#and people are still planning to play it

[jestlingnest]

vent in tags. sorry.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Late Night Talking

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[dykedvonte]

You wanna talk about House and Benny? Let’s talk about House and Benny. Let’s talk about how House says he saw Benny as a son figure ans a rightful successor to the strip. Let’s talk about how Benny was so charmed by House’s offer that he literally killed a man to get the position to agree to it. Let’s talk about how House was intentionally priming Benny and regrets not doing better, not for the wasted time but of Benny’s wasted potential, how it was misplaced. Let’s talk about how Benny didn’t question House’s leadership until the guy started going radio silent. Let’s talk about House and Benny:

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (2/2)

part 1

Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.

It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.

But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.

There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.

Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.

Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.

Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.

Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.

Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.

He doesn't dream.

One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.

And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.

And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.

He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.

But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.

The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.

Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.

The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.

"I'll be home in one week."

[blackjackkent]

Rakha is extremely interested in getting back out on the road to help Wyll with the Karlach situation, but her slight deference to Lae'zel's opinion of the right course leads them to thoroughly explore the tiefling camp first in search of the fellow named Zorru who, supposedly, saw githyanki presence in the area.

They find him hunched up leaning against a wall near the training floor, looking around with a sort of rattled aspect. He jumps when Rakha approaches, and then his eyes lock on Lae'zel and his deep red skin goes pale.

"B-by Mordai's eyes," he stammers with visible panic. "Another one." He stretches out a hand placatingly. "My friend's blood not enough? Come to rip me open too?"

Yes-- sings the beast in Rakha's head. Rip and tear and shred his guts and wrap them around his neck and spill enough blood for him and his friend both--

She remains very still but her eyes glint intensely as Lae'zel speaks. Lae'zel has plans. The boy has information. He must not die yet.

"In Creche K'liir," Lae'zel says, staring the young tiefling down imperiously, "a formal greeting begins with a bow."

Zorru's eyes widen and he looks pleadingly at Rakha, apparently having the mistaken impression that she might be a comparative voice of reason. "I-is this monster with you?"

Rakha says nothing, just stares the frightened boy down.

[HALF-ORC] Give the tiefling a menacing glare.

Zorru swallows nervously. All the blood rushes back into his face, suffusing it with red, and he makes an awkward bow as Lae'zel's eyes shoot daggers through him.

"Lower," Lae'zel snaps coolly.

An impatient rumble sounds at the back of Rakha's throat. This is not information. This is an expression of dominance on Lae'zel's part. Humiliation. A waste of time, just as the conversation with Ethel was.

Best it be over with quickly. And perhaps the boy will disobey, she thinks, unbidden, the beast stirring eagerly, and Lae'zel will judge it prudent to use the blade--

[HALF-ORC] "On your knees," she growls. "She won't say it again."

The tiefling's expression twists, as if he is about to cry. He sinks to his knees, his head bowed, his hands trembling with fear.

Lae'zel makes a soft noise of satisfaction. "You saw another gith," she demands. "Where?"

"On the road to Baldur's Gate," Zorru stammers nervously. "Near the mountain pass." His voice cracks; his eyes have fixed on the point of Lae'zel's enormous greatsword where it shows behind her hip. "Saw us 'fore we saw it. Jammed its b-blade through Yul's belly, straight to the other side."

Rakha's eyes half-close and her breath draws inward suddenly, ragged; the mental image sends heat through her own gut. The blood would have poured from such a wound like a waterfall... Flame crackles at her fingertips and then fades.

"No twisting?" Lae'zel murmurs, taunting. "Kin must have been in a hurry."

The boy flinches. Lae'zel, unmoved, reaches over and yanks at the map sticking out of Rakha's pack, shoves it into Zorru's hands. "The map. Show me."

There is a long, awkward silence while Zorru obediently scribbles on the map, circling the pass to the west and marking the path along the Risen Road. Then Lae'zel snatches the paper back from him and stuffs it away again.

"Up," she says curtly. "You can keep your innards."

Pity... murmurs the beast, and Rakha watches Zorru walk off and feels a squirm of frustration somewhere in the back of her mind.

Wyll has been watching this little power play unfold in silence. His expression is difficult to read - he might be dismayed or somewhat impressed. "By the dead gods," he murmurs. "Are all gith so brutal?"

Lae'zel shoots him a look that is equally complex - a mix of disdain and amusement. "Brutal?" she quips in return. "Blood still flows through his own veins. I was positively gentle."

-----

"The locals prove compliant," she adds almost conversationally to Rakha, squinting at the scribbles Zorru placed on the map. "A useful trait."

Rakha nods vaguely. She is still settling down from the images of death that the whole conversation left her with, and her voice is a smidge hoarse. "What comes next?"

Lae'zel shrugs. "The teeth-ling was clear. If there are githyanki west of here, that must be our objective. Purification cannot wait."

Tiefling. Rakha has already learned that much. But she has little grounds on which to begin a habit of correcting Lae'zel on matters where she holds very little more information. She shrugs off the mispronunciation, focuses on the other information. "What do you mean, 'purification'?" she demands.

"The creche holds the zaith'isk," Lae'zel says. "It will cleanse us of the parasite." An almost imperceptible hesitation, then: "By covenant I can say no more."

Rakha raises an eyebrow. By covenant I can say no more.

Perhaps this is truth. But she files the phrase away nevertheless, because she suspects that it is one that might prove useful to her as well - a quick answer for those moments when she is asked about something she does not understand, and does not wish to look a fool.

[lululeighsworld]

decided to play the heirs of fate dlc this weekend (ive been meaning to for awhile; admittedly my knowledge of it all comes from browsing the wiki, and i really wanted to experience the anankos characterization for myself). this isn't even the part i was excited to get to BUT I AM REELING OVER IT..........FOR REASONS I WILL DISCLOSE IN THE TAGS (from part iv: light's sacrifice)

[aparticularbandit]

....

I should replay Stanley Parable just to have Junko quote it in the third fic at some point, huh

Because that relationship of "every road you travel, every choice you make or can make had been written in advance, and they all end with your death" is. that's Junko's theme in the trilogy.

It does not matter what you do or how you do it. The story ends with Junko's death. She will die. She is going to die.

Makoto's sacrifice doesn't save her. Mukuro and Matsuda following her doesn't save her. Kyoko's love will not save her, and neither will Mikan's.

It's all scripted, and it has been from the beginning, and every route ends with Junko's death because she wrote it that way.

She gave you the book, Kyoko. You read how it ends. But up against the Ultimate Analyst who knows you so well that she can predict your actions in advance, even choosing to go against what she wrote - she already knows how you will act.

And she is determined to die.

How do you fight that?

You can't.

Junko's going to die and that's the way the story ends and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

How do you wrestle with that? How does Kyoko wrestle with that? That inevitability while other people keep sacrificing themselves to stop something that cannot - will not - stop?

[meowthiroth]

[novelconcepts]

It’s always so funny to me when someone can’t tell the difference between an actor who’s over the top and an actor who is doing an intentionally over the top performance. The former can be super aggravating, I get it—but the latter can be so goddamn effective. Especially when you know the actor already, know they’re fully capable of giving normal human facial expressions and chill line deliveries. And they’re out here doing The Absolute Most all of a sudden? It’s for a reason, dude. It’s almost always for a reason. And once you can see past the camp on the surface, it’s so much fun digging in to what emotions the character is actually hiding.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Things that sillily make me happy: the fact that in the official Buffy chess set they released, Buffy and Angel are queen and king chess pieces.

And, I mean, it just makes sense that they would do this, of course. As it looks like this set was based on early season two, as Spike and Drusilla are the king and queen pieces for black.

But Buffy and Angel being king and queen pieces works so well, since they're paired together, of course. And equal to each other... and a battle couple. And more than anything, this is great because the queen's the most powerful piece on the board and Buffy's the most powerful character in the series, of course. And her being more powerful than Angel just tracks. Because she canonically is. And this makes me think of the many times where she saved him and he was the damsel.

Anyway...

[camscendants]

That was an eventful two days

[nancywheeeler]

current afterparty theory: someone in zoe's family tried to kill edgar with the devil's trumpet tea, but that isn't how he actually died.

[crtastrophe]

Commission for @super-realistic-fiction!

[victheclown]

Considering starting to post here again but would you guys be mad if I found a new like really major hyperfixation

[frozenambiguity]

And what if I tell you that this is precisely how I envision prince / king / leader of Khaenri'ah Kaeya... ( source )

[opens-up-4-nobody]

I wanna play with Legos right now :-[