incomingchoppers: (i dunno about that sir)
Radar O'Reilly ([personal profile] incomingchoppers) wrote in [community profile] ph_logs2025-11-17 08:30 pm

there's a stranger in my eyes again [November/post-event catch-all]

Who: Radar O'Reilly ([personal profile] incomingchoppers) & YOU!
What: Radar's fine. Everything's fine. :)
When: Throughout November
Where: Town Hall, the Leeds Estate, Baker Ranch, and the Temple
Warning(s): Some descriptions + discussion related to the Fears, especially Slaughter, Flesh, and Corruption; specific warnings will be on individual prompts/tags



all messed up with nowhere to go [Town Hall, OTA]

A bit over a year ago, Pumpkin Hollow's denizens were coming back from the Black Stag Casino. Radar in particular had just gotten pampered for a week straight in the VIP suites. He celebrated his twentieth birthday with his new girlfriend, a stretch of calm after the island's latest weirdness, and the newfound knowledge that lobster omelettes with goat cheese were really good.

If only the same could be said for his twenty-first birthday.

The Fears' hold breaks, the island slowly picks up the pieces once again, and Radar does what he does best to keep sane: he works. His former Town Hall coworkers see him scuttling around again just like old times, greeting newcomers and processing forms and popping up right where he's needed with anything that might make their jobs easier. Except... it doesn't, always. Forms get mixed up. Files end up in the wrong cabinet. Once, someone asks for a pen, and Radar absentmindedly hands over an ornamental cactus from Mr. Aberdeen's desk instead. Whenever someone corrects him, he just blinks, mumbles, "Oh, sorry sir," and fixes his mistake like nothing happened.

While manning the front desk one afternoon, he even dozes off. Anyone coming into Town Hall will be greeted by a gently snoring Army clerk, hat crooked and glasses shoved halfway up his forehead as he pillows his head in his arms. If they try to nudge him, he'll flail awake like a bomb went off, blurting, "Choppers!" before he gets his bearings.

"Oh, um." Clumsily, he fixes his glasses and adjusts his hat. "Hi. Can I help you?"


i stare at myself in the mirror alone [Leeds Estate, closed to Dahlia]
(cw: descriptions of war-related violence, gore, & body dysmorphia; emeto mention)

If you live at the Leeds Estate, meanwhile, you'll know exactly why he's been so tired.

He doesn't sleep.

Well, he tries, sure. Every night he goes to his own room, and every night like clockwork, two hours after he shuts the door, there's a quickly-stifled scream. (Radar got a lot of practice in Korea, not waking up anybody else with his own bad dreams.) He hunches over his knees with one arm around his bear, the other hand clapped to his mouth, tears streaming down his face as he struggles his way out of the latest nightmare. Battlefields. Blood everywhere. A hot rifle in his hands and a body on the ground that's only got half its head anymore, because of him. Someone peeling away chunks of his torso one strip at a time until he can see his own ribcage.

He can't stand to be touched, either. The guy who's always been so quick with a hug flinches when anyone so much as taps him on the shoulder. He shies away from everyone, even Dahlia, and can't bring himself to go to her room even on the nights Laios or Daisy aren't around. He misses her company so badly, but just the idea of her seeing his bare skin, let alone touching him, makes him want to throw up.

It's not fair. He was feeling so much better about -- about being him, and now all he can do is hide.

(He just wanted to look nice for her.)


it's hard to make friends when you're half in the grave [Baker Ranch, OTA]

When he isn't at Town Hall or the estate, he's out at Baker Ranch. Who knows what the animals might've gone through while the Fears were in charge? Maybe Radar would, if he listened, but there's been so much static in his ears ever since the island went back to normal that he can barely tell what human animals are thinking, let alone animal animals. So he just treats them with extra kindness anyway and lets the comfort of something small, simple, and fuzzy quiet his mind.

Sometimes, he keeps a teddy bear tucked under one arm while he works. It's not the same one he's been hauling around ever since Hawkeye and Phil won it for him a year and a half ago. This bear's even more worn and well-loved, its fur patchwork-thin, one eye missing, a ribbon that might've been white once tied in a little bow around its neck. One morning he walked into his room at the ranch and there it was, sitting on his pillow like it'd just stepped off the ferry from Korea, too: the bear he's had since he was a baby. Boy and he thought he cried a lot before.

That's the same day he just lays down in the grass for most of the afternoon to stare up at the sky. Some of the baby goats come over to investigate him and the teddy eventually. So do a few rabbits. So does Johnny Boy, even. He sits next to Radar with more rabbits in his lap, alternating between keeping watch and gently placing the occasional bunny on top of Radar's chest.

If you approach, the stone construct will turn to you, blink inquiringly, then hold up one of the rabbits. Hello. Would you like a rabbit in these trying times, too? Or perhaps a baby goat?


but i ain't dead yet, and i got something to say [temple, closed to Mulcahy]

And when that's not enough? There are also cats at the Temple.

Radar only saw Father Mulcahy briefly during the Fears -- he thinks; his time in the Corruption is especially blurry -- so he's got no idea how his friend is doing. Bad, probably. Everybody's doing bad. It makes him feel kind of guilty, knowing he's not just there to check up on the Father, but to talk to him parishioner-to-priest too. Because who else can he talk to about what went on? About the drums of the Slaughter, or the weight of the gun as he fired toward the Enemy? If he bottles it all up much longer he thinks he might burst.

So Mulcahy will find him sitting at the base of the Temple's tree, Christopher Mango cradled in his arms like a ridiculous furry baby. He looks up and tries to smile. "Hey, Father. Sir."

Christopher Mango sticks out a paw to lay it on Radar's cheek, juuuuust a little too close to his mouth.


wildcard
[plot with me/request a custom starter in the usual places!]
lovethyneighb_or: (lacrimosa)

but i ain’t dead yet

[personal profile] lovethyneighb_or 2025-11-18 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
His arrival is plenty visible, but whisper-quiet. Padding alongside is Thomas, the massive black maine coon who is very vocal about demanding pets and loves rubbing his big wet nose on people’s faces.

He pauses in his step as Radar says sir. “Please,” he says, raising a hand. (His voice is so quiet too. At least it carries in the vast space.) “Just ‘Father’ will do.”

But he does cross the rest of the way, sitting down next to Radar beneath the tree’s protective canopy. Thomas immediately shoves himself onto Mulcahy’s lap and gets fur all over his robes.

“I’m glad to see you, Radar. It’s a lovely place to rest here, isn’t it? Especially with the cats. It’s too bad they can’t tell when someone is allergic.”
deepbluerevue: BioShock Audio Diary Portrait (Default)

all messed up with nowhere to go

[personal profile] deepbluerevue 2025-11-18 03:03 pm (UTC)(link)
The lady standing in front of his desk blinks, one delicately pencilled eyebrow ticking slightly up her smooth forehead. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, sir,” she says, more or less politely. (She thinks: surely Town Hall doesn’t seem that understaffed anymore. Where’s Ms. Birnbaum? Or Miss Leeds?) “I was looking for some help with my residence paperwork? There might’ve been a misfile.”
chenpathy: (chapter 1; studying)

it's hard to make friends when you're half in the grave

[personal profile] chenpathy 2025-11-18 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)

"Is that as therapeutic as it looks?"

Alex stands over him and his menagerie, shadow and silhouette against the late fall sky, wrapped up in a sweater and with the end of a guitar case sticking up over her shoulder. It's a question asked more to announce her presence than because she expects any answer but the obvious—even being out here on the ranch, far away from downtown and the emotions that are running so high in these days after the nightmare ended, is already calming her down.

deepbluerevue: BioShock Audio Diary Portrait (Default)

[personal profile] deepbluerevue 2025-11-21 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
“Grace Holloway,” she provides, smiling patiently. (Well, he looks on the young side. She might as well give more details, help out the poor lad. It’s not like she’s in a rush.) “Like hollow-way, one W. I was here the first time two years ago, and I came back here a few days ago. I’m working as an entertainer, you see, so I’m moving back to my old building, but it seems that hasn’t been arranged yet?”
chenpathy: (chapter 1; neutral smile)

[personal profile] chenpathy 2025-11-21 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)

"Yeah, I think I could use some of that, let me just—"

She slips her guitar case off her back and sets it down on the ground before sliding down to join him, lying flat for a second before having to sit up a bit to adjust her positioning a bit and then settling once more.

She holds her arms up. "Alright Johnny Boy, bunny me up."

hate_gettin_older: (profile pensive)

half in the grave

[personal profile] hate_gettin_older 2025-11-23 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
Edgar's there at Baker Ranch, of course, except for how he kind of isn't; how he takes an extra second or long to respond to anything, how he sometimes moves slow like he's half asleep, sometimes throws himself at a task like he's fighting it for his life. How he barely seems to eat.

If Radar's heard who was running the train up to the Safe Zone, or who left on the ferry the day after the Fears lifted, he didn't hear it from Edgar.
yournewsidekick: (i'm a lot of things)

[personal profile] yournewsidekick 2025-11-23 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Coincidentally -- totally coincidentally! -- on the same day Radar's having his Field Time, a giant pink thoat lumbers up behind Edgar and slowly, sloooooowly starts shoving him in the direction of Radar and Johnny Boy. (Tars gave her some pointers on what a thoat looked like at the gala. She's got it pretty down by now.)

"Wonk," she says, very seriously.
thethirteenthchild: (neutral: soft)

I stare at myself in the mirror alone

[personal profile] thethirteenthchild 2025-11-23 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Dahlia, of course, hears him.

She's been dealing with her own troubles. The fact that she spent two entire weeks shoveling human meat into her mouth like her life depended on it. The fact that Daisy brought her a man's heart and she bit into it like an apple, uncontrollable. The fact that she feels so... invigorated after it all. She hasn't needed to eat real food in a week. But it's not because all of this makes her avoidant of Radar or any of her other partners, but more because she knows Radar doesn't want to discuss it. So she doesn't push.

But enough nights spent wandering the house, unable to sleep, asking Tenna to show her one of those same movies over again, and hearing Radar cry out... There's only so many repeats she can bear to hear without addressing it.

So this time, she knocks.
deepbluerevue: BioShock Audio Diary Portrait (Default)

[personal profile] deepbluerevue 2025-11-23 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
“I did hear about that,” Grace says, leaning on her cane. “Take your time.” Poor thing. Must’ve been put through the ringer. Maybe he’s been having trouble sleeping, that’d explain him sleeping on the desk when he seems like an eager sort. Of course, there’s plenty of sorts who can’t help getting sleepy when nothing’s happening, or speaking over other people. Who knows?

These observations processed, Grace’s irritation subsides a bit, though her face hasn’t changed at all.
thethirteenthchild: (sad: fretting)

[personal profile] thethirteenthchild 2025-11-24 12:11 am (UTC)(link)
"No, I was already up," Dahlia murmurs, wrapping her arms around herself to try and simulate the hug she doesn't feel she can have. "Bad dreams. I figure it's the same for you...?"
hate_gettin_older: (profile pensive)

[personal profile] hate_gettin_older 2025-11-24 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)
The first shove gets no response.

The second gets a low, hoarse "Cut it out, bug."
yournewsidekick: (i'm a lot of things)

[personal profile] yournewsidekick 2025-11-24 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"Nope. I unionized the animals and now we're all on strike to defy The Man." Nimona gives him another little shove. "C'mon. Even Radar's chilling. Five minutes?"
thethirteenthchild: (neutral: uncertain)

[personal profile] thethirteenthchild 2025-11-24 07:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Dahlia smiles a little, softly. "If you'll have me," she murmurs, moving to step in. "I know you needed your space after--- everything, but. I've been worried."
hate_gettin_older: (b&w beautiful)

[personal profile] hate_gettin_older 2025-11-25 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
He looks at her, and can't help a faint flicker of pained smile at the shape she's in, but it doesn't last.

"Got to get this done though. 'M already running behind."
deepbluerevue: BioShock Audio Diary Portrait (Default)

Contents include: BioShock-typical elements

[personal profile] deepbluerevue 2025-11-26 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
Mm, that makes sense —

The patient expression freezes on Grace’s face.

She knows damn well she didn’t say any of that out loud.

(— Shirley and Taylor down the hall swapping thoughts with every needle from a slug’s belly pheromones in the vents pulling neighbors like puppets little girls done drinking wiping blood cross their mouths Gil lost in mass thoughts lost to them all Eleanor baby Eleanor the doctor lied what didn’t I see Eleanor Eleanor Eleanor —)

“Young man,” she says, each word like a deadweight dropped into an oceanic trench. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon?”
chenpathy: (chapter 1; studying)

[personal profile] chenpathy 2025-11-26 04:15 am (UTC)(link)

"Thank you, Johnny Boy."

Very carefully, she lowers the tiny little fluff down to her chest, holding and petting gently the way Radar taught her to. Almost immediately, she settles a little easier, looser.

"...yeah, this is definitely pretty nice."

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