#its potentially just a weird scratch and also who would inject there ...?

[immortalsins]

returning to the realm of the living after 48-ish hours to google spiking symptoms then go back to sleep lmao

[vroenis]

Lost Legacy Exemplifies Naughty Dog’s Cultural Crisis

There’s a discussion about Ocean’s 8 that positions its existence around whether or not it's necessary as a counterpoint to the Ocean’s reboot - the Ocean’s Cinematic Universe - if you will (what a world we live in) - that it was only made as a gender flip of the reboot that spawned two sequels, three films in total cast almost entirely with men.

My perspective is that as much as I generally enjoyed the Ocean’s reboots for what they were, Ocean’s Eleven should have been a cast entirely with women in the first place.

The heroes we both need and deserve.

Massive spoilers for the original 1960 Lewis Milestone version and the Steven Soderbergh one in 2001 of Ocean’s Eleven - Soderbergh’s flip is of-course that they get to keep the money at the end so that they have to potentially give it back in the sequel he knew he’d be able to make, whereas I doubt Milestone knew he’d ever get a sequel back in the early 60′s so the rub for film-making back then is to burn the money at the end. Nevertheless even for the early 2000′s, the boldest of moves would have been to cast it with women, not to be progressive but also to be progressive, tho that’s still an absurd thought that to cast women is progressive - but to be smart. Ocean’s 8 is a fantastic film, deftly written, paced, acted, shot and edited. Would the world have responded to it in like-kind? I know how *I* would have responded to it, I think you can answer for yourself how societal cultures may have responded at any point from 2001 thru to now. In any case, I have Ocean’s 8 on blu-ray. I love it.

A reader asked me whether I’d played Uncharted: The Lost Legacy after kindly reading through my bludgeoning of Uncharted 4, and seeing as they were patient enough to endure that blood-letting, I felt I owed them and probably Naughty Dog the time of day to give Uncharted-And-A-Half a chance, and I’m really glad I did. Fair warning, there’s a lot I didn’t like about Lost Legacy, and there’s going to be some more pain - a lot of pain. I don’t think any of my tumblr audience is quite on the rest of my socials, but anyone who’s connected to me anywhere else on the Wire was subject to my frustrations as I played thru the game on Saturday, including the blurred image of my Google Keep notes I took while playing the game in preparation for this journal. I keep notes now.

Nevertheless, I can say that on the assumption that the Uncharted series is wrapped, or at least in the narrative arc with these characters as we know them, that Lost Legacy is easily without question my favourite Uncharted game by far.

On that assumption that Uncharted is more or less done, now’s as good a time as any to take a top-down look at the franchise as a whole. I know I already did a fair bit of that in the last piece, but some broader thoughts on what the series does and says have solidified while playing Lost Legacy, and I’ll discuss them as a lead-in to my thoughts on the game.

Again - this is going to be riddled with spoilers for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and most likely the entire Uncharted series, so if you’ve not played them and are interested in doing so, or don’t want to see them heavily critiqued, please stop here.

The first game was released in 2007 and was apparently in development for roughly three years. What was happening up to and around 2004 to 2007? September 11 had happened in 2001, the world was at war in the Middle East in Afghanistan and second invasion of Iraq had begun in 2003, Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005 - the same year the IRA ended armed conflict in Northern Ireland, 2005 saw the outbreak of H5N1 Avian Flu - topical right now. There are so many more, I can’t list them all here - lots of momentous events that in some way or another highlight community awareness in some way - that’s probably a bit of an obtuse statement but hopefully it’ll string together in a sec. What struck me and a bunch of my friends odd about the first, then the second and then somehow every Uncharted game since, is that Naughty Dog seem to choose an ethnicity for their antagonists and scratch the surface of “what if this element of their cultural violence is bad”, but then leave it so shallow that it remains a caricature and comes off as casually and carelessly racist. The first game frames the theme around Nazis, but the actual enemies are anything but. Yes, they’re intended to be mercenaries, but they’re hardly nondescript, they’re absolutely of very specific ethnicity.

From the second game onward, Naughty Dog seem to want to make use of real world settings and do some nuanced research on actual sociopolitical conflict and I always feel uneasy about how its presented. Lost Legacy begins much the same way and I worried about the tone going in. An active war-zone in India as gravitas to your setting that is then almost completely abandoned until the very end? This is my problem with how the writers treat setting in Uncharted. They use very real conflicts that have real-world consequences for people in which actual lives are lost to inject gravity into their narrative and then quickly discard it for the sake of shenanigans once the wise-cracking starts when the tone shifts gear and the characters themselves take centre-stage in the foreground.

Here’s the thing.

The character’s are enough. I *love* these characters. Their story is fantastic. Nadine’s and Chloe’s story was the best and most cohesive of the entire series. Also it only took me roughly six hours to play thru and I only feel like half of that was wasted! That’s still probably being too generous but I’m grasping for positives, here. Still - I don’t know why the senior production team has never had confidence in the core of their product which is the charm of their characters and the play dynamic - Uncharted is primarily about *seeing* and *doing* - for the most part, unfortunately, separately.

The dialogue between Chloe and Nadine is extremely interesting, it is absolutely the best thing in the game, yet it keeps getting interrupted by stupid gameplay beats due to poor timing of rolling up on level locations. Uncharted 4 was supposed to have locations hidden around levels where you could engage in dialogue between characters but I barely found them - why hide such interesting content in your game?? It’s completely absurd. Then the only few I did find were between Elena and Nathan altho I really don’t think those were meant to be hidden, and they were so poorly written and I hated them so much, I didn’t care to discover any more. Again - no disrespect at all to Nolan North and Troy Baker whom I absolutely adore and respect, but I didn’t find anything engaging or interesting *at all* about the brother narrative. I didn’t care one bit what that nonsense was about. What about Sully? Where’s Sully’s story?? I’m just so - so glad we got a story for Chloe, and that at least Nadine got some great screen time too as a part of it and that it all presented so well.

Before I continue to praise what went well, there are a few things I can’t let pass. While the driving has thankfully improved and controls quite well now, the exclusion of a minimap or GPS HUD element is interesting. I’m fairly certain it’s intentional as to not detract from the game’s clean, cinematic look, to not break immersion, but this just generates a horrific breakdown in actual player experience for me. Without any navigational assists, I constantly got lost and stopped every 20 meters to check the map, frequently driving into dead-ends, off cliffs and past where I wanted or needed to go. The game isn’t a 30 hour open-world experience with distinct and varied landmarks the player will familiarise themselves with and learn to navigate by, for the most part the level is fairly homogeneous in object geometry.

Some of the puzzles take far too long to mechanically execute, in particular the smashy-slashy statue block jumpy stupid whatever it’s called one and the sliding shadow motif. It doesn’t matter that neither actually takes too long once you know the solution, it’s that they feel long and then are actually over-long and also not interesting to mechanically execute. This is due mostly to clunky character animation and animation smoothing, and part of Naughty Dog’s overall obsession with being cinematic which is something I’ll return to towards the end of this piece, something which has been a strength but will ultimately be to their detriment. While cinematic visuals might be a benefit for traversal, it’s something that absolutely does not suit puzzle-solving. In the example of the statue-block puzzle, the hard reset each time the player is hit means laboriously jogging all the way back to the beginning and starting again - it’s just poor puzzle design having to begin again from a full reset. There’s no satisfaction in having to remember the whole thing and while I didn’t look up the solution online, I’m willing to bet many people will have just dialled up a clip on YouTube and copied it without figuring it out themselves. This is a failure of connecting what’s satisfying about moving in your game and what’s satisfying about solving puzzles, something Crystal Dynamics understood far better in the Tomb Raider reboots, in particular the second outing (Rise of) with their much more environment-centric puzzling.

The sliding shadow puzzle just simply takes way too long to jog around the space, then clip onto the hot-zone for each lever, wait for the animation to lift it, wait for the animation for the pieces to slide, rinse, repeat. Once you know what you have to do, it’s overly frustrating actually having to do it.

It brings me to a weird quirk of design where the puzzle designers perhaps don’t understand something that the environmental designers do. Maybe they didn’t get the same little notes in the Slack channel, or Trello board or Teams pin or whatever. Uncharted level-design has almost no back-tracking, less in each successive game, and it’s almost entirely absent from Lost Legacy - you’d have to look closely to realise you’re navigating the same area you came in thru and almost always moving over it in a different way that’s been modified - now it’s flooded, now there’s a bridge, now you’re swinging or leaping or climbing where you weren’t etc. I feel like this is the Hidetaka Miyazaki Souls/Borne effect of level design in which environments are designed to be both realistic and practical.

Great! Good for the level designers. Did the puzzle designers not get that note? Maybe they did. I need to stop thinking that every poor optimisation is a symptom of ignorance - that’s bad form on my part. What’s more likely is it’s a symptom of either bad leadership, poor tool implementation, lack of time or too narrow or strict an observation of representative vision - by which I mean - they can’t change the way the characters move or animate just for puzzles, because it has to be consistent with the cinematic representation of the game as a whole - and that sucks lemons. It means the overall play experience suffers for the sake of the overall cinematic experience except executing a puzzle isn’t cinematic unless it’s expansive...

Like the positive example I’ll give of the light reflector room. Shoplifted from Uncharted 2′s giant knife that has Nathan climb all over a giant knife, Lost Legacy’s light reflector room has slightly less climbing but is a much larger space, more impressive and a much better example of good puzzling in Uncharted. It’s not difficult to solve but again (I think again?) I’ll argue that you don’t come to Uncharted for difficult puzzles - you don’t come to Tomb Raider for difficult puzzles, either. 

The puzzles in these games should be mostly environmental because they feel good solving them, and solving them should be more about the doing - the playing - and the playing should be moving - running, jumping, climbing etc.

Both the giant knife and the reflector room are a joy to execute because they’re fantastically realised - large cavernous environments that aren’t annoying to navigate, that give you time to appreciate both the scale of the spaces and the details the designers and artists have put into them. Lost Legacy’s is more impressive because you do a lot more puzzling and spend much more time in its vastly larger space, culminating in combat that usually I would be ho-hum about, but I guess exhibits more animation and destruction tech which while scripted, is still impressive nonetheless given how extremely difficult it is to have interactivity still occurring.

I have a few things I want to mention before I begin to wrap up, given it’s going to be a very long wrap - I’d say I’m taking cues from Joseph Anderson but I’ve always been this verbose.

The medallion puzzles were excellent, in part perhaps because they felt like the closest thing to the Tomb Raider reboots’ challenge tombs. Some of them were silly and lazily implemented, the worst offender being you just had to shoot mans and get the medallion from the lock-box that the mans had put it in (pfft), but the best ones were integrated into the environment such that you may well have walked past or thru areas that were puzzles before you knew what they were. This brings up one of the most interesting things I’ve been turning over for quite some time now. Ben Croshaw aka Yahtzee aka Zero Punctuation may have first mentioned “chest high walls” in his first Gears of War video, but it may well have been an Uncharted game. I don’t remember but he will have thrown in mentions of all the generic cover-shooters as a catch-all for how the environments immediately telegraph that Combat™ will happen. It’s a particularly astute remark and speaks volumes of video game design - developers always seem to have very specific design language to separate traversal, combat and puzzling. While I clearly don’t care for combat most days, and yes - I do acknowledge there are some practical concerns for combat that can’t be avoided, I always envisaged design that blurred the lines between puzzle and environment so that you never quite knew what was and wasn’t a puzzle. Everything should be the puzzle. In some senses, Cyan’s old Myst games were a bit like this but in a very rudimentary and crude way - sure, they’re quite old now, but even those had very clear not puzzle areas. It’s a complex and subtle subject, but something of a study of games like Fireproof Games’ The Room would be in order. Understandably smaller scale, but the thinking behind it is definitely adjacent.

Final notes - the young Indian girl in the prologue has amazing animations that you’ll miss entirely unless you swing the camera yourself. A whole team of people or a single animator has spent hours on those animations - that a director or team leader hasn’t forced the player to see and appreciate them is a disservice.

Every section where you have to do something under pressure like run from mans shooting at you or dash through a lengthy section of crumbling cave network etc. is a horrible play experience of not knowing where to go. They’re trying to inject excitement by applying pressure but there’s no clear guidance and no dependence on player skill, so you end in bizarre fail-states due to going in completely the wrong direction that glitches cameras or scene time-outs resulting in check-points and the whole thing just doesn’t scan as a cinematic experience. I hate hate hate them - you’re subject to the same musical swell that’s supposed to be like a movie only to fail again and it comes off as b-grade and pathetic. Every game has had this problem and it is just straight bad design.

Three? Four? Games in a row, Naughty Dog have recycled; 

being pursued on foot by an armoured vehicle crashing through level geometry while you have to run and occasionally shoot/fight mans, 

driving down a shanty-town on a hill pursued by an armoured vehicle - perhaps the same one as previous scene

a big chase scene of lots of vehicles jumping from vehicle to vehicle shooting and/or punching mans that may or may not include...

a train combat sequence where you start at the back of the train and work your way to the front of it shooting mans as you go

This lacks creativity at this point. I think duplicating these once each - so you do them twice total across the franchise is fine, but they hit the same beats in the same way - exactly - every time they appear. It just strikes me as Naughty Dog just not knowing what else to do. At one point, I think it was in Uncharted 4, when driving down the shanty-town on the hill, I literally had a brain-fart not knowing which game I was playing because I swear we did it in 2 and 3. Did we do it in 3?? Look, I don’t know. But it’s getting old. At least we didn’t do it in Lost Legacy, but we did the train and I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of doing the same things in the same way. It could have been a train but it should have been in a way that just wasn’t just another Uncharted train. It hasn’t worn thin, it’s worn out.

Overall, the games look great... but playing them feels like they’re stuck in PS2 and early PS3 era philosophies, like Naughty Dog haven’t evolved and don’t realise that people’s brains function much quicker and can process more, or that the media we consume, the games we play function at a higher level and we can digest more, we’re capable of processing higher functions. I’ve been playing Ubisoft’s The Division 2 and enjoying it more the more I play, much to my surprise. I understand the intent behind the gameplay is extremely different to the single-player experience of Uncharted, however there are some parallels in what it achieves animation wise;

The Division is also a cover shooter but of-course as a multiplayer, open-world live-service game, its intent is to telegraph to the player that the entire environment is a permanent play-space in which to always be playing. It utilises an information-rich GUI that is an always-on system with button icons telling the player what button to press over what surfaces to snap to, vault over, climb up, run to (and snap to cover), open and loot, interact with etc. I don’t know if these can be turned off but I like them on. It’s a pretty amazing feat that almost every environmental object has been mapped as a snap-to-cover and/or climbable object. For this reason, the character movement in Division is pretty quick and snappy, however it still manages to have a decent degree of natural human kinetics in the character rigging which is amazing. This means if you move-off from standing still, there’s a slight delay as your “weight” shifts, same if you change direction. When I say “snap” to cover, it’s not actually instantaneous, your character makes a movement and takes time to do so, yet it’s still not sluggish. Somehow the developers have worked at fine-tuning a balance between not-instant, but not too slow.

This is something that even in Lost Legacy, I feel Naughty Dog simply can’t do. The animations are decent during play - they’re outstanding during cutscenes (we’re getting there), but character models have a really awkward relationship with the environment. They clip awkwardly with ladders and buttons and wheels - with puzzles and levers - getting the grappling hook to prompt is again better than Uncharted 4 but still not ideal. I had far fewer glitch-outs than 4 too, which was a significant improvement, but I still had to animate back and forth a few times to get into hot-zones appropriately and with character kinetics not quite right, it wasn’t exactly easy.

And again to be fair, this stuff is suuuuuper difficult. I don’t mean to talk about this stuff like it’s cooking instant ramen. It’s so freaking tough. Rigging and mapping interactive character models has to be one of the most stupendously difficult things a developer has to do - making it work with all that scripting, getting it to play nice with all those assets and lines and lines of coding for the full experience. I have so much respect for game developers and what an astronomical task it is. So when I say I prefer one development team’s product over another’s, I don’t mean to say that the other team is absolute garbage - there are so many things that might contribute to that final product and we have no idea what’s been going on at Naughty Dog. If the team leaders and producers say they’re happy or even if they don’t, and the decision is made to ship, there’s nothing more they can say or do.

If there was one thing I absolutely loved about this game, it was the two main characters and the story that was told about them. I can excuse the main text as the catalyst that brought them together - even to the point that it’s a story about Chloe ultimately deciding what’s important to her. My issue with this comes full circle with the setting being in a real world conflict. There’s a bit of white savour complex in there in that Asav might be the narrative’s antagonist, but he at least is local. It’s not clear exactly what Chloe’s ethnicity is and I’m not here to judge what her stakes are in it because clearly her character has a sense of home and place in India, but she certainly also has a complex sense of being an outsider. So the point is not to judge, but the game also is unclear on its positioning other than she’s the heroic vehicle of deliverance. See what I mean about theme? This is what I mean by you could have just as easily written almost an identical story about Nadine and Chloe, with very similar interactions, tension, redemption and resolve - even with an antagonist, conflict and a happy ending, but either treated real sociopolitical issues with better care or not set your game in them at all. I’m all for setting games in the real world, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. I’m not the person to ask.

I need to be careful not to direct that criticism at the base-level developers nor at Claudia Black who is the manifestation of Chloe’s voice because she does an amazing job of bringing her to life. The casting of Laura Bailey voicing a black South African Nadine was much more awkward given Nadine’s ethnicity wasn’t decided when she was cast - again that’s on Naughty Dog’s leadership, but I won’t knock Laura Bailey for it. It’s easy to say she should have resigned, perhaps she should have, that’s an economical question only Laura can answer and I’m sure it’s not an easy one. Suffice to say, VO work isn’t lucrative.

What a side-track.

I don’t think I ever cared about Nathan. I think I always cared about Elena, and not because WAIFU and also not because WHITE KNIGHT or whatever other bullshit reasons stupid alphagamerz will spit from their frontheads. Elena’s just more interesting, probably because Nathan is written like a design document and Elena’s written like a human being. Naughty Dog want to create a game about adventuring with lush expansive environments, shooty mcshooting and light puzzling. They want it to be cinematic and unrivalled in its quality and they have the smarts to build the tech around it, with Sony’s help. Backed by Sony money, they take VO seriously and do a great job at creating that cinematic experience, coupled with some above-par for video games narrative writing. The problem this introduces for me is Nathan’s raison d'être has to justify everything - action, tension, stupidity...

Nathan Drake really is the design document.

I feel like he’s just the unfortunate side-effect of being central to the game, and it’s typical of my character to just not dig the focus of things and get into subtexts a whole lot more. Often I get into things in the periphery, things adjacent - I don’t love or hate Shakespeare or for that matter Baz Luhrmann but Romeo + Juliet ‘96 is an amazing film and not at all because of the eponymous Romeo and Juliet and again, not for Leonardo di Caprio (spit!) or for Claire Danes (she can stay) but the absolutely divine cast of supporting characters (John Leguizamo will live in my heart forever oh baby).

That Nathan makes stupid decisions is already something that turns me off. That he makes poor decisions because... he’s an orphan? Because... he was bullied? Because... his brother left him? This is why he’s not transparent with his wife? Actually, he’s quite realistic. Except the people like him I’ve known in my life aren’t heroes - they’re pathetic or unreliable or abusive or dangerous. Elena is an adult. She’s not perfect either and that’s also great because neither am I. As a side character she has the conceit of being more nuanced, but as the contra to Nathan, she’s also mature versus his childishness. OOOOAAAAH EVERYONE LOVES A LOVEABLE MANBABY OOAAAH COMEON LIVE A LITTLE EVERYONE’S GOT A LITTLE CHILD STILL IN THEM SOMEWHERE yea fine, I get it, like I’ve said before, yes - he embodies the recklessness and playfulness in us, but that’s a confusing position for a game that frequently tries to ground itself in real world conflict to be taking. You’re reducing him to that but injecting complex and nuanced characters like Elena and now eventually both Chloe and Nadine? I’m telling you now - any male that doesn’t know when it’s appropriate to grow-up, when the time to set aside the playfulness and be TRUTHFUL AND TRANSPARENT WITH HIS PARTNER is a dangerous person and FUCK THAT NOISE. Nathan, as much as I do absolutely - make no mistake - adore Nolan North’s voicing - ends up being another Homer Simpson - as long as you laugh at his stupidity, you’ll excuse it, and you’ll excuse the hurt that’s done by it, and that shit doesn’t fly with me. His redemption was not earned. I say again - Elena should throw him into the sea.

Nadine ends up being a fantastic character, even if she’s given less narrative time, she’s a great example of her behaviour telling more story in contrast to Chloe getting to reveal her past and it’s nice to see them play off one another. I feel Nadine and Chloe as characters hit great story beats in ways Nathan didn’t get to with pretty much any of the other characters in four games - not Sully, not Elena, not his brother, not even Chloe - all told, we never actually get any back-story on Nathan and Chloe and I think we’re better off for it because I don’t care.

Having a quick squiz around tumblr reveals the obvious and rampant shipping of Nadine and Chloe and I couldn’t be happier. I think Naughty Dog knew what they were doing. There were so many moments. Those moments were for us. I think they were subtle enough that the fragile manbabies would have missed them but there’s no fooling us. Some of the babyboiz would have been seething thru their mouthbreething hairmouths and I’m sure probably took to the internet but that’s OK, they can remain unfucked incels for the rest of their lives or worse, serviced by whatever unwashed creatures want to dare fondle them in the dark. The elephant ride and that whole conversation was almost enough for me to forgive the absolute disaster that was Uncharted 4. It was given enough time to breathe, it was absolutely beautiful, and just when you thought they were going to terminate it and apologise for making things too awks, it concludes just perfectly and you get a phone picture that doesn’t have Nadine in frame, yet her presence in that picture is definite, pervasive and emotional. Again, some people may have completely missed it and maybe it chalks up to life experience, but as completely contrived as an artefact of complete fiction as that whole sequence might be, it was one of the most wonderfully tender moments ever created in a video game and I wonder if it makes the whole affair worth it.

In the Uncharted 4 piece, I threw in a few barbs about the most meaningful interactions, and in Lost Legacy, what I really loved was Chloe taking photos of things she thinks are beautiful and interesting on her phone, and feeding the elephant - these were the most meaningful interactions in the game. I love that the photos on the phone didn’t serve any gameplay utility at all, they were there because her character wanted to document her travels, because she thought what she was seeing was cool, and any time in the game, you could pull out your phone and look at what you’d seen. It was such a good and important decision to have the very first picture to be the Indian girl in the market, as that rather than the local conflict, does more to ground you and Chloe as a character in the setting. The game never forces you to look at it as a reminder, but you know it’s there.

I did steal these from the internet, sorry - so if they’re yours, let me know and I’ll be happy to take them down - this one in particular, seeing as it’s a photomode capture. I should have taken my own but I don’t do photomode caps on my first play-thru and there’s no-way I’m replaying this ever again.

It took five games for Naughty Dog to finally get some decent character writing, but a part of me still feels they couldn’t have existed without all the dross of the other games. There’s this immense amount of back-story and labour both the developers and the players had to slog thru to get to this point, and I feel as tho we get here and there’s just too little to show for it. I still really enjoyed the story that was told, the sense of character I felt, but a lot of that was contingent on the Uncharted universe in situ. Lost Legacy feels like a combining of all of Naughty Dog’s narrative motifs - the earnest redemption, the moment of tenderness and connection centred around peaceful animals - it’s a greatest hits of Naughty Dog in the best way possible because each narrative beat hits perfectly. I’m glad I played it with two characters who endeared themselves so much to me, that I truly cared about.

I’ve spend a lot of time praising the strengths of writing for at least Lost Legacy, but for each thing I’ve enjoyed about at least these two characters, there have been so many things I’ve been critical of. I feel like in order to get to the tiniest bit of enjoyment, I had to suffer thru so much. Honestly I don’t know if it really was worth it. It’s hard to know given that who I am now and where my tastes are and have developed as a consequence of my experiences, and I definitely would not replay any of those games again - so where does that leave me? I can’t go back and play The Last Of Us and I absolutely won’t play the second game, I just can’t do Naughty Dog games now, I don’t have it in me.

Naughty Dog have spent the better part of two decades developing tech for visual fidelity specifically for the Playstation hardware platforms (PS3 and 4). They’ve also been doing it by overworking their staff, many of which have left out of frustration or necessity. The problem they face is that as industry tools in general improve, there will no gap between games developed by Naughty Dog and any other contemporary studio from a visual perspective. Make no mistake - the Uncharted games are absolutely chock-full of objects, geometry and animation - somehow miraculously so on the Playstation platform in comparison to other games with the exception of other first-party and exclusive games receiving similar support from Sony such as Guerilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn and Sucker Punch’s forthcoming Ghost of Tsushima. There are probably other similar examples for the previous generation on PS3.

Yes, there’s a certain style of game Naughty Dog create as far as narrative goes but because it’s becoming more cinematic, that style is judged more and more by cinematic standards and at best it’s barely semi-professional aside from the outstanding voice work. There are few striking visual motifs that set Naughty Dog games apart from a design perspective, and the gameplay and mechanical constructions that once distinguished them at least a little from others are ever diminishing at increasing rates - more-so as their work practices make the level of quality they set out to achieve ever more unsustainable.

Lost Legacy encapsulates a lot of what I feel about video games as a whole at the moment - as an industry and as a culture. It’s a snapshot of a culture that’s achieving wonderful, beautiful things that are in ways huge - immense, yet somehow can feel so small in comparison to some of the challenges it faces. It’s an industry and culture experiencing a period of great upheaval, where after years upon years of malpractice, terrible things somehow still endure. It’s a space where sometimes it feels like a battle to find the tiniest shred of beauty buried in the dirt and ash, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the frustration that working thru it brings about while grass-roots labourers continue to be burned.

Like many things in life, both at my age and at the level I guess a person gets to at the exposure rate of a thing, I’ve cut back a great deal on my engagement time with video games, so I’m a lot less patient with the functions and mechanisms of a game. There’s a labour element of video games that I feel developers might think is somehow necessary and there’s a component of that which is true, just not quite in the way they think it is, and it takes a unique frame of thinking to break out of traditional design to understand it. Again I’m not saying there’s anything special about how I understand games - there’s nothing at all original in my thoughts - I’ve shoplifted them wholesale from a hundred other people back from when I used to read Gamasutra and even now when I read designers and the people I follow and talk to on Twitter etc. There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with traditions and the people that enjoy them - just because they’re not my thing any more doesn’t mean they’re bad. It just means I’ve moved to something else and I shouldn’t engage with them.

That, I think, is what I’m waiting for. Kentucky Route Zero, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, a whole bunch of others - these are the games I feel are pushing past the boundaries of tradition. Then the moments Uncharted takes itself out of its traditions - Nadine and Chloe’s elephant ride, Chloe’s phone pictures, Elena and Nathan’s house tours especially as Cassie - that’s when I think now you’re running! Run with it! Look, I’m still playing The Division - I’m still moving and shooting and enjoying it.

But we can do so much more. Many developers are doing more. We as an audience need to play more All of us together need to do and play more.

(The epilogue is me figuring I talk a lot of shit about AAA games and nary a word about KRZ, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther and the rest and I get it, but oooooo howdy is it really difficult for me to talk pragmatically about games I actually love)

[mostlywritersblock]

Dracula 2019 fic

Part 5

****

Zoe watched the exchange with curiosity, thoughts racing a mile a minute. Agatha was still fuming somewhere deep inside her when a stranger thought occurred to her. Slowly Zoe’s eyes landed on the mug resting precariously on the desk edge.

Jonathan had drank from it.

He’d actually swallowed.

Agatha’s rage was becoming loud again.

“What are you drinking Mr. Harker?” Her voice had a strange foreign lit to it.

Both Dracula and Jonathan turned to her.

“Blood.” Jonathan answered easily enough. Zoe felt her stomach drop.

Well shit. Now she had two homicidal vampires on the loose.

“You know for someone who claims they’re better than another, killing people still seems to pass judgement.” And damn that was not her voice talking.

Jonathan actually looked guilty. But only momentarily.

“It’s not-I didn’t kill anyone for this blood. When, when the foundation first came up with the idea of volunteerism for the project I thought it was a stroke of genius. So, I enlisted my own volunteers. I have been for a very long time.”

Zoe stared. “You don’t kill people.”

“No Dr. Helsing.”

Zoe was shocked, shocked because that meant the idea to sustain vampires in the most pacifist manner was possible. It- it opened so many doors, so many new possibilities. A whole species that could coincide! And here she’d started to doubt, what with the way Dracula turned his nose up at the idea.

Dracula, who turned down most of her brilliant ideas simply because he didn’t want to.

Dracula who still drank live blood.

Dracula who kills people

Dracula who slaughters without so much as a second thought.

Zoe was pissed.

In one swift motion she was crossing the floor to them. She deftly picked up the mug, looked at its deep scarlet contents, and held it out to Dracula.

“Drink it.”

Dracula all but sneered. “What? Why would I-“

“I’m not asking, drink the fucking blood.” She hissed. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Jonathan’s eyebrows shoot up, looking between the two.

Dracula frowned, he wasn’t one for taking orders but something in the tone of Zoe’s voice had him reassessing his next move. Slowly and with all the attitude of a petulant (refined) teenager he took the mug. Sniffed it once and then maintaining eye contact tipped the mug back and drank the rest of the contents in one swallow.

Dracula set the mug back down, tasting the life in his mouth like one taste wine.

“Interesting, a little dull, the flavors gone much to cold, and there’s some deep rooted issues that need to be resolved.”

Dracula clicked his tongue, “All in all not the most horrible drink I’ve had, but certainly not to my palette I should think.”

“Oh for Christ sake Dracula!” Zoe threw her arms up. “This could be a wonderful alternative.”

“No, we’ve already been over this Zoe, nothing compares to live blood, this is hardly second rate at best.” Dracula folded his arms, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Screw your palette and screw you.” She glared. “You’re always going on about how much better you are than everyone else, how no one can understand because we’ve only lived the one life time. Well here’s something, Jonathan has and as far as I’m concerned he’s doing much better than you with only having one third the amount of time.”

Silence.

Zoe could tell she’d hit a nerve, albeit a nerve she didn’t know existed but it was there all the same and glaringly obvious now that she could see it. A vileness coursed through her, if she played her cards right she might actually get somewhere with this.

Throwing him her own sneer Zoe stepped in close. “That’s right, it’s true, Jonathan really is a better you. I mean look at this place.” She gestured to the large office. “Look at this building, look at all the money Jonathan’s been tossing our way for years, and we never suspected a thing. No paper trail to follow, sorry blood trail I suppose. No missing people or bodies. No scandals, no sinking ships. Clean as a bloody whistle. And he still manages to be everything you aren’t.” Zoe finished her rant calmly but she could see the tendrils of frustration coming off the Count in waves. An image of a black wolf scratching through a gate flashed across her mind.

Weird.

Dracula let out an unsettling chuckle.

“Really? That’s it? Come on you can do better than that, Zoe. You’re so close! Maybe try with a little more emotion, anger looks good on you.”

Zoe let out an exasperated sigh and took a step back.

“Look, believe it or not Dracula but I’m trying to help you. Before today there was no one else alive like you, you were one of a kind. And despite the fact that you’re a royal bastard and kill people, it’s my job as a scientist to understand why. Why you are the way you are, how come you and Mr. Harker are two of the only people who survived the initial turning point. Why is that? Maybe there’s something similar in your DNA, maybe it’s something as simple as where you came from or as small as what you ate. Whatever the answer, know that I intend to find out.”

She took in another deep breath. “That being said all of this could be in your best self interest so I don’t see how it couldn’t hurt you to compromise just a little and stick to the volunteer program?”

Dracula eyed her curiously for a moment.

“You’re serious aren’t you? What, now we work together Zoe? I don’t think Agatha will be pleased.”

“We were already working together, we just hadn’t acknowledged it.”

“Oh, and now we are?”

Zoe closed her eyes in frustration. “I’m willing to put aside our differences in the name of science if you are.”

Dracula was looking at her curiously again.

“Let’s say I agree, you and your team continue to run test while I’m stuck in a cage being injected with blood every few hours until you make some kind of break through? Not really my cup of tea darling.”

“How about you agree to come in for testing once a day but maintain your freedom elsewhere, you also keep to a strict diet of volunteer blood.”

Dracula actually seemed to be considering her deal.

Holy shit.

There was a small sigh to the side of them and Zoe was almost embarrassed to admit she’d almost forgotten Jonathan.

Dracula didn’t. His eyes lit up viscously and his grin showed too much teeth. Jonathan for for his part looked like he regretted gaining back their attention.

“Alright Zoe, I’ll agree to this deal of yours on one condition.”

Zoe couldn’t believe it, was he really going to agree to stop drinking live blood?

No more killing.

“Johnny has to attend the test as well, with me.”

It was too good to be true, Zoe felt the floor being pulled out right from under her. How could she have been so naive.

Jonathan floundered in as much an Englishman can.

“What? No-no, no I won’t, I want no part of this deal. Please, just go, I’m warning you.” Jonathan let out a slight growl, eyes pinning Dracula with a glare.

“Alright fine, you don’t have to Johnny that’s your choice...just know all the lives of the people I’m going to kill from here on out will be on your hands.”

Well.

Fuck.

Watching Dracula work his magic was saying something for sure, but to watch him pin Jonathan so easily between two evils was horrifying and terrible. Zoe wanted to say something, wanted to voice her opinion on the matter, that Jonathan shouldn’t be involved not if he truly didn’t want to. Not after the amount of pain she saw flash in his eyes.

She said nothing.

She said nothing because she knew that Dracula had already made up his mind and there was no going back. It was either agree to his terms or nothing at all. And Zoe was not about to give up the potential opportunity to save as many lives as possible.

She’d awoken this sleeping dragon. Now he was her responsibility.

Both Zoe and he watched as Jonathan seemed to come to terms with himself. With the decision before him, and if Dracula still knew his Johnny like he thought he did then there was no way the man was going to condemn anyone.

“Al-alright. I agree.”

Zoe stared in awe for a moment before holding her hand out to the Count.

Dracula gently took her hand in his.

“I agree as well.” He said smoothly.

Zoe nodded once before retracting her arm. “Good.” She turned to Jonathan, “thank you for agreeing as well Mr. Harker.”

Jonathan didn’t reply, he just sat heavily in his chair as if he was carrying some unquestionable amount of weight on his shoulders.

Maybe he was.

Maybe they both were.

******

Leaving the building was a lot harder than Zoe has expected, mostly because Dracula wasn’t taking any excuses. He wanted to make sure rules where in place but mostly he wanted conformation from Jonathan about attending the test as well. Eventually though Zoe had to step in, at some point it seemed Jonathan had ran out of words to say to Dracula and simply sat numbly in his chair. Zoe could see the defeat easily enough, which is why she quickly wrote down her number and placed it in front of him. She told him to give her people a call and they’d arrange everything. She then pointed to the number on the desk.

“This is my personal mobile, in case you need to reach me.” There was a note of pity in her voice and she hoped he hadn’t picked up on it. Jonathan didn’t acknowledge her, but she had a feeling he heard her.

Next she grabbed Dracula’s elbow and started pulling him out of the office, Dracula looked like he wanted to protest but Zoe threw him a look before he could open his mouth. Instead he glanced back at Jonathan.

“Bye bye Johnny, see you soon.” He grinned brightly and waved as they stepped through the glass doors.

Inside the elevator Zoe rounded on him.

“Just so we’re clear what you did back there to him was not alright.”

Dracula rolled his eyes. “Of course it wasn’t but how else am I going to get him to spend time with me.”

Zoe was floored. “You can’t be serious, he hates you.”

“So did you as I recall, and here we are.”

Zoe scoffed but didn’t deny it. “Forcing him to come to these test with you isn’t going to do anything but cause more harm.”

“And here I thought you’d be happy to have another test subject, what with all that talk about having a base to go off of? Now you can scientifically compare us.”

“Don’t be an arse, that was before..”

“Before, what, Zoe?” Dracula prompted.

“Before I saw his eyes.”

There was a long pause, and Zoe was about to drop the discussion altogether for the time being until Dracula spoke up in a hushed voice.

“They are beautiful though, aren’t they...I was so worried they wouldn’t keep. And yet, even a century later...”

Zoe looked over as the Count trailed off, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

Neither said anything further as they were about to step off the lift and into the lobby.

****

TBC

[ultimavolatusrpg]

ACCEPTED // CORDELIA SNOW WINCLAIR

28 years old, Granddaughter of President Snow, FC: Rachael Taylor

Compassionate, Thoughtful, Devoted, Stubborn and Bossy

tw: death, prostitution

Cordelia Snow Winclair was born to Linnevia Winclair and Honorius Snow. Life was a constant battle for survival – was that a fair comparison knowing she wasn’t the one with her name on a paper at the reapings? Cordelia’s first breath had been her mother’s last. Due to her father always being away on business and never having to care about his kid going to sleep with an empty stomach, her fair treat toward the house’s avoxes and servants took a huge part in the experiences that would later make of her a kind woman. Her childhood was fairly normal considering the circumstances. Despite her grandfather being Panem’s president, the world of bright streets and colourful clothes never managed to blind her. Growing up she watched the annual Hunger Games with her family, celebrations that would bring everyone together and plan different gatherings for each night in advance. It was a tradition that couldn’t be questioned or at least that was what she had been taught when learning about the games’ rulebook and so it remained like an excuse to watch the whole Capitol cheer in excitement whenever the most anticipated event was around the corner.

Everyone knew what her next big step in life once reached the rightful age would be ever since she was born: take part in the family’s matters around the whole country and the precious event. But Cordelia had other plans, and these included leaving behind the silky comfortable cushion to experience the outdoors. She wanted to take part in the games but from a different position. She didn’t want to be the one with the control remote, the puppets’ strings. She couldn’t stand up against that – not on her own. But she could be part of the only less destructive part of the process: trying to put the victors together, at least physically. The blonde understood that the only path her family would accept the easiest without stating that she was going off the road too much was medicine. Undergoing plastic surgery to alter their appearances ran in the Capitol just as much as in her family and this was considered to be an acceptable choice that would potentially even increase the family’s power in a different field. Whiskers, dyed skin, talons, decorative patterns cut into their skin, gems implanted in their skin…all of these alterations were so heavily done that most of them were just disfiguring and even though Cordelia had been brought up surrounded by them, she was one to find the tribute’s beauty even more exceptional and extraordinary than any of the outrageous fashions she could learn about. Therefore, she began working with the medical team since a young age. She was responsible for the checkups prior to the games: she needed to make sure the tributes could offer a good show. As far as she was concerned, there was more to her job than that. She was known for going out of her way to help tributes reach peak physical and mental condition. She knew there was no magic potion, no pill that could make up for the years of starvation and  other deficits. But she wanted them to reach a balance between health management and optimising performance to stand a better chance out there.

Eventually, she became the medical director – someone who could now state which were going to be the priorities and how their use of medicine was going to aim in a different direction. They could guarantee good results without the surgical intervention of a tribute only because <that’s the way its sponsor wants it>. She became a sponsor too, but not for the sake of entertainment. She did it anonymously, not wanting to own those people or their merit while sitting back without a single scratch on her body. She used to support the way victors were given a taste of their extravagant world after the arenas, but this changed when she learned about the way highly attractive and desirable victors were almost always prostituted to citizens of the Capitol. At a young age, her prestigious position gave her the possibility to have any victor she wanted in her bed for a night. It didn’t sound weird to hear something like this going on around the Capitol. In fact, it could be any capitol citizen’s hobbies. The victors and tributes were seen as toys while the other district’s inhabitants were barely treated as human beings with feelings and emotions, too. The blonde rejected her grandfather’s and father’s offers many times, but she had in mind she’d need to accept them eventually; that was the only way to show off her loyalty. She had to be thankful for the chance, one that not everyone could get. Rejecting the offer would only make her a fish out of the water – she was aware of how dangerous it was to be different in such a structured system.

However, it might have been a surprise for many victors when Cordelia would confess she wasn’t looking forward to getting between the sheets with them. She doubted someone in the whole country wouldn’t want to sleep with them…but doing that against their own will was so fucked up. Yes, somehow and despite general beliefs, Cordelia could wrap her head around how this wasn’t right. Instead, she would suggest them to have more encounters like that one. The chosen victor would get their night off without anyone finding it out, and in return, Cordelia would ask them about the districts…the world beyond the Capitol’s selfish eyes if they wanted to share it with her. That was the only way the girl found to have an outsider view and keep her ideas alive. They’d watched the stars or dawn from the balcony, exchanging thoughts and ideas before messing with their hairs, throwing the blankets, clothes and cushions around the room in order to leave fake evidence. There was no use in trying to repair something already broken but if she could be a single moment of relief and peace in the endless chain of suffering, she’d give her best to use her skills for those who needed them to continue breathing and not changing the size of their ears. She wanted to be the warm hand and smile waiting for them despite how little and probably indifferent the gesture could be. It was easy to find her place in a system controlled by her family, even though she was supposed to be harming people instead of healing them.

And it would’ve worked, if it hadn’t been for an exception – someone who had caught her attention since the reaping. But Cordelia hadn’t been able to bring herself to look into his eyes while injecting the tracker into his forearm. After all, the odds could not be in their favour. For once she had been biased, sponsored someone excessively because she was determined to find his face the next time the hovercraft’s claw welcomed their new victor. Where there’s a will, there’s a way…and he became the victor she wouldn’t let anyone else lay a finger on him. He made her understand she wasn’t wrong for not blindly loving the glitz and glam of the event and there was a point in believing that this didn’t justify any of the deaths for them to prove a point. She had grown incredibly fond of him, but she had remained cautious: that wasn’t his place, his home. He wasn’t welcomed there except as another piece of the games, a shiny toy with a price. Even though she tried to protect him as much as she could from the formalities and the demands of being a victor, she knew that it was equally important to let him go from time to time in order to keep him safe.

But then the unexpected evidence of their love was on its way. The bigger her bump, the closer it brought them to the unbearable truth. How could she possibly expect anyone to ever accept she was carrying the baby of not only a rebel but also a victor? She was meant to build a life with someone with blue blood from a privileged and powerful family instead of empathizing with those her people loathed. Those around the mansion were starting to suspect and Cordelia needed to come up with a believable excuse. And that was when someone who had received the worst of treatments from her family proved how unworthy of forgiveness she was. Being the same age as her, Wade had been Cordelia’s confident and good friend since she was a kid. Both had proven each other wrong as the years had gone by – he had his own story to tell and she had hers. Despite being an avox, Wade had made himself being heard. Hadn’t Cordelia known him so well, she’d have pretended taking the blame and claiming to have knocked her up wasn’t a way of trying to set himself free from a life he had been sentenced to. He had left her a note filled with thankfulness for their friendship, hope for the future but stating this was his bullet to take because she bet on her changing the infamous last name of her family for good. He knew the storm was coming after such a statement. The next day, an incident that was blamed on the rebels, took his and a few more lives that were worthless for the capitol.

Her friend’s death only gave her the last piece she needed to complete the puzzle – the president would go to unthinkable lengths to preserve the power. Being a member of his family didn’t offer any level of immunity to his recklessness. With enough misleading wigs and make-up, Cordelia’s tried to return to the only people who’ve warned her about this during those endless nights. After a year of giving birth, she’s been assigned to return to the Victor’s Village to give check ups. Of course there are ulterior motives to her presence. Her grandfather believes having someone infiltrated and undercover there, one who can keep track of their lives and notice if anything’s out of order is the real reason behind the excuse of caring for their health. Regardless, Cordelia knows better than betraying her work ethics. Even though she’s required to provide monthly reports of not only their health but any details about the rebellion, she may not be giving the truest of the latter. Rumour has it she’s even been accused of helping the rebels with information that was meant to be kept between the mansion’s walls. But she’s willing to take a stand because she knows either way she’s putting her one year old in great danger. But she’s realised she’d rather help those that could guarantee him a future beyond his last name than leaving him in the arms of a grandfather who’s too known for accidentally poisoning those he doesn’t consider worthy of his respect.

Cordelia’s always willing to offer a caring hand if it can bring a smile to someone’s face. This may make her come across as someone way too kind not to have something under her sleeve considering the people she surrounds herself with – but she’s one to know when to act like just another selfish capitol citizen and when to let her guard down. She knows in her heart it’s her duty to turn her back on the districts – otherwise how could her speeches of justice for the capitol citizens be genuine ever again? She’s aware of the fact that she can’t remain silent and hope for the best when someone else could eventually bring any of this to light. She knows chances are behind one of those doors awaits the man who doesn’t know the baby in her arms is his, too. She is afraid that this could take them out of the frying pan and into the fire in a blink of an eye. She feels the pressure of feeling like she’s letting people down but also becoming another family disappointment.

PENNED BY: VIC

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

My Eyes - Part 1

Pairing: Bucky; Steve x Fem/Reader

Word Count: 4,083

Story Description: Steve is a good man, America’s golden boy, a hero. He’s Captain America for christ’s sake! So it’s normal to want what he has... right? Bucky knows he doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t even deserve the second chance at life he’s been given. But Bucky can never let him know. Steve can never find out that his friend is in love with his best girl. 

Story takes place post “CA: CW” and all tension has been resolved. 

Bucky pushed his hat lower before getting up from his seat on the bus. It had been a 5-hour ride. Steve had asked him if could come pick him up from the airport, but Bucky lied and said T’Challa had already put together all of his travel plans.

Bucky already felt guilty for all the trouble T’Challa and Steve had gone through to help him. So Bucky made his own way, taking 3 connecting flights, landing in New York City, and then taking a greyhound bus to the new Avenger’s facility in Upstate New York.

Steve would be furious if he ever found out. But Bucky knew he never would as long as he didn’t say anything.

It was nice to stretch his legs as he hopped off the bus with just a duffel bag in hand. He looked around at the small town he’d been dropped off in. It was the closest stop to the compound. He still had to take a walk that was a few miles. But he was happy to do it. Not depending on the few friends he had was an odd relief that Bucky didn’t realize he needed right now.

There was a little farmer’s market in the downtown he was walking through. The crowds of people made him slightly uncomfortable. He carried on, but his body was tense now. He decided to walk behind the tents to avoid the people. But it gave him an easy view of all the pedestrians. That’s when he saw her.

She was in a summer dress that was so light that it flowed with even the slightest breeze. Bucky’s steps faltered when he caught sight of her. She had a little purse swinging off her shoulder. But she was also carrying a paper bag with baked goods and fruit she’d just bought from various vendors. The bouquet of sunflowers that peaked out had her entire aesthetic begging to be photographed.

Then Bucky spotted a dog running up to her. He quickly realized it must belong to the girl. It was a giant German Shepherd that was so tall on its four legs that it went halfway up her body. If it stood on its hind legs, it might even be taller than Bucky. He could tell it was trained to protect her as its eyes shifted around, observing potential threats. It had no leash, just following alongside the girl without any commands.

Bucky’s path was parallel to hers, just hidden behind the cover of the vendor tents. Once again, he pulled his hat down. It had become a nervous tick of his. He was constantly scared that people would recognize him. Even though his name had been cleared, some of the public still viewed him as a criminal and a terrorist. That was also the reason for him wearing overly long shirts on a summery day.

The girl was wearing cat eye sunglasses that slid down her nose as she dipped down to taste some sample foods. It was then that she decided her hair was annoying her and she pushed the sunglasses on the top of her head. Now Bucky was able to see her beautiful y/e/c eyes.

The vendor was an old Italian man that must have said something charming or witty, because the girl laughed and tossed her head back slightly. The sound made Bucky stop walking. The vendor said something to the dog that remained glued to her side. But the dog was having none of it, growling at the man. Y/N scolded him verbally and apologized to the man. He was selling wine and she handed over a few bills and grabbed a bottle of white. She slipped it into her paper bag that was clearly getting heavier, for Bucky saw the muscles of her arm become more apparent as she continued walking.

He stopped following.

She seemed like something he had dreamed about. It was like he had gone back in time. It was women like her that Bucky dreamed of finding when he returned from the war. Maybe he even would’ve met her at a market like this. He would’ve said something charming, made her laugh. Then he’d let her know that he thought she was beautiful. He wouldn’t shy away from it because he always believed men didn’t tell women that enough, at least not in the right way. He’d ask her out on a date. They’d fall in love, get married, and start a family. Then slowly but surely, her love would get rid of all the darkness that entered him when he saw all the things he did during the war.

But that wasn’t an option anymore.

Bucky had missed his chance at that life. Anything close to normal and domesticated was ripped away from him the moment the serum was injected into his bloodstream. Bucky wasn’t that charming ladies’ man anymore. He was just a broken version of himself, in a time he was never meant to live in.

Bucky watched as the woman approached a waiting car. There was a driver in a valet uniform and everything. He took the heavy bag from the woman and she smiled, thanking him. It gave a weird relief to Bucky. His old-fashioned gentleman in him wanted to rush forward and offer to carry it the moment he’d seen her. The driver opened the door for her. She whistled at her dog and it jumped in first without hesitation. Then she placed her hand on the door, but she paused for a moment. She glanced over her shoulder and looked around Bucky’s area. Like she felt someone had been watching her. Bucky made sure to disappear. When he looked over again, the car was driving away.

‘She’s probably going home to her rich husband, you chump’ his mind rumbled at him.

Bucky continued down an isolated road to the compound. The entire walk, he couldn’t get that girl out of his mind.

---

Steve was in the kitchen making another pot of coffee when FRIDAY announced that their guest had arrived. He was now beaming with a smile and practically sprinted to the elevators to greet them.

The door slid open to reveal a nervous and meek looking Bucky. He was wearing black jeans, combat boots, and a large canvas jacket over what Steve could only guess was a long sleeved shirt. Bucky smiled at the sight of his best friend. It was only seconds later that said friend had wrapped him into a hug.

“How you doing, Buck?” Steve asked softly.

“Fine.” Bucky brushed off. “Nice place you got here.” His eyes wandered around the high ceilings and modern layout. He didn’t know Stark that well, but somehow it still felt like it had his personality all over it.

“You hungry?” Steve quickly ushered him further onto the floor. “Stark keeps the place stocked with basically any food we could ever want. What do you have a taste for?” Steve was now opening the fridge, ready to name every single item that Bucky could choose from.

Bucky smiled at him. Then he caught sight of something on the kitchen counter. It was a vase of sunflowers. They were just like the ones the girl from the market had been carrying.

“Hey Steve?” A female voice called from down the hallway. “Can you help me with this zipper, I can’t reach – oh!” She turned the corner and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Bucky standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, duffel bag still stiffly hanging off his shoulder. She glanced between Steve and him. Her face must have registered who he was because she practically bounced in celebration and smiled brightly. “You must be Bucky! I didn’t expect you to get here so early!”

Bucky could tell that she wanted to rush over and give him a hug or even shake his hand. He guessed Steve must have told her to be careful around him because she somehow managed to hold back.

“Y/N this is Bucky. Bucky this is Y/N.” There was a pleasant expression on Steve’s face, seeing the two of them meeting one another.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you.” Y/N said breathlessly. “Steve has told me so much about you.”

Bucky looked at Steve for help. He didn’t know how to respond, especially since he had no idea who she was.

“What did you need help with?” Steve changed the subject. His voice was so soft when talking with her.

She blushed at his question and then her gaze flickered to Bucky. “Oh…um…I can’t reach this damn zipper. I was trying to change out of this dress.” She wouldn’t have been yelling out had she known he wasn’t alone.

Steve cleared his throat and nodded in the direction of the hallway. The two of them disappeared.

Bucky wiped his now sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans. His gaze went back to the vase of sunflowers. He was going over and over the way Steve had been looking at her.

It just had to be her, huh? Steve just had to be in love with the girl from the market.

Steve was back in the kitchen a minute later. He continued badgering Bucky about what he wanted to eat.

“Steve?” Bucky said quietly. But he ignored him and continued calling out food. “Steve!” He said louder, finally catching his friend’s attention.

“What, Buck?” He was genuinely confused.

“Who the hell was that?”

“Oh.” Steve sighed. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Look… I didn’t want to overwhelm you with all the team introductions to start with. That’s why no one’s here right now. And I wasn’t expecting you two to meet so suddenly. It’s just a lot on its own, adding my girlfriend to mix is just –“

“Girlfriend?” Bucky muttered.

Steve smiled like a lovesick puppy and glanced at the hallway she had disappeared down like he could see her from there. “Yeah… Y/N’s my girlfriend, Buck.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “What happened to Sharon?”

Steve took in a deep breath. Clearly he had never intended on discussing all of this in the first 10 minutes of Bucky’s arrival. “It just didn’t work out. We both decided it was best to end it. Life got in the way and whatever was there kind of… faded.” He ended the fast version with a shrug.

Bucky gave him a mischievous grin.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Nothing. I wake up from a lifetime of brainwashing and suddenly my best friend is getting girlfriends left and right.”

“Oh, quit it.” Steve shooed him away and returned to the refrigerator. Knowing he was never going to get any preference from Bucky, he started whipping up some food. In the middle of his culinary chaos, he paused and really looked at his best friend. “It’s really good to have you back, Buck.”

Y/N never came back to the kitchen.

And Bucky hated himself for wanting to see her again. She’d shocked him into silence when she came dashing into the kitchen. She was even more beautiful in person than the distance he had at that market.

Bucky had slyly got the details from Steve. They had met in town. Steve had seen her at the town’s library. That’s where she worked, apparently. And just like Bucky, he was instantly mesmerized. He was surprised to find that she wasn’t an Avenger. There was an air about her, a confidence that made Bucky think she belonged here. But Steve said, with observable relief, that she couldn’t hurt a fly if she wanted to.

“Did I already scare her away?” Bucky asked after he’d finished eating.

Steve smirked. “No. She doesn’t live here. She headed home right after you met… wanted to give us some time to ourselves.” Then he stared off for a moment, got caught up in his head about something.

“What is it?” Bucky probed.

Steve shook his head. “I’ve…I’ve just been real careful about bringing her around. Only the team knows that we’re together. I even tried to keep it a secret from them. And that well…was a lost cause. The staff that works here doesn’t even know who she is. I get worried…worried that her being with me could be…”

“Dangerous?” Bucky offered.

Steve nodded.

---

The months came and went. Over a year had gone by, Bucky got used to being part of a team and doing good instead of fighting his own demons. The challenge of it all was a suitable distraction… a distraction from Y/N. The more she was around, the more Bucky couldn’t get her out of his head when she wasn’t.

He avoided her at all costs. Tried his hardest never to give her an opportunity to talk with him. He didn’t know what else to do. Every time he listened to her talk or Steve told him something about her, he found himself falling for her.

She looked more beautiful with every new visit to the compound. Not being an agent or spy or having any enhancements meant that she was somewhat of a matriarch to the team. Steve made sure she never overstepped. After all, he wanted to keep their relationship a secret, keep her safe. But she would bring cookies or movies for them to watch. A habit that Bucky couldn’t find any more endearing was her weekly delivery of flowers. Just like that day he met her; she’d bring a bouquet from the farmers market. The type varied, but Bucky noticed that she clearly preferred sunflowers.

More months went by and Bucky had successfully never had a conversation alone with Y/N. Little did he know, this really upset Y/N.

---

Steve was spending the night at Y/N’s home. She had a little house in the forest. Steve liked to joke that it looked like a witch’s cottage in a fairytale. But in reality, he loved how it felt like an escape. When he was here, he wasn’t an Avenger or Captain America. He was just Steve Rogers.

Y/N was resting her head on his chest while his arms were wrapped protectively around her body. They were both sitting on her back porch, looking out into the forest. Music was softly playing in the background. It was a chilly fall night, but Steve’s body warmth made it no problem for either of them.

“Steve?” Y/N asked carefully.

“Hmm?”

“Why doesn’t Bucky like me?”

Steve immediately sat up straighter and adjusted their bodies so he could look her in the eye. “Y/N, Bucky likes you.”

She scoffed at that. “Steve, please don’t start.”

“Start what?” Then he saw that Y/N looked genuinely upset about the subject. “What’s wrong, Y/N?”

Now she was fully sitting up, freeing herself from his grasp despite both their bodies not wanting the separation. “Bucky’s been here for over a year and he’s never even spoken to me.”

“He doesn’t really speak to anyone, doll.” He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s not true. He talks to Sam all the time!”

This made Steve laugh. “I guess if you count their childish arguments and bickering… then yes, that’s true.”

“I’ve seen him talking with everyone. I mean… at the beginning… I knew that he was struggling. So I didn’t want to push it or anything. But he barely even looks at me. I feel like he bolts from the room anytime I walk in. If he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t even acknowledge my presence.” Then she looked down, trying not to get emotional. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t approve of me being with you…like he thinks I’m not good enough for you.”

Now Steve was upset. He put his thumb under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Hey, don’t you ever think that! If anything, you’re too good for me. There’s no chance in hell that Bucky believes that. He’s my best friend. All he cares about is if I’m happy. And you, Y/N, you make me so happy.”

She gave him a shy smile with his little declaration. “That’s just it, Steve. He’s your best friend. There’s nobody in this world that knows you better than him. Not even me. He’s like your brother. When you told me he was coming to live here, I was so excited to get to know him… and to get to know you through his eyes. But he doesn’t seem to want anything to do with me. I just wish him and I could be friends.”

“I’m gonna talk to Bucky.” Steve said.

“No, Steve, don’t do that. The last thing I want is for me to be causing problems between you two. It’s fine, really. Everything’s fine.” She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his chest again. “Just forget I said anything about it.”

Steve sighed and rubbed her back gently. As they both stared into the distance, he became lost in thought. He would never admit it to Y/N, but he had also noticed Bucky’s coldness towards her. He just didn’t want Y/N to further believe she was right. Maybe it was just weird seeing Steve with a girlfriend. Bucky never really got to observe his relationship with Sharon, being on ice and all. But Bucky was never like this with Peggy. In fact, he tried flirting with her.

---

Bucky ripped the sheets off and started pacing the room: another nightmare, another evening without sleep. He went to the bathroom and plashed ice cold water over his face and the back of his neck. He stared at himself in the mirror. The shadows underneath his eyes seemed to have taken permanent residence. He rubbed his scruff that was becoming more like a light beard.

He couldn’t get the images out of his head. There was no point trying to go back to sleep, so he decided to head to the kitchen. Wanda had showed him a special recipe for tea that was both calming and tiring. Maybe he would try that again.

Bucky was nearing Steve’s room. He told him over and over again to wake him up when the nightmares got bad. Sometimes Bucky took him up on it and sometimes he decided not to thrust his issues on anyone else. Tonight, he just didn’t think he could be alone.

Bucky paused at the door. His hand was about to knock when he heard it. Steve was most definitely not alone. Bucky’s stomach dropped when he quickly recognized the sounds of two people having sex. He pinched the bridge of his nose as his mind quickly imagined the state Y/N was in. He practically sprinted away with an assassin’s silence. But what bothered him most were the feelings of jealousy deep within his gut.

Why couldn’t he just be happy for his best friend?

It felt like a higher being was punishing him.

Steve deserved good in his life. He deserved happiness and someone to love him like Y/N clearly did. He was a hero. He was Captain America.

Bucky had done so many terrible things. He didn’t even deserve the good life he had now.

Bucky was sitting at the kitchen island with a cup of Wanda’s secret tea. His mind was lost and his eyes showed it, glazing over. In a twisted way, Y/N had taken his mind off his nightmares… Because now he was trying to conceive a plan to put an end to the madness. What kind of man falls in love with his best friend’s girl?

And as if she could sense someone thinking about her, Y/N came tiptoeing into the dimly lit kitchen. FRIDAY always had the lights on, but lowered them in the late hours. Y/N hadn’t realized someone else was in the kitchen. This allowed Bucky to observe her for a few extra seconds. She was clearly wearing one of Steve’s t-shirts, seeing as it fit her more like a short dress. As she reached into the fridge, it fell off one of her shoulders. She had post-coital hair. It was messy and voluptuous, but still ridiculously sexy. Her skin was just slightly dewy, adding another hint of what she’d just been doing moments ago.

When Y/N turned around from the fridge, she let out the most innocent yelp and jumped. The two water bottles she had grabbed bounced to the floor. “Jesus Christ, Bucky. You scared me. I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”

“Sorry.” He mumbled, shifting in his stool awkwardly.

Without meaning to, Y/N’s gaze went to his chest. Bucky hadn’t thought about throwing on a t-shirt. His skin had been covered in sweat and he usually didn’t run into anyone else on these late night endeavors.

But as Y/N subtly observed him, she realized she’d never seen him shirtless. But most of all, she’d never seen the scars that his old metal arm had caused. T’Challa’s newer installment wasn’t handled with such manslaughter.  

“Sorry.” Bucky muttered again, this time getting up from his seat. “I should’ve put a shirt on.” He crossed his arms and turned his body uneasily, anything to hide his scarring from her.

“Bucky, you don’t have to be embarrassed.” Y/N whispered. Now she was upset at herself for accidentally staring.

He ran a hand through his shaggy hair, trying to think of a way to get out of this conversation without making it worse.

“Buck, is everything okay?” She asked softly.

The fact that she said his shortened name that only Steve used made Bucky’s gaze jump to her. Why did she have to be so sweet toward him? Especially after he had been nothing but cold to her.

Bucky managed to nod his head.

Y/N looked unconvinced. But she nodded in return, realizing that if Bucky were to open up to anyone, it would never be with her. “Umm… Goodnight Bucky.” She mumbled and disappeared out of the kitchen with her two bottles of water.

Bucky counted to ten before he headed back toward his bedroom. He didn’t think he could handle another interaction tonight.

But his super soldier hearing wasn’t letting him go so easily. To his surprise, Steve’s bedroom door was left open. Before he saw it though, he heard Steve say something sweet to Y/N as she entered… something about her getting back to bed. It made Bucky’s stomach flip. When he passed the doorway, he saw Y/N leaning over Steve, who was still shirtless. Bucky could only guess he was fully naked, but the bed covers were hiding any proof. Steve was rubbing Y/N’s back lovingly and in return she brushed a piece of hair off his face as she whispered something.

Bucky quickened his pace and slammed his bedroom door closed behind him.

---

“I just ran into Bucky in the kitchen.” Y/N told him.

Steve saw the concern on her face and rubbed her back. “Did something happen?”

“No… no… He tried to leave the room like usual. But he looked a little shaken, Steve.”

He smiled. “Are you sure it wasn’t the state of your attire that had him shaken? It’s one thing for Bucky to wrap his mind around me having a girlfriend, it’s another to see proof that I’m sleeping with her too.”

He was clearly trying to make a joke, but he could see that Y/N was hardly even listening to him.

Then she seemed to come back to the present. “Steve?” She asked, but kissed him passionately on the lips before continuing. “You should go check on Bucky. I think he might have had another nightmare.”

All joking disappeared. Steve nodded his head, taking her suggestion seriously.

“Maybe put some clothes on before you do it…” Y/N giggled. “We don’t need to traumatize poor Bucky with our lack of clothes twice in one night.”

Suddenly it hit Steve how concerned his girlfriend was about Bucky, even when his friend hadn’t returned the kindness. Before leaving the bedroom he leaned over Y/N who had already tucked herself back under the covers.

“I love you… you know.” Steve stated softly.

She smiled tiredly at him. “Yes, I know. And I love you too.”

With that, Steve left his bedroom. He was only wearing grey sweatpants, not seeing the point in wearing a t-shirt to go talk to Bucky.

He knocked on the door and Bucky answered almost instantly.

“Hey… you doing okay?” He asked gently. Bucky shrugged. “Another nightmare?”

It took a moment for Bucky to finally admit it with just a nod of his head.

---

Part Two 

I love, love, love hearing from people. Like literally write a book report and i will love you for the rest of time

[snarkyowl]

The Reports.

PLEASE NOTE- I only wrote ONE of these! 🅱 wrote the rest, and I think the change in style might be enough to signify which is mine. If not, I wrote the report specifically stated to be by Henrik Von Schneeplestein on SCP 3025, every other report is the work of 🅱  who is amazing. Also note- more of these will be put out in the future!

Report on containment breach of SCP-3009, AKA Google IRL By: Dr. Matthew Patrick The entity was found absent from its containment unit three days ago. The door mechanism seems to have been opened from the outside with a standard key card, but the recording systems in its cell seems to have malfunctioned. SCP-3009 has not been found, despite strike teams [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] having searched tirelessly for it. They have given up the search, but have tripled security. Dr. Patrick, What the fuck did you do. -Dr. Nelson Dr. Nelson, I have no idea what you're talking about. -Dr. Patrick Dr. Patrick, The tech upgrade? Google escaping? What the fuck did you do, Matthew!!?! -Dr. Nelson Dr. Nelson, I've done nothing. Nothing you can prove, at least. -Dr. Patrick. Dr. Patrick. Go in for a psyche eval. You need it. -Dr. Nelson

Update on SCP-3002 By: Dr. Henrik Von Schneeplestein   SCP-3002 has shown no sign of moving from the corner of its containment unit. Muzzles have proven ineffective to silence it. It is imperative that all staff tending to SCP-3002 wear earplugs and noise canceling headphones. SCP-3002 seems to feed off of life force, completely draining anything of any life. Subjects are usually found slumped over, as if sleeping. SCP-3002 has been supplied with D-Class personnel, but cows and sheep have proven to be a decent substation. It talks while feeding, explaining its situation. It seems to believe it's trading information for food. In several of its feedings, it has mentioned ‘Wilford Warfstache’, the alter ego of SCP-3014. It referred to SCP-3014 as ‘my love’ or ‘my darling’. SCP-3002 also insists its name is Dark. One peculiar detail, however, is that despite being outrageously powerful, it still suffers from what seems to be anxiety. It gets nervous and has been observed to have panic attacks after many tests by Dr. Nelson. Request to perform more tests upon SCP-3002 to attempt to find out what it is truly is.

Update on SCP-3014 experiments By: Dr. Nelson SCP-3014 shows no signs of shifting forms, unlike most humanoids of the same type. It responds to stimuli such as electric shock and chemical injections in a very human-like fashion, flinching and even crying out in pain, sometimes clawing at its own skin. However, it is inconclusive whether or not it actually feels pain. SCP-3014’s human façade has yet to fade, but Dr. Patrick suspects that it is close to giving up. Another suicide attempt was recorded. SCP-3014 seems to have used a [REDACTED] and a [REDACTED] to try to end its own life. Dr. Patrick was particularly interested about that very human like response to the past tests, including [DATA EXPUNGED]. Although it is very concerning for this to happen, Dr. Patrick insists to continue testing. Reports state SCP-3014 has been rambling about SCP-3002, which calls itself Dark. The amount of human traits SCP-3014 could possibly be picking up is disturbing. Request to fully isolate SCP-3014. Tests upon SCP-3014 are to be postponed indefinitely.

Report pertaining to the condition of SCP-3013 By: Dr. Amy Nelson SCP-3013 has begun pacing around the room and scratching at the walls. It has attempted to talk through the muzzle or break the lock of the muzzle by banging it on the walls. I'm uncertain if it has gotten anywhere with this, but padding on the walls could stop this. Despite the muzzle, SCP-3013 will not stop attempting to communicate, grunting and screaming and kicking at the ground. No experiments involving the entities power have yet to be run due to potential property damage and loss of life. Request to move SCP-3013’s class from Euclid to Keter

A short report on the dietary habits of SCP-3038 By: Dr. Patrick I have continued to supply SCP-3038 with human corpses to consume, and I have begun to notice the entity has almost a ritualistic way of eating them. This is not for the faint of heart. Firstly, it claws at whatever open wounds there maybe, soaking its hands in the blood. If there are no open wounds, it’ll make one. Then, it’ll lick the blood off its hands and wait. Next, SCP-3038 will widen the would and work at eating the skin around the area. After eating most of the skin, it will make quick work of the muscles, but will dispose of the fat. At this time, it will most likely be covered in blood. Occasionally, I see it suck at it's sleeves, attempting to get the blood out of it. Anyways, then it starts with the organs. Usually, it starts with the digestive organs, eating those rather quickly. However, I've never seen it eat a stomach without first squeezing out the acid. I'll admit, it's pretty damn clever. The lungs, pancreas and kidneys are soon to follow, then the eyes. It doesn't eat the brain. Lastly, it eats the heart and finishes off the remains of the body, even cracking open bones to suck out the marrow. It seems to not mind being covered in blood, but will try to lick it off. I once poisoned a corpse before giving it to him. He simply sniffed it and rejected it. I was so impressed I was compelled to give him the bag of Gummi worms I had in my lunch box. I did, and he liked them very much. SCP-3038s powers seem to increase after each corpse. On the first day when he was contained, he was barely able to lift a cup off a table. Today's test concluded with Bim levitating the two of us off the ground. He helped me keep my balance in the air by grabbing my hands. It was strangely romantic, floating through the air with him, especially with the way he was looking at me. His hands were warm. Sure they were covered in blood, but they were warm. That aside, the increase of power is concerning, but also fascinating! I've had lunch with him once or twice, and let me tell you, it's a weird experience to be eating a sandwich and a Diet Coke while seated across someone tearing chunks away from a human heart. Either way, the effects of Bim consuming human flesh is fascinating. I wish to find more about this. 

A small report pertaining to the emotional stability of SCP-3014 By: Dr. Nelson The past test on SCP-3014 have led to another suicide attempt. All tests are to be terminated. Dr. Patrick theorizes that SCP-3014 is a mimic, not capable of experiencing human emotion but expressing it to fit in. After talking to this SCP, I've begun to second guess this theory. SCP-3014 could quite possibly be human, or at least be capable of experiencing emotion. Request to Psychoanalyse SCP-3014

Report on SCP-3013 By: Dr. Henrik Von Schneeplestein   Yesterday I observed SCP-3013’s eyes, or lack thereof. It seemed fearful when I removed the bandages, but didn't move. The eye cavities were filled with golden dust, which, upon lab analysis, was actual gold. Upon examining the sockets more thoroughly, it grunted. At this point, small flecks of what appeared to be more gold substance, blood, and purple light poured out of its eyes. Located in the back of the eye socket, there was a small, shiny looking organ of some sort. Any attempt to examine these organs result in SCP-3013 screaming behind its muzzle and more blood pouring from the sockets. An attempt to sedate and observe the organs resulted in SCP-3013 waking up and [REDACTED], grabbing a scalpel from the surgeon and [REDACTED] before going on to [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] before finally [DATA EXPUNGED] The seven corpses have been disposed of. Request to never try again.

Report on SCP-3022 By: Dr. Nelson It is not containable. It's teleportation is far too strong. The entity has escaped any sort of containment put under, even when sedated. It doesn't seem volatile or malevolent, and is more of a nuisance than anything. It calls itself Chase Brody and insists to have an Ex wife and two ‘beautiful’ children despite no records of these people existing being found.

An update on SCP-3025 By: Dr. Schneeplestein   SCP-3025 has continued to ask about ‘The Host.’ While it is unknown who this person is, it is quite possible they are a lover of his. Another surprising detail occurred during a general exam. Upon talking to myself in German, SCP-3025 instantly responded in that language, commenting on having not heard the language being spoken in a long time. Weather this another anomalous quality of SCP-3025 or if it just knows the language, it was quite shocking to hear it speak in my mother language. The ‘Doctor’ might have more to him than healing and spite.

Report on SCP 3025 by Dr. Henrik Von Schneeplestein SCP 3025 has shown considerable personality growth in its stay with us. Upon first greeting this SCP I was met with a being that was confused and afraid, and just wanted out. As time continued on, 3025 grew bitter and spiteful. While the SCP is oddly always more than willing to provide our staff with medical help, it is clear it is not fond of us. Upon making an offhand comment about the carnage SCP 3013 had caused predating the muzzle, 3025 grew angry and asked if 3013 had any freedoms at all. Upon being informed we could not afford to provide such freedoms 3025 became increasingly agitated to the point I feared for the well being of the entity speaking. Aside from one incident involving overgrowth of skin on all areas of the face, 3025 has proven to be remarkably non-hostile for someone who is apparently so angry. It insists it be called "doctor" and while some humor it I refuse to. SCP 3025 is extremely unhappy in my presence, but was still content to heal my shattered arm last week. Odd to have a bleeding heart in this facility for once rather than a monster. I almost feel... Sympathetic. Still, I can't help but wonder if this... "Doctor" is planning something. His talents are remarkable, so much could be done. Time will tell how much this being understands its own abilities.

Special report on SCP-3014 By: Dr. Nelson SCP-3014s condition has improved after Dr. Patrick's removal from the project. It has started to walk again, and has resumed its normal fidgeting, twiddling with its mustache and even trying to brush its hair. During a routine check, SCP-3022, also known as Chase Brody, played some music over the intercom. SCP-3014 perked up instantly at that, and started dancing. Most of its movements were ungraceful and spastic, except for when Chase played a waltz. It danced perfectly, arms out as if actually waltzing. All it needed was a partner. Request to look more into the effect of music on SCP-3014

[dragon-moms]

Entry 155 - Baroness

Conquest continues.

After our normal breakfast meeting, I found myself back at the potion lab with my creation, their partner, my apprentice, and my child. Everyone looked to me for guidance. Even Dagger had materialized for the occasion.

“So, my lady, what is the plan?” Myrmidon asked.

“I… don’t know…” I said. I admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed. Even back when I was alive, I left presentations and things to others who were better equipped for social interaction. The idea of attempting to put my vague theory into an explanation that those unacquainted with magic could follow felt daunting.

“But you said you had an idea for an experiment,” Dagger said. “Were you lying?”

I clutched my shawl closer around me. “...no…”

“I think maybe we’re being a bit much,” Philly said. “Let’s give her some time and I’m sure she’ll tell us when she needs assistance.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Merry said. “I’m sure it feels like a lot of pressure, you know?” She turned to me and smiled. “Just let us know if we can help, okay?”

“Perhaps we can busy ourselves in the meantime with tidying the main entrance chamber,” Myrmidon said. “It has not been touched, I believe, as I focused my efforts on where my mother would be staying.”

To my relief, everyone started to file out.

“Can I stay here, Mom?” Philly asked.

“Oh, sure!” Merry said, and set her on a work table before following after Myrmidon. “Put that big brain of yours to good use!”

“Mom…” Philly said.

Merry just smiled and disappeared out the door.

“Everything okay?” Philly asked.

“Yes,” I said, feeling a little better with more space. “I just… was unsure where to start.”

“Well, just start somewhere? And I can try to translate to everyone if need be?”

“You are… a good friend and apprentice,” I said. “For identifying what I needed…”

“Well, I mean… I try… it’s the least I can do…”

“Do you mind looking at this corpse?” I asked, gesturing to the White corpse that Myrmidon had brought me.

“I… guess I can,” Philly said. “If it’s important.”

“Your smaller eyes may confirm what I have been hypothesizing.” I picked her up and placed her near the corpse. “Besides its general biological construction, do you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“Uh…” Philly said. She seemed hesitant, but started looking the corpse over. “Oh!” she said as she looked at its back.

“Yes?”

“In this shell thing, on the back between the wings, there’s… I think it’s ritual lines.”

I nodded. “I was right. I noticed the slight discoloration, but it was too small to confirm.”

“It’s scratched in, and colored differently… it looks like a tattoo…”

“A what?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s… it’s a human thing. Some humans use ink to mark up their skin, you know?” Philly said, clearly wondering if that was enough explanation.

“I see,” I said, thinking. “Experiments have been done with similar technology, but injecting ink under scales could not create precise enough patterns for enchantments.”

“This looks that precise, I think,” Philly said. “It reminds me of something…”

It was at that moment that Merry opened the door, startling me.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” she said, clearly noticing me jump. “I didn’t mean to bother!”

“Is everything okay, Mom?” Philly asked.

“Oh, yeah! I just forgot something! We forgot something, maybe.” From her bag, she pulled a small ring made of metal. “You should look at this, Baroness! It’s, like, important, maybe.”

I carefully took the small piece of metal from her and looked it over. It seemed ornate, but I could not see the decorations on it clearly. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s something called a crown?” Merry said. “Philly probably knows more about it… but I can explain if you can’t talk about it?” she said, looking to her daughter.

“We’ll… I can talk about it, Mom,” Philly said.

“Okay, good,” she said.

There was some silence.

“I… guess I’ll explain a little,” Philly said.

“Right, and I should go back and like, help Myrmidon, probably, so you two can magic and stuff!” Merry said. She moved over to Philly and gave her a little hug. “And I’ll be outside if you need me, okay? For, like, anything?”

“I’m alright, Mom… I’ve got a better handle on it now, promise,” Philly said, avoiding eye contact.

“Okay. Okay! Well… bye for now!” Merry said, and left again.

“She’s really worried about me,” Philly said. “I got… that crown is why I was out of commision for a bit there. I got upset.”

“Did it hurt you in some way?” I asked, looking at it closer.

“It’s a symbol of a human royal,” Philly said. “Flare said his god wanted me to find something, and that’s what I found… it… reacts with me somehow. And I don’t want to be a royal. I’m not one, not anymore. So I got upset.”

“I see…” I said. I felt compelled to continue, however. “You are my apprentice. You will be a fine wizard when you are older. You already are.”

“Thanks…” Philly said, pulling her hood down a little. “I… I’ll keep studying. I hope we can get back to lessons soon.”

“May I inquire about the reaction?” I asked.

“Oh, right,” Philly said. “Well, I… I don’t know. I was upset. I just remember there was something… can I see it again?” I offered her the crown, and she held it. “Oh, this is enchanted… I mean, of course it is… but these decorations are actually ritual lines, I think. Maybe it was just the feeling of touching a ritual line… that feeling of power getting ready. But it’s not quite right… kind of overwhelming, maybe… is that weird?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“But these ritual lines are…” Philly looked back to the corpse. “Yeah, they look a lot like what’s here. But they’re wrong… These shapes aren’t supposed to be closed, right? I’m pretty sure you told me that.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Philly looked up, confused. “What?”

“You have confirmed my suspicions,” I said. I reached for a notebook that wasn’t there. I have regretted not bring note-taking materials. “Mm… will you please set the crown down and touch the ritual lines on the corpse?”

“I… yeah, okay,” Philly said. She sat it down, and then touched the corpse. “...it feels the same. The same… big-ness… it’s weird.”

“As I hoped,” I said. “Philly, I believe we have found ritual lines drawn to suit your inner element.”

Philly stood there for a moment. Finally, she spoke. “What?”

“I believe we have found ritual lines drawn to suit your inner element,” I repeated.

“That… okay?” she said, clearly still confused.

“The feeling you are describing is not uncommon. It is the feeling of preparing to cast a spell properly attuned to your element. It is what I feel when I cast a spell built around my necrotic energies, for example.”

“But… why would that be the case?” Philly asked.

“The door that I am working on… I had never seen a ritual like it before… it seemed unique. But I thought about the vision. The White in the vision had to be casting Indira’s Claw or its equivalent from something, but there was no staff. And so I deduced it must be part of her person. You have confirmed that the ritual lines on the back of this White are constructed similarly. The reason I have never seen it before is because it uses an element I had not encountered.”

“So… I can open the door?” Philly asked.

“Perhaps. We know it is likely the enchantment on the corpse is Indira’s Claw. Could you attempt to activate it?”

“...alright. Yeah.” My apprentice touched the ritual lines once more. But nothing happened, for a moment. Then there was a spark of stray energy, and Philly stumbled back. “Woah!”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know… I powered it like all the spells you’ve taught me… but nothing happened… and then the energy kind of… shot back at me.”

“I have experienced a similar effect with the door,” I said, thinking. “There must be something more to these ritual lines we are not aware of.”

“Perhaps it’s just where it touches?” Philly asked. “It’s on the back of this corpse.”

“That seems unlikely,” I said. “And I would not like to experiment and potentially hurt you.”

We sat there and thought for a while.

“Can you sing a song?” I asked.

“I… guess?” Philly said. And then it hit her. “Oh, like Flare did? The song he sang opened the passage to White Territory, so you think it has something to do with their magic?”

“In the vision the White was also creating musical sounds while she used Indira’s Claw,” I said.

“Just any song?” Philly asked.

“...I do not know,” I said.

We tried with two songs Philly knew, but each time there was feedback. I called an end to the experiments as she had singed her outfit with a stray spark.

“I could try,” Dagger’s voice said.

Philly jumped a little, surprised.

“You do not have the proper element,” I said. “Also, the energy of your inner element is being applied in order to…”

“I meant find the right song. I could try to find it,” Dagger said, cutting me off. “We heard it once in a vision. I can try to have another one, to hear it again.”

“You cannot control your visions,” I said. “We do not know the mechanism.”

“Yeah, well… I’ve been thinking about that,” Dagger said, materializing over Philly’s head. She moved on the table to try to be able to look at em. “My last vision was odd, somehow, and it took me a while to figure out why… but it was because I was… I don’t know… happy…” Dagger’s eye rolled around on eir form to give Philly a look, and then back into place. “Let’s not dwell on that… but I’ve been really upset or sad every other time, it felt like… so I think the visions have something to do with my emotions.”

“I see,” I said.

“So say something that’ll make me mad,” Dagger said.

“I… do not wish to upset you…” I said.

“It’s an experiment,” Dagger said, annoyed.

I took a moment to consider this. I had often wished to involve Dagger in my experiments as I often did eir sibling, but ey had shown no interest in life or death. This was a unique opportunity.

“Baroness, you don’t…” Philly started.

But I held out a claw to silence her, and looked to Dagger. “I refuse to consider your feelings going forward in my future endeavors,” I said.

“...okay? You never have,” Dagger said.

“I… I am trying…” I said.

“Surely that’s not the best you can do,” ey said, floating towards the door.

“Baroness, seriously,” Philly started, but I stopped her again.

“I… I do not wish for you to be free. I need you here. You must stay with me,” I said.

Dagger just stared at me.

I took another moment.

“As the life drained out of your father, his blood coating my claws, the last thing he did was beg that I would leave you alone, leave you safe.”

Dagger’s eye widened.

“I did not. I left him there, so some part of him could see as I ended you.”

Eir whole body became a mass of spikes and fog, and ey rushed me.

“The song, the song, Dagger,” I said.

I felt a small bit of eir chill as ey essentially attempted to tackle me, and then eir eye turned white, and ey floated there, in the air.

And then we were elsewhere.

It was a chamber of some sort, clearly designed for teaching. A White floated, flapping its wings quickly at the front. A group of three other White dragons watched, floating in formation. There was a slate behind, with chalk drawings of circles, in a pattern.

“Let’s try again, and remember, don’t fight it. Let it come from deep inside from those inner chords,” the one in the front said.

“A classroom...” Philly said softly, amazed.

And then, the one in the front began to sing, and the rest followed. There were no lyrics, just a pattern of sounds.

“Philly, let us memorize this,” I said as they were instructed to start over. One of them, as they sang, summoned Indira’s claw, and nearly fell out of the air, forgetting to flap its wings, before laughing happily.

“Right…” Philly said.

And then, the vision ended. Dagger fell to the ground.

“I will check on em. You try the song,” I said as I moved to my child.

“Okay… but Baroness… are you okay? Saying all that?” she asked.

“I would prefer my attempt not be a waste, considering the methods I employed. Please try,” I said.

I leaned down in front of Dagger as ey woke up. I could hear Philly trying to sing in the background.

“It appears your hypothesis is correct,” I told em.

“How… how dare y…” ey started as ey began to float normally, righting eirself.

“It was a fabrication, of sorts,” I said. “Your father died as painlessly as I could manage, given the method I was forced to use. He did not have a chance to speak. I would have done better by you as well if you had not walked in unexpectedly.”

“Why… what’s wrong with you…” ey said.

“I… wanted to properly do your experiment,” I said. “We have… not done such a thing together…”

“You are so… so…” Dagger took a moment, breathing out spectral frost. “I should have expected this. I should have expected this when I asked you for help. But I was right, that’s what’s important. I was right. I can control it now.”

“Somewhat,” I agreed, “though it would seem to take a high level of emotional intensity.”

“I’m not going to thank you,” ey said. “Not after that. But… I’m glad we figured this out. And I’m going to stay away from you for a while.”

“I understand,” I said. “I am sorry I went to an extreme in an attempt to properly evoke an emotion in you. It was perhaps uncalled for.”

I heard a gasp behind me, and turned to see, for a moment, Indira’s Claw in the air before Philly stumbled backwards in surprise, hand losing contact with the corpse.

“We’ve figured it out,” I said.

“We did. Us three,” Philly said, looking to Dagger.

“Maybe I helped a little, for once,” Dagger said, and disappeared. “But I’m still a disappointment, I’m sure. Someone who needs reminding that ey are not worthy of love for an experiment.”

“I disagree with that assessment,” I said. “I love you dearly, my child, as much as I am capable.”

Dagger said nothing more, and I gave em eir space.

We taught the song to Myrmidon and Merry, to ensure it was likely someone would remember it. Though none of us are particularly musical, I have confidence we will be able to retain this important information my child gave us. Tomorrow, we head back to the door. We have the tools we need.

I believe, together, we can do this.