spent nearly the whole day together. If the strikeouts were deaths, than maybe the asterisks were instead an indication of trust. This explanation seemed to make a lot more sense, but there was one hole-  your color wasn’t crossed out and you died right alongside Green. Perhaps this was dropped before it could be updated?

If that’s was the case and this is from last time, how did it get here? You assumed that similarly to the Polus loop everything would be reverted to how it was when you arrived. Was that not the case here? You had retained your memories and just about everything about this place seemed to be completely foreign, so the possibility wasn’t off the table. 

Maybe if you could somehow figure out a way to stay on the ship if it were to loop again, you could break the system somehow. Of course that was jumping to quite a few conclusions over a small scrap of paper, but anything was better than being stuck here for eternity. 

And so you fell into a routine. 

Your group managed to be relatively lucky.

You died a handful of times, but lived more often than not. This was the same for your crew.

At one point you had a chance to be something called a scientist, where you had the option to see whether everyone was alive or not. However, it drained your tablet’s battery rather quickly, and there was already a screen displaying this information in the medical room, so it wasn’t too useful. 

Yellow, engineer, trained to be on aftermath? crew but had to stay back for kid, anomalies?

White- astronomer- wrong place wrong time 

Banana- security- loop stuff 

Coral - engineer (helped build ship), robotics, white told her what he saw

Black - science- testing loop stuff (figured out holes n polus)

Pink - botanist, but knows about memory wipe tech limits?

Parmejohn… yellow’s brother? 

….No that’s dumb. 

Brown will stay and be you, you have to do it?

Things that need to happen for this to work:

• Find out tan is Gray b/c tan has old grap0 id
• At HQ Brown mentions teleportation machine- can get to polus, how black got here and infected stuff 
• Old to machine landed into room, now improved tech 
• Tan once fully infected shifts to gray 
• Tan and gray get sent back together 
• They fight and gray ends up in teleport machine, gets sent to polus

and for everyone who’s read all three stories, well, I’d do the cheesy thing and say you’re now an official member of the consequences crew but I really don’t think anyone would want to be on a space death mission so… it’s the thought that counts?

Scrapped from reprisal 1.8 - felt too close to apantic attack 

No, you were screaming wordlessly. Don’t do this. Don’t hurt anyone! 

This is the only way forward. 

Spiralling, deeper and deeper, past and present blending together to the point of beunibg unable to tell which is which.

You were an impostor, you are an impostor.

Is this the only way to end this?

Purple dirt beneath your feet. Metal floor beneath your feet.

Where are you? When are you? You’re not in control, you are in control, you have to do something or you’re gone. 

How do you know that? What does that mean?

You have to do something or you’re gone.

You have to do something or-

It’s not just that they don’t trust your actions, they don’t believe you are who you say you are anymore 

Interlude they group up with tan

Green visits you occasionally but the others are avoiding you 

You’ll have to face them eventually 

You’re one to talk 

How am I supposed to when someone I thought was

I don’t know why they would do that. It doesn’t make sense. Why lie to us like that? Take advantage of an incredibly traumatic situation? 

Uncharacsrticis from cyan 

If you get voted off can overhear ghost conversation 

Wait- I’m sorry. 

I don’t even know who you are.

Alternate line where Brown is incredibly passive agressive for no clear reason: 

Alright, at the end of the day I can’t make you do anything. Clearly, from what happened before. But clearly at least some part of you realizes that you don’t have much choice. After all, you voted for Cyan, didn’t you?

Cracking  noise 

Older: right / bottom

Newer: left / top

You didn’t kill anyone 

Banana knows you tried but says nothing 

Tan and cyan talking about you when you’re dead

Tan mentions head hurting despite being dead?

Mention rose not seeing you do task 

Mini lime sneaks out with group, after cyan and purple are injured and assumed dead he asks when they’re going to come back

Mira on 111th floor

I heard they were originally planning on building mira underwater 

Reprisal is both before and after aftermath 

They vote out gray first because they might be doing things and white turned himself in 

Final vote: between “engineer”, Cysn asking for it?”, Brown’s reveal 

Like Tan hasn’t even gone ye- I mean, uh, well, know what maybe we should stick with- 

Nom he makes a point. Tan, crew or MIRA?

U-uh crew. 

Which one? You weren’t on mine. (Maroon).

Or mine (Green).

I really don’t see how this is relevant when brown-

Answer the question.

Looked at you.

“Uh, the consequences crew.”

They didn’t sound or act like anyone on your crew, yet the way they stood, the way they talked, their whole demeanor seemed hauntingly familiar.

You knew it, in the back of your mind, but you could bring ot to the surface. 

You exchanged glances with purple and cyan. cyan oddly enough didn’t seem surprised- what did they know?

To one very specific reader:

Ok, fine. This has been planned in some form from the beginning of aftermath, I hope you’re happy.

Here’s your “gray 2” that you’ve been theorizing about for the past year.

Records room, space base, flight path to MIRA, schematics of the ship

Alright now impostor, who ever you are you dknt have to say anything, 

Sabotage comms, make sure nobody’s reporting outside 

That won’t be enough, they’d have safeguards in place.

Are we really sure we want to mess with this? What if we break-

Everyone sums of brown 

I work, or well worked, security for Mira. I can do it.

You worked for mira? How do we know you’re not the spy? 

Reveal to everyone about miraeople 

Leads to conversation about brown and tan

Black knows a bit about loops? Loop tech?

Yellow is engineer

Coral is navigator 

Pink plants 

White astronomy 

Banana security - help take down surveillance? 

Pink- oh no that’s wrong. Why’d you cross out Brown?

You are going to help us or we’re going to turn these comms back on and let whoever’s watching us know that we know all about your tricks,

I’m so fired

Accuse you of being a spy, you agree thinking they’re about to accuse brown?

Cyan imp round - someone shapeshifter into her and gets caught in a kill 

Getting ??? sections more because the timeline is falling apart because of the big groups and multiple people in loops

There a loop here, one that just has you in it- 

Interlude 

• daycare
• Red gets less crazy
• Scientist round

• cyan and purple imposto round? (Move to 23 with green)
• someone dies but no impostors claim responsibility it was actually tan (move to 23)

• cyan and tan close, both avoiding you
• coral and yellow working with pink and sometime some of the others (banana, rose)

• No imp rounds for you

• Maroon and black 

.

Don’t do it, a small, fuzzy voice inside your mind screamed. Get out of here.

But you didn’t listen.

the first impostor was gone, you knew as much due to one of the strange changes that had been implemented, being able to see whether or not someone who you had thrown off was an impostor. Now there were only two left- and you had a pretty good idea of who they were.

Quickly ran off together without saying anything to the group.

A body had been found,

But the two of them were looking incredibly panicked and confused. 

23.1

Employee group run into brown while he’s putting files away, swap his tablet with one of there’s

you find some info on the ship in the papers, go to talk to your group about it

meeting is called

how did someone sabotage in a meeting?

We know who the spy is 

23.2 

Reveal about employees and list 

But there’s someone here whose sorties don’t add up.

It’s gray

It’s brown 

????

What? Why do you think it’s Gray?

Why do you think it’s brown?

we have evidence 

Reveal about brown

end with gray 2

hold on, can we circle back to why they thought it was gray again?

The 23rd loop had been brought to a standstill 

What about the people who are dead?

We’re going to have to loop again, but that requires exposing ourselves to MIRA and them potentially figuring out our plan. 

We have to have the connection to MIRA. 

What if we didn’t? 

Black: there has to be somewhere on the ship 

If you want to, 

landing party: you, tan -> keep an eye on you, maroon-> know the way/place, green-> with maroon has been though the most loops, make sure brown doesn’t misbehave, cyan, purple -> we have questions and we will find answers , brown- guide us around, pink -> supposed to watch mini lime but he runs (and she follows), she will find white 

home team: black -> guide you through loop stuff from the ship, can’t risk them being captured again, yellow -> ship, coral was gonna go but seemed nervous -> help yellow, 

, banana-> tap in to their security, rose-> watch the kids, red- > I’m not going out there. 

The subtle shift from “the killers are awful people or not even people” to “there’s no choice if you want to survive- you have to become the thing you feared”

In a way the story is a big corruption arc.

a photo of you with the same tally marks in file? But dated October 11th

Green had messed up. 

Normally this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, especially considering the fact that he was currently an impostor and you were currently a crewmate, but there was one major complication. 

The other two impostors were Purple and Cyan- neither of whom had actually completed an impostor round as intended before.

The only way to change course- If the loop goes on long enough, the airship will have to stop to refuel at MIRA. 

The refueling station was in the air near MIRA HQ, but there was no way of getting out there. Had to drop to a lower altitude to refuel.

However, when combined with the avert crash course emergency steering, you could steer the ship towards MIRA HQ- the tallest building in the area.

We need someone to distract brown (swap his tablet case)

Green is voted off (killed maroon)

cyan and purple are together

You’re a,one, maybe with pink and or something?

Yellow and coral need to distract brown 

You distract him, sus why yellow and coral sharing info now 

Come across airship plans, maybe you could get these to someone? 

Will die: rose

emergency meeting 

—-

Mention blue carpet, laminate table, red mugs with coffee stains 

talk

Whta was going on in records? Banana who had been on cams with red

Black  at daycare

Rose and pink 

Cyan and pruple

Tan

Brown- records

Yellow and coral

Dead: green, maroon

Gone: white

going to vote but tablet network goes down

Reveal mira employees via list?

we can talk about spy then

Who is it brown/gray at Sam time

Brown reveals Mira employees?

Gray 2 reveal 

Tablet network down 

Why are we still at the table?

Not sure

Bana wonder if they can see us right now

They can’t. Have tablet, line disconnected? 

brown discussion 

reveals of Mira employees

Wait why did you think it’s gray I thought you two were friends 

Gray 2 reveal

—

Whatttttttttt

The memory 

Confusion 

More explanation 

Tan confesses impostor maybe?

Discussion about escape plan?

Get to Mira, look through files etc

It’s weirdly empty 

Anomalies, the missions/timeline

Tan is acting strange 

Hide and seek?

At HQ Brown mentions teleportation machine- can get to polus, how black got here and infected stuff 

Tan once fully infected shifts to gray 

Hurts purple and cyan

Hiding 

The one loop - it has to be me

Some kind of ceo blocking the way but he just lets you through 

“Something’s not right. I can see the ceo over the cams. He’s here, he knows what’s going on, but he’s not stopping it”

Tan and gray get sent back together 

This plan is falling apart let’s blow it up

I hope you know what you’re doing gray 

Fire alarm to evacuate building  triggers locked doors, frees CONQ crew

Back in October 

They fight and gray ends up in teleport machine, gets sent to polus

Hears fighting and gray is captured

An anomaly 

You let something slip 

How’s the memory machine working?

It’s unstable, if we use it now it could break. Not to mention the drain on our resources, we wouldn’t be able to use it until we can get the rest of the aftermath crew and their resources

Do it anyways 

You know that it’s not you so you’ll revisit that later, you’re more focused on why it could be brown

Cyan isn’t mad because Gray was playing as impostor- Cyan is mad because she doesn’t think Gray is Gray.

Cyan stabs tan after pruple is injured 

Some really strong hints:

• We still have never received an explanation as to how gray got to Polus- or why Gray (assumedly) isn’t an alien anymore. 
• I said something about how the voting screens are organized a little while ago. Take a look at the consequences voting screen- I’ve had something planned for a while. 
• All the memories are memories. When you realize what that means, it’ll already be too late. 
• Back to the future part 2 (way it wraps over itself with two martys), Lost (season 5), Travellers (ending)
• I told you 11 people are permanently dead. We know the original orange is, and we’ve heard whispers of something with the aftermath crew’s old first officer in the log. And with Maroon’s original crew all gone, who knows how many that was. Either way… that number seems a bit lower than you’d think, right?
• With time manipulation comes paradoxes.
• (Almost) everyone’s making a major assumption that isn’t quite true in the same way you think it is. 
• It’s not “car”. One letter is used twice. 
• Inverted colors- an accidental but impressive piece of foreshadowing. 

Replication 

/ Reduplication - repeat/make a copy/repeat with a light change 

/ Retrodiction - figure out what happened by inferring 

Repercussion 

/ Rendezvous 

22 Resignation

23 or 24 Rescue

Relativism - I.e. morality is relative 

/ Repudiate - reject a leader/thing/truth

23 or 24 Reckoning 

25 Reprisal 

A thought crossed your mind, did you really want either fo them to hear what you were saying to Brown? You hadn’t realized  they would need to be in the room with you. Then again, they were probably fairly busy with whatever it was they were doing, and wouldn’t be paying too much attention to your conversation.

And even fi they did, you didn’t care too much at this point. You needed answers, and if other people heard them, so be it. You’re tired of playing games. 

If this gets too long, can split before the stealing and then split on vote perhaps?

Tan took a nap! Uh oh!!

funny but I had to cut it b/c the system was supposed to be down-

She opened the messaging application and sent something n the chat:

Cosytoes (Brown): I’m the spy, lol

Why would tan go to cyan and not purple?

They want as little people to know as possibl,e coming off of consequences would probably trust cyan more than purple because purple was secretive and weird and slammed them into a wall that one time, while they had just rescued Cyan and were glad to see they were okay.

Core themes:

Identity - memories, gray as a reader-inser character, co-dependency, two grays

Morality - is it moral to eject people? Is it moral to kill in the loop? Cyan’s morality.

Autonomy- being taken over by an alien, being imprisoned in a loop by MIRA

Corruption begets corruption - MIRA a corrupt corporation becomes run by even more corrupt aliens, corrupted system makes people having to do things you wouldn’t in order to survive 

Necessity of sacrifice - Gray’s, white’s sacrifices were necceary. Cyan’s wan’t and made everything worse. 

Cooperation vs self-preservation - people can’t figure out how to escape on their own, it doenst work out. if everyone shared their information they could have gotten out of the loop faster 

Remember mini lime exists in the meeting!!

GRAP0 id didn’t work because there’s no GRAP0 anymore since they were reassigned tan 

Its already over, thanks to you gray. It’s too late. Theres nothing more you can do now, we’ve gotten everything we need- we’ve already won.

That’s suck a clicke villain line. You don’t know that, this isn’t over.

To the contrary, dear Gray. You have the proof already.

What does that mean?

You’ll figure it out. 

And your friends are already dead.

The rest of the people leaving? What are you doing?

Oh. it seems Brown was able to keep one secret after all. Doesn’t matter.

The two bad people leave in helicopter? 

A couple things im surprised I haven’t seen anyone talk about in the comments of the latest update:

• Red and Rose were not accounted for as part of a previous crew or working for MIRA 
• The fact that the ID thing happened exactly like the weird memory Gray had

This is so special the readers literally made it what it is

Purple

“do we say something?”

”no, no we don’t. I thought you of all people would think this is a good thing! Beside, we don’t know who could’ve-“

”I- I think I do.”

”What? You don’t seriously think-”

what were they talking about? Were they breaking the rules a,ready? Or was this about something else, something to do with their situation as impostors. Cyan and Purple may be emotional, but they weren’t stupid. It was probably the latter.

Hi!

darn you were listening to that

—-

What about the camera sound?

The cameras have sound. That’s how I- 

You said you worked on security. White and I’s conversation- did you report us?

If I didn’t, I would’ve ended up here.

Wlel you ended up here anayways.

I know. I’m really sorry.

White is dead because you sent him here!

I didn’t know! I didn’t know they would! I just… 

We’re all trapped here. Just the same as the next. 

Brown sighs. 

It’s a decent idea. I can pass it off as something going wrong during the disconnect, say I can hear it here but its not making it to MIRA or something. 

Aftermath- not enough rooms to sleep in? 

—-

brown? Ask him 3 times 

it’s hard to hear out here.

he seemed to realize what you’re saying.

Yeah, it is. Probably have to talk pretty loud for anyone to hear you.

I don’t know what to do. I have to fix this, but I don’t know how.

If we could get to Mira I could get us out of the building, but it’s no use.

The airship’s on a set path, only deviation is when it’s set to crash. Navigation isn’t real and I don’t know how close we are to Mira. If only I knew how many days it had been

Say a number 

hm? How do you know?

The airship flies around in a space, nowhere near mira.

what if it runs out of fuel? 

It only returns if it needs fuel, which it never does cause of the loop.

but if it did?

Yeah it return to a fuling station near hq, but it’s mid-air, we couldn’t get anywhere. We don’t have control of the ship.

There’s no way for us to get back.

and we don’t have anything that can help us. 

next chapter sad brown, your blue prints fly out of your pocket?

Walk past the room you had slept on- where silver had infected you, where all of this had started 

Hey gray? You okay?

Yeah. 

walk in on 

we can’t talk here, but I might know where we cam

Gray?

Both you and tan answer 

Have to climb outside the airship 

Starts raining

Maroon slips, green catches and a,most slips, tan catches him 

“Quick thinking on yoir part” 

33- Redemption /reparation 

Imps- gray, tan, red

Fuel plan, open fuel canister, set crash course 

ends with crashing into MIRA, black out 

34 - Rescue

Can’t  get out?

go through files, find out about anomalies 

Find white and Rose

ends with tan going alien 

35 - Reckoning

Watch Mira baddies leave, say they've already won 

ends with trip to the past

36-  Reprisal 

fight in teleporter, ran gets sent back 

gray confronted old fortegreen

know exactly how 

bonus

This, the final chapter of the series was published on October 11, 2024.

The first chapter of Consequences, the first story, was published on October 11, 2020.

The whole series is, in and of itself, a loop.

Thank you all so much for reading. You all have no idea how much this story and your support has impacted me over the past 4 years, it's difficult to put it into words. From those of you who have been here from the very beginning (I have so many usernames ingrained in my brain now), to those who have found this after its completion, I appreciate all of you so incredibly much. 

Please please please check out my extras book for a more detailed final author's note, as well a ton of bonus content including behind-the-scenes stuff like clues/foreshadowing breakdowns, my planning notes, bonus art and animatics, tips for working stuff like this, and "what if" scenarios for things that could've happened- I might even be taking a few requests on stuff you all would have liked to see! The series may be over, but these characters are so special to me and I'm not ready to let them go quite yet! 

And… technically… the story continues in consequences. :)

Or, if you've read all three stories already,  check out the extras and behind the scenes here!

come up with plan to empty fuel

almost slips in the rain 

DONT have green recall polus incident - show not tell

Crash and blakc out 

—- 34

Tan memory? Future memory? The lats memory.

Memory of walking on Polus

"You have to run, now."

echoing we've already won

The lower floors are sealed off, we can’t get down 

Break into two teams, figure out a way down at crash site, see if can override computer systems 

Either purple or cyan stays behind with the kid, one of us has to go find answers, purple suggests splitting up toshow her growth 

Go and find security room

Brown knows the passwords 

See logs of each crewmember, tan and gray’s files are classified and brown can’t access them

Videos of the Mira employees, green sees it’s his former captian 

Files on anomalies

Notice white and rose are being kept on this level

go rescue them

Find rose, ask who killer her

She says it was tan

Tan’s back with the other group

35 —

White talk abou his experiments with memory manipulation on device. It doenst work, whatever happened months ago really broke it.

Get back to warn everyone about tan, tan turns a corner, starts to get all alieny,

Shifts into gray

Everyone run

As they’re looking, tan starts to turn, tells everyone to run 

Has to see broken button

Where can we go

We have to hide until we find a wya out

Hide and seek potion, brown download a program that plays music when imp is close

It’s a side project i was working on called hide and seek, they’d ere going to test it in one of the loops. Guess we’re testing it now.

Red  saves rose but dies?

Rose freaks out?

Go up to 111th floor

See smashed emergency button 

Hide in old room back at hq

Cyan and purple are injured?

keep running up until top level 

get separated 

Confront ceo

We’ve already won, unless you’ve got a time machine you aren’t helping us

The entire upper portion of Mira will be flooded with deadly gas soon and none of you are getting out 

Vent away

Green and maroon and brown? burst in 

Talk to green and maroon about going back

maroon goes to reactor, tried to blow up time loop stuff

Do you think you can loop me back somehow? Mira shows a loop still going?

We can try

—-

Either in previous or next chapter, depends on time

Dramatic time loop scene where green and maroon and brown are trying to send you back

Tan bursts in and tries to fight

This is where brown would die if i kill him- haven’t decided yet

Maybe it’s originally going to be maroon but Brown says she has to survive to talk about what happened with PREQ?

36 —-

October 11 2020

Double update! Make sure you read the next chapter too.

you’re looped back but tan follows you 

Fight in the hallway near teleporter, gray wins and sends tan back

Sees it was to Polus

everything makes sense

Where’s your ceo?

Memories of walking to the camp as impostor (already did that)

Gray is tan

CEO comes in?

Big dramatic reveal 

 Memoru manipulation device 

End with reprisal 

—-

Bonus chapter 

Double update! Make sure you’ve read the chapter before this too.

December 31, 2020

Alternate pov with the other group, how do we get out of here we can’t hack the doors open

what if there’s a failsafe 

fire alarm? Reverse sabotage?

Find a way to get off/out

when all the doors open, reveal all the consequences crew 

/

October 11, 2020

“Congratulations!” he announced, a wide grin on his face. “I’d like to officially welcome you to the crew of the MIRA mission Consequences.”

Wreckage makes it possible to get to a lower floor?

MIRA software says there’s a loop still  active 

Bad guys use vents to get down

And alternate timeline? No, that’s someone else’s story now your own.

Tell you what, I won’t tell you about tan, but you’ll know the truth pretty soon. I promise. They’re more than just a random alien, you know? 

No anomaly happens when the airship crashes because the reprisal loop was deactivated after resetting one last time

 Or because gray’s loop is still going?

All the ents in HQ are connected. They use the vents to get out, land in the CONQ crew’s quarters

Red is selfish. In his death, he is being selfless. 

Mini lime small enough to fit through vents.

Cyan and purpke attacked in hallway

It gets purpke first, cyan fights back but is slammed into the wall and doesn’t get up. 

Brown runs out to stop them

Gray, now.

Wait, but the others-

Don’t worry about it. You do yoir job right, none of this will matter. 

The last thing you see before teleporting is Brown meeting the same fate as Red. 

More chapter 

All the to back stuff and tan going to Polus stuff

End on reprisal

—-

Bonus chapter  

Tan disappeared

I don’t know where they’re just gone 

This is going to overload the system, I can’t hold it much longer.

Green, go. Someone has to get the kid out of here. 

Sees the two of them on the ground no idea if they’re alive or dead.

They’d want mini lime to be safe. I’m sorry.

See you soon, Teal.

Reactor exploded. 

Green runs as the devonsmination room crumbles behind him, barely making t to the other side. Mini lime crying about cyan and purple. 

Idea that mini lime can fit through vent?

Explosion opens a hole down to seveal floors below? Gets down to lower floor and starts teleporting people out.

Somewhere in a helicopter…

Exiting the building, everything shakes.

An explosion?

What? But there wasn’t any recollection in gray’s memories. 

They must’ve just left, there’s no way to know what happened after. 

Well everyone’s dead, right?

Cyan wakes up, doesn’t know where everyone is, 

Browns dead but purples alive 

Where’s mini lime? Green had him, there’s nothing they can do now.

big hole in the ground, jump down and land with the rest of the CONQ crew.

Cyan? Purple?

The doors open

—-

Gray walk into room, mission briefing 

Welcome to mission consequences. 

You didnt know how you got to Polus from the Skeld because you didn’t. You’d gone from the Skeld to the airship, still fighting the alien for control, changing to tan because you, the you that you were right now, was already here and alreayd had the color. 

Then the two of you’s fought, you’d sent Tan back to Polus accidentally, where they’d get a new ID, lose their first impostor round, and regain control- only to get their memories wiped by the loop, and you to wake up on Polus, wondering how you got there.  Then, you’d escaped to get put onthe airship, and here you were- 

The reason that MIRA worked so hard to keep the two of you apart? 

You and Tan were the same person, just at different points in time. You were Gray and Tan at the same time, human and alien at the same time. If tehy’re already experiencing anomalies from ending loops improperly, what woudl happen if the two of you teamed up? Would you destroy the universe?

Now, you weren’t sure yu’d ever know.

Had you know this wa showing to happen, had you figured this out a few moments earlier, would you have sent Tan to Polus? 

Maybe there wasn’t a choice. If you hadn’t, you woudln’t have been here to make that choice in the shirts place.

But it didn’t matter. If you could stop the consequences mission from happening in the first place, none of this would happen.

You could break the cycle.

The thought pushed you forward to the CEO’s office. You’d stop this one way or another.

Tan shifts to Gray when fighting in reactor 

The loops can’t fix everything. There are things I wish I could take back, but I can’t.”

Like what? 

Banana looked down.

It’s my fault Coral, White, and Black are here. As security I was supposed to flag potential information leaks, but I didn’t know- I didn’t know they’d do this. 

It was only fitting they put me here too. I just wish they hadn’t brought May and Robin with me. 

Banana hugged es kids close. 

Briefly include all the other contest entries at the end as other MIRA employees.

Didn’t get chosen for the RPRSLG project , othe rpole who found out 

The room of other MIRA employees was made up of the other contest entries who did not get selected to be part of the main group due to lack of space on the crew!

Rose wolf ears & dog, Rose with balloon & child, Rose with cat beanie & hamster

Maroon & blue with no hats

Black with horns, Black with dog, 

Banana, White, Lime

Lime has lines? 

It might going to explode 

Neither gray was ever “fake”- they were both real just at different points in time

Mini lime, yu dont have to do this if yo dont want to. We’lll fin another way.

I’ll do it.

Yay for making the child plot relevant and more than just a victim of his circumstances. He’s a mini hero :)

How to free everyone

Two groups- conq crew and other Mira employees

Mini lime vents down and Cyan and Purple fall down in the explosion.

Meanwhile

Cyand and Purple with other group of MIRA employees, all wearing suits. None of them had an emblem for a mission on them, so they must have been spares, just like White’s.

We found these spare suits to try and hide in, but we know they wont last forever. (Good that prevents questions of another crew- there is NOT a 5th crew) -

Sunset-  If we can just get out of here, 2I can use the teleportation machine to get us all out of here

How do they get out?

Hear commotion in the hallway, bang on the door to try and get someone’s attention.

Mini Lime reunited with CONQ

Mini Lime reunited with dad?

Mini lime has a keyboard but doesn’t work,

why are you trying to get us out?

There’s bad gas coming.

Think you can bust down that door? 

Yellow- ive worked out an arrangement.

Yeah, me too I guess. Guess silver peeved me off enough to keep control.

Why havent you tried this earlier?

RA you kidding em? LTE the alien? Whta if i lose control?

But now i dont have much of a choice, do I?

Bust diwn door into hallway

How did you get out?

Explain the door thing.

Think you can do that to a stronger door?

You go get the door open, I’ll start setting up the teleportation machine.

Think it can take all of us?

Not all at once, it can only do aboyt 15 at a time so it wil take about three trips. IF we can’t get everyone, we can make a run for it downstairs.

RPRSLG (minus red, brown, maroon, tan, gray)- 10 + minis

CONQ (minus cy, pu, ml, gray) - 10

MIRA- 10

F

MENTION AFTRMF BLACK PUTTONG TIME LOOP TECH FOR CONQ

ahehehe everyone saying “we know the tan gray situation now” - my friends you  *think* you know what happened.

Wow, I can’t believe we’re at the end

The words consequences, reprisal, and aftermath are all kinda similar in meaning lol

Final update outline:

Chapter Text

Here’s a little bit about all the polls I did! 

Some of it is a little messy, and looking back I would have done some things a little differently, but I want to show off all my mistakes so you all can learn if you ever want to do something like this!

Here’s a few things I learned:

• Consequences and the first few polls in aftermath mostly used the Quotev.com poll feature, but I found it may not have been properly counting votes for people without accounts. I switched to some other polling programs partway through aftermath, until finally settling on strawpoll for reprisal since it was reliable and accessible.
• It wasn’t until reprisal that I finally got consistent with poll times/dates. Consequences and aftermath polls were open for usually about 3/4 days since I was updating faster then, but reprisal ones I kept open for a week- which I think gave more people a chance to vote. I also, with using a new polling site, was able to schedule a time to stop accepting votes, so the end times made a lot more sense than the old “whenever I remembered to close the poll”. 
• You’ll see two polls that came from the original version of reprisal before I rewrote it. Scrapping these was kind of unavoidable because they didn’t fit into the new version, but I kept the results for something like this. Sorry if you voted there and then it ended up going nowhere.
• Speaking of polls and reprisal, I actually did want to do more polls in reprisal but it just didn’t end up working out with the plot and the loop and everything. It was getting to the point where polls didn’t matter too much because it would just loop anyways, and I didn’t want people to have to vote in polls that weren’t gonna do anything.
• Finally, you’ll notice in aftermath, Black technically gets voted out twice. This is because the readers voted for Black the first time, but I didn’t have any other characters voting for Black because she hadn’t been mentioned at all in the meeting and I thought it wouldn’t make much sense. I ended up feeling pretty bad about this- I didn’t know that people didn’t realize that they were only voting for their characters’ vote and not who would actually be voted off. (The readers had always voted based off of what was going on in the story, not theories in the comments, so their votes had always aligned before). Thinking back I should have just thrown off Black anyways, I didn’t have any reason to keep her alive tbh, but I didn’t know how to explain why the crew would vote her off if she hadn’t been mentioned in the meeting. I thought about redoing that but I couldn’t exactly go back and completely change the entire chapter without changing the whole story. So, I held another vote very quickly after (“poll 4.5”), allowing the readers to actually vote Black off. Going forward, I made sure the reader vote always corresponded to what actually happened.

And here’s some actual numbers about the polls:

consequences polls:

Poll 1 (Chapter 10):

Poll opened at 12:40am EST (00:40) Nov 30, 2020, Poll closed: 12:40am EST (00:40) Dec 3, 2020

(40 votes total) Red: 1 (2.5%), Purple: 1 (2.5%), Pink: 8 (20%), Green: 11 (27.5%), [Skip Vote]: 19 (47.5%)

Poll 2 (Chapter 14):

Poll opened at 12:30 pm EST (12:30) Dec 8, 2020, Poll closed: 12:30 pm EST (12:30) Dec 11, 2020

(46 votes total) Black: 1 (2%), Purple: 1 (2%), Red: 5 (11%), [Skip Vote]: 16 (35%), Pink: 23 (50%)

Poll 3 (Chapter 17):

Poll opened: 06:10 pm EST (18:10) Dec 21, 2020, Poll closed: 1:52pm EST (13:52) Dec 26, 2020

(45 votes total) White: 1 (2%), Yellow: 1 (2%), Gray (you): 2 (4.5%), Black: 2 (4.5%), Red: 2 (4.5%), Purple: 2 (4.5%), Brown: 2 (4.5%), Green: 3 (6.5%), Blue: 3 (6.5%), [Skip Vote]: 26 (58%)

Poll 4 (Chapter 19):

Poll opened at 12:35am EST (00:35) Dec 30, 2020, Poll closed: 12:35am EST (00:35) Jan 2, 2021

(32 votes total) Gray (you): 1 (3%), White: 1 (3%), Red: 3 (9%), [Skip vote]: 8 (25%), Green: 19 (59%)

Poll 5 (Chapter 23):

Poll opened at 1:22am EST (00:22) January 10, 2021, Poll closed: 01:22am EST (01:22) Jan 13, 2021

(45 votes total) Gray (you): 1 (2%), Purple: 1 (2%), Cyan: 43 (96%)

Most Popular Poll: Poll 2 (46 votes) 

Least Popular Poll: Poll 4 (32 votes)

Biggest Consensus: Poll 5 (96%)

Closest Vote: Poll 1 (47.5%)

Most Candidates: Poll 3 (10 options chosen)

Average Poll Votes: (41.6)

Total Poll Votes: (208)

consequences: aftermath polls

Poll 1 (Chapter 2):

Poll opened: 1:22am EST (00:22) January 26, 2021, Poll closed: 1:22am EST (00:22) January 29, 2021

Poll results: (36 votes total) Pink: 1 (3%), Red: 1 (3%), Gray (you): 7 (19%), [Skip Vote]: 28 (76%)

Poll 2 (Chapter 5):

Poll opened: 11:08pm EST (23:08) February 16, 2021, Poll closed: 11:19 EST (23:08) February 19, 2021

Poll results: (29 votes total) Red: 1 (3%), Orange: 1 (3%), Gray (you): 3 (10%), [Skip Vote]: 24 (84%)

Poll 3 (Chapter 9):

Poll opened: 2:00am EST (02:00) March 11, 2021, Poll closed: 11:41am EDT (11:41) March 16, 2021

Poll results: (24 votes total) Gray (you): 1 (4%), Cyan: 1 (4%), Little Lime: 2 (9%), Purple: 2 (8%), Red: 3 (13%), Black: 3 (13%), [Skip Vote]: 12 (50%)

Poll 4 (Chapter 14):

Poll opened: 11:05pm EDT (23:05) April 11, 2021, Poll closed: 11:07pm EDT (23:07) April 14, 2021

Poll results: (22 votes total) Green: 1 (5%), Blue: 1 (5%), Gray (you): 1 (5%), Black: 6 (27%), White: 6 (27%), [Skip Vote]: 7 (32%)

Poll 4.5 (Chapter 15):

Poll opened: 4:30pm EDT (15:30) April 17, 2021, Poll closed: 4:30pm EDT (15:30) April 20, 2021

Poll results: (40 votes total) Green: 1 (2%), White: 5 (12%), Gray (you): 6 (15%), [Skip Vote]: 13 (32%), Black: 15 (38%)

Poll 5 (Chapter 19):

Poll opened: 3:00pm EDT (14:00) May 14, 2021, Poll closed: 3:00pm EDT (14:00) May 17, 2021

Poll results: (31 votes total) Mini Lime: 1 (3%), [Skip Vote]: 4 (12%), Lime: 12 (39%), Black: 14 (45%)

Poll 6 (Chapter 21):

Poll opened: 12:30pm EDT (11:30) May 25, 2021, Poll closed: 12:30pm EDT (11:30) May 28, 2021

Poll results: (29 votes total) White: 1 (3%), Purple: 1 (3%), Mini Lime: 5 (17%), Lime: 22 (76%)

Most Popular Poll: Poll 4.5 (40 votes) 

Least Popular Poll: Poll 4 (22 votes)

Biggest Consensus: Poll 2 (84%)

Closest Vote: Poll 4 (32%)

Most Candidates: Poll 3 (7 options chosen)

Average Poll Votes: (30)

Total Poll Votes: (211)

consequences: reprisal polls

Poll 1 (Chapter 6):

Poll opened: ~9:00 EST (~21:00) December 16, 2022, Poll closed: 1:30am EST (01:30) February 26, 2023

Poll results: (14 votes total) Green: 1 (7%), Rose: 2 (14%), Red: 3 (21%), [Skip Vote]: 8 (57%)

Poll 2 (Chapter 14):

Poll opened: ~4:00pm EDT (~16:00) September 5, 2023, Poll closed: 11:59pm EDT (23:59) September 12, 2023

Poll results: (9 votes total) [Skip Vote]: 1 (11%), White: 2 (22%), Gray (you): 2 (22%), Red: 4 (44%)

Poll 3 (Chapter 16):

Poll opened: ~5:00pm EDT (~17:00) September 24, 2023, Poll closed: 11:59pm EDT (23:59) October 1, 2023

Poll results: (20 votes total) [Skip Vote]: 2 (10%), Brown: 8 (40%), Cyan: 10 (50%)

Poll 4 (Chapter 21):

Poll opened: ~11:00pm EST (~23:00) December 10, 2023, Poll closed: 11:59pm EST (23:59) December 17, 2023

Poll results: (16 votes total) [Skip Vote]: 1 (6%), Gray (you): 4 (25%), White: 5 (31%), Brown: 6 (38%)

Most Popular Poll: Poll 3 (20 votes)

Least Popular Poll: Poll 2 (9 votes)

Biggest Consensus: Poll 1 (57%)

Closest Vote:

Most Candidates: All but poll 3 had 4 options chosen

Average Poll Votes: (14.8)

Total Poll Votes: 59

consequences: reprisal (pre-rewrite) polls

*Note that the character “Tan” that was voted for here is actually the character Brown in the current version

Poll 1 (Chapter 4):

Poll opened: 10:38pm EDT (22:38) August 20, 2021, Poll closed at: 11:59 EDT (23:59)  September 4, 2021

Poll results: (14 votes total) Yellow: 1 (7%), Black: 1 (7%), Red: 1 (7%), Tan: 1 (7%), Maroon: 2 (14%) , [Skip Vote]: 8 (57%)

Poll 2 (Chapter 5):

Poll opened: 12:50am EDT (00:50) September 15, 2021, Poll closed: 11:59pm EDT (23:59) September 19, 2021

Poll results: (23 votes total) Maroon: 11 (48%), [Skip Vote]: 12 (52%)

Total Poll Votes: 37

overall 

Total series polls: 18 (16 without scrapped polls)

Most Popular Poll: Consequences Poll 2 (46 votes)  

Least Popular Poll: Reprisal Poll 2 (9 votes)

Biggest Consensus: Consequences Poll 5 (96%)

Closest Vote: Aftermath Poll 4 (32%)

Most Candidates: Consequences Poll 3 (10 options chosen)

Average Poll Votes: 28.6 (29.8 without scrapped polls)

Total Poll Votes: 515 (478 without scrapped polls)

Chapter Text

I thought I’d share a bit of my thought process and some writing tips with you all, since I’ve gotten a couple questions about how to write and I love to talk about this kind of stuff. A lot of this I’ve figured out or learned while writing this series, and it helps me too to put it all down like this. I’m not a professional writer by any means, so don’t take this as objective fact, but a lot of this has been really useful to think about as I worked though this series and other projects going forward! 
This is all very long and rambley, but I hope some of it could be helpful if any of you are looking to write your own fanfiction or original story!

Sections:
1. Worldbuilding,
2. My goal/inspiration specifically for worldbuilding in the among us setting
3. Keeping track of information characters have
4. Dramatic irony
5. Plot twists
6. Getting reader interaction
7. Making changes after publishing
8. Voting-specific tips
9. Reader-insert-specific tips
10. Contest-specific tips
11. Making your story compelling
12. How to actually write
13. Motivation, hiatus/discontinuation, and when to end a story
and a quick overly dramatic ramble about why I ended the series the way I did

Worldbuilding:

• When you’re setting the stage, don’t immediately bombard your readers with information. It can get overwhelming or boring rather quickly, and nobody is going to remember all of that down the line. Slowly introduce your information throughout the story, it keeps people intrigued and can help support your plot points. Make sure the information you’re introducing is relevant to what you’re talking about. This was a bit of a challenge for me, I had to put a lot of effort into not just infodumping everything at once (I swear, the number of things I had to cut or move around so it wasn’t twenty pages of straight backstory haha). But also, make sure your readers have enough info to go on, don’t leave it all for the end. Then you have the same problem, just later- and your readers have been confused the whole time. (Although, you can get away with a bit more information being thrown at your readers near the end if you’re revealing a major plot point/twist, just make sure to break it up with some dialogue or action).
• One nice thing, especially for beginning writers or people just looking to write casually and not have to build a universe from the ground up is writing in fandom. You already have an existing world to work out of! And then, if you’re feeling more creative, you can expand on that with AUs or headcanons or pre/post-canon, etc. Look at how much I made just from this silly little bean game. I added corporate conspiracy, time travel, alternate dimensions, etc! 
• Make a big world so you can work in it more! One of the reasons I was able to continue making stories beyond the first one was because I set up this existing backstory with MIRA and their missions and everything. Leave yourself room to grow (or your readers room to come up with their own aus/etc). You don’t have to use everything in your world, although I would only recommend going into depth in the story about things you plan to use to avoid confusion, but it’s always better to know how something would connect then have to scramble to put things together. (Getting Gray to Polus was a major headache lol, because I hadn’t really planned for aftermath during consequences. Reprisal, however, I planned a lot for, which is why it connects to everything else so well!)
• But, if you were like me and only had planned for one story but want to do more, it’s not the end of the world! You can always pick up on loose threads from the first story (i.e. the other crew in consequences that was originally a plot device to bring the impostor to the crew and make them nervous becoming a group subject to time loop experiments and Maroon as a returning character in reprisal) or come up with something new and retroactively explain it (the gray-tan thing)!

My goal/inspiration specifically for worldbuilding in the among us setting:

• A lot of other among us fics tend to fall in one of two categories as to how widespread their “impostors” are. A good majority of them tend to have impostors be a well-known problem, famous for taking down ships and rumored or feared across the stars. The others tend to focus specifically on one ship or one crew and how impostors affect just them, nobody else in their universe knowing anything about them. 
• I wanted to use aspects of both versions. I wanted the crew itself to be largely unfamiliar with the concept, so we could see their reactions to a brand-new disaster they were facing. But I also wanted to set this in a world and have both a reason the impostors were attacking and a way for them to infiltrate the crew, (as well as more than just one crew so I could move the main character to another crew for sequels and stuff). So, I went with kinda what the early stages of this kind of impostor epidemic would be like, spreading from one crew to another- but it only really affects four crews and some people at MIRA. 
• I wanted to create a world outside simply what happens in the game, explaining why exactly our characters were in this situation and why this situation could even exist in their world. It’s so oddly specific but I love fics about games that give an in-universe reason for actual game mechanics, it’s probably one of my favorites if not my favorite fic tropes in video game fandoms. 
• The contest I created simply as a device for the reader-insert part to work. I will write a lot about the reader-insert dynamic later, but in short here- I know pretty much everyone reading this isn’t going to be an astronaut. (It would be wild if anyone who had ever been to space read this- they would get to notice all of the “creative liberties” I took with science and technology lol). The contest was a way I could get any average human into space- and a fairly believable explanation. (I’ve seen actual contests where the winners get to go to space- and proceed to laugh every time with a “heck no I wrote that story, I know how it ends” joke). I know plenty of people don’t mind pretending to be someone else even in a reader-insert story, and a lot of people read Gray as a character not themself, but that was my thought process there.
• A lot of the other stuff just kind of was “I have this idea I think is neat, let’s find a way to make it work.” I love time travel/time loop stories, and ever since I played Undertale back in 2016, I’ve loved the idea of game mechanics happening within a loop system. And a natural segway from time loops is time travel. So, I would just take these ideas, and some others I come up with, find a way to plug them into the world, and throw in some bonus connections so everything makes sense. 
• I created this world for me. I filled it with tropes and characters I love, showed it to people I love, and based it off a game that I love. My goal was to make something I would want to read, and something I hadn’t really seen before, which is why it means so so much that other people love it too.

Keeping track of information characters have:

• Keeping track of who knows what was a constant challenge in this series, especially as we progressed through reprisal. I was constantly writing dialogue then having to go back and ask “wait would they know that” or even “would they know to know that” because some of the conclusions I need them to come to wouldn’t make sense to someone just trying to survive who doesn’t have previous experience with loops or with among us as an actual game Like I had to establish why vents are dangerous, and how the stuff breaking is attributed to sabotage and not just mechanical failure, and why it’s obviously murder and not some freak accident. 
• There were also really little things I often had to catch myself on, such as referring to the reactor room as being “on the left side” of the Skeld, (it’s not really the left for the characters, we just call it the left because that’s how the map is shown in-game) and using words such as “round” and “win.” I was really intentional about word choice, making sure a lot of these game terms and concepts either weren’t used at all, were used in the context of the loop, or were brought up by Purple/Cyan. But because of that, I got to use those terms to hint at their anomaly status along with Rose and Red, one specific example being just the four of them calling things “sus”.
• As the stories go on you’re with people who have more experience and would know more of these established facts, but then I have to think about the difference in information between characters of different backgrounds. In aftermath, we have a very limited number of characters who remember anything- or even remember to look for the logs that would help them remember what happened. In reprisal, we have characters who worked for MIRA but never went on a mission, Brown who is this inside spy and knows specifically how this reprisal crew setup works, someone like Green or Maroon who has been stuck in loops before, Green and Gray regaining memories, Just Gray in general who goes between forgetting consequences, remembering consequences, remembering some pre-aftermath stuff, and the weird future memories hinting at the cyclical nature of the story, Tan who is consequences Gray but not aftermath Gray and is also infected all over again, and the anomalies Cyan and Purple and Red and Rose, all of whom know about Among Us itself, but Cyan & Purple from how it was in 2020 and Red and Ross from how it was in 2022. All of this lends to sometimes single lines of dialogue requiring checks against multiple character profiles, timeline entries, and stories only to still get it wrong and have to fix things or explain them away. Also, the amount of times I would mention someone knows something and think it would be this big reveal because it didn’t match up with what someone would expect them to know- only to realize literally nobody else picked up on it because I am the only one that is totally aware of every intricacy of this story and why something like calling something a “loop” or a “cycle” would be so important. (People who worked at MIRA call it cycles. People who were on missions call it loops. 
• For me, one thing that worked to keep track of everything was just having a lot of documentation. It sounds silly but I had spreadsheets, character profiles, art, planning notes, all ready to consult when I needed. I was also quite literally fixated on this story for years, I thought about it at least once a day (usually more) for the three and a half years I was writing it.

Dramatic irony: 

My relationship with dramatic irony is really interesting with this, because I want gray to know what the reader knows and vice versa, but not much beyond that. A reader insert story just doesn’t lend itself to dramatic irony very well, since you’re supposed to be reading as gray. (Granted a good majority of readers, me included, read gray as a character instead of an actual self-insert, but yknow it’s a fun writing challenge)

Some of the main instances of dramatic irony here are:

• the reader’s knowledge of the game/its premise- especially in the first story. A reader who is familiar with the source material likely at least knows there is going to be an impostor because duh it’s among us, they also may know stuff like (depending on their level of familiarity with the game) that vents are for impostors, that sabotages are caused by the impostor, or what the medical scan means. This is interesting to leverage, because I don’t want the reader to get bored with me explaining stuff they already know, but I also want this to be something someone can theoretically go into with no among us knowledge and enjoy. Also, narratively, with the backstory I have set up, it wouldn’t make any sense for the characters to know these things. Consequences isn’t just a story with the among us premise, it’s about how (in my world at least) among us became among us, how people started voting and ejecting people and everything. These aren’t established facts in the consequences universe, at least at the beginning. So I try to keep my explanations interesting and not too drawn out, so people have that “aha! that’s the thing in the game! that’s why the game does it like that!” moment that I love so much in game fics. But also, my favorite thing to do, is to recognize and subvert these expectations. One of the first things gray did was medical scan, which should mean they’re undeniably safe as in the game and like every fan interpretation that means they would be. Except! They did it back at MIRA HQ before they were infected and became an impostor afterwards. Also, the number of impostors. Back in 2020 when the lobby size was 10, three impostors was an option, but the most common play style was two. Most fan content I had seen had two impostors and it was just kind of the norm. By not providing the number of impostors, people assumed there were two for the most part, and weren’t thinking super closely about the vote on seven being their last chance if there were three. There are moments like this throughout the stories that I love, like giving mini lime tasks and a vote (and the ability to be voted off) as a mini crewmate, or establishing impostors as alien parasites- and then having two of the impostors be human in aftermath 
• Reading the series in varying order! As I’ve said, since the completion of reprisal, the stories are technically readable in any order. This means that readers could start the series at any of the three points. I originally wrote it with consequences, aftermath, reprisal in mind, but one could start with aftermath and I still feel get a pretty good understanding of what’s happening. (Reprisal might be a bit tougher to start from, but I would say it’s still doable). Also, I suspect that some people were reading this in a different order anyways, coming across one of the stories before the others and starting there. One of the very subtle hints to the final ending once I decided what it would be was a change I made to the author’s notes, changing them from something along the lines of “this is the first/second/third in the series, I recommend you starting at the first one” to “this is part of a series, you can read it in any order, (although I did write consequences first)” Because of this, not everyone will have the same information coming from the last story as the last person. This is interesting to balance, with placing reveals/reminders about “previous” events without being too redundant about it. But it also allows me to do some really fun things with cross-story foreshadowing, some of which was included from the very beginning! (I may have added a few details in later edits, but these are more fun Easter eggs than anything that would have led people to a conclusion. If you go back and reread, there’s a chance you’ll spot some cool throwaway lines that make a lot more sense now!)
• Amnesia! No matter what order you’re reading the story in, most of the time, Gray has forgotten something from the last story. (Consequences to aftermath, reprisal to consequences, if you’re going backwards- only exception is aftermath to reprisal, but they’re still trying to get their consequences memories back). Depending on if you’ve read the last story or not, you may actually already know what Gray doesn’t. (Similar to the reading in any order argument). This works great for consequences to aftermath, and it was kind of built around the idea of “is gray still an impostor?” that you would get from reading it in that order. This is interesting to balance because I don’t want to make it frustrating repeating stuff readers already know, but also Gray may not make some of the same decisions/assumptions a reader would without some of those memories. (although with three years between the first story and stuff in reprisal, some of the original readers who had to wait for chapters to come out may have well forgotten consequences events haha).
• Some people theorizing/picking up on clues that others don’t. This is kind of just an unavoidable fact of any mystery story. Some people are going to try and figure things out, and others are just going to read and see where the story goes without thinking too much about it. Additionally, out of those groups, you’ll have some people who pick up on certain things and some people who don’t, or some up with different theories. (Sometimes I see things in my comments section that are like- wow I really like that; I wish I thought of that first! The “Cyan is the spy” theory comes to mind a bit as an example there). I do tend to give multiple hints, sometimes in different ways- especially if I see nobody has picked up on something, but that isn’t something I build in too much. It’s okay if people don’t figure things out as soon as possible because it will be revealed eventually.

Plot twists: 

• Plot twists are great, everyone loves a good plot twist, but in order to make one truly effective, you have to lead up to it. A plot twist you just pull out of thin air isn’t going to have too much emotional impact. Sure, your readers won’t be expecting it and nobody will have guessed it, but it’s not narratively satisfying. I’ve heard some advice before that having readers guess your plot twist before it happens isn’t a bad thing, it just shows that you’re foreshadowing effectively. (In consequences I actually had a person or two in my comments correctly guess gray was the impostor before the reveal!) It can be far more satisfying for a reader to have a strong theory and see it come to fruition than be blindsided by something unexpected. Also, even if your readers guess right, they don’t know they’re right! Nothing is confirmed until you reveal it- a correct guess feels just like a wrong one until you tell them they’re right. 
• That being said, I’m sure there are a few instances where things are revealed without too much leadup. This is fine for smaller things, little shocks and maybe even an occasional big plot twist, but the important thing is that you’re not doing this all the time. Leave these entirely unexpected plot twists for really rare moments, or not at all. Or find a way to retroactively explain why your plot twist happened. The explanation doesn’t have to come before the twist (that can defeat the purpose), but make sure when you’re explaining after, you’re trying back to instances of foreshadowing or a logical conclusion to your plot twist has some support and weight to it.
• Foreshadowing is great, it’s what makes your plot twists believable and allows for that theorizing community that I really enjoy having here. Doing it right takes a lot of practice and balancing! You don’t want to not hint enough and have your plot points come out of nowhere, but you don’t want to foreshadow so hard that everything is revealed way before its time. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get it right on your first try. One of the reasons I was able to do it so effectively here is because I had people in my comments, telling me their theories and assumptions as they went. That way I could literally see what hints were coming across well, and what needed a bit more hinting at. That’s actually one reason, if you’re not getting much interaction or not posting until you’re finished or writing an original story not posted on a fanfiction site, that a “beta reader”, or multiple beta readers, can be helpful. (I’ll talk more about that in a later section.) One important thing with foreshadowing is that you follow through. If you’re leading up to something, make sure that something happens! Don’t pull your readers along only to never actually let them know what you were building to. That’s rather frustrating as a reader. 
• One thing you may find yourself using are “red herrings”- or clues that actually lead the readers astray/distract them. These can be great for leading up to plot twists, but they’re also like salt- too much and it totally ruins what you’re going for. Use them strategically and only occasionally. If you are too enthusiastic about pretending something is going to happen when it’s not, then your story might actually make less sense with the actual ending than it would the fake ending you’re leading the readers to. Then your actual ending won’t feel built up and instead feel like you changed your mind when writing it. Also, too many red herrings can make your plot messy while people are still figuring it out, basing big portions of theories or their concept of the story on lies can lead to a lot of confusion down the line- especially if things end up directly contradicting each other on multiple different ways. 
• Your plot twists need to make sense. I said earlier that pulling plot twists out of thin air only gives you shock value; it doesn’t keep you satisfied. Additionally, sometimes this has the effect of making your plot twists not make any sense. Don’t just have plot twists to have plot twists, have them because they’re the part of the story you want to tell. A great story always isn’t the most shocking, it’s one that flows together well and has compelling characters and events- and reasons for those events. Don’t leave your audience wondering “why”- leave your audience wondering “how”. Keep your explanations understandable. If your explanation for your twist is going to have to be really in-depth (think tan-gray here), try splitting it up over multiple sections/chapters so you’re not bombarding the readers with information. It’s okay if your story requires a little work or theorizing, but your conclusion should always give a satisfying reveal. Don’t leave your readers wondering too much after you’re done. 
• With all that in mind, here’s my secret recipe to engaging plot twists:
  • a lot of genuine, subtle, foreshadowing/evidence scattered throughout multiple chapters or the entire story that increases in intensity closer to your conclusion
  • A few very important details left for the reveal at the end that lead directly to the plot twist
  • perhaps the most important part, a fake conclusion that your real foreshadowing could also reasonably lead to
  • a few small red herring details that support the fake conclusion and almost fill in the gap of the missing information until they are disproven when the final information comes out. 
  • The plot twist/what actually happened 
• Here’s an example breakdown of that with a smaller plot twist I did (Red having killed Orange in consequences)
  • foreshadowing/evidence: Red passing out, Red was also in medbay at the time, A piece of fabric caught in the vent that was a “pink-ish” color
  • important details: Red is an impostor, Red can travel through vents 
  • fake conclusion: Pink crawled through the vent and killed Orange 
  • red herrings: Color of the piece of fabric seeming pink (but it’s taken away before you can fully tell), Pink’s body type being able to fit in the vent
  • what actually happened: Red crawled through the vent and killed Orange 

Getting reader interaction:

• My number one piece of advice here is don’t treat fanfiction like other content creation. With a lot of fandom getting into the mainstream, and people constantly consuming content with the ease of accessibility to it, it’s easy to treat writing or reading fanfic like you’re on TikTok or Instagram or whatever. If you’re just writing fanfic to get popular, I’d reevaluate why you’re writing it. If that’s your main motivation, chances are you’re going to be disappointed. Fanfiction is a hobby that comes from love and enjoying what you do, and if you try to turn it into a content creation scheme, you’re probably not going to have as much fun with it. Make what you want to make, when you want to make it, for the audience that will enjoy it for what it is. Don’t change your idea just to get more reads- you won’t feel as satisfied. (For example, I don’t include a lot of romance in my fics. A lot more people like to read stuff with romance, and many will only read stuff with romance. I don’t like to write romance, so I’m not including it, even if it would get more people to click on it. Instead, I mostly let my readers ship whoever they want with a few suggestions (consequences brown and orange are probably the closest thing to a canon couple I have, and they die early on aha)- which I think is more fun!)
• I hate to say it, but if you’re still in the mindset that numbers (kudos/favorite, comments, shares, etc) are what you’re looking for (again I do not recommend approaching it this way), there is an aspect of hopping on a trend. One reason consequences got as popular as it did (on Quotev, I wish I would have originally published it on Ao3 too instead of waiting a year) was because I wrote it during the height of the among us fandom in 2020. Now for me, that wasn’t my motivation. I was so originally embarrassed that I wrote the first story anonymously at the beginning, I just really wanted to share my beans with the world. This is evidenced by the fact that I’m still writing among us fanfiction in 2024 aha.
• In my opinion, reader interaction is quality over quantity, especially in a story like this with a lot of mysteries to be theorized about. I’d much rather have one or two people consistently commenting or long theorizing comments than a bunch of people simply reading. (This isn’t to say anything bad about just reading, I appreciate you all so much no matter how you do or don’t interact! I’m just saying I’d rather have a community than be well-known)
• If you don’t get that reader interaction, or if it fades over time, it’s ok. I know it’s incredibly disappointing- this isn’t the only fanfic I’ve written lol. It’s not always you, sometimes it’s the timing or the fandom or the tags or the ship or something. Some things just don’t get as much attention, it doesn’t mean your idea is bad or you’re cringe. What I try to think about in these cases is even if one person reads it- it’s one more person that wouldn’t have seen it if you didn’t post it. Imagine sitting next to someone and having them read your story. (I have done that and it’s a super neat experience btw) Imagine being in a room with five people, ten people who have all read your story! Try putting it in perspective like that, these are other human beings that have taken time out of the day to read your story, regardless of how many there are or how much they do or don’t interact. Even if you get no interaction. Even if nobody reads or comments- you got to make something. Did you have fun? Did you enjoy what you were doing? Then it wasn’t a waste of time- you made your story for you. I know I can sit here and say this with readers and comments, but I’ve been there, and I know how disappointing it can be. Don’t let it keep you from doing what you love.
• If you’re doing a series, you likely will not get the same amount of interaction between stories. In my experience at least, whatever you post first will have the most readers/favorites, and whatever you post last will have the most dedicated fans. This is especially true with fandoms that decline in popularity (like among us), but usually true in general as well. This is for a couple reasons. One, not everyone wants more out of a story- they may have moved on or got enough out of the first one. Two, people may not know there’s a sequel. I tried my best to point people to the following stories, and I think it worked out pretty well, but there’s a chance people will always be lost when having a new link to click on. Three, people who find the story later on will sometimes go back and read the first one too, adding to that count as well. But, even though the numbers might be the biggest in the first one, I’ve found that later ones have more loyal followings and people who are more interested in interacting because they’ve been part of this for so long they’re invested now.
• Try different platforms! Different platforms have different audiences and might lead to different levels of interaction. I get (or got, before the site got ruined lol) far more interaction on Quotev than Ao3, because I’ve noticed Quotev is sometimes more willing to give “cringe” a try than Ao3. (I also posted on Quotev first, if I had posted on Ao3 from the beginning I probably would have gotten more interaction there too). I also lowkey promote the series on Tumblr because I post a lot of art for it there. Idk if that’s brought anyone to the series, but maybe it has.
• Reply to comments (if you can)! Interacting with your readers makes them more likely to comment again. Create a space for discussion, encourage readers to interact with you and with each other. It can be fun to answer questions cryptically or drop hints to those who are going in the right direction. Having a community keeps readers coming back and getting excited about your story.

Making changes after publishing:

• Something like fanfiction is a really unique medium, because for the most part, you’re updating on a chapter basis instead of writing the whole story. This makes it complicated, as unless you have everything written out before you post your first chapter, you’re essentially posting your draft to the whole internet, and there will probably be things you want to change. In a lot of cases, going back and making changes is fine in terms of fanfiction, but with something like a mystery especially with people voting on the outcome, you have to be really careful that you don’t betray your readers by changing existing information too much. Before you go to change things, know what mistakes you can fix, and what you have to work around. 
• In general, if something is more stylistic/worldbuilding, more flavor than substance, then yeah you can probably change it. It’s not going to affect your reader’s conclusions in that case. Some examples of mistakes I made and how I changed them: Example from consequences: the gray opens the airlock scene originally took place in the cafeteria. But after actually looking at the map and seeing fan interpretations and just thinking through the logistics of it, I realized that it made a lot more sense for the airlock to be in storage- so I changed it. Would this change anyone’s conclusions? No, people knew who the impostors were already. Did this change the meaning or implications of the scene? No, it’s the same thing, it just happens somewhere else.
• However, if something is going to change someone’s conclusions or the flow of the story- *especially* if it’s something that people will be voting on, then you’re stuck with your mistake and will have to work around it. For example, if your readers have already voted, it’s kinda rude to bring new information to light that was supposed to be revealed before the vote. Also, changing major events of a story is not a good idea either. Stick with your plot points. If there’s something you can’t change, it’s an opportunity for you to come up with something new as a work around. It took me literal months to figure out how to get Gray to Polus without changing the ending of Consequences or beginning of Aftermath.
• Also, grammar and spelling and stylistic improvements are always fine, go back and be your own beta reader months later! You’d be surprised at what you catch after that time period.  
• Now a tricky spot is going back and adding additional hints/foreshadowing. I will admit I did this a little bit in the first few chapters of my consequences editing to connect to some of the stuff in reprisal, (some hints about Mr. Fortegreen and the intern, as well as a joke about time travel) but it was nothing that would be relevant to consequences itself. The only reason I did that was to complete the loop from reprisal back to consequences and make the transition less jarring since it was supposed to connect. 

Voting-specific tips:

• Fun fact about the voting: Despite it becoming a very integral part to what the consequences series it, it actually wasn’t in my very first concept for this story! My very first idea for consequences was actually a choose-your-own adventure/ branching path narrative fic, where each vote would actually lead to a different chapter and series of events. However, I was coming off of having to abandon probabilities, a d:bh choose your own adventure fic that i got way in over my head to the point where i had to write like 49 different endings or something of the like, and I didn’t want to do that again. So, I decided to compromise with having people essentially vote on a path instead. I actually wasn’t too happy about that initially, but it turned out to be one of my favorite things about the series!
• This voting idea doesn’t just have to be for among us, obviously. Voting doesn’t even have to be for characters, it can be for plot points, actions, whatever you want! 
• Find a good polling site. I’ve tried a lot of websites (as some of you know), and I’ve found that I like strawpoll the best. I’d recommend that with whatever you choose to use, people can vote without having an account or signing in or putting in personal info- keep it accessible to as many people as possible. This can run the risk of vote spamming, but a lot of sites have measures to mitigate that, and I’ve found the benefit of making voting accessible outweighs having to check a couple other boxes. Can you 100% guarantee that every vote is from someone different? No, but people can make multiple emails and stuff too- if someone really wants to spam your poll, they’ll find a way. But you can usually tell, a lot of polls have graphs and stuff of votes over time. 
• Label options clearly. Don’t make the mistake of games where you’re choosing one dialogue option and say something different, make what happens make sense with the open. Now, there can always be unintended consequences (that’s where the story gets its namesake after all!), but the action or choice itself should be what it says you’re voting for. 
• I’d advise a simpler voting setup than I did. How mine worked was the result was specifically just for Gray’s vote, leading to them getting outvoted by the other characters once in aftermath. People didn’t realize that they just had one vote instead of all the votes and were disappointed when they were outvoted once in aftermath. This ended up discouraging both participation in votes and voting based on theories, which I suspect hurt my reader engagement. (I learned from this mistake and made sure going forward the reader vote always aligned with what happened). So, I would advise having your vote directly correspond to what happens, because that’s how most people will assume it works.
• The amount of votes you get may fluctuate with interest in your story and your topic. If you find yourself with less votes, it’s not the end of the world. Honestly since I started with the votes, I was determined to keep them, even if nobody voted. I haven’t quite come up with a way to navigate zero votes, as I never encountered that myself, but in that case, I would probably go ahead with whatever I wanted to see and maybe try again with something else in another chapter. You never know if more people will find your story down the line and want to participate, sometimes I’d have the number of votes go up as the story went on!
• Not everyone will want to vote! Your number of votes most likely isn’t going to match your number of readers. Not everyone wants to participate, and that’s okay! You’re not doing anything wrong. 
• Show your percentages. Even if you feel like it’s embarrassing how few people voted, having your numbers up makes you seem genuine. It’s also fun for people to see just how close (or not close at all) it was.
• Probably goes without saying but don’t manipulate your votes. I’m not saying you can’t vote once yourself if you want (although I wouldn’t be a tiebreaker if you can avoid it), but don’t mess with the polls. 
• Keep your polls open for a set time. Originally, I started with being open for three days (not long enough), then until I was ready to write the next chapter (polls were open for like “at least x days” which was inconstant and weird), but I finally settled on a week which seems to be a good length for me. Keep in mind you will usually have to wait until the vote is finished to start writing (it seems like whenever I start writing before the vote is over, the majority switches and I have to restart). If you have a weekly update schedule, for example, you might have to do something like a vote open for five days, so you have two days to write the chapter. 
• It also probably would be a good idea to have your polls start/stop at the same time each time, but I update at weird hours so it’s just whatever time I post for opening, and then 11:59pm/23:59 closing a week later. Also be sure to include your time zone and both 12- and 24-hour time formats, since you’ll probably have readers from all over the place.
• Make your votes interesting! Have stakes! Make your readers actually want to vote and give them divisive options that have the potential to actually impact the story. I’ve found that votes that had to do more with characters readers seemed to care about or were closer to what seemed to be the end/climax of the story always tended to get more votes because people were really passionate about things working out the way they wanted them to. If it doesn’t seem like their votes are going to change anything, readers will probably feel less inclined to vote. 
• Your votes can also be a great way to gauge what your readers want from the story without having to directly ask. A prime example of this was reprisal’s Cyan vs Brown vote. I was struggling to gauge if my readers wanted to see Gray play into the impostor role more or continue to fight against it, so i brought them into a situation where those two options were as kind of simulated with the people they were voting for. The people who wanted to see Gray be an impostor would vote for Cyan, and the people who didn’t would vote for Brown. Now, that vote ended up almost tying, so I didn’t lean too much one way or another, but if the majority had been for Brown we wouldn’t have gotten the “Gray attempts to murder Maroon” scene. Alternatively, if the vote had been a very strong majority for Cyan, Gray may have actually succeeded in killing Maroon. 
• Speaking of that vote, one thing that’s very important with voting is to plan in advance! Don’t get caught off guard if your voters choose something unexpected! A good portion of my plot ended up being built on the assumption that the readers would choose Brown in that vote, which was a bit of a pain to work out (don’t base a major plot development off an assumed vote lol), BUT I did do something important- I had a plan just in case. I had a few little sentences for each possible option in my notes, and I was able to work off of my “what if they chose Cyan instead” one for a while until I figured everything out. I had one for Brown, one for Cyan, one for skipping and one backup one on case the vote was someone else completely random. (I learned from my incident with the aftermath Black vote).
• Along with the previous point, plan, but don’t pre-write. Again, with that one I made the mistake of starting to write the chapter as if the readers had chosen brown before the poll was over. Thankfully I didn’t get very far, but that could’ve been a lot of wasted effort. Wait to start writing until your poll is done, or else you could end up with wasted time/effort. If you don’t listen to that advice and this happens anyway, don’t worry too much, now you have a deleted scene!
• Also, to hear about some issues I encountered/things I’d change, check out the beginning note in my “poll statistics” chapter!

Reader-insert-specific tips:

• You are not “cringe” for writing or reading a reader-insert story. I know the fanfiction community likes to poke fun at them a lot, which is weird because why are fanfiction writers infighting when we’re all “cringey” here, but chances are a lot of people making fun of them either haven’t read a good one or just don’t vibe with the second person pov. (Okay rant over, I’m just a bit passionate about that as a primarily reader-insert writer/reader so far ahaha.)
• First of all, be aware that you are limiting your audience by choosing to write a reader insert story. A lot of fanfiction readers don’t like them or think they’re cringe. (Combine that with this being an among us story and I’m sure there are some people out there that would have enjoyed this but were too scared to give it a try because it could be cringe- to that I say their loss). You also may end up with a lot of younger readers, so keep that in mind as well. 
• This is a bit of a personal preference, but I don’t use “(y/n)” or “(name)” or anything like that. I’ve found that not using it makes my writing flow better and feel more “grown up”, if that makes sense, but that could just be me. Also, my brain literally reads “(y/n)” as “yes/no” so it’s kinda distracting for me. (Side note, I‘ve heard a lot of people say they read it as literally the letters “y n” or “your name” or “yin”, but  never heard of anyone else reading it as “yes/no”. Perhaps I’ve just done too much paperwork?) Here, characters are mostly referred to by colors, but I know for a fact it’s possible to avoid using it because I’ve done it in other fics- and so have a ton of other writers. Additionally, many of the other descriptions like “(e/c)” eye color for example, can be worked around- just talk about your reader’s eyes shining in the moonlight or whatever, we don’t need to know what color they are if it’s not a specific one!
• There’s a difference between “reader-insert” and “x reader”! Any story who uses the reader in the story is a “reader-insert”, but “x reader” refers specifically to stores where the reader is being shipped with (romantically interested/involved with) one or more characters. I see this get missed all the time when labeling/tagging stories, so I just wanted to mention it, especially since my stories I would consider reader-insert but not x reader. Additionally, quick fandom culture lesson here, when tagging/describing relationships, different symbols mean different things! “character/reader” would mean a romantic pairing, where “character&reader” would mean a platonic pairing.
• I almost feel as if, in order to accomplish what I needed, I had to “invent” (I’m sure it exists) a new point of view that’s a combination of second person but also with an unreliable narrator at times. I usually based the internal narration specifically off of what Gray would believe in a given moment, and thus it would not always be technically correct. This was necessary for the mystery style, albeit a bit misleading at times, but I think I balanced it rather well- trying to always make it pretty clear when this is Gray’s thoughts (using words like “seemed”) as opposed to an objective fact. This style was actually really fun to write in and works really well with some of the plot twist and foreshadowing stuff I mentioned earlier. I would totally write like this again for another project- not even for the reader-insert aspect but for the fun unreliable second person pov.
• Second person voice/personality. No matter what you do, your reader character is going to have their own unique voice and personality, even if it’s really subtle. Because of how you write, their decisions, their actions, they’re going to become a bit of a character. Some people lean into that, naming their reader or give them distinct personality traits on purpose, but that’s not really my style as i feel like they can become more of a oc-insert than a reader. (No hate on ocs! That’s this whole story lol, just not my vibe).  Now, inadvertently because of this being an Among Us story, the reader character here kinda has a name since they’re referred to by their color, but unlike the other characters I don’t really have a name or appearance or anything conceptualized for them. If anything, their name would literally be Gray, since that’s also a name and it’s gender-neutral! This whole “forming a personality” thing is especially going to be true with something that spans multiple stories like this series, because your main character is probably going to unavoidably form a personality just by virtue of the story and how you write them. For example, Gray has developed as a kind of anxious and insecure, but occasionally rather impulsive, character that seems to be somewhere in the neutral-good/chaotic-good range.
• If your goal is to make it a “true” reader-insert (as in your readers literally seeing themself as the character in the story), try to be inclusive! This doesn’t necessarily mean writing your reader as the most generic person ever but think about including some descriptors in your description/ intro note if you’re going to write a specific type of reader. Let people know if you’re writing a female/male/gender-neutral/etc reader or if they’re a specific species or something (if it’s not a plot spoiler), people like to know what they’re getting into if they’re going to be reading the reader as themself! Additionally, think carefully about physical descriptions. Are you accidentally assuming your reader’s race/ethnicity? Body type? Hairstyle?  If your goal is to appeal to as many people as possible, maybe reconsider descriptions like “long, straight hair”, “pale skin”, “thin frame”, etc. You’re not going to be able to write everybody, that’s a fact, (for example, the story I have written wouldn’t be something for people who are uncomfortable with being referred to using they/them) but sometimes small details can make a big difference for a reader! 
• Not everyone’s going to read as the character. That’s something that I actually learned a lot about while interacting with my readers- a lot of people were actually reading gray as a character and not a reader-insert, and I really like that! It takes a little pressure off me as a writer, and it makes me happy that maybe people who don’t typically like reader-inserts might be interested in this. (I thought about publishing a third person pov version of the story for people who get freaked out by second person and want to read gray as a character not a reader, but that feels like a lot of effort for not a lot of use, and it’s not really my creative vision for the story.) As much as I really like people reading gray as a character, a lot of the style choices and even some of the plot choices were actually based on the fact that it was originally written as a true reader-insert.

Contest-specific tips: 

• The character contest was a really fun thing to do, but there are also a few things to consider as well. Would it work well in your story? Do you feel like it would affect your creative freedom? Is your community positive enough where it won’t be an issue? 
• First of all, if you’re in the situation where you have a lot of submissions, you’re not going to be able to pick all of them. I didn’t have any problems with people getting upset they didn’t get picked (this community is generally very kind), but there’s a chance you could run into that, so I would make sure you make it clear that this is a contest and you most likely won’t be using every character.
• In the reverse situation, there’s a chance you will get very few submissions or none at all. That’s not a failure on your part! Not everyone is interested or has the time to make a character to enter, and some people might be anxious about the idea of being rejected. If it doesn’t work out, shake it off and move on.
• Make sure your readers know, especially with something like this, that you’ll be writing their character and choosing their actions. It sounds self-explanatory, but I like to put in a disclaimer that once the character is submitted, they’re under the writer’s control, so you don’t get “they wouldn’t do that!!! comments or things of the like. Again, I didn’t have a problem with this, just something to consider. 
• Pick characters who you think will fit well in the story! Sometimes there will be characters you want to include, but they all end up having very similar personalities. Or, if you take multiple shy/withdrawn characters who don’t speak much, you might struggle to keep dialogue going. Think about the dynamics you have and the plot you need to accomplish and see who would fit the best in that. 
• Ask the questions you need answers to! When you’re creating your list of things you need to know about the character, think about what will be important in the story. Personality is a big one, and I also like to ask for specific characteristics related to the story. (For example, I asked about how characters vote, do tasks, how good they would be at being impostor, what role (crew/imp) the creator sees them fitting the best, color, pets/hats, etc). I also asked for name and physical appearances (mostly for character bios since I don’t use those much in the story itself), which will probably be important for other stories as well. 
• To the best of your ability- stick to the provided personality descriptions! Include details that people included (i.e. Pink’s love of plants or Yellow’s love of cheese-related puns) and base your characters’ actions off of what you’re given. Now, especially as the story goes on, you may need to expand on this to further the plot, which is fine, just try not to completely shift their personality to something different.
• That being said, don’t freak out about being 100% in-character all the time. It’s your story, and you have permission to use these characters in your story to develop the plot and interact with each other. Just write them how it naturally flows, keeping their characteristics in mind. Don’t stress about it too much, it’s all for fun!
• If you’re ever using these characters outside of the story itself (extra art/lore posted on social media, etc), credit their creators!! If you have someone who submitted a character anonymously, just note that they were created as an anonymous submission. I’m a big fan of crediting people for the creative work they do. Even if these characters become more of your characters as you develop them, it’s common courtesy to always credit the creator.

Making your story compelling:

• Pacing! Story pacing can be really difficult, especially if you don’t have everything planned out yet. I would really recommend looking at the classic story structure (rising actions, climax, falling action, etc- that pyramid chart you’ve probably seen before). It’s the standard for a reason! You can play with this if you want, but I would recommend waiting to do so until you have some writing under your belt and can make it work effectively. One thing that I’ve found really important is both to make sure your action builds steadily and increases over time, but also that you give your readers breaks. “Filler episodes” are good! Let your readers breathe from the tension a bit. Make sure to balance this too, though! Too much filler that doesn’t move the plot forward (if your story is intended to be plot-driven, some people just want to write fluff and slice-of-life and that’s great too, if that’s your intention) can sometimes bore readers, so you may have to play around with the order you put things in. I always like to have a bit of “calm before the storm”, because it puts readers in a place where they’re emotionally rested and ready for all the crazy stuff that’s about to happen. (A fun side effect is a lot of people are familiar with the idea of the “calm before the storm” and thus may start to feel a little bit unsettled right before your action begins- which is perfect!)
• When ending a chapter, I try to split it evenly between minor cliffhanger for the next chapter, and seemingly satisfying conclusion. Cliffhangers get your readers excited for the next chapter and keep them coming back, but a cliffhanger every time can get exhausting and take some of the surprise out of it. Typically, I’ll alternate them a bit, but I did fined just because of the nature of the story I did end up leaving a bit heavier into cliffhangers, especially since the voting was always a cliffhanger of sorts because even I didn’t know what was going to happen.
• Figure out your story’s tone and purpose! Are you telling a serious story? A humorous one? Teaching a lesson or moral? Is it satire/an analogy? Are you more plot-focused, relationship-focused, or just want to write about the little moments of everyday life? Is there romance? All of this will determine the tone of your story. It’s really individual and up to you as a writer, so I’m not going to tell you how to approach what, I’ll just mention what I did for consequences. This series was very plot-focused, and would occasionally center on characters as well, usually specifically how they respond to difficult situations and interact with each other- so I spent time both building the plot and the world and the action, as well as how the characters are interacting with each other, with a few slice-of-life everyday moments sprinkled in occasionally. The tone of this story was rather serious (maybe to some people’s surprise when they saw a reader insert among us fic), because that was the story I wanted to tell. However, I did my best to occasionally include wholesome moments and sometimes even humor, because a story isn’t just all one thing, and reading something that’s just serious plot point after serious plot point can be a little draining. Now, I absolutely love angst and plot, I beat my characters up repeatedly because I love them, but even I like to see a little humor every once in a while. 
• Write interesting characters! When writing a story with original characters, especially something like this where your whole cast is ocs, you need to make your characters compelling and unique. Give them relationships with each other- both positive and negative. Think about how one character’s attitude or actions impact another’s. Give them distinct personalities and quirks, both character strengths and flaws, and motivations for everything they do. Make your readers care about them! Find things people can relate to or sympathize with; people will usually gravitate towards those characters. Be consistent in your characterization so people can form opinions. Make them get attached to your characters and want to see them thrive (or want to see them suffer!) Don’t make characters too similar, because then they become hard to tell apart. Also, don’t introduce all your characters at once- people won’t remember them! Slowly introduce your characters and who they are throughout the story, and it will be easier to keep track of!

How to actually write:

• Read! Find fics you really like and figure out what it is about then that you like so much. Look beyond just the plot and look at the writing style- what works? What tropes do you like? Dislike? What characterization details compel you? The more you read, the better writer you’ll be! And don’t get discouraged if you find someone who’s come up with a similar idea as you- one of the reasons people go to fanfiction is because they want to see more of a world they’ve already spent time in. People rewatch movies all the time. Shows get seasons after seasons, games get remakes, people read the same au over and over again because each writer writes ever so differently.
• Find things that inspire you! Make moodboards and playlists, if you’re working with ocs draw your characters, or make them in picrews/character makers. Imagine your story as an animatic, a show or movie. Go for a walk or a drive or take a shower, anything that gets you inspired to write!
• Grammar and formatting, while it may not seem like it, is actually very important in writing (even fanfiction) and can often be the difference between someone continuing to read or clicking off! Do your best to use proper grammar and avoid spelling errors when possible. It’s not the end of the world if you have a few errors (I know I always have at least one spelling or typing error per chapter that I miss), especially if you’re not working with an editor or beta reader, but too many errors can sometimes be distracting and make it difficult to read. (An important note, I know many people aren’t writing in their native language, are new to writing, or may have reading/writing/vision disabilities or something that make some of this more difficult- I encourage you just to try your best and not be too hard on yourself!) One great way to check for errors is reading your draft in a different font or with a different color background, there’s some psychology behind that but it really does work. Reading aloud, even quietly, can also help you catch errors. It isn’t something to stress over, just try your best when you can- it helps you reach a wider audience! In terms of formatting, one common mistake I see a lot of people make is putting the entirety of their chapter in one block of text. That can actually be rather difficult to read, and it can throw off the pacing of your story. Look into when you should start a new paragraph- new ideas, lines of dialogue, that kind of thing. It’s a small change but I find that it makes a huge difference as a reader. Also, If you’re doing fancy stuff like including images or line breaks, if you have access to it, try looking at your story on multiple devices (i.e. a computer and a phone), as formatting doesn’t always transfer well between screen sizes.
• Also, I would recommend doing your writing in an external editor (google docs, word, your notes app) instead of on whatever site you plan to post. Sometimes you’ll lose internet connection or your page will reload and you can lose progress. This way you have a backup of your work!
• One thing that I’ve seen people talk about a lot in the writing community (both for fanfiction and non-fandom writing) is the concept of a “beta reader”. - essentially similar to an editor, someone who reads your chapters before posting/publishing and makes note of grammar stuff as well as plot stuff- from my understanding at least. I’ve never used one myself, for a couple of reasons (1. I didn’t have any close friends at the time I started this who would want to read it, 2. I can be very finicky about my creative process sometimes, 3. I’m not very social, 4. Scheduling is a mess and so was my update schedule, 5. My comment section is basically serving as my beta reader for me), but I know  if you have access to someone who would like to do that, it ca be really helpful- especially if you’re posting all at once, don’t have much interaction, or are writing original fiction. I don’t have a ton of tips on this since I’ve never done it, and I know getting other people involved in your creative process can be messy, but if you feel like it could help you it’s definitely something to look into! Especially with something like this that relies a lot on foreshadowing and picking up on things, it can be good to have someone reading though making sure your hints are coming across.
• Having a consistent updating schedule is great! If it is doable for you, I would totally recommend it, as it lets your readers know when to expect new content and get excited for what’s coming up. (If you really want to min-max engagement you can try to schedule your update on certain days/times that you think most people are available, but I’ve found that’s not really that worth it, and you have people from all over the world with different schedules, so it’s impossible to truly know.) However, I wouldn’t lock yourself into something that’s not sustainable for you. If you don’t think you can keep an update schedule, I recommend not setting one at all. I never announced a specific update schedule for several reasons (college and then work, varying motivation, avoiding pressing myself, etc). The way I approached it was trying to keep a consistent range of time between updates, and then making a small announcement in the author’s notes if it was going to shift to more or less updates. Generally, your readers are pretty understanding, and you don’t need an update schedule at all to be successful- I genuinely don’t even look for one unless the author themself calls attention to it!
• A consistent chapter length is something I would recommend if possible (but also something I am awful at). Consequences, aftermath, and early reprisal chapters ranged from 5-10 pages (although the ending chapters were about 14 pages), with an average of probably about 7 or 8 pages, while later reprisal chapters ranged from about 10-15 (although my interlude was 20), with an average of about 12 pages. Through editing, I’ve been trying to go back and standardize some of the chapter lengths, keeping things in the 8–12-page range (shorter ones typically earlier in the series, longer ones later), but I’ve accepted the fact that it just will be a bit inconsistent. This will likely happen if you’re writing something over multiple years, as your writing style will change and improve, sometimes changing the average length of your chapters. 
• If you want to bring people in, make your story actually look and sound compelling! Come up with a good title and write a good description that hooks your readers in- not too long but also with enough information that it seems interesting. Use the same point of view in your description (first, second, third) as you will in the story. Use tags if you’re writing on a site with tags and learn your fandom’s tagging conventions if you’re writing in fandom. If your site uses a cover for your story, come up with a good one- people will indeed judge a book by its over sometimes. Make it distinct and readable and directly related to your story, but not overly busy. Avoid changing it to keep it recognizable. 
• Plan if you can! Now, the amount of planning that anyone does for a story is individual and may even vary between stories. (I had like no plan for consequences but almost everything in reprisal was planned out beforehand). How much planning you want to do is up to you- you could just do your big plot twists, or you could break it down by chapters. Outlines are great tools, especially if you keep them flexible enough where they can be moved around if needed. One thing I also did with the later stories, because I had so many plot lines I needed to wrap up, is I would make checklists of things that need to be addressed/happen before the end, so I didn’t miss explaining anything important. Planning for this series was also really interesting too because of the voting aspect- it’s hard to plan when you don’t know what your readers will choose, so I’d often have to have multiple alternate plans just in case. (See more about that in my voting tips section)
• Plan if you can… but don’t be afraid to improvise too! Some of my favorite plot points came from improvisations! Don’t be afraid to think on the fly and run with it, and then find a way to work it into your plan later. 
• You don’t have to write in order! This was something I figured out, and it was huge for my writing speed and motivation. You don’t have to write your chapter (or story) straight from the beginning to the end. Start with a scene you have the clearest idea of and work off of that. Or start at the beginning, and if you get stuck, throw in a “…” or “(x happens)” or a couple of blank lines. Sometimes the connections between scenes will figure themself out, and sometimes they’ll require some work, but this is great for keeping yourself going if you get stuck or bored. You can also start with what comes easiest- for example dialogue itself comes really easy to me, but the intonations in voice and body language can be really hard for me to picture (I usually have to basically act stuff out or think of similar scenes in movies/tv shows), so I’ll often write all the dialogue in a list like- Character “says this.” Character 2 “says this.” -and then go back and add the flavor to it once I have the conversation written out. Granted this is something that works for me and the way my brain processes information, it may not work the same for you, but I’ve found it helpful!

Motivation, hiatus/discontinuation, and when to end a story:

• What if you lose motivation? That’s a great question. This is something I’ve run into a lot with previous fics, and even a bit with this one too. One thing that’s important to remember is that writing, especially something like fanfiction, is something you do for fun. If it’s not fun, and you’re finding yourself anxious or dreading continuing, it may be time to consider a hiatus or discontinuing. I know it feels awful, and if you’ve read a story that’s been halted or discontinued you can feel really bad about it, but that’s better than feeling pressured to continue something that’s not bringing you joy. It’s not the end of the world if you have to discontinue something, I’ve done it and I’ve survived. Do I occasionally get comments from people asking me to continue stuff I abandoned like six years ago? Yes, but I don’t owe them that continuation, I write mainly for myself- and anyone else who wants to hop along for the ride. 
• A hiatus (break) is also always an option! Consequences was on hiatus for almost all of 2022 due to a loss of motivation and some personal stuff I was dealing with at the time. But guess what, when I was ready, I came back to it, and now it’s better than ever I would say. My writing has improved, my plot is planned, and I was motivated and excited to write it. White its true I’m sure I lost some people that were keeping up with the updates, I am surprised at the sheer amount of people I see in my comments section/etc that have still been here since the beginning- even after a year-long hiatus and slower updates! There may be people out there who still want to see what you have to offer, even if they have to wait for it. My overall numbers are lower, between that and a combination of other reasons, but I’m getting comments and interaction on a very similar level to what I was with the first story. Also, a bunch more people have found my story since! I’ve seen a ton of new names in the comments, and I’m still getting new favorites and kudos to this day!
• Along with that, consider not deleting your fics! Especially if they’re more than a few chapters in. It can be so disappointing for something to be your comfort fic, and then get deleted. Even if you think your writing is terrible, even if you don’t plan to finish it, there’s a chance that someone out there still loves your work. There’s this cake analogy I’ve seen- it’s always better to have half a cake than no cake at all. It can also provide inspiration for someone else! Depending on the site you’re on, you have options! Quotev you can publish anonymously, and you can change that as often as you like. (Consequences was first published anonymously because I was embarrassed. Now look at me, talking about it to people in my everyday life haha), and Ao3 has the option to “orphan” fics if you don’t want to be associated with them anymore (that is permanent though). I don’t know about other sites, but those are something to consider. 
• But it is also your right to delete your own work if you wish. If that’s what you end up doing, I would recommend at least saving a copy for yourself, even if you hate it! You may want to look back on it someday.
• Know when to end your story/series. Honestly, I still really do love this series and its characters. I’m still kinda fixated on it, haha. I still want to write for them and work with them and rotate them around in my brain. That’s why I’m making this book! And the what-ifs, and animatics and art and all kinds of other things. I’m still passionate about these characters, and I’m working on thinking of new projects to focus on, but there’s not much more I feel like I can do with the series going forward that I don’t feel would be repetitive or boring. I’ve finally covered everything I want to in the mainline story (It did take me three stories hah), and anything new here wouldn’t have much support to stand on. It’s bittersweet, but I think it’s the best choice both for the story itself and for my readers.

Quick overly dramatic ramble about why I ended the series the way I did:

• Upon the completion of aftermath, the entire series can now be read in any order. It doesn’t matter where you start, because you will circle around eventually. 
• Even the publication date itself loops around, The final chapter of the final story being published on the same day as the first chapter of the first story. The entire thing is in and of itself, a loop.
• The beauty and the horror of the ending is the fact that it’s not an ending at all. Consequences is happening over and over again, just as you the readers are reading it over and over again. The entire series is a loop in and of itself. The rest of the characters have escaped, whether in life or death, but Gray, the representation of the reader, is doomed to repeat the cycle for eternity. Because what is a story if not a continuing narrative for all who read it? 
• It is not you who caused these events, although I considered it, you are simply trapped within them- unsure of how you truly got in or how you could get out. Everyone else’s story is linear, with a beginning and end, who they were before the story and who they will be after. While yours is not. I do not know who you have been, nor who you will be, I can only guide you, as gray, in this moment while you entertain the cycle yourself.
• I came up with the ending while sitting on the couch at my parents’ house, simply staring off in front of me trying to figure out the “how did gray get to Polus” problem (it was perhaps the most difficult thing to conceptualize about the entire series, not for a lack of ideas, but for a lack of ideas that worked with everything else as well). I’m not sure where the idea came from, as I was sitting in silence staring at a wall, but as soon as it entered my mind, I knew that this was absolutely the way it had to end and there would be no more fitting ending.
• The original ending was simpler. For about a year and a half I thought we would end with Mira exploding and everyone going free, almost to spite everyone who kept saying I couldn’t do fully happy endings. (They may have been right, by the way). I also toyed with a few other ideas, but blowing up Mira was the plan.
• But the loop. The delicious idea of a circular narrative, one with no end nor beginning, Gray destined to repeat the loop for eternity- it was irresistible. The trilogy concluding with the stories being technically readable in any order felt poetic. It didn’t matter if you would have filled out that application or not- because you didn’t. It didn’t matter what your life was like before to bring you to Mira- because it wasn’t. Gray exists within a predestination paradox, not brought there by anything, not leaving anything behind. The simple fact of existing is why they are here in the first place.
• I’m so attached to this series, writing for it and thinking about it literally brought me through some of the most difficult things I faced through the pandemic and afterwards, it indirectly brought me to an irl friend group (true story!) and was something I shared with actual members of my family, it gave me a community of readers commenting and theorizing like I’d never seen before and made me so much more confident in my abilities and who I am- I couldn’t bear to end it. So, this way, it never truly ends.

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Consequences

• Consequences was going to be the only story. It was going to end with the ending of consequences. However, the support I was getting from the readers really made me want to write more, I really missed writing for the series, and I had some ideas I never got to use, so Aftermath was born! 
• The very original concept for consequences wasn’t going to include voting at all! Instead, I was going to format it in a choose-your-own-adventure style with branching pathways people could navigate by choosing different chapters, which I still think was a neat idea. However, I had just had to abandon a different branching paths fic because it became too unrealistic of a project to complete (it got to the point where one update required 49 chapters being written, yikes), so I compromised with the voting. But I’m actually really happy with the voting, I almost think it turned out even better this way!
• Consequences, conceptualized far before any of the other stories, was originally going to have time loops, or at least an allusion to them. That’s right, I had the loop idea from the very beginning. I didn’t end up going with it originally because I was worried it would become too confusing cheesy, but when I decided I was going to do a sequel, I picked the idea up again. 
• I don’t know if any of you really early readers remember this, but back when I was only writing this series on Quotev I wrote consequences completely anonymously (because I was scared people would make fun of me lol). I dropped a few hints to see if my readers could figure out who wrote it, and I think I had like three people actually find me? Trying to find me was going to be a bigger deal, it was going to be a bunch of hints and stuff, but I realized 1) people didn’t care that much about who wrote it and 2) I actually wanted to respond to comments and I couldn’t do that and stay anonymous, so I revealed myself as the author at the end of the story. 
• Cyan was going to actually die at the end. However, when I decided there was going to be a second story and I was going to bring in some of the old characters, I really wanted to write more of Purple and Cyan’s dynamic, so I had to save them. 
• Mini Lime was originally called Little Lime. I changed it because Mini Lime made more sense with the idea of a “mini crewmate”. 
• Another thing I had to change- the final scenes of consequences originally took place in the cafeteria. (There’s actually an old lyric comic thing I made that shows it happening there). But after actually looking at the map I realized that the airlock was probably actually in storage, and accuracy is like somewhat important to me lol so I changed it to happen in storage. This was a pretty late change (like I was writing reprisal when I changed it) so some of you probably still remember it taking place in the cafeteria.
• I expected the readers to at least vote Red off. In my mind I was making him really sus, but when I read back through it, I noticed he was actually pretty quiet, just kinda rude at times. I also didn’t expect everyone to be so eager to vote off people. The size of the crew dwindled so much faster than I had been planning, and when I was planning out the end of the story, I panicked a little bit because I didn’t realize how close we were to an impostor win. I’d expected consequences to be more like 30 chapters instead of 25.
• There was going to be a whole plot line about Gray not being able to do their tasks/the tasks not registering as complete due to “communications issues” (of course the real reason was because Gray was an impostor) but I felt like that would give the twist away really early, so I kind of pivoted away from it. There’s still I think little bits of setup in the early chapters for that if you look hard enough.
• One thing that I thought was going to be neat but never got to use was that the story wasn’t going to end right away if all the impostors got voted off (not counting Gray)! It was designed for there to be a time period where the readers could vote off characters even after all the impostors were gone, and then at the end you’d find out hey- you got them like three ejected people ago. But you were the impostor all along, doing your job without knowing it >:) Would’ve been cool but none of the impostors actually got voted out whoops.

Aftermath

• The idea of having an alternate version of gray (like tan in Reprisal) was originally conceptualized for Aftermath. They were going to still be an impostor and go around and kill people working with Yellow/Orange while staying out of sight of the Gray you read as. Yellow/Orange would still be manipulating the Gray you read as to make them think they were an impostor, so they would start doubting themself especially when someone else says they saw Gray (the other gray) kill. Eventually there was gonna be one of those cheesy moments where it’s like “don’t shoot me I’m the real Gray” or something.
• Aftermath Gray was originally not going to be the same person as Consequences Gray. (You were almost right, my “gray 2” theorist- that’s why I kept teasing you about it haha). They didn’t have any memories of Consequences because it physically didn’t happen to them. I still really like this idea, but it was hard for me to figure out how exactly to fit this into the timeline. This idea morphed into the tan thing- tan didn’t have any memories of aftermath because it hadn’t happened to them yet!
• Gray was going to communicate more with ghosts. Something about them being “dead” to the Consequences system but alive to the Aftermath system. I just kinda forgot and couldn’t find any more good times to hear from the ghosts again. 
• We were going to find out about the loops earlier, and maybe even go through a loop during the story itself. However, I ran out of time, and I realized I was going to do a third story, so I decided to wait and save the going through multiple loops in one story for reprisal.
• Green was going to die earlier on, and Gray was going to come across the loop stuff themself, but I felt like I needed someone to kind of explain stuff a bit since I knew this wouldn’t be something people could just piece together. Green was also originally going to be a bit of a jerk and spend most of his time arguing with Lime about who the real leader of the crew should be, but I ended up changing his personality some and expanding on it more because I liked him as a character.

Reprisal

• The first six chapters of reprisal were originally very different! I actually ended up scrapping them and rewriting the story from scratch due to a change in creative direction, loss of motivation, and a major game update. If you want more info about that, or to see what the first six chapters originally looked like, check out this chapter!
• Originally, in the first round, Cyan was going to be an impostor instead of Purple. I changed this because I realized I wanted Cyan’s impostor round to be later, after the announcement that you had to play your role or else, to drive the tension higher. 
• There were going to be more loops. It was going to go through them faster and more chaotically, but with my writing style changing to be one longer and each loop taking more chapters than I planned, I had to settle for less. I also worried that too many loops would get boring, and that voting wouldn’t really mean as much anymore. (I did always plan to have a part that ran through a bunch of loops super quickly though).
• Originally, dying too much was supposed to cause you increasingly worse physical harm. (Alluded to a lot with “the system can’t support 15 people”). Repeated deaths could make someone ill and eventually die for good. A character that I had to scrap, Blue, was supposed to die this way. (And after she was scrapped, Brown was supposed to get very close to dying for good- and that’s what would cause him to confess.) I actually really really liked this idea because it added consequences to dying and a better reason for Brown to break on his own instead of being exposed as a spy, but I was having trouble adding it without it seeming sudden or rushed because I didn’t get to build to it with as many loops. In my mind that’s still canon, and I threw some hints to it there like the nosebleeds and stuff, but it just didn’t make it into the story in as impactful of a manner as I wanted.
• Also, I entertained the idea of Purple actually killing someone in that first round, but I ended up not going for it. Her actually killing someone was originally what would have created the fight between Cyan and Purple, but I didn’t totally feel like it fit yet as the crew didn’t have confirmation this was a loop. Instead, I went for part of a fight I had sitting in my notes somewhere, where Purple was still mad at Cyan for trying to sacrifice herself in consequences and Cyan was mad at Purple for being so protective. It was more subtle and more about their characters and trauma, which I liked.

Other.

• I was 100% certain that the people of the consequences crew who died in consequences were going to be dead for good until…. I completely changed my mind about a third of the way through aftermath. Specifically, the chapter where the [???] talks about more people, that’s when I decided I would bring them back. I was worried that that would be too cheesy and happy of an ending, but when I figured out the actual ending of the story, I realized that wouldn’t actually matter. Also, I really wanted Mini Lime to get his dad back. Also also I thought it would be a kinda crazy twist- I wanted everyone possible alive so I could fake you all out with the potential of a happy ending only to realize well, there kinda is no ending. Also also also I thought the consequences crew dealing with what happened would be super interesting. 
• “Codenames” (essentially usernames) were going to be a thing in consequences and aftermath. They kinda were at one point in an earlier version of aftermath, with a codename on Gray’s ID which Black and White found that I later changed to be a picture because it made more sense. But it just got too confusing for me to have colors and ids and codenames (and names too, but I don’t really use the characters’ real names in the story). I already had the voting screens all made up using people’s ids anyways. I brought the idea of codenames back some in reprisal, with the new characters, but I kinda wish I gave everyone codenames from the beginning. It was also really hard to come up with codenames that weren’t super cheesy, I used some of the randomly generated ones the game gives you if you’re not logged in for some of the reprisal crew. (Specifically for Brown because he was trying to lay low, and for Rose because she was having trouble logging in on her account and had to use a guest one ;) )
• Cyan and Purple! My plan was originally to have sone kind of reveal about the anomaly stuff in consequences, and then in aftermath, but it never happened. Consequences they did have that meeting with Black which I intended for them to reveal their origin at least to her. And I think part of yellow-orange’s original final speech on Polus had a throwaway like about it being ‘just like a game’ directed at the two of them, but I think I cut or changed it because it felt too cheesy and there was no way for her to know that information in the first place. I kept going back and forth as to how much I wanted to get into this “isakai” idea because, let’s face it, it’s a little cliche, but I think I’m ok with how it turned out- especially with the inclusion of rose and red from reprisal being in a similar predicament and tying it to side effects of MIRA’s time-space experiments. I was too far in to scrap it, so I just leaned into it.
• There was also a very brief period where I considered Gray being from an alternate universe as well, but I scrapped it for a couple reasons. One, I already had an in-universe backstory for gray, the contest (which I would later change anyway for the final ending but shhhh), but also idk it felt like it got too meta and ‘this is a fanfiction-y’. This would have been resolved at the end of the story where gray would somehow be sent back to their home with some message at the end of the story like “universe travel is difficult for humans to comprehend so your mind may rationalize this as a story you read” or something. Kinda interesting but felt a bit cheesy and kinda unsatisfying imo.
• The original ending of the series was going to essentially be that they all just blew up MIRA and it somehow makes time reverse to before anything happened and fixes everything. (Also, the consequences crew would have still been dead beforehand instead of their loop resetting like in this one.) Alternate ideas for this ending played with how far back it went- like are we going back all the way to before even the very first mission (PREQ) or just to before consequences or whatever. This ending wasn’t bad, I didn’t hate it, it was happier than my other options (partly to spite all the people in my life who joke about me being incapable of writing a happy ending /j) but when I got the idea for the new ending, I was like nope this is way better. 
• Another alternate ending: Aftermath and Reprisal were just dreams as Gray was dying drifting off in space. The story finally ends when Gray dies. I didn’t consider this one for long, it was more just a fleeting idea, but it was interesting.

Chapter Text

[File 3-01: Restart]

FYI for each character I will be using: Tan- (he/him), Maroon- (she/her), Rose- (she/her), Red- (he/him), Blue- (she/her), Black- (she/her), Coral- (she/her), Banana- (they/e), White- (he/him), Pink- (she/her), Yellow- (he/him), Green- (he/him), Cyan- (she/they), Purple- (she/her)

You found yourself awake rather suddenly. There was no dramatic gasping for breath or slow return to consciousness, you were just there, and surprisingly ok.

Nothing hurt anymore, and while it took you a second to get your bearings, you were absolutely certain that last time you were awake you had been gravely injured. But you were alive and what seemed to be completely healed with no ill effects from being quite literally stabbed. Not to mention the fact that it appeared you suit and helmet were completely repaired, no sign of damage at all. 

But why were you still in your suit? Surely you had to have been given medical treatment somehow. Your first thought had been that you were in a hospital of some sort, but that was quickly thrown out the window when you registered the environment around you. You were on a spaceship. Of course you were on a spaceship. Because where else would you be after nearly dying? 

You let out a sigh and looked around. The room you were in looked rather similar to that of the one you had woken up in what felt oh so long ago. Except this time it was filled with people. People frantically running around, speaking to eachother in panicked tones, all giving you the same impression-none of them knew exactly where they were or why. 

You looked around the room, trying to get a sense of the people who you assumed had been or were going to be in a similar situation as you had just escaped. 

But that was the question, wasn’t it? Had you really escaped? You had no memory of anything after collapsing on the ground back on that planet, but you could only assume that you had made it out. Yet the fact that you were on what you assumed was a spaceship, wearing your same old space suit, surrounded by people that looked similar to your former crewmates was not comforting. Although it did strike you as odd that some of them were wearing colors that your past crew had not been.

The way you could see it you were in one of two situations. Either one: your group had somehow found a group of other survivors from some other crew, which was highly preferable. Or two, the more likely but also more terrifying thought- you had restarted the loop in some way or another. And considering the situations you somehow seemed to find yourself in over and over, well, the second one was looking a lot more likely unfortunately. 

Your eyes scanned the room for a quick glance at these strangers. Several people had gathered into groups and were discussing things in hushed tones. 

Someone in a black suit was standing at the wall beside someone in a light yellow color. Neither of them seemed to be talking though and instead seemed fairly busy looking after their mini crewmates. Both occasionally looked up to scan the room, but the two of them were hard to read so far.

Next to them was a crewmate in what seemed to be a pinkish-red color, who seemed to be a bit nervous about the situation. You didn’t blame said crewmate, honestly. A small robot similar to the one Blue had back on that planet rolled around, and the two seemed to be communicating.

The largest group consisted of several colors you recognized- someone in pink, yellow, white, and red, as well as someone in a lighter pink color. They were also the most talkative it seemed and were engaged in some sort of conversation. Red and the one in light pink were holding hands, while White stood towards the back of the group. What appeared to be a small, bright blue dog with a single eye ran around excitedly.

Someone in blue was talking to someone in what looked like a dark red suit. They seemed to be having a serious conversation, as they spoke in hushed whispers but with intense tones. Both of them seemed rather nervous as well, but were trying their best to hide it. 

In a corner, away from the others, someone in a light brown color stood, rubbing their arm nervously. The crewmate watched the others silently and seemed to be trying to decide who to approach. 

Something particularly odd that you noticed was the sheer amount of children running around. By your count, you could see six different children, a robot, and some sort of dog-like creature. Why were there so many children here? You had found it weird that Mini Lime was in space, but apparently it was not that unheard of if there were so many kids here.

Speaking of Mini Lime, that kid in a lime colored suit looked awfully similar to him. You raised an eyebrow and watched to see who he ran to, and your eyes fell on some familiar faces. Or, as well as you could see their faces through their tinted visors. Standing in a group were Green, Purple, and Cyan with Mini Lime running around her. They were ok.

As your eyes met Green’s, he pointed over to you. Slowly the other two’s heads turned towards you with a look of surprise. You quickly approached the group, relieved to see the others.

”Gray! You’re ok!” Mini Lime greeted you excitedly.

“Good to see you up and around.” Purple smiled. “We were worried for a bit.”

You tried to figure out exactly how you were supposed to respond. Were you missing memories again? The thought made you panic. “What- what exactly happened?” You asked nervously. 

“You didn’t miss much, don’t worry.” Green answered rather casually. “You passed out and we carried you back to the other crew’s ship. Or your ship I guess? I’m still a bit lost on that. But anyway, we got to the ship and we were trying to figure out how to take off to head back to Earth. I thought we were going to be stuck there.”

”So how did we end up here?”

”Your guess is as good as mine.” Green shrugged, confusing you.

”One minute we were standing there, trying to figure out how to take off the ship, and the next we were here in this room full of people.” Cyan said. “No idea how they did that. Teleportation maybe? I mean if they can mess with time…”

”Whatever it is I don’t like it.” Said Green. “Took longer for you to show up here, we thought we lost ‘ya. But you seem to be surprisingly ok.”

”I’m still confused on that too.” You answered honestly. “It feels like I’d never been hurt in the first place.”

”I mean, that makes sense kinda. The loops brought people back to life so why couldn’t whoever’s doing this instantly heal you?” The crewmate stared off into the distance for a moment, before speaking softly. “Man, the others. My crew. Trapped in another cycle of the loop by now- none the wiser of what happened to us.”

”Or that there’s a way to escape.” Cyan looked down at her feet.

Purple leaned in closer to the group and began to whisper. ”Speaking of the loops, I really hate to bring this up, but you all should be prepared. With how things seem to work around here, I’m pretty sure we’re about to do this all over again.”

Your heart sunk, but a part of you was almost expecting that. Why else would you be here? Maybe whoever was in charge of creating the loop found out about your escape, and wanted revenge. 

The thought made you shudder.

”I don’t think we got out of the loop.” She said. “Or at least if we did, we found ourselves in a new one.”

”Is it worth asking how you came to that conclusion?” Green asked, sighing.

”Probably not.” Cyan replied, holding back a nervous laugh. 

Green rolled his eyes. “Right. Well, honestly I’m at a loss here. Chances are whoever set this ******* loop up learned from their mistakes, so we won’t be getting out as easy- if you can call that easy. Although what I can’t help but notice is we all have our memories intact. That might be fluke, but it’s something to work off of.”

It seemed that realization had just set in for everyone. Green was right- all of you seemed to have what memories you had back on the planet. You still had not had any memories of your time with the other crew return to you, which was a tad disappointing on further inspection, but you had not lost anything. Granted, you had just gotten here, and who knows how the system here could work, but it was at last something. 

“You’re right, Green! Hey Gray do you-“ Purple began to ask.

You quickly shut her down, you knew exactly what she was going to ask. “Only from the planet. I… I don’t remember whatever it is you remember about me. I’m sorry.”

”O-oh. No. I’m sorry for asking.” 

“Do you think any of the other people are in a similar situation?” Cyan asked. “People like us, who escaped the loop? Or even people like us?” They stressed, turning to Purple. 

Obviously nobody had a clue, but on some level or another, everyone was hoping that just might be the case. Hoping that they were not alone in this insane situation.

At this point, though, with all the talk of the others, you began to worry a bit if they were listening to your conversation. You looked around the room, and you could tell the others had the same thought as everyone began to glance at the other crewmates. Thankfully none of them seemed to be too interested in anything but their own conversations or activities, but it was still unnerving. Although, it made questions about their origins rise to the surface of your mind.

Suddenly, you felt your tablet buzz, nearly making your jump in the air. A chorus of similar buzzes rung out from across the room, making you guess that everyone on the ship was receiving the same alert. You looked down at your screen in curiosity, to see it turn black. Slowly text appeared on the screen.

ATTENTION

You will receive this message only once. Do not let anyone see your screen. 

You instinctively looked up to check that nobody was looking at yours. Satisfied with your glance around the room, you returned to focus on the tablet in front of you. 

If you are here, you should be familiar with the system. However, we have made some changes. Some of which will make many of you more comfortable, while others will make everyone less comfortable. 

The goal, for most of you, will be the same as you are familiar with. Find the impostors and eject them before it is too late. Complete your tasks (or other duties) and report any deaths or suspicious behavior immediately. 

The rest you will need to figure out along the way. 

In a few seconds you will receive your role. You are not allowed, under any circumstances, to share this screen with anyone. There will be consequences for doing so. 

Please look at your screen now to receive your role.

You watched as a large icon displaying the text “shhhhh!” appeared on the screen. It went dark for a moment before a noise played from everyone’s tablets in unison, and a photo of what you assumed was the entire crew appeared on the screen.

CREWMATE

There are 3 impostors among us

[File 3-02: Relocation]

You exhaled a breath you had no idea you had been holding. Crewmate- that had to mean you were not an impostor, right? It was slightly surprising to actually have this right in your face after spending so much time in the past debating your role. Not something you expected, but welcome at least. You knew which side you were on right from the start. 

Speaking of the start, you were met with something else on your screen. Three options that were to apparently select where you would be ‘starting.’ The concept was rather confusing as you assumed wherever you would be landing the entire ship would be landing together. But, as all things have been in the past, there is clearly something more complicated going on here, so you decided not to question it and simply pick whatever option was in the middle. You did not recognize any of the rooms shown, so you assumed you were probably somewhere completely new- unless the planet you had just been on underwent some major renovations. The option you had ended up selecting was listed as “main hall” which seemed as good a place as any, you supposed. 

You looked up from the screen of your tablet to meet the eyes of the others- and it was painfully obvious that they were all terrified going into this as well. Green wore a cold, calculating expression, but the fear in his eyes managed to slip through his facade. Mini Lime was clinging to Cyan’s leg, and Cyan seemed as if she was about to burst into tears. Purple looked to the rest of the group with an expression of concern and reached down to rub Mini Lime on the back comfortingly. You tried your best to remain stoic, but it was impossible. You were scared- terrified even. 

You thought you had escaped. You thought that this would have been it- that you would be free from the constant threat of impostors lurking. But instead here you and your friends were, the odds against all of you surviving to the end. There was a chance that this was another loop from what the others were saying, a chance that if you were to die you would just find yourself revived in yet another iteration of the loop, but you did not know for sure. And, even if that was true, one could argue it was a worse fate than death to be trapped repeating this for eternity. 

It was dead silent in the ship, almost as if nobody even dared to breathe. As if everyone was waiting for something to happen.

And happen it would.

Soon your head began to spin. It was a weird kind of dizziness, not too intense but certainly unnerving. The room almost seemed to be doing donuts around you as it all began to spin faster, and faster, and faster. Then everything faded to white and you felt a sudden jerk- as if you had been pulled off the edge of a building and were now falling to the ground below. Everything kept spinning and the light kept increasing until eventually- nothing.

And then a whole lot of something, all at once. 

You were suddenly standing in a hallway that looked nothing like the room you had been standing in before. So this is what the others had meant by some sort of teleportation- you were not sure you liked it. It took you a moment to get your bearings once again, so you glanced around the supposed hallway. It looked nothing like anything you had seen on the purple planet, so at this point you were pretty certain that the two places were unrelated. 

It was a mid-length hallway with several different rooms along the sides. It was mostly unremarkable except for what seemed to be a random can of beans thrown against the wall, which made you raise an eyebrow. You could not even begin to imagine why or how the beans got there, but in the grand scheme of things it seemed unimportant.

Your focus on bean-related questions was quickly interrupted by the arrival of a few other people around you. There were a few white flashes, followed by some of your new crewmembers appearing next to you without announcement. Three people appeared beside you in total.

First was the crewmate in white, followed by the crewmate in a pinkish-orange color with a robot, and finally the crewmate in blue. You recognized all of them only from moments ago on the ship, but otherwise they were all new to you.

All of them seemed off-put by the method of transportation, but both you and Blue were affected by it the most. 

As you watched the others look at their tablets, it occurred to you that you should probably check your list of tasks. If this was going to work the same way, you assumed you would have tasks to complete once again. And sure enough- you did. Many of them were in rooms that you did not recognize, but your map helped give you at least a general direction of where to go. 

The question now became that of strategy. Would it be best to remain alone as you were unsure exactly who any of these people were, or would that be putting a target on your back? 

You glanced back at the group. Should you say something? Nobody else had said anything that you could hear and your mind wandered to your last adventure once again. Everyone’s communications had been connected- you had been able to hear anyone speak, at least until Black had fixed it. Was it the same case here? A message telling you to be quiet had appeared on your tablet with your role, but what did it mean by quiet? Part of you wanted to say something, to see if it worked the same way as before, but you were too nervous to try. 

It seemed the others were debating a similar question as everyone stood there. Curious, you decided to check and see if you could use the messaging system. Maybe you could send a message to Green and the others from the ship to find out where they were. However, it appeared that you could not in fact access the chat at the moment. Maybe something was broken? Or maybe that is what they meant by ‘shhhh’. 

As you were debating simply walking off and starting your tasks, someone finally spoke. 

“Uh… hello?” Blue said, sounding more like a question than a greeting. “Can you hear me?”

”Y-yeah.” It took you a second to process before replying. “I can hear you.”

”Me too.” White replied.

The crewmate with a robot nodded as well. 

“Oh, ok. That’s something I guess.” Blue thought for a moment. 

Could anyone else hear you, though? That was the question. Although, you assumed that you would have received more replies through the  suit radio if it was the case. Still, you thought to try.

“Alright, uh, this is Gray. Whoever can hear me, let me know.” 

“I- Blue can hear you.” Blue answered with a slightly confused expression. 

“White can hear you too.” 

”So can I!” A nervous voice spoke. “Uh, I mean Coral can hear you.” 

You were able to discern that this voice belonged to the other crewmate standing with you. So that was what that color was called- coral. You made a mental note for later.

You gave it a few more seconds, and when nobody else replied, you were satisfied with the conclusion that it seemed to work as it did before. 

“So it seems we can only hear eachother if we’re close together.” You concluded aloud. “I guess that makes sense.”

”At least we can hear eachother.” Blue spoke. “Nobody could talk to anybody on my… last ship unless were were in a meeting. It was awful.”

”Your last ship?” You asked, curious. 

“Oh. Is this- have you-? I just assumed from what Maroon was saying that everyone was here from a cycle.” 

A cycle? Was Blue talking about a time loop?

”A cycle?” White asked. 

Blue looked down at their feet. “Well, this is going to sound really weird, but this has happened to me before. A lot. We were stuck on some spaceship in a situation just like this, with impostors and everything. But when you would die or get thrown off, you would just come back and it would start all over again. I… uh, I usually ended up dying first. You don’t get used to it, unfortunately. I know it sounds crazy but-“

”No, no I know exactly what you’re talking about.” You told Blue, seeing a look of surprise and relief on their face. “It happened to me too, and the group I came here with.”

The two of you looked over to White and Coral to see what their reaction was to all of this. 

“What about you two?” Blue asked. “Are you from a cycle?”

Coral looked down to the robot and seemed to be formulating an answer when an odd ringing noise struck your ears. It was similar to that of something you would hear on an aircraft of some sort, reminding you to buckle your seatbelts or warning you of turbulence approaching. 

“What was that?” Blue asked, confused. 

“It’s either a meeting or a dead body.” White spoke.

”Already?”

You were about to ask how they knew that when you glanced at the screen of your tablet. It was small, but you were caught off guard by the fact that the alert looked slightly different than it had before. 

EMERGENCY MEETING (maroon)

As you prepared to figure out where exactly you were supposed to go for this meeting, you experienced the odd feeling in the pit of your stomach again. Were you going to be teleported again? Every time there was a meeting? You groaned- why couldn’t you just walk to the meeting like normal people? You closed your eyes and the next second you found yourself in a completely different room once again.

You, and the rest of your crew, were standing beside a long table with the all-too-familiar emergency button stationed in the middle. Nearly everyone wore confused and nervous expressions, but you did not notice anyone missing from the group. Granted, you had not exactly kept a list of who you had seen in transport, but the table looked pretty full.

To double-check nobody was dead, you looked down at your tablet. And, once again, you were surprised by the layout of whatever application this was. You quickly learned that nobody was dead when what seemed to be a screen dedicated just to announcing the tragic end of your crewmates displayed a message of:

NO DEAD BODIES FOUND

You sighed in relief as did many of the others, before the screen changed to what you assumed was the voting screen. Different yet similar, once again. It was almost as if you were figuratively looking through a fun-house mirror- the same thing but with a few major changes. You also noticed something else different. 

Everyone was displayed using what you assumed were their codenames. You remembered Red telling you about how the group had chosen to use their IDs instead of their codenames, and apparently White and Black had said that about the previous crew as well. It seemed that was not the case here. Even your codename was there. Although you were not able to remember choosing it, something inside you recognized it as being yours. It was almost comforting- something you could hold on to that was familiar despite everything that had happened to you.

But of course, that was the last of the issues right now. Someone had called a meeting and it was probably important to figure out why exactly. The megaphone icon was next to the dark-red colored crewmate, meaning that was who had called the meeting. At least that had not changed.

What you did not expect was the chaotic response. Several alerts appeared on the messaging screen you now had access to while others spoke aloud. Yet the question was the same and was being asked by nearly everyone in the group- why?

“Everyone calm down please. I called the meeting because I think we need to figure some stuff out before **** hits the fan.” The crewmate whi had called the meeting spoke. 

“Pretty sure it already has.” Someone replied. 

“You know what I mean.” They sighed. “From what I’ve heard at least, it seems everyone has been in a situation similar to this before- am I correct in saying that?”

There were nods of acknowledgement from what seemed to be the entire crew.

”Alright, good. So we all know how this works, give or take some… changes.” They glanced down at their tablet. “I think it would be best if we all go around and introduce ourselves.”

”Excuse me.” Red interrupted. “Who put you in charge?”

”I’m not ‘in charge’, I’m just trying to make some sense of this, Red. You’re welcome to give some input-“

”You’re trying to establish yourself as a leader so people don’t question you. Those who run the meetings run the discussions, and nobody questions them. It’s basic impostor strategy.” 

You could tell now that nobody was going to get along very well with Red. 

“Alright, well I won’t be leading the discussion anymore because we’re all going to introduce ourselves, ok?” The crewmate turned to look at Red. “But I would suggest you don’t cross me again, or I will personally make sure it does not end well for you, got it?”

”Did you guys hear that? She’s clearly an impostor!” 

One by one, everyone went around the table, saying things such as their name, color, and codename. Everyone kept the introductions brief as you did not have very much time to talk in the meeting. 

You learned what the colors you were unfamiliar with were called, which helped everyone communicate more effectively. Everyone else decided that it would be best to refer to eachother by colors, for simplicity. You were also able to get a vague idea of some of your crewmembers personalities, as well as begin to form some early suspicions. Of course, because of the limited meeting time, nobody got to discuss so much as they would have liked, and there were still things that ended up being left unsaid that you really should talk about, but at this point there was no time. 

As the meeting came to a close everyone put in their votes, and you waited curiously. Not necessarily for the outcome of the vote, you were fairly certain it was going to be a skip, but instead to see what it would tell you afterwards.

There’s not going to be a vote here because it just feels unnecessary at this point. We learned from the last story these early votes are usually just skips. Feel free to leave any early suspicions in the comments though.

[File 3-03: Recall]

I’m sorry this chapter was so late. I could launch into a whole explanation about my insane past two weeks but eh it’s not important. But just a reminder that updates on this may take longer than a week (how often I updated the last two) due to some external circumstances. If I ever end up putting this on hold or discontinuing it, I will tell you as opposed to just leaving you to wonder.

Soon enough the vote was over, brought to an uneventful yet relieving conclusion. There were a few scattered votes for both Red and Maroon, but nothing came close to a majority over the choice to skip. It was hard to tell with how the votes began to stack on top of eachother, but it seemed at least everyone, if not almost everyone, put in a vote. 

Someone pointed out that you were not able to see exactly who voted for who and that everyone’s votes were essentially anonymous. This did not faze you much as seemed to be the only way you had known it, it being the same back on the planet. The majority of people seemed rather unfazed besides some minor sighs- either of frustration or relief, it was unclear. The main exceptions to that fact being Blue and Maroon, both of whom seemed a bit confused at the system. 

“Well that makes it unnecessarily difficult.” Maroon muttered. 

“It’s all so different.” Blue looked down at the tablet in her hands. 

As the screen changed to show what seemed to be the sky. Were you in the air? Instead of throwing someone into lava, would you be throwing them down to what you hoped was Earth below? Your stomach sunk at the reminder of just how grave the situation you were in was. You had to be cautious- it could be you falling through those clouds if you were not careful.

A single message appeared on the screen in front of the cloudy backdrop.

No one was ejected (skipped).

3 impostors remain.

A few murmurs rose from the group as people seemed to discuss various things such as pairing up with eachother. You met eyes with your group, and Green began to call out to you.

”Hey, Gray. I have something important to tell you. We should-“

As you listened, you noticed your tablet return to the screen you had earlier, asking you where you wanted to start. Absentmindedly you selected somewhere without paying attention, beginning to dread the idea of the teleportation once again.

”Ok, just find us, ok?” Green looked at his tablet and spoke. 

“Everyone meet together in the kitchen.” Purple instructed you as everything began to spin once again. 

You nodded before you were jerked back through the darkness, willing yourself not to get sick with this method of transportation. 

It seemed your absentminded selection had led you to some sort of storage area. When you opened your eyes, you found yourself surrounded by numerous boxes, some of which were held down by nets and others were labeled to contain top hats. Why exactly top hats were the item of choice you had no idea, but once again, it was a rather unimportant detail. 

You pulled out your map to try to figure out exactly where this kitchen was where your crew had been planning to meet, and nearly collided with the three other people who seemed to have chosen that area to start. There was Blue again, along with Pink and the light yellow color who was apparently called Banana. 

You apologized for almost knocking everyone over like dominos, but nobody seemed to have noticed. Clearly this was disorienting enough that the others were thrown off as well. 

Before you could even ask her where she was going, Blue headed off in another direction, leaving you with Pink and Banana. 

“Where are you headed?” Pink asked. 

You were a bit wary about answering this right off the bat. As much as you wished you could simply answer the question and be done with it, your past experience made you a bit nervous about divulging any information. While the question seemed genuine, you had learned not to trust anyone with any information if you could avoid it. Still, you did not want to come off as a jerk in the case that Pink really was trying to be friendly, or if she wanted to know in case anything happened to you. Besides, you had a group waiting for you, so she could not exactly murder you when you got there. 

“I’m going to the kitchen.” You simply stated. 

“Oh, cool! I have a task over in the armory, which is nearby. We could walk together if you wanted, you know, safety in numbers? Buddy system?”

Hesitantly, you agreed. Pink seemed to know where the kitchen was at least, which was an improvement from navigating there just using your map.

“Relax.” Pink smiled. “I wouldn’t have enough time to kill you on the way there, and Banana here would know we were together.” 

The other crewmate looked off to the side as to say e did not want any part of this. 

The two of you went off in the opposite direction that Blue had. You were followed at a distance by Banana until you stepped into what looked like a medical room, where e went to look at the vitals screen. From what you could see, it seemed to be the same as the one you had seen before. 

The two of you kept walking and reached a maze of a room where all of the electrical equipment was kept. Your tablet showed that you had a few tasks in here, but meeting with the others in the kitchen was your first priority right now. Besides, all this time, and you still were not exactly sure what the tasks were supposed to accomplish. If you finished them all, then what? How would that save you from the impostors? Did it even matter at this point? If you were just doomed to repeat a loop like the last group had been, what exactly was the point in trying to defeat them? Keeping your memories, perhaps? 

It took the two of you a moment but you did eventually navigate the maze that was the electrical room. Who on earth designed that? It was almost as if they were trying to mess with you. Thankfully that was by far the most confusing part of your journey, and after passing what seemed to be this area’s version of the camera system and a hallway of very odd looking portraits, you found yourself in the kitchen. 

You nodded to Pink as a thanks, who replied with a cheerful “See you later! Stay safe!” as she kept walking.

After Pink left, you looked around the kitchen to see if your friends had arrived yet. To your surprise, they had not, and the only crewmates in the room were Yellow and Black. Both of whom were stationed at the counter, standing in front of what seemed to be some ingredients for a burger. As you walked further into the room, Black glanced at you for a moment before turning back to Yellow. 

”Come on, what’s taking you so long?” Black sighed. “It’s not that hard of a task.”

”This burger doesn’t have any cheese!” Yellow replied, seeming significantly distressed. 

“Cheese isn’t even an option.” 

“But I never make my burgers without cheese! I can’t do this task!” Yellow stepped back from the counter. 

Black mumbled aloud “Why did I get stuck with the ******* idiot?”

”I heard that!” Yellow retorted.

”You were supposed to, idiot.”

The two continued arguing as you rolled your eyes. You were about to give up on waiting for your group when they finally walked into the kitchen. Green, Purple, Cyan, and the kid all stepped inside from where Pink had left, and you made your way over to greet them.

”Oh, Good. Gray’s already here.” Purple told the others. “I was a bit worried. I said meet in the kitchen, but I realize I didn’t exactly tell anyone where the kitchen was.” 

Green glanced over to Yellow and Black. 

“The two of them are still here?” He questioned. “Both of them started in here with me, before I went to try to find you.”

”Yeah.” You agreed. “They’re arguing over making a burger or something? It doesn’t really seem like a real task.”

”No, it’s real. I actually have it.” Purple shrugged. “But if they’re still in here, we should probably go somewhere else. Green wanted to speak to us in private.” 

Well that was a bit nerve wracking. Why would Green want to speak to you all privately? He would not be trying kill you if it was him against you three, and Purple would not do anything where Cyan would get hurt, so it was not that at least, but you still were concerned. Was it something about the loop? 

“Where could we go?” Asked Green. “I’m kind of lost around here, this place is huge.”

”There should be the viewing deck over here where we can talk.” Purple replied.

Your group followed Purple towards another doorway, but was quickly interrupted by the door slamming shut in front of you. You jumped in surprise at the noise and sudden movement in front of you. 

Everyone immediately looked around with panicked expressions, half expecting the lights to suddenly malfunction or a loud alarm to sound. You held your breath for a second, anxiously waiting for anything else to malfunction. After about a minute of tension, everyone seemed to relax a bit at the fact that nothing else appeared to have happened. Thankfully, it seemed it was only the doors an nothing else, at least not right then. 

“That was scary.” Mini Lime spoke, expressing what everyone felt. 

It took a moment for the door to open as apparently the doors here required you to swipe your ID card to open them again. The card reader seemed to be quite temperamental, and it took Purple several tries to actually get the door to open. She seemed understandably annoyed by the time the group managed to get out onto the balcony, but the door incident was clearly forgotten when you saw just what you were looking at.

Viewing deck was not an exaggeration.

From where you were standing, you could see out into what seemed to be the endless expanse of the sky. There was no horizon in sight, nor any sign of the sun. Clouds flew past you, so close that you could probably reach out to touch them if you tried. The sky was a bright shade of blue, and you could feel the wind despite the suit you were wearing. 

It was loud out here. Not only was there the sound of the wind, but a mechanical sound that you assumed be from whatever type of aircraft you seemed to be in. You had a feeling being out here too long would be very overwhelming between the sound and the bright light from the sky, but at least nobody would be able to listen too closely to your conversation. 

At the edge of the deck was a small outcropping which almost resembled a plank that misbehaving pirates would be forced off of. You shuddered at the thought of slipping and falling off of it, or being pushed to whatever was below. 

It was clear everyone was overwhelmed by the view. Even Purple who had known this was here took a while to just stand and stare out over the edge, taking in the surroundings. It was both peaceful and terrifying at the same time, and nobody dared to speak for a minute or two.

Eventually Green cleared his throat, bringing everyone back to the situation. 

“I hate to disturb everyone but-“ He began. 

“No, it’s alright.” You reassured him. “It’s kind of overwhelming out here anyway. What did you want to say?”

Everyone stepped closer to the wall to be able to hear eachother better. 

“Well, I noticed something kind of odd, and I was wondering if any of you noticed it as well. We kind of talked about it earlier, but it’s changed for me and I wanted to know if it changed for you too.” 

“What is it?” You glanced at Purple and Cyan to see if either of them knew where this was going. Neither of them showed any recognition.

”Well, I know we said that none of us had lost any of our memories we had before coming here…”

You felt panic begin to rise in the back of your mind. Was Green forgetting things? Would you forget things?

”Yeah?” You managed to reply.

”But we also hadn’t gotten any back.”

”What do you mean, got any back?” 

Green took a breath. “Ever since we got on this… whatever it is. Airplane?”

”Airship.” Purple corrected.

”Right, airship. Anyway, ever since we got here, I’ve been gettin’ back some of the memories I lost in the loop. And, well, they aren’t pretty.” 

“You’re getting your memories back?” You asked, with a hint of hope in your voice. “From the planet?”

”In bits and pieces, yeah. It’s a lot, several years worth of memories, and most of them that I remember, well- fear does things to people. Me included.” He looked away from the group. “I almost wish I don’t remember.”

Nobody quite knew how to respond so you simply waited for Green to continue.

”Anyway, you probably didn’t need to hear that. My question was, for you, have you gotten back any memories?”

You pondered the question for a moment. How would you know? In thinking back to your experience, the period before your arrival on the purple planet was still a blank slate. 

“N-no. I don’t have anything new.”

But was there a chance you could get back your memories? A chance that you could remember what the others had been describing? You were hopeful, yet nervous. What if you did not like what you remembered? Green’s memories seemed to be taking a toll on him already, and from how he had described it, he had only begun uncovering them. The other crew had claimed that with them you were an impostor, surely none of those memories would be pleasant. Yet, you were still curious. If you could experience what you had been through on that ship, remember it, maybe it would lead to more clues about the entire situation. Maybe you knew something and did not tell anyone. 

“Ah. We’ll keep me updated if you remember anything. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but just let me know, so I know I’m not going crazy.” Green turned to face the others. “What about you, Cyan? Do you have any of your memories from before?”

She froze. “U-uh, right. You didn’t know.”

”Know what?”

Cyan rubbed their arm nervously. “My amnesia was.. uh… fake. Purple told me is should pretend so people would say things around me that they didn’t think I would understand. We were trying to get more information. I’m sorry.”

Green did not say anything.

”Please don’t be mad. I mean, if you’re mad, that’s fine, I get it, but please-“

Green finally answered. “If you asked me a while ago, I might have been mad. But compared to everything I’ve done? That’s nothing. ****, I’m almost impressed. Good on you for thinking that far ahead.”

”It was actually Purple’s idea. And the kid deserves some praise too.” She smiled and rubbed Mini Lime’s helmet. “He was really good at keeping a secret he wouldn’t have had to keep in the first place. I’m sorry for lying.” 

“It’s alright- as long as you’re not keeping any other secrets from us.” 

They froze at the comment. 

”Relax, I’m only kidding.” Green nudged. “Although your reaction there makes it seem like you’re still hiding things.”

”O-oh. No, I just… thought of something.” 

“Whatever you say.” Green rolled his eyes. 

“I hate to break things up, but at this point we probably should start on our tasks.” Purple spoke. “None of us have even started and we have a lot.” 

“No, you’re right.” Green agreed. “We should get to it.”

As you agreed and everyone split off to go work on their tasks, you could not help but wonder if you would be getting any memories back. Maybe because Green had more to regain they were coming faster? Or maybe you would not get them at all. There did not seem to be a clear set of rules, or at least one that you could figure out. Perhaps in time it would come to you.

But before you could even get off of the viewing deck, the familiar alert sounded across the ship. Of course it did. At this point, you hated to say this, but you almost expected it. As you sighed and began to prepare to be pulled into the meeting room, you glanced down at your screen. At this point, it barely shocked you.

DEAD BODY REPORTED (blue)

[File 3-04: Report]

Just as before, you found yourself pulled through the fabric of space to end up in the meeting room. Slowly but surely the process was becoming less disorienting, while still uncomfortable. The transport, however, was simply background noise to your actual train of thought.

Here we go again.

One of your crew members was dead. And as much as you felt emotionally distraught at the fact that someone you knew was in fact dead, you were exhausted. Both physically and emotionally. You had been through this time and time again, and as much as it hurt to lose someone, you had become numb to it in a way. Perhaps similar to what Green was feeling. 

And there was the thought, poking at the back of your mind, that perhaps whoever dies here does not die for good. If you were caught in a time loop, which was seeming ever more probable, then Blue would just come back once this started again. There was, of course, the chance that she may have lost her memories, but if what Green was saying was true, perhaps she would be able to regain them, if she even lost them at all.

Regardless of what death really meant in this situation, Blue was dead, and someone had killed her. Now you and your crew had to figure out who had done this, just the same as it always had been.

You were back at the table, meeting the faces of your crewmates. Some seemed scared, others seemed sad or angry, while yet others remained stoic. Maroon in particular seemed upset- you recalled the two seemed to be at least acquaintances back in whatever the waiting area was.

Before you could fully collect your thoughts, a chorus of people began to ask where the body was found. It was almost funny how so many people thought to ask the same question, instead of waiting for it to be answered. You even noticed a few messages in the chat that seemed to be of the same caliber. 

Instead of asking “where?” yourself, you looked at the screen in front of you to see who had reported this. The megaphone icon was displayed next to White, so you waited for him to speak.

”I, uh, I found Blue dead in the room with all the files. Records I think it’s called.” He took a deep breath, likely remembering finding the body. “Coral and I walked up on it- her- together.” 

Coral nodded in agreement before shakily speaking. “White and I were together most of this round. It wasn’t us.”

”Did you two see anyone nearby?” Asked Red.

White and Coral both looked at eachother for a moment before stating that they had not. Coral’s robot beeped in agreement.

”Ok, well then where was everyone?” Red continued. A few people glared at him, remembering the conversation last meeting. 

Green spoke up first, giving his alibi for the four of you. “I was on that, what was it called? Viewing deck thing with Cyan, Purple, and Gray.”

”And before that, Cyan was with me. We started in the main engine and walked towards the kitchen to meet up with Green and Gray.” Purple added. 

Black butted into the conversation. “Yellow and I were in kitchen too, He was being weird about the burger task. Eventually I just left him to figure it out on his own.” 

“I-I left too!” Yellow nearly shouted, rather indignantly. “The task wasn’t working so I was going to do my next task in, uh, the toilets, but I didn’t get there yet.”

So far, what you were getting from this conversation was that everyone seemed to have some sort of alibi, although some were shakier than others. Nobody seemed to have much information surrounding the actual event.

”What about the rest of you?” Maroon asked, annoying Red who seemed to want to ask that question. Whatever was going on between those two, you wanted no part of.

”I walked with Gray to the kitchen, then went to the Armory and the front of the ship.” Pink spoke as you nodded in agreement. “I think I might have seen Tan there?” 

“Yeah, I was there. I had to download something, I think? It got interrupted though.” He sighed in annoyance. “But before that Maroon and I were in that area near the vault.”

”I wonder if that’s a real ruby.” Yellow mused. “I was going to go clean it next.”

”Wait, but the vault is nowhere near-“ Banana began to speak, but was cut off by Rose.

“Oh! And I was with Red in the…” Rose turned to look at him. “Main hall. Sorry, I forgot what it was called. Our dog was sniffing at some beans on the floor.” 

This hesitant response earned a few looks, especially since the suspicions on Red seemed to be rather high. However, Rose had mentioned the beans, which was not a detail one would pick up on if they were not actually there. Still, you could tell that many of the others were uneasy about this.

”Well someone has to be confused or lying here, we can’t all be accounted for.” Said Maroon. “Wait a minute, Banana, where were you?”

”I was on vitals on and off this round.” Banana spoke. “I saw Gray and Pink walking to the left.”

“Banana was there at least at the beginning.” You concurred. “I saw em go to vitals right after the meeting.”

Pink nodded to confirm.

“Blue died about 54 seconds before her body was reported.” Banana offered. “That’s… really specific.” Green raised an eyebrow.

“I saw it on the monitor, and waited to see how long it would take for anyone to find her.” 

“Why were you sitting on vitals first round?” Asked Black. “What about your tasks?”

”I went back and forth between my tasks in electrical and vitals. I wanted to see how long it would be between a kill and the meeting, in case it was a self report. But unless White killed and circled back around to report it later, I don’t think it was.” 

“So, do we have any actual susses?” Asked Red.

”Susses?” Maroon asked.

”Suspicions, whatever, geez.” 

“Well, if what banana said was true, if you had your eyes on someone for the last minute, it couldn’t have been them.” You reasoned. 

“It doesn’t mean they’re not an impostor though.” Black chimed in, looking up from her mini crewmates. “Just didn’t kill anyone that time.”

”Of course we can’t blindly trust eachother’s alibis either though. Since there are three impostors, they could easily be covering for eachother.” Green made a counterpoint. 

“Speaking of covering for eachother, I’m not loving that little group you’re part of, Green.” Red interjected, almost smirking. Was he getting satisfaction out of this? “You’ve been awful close with Purple and Cyan, as well as Gray. Maybe you all are the impostors.” 

Purple opened her mouth to speak, but Green beat her to it.

“First of all, that’s four people. Second of all, we’ve been seen together, and third of all you could apply this logic to any group- including you and Rose.” Green seemed more annoyed and tired than anything, as if this was a conversation he had had many times before. And from what you knew about him, it probably was.

Red simply sighed and put his hands in the air. “Fine.” He said. “But if any of them end up stabbing you in the back, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

There was a short silence, broken only by a rather childish Yellow asking “Can we just vote out Red for being annoying?” 

“You’re one to talk.” Red huffed.

 Why did everyone on this forsaken airship seem to have grudges and alliances already? You had barely met. Perhaps some of these people had known eachother before, like you and your group had. You supposed that would make sense, in fact it probably made more sense that people would be together if your theory was true. If everyone else was here because they escaped similar time loops, logically they would have needed to work together to do so. Maybe everyone would be able to use their combined knowledge in order to to escape this one.

“Ok, clearly this is getting us nowhere.” Tan, who had remained mostly quiet until now, butted in. “I don’t know what’s going on between between all of you, but we don’t have time for this. The meeting’s almost over and we have no leads.”

You glanced down at the timer to find that Tan was indeed correct. You had mere seconds left of the meeting, and it was not as if you could simply stand around the table and continue to talk. Once again you were faced with the fact that you had to make a decision on very little evidence. 

“****, ok.” Came a voice from somewhere in the group. “Uh, we gotta make a decision.”

”We should skip.” Red suggested, surprising everyone a bit. “We don’t have enough information to make a decision.” 

“I’ve already voted.” Yellow shrugged. 

“Me too.” Black spoke next, glaring at Yellow. It was fairly easy to figure out who that vote was for. 

White and Coral glanced at eachother nervously while Pink shifted her shaking finger between two options on her tablet. Banana seemed to have already made a selection, Purple and Green were discussing something, and Cyan simply stared at the device in front of her. Tan looked over everyone before making a choice, and Rose leaned over towards Red. 

You took a quick glance around the table, eyes meeting those of several others at the table around you. Any one of them could have done this, you reminded yourself, and as you had learned before, the most obvious choices were not always correct. However, with the familiarity this group seemed to have with these types of situations, any plan was fair game. Chances were by now, if they had all been trapped in loops like this before, they would have developed and evolved some strategy of deception. 

So you just had to come up with a strategy of your own. And right now, that strategy included your first vote. 

Poll 1 (in a new format once again)

Poll opened at 10:38 pm (EST/EDT) July 19, 2021
Poll closed at midnight (EST/EDT) September 4th, 2021

[File 3-05: Red-handed]

Poll Results: parmeJohn/Yellow: 1 (7%), 0LochNess/Black: 1 (7%), You Fool I/Red: 1 (7%), Cosytoes/Tan: 1 (7%), Cosmos/Maroon: 2 (14%), [Skip Vote]: 8 (57%)

Overall 14 votes total which is ironically the number of crewmates remaining- but the votes don’t correspond perfectly. Interesting spread though, I’m curious to the thinking behind some of these. Feel free to comment your theories, I miss seeing you all theorizing or even just reacting in the comments. 

With a lot of bits and pieces of information, but nothing substantial enough to make an actual accusation about, you decided the best option at this point would be to skip. After all, at this point, it was far more likely that you would accidentally vote off an innocent than catch a killer. As almost unsatisfying as it was, you were pretty sure you had made the right choice.

Everyone watched their screens closely as the results began to display. There were a few scattered votes here and there, Red getting a few as well as Yellow, and one for Maroon, but a rather large majority of people chose to skip. The others likely had a lot of the same reservations as you when it came to voting for someone so early, so this made sense. Even the rather aggressive-seeming Red had urged people to skip.

Speaking of red, everyone’s eyes rolled as he spoke.  “Thank you, well most of you, for making the smart choice and skipping.” 

Nobody responded directly but you could tell a few of them were reconsidering their skips then and there.

“Someone didn’t vote.” Banana pointed out. “There’s only thirteen votes.”

Nobody wanted to own up to the mistake, which was probably the best. The last thing people needed was any more conflict. You assumed it was probably someone not quite sure what to do, or who ran out of time to choose an option. At this point you had not seen anything that would indicate an ulterior motive.

The screen displayed the view of the clouds along with the familiar message.

No one was ejected. (skipped)

3 impostors remain.

Next it reverted once again to the location screen. You still were struggling with figuring out exactly where these places were, and you had barely had a chance to look at your list of tasks, so it was more of a hope that you would end up where you needed to be. One of your options was the main hall again, so you chose that because it was familiar.

Once again you felt yourself being pulled through what you could only describe as the void, However, this time, it was different. As you felt yourself be transported from one place to another, your mind drifted for a moment-

Somehow you were back on that planet. Right where you had began before, surrounded by the metal of the dropship. Your mind took a moment to register your surroundings, but you realized you were face-to-face with another crewmate. 

“Hey, are you ok?” A red-suited individual asked. “You seem a bit out of it.”

“Where am I?” You answered, without even telling yourself to. Was this some sort of dream?

“To be honest, I’m not really sure. We’re on a planet somewhere. I- well I don’t think I’m the best one to answer this question.” 

You were able to recognize this as Red, specifically the Red you had known before. Your friend, the one that was killed when everyone went to fix communications. You gulped at the fact that you knew her fate. Could you warn her somehow? 

“I’ve never seen you around before.” She said, curious. “I don’t even remember us having a gray. Granted, my memory is limited, but-“

“A gray?” You once again asked without intending. It was as if you were an observer in your own body.

“Right. Again, I’m probably not the best one to explain this, but we all tend to refer to each other by what colors our suits are, or our codenames. From what I can remember, I haven’t seen you around. Do you know how you got here?” 

You felt your fear rising as you had searched your memories, only to find nothing. 

“N-no. I don’t. I-“ Panic began to filter through your veins. 

“Hey.” Red reached out towards you with a friendly hand. “Hey, it’s ok. Most of us don’t remember anything anyway. And those of us that do, it’s not very far back.”

You distantly recalled a conflicted feeling, wondering if it was good or bad that you were alone in your amnesia. 

“It’s ok. We’ll figure it out.” Red gave a half-smile. 

You gasped upon being suddenly back to your senses, standing alone in the main hall. Was this a memory of some sort? It was similar to what you remembered from the start of your last journey, but different. Could it have been the start of another loop? Was this what Green had been talking about? A flash of a memory from one of the other two cycles?

You were filled with a sense of hope at the thought. Maybe you would finally be able to answer the question of what exactly happened on that last ship. You had the story down pretty well, but nobody had been able to explain exactly how you ended up on that planet, completely human. That is, of course, making a couple assumptions.

Regardless of your newfound memory, you had to start completing your tasks. It had been two meetings now and you had barely even glanced at your list. It was still rather confusing as to how exactly completing all the tasks would defeat the impostor, but for some reason that was the case and you did not feel the need to question it.

You looked down at your list and the map, and promptly realized that this was going to be far more complicated than you imagined. This place was huge, and you did not recognize several of these tasks. It made sense that it would be different being in a different place and all, but it was still incredibly intimidating.

After cross-referencing your list with your map, you managed to find the closest task. In what appeared to be some sort of locker room at the end of the hall was a task to pick up towels, which was listed as having eight different parts. The map displayed what seemed to be all of the towels, so the entire room was just a sea of yellow exclamation points. It seemed annoying, but at least a fair place to start. 

You found it interesting that nobody else seemed to be directly in the area, but it made sense with the overall size of the place. It was almost nice, in a way, being alone. You were not worried that whoever you were with at the time would suddenly decide to turn and murder you. Granted, you had nobody to protect you if an impostor decided to drop by for a quick murder. Regardless, this was the situation, and you were stuck with it.

Sighing, you began to pick up the towels scattered all over the locker room and shower. How these even got there in the first place evaded you, but at this point it was best not to question it. One by one you grabbed towels from the floor, carrying them with you as you collected all eight. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to pick them up one by one instead of balancing a rather precarious pile, but at this point you were too far committed to the leaning tower of towels. 

As you flung the last towel into the pile and began to head towards the basket, you froze. A small sound filtered through the air, a soft thump coming from who knows where. Immediately your mind jumped to the thought that it could be coming from the vent. You had no indication that it was, necessarily, but you also had no indication that it was not. Suddenly rather terrified and with thoughts and questions of your own mortality now racing through your head, you halted even your breath for a few seconds. 

But it seemed that if something was in the vent, it had gone as quick as it came, since the sound did not seem to repeat again. You let out the breath you had been holding, and while you were still on edge, you felt less in immediate danger. The keyword there being less. Quickly you shoved all the towels into the bin and prepared to get out of there.

Yet, it seemed luck was not on your side as the doors shut right in front of your face. 

It was time to panic again. 

Immediately you know you had to get the door open. It seemed, from a quick glance behind you at least, that nobody had entered the room, but for all you knew it could be a matter of time. That was a reasonable plan, right? 

Your hands shook as you grabbed your ID card and fumbled with the card reader. Did it have to be this difficult? You had a feeling that this was something that everyone seemed to struggle with for whatever reason. The actual idea was very simple- swipe the card on the card reader. In practice? Not so much. Especially when you are aware that this door may very well be the difference between your life and death. 

After what seemed to be an eternity, you finally got the door open, and ran into the next room as if your life depended on it- which it very well may have. 

Or at least, that’s what you thought. Because when you opened the door you found that you were not the one in danger, but running straight towards it. A loud bang rung through the air as the door slid open. 

You were met immediately with the body of one of your crewmates falling at your feet before you. 

Red. As much as you disliked him and were dreading the day the two of you would interact, seeing him literally drop dead in front of you was horrifying. 

But what shook you even more was the fact that Maroon was standing directly in front of his body. Your eyes met hers through the visors of your helmets, and you could see the panic on her face. She had been caught red-handed.

“W-wait! I’m not an impostor! I can explain-“ She began, stepping away from the body.

”Explain at the meeting.” You replied coldly, grabbing your tablet with stiff hands.

DEAD BODY REPORTED (red)

Once again a chorus of “where”s filtered through to your ears, although slightly less than before. Why exactly did everyone ask where the body was when you were about to tell them? Regardless, that was your last priority right now. 

Black was the first to speak. “Red’s dead? Good riddance.”

“Wait, what?” Cyan mumbled lowly. 

Rose cut in, more yelling than anything. “Shut the **** up, Black.” Her eyes narrowed as tears began to flow from them. “I just left him for a second, I- how can he be gone?” 

”There’s only one person dead again?” Banana questioned, seeming almost confused. 

Rose seemed shocked at how unemotional everyone was, and in a way you felt for her. It seemed everyone was operating on some sort of knowledge of the loop, and the assumption that everyone would return somehow after dying. But you did not know that for sure, and even if they did, there was still the question of amnesia. Regardless, you had no time to process this right now. You had to explain what happened.

Choosing to keep your comments to yourself, you went ahead and began to explain the situation. “It’s Maroon.” You stated. “I saw her kill Red. He literally fell in front of me.”

”Maroon? Is this true?” Black jumped in, stern. “Did you kill him?”

”I-“ Maroon’s usual confidence seemed to have vanished. It seemed you really had had caught her in the act.

”Wow, she’s not even denying it.” Yellow noted.

Maroon seemed to struggle to find words. 

”Ok, ok. Where did this happen, exactly?” Asked Banana. “Can you tell us your pathing?”

”I had just finished picking up the towels in that shower area, and I thought I heard something in the vent.” You explained. “The door to the room closed and I panicked, so I quickly scanned my card to get out of there. When I got the door open, I walked on on Maroon killing Red.” For a second, your mind flashed back to the scene and you shivered. “I don’t know what else to say.”

Maroon seemed to finally get herself together enough to respond. “Please you- you have to trust me. Don’t throw me out. I’m on your side.” 

“How could an impostor ever be on our side?” Tan asked.

Your glance met that of Purple and Cyan before you looked away awkwardly. You apparently had been an impostor on the crewmates’ side on their mission.  But, unlike Maroon, you had not killed anyone. 

“I’m not an impostor!” Maroon tried to defend herself.

“You k-killed someone!” Coral squeaked out, one hand on her robot. “If, uh, Gray’s not lying.”

“Could this have been a drive-by?” Pondered Banana.

“I mean, I did see the two of them heading up that way from cargo.” Tan mentioned. “They both started there with me and went up towards the bathroom while I went down to do trash in medical and other tasks in electrical.”

“It sounds pretty clear-cut to me.” Stated Black. “I thought Maroon was sus anyway, trying to establish yourself as the leader right off the bat is something an impostor would do, like Red said.” 

“So we’re voting for Maroon?” White asked the group.

”I think so?” Coral answered, unsure. 

“I’m- well, I don’t know. I’m not sure.” Pink hesitated. “What if we’re wrong? What if we get the wrong person? Maybe we should skip.” 

“That’s a fair point too-“ White thought aloud. “We could have missed something, or Gray could be lying.”

”I trust Gray.” Green stated. “Either Maroon did it or Gray saw somethin’ wrong.”

“Wait, please!” Maroon was begging now. “You’re making a big mistake! I can help you. I’m on your side, I’m part of the crew-”

“You haven’t even tried to deny you killed him.” Rose said, a dark look on her face. ”And even I know crewmates don’t kill people.”

Poll 2 is this as simple as it seems?

Poll opened at 12:50am (EST/EDT) September 15th, 2021
Poll closed at midnight (EST/EDT) September 19th, 2021

[File 3-06: Recount]

Poll Results: Cosmos/Maroon: 11 (48%), [Skip Vote]: 12 (52%)

Wow. This was the one of closest polls I have seen in all of the stories. For a good portion of the time it was literally tied. It seems you don’t trust me… good.

Despite everything, you ended up skipping. Why exactly? You were not quite sure. It just felt too easy. Too simple. Even though you were fairly certain you had seen Maroon kill Red right in front of you, you could not seem to bring yourself to vote for her. Perhaps it was intuition of some sort, or maybe just a particularly strong bout of nervousness, but regardless, that was your choice- although you were rather torn about it. 

Right about now you were glad that the votes were anonymous. Had anyone seen your choice, you would have received several confused looks as to why you did not back up what you said. Yet still, you had a gut feeling, and you were going to go with it.

Everyone watched closely as the results appeared, the room silent with anticipation. 

Two votes for you, interestingly. You could not say you were surprised, in fact you were almost more surprised that it was only two, but it still caught you off guard a bit. One was probably Maroon, but you had no idea who the other one could be. 

There was also one for Yellow, who promptly asked in confusion why anyone would vote for him. Nobody answered, and instead focused on the other votes, much to Yellow’s dismay. 

But the real anticipation was that of Maroon’s fate. As the little icons slid into place, everyone watched carefully until…

It was a tie. A tie between ejecting Maroon and skipping. 

You could see Maroon bring down her tablet in relief, revealing the tear-splattered visor of her helmet. 

“Thank you.” She said. “I promise none of the crew will regret this.” 

You glance back down at your tablet to select the next location, and catch the tail end of the typical message. The fact that the message appears over what seems to be the sky makes your stomach drop a bit. The last one showed a pit of lava, and your crew ended up throwing people into the lava, so if this one showed the sky? Well, that would be one long fall.

No one was ejected. (Tie)

2 impostors remain

Soon enough the screen turns black, back to the room selection screen. You hear anxious murmurs coming from the crowd, but tune them out as you focus on making your selection for the next room. The best idea would probably be to go wherever was closest to your next tasks, but you could not pull up your list or map at the time. So instead you went and picked something called the brig, since you had no idea where that was and wanted to familiarize yourself with the ship. Although, there was something to be said for your apparent ability to easily figure out the directions here fairly well, regardless of your usual skill level at navigation.

Your mind raced as you were transported to the next room, anticipating perhaps some sort of memory once again. Yet this time, it did not come, much to your disappointment. This only added more questions to the ever-growing list of what on earth was actually going on here, but at this point you had no way to find answers, so you would just have to deal with what you had. 

Quickly, you found your feet on a hard surface again, and the world swirled back into view. This room was called the brig apparently, which made you think of some sort of jail on a pirate ship. Well, you were on an airship, and the wall behind you appeared to have some sort of cells on it, so that would make sense. Maybe instead of ejecting the impostor you could put them in there? That was a thought. 

However, besides the rooms on the wall and what seemed to be a wizard hat on the ground, the brig itself was relatively plain and empty. There were three large doors on all of the other walls, leading to different areas. In order to decide where you needed to go, you brought up your map and task list again. It seemed the closest things to you right now were in the vault, the room behind the door that seemed to have some sort of lock on it.

As you turned to head in that direction, you were startled by a few other crewmates appearing in the room with you. Right. People. A quick glance over told you the others were Black, Tan, and Yellow.

Unsure if you wanted to start a conversation, you instead opted to walk into the vault room and start on your tasks. Tan and Black followed while Yellow went off in another direction. 

The vault was… intimidating to say the least. The room had what seemed to be priceless art on the wall, along with a massive pile of gold coins just out in the open. There were several mannequins decorated in an interesting fashion, that seemed to be shaped similarly to your space suits. In the center of the room, on a pedestal like many other slightly-familiar treasures, was a giant ruby- which it was your task to polish. 

The idea of polishing the giant treasure seemed rather terrifying, so instead you opted to start with a task that you recognized: downloading data. The map guided you to a small device on the other side of the room, which you promptly made your way to. As you started the task, you looked up from your tablet to find Pink approaching you. You froze for a second. Was she coming to kill you? Probably not, you had just gotten out of a meeting and both Black and Tan knew you were in here. In fact, Tan was still in here. 

“Hey Gray?” Black got your attention. “I have a question for you. I’m curious about something.”

Tan looked over, intrigued. 

“And I guess you too, Tan.” Black added. “I don’t think I’ve asked you yet either.”

You still had a bit of time on the download, so you were stuck there anyway for the time being. You were still a bit nervous about the possibility of being killed here, if somehow everyone who had seen you here was an impostor, but you did not exactly have much choice as Black was between you and the door. “Sure Black, what is it?” 

Oh no. Had she figured out that you had not voted for Maroon? Was she going to question you about that? You were not sure your ‘it seemed too simple’ defense would go over well with anyone else. You were already second-guessing yourself as it is.

”How did you get here?” Black asked, surprising you. This was not exactly the direction you had expected this to go in.

”What do you mean?” You replied, trying to understand the question. “Like in this room? You saw me walk in, I couldn’t have used the vent or anything.”

“No, not that.” Black said, annoyed. “I’m asking how you got here in general. The airship, I mean. What’s the last thing you remembered before coming here?”

”Oh.” You answered, raising an eyebrow. It did make sense for someone to ask that, you had a lot of questions about it yourself, but it just caught you off guard. It seemed so casual, and you were wondering if the topic would be taboo somehow. 

“Why do you ask?” Tan replied, reminding you he was part of the conversation.

”I’m curious. I’ve been asking a lot of people, and I’ve gotten a bunch of different answers.”  Black shrugged. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.” 

“That makes sense, I guess.” You began. “It’s just, well it was a lot and I’m still trying to process it all.” 

Process it all, and the fact that you may or may not be getting some new memories- or, well, rediscovering old ones. 

You thought it over for a moment while your download finished, updating your task list to show that you needed to upload somewhere else. That was one of the tasks done, now you just had to polish that ruby. While you walked over to it, you began to explain a very brief and abridged version of your tale.

”So basically, I found myself on a planet without really anything in the way of memories of how I got there. I ran into one of my crewmembers, who called a meeting, and gave kind of a brief explanation of the impostors and voting and everything. And so for a little while I walked around with some of my crew and tried to figure out how to do the tasks and everything.”

”And was it Green that was part of that crew?” Black seemed to think. “I spoke to him at one point and he mentioned you.”

”Yeah, Green was there. And Purple and Cyan were- well, I was just about to get to that. Basically their crew’s ship somehow crashed into our planet and so their crew ended up joining ours.”

Deliberately you chose not to go into too much detail with that, especially considering the whole complication with, well, you. 

“So they joined in the middle of… what was going on? How many people were there altogether?” 

“I think it was fourteen?” You nearly had to count on your fingers to check. “Nine in our crew and four, well five I guess in theirs.” 

“Huh.” 

“But anyways, people died, people were thrown out, a lot like what seems to be happening here. And then there was an… incident-“ You shuddered at the memory, Orange’s murmur replaying over in your head along with the sound of smashing glass.  “w-where someone almost killed me and I ended up in a vent.” 

“You were in a vent?” Tan butted in, curious. “As a crewmate?” 

Black glared at Tan. 

“Yeah I don’t know exactly how it happened, but long story short that led to Green telling me about some sort of time loop that I still don’t completely understand, where this had been happening over and over for years. I’d ask him more about that.”

”How did you ending up in a vent, which I still don’t get by the way, lead to a discussion about a time loop?” Tan asked, now invested in this as well. 

“Basically there was some secret hideout outside of the loop’s reach, again, I don’t really understand it.” 

You began to try to clean the ruby, finding it much more difficult to concentrate with Black looking over your shoulder and judging your work. At least Tan seemed distracted with something on his tablet.

“But anyway, we ended up escaping the loop by walking through some barrier I think, because people had disappeared before or something.” You tried to recall the exact series of events, which was made only more difficult by trying to leave out everything with fake orange/yellow. “I’m not completely sure because I passed out, but we all ended up in that same place you were.”

After a short silence Black finally replied. “Interesting.” She simply said. 

Tan tried to clarify what you had said. “So you were in a time loop that you’re not quite sure how you got in, but escaped with Green, Purple, and Cyan.”

“Pretty much.” You spoke as you completed cleaning the ruby. 

“And you don’t remember anything before that?” He continued. 

“No, not really.” 

“What about you, Tan?” Asked Black. “How did you get here?” 

Tan froze for a a second before answering. “Oh, me? I- uh, it was something similar. I was stuck in a loop too, before I escaped. We were on a spaceship though, not a planet. Didn’t have anyone with me though. What about you?”

”Ah- also a loop, of sorts I guess.” Black’s usual stoic face fell for a moment. “It was different, though. For a while.” She trailed off, glancing at her children, who you had noticed wore red suits instead of matching her black one. Were they ‘adopted’ similarly to mini lime? You had a feeling you’d never know. 

Everyone could tell that this conversation was getting uncomfortable, so you decided to take this as an opportunity to leave. Just as you were about to find an excuse to go work on your next tasks elsewhere, you were startled by a rather loud alarm, reminding you of the emergency alarm.

Oh, it was the emergency alarm.

You looked at your tablet to see a flashing alert in the corner, telling you you had exactly 90 seconds to “Avert crash course”. It did not take a lot of brain power to figure out exactly what that meant, and you really did not fancy being on an aircraft headed straight for the ground. Realizing the same thing, the other two in the room immediately began to also follow the flashing arrow your tablet was displaying in the direction of the emergency.

Chapter Text

• Gray as a color! When I started writing the story in October 2020, only the original twelve colors were available. I chose for the main character to be gray because I wanted to create characters for all of the existing colors, and I didn’t want to assign the reader a color that already existed.  It wasn’t until I was writing the 23rd chapter of consequences: aftermath that the announcement of Gray as a color was made. (Gray was announced on May 26, 2021)
• • Side note, I specifically chose to use the “gray” spelling instead of “grey” specifically because I didn’t want gray (GRAP# or GREP#) and green’s (GREP#) ids getting confused. And guess what- the game also spells it “gray”!
• Also Maroon as a color! I can’t take full credit for this one because I think I saw it on some list somewhere of somebody’s speculations for future colors (I don’t really remember), but I included Maroon as a color for the PREQ crew in the fourth chapter of consequences. It wasn’t until the 24th chapter of consequences: reprisal that Maroon was announced as a new color- which is why she was the only one from the PREQ crew that got brought back. (Maroon was announced as a color on June 8, 2021)
• Bigger lobbies! Both consequences and aftermath had larger crew sizes (13 and 14 people, respectively) before the 15-player lobby update was announced! There were people talking about potentially having bigger lobbies back then, it might have even been a feature of the cancelled among us 2, but there wasn’t anything planned that I knew of at the time. Consequences had a bigger lobby because I wanted to include all the colors plus the main character, and aftermath had one in order to include the aftermath characters I needed for plot and the survivors of the consequences crew, and because I though the 3 impostors was balanced better with more people. It wasn’t until the 24th chapter of aftermath that the larger lobby size was announced. (15-player lobbies was one of the things on the June 10, 2021 roadmap)
• Shapeshifter role! (impostors were already described as “parasitic shapeshifters” on the original website, but there wasn’t any specific role for it at the time). Consequences: reprisal, which was entirely written by the time the new roles were announced, featured a shapeshifter impostor with yellow-orange (consequences yellow who killed aftermath orange and took her place). (The shapeshifter role was announced on October 27, 2021)
• Kind of a small one but specific enough that it’s worth mentioning: the player’s tablet color matching their suit color! Back before the UI/art update that came with the 15-player update, the original voting screen displayed on a tablet that was always gray on the outside. The only thing that changed with the player’s color was the interface on the drill task on Polus. In order to tell everyone’s tablets apart- which was especially important in consequences and also for a scene in aftermath, I decided to color-code them as well. (On June 15 2021 the 15 player update came out, along with a redesign of the voting screen that included the player’s color on the tablet.)
• A space contest??? We will see how this pans out when the actual show is released, but one of the characters that’s going to be in the among us animated tv series is described as a “contest winner”. That one’s kinda crazy to me, especially since the contest was literally the first chapter of the series. (This character was revealed on April 4, 2024)

Chapter Text

You couldn’t sleep that night.

Whether it was the pain in your nose from getting whacked with a metal pipe or the anxiety of your approaching space flight, for whatever reason, your eyes just couldn’t stay shut. After an hour or so of staring at the ceiling, you were entirely fed up with this insomnia nonsense, so you decided that wandering around the building would be a better alternative.

You glanced over at Yellow who, in contrast, seemed to be fast asleep. How on earth she managed that was a bit of a mystery to you, but having a roommate who was a deep sleeper might be a good thing going forward. At least you wouldn’t have to worry about waking her to go to the bathroom at night. She let out a soft snore which made you grin a little as you made your way to the door.

As you stepped out into the hallway, you passed Silver who was apparently headed back from a walk of his own. It seemed the lack of sleep was contagious, which wasn’t exactly surprising given where you were. You gave him a quick wave as he entered your room, which he didn’t return. Instead, he asked what time you planned to return, and you told him you weren’t sure, but you had planned on wandering around for a good while. He wished you well, and you were off to explore the 111th floor of MIRA HQ.

The hallways were eerily quiet this late at night. Between the humming fluorescent lights and the occasional noise from the levels above and below, you found yourself the slightest bit on edge. It was almost like you were exploring a liminal space. 

You made your way towards Admin, planning to check the map to see if anyone else was also wandering around aimlessly. As you approached the north hallway, however, you caught wind of a distant conversation, seemingly coming from the office across from the admin room.

“This is… odd to say the least,” a voice spoke uneasily. “Why would they order us to separate?”

You weren’t completely sure as you barely knew her at this point, but the voice sounded like it belonged to your captain. 

Also, separate? What did that mean? 

“Presumably,” a second voice added, “they want to avoid any further incidents like what happened with Gray and Peach.”

This voice you were less sure about, as it sounded even less familiar, which made you suspect it was someone from the other crew. It was also a more masculine voice, so perhaps Silver or Gold. Considering the fact that you had just seen Silver headed to your room, by process of elimination, your best guess was Gold.

“I still do not understand why Peach would’ve lashed out at them like that,” Black sighed, a hint of concern in her tone. “Why were they so panicked in the first place?”

You were rather curious about that yourself. 

“They’ve been struggling with night terrors throughout the trip,” Gold explained. “Being stranded in space for so long has only made it worse.”

“What actually happened with your mission? MIRA has refused to tell me much.”

Black paused and some footsteps could be heard, as if she was pacing around the room.

“You were supposed to be on Polus long-term,” she continued, “but had to abandon your mission after a couple months. Why?

“The uh-” 

There was a noticeable, suspicious lull in Gold’s speech. 

“The weather conditions,” he answered quickly, “That’s why we left. Polus was in the middle of a really stormy season, and we weren’t prepared for it.”

“But you were still gone for years,” Black countered, not sounding entirely convinced.

“On the way back, we had a malfunction with our high-speed engines. The trip there took us a week as expected, but the trip back took almost two years.”

How could something go that wrong with the engines?

Wait… wasn’t this the ship you were supposed to be taking? You didn’t want to be stranded in space for years!

“Can I be straight with you here?” Black said lowly, “Commander-to-commander?”

Gold inhaled nervously

“What is it?”

“I am… skeptical of your story to put it mildly,” Black admitted, “Why would MIRA keep something as simple as weather conditions from us?”

There was a lull in the conversation, and for a moment, you were worried it had ended there and then. Your captain had a point, Gold’s story didn’t quite add up.                                                                                                                      

When Gold finally responded, his voice sounded surprisingly sincere. 

“For you and your crew’s sake, please don’t start looking for answers in places you shouldn’t. There are people out there who didn’t want us to come back at all.”

“What are you talking about?” 

Black sounded just as concerned as you. What did he mean there were people out there who didn’t want them to return? Would those same people also not want you to return?

“Listen to me,” Gold urged, “I could get in huge trouble for telling you this.”

His voice lowered to a point where it was barely audible, making you have to creep forward ever so slightly to hear him. 

You almost wished you hadn’t.

“Whatever you do, don’t let your ship land on Polus. Fake a mechanical failure, something, anything, just turn around before you get there.” 

From the little you had seen of him, he didn’t seem to be the emotional type- perhaps that was something commanders of space missions had in common. But the desperate warning he gave, the fear behind his words- it was the advice of a broken man constrained by the threat of a worse fate. 

Black seemed just as afraid of Gold’s warning as you were.

“Why don’t I just call the whole thing off?” she asked. “What if I refuse to command this mission?”

Gold inhaled, seemingly about to be the bearer of even more bad news.

“There are rumors,” Gold began, “some idea for a secret project the higher-ups are working on, codename reprisal. I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad- even worse than Polus.”

What could be worse than something worth sabotaging an entire mission for

Hopefully, you’ll never find out.

“If you refuse to lead this mission, I guarantee they’ll reassign you there,” Gold warned, “But, if you do what I say, you’ll be fine.”

“Why should I trust you?” Black questioned. 

“Look around you,” Gold laughed sarcastically. “You were at the bottom of your class ‘cause you didn’t know when to quit asking questions. Your right-hand-man has an ego the size of Jupiter and a blatant disregard for the rules. Your doctor’s the only sane one of the three of you, but they barely passed their exams. Not to mention, MIRA’s given you a crew full of random civilians you know nothing about, you’re stuck with a barely functioning spaceship that left us stranded in the void for two years, and MIRA won’t tell you s***.”

None of this information was in the contract you signed. Or perhaps it was, as nobody seemed to have actually read it- yourself included.

Was it too late to back out now? Probably. 

“If our fully trained crew had to scramble back home with our tails between our legs, what do you think will become of yours?”

A few heavy footsteps echoed from the office- it seemed like Gold was getting ready to leave.

Not wanting to get caught listening in on this conversation, you turned to make your way back down the hall, catching one last remark from Gold as he approached the door.

“Your mission is set up to fail, captain. My only motivation is helping you make sure it doesn’t.”

Well, if you weren’t able to sleep earlier, you certainly couldn’t now.

~~ඞ~~

You spent the rest of the night pacing the halls, debating whether or not you should confront Black about what you heard. But what power did you have in this scenario? You could just end up making things worse for yourself- the last thing you wanted was to end up as part of some secret (and apparently even worse) mission.

By the time you finally began to feel tired, the sun had begun to crawl up over the horizon. 

Figuring you should at least try to get a few minutes of shut-eye, you began to head back towards the sleeping quarters. 

Perhaps forgoing sleep wasn’t the best idea, you thought as you fought back a yawn. Didn’t you have more tasks to do today? Maybe you’d have to see if the cafeteria had your caffeinated beverage of choice.

As you blearily made your way back to your bed, you noticed Gold walking down the hallway, the rest of his crew in tow. Where were they going? After the things you heard him say last night, you were painfully curious, and more than a little worried.

“Hey,” you called out to Gold, drawing the entire group’s attention to yourself. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, Gray!” Gold jumped slightly, having not seen you approach. “Uh, well I’m sure you’ll find out about this in your crew meeting, but HQ has ordered our crews to separate.”

This was confirmation on what you have overhead him say last night, for whatever reason MIRA doesn’t want you together anymore.

In an effort to see if you could find out any more information, you pressed the issue a little.

“Why?” you questioned.

“To make sure nobody else gets hit in the face,” he said firmly.

You noticed Peach cringe in the corner of your vision, muttering a quick ‘sorry’. In response, you waved at them, silently telling them not to worry too much about it. It seemed like they couldn’t exactly help it. 

“I doubt that’s going to happen again, though,” you challenged, feeling strangely bold in the moment. “Is this really necessary?”

Gold sighed, seemingly frustrated that you were continuing to ask questions. 

“We’re just trying to keep everyone safe,” he stated tiredly.

You stepped forward slightly, feigning your best anxious innocent civilian look. Although, if you were honest with yourself, it wasn’t much of an act.

“Are we safe?” you asked, looking him straight in the eyes.

Gold faltered ever so slightly, breaking eye contact almost immediately.

“You’ll be fine,” he reassured you. “Your captain knows what she’s doing.”

You certainly hoped she did.

~~ඞ~~

A few hours later, just as Gold had said, your crew was called to a meeting to discuss the fact that your crew and the other one, apparently known as the “prequel” crew, were to remain completely separate until launch. You weren’t surprised by this, and instead spent most of the meeting looking at Black, trying to see what was going on insider her head.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t exactly read minds, so the best you could do was guess.

What did catch you by surprise, however, was the fact that your ship would apparently be launching tomorrow. That was so soon. 

Everyone else was understandably unnerved, but you to a greater degree. With Gold’s warning circulating around in your mind, and the reality that your crew seemed to have been set up to fail, a nagging feeling began to grow in your mind that this mission was destined to go horribly wrong.

In fact, everything about this seemed wrong in a way you couldn’t quite explain.

You shuddered inexplicably. 

Yellow seemed to notice something was bothering you and asked you if you were alright. It seemed like she was having a bit of a rough morning too, muttering something about a killer migraine, so you said the two of you could talk about it later.

Instead, you sat with your worries, silently dreading the approaching trip more and more with every task completed. 

~~ඞ~~

After a full day of task completion, you laid in your bed, once again finding it difficult to sleep despite your exhaustion from yesterday. Figuring it was better than wandering around again, you decided to spend your time sharing your concerns with your roommate. You figured it would probably be good to have someone else have this information, just in case.

Besides, you’d told her that you would let her know what was bothering you, now seemed as good a time as any.

“Yellow?” you asked quietly, seeing if she was still awake.

“What’s up?” she mumbled, shifting in her bunk above. “Something on your mind?”

“Yeah,” you chuckled humorlessly. “You could say that.”

Slowly, you explained what you had overheard Gold and Black talking about. According to Gold, your crew was essentially doomed to fail from the start, and whatever was waiting for you on Polus wasn’t anything good. However, whatever was waiting for you here should you refuse to complete the mission- well, that was apparently worse.

Between that and a warning you had received from Teal not to trust anyone, this entire trip was seeming sketchier and sketchier by the minute. 

By the time you had covered everything you heard, both you and Yellow were rather uneasy. 

Unfortunately, neither of you could really think of a solution to the problem. Your best guess was all external communications would be heavily monitored by MIRA, so there was no way to involve any authority or the press. Not to mention, any evidence you had was simply word-of-mouth and circumstance, so it wasn’t as if there was anything concrete you could point to as wrong or illegal. 

Finding a way to get out of the mission somehow wasn’t an option either. For example, instead of simply choosing another candidate, MIRA decided to bring Lime’s kid along with him for the ride. If they’d rather take on the liability of a child than change their roster, there was no way you’d be able to get off this crew now.

“There’s nothing we can do,” you concluded, after spending the better part of an hour brainstorming possible solutions. “We’re stuck on this mission.”

Yellow pushed herself up to a sitting position on her bed.

“We’ll just have to be careful, I guess,” she sighed. 

“Mhm,” you agreed absentmindedly.  

The problem was you weren’t quite sure what you should be careful of. 

“Maybe we can look out for each other,” Yellow suggested, her tone brightening slightly. “We’re already roommates, we can be like… task partners too!”

She hopped off her bed, heading purposefully in your direction. 

“As long as we stick together, we’ll be okay,” Yellow asserted confidently. 

A small smile made its way onto your face.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “we’ll be okay.” 

~~ඞ~~

Everything began to fall apart almost immediately after the launch.

You hadn’t even been there for a full day when a loud alarm echoed through the ship, triggering flashing red lights and shaking you and everyone else to the core. The alert said something about a reactor meltdown, which was terrifying in and of itself, but was even scarier was that nobody really knew what had caused it. 

It didn’t help that almost immediately after launch the long-range comms had cut out, making communication with HQ supposedly impossible for the time being. Black and White were confident they could fix it eventually; the question was just how long it would take.

In retrospect, you should’ve turned around right then and there. That should’ve been the captain’s sign to abort this mission right here and now, no matter the consequences.

But the ship was known for being prone to malfunctions, a fact that didn’t ease your concerns in the slightest, but perhaps lowered the commanders’ guard a little too much.

The malfunctions, however, happened more and more frequently. People reported getting locked in rooms by unexpectedly closing doors, and at one point in the night, all the lights on the ship went out. It was a good thing Yellow had managed to sleep through that one, as she seemed to have grown rather fearful of the dark and refused to go to bed without the lights on.

The strange events didn’t end there, though. You witnessed Red collapse in the middle of the hallway, and for some reason Cyan was momentarily convinced that you must’ve done something to him somehow. 

When asked why they thought that, Cyan hesitantly produced Silver’s tablet, giving you a horrifying insight as to what might have happened to the previous crew.

Sabotage and kill everyone.

The instruction was clear, written in red letters at the top of a list of fake tasks. It turned out Silver also had an application designed specifically to sabotage different systems on the ship, which had been causing many of the malfunctions.

Naturally, this discovery was incredibly frightening. 

A few members of the crew had brushed it off as a prank, but the vast majority though a few too many dots connected for this to be some kind of elaborate joke.

You and Yellow were convinced it was real. It made too much sense with the ominous warning Black had been given. For whatever reason, there was someone on board who was determined to make sure you didn’t make it out of this mission alive-

-A fact that was all but confirmed when Orange showed up dead in the electrical room.

You and everyone else on this crew were doomed. 

~~ඞ~~

Things only devolved as the crew travelled through space, surrounded by the cold and unforgiving void that had become the final resting place for far too many.

In a desperate bid to stop the deaths, the crew had voted to eject Pink, sealing their fate in an attempt to keep everyone else alive. Nobody was quite sure if they had been right, and that fact weighed heavily on you. If you were wrong, you would’ve been complicit in the death of an innocent.

It was obvious that the thought bothered Yellow too, as the two of you sat in your room, regretting ever filling out that accursed application in the first place.

“So, when they called my name, I was thrilled!” 

Yellow recalled, waving her hands in the air as she described the events that led her here.

“What were the chances that I-”

She held a hand to her chest.

“-of all people would get to go to space?” 

Slowly, the wonder in her voice faded, her arms falling to her sides as the gravity of the situation settled back on her shoulders. 

“But now, if I had the chance, I’d slap myself for dreaming so big without thinking about the consequences.”

You nodded sympathetically, contemplating your own series of decisions that that led you to this moment.

“When I-” you began.

Suddenly, with a jarring buzz, the lights flickered out once again.

Immediately, you felt your chest tighten. 

This had to be another sabotage.

But, if you had been right on Pink, if you had gotten the impostor out like the crew thought they did…why were things still being sabotaged?

You shuddered.

“That’s not a good sign,” you muttered anxiously.

“What was that?” Yellow asked, leaning down over the edge of her bunk.

“The lights,” you elaborated, gesturing upwards. “If Pink was the only impostor, who’s sabotaging them now?”

“What do you mean sabotaging the lights?” Yellow asked, glancing around the room with a confused expression.

You furrowed your brow, slightly worried at her statement. Did she not just see the lights go out?

“The lights are off,” you explained uneasily, shifting slightly on your bunk. “I know neither of us could reach the switch from here, so I assumed they were sabotaged again.”

“O-oh.” Yellow said, suddenly sounding rather skittish. “Right, I knew that. I was just…”

As she spoke, her words grew quieter, until it didn’t sound like she was saying anything at all. 

A pensive look crossed her face, as if she was internally debating something. 

You titled your head to the side in response, silently asking her what she was thinking about.

“Hey Gray,” she asked timidly, “can you keep a secret?”

“What kind of secret?” Your eyes narrowed slightly. 

Yellow climbed down from her bed, motioning towards your bed as if to ask she could sit next to you. You scooted over slightly, making room for her beside you.

She sat anxiously, holding her palms flat on her thighs, her whole body shaking slightly. 

“I’m going to sound crazy but,” she looked away, refusing to meet your eyes, “ever since we’ve gotten on this ship, I’ve been able to see in the dark.”

See in the dark? Like some kind of night vision superpower?

Initially, you thought she was joking, but her continued fearful stance made you start to think otherwise.

“I thought it was happening to everyone as maybe some kind of human body adjusting to space thing, but with the way you’ve reacted just now- I’m guessing it’s not.”

Oh, she was serious. 

What- what exactly do you say in this situation? Congratulations? Sorry? Both?

“That’s why I always want to keep the light on,” she explained, relaxing a little now that the secret was out. “It freaks me out knowing the lights are off, but I can still see.”

You took a moment to process what she had just said. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, she was just afraid of the fact that she could see in the dark?

You’d never heard of astronauts developing sudden night vision before. But then again, didn’t your eyes adapt to your environment? Maybe this was an extreme case of that? 

Although, the ship was always lit in some capacity.

“Do you have any idea why this might be happening?” you asked as Yellow finally turned back towards you. 

Unexpectedly, a sudden sob escaped Yellow’s lips. 

You reached out towards her to try to comfort her, but she shied away. 

“I think something’s wrong with me,” she admitted, voice trembling. “Like really wrong with me.”

A single teardrop slid down her cheek as she pulled her legs up on the bed, wrapping her arms around them and burying her head in her knees

Whatever this was, Yellow seemed genuinely shaken.

“What do you mean?” you asked anxiously. 

“It’s not just my vision,” she replied, voice slightly muffled from her current position. “I’ve been blacking out, I think.”

“Blacking out?” you repeated, growing more concerned.

Likely realizing you might not have been able to hear you clearly, Yellow brought her head back up, still refusing to look at you directly.

“Back in the medbay, after I fell asleep, I woke up right outside the reactor room with the sabotage going off.” Yellow sighed, her voice starting to tremble again. “I’ve never sleepwalked like that before, and my head was pounding for some reason.”

“Well,” you tried to come up with something helpful to say, “we’re all under a lot of stress.” 

Yellow shook her head. 

“It’s more than that. That was when we think Lime died.”

Where was she going with this?

“I keep thinking, Yellow whispered, clutching the fabric of her pants in her fists, “if this killer really is an alien parasite like Purple and Cyan were saying… what if it’s controlling me somehow?”

She turned to you, glimmering tears streaming down her face.

“What if I killed him?”

You sat in silence for a moment.

You didn’t want to immediately assume the worst. You and Yellow were exhausted, nobody’d slept well since you’d arrived at HQ. Sleepwalking could be a stress response, and so could blacking out portions of time. You were honestly surprised you were holding up as well as you were. 

But you couldn’t explain the whole night vision thing. Perhaps that was a stress response as well? Or maybe she just thought she could see in the dark.

A small part of you wondered if there could be something to this. If this really was an alien…

But you couldn’t think like that. 

She didn’t have any proof. Pink could’ve killed him, and this could just be the ship malfunctioning, like how its engines stopped working with the previous crew. Or, if Purple was to be believed, perhaps there was a second impostor. But that didn’t mean it was Yellow. 

There was no use in jumping to conclusions. 

At this point, you had unintentionally been silent for the better part of a minute. Yellow seemed to take your lack of response as agreement and buried her head in her knees once more.

“Maybe I should just turn myself in,” she mumbled. 

“Hey,” you said firmly, drawing her attention again. 

“We don’t know anything for sure. Until I see you standing over someone’s dead body, I’m choosing to believe you’re innocent.”

Your confidence seemed to ease her anxieties ever so slightly. 

As you spoke, you shifted to the side, looking Yellow directly in her gleaming eyes.

“We’ll just stay together, like always. I’ll make sure you don’t do anything…” you hesitated for a moment, “suspicious, okay?”

Yellow exhaled shakily, wiping her tears on her sleeve.

“Okay.”

~~ඞ~~

Early the next morning, Brown’s body was reported. According to Black, who had gone to her room to check on her, she had been killed at some point in the night in her bed. 

For the crew as a whole, this was anxiety-inducing. This was confirmation that either Pink hadn’t been an impostor, or there was a second impostor lurking within the crew, neither of which were good options. 

However, despite the tragedy, this came with a small bit of good news for your roommate: Yellow physically couldn’t have killed Brown. 

You and Yellow had stayed up through the night, as she was afraid to go to sleep for fear of sleepwalking again. Yet another night of missed sleep wasn’t exactly what you needed right now, but Yellow needed support and you were the only one who could really give it.

The two of you had exchanged glances in the meeting, and you could tell Yellow had relaxed ever so slightly. 

Later in the same meeting, Black announced that the partner groups were being shifted and that White would be picking the partners. You ended up being paired with Cyan and the kid, and Yellow was placed with Black. 

Quietly, you asked Yellow if she wanted you to try and ask to swap partners, but she seemed to feel a bit better knowing she didn’t kill Brown and said this was okay for now. 

The two of you agreed to meet up at lunch, promising to stay safe in the meantime.

~~ඞ~~

The time crawled by with the ever-present threat of an impostor still amidst your crew. Everyone had a fair share of their own suspicions, but nobody had any hard evidence to back anything up, so all you could do was remain vigilant.

For while, nothing happened at all, making the crew question what exactly the impostor was playing at, and if an impostor had killed Brown at all. You, however, suspected the alien was having trouble finding an opportune time to kill as everyone was constantly paired up to protect each other. 

Eventually, Green managed to slip through the cracks. 

He’d reportedly been working with Red and Purple before getting into an argument with Red and storming off. A couple hours later, Yellow and Black had stumbled upon his body.

Naturally, Red was seen as pretty suspicious for that kill, but it almost seemed too obvious. The crew decided there was a decent chance he was being framed for this as well, and the meeting ended with a pretty close vote between Red, Purple, and skipping. 

After that meeting, the task partners were shuffled yet again, and you were placed with Black this time while Yellow ended up with Cyan.

You managed to finish your tasks while working with Black, but before she could make much progress on hers, you received an alert of another critical malfunction.

As the two of you split off and you headed towards the oxygen room, a strange feeling settled in the pit of your stomach. 

Cyan ran by, headed towards the oxygen in admin, but, unfortunately, you stayed on course.

A horrible decision, really.

As soon as you turned the corner you noticed Yellow standing in front of the console. You stepped forward to greet her, but you noticed that she wasn’t making any effort to type in the code. 

What was she doing? 

You stepped further into the room to try and enter the numbers on the console, but your foot hit something unexpectedly.

You glanced down at the floor to identify what it was, and immediately your blood ran cold.

It was a body- Blue’s dead body.

And Yellow was just standing there above it.

“Y-Yellow, what…” 

Your voice cracked, a sob building in your chest. 

“Did you kill him?” you whispered hoarsely. 

Shakily, your hand moved to your side, reaching for the tablet in your pocket.

Before you could even press the report button, Yellow lunged at you, knocking the device out of your hand. It fell to the floor with a clatter, the screen shattering immediately upon impact.

All you could do was stare at her in horror as she held you against the wall.

The light caught her face through the visor revealing a pair of gleaming red eyes and an uncanny smile. 

This wasn’t Yellow. At least… not anymore.

The impostor tilted her head to the side, her expression changing to one of feigned pity.

“Oh Gray,” she cooed. “You should’ve listened to her when you had the chance.”

In your final moments, you couldn’t figure out what hurt more- the knife in your chest or the sting of her betrayal.

Chapter Text

[Loop ??? (Several loops after the events of consequences: aftermath)]

Orange was trapped. 

That was the only thing she knew. She wasn’t sure of where she was nor her own name, but somehow, instinctively, she knew there was no leaving here.

She didn’t remember much of what brought her to this accursed purple planet or why, but a few of the others had told her that was normal, that it happened every time you died.

That sounded strange to her. Every time? As in more than once? She may not have recalled much about her life on Earth, but she was pretty sure that death was a one-time thing.

But what did she know? 

Not much, apparently.

The large group of strangers she was stuck on this planet with had divided up into smaller groups, some kind of safety measure from a supposed alien threat. Of course nobody had actually died yet, but nobody felt too keen on taking any chances. 

Although, if the others were to be believed, death didn’t quite mean the same thing around here.

Orange had been placed with Lime to try and complete their tasks together, and she was quickly figuring out that Lime wasn’t someone too easy to get along with. The bright green astronaut was bossy and frankly, quite rude. Orange ended up being rather glad that they weren’t supposed to speak outside of meetings, although Lime somehow managed to continue to be annoying through her sheer presence alone.

Orange inhaled, taking in a breath of slightly stale recycled air. How long had it been since fresh oxygen had entered her lungs? Since she felt the sun on her face or rain on her skin?

The people here were saying it had perhaps been years since they were last on Earth. To Orange, however, it felt more like a week- fresh air so recent in her mind that she could almost feel it if she concentrated hard enough.

She supposed having her memory altered likely also corrupted her sense of time. It was hard to feel like more than two years had passed when she had a mere twenty-four hours of memories under her belt.

Either way it had been too long, she concluded. 

The task in front of her seemed to mock her. Simple, yet for whatever reason, frustrating all the same. 

The outpost had been drilling into the surface of the planet. What they were drilling for was yet another great mystery, but it was apparently important enough to continue even given the circumstances. The drill had gotten stuck somehow, and Orange had the task of unsticking it.

Unsticking it was a theoretically easy job, all she had to do was tap any problem areas on the screen attached to the drill so it could repair itself, but the screen was worn from the cold and snow and seemed to struggle to register when she would tap something on it. 

In order to change the drill’s status from bad to good, she ended up having to aggressively tap the corners of the screen over and over, waiting for the alerts to finally disappear. 

At least Lime didn’t follow her out here. Orange wasn’t sure if she could handle much more of her judgmental stare.

The longer Orange stared at the screen of the drill, the more frustrations came to the surface. Not just the task, but everything else as well. Her obscured past, the looming threat of a killer alien, this nagging, inexplicable feeling that she didn’t belong in her own skin-

Thunk!

An orange-colored fist made impact with the screen in front of her. The glass cracked in a pattern akin to a spiderweb as the display flickered to static.

Orange’s eyes widened. Had she done that? She hadn’t thought of herself as the kind of person to lash around her in anger, but perhaps she didn’t know herself very well at all. 

Slowly, she lowered her now aching hand to her side, exhaling the same, stale air she had been.

How was she going to explain this to Lime?

Instinctively, she backed away from the drill, distancing herself from the small-scale destruction she was responsible for.

Maybe she could say she found it like this, chalk it up to wear and tear on the equipment that likely wasn’t built to be there this long.

Her gaze shifted out over the mountains, towards the sea of snow-covered purple rocks that only seemed to grow in size with distance. Portions of the horizon were lit with warm light, likely coming from the hazardous magma pools scattered across the surface. Orange wasn’t sure what kind of strange chemistry or physics made the snow and lava able to coexist at such short distances of each other, but it made for quite an impressive landscape. 

The view had an almost hypnotizing effect, drawing Orange forward towards the chain-link fence keeping the crew from tumbling over the edge. It was simultaneously both calming and terrifying- a bleak reminder of the reality of their exile hiding in the beauty of the alien terrain. 

A large chasm began just beyond the fence, dropping downwards far enough that Orange had trouble even estimating. One slip forward, one failure of the fence, and Orange would know what it felt like to face death… again.

She shuddered at the thought, taking a small step backwards so her weight wasn’t pressed against the fence anymore.

Perhaps she should return to the lab. If Orange waited here long enough, Lime would definitely seek her out, and then there would be no way to pretend she hadn’t broken the drill.

Taking one last glance out over the cliff, Orange turned back towards the lab, mourning the loss of her solitude.

However, something odd struck her eye as she turned away, immediately commanding her attention back downwards.

Just to the left, closer to where the seismic stabilizer extended from the ground, something bright sat at the base of the cliff.

For whatever reason, this discovery felt vaguely familiar. Had she made it before?

Quickly, she returned to the edge, pressing against the metal of the fence to try and get a better look.

This was important somehow. She was sure of it.

Whatever it was, it was orange. A very familiar shade of orange, one that almost seemed to match her own. Was it perhaps an opening to the lava below? It didn’t emit any light of its own, though.

The metal of the fence bent slightly under her weight, but she barely noticed. Instead, Orange started downward, slowly pushing forward to reveal the object in better detail.

The more Orange looked at it the more she realized- it was almost… person-shaped.

An orange, person-shaped object at the base of a cliff.

An orange, person-shaped object with a flowerpot attached to its helmet. A flowerpot that looked just like the one attached to her own. 

Orange’s stomach turned as she backed away from the edge once more, this time never intent on returning for another look.

Was this what the others meant by her dying before?

Was this her body at the base of the cliff?

Then how was she here?

The others had stated she wasn’t the only one to die before. Apparently they all had, many times. But there was never any mention of their bodies, never any mention of what to do if she were to stumble upon her own corpse or warning of it being a possibility at all.

Something about this didn’t add up.

Desperate flashes of memory tried to bring themselves to the surface, but they were trapped, some stiff barrier keeping Orange from recalling anything fully.

All she knew was this was an existential threat, something that had the potential to change how she saw herself and everything around her- but she couldn’t quite understand how.  

All that Orange’s brain actually succeeded in doing was making her panic. 

She took off without a word, running somewhere, anywhere away from the body at the bottom of the cliff. 

Her boots pounded against the purple dirt as she escaped the lab, curving around the storage room, past communications, even beyond the entrance to the office hallway. Her visor fogged up as she huffed and puffed, obscuring her vision as she reached a dead end.  

Orange’s calf made impact with something hard, momentarily throwing her off balance. A metal pipe of some kind, judging by the clang it made. She stumbled, placing her weight on the opposite foot to steady herself.

Unfortunately, the other foot was in fact not located on solid ground, and instead had managed to find its way into a hole in the ground. When Orange attempted to right herself, she only succeeded in making herself tumble straight into the hole in front of her.

It wasn’t that far of a fall, but it was far enough where the landing certainly wasn’t comfortable by any means. Orange’s head spun momentarily, whether from the fall itself or everything before she was unsure. It took her a moment to right herself, but eventually she managed to pull herself into a sitting position.

Slowly the fog cleared from her visor and she began to realize just where her fall had placed her.

The hole appeared messily dug out, and she could see glimpses of the sides of buildings above her. The tunnel curved forward and opened up to another hole which shone light down onto the dirt below.

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” A voice stated. 

As if Orange wasn’t already anxious enough.

A figure began to approach around the winding corner of the tunnel. It was rather dark, so it was initially difficult to tell who it was, but the soft beeping of a small robot gave it away.

Blue.

Wait, why was Blue down here?

“I- I-” Orange stuttered, her mind stuttering to form a coherent thought.

Blue took a curious step closer. 

Orange didn’t notice.

“I- I’m sorry. I just-” 

Orange sniffled, a tear making its way down her face. She wasn’t quite sure why she was crying, but it didn’t seem like she was going to be able to stop.

Her words came out jumbled and fast as she tried to explain how she had ended up here.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I saw my own body and I just-”

Blue stiffened slightly, a flash of recognition crossing their face. 

“Come with me,” Blue said suddenly, no decipherable emotion in their voice.

“I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to be down here,” Orange sniffed.

“You’re not.” 

Blue didn’t elaborate, instead silently motioning for Orange to follow him down the tunnel.

Orange followed hesitantly, growing more and more aware of the fact that she was likely following an impostor even further away from the surface.

But realistically, it wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.

It didn’t even take a minute for Orange to turn the corner and find a strange opening in the tunnel, leading towards a room that seemed to be full of various supplies. It appeared almost as if the room had been dug out of the dirt by hand- this wasn’t any kind of natural cave or formation. Was this some kind of impostor hideout?

Orange froze in the hallway, trying to figure out exactly what Blue was leading them into.

Seeing their hesitation, Blue stepped forward into the room, walking towards a computer sitting on a slightly rusted metallic green box. 

“You said you found your own body?” Blue confirmed.

Orange nodded uncomfortably. 

“Yeah,” she whispered, “at the bottom of the cliff.”

“I’ll admit I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I might know a way you can figure it out.” 

Blue sat down in front of the computer, patting the ground next to themself, silently telling Orange to sit beside him.

Hesitantly, Orange proceeded forward, taking a seat next to Blue.

“This is a log of everything that’s happened so far,” Blue explained. “Things spanning back years that we can’t remember.”

Orange looked between Blue and the screen incredulously. 

Why had nobody mentioned this? Why did he know it existed in the first place? 

Orange knew some people apparently remembered more than others, but this seemed like too important of a thing to keep hidden from the crew.

“Why not show this to everyone?” Orange asked, puzzled. 

“If the aliens find out we have this, they’ll destroy it. It’s not worth the risk to tell people things when they’re just going to forget again,” Blue said dejectedly. 

Orange quieted for a second, another thought crossing her mind.

“Why show it to me then?”

Blue hummed, beginning to scroll down to the log he thought might be the most relevant to his crewmate.

“If what I’ve read is correct, you might be missing a little more than just memories.”

Orange shifted uneasily, her eyes shifting to the screen as well. 

“What do you mean?”

Blue asked a question of their own, one that produced a strange chill down Orange’s spine. The fact that the question was one that could be asked at all seemed to be answer enough, and Orange couldn’t help but feel the same, strangely existential panic that caused her to fall into this hole in the first place.

“Do you know who you really are?”

Orange couldn’t bring herself to respond. Instead, her eyes focused on a set of logs that Blue had paused on- logs that couldn’t have come from too long ago judging by how close to the bottom of the page they were.

It only took reading a few words to trigger something in Orange’s memory- something she shouldn’t have been able to access.

[Loop 306 (1 loop after the events of consequences: aftermath)]

She had awoken on the floor of the dropship, surrounded by several strangers in brightly colored space suits. There were eight others, ranging from bright colors like pink and lime green to neutrals like black and white. Her own suit was a citrusy shade of orange, which made her frown.

She didn’t hate the color orange per se, but for some inexplicable reason, it didn’t quite feel right.

Orange, as she was apparently supposed to call herself, had no idea what was going on. Her memory was practically blank, consisting only of general knowledge about how the world works, or was supposed to work at least. Anything specific to herself, whether it be her past for her identity, was all missing. 

According to the rest of the crew, however, she wasn’t the only one. Every single person here had no memory of the past, which was incredibly concerning. The general consensus was panic, which only increased with a strange message everyone received on their personal devices, warning of a few alien infiltrators intent on killing everyone as quickly as possible.

Orange, however, was one of two who received an additional message, one she was instructed not to share with anyone else. 

The impostors weren’t aliens- they were humans, and she was one of them. If she didn’t play along, if she lost or ended up dead, her memory would be gone again. She was faced with an impossible choice- forget everything again or kill the people around her. 

Being an impostor, however, turned out to be the least of her problems.

The crew barely had a chance to process everything that was happening before a large crowd of strangers approached over the hill.

For some reason, it felt oddly familiar.

They wore similar suits, many even matching the colors of the crew already on Polus. There was another orange, for example, except this one was far taller than Orange and wore a pink flower on her helmet, similar yet different to Orange’s flowerpot. In an even stranger turn of events, this group seemed to have their memories intact, going so far as to recognize Black and White as their previous commanders. 

Orange was doubtful at first, considering Black and White had woken up alongside her and seemed to have the same memory issues that her crew had. On further inspection, however, Black and White did indeed bear the insignia of the consequences mission on their shoulders, matching the suits of the new arrivals instead of her own. 

Unfortunately, the new arrivals didn’t bring much good news. Their ship was likely beyond repair, and a large majority of their crew wasn’t even trained to be here. 

A few members of their crew were missing too. They’d lost their commanders, who they inexplicably found here, but they were still four people down- one of whom was apparently a child. His father, the consequences crew’s Lime, didn’t speak much to the rest of the crew- consistently blaming himself for his son’s disappearance. 

The strangest claim that this other crew made, however, was that of the circumstances that led them here in the first place. Aliens had infected members of their crew, much like they supposedly had Orange’s crew, but these ones were real. Almost everyone on that crew could explain the circumstances of their death in excruciating detail when asked, something that would’ve been difficult to fabricate. 

The fact that they could describe their own deaths, however, was perhaps the most impossible part of their story. After nearly everyone on the crew had died, they reportedly found themselves back amidst the land of the living, standing on a crashed version of their ship not that far from the outpost. Nobody was entirely sure how it happened, or at least nobody was willing to admit knowing how it happened.  

It seemed a bit far-fetched, but Orange found herself believing them rather easily. What would be the point of lying about something like that?

Either way, the other crew, menacingly dubbed the “consequences” crew, managed to integrate into the aftermath crew rather easily. It happened that since they were sent by the same company, their communications were already connected, and they could receive tasks to do as well. Eventually, the group managed to figure out a way to restrict the communications to proximity only, so the group couldn't hear each other from clear across the base- which was quite helpful with seventeen people on the same channel.

The group’s size presented some other unique challenges, however, as there wasn’t enough sleeping space for everyone. The aftermath crew’s quarters had remained entirely inaccessible, so oftentimes they would need to journey to the consequences crew’s ship to sleep. The group managed to make it work out of necessity, but it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable arrangement and none of these spaces were designed for all seventeen of them.  

In fact, it appeared a lot of things weren’t designed for all seventeen of them.

People reported bits and pieces of memories coming to them, all of them which seemed to indicate that something strange was going on with what seemed to be time itself. Several people remembered dying, and several others remembered killing people. Between these recollections and Orange’s impostor partner Blue discovering some kind of logs on a laptop haphazardly thrown into the vents below, the group began to realize that the impostor threat on this planet was manufactured, and the impostors silently abandoned their instructions to kill off their crew- Orange included.

Now, without a purpose, Orange turned her attention to getting to know those around her. Or, more accurately, getting to know the other crew. 

She was drawn to the members of the consequences crew, almost inexplicably, as if fate was a heavy chain constantly dragging her towards some inevitable realization. They felt more familiar to her than her actual crew, despite not having been through the apparent hundreds of cycles alongside her. 

Perhaps one of them could provide answers about her past in a way her own mind didn’t seem to be able to. 

In an effort to satisfy this strange feeling, Orange spent a decent amount of time getting to know quite a few of the other crewmembers. That proved to be fairly easy considering the fact that Orange didn’t actually have any tasks assigned and could simply fake a task near a person she wanted to talk to. It seemed she was a rather social person, because this came fairly easy to her.

Their Pink had taken a commanding role amidst their group, apparently being the only other trained member besides the amnesiac Black and White. Everyone else was supposedly selected at random, which Orange thought was a rather intriguing way to set up a space mission. It seemed a bit impractical, but also exciting. She likely would’ve put her name in if she had the option.

The other crew’s Orange and Brown seemed practically inseparable from each other. Orange didn’t blame them, if she had seen someone she loved die and got a second chance with them, she wouldn't want to ever be apart from them either. Both of them seemed like good people with decent senses of humor, which Orange appreciated.

Blue seemed to be rather levelheaded, which Orange found interesting considering the Blue of their crew seemed rather similar. Both of them were rather task-oriented and withdrawn at times, but also could get along with the crew fairly well if they tried. Aftermath Blue was a bit more socially awkward, but they were overall fairly similar people. 

Green was a little hard to connect with considering the fact he seemed to spend most of his time asleep. Why exactly he was so tired all the time Orange was unsure, but she began to wonder if he should’ve been included on the mission in the first place. A constantly-exhausted astronaut didn’t seem like the best idea. 

Their Red, for whatever reason, the crew seemed wary of. He could be a bit hot-headed at times, sure, but overall, Orange didn’t see too much wrong with him. He seemed to prefer to interact with Orange’s crew instead of his own, making Orange wonder if something had happened between him and the rest of the crew. She’d tried to ask him about it, but all he’d really claimed was that they “just didn’t get along all that well.”

The consequences crew’s Lime, in stark contrast to the aftermath Lime, seemed to be a kind guy. His kindness, however, was often eclipsed by his guilt and anxiety regarding his missing son. It was apparent he was trying to maintain hope that he was out there somewhere, but the reality of the situation weighed heavily on him. Orange wasn’t quite sure what to say to him, so she found herself avoiding him inadvertently. 

The one person from the other crew that Orange hadn’t been able to speak to so far was Yellow. 

For whatever reason, Yellow seemed rather closed-off, isolating herself from both her own crew and Orange’s. Orange attempted asking a few of the other crewmembers about her, but nobody really gave much of a straight answer, some said they were as confused about her apparently uncharacteristic behavior as Orange was, while others implied it might be for the best that she was left alone. Either way, it didn’t appear anyone on her crew was interacting with her all that much.

Orange wasn’t quite sure why, but she decided to make it her mission to make sure Yellow wasn’t feeling too alone.  

After all, it’s what she would want someone to do for her.

~~ඞ~~

It took a little while to actually find Yellow, as she seemed to do a fairly good job of avoiding everyone else currently inhabiting the outpost- an impressive feat given how large the group was. 

Orange had done multiple laps of the base, going so far as to check the cameras and the admin map, and still being unable to locate Yellow. According to the vitals screen, which didn’t actually fit everyone anymore, she was still alive- so at least there was that.

Completely puzzled as to where else she could be, Orange halfheartedly checked the impostor-exclusive tunnels on the off chance that Yellow had somehow managed to fall into one or something.

(How ironic).

Intriguingly, upon checking the second set of tunnels, it appeared that was exactly what had happened.

As Orange peered down into the hole, she caught a glimpse of yellow at the bottom. Quickly, she hopped down inside, hoping this was the yellow she was looking for.

Her feet hit the dirt below her and sure enough, there she was, the elusive Yellow of the consequences crew. She sat a bit further into the tunnel, her knees held close to her chest with her arms resting around them. Her helmet laid down on her knees and she shook softly, as if she were silently crying. 

“Yellow?” Orange asked gently. 

Startled, Yellow’s head immediately shot up from her knees, her whole body rocking with the force of the movement.

“O-oh, uh- Orange. I-”

Yellow stuttered, her hands shaking as she brought them to her sides.

“Is this where you’ve been hiding?” Orange asked, a slight tone of playfulness in her voice to try and diffuse the situation.

“Uh-” 

Yellow looked back and forth down the tunnel, seemingly trying to find some other explanation but not being able to come up with one. 

“-yeah. I know people aren’t supposed to be down here but I just,” she sighed, the tension in her shoulders relaxing slightly, “I needed to be alone.”

“Is that why you’ve been so hard to find? Not a people person?” Orange asked, curious. 

“No,” Yellow sighed, “that’s not it. It’s just- it’s complicated, okay?”

Yellow seemed to suddenly grow rather defensive, shifting away from Orange ever so slightly. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” she muttered. “It’s not a good idea to be around me.”

Slowly, a few puzzle pieces seemed to click together in Orange’s head. The strange attitude her crew seemed to have around her, the mysterious circumstances of the group’s crash, her self-isolation and even the place she was hiding- it all painted a very specific picture. 

So, Orange decided to take a risk.

“Look where I’m standing, Yellow,” she said softly.

“Hm?” Yellow hummed softly in confusion, turning her attention to Orange.

“In the same tunnel you are. The same place the rest of our crewmates aren’t allowed to go.”

A place just for impostors.

Orange leaned against the wall of the tunnel, sliding down into a sitting position next to Yellow. The purple dirt rubbed against her suit, temporarily staining the fabric a darker color, leaving its mark on the closest thing she had to an identity.

She looked directly at Yellow, 

“I understand more than you think.”

Yellow quickly seemed to put the pieces together, discerning Orange’s role without having to confirm it aloud. 

For a moment she seemed to feel relieved, perhaps a little bit less alone, before the specific circumstances of the aftermath crew crossed her mind. Orange may be able to understand being an impostor, but according to Yellow, she couldn’t possibly know this feeling- the feeling of being unable to trust yourself. Unlike Yellow, Orange still had a choice, whether it was a fair one or not. 

“It’s different though,” Yellow whispered, slightly more bitter than she intended. “You’re still human.”

Orange wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. 

Somehow, she didn’t feel human. Or at least she didn’t feel right. Whatever she was could only be described as an affront against nature, but she had no proof, no evidence, no reasoning beyond a feeling. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, just that she was wrong.

But how was she supposed to explain that? 

Instead, Orange opted to reach out a hand, placing it gently on Yellow’s shoulder.

When her hand made contact with Yellow’s shoulder, a sudden, intense vision appeared before her.

Yellow desperately gripped onto the side of the airlock, fighting against the gale trying to tear her away from the ship, out into the endless void behind her. Her fingers slipped ever so slightly as she stared across a metallic room, eyes focused on a gray astronaut across from her.

Immediately, Orange pulled her hand back, her eyes wide.

Yellow was staring directly at Orange, a similar expression of fearful confusion on her face. It appeared she had experienced the vision as well.

What had just happened?

Neither of them were entirely sure, but something had suddenly become abundantly clear. 

The two of them were connected.

~~ඞ~~

Following this incident, Orange got Yellow to open up to her more. Explaining what had happened on the ship, sharing more memories in this strange way the two of them seemed to be able to. Strangely, it was rather one-sided. Orange didn’t seem to share any memories of her own with Yellow- perhaps because there was nothing to be shared. 

Orange, for whatever reason, really resonated with Yellow’s memories- almost as if they were hers as well.

She didn’t dare say anything to Yellow though. How do you tell someone that you remembered their traumatic memories as if they belonged to you?

Yellow, however, silently suspected the same.

Both Orange and Yellow began making excuses to spend time with each other, teaming up as “task partners” who didn’t actually have any tasks to complete. They’d wander from building to building under the guise of completing responsibilities, Orange constantly asking Yellow questions in order to trigger another flash of memory.

They became rather fast friends in a strange kind of way, understanding each other as if they’d been raised together despite only having known each other for a few days. The other crewmembers seemed to pick up on this, often confused by their connection.

A few members of the consequences crew had gone so far as to warn Orange to be careful around Yellow, but she paid them no mind, insisting that Yellow was as safe to be around as anyone else- perhaps more as she was so cautious never to be in a position that could cause anyone else harm. 

They’d insisted that Orange didn’t understand, that she hadn’t been on the Skeld with them, but Orange was becoming more and more impossibly convinced that she may well have been.

Yellow was a strange presence in Orange’s life, both comforting in the sense that she provided answers, and unnerving in the sense that the answers she had made Orange question her own identity. 

Orange never expected that presence to suddenly be ripped away from her.

Inexplicably, the members of the consequences crew had quite literally begun to disappear.

At first the crew had thought it to be murder, one of the impostors finally playing their assigned part in all this, but this theory was quickly disproven when Green vanished in the middle of a meeting. 

Naturally this caused panic, everyone wondering what exactly had happened to them, and who would be next. There didn’t seem to be much of a pattern, not location or color, the disappearances weren’t even spaced out evenly, with some happening almost right after each other while others took several hours. 

Only after about the fourth or fifth disappearance did the group come to the conclusion that it was only the newcomers that were in danger- a fact that didn’t seem to make any of them feel too comfortable.

There was some debate about whether or not this would happen to Black and White, as they had been here with the rest of the aftermath crew, but interestingly enough, the two of them vanished as well, further confirming the fact that they did indeed belong to the consequences crew.

Nobody was sure how or why it happened, whether it was connected to the aliens or the shifty company they all worked for, or what it meant for the fate of those who disappeared. Had they been killed? Erased from existence somehow? 

Blue mentioned something about a couple disappearances in the logs of a similar nature, potentially even connected to the consequences crew’s already missing crewmates, but Orange wasn’t all that concerned with why.

The only thing on her mind was the fact that she was going to lose Yellow- and with her, her one chance at demystifying her own past.

~~ඞ~~

Desperate to get any information she could before Yellow was whisked away with the others, Orange pulled her aside, questioning her a bit more forcefully than she intended.

“What happened?” Orange pleaded, holding Yellow’s arm.

“W-what do you mean?” Yellow asked hesitantly, her mind already reeling from the rapidly-approaching deadline.

“On your ship. How did it crash?”

Yellow was momentarily confused as to why Orange would be asking her this now. She had just figured out that everyone, her entire crew, was quite literally vanishing before her eyes, and soon she would be joining them. 

Frustrated, Yellow shook Orange’s hand off.

“I’ve told you a million times, you saw it yourself in my memory!” she recounted. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Orange practically yelled, her desperation for answers now on full display. “Why do I feel so… wrong?”

“I don’t know!” Yellow cried, throwing her hands in the air. “I don't have any more answers for you, Orange. I don’t know why you can see my memories or why you have none of your own.”

She exhaled, the frustration in her tone abating slightly as resignation took its place. 

“Whatever else there is, you’re gonna have to figure it out on your own.”

A silence fell between the two. It seemed to last ages, despite the silent clock ticking in the back of both their minds. 

Yellow’s pained words made Orange realize something- just how selfish she was being. She had been so desperate to figure out what was going on in her own mind, she’d ignored the sense of dread Yellow must’ve been feeling.

“I’m sorry,” Orange apologized softly.

Yellow hummed uneasily.

“I was so excited to have a lead on my past that I forgot to think of you as a person.” 

Orange rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. 

“A person who’s been through just as much s*** as me.”

It took Yellow another moment to respond, but she could tell Orange was being genuine. If the roles had been reversed, Yellow had a feeling she would’ve been focused on the exact same thing.

“If I knew how to help you I would,” Yellow said quietly.

“I know.”

~~ඞ~~

Orange sat alone, staring out wistfully over the mountains. 

Whatever it was had eventually taken Yellow too. 

Now Orange was left feeling more alone than she ever thought she could’ve, faced with still so many questions and very few answers to go with them. Yellow’s departure left her with a strange empty feeling, beyond that of just losing a friend. It was as if she had lost a part of herself, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever get it back. 

Strangely, though, her mind continued. Yellow’s memories kept making their way to her, perhaps even more forcefully than they had when she was around. There was no reasonable explanation for this, nothing that really made sense.

But what if there was another explanation? Something that didn’t make sense?

Her mind continued, pushing her forwards toward an inevitable, impossible conclusion.

And, when a glimpse of bright orange at the base of the cliff caught her eye, the final pieces clicked into place- and with them a memory.

She stood at the edge of the cliff, staring back at herself.

Or no, this wasn’t herself. Not yet, at least.

This was the form she was going to take. The way she would infiltrate the aftermath crew and ensure these pitiful humans got what they deserved. 

Looping them over and over again as an effective form of punishment? She was skeptical. Wouldn't it be better simply to kill them outright? Why all the fuss?

Although, she thought to herself, watching them accuse each other back on the Skeld had been… fun. Finally getting control of Yellow, seeing the way Gray looked at her when they knew. Perhaps there was some use for humans after all.

Either way, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t risk being Yellow anymore, not now that a few stragglers had managed to survive the crash. And if her instincts were right and that Gray was somehow the same one she thought it was, well, she couldn’t take any risks. 

Orange was just unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time- and to have a similar body type to Yellow. As much as she found her annoying, she’d taken quite a liking to Yellow’s form, and Orange was the closest to her in this group.

Yes, this would be a fun experiment. 

She’d just have to be careful not to end up anywhere near that lava pit. 

[Loop ??? (Several loops after the events of consequences: aftermath)]

“Orange?” A voice echoed, slowly dragging her back into the present.

Where was she? When was she?

Slowly, she glanced around, taking stock of her surroundings. She was back underground, sitting beside Blue, the computer screen illuminating the manmade cavern around her. Slowly, she pieced it together, untangling herself from the mess of recollections her brain had thrust her into.

The sight of the logs had managed to draw her into a memory within a memory, something she felt could’ve gone on forever had Blue not called out to her like that.

In a way, it almost felt as if she was still trapped in the past, as the implications of everything that had come to her quickly took hold in her mind.

“I’m not Orange,” she whispered- partly to Blue beside her and partly to herself. 

“This color, this identity, this face, it’s not mine.”

“What happened?” Blue asked, glancing between her and the logs curiously. “Did you remember something?”

She exhaled, hands gripping the dirt floor below her.

“The consequences crew… they knew me as Yellow. But when we crash-landed, the alien changed me. Twisted my face into the one of the dead woman whose body is left at the base of the cliff.”

As she spoke, she curled more into herself, slowly shifting to a position similar to that of the one she had first found Yellow, or, her alternate self in.

“When I fell into the lava and the alien burned, I had control again, but I was stuck this way,” she seethed. “And, because of the loop, I didn’t remember any different- at least until now.” 

“So reading the logs triggered a memory?” Blue questioned. “That’s interesting, there are no records of that happening before.”

“Almost more like a memory of a memory,” the young woman hummed. 

“So, if you were originally from the consequences crew, why didn’t you disappear when everyone else did?”

Images of her counterpart flickered through her mind. 

“They already had a Yellow,” she breathed. “She disappeared instead.”

Blue suddenly pushed himself up from the ground, beginning to pace back and forth in the small artificial cavern.

For a moment, she was worried they didn’t believe her, but strangely, that didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, Blue seemed fully convinced almost immediately. Perhaps it was a logical conclusion given what was in the logs- he had wanted to show them to her after all. 

“If the other crew had a loop, which I assume they did given the whole ‘coming back to life’ thing,” Blue thought aloud, “maybe it somehow created a copy of Yellow- er, of you? Since you got shapeshifted into Orange?”

She didn’t like how much sense that made. 

“Even the loop didn’t recognize me as me,” she muttered. 

“What are the odds?” Blue hummed, their voice colored with a twinge of awe. “You have to be the only person this has ever happened to.”

It was an isolating truth, she realized. Her identity had been hijacked and ultimately given to someone else- someone else who was also her. She wasn’t sure what had happened to the other Yellow, where she had disappeared to or if she was even still alive, but her crew, they had claimed Yellow as the ‘real’ one. Nobody knew who she was, not even herself. 

“I’m not me anymore, but I’m also not Orange,” she exhaled thoughtfully. “What does that make me?”

A short silence fell over the two of them, the question hanging in the air in a way that she could almost feel. 

“You’re Yellow-Orange.” Blue stated suddenly.

The citrus-colored astronaut hummed in confusion.

“You’re both of them and neither of them at the same time. You’re something-” Blue paused momentarily, correcting themself, “someone new.”

“But what if I don’t want to be someone new?” she pleaded, hoping Blue would have some hidden answer somehow on how to fix it.

Blue frowned, glancing back at the computer screen.

“It doesn’t really matter though, does it?” he said dejectedly.

What? How could it not matter? She raged internally. This was her body, her identity. This was the question of who she was and why… and it didn’t matter.

A somber look crossed her face as she realized what Blue was going to say.

“You’ll just forget again anyway.”

Looking down at her hands and knowing they weren’t hers, at least not really, she found herself wondering if forgetting might not be such an awful thing.

Chapter Text

The following is a transcript of a news report aired five days after the RPRSLG crew’s reappearance regarding the recent allegations against the MIRA Corporation:

Anchor: And now, a special news report.

Anchor: Space exploration and research giant, MIRA Corporation, is under heavy fire after a series of incidents revealed unethical experimentation which resulted in the deaths and disappearances of a combined total of 20 astronauts and civilians over the span of two years. 

Anchor: Ironically, all but one member of the primarily civilian crew of MIRA’s consequences mission, consisting of those who had won MIRA’s contest, has been found to be alive. After previously releasing a statement that all members of the crew had perished in space, friends and family members were overjoyed to find that the supposedly deceased astronauts were simply being held in MIRA’s headquarters. 

Anchor: Unfortunately, that is not the case for all of MIRA’s missions, as the entirety of the prequel mission’s crew has been confirmed to be deceased, and much of the aftermath mission’s crew remains unaccounted for as of today. 

Anchor: Some internal documentation and witness testimony cites extraterrestrial involvement, but no hard evidence has been found to support these claims. The investigation is ongoing, and local, national, and international scientists and authorities are hard at work to determine if there could be any truth behind these claims.

Anchor: The former CEO, as well as a few others implicated in the series of events, have allegedly fled the country and perhaps even the planet. The later theory was popularized by leaked documents showing multiple ships in the MIRA fleet being unaccounted for, including one supposedly launched on the day the CEO was last seen leaving MIRA HQ in a helicopter. 

Anchor: Despite questions regarding the corporation’s legitimacy, they have been cleared to continue operations after conducting a rapid restructure of the company, with the CEO and all other executives being replaced. The new board reports on putting in place new internal checks and balances, with an additional emphasis on transparency. MIRA’s official statement claims that the CEO had an unusual amount of influence within the corporation and was often ‘left to his own devices’ - in other words, able to operate almost entirely without consulting or receiving approval from the board. 

Anchor: MIRA is expected to resume business as usual early this spring, although the legal battle may drag on for years. They have already been ordered to pay hefty reparations to many of the victims of these experiments, many of whom are their own employees.

Anchor: In this report, we conducted a group interview with several participants of previous MIRA space missions and allowed them to speak freely about their experience. Many chose not to participate, but those that did gave some valuable insight as to what transpired over the last two years. Please note that this is personal testimony from individuals part of an ongoing investigation, and may not represent the final findings.

[Beginning of interview]

Interviewer: So, what happened up there?

CONQ Yellow: What didn’t happen up there? 

CONQ Pink: The organization we trusted knowingly put us in danger.

CONQ White: I… became something I wasn’t proud of.

CONQ Green: [Beep] hit the fan. Who just throws people into space like that?

CONQ Black: Aliens infiltrated our crew and infected some of our crewmembers. People died and other people panicked, and, well, it did not end well. If it were not for the loop, most of us would be dead. 

Interviewer: The loop is perhaps one of the biggest mysteries to us outsiders. Can you tell us more about that?

CONQ Black: Well, I believe one of the others from the airship might be more equipped to answer that question. I only experienced it once, and the memories are still sometimes quite fuzzy. You may want to ask Cyan or Purple, or Green from Polus.

Interviewer: Many of the surviving crewmembers of the Reprisal mission declined to participate in this interview, including the individuals you mentioned. Can you give us anything, even if it’s fuzzy?

CONQ Black: It is strange. One minute I felt this indescribable pain, far worse than anything I had ever felt, and then it slowly faded as I have to assume I died. When I woke up, though, it was like it never even happened.

Interviewer: Because you were essentially, for lack of a better phrase, brought back to life?

CONQ Black: Yes, but it was more than just that. The loop I was in seemed to erase my memories when I died. It is really strange to look back on it now, because I remember not remembering it- it is difficult to explain. 

Interviewer: Afterwards, did you feel like anything was off? Any hint that something strange had happened?

CONQ Black: Well, I knew something was definitely off when I could not recall much of my past, but I did not have any specific indication that we were in some kind of cycle.

Interviewer: How did you figure it out? 

CONQ Black: I did not, really. As I said, it took a while for my memories to come back. I recall dying and waking up again, but most of my information on the loop itself came from theories the rest of my crew made. I did not know whether to believe them or not, but now, after escaping MIRA and getting as much of the whole story as possible, it seems like the only explanation that lines up with what I experienced. 

Interviewer: It wasn’t just you, though. Your first officer experienced this phenomenon on Polus too, according to his testimony.

CONQ Black: Correct.

CONQ White: Yes, I did.

Interviewer: Does your story or experience differ from hers at all?

CONQ White: Not much. I survived the cycle on Polus a bit longer than she did, so I heard bits and pieces of information about the loop from the others, but none of it made much sense. I was just as confused when I woke up. It’s still a bit of a mystery to me.

Interviewer: Well, we have one person here who it’s not a mystery for. Do you care to give us your perspective on the loop?

RPRSLG Rose: Uh, yeah sure. 

RPRSLG Rose: It’s basically kind of like what you see in movies. You die, and the day starts all over again. Except, it only really starts all over agin for you and the people on your crew. For the rest of the world, outside the airship, or, uh, planet base or whatever, time moves on.

Interviewer: And it affects your memories, correct?

RPRSLG Rose: Not exactly- at least not for our crew. The Reprisal crew, and from what I understand the Consequences crew, didn’t get the loops that messed with your memories- that was just on Polus. So, I could remember everything that happened last time.

CONQ Brown: It worked the same way for us too. When we all woke up on that planet, we could remember everything that happened on the ship. It took us a while to figure out what actually happened.

CONQ Yellow: At first, I thought it was some awful nightmare. I still sometimes wonder if I’ll wake up some day and everything that happened over the past few months would be a dream.

CONQ Green: I thought we got like space-high or something and it was all a hallucination. 

CONQ Orange: I’m not sure what I thought initially. But given several months trapped together, and the captain and first officer slowly regaining memories and mentioning something about a time loop, we started getting pretty deep into theorizing.

Interviewer: Since both of your commanding officers were struggling with amnesia, who stepped up as leader of your group in the meantime?

CONQ Pink: I was next in line, by rank. While typically a medical officer wouldn’t be too high up the command chain, the rest of the crew being civilians changed things a little. Some part of me was almost surprised the crew listened to me after voting to throw me off the ship back on the Skeld, but in some odd way, that almost ended up proving my innocence. 

Interviewer: As you mentioned, a large majority of the consequences crew actually selected to be a part of this mission with no prior training. Did this raise any red flags? 

CONQ Green: My mother filled out the application for me, and I didn’t find out until my name was announced. She was less focused on how suspicious it was, and more focused on trying to get me out of the house.

CONQ Yellow: At the time, I was just excited to get the chance to go to space! I didn’t really think too much about it.

CONQ Brown: I mean, yeah, it was a little weird, but it didn’t seem like super suspicious or anything. There are weird contests all over the internet all the time, I just thought this was another one of those. It only really felt real when I looked out the window and saw space for the first time. Then I was like ‘Oh [Beep] I’m in space with no experience’, you know?

CONQ Black: When they told me my crew would be made of mostly civilians, I was more nervous than suspicious. I received the same explanation that they did, an experiment to test the general public’s readiness for space in case of an evacuation from Earth, and it seemed a little… unconventional, but still within the realm of possibility. 

CONQ Pink: I thought it was a bad idea from the start.

CONQ White: I knew they were having trouble finding astronauts, but this was pretty bizarre. MIRA was known for bizarre though, I think it takes a little outside-the-box thinking to get people into space in the first place. I started to get a little excited, too, as this was probably going to be a pretty important mission- maybe I’d get to see my name in a history book someday! 

CONQ Orange: I get the feeling we’re definitely going to have our names in history books somewhere, although I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.

RPRSLG Rose: I mean, I wasn’t part of the Consequences crew, but I would agree with what everyone else said. It sounds a bit unconventional, but not necessarily suspicious. 

Interviewer: You were on the Reprisal mission instead, which, from what I understand, was allegedly made up of people who had information MIRA didn’t want getting out. What information did you have that would cause MIRA to keep you contained like that?

RPRSLG Rose: Uh, I knew about some of the time manipulation stuff MIRA was doing. They probably didn’t want me to go out and tell people.

Interviewer: Any specifics?

RPRSLG Rose: Just like, some stuff about anomalies and the loops and stuff. I didn’t understand most of it.

Interviewer: So, since we’ve spent so much time focused on the past, I wanted to shift gears and talk a little bit about the future, both for you and for MIRA. I’m sure you’re aware of the news regarding MIRA’s continued operation, do you have any concerns regarding that?

CONQ Brown: Definitely. I mean, who’s so say it was just the one guy? These aliens can be anyone! 

CONQ Pink: Even if they aren’t aliens, I find it difficult to believe this whole operation was just three people. How were they able to keep entire missions secret from the rest of the corporation? What about all this questionable research? It doesn’t add up.

CONQ Brown: You can get away with anything if you have enough money. 

CONQ Green: Also, the building’s like, destroyed. A bunch of stuff blew up. 

CONQ Orange: I’m just worried there’s some loophole- no pun intended- in the contract we signed where they could try and, oh I don’t know, make us work for them again.

CONQ Yellow: You think they can do that?

CONQ Orange: I don’t know, but the thought keeps me up at night. 

RPRSLG Rose: I still can’t believe they’re not going to go rescue the people on Polus. 

Interviewer: That actually leads us to another question we had for you. In your initial interviews, several members of various crews mentioned another group of individuals still trapped on the planet Polus. This seems to line up with what a few of you said regarding your experience there. MIRA has indeed stated that they are not planning on taking any “unnecessary risks to the human population” by sending anyone back to retrieve the reported survivors. What is your group’s consensus on that?

CONQ Brown: I can believe it.

CONQ Green: It sounds like they’re still trying to cover this up.

CONQ Orange: Those are human beings, human beings whose safety MIRA is responsible for. They’re just showing how little they care, how disposable we are to them.

CONQ White: I think it might be a bit more complicated than simply rescuing any survivors. As much as I hate to agree with MIRA in any situation, we are dealing with shapeshifting aliens. We have no way to know if the people on Polus are even themselves anymore. Is the chance of saving a few lives worth the risk of bringing more aliens back to Earth?

CONQ Black: I do not think there is an easy answer. In a perfect world, I would absolutely insist that we go back for them. I met them, got to know them. There is a good chance many of them are still out there, trapped in that horrendous cycle. But there is also a chance that if we send anyone, or even bring them back on an unmanned craft, it would not be them we get back. 

CONQ Pink: If MIRA really wanted to own up to their mistakes, they’d put effort into finding a way to detect the aliens somehow. If we figured that out, we could bring them back and know for sure this was a rescue, not a trap. But, until we have that, it might be too much of a gamble to reasonably take.

Interviewer: A couple of other space travel organizations, upon hearing of this, have mentioned potentially sponsoring a rescue mission to save anyone still on Polus. So far there are no concrete plans, but I was curious as to your opinion on that, especially given some of your earlier answers. 

CONQ Pink: Again, I would advise anyone going to that system to make sure they have some way of detecting these aliens. They really can look and act like anyone.

CONQ White: It’s too much of a risk. I don’t think MIRA should do it, and I definitely don’t think some organization completely unfamiliar with these aliens should do it. The last thing we want is this happening again. 

CONQ Black: I think it is a noble idea, but perhaps an ill-advised one. Part of being in a commanding role is knowing when you have to make a difficult decision, even if it does not feel good. I hope they can forgive us.

CONQ Brown: I doubt any of them are actually going to do anything. Just sounds like a PR move to me. 

Interviewer: It seems like the basis of many of your decisions comes from your belief in an alien threat. If what you say is true about extraterrestrial involvement, should humanity be concerned about some kind of intergalactic conflict in the future?

CONQ Green: Oh yeah. These dudes [beep] hate humans.

CONQ Pink: I don’t want to cause panic, but I do think it is definitely a possibility and something for us to be aware of. Pretty much everyone who actually talked to the aliens in charge didn’t do this interview, but from what I’ve heard, one of the aliens’ goals was to try and find our weaknesses as a species.

RPRSLG Rose: That was one of the reasons for the loop, I think. To study us and learn how we try and outsmart them, to make sure they don’t fall for it if they ever come to invade us.

CONQ Yellow: [unintelligible]

Interviewer: Could you repeat that? The microphones didn’t quite catch it.

CONQ Yellow: Yes, I think we should. 

Interviewer: I imagine many people have doubts about the legitimacy of your claims, aliens and time travel- it sounds pretty far-fetched. Do you have a response to any of those concerns that may arise?

RPRSLG Rose: I don’t see how it could be anything else. The things we saw, the horrible ways people died… there’s no human explanation for it. 

CONQ Black: It does sound like an elaborate lie, I am aware. It is not, but my assumption is that my assurance will not mean much to you. Instead, I just ask that you have compassion for everyone involved, regardless of your stance on the matter. We are real people, and our hurt is real. The people who died or are still missing are real. People are grieving and dealing with the repercussions of severe trauma- please be kind.

CONQ White: It is real. This whole thing is real no matter how much you don’t want it to be. I’ve been in the loop; I’ve seen these inhuman monsters kill people in front of me. We have to do everything we can to prepare for their return. 

CONQ White: While I was up there, I turned into someone I’m not proud of. The mere presence of these creatures makes people vengeful, afraid, desperate. I fear that will happen to everyone if we aren’t proactive with this.

CONQ Pink: Look at the evidence. I mean really look at it. Look at MIRA’s actions going backwards to even before the incident, see what doesn’t add up. This contest to send people in space, employees disappearing, shady weapons deals- it’s all there if you look hard enough. These are big allegations of seemingly impossible things, but I guarantee if you look close enough, it will all make sense- and this will be the only way it can all make sense. 

CONQ Orange: I agree with what Pink said. There’s real, hard evidence out there.

CONQ Brown: I’m not sure it matters if people believe us. It won’t be long before the news cycle ends and all this will be forgotten. MIRA got away with so much and they’re going to get away with more.

RPRSLG Rose: I don’t plan on letting them. There are people missing, people dead. We can’t just let people forget that.

Interviewer: If I remember correctly, you stated you lost your boyfriend to an alien?

RPRSLG Rose: Ex-boyfriend, but yes. The alien killed him- right in front of me. 

RPRSLG Rose: It was an unimaginable situation up there. Things got heated and it broke our relationship in a way we just couldn’t fix. But it doesn’t mean he deserved to die; it doesn’t mean I didn’t still care about him. He was my friend, and he didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. 

Interviewer: If you could say anything to either the aliens or the executives at MIRA, what would you say?

RPRSLG Rose: You hurt so many people. Ruined and ended so many lives. I hope one day all of you get what you deserve.

CONQ Black: What I have said already stands for itself, I cannot think of anything to add.

CONQ White: Humanity is not going to let you win. You revealed your hand too early, we know who you are and what you do. Your strengths are also your weaknesses and I and the rest of us who have seen you face-to-face will not rest until we know we are safe from your kind. 

CONQ Yellow: I-

CONQ Green: [He flips up a rude hand gesture to the camera] [Beep] you.

CONQ Brown: I second that! [She flips up a rude hand gesture as well, using both hands]

CONQ Orange: Yeah, why not. [She also makes a rude gesture alongside the other two]

Interviewer: Were you going to say something?

CONQ Yellow: It doesn’t matter. They know how I feel already. 

[End of interview]

Anchor: A very curious situation indeed. We will keep you updated as more details emerge, but the entire investigation is still ongoing and may be for a while.

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