#and i got immediately hit with Meat Man and The Saddest Way To Give a Pep Talk To Your Clone

[cthoniccompanion]

ok OK also FUCK, watching that cutscene with aloy and beta and rost while wearing the deathseeker paint was a choice that hurt

[boog-shitposting-edition]

So I been playing a ton of Kenshi and watched all of the Mandalorian in a single day shortly before and it’s got me thinking about what makes what I consider a good action hero, because there was definitely a time where I thought the phrase “good action hero” was an oxymoron.

I grew up around some angry, unstable dudes who had that bad habit of watching horror movies and opining that in the same situation they would simply shoot the monster with the gun the character was holding. I got some views on the model of masculinity that sees the male ideal as functionally a tool for performing violence, condescension and occasional reddit-approved banter with all other emotional responses pared away or suppressed. This seems like a good way to manufacture a product for performing labor rather than developing a whole functional human being. So I generally veer away from that sort of thing pretty hard.

So I’m resistant to the Mandalorian at first, right? All the ads are basically star wars apocryphica and a power armored fighty gun boy. The last star wars thing I’d seen was The Rise Of Skywalker and my faith in the franchise is low. But it’s been a hot minute, the hype dies down, and my girlfriend is a better and more patient fan than I’ll ever be so we give it a go. And the first thing that really nails it for me is what a DORK the mando is. I’m delighted, his life is violence interdispersed with being an absolute buttfumble disaster. He slips and falls over things he could never have predicted, he burns his life down for a baby he finds in the desert. Pedro Pascal references Boba Fetts stiff menace and plays it off as someone who has no social skills other than stiff menace and it’s FASCINATING. Him explaining to the village woman who is obviously into him that he hasn’t taken the armor off since he was thirteen isn’t a badass declaration of martial devotion, it is the single saddest and most awkward interaction I have ever seen filmed and it hits all the harder for the fact that this is a character I’ve mostly ever seen as an action figure with a spring loaded missile backpack. Instead of being a faceless emotionless action-cudgel, Pedro amps up the body language in his acting to really sell you this heavily psychologically damaged, desperate, viking-space-catholic mess with no life skills other than violence and a devotion to his people’s creed that borders on obsession. Rather than paring himself down making him a psychological fortress, the Mando is an incredibly obvious walking raw nerve (”I’m not sad-” “Yes you are.”) So, Kenshi.

I’ve heard about this game on and off a few years and finally got it a few days ago. It’s been in early access since 2012, appears to be mostly getting finished by its modding community, and glitches like absolute woah. There’s no core storyline, just a post-apocalyptic setting with some surprisingly detailed autogenerated NPC interactions with some options for starting conditions and the sole goal of surviving. It’s essentially a rapid sequence of story prompts hidden underneath a closely interlocked system of XP grinding, survival mechanics and dismemberment algorithms, and is appallingly my shit.

My first run at the game got pretty far, went from a lone confused desert wanderer to a 13 man village running a tidy copper-mining operation to trade with the ant people. In the early game, fight mechanics are basically a death sentence; my first character immediately got her leg torn off by a goat and I had to restart. All skills grow only by excersizing them; you have to fight to get better at fighting, you have to LOSE fights to gain toughness, and when you lose a fight the consequences can range from “these bandits are stealing all your food” to “this monster is eating your leg/heart/head” to “these slavers are taking your character away and your game experience is Different now.” And while I was proud of myself for finding a way to survive, grow and thrive with a low-combat squad, once I tried the basebuilding mechanics that basically just meant my town was a source of free food and money for local bandits while my squad starved to death, unable to abandon our locale. So I got fed up and restarted.

As mentioned the game gives you different start positions; wanderer gives you 1 character, some money and pants. Guy and his dog gives you a dog, which is fun. Exiled officer starts you with good skills and the hatred of your former commander, which complicates things. Cannibal Hunters starts you already in a fistfight with 30 cannibals. It’s exciting times. But I figure this time I’d like to start my squad a LITTLE more capable of defending themselves, so I look at the Holy Sword start; you’re a bandit who starts with a stolen holy weapon, minuses in most skills, no money and a 20,000 bounty on your head from both major factions.

So I proceed to character creation and notice I can pick whatever I want for player species/subspecies with this start. There’s robot people and warriors made of stone and baseline humans and all sorts of fun options, but you remember those ant people I mentioned before? In game they’re called the Hivers, you find ‘em in 3 recruitable varieties (prince, worker drone and soldier) and they have an interesting in-universe quirk; ones that grow up in the hive are pheramone-addicted, chemically wired into the needs and wants of all of their fellows, but if you’re away from your kin for over a fortnight this addiction dries out incredibly fast and cannot be reinstated. Hivers who ever spend any time away from the hive are declared “lost ones,” and are often taken advantage of in the outside world as they long for a new community.

In survival sims I dont often play dedicated fighters, I always feel like being a brutal fight-beast isn’t really in the spirit of finding a niche to exploit and growing from a fumbling plebian to a major power. But I was already starting this game with my ONLY advantage being a nice sword. And the soldier hivers gain a buff to experience gained for melee attack and toughness, and a debuff to literally all else.

Manual labor. Science. Engineering. Farming. Cooking. First aide. In a setting that heavily prioritized your ability to survive using multiple vital skill sets, my character would start with negatives in his skills for putting on band-aids and FEEDING himself. So I gave it a go.

Getting more wild here, it turns out the Holy Sword opening also takes place in a time in the setting with more recent warfare, so a bunch of the starting villages are destroyed and it appears that more of the nearby cities are controlled by the factions that have a bounty on me. So my character CAN’T rely on other people or meet anyone to recruit at first. He can run, he can scrounge and scavenge, and as mentioned above starting characters can take lethal damage from GOATS so he can’t even hunt for food; the only way I was getting a meal was if I robbed someone or ran into merchants on the road I could hawk my salvage to for a scrap of bread.

He eventually finds someone willing to join him on his travels in spite of being flat broke, a shek named Ruka running from a dishonerable loss on the battlefield, and comparing their skills he’s so useless for everything besides combat that I assign him to bodyguard her. And again, this game’s appeal is that the survival mechanics make good story prompts, so imagine that in character.

“Fine, I need a change. I’ll join you.” “Thank god. Lead the way boss.” “What?”

Things regarding my characters bounty are starting to heat up in town, so we head north into hiver territory. We get attacked by bandits and heavily injured, my soldier gets knocked out, so Ruka picks him up and carries him until we find a hive town. I saw these guys all the time in my last playthrough, I survived by selling to them, they’re super friendly, should be fine. Ruka walks into the local shop and before I can have her ask for directions and a medikit the shopkeeper is already shouting- “SKREEE! LOST ONE! GET OUT! LOST ONES BRING MADNESS”

Apparently, my protagonist being a hiveless hiver means there’s a THIRD faction that’s hostile to him; his own goddamn people. Ruka has to leave him under a tree not just outside but like 50 feet from the edge of town, and just has  to hope none of the local wild megafauna eats him while she rushes back in to buy things from the now abruptly friendlier shopkeep.

I’m finally sitting there, having Ruka watch my soldier hiver sleep while she cooks scavanged meat and waits for him to finish healing, that I realize what the story being generated here is and it’s a good one; a Hive soldier whose only skills are violence, frantically scavenging and stealing to survive until he can find the one circumstance where he’s comfortable, sacrificing himself to protect others. He steals a sword that’s obviously important to two major governments, just because he knows it’s powerful and thinks that power will justify his continued existence as a hiveless soldier drone, essentially buying his way back into his people’s good graces by performing his function. Literally wandering the world until he found a single person who was willing to boss him around again and devoting himself to their defense to a state of pathological damage just to feel like he has a hive again. It’s sad. It’s badass. It’s deeply, unsettlingly pathetic.

But I also think it’s what makes a really really good gruff action hero!

Hypercompetence in violence is really interesting when you acknowledge the damage it can do to your humanity in the storytelling! The Mandalorian is unsuccessful in repressing his empathy response so he just tries to tough through the pain it causes him as best he can, until he meets The Child and it snaps. The Hiver is essentially playing pretend at being still valued as a product for committing violence, even in the face of being openly rejected for his previously esteemed role. This stuff is INTERESTING.

TL;DR version, a lot of these “supersoldier raised by the military/fight wizards/karate” characters are super boring and obnoxious when they’re put forward as power fantasies, and really interesting when you realize that being raised by Fight Wizards is why they’ve never had a girlfriend and called their handgun “mom” once.

[hotelsweet]

DARCE I FINALLY THOUGHT OF THE PROMPT I WANTED TO REQUEST FROM U!! literally,,,,,literally anything with the protective jake dynamic from maximum security,,,,i would cry so many tears,,,,i WILL cry so many tears,,,bless ur soul thank u in advance i love u dearly

on this week’s episode of Em Wants Me Dead,,,,

in all honesty I rewrote this a few times because I wanted to be completely certain I was hitting that protectiveness right but dear God this prompt came for my soul

anyway HERE

Amy shifts over in her cell bed, wishing to hell she couldrip this stupid fake baby bump off and sleep in an actual, comfortable bed. Sheneeds sleep, desperately, but all she can think about is Maura, and Figgis, andJake.

Jake.

The way he’d triedto protect her. The way he’dadmitted he couldn’t be here while she wassurrounded by these women.

It’s notthe first time she’s seen him protective, not byfar- but it’s perhaps only the secondtime she’s seen him act upon it. Thefirst time was years ago, not long into her job at the nine-nine. It’s perhaps one of her first memoriesof them as real friends, real partners. Warmth spills into her system at thethought of it.

It’sstrange, in a way, she thinks, the fondness this memory elicits- the first timeAmy knew that Jake Peralta would always have her back just so happened tocoincide with one of the saddest days of her life.

Shifting her head against a thin pillow, Amy lets her minddrift, finding the moment and replaying it, in every little detail, letting itlull her to sleep.

 ***

 “Y’okay?”

It’s thisvoice, amongst a sea of others, that catches Amy’sattention. Her eyes rise from her computer screen, and it’s like she comes back to life,snapping out of a daydream; suddenly, she’sstarkly aware of how dry her eyes feel, from staring absently at her screen,and of the concerned expression with which Jake examines her.

“Yeah, uh,” she clears her throat, “yeah. I’m fine.”

“Sure? Y’know, it’s almost the end of the day anyway, I don’t mind taking you home if you’re not feelin’ it.” Jake saysit simply, like it’s nothing, but she knows it’s a favour, a pity-offer.

“That’s nice,” shereplies genuinely, “but I’m really okay. Just tired.”

“Sure. Hey, I think there’s some takeout in the break room, ifyou’re hungry.”

“Oh, okay,” she says quietly, smiling gratefullyover at him.

She clears her throat again, attempting to expel thattightness in her chest, and stands up, deciding a snack and some cold water tothe face     will wake her up a little-she’s still got work to do, and she’s not packing up any time soon.

As she moves, she subconsciously feels herself avoidingeyes. The whole squad’s beenwatching her, and she knows it. Just this morning, her grandfather passed away-and she would have been able to keep it secret, were it not for the fact thatGina had answered the phone this morning, apparently expecting one of Amy’s “nerdfriends” and instead being greetedwith her tearful mother.

It’s notlike she minds things like this interfering with her work day- in fact, she’s more distracted by the devastationaching through her mind and her body, like a numbness just waiting to build up intotears. It’s just the fact that everyoneknows, and everyone’s treading on eggshells around her.She’s barely worked here a year, justabout falling into a rhythm with everyone, and now, just because she’s not quite close enough with anyoneyet, it’s fallen into awkwardness.Even Jake, the biggest pain in her ass since she picked up this job, is beingunbearably kind.

Quickly, she heads for the break room, sighing to herself inrelief at the slight stretch in her legs from standing up and moving around, apleasant contrast to what must have been at leastfifteen minutes sat in silence.

Once she’s inthe breakroom, she finds herself exhaling deeply, finally out of sight fromeveryone else. On the table are a few boxes; some tacos, some chips, somefries- it’s bland, but it’ll do, she thinks, picking at itmindlessly.

It’ssoothing, filling her up quickly.

Right up until, that is, a piercing shout comes from thebullpen.

“HEY!”

It’s Rosa’s voice, but it’s too loud, too much of a warning.

Before she really knows what she’s doing, Amy’s feetare carrying her into the bullpen. It’s aperp, and he’s running- straight towardsher. Rosa’s on the ground next to herdesk, grabbing her shin and breathing hard through gritted teeth. She’s been hurt.

“Amy!” Rosa yells, and at once, Amy snaps back to life. With notime to grab her gun, she’sthrowing herself towards the burly man headed towards her, aiming to debilitatehim with perfect procedure- but he’s twosteps ahead of her, latching onto her wrist and spinning her round so she’s in front of him, held tightly infront of him with her arm behind his back.

“Let me walk and I won’t grab her gun,” he says casually, as if he’s done this a thousand times before.Come to think of it, Amy realises, he probably has. Her mind buzzes, her heartpounding in her chest, immediately thinking about what to do next. Knock himout? Make a move? Stay still?

The entire room is at a complete standstill- Rosa, Charles,and Terry all have their guns pointed at him, which only makes Amy feel sick;while those guns are pointed at him, they’repointed at her, too.

Her eyes scam the bullpen for Jake, but he’s out of his desk, nowhere to be seen.Great. Probably gone for a pee, entirely clueless.

She tightens a little, trying to pull away, but he onlygrabs her tighter, causing her to grimace a little. What a day- losing a familymember, experiencing her most awkward, sad, and slow day at work yet, and beingused as a meat-shield by a runaway perp.

“You’ve got five,” hesays calmly- his voice reverberates against Amy’s back,almost making her shiver. “Four,three, two- unf”

He’s cutoff as he drops to the floor.

Amy spins round to see Jake, holding the guy’s hand behind his back, keeping himagainst the floor with his foot. The whole room seems to breathe a sigh ofrelief; Rosa, though she clearly shouldn’t bewalking, heads straight towards them, and soon enough Terry’s moving over too. Jake, however,remains entirely focused on Amy, his expression still, and tense, and worried,entirely fixated among the chaos of the room.

Terry’smuttering something to the perp about CCTV, and the charges he’s just added for himself byassaulting a cop. Rosa’shissing curses under her breath. Charles is explaining the entire situation toMcGinley, who apparently missed the whole thing.

To Amy, it’s allan even thicker blur, stood watching it all happen, and directly in the middleof it all is Jake, his voice repeating over and over again at her.

“Amy.” His voice is quiet, but he’s allshe really hears.

“I’m fine, thank you for… for…” she says dismissively, moving awayfrom the centre of the bullpen, her head pounding. Air. She needs air.

Faster than she anticipated, she’s outside, sinking against the wall to her knees. Thelate-Autumn Brooklyn evening whispers a brief shiver down her spine, and herarm aches gently from where

His voice catches up with her, but she’s already lost herself, anxietythrumming painfully in her mind, pushing her until she’s curling up, her head dropping into her hands.

“Amy.” He’sbeside her, crouched down, his hand on her arm. “Did hehurt you?”

“I don’t-”

“Did he hurt you?” Jake’s voiceis firm, far more protective than she’s everheard him before. It has her a little taken aback, just for a moment. She feelsherself starting to focus again, the fear slipping away, and she looks up athim. His face is almost angry, brow furrowed, to the point where it almostworries her. She’s never seen him like this.

“No, I’m fine.”

“I could’ve punched him,” Jake mutters resentfully, rollinghis eyes. “I can’t believe it was you… andwith the day you’ve had, too”

“Has that happened before?”

“Yeah. Although, in my fouryears on the force, I’ve onlyseen two other runners.”

“Idiots,” she says quietly, pressing the backof her wrist against her eye. “Y’know, I could have dealt with that bymyself. I was about to go for his stomach with my elbow.” She knows she’s beingstubborn, but she’d rather die than look weak.

“Yeah, I know, are youkidding?” Jake says, smiling in thatway he always does towards her defensiveness. Any other day, she’d find it annoying. Right now, thenormality of it is so perfect it almost makes her cry. “I acted on instinct. Something about seeing you like thatmade me move, without thinking. Eh, I don’t know.”

“Probably a pretty stupidmove,” Amy grins, and he laughs alittle.

“Next time I’ll let you fight your corner.”

“Thanks.”

Jake laughs.

“No,” she interjects, “I meanthank you for helping me.”

“Don’t be stupid, anyone would have done it for their partner,for their friend.”

She smiles over at him for a moment. They don’t move, the noise of Brooklyn trafficfilling the silence between them.

“I think I need to go home,” she says quietly.

“Let me take you.”

“No, it’s fine, really.”

“Amy,” he looks at her simply, “I’m not letting you go home alone. You’ve lost someone important and justbeen attacked.”

“I wasn’t attacked,” she mutters. Jake doesn’t reply, just looking at her,eyebrows raised. “Okay, fine,” she gives in. “I need to get my stuff.” She stands up and brushes herselfdown, inwardly praying she’s notsat in anything gross.

“Nope, I’m being a good friend now, this is it,this is my duty-” he jumps in, and before shecan object he’s running back into theprecinct.

Within minutes, he’s backby her side, leading her to his car, chatting about some candy store downtownthat sells the exact brand of Mexican gummy bears he likes, and it’s dark outside, and cold, and all sheneeds to do is sit in his passenger seat and listen.

And when she starts to cry, silently, letting this awful dayescape her, and he apologises, she knows it’s notfor his stories about candy. It’s forthis absolute bitch of a world.

In the darkness, she finds herself leaning across her seatinto his arms, and crying, for lord only knows how long, in a feat that neitherof them will mention for months.

He’s warm,and still, and accepting. Calm. Ready to be there for her, just as he’d been in the bullpen.

And though it’s along while before she’lladmit it, it’s the safest she’s ever felt.  

Safest she’ll everfeel.