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dominickeating-source · 2 months

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TV Zone Special Issue #48 (2002)

Keating The British End Up

It's hard [not] to notice that Lt. Reed is the only British character in a strongly American series. Steven Eramo met with actor Dominic Keating to talk about Enterprise's old new frontier.

THE CREW OF THE Enterprise NX-01 had no idea what awaited them when they warped off into the cosmos on their first mission to the Klingon home world. As tactical/armory officer, Lt. Malcolm Reed was responsible for maintaining the ship's defenses. He spent his first few months in space fine-tuning the targeting scanners for the photon torpedoes and getting the phase cannons to work. Not one to pass up an adventure, the lieutenant has also had his fair share of close encounters with some friendly and not-so-friendly aliens. So the past twelve months or so have been anything but dull for him. Like his TV alter ego, Dominic Keating did not know quite what to expect when he signed on to play the very British Reed on the latest Star Trek spin-off Enterprise. According to the actor, his first year in the Trek universe had plenty of ups and very few downs. "I couldn't be more pleased," enthuses Keating. "I'll admit, though, that initially I was a bit concerned that the Initial thrust of the show seemed to be the triumvirate of Captain Archer [Scott Bakula], T'Pol [Jolene Blalock] and Trip [Connor Trinneer]. At one point I was going to phone [Enterprise co-creator and executive producer] Brannon Braga and ask him, 'Hey, what's up?' I didn't want to become the guy that only said, 'Hull plating is down 25%, Captain,' in the best British accent that I could muster.

"In retrospect I'm so glad I didn't make that call and act a bit like a headless chicken if you will because suddenly things began to change. Around the corner came stories such as Shuttlepod One and Sleeping Dogs. It became clear to me that Malcolm was going to have a distinct role to play in the telling of this ensemble story. I also didn't expect my character to become the 'action man' of the piece. As a child I was always good at playing cowboys and Indians in the backyard. I loved to run around and hunker down behind a wall and pretend to be fired upon," laughs the actor. "Now all these years later I'm getting to do it all over again but in outer space. I'm over the moon - no pun intended - about that.

"I was at a Trek convention in Las Vegas recently and Brannon was also there. We spent an evening sitting and chatting quite casually for the first time. He and I discussed the fact that in some ways Malcolm Reed is one of the most enigmatic and versatile characters on the show. He's the least prone too two-dimensionally and the viewers seem able to accept any sort of contradiction in his character flaws. As a result, the writers can go any way with Malcolm and I like that. At one turn he's charming and coy and the next he's bad tempered and irritable. Then there are times that he's all by the book and no-nonsense and yet he can also be a jokester with a very dry sense of humour. I think Malcolm has great prospects in the years to come."

Like many actors, Keating is his own worst critic when it concerns his craft. That said, is there anything he would have done differently when it came to playing Malcolm Reed in Enterprise's first year? "Well, there was that one look I gave Hoshi [Linda Park] in the pilot. I thought I was being charming and sexy and I just looked camp and ridiculous. I'll never do that lip movement again," he jokes. "I've never done 26 episodes of something back-to-back and then seen it weekly. I mean, I do watch the episodes and I watch them with a fine-tooth comb. I weed out what does and doesn't work. There are some things you do that seem fine at the time but, in fact, actually end up telegraphing something else. You don't want to get too highfalutin insofar as, 'What's my motivation? Where's my obstruction? Where am I going with this?' If something doesn't feel right you have to be aware of it and tell yourself, 'That doesn't work, kid?'

"This is also my first time playing a part where I've begun to allow who Dominic is into Malcolm," continues the actor. "I've never trusted myself to do that before. When you read a three-line character breakdown at the beginning of your audition process you kind of get locked into that description. With Malcolm it was, 'Shy around women, button-down, by the book, typical Brit.'. Descriptions such as these very much denote how you're going to play your character, but only if you let them. For the first time I've been able to flesh Malcolm out and play him at odds with himself. For example, if I as Dominic thought a moment in a scene had a tinge of humour to it and felt it was appropriate to laugh at then I'd let Malcolm laugh. This is where that murky land of who's Malcolm Reed and who's Dominic Keating becomes the finished product.

"I know there have been times when Rick Berman [co-creator and executive producer] has said to me, 'That's too much, Dominic'. There was a nightclub scene in the Risa episode [Two Days and Two Nights] where I was too loose. We ended up doing another take and I had to tone things down slightly. Because Malcolm was on holiday I thought, 'He can let his hair down a bit'. Unfortunately, I stretched things a little too thin and you could see his cellulite," chuckles Keating. "You have to be careful not to do that."

MOST REGULAR Enterprise viewers will agree that the actor's first season tour de force is the aforementioned episode Shuttlepod One. In it, Malcolm and Commander (Trip) Tucker are returning to the Enterprise after a mission when their shuttlepod is damaged. They manage to reach their rendezvous point where they discover that the Enterprise has apparently been destroyed in a collision with an asteroid. The two officers suddenly find themselves marooned in space with only a few days of air left.

"Oddly enough, the filming of Shuttlepod One wound up crossing with Sleeping Dogs because Les Landau, who directed Dogs, was taken ill," recalls Keating. "As a result, director David Livingston was called in right away to start shooting Shuttlepod One. We did four or five days on that episode and then Les was well enough to come back to work. So we filmed the last day of Dogs right in the middle of Shuttlepod One, which was a little weird. We actually shot the scenes for Shuttlepod One pretty much in order, which is very unusual, and we were well into a rhythm. It was somewhat of a rude awakening for me to suddenly be pulled out for a day, dressed in another costume, and put back on the Klingon battle cruiser with Jolene and Linda to finish up Dogs.

"I remember filming the last scene of Shuttlepod One in sickbay and not wanting it to end. I was sad. It was a good energy to have, though, as it lent itself nicely to the scene. It had been a wonderful week and my best experience to date in front of a camera. I think it's a terrific piece of hour-long TV I really love working with Connor. He's a very generous and talented actor and we have a good rapport on and off-screen. Rick Berman was so excited when he saw the rough cut of the episode that he came down to the set to pat Connor and me on our backs. He told us, 'Of all the shows I've ever produced this is the one I'm most proud of. That's weighty praise, indeed."

At the time of this interview (early September) Keating and the rest of the Enterprise cast and crew were well into filming the show's second season. One of the first stories to be shot was called Minefield. It features Malcolm Reed, who finds himself pinned under a deep-space mine on the hull of the Enterprise.

"Finally Malcolm and the captain are seen in close proximity with one another," says the actor. "If there was one disappointment I had about the first season it's that I didn't get to do an awful lot with Scott. I certainly never got to sit at Captain Archer's mess table, and God that bothered me. Even Anthony Montgomery's character of Mayweather sat there. Come on, he's just an ensign, Malcolm's a lieutenant. We take these things very seriously," he jokes.

"Scott and I spent 16 hours a day for five days in EV [environmental] suits for the filming of Minefield, which is no mean feat I'll tell you. Poor Scott threw his back out and we both lost 10 pounds. It was one hell of a week. However, it was terrific working with Scott. It's quite a gargantuan episode. Not wishing to sort of taint it in any way but in some respects it was Shuttlepod One revisited only with Malcolm and Archer. One big difference was it had a ticking clock. I can honestly say that week�s 'guest star' was the biggest prop I�ve ever worked with," laughs Keating.

IN AN IDEAL world, the actor would love to be doing episodes such as Minefield and Shuttlepod One every other week. However, he realizes this is not possible given the inherent structure of series TV and, in particular, Enterprise. "Early on I thought that Enterprise was going to be ER only in space," he says. "The ship would be the emergency room and you'd have these seven doctors who were spacemen all having interesting story lines with each other. And there would be new patients - the aliens - coming in each week. That's difficult to do, though. I also know that Trek has an established format and they're not about to throw that out the window.

"I've heard through the grapevine that ideas for new episodes have been mooted and debated at production level meetings. And the word will come back that, 'Yes, great idea. Too bad it's Shuttlepod One. We've been there, done that.' You can't do it again for whatever reason within the confines of this series. I suppose in more reality-based shows like a medical or police dramas that Human relationships do kind of go round and round in circles and some scenes do seem like one another. However, I guess it just doesn't ring true with Sci-Fi. That said, I think the people in charge of Enterprise have done a fine job of presenting a Sci-Fi adventure epic and introducing a cast of characters that the viewers can get to know and, hopefully, come to care about."

Like most actors associated with a Star Trek series, Keating has made a point of going to conventions and meeting the fans. "I'm actually the convention king on our programme," he laughs. "I've been to 12 or 13 already. Just recently, though, I've taken a bit of a backseat from them. I thought, 'OK, that's enough for now'. It takes a lot out of you I've got to say. You're up at 5 in the morning, get on a 6 o'clock flight, fly for four or five hours, do your hour on stage, sign autographs, pose for pictures, and then you're back on a plane to Los Angeles. By the time you get home you're like, 'I'm knackered'. However, it's tremendous fun meeting and talking with the fans. I remember the first con I did was quite nerve-racking but I've since gotten into a stride, and quite frankly you can't shut me up now. The biggest one I've done so far was in Germany where six thousand people turned up. I walked out on that stage and it was like being in a boy band. I felt like a member of N'Sync for the day. It was extraordinary."

IT WAS TWO YEARS ago when TV Zone first met up with Keating. He was in the middle of filming his first episode of The Immortal in which he portrayed the wickedly handsome and decidedly evil demon Mallos, the Lord of Darkness. In many ways this was the start of the Leicester lad's new career in America.

"I'd just done a film with Burt Reynolds, Rod Steiger and Tom Berenger called The Hollywood Sign," says the actor. "Sadly, it never was released here. Apparently, it was a big hit in Holland because the director [Sonke Wortmann] was a Dutch fellow. Right after that I was cast in The Immortal and went up to Vancouver to shoot the first few episodes with Lorzeno Lamas [Raphael 'Rafe' Cain] and the beautiful Kira Clavell [Vashista].

"It was around this time I began to realize that suddenly I was working more regularly than ever before since coming to the States. While I was going back and forth from Los Angeles to Vancouver to do The Immortal I got a call from Zalman King. He cast me in his new erotic/comedic romp ChromiumBlue.com in which I play a bisexual ghost, can you believe it? Hey, I'm versatile if nothing else. I went from the Lord of Darkness to the Queen of Camp and now the King of the Armoury Room on Enterprise. I don't think even Robert De Niro can boast that litany," laughs Keating.

"Never in a million years, though, did I think I'd end up on a seven-year Sci-Fi series like Enterprise, but now that I have it's fantastic, I'm definitely of an age where I'm old enough to appreciate it and young enough to still enjoy it, you know? I'm so grateful to whatever higher power saw fit to bestow this upon me because I realize how fleeting such things can be. If they didn't like one little thing I did in the network audition I might not have gotten this job. Sometimes it makes me shiver when I think how fortunate I truly am."

Source: www.dominickeating.com

#dominic keating #the keating cult #star trek enterprise

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mysteries-x-mistakes · 2 months

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a little Q&A about the cowboy ttrpg I'm writing

What made you want to write this game?

So a card game I play (Magic the Gathering) came out with a wild west themed expansion set recently and I didn't pay too much attention to since it seemed a bit too... campy. But I randomly saw a card from the set and did a double take saying "Is that a SNORSE? (snake horse)". And it was! It was pretty cool creature design, I thought- like a centaur with the head and torso of a snake on a horse's body and legs. or like a whole snake with horse legs. And then I started thinking, ok what if we were all cowboys in a ttrpg riding snorses? And it all spiraled out from there since I couldn't find a cowboy game that I liked, that hit the vibes I was looking for.

What makes this game different from other cowboy ttrpgs?

Most cowboy ttrpgs that I could find were crunchy or gritty (or both) and I wasn't looking to play a game where everyone is covered in dirt and miserable all the time. And I'm so tired all of the time irl, I didn't want to play a system with dozens of things to keep track of or do math on. So that's a huge part of what sets my game apart. I designed this game to be light-hearted and rules-light. I wanted it to focus more on the narrative than the math. (But I also didn't want a game that was "cozy"; I still wanted there to be some combat since that's a huge part of the genre.) That's why I chose the Kids on Bikes system! It's so elegant in its simplicity and seemed like it would be a great fit, reflavoring the space ship mechanics (in Teens in Space) to be horse mechanics. (Or just mounts, you can make your friend any species!)

Speaking of mounts, that's also part of what makes this game unique. Many of the cowboy ttrpgs, despite being super crunchy, didn't focus much on the mount. Like sure it was there, but it felt more like an object or a character feature. I grew up on Horse Girl™ media; I wanted a cowboy game where you become friends with your mount, where it feels like it's its own character with thoughts and feelings and actions of its own. I wanted to design a game where your bond grows over time and is meaningful to the way the game works.

Who is the intended audience?

Adults. There is space in the rules to run games for kids/teens, but the intended audience is adults due to the inherent adult nature of many of the genre conventions. You know, things like drinking and gambling and visiting the brothel. In fact, one of the Tropes you can be is the Saloon Worker. I was not about to leave out something so important since the saloon girls were a significant part of any frontier town's economy, but I also don't want to imply that teens could be saloon girls. (Hence me not naming it "Teens on Horses".) Just the same, I don't want to encourage teens to be gamblers.

I'm also designing this for adults because I wanted there to be room for adult levels of nuance and to discuss mature topics. I'm an adult and want to engage with media for adults- I have been getting tired of having to choose between adult media with gratuitous violence or blood and children's media with often simplified storylines and messages. I recognize that there are outliers, but the vast majority of things fall into the binary. I was looking to make a game be any of the above, but be mainly designed for stories that fall into the middle- something that is neither "cozy" nor "gritty". I wanted to play a cowboy game that could be anywhere from a light-hearted romp to an emotionally heavy story following traditional western storylines where life is a struggle to survive. So this is for anyone else who feels similarly.

I'm particularly aiming this towards anyone else who grew up on Horse Girl™ media like Barbie Horse Adventures and The Phantom Stallion, on The Saddle Club or Horseland, on Heartland and The Black Stallion, on all the cheesy movies. People who want to play a game with horses where you can build a friendship with said horse, where the horse is its own character.

You mentioned the Kids on Bikes system- what did you add to it or change?

I explained a little about Kids on Bikes in my previous post so I won't rehash how the system works here. I reflavored the space ship to be a mount. So as you progress through the campaign you get points wit which you can purchase Improvements for you and your mount, to show the training you are going through together or new skills you have learned. But I have added a trust mechanic and a mechanic where your mount can help you on various skill checks while you are riding it. I'm pretty excited about how it feels!

I added and changed up the magic system to attempt to balance it with the guns and other physical weapons. Unlike in Kids on Brooms, magic is always reckless and impulsive since there's not really anyone to teach you magic out on the frontier. It has potentially deadly consequences and can kill you if you aren't careful. Magic is also not endless. I introduced a "spell slots" system, as reduced and simplified as possible, like the rules for the Powered character in Kids on Bikes.

I added a Reputation system based on- Honor, Notoriety, and Bounty. This changes how the other characters in the world see you. I also used this system to allow characters to make a name for themselves, a title or nickname they are famously (or infamously) known by. All of these are huge parts of the western genre.

I added a handful of optional rules if you did want a little more crunch for your game. One of them is for Survival, if you wanted to focus on how difficult life was out on the frontier. One is Cattle Drives, if you wanted to participate in this classic activity. One is the Rodeo. I came up with some little minigames for the events which also encourage everyone at the table to participate even if their character is not the one competing. One is owning property- if the players wanted to buy a ranch and do some base-building. (I've been doing a lot of research to find out the average costs for things in the american wild west (about 1880) and other various agricultural metrics (like how many calves to expect to sell vs how many do you need to keep to continue to grow the size of your herd))

The game starts off with some collaborative worldbuilding- I came up with some questions to ask the table so you can create your own frontier if you don't want to play in the traditional american wild west setting. You can make it as fantasy and as wild or as peaceful as you'd like. (I also added a sensitivity note about including indigenous people to your frontier.)

Lastly, I added a bunch of new Tropes and Improvements, both for you and your mount.

#cowboys #wild west #game design #ttrpg #indie games #dudes on horses #is the working title #if you have any other suggestions for a one syllable cowboy word that is gender neutral feel free to let me know #american frontier #western #fey talks #ttrpg hack

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bradenthompson · 1 year

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The Starfield Experience II: The Freestar Rangers

While it's still fresh on my mind, it's time for episode 2 of my Starfield maiden voyage. Last time, I joined with the Crimson Fleet and got my sneaky fingies on a cool 200,000 credits. On this excursion, however, me and my first crewmate Mathis were honest men with no bounty. And we were gonna perform our community service by way of frontier justice.

"But captain," you say, a puzzled look fixed tight on your brow, "I thought you were playing an evil character." Don't you worry. I'm every bit as unhinged as I was in my pirating days. Because dialogue always gives me some completely bloodthirsty options, which I promise to choose every time. Crooked cop time babyyyyyy

De-escalation Tactics

We arrived in the town of Akila City (game is very loose with the distinction between Cities and Towns) just in time for a classic scripted Bethesda moment. We all remember walking into Solitude for the first time and seeing that guy on the chopping block. We all tried to save him, and all our level seven characters were lacerated on the spot. A storytelling crutch? Probably, but there's no reason it can't be effective. Plenty immersive to walk into a new settlement and already see some shit going down.

Just that type of shit was going down in Akila, as soon as me and Mathis got boots on the ground. Local bandits were holding up the bank, had taken hostages, and the rangers were outside trying in vain to negotiate. A tense situation indeed. Maybe two ruthless pirates who had just shot down a civilian ship on the way here can help.

I'd been pumping some skill points in speech, by now. Failed persuasion checks were getting on my nerves, but successful checks were making me feel cool. That and, on my brief trip to Neon, I had picked up a very goofy looking future suit that gave a passive 10% persuasion success. This is all to say I talked the bank robbers out the building, not a hostage lost.

While I was in town (Akila has some great music) I tried repainting my ship, thinking the Crimson Fleet colors would cause Mathis and I some problems out in space. How stupid of me to think the game would account for that sort of thing. You can land on Planet Police State with a ship painted the way only pirate ships are painted and nobody cares. Clue #1 that I could get away with a lot, within this faction system.

And speaking of factions, my success with the GalBank situation got me on the path to getting deputized.

I See You, Space Cowboy

First I had to talk to ranger Emma Wilcox, in the very cool space saloon. She wanted me to complete just one job before they considered letting me join up. Overachiever that I decided to be, sporadically, I took all four jobs the ranger kiosk had at the time, thinking I'd really impress by clearing the board. Rescued a hostage, took out a gang of spacers--real basic rng quests. The one where I had to kill a Crimson Fleet captain was funny. Mathis didn't like me doing that very much, despite us both quitting at the end of that questline. But as long as he stayed on the ship while I went out and split some wigs, he didn't mind. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, I suppose, but this begs another question: why can't I take criminals alive? Spoiler alert, but the rangers are gonna urge me to resolve problems without violence later. This peaceful justice creed does not extend to the rng quests. Okay.

But after completing all four and hitting myself bc no shit that doesn't make a difference, Wilcox saw potential in me and took me up to the marshal. Or who I have to assume is the marshal. That's Daniel Blake, pictured above, who gave me a dorky vest and a very cool pistol.

In hindsight, there's very little warmup to the questline's main problem. I was immediately sent off with ranger Wilcox to a farm that would prove to be the first victim of the overarching villain. There's this gang out in the canyon trying to 'wrassle away their farmland, say no more, we march down and make confetti outta 'em. The ship they flew in on was recently stolen from a company called HopeTech, which became our next destination.

Look Guys, Bezos did make it to space

We land at Hopetown, which I wanna imagine has a larger quest associated with it, but then again maybe that's what I'm doing right now. Seems to be one of the more intensely designed settlements in the game. We're essentially in a company town. Everyone here works for Hopetech, lives on a planet where the only thing around is their job, and carries an eerie devotion to the company and its founder. This is Ron Hope. He talks like an Oblivion NPC, which is to say too slow, and I earmarked him for death real early.

So I tell him about one of his stolen ships, he already knows, he wants me to keep it on the DL since it'd tarnish his brand if people knew ships could be stolen off the assembly line, yada yada. The conversation I was having with him here and now wasn't super important. What was important was introducing Hope as a character so him maybe/maybe not being evil later doesn't feel like it's outta nowhere. Well fuck me for knowing how these stories work, but of course he did it. I don't even know what 'it' is, as of right now, but I know it was him. Why else would we be meeting him so early? The butler did it.

We're off to Neon next, where I understand most stolen ships wind up. A player may deduce this on their own through normal gameplay; if you're one to plunder ships and sell them off, Neon is one of the places to do this. Either that or critically thinking. Neon's the only city that abjectly sucks, according to context clues. In case I wouldn't know, I'm told explicitly to head to Neon.

I head to Neon. With quickness, because now I know how fast travel works (tip: you can select objective markers while you're out in space and, should it be a system you've already been to, you'll fast travel without opening the map). Meeting up with a fellow ranger whose name I forget but--spoiler alert--it doesn't matter, I'm led to mechanic Billy Clayton, whose name I remember for some reason. He wants to help us but is currently having a Bethesda Moment (we need to do something for him first). That thing we have to do is clear up an outstanding debt with a loan shark. Alone, I march to the warehouse said loan shark operates from, don't even open up a dialogue, immediately spray the office with bullets, and return to Billy. Good news, Billy! Debt problem's been fixed!

Thankful, he points us in the direction of a noted ship thief named Grace. She's a brick wall. Won't give up nothing bc she ain't scared of the fuzz. That is until I pass a persuasion check and she immediately buckles under the pressure. Persuasion skill continues to be totally absurd. But for our efforts, she hands us an encrypted slate that, should we be able to crack the encryption, will lead us to her contractors.

The* Plot* Thickens*

It's not that I didn't know what was going on. Rather, by this point, I was certain the game would never trust me to figure things out on my own. I double-checked: there's in-universe museums that spells out a lot of the lore. Some of which being pertinent to reveals later in this questline. Odds are slim most players would be brushing up on Starfield history of their own volition, and look, I get it. Really, I prefer getting this sort of shit through questlines. But by this point I was feeling a sort of... monotony? I'm gonna be told what to do and where to go regardless of whether or not I intuit these things myself. There's little incentive to do anything but precisely what the quest givers tell me. Speaking of...

That ranger on Neon whose name I forget tells me there's someone on Akila who may be able to crack the slate. His name is Alex Shadid and, dude, I liked him a lot. On sight. He's socially awkward, dreams of being the type of person who goes clubbing on Neon which is cute, and he's good with computers. Alex was my first and really my only pick for a second crewmate, when this questline finished up.

I pass the slate off to Alex and report back to Daniel Blake. Based on clues in my previous field work, Daniel is running with the theory that the crew responsible for this ship theft (stealing one ship and harassing one farmer is still the impetus of the entire story) is one called the First. A company of veterans from the Colony War now doing mercenary work out in the stars. Daniel used to serve with them, and knows of two supposed members: Maya Cruz and Marco. Maya's our first target, as someone matching her description just booked an emergency surgery and extended stay on a space station hospital called The Clinic. Off to the clinic, then!

Two quick things before I divulge this super exciting Maya Cruz quest:

>Whenever I speak to Daniel Blake, while there's no outwardly "evil" dialogue choices to make, there's good cop/bad cop options. Do you want clean justice or do you wanna repaint the walls of your ship in the blood of outlaws? I always picked the most violent things to say to Daniel. Always some version of "I'm going down there and making orphans of all their children!" and at no point does the Sheriff think I may be a problem. He, nor anyone in the rangers, ever thinks less of me for being completely unhinged and hostile.

>I've been dabbling in the ship builder and, hey, Todd: why can't my ship have wings? Been all over looking for wing parts and there's not a one. I consulted reddit, damn you. Don't try none of that "uh but but but atmosphere" bullshit. This is not a realistic space sim, we ain't Kerbals here (that game DID have wings!!!!). Before launch, I was dreaming of what my ship would look like, and it always had wings. Let me add wings. If you do DLC that adds more ship parts, deliver me my wings plz thx.

Oh, and the Maya Cruz quest is pretty boring. There's one interesting moment where you gain access to her private hospital room and find the surgeon dead on the ground, but after that it's flying off to a derelict planet and trouncing about in a cave up to a very lame encounter with Maya, who says something or other about whatever bullshit idk. I shot her.

Polo.

Thankfully, the hunt for Marco has some teeth. There's a ranger at a remote club called the Red Mile. It's a real rough place (everywhere in Starfield is a real rough place, Red Mile, can I get ya to try harder).

The ranger in question is Autumn Macmillan. She's a Starfield NPC, so she's immediately callous and rude. I'm mean right back, so ig it evens out. She doesn't know where Marco is, but suspects the club's owner, Mei Devine, does. To get to her, we have to provide the club with some entertainment. The titular Red Mile is a dangerous gauntlet that wasn't all that dangerous bc I'm doing this at an above average level. So I run the Red Mile no sweat, Mei is pleased, tells me where Marco's ship is currently parked.

Before I leave, Autumn runs up to be and actually apologizes for being an ass earlier. I was also an ass but don't have the option of apologizing. Game unconditionally sides with me. Okay, I'll take it. Me and Autumn are cool from then on out, and I zip off to meet up with Marco.

It's now, at the top of the questline's last third, that things get interesting. I was ready for a dogfight, hearing that Marco is hiding out on his spaceship, but no. He's parked on some obscure planet and willing to have a chat. Sounds like he wants me to know something important?

That important thing is rangers are dweebs and being a mercenary is awesome. He's even ready to give me the location of de capo di tutti i capi on the condition we let him go. Since I'm ready for the story to keep chugging along regardless of my actions, I massacre his entire ship and get the final location anyway. Hardly knew ye.

With the combined slates of Grace, Maya Cruz, and now Marco, Alex Shadid has the information necessary to triangulate the location of the First. Daniel Blake orders me to head down there and raise hell. Well, not in those exact words, but it's a Bethesda game. Of course it's gonna be a fight.

The Black Rifle Coffee Company

Well ain't my predictions all fucky.

Thought for sure, with all these ranger characters I was meeting and the precedent set by the Crimson Fleet story, that all the rangers were gonna back me up in this final raid. Nope! Going it alone. Not even a ranger. Still just a deputy. But whatever, I still got my main man Mathis.

We buy some more guns and touch down on Arcturus II. Mathis and I step out, enter the large doors of an abandoned mech factory, and are greeted by the intercom voice of First boss Paxton Hull. He lays out his motivation, and I'm curious whether this was intended as a serious morality check.

In essence, the First are, as stated earlier, veterans of the Colony War. Their main point of anger is an event in the final moments of the war they were about to secure total victory for the Freestar Collective before both sides declared a truce. They're still mad about this. I'm supposed to be sympathetic to their position (maybe) as forgotten "heroes" of the war, despite their primary motivation being "well one time we killed a thousand civilians but we wanted to kill a million."

I wasn't so hot on these guys. Even as an evil character. They reminded me too much of Operative Culture. Yk, those guys who did (or maybe pretend to have done) military service and, perhaps as a means of coping with a lot of abject atrocities the US army commits, circle the wagons and perceive all violence as justifiable. Y'know who I'm talking about. Their pro-gun beliefs are based in a nonsense John Wick fantasy, or adjacently related "wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs" bullshit. Am I wrong to project this on the First, here? I don't think so. They get no sympathy from me, the guy who shoots people if it progresses the quest slightly faster. Their grudge is based in not "winning" the war by their own fucked up definition.

My character sure is one to talk but, in fairness, Mathis and I were gonna light this place up regardless of any sympathy for the First. Which we did! It's quite the gunfight. Lotta NPCs. I haven't spent a credit on ammo since.

We shoot out way to Paxton who, in a funny bit of characterization, can't help but be impressed by our ability to mow down his whole organization. He knows he's toast but wants to die fighting. Before doing so, however, he passes off a slate. The contract for stealing the ship from HopeTech (yeah, one stolen ship is still the main thing here) was ordered by none other than--

Oh, no kidding

It was Ron Hope all along! I have Mathis kill Paxton (just want him to feel involved) before throwing the bitch (spaceship) in reverse back to Hopetown. Marching right inside, we catch Ron Hope in the middle of praising a low-level mechanic for something or other. Uh-uh-uh, not gonna work on me. I KNOW you did... hold on, lemme remember. You... oh yeah. You SWITCH THE SAMPLES orchestrated your own ship theft in order to...

I'll be honest, I kinda needed Hope to explain why he's the baddie. Yes the ship theft was an inside job, but to what end I wasn't sure. If I have it correct, Ron let the First steal the ship so he would also look like a victim, which would throw us off the scent of him, and please follow along, selling farmers bad fertilizer that would demolish their farmland but leave behind soil that had a lot of otherwise useful minerals. He would then chase these farmers off their land and develop it into HopeTech... something or other. I'm not saying it's badly written. I'm sure it lines up with the lore and everything. But man, I was waiting for that [attack] prompt to pop in somethin' brutal.

But I am given a choice: take twenty-thousand credits worth of hush money, arrest him without violence, or kill him on the spot. How the other two options shake out, I can't say, because obviously I chose killing his ass dead. And his security escort! That employee he was praising earlier had mixed feelings about this. Our ensuing conversation when something like this:

mechanic: Ron Hope is dead!

me: he sucks and deserved to die

mechanic: I guess?

me: yeah

mechanic: okay bye

Now to go explain this all to Daniel Blake. Hoping he takes the whole "I killed Rom Hope" thing well, since Hope was a sitting member of the Freestar Collective's top brass. A ranger killing him would be very, very bad.

It matters very little

Sure, Daniel was pretty annoyed that Hope is dead, but I did have the slate Hope made ordering the First to steal the ship, among other things, so I killed him without consequence. I'm even promoted.

Deputy in a stupid vest no more! I'm now a Freestar Ranger in full, ready and able to take exactly zero ranger missions from this point onward. I'm given a cool spacesuit, a rifle I'm not gonna use bc I don't have any skill points in rifles, and a badge I cannot equip. Only look at in my inventory. But I am a ranger! I am a ranger! I am a ranger!

I'm shocked to find Alex Shadid cannot join my crew. Not that he isn't allowed. He's just not available to be recruited. Excuse me, I thought his introduction of "hi my name is Alex Shadid and I've never been to space in my life but oh I would just love to see the stars" was setting me up the ball. But no. And no other rangers at Akila are recruitable either. But that doesn't mean no rangers are...

Turns out, back at the Red Mile, Autumn is more than happy to hop on my ship. Yup, my second crew member is a ranger who thinks I'm dirt. Except now all her canned dialogue is eerily polite. But I say fuck it. Hop on my ship, Autumn, and let's never go back to the Red Mile again. Everyone is very mean there.

It's now me, Mathis, and Autumn, on my--oh yeah, I nearly forgot. My other reward for becoming a ranger was a brand new, probably overpowered for this point in the game, spaceship. Capacity for five crewmates. Best of all?

ITS GOT WINGS.

In Conclusion

While I can't say I was ever grabbed by the narrative, the moment to moment gameplay of the Freestar Rangers questline proved very fun. Lots of dudes to shoot, if that's your thing. It's got some engaging setpieces, takes you to a satisfying number of locations in the name of feeling big, but that's not without plenty of disappointments. The "villain" of it all feels unsubstantial, and really the whole story feels disconnected from the larger world of the game. It's got plenty to do with the Lore and all that, but at no point did it ever feel bigger than running errands. Crimson Fleet managed a far better climax in comparison, awful space battle notwithstanding. But the idea of Autumn being on my crew is funny enough to consider this a satisfying use of my Starfield time.

Next up, corporate espionage or: my god the stealth in this game kinda sucks.

#starfield #freestar rangers #viddy games #had a double bourbon while cowboying around #but i like cognac more #or rum #like a dark rum #mmm

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littleeyesofpallas · 1 year

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man im in a weird headspace recently... first The One headcanons, and now this... that's a lotta thoroughly dead content i'm giving brain space to

So, in the now tragically forgotten and buried jrpg franchise, Wild Arms, there was this whole fun gimmick where the wild west influence extended into other tangential americana as well. there's heavy borrowing from D&D, and horror films as well as westerns, and classic romanticized cowboy mythos and such... So in any case the games also had a few cross media spinoffs, including a TV anime and a shortlived manga.

There is a character in the manga named Jye-chi-ka[ジェチカ] which the brave, lone scanlator team, TurtleParadise --back in... what, 2010?-- romanized as Jessica. But I don't know if that's correct.

For context, the other two leads in the series are named Ma-ku-shi Re-mi-n'-to-n'[マキシ・レミントン] transliterated back into Maxi Remington, a clear reference to the Remington Arms Company, his sister, ko-ne-tto[コネット] taken to be something like Conette or Connett, and Gy[ギィ] who they called Guy, as in the French name, which I think was the correct choice. But as you can sort of see, apart from the Remington bit, the names don't appear to be overt references to anything else to help triangulate Jechika's name.

Jechika is btw a member of a minority group of native American analogs within the Wild Arms world, semi-consistent across different games, called the Baskar. Some other Baskar have been named things like...

Tim Rhymeless and Colette Mapleleaf in WA2; both rather innocuous names... And the family of Gallows, Shane, and Halle Carradine in WA3, much more overtly referencing the iconic scene of lawless frontier justice, Shane from the movie Shane, and Halley's comet plus actor David Carradine, probably tied to this thru the now infamous cult classic TV show, Kung Fu, where producer meddling outed Bruce Lee as lead in favor of having David Carradine play Kwai Chang Caine, a wandering shaolin monk in the wild west.

But this all, as you may be catching onto, also does not help establish clear patterns to help with...

Some random NPCs have names like Harold, Ellen, Cordell, and Laraina? Funny enough these I can sort of tie into references with a bit of guess work.

Cordell in particular stands out as a less common name to have picked here, and I want to assume it's a reference to Cordell Walker, Chuck Norris' star character in Walker Texas Ranger.

In the context of wild west icons, legendary outlaw, Ellen Liddy "Cattle Kate" Watson is the first to come to mind.

I have no idea what to make of Harold... Harold Gould? Semi-famous character actor in TV and film of the 60s-70s? He hardly seems reference worthy, he didn't exactly have a lot of standout roles... Harold McCracken? Sort of famous painter of pseudo-historical wild west scenes? Are those names a random Japanese game dev would have really been able to stumble into in the 2000s? It's the name "Harold" it could be practicallyanyone...

And technically "Laraina"'s name is actually written ri-re-i-na[リレイナ] so that one could just be a localization flub. Actually, it appears to be how they japanized the name of Wynona Rider's character in the 1994 movie, Reality Bites; the character's name is Lelaina Pierce. It's far from being a western but it does take place in Texas, for a Japanese creator maybe that's cowboy adjacent enough?)

So I dunno... Maybe it is Jessica and it's just a weird choice of names because the manga author doesnt have access to the core creative team's specific sensibilities. Maybe it doesn't matter because the core team's sensibilities are also unstable. And if anything, it feels vaguely slavic to me? Like, the way those phonetics roll off the tongue to me sounds like it ought to be something like Tetscheka? Dzhetgya?? Czeschka(like the painter)??? But why would anyone have named a native american analog in some sort of pseudo-slovenian?

I realize this is a cold case. And one without any real answers. But it's one of those things that drives me nuts when I look up somethings simple like, "What were those characters' names again?" and then find myself having wasted the morning on a wild goose chase and now i'm late for work...

#wild arms #arise long slumbering wa fandom #i give you....#well not really content considering this inquiry was just a big fat dead end #i dunno man #i have a train to catch and im not even wearing pants yet

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partiallystarsif · 3 years

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You mentioned that the ship and shuttle are named after goddesses. Can you tell us more?

Adiona and Abeona are actually goddesses from the Roman pantheon!

Adiona is the goddess of "safe returns", she protects travelers and ensure they get home safely. Abeona is the goddess of "outward journeys" and she protects travelers as they depart home to places unknown.

Partially Stars takes place in the very distant future (I'm still working out the exact timelines, but I think around a thousand years, give or take), after humanity has mastered faster-than-light travel and colonized other planetary systems. But even though we've left Earth behind (for the sake of this story, anyway. there's still people living on Earth, but Adiona isn't a sturdy enough ship to fly between systems like that) we still remember our history and where we come from.

So there will be some things that are familiar from Earth, like Adiona and Abeona, like the cultures and accents of the crew, but some things change and evolve with their environment and over time 🥰

#partially stars game #the void answers #lore #I thought about having it take place closer to 2000 years from now #(mostly because I wanted it to take place in the 1800 (on a new calendar obvs) because Wild West jokes)#but humanity being what it is I think we'd have overdeveloped everything again by that point #and I wanted the frontier feel to it because space cowboys #so I'm tweaking the timeline #this kinda went off on a tangent oops

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directdogman · 3 years

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This is probably gonna sound mega-stupid, and also long lmao, but I just finished the final route for Dialtown, and once again, I'm astonished by your work's ability to draw me in with funny, absurd characters and then also smack me in the face a little with emotions.

Also, Norm? Holy shit, I was not expecting to genuinely get attached to him, but man, he's there and involved throughout the entirety of chapter 3 and I still would've liked more time with him. Which is funny, because the moment I got a glimpse of him I was mildly-to-mediumly concerned. Internalized fear of people who willingly wear american flags, I guess- part of me was afraid his entire character would end up being someone with antiquated views who just... engaged in " 'murica " behaviour the entire time and made me want to hurl him into a pit. AAAnd instead he's absolutely my favourite now. Shoutout to him, he'd definitely respect my pronouns but would also probably simultaneously find me insane.

Not to mention, Karen my beloved <3 her route ended up likely being my second favourite overall, I absolutely adore her nonchalance in the face of things most people would find startlingly bizarre and her love for horses was incredibly endearing. I could go on about how I relate to her as well, but for simplicity's sake: thanks for the amazing autistic representation, and just a generally rad character.

For the sake of at least trying to be brief, I'll cap it there, but long story short: Thanks for an awesome game, and enough compelling characters and plot ideas to keep my literary-analysis loving ass things to pick apart for the foreseeable future. I'm going to draw the space cowboy now.

Thanks!

Internalized fear of people who willingly wear american flags, I guess- part of me was afraid his entire character would end up being someone with antiquated views who just... engaged in " 'murica " behaviour

Thanks! I did want him to spout economically conservative/somewhat libertarian views because I felt the juxtaposition of him against the generally 21st century modern soulless neo-liberal feel of DT's current environment would be pretty funny, a secondary unstated clash. BUT, I didn't want Norm's character to come down to "oh, nobody likes him because he has socially backwards views." (There's no nuance in that and it's not FUN.) So, Norm is open-minded enough in a 'you respect me and I''ll respect you' kinda way, he's just also... y'know, a literal cowboy, and operates via frontier rules in his head. So, I decided to make Norm more of a Barry Goldwater-esque Libertarian, someone who broke ties with his own party to defend gay soldiers + abortion. I actually made Norm come from Arizona as a reference to him. Both were also air-force. Oh, the dude also lost the presidential race in 1964 by a LANDSLIDE. Epic fail.

Basically, I wanted Norm to be someone who had integrity and offered a completely different (but not invalid/draconian) view to the kinda oligarchy that has Dialtown under its spell. I don't agree with Norm's economic views to be clear, and he's a lil more embarrassingly patriotic than I'd be, BUT: I'd trust him to act and vote with his conscience and I'd value him as a friend/neighbour. Plus, also, y'know, again: Open-minded with others. That's key.

I could go on about how I relate to her as well, but for simplicity's sake: thanks for the amazing autistic representation, and just a generally rad character.

Thanks! Karen was born partly out of my own dislike for really formulaic autism descriptions. I mean, unlike what most autism rep on TV'd have you believe, autistic folks are scientists, programmers or mathematicians only. I wanted to depict an autistic artist, because I know a lot of autistic artists. Also, her misophonia is depicted in a fairly realistic way imo. Also, the fact that despite Karen not getting 'new' idioms, she can use ones she's learned herself, while also being frustrated with them for being so initially confusing. Yeah, no, I'm just happy that I managed to depict something that people find realistic/validating :)

Thanks for an awesome game, and enough compelling characters and plot ideas to keep my literary-analysis loving ass things to pick apart for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for the lovely write-in! This type of feedback really does make game-dev worth it :>

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tothatmanonthebridge · 3 years

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Review: Star Trek TOS - A Taste of Armageddon (S1 Ep23)

A Taste of Armageddon is definitely one of the better Trek episodes so far, although not my personal favourite.

There was a great build-up of tension leading to the revelation of how the ‘cold war’ operates, and it served as a great science fiction premise. However, I had a few issues with this episode.

Firstly, Mea 3 felt like one of the more superficial one-off female characters so far, and that’s saying something. She existed entirely to demonstrate the banal cruelty of the death pods but neither Kirk nor the audience are given a strong reason to care about her as an individual, and therefore the idea of her death isn’t more impactful than that of any other rando on the planet. She also just gets completely forgotten as the episode progresses.

However, my main issue with this episode is that Kirk spends two minutes learning about the culture, and the rest of the time lecturing the local people about right and wrong. It’s not that I don’t agree with Kirk, but it is another case of Kirk coming in and jumping to conclusions because of course he knows better than an entire race of people.

This is probably my most recurring pet peeve with the show, and it’s not that I don’t approve of the messaging and how anti-war the show was, but it often feels forced to me, and Kirk lecturing grandiosely at people (or a computer that one time) gets boring quickly.

See, the problem is that Star Trek is episodic and set in space. Its episodic nature results in a relatively quick introduction to each setting and its particular socio-political structure, which means that it can be difficult to explore the nuance of the raised ethical issues. Therefore when Kirk comes to a conclusion, I’m like: “I’m sure you’re right but how do you know that???”.

Additionally, the Enterprise travels to different planets, different corners of the galaxy, which makes it baffling that Kirk assumes the knowledge and authority necessary to make these moral judgements.

This story structure works more when it’s say, a stranger riding into a frontier town and shaking things up.

This is because there is a shared human experience and general social context at play between the stranger and the townspeople in the Wild West film.

But when Kirk comes swanning in, in his big spaceship, and immediately judges a whole race of people of being as being ‘backward’ or ‘primitive’ or ‘morally inferior’ in some way, it reads much less like lone cowboy and much more like imperialist superiority.

Now, the wonderful thing about this show is that it also subverts this formula often enough, so I can’t stay mad.

Some more things I actually enjoyed about this episode so y'all don't think I hated it because I didn't:

Mr Fox was such a dic— dislikeable character, but by the end of the episode it was actually super endearing the way his face lit up at the prospect of finally being able to negotiate.

He just wants to diplomat.

Let the man diplomat.

Give him all of the diplomacy.

I’m glad he got his happy ending.

Spock reveals himself as king of the dad jokes with his cool delivery of “Sir, there’s a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder”. I now live for Spock delivering one-liners before bringing someone down without breaking a sweat. He and Buffy would make a great team.

Finally: “The haggis is in the fire” – Scotty, you are a legend keep it up!

Queer Trek Corner:

Kirk’s favourite pastimes are (in no particular order):

- Worrying about his ship

- Speechifying on morality

- Staring adoringly at Spock while the latter says something smart, or caresses a wall, or breathes

Next up: This Side of Paradise !!!!!!!!!!!!

#star trek #star trek TOS #a taste of armageddon #first time watching #review #spirk #spock's dad jokes #he'll be here all week #scotty is a legend #haggis in the fire

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 4 years

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I’m Always Curious Part Six

Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist Notes: Not beta-read. Caladega Canyon and Sandblossom are made up places lol I hope everyone is well :) Summary: There were no mandates against using the lightspeed breakaway factor to go back and observe places in other times, but it was unlikely that we were asked to do as such.

There was an air of excitement around the ship. After dropping the Anil crew off at Starbase 389, a mission had come down from Starfleet high command that we were to head back to Earth. This was an order that sent shock waves through the bridge, right down to engineering. There were no mandates against using the lightspeed breakaway factor to go back and observe places in other times, but it was unlikely that we were asked to do as such. I hadn’t expected a call up to the Captain’s ready room for a briefing, but I was there, wedged between Thaleh and Nahn. “We’ve been ordered to go back to observe Earth in the year 1868,” The Captain informed us from where he was standing at the head of the table, “It was the last year in the 19th century that the Leonid meteors made an appearance. They want us to get a look at it, then slingshot to 1899 for comparison, confirm the conditions and why they didn’t make a reappearance.” “I assume this has to do with the increased Leonid activity around Earth recently?” Spock asked. “You assume correctly, Mr. Spock,” The Captain nodded to him, “We’ve been directed to observe this phenomenon from the ground and from the ship, so an away team and I will be beaming down to the surface to observe.” Why the hell was I there? “We need people that know the era, and can embed convincingly on the off-chance we encounter anyone.” Ah. In our many conversations, in one of the instances wherein the Captain had mentioned horses, I’d let it slip that as a child, I’d had a slight Wild West obsession. The Captain had caught my eye as he’d said it, as if he’d read my mind and heard my question. “We’ll be arriving at Earth in forty-eight minutes. Get prepared. Dismissed,” He added, nodding to us. --

Number One sent a note to me PADD to reconvene in the Captain’s ready room once I was ready to beam down. I’d arrived first and was looking out of the window as I fiddled with my clothing. I’d been provided with a few options and had chosen a pair of pants, a pale pink button-down, and a sturdy dark grey wool jacket; the boots I’d been chosen to use were my own - older and scuffed, the laces slightly frayed. I turned to see the Captain walk in as I straightened my jacket sleeve. “Is the wardrobe up to snuff?” He asked. “You’re going to have to define ‘up to snuff’,” I said critically, looking down at myself. It was clear that they’d opted for clothing we’d be able to move around in. “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t entirely uncommon for women to wear pants on the frontier, but if we wind up in a town somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some crinolines... Then again, maybe not, that was a more mainstream style, I don’t know how quickly it would’ve carried out West...” I had dipped into rambling, and I only noted in when I turned back to Pike and found him leaning against the wall with an amused smile. “... The wardrobe is fine,” I said after a moment, wishing I’d started and stopped with that, “Who else is beaming down?” “Number One and Connolly,” Pike said. I nodded, glancing over at the Captain. He looked like a clean-cut cowboy - a button down under a black waistcoat, dark pants not dissimilar to his uniform pants, but a looser cut. All he was missing was the hat. I let my eyes drift up to the Captain’s face to find him watching me, and I felt my face flush hot. I couldn’t bring myself to look away, though; he wasn’t looking away, either. And he wasn’t frowning, or staring me down because I’d just been watching him. He was just... Looking. My gaze was drawn away when the doors whooshed open and Number One and Connolly stepped inside. The plan was to beam down around dusk, set up our observation site, take our recordings and beam back up. “Let’s go,” the Captain spoke up, drawing our attention. -- We’d staked out on the edge of Caladega Canyon. Number One and I had set up the equipment while Pike and Connolly had started a fire for warmth. It was already cool, and the sun hadn’t even fully set yet. I knew from the maps that there was a town a few miles north of us, and I was itching to go, but I knew that that wasn’t a possibility. We had our orders, we would get the readings and beam back up to the ship. I lowered myself to sit beside the fire, folding my legs and gazing up at the sky. As much as I loved being in space, there was just something different about getting to look about it from a planet’s surface. “Are you cold?” Pike asked. I shook my head, despite the fact that I’d just tightened my collar around my neck. “I‘m fine,” I said, smiling. “Glad to hear it, because we heard from the Enterprise and we may be camping out overnight. The proximity of the Leonids is interfering with our transporters,“ Number One said, approaching us. “Looks like a picked a good coat,” I commented. “Good thing we didn’t have any crinoline,” Pike added. I snorted, unable to help it, and quickly averted my eyes as Number One gave me a look. -- Once our readings were complete, we chose to take watches in shifts. I went first, then Connolly, then Number One, and Pike would take it last. Every shift would check in with the Enterprise to monitor the transporter situation; as soon as we were clear, we’d alert the others. When I woke up, the sky was still dark. The fire was nearly burnt down to its embers; I was a bit chilly, but that was nothing a hot shower and a cup of coffee wouldn’t shake. I looked around, spotting Pike at the edge of our little clearing, sitting on the ground and facing the canyon. I propped myself up on my elbows, glancing between Number One and Connolly. They were sound asleep. I pushed myself off of the ground, walking over to where Pike was and sitting down beside him. “Sleep alright?” He asked, smiling at me. “About as well one can on a desert floor, yeah,” I nodded. Pike chuckled. “If we’d been a little more prepared we could’ve brought down a few blankets and made it much more comfortable,” He commented. I hummed, drawing my knees up to my chest. “Are you cold?” Pike asked, a little more knowing this time. I just shook my head. There was a pause before Pike muttered, “Liar.” I turned to look at him, face a mask of shock, and he laughed. I shushed him, glancing back at the other two to make sure they hadn’t woken up at his outburst. When I was satisfied that they’d remained asleep, I turned back around, shaking my head at Pike, who was still grinning. “We could go into town and grab something,” Pike offered. “We don’t have any money,” I pointed out. “Well, we could go into town and look,” He countered. I smiled at him, unable to help it. “As curious as I am, we have a job to do down here,” I pointed out. Pike nodded, conceding. “We do...But we did it. When are we ever going to be here again?” He asked. I lowered my eyes before I turned to look out over the canyon, considering. He had a point, but going into town felt like inviting trouble. “Let’s just...See what we hear about beaming back up,” I offered. Pike nodded beside me. “Diplomatic,” He commented. I shrugged. “There are too many unknowns. I wouldn’t feel comfortable going into town unless we knew we had a reasonable exit strategy.” “Tell me what you know about the town,” Pike requested. I frowned, turning to look at him. “What makes you think I know anything about it?” I asked. He fixed me with a knowing smile. “Call it a hunch.” I turned my eyes to the sky, recalling what I’d read about the town before I’d made my way to meet with the others in the ready room. “Sandblossom started as a silver mining camp. It went through a population boom about seven years ago, but it’s starting to dwindle now. It’ll be a veritable ghost town by 1872. Railroad doesn’t come out this way, and there’s a pretty bad mine collapse in the future,” I frowned, “It just can’t sustain.” Pike hummed thoughtfully beside me. We were quiet for a little while, watching the sky begin to lighten. I wrapped my arms around myself as a strong wind pushed over the mouth of the canyon. “Here,” Pike began to take his jacket off, but I shook my head, arguing, “Don’t. Honestly, I’m fine. It’s just a little chilly-- And if you catch a chill, Dr. Boyce’ll have all our heads when we beam back up.” Pike shrugged the jacket back on, his face thoughtful before he scooched a little closer. “Body heat works just as well,” he pointed out. I nodded a little bit as his thigh pressed against mine. “That’s true,” I muttered. Pike’s arm wrapped around my shoulders, tentative. “Is this alright?” He asked quietly. I nodded, and his hold grew more firm, pressing me into his side. I leaned into him almost unthinkingly; as soon as I’d realized what I’d done, the logical part of me told said to lean away, apologize. But I was already warmer, and Pike wasn’t pushing me away; instead his hand was rubbing over my shoulder to create a little additional warmth. I hesitated before I rested my head on his shoulder. “Is this alright?” I asked. “Of course,” He answered. Of course. As if this was totally normal, as if we did this all the time. “Tell you what,” Pike said quietly, “Once we get transporter capability, I’ll see if we’re able to go into town for a bit.” “What for?” I asked. “Just to have a look around.” I tipped my head up to look at Pike. “Curiosity killed the cat, Captain.” He smiled. “Satisfaction brought it back, Lieutenant.”

#I'm Always Curious #Christopher Pike #Chris Pike #christopher pike/reader #christopher pike x reader #christopher pike imagine #christopher pike x you #captain pike x reader #captain pike #Captain Pike Imagine #Captain Pike/Reader

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ronnytherandom · 4 years

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I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

#the truman show #horizon zero dawn #rimworld #factorio #destiny 2 #d2 #film #movies #video games #i dont know what im doing #hzd #opinion

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

Text

September 1: 3x06 Spectre of the Gun

Okay so, it might be a little early to declare myself a S3 apologist, since there are still a lot of eps I’ve never seen, but I feel like I’m pretty close..

This ep was so good!! Honestly I think it’s one of my faves. And perfect to usher in Spooky Season.

Honestly, this show really is my happy place. Just all the characters together on the bridge, on some kinda adventure, looking at weird space buoys and investigating stuff.

Again, this buoy looks like a Windows 98 screensaver.

Kirk keeps referring to Spock as “Science Officer.” Is he mad at him? Full of some particularly intense longing that requires him to put extra distance between them?

Excuse me, you address US as aliens? YOU’RE the aliens.

Hmmm, so it seems they’re not friendly.

It’s addressing them in different languages!!! I love it. Love the reminder that Uhura’s first language is not English,also.

“True telepaths are dangerous.” As opposed to fake telepaths like Vulcans lol?

The Melkotians withdrew immediately. They invented space travel, they saw space, and they said “not for us” and they turned around and left. McCoy would like them; they’d have a lot to gripe about together.

The welcome mat is NOT out.

“Unlike Mr. Scott’s transporter, this unit is not functioning.”

It legit looked like Spock put his hand on Kirk’s back there. Like he clearly raises it, but not far enough to be seen above Kirk, so like.. what was the point? Where did it go?

LEE CRONIN--oh no, flashbacks lol.

“We come in peace”--immediately pulls out gun.

I should have watched this when writing my Western fic.

Just bits and pieces of a Western town... and a completely red sky...

The guns are “crude but dangerous.” If only Sulu were here; he’d love this.

An announcement with a specific time and place on it--that’s a very precise detail to just pull from their minds. Must have come from Kirk’s, that nerd. Maybe Spock. But probably Kirk.

“Because my ancestors pioneered the American frontier.” I mean did they really get to the frontier? Or just... the Midwest?

Maybe it’s actually because he’s a cowboy at heart?

Aliens using his own ancestral sins as the pattern for his own death for breaking their law IS a great (possibly partially unintended) idea. Oh also, if they think that Kirk and co. are here to ‘tame’ or colonize them, then the Western setting makes even more sense--you’re no different from your ancestors, you came somewhere new and brought lawlessness and violence and death, but not this time!

Can you believe Kirk knows all of these details about the OK Corral? NERD.

Spock is so proud of himself for knowing the phrase “had it out.” Look, I used slang correctly!

These are some creative aliens.

“We know death is real here.” Or is it? They’re literally telepaths guys.

Hmmm, this building doesn’t need a roof I think. - The aliens probably

Can’t believe Scotty thinks his usual is his actual usual lol. You’re going to drink bourbon and like it!

Kirk and Spock look so good together.

They’re obviously Chekov’s disapproving parents.

“The day is still young, Ensign.” I don’t remember the exact context of this but Spock is SO judgmental.

What is Kirk doing? This guy is a hallucination; he won’t be convinced by touching some cloth. There’s nothing to convince! He’s only a Concept.

“Have you seen clothes like this?” / “Yes.” / “Where?” / “On the Claytons!” Comedy gold.

Kirk really thinks he can charm his way out of anything. Hmmm, maybe if I just talk nicely to the Earps, they won’t kill us.

“In small amounts, it [bourbon] was considered medicinal.” Lol.

Scotty is becoming a bourbon guy!

“Mr. Chekov is inVOLVed” lol. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

“A lot of people and things have tried to kill me.” No need to brag.

THAT’S how you make a city limits sign. Put a dead animal skull on top. I live quite close to a city limits sign and I think it could use a cow skull.

Western Cossacks!!

Poisonous snakes and cactus plants. That really distills the Aesthetic down to its core.

This is a good Kirk episode. He’s really being a good Captain: coming up with different ideas, being creative, pushing his crew to brainstorm.

Bones and his tranqs again.

Bones meets his old nemesis: Old Timey Medicine.

Why was Doc Holiday just...chilling in his own dentist chair? (My mom suggested: power nap. Let’s go with that. Power nap + ability for optimally dramatic entrance.)

Also I can’t believe McCoy just goes into this guy’s practice and starts helping himself to all the serious drugs.

Chekov definitely isn’t the marrying kind.

RIP Chekov.

Bones does not sound very sympathetic here. Jim, get over it, he just died, whatever.

And then two seconds later he turns around and tells Spock he’s not sad enough! You can’t win.

“We all knew the risk when we joined the service.”

“My feelings are not a subject for discussion.” !!!!!!! This line!!

“You worked closely with him.” Yes! Chekov is his protege!

“Bones, Scotty, stop bullying Spock.” <-- not an actual quote but it might as well be.

If this were AOS, Spock would already be choking Bones out.

Whoops, no one told Chekov he wasn’t supposed to die!

“Let’s organize! Let’s form an anti-Earp union!”

“I can’t kill them!” he says in a mad rage.

I mean, it is important, though. That’s not what he does.

Kirk is /disgusted/ by lawlessness and frontier justice. What a Rebel TM.

I feel like Bones was waiting for the gotcha moment when Spock compliments him. “Saying nice things about me? That’s not how this relationship works!”

“Nothing can go wrong.” / “Up to now, everything has gone wrong.” He has a point.

That pause before Spock admitted it hasn’t been tested lol--they don’t want to admit it.

“[The bourbon’s] for the pain.” / “But this is painless.” / “You should have told me that before.” The unexpected comedy stylings of Scotty and Spock.

It doesn’t work--guess Spock’s got to take back that compliment now.

“Captain, you don’t understand--they’ve been telepaths the whole time which we already knew!”

“We’re not going to move from the spot.” * is immediately in a different spot * Well I mean at least he’s trying. He’s doing his best!

Love the OK Corral sign also. Weirdly creepy. With its accompanying horse.

Spock doesn’t have any hips for the holster to rest on.

“What did Chekov die of?” / “A piece of lead in his body.” That would do it.

If the tranquilizer should have been effective, does that mean Scotty is actually passed out right now?

Honestly, this is all so spooky. TRUE Western Horror Ghost Vibes.

Also very trippy. If you don’t believe it... it’s not real... some kinda weird chicken and the egg argument regarding our belief in the truth of physical laws idk but it sounds good. Spock brings it home.

Even with the wind whipping around him, Kirk is SO in love. His absolutely adoring expression... So soft...

“Very well, Sir, I’ll meld with you again. Not that I particularly want to. It will be a sacrifice. But I’ll manage. Even though you’re such a dynamic individual haha ha I’m fine I’m cool.”

I feel like Scotty is NOT into the mind meld. He looks terrified. Maybe he should have saved the bourbon for this occasion.

I know the mind meld is supposed to be a replacement for on screen hypnotism...but is this not hypnotism? Like even more than past uses? In this case, Spock is leaving them with suggestions that he wants to continue AFTER the meld, as opposed to, like, efficiently sharing information or giving immediate suggestions. And the scenes themselves are very creepy and...hypnotic.

Kirk’s patented move: WHOLE BODY ATTACK.

Well, we wrapped that up right quick.

Did they... never actually leave the bridge? Or even navigate past the buoy? This actually brings up a lot of questions as to when the aliens started the hallucinations, what their bodies looked like to the rest of the crew, and how they woke up--since there’s obviously been a bit of a time skip, as Bones is already examining Chekov.

Lol at Chekov, saved by horniness. “Nothing but the girl was real to him.”

“A vast alliance of fellow creatures who all believe in the same thing...”

Kirk’s vision of the utopian future is so powerful, he’s effectively gotten the welcome mat put back out.

A personal question? Kirk is intrigued.

Ah, but it’s just another excuse for Spock to be a hypocrite--how did humans survive? How did VULCANS survive? And for the show to remind us of its utopian vision of the future... we will move past violence, we will prove ourselves attractive to and worth of new alien friends.

Then McCoy walks out so Kirk and Spock can have their Moment. He undoubtedly knows what’s up.

So this ep was shown one day before the anniversary of the shootout at the OK Corral AND on Halloween week. It is very much a spooky season episode. So surreal and strange. Ghostly.

I know using sets rather than on location shoots, and not even building whole sets, was a budgetary issue but tbqh I think it worked in the ep’s favor. It added to the alien feeling of it and was an accidentally creative way of showing that these images were pulled from Kirk’s mind.

This felt like a very Classic S1-ish ep to me. I think it’s because Kirk was foregrounded as the Captain/hero and we get to see not just his intelligence and creativity and leadership but also his compassion and his moral core. He IS the values of the series, personified, and that was clear here.

But we also got to see lots of him and Spock, casually working as a pair, and the use of the rest of the landing party crew was very deft also. I loved that there was time to mock Chekov’s horniness, to talk about Spock and Chekov’s professional relationship, to joke around with Scotty, to show more of the Spock and Bones dynamic.

Again, great sci fi concept. I think this would have been another possible inspo for my Pirate AU if I’d seen it in time (although I think I picked a good mission-concept ultimately). I’m fascinated by the Melkotians: who are they? What do they really look like? Do they communicate any other way but telepathically? Are they corporeal? What is their planet like? And most importantly, what experience lead them to be so isolationist? They specifically refer to the aliens as “disease” coming into their home. And it’s when Kirk shows himself to be fundamentally nonviolent even in the face of his own death, they let the Enterprise through.

Basically, I always enjoy hints of alien societies that bring up more questions for me than answers. I love speculating about it.

The next two eps I’ve seen and remember well and I know they’re classics. I’m really looking forward to them!

#the year 2021 #2021: fandom thoughts #2021: star trek #star trek tos

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fortysevenswrites · 4 years

Note

haha okay what about the other space cowboys fandom: Firefly!! XD

Oh mannnnn walking it ALL the way back to high school here (well, when I got around to finally watching it. I was 12 when it aired). I think I still have my season 1 (season only) DVDs in my bigass box of DVDs that I never unpacked when I moved to Arizona...8 years ago (don’t judge me, Bishop using the box as a scratching post).

Also like, to say it because it has to be said, fuck j*ss.

Top 5 favourite characters:

River, Inara, Jayne, Kaylee, and Mal

Other characters you like:

Simon, Wash, and Book’s okay, I guess.

Least favourite characters:

I don’t really have anyone I actively hate, but I guess River and Simon’s parents are trash.

Otps:

River and Jayne all the way. (I think that might just be where my opinions on age difference came from hahaha). I’m neutral with the other canon pairings.

Notps:

I don’t really have a notp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Favourite friendships:

River and Kaylee.

Favourite family:

The Tams are awesome. At least, the Tam children, not their parents. And Zoe and Wash are the best.

Favourite episodes:

The pilot episode is just SUCH a vibe. It really sucks you in. Also Ariel.

Favourite season/book/movie:

Between the season and the movie, I think I have to go with the movie, other than that thing at the end with Wash. It just didn’t happen.

Favourite quotes:

“I aim to misbehave.” Is the first that comes to mind.

Best musical moment:

I don’t really think there is one.

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest:

Definitely in Serenity when River went off in the bar.

When it really disappointed you:

WHEN IT WAS CANCELLED AFTER ONE GORRAM SEASON.

Saddest moment:

Wash :(

Most well done character death:

THERE! WAS! NONE!

Favourite guest star:

Mark Sheppard as Badger

Favourite cast member:

Gina Torres is absolutely awesome and I’ve enjoyed a lot of other shows she’s been in since.

Character you wish was still alive:

Wash.

One thing you hope really happens:

Definitely not more seasons with a new showrunner? I mean, I know it’s never going to happen, especially because it’s been so long.

Most shocking twist:

Discovering Jayne had an entire town dedicated to him was just delightful.

When did you start watching/reading?:

I was in high school. It was in and around the time I started watching Battlestar Galactica

Best animal/creature:

The cows

Favourite location:

Ariel was so cool, because the show didn’t spend a lot of time in the Core, and it was cool.

Trope you wish they would stop using:

Killing off beloved characters for shock value, Inara’s ENTIRE career and any storyline related to her being paid to have sex.

One thing this show/book/film does better than others:

I really love the mythology around the show and how grounded it all is in the frontier. It was really cool.

Funniest moments:

Too many to count.

Couple you would like to see:

Other than River and Jayne, I don’t really have any opinion.

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast:

I think it would be cool if Paul Bettany cameo’d, because I really loved him and Alyn Tudyk playing off each other in A Knight’s Tale

Favourite outfit:

River’s dress in Serenity was one of my favorites. And Kaylee’s giant pink ballgown.

Favourite item:

Jayne’s hat. Because it was knitted by his momma. And that’s adorable.

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?:

Just the DVDs.

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?:

I’d probably be someone living in the Core. Not exciting.

Most boring plotline:

“Oh no, we have to leave, because I can’t stand my sister being exposed to a life of crime.” - Simon Tam, many times.

Most laughably bad moment:

I’m sure there are some, but none come to mind.

Best flashback/flashfoward if any:

Nothing comes to mind.

Most layered character:

I just love River so much. Her past and her capabilities are steeped in mystery and there are so many questions that I wish the show had time to explore post season 1 and Serenity.

Most one dimensional character:

Ironically, I feel like Simon is just completely one-dimensional. Yeah, he loves his sister and she’s his main motivation, but after a while, it gets a little boring.

Scariest moment:

Anything with the Reavers.

Grossest moment:

Also, anything with the Reavers

Best looking male:

I think I have to go with Mal.

Best looking female:

A tie between River and Inara

Who you’re crushing on (if any):

No one comes to mind.

Favourite cast moment:

I don’t have one since I came upon the show years after it aired. Plus, social media didn’t exist back then anyway, so who really knows what the cast got up to back then.

Favourite transportation:

Serenity, duh.

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise):

Ariel was cool, and so was Mr. Universe’s.

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:

Eh, I don’t really have one.

Best promo:

I wouldn’t know, since it was so long after it came out that I got around to watching it.

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book:

Definitely after the first episode. Just had to keep watching!

In depth fandom questions

#asked and answered #fandom questions

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sortasirius · 5 years

Text

This is just a snippet of the not close to finished Tattoo AU (art dealer!Cas and tattoo artist!Dean) that I’ve been working on, I just want to see how people feel about it before I start posting lol. Feel free to let me know what you think, and if anyone wants to get tagged I can deffo do that!

Fyi this fic is set in NYC.

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Dean hates Halloween parties, but if he has to go to one, he was absolutely going to dress up like a cowboy.

“You just had that in your closet?” Sam asks, sitting next to Charlie on the couch and laughing at Dean when he makes his appearance.

“Yeah, so?”

“Dean, who just has a full vintage cowboy costume that they can pull out on a whim?”

Dean shifts his weight as he rolls up his sleeves. He’ll be a badass tattooed cowboy.

“Me I guess.”

Sam laughs again as Charlie stands and stretches and goes to the mirror they have leaning against the wall by the door. Sometimes Dean needs to check how he looks before he leaves, sue him.

Dean’s gotta say, Charlie’s all out Arwen costume was pretty sick, even though she had taken over their floor for two months making it because the studio she was renting was about the size of a matchbox and she needed the floor space to sew and watch Return of the King on repeat for “research.”

“I’m ready when you guys are.”

Dean tips his hat as Sam sticks on bunny ears (lame), and Charlie drags them all the way back to Dumbo, right near the shop and to some probably way too trendy bar that was all decked out in orange and black string lights. The music was so loud it made the windows shake, but Charlie has a vice grip on Dean’s hand so he doesn’t have a chance to balk and then they were right in the thick of the crowd, pushing through the get to the bar.

Predictably, Charlie is chatting up a pretty girl in a Star Trek costume in about fifteen seconds, and Sam disappears to talk to a pretty blonde himself, so Dean is left at the bar, nursing a whiskey and feeling a little bit wounded that he wasn’t flirting with someone yet. He looks around, trying to find someone to catch his interest.

Oh fuck.

Nah, it’s not.

God.

Yeah, it is.

Castiel. Fucking gorgeous art dealer Castiel. Dressed as a doctor in scrubs and everything because the powers that be just know that Dean has a thing for guys in scrubs and he’s being punished for something.

Okay. How does he not get spotted? Listen, he’s not a coward or anything but Castiel was one of those entities that was just a little too handsome and a little too rich and a little too out of his league.

“Dean?”

Dammit.

Dean turns to see those blue eyes like two inches from his own.

He’s so screwed.

“Hey, uh, hi.”

“You do remember me?”

Uh yeah he does. How the fuck is he supposed to forget...anyway.

“Yeah, I do, yeah.”

“Oh good, I was hoping I made some sort of impression on you.”

Dean chooses to ignore that, because he was not about to admit that he had thought about Castiel more than anyone should think about someone they met for ten minutes at an art gallery opening.

“What brings you to Brooklyn, then? No Halloween-themed galas you can go to?”

Castiel laughs and Dean should not have missed that sounds but he does because he’s an absolute freak.

“No, I think most of my usual clients are in their fancy townhouses handing out candy, and though you might not think it, I, like most people, enjoy Brooklyn and am here with a few friends.”

Dean really wished that Castiel knew what personal space was, because him standing like two centimeters from him was distracting and Dean had the almost overwhelming impulse to run his hands through his hair.

“Yeah well, I hate Halloween,” Dean says, trying to ignore his impulses and remind himself that Castiel was a very bad idea wrapped up in dream packaging.

Castiel doesn’t seem to notice Dean sweating actual bullets, he just leans closer so Dean can hear him over the thrum of the music in the bar, pounding like Dean’s own erratic heart.

“For someone that hates Halloween you sure do have a nice costume.”

Thank Christ for bars having nothing but low lighting, because Dean’s pretty sure he’s as red as a tomato. But flirting with Castiel was as easy as breathing.

“Yeah well I missed my calling. Shoulda been a frontier cowboy for sure,” he gestures to Castiel’s own costume, “You look great, were you a doctor in a former life?”

“No, but I did steal this for the night from one of my brothers, he’s an ER nurse at Mount Sinai,” Castiel pauses, steeling himself for something, “Can I get you a drink?”

“Excuse me?” Dean says, caught off guard.

“I’m trying to buy you a drink.”

Dean hesitates, but, fuck it, right? You only live once and Castiel was pretty much too gorgeous to turn down.

“Whiskey, straight, then.”

#my writing #ive got like 300 working titles rn #destiel #destiel fic #spn fanfic #deancas #deancas fic #also its not even CLOSE to done so idk when ill start posting #its also a love at first sight fic lmao #im really just going all out here #srsly lmk what yall think #dean winchester #castiel

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cosmicbug379 · 4 years

Note

Who are your top three Pedro characters?

I have no idea when this was sent, I can't believe I missed it, but here we go!

1. Oberyn Martell-He was the first role I saw Pedro in and I fell in love immediately. I actually had to stop myself from freaking out and yelling "That's Oberyn Martell!!" the first time I saw him when my dad was watching Narcos because I didn't want my dad to know how weird I was. I had to observe for an appropriate amount of time before calmly saying "Oh! I know him, he's Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones", and also I went through the same process when watching The Great Wall with my parents. Oberyn is such a great character anyway-all the Martell are, and so are Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes (Oberyn's daughters)-and Pedro just portrayed him so perfectly and with so much confidence and *sighs*. Plus I am a Slut™️ for a kind and handsome Prince.

This is where it gets more difficult for me because I just REALLY LOVE PEDRO OKAY. I love every single character he's played for different reasons and I just don't know how I'm supposed to pick the next two 🥺🥺

2. I'm gonna say Frankie/Catfish. Listen. Triple Frontier is by no means a great movie, but Francisco Morales is perfect and I would die for him. Pedro is so great in that role and he does such a fantastic job. I also love the tiny mention of him being a dad and the way he smiles when he says it just melts my little heart.

And now it's EVEN HARDER. Why would you do this to me?? 🥺🧡🧡

3. I'm going with Ezra from Prospect. And when I tell you it took me an unreasonable amount of time to decide this, I'm not joking. At least 15-20 minutes, I sat here trying to decide between Ezra, Javier Peña, Pero Tovar, Whiskey, and Din Djarin. A few months ago I probably would have picked Javi or Whiskey, but there's just something about Ezra. The accent, the little blonde patch, the way he talks like he's reciting poetry all the time. I just know he would sit and recite Shakespeare to me. The way he is with Cee makes me melt, and he seems to feel like he's not worthy of anyone caring about him and it breaks my heart. Also I really love the whole space cowboy/space pirate aesthetic thing he's got going on. I just love him.

So there you go, you tortured me 😂 it took me way longer than it needed to and I kept changing my mind, but I ultimately went with my first instinct. So in summary:

1. Oberyn Martell (and if he comes with Ellaria even better)

2. Frankie/Catfish

3. Ezra

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loopy777 · 5 years

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You've got me curious now as to what anime youve seen, enjoyed and why.

Oof, I don’t track that type of thing. I’ve been asked about anime I like previously, and I feel like I always forget something. I suppose I should start a MyAnimeList one of these days, just for reference.

So let’s list everything I can remember, as well as a pithy reaction.

Baccano!This one is just so much fun. It’s violent and crass in a classy way, it’s funny in a weird way, and it’s a great example of a non-linear narrative. I love it.

Code Geass (Season 1)Ugh, I only watched this one because people solicited my opinion on it. Well, my opinion is that it’s not as smart as it wants to be, there’s too much contrived melodrama (and considering the wild premise, that’s saying something), and Kallen would be a wonderful and interesting character if she wasn’t always being demeaned for fan-service. I quit when the first season finale kicked off, because I felt things were just getting too contrived. I hear it really fell apart in the second season.

Cowboy BebopI found this a bit pretentious. It had good episodes and bad episodes. The production quality is good. But I'm not sure why it's legendary. Still, I liked its sense of humor, and enjoyed it when it wasn’t trying to be super serious. My favorite character is Ed.

Demon SlayerI'm mainly watching this because my brother wanted to give it a try on Toonami, but I kind of checked out when it unceremoniously removed everything difficult about the sister being a demon and made her into an order-following sidekick that fits in a suitcase. Now the latest episode introduced a loud annoying side character, so we may quit. I have no idea why this one is so popular.

Fullmetal AlchemistCovered

Gatchaman CrowdsI was asked to watch this one, as well, but it went a lot better than Code Geass. It’s a bit weird, and I think it's naively optimistic about the internet in many ways, but I still found it's exploration of Internet-age superheroes to be interesting, and it's the best, most mature take on the Power Rangers-style ‘sentai’ genre that I've seen. I don't know how well it matches up with its Gatchaman legacy, but as its own thing, it's pretty good.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (including 2nd Gig)This is another legendary one that I think is good but a bit over-rated. It's a good piece of modern Cyberpunk, but it's very talky, and very jargon-filled. I'm almost convinced that the viewer is not meant to follow half of the conversations, that they're just part of the ambiance. I tended to like the stand-alone episodes better than the storyline episodes. Still, it’s a very smart series, and probably the best thing in the franchise, from what I’ve heard.

Log Horizon (first season only)I’ll tell you what- I think it’s possible to make a good anime with the premise of people from the modern, real world entering a fantasy realm (either another dimension or a VR video game). Log Horizon did not end up being that ideal. The main character is a Gary Stu, his romances with girls who are either ten years old or just look like they’re ten years old are creepy, and it got boring seeing the protagonists’ plans always succeed without much of a hitch.

Lupin III (series 4 and 5)I like this franchise when it's being clever, when it's springing a twist while playing fair. Sometimes, though, it doesn't play fair with its twists, leaving me underwhelmed. And while the regular cast is amusing, they're fairly shallow characters; this isn't always a bad thing, as that allows them to slot into all kinds of genre fare, but does limit the storytelling ambitions. It’s fine.

Macross franchiseSuper Dimensional Fortress MacrossI still like the original, despite how dated it is. It's probably the best possible implementation of 'soap opera in space.'

Macross PlusI'm not sure why this one is so revered. I feel like it doesn't play fair with its mystery, despite being such a short story, and whole thing with the killer popstar AI just left me cold.

Macross 7I like the music, but the story really drags for the first half with a formula that’s repeated far too long, and then falls apart in the end. The love triangle isn’t resolved, and in fact I’m of the opinion that two of the participants didn’t even know they were in competition. The bad guys are allowed to sail off into the sunset, forgiven, despite still inhabiting the bodies of kidnapped humans. But this isn't a series you watch for the story; this is a series you watch because you like the idea of a rockstar flying into space in a transforming mecha, controlled by an electric guitar, to sing at alien invaders. Personally, I think the idea is dumb. Plus, this ruins the premise of the original series by adding in what is effectively magic.

Macross ZeroThis is pretty good and has the best dogfights in the series, but it has one of those weird arty endings that anime sometimes likes to do where no one can tell what actually happened and we need to find translated interviews with the creative team to get it explained.

Macross FrontierBy this point, I was wondering why everyone is so eager for the Macross franchise to get American distribution. It’s better than Macross 7, but feels like a first draft of the intended story, and the creative team lost track of their own subplots. The two AU movies do a more satisfying take on the same basic story, but sometimes they come across like an abridged recap of the series, so you really need to watch everything to get a satisfying experience. That said, the final experience was indeed fairly satisfying, making this the second best thing in the franchise for me. Still, I wouldn’t say it lives up to the original in any way.

Macross DeltaBoy, this one was dumb. Everything wrong with Frontier is worse here, with none of the good stuff.

The Melancholy of Haruhi SuzumiyaI still want an ending for this, despite nothing worthwhile coming from it since 2011. It wouldn't even be hard to pick it up again; set it in modern times, and explain the fact that everyone has smartphones now to be a result of some weird off-screen Haruhi antics.

Mobile Suit Gundam franchiseMobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded OrphansI've only ever experienced the Gundam franchise because my brother wants to get into it and he keeps trying to find a vector. This was my first experience with it, and I found it very 'teenage boy,' in both tone and story. I was underwhelmed.

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096Another case where the storytellers reached the end only to have forgotten the rest of the story. Why does that happen so often in anime? And I think it assumes the viewer is familiar with the whole rest of the franchise, because there was a lot that just went straight over my head but didn't seem like it was supposed to. Nice animation and art style, though.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin - Advent of the Red CometEverything I said about Unicorn, only more.

My Hero AcademiaCovered

NichijouThis thing is still hilarious, even after a rewatch. Stick with the sub, as the new dub's voice-acting doesn't have the same range and power of the original, losing a lot of the humor.

Outlaw Star I'm struggling to remember a lot of this one. it’s another I watched because my brother was interested in it. I do recall that it was a fairly standard Space Western that ends in a way that's more like serious science fiction, and that for some reason a Japanese swordswoman in classic clothing was part of the cast. Now I wonder if that was an homage to Lupin III. Or maybe Japan just really loves throwing classic samurai into everything, regardless of setting or genre.

Pokemon (part of first series)I was in high school when this franchise first came to America, and for some reason all the geeks in my high school thought it was the greatest thing. The games were good, yeah, but the anime? I don't think it's bad for a kiddie cartoon, but it obviously has no greater ambitions than pleasantly occupying the kids for 22 minutes. Personally, what I really want is a series about Team Rocket done in the style of Cowboy Bebop.

Princess TutuCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I forget who asked me to watch this, but I owe them.

Puella Magi Madoka MagicaCo-owner of the Best Magical Girl designation. I still haven't bothered with anything but the original series, and I continue to be happy with that choice.

Samurai ChamplooI liked this better than Cowboy Bebop, but only because its ambitions were lower. It leaned more into its genre, had fun with its style more even when being serious, and as a result became more enjoyable. I overall liked going on a journey with these rascals, but I think it ended at a good point. I don’t need more.

Spice & Wolf (first season)I watched this on someone's suggestion, and found it a little underwhelming. What I really appreciated were the two main characters, especially that they seem to be into each other, romantically and sexually, and aren't freaked out by it while at the same time not being in a hurry to become a couple. It was just a kind of, "Yeah, this could really be something if we ever find the time." It was so amazingly mature and real. Too bad the main Economics plotlines just wound up being tepid.

Tekkaman BladeMy thoughts haven't changed on this.

Tiger & BunnyI'm still fond of this one, and I'm actually kind of curious to revisit it in light of My Hero Academia.

Transformers ‘Unicron Trilogy’These three cartoons are true anime, produced by and for Japan. (The other cartoons in the franchise were written, and sometimes animated, in the west.) It's garbage that assumes its child audience are morons, and on top of that the first two series wound up with laughably bad dubs. How this trilogy revitalized the franchise, I have no idea, and thankfully I'll never have to worry about it.

Volton (original)Either this or Robotech/Macross was my first anime; I was too young to say which I discovered first. I'll admit that the original Voltron isn't good, despite the toy being neat, but I have a soft spot for it. I tried the Netflix reboot, watching the first three episodes, and found it to be vacuous junk. Maybe some day a version of this will come along that will do justice to the toy.

And I think that’s it. If I remember anything I left off, I’ll reblog with the addition.

#Anonymous

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the--blackdahlia · 5 years

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Armageddon Chapter 15 (Dean x Reader)

Title: Armageddon Chapter 15

Summary: Space. The Final Frontier. But for Dean Winchester, space was the last place he thought he would ever go. His family life isn’t perfect, his job isn’t ideal, but he has (Y/n), the woman he loves. Sam Winchester never thought his life would turn out the way it did. He is divorced, alone, and his brother most likely hates him. Working for NASA was not going to be easy. But, when a threat to the earth has him calling on his family for help, what can he do? can Sam and Dean push past his family issues to keep the Earth spinning another day? Based on the movie of the same name.

Pairings: Dean x Reader; Sam x Jessica

Warnings For this Chapter: Angst, language, injuries

Song for this chapter is Knockin' on Heaven's Door by Guns n' Roses

Mission Control

“I WANT A STATUS REPORT!” Bobby yelled as everyone began scrambling. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!”

“Well sir, there was a disturbance and….” A scientist said. Charlie could tell Bobby was about to blow up.

“There’s debris and it’s messing with the comms.” Charlie told him. “We’re working on it as fast as we can.” Bobby growled and rubbed at his temples.

“I WANT SOMEONE TO PATCH ME TO JO OR GABRIEL NOW!!”

(Y/n) looked worridley to John and Jess. Jess was doing her best to keep (Y/n) from panicking. John was trying to help, but those were his men up there, and his sons.

“You can get your wish, to keep Sam, because if I die on this mission, you get your perfect son, and (Y/n) can find someone better.”

John closed his eyes and did something he had done since Viet Cong were killing his brothers around him, or since a little Sam weighed 4 pounds, 8 ounces and was born months before he was supposed to be born. He prayed.

“Mission Control! Do you copy! Mission Control this is Jo Harvelle! Do you copy!” Jo’s voice came in over the system.

“Jo, It’s Bobby I need a status report!” He tried to calm down.

“Bobby? It’s Sam!”

“Sam? What’s going on? I need someone to talk to me!” Bobby was trying to take deep breaths. “Sam?”

“Garth’s Dead, Dean’s hurt… The timer to the bomb got damaged.” Sam’s voice was shaky. “Bobby… We got hit by debris coming at us. A stray smaller asteroid hit us.”

“How bad is he hurt?” Bobby asked, closing his eyes.

“His leg… we have it in a splint at the moment he seems ok, but he’s out of commision for drilling,” Sam explained. “That’s not all… the time detinator got damaged… we need to fix it fast, so good thing I have the designer on board,” Sam joked.

“Shit…” Bobby groaned. “Just….just get it done okay Sam?”

“Yes sir,” Sam sighed.

(Y/n) could feel her chest constrict. Dean was hurt, she placed her hand over her bump and bit her lip. She was scared, she looked to Jess. Jess looked scared too.

****

“I think we have the parts Dean needs in the Independence.” Mick explained. Dean had been examining the timer and figuring out what parts were needed. “Let me go get them. I’ll be right back.”

“Dean, how are you?” Sam rasped.

“Peachy,” Dean grumbled. “Sam… I need to tell you something.”

“What?” Sam asked, looking over at him. His anxiety was through the roof, and he was trying to move as much as possible to help keep him calm.

“I don’t make it out of here…”

“No, no no. We’re not doing this.” Sam said. “None of this goodbye crap okay. You’re getting home, even if I have to push you there myself.”

“You let me get this out… I’m the older brother I PROTECT YOU, got it?” Dean growled. “I don’t make it… you take (Y/n) you go to the apartment... “ Dean took a shaky breath. “In the closet under all my vinyl records… is a deed and a house key.”

“Dean…”

“Before my blow out with dad, I bought a house… I was going to surprise her with the house before I proposed to her, but I got in that fight with dad, and got the job with Crowley,” Dean’s voice broke. “You tell her I love her… Make sure she moves on… don’t let her stay hung up on an ass like me… a coward who could have been with her for a long time…”

“Stop it!” Sam threw a wrench at the wall. “Just stop it okay! You’re going home and you’re having a family! And you’re not going to fuck it up like me! You’re going to have kids, and a house, and a good job! You’re going to die old with your family surrounding you! Now just stop it!” Never before had Sam blown up like that before.

(Y/n) covered her mouth listening to the altercation between the brothers. She looked to Jess whose eyes were filled with guilt. John ran his hands across his face. He looked to the little boy oblivious to the scene as he played with his toy cars. John walked over to Ashton and knelt down in front of the small boy.

“Hey, Kiddo,” He gave him a teary smile, “What kind of car do you have there?”

“Bird car.” Ashton said, holding it up to show John. “It flies.” He had a big smile on his face. “And it goes vroom.”

John chuckled, Ashton reminded him so much of Sam when he was little. “That is an amazing car, did your daddy get that for you?”

“Yeah! We’re going to watch cars someday.” Sam had promised to take Ashton to a race when he was a little older and could sit still for longer than five minutes.

“Would it be ok if grandpa came too?” John smiled as he ruffled Ashtons hair.

“Yes! We can see the cars together!” He clapped his hands. “Daddy will like that!”

As the camera shook and everyone in mission control scrambled. Sam held on to Dean as he tried to get up. Dean hissed in pain,

“What the hell was that?” Dean called out.

“Dean,” Benny’s voice sounded over the com.

“What Benny? What’s going on?” Dean leaned on the wall of the shuttle giving a knowing look to Sam.

“Dean I have good news and bad news, which do you want first?” Benny sighed.

“Bad news first.” Dean sighed.

“Well, uh, bad news is Mick is dead.” Benny told them. Dean and Sam stared at each other. “Good news is, the hole is done. But we can’t fix the timer so...emergency meeting.”

Dean ran a hand across his face. He looked at the timer and held out his hand, “Get me a screwdriver.”

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam shook his head.

“Trust me,” was all Dean said as Sam handed him the screw driver and he began tinkering with it. Everyone climbed into the shuttle. They all stood around, watching as Dean tinkered away.

“Dean…” Sam said. “Is it working?”

“Don’t worry, when everyone gets here I’ll explain it,” Dean mumbled.

“Everyone’s here.” Sam said. “This is us.”

Benny, Ash, Ketch, Jo, Gabriel, and Cas came in. Dean looked around then looked at the timer. Closing his eyes, he looked to Jo.

“Are communications with mission control back and stable?” He breathed.

“Stable, no. But they’re here for now.” She told him. “All the debris is making it hard to keep a constant.”

Dean made his way over to the coms, “Is video working?”

“It’s scrambled.” Bobby’s voice came through. “We can hear you better than we can see you.”

Dean took a deep breath, “I want to talk to my wife.”

She wasn’t his fiance right now, even if the papers weren’t signed and they didn’t have their ceremony, he considered her, his wife. He wished he could see her, but hearing her would be just as good.

“Dean?” her voice was music to his ears. “What’s going on? You’re scaring me?”

“Hey sweetheart.” Dean smiled some. “I’m sorry I scared you. I just wanted to hear your voice.” He closed his eyes and pictured her there. “I love you (Y/n). Everything's going to be okay, you hear me?”

“Why do I have a feeling you are going to try and be a cowboy?” She muttered, “I swear Dean, don’t do anything stupid please?” her voice broke.

“I’m not honey. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I promise.” He smirked some. “I just really needed to hear you.”

“Dean?” She sobbed, “I love you, please come home.”

“I’ll be home before you know it.” Dean laughed, trying not to cry. “Just make sure you’ve got the details planned for our wedding.”

“Ramble on going down the aisle,” she chuckled.

“A little Black Dog that night?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

(Y/n) sniffled, “I love you.”

“I know.” Dean laughed. “I love you too (Y/n).”

“Go save the world cowboy,” she rasped before blowing a kiss.

Dean blew a kiss back before turning off the com. He ran his hand across his face clearing up the tears that were falling. With a groan he hobbled back to the group and leaned on the table.

“I fixed the timer… but you are not going to like our options,” Dean gave them a solemn look.

“What are they?” Sam asked, nervously.

“One of us has to stay behind and manually detonate the bomb. Or I volunteer myself to stay behind and detonate the bomb,” He looked at Sam.

“No way!” Sam said. “You’re not giving yourself up like that. We can,” He found a couple straws and cut them into different pieces. “We can draw straws to see who stays behind.”

“Shortest straw stays,” Dean agreed. They took turns drawing straws, dread behind each pull. And finally, someone had the short straw.

Dean looked to Sam holding up the short straw, “told you so.”

John closed his eyes as mission control heard the audio. (Y/n) held back a sob as she sank to her knees, Jessica with her. The audio and video were gone then, leaving them in the dark.

Sam was numb as he watched Dean get ready. Sam grabbed his own helmet and put it on.

“I’m walking you out at least.” Sam said. “Not taking no for an answer.”

Dean simply nodded as he limped to the elevator to the asteroids surface.

“You remember what we talked about?” he rasped, “You make sure my girl moves on… make sure the next guy treats her right.”

“Yeah Dean.” Sam sighed as they headed through the elevator onto the asteroid. Sam played with the loose path on his arm, slowly pulling it off. “Hey Dean, can you do something for me real quick?”

Dean closed his eyes, “yeah baby brother. What do you need?”

Sam reached out and pulled the hose on Dean’s suit, damaging the oxygen. He pushed him back into the elevator and tucked the patch into a spot on his suit. He shut the doors so Dean could breath.

“Make sure dad gets that.” Sam said, looking at Dean through the glass doors.

Dean beat on the door, “SAM OPEN THE FUCKING DOORS RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS. I DREW THE SHORT STRAW!”

“You have a life waiting for you back home Dean. I don’t.” Sam told him. “I need you to go live that life for me. It’s time I pay you back for everything.” He pressed the button, letting the elevator go back up into the shuttle.

“DON’T DO THIS SAMMY, NO, NO NO NO! DON’T DO THIS! DAD’S GOING TO HATE ME FOR THIS SAM! IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE ME.” Dean began beating at the doors. “SAM YOU HAVE A SON WHO NEEDS YOU.” he tried using his shoulder to break the door but it was no use.

“You have a son or daughter that needs you too!” Sam yelled at him. “So just tell them I was cool or something, okay?” He turned away from Dean. “I love you Dean.”

The elevator doors opened into the shuttle. Dean felt two strong arms grab him and pull him in.

“LET ME GO! SAMMY! I NEED TO GET BACK TO SAM!” Dean tried wrestling away from Benny.

“Easy brother. We gotta get home.” Benny said, getting him into a seat and tightening the straps so Dean couldn’t get out. “And your oxygen is damaged. You can’t go back out there.”

“Then you get me a new suit, get me out of here. I drew the damn short straw it should be me!”

“There are no more suits.” Cas told Dean.

“And I think Sam’s made up his mind.” Ash sighed.

“He got what he wanted.” Benny shook his head. “He got to kill himself.”

“How did you know about that?” Dean growled at Benny, “How did everyone know but me!”

“I didn’t know!” Ketch said.

“I only knew because I had to take the kid to therapy one day.” Benny told him. “We went out for beers and he told me.”

“Dad’s going to hate me for not protecting him,” Dean sobbed, “the old man might as well kill me himself.”

****

Sam had the communication device that they were supposed to use outside of the shuttle. He sat down by the bomb and closed his eyes. With a deep breath, Sam powered it on.

“If...if anyone can hear me,” Sam said, tears filling up in his eyes. “I...I’d really like to talk to my dad.”

Forever Tags: @anathewierdo @dekahg @marvel-af-imagines @feelmyroarrrr @nanie5 @imboredsueme @gemini0410 @aiaranradnay @babypink224221 @mogaruke @xxwarhawk @sandlee44 @shatteredabby @caswinchester2000 @supernaturalwincestsblog @lauravic @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk @teller258316 @horrorpxnk

Dean Winchester/Jensen Ackles Tags: @queenslandlover-93 @screechingartisancashbailiff @strab0 @maaryisafangirl @deathofmissjackson @hellabrothers @fandom-princess-forevermore @x-waywardaf-x @webcraft4eveh @deansgirl-1968 @2dead2function @jjjjjjjoshdun @stella20131991@luciathewinchestergirl @sheris532 @bobasheebaby @bella-ca @akshi8278

Supernatural Tags: @bandobsession98 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @fangirlsencyclopaediaofweirdness @ilovetardis @missihart23 @cloudyskylines @flamencodiva @sams-serialkiller-fetish @theas-bedtime-stories @huntingfreewill @ocholove @princessofthefandomrealm @getbackhonkycatt

Armageddon Tags: @thefaithfulwriter

#Armageddon #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #supernatural #Jensen Ackles

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