rallamajoop

[rallamajoop]

Follow Me Home chapter 12 preview

As so often happens, what was supposed to be chapter 12 of Follow Me Home has gotten away from me a bit, and has been cut in half so I can at least have something to post in a reasonable timeframe. We're getting deeper into territory where I know broadly what needs to happen, but not exactly how or in what order, which never helps with the update schedule.

In the meantime, the trimmed version of chapter 12 is now mostly one long scene without much Heisenberg in it ‒ but if you're up for awkward tension with Ethan & Chris, I have some excellent news for you. Either way, have a preview of the confrontation to come:

“Ethan. There’s a dead body on your porch.” Conversationally accusatory, the Chris Redfield special. Ethan bristles immediately. “I noticed.” “And you have no idea how it got there?” It’s hard to say whether Chris means to sound suspicious, or if this is just his base level of world-weary antipathy, but it wears on Ethan all the same. “He didn’t ring the bell, Chris. He sure wasn’t there yesterday.” Chris nods, maybe. He’s still looking more at the clipboard in his hand than he is at Ethan. “You don’t know the victim? You’ve never seen him before?” Ethan hesitates. “I don’t think so? I don’t know if I’d recognise him now even if I did.” Chris seems to allow that this might not be unreasonable. “And nothing else has happened since we spoke last that you might want to mention? Your friend Heisenberg still hasn’t made contact?”

“You think he did this?” Pretty unlikely, given that he was with Ethan the whole time. “It’s not really his style.” There’s not a single drill bit attached to the body, just for one. The look Chris gives Ethan offers no reassurance that Chris believes him about the Heisenberg situation. “And you still want me to believe you didn’t hear anything suspicious? See anything?” “We weren’t even home!” What good does it do to tell the truth when Chris won’t believe him anyway? “We got home late last night, and there it was.” “Are you sure, Ethan?” The look in Chris’ eyes could make a lesser man doubt his own name. “We both know your car hasn’t moved all night.” Ethan opens his mouth to tell Chris of course he’s sure, but instead he says, “How would you know about our car?” “Just answer the question, Ethan.” Ethan does not answer the question. “Are you tracking our car? Chris, what the hell!” The noise Chris makes is a grunt of pure frustration. “Yes, Ethan, we’re tracking your car! It’s for your own protection.” “You didn’t think that was worth mentioning to me? Where did you think we were going to go?” Breaking into some lab overnight with a wanted criminal? Thank god they took the Duke’s offer of transport. “Have you bugged anything else around here I should know about?” “I do not have time to argue with you about this, Ethan.” The impatient growl of Chris’ voice is less a threat than a promise. “Miranda may be out of the picture, but there may still be threats to your family out there that we don’t even know about yet. You should count yourself lucky you’ve been allowed to return to your own home at all.” Ethan scoffs, even as his heartbeat hammers in his chest. “Well, it was nice while it lasted! I guess it’s your lucky day. You want an excuse to take us all back into ‘protective’ custody? Well, you’ve got it!” He’s probably tempting fate by even saying it aloud, and he’s almost too far gone to care. But Chris has gone back to frowning at his clipboard. “That won’t be necessary at this time.” “What?” “We’re not moving you or your family. Not yet.” Ethan gapes at him. What the hell is Chris smoking? “Why the hell not?” Eye contact from Chris is rarely pleasant, but a Chris who won’t make eye contact is somehow worse. “All our intel points to you being safest where you are at this time.” “Safe? Chris, someone just left a dead body at my front door!” Is Ethan not hearing this right? What the hell is Chris playing at? What is he not telling Ethan? “Did you know this could happen? Are we bait?” “Ethan,” Chris growls, “stand down.” Ethan does not stand down. “Are you scared of me, Chris? Is that what’s really going on here? Is that why you’re keeping us in the dark?” That’s when it happens: the faint sensation of something warm and damp, trickling from his left ear. Ethan studiously ignores it, almost daring Chris to notice what Ethan can’t risk drawing attention to. At least being mad can only help with the poker face. Chris gives a short sigh, mostly down at his clipboard. “I’m not scared of you, Ethan.” “Well maybe you should be!” The awareness that he’s playing with fire flickers around the edges of Ethan’s mind, some mad instinct that almost wants Chris to throw the first punch. Probably the same hair-brained impulse that makes him taunt creepy fishmen, and invite metalbending freaks to do their worst. Good thing that's never got him in trouble before.

[rallamajoop]

Hi! Do you have a resource for the Japanese text of Resident Evil Village? While I need to replay the game for environmental story telling, I noticed some changes during localization, some big ans others small. Namely the origin of the death flower dagger, or the “christianization” of certain pagan elements such as Nichola’s goddess, etc. I would like to maybe one day hyper focus on Donna’s region. I feel like one can infer much from what we’re given between her home to the path leading to it

The residentevil.fandom wiki, for all its flaws, does have Japanese versions of all the text documents (or at least all the ones I've checked)! You can find it under the 'original script' tab under the 'Transcript' section for any file. It's the one big advantage that wiki does have over the file list at evilresource.com, which I'd otherwise prefer.

Having spent so long going through the actual game files, I do also have text dumps of pretty much everything in the game. That includes a lot of shorter titles or descriptions that the wiki wouldn't have. But they're not the easiest to navigate, as they include EVERY language the game supports, and things aren't always ordered intuitively. There's also some unused content in there, which is interesting but not always easy to identify.

To the best of my knowledge there aren't many significant changes between the Japanese and English text, though there are certainly a few. I've talked about a few examples before: the RE7 text for Mia's Orders document does describe her job a little differently in the Japanese (though neither version calls her a scientist, and good god am I sick of people repeating that nonsense!) I brought up a few more in my post about the Four Lords: Japanese text for Dimitrescu specifies she's the daughter of a fallen noble, the information about some of Dimitrescu's and Donna's powers is framed a little differently in the Japanese, and Heisenberg seems to mock the very idea he's any real kind of noble in his diary. These stood out to me mostly because they're cases where the Japanese version explained things that weren't made more sense than the English, given the rest of the context of the game (give or take some individual interpretation ‒ my own Japanese is not much above fangirl-level, and machine translation is only ever so reliable).

The one other interesting change I'm aware of is that Miranda's diary has a little more information about the Cadou in the Japanese text, stating they're derived from a nematode worm. That arguably makes some sense, in that nematodes can be parasitic, and we do see wormlike tendrils emerging from some infected characters. But it explains nothing about how you combine a worm with the mould and get what looks like a deformed human foetus, let alone why the megamycete itself takes the same shape ‒ and it's still pretty hard to read the whole Cadou concept as much more than an ill-thought-out attempt to copy RE4's parasites into their pseudo-RE4-remake. I'd guess the fact it adds so little to our understanding of the Cadou may be why it's excluded from the English version. Possibly the inclusion flowed more naturally in the Japanese version than it does in English, or perhaps it was just missed by accident.

But since I hadn't seen either of your own examples before, naturally, I took a look into them!

From 'Rumours of a Dagger', it looks like the biggest difference is that while the Japanese says something about who created it ‒ "a delusional former head of the family" ‒ that detail is missing from the English version, is that what you're referring to? Interesting! I can see why it might've been dropped from the English, it's the kind of throwaway detail that doesn't really add anything important, and may not have flowed as naturally without a bigger restructure. But the image of a nutjob former lord of the castle, abusing his power to indulge his whims, gathering poisons from all over the world as part of some mad project ‒ that's evocative enough to create quite the image. Was he inspired to create it out of fear of village-mould-monsters like the demon from the relief on the castle gate, maybe? The Japanese version does seem to carry slightly more suggestion that the dagger was created in the castle too, which I didn't get from the English. Nice, and definitely intriguing!

On the Nichola's goddess thing, though ‒ it looks like the main discrepancy is that she's framed as 'Father Nichola's Angel' in the English, but 'Nichola's Goddess' (ニコラの女神像) in the Japanese? That's the kind of change that I'd be a little more leery of reading much into. Japanese does technically have a word for 'angel' (tenshi, 天使), but I've seen localisations translate '女神/megami/female goddess' as 'angel' before (and the reverse), because, well, we're in comparative religion territory now, and concepts overlap. The difference between a literal god or goddess and an angel or 'heavenly messenger' is going to be hazy at the best of times, and 'megami' carries feminine connotations where 'tenshi' doesn't, so may have been seen as more appropriate for the statue asset they used.

It's also worth noting that the model they used for the statue is actually all over the modern Resident Evil series, going back to RE7, mostly appearing as a bit of decorative kitsch in very-western settings where it's very definitely meant to be read as an angel is the traditional Christian sense (the Bakers sure wouldn't have pagan goddesses around their home!) Seriously, this thing haunts me ‒ I have found it in RE7, RE8, and the remakes of both RE2 and RE4. It's probably in RE3 somewhere too. So I'd read 'megami' as a poor translation of 'angel', rather than the other way around.

It's even in multiple places in the Winters' own home in RE8! No-one recycles assets like the RE series!

All that said though, this all comes with my usual big "I am NOT a fluent Japanese speaker" caveat, and if you want to take 'Nicola's Goddess' as evidence of a pagan religion in the village? Heck, why not? 'Megami' is still totally open to interpretation, and though most of the pre-Miranda imagery around the village is v. Christian (all the pictures of saints, etc), the village does still have a very pagan-coded fixation on goats, and we've also got at least one document referring to the locals as 'heathens'. I've suggested before that probably means a different denomination of Christians, rather than actual pagans, but it's certainly open to interpretation.

And in the same text, it's also interesting that '叔父ニコラ' or 'Oji/Uncle Nicola' has become 'Father Nichola' in translation. I'm not aware of any religious implications of 'Oji/Uncle', whereas 'Father' is very clearly Christian in context. Does that mean anything? Heck, IDK, if you want it to!

Speaking of localisation issues: as far as I can see, translations into languages other than English or Japanese have been done using the English version as a template, not the Japanese. This is based on the few times I've tried machine translation on those other languages from the text files, so we're not talking about a big sample here, but the results look pretty definitive. Most likely this is done for practical reasons: I'm sure it's easier to find translator for French, Spanish or German who can translate from English than from Japanese, but it's interesting that they seem to be taking the English version as 'definitive', even though the Japanese version consistently comes first in the text dumps. But either way, you're not likely to find 'confirmation' of the Japanese/English differences looking anywhere else ‒ if there are any significant differences between the English and other language versions, I haven't spotted them.

On another more general note, I am coming at all this with some real-world experience with the translation/localisation process in projects like these (I don't work in game development, but I am a programmer who's worked on major websites while language support was being added as a new feature), and the little I can tell you is that translating something of that scale can be a heckuva chaotic process. You don't want to leave all the translations to be done at the last minute before release, because it can be a huge job ‒ and I know Capcom has English-speaking staff, so getting things translated into English as they're written (or even written first in English and translated into Japanese) is bound to be a priority.

But at the same time, things get re-written all the time during development. Maybe we've changed our minds about some story or technical detail. Maybe we've spotted an error. Maybe the text is slightly too long. Which can be a major headache, if every minor change might need to be translated into multiple other languages, and/or checked by multiple different people to make sure it makes sense in context. A lot of minor details will also likely get dropped or embellished during the translation process, either due to misunderstandings or just because producing something which sounds natural in the target language is usually better than wording that is technically correct but linguistically awkward.

So tl;dr: small differences between localisations are bound to happen, and are absolutely grounds for over-analysis, if you're so inclined. Who knows what else might be buried in all those files?

[rallamajoop]

This is really random but what are your headcanons on Mia and Ethan's early childhood? Two, I kind of wonder what your thoughts on a Miranda/Ethan/Mia story would be like (canonically, don't think there's a chance in hell, but it's interesting to consider what could lead to Miranda obsessing over Ethan or Mia in a manner similiar to Rose, because I doubt it would be anything healthy. I don't know, maybe she baby-traps them or something - the baby would have megamycete powers, like Rose.

To answer your first question, basically all my ideas about Ethan and Mia's pre-canon lives are in my fic Quarantine! Probably the only one that counts as 'early childhood' is that I like the idea Ethan spent some summers as a kid living with gun-loving relatives from Texas, just to explain why a guy as mild-mannered as him is still so comfortable using and reloading guns in RE7. He and Mia seem to have lived in Texas, according to Mia's driver's license, at least, and the geography tracks with roughly how long it seems to take him to get to Louisiana, but neither of them have Texas accents, so I doubt either of them grew up there. But they might be more likely to have moved there as adults if Ethan has family and some fond memories of the state.

I have no particular ideas about Mia's early childhood, but hoo boy can I go on and on about everything that happened to her from college to the present day ‒ y'know, the stuff that actually explains all the backstory behind how she wound up working for the Connections (again, see Quarantine if you do actually want to hear me go on about it). But I do like the idea that the music box that was "a wedding gift from Grandma" was her grandma's, not Ethan's, so maybe that counts.

As for Miranda/Ethan/Mia... well heck, you don't have to dig far in the canon to find real support for the idea of Miranda having a sinister fixation on Ethan specifically: I mean, she spends god knows how long pretending to be his wife, and both Heisenberg and Moreau suggest pretty loudly that Miranda's plans involve Ethan 'joining the family', so to speak. The implications are right there, and so much so that I'm already kind of playing them from different angles in both my current WIPs (Follow Me Home and Atypical side-effects may include, FTR). And if I'm not about to share all my ideas on that front, it's mostly because that would mean Spoilers. XD

But let's look at your ideas for now, because there's a whole second ask to elaborate on that one, and it's long, so I'm sticking it under a cut.

That's a lot to cover, so we'll take it point by point. For reference, the post that mentions Miranda possibly getting close to her in some disguised form was this one, primarily about the timeline for how long she might've spent posing as Mia.

Okay, so the elephant in the room when we're talking anything Miranda/Ethan (or Miranda/Mia) is that we are essentially talking about rape, and I'd rather acknowledge that up front. There's no real redeeming a character like Miranda; the nicest possible way I can imagine her getting to Ethan would involve deliberately driving a wedge between him and Mia, then taking advantage of him post-breakup. The more obvious option involves rape-by-deception, with Miranda impersonating Mia. Being Miranda, violence and mind-control are always options too. No judgement here for wanting to go there: this is a horror canon, and there's so much territory here that went under-explored in the game. I'm all for dark scenarios and dirtybadwrong fic, and god knows there's ample potential in what Miranda did to both Mia and Ethan for either ‒ but let's not kid ourselves about where this is going.

So I'm a little thrown by the idea of Miranda 'baby trapping' Ethan. A baby trap generally means one partner trying to prevent the other from leaving a relationship by getting them pregnant, getting themselves pregnant, or faking a pregnancy ‒ perhaps even sabotaging contraception to make it happen. But Miranda is, y'know, not in a relationship with either Mia or Ethan, and the idea of raping someone and then trying to start a relationship with them because one of you is now pregnant is… well, I mean, it's definitely a thing that has happened in some parts of the world, but I think we've left traditional 'baby trap' territory pretty far behind.

Naive as he can be, I don't think Ethan Winters would be particularly susceptible to this one. I can see Ethan being more reluctant to kill Miranda if she's pregnant, or doing his best to save the baby after it's born, but "this complete stranger who impersonated my wife and raped me thinks we're in a relationship now" is a level of delusion I do not see even Ethan falling for. Miranda's canonically 100% willing to use deception, manipulation and straight-up mind-control to get what she wants; she doesn't need "I'm having your baby!" as a tactic.

In other points worth addressing, I wouldn't take Ethan and Mia's fertility as evidence that Miranda would be necessarily fertile herself. Maybe she is, maybe she isn't, but the Winters were infected by a different strain of the mould under very different circumstances. Ethan's fertility may even be just about unique: if anyone with the mould in their system could have produced a kid like Rose, I doubt getting one would've taken Miranda so long.

But regardless of her own status, Ethan's fertility is still categorically the prime reason Miranda would be interested in him. He is, after all, the father of 'her' child, or at least her child's new body. That's plenty reason enough for someone as fucked up as Miranda to get Ideas about Ethan's place in her new 'family'.

And as I touched on above, there is a surprising amount in canon to back that up. Heisenberg states outright that Miranda's been having Ethan destroy her current 'family' as a test to see if he's good enough to join himself, and Moreau's heartfelt, "I should be with her, not you," strongly suggests that Miranda doesn't want Ethan as just another new 'child'.

Then you've got everything she was up to in the Winters' home. Sure, we're probably meant to assume that Miranda impersonated Mia as a means to get close enough to Rose to make sure she was a suitable vessel for Eva without immediately alerting the authorities. Perhaps she originally assumed that Mia was the source of most of Rose's powers, and capturing and experimenting on Mia was a means to learn more. Fuck, maybe she's even had Mia pegged as a potentially compatible infectee and future surrogate mother since way back when she was working with the Connections ‒ maybe that's even part of how Eveline got the idea that Mia was the one she wanted as her mother in the first place.

And there would be so much territory to play with here! We know nothing about Mia's own history with Miranda, beyond the fact that one photo was taken. I've speculated before) that it may have only been taken shortly before Mia and Alan left to transport Eveline to the US, but that's certainly not the only option. There's every reason to imagine that the Connections might've had genetic profiles of its own staff, and Miranda might well have had access to them. And there's no reason to imagine that the Connections would've done anything to protect Mia if Miranda was developing a creepy fascination with one of their best agents, or had requested she be transferred to the E-series project, perhaps even considered as a donor or incubator for the next series. Mia would've had no-one she could've gone to if Miranda's interest made her uncomfortable. In that situation, Mia's disappearance en route to the US might have saved her from much worse. You could really go so many places developing Miranda's history with Mia, climaxing with her capture and imprisonment in Miranda's lab.

But Ethan still remains the more obvious target for any fixation Miranda might've developed with the Winters. I mean, the fact she spent so much time living in Ethan's home, imitating his wife… man, is that suggestive, no matter how you slice it.

The major fly in the ointment of the whole theory is, of course, that none of Miranda's own interactions with Ethan suggest much interest in him 'joining the family' in any capacity ‒ and I'm sure that's the main reason I've never seen much fic exploring the idea. When she finally reveals herself to Ethan, she greets him with nothing but mocking disdain. But that's nothing you can't work around with a little imagination.

Perhaps claiming Ethan was the original plan, but in the time since, she's realised he'd never want her willingly, and is immune to her usual mind-control powers over other infected, and now she's going all tsundere, playing it like she was never that interested in him anyway. Maybe Chris bursting in with guns blazing messed up her original plans to manipulate Ethan into believing that Miranda's twisted version of his wife was always the real woman he was in love with, who would willingly hand over his daughter and follow her back to her village, to assassinate her 'false' children in a show of devotion. The idea of her turning Ethan against Chris (or the real Mia) is actually a hell of an image too, or trying similar tactics on Mia by imitating Ethan. Miranda is categorically a fairy-tale witch-queen, and a willingness to turn on a previous lover who no longer seems pliable or useful is wholly in character.

It's also notable that, as devoted as Miranda is to her long-lost Eva, we never hear a single breath about Eva's father. Was he alive or dead when she lost Eva? Was she ever married? Was he ever more to her than some itinerant asshole who left her pregnant? We don't know, because he's no longer of any importance to her. Miranda is not someone with any obvious capacity for romantic or sexual love.

It's not even remotely clear whether her apparent love for Eva took any form that the real Eva would appreciate, had she lived or been reborn to experience it. Eva is dead, and thus perfect, incapable of disappointing her mother with any mortal flaw. And though Miranda may be incapable of loving, she certainly enjoys devotion from all her subjects, right up until the devoted are judged to outlived their usefulness. I'm sure her only interest in Ethan would be to expect him to express the same devotion, and she wouldn't hesitate to discard him the moment he disappointed her.

Of course, the idea of Miranda developing her own twisted obsession with Ethan, as you suggest ‒ deciding he's already hers, much as she did with Rose ‒ is a pretty compelling angle too. I can't see her loving Ethan, but convincing herself that Ethan was meant to be hers ‒ this perfect father figure for her reborn daughter, host of the same mould Miranda herself gifted to the Connections, so clearly a gift from the very fates in answer to her long years of labour! It's not a huge stretch to imagine her getting invested enough in that idea to be furious and disbelieving when Ethan turns her down.

At the end of the day, it's still perfectly believable that she never had any interest in Ethan beyond what she expresses in game, and that Heisenberg and Moreau were mistaken about her intentions. But had Miranda been a little more invested, or Ethan a little more susceptible to her attempts at mind control and manipulation, it's very easy to imagine the conflict of the game going in some very different directions. And her plans for Mia are a completely blank page in canon, and could go anywhere you like.

[rallamajoop]

What if Shadow of Rose isn’t actually a sixteen year time skip? We know Rose has a lot of the same symptoms as Evelyn. Wouldn’t it also make sense for her to be so ostracized if she were aging faster than her peers?

I like that you're asking the question, Anon ‒ the same thought has occurred to me too! You're correct that nothing in Shadow of Rose is dated (or if it is, I missed it too). The possibility that Rose might have aged at an abnormal rate isn't that out there either, considering that we know Eveline's apparent 10-year-old age was artificially maintained, and that she aged rapidly without those treatments. Rose isn't Eveline, of course, but who knows what's true for her? (I mean, one hopes at least any accelerated aging Rose might face will cut off at adulthood, but still.) Miranda's experiments have clearly frozen people at the age they were when experimented on too, which is further proof the mould can fuck with aging in various ways.

Regardless of when Shadows of Rose is actually set though, I'm not surprised that we aren't given any hard dates. Resident Evil is a rare franchise that's always aged more or less in real time: events like the Raccoon City Outbreak are still referenced as taking place in the 90's, and RE8's Chris certainly looks like he's pushing 50 these days. (I also suspect this is one reason why all those fans clamoring for a return of Jill or Claire haven't got their wish yet: letting the fanboys deal with how both women should have aged just as much as Chris is more than Capcom probably has the balls for.)

But if Rose really is, say, 16 in SoR, that puts the date around 2037 (the wiki uses this year, but as usual cites 0 sources, so is likely bullshit). And that's just a little awkward from a continuity standpoint, because SoR would also have us believe that not only is Chris still alive and working well into his sixties, he's apparently still working with his Dog-Dog squad too. That could be a problem going forward, because it really limits what the franchise can realistically do with Chris for the next solid generation or so.

It's not just Chris, either: selling the audience on potentially-world-changing future major bio threats is going to be that little bit harder when we "know" that there's a future in canon already, and that future looks like SoR.

So it's very much in Capcom's interest to play a little coy with the dates for SoR. Fans can't come to them complaining that (say, for example) RE11 comes along and tells us Hound Wolf disband in 2035 when we don't actually know for sure that SoR is set later than that. It may well be one of the reasons why we don't see any recognisable faces like Chris or Mia in the DLC: the time gap is more ambiguous if we don't get to see how much they've aged. Besides, keeping them unseen leaves RE9 free to have them lose an eye or gain a sexy new scar without contradicting anything SoR's shown us already. And if the timeline does get tight, they've always got the option of going back later and telling us that Rose actually does age unnaturally fast, and in fact SoR is only 4 years after RE8. When writing for an ongoing franchise, leaving that sort of wiggle room for later installments to explore is often the best policy.

But all this aside, is there anything to suggest that Rose does age fast, or that SoR is set closer to the present than it looks at first glance? The biggest flaw in the theory would be that baby!Rose is already six months old, and seems to be developing at a normal rate. She's recently started solid food, she doesn't seem to be crawling yet, let alone walking (Ethan makes a comment about dusting out the spare room before Rose gets mobile) ‒ from the outside, she looks pretty normal. Given the range of different ages at which babies hit different developmental milestones, that doesn't really prove anything, but no points in our favour so far.

Surprisingly then, the single biggest indicator that a serious number of years really have (probably) passed is, well, this guy. Remember K?

You wouldn't know it, but he's apparently a member of the same incarnation of Hound Wolf Chris is leading in RE8 proper: apparently K = Canine. Honestly, I didn't even make the connection until I found out they had the same voice actor (Conner Marx), 'K' appearing in the credits for SoR only under the name 'Canine'.

But in my defense, they've done their level best the mask that connection, given that Rose calls him only 'K' in the DLC, while Chris was calling him 'Canine' in the main game. And it was consistently rendered in subs and text as a six-letter-word: 'Canine', never 'K-9'. Nor is this helped by the fact that unused concepts tell us he's a dog handler called Charlie Graham (written in katakana next to his pic), or that the voice actor's performance in the two stories is so wildly different.

Heck, for all I know, maybe 'K' and 'Canine' are two different characters played by the same VA, and the SoR credits used the wrong name. They're both dark-haired, blue-eyed white guys, but the resemblance isn't that obvious (they don't even use the same eye texture ‒ because you know I'd check that). Conner Marx also played Sebastian, the guy with the crutches from Louisa's house, so it's not like Canine is his only role either way.

Assuming they are supposed to be the same guy though, 'Canine' does seem to be one of the more prominent members of the team throughout the main RE8 storyline, not that you'd know it without applying the Hound-Wolf No Mask mod to reveal the team's faces. He's the guy who jumps Ethan and gets judo-flipped in Moreau's area, the guy Chris tells to check out what the BSAA's up to at the start of his section, and the guy in the chopper at the end showing Chris that bioweapon under the BSAA helmets. So he's arguably one of the more logical characters to bring back. Conveniently, you can watch all those scenes with their faces revealed in this compilation video if you're interested.

(Naturally, when I'm playing with mods, Chris does not escape unscathed either. Alt-costumes from RE5 are TOTALLY canon, convince me otherwise!)

While I'm on the subject, can I also mention what a terrific job Conner Marx of bringing K to life in SoR? It's a real shame that everything we learn about K is retroactively proven to be one of Miranda's illusions. She's really upped her game since mimicking Mia back in the original RE8 opening (but then, when Mr. Denial himself is your only audience, why not phone it in?)

But getting back to the original point, K/Canine is the one character who does at least appear to have aged by a solid decade or two in the intervening years. You know, if you compare his SoR appearance to concept art, and that unseen head model that doesn't actually appear in the original RE8 at all.

So here's the thing I want to underline: unused concepts and models you have to hack the game to see are not canon. They can be interesting, as a window into the evolution of creative intent, but no-one should feel beholden to them. There clearly were some plans to reveal the faces of the Hound Wolf squad in RE8 that didn't make the final game, or they wouldn't have distinct faces modelled at all ‒ there's even a storyboard suggesting how it was meant to happen ‒ but it's still hard to guess how 'finished' those face models really were. There's no reason Capcom couldn't completely redesign the whole squad between now and whenever we do officially see their faces in a later RE title (assuming we ever do at all).

So basically, there's nothing to prevent them from coming back a few years from now and telling us the K under the mask in RE8 always looked like the middle-aged guy from SoR, if they want to. The info they've actually given us leaves that open, for now at least.

But in the meantime, the fact K's model appears to have been aged up a good decade plus is probably a decent indicator that SoR is probably intended to be a long way into the future, and that Rose probably ages at a normal rate. But it never hurts to keep your options open. The less concrete lore you have, the less risk of contradicting yourself later on (as so many 'facts' from guide books often do). More is not always better, just because some fan wants to be able to post a definitive RE timeline on Reddit or something.

So yes, as usual, I have taken an innocent little question and spun it all into a whole lecture on unused concepts and some of the realities of writing for a franchise! (Look, if you're reading this blog, you should what you signed up for at this point.) But to reiterate: I do like the idea that Rose may be younger than she appears! It may or may not be intended, but there's certainly nothing in canon to contradict it, and it's a very interesting possibility all on its own.

[rallamajoop]

NC-17, 6095 words (this part), 38,275 words (so far)

"Is there anything I can do? My resources are at your disposal!" For a price, thinks Ethan, but really, money is the least of his problems these days. "Not unless you have a family ticket out of the country to sell me. Or some good advice about how to deal with..." he starts, only realising what he was on the verge of asking when it's almost too late. "...about?" the Duke prompts him. Ethan lets out another sigh. If he can't tell the Duke, who can he tell? "About... god, about being tempted by someone who's not my wife!"

Read from start

[rallamajoop]

PG, 530 words

Michael. The sound of his name barely raises him from a deep, dreamless sleep. He feels like he's floating, suspended in space. Wake up, Michael.

Happy Valentines day, have a teeny little snippet of David/Michael fluff!

This started as an idea for a bonus scene following the end of Will of the Living. But it's a little irrelevant to work as an epilogue, a little short to feel worth posting as a whole new fic, and generic enough to fit into almost any David/Michael story where all the Lost Boys live, so adding it to the One of us ficlet collection made more sense to me. It can still be part of Will of the Living if you want to to, though.

[rallamajoop]

Lost Boys fic I am not writing, part 2

I've always had a bit of a thing for creating what amount to multi-choice versions of the same story. I didn't mean to do this for Pater Unfamilias, but there I was a little while back, idly thinking about how I've always assumed there's a universe out there where David and Michael don't end up fucking after the blood transfer in Pater Familias, and about how there's probably also a universe where Tony WAS Michael's first kill, and all the half-formed ideas I had for the Max confrontation that didn't end up being used… and I wound up with an entire alternate version of that story.

See, the thing about David in that story is that as much as he wants Michael, he's very much got his eyes on the prize - and the prize is a Michael who's willingly made his first kill and has no going back. If there's any chance Michael might upend his plans with a bit of a heterosexual panic, well, David is completely willing to delay gratification until Michael's all-in on vampirehood. Or alternately: David is just completely willing to spend the whole night edging Michael just for the fun of it.

So in this alternate version of Pater Familias, things still get a little hot and heavy during the blood transfer, but David never goes in for the kiss. Instead, he just makes Michael put his shirt back on and head out straight away. Michael knows there's something going on between him and David, but he doesn't fully understand what, and gets dragged out to make his first kill regardless (probably on his own bike in this version… unless David talks him into riding bitch just to mess with him, which is actually a pretty fun idea now I think of it). Much the same conversation from the first part of Will of the Living over who to kill takes place, and they still wind up going to Tony's place. But in this universe, because David and Michael did not stop to upend Michael's whole sexual identity after the blood transfer, they make it there much earlier - before Max ever arrives.

Tony lets them in, but he's suspicious. He's expecting Max, but Max sure didn't say anything about the boys coming over tonight. David makes a big song-and-dance about introducing him to Michael, which does relax Tony a little (he already knows Max has plans to expand the family), and David tells him they're looking to do something 'special' for Michael's first kill. Tony initially assumes they're asking him to organise something, but eventually catches on that he's the 'special' something, and now we get to the 'begging for his life' portion of the evening.

If you've already read my post on the Hypothetical Simon Says Part 3, you've already seen another version of Tony-begs-for-his-life. Things would go differently in alt-universe land though, because Tony would be well aware that Michael's just a half-vampire and therefore human enough to require a different tack, and would go for the 'spare me, I have a family!' angle instead. Already knowing he's divorced, Michael would be all, "So where are they?" Tony would do the whole song-and-dance about just needing the chance to win his wife back, and this would probably be the part where the other Lost Boys go exploring the house and turning up the evidence of how little Tony is actually invested in that (family photo stuffed in a drawer with a cigarette burn over his wife's face, underwear left lying around that definitely does not belong to his wife, etc), so Michael's really not buying it. But there's bound to be some violence where Tony attempts to make a run for it and fails, and definitely a bit where David gets Tony's blood all over his fingers and pushes them into Michael's mouth to 'give him a taste'. But one way or another, Tony runs sufficiently afoul of Michael's daddy issues to end up severely un-alived, courtesy of Michel Emerson.

And while Michael's kind of standing there dissociating a little in the aftermath of having just killed someone, David comes up to ask him how it tastes ("Not as good as yours"), lick the blood off Michael's lips, and kiss him properly for the first time ‒ which is very effective at distracting Michael from all that existential murder-angst. David stops it at a kiss, which Michael fully enjoys but doesn't really understand - he ends up trying to tell himself David was just trying to get a taste of Tony's blood or something, which is disappointing because Michael's aware by now that he really wants David to do it again.

But while Michael's still reeling, this is when Max arrives. He realises Tony's dead immediately (there is A Mess) - and worse, in this version, Michael fails to respond to an order from Max, and Max figures out exactly what David's done. Max is not happy, and he orders David to kill Michael.

David resists to the best of his ability, but it doesn't do much good. Michael defends himself, but Max orders the others to help, and they hold Michael down while David drains Michael's blood for the second time in one night, which Michael kinda sorta gets off on a little even while genuinely thinking he's about to die for real… but right when he's at the edge of death, Max orders David to stop.

Yeah, so it turns out Max isn't quite ready to kill Lucy's son, he just wanted to teach David a lesson. Max is also kinda hoping that this soon after Michael's first kill, it might still be possible to change who his sire is again, so he rips open a wrist and feeds Michael his own blood.

This is a great power move on paper, but it backfires. For one, unlike when David did this the first time, Max doesn't have a full stomach of fresh blood, so for Michael to drink as much as he needs to get him off death's door weakens Max considerably. More importantly, Max's theory doesn't pay off. He orders Michael to stop, but Michael just ignores him and keeps drinking. Max tries again, maybe threatening David if Michael doesn't obey… but Michael's getting his strength back, and he's inside Max's guard, and Michael lashes out and rips out Max's throat. Max can no longer speak to give orders, so David's free - and in this universe, he falls on Max in a wild fury and tears him apart, and it is fucking brutal (no prizes for guessing why). Michael and the others don't get to do more than watch.

When David gets to the stage where he's pretty much just stomping what's left of Max into the carpet, Michael goes to try and calm him down, and for his trouble, he gets pinned to the wall with David's tongue down his throat in a possessive fury (there is probably some yelling things like "NO-ONE gets to take you from me" etc). And THIS is where they finally fuck, probably on Tony's bed, with Michael going all, oh, THIS is what it was all about, because everything he's been feeling for David all night finally makes sense.

And that's pretty much the whole scenario. After they've both calmed down, Michael still realises he needs to go talk to Sam, but this time David comes with him and with much less bitching, because Michael's a full vampire now and David is not risking him getting so caught up saying goodbye that he forgets to head for home before sunrise. And the conversation with Sam is probably pretty similar, give or take David out the window tapping his watch. (The same conversation with Grandpa does not happen, for obvious reasons, though maybe Michael runs into him briefly on his way out.)

[rallamajoop]

hi!! i saw your compilations of photos from re7 and re8 and thought it was intriguing that some photos look hyper realistic like the ones with mother miranda but others look more animated like mia holding rose and her pregnancy photos. i just dont know why there is a difference like that with photos that come from the same game and maybe you can have an explanation for that? thank you!

Well, yeah ‒ some of the "photos" are renders of in-game models. Others are photomanips of real human faces ‒ presumably the same real humans who had their features scanned as face models for those characters. I already talked about this a bit in my post on the lab photos, FTR. Throwing an actual human face into a fully-rendered horror environment is one of those occasionally-used tricks to lend something a slightly uncanny, out-of-place air ‒ RE is far from the only game to do it (look up the Forbidden Siren series on youtube sometime for another fascinating example of how to use realism for seriously sinister effect). It's like having the eyes of a painting (literally!) follow you around the room, or catching your own reflection in a mirror at the wrong moment ‒ a detail that breaks down the barriers between game world and real world in a wonderfully unnerving way.

You can see the contrast pretty clearly in how Mia looks in her family photos from around the Winters' home in RE8 vs how she looks in photos of her with Ethan or Eveline from RE7 (surprisingly, her drivers license from RE7 seems to be a face render though). Why not do all the photos the same way? Because family photos aren't supposed to look sinister. Renders of the in-game models look like they're part of the same world as the rest of the game in a way hyper-realistic photos don't. Lab photos of creepy experiments are supposed to look sinister. A snapshot of Mia hanging out with Eveline or attached to the email Eveline forced her to send Ethan to bait him into danger are pretty sinister too. It's all about the vibes they're going for.

(Granted, it's also possible some of those pics were just generated in a hurry based on what was easier for whoever was on a deadline. Sometimes, editing a photograph may be simpler than posing an in-game model in a very specific way. Other times, just taking a quick snapshot of a model face may be easier. Some pics may be 'temporary' placeholders that were never replaced with 'final' copies because time was short and/or the placeholder was judged good enough for how long the player would see them. A lot of work goes into these games from a lot of team members with different skillsets and time pressures. But most of the RE stuff looks pretty deliberate to me.)

To the best of my knowledge, none of the face-models actually posed for those photos, or even knew what characters their faces were going to be used for when the scans were originally done. I'm not even completely sure the all faces in all those photos are the original face models, or just someone else who was 'close enough'.

I have no actual behind-the-scenes sources talking about any of this, mind, so you're free to take my version with a grain of salt. But I think the results speak for themselves.

[rallamajoop]

NC-17, 2269 words (this part), 8,936 (so far)

Heisenberg gets an interesting look on his face when Ethan admits he's never exactly done anal before. Or even really thought about it, let alone... "Don't you worry," Heisenberg promises with a hungry grin, "I'll take good care of you." He proceeds to strip Ethan, puts him face down on an old mattress, and then spends so long slowly and methodically opening him up with his fingers that Ethan comes again, for a third time, without ever getting to the main event. He can't even make himself mind. It turns out that prostate orgasms really are that good.

Read from start

Yeah, so it turns out this one might be getting a proper ending after all. Calling this one probably chapter 3 of 5, but we'll have to see if that sticks ‒ in the meantime, have some smut, because that's really what this AU is about (mostly).

[rallamajoop]

the RE fandom is interesting in that we have a series that make it a point to have all the bioweapons with a series like the T-series and they accept that... unless it is about RE7 because despite it being E-series and a file calling Eveline and the E-series bioweapons I occassionally see people saying it's not a real RE game because there are no bioweapons like okay? it's been a few days and i am still baffled by it.

Uh, I assume you're thinking of the T-virus. Most Resident Evils have a letter-virus of some variety (G-virus, C-virus, etc), and if the wiki is to be believed, those letters stood for something (Tyrant, Chrysalid, etc). RE7 dispenses with the viruses, and instead tells us Eveline was a member of the E-series, with the preceding round of experiments being the D-series. Presumably, they've been going alphabetically with work started back at the A-series. So it's not really the same thing as the old virus nomenclature, but then, I don't think anyone seriously thinks the identity of the RE series is wrapped up in whether there's a bioweapon with a letter for a name.

The "critique" I have seen thrown at RE8 once or twice (and which may be more like what you're really trying to get at?) is that it's not 'proper' RE because the bad guys aren't Umbrella anymore, or it lacks zombies, which is pretty hilarious. Firstly because dude, if you need Umbrella-zombies to make your evils resident, I have some real bad news for you about the original RE4. That ship has sailed.

But mostly because, I mean, is this not zombie enough for you?

You've got undead things crawling out of the ground, you've got a lycan infection that spreads by bite, I don't know what else you want here! Another US city getting taken over by a zombie plague? Hasn't that been kind of done to death by now?

Realistically, I imagine the real complaint is more that the new games are not like the old games, and some people who liked the old games don't like the new ones and are having trouble articulating why. Folks who signed up for the original haunted zombie house or the RE2-3 era zombie plague (or even the RE4-6 action-shooty-times) may not be here for high gothic horror or Louisiana hillbilly slasher time, and that's fine: they're allowed to be disappointed the new games are less their thing.

The fact the new RE games centre an untrained everyman like Ethan rather than the special forces teams of most previous RE games does break with a lot of what originally set the franchise apart from other survival horror titles like Silent Hill, and so may be firmer grounds for critique. But back in 1996, the idea that a trained special ops team could find themselves facing something even they weren't prepared for was a big part of what made the horror so horrifying. That doesn't work so well a dozen titles later, when the world of RE has now been dealing with major bio-terror outbreaks for so long that it ought to be a standard part of basic training nowadays. And not innovating away from that ‒ just doing the same thing but bigger with each new game ‒ is what produced the mess that was RE6.

Trying something different with RE7 is how the franchise reinvented itself, to great success. Chris and the cavalry flying in with their machine guns at some point is still part of the game, but no longer the whole experience. Myself, I really like the way they've been playing with different genres over the last couple of games, and I really hope they keep doing it.

Realistically though, there'll always be someone going "they changed it now it sucks". For all I know, maybe I'll be the one doing that when Resident Evil 9 rolls around, if what we get just isn't my thing. Reinvention is what's kept RE relevant, and that's been true since at least the days of RE4, even if no new installment will be for everyone (and even that's assuming the franchise maintains anything like the same success going forwards, which is never guaranteed).

But in the meantime, anyone claiming that the RE series would've been a bigger success without the likes of Lady D can safely be laughed out of the room.

[rallamajoop]

Fic I am not writing: The Lost Boys edition

So, for the record, I'm probably not writing any more fic for the Simon Says (aka Pater Unfamilias/Will of the Living) universe. But that hasn't stopped my brain from occasionally throwing ideas at me, and this is one of them.

If you've read Will of the Living, you'd know it ends with Michael basically agreeing to make the previously-nominated Tony-Something his first 'proper' kill (read: this time David gets to watch). It's not a scene I feel needs to be part of the story, when Michael's already done such a thorough job of committing to his new lifestyle, and watching him wrestle with the actual murder part mostly just for David's satisfaction doesn't strike me as the most pleasant note to end on.

That said, the one way I realised I could see the idea working is if it's told from Tony's POV. He'd already be on the run and probably a good couple of days away from Santa Carla by the time they catch up with him, only to be cornered and end up begging a gang of bike-riding teen vamps for his life, while Michael tries to work himself up for the kill.

Where this goes wrong is that Tony's strategy would mostly involve babbling about how useful he could be if they'd just let him live. He'd keep giving examples of all the things Max had done that Tony had helped cover up for him ‒ completely oblivious to the fact that every word he says only makes it easier for Michael to kill him with a clean conscience (which he eventually does).

Cut to a brief scene from Michael or David's POV to wrap up. We'd end with Michael suggesting that rather than heading straight home, they take the excuse to celebrate being out from under Max's thumb by going on a bit of a road trip (subtext: not least because figuring this whole vampire thing out can only be easier without the risk of running into his family on the boardwalk every night). Maybe they'll even wind up paying Michael's real dad a visit back in Phoenix at some point, and bring all this universe's daddy-issues full circle, but that's well beyond the scope of what I've got thought out.

So why is this not getting written, if I like the idea so much? Mostly because Tony is just not the kind of OC I know what to do with. He'd need a backstory, and a whole shitload of worldbuilding details around what he's actually done for Max (not to mention a real last name for the guy), and I just don't have any good ideas that don't feel too much like work to hammer out. So unless I (or anyone else who really wants to write it) suddenly get struck with real inspiration for creating Max's personal divorced-skeezeball-over-privileged-clean-up-guy, this one's likely to stay hypothetical.

[rallamajoop]

NC-17, 6,408 words (this part), 32,186 (so far)

Back at the lightboard, the x-rays have been marked up with a new layer of pen, all those anomalous shapes inside him outlined and labelled. "It's mould, isn't it?" Ethan asks. "That can't all be scar tissue or whatever." "Whatever, Ethan?" Heisenberg echoes, all theatrical disappointment. "Have some imagination! Why, you could be growing whole new organs in there!" The look Ethan gives him is far too tired to be properly offended. "Am I?" He can already see Heisenberg gearing himself up to milk this moment for all it's worth. Which is annoying, but Ethan really doesn't need another argument right now. As long as Heisenberg has answers, he can grit his teeth and let the man have his fun.

Read from start

Yeah... so the days of this one getting posted in short chapters seem to be officially over (and what I've got of chapter 11 so far suggests that may be a continuing trend). Some days, short works, other days a single scene goes on for 5k+ without hitting a break point.

Also, note that that NC-17 rating is coming back into play again this chapter (even if it does take us a bit to get to it).

[rallamajoop]

What are your thoughts on Tifa from the original game? And why do you think she's such a popular (sometimes in scare quotes) and iconic character?

Did you mean to send this to me? I haven't talked about any of the Final Fantasies in... god, since before I joined this platform, I think, and that was not recent. But for whatever it's worth, fandom at large is never likely to be able to separate Tifa from that stupid shipwar, whereas my own feelings on Tifa can't really be separated from the fact that my sister used to cosplay her once upon a time (I used to cosplay Yuffie ‒ she did Taikwondo and I did gymnastics, it just fit). Tl;dr: I will throw down with anyone who badmouths her in my presence (or, online, more likely roll my eyes, block and move on).

Oh, and her redesign for the new games should have been at least this muscular. Look, it's not my fault Squeenix are cowards.

[rallamajoop]

You wrote the one billion ghosts fic?? I loved your characterization of Kamui. his scenes were my fave! I wish we had gotten to see him interact with Subaru!!

Aw, thanks so much! <3 Kamui doesn't exactly get a lot of scenes, but I'm charmed that he stood out to you nonetheless.

Much like Tsubasa as a whole, The Telling of One Billion Ghost Stories was very much an excuse to throw all (or at least most) of my favourite CLAMP characters into one place, and Kamui was very much on that list. The setting was intentionally conceived of a kind of AU-of-the-canon-AU of Acid Tokyo, but I don't think I ever did really make up my mind as to whether Subaru is in his traditional X-based position in the Dragons of Heaven (and thus presumably on Team Fuuma in this world) or whether he was in something more like Subaru's role from Tsubasa. I don't think Kamui's a vampire in my world, at least, but the whole Subaru/Seishirou thing is just such an epically unfinished trainwreck in both X and Tsubasa that just not mentioning them at all felt like the only safe solution.

In short, as I do love Subaru too, I have no idea where he might be in this universe. So feel free to draw your own conclusions.

[rallamajoop]

You have no idea how happy I am you have all those photos from RE8 because I’ve seriously been wanting to get prints and recreate my own “shrine” on my walls of the art from the game! Do you have a ko-fi of something?

Going through some too-long-neglected asks from my inbox tonight ‒ and thank you, and you're welcome! Did you end up creating the "shrine"? Would love to see pics if you feel like sharing them! (But zero pressure if not!)

Much as I appreciate the offer, I don't have a ko-fi or anything of that nature. I'm lucky enough to be in a really comfortable place financially, and would be way happier to direct people to donate to somewhere or someone who really needs it. If you want something at least vaguely thematically appropriate to donate even a few bucks to, there's always archive.org. I'm always happy to share extracted video game assets, but they're busy making everything from old websites to the full texts of 16th century demonology treatises so readily available to hopeless nerds and compulsive fact-checkers like me (and they have actual hosting costs, which I don't), which I endorse 100%.

[rallamajoop]

Follow Me Home Chapter 10 preview

Third time in a row I've posted one of these now, so I suppose they're officially A Thing.

Anyhow, next chapter is off to the beta! (She's currently ill and under a looming deadline so may not be able to get at it in a hurry, but progress is still progress.) In the meantime, have your regularly-scheduled-preview-snippet, aka. that one scene that was very nearly the final scene of the last chapter (and probably should have been in retrospect, given that the current chapter is looking pretty huge even without it).

*

Heisenberg’s plans for the evening start with the x-ray machine. “Ready to see what else is going on in that head of yours?” he asks with a wink.

Ethan eyes the x-ray suite a little more skeptically. “Do you even know how to work this thing?”

“I’ve been working with ‘these things’ since before you were born,” says Heisenberg, which really isn’t as reassuring as he probably thinks it is. “It’s a newer machine, but the principle doesn’t change. Now, off with your shirt and lie down.”

Oh, here we go. “It’s an x-ray,” Ethan protests. “Is that really necessary?”

Heisenberg raises his eyebrows. One big step puts him well inside Ethan’s personal space, and then there are fingers reaching inside the front of his shirt…

“Metal buttons,” Heisenberg is saying. “We can’t have these obscuring the view.”

Oh, thinks Ethan, panic rescinding. Having Heisenberg this close is a problem, but he did kind of walk right into that one.

“Now,” Heisenberg grins, looking significantly downwards, “do you need me to explain what parts of your pants are going to present the same problem?”

Well, at least he asked, rather than going right for the grope. Ethan disentangles himself with what dignity he has left, and dutifully strips to his boxers (those, at least, Heisenberg is content for him to leave on).

The x-ray process takes a while. Heisenberg wants pictures of most of Ethan’s body, one chunk at a time. Ethan’s been x-rayed enough times in his life to date to be glumly unsurprised by Heisenberg’s complete disregard for any of the radiation safety procedures he’s used to. He does his best to hold his tongue on the subject: much as it irks him, any elevated risk of possible future cancers is so far down his list of serious concerns that he knows Heisenberg would only laugh at him.

Then Heisenberg goes away to develop the photos, or whatever it is they do with x-rays nowadays, and there’s nothing for Ethan to do but wait. That, and obsessively check his nose and ears with a hand-mirror, at least.

He is, naturally, in the middle of doing just that for probably the fourth time since their arrival when Heisenberg comes back. “Enough picking your nose, Ethan. It’s my turn.”

Ethan looks up to find a box of cotton swabs being waved in his face. He sighs and turns around properly – only then getting his first view of the collection of x-ray photos now covering the lightboard behind him, and realising just how busy Heisenberg’s been. Everything on the board is still recognisably human, at least.

Heisenberg wants swabs from his nose, ears, and tongue. Ethan spends a lot of the process looking over the other man’s shoulder. He’s no expert at interpreting x-rays – how doctors identify half the details they can apparently see in them has always baffled him. But even to him, some of the shapes he can see extending through his chest and up into his head look distinctly abnormal.

“Is that… mould?” he asks at last.

Heisenberg dumps his final swab into a test tube and looks back over his shoulder, following Ethan’s line of sight.

“Seems likely. One way to find out for sure.” He stands up again, and when he comes back, he’s holding a syringe with a worryingly long needle. “I take it you’re familiar with the concept of a biopsy?”

Ethan is, for better or worse. “Where do you want it?” he asks with a sigh.

“We’re going to need samples from a few different places to test this hypothesis,” Heisenberg grins. “But there’s anaesthetic if you want it. Looks like some pretty good shit!”

That’s unusually civilised by Heisenberg-standards. “Do you actually know how to use that stuff?”

“You’re not the first live patient I’ve ever worked on, Ethan,” says Heisenberg, which is again less reassuring than he probably thinks. Ethan considers his options, staring vaguely at Heisenberg’s array of cotton swabs, sitting in their test tubes. They’re all labelled, which is more organisation than Ethan expected from the man, even if it is just with marker and tape.

“Don’t worry about it,” he decides. “I’ve had worse, we both know I heal quickly.” And if anything strange does happen, he’d rather be aware when it does. Besides, the less time they spend here, the better.

“If you say so.” With a gesture, Heisenberg invites him to lie down. “Brace yourself, this is going to hurt.”

[rallamajoop]

Since I've already linked to the big one, have some links to the other two new Lost Boys fic I wrote for this year's Yuletide.

PG, 2,215 words

You think you can bury me, Michael? Back in my coffin, six feet deep? You're gonna need a deeper hole than that to bury it all.

For @zoi-no-miko (who I must say was a most appreciative recipient too!) who wanted David the fantastic little shit that he canonically is. *g* This wound up being my own little take on some of what might've gone down immediately post-movie-climax, and Michael's feelings thereon.

PG, 1,666 words

An earring may not be as traditional as a ring on the finger, but David's never been a traditionalist, and this will mark Michael as one of them in a way that's so much harder to mistake. Besides, a ring wouldn't pierce his flesh or seal their bond in blood, wouldn't even give Michael the excuse to lay his head down in David's lap.

For dragonflower1, who wanted something where the tension between Michael and David builds into some kind of action, which turned into an excuse for a David POV on the ever popular question of just how Michael got that earring.