#rationalizing plot holes is really fun actually!

[urautismdiagnosis-wistie]

STRANDED ON AN ISLAND KWAZII TRAUMA POST its rlly long lmk if I should split it up

No I will not provide context to how he got there at the moment,but I will let you know he was stranded for approximately 2 years from 12 to 14 (specific numbers may change) for the sake of plot while I am basing the island off of thr ogasawara islands of Japan, the island hes on is alot more isolated, smaller, and unpopulated by people 👍

Trigger warnings: a child dealing with survival issues like hunger and sickness, raw meat, wild animal corpse, mentions of intense psychological distress, small wild animals dying

They're not all gonna be in chronological order btw ✨

◇◇THE BEGINING ◇◇

so the lil shrimp wakes up on a rocky shore with a busted life boat. The suns hot, there's a bird picking at him to see if he's dead, and luckily there's a lot of resources like rations, a medicine kit, and survival guides that all survived. He'll need those

Lil dudes in shock, doesn't rlly understand what's going on, just that he's on an island that seems decently sized, but definitely not large enough for any real settlement, and that hes really glad his grandad taught him about surviving on an island. Yay family tradition ig

He spends a bit of time recovering his strength, he hadn't exactly been in great shape from even before he crashed, and follows the birds for maybe a natural water source and some kindness,the sense of horrific dread be damned.

Okay cool, so hes like stranded stranded and apparently not only did the stormy weather send his little life boat to some island that apparently NO ONE EVEN SAILS NEAR (the birds happily informed him, because they love their home thank u very much) but there seems to not be a single flowing stream or anything of the sort on the entire island :)

Water rations cant last forever, and while cats CAN actually drink salt water to survive, that's only in smaller amounts... :/ they'll get sick if they have too much... so needless to say he got quite ill for some time, luckily the first (and worst) time it happened he had rations...

This actually takes place on a smaller island near Japan, so its rather mountainous and any clean water resources on a small island would have to be a natural spring. Because of the islands isolation and little above ground water resources... They're often vulnerable to droughts and etc... fun for kwazii ain't it!

Needless to say the search for fresh water was... an endeavor. One where he did get sick from drinking unfresh water unfortunately, but he did manage to find a small spring so yay kwazii! It wasn't even too far from the lil high up cave (wall hole) he managed to claim for himself!

He did manage to figure out a fishing system (there's non sapient/sentient animals in my au) using what tools he had even though it was pretty difficult. He uh, may have gotten sick from scavenging a few times. Yk, poisonous berries n whatnot. Luckily cats can rely more on meat and less on vegetation and still be ok. That includes raw meat (still tastes BAD) in a pinch so lucky kwazii huh?

Here's a lil sketch I made of his lil cave <3 ill probably finish and color it at a later date 030

Anyways, after kwazii manages to somewhat stabilize his whole survival situation, he decided to try and yk. Escape. But uh...

Well kwazii definitely knew how all manner of ships and boats worked! But... having all the construction skills and physical strength at age 12 or 13? Esp in HIS situation? Mmnnnnahhh not happening

Not to mention he was basically just using whatever wreckage from the life boat he could repair and whstever he could get from the island

He did know where he was for the most part due to the stars and some general knowledge on where he was from before he shipwrecked. But...

Well needless to say there was a series of failed attempts. Kwazii always seemed to end up right where he started, maybe even more behind than before. Totally didn't lose more and more hope each and every time hahahah! On onenasty instance where he hit some rocks was lucky there were some friendly dolphins nearby or he wouldn't have made it to shore. They became friends afterwards, so kwazii wasn't horribly alone. After all who needs people interaction when you have wild animals :) especially in your developmental teen years!

TIME FOR RANDOM TIDBITS OF ANGST 🗣

So :) wild animals! Not always very friendly! Anyways there were alot of invasive rats and hogs on the island... and well... let's just say in my au hogs and pigs have developed to be more... predatory to fill in the gap left from certain wild animals not being wild....

black rats are an invasive species especially in the ogasawara Islands. They damage the ecosystem by predating on sea birds,snails, and insects, as well as destroying native vegetation.

In my au well.. they aren't the most intelligent animals buuuuuuuuutt.... they all know a cat is a cat. Anyways unrelated but you'll NEVER GUESS who not only kept getting their food stashes eaten, supplies damaged, and even CHASED by a lil swarm of rats every so often! Also they carry disease. Fun times!

Feral pigs of ogasawara irl mostly damage biodiversity through destroying native plants by destroying them and spreading nonnative plants. Also attacks from them to humans have been "on the rise" so...

Anyways! Guess who gets routinely chased by wild territorial boars!!! Hahaha isn't it great that even when you climbed a tree the boar still kept bashing and shaking the tree and refusing to leave for a whilleeeee. Hahahaha really fun.

◇◇◇KWAZII EATS SOMETHING DEAD AND RAW HERE

Also one time kwazii was so exhausted and tired of random rats attacking and trying to bite him or getting into his supplies- hes exhausted and miserable and constantly alert and- well instincts kick in and he swipes at the thing so hard it immediately dies on impact

This was a bit earlier on, and kwaziis food supply was especially... low. So there he was. This 12 year old in the blistering heat, exhausted and starving and at his wits end... staring at the bloody corpse of a particularly large twitching rat. The rats can only manage 2- maybe 3- words at most. yk " FOOD!!!" "MINE!!" And maybe a slur. Not very... intelligent or aware.

So maybe kwazii zoned out when he smelled the flesh. So maybe when he zoned back in he was hunched over a desecrated small corpse with the taste of disgusting nasty rat overwhelming his tongue, mouth,throat, and nose. Maybe he screamed and maybe he cried. Maybe he couldn't handle seeing mangled flesh. It was too soon, something too familiar-◇◇◇

Oh also the

◇◇◇snake thing◇◇◇ (tw snake death?)

Sooooo, let's just say that well , maybe our lil guy had been yk. Out and about, trying to tie some rope and vine for his make-shift sail boat.

Let's also say that there may have been a habu viper, not native to the ogasawara islands (where kwazii is) but the ryukyu islands. They can be very bold and aggressive, often territorial. They also lay their eggs in the summer. (Which is very rare for pit vipers, since most give live birth)

Long story short someone went to grab a rope without looking, accidentally grabbed a snake that attacked him, nearly avoided being bitten by a venomous viper by stabbing it through thr SKULl with a dagger,and then cried about it for hours and held a little snake funeral for the snake that tried to hurt him

He also may have found the snakes eggs, and feeling wretched about his crime (leaving them all alone in the world without their mama 🥺😓) ,he decided to attempt to protect and raise the baby snakes to try to make up for it. Even though he felt guilty about killing the mom snake..

Of course he did know that snakes don't form bonds, but he just wanted to take care of them. They did sorta just slither away right after hatching, instincts telling em to go hunt n whatever, but he did protect them from being eaten and help one that was stuck in its shell. Even hummed them lullabies he remembered. They did thank him when they hatched btw

..............

Thats all the specific little incidents I want to share right now lol but bro is WAY too casual about being stranded on an island istg 😭😭😭

Lmk yalls thoughts 💅

Tags for people who were interested when I asked if yall wanted this >v<

@askkwazii @hannahstales @murkywaterzz @brownyanyk @sc6rl3t @lydiabop

[destinysbounty]

There's a scene in the first episode of season 1 suggesting that as of the start of canon, the Serpentine have faded into nothing more than myth. Naturally, this has led a lot of the fandom to question how this could be possible since the Serpentine War only happened ~40-50 years ago. There are plenty of still-living people in Ninjago who were present for this war - hell, even Ed and Edna were probably alive during the war. How could the existence of the Serpentine, a race that has been around and at conflict with the humans for over a thousand years, suddenly blink out of public awareness in just 40 years?

After some consideration, I think I've come to a pretty simple answer, if you'll indulge me as I overanalyze the silly lego show once again.

In order to understand the situation, let's take a look at the scene in question one more time.

The key thing to note here is that out of the four, Kai is the only one who doubts the existence of the Serpentine. Jay, Cole, and Zane all treat the subject with a heavy amount of importance and trepidation (and a bit of fear). Zane even explicitly insists that they're real. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong but Kai is perhaps the only character in the entire show that we've seen expressing this kind of doubt about the Serpentine.

In my opinion, this means the Serpentine aren't just a myth and are instead a known part of Ninjago's history, and the belief that the Serpentine are a myth is a belief exclusive to Kai and Kai alone. Which...honestly feels pretty in-character for him, ngl.

(Why, then, are the Serpentine taught in schools but the ninja all somehow didn't know about the existence of other elemental masters? Great question! Unfortunately I cannot explain that without going on a long and rambling dissertation-length essay, and I don't have the brainpower to write all that. Long story short? Ninjago's education system is in fucking SHAMBLES and we shouldn't be surprised about any gaps in anyone's knowledge.)

[catsandclassics]

Random Trevor Lefkowitz Headcanons

(Yes, he has some good angst ones too, because I have zero chill)

*He has Bipolar II . This isn’t something he ever really discusses or even acknowledges, except on very rare occasions. It’s still something he finds very embarrassing & kept it very hidden from his bros, to the point of not medicating or receiving treatment for it. The only people he’s mentioned it to are Alberta, Hetty, and Sas. (I’ll probably write up something on just the Bipolar II at another point. Sadly, it explains a lot of ‘plot holes’ with Trevor & is almost a little too on point 😭)

*He died with cigarettes & a lighter in his pocket. American Spirit blues. He has only ever shared them with Hetty because he doesn’t want everyone else globing onto him.

*unfortunately, he left the cocaine in his pants pocket. Adam Pinkus had a fun ride home.

* Adam was one of the only true friends he had made in a long time. Perhaps his only true friend in his adult life.

*As much as he wishes he could have gotten to know Abby, he’s glad that Adam had raised her. He simply could not handle being a dad at that time, let alone many other things. He knows Adam was more equipped to handle fatherhood and marriage than he was at that point.

*He had totally forgotten who Laurie Goldstein was. He’s pretty ashamed of that, but super thankful for Adam.

* Hetty was actually his longest relationship. Yes, even longer than the girl he had moved in with for a bit.

* He’s been in love with Hetty since he died. He was just super weird about it for, like, 22 years. And he still is.

* The reason why the “Good Luck Chuck” situation actually upset him, was because he was upset about how Hetty wanted to get sucked off, despite how they were together. He had been spending a lot of time helping Thor through his grief with Flower, and couldn’t stand the idea of having to go through that as well. But, that was more emotion than he was comfortable with, so he just kinda spun out and got angry.

*It’s not that he didn’t see the chord. He just rationalized that it was from something else (like a part of her outfit),…anything else.

*The reason why Trevor said he didn’t want to get back together with Hetty was because he didn’t want to risk them breaking up again. It makes sense in his mind.

*Pretty much, Trevor sucks at emotion, but we all know this.

*He can only fall asleep with the tv on in the background.

* He’s completely over Bela romantically. He was never actually super into her, but more the idea of feeling “alive” again. He does care about her, though. However, it’s more in an “older brother” way, as Bela reminds him a lot of Jeremy.

* He really wants Jay to like him, and is upset that Jay kinda dismisses him, especially when he feels he’s gone out of his way to be more helpful to Jay than Pete has. He really wants to impress Jay and win him over.

*The Elias thing is complicated. Obviously, he hates the guy. However, Elias reminds him a lot of Ari, so despite absolutely hating him, there’s a small amount of him that wants to impress Elias in a “you’re my only worthy opponent” sort of way. Deep down, he fears he might have turned out like Elias if he had not died when he did. (Ok, not so much a headcanon, as a lot of that comes from one of Asher’s interviews.)

* He’s actually super into ornithology.

* At some point he started writing poetry on the iPad in the kitchen. He will deny that for all eternity. It’s actually pretty good.

…..I have a bunch more that I’ll probably add on later. But that’s all for now.

[fortune-maiden]

The Hundred Line: S.F. Route

And your reward for looping through the game over and over in search of the perfect Happy Ending...

I still like Box of Blessings' endings more

(Open spoilers for the entirety of 100L, and also some grumblings about Zero Escape)

Okay more accurately, I like Box of Calamity's Ending 39 best, but most of BoB's Good Endings still fit the "satisfying ending" criteria.

The Overall Thoughts

I think one of the big questions in this game on a meta level is what makes a "Good Ending". In this game of 100 endings, where the creators claim that you can stop at any time once you find the ending that satisfies you, how does the player decide what's satisfying? Why is an ending like 2nd Scenario's phenomenal despite everyone dead, and the Comedy Route endings just whatever, despite everyone sans Eito alive? What is the stopping point?

SF is a route that promises you that golden Everybody Lives ending, that no doubt most people want after 2nd Scenario, but what does it mean for the SDU that reach this ending to be different from the SDU that reached 2nd Scenario, and is that okay? Fundamentally they're still all the same people aren't they?

Time Loop stories tend to be popular and beloved, but whether intentionally or not (I suspect not), The Hundred Line seems to kind of deconstruct what makes them click, and what makes their endings click

While SF was the final route for me, it's never actually built up as an Grand Finale and only really has 3 prerequisite (although a 4th one is also critical to its events). You can actually play this route before 2nd Scenario if you wanted. Despite the work you have to put into getting this route, once you finally get it, it's not treated any differently from any of the other non-2nd Scenario routes in the game. And that's... interesting?

Also more hilariously, it's not even the only route where we reach Day 100 without any deaths.

The Good

Despite a lot of headaches, this route does actually do some things well, and is a reminder that Uchikoshi does know how to write some fun story beats and twists.

The first 10 Days of this route are excellent! The mysterious parallel world leap, the conversation with Hiruko & Sirei, the mystery of Eito escaping his cage, the calico cat gift... everything here that leads to the first plot lock sets the foundation for an excellent story!

This Route primarily serves as an answer mode to several other routes in the game, especially Slasher. The moments where Hiruko & Takumi leap to the other timelines and fill in the gaps that existed there were great! We even got an answer to the Nozomi path of Slasher and it was one of my favorite parts of the route! Easily elevated Slasher to a Top 5 route for me

The Livor Mortis stuff is still beyond stupid, but it did at least provide for some interesting plot events. I loved Hiruko creating a route split so she could having an additional Takumi & Hiruko to help them gather Livor Mortis codes, and how the Livor Mortis stuff eventually plays a role in the finale, providing an alternate method for stopping the missiles that does not require going up against the Intercept system. Despite everything, it was a cool finale.

Hiruko's penchant for abbreviations is cute

Hiruko's Terminal-Bad-Decision-Itis has a plot explanation now (in my opinion). I'm choosing to believe that between all the looping and leaping, the bloodspace did erode her ability to make rational decisions and these are the consequences.

I mean what else do you call BoC!Hiruko unleashing Kako-G onto three timelines and fucking them all over irreparably?

I've seen others call out that Hiruko deliberately refusing to fix the Serial Killer timeline because of Day 98 is a plot hole when she says that meddling in other timelines doesn't actually erase the original branch, but I'm willing to defend this one. For one, this is her theory and not something we have any evidence for. In fact, we have counter evidence for it given that Takumi can only ever remember versions of the other timelines with SF interference, and there's not much on Hiruko's part to suggest she can remember other variants. But for the main reason, whenever we leap to other timelines, we only seem to be able to leap to the specific versions we meddled in. So while I do think that Hiruko does believe in her theory that SF interference creates a distinct timeline from no-SF interference, I don't think she can remember those versions nor leap to them. And I think because Serial Killer Day 98 is so fundamental and important to her, she can't bear to risk losing access to it, whether physically or in her memories. It's tragic and hypocritical of her and I think that's why it works so well for her character. Your memories and experiences are what make you you. It's one of the pain points of time loop stories where the versions of the characters we grow to love and root for are erased when the loop resets and the versions that escape the loop may not end up facing and overcoming those same struggles. Hiruko bears the curse of remembering everything and (maybe) has the ability to erase those memories - that she would be hesitant to do so is understandable imo.

Weird pivot, but Eito eating the book was hilarious.

Also after everything Slasher put me through, getting to be the one to chase Takumi with the power saw was very cathartic. I don't even care that it caused a bad ending. It was the best bad ending of the bunch anyway and the final mystery to the Slasher Route.

The relationship between Hiruko and Takumi had it's issues but it's also the highlight of the route. The isolation, the fears, the two of them determined to end the loop and protect everyone once and for all... the way they really care about each other for better or worse is beautiful

Coming-of-Age got to be plot relevant! :D

I do also appreciate that the best ending is still one where we stop the missiles. Because it's not a good ending if we don't save Futurum!

Overall this is a route I enjoyed more than I didn't (probably). BUT...

The Bad

Sigh... let's rip the bandaid off. This is very much a Takumi interacts with one other person and everyone else is background fluff route. Despite what the first 10 days set up, the rest of the SDU really doesn't do anything in this route. Hiruko fixes the Tsukumo twins' tensions offscreen, Eito is cured of his cognitive disorder and proceeds to become the Route 0 Eito without any hangups, Nozomi's regression symptoms don't exist, Sirei never questions her presence on the team. Everything is fine and dandy, and the closest thing we have to a conflict in this route is the particle bacteria, and everyone just becoming snappish with each other for no reason besides cabin fever after 60 days together.

I feel like there is some narrative purpose to this - Hiruko has entered a fragment where she's rolled all sixes and thinks she finally has a chance so she is determined to keep things as conflict free as possible. Which does mean stamping out all sources of conflict immediately such as the Tsukumo twins and the dangers of an imperfectly brainwashed (or killed) Eva. After 40 years in the loop, Hiruko has already seen and learned enough and just wants to escape the loop with everyone whatever it takes. The conflict between humanity & the futurans is completely beyond her now. And that's fine for her, but it also means that the versions of the SDU that get the happy ending and a future, are a version of the SDU that never engage with the game's core plot or mysteries, that never get to struggle and grow as people. They just need to fight their battles and survive, just as Sirei wants. And I'm not sure how to feel about this?

In fact - all other routes with no casualties, Romance & Comedy - also do not involve the SDU ever going against Sirei or trying to learn more about their situations

Hiruko at least seems to remember 2nd Scenario so probably knows the truth but she's at the point where it's not her problem anymore - escaping the loop is - but this version of Takumi never learns it either since he only remembers Slasher, certain branches of BoC, and KG...

This is also the version of the SDU that has a really annoying post-battle cheer. You people really don't feel like you've earned this closeness...

But I think that's often the problem with time loop stories. Where the versions of the characters who struggle and grow aren't always the versions who escape the loop, and the idea of having to befriend everyone again and go through the same conflicts.... It just feels extra frustrating with this version of the cast because of how much we've seen them grow in other routes...

Eito gets cured. Funnily enough I'm not too annoyed with this since there's more than enough evidence in other routes that Eito wants to be able to understand humanity and form genuine connections but the cure for his cognitive disorder ends up being a program that Sirei had all along (which is also the cure for G'ie data). What. Why wasn't this ever considered before? We tried to brainwash Eito in CoA but all along we had the ability to just fix this cognitive disorder???

We also brainwash him again though because sure. Why not.

And despite being built up as a major character in SF as the only other person to know about the time travel, Eito becomes the same background fluff as the rest once he's cured. Sigh... Eito plot relevance used to mean something...

POOR EVA! I get why Hiruko thinks she needed to be super extra brainwashed even if I despise it, but can we just. talk about that extremely off kilter "joke" on Day 21 where the entire SDU is all for killing her then turning around and going "SIKE! Silly Takumi, we got you good!" Setting aside how NOT FUNNY that is, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS IN FRONT OF POOR EVA???? Even Shouma & Nozomi had no problems behaving this way. It's really gross.

There are just so many diabolus ex machinas at play in this route... several routes dead-ended by Kako-G. Kako-G massacring the Tails branch. Kako-G conveniently only killing the characters who survived Mystery so the rest could escape to Mystery for that terrible ending. Hiruko, despite knowing how particle bacteria works, never checking the escape pod in SF. The Artificial Satellite having a SPARE BABY to power up the missiles in the Hunt route. (Sure it made for a cooler finale but REALLY?)

Kako-G in general being so unsatisfying as a villain. She wreaked havoc upon FOUR Routes. And we never really got a satisfying showdown with her (though SF resolution for her was still better than Mystery's!)

The G'ie in general felt like they would be so much more important to SF, but they weren't.

We also never get an explanation for them in Slasher route

Killing Game makes even less sense after SF.

But I sure hope for Eva's sake that Kamyuhn did survive that particular branch of it

But also that finale.... that was literally Zero Time Dilemma's finale only without the moral quandary. And still feeling less earned.

Also I am still mad that apparently Darumi's completely black mummified cryptoglobin-drained corpse still had a neatly visible Livor Mortis code. There was a perfectly usable Darumi corpse in Slasher guys!!!

The Who Needs Setup of Payoff

Despite being a required ending, and revealing a secret weakness of the G'ie, Ending 36 plays no role in the plot at all. No one is angrier about this than me.

It makes me wonder though if it's actually Ending 86 that was meant to be required because that one is actually super important and it's just generally weird how Killing Game isn't required despite how important it ends up being.

We're really not getting an explanation for the particle bacteria? You can't just call it "bad luck" Uchikoshi, this needs elaboration! Why are only Hunt-Mystery & SF affected by this? Why is the bacteria only an actual threat to the rest of the school in SF?

The mystery researcher. This super convenient researcher who takes Kako-G away and also gives Hiruko a program that allows for horizontal movement as well as vertical. You can't just conveniently introduce this person and this program at the last minute without any explanation! My personal theory is that she's a future Hiruko from Ending 55 who finishes the PLM to allow for full time & parallel world travel and who makes it possible for Takumi/Hiruko/whoever to eventually go back to Slasher and cure Takumi-G before he murders anyone and open the way towards Comedy Route, the sole Dead Eito route that has happy endings.

(Let's not think about how opening the door to this route actually results in the death of SF Takumi. Maybe that's another reason Hiruko refused to do it.)

But you still can't just do that Uchikoshi! Actually with how Uchikoshi is generally great at gameplay/story integration, I'm surprised that the parallel/vertical time travel didn't have a bigger role in the story considering that the player does have the ability to travel to any day in any timeline at any time.

(I still say this should have been another dead end ending for SF - you do fix Slasher Takumi-G, and pave the way for a happy ending in the Dead Eito verse, but at the cost of your life.)

Also we just... don't get an explanation for the other Hiruko & Takumi in the CoA timeline. Sure.

The ARE YOU KIDDING ME UCHIKOSHI???

A METEORITE????

A Meteorite.

I can't even call it plot convenient because WHAT PLOT?

It appears for no reason in a single branch and when it's no longer needed, it's gone without any explanation or side-effects.

It's almost like he forgot there was already a built-in plot convenient reason to have that specific character out of commission.

Oh wait, he did forget. That plot convenience never comes up here at all.

Conveniently.

I am never getting over this freaking meteorite.

[phannibal]

finished the fight the future novelization!! overall it was an extremely mid adaptation that did not take advantage of the change in medium to do anything interesting, but it was still a fun read and honestly some plot points were clearer than in the movie. liveblog and standout moments under the cut :3

immediately the narration feels like someone is describing something that’s happening on screen. this is not a good thing; a good adaptation is able to use the strengths of its medium to tell the story in a way that is compelling in and of itself (day of the doctor perfect example) (this is why screen -> book adaptations fall flat when using a different author, the book author has a lot of guesswork to do wrt POVs, motivations, and other internal character stuff) (but do I really want to read a book by chris carter)

wait this is awesome face blindness can’t affect me in the written word. wow turns out that one guy was two guys all along

y’know it’s almost not fair to criticize this book for being a clunky adaptation bc fight the future leans so hard into its own cinematography in a way that makes it irreplicable in text. god I want to write a dissertation comparing this to the dotd novelization with references to the other x files and target novelizations and comparing franchises and impact of same vs. different author of the same story. waves sadly at my nonexistent media studies degree

he comes into the initial hearing and her heart LIFTS. this is what i’m talking about use the medium to give us character insight!!!

oh no fucking way. author just used “who’s” when the correct word was “whose.” probably worst mistake I have ever seen in a published book

the dialogue in particular does not translate well to text. maybe there’s a way to make m&s’ opening back and forth just as iconic and characteristic in print, or mulder’s drunken exposition slash tagline just as comedic yet foreboding, but as is, they (and other standout lines) just fall so flat

they don’t even say that he’s peeing on the independence day poster 😑

did this author come from fanfiction or something bc the amount of “the younger man” I’m having to roll my eyes at is obscene

this is the biggest glimpse we get into any character’s thoughts so i’m holding it to my chest forever and ever

god so the 3am “what are you implying” “is that what you’d like me to do” feel WAY more loaded in text

also “she had been thinking exactly that” 🥺

TWICE. yeah i bet

I’m like 90% sure some lines of dialogue are slightly different like just meaningless word order choices but I’m not putting on the movie to confirm

no okay the above is definitely true. “the one thing in the world he can’t live without” is NOT the original line but goes just as hard

have to include this bc it is absolutely the most changed dialogue in the whole book. wish i could see into this author’s head

realizing for the first time that the guy that planted the bomb = the guy eavesdropping on mulder in the bar = the guy driving the ambulance because in a book you have to spell that type of thing out

i DID actually pull up the movie upon reading these lines bc i was like i knowww i would remember this. i wonder if the author was working off of the original script or something and this was part of that? or if she was really just allowed to freestyle

god so we know in the movie he just kind of jumps down a random ice hole after he initially falls through. here it’s specifically and clearly a vent because ig this author could not rationalize him choosing to jump down a random hole

long af image so click to read but INSANE insane emphasis on the cpr scene for no reason. like that lasts 2 seconds in the movie but is fully a page and a half here, thanks for that at least ms elizabeth hand

protectively :')

why is this exchange so neutered?? where is the passion? where is "some hollow personal cause of mine" and "i can't. i won't"?

that's all i got! i think these excerpts really demonstrate the shortcomings of a direct, no-frills screen-to-text translation. i can't help thinking that this book was meant to be just another thing to put on shelves and sell, as opposed to being born of a genuine desire to retell the story in a new way. like i said, still fun though, and enough new tidbits to make it worthwhile!

[mmikmmik]

Starting ToQger and OOO is really satisfying because they both have such smart, well-executed worldbuilding. When you watch a lot of iterations of formulaic shows/franchises, you start to notice the craft, in a good way.

The whole thing in OOO where the main Rider can transform/get additional transformation modes by using Core Medals, which are literally part of the Greeed and can be stolen from them when they're injured, creates stakes within all the battles between the Greeed and OOO, and it immediately gives the other Greeed an intense personal beef with Ankh and OOO for fucking with their stuff. The audience doesn't fully understand the Core Medals yet, but we can see from Ankh's diminished state that they must be important. (I think this does have some danger of falling into the issue I had with Ex-Aid, where the plot stakes revolved around transformation items, so they kept taking fun toys away from the heroes with very little actual impact on things like character development or personal goals, but so far that's not happening.) In general, the show about desire is doing a great job giving the characters things they want and are believably motivated to fight for. Themes!

Meanwhile in ToQ they established that at this point, the regular MOTW Shadows can use their gimmicks to be threatening, but go down pretty easily once the ToQgers work out ways around those. But the Shadow Line leaders like General Schwarz are almost impossible to injure in direct combat, much less defeat. But the Rainbow Line trains are much more powerful than the Shadow Line trains! So it all comes together - the ToQgers aren't in constant danger and can relax in their daily lives because they're safe on a Rainbow Line train. General Schwarz focuses on military power, natch, so he's being smart and tactical by trying to soup up the Shadow Line trains (and also he fucking loves trains). The ToQgers must leave the safety of their trains to restore Dark Stations to normalcy, but the Shadow Line doesn't have Shadow Cell Phones to use to call backup (get on that, guys) so there's not a huge chance they'll encounter a Shadow Line leader there. The Dark Stations can't hold off the ToQgers, but the ToQgers don't automatically know where they are, so the other Shadow Line leaders can spam Dark Stations and collect darkness until the ToQgers trip over them and they aren't just completely wasting their time. Within the fun little Bright Colorful Imagination Trains vs Dark Spooky Steampunk Trains setting, everyone has sensible goals that they're pursuing rationally.

No one is doing things Just Because. No one is bizarrely ignoring a huge massive problem for themselves that recurs in every episode. There's not really any "well, it's not clear why they're doing this, but there's no plot holes or anything and I can think of a few potential explanations so I won't worry about it". We love to see it.

[dandorime]

In Dr. Zor's Car, in an Airplane over the Sea

When he'd first discovered it, Agent Phoenix naively thought he was in some kind of space-age training program.

Everything had happened so quickly.

Two weeks ago, he had signed and submitted the paperwork across the desk to a rather severe-looking man in a black suit and dark sunglasses.

Only ten days ago he'd been wide awake as they drilled a tiny hole into his skull and implanted a piece of equipment in his brain. Except for the first couple of shots of local anesthetic into his scalp, he hadn't felt a thing. It took less than 20 minutes, start to finish. 

Seven days ago he'd had his first and only training session to use the implant and discovered, much to his awe and delight, that he now commanded the mysterious power of telekinesis. He'd likewise been warned never to use it in public, no matter how fun it might be... the enemy already knew they had this technology, and past agents had accidentally given themselves away with errant floating objects. Emphasis on "past" agents.

Yesterday he'd been assigned an office at headquarters. He'd "met" his handler, a voice with neither a face nor a name that came to him via a radio in his ear, and learned he was being sent on a mission immediately.

Certainly his first mission, to steal some evil genius's car and drive it out of a moving airplane, must have been a training exercise. It was a wild gambit, an over-the-top affair like the plot of a movie, too crazy to be anything a rational defense agency would actually ask their agents to do... but here Phoenix was, in the car, in an airplane over the sea.

His handler never mentioned a training mission. He never said the word "drill", so Phoenix played along.

He was surprised when the laser that tried to shoot him in the face left a very real burn on the headrest. The revolver he found in the back seat fired a real slug through the window when he pulled the trigger, too. Obviously these EOD guys liked to train with live fire.

Breaking the window, though... that was his first mistake. The poison gas (comically even labeled "poison gas" on the pipe delivering it to the cargo hold) started to flood into the cabin of the car, and Agent Phoenix found himself very legitimately unable to breathe.

His lungs burned, his eyes stung, his vision began to narrow. His last thoughts were confusion and panic as he realized that he was genuinely, categorically, one-hundred-percent dying.

...then he awoke in a strange room. 

Agent Phoenix took a deep breath. His lungs easily filled with air: in, out. In, out. The bitter tang of the gas was gone. He felt fine now, as if someone had flipped a switch and turned off the pain, but the confusion still lingered.

Was he... dead? Really, actually dead? 

He was in a blue place, as blue as the sky outside the windows of the cargo hold in which he'd only just met his fate. It wasn't the open sky, though. It was very perceptibly a small, rather square room, containing only a chair (in which he found himself sitting) and a small table. The table looked a lot like the desk in his office, actually. 

There was a briefcase open on the desk before him. Bad espionage practice, Phoenix thought, starting to read the exposed contents within. He froze when he realized what he was reading. 

A death certificate.

His death certificate.

Death by poison gas, it said. There was an unhelpful drawing of a human outline and arrows indicating the flow of gas into his lungs. 

So he was dead, then, and whatever power of the universe decided to explain it to him had a strange sense of humor.

He looked around the room. He got up out of the chair and walked around the table. He sat back down.

How strange that nothing was happening, Phoenix thought. He'd never been religious, but if he was going to be conscious after his death, he at least expected to meet his ancestors, or some cosmic deity, or something.

"Hello?"

No answer.

Huh, he thought, maybe they weren't expecting me so soon, either.

Agent Phoenix pondered a bit about what his handler must think of him, dying less than five minutes into his first mission. Although he'd only heard the man's voice a handful of times, he had sounded pretty friendly. He hoped losing an agent so quickly didn't give the poor guy a complex...

He plucked his death certificate out of the briefcase and read it more closely. Maybe he wasn't allowed to get to the eternal judgement part until he finished the assigned reading. 

At the bottom, there was a form message from the Secret Agent Group to whomever it may concern:

Our condolences to the bereaved, but Zoraxis must be stopped at all costs. This agent's death will not be in vain. We will prevail.

The agent hummed to himself. Among spies and soldiers, he was a lucky one: he didn't have any family to receive a KIA letter. Nobody would be broken up about him, nobody would struggle without him. 

His only regret was not staying alive long enough to contribute to the Agency. He'd been genuinely eager to have a hand in saving the world, like they'd promised he could. All his life he'd been part of the defense complex, but the only deployments being handed out now were to bomb women and children living in jungles overseas. He didn't want to do what his country asked of him, he wanted to do good. To stop a war, like he'd believed when he was little...

Well, so much for that. 

Pulling the report out of the briefcase had revealed something else tucked away in the same pocket: a long card. 

It looked like an airline ticket, he thought. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, wondering why on earth the dead would need tickets for air travel.

It had his name on it. Not his intake number, not "Agent Phoenix", but his real name. It also had the logo of the EOD on it, and, confusingly, the personal mark of that evil genius whose car he had been trying to drive off an airplane: Dr. Zor.

Why would those things be together in the same place? Why would either of them be part of his (admittedly, weird) afterlife?

Most mysteriously, on the line reserved for the name of the destination airport, the word "RETRY" was printed bold in dark red ink. The characters had been pushed so heavily into the thick paper by the printing block that they felt embossed, like a fancy invitation.

Agent Phoenix ran his fingers over the letters, deep in thought.

...and, all at once, he was back in the car, in the airplane over the sea.

"What in the hell?"

"Something the matter, Agent?"

It was his handler, acting convincingly like nothing was amiss. 

"I... I just-..."

Agent Phoenix twisted around in the driver's seat, dumbstruck, examining his surroundings for evidence of what he knew had just happened moments before. 

The windows were intact. The poison gas was safely outside. The headrest of the seat behind him was unburnt. The revolver was still sitting on the back seat, exactly where he'd found it last time. 

Everything was reset, even the time on the car's clock, to how it had been the moment he began to work towards the mission objective.

"...but how?" Phoenix quietly muttered, replaying the events of his death in his mind step-by-step.

His handler's voice in his ear gently shook him back to the present.

"Agent, are you quite alright?"

He sounded concerned.

Slowly, Phoenix pulled himself out of shock. He was starting to connect the dots. The insane premise of this mission, the strange room, the logos on his return flight ticket... 

So it was all a training exercise... but not any kind of exercise he'd experienced before. This was an advanced program, far above storming plywood houses and red-team/blue-team, beyond firing blank ammo at mockup targets. The Agency must have some cutting-edge secretive technology that made the mission feel brutally real. Something with lasers and holograms, if he had to guess. 

Well, damn!

"Sorry, I'm fine... I just wasn't expecting whatever the hell that was," the agent chuckled into his microphone as his heartrate gradually returned to a sensible figure.

His handler took a beat before replying.

"Whatever the hell what was, Agent?"

If they went to all the trouble to make a mission experience this realistic, of course they weren't going to reveal it to the agent being trained until it was over...

"Nevermind," Phoenix chirped, internally assuring himself he couldn't possibly have been the first agent to shoot out the window and die to the gas. He wouldn't make such a rookie mistake again.

"I'm good, let's do this."

He did, ultimately, make two more rookie mistakes. He blew himself up trying to defuse a bomb, and while trying to drive the car off the plane, he accidentally put it into reverse and backed into something explosive.

Each time, he found himself in the weird little room again. He had a good head-shaking session reading his death certificate, then popped back into existence in perfect health in the undamaged car on the plane. 

His was grateful that his handler was stayed mute about his past errors. He even cracked some of the same jokes he'd made the previous rounds. Maybe it was just a recording of his handler, Phoenix mused to himself, programmed into whatever massive system is running this whole thing. 

Finally, after much education, Agent Phoenix had the objective in his grasp. The cargo bay door was open, the engine was purring. He put his foot down on the gas like a drag racer.

The luxury coupe sailed out of the cargo bay into the beautiful blue sky. Just as his handler had assured him, a set of parachutes deployed from the vehicle and unfolded above him, offering a gentle ride to the ocean below. He could feel the G-forces changing as he went from freefall to paraglide. 

The view was spectacular. He rolled down the windows just for fun and breathed in the clean air. The wind through his hair felt real. It even smelled real, he noted, deeply impressed.

When the car at last splashed down and inflated a raft from beneath the tires, he had a good time looking for fish in the water as the patrol boat sent to collect him closed in on his location. They'd put all kinds of his favorite ocean creatures into the scene: he saw a shark, a man-o-war, and much farther out, a whale's tail fluke breaching the water.

Whoever designed this training mission thought of absolutely everything, Phoenix marveled. 

(Unfortunately I can't finish a chapter this week, but this is part of what will eventually be in it, just for fun.)

[decks-writing-blog]

The Borealis: Chapter One: How Do You Know That?

Summary: Gordon and Alyx go to the arctic to find the Borealis.

[A/N] First a disclaimer: I haven't beat Half-Life Alyx yet. I started it the same day I started writing this fic but then I got Covid and injured my side coughing. Thus there was a solid 3 week span in which I couldn't play it because I was too physically unwell to do so, thus I finished this fic without having finished the game. I know how it ends though (I accidentally got spoiled before I even started playing) but because I don't know the context surrounding that, I chose to go about achieving the same thing in a different way. Especially since said different way allows for a good opening to this fic and lets me treat the other 2 Gordon focused HL fics I've written to be canon to this fic (you don't have to read those to understand this one though). So basically, if this fic contradicts something in Alyx, that's why. I'm able to play again though (thankfully, I've been itching to continue because I love the game) so I might be able to catch some of that in editing but we'll see because I play VR games quite slowly.

Second: Half-Life 3 confirmed! Yeah, yeah, old joke, but it's relevant to me now so I'm making it again. Basically I was super frustrated that we're never going to get a canon conclusion to the Half-Life story (the Epistle 3 doesn't count, it directly contradicts what is now canon thanks to Alyx and would've changed drastically during the development of the game, so it doesn't satisfy me at all) so I thought it might be fun try to write a conclusion to the story myself. I didn't write it as a 'video game story' because it's not a video game, thus it's not really me trying to write Half-Life 3. Just me taking where Ep 2 left off and continuing the story, focusing more on the characters and their relationship because character focused writing is my strength and what I enjoy writing the most. That being said, this fic did actually push my writing skills a bit, I feel like I've improved because of it.

Also Content Warning for the fic as a whole but it also opens with Temporary Major Character Death. (Which is why the Keep Reading cut is right under this author's note.) Time resets and Gordon comes back when he dies, he Kills Himself a few times to accomplish this. Also, another far less severe warning but potentially still important: OCs pop up throughout the fic as the plot demands so if you're hard against OCs in fanworks, maybe this fic ain't for you.

~

Alyx sobbed over Eli’s body, pressing on his chest rhythmically… or attempting to be rhythmic, she was too frantic, sobbing too hard. Not that that mattered; the blood pooling on the ground, leaking from the hole in the back of Eli’s head made it clear just how futile that effort at resuscitation was regardless of how good it was. One couldn’t be expected to think rationally after watching a loved one die.

Shaking off the last of the dizziness, Gordon sat up. He fumbled along the ground until he found where his pistol, usually magnetized to the HEV suit’s leg, had fallen to. Lifting it, he pressed it to his forehead. Killing himself was in ways worse than someone or something else killing him but that didn’t make it any less necessary. If he had this power, he was obligated to use it for good.

Closing his eyes, he focused. Right after the rocket launch, before they stepped outside would be a good spot to return to. He pulled the trigger.

As always, he blessedly didn’t hear the gunshot or feel the bullet enter his brain; it was too fast for human senses to register, making it in other ways the best way to reset time. Instead, one second Alyx was sobbing desperately, the next everyone was congratulating themselves and each other on the successful launch of the rocket. Again to Gordon but to them it would be the first time; he was the only one who ever remembered.

Opening his eyes, he stood in front of the rocket’s command console. Through the window the trail of the rocket was still visible, the portal already dissipating. A victory for sure, one he wasn’t going to let be ruined by Eli’s or anyone else’s death.

He knocked on the desk with the metal part of the HEV suit’s glove, getting everyone’s eyes on him. Not something he did often, it was easier to let people talk even if he’d heard it before – it often gave him time to rest, even if it was only for a little while and not a proper sit down or nap – but given where the Advisors had come from it might be possible to get the jump on them instead of the other way around.

“Two Advisors are coming,” he signed. “Or are already here, waiting on the hanger roof.”

The smiles on everyone’s face dimmed. “How would you know that?” Eli, blessedly alive and well again, asked. “Not that I doubt you but… I suppose I perhaps shouldn’t ask.”

Gordon had considered telling them about his dying and resetting thing several times now but… there was no need to burden anyone else with his suffering or the news that he’d watched them die. And so it was indeed best not to ask how he knew because he wasn’t going to answer.

“I don’t see how they could possibly be here and us not know about it,” Mangusson said. “But fine, I’ll send someone to go look.”

“Send Dog.” If he could get the jump on one or both of the Advisors again, their chances were better. “I’ll go too. You,” Gordon indicated Eli, “stay with here with him.” He pointed to Kleiner.

Before Eli could try to protest or agree to the order, Alyx cut in. “You should listen to him, Dad. He knows things sometimes. It saved our lives on the way here more than once.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Dr. Kleiner said, stepping up next to Eli. “Gordon did just kill a whole armada of striders after all. So if he says there’s danger and you should hang back, it’s probably wise to listen.”

Whether Eli even wanted to try to voice a protest or not, Gordon was already headed through the door. Alyx wasn’t far behind. As she paused to whistle for Dog, Gordon continued forward to the hanger. Upon stepping into it, it looked just as innocuous as it had before. No mental pulse, bringing a headache and distorted vision. Perhaps the Advisors were getting better at reigning that in. Unfortunate in that it meant it wouldn’t be as easy as Gordon had been thinking to know when one was nearby.

Continuing forward, he kept his eyes glued on the window the Advisors had seemingly come through. Not bothering with the elevator, he vaulted over the railing, landing with a clank on the hanger floor. He approached the helicopter.

Nothing… nothing… A loud clatter came from the roof. A moment later one of the windows shattered as Dog, clutching one of the Advisors came spiraling through it. Dog’s spare claw ripped at what looked like its face, pulling bits off, thick oil like blood oozing out.

“Holy shit.” Alyx’s voice came the right, seemingly by the entrance. “Gordon, you were right. Get him Dog! Fuck him up!”

Gordon pulled out and unpacked the rocket launcher. The second one had to be… Ah, there it was, floating through the broken window, perhaps giving chase. He loaded a rocket, aimed, and fired. With how close it was, there was no way it didn’t hit. … Except, moments before contact, the rocket veered, curving off to just barely miss instead. Damn it. Fighting these things wasn’t going to be easy, huh?

The Advisor’s trajectory changed, coming quickly towards him instead. Pain pulsed in his head, his vision blurring. The rocket launcher landed at his feet with a clatter as a now familiar force pushed on his body. It locked his limbs to his sides as it forced him up against the wall once more. Struggling was futile but he did it anyway, thrashing as much as the telekinetic force holding him would let him. Which wasn’t much.

Somewhere Alyx shouted something and a gun went off. The Advisor made a pained sound as just for a moment, the force holding Gordon vanished. It came again before he could even finish falling, pressing into his chest and making it hard to breath.

He slid along the wall, his HEV suit scraping loudly against it as the Advisor moved toward the entrance and thus presumably Alyx. A moment later she was crying out again as she was pushed up next to him. And then they were moving again, the Advisor holding them against the wall as it moved towards where Dog was seemingly finishing off its companion.

Said counterpart Gordon couldn’t see particularly well from this angle but it was on the floor, partially deflated, its blood pooling around it as it twitched and shuddered. Atop it, Dog, seemed to deem he’d done enough before turning and… too late, the second Advisor was in range. Dog’s attempted leap towards it ended abruptly, leaving him hovering in the air, held so tight, he couldn’t move.

His form shuddered and shook for a second before with a ear piercing screech of tearing metal, his body tore apart and crumpled. The light in his eye dimmed and went out before he was dropped to land in a crumpled heap of metal and still sparking wires. No sign of movement.

“Dog!” Alyx screamed, struggling just as uselessly as when she’d tried to save Eli.

With a sigh, Gordon gave up, going limp as the Advisor’s supernatural grip would let him. He’d messed up again. For how much everyone revered him, he did that a lot. If anyone knew even the half of it, they likely wouldn’t look up to him so much. Hopefully his death this time would be fast.

The Advisor turned its attention back onto the two of them. It pulled Gordon towards itself. Good; watching Alyx die was always hard.

“Don’t you dare! Leave him alone!”

If the Advisor was even capable of understanding human speech, it showed no sign of it as its tentacle slipped out of it head towards Gordon. He would’ve told Alyx to look away but well… he couldn’t. Perhaps closing his eyes would be wise but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that either.

It turned him, eliminating the temptation to look anyway by making it impossible to as it nosed at the back of his neck. Wet and slimy, he shuddered a moment before something sharp and needle like extended out of it, forcing its way through skin and bone. His whole body jerked with it, spasming in the Advisor’s telekinetic grip. Only for a moment as as all sensation vanished, leaving him utterly numb. A pressure built in his head, almost like it was about to…

Blinking open his eyes, he was back in the rocket control room. He flexed his hands, working the shakes out of them as he took deep breaths to steady himself as best he could. Curling up in a ball and crying about it never helped anyone. If anything, with how respected he now was, it’d make it worse. Also, he just plain didn’t have time to freak out about dying for the umpteenth time even if it was a new an awful way to do so. He had to stop thinking about it.

He’d failed again but he had learned something. The Advisors could be defeated and their telekinesis had a range, a seemingly fairly short one. So he just had to get the jump on both of them and stay out of their range otherwise. Easier said than done but it was far from the first time he’d had to do something seemingly impossible. With infinite tries anything was possible. … Hopefully he wouldn’t need infinite though. Dying sucked.

Once he had himself as in control as he could make himself, he knocked the back of the desk again, once more interrupting the chatter around him. “Two Advisors on the hanger roof,” he signed. “I need Dog to help take them out. You and you,” he indicated Eli and Kleiner, “stay here.” He turned and headed for the exit.

“Wait. How do you know that?” It was Magnusson who asked this time.

Gordon didn’t bother to respond.

“We should listen to him,” Alyx said as he paused at the door, holding it for her. “He knows things sometimes. It saved our lives on the way here more than once. So we’ll handle whatever it is, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m inclined to…” Kleiner began, the rest of his sentence being cut off as the door closed behind Alyx.

She whistled for Dog as they came to a stop a short distance away. He came bounding over from wherever he’d been waiting for her. “They’re on the hanger roof, you said?”

“Yes. I want Dog to throw me at one of them while he jumps the other.”

“Uh… that sounds dangerous. Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Dog had proven twice now that the Advisors couldn’t use their telekinesis when too distracted. Gordon just had to do the same thing Dog did and they could kill both… theoretically.

Alyx frowned. “How do you know that? I mean… you were right about other times the Combine jumped us, yeah, but this is awfully specific. Not that I don’t trust you but… you know.”

If Gordon were to ever tell anyone, it’d be her. Her knowing would be helpful in some instances but… as long as she continued to trust him and would do as he asked without an explanation, he wouldn’t burden her. Dying over and over to prevent the true death of others was his trial to endure, not talking about it made it easier to bear. So… “Trust me.”

“Okay.” She sighed and turned to Dog. “Dog, there are two Advisors on the hanger roof. Gordon wants you to throw him at one of them while you jump the other one. Can you do that?”

Dog shuffled as he nodded, seemingly eager for action. Hopefully when all this was done Gordon would get a chance to finally chat with Eli about Dog’s construction and how sentient he was. Such peace seemed impossible to reach but… hopefully one day it wouldn’t.

Reaching back Gordon unhooked the crossbow from his back and unfolded it before handing it to Alyx. “Stay back. Shoot from a distance.” He handed her a bundle of bolts next.

“Got it. Good luck.”

“You too.” He turned and climbed onto Dog’s back. He locked the fingers of one hand in place just in time to not fall off as Dog took bounding off towards the hanger.

~

Another death and then another and another. It was not the most painful of deaths to have his brain sucked out but the violation brought its own horror, making it among the more unpleasant ways to die.

The next attempt ended with both Advisors dead but Dog was busted and broken beyond repair too. A robot, yes but… how sentient was this robot? Enough to be worth saving? Seemingly so. But more importantly, Alyx was fond of him, reason enough to save him but also, said fondness had rubbed of onto Gordon and thus he lifted his pistol and shot himself to try again.

It was three more attempts before finally, finally the Advisors were both dead without bringing anyone else with them. As with many battles, victory had largely come down to luck.

Panting for breath, Gordon shot the deflating body of the Advisor beneath his feet a few more times, emptying the rest of his loaded shotgun shells into it. Its blood was thick and in the context of being in a hanger looked not unlike motor oil if not for its source.

Reloading the shotgun, he strolled over to the other side of the helicopter. Dog was atop the other Advisor’s body. It was pounded flat already, clearly dead, but just because he was mad, Gordon emptied a few shells into what looked like where its face had once been anyway. These things sucked, pun intended.

“Holy shit, Gordon, that was awesome.” Alyx said as she ran up, still holding the crossbow.

Gordon took a hand off the shotgun to give her a quick, “Thanks.” Not for the compliment though, it hadn’t felt awesome in the least, but because this attempt wasn’t a flop solely due to her getting into position just in time to to hit the Advisor and break its telekinesis before Gordon could be forced to drop his gun again. Having a companion was endlessly a thing to be grateful for. He would move the world for her if she wanted him to.

Her having no idea the depths of what she did for him though, he didn’t express that sentiment as he instead started back for the hanger exit. He had to double check and make sure everyone was alive and thus he was free to continue.

~

Cleaning up the Advisors’ bodies took some time as did sending teams to patrol the whole of the White Forest base, making sure no more unwanted surprises had made their way in somehow. But once done with that, there was a rush to start getting the helicopter ready for Gordon and Alyx to leave as soon as possible before something else went wrong that might jeopardize their mission.

No time to waste with proper rest, there never was. It was always one thing after another, endlessly. They had a whole alien army to fight, a world to save. And it had to be Gordon because in everyone else’s eyes he could consistently do and survive the impossible without much issue. But even if everyone knew the truth, he was still the best one for the job based solely off the fact that with infinite retries he could ensure the outcome he wanted even if he had to suffer for it.

But if Eli, Kleiner or anyone else Gordon cared for died while he was away, he couldn’t undo it, not as easily anyway. Something that had always been the case but after watching Eli die, it now seemed more of a prevalent threat than ever before. Making the prospect of leaving difficult. But alas, this power of his gave him the best shot at reaching the Borealis and then hopefully using it to get the Combine off Earth. Or to follow Eli’s warnings and destroy it before someone else, such as the Combine, could use it. He would decide when he got there. Regardless, he had no real choice but to roll with it and let Eli bundle him and Alyx with enough supplies and equipment to hopefully get them to the Borealis.

“No Dog, I’m sorry, you can’t come,” Alyx said as they stood by, waiting for the helicopter to finish being loaded for their journey. “You have to stay here and help Dad and the rest of the resistance, okay? They need your help and uh, you’re too heavy. We gotta travel light as we can to stretch our fuel as far as it’ll go.”

Dog shuffled and did the robot equivalent of a whine, the panels on his head pulling back as if wilting. Alyx patted his head. He leaned into it, indicating once more that he was capable of feeling in some capacity, even if it was perhaps only emotional. … Gordon would’ve loved the chance to have worked on him with Eli.

“I’ll take good care of him,” Eli said. “And I’m sure he’ll take good care of us.”

“And you two take care of each other,” Kleiner added. Having had time to finish monitoring the rocket he’d come out to the hanger to see them off. “We’ll be in radio contact with you as much as we can but it’s a long way so I’m not sure how much that’ll be. So mostly you’ll have to watch out for each other.”

“Well we made it this far together, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Her optimism was admirable. Even if from her perspective everything had gone well, there was still so much that could go wrong.

“And remember, once you reach the Borealis don’t jump right into activating it. I still think its our best shot at winning this war but that doesn’t mean don’t be cautious about it. Try to figure out what it does first if you can.”

“And if you can’t figure out what it does, consider not messing with it at all.” Eli gave Kleiner a pointed look. The two of them were going to argue about this more once Gordon and Alyx left, huh? Hopefully it wouldn’t cause too many problems between them.

“We’ll figure it out once we get there. But I guess uh… this is goodbye for now. Gosh, I can’t believe I’m the one being sent on this. Not that I don’t wanna go but…” Alyx threw her arms around Eli. “I’ll miss you guys.”

“I’ll miss you too, sweetie.”

Pulling back, Alyx hugged Kleiner next. “Uh… yes,” he said, adjusting his glasses as he pulled back. “Be sure to come back safe as quick as you can. Bring Gordon back too if at all possible.”

“Of course I’ll bring him back. What do you mean if possible?”

“Well I mean, after the Black Mesa incident, when he killed the Nihilanth…” Kleiner trialed off as he glanced at Gordon. “You know.”

Grimacing, Alyx turned to look back at Gordon too. “Oh yeah, huh? Um… I know you guys said I don’t need to know but I think I’ve earned the right to be told why and how he was frozen in time for twenty years, especially since I’m going with him on this and thus might have to try to stop it from happening again.”

Damn! That was possible, wasn’t it? To hide his flinch, Gordon took a step back. Once done here, the man in the suit might put him back into the void until he was needed for another job. One he couldn’t refuse because the alternative was death which he came back from. The vortiguants had seemed to pull him out of the man’s hold but… how sure was that really?

He had to take a series of deep breaths to stave off the sudden need to reach for something to steady himself; there was nothing around to grab. That was something best not thought about. He could only hope for mercy at the end of this. Surely he’d earned it, right? The suited man might not care though because why would he? Gordon was just a tool to help accomplish whatever his mysterious goals were. If so there was nothing he could about that so he had to stop thinking about it. He had to finish this first, worrying about what would happen after would only make that task harder. No more thinking about that or anything else. Only what was right in front of him mattered.

“A man in a suit, huh?” Alyx was saying as Gordon focused himself back in the present. Damn it, they were still talking about him. “Does he have a… briefcase?”

“You’ve seen him.” Eli grimaced, more angry with this confirmation than shocked as he was when he’d first learned of it.

“Maybe, I don’t know. It feels like I might’ve had a dream about him or something. What does he want?”

“We don’t know,” Kleiner replied. “We have a few theories but we don’t have time to go over them right now. You two have to get going before something else comes up. There’s no time to waste.”

Another round of hugs between them, this time Alyx hugged Dog too. “We’ll talk more about this once this is all over though, got it?” She then turned and started for the helicopter.

Before Gordon could finish turning to follow, Eli stepped towards him. “Take good care of her, please. Keep her safe.”

“I will, I promise.” Gordon wouldn’t dream of doing anything different.

“Thank you.” Eli took another step towards him, opening his arms for a hug.

Gordon couldn’t properly feel it through the HEV suit but… it took all his willpower not to cling to it in desperation. The comforts of physical touch had become foreign to him. And so even as brief as the hug was, it still almost brought tears to his eyes by the time it ended.

“Take care of yourself too.”

Gordon couldn’t promise that, not with how often he had to turn his gun on himself to reset time to save someone. So instead, before he did tear up anyway, he turned away and headed for the helicopter.

From there, it wasn’t long before they were getting ready to take off. Since neither of them knew how to fly a helicopter and thus couldn’t be trusted flying all the way to the arctic, a pilot by the name of Mori joined them. Gordon was offered the passenger seat but declined, choosing the back instead. There was more room to lay down, something he really needed. Surprisingly Alyx joined him, sitting in the row of seats across from. “In case you need to say something to Mori,” she said in way of explanation without even needing to be asked.

“Thanks,” he signed. Her talking for him was probably wise.

“All right,” Mori said from their spot in the cockpit’s driver seat. “Headsets and seat belts on and then we’re off to the arctic fast as we can go.”

Gordon put the headset on – being able to hear them even when the helicopter was running was important after all – but didn’t buckle in. Instead he lay down, using one of their packs of supplies as a pillow. It wasn’t comfortable but that didn’t matter, he hadn’t had more than three or so hours of sleep at a time since the night before the resonance cascade, technically more than twenty years ago. So he was going to sleep as much as he possibly could on this flight.

~

Next Chapter

[destinygoldenstar]

Here's a fun fact:

In TDDRI, Izzy was originally NOT supposed to be alive as long as she is. She was supposed to die in the Chapter 2 execution, like it was framed she would. The backstory was the same, her reasons for killing Cody was the same, but she didn't have that much relevance to the story.

Which is crazy, because for those who read the fic, she's VERY relevant, and will be going forward.

But yeah, originally she was just a side character and a Chapter 2 Culprit who died like any Culprit did.

So what changed? The reception I got from the fic. People loved her character in the fic so much, and were heavily intrigued in what she'd do in the future.

So I decided to keep her around longer and made her part much bigger.

It is so rare that I EVER listen to my fans on dictating my writing choices. I'm one of those people who believe that writers should do their own thing and make the story they want. This is the exception.

Why? Because what I originally had was far less interesting, and I got pointed out the loads of potential Izzy had with the narrative I gave her.

For example, originally, it was the Mastermind that made Chapter 4's motive, not Izzy. Which, if you know, would've been very out of character for the Mastermind, who wants to rehabilitate everyone and not actively torture and kill them. Whereas Izzy wanted to kill and torture them.

Keeping Izzy around actively helped polish some of the plot holes in my original script.

Izzy is one of the most unique characters I've written in anything for sure. Why? Because with the others there's SOME logic to their actions and behaviors. But with Izzy, there seems to be next to none besides trauma and wanting to spite the killing games that caused said trauma. She constantly lies to everyone and herself, she constantly gains different perspectives from whats happened to her, and there is little to no rationality behind her thinking whatsoever.

As written to quote Noah: "If you can't make sense of it, she can. Simple as that."

I'm not psychotic. I'm autistic. Those two things are NOT similar at all btw. I had to do research, and even then I think I got stuff wrong. But I do kind of relate to that line from my own habits. Sometimes there isn't any logic behind what people do. Some people don't have a good emotional control for example, and logic is out the window. For psychos, the definition is NOT 'crazy' it's actually 'disconnected from reality'. You see things that aren't there. You start behaving on your own rules and not the rules of the real world. You get triggered in some form by things that seem irrational to others.

Based on that, you can actually see multiple TDDRI characters being/becoming psychotic because of the game. (Like Lindsay, the Mastermind, or hell, even Duncan) Izzy is just the most experienced with it, therefore she is triggered the most. I didn't want to portray mental illness as the reason why Izzy is 'evil'. I don't call her evil, personally. That's really up to how you view her. That's why it's easy to see multiple characters suffering from stuff like this, to show that different people have different reactions, and it's not 'psychosis makes you a bad person'. That's not true.

The other characters calling her crazy is NOT necessarily me the writer telling the audience to see psychos as crazy. It's these particular characters not knowing how psychosis works and interpreting it inaccurately. Like real people with no experience do.

Basically, Izzy is chaotic. She goes by her own rules. She doesn't care what the good or evil choice is. She just does or the sake of her own emotions and mind playing her. It's all from real life experience that she's had, and of course, people not understanding what psychosis is. Logic is not the way to understanding her.

I usually write characters based on logic, but thanks to Izzy forcing a new approach, I feel like these characters have become more authentic as a result. When it comes to fiction, we often interpret character's actions as something 'in character' for them, something that can be explained, something that can be easily understandable. It's bad writing if it's not.

That's actually not the real world, and I've certainly had perspective shifts from that in life. There's so many other factors from people's actions. Stuff that can't be explained at all. We like to think we're not biased, but sometimes we are and we can't find logic as to why we're biased, for example.

I think that's the appeal of Izzy in this fic. She's one of the toughest characters to crack the code of, and that's why she's brought so much life to this fic and helped me make it feel a lot more real on the psychological destruction these games can do to people.

So, I'm happy y'all wanted her to stay around. Idk if the story would've worked nearly as well otherwise.

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

Omg can I please get a hannibal x a shy girl reader ? Like he’s really possessive of her and she doesn’t know how to handle it but she likes him so they date??

Sorry this took so long, anon. I’ve been bouncing ideas around and this one in particular, I believe, fits your request. Y/n feels out of place among Hannibal’s fancy friends and it becomes even more obvious when he abandons her at a party. 

Trigger warnings: social anxiety, sexual harassment, overstimulation

You and Hannibal had an agreement about large gatherings. He could only bring you to a party if you had a week's notice and at least three uninterrupted hours of gaming time prior to the event.

For this event, you needed a solid six.

One of the major Maryland universities was awarding a lucrative research grant to a student of clinical psychology, and every influential name in the industry was expected to be there. As a recent college grad with a bachelor's in business you didn't know what to do with, you couldn't imagine a less welcoming environment if you tried. You couldn't fit into their world and more importantly, you didn't want to. But the thought of being noticeably different in any situation was twice as terrifying. So you spent the whole week repeating your mantra; blend in, be quiet and make it through the night.

But Hannibal had different plans for you.

Halfway through the week, just when you'd pushed the party out of your mind, Hannibal presented you with a gift.

"What's the occasion?" You asked. You hoped that if you pretended not to know, it would just magically go away.

"I brought you something to wear on Friday." Hannibal answered, hanging the garment bag up on the bureau. "You know I'll take any excuse to dress you up."

He unzipped the bag and placed a black silk dress into your arms. "Try it on so I have time to get it altered if it needs it."

The material was cool to the touch and outlined your figure so perfectly, you felt even a little naked. Hannibal, of course, loved this. You were his own personal Venus de Milo. His goddess and his muse. 

“Yes, that will do nicely.” He observed, looking at you hungrily. 

“Seems a little short for a such a sophisticated event, doesn’t it?” You raised an eyebrow. The answer was yes and he knew it. He was very deliberate in everything he did. “I don’t want to come off the wrong way.” 

“And what way would that be, darling?” He asked, not taking his eyes off your figure. 

“I mean--” You searched for the right words. “It’s a gathering of the Mid-Atlantic’s most esteemed academics, I feel like, in a dress like this, I might be seen as, well, a...” 

“A prostitute?” Hannibal finished, choosing a much nicer word than you would have.

You looked down. “Yeah. It just doesn’t seem all that appropriate.” 

Hannibal approached you and lifted your chin slightly to look into his eyes. “Many Christian denominations believe that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, yet she was Christ’s right-hand woman. She was first to see him crucified and first to witness his resurrection.” 

“Dr. Lecter,” You smirked. “I never would have taken you for a religious man.” 

“Goodness, no.” He shook his head. “But any reputable academic is expected to be familiar with biblical literature and its many contradictions and impossibilities.” 

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You are my divine feminine, Miss [L/N].” Hannibal said in a low whisper. “And I want everyone to see it. If they see a common whore, it would only be a reflection of their own jealousy.” 

Hannibal's rationalization almost made you forget about your fear of being noticed. Almost. It all came rushing back when you arrived at the event. Not one person your age was in attendance. The women wore long, flowing evening gowns that reached the floor. The length of your skirt alone guaranteed that all eyes were on you. In a simple black silk dress, you looked the very model of high society. Silk was a sign of luxury, and Hannibal wanted everyone to know that you were a woman of means. His woman, to be precise. That was why he brought you to these functions in the first place. To put you in a dress short enough for any wandering eyes so see the smattering of love bites running up your inner thighs. He wanted everyone in his field to know that you were completely and entirely his.

You realized too late that this was all his little exercise in showing you off.

Everyone seemed to know him. He only knew a handful of people by name, and you didn't know anyone.

"And who is this delightful young woman?" A woman with a light southern twang in her voice asked, looking at you as if you were a caged animal on display.

"I wasn't aware you had a daughter, Dr. Lecter." The young man beside her laughed. "Or is she your side piece?"

Your eyes scanned the room for the nearest exit. It would be unbecoming to make a scene, so you plotted a way to slip out quietly.

“Darling, meet Dr. Charlotte Ramset and her TA, David.” Hannibal introduced, notably ignoring the young man. “Dr. Ramset, this is my intended, [F/N] [L/N].”

"I didn't realize she was also a ventriloquist!" The lady, presumably Dr. Ramset, joked. You'd heard that one a million times. She looked at you. "Tell me about yourself, sweetie. What are you studying?"

The lady was old enough to be your grandmother and reeked of too much perfume.

"I graduated last year." You said, quietly. "With a BA in business."

"See, there's a good woman." David added. "Only speaks when spoken to. They don't make ’em like you anymore, baby."

Hannibal tightened his grip on your hand. "On the contrary, David. See, Miss [L/N] is quite a bit like myself. She only dignifies those she deems worthy with a response. There's nothing wrong with being selective."

The lady laughed at David's expense and smiled at you. "Good for you."

You smiled back just a little, not ready to bring your guard down yet. "I've had to deal with more than enough. It's best not to engage."

"Oh, I know, I know." The lady said, shaking her head. "That's how it is for us educated gals. Always having to put up with pigs. See, I went to college in the sixties, so I can tell you some real stories."

This was a new experience. Talking to Hannibal's friends and having them listen to you was something you never considered possible. Now, you were one of the educated gals. You were just about to strike up a conversation with this woman, when the man next to her decided someone desperately needed to play devil’s advocate.

“I find that sexist, actually.” He cut in. “Not all men are pigs.” 

The silence following his comment was deafening and you wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Whatever progress Hannibal and Dr. Ramset made breaking down your defenses was completely reversed and you were ready to retreat.

Dr. Ramset took a long sip of wine and adjusted her shawl. “David, none of us said anything about men, you drew that conclusion yourself.”

“I mean, look at you.” David gestured to your dress. You knew exactly where this was going and you wished you could just disappear. “You’re basically asking for it.” 

Dr. Ramset glared at him. “David, that’s enough.” 

“I’m just stating facts.” David crossed his arms. “If you dress like a slut, what do you expect?”

Dr. Ramset and Hannibal seemed to have an entire conversation through prolonged eye contact before one of them broke the silence. 

"Charlotte, I hate to have to excuse myself so soon, but the president of the university is expecting me." Hannibal said, dropping your hand. Your heart hit the floor when you realized that he would be throwing you to the wolves.

"Of course, Dr. Lecter." She nodded. "Duty calls."

"I trust you'll keep an eye on my beloved [F/N] in my absence?" His voice hardened. The severity in his tone frightened you.

Dr. Ramset didn't seem disturbed or even surprised in the slightest by his gently threatening demand. "Of course."

"Thank you. And [F/N]?" He said, pressing his lips to the back of your hand. "I won't be going far. Please, try to have fun."

You tried not to look affronted, but you were going to have a long talk with Hannibal when you got home. 

"I'm just saying what everyone is thinking." David continued, his inability to take a hint positively astounding. "Why don't you respect yourself enough to cover up, [F/N]? You have a boyfriend!"

Your eyes scrolled across the room looking for any sign of Hannibal, but he was gone. Dr. Ramset finished her wine and stared at her TA with the resigned disgust of a death row jailer.

"Any other thoughts?" She said, snatching a fresh glass of wine. You looked at her with a clear expression of discomfort.

"Come on, do you see any other woman in the room dressed so provocatively?" David's voice broke mid-sentence. "No. Because they're educated enough to know that real men don't care about their bodies."

The hotel clerk approached the group. "Mr. Hosmer, there's a call for you."

David narrowed his eyes. "Uh, what?"

"Someone is on the phone asking for you." The clerk repeated. "Says it's an emergency."

David shrugged. "Fine."

Just when you thought you would be rid of him, at least for a moment, he planted his hands on your hips in attempt to "get by" you. His touch was like that of an insect crawling across your skin; unexpected, filthy and leaving you squeamish.

"I'm so sorry about that." Dr. Ramset's words echoed in your ears, but you didn't really hear them. You were too focused on grounding yourself to process what she was saying. 

“Dr. Ramset?” You said, quietly. “Which one is the president of the university?” 

She glanced at a tall woman in a dark blue suit, surrounded by equally important looking businesspeople. You followed her eyes. “That’s Dr. Mary Hosmer.”

Your ounce of righteous fury was squelched in two seconds when the reality of having to talk to someone, especially someone of stature, set in. You looked sheepishly back at Dr. Ramset. 

“Could you please ask her where Hannibal went?” You whispered. “I’d really like him to take me home now.” 

Her face turned sympathetic. “Of course, [F/N]. Stay right there.” 

You nodded. “Thank you.” 

Dr. Ramset crossed the floor and politely greeted the president. You took a few slow, calculated steps closer, just to get in earshot.

“Pardon me, but, have you seen Dr. Hannibal Lecter?” Dr. Ramset said, casually. 

“I wasn’t aware Hannibal had even arrived yet.” The president answered. “I haven’t seen him.” 

Your eyes widened. You fought the urge to freeze, but you had to move back before Dr. Ramset knew you’d been eavesdropping. You heard everything you needed and rushed back to where she’d left you.

“Dr. Hosmer said he stepped out.” She told you upon her return. “He should be back soon.” 

You tried not to show that you knew she was lying. “...oh.” 

“Would you like me to stay with you until he comes back?” 

You knew you were completely on your own. You didn’t know what was going on, but you had an inkling that it had to do with the president and David sharing a last name. All you knew for certain was that you couldn’t trust anybody. 

“Don’t bother.” You shook your head. You took off for the door, but Dr. Ramset grabbed your wrist. 

“I’m sorry, [F/N].” Her voice dropped to a low whisper. She didn’t look mad, but afraid. “But Dr. Lecter told me to stay with you. Please. Don’t make this harder for me.”

You recalled how seriously threatening Hannibal’s request was. She wasn’t answering to the president of the university. She was answering to Hannibal. You didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved. 

“Right.” You conceded, stepping back in. “I’m sorry.” 

The actual award ceremony was much longer than it needed to be, and it dragged on even longer knowing there was no reason for you to be there. Other than that, you awkwardly followed Dr. Ramset around the party like a lost puppy the whole time. You were back to your original plan: blend in, be quiet and make it through the night. 

Just when you thought the party would never end, someone tapped you on the arm. You turned around, hoping with every fiber of your being that it was Hannibal, but it wasn’t. A tall woman in a dark blue suit stared back at you. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, miss.” She said, apologetically. “But have you seen my son? I saw him talking to you and Dr. Charlotte earlier, perhaps he told you where he was going?” 

You’d pushed that man completely out of your mind. You shook your head. “He left to take a phone call and I haven’t seen him since.” 

A hand found your shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Hosmer, but I believe I saw the boy on his phone out in the lobby.” 

“Dr. Lecter!” The president’s eyes widened. “How nice of you to finally join us.” 

“...Yes, I believe he left right after making unwarranted comments towards my intended here.” Hannibal ran his hand down your arm lovingly. 

“Well, boys will be boys.” The president chuckled. “Maybe you should teach your girlfriend not to wear such revealing clothes.” 

Hannibal smiled and pulled you in protectively. “Whatever the case, I hope you find him very soon.” 

Her phone chimed in her back pocket. “Oh, that’s him right now.” 

“Wonderful.” Hannibal said. “[F/N] and I will be taking our leave.” 

He hurried you towards the door, his hand tight around yours. A blood-curdling scream came from behind you. You looked back for just a moment and found the president hollering in pain and falling to her knees. 

“Let’s go, darling.” Hannibal tugged at your arm. “They don’t deserve your presence.” 

“Hannibal, I swear.” You said, once you were in the safety of the car. “If you killed every man who looked at me like a piece of meat, sooner or later, there won’t be any men left.” 

Hannibal smirked and reached for his seatbelt. “Wonderful.” 

[ashs-random-writing]

Do Borrowers Like Musicals?

~~~~~

Remus just wanted to see the musical (it was actually a good one for once).

It wasn't his fault that the best viewing spot was the ceiling vent.

~~~~~

Remus was a pretty good borrower, he decided. He always made sure never to get caught, and he was fairly certain the human didn’t suspect anything.

That was to be expected, since he had only lived in this particular house a few days, but so far this was the house he was certain he wouldn’t have to leave. There weren’t a lot of clean places, which made it absolutely perfect for borrowing without notice. There were lots of fabrics and pins, and while he didn’t have much use for fabric, the absolute abundance of pins was perfect.

There was no way any rats would survive a fight if Remus had seven pins on his person at all times! No rats were to be eating through all of his supplies this time! He started collecting them, knowing the human would be out of the house for at least another two hours.

He ran into the walls, intent on sharpening his new weapons even more. They were good at piercing fabric, but they were just a little bit too blunt for much else. He grinned maniacally every time he looked at a perfectly sharpened point, thinking about how much damage he could do with such a weapon.

He started planning exactly how he could carry and conceal seven pins about his person after each and every pin was sharpened to perfection, until he heard the tell-tale sound of the human returning from wherever he went every day. Probably that ‘school’ thing he always heard about.

Didn’t sound much like fun, if he was honest. He looked out of a very small hole in the wall, probably not even noticeable to the human, and saw him sat at a table on his weird information machine. He was pretty sure it was called a computer, but he didn’t really care. Instead he just watched as much of the ‘video’ as he could

Everyone in it seemed to be singing for some reason, but Remus loved it. All the inappropriate jokes made by people dressed like those stupid characters the human was so fond of? That seemed more up his alley than the original characters themselves.

The human seemed to like it as well, with him periodically chuckling at some of the jokes, and singing along with the love duet. Remus decided that he needed to get closer, or at least just a better angle so the human’s head wasn’t blocking half of the screen. The best angle just happened to be from the vent cover on the ceiling.

Probably not the best idea, but then again, who was gonna stop him? A brief thought of rationality crossed his mind, reminding him that stupid things like that were the reason he kept having to move house. He pushed that thought down

Besides, he had enough pins that he could possibly take on the human in a fight if need be. He climbed up to the vent in the duration of a song that seemed to sound similar to the one from that movie the human liked, if with more interesting lyrics of course. He watched for a while until he got to the scene with two plot twists and audibly gasped.

The human paused the musical and looked up at the vent, which, of course, chose that exact moment fall open from his limited weight. He fell onto the cushion next to where the human was sat, and looked up to where the human was staring right at him, seemingly in shock

Remus bit back the swelling fear in his mind, and drew one of his pins, pointing it at the human

“Sta-Stay back!”

-

Roman was just trying to watch a stupid musical after college, but no, of course he couldn’t just watch the musical in peace, could he? He got about 3/4 of the way through it before hearing a gasp from the fucking ceiling.

Setting aside the musical for a few moments, he looked up at the vent cover. He was sure that he could see something too small, too small to be human, but it was moving slightly. The vent cover suddenly opened and a tiny person fell out, onto the couch

Roman watched them get up and start backing away, brandishing a pin at him. “Sta-Stay back!”

Roman reached out, intent on grabbing the little person, to inspect what the fuck they were. He felt a sharp sting on his finger and retracted his hand “What the fuck, man?”

“I told you to stay back, and you didn’t listen. I didn’t spend all that time sharpening this pin for it to not do anything, anyway” The tiny person didn’t seem all that scared, but Roman was a theatre major. He could sense fake confidence from a mile away

He pinched the end of the pin between two fingers, and took it away from the tiny person, sighing. He couldn’t see anymore pins, so he reached out again, only to get stabbed once more. The second perfectly sharpened pin was being held in a slightly shaking grasp.

Roman sighed, glaring slightly “Will you stop stabbing me?” he grabbed the pin again, placing it with the other. “I just wanna pick you up, I’m not gonna hurt you”

The little person crossed their arms “Well don’t come near me, and you won’t get stabbed,” Roman could hear the (admittedly well masked) fear in their voice and sighed.

“What’s it gonna take for you to let me pick you up? I already said I wasn’t gonna hurt you!”

“Well how would you like it if a giant suddenly found you and refused to leave you alone whilst taking your only form of defence away from you and disrespecting your boundaries? Hmm?”

Roman rolled his eyes “I’m not a giant, you’re just impossibly small. Besides, you don’t need to defend yourself”

The tiny person scoffed, uncrossing their arms “Do you know just how many horror stories I’ve heard about humans? And most of them have been true, by the way. I have no way of knowing what you plan on doing with me, and while I usually love being spontaneous, being spontaneously shoved into this shitshow of a situation is not my idea of fun”

-

Remus was terrified. He chose not to show it though, it would be hard to have a compelling argument if your voice quivered every two seconds.

The human was really getting on his nerves. The decades worth of stories were flashing through his mind, each gorier than the last. He vaguely registered the human talking again, but Remus couldn’t care. Maybe he should just not speak, then the human wouldn’t get annoyed at him.

Annoyed humans were more likely to be dangerous, so he should probably just shut up

“Are you listening to me? I asked you a question” The human sounded more annoyed, and Remus gulped, starting to think if it would be worth it to stay in the conversation or if he should take one of his perfectly sharpened pins right to his heart. Would be better than a human killing him, he reasoned, though he didn’t get his pin out

“I didn’t hear you, what did you say?” He asked, keeping up his confident demeanour, desperately trying to keep his voice from shaking

He liked the feeling of being scared sometimes, but not this time. He liked when he would very nearly fall from a high place but didn’t, the heart and adrenaline rush he would get, but to be face to face with an annoyed human was a different matter.

“I asked what you were doing in the ceiling vent in the first place, which you would know if you were paying attention” the human rolled his eyes once again

“I’m sorry, it’s hard to pay attention when you’re thinking about how you’re probably gonna die and reveal your entire kind and endanger everyone you know. But you don’t care about what I might be feeling in this situation, do you? No, of course you don’t. You care that I don’t want to be picked up, and don’t always listen to what you say, but have you ever considered how fucking awful this situation is for me?” He snapped, grabbing another pin and pointing it once again

The human stared at him, and he finally realised that he was crying. That was stupid, he was stupid.

“what do you mean that you’re gonna die? I have reassured you time and time again that I am not going to hurt you”

Remus inhaled shakily “Yeah, but you’re human. Do you think I wasn’t trying my hardest to not show vulnerability or fear so you wouldn’t realise just how much power you have over me? You think my mind hasn’t been flooded with thoughts about all the things you could do and the different ways you could kill me? And do you know what doesn’t fucking help? You taking all my defences! I only have a few weapons, and if you take them from me so easily, do you know how fucking terrifying that can be?! To know that the only thing protecting you does practically nothing” He was backing away the entire time he was talking, preparing for whatever the human would do after his outburst

For a few moments, the human was silent, and Remus could feel himself shaking

“You really think you’re gonna die, don’t you?” though it was phrased as a question, it was most definitely a statement

“Of course I do! Who wouldn’t? There is no one of my kind who wouldn’t be terrified in this situation!”

Remus was still holding out his pin, but it was very noticeably shaking. He put it down, sighing

“Why did you put your pin down? Do you trust me now?”

Remus laughed slightly “Of course not, but you’re just gonna take it anyway, so I’ve decided it would be better to stop fighting and hope I get a quick death” He looked down, wanting to get it over with

Maybe now he would get the answer to the question he always asked himself. What did death feel like?

“I’m not gonna kill you, I promise” the human

Remus started to wonder what the human would actually do to him, keep him as a pet? Torture him? Sell him to scientists? Show him to other people and endanger borrowers everywhere? Probably the last one, if he was being honest

He had seen the humans friend once or twice, and he immediately understood that they were the type of friends who told everything to each other, which really didn’t bode well for him or other borrowers.

Whilst Remus wasn’t paying attention, the human had started reaching for him again. He flinched but he didn’t move away or fight back this time. The more he annoyed the human, the more pain it would mean for him. That was what was always drilled into his head since he was old enough to listen.

Don’t talk to humans, don’t get caught, don’t annoy them, and don’t let them reveal your existence to more people. He had already broken 3/4 rules and soon enough, the fourth would be broken.

He was placed into a jar, and while Remus knew it wouldn’t happen, his brain started imagining all the things that could happen. Screwing the lid on and waiting ‘til he ran out of air, dropping the jar from a large height and him dying from the glass shards and bruises. He shuddered.

The human was using that weird device that Remus was pretty sure was known as a phone. He knew why it was being used, there was no way he was gonna keep this discovery to himself.

He watched the human talk to his friend through the phone and flinched. So, this was how he would end up dying. Causing the deaths of hundreds of others. He curled up in the bottom of the jar, awaiting his fate.

-

Virgil wasn’t expecting to get a cryptic phone call from his best friend.

“#No, I can’t explain- just come over please. It’s too crazy to say over the phone, please just show up#” Roman’s voice seemed pleading, so Virgil rolled his eyes and agreed

“I swear to God, if this is for something stupid I will kill you, Princey” he warned jokingly, walking the few minutes to Roman’s house, still on the phone

“#I don’t think it’s stupid, but it’s certainly absurd to say the least#”

He wished Roman had told him a little more than that when they were on the phone, because when he walked into the house, Roman whisked him aside in the hall and told him ‘not to freak out because it could scare them more’

So that was a fun experience that definitely didn’t make Virgil start panicking a little.

Roman led him into the living room, where a jar was sat on the coffee table and a tiny person was in the fucking jar.

He looked over at where Roman was stood awkwardly “Roman, what the actual fuck” The tiny person flinched, curling in on themselves more. His gaze softened slightly, and he dragged Roman out of the room

“Roman. Why on Earth is there a tiny person on your coffee table and why are they in a Fucking Jar?! What did you do this time?”

“It’s not even my fault this time! They fell out of the ceiling vent whilst I was watching Twisted, and they think they’re going to die, Virgil. They think I’m gonna kill them, and I don’t know what to do”

“Why do they think you’re gonna kill them?” He raised an eyebrow. What stupid decisions had Roman made this time?

“Still not my fault! They stabbed my fingers a few times when I was trying to grab them, but eventually, they just broke down crying and said they were just hoping I’d make it quick. I’d told them multiple times I wasn’t gonna hurt them, it’s not my fault if they didn’t believe me”

Virgil sighed, shaking his head “And you still stuffed them into a jar? How do you think they feel now? Probably even worse, and you added me into the mix? What do you think is going on in their head?”

Roman looked down, guiltily “I guess I didn’t think about that... What do you think I should do about this?”

“First of all, don’t keep them in a fucking jar. That’s probably making them more scared. Second of all, let them go. Maybe ask them a few questions, but do let them go. Third, make sure they have enough food, and just don’t fucking pick them up if they very obviously don’t wanna be picked up. Like seriously, if someone stabs your fingers when you try pick them up, maybe just stop trying? What were they even stabbing you with? People sure as fuck don’t make knives that size”

Roman reached into his pocket and brought out two sharpened pins “They have at least one more with them right now, and I really don’t know where these things came from”

Virgil looked back into the living room for a moment.

Today was a really weird day...

~~~~~

Taglist: @a-chilly-pepper

[herinsectreflection]

I want to talk about this scene, from Bargaining when Willow kills the fawn. You might guess from my icon that I am a big fan of this scene. It's pretty short but it sets the stage for Willow's arc throughout S6 excellently.

It opens with her in this gorgeous riverside greenery, dressed in pure white, the very picture of fairytale innocence, bathed in bright sunlight. It's such an unusual shot for the show, which almost exclusively either has shots inside or at night (for obvious reasons of being a vampire show), and that immediately makes it quite memorable. Especially as the rest of the episode is almost entirely set at night, filled with demon bikers, dismemberment, fire, broken down towers and digging out of graves. It's like this little meditative moment of peace in between all that.

Or, it would be if it didn't include a teensy little animal sacrifice.

WILLOW: Adonai, Helomi, Pine. Adonai, Helomi, Pine. The gods do command thee from thy majesty. O Mappa Laman, Adonai, Helomi.

Willow says her words and summons forth a young fawn from the trees. The fawn is another symbol of innocence, like Willow's white dress. As she reaches out and and touches the animal gently, we're reminded of the soft innocent Willow of S1, who shied away from any conflict and seemed incapable of ever hurting a fly. She's like a disney princess, sitting in the woods singing to woodland animals. Only Snow White never stabbed Bambi in the heart.

The entire plot of the previous season revolved around the blood sacrifice of a child. This is what Glory was trying to achieve, and it's what Buffy has to stop. Buffy gives her life in order to stop it. And now, Willow recreates the same event, performing the blood sacrifice what is specifically an animal child. She steps into the role that the previous season's Big Bad performed, and so tells us that this season, she is stepping into the role of Big Bad. The fawn fills the role of Dawn - the situations rhyme as well as the names do.

Fun fact - the words that Willow uses are taken from The Book of Ceremonial Magic, a 1910 book that compiled various grimoires. In this passage, describing an invocation to request something from God, Adonai/Helomi/Pine are the names of angels - specifically the angels of the East, who appear in human form dressed in lily white according to this passage - another link to Willow's costume here. The invocation seems to involve requesting these angels to appear to the caster in an intelligible form.

ADONAI, HELOMI, PINE, Whom you obey, do invoke, conjure and entreat thee, N., that thou wilt appear forthwith. By the virtue and power of the same God I do command thee from thine order or place of abode to come unto me and skew thyself plainly here before me in thine own proper shape and glory, speaking in a voice intelligible to mine understanding.

In this case, Willow is symbolically killing an actual angel of heaven, which is probably pretty high up on the villainy scale. Just drives home the fundamental Wrongness of this scene. It's also good to remember that the idea of killing one to save other(s) is a theme returned to again and again throughout the show, and the first major example of that theme in action is a certain Angel.

(Credit to this user on BuffyBoards for finding the source of these words.)

So the fawn is Dawn, and the fawn is an angel. But most importantly of all - the fawn is Buffy. Willow, in her attempts to bring Buffy back to life, first has to kill "Buffy".

WILLOW: Come forward, Blessed one. Know your calling.

The fawn is described as having a "calling" that it must "know", just as Buffy has a calling of her own, which over the course of many seasons she learns to know and accept (and eventually revolutionise and reject). It is also described as "Blessed", which in some definitions is taken to mean "one who is with God in heaven". Buffy at this point is literally in heaven (or at least some kind of heaven dimension, the theology is gratefully vague). The structure of the phrase "Blessed one" also reminds of the more relevant phrase - "Chosen One", which again would be Buffy. The spell ingredient, which we know is the fawn's blood, is called "vino de madre" - wine of the mother, implying a feminine source of power, just like The Slayer.

WILLOW: Accept our humble gratitude for your offering. In death ... you give life. May you find wings to the kingdom. In death, you give life. You might say that death... is your gift... yeah, so this really drives it home for me. Using death to give life is literally what Buffy has just done. It was core to her arc last season. And finally the "wings to the kingdom" line again plays into that heaven imagery. S6 loves this kind of imagery for Buffy, even giving her angel wings in one of the most delightfully on-the-nose shots in the show.

Buffy gave her life to give Dawn one, and with it gave a warning about the struggles of life - "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.". This is sad but lovely advice that Buffy herself must now spend S6 gradually learning to understand herself. She learns how to deal with the crushing despair of day-to-day existence. Willow, as the Big Bad of this season, doesn't understand this advice at all. For years now, Willow has used magic as a short-cut to avoid actually dealing with her emotions (see Lover's Walk, Something Blue, Tough Love). This goes into overdrive in S6, and it starts with her desperation to bring Buffy back to avoid really dealing with the reality of her death.

In fact it goes beyond magic - Willow is also the one who uses her tech knowledge to bring the Buffybot back online. She uses all her skills to desperately fill in the hole that Buffy has left behind. This is what Willow does, magic or no. And it's sympathetic - my heart breaks every time she talks about fearing where Buffy might have ended up - but it's not totally rational or healthy either. The main problem is that Willow, in doing this, is ignoring Buffy's final words, and misunderstanding the central theme.

As said earlier, by performing this blood sacrifice of a child, Willow is betraying the memory of Buffy, who died to stop one. (Symbolically of course. Morally there are light years between killing an animal and killing a teenager). Buffy gave her life to stop a blood sacrifice, and so Willow reverses the process - causing a blood sacrifice to give Buffy her life. And she betrays Buffy's final words with her refusal to accept the pain of life and live with it. And finally, she betrays Buffy spiritually.

Remember that Willow is Buffy's metaphorical Spirit, as shown in Primeval. It is a special kind of betrayal that Buffy's Spirit breaks her spiritually in this season. She literally rips her soul out of eternal bliss and contentment, causing an existential break within her. She beseeches the fawn/Buffy to find "wings to the kingdom", but in doing so robs Buffy of her wings.

Buffy suffers brutal depression this season, and describes it many times as feeling dead inside. This kind of emotional deadness is caused directly by her ressurection (though severely exacerbated by her unresolved trauma, grief over Joyce, and generally just living under capitalism). Willow has tried to give death to bring life, but because the action is a betrayal of Buffy on many levels, the act is tainted, and perverted, like a wish on a monkey's paw. She literally kills metaphorical Buffy, and so metaphorically kills literal Buffy. Buffy has life, but said life is causing a kind of death within her.

And what does Willow get for all this? Her pain isn't fixed by all this. She just gets blood on her hands (and later on her face). It sets off a chain of events that will end with far more blood on Willow's hands. She dips a toe into a darkness, but because she doesn't understand fully the emotions that have taken her there, she can't exert any control over it. She doesn't learn a lesson here that she shouldn't try to shape the world to deal with her emotions. Instead, she learns that she has power over life and death.

Willow is clearly deeply shaken by this, but it's not nearly enough to make her change her path. She ignores the very obvious foreshadowing here - her hands literally coated in blood - and carries on anyway. She takes the wrong lessons from this moment, which she clearly demonstrates in her argument with Giles in Flooded, where she ignores his anger over how she's warped the rules of nature, and instead focuses on how awesome she is ("The magicks I used are very powerful. I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off.")

This is a small scene, but it sets up so much for Willow. It shows how far she has come from the meek girl of S1. And it shows a glimpse of the future, how she has far to go but is now on a path to become the villain she is at the end of S6. She starts it by killing metaphorical Buffy in order to save her, and will end it by trying to kill actual Buffy in order to emotionally "save" her. At every point she can justify the blood on her hands as serving some greater purpose - but the blood is still there.

[ur-promethean]

alrighty halo infinite thoughts (spoilers ahead)

the whispering scenes were the best. mixed feelings abt the weapon being called cortana going forward. glad that chief feels like he can forgive himself but there needs to be more there (hopefully dlc/books can do that...). gameplay was fun and the exploration stuff is cool, just wish there was more forerunner things to research. really hoping the endless are the precursors and we get some time traveling nonsense later. EXCITED ABT OFFENSIVE BIAS

then.... there's a lot of little things that I can't tell are plot holes or actual things to be concerned about... like the pilot, who’s supposedly a civilian engineer, who also knows how to fly a pelican (?), or why chief was floating for six months. or really the lack of explanation for what exactly cortana did to herself to scatter across the four winds like that. not really any satisfactory closure on why cortana just abruptly became pseudo-didact either, other than she’s sorry for doing it (she has nothing to apologize for actually).

overall I think It could be a step in the right direction, but I'm just wondering what direction that is. I don’t really know what to think about the weapon. the unsc would not accept her just coming back to work w chief, when they eventually pick him up, bc of the created and bc of her origins. and w her being a copy stripped down to the bolts, she's not really designed for open warfare like cortana was - it would put a lot of undue stress on her and reasonably end in rampancy, sooner.

also I think for all the scenes that cortana has expressing her love for chief, there should be some reciprocation, and especially bc infinite has so many scenes where the chief just... Can’t handle things. like we’re at the point in this franchise where chief either dies or changes his whole MO - I know rationally after all this that there's no reason for cortana to ever come back, really, but also I want chief to be selfish, and I do want him to find her. not even directly - it could be open-ended. it could be as easy as chief not going back w the UNSC when they show up to zeta.

idk again there were a lot of parts I was happy with - chief’s characterization, and cortana’s redemption. it was the sense of mystery and intrigue I was hoping for, but it didn't really, again, clear up what happened w 5 and the created. I know it’s a cheap cop-out, but literally just saying “it wasn't really our cortana who did all that” would've been so easy. instead they just kind of continued it, albeit half-heartedly.

I'd even be interested in an explanation that explored Cortanas genesong.. how she essentially did what she was programmed to do by the librarian, it just didn't work right bc the mantle, inherently, is fucked up. address it like that! especially bc of all the mentions of chief and Cortanas programming...

again I liked it, I'm gonna replay soon for the campaign, but. there wasn’t enough. it felt like things were missing. and as sweet as that final cutscene was... idk. I miss my wife tails I miss her

[ebficnotes]

Black soul lore is a f*cking mess.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/lfih39/written_in_uncertainty_asks_who_is_mannimarco/

One thing I never see get mentioned is that the Mannimarco in ESO cannot be the same person as the Mannimarco in Oblivion or the King of Worms in Daggerfall.This is simply because ESO's guild memo on soul trapping mentions that Mannimarco's minions had knowledge of a soul trap spell that could trap black souls in white gems, and details Vanus Galerion's dumb plan to make the world forget that spell by creating a new soul trap spell that could only trap white souls in white gems.And the whole plot of the Mage's Guild in Oblivion is about how Mannimarco and the Worm Moon are working together to bypass Arkay's divine intervention in order to create Black Soul Gems, which can catch black souls even using Galerion's version of the soul trap spell.But, like, if either Daggerfall Manni or Oblivion Manni were the same person as ESO Manni, why would they bother to invent black soul gems at all?? Why wouldn't they just teach their followers the Soul Trap spell that works on black souls, a spell that the ESO Mannimarco canonically knows? Then your followers could just use white soul gems to trap and manipulate black souls. Isn't that easier than ascending to godhood to eclipse Arkay so your followers can do a spoopy ritual to convert regular soul gems into black ones?Ergo the only rational explanation: ESO Manni is not the same as the other two. Further complicating the "Who is Mannimarco?" question. (I mean I guess there's one other rational explanation: that this is a colossal plot hole and fuck-up on behalf of the lore-writers, but that explanation isn't really as fun as tinfoil theories about multiple Mannimarcos)I guess the answer to the "Who is Mannimarco?" question is that he isn't a person, he's an identity, periodically adopted by different necromancers all throughout history. And I suppose the concept of Mantling plugs into this idea somehow, since it's TES lore and all.

The assertion that all souls and gems are the same and that it is solely the power of the soul itself, the size of the gem, and the type of spell that matters, really does completely overwrite the purpose of black gems even existing, even with Vastarie's note on the matter.

If a human can be trapped in a grand gem with the right spell, then black gems serve exactly no purpose. And the soul gems in ESO that we trap everyone with are technically grand gems, despite them not being the big spiky types you see in Skyrim (but are interestingly enough, similar to Oblivion's grand gems.)

https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Grand_Soul_Gem_(Oblivion)

https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Grand_Soul_Gem_(Skyrim)

And yet in both skyrim and oblivion you must use a black soul gem to capture npcs. This might make sense for oblivion, where the mages guild's strictures reign supreme, but not in skyirm, where it's stated by Phinis Gestor that those policies were never a thing to begin with, and so no neutered soul trap spell would have been taught period. And even in oblivion, you use the same damn spell to do both. How hard would it have been to put a "forbidden soul trap" tome in Mannimarco's lair to complement his shiny new black gems?

And what's worse is gameplay-wise, black gems are not even recognizably better than grand ones. Black gems are actually heavier in Skyrim even, so technically they are worse. It would have been nothing for the devs to give black gems a few extra points of oomph just to demonstrate their raw soul superiority without breaking game balance, but they don’t. Literally the only thing they have going for them is their ability to capture npcs that can talk, which even if you have zero moral qualms about it, isn't even a real benefit without cheats, given how rare the black gems are.

I repeat: the designation of NPC vs Creature is the only demonstratable difference between souls that work with grand gems and black gem-only ones.

Yeah yeah game mechanics, but even without the in-game experience, why the fuck would our supposedly devious and calculating worm guy go through all that trouble for nothing, given that in (new) lore he could just use his own ungimped soul trap and a regular old grand gem to torture the normies all he wants, as stated above?

Some Ideas:

1. Black gems are only special because they are god-keyed. The use of one is meant as an offering to your daedra/deity of choice, and are not generally seen outside of cults for this very reason. Oblivion Mannimarco's altar is meant to make offering-stones for his own faithful, not to replace grand gems as a wholesale thing. The fact that you can enchant with them also is either because the mechanics of offering are similar and we are just stealing it, or because he allows it, similar to how real life religions who use animal sacrifice still eat the animal they dedicate. This doesn’t actually explain anything, but it sounds cool.

2. Vanus in his guild note has no idea what the fuck he is talking about regarding who fits into what gem, and his getting laughed out of his own guild for positing such nonsense is one of the low points of his career. Which is especially sad because in another life he was a pioneer in the field of enchantment and thus presumably soul-study.**

3. The gems we use in eso are not normal grand gems like everyone thinks, but are actually a new black-like gem that is both popular and common due to Mannimarco's doings, but because of later Mages guild shenanigans, is eventually lost to everyone but the worm cult, which is why they can trap anything, up to and including Arkay's favorite races, as what seemed to be implied as their true purpose in Oblivion (via reddit anyway). This doesn’t explain why they look different in oblivion and skyrim, but whatever.***

4. Vanus's insistence on classifying souls into who is and is not acceptable to kill/soul trap is the catalyst for future powerful guild mages to literally god-bend the world to it's own take on morality, which by the time of Daggerfall, makes even certain clearly people-races/beings like orcs not actually count as people anymore. Ie, it's not Arkay's fault orcs in Daggerfall are considered white souls and thus can be trapped with a non-special gem/neutered soul trap spell, it's the mages guild's.

5. There *is* something about the "black-souled" races/peoples that doesn’t make black gems completely stupid and redundant, its just soul research is so damn stigmatized that no one knows what that something really is. So every inconsistency we see is actually part of some greater whole that we just can't see through to yet because of all the bullshit. aka idfk.

**Something even sillier about Vanus's note: the old soul system in ESO apparently was based on player level, with petty gems only being able to revive low level players and the like, which makes good sense with the idea of soul size being the only real thing, like they corrected earlier game inconsistency or something. But then Vanus goes and says that smaller souls are not sapient/sentient and larger ones are, which is just not true even in ESO's world. Does this mean he wouldn’t consider low-level us as a real person? O.O

I however have never played eso pre-tamriel unlimited and hardly play even now, so if there are any nuances of soul collection in that game that I missed here, please let me know, yeah?

***I forgot, dremora in both Skyrim and Oblivion are black soul gem only too, so if it is Arkay's fault, why does he care about dremora?

My head...

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/2cowhz/eso_guild_memo_on_soul_trapping_describes_the/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/lfih39/written_in_uncertainty_asks_who_is_mannimarco/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/lfih39/written_in_uncertainty_asks_who_is_mannimarco/gmr3c28/

[lizacstuff]

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🤯🤯😭😭😱😤😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🤬🤬🤬🤬😭 What did you think of the episode? I always look forward to reading your thoughts.

Yep. Your emojis pretty much sum it up, don't they? LOL. I think the episode is decent in terms of quality, it was well-paced, very dramatic, the acting from Hande and Kerem was astounding, but watching it was just like constantly toggling between pain and fury, and that is not that fun.  

Part of me wants to say it was a well written episode, because it definitely made me feel and I thought it flowed well, but part of me wants to say it was terribly written because the number of contrivances and character assassinations (spoiler alert, I don’t list Serkan in that number) that had to occur to set it up is way too much. So maybe I'll settle on that the episode was well written, but the nonsense they needed to make it work was hackneyed. 

This was the first time I cursed the 2+ hour format. On shows I'm used to, if an episode is hard to take, you just have to suck it up for 42 minutes, 2+ hours was a lot of sucking it up.  My apologies in advance if I curse a LOT. I think I'm going to approach this by giving my take on each character in turn.  I'll start with the characters on the shit list and it will go from shittiest to slightly less shity.  Characters not on the shit list are down below. (spoiler alert: Serkan and Eda are safely on the NOT shit list) 

(Keep reading below the cut)

CHARACTERS ON SHIT LIST

Selin - WTF? I've thought she was a huge, pathetic turd since episode 18, and I thought she left in a disgraceful way, siccing psycho Balca on him, and it was frustrating that she never had to answer for any of her psycho moves, but this is a new level of crazy, bitter, fucked up that I could not have imagined for her. The writers really said: how can we make her the worst person ever?  Plot wise, at least they made it make sense why he would call her. The last time period he remembers, she was his girlfriend. I get it, and I think I get why they did it. As I've said before, if amnesia Serkan wakes up and finds this amazingly beautiful woman standing over him, and finds out she's his fiancé, even if he doesn't remember her it's not the worst thing in the world. They decided, I suppose, to make their journey back together that much harder and earned. They wanted him in the least receptive frame of mind when he met the amazingly beautiful woman. Enter Selin to manipulate and poison his mind. And lose any last shred of dignity she might have retained from the first time around. 

Is there anyone who didn't want to slap the shit out of her every single second she appeared on screen? I have no idea where she got the confidence this episode. The only saving grace is the bitch is going down hard.  Piril and Ferit both tried to warn her, as did Eda, but it's not going to be pretty for her. And the only thing I hope is that she actually pays some sort of price other than the utter emotional devastation and humiliation she's going to get. Frankly, I think she should be charged with kidnapping since she was hiding someone with diminished capacity that was the subject of a missing persons case. (Aydan can go down with her for not reporting it) Outside of soap operas, that is criminal. However, I doubt any of that will happen, she'll just slink off once she's found out and Serkan turns on her. 

Aydan - WTF? I don't think any of us predicted she'd be a villain this episode, and this is the first of the character assassinations that was required to make the plot work. First, her son was in a plane crash, and is recovering from severe injuries, she gets a call from Selin and she doesn't grab Eda and catch the first plane to where he is? He has amnesia and she thinks he's able to make rational, proper decisions? So she just respects his wishes not to be disturbed and leaves him with his obsessed ex-girlfriend? Who is this woman? Not Aydan. For the first 16 episodes she didn't give a damn about what Serkan wanted, she imposed her will on him and even though he resisted, she never lost him. She thinks she's going to lose him by flying to his bedside and bringing the love of his life? This makes no sense. Second, she allows devastated Eda to continue being in the AGONY of not knowing what happened to Serkan??? FUCK OFF, AYDAN. But again character assassination required to see it work. 

The one thing that's sort of in character, I think, is her hedging her bets with Selin and Eda. I've always said her acceptance of Eda was born out of self-interest. True, she saw how devastated Serkan was when they broke up and she wanted him to be happy, but mostly because she found out he was moving away from her and she thought she was losing him. She's a shrewd woman and she saw that the path to keeping him was Eda, so she got on the Eda train. I do think she genuinely cares for Eda, but if the Selin engagement lasts more than a couple days I could see her not fighting it like she should. Because where was she this episode in trying to get through to him? I get that everything happened over two short days, but she could have tried harder to talk sense into him and to probe for what Selin was feeding him. And she could have questioned Selin a whole helluva lot more. 

Piril - WTF? What is with Serkan's best friends just accepting Selin back into the fold under these circumstances? How is Piril not furious that Selin knew her good friend and business partner was alive and didn't tell her??? Selin let Piril and Engin continue to mourn him and think he was dead when he was alive, and Piril is calling her her good friend? WHAT THE FUCK? I'm not sure if this is character assassination because Piril is a bit of an odd ball, but this is assassination on just basic human reactions. Who wouldn't be furious? Who wouldn't be repulsed and incensed that she tried to move in on a brain-damaged man who had been about to marry someone else? 

Piril doesn't even need to be his best friend or to have participated in all his wedding festivities to know that's fucked up. How was Piril not screaming "BITCH YOU BE CRAZY" at her?  Like it takes Olympic level handwaving to accept Piril's conversation with Selin. Especially since she knows Selin wanted to ruin his happiness at all costs! Yes, she at least brought up the subject and very weakly said "You know we all know they are very much in love" and warned her that things might end badly, but it should have been a helluva lot stronger than that, and she should have been furious.  

Ayfer - She actually didn't do much this episode, which is the problem, because she also did very little to support Eda. TBH, I can't stand her to begin with so she makes it to this spot on the list, above people who should have been better. 

Engin - He gets a few points for telling Serkan the story and trying to bring it up again, however, he just always stopped shy from actually defending Eda or really probing for what Selin told Serkan. Again, there's a short timeline, and maybe he's planning to do it and not overwhelm Serkan, which isn't a bad thing. I just don't feel like he relayed how happy Serkan became after he met Eda. Though, to be fair, I sort of get why we didn't get really heartfelt testimonials for Eda, we want Serkan to start to fall for her again without being told to. I think they're going for a situation where Selin is the only voice in his ear, poisoning him against Eda, but even under those odds, he'll fall for her again. 

But his interactions with Serkan are not why he's on the shit list. He makes this list for just seemingly accepting Selin back and not voicing any concerns over her UTTERLY, PSYCHO, BIZARRE, eFFED UP behavior. Everything I said about Piril applies here. How is he okay that she kept the news of Serkan's survival from his best friend and business partner? Engin was the person Serkan confided in, he knows how he felt about both of those women. How is he not calling Selin out to her face?? So I don't need his friends to be in his ear telling him how much he loves Eda, but I do need them in his ear poking holes in the nonsense Selin is telling him and setting him straight on the state of their relationship when the plane went down. And I need them to be calling Selin out to her face. 

Erdem - He remains on the shitlist for gargantuan dumbassery not committed this episode.  Ferit - Ferit is low down on the shit list, but he still makes it for once again not coming down HARD on Selin. As her ex-fiancé he's in a unique position to call her out, and while he did issue her a warning, trying to soften it in terms of him not wanting her to get hurt was weak and ineffective and it feels like maybe he is still harboring feelings for her. UGH. Man, stop it! What is attractive about this bitter, manipulative psycho? Get in there and battle her on her own terms. Threaten her with the truth, push her, make her feel pushed into the corner so she gets reckless. Threaten to tell Serkan in front of her about the conversation you overheard that made you decide to leave her at the wedding table. Do something, and make it not for her own good. 

NOT SHIT LIST  Leyla - Little she could have done, in light of her relationship with one year ago Serkan, but it would be nice if at some point she gets some sort of dig in at him, "You were a better person after you met Eda."   Seyfi - It seemed like he was in the dark about Serkan being alive, Aydan must have kept it from even him, so he can be on this list. (Again Aydan would never keep it from Seyfi, so more OOC from her)

Deniz - So far he seems like a genuine, not psycho guy. He might be harboring feelings for Eda, but he didn't do anything creepy and was genuinely there for her more than almost anyone else. Did anyone catch the vibe between him and Ceren when she was leaving his shop? Ceren wasn't even mad at Ferit at that point, but there was a definite... charged moment. However this show does that from time to time, remember when Fifi seemed to have a weird tension-y moment with what's his name, Babaanne's bodyguard in one of his first episodes? That never surfaced again. 

Ceren - She was trying her best to be there for Eda. 

Melo - She was trying her best to be there for Eda. 

Sirius - Good boy! You know who your mama is. 

Serkan - Look, Serkan was a grade A asshole (you were right, Kerem) this episode. However, I have so much sympathy for him. He is a VICTIM. The man was in a plane that went down, had injuries including a traumatic brain injury, and lost the last year of his life. He appeared to be having some sort of PTSD with the nightmares. (Also thank you jebus he's sleeping on the cabin couch and that witch was going to her own home at night in Istanbul).  It's natural he called the person who he thought was his girlfriend. He was not to know that she's an evil psycho who was going to brainwash him. She is manipulating him, and I'll say it again, he is her victim. Also, I know lots of people think he was out of character and more harsh than he was in the pilot. He definitely was harsher than the pilot, but I don't think he was out of character.  In this episode, think of him as episode 3 Robot Bolat, but throw in having amnesia, experiencing trauma, being brainwashed by someone he trusts, and suffering from PTSD. 

It's a lot. He was so overwhelmed. I say episode 3 Serkan, because that's when Serkan realized he was starting to fall in love with Eda and it caused him to freak the fuck out and he was so cruel to her. He was a grade A asshole then too and we had that again, but heightened, in this episode. Sounds like he had these inklings of feelings before he even came back (he told Engin) that he didn't know what they were, but clearly they confused and frightened him, just like in episode 3. This is a man who doesn't believe in love. So to find out that he not only fell in love, but he fell so hard he became someone he doesn't recognize, I think made him recoil even faster and further, especially after Selin had brainwashed him into thinking he was manipulated into it by a bad person. So every time that Eda came near him and it affected him, whether it was physically like his heart, or that ineffable pull he felt, it made him retreat to a robotic defensive position. He didn't understand the feelings, they confused him and Selin made him fear them. Plus you add in how emotional Eda was, including the slap, and it was more than he could handle. 

It was enjoyable to watch the moments where Eda affected him, (kudos Kerem because you could see it on his face). However, those moments just pushed him into a corner, so he retreated to the place he thought was safe, which is Selin. He said it to Engin, in his retrograde amnesia mind, everything had changed but her (little does he know). It's interesting that the few flashes of Eda he had were from very early episodes. So he's not flashing to when he was fully in love with Eda, and was sure of his own heart and mind. He's flashing back to when he first started falling in love and was also scared, confused and felt out of control. And remember he's a control freak. So I'm sure that a taste of those wild, exciting, out-of-control, confusing first feelings are also fueling his current crazed state of mind. 

And that's how the events unfolded, with that state of mind. When Eda kissed him, he felt it, and it scared the crap out of him. And he said it right there in the moment, he wasn't going to let her "confuse" him, and he was going to put an end to it.  And that's what he did, try to put an end to those very confusing feelings for a person he's been told is trying to manipulate him and take advantage of him. So to make the out-of-control feelings stop, the robot malfunctioned and did the one thing he thought would get Eda to stop pushing him and shut all of it down. He proposed to the person who currently represents safety and for whom there are no confusing, wild, uncontrolled feelings. He doesn't love Selin, so there are no scary emotions attached. But did you see him when he made that speech? He was confused, and stuttering, and stumbling and looked dazed af. That's someone in acute crisis. And that shot of his face when he's hugging Selin? He looks like someone just shat on his head. Could he be more miserable?  Poor baby. 

Eda - THE REAL POOR BABY!  And the other victim in all this. Hande knocked it out of the park! She was so good. How many times did she break me this episode? A bunch. I loved that Eda was unwavering in her belief that Serkan was alive, even though everyone else had given up (except Aydan the lying sack of shit). I'm glad we know that Eda was so upset she wasn't leaving her room or eating, but I'm also glad we didn't see that. It's enough to know she started out devastated without the viewer having to wallow in it in an already upsetting episode, it was a smart move to immediately time jump 2 months. However, she wouldn't be Eda if she wasn't able to pick herself up and do what needed to be done. Which in this case was take care of Sirius, take over the firm, and keep track of the manhunt for Serkan. That's a lot on her plate, and of course she thrived. 

It was nice the whole company was behind her when she brought home the award, too bad they couldn't have backed her up like that when it came to Selin!  (pick a side, Piril!) They all need to stop acting like it's normal what Selin did! It's not normal!!!! Stop normalizing it and her! It felt like Eda was being gaslit at times, like none of the people Serkan remembered cared that Selin had obviously been preying on someone sick and injured and with diminished mental capacity. Why were they all like that!?!?!  I know, because if they’d reacted like a normal person would, Selin couldn’t have continued the charade. 

I was wondering how their first meeting would go down and Eda fainting seems entirely appropriate. And of course, he caught her without even knowing it's his job, “If you fall, I’ll catch you.”  *sob*  Eda pulling out the old classics to get him to remember was the best. Even through the pain and fury, I thoroughly enjoyed many of those moments. I, along with everyone, was thrilled to see the handcuffs back. Good move, Eda! And they fell right back into bickering and bantering. Though I think they should have taken his car, because all their memories are driving together in that car.

Bless her heart, she was doing everything to jog his memory, and I applaud that. But on one hand I think maybe she made a critical error in being so emotional (not that she could help it) because he was really freaked out by her, and I know she had been put through the wringer and Serkan not remembering her was the blow to end all blows, but she sort of lost it during that first meeting. And he was so overwhelmed that of course he shut all the way down. The truth is it's not his fault he had amnesia, he's a victim. She's totally entitled to those feelings, and the anger at him and the situation and the universe, but in trying to get through to him the heightened emotion might have been a critical error, because he just wasn't receptive to listening to her after that. On the other hand, that's how their relationship has been from the start. She's emotional and spontaneous and fiery and he navigates it. So one might hope it would spark something that he would remember. 

Same thing goes for the confrontation at his house.  He was such a dick, and she broke my heart, but she was so overwrought that I don't think Serkan of a year ago, who has now been traumatized and manipulated, could handle it and it caused him to become the worst version of himself. Again I don't fault Eda, most of us would have collapsed due to the sheer weight of what she'd been through, but her approach, coming in hot, did fuel the situation and I can see how Serkan got to that emotional place. 

At least they gave me one thing I asked for! The password. Serkan, maybe stop saying it's something you would never do, when you demonstrably did it. You bought her a star and then the coordinates were your password.  At some point your brain needs to put two and two together here. But actually I want him to check and see that he really did name a star after her. Her stealthily leaving so she didn't have to give it to him, and thus not be able to change the password, was great.

As for the last scene, girlfriend was looking FIIIIINE when she walked in that restaurant and boyfriend was having to command himself to stop looking at her. The kiss was a big swing, but she had to try and I'm sure we all wanted to hug her when he malfunctioned and did a crazy thing out of sheer panic. 

We, along with Eda, were put through the wringer this episode, but we survived and it can't get worse... okay nevermind, I'm not going to say that. Instead I'll just say, it WILL GET BETTER. There will be a reward for this pain. It's coming. We will see his awakening feelings in the next episode, I know it! Just hang on! 

[alloftheimaginesblog]

Be Both {John Murphy x Plus Size Reader}

Plot: Requested by anon: You get bullied for your weight when you’re sent down with the 100 to the ground and it’s John Murphy who steps in to defend you.

Characters: John Murphy x Plus Size Female Identifying Reader

Part of my Plus Size Reader x Character series!

Earth was everything you expected and more. It was so vibrant and freeing; so noisy and aromatic in the best way possible. You still couldn’t quite believe that you were all surviving thus far. Sure, you landed the previous day and had only been on Earth for twenty four hours but it was amazing. Falling asleep to the sounds of the wind was something you never expected before.

The camp buzzed around you, people falling into place with jobs easily. You had taken to cooking and preparing meals; it was hard considering there hadn’t been a lot of animals caught for meat but there was plenty of rice, beans and herbs to go around. Clarke Griffin had asked if you wanted to help hunt but you turned it down thinking it best if you stayed away from that sort of thing. You didn’t really know how and to be honest, you didn’t really want to learn.

You’d been gutting one of the fish that were caught when you heard someone mutter from behind you, “No wonder she wanted to cook, she’s eating all our rations.” You froze, completely stiffening up.

The other boy scoffed, “Yeah, by sending her down, the Ark is probably three tonnes lighter than it was.”

Tears burned at your eyes as you listened to them blatantly talk about you right behind your back, comparing you to animals and sea creatures, saying that you would make the Ark lighter by leaving, that you wanted to work with the food so that you could eat it all and they were just being completely horrible, disgusting and immature boys.

You hadn’t realised that you weren’t the only one who heard the two. John Murphy, who had been tipping the fish out the buckets onto your table, heard them too. He heard the vile comments they were making about you and it made his blood run hot. Now, you and Murphy were by no means close, you wouldn’t even say you were friends anymore. You had been friends long ago. Growing up next to each other and being neighbours practically forced the two of you to be friends. When you hit around fourteen, you drifted as Murphy slotted into a different crowd than you did. You’d had a massive crush on Murphy growing up until he had made friends with some idiots and made a comment about your weight when you were fourteen. Murphy had regretted it ever since. It was a comment made to impress two jerks who he learned to hate pretty soon afterwards but you never spoke to him again. You never acknowledged him.

You’d always been relatively heavy and on the plus size side of the scale. It wasn’t the end of the world that you had extra weight but to some people, it was the thing they’d use to taunt you. They’d mock you, call you names and that’s what John Murphy did that one time which ruined your friendship. People would make fun of your weight because it was easy to notice and realise ‘oh hey, she’s fat let’s bully her’. It wasn’t clever or funny and the insults they taunted you with were never very creative but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt; especially when it’s your best childhood friend pulling the figurative trigger.

You sniffed as you silently let the tears fall. You didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they’d upset you so you stayed with your back turned, gutting the fish through blurry eyes. Murphy glanced over at you, rage coursing through his veins as he saw that you were upset and he had had enough.

With a yell of ‘that’s enough!’, he slammed the bucket down, fish spilling onto the grass. You jumped, turning to see Murphy with his fists clenched by his sides. Of all of the people to step in and defend you, you truly had not been expecting it to be John Murphy. He towered over the two boys who just raised their eyebrows and held up their hands, “You sticking up for her, Murphy?” One mocked, “Never knew you were a sucker for whales-”

Murphy didn’t want to listen to that whiny, arrogant little bastard anymore and instead, he punched him on the nose. The boy yelled out, falling to the floor, causing a few people to rush over, “That’s what you deserve!” Murphy hissed, “You’re disgusting saying that about one of the only people here that deserve anything good.” You watched in shock as blood gushed from the boy’s nose. He stared at Murphy with wide, terrified eyes.

“Back off, Murphy!” The other said, holding his hands up.

“Apologise.” Murphy’s voice was a growl but the intimidation it caused was wild.

“We’re sorry!”

“Not to me, to (y/n)!”

The boys looked at you, “We’re sorry! We didn’t mean it!”

“Now, scram!” Murphy sneered as the boys scuttled away. A large crowd had formed around you all and Murphy rolled his eyes, “Nothing to see folks, move along!”

All you could do was stare at Murphy as he forced the bystanders to move away and leave you all alone. He turned to you, sniffing and wiping his face, before looking at you. Neither of you spoke as you maintained eye contact for a few seconds longer than you should have. Quickly, you turned away, too flustered to say anything. Murphy began to gather the fish back into the bucket. Why had Murphy stepped in? Murphy had been saying the same stuff nearly four years ago so... why was he putting his foot down now?

Curiosity got the better of you because you knew that Murphy wouldn’t say anything now so you had to ask, “Why?” You asked him, turning to him, “Why would you stand up for me when you said all that stuff when we were fourteen?”

Murphy knew the question was coming but he was still nervous when you eventually did ask it. He didn’t reply for a minute, he could feel you eyes burning a hole into the side of his head. You pressed him again, “John?”

He scoffed out a laugh, “No one calls me John.”

“I always have.”

“You’re the only one.”

“Why did you defend me when you said all that stuff to me years ago?” You asked again.

Murphy sighed, “You know I didn’t mean that stuff. I still feel bad about it.” Your eyebrows furrowed and he continued to explain, “I didn’t mean it. I was a stupid kid, c’mon, you know how stupid I was back then-” it was true, he was a pretty stupid kid growing up for he always managed to get into trouble, “-I thought that in order to make friends, I had to be cool and edgy and be like them. Turns out I was just being a jerk.”

You appreciated his honesty and that he knew he had done you wrong, “Thank you.”

“Every day since, I’ve felt bad about it. I carry this guilt with me and I know I act tough but I do hate myself for what I did to you. You were my best friend and I ruined it. I’m sorry.”

You looked down at the table, “It hurt, you know. I was fourteen and was going through a lot of changes and weight fluctuations and you knew how insecure I was about my weight; how insecure I’ve always been and yet you bullied me because of it. I remember exactly what you said and how you said it. You weren’t John anymore that day, that’s when you became Murphy.”

Murphy was taken back by the brutality of your words. He puffed out a breath but didn’t speak. You asked once more why he stepped in to stand up for you, “You don’t deserve any of that bullshit. You’re one the kindest people I’ve met. You’re beautiful and they were talking about you like shit.”

You shook your head, “I’m not beautiful. Look at me, I’m hideous. I’m fat.”

“What’s wrong with being fat?” Murphy asked you, “Being skinny, fat, average or whatever doesn’t determine a person’s beauty or a person’s worth. You could be skinny and be the shittiest person ever; you’d be ugly then. You could have red skin and spiders for eyes and have your personality and I’d still consider you beautiful.”

You rolled your eyes, “John-”

“No, I’m being serious, (y/n),” he said, “Who care what you’re body looks like? Those two were complete dicks and I’ll make sure they pay for upsetting you. Don’t give me that bullshit of ‘I can’t be beautiful because I’m fat’. You can be fat and beautiful; you can be plus size and beautiful. You don’t have to be just one, you can be both. Stop letting their opinions matter to you. I treated you like shit before, I’m a dick for doing that and trust me, I know, but please don’t let them affect you anymore. It’s your body, not theirs.”

“Be both beautiful and fat?” You asked him, “I don’t feel beautiful. I never have.”

Murphy sighed, “You remember when we snuck out of that English exam when we were twelve?”

“And we went to find the best view of Earth,” you nodded, “I remember.” It was one of your favourite memories actually.

“You were looking at Earth saying how beautiful it was. Your smile...” Murphy smiled slightly, “That’s the first time I really realised you were beautiful.” Your face softened as he spoke, “That’s when I realised I liked you.”

“Liked me?”

Murphy breathed a laugh, “Seems like a lifetime ago... Yeah... I thought you knew I had this massive crush on you and then I went and ruined everything. Hell, I still think I like you.” Your cheeks burned as he said that, he still liked you? After all this time? 

“If it makes you feel any better, I had a massive crush on you too.”

“Actually, that makes me feel worse.” You laughed slightly at his statement and he cracked a smile. You found yourself smiling at him, enjoying a moment together. It was nice. It felt like you were kids again, running around the Ark playing games and looking for meteors. You missed it; you missed him. Yeah, he had hurt you badly but you could see the regret in his eyes, you saw the honesty he had when he was telling you that you were beautiful. You knew that he was sorry and he truly didn’t mean it.

“I forgive you,” you said after a pregnant pause, “for saying that stuff.” Murphy nodded, unsure of what to say, “So please, stop carrying that about with you. You’re different now. You stood up for me and defended me, that says a lot.”

Murphy nodded again, giving you a small smile, “You can be both, remember. You don’t have to just be one. You can be a lot of things. You have to remember that your beauty and self worth isn’t just about what’s on the outside.”

You thanked him before falling into silence. It was a few minutes later when you said, “If you’re not busy, I could use help with these fish...”

Murphy smiled but quickly hid it, “Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’ll help you.” He grabbed his knife from his pocket and began to help you. You glanced at him as you worked beside each other in silence.

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re beautiful too, you know.”