#let the spookening begin

[madamemidnight]

All the spooky kids on October 1st:

[mane--attraction]

It's that time of year again when haunted houses are in full swing, and despite your best efforts, you are going alone to have some fun getting spooked. Might you get more than you bargained for, however?

Word Count: 5015. Yeah. This one kinda got away from me lol. Fun fact, this is now my longest fic ever. This was also supposed to be done for last year, but I clearly vastly underestimated how long this was going to be.

Mild knifeplay, "kidnapping," gender neutral but afab reader. Murdock x reader. Potentially inaccurate haunted house depiction.

MINORS DNI!

~~~

Dusk dapples the sky while you stand in line, waiting for the local haunted house event to open its doors, rubbing your arms to ward off the beginnings of a chill in the air. Despite living here a while, this is your first time you've built up the nerve to go. It takes up the entire fairgrounds, with multiple houses under one event. You had extended an invitation to Murdock, because you were sure it was right up his alley, but he declined, citing work. He's been away an awful lot this month, despite his best efforts, and you were hoping to spend more time with him out and about instead of just within your four walls and between the sheets. But alas, it seems like it's not to be, and you had reassured him it was alright, even as you tried to mask your disappointment.

You mostly relegate all that to the back of your mind, your excitement more prominent now that you're here. You hesitated to attend in the years prior because some of the houses were interactive, where the actors could grab you. It was one of the selling points you had used to appeal to Murdock, animatedly mimicking it in the air, although you wonder now that you think about it if that was a deal breaker for him; after all, thanks to his…line of work, would he have reacted negatively? The last thing either of you need, especially him, is legal action.

Regardless, you're not sure now why it was such a problem for you that you didn't even try the normal houses; and after all, it's not like the ones where they can touch you have free reign. Although you do have to fill out a liability form, so maybe that's why you over-thought it in the past. 

You're at the front of the line before you realize it, handing over your money—extra for the specialty houses—and signing the necessary forms. The woman in the booth puts on your wristband and gives you a map and a spiel that she's already had to recite multiple times, but you are eating up every word, grinning excitedly.

"Welcome to our little town of horrors, where the streets and fields are home to a great many spooky things, where the veil between the supernatural and our world grows thinner by the day. But beware: it's not just the ghost and ghouls that are out to get you… Good luck."

And with that, you're free to start exploring. You wander around for a little bit, gaining your bearings on the area, but it isn’t long before impatience overtakes you and you head towards the first haunted house. The smell of food is enticing, as are the Halloween-themed carnival games, but that all can wait. The best way to tackle this is head-on, even if you're sure these beginning houses are going to be pretty okay. This is, after all, just a local event, even if it does pull in quite the crowd. Plus, you’re starting at the tamest one, with plenty of kids out front, so you’ll be fine.

Let the spookening begin.

Your first house was actually a little underwhelming because of being geared so young, but you worked your way through the other two houses you wanted to try before getting to the “final boss” of the haunted houses tonight. You were sufficiently spooked, both through corridors and a corn maze, but the goal wasn’t “sufficient.” With slightly overpriced pizza sitting in your stomach, you start towards your final destination.

Excitement and nervousness, stronger than before, bubble together the closer you get, the previous scares coming to your mind’s eye, but you force yourself through it rather than chicken out. You didn’t come all this way just to back out. You do wish Murdock was here, though; you’d feel a lot better if he was. Things seem less scary with a man like him by your side. The screams from within startle you from your thoughts. You swear they're louder here.

The attendant checks your wristband to make sure you're allowed in, then waves you along into the corral with the next batch of "victims." You fidget with your hands and glance around at the rest of the event. It's only now you realize how physically isolated this house is from the others.

"First time?"

You turn to see a guy around your age with a group of a few others, probably his friends. You chuckle, your nervousness evident. "Yeah. I went through some of the others already, just this one left."

The guy grins, while the two girls resume some quiet discussion. "It'll be fine. They'll just push you and tug on your clothing a bit, maybe grab your hand, but nothing too bad."

"As if you don't scream every time," one of the girls pipes up from her conversation.

He huffs, only half insulted, and you can't help but giggle in tandem with the girls. "I do not—"

“Do too.” The girl who spoke grins. “I bet you’d scream real loud if we went to one of those newer places where they can drag you off somewhere”

“They actually allow that?” you interject, eyes rounding in surprise.

“Yeah, I heard a couple of the big popular places are adding that as a feature.” The girl pulls her coat around her, the wind kicking at everyone’s legs. “It’ll probably never happen here, though. Not with everything that’s happened recently.”

While it does genuinely take you a moment, you nod and go “ah” as if you aren’t in flagrante delicto with the culprit of crimes a few towns over. A culprit whom you were originally planning on bringing here— Thankfully, you’re almost to the door of the house, so the group’s focus is more on getting in than on you, and nobody seems to notice your smile growing a bit taut.

“Hey, why don’t you stick with us?” The other girl you haven’t spoken with yet bounces on her feet.

“Yeah, it’s more fun as a group,” the guy says. His buddy nods.

“Sure,” you say, the twisty feeling in your stomach loosening. “The more the merrier, right?”

Everyone in the group gives some form of acknowledgement, and then the attendant cuts in with their spiel about the theming—a mansion, run down with time after the owner and his staff’s mysterious disappearances…if that’s really what happened. Rumor has it that something terrible befell everyone inside—and they might think you’re to blame, if you’re not careful. They also bring up reminders about protocol while in the house. You've heard all of it at the other haunted houses here, and not much changes with the addition of physicality; as always, if it gets too overwhelming, there are ways out that all the performers know.

The buddy turns to you once the speech is done. “What’s your name, by the way?”

You introduce yourself, and he repeats your name. “Nice to meet you.” He gives his own name and sounds off everyone else’s. You try and commit it all to memory, even if you’re not sure how well it will stay.

“Nice to meet all of you.”

And with that, you step over the threshold, and the door slams shut behind you. You jump higher than you think is warranted, but the scaredy cat in the group does in fact let out a yelp, which sets everyone off laughing. You collectively take a moment to consider the path in front of you: a narrow corridor, flickering with sickly yellow lighting, the remnants of pumped-in fog curling at the floor. 

You’re not entirely certain who steps forward first, but it definitely isn’t you. Despite knowing this is all fake and having already gone through other hallways similar to this one, it still has enough of a thrall to induce a silence that grows more tense the further you all get. The walls are eerily similar to how you would imagine a decrepit mansion to be, wallpaper peeling off in sheets, and you find yourself suspicious of every dark spot in the wall. Even the mirrors in the supposed foyer, cracked and broken, are suspect. The sounds of a creaking house and muffled howling winds are piped in; quiet enough to make you second guess where you are, but loud enough that it almost feels too loud in the enclosed space.

One of the girls lets out a shriek, pulling away suddenly from the wall, and you practically jump out of your skin. She giggles nervously. “It got me!”

Everyone else follows suit, letting out a laugh that normally would release tension. You can only speak for yourself when you think about how it didn’t much help. 

“Get out! The master is gone: Get out while you still can!”

The warning, shouted at a frightening pitch, kicks your group forward, everyone pressing together as the hall narrows more, then widens again, a bend ahead of you all. You feel a hand against your sleeve, and you jank it back quickly with a surprised curse. A cold breeze tickles your neck, and it takes all your willpower not to shriek, even though that is perfectly in spirit with a haunted house (pun not intended). “Please tell me someone else felt that cold air?” you squeak.

“Yeah, I did,” says the guy in front of you. You already can’t tell which one he is.

The wood beneath your feet groan as you all continue forward, the sconces flickering with the yellow light your eyes have gotten used to. You shove your hands into your pockets; the closer you keep your limbs, the less likely they are to be grabbed. The door handle beside your group rattles. It’s not fake. You all move a little quicker.

The floorboards creak behind you, and you feel like you turn as if in slow motion to see a man standing in the middle of the hallway in a mask, human-like but definitely not human. Every feature is exaggerated just enough to be unnatural, and in this place, it works a little too well. With his frame, he seems to take up the entire hallway; and if not physically, then with his presence. Your eyes lock onto him, and you stop walking, as if he’s frozen you in place. Everything else disappears: no sound, no sight except for this man. And there’s something about him…

The man lets out a guttural growl, the kind that sends genuine fear into the pit of your stomach. You’re the first to scramble to run the moment he shifts to pursue, pushing through the rest of your group, the spell broken, but everyone else soon follows suit, screams echoing in the tiny corridor. You're not sure where theirs end and yours begins. You whip your head around just long enough to confirm where the man is before you round the corner, and your line of sight is perfect to see him between everyone’s heads, the unsettling lighting warping the mask more. You swear you see a knife in his hand.

Finally, after a few minutes of running, one of the girls must have glanced back, because you hear her call out behind you, "He's gone!" Your feet don't quite get the memo, and you find yourself out ahead of the group as you slow and catch your breath. 

“Fuck’s sake,” you mutter to yourself. Why did that scare you so much? 

“Are you okay?” one of the guys asks. You nod.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” It’s half a lie, and you laugh nervously. “Just part of the experience, right?”

“Right.”

“We should probably keep moving though. Who knows when the next person’s gonna jump out at us.” Despite not being fully ready, you lead the group forward, trying to figure out what it was this time. It’s probably not that deep, but it feels important to figure out. 

However. Something occurs to you. 

That mask didn't look like it belonged in this house

Teeth bared in a snarl too wide to be natural, prominent eyebrows casting shadows over the eyes, more creature than human, despite being human-like. Surely it's just a mistake, but all the other houses have been meticulous with what they had to work with, so for a slip-up to happen now seems odd. Although, it could still fit, since it had been said nobody knew what happened to the occupants of the mansion. That doesn't quite explain, however, why his outfit—including an almost knee-length modern coat with pants—wasn't that of a servant, nor the head of the mansion…

“That was a pretty good scare,” says one of the girls behind you.

“Yeah, that felt so visceral,” says the other. "Wild."

“I have the heebie jeebies.” It’s that guy, the scared one. 

“You always get the ‘heebie jeebies.’”

He huffs. “Shut up—”

You slow down, falling to the back of the group. You swear you hear something that isn’t just the sound system, but maybe it's just your overactive imagination. After all, anyone would be on high alert after being chased. The guy you haven’t spoken to gives you a look that you almost miss, but you don't explain yourself. No point.

“I thought this was supposed to be more grabby.”

“Maybe we just haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“I know this place is big, but it’s not that big.”

“They probably just want to build up the spookiness,” you interject, even if you’re not fully convinced, yourself.

“Ah, that would make sense.”

You stop in front of another destroyed mirror, pieces scattered on the table under it. Your own face is almost unrecognizable, horridly lit and fractured in the reflection, concern and fear staring back at you.

“YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”

It comes from up ahead, and it snaps you from your trance, but instead of seeing your new acquaintances, you see…nobody. Everyone is gone. Even the voice you heard isn’t visible to you.

You swear you see a bit of the one girl's hair trailing behind her at the bend ahead, but you're much too far away already, and you're not sure they noticed you're not with them yet. It stings a little, even if you know they didn’t mean anything by it, but your nervousness overpowers that, the uncertainty of what lies ahead gnawing at you. You jog forward, just fast enough to hopefully catch up with the rest of the group—

You hear a loud THUMP somewhere behind you, startling you enough to jump. With the way the ground vaguely vibrates, whatever hit the floor must have done so pretty hard. You swallow thickly. “Guys?” you call out. No answer. You jog with more urgency now, your footfalls and heartbeat equal tempo in your ears. More than likely, they didn’t hear you because of ambience, but you fear they’ve gotten too far away in such a short span of time. You pick up speed—

—but there’s another noise behind you, a shuffling, that has you stop again, head whipping around to try and find the source. With the corners so dark, it’s impossible to tell if someone is there or if it was just an animal that found its way in. You stand there for a few seconds longer than you should, staring into the darkness. Something is up, and the lack of anything actually happening is making this so much worse than being physically pushed and pulled in different directions. You’re not a haunted house expert by any means, but this place has been far too quiet. Slowly, you continue to move forward, the faux fog growing thicker with less bodies to disturb it. The floor creaks uncomfortably loud. You don’t remember any mention about multiple pathways, so where the hell is everyone?

There's a tug on your hair, and you barely suppress a yelp, but you suppose it was an accident…although it was rather close to your scalp; how did someone get that close without you realizing after all this time…

Suddenly, there's a hand clamped around your wrist, jolting you, and you'd think it a coincidence if it wasn't for the one wrapping around your mouth, dragging you to someone and into the shadows. You scream, but it's muffled, drowned out by the suddenly overly loud sound system, and your efforts to struggle out of your assailant's grip are futile, holding you tightly against their body as they maneuver you with much more ease than you'd expect. It's honestly kind of scary how little you're affecting them. Their hands are oddly cool against your skin, and then you realize it's not their skin, but some material.

Leather.

A door slams open behind you, and you're dragged into a room. The outside noises are muffled, then dampened once the door shuts again, trapping you in the dim space with whoever has kidnapped you. You're still yelling, trying to stomp on their feet and throw your head back against their chin, but their shoes are too solid and they're too tall to headbutt. Your hands twist around to pinch or scratch, but all you get is fabric.

"Sweet thing," a man's voice growls into your ear, "you better cooperate, or else this will be a lot more difficult for you."

The person's hands shift, and hope surges that you'll get an opening, but before you can get very far in acting through it, you're forced to the ground face down, hips suddenly pressed up against you, and you freeze. He's rock hard.

"Or you can struggle all you like. Doesn't much matter to me." Somehow, you can tell there's a grin to his voice. "It just encourages me to try harder." 

It takes you a moment too long to try and buck him off, gnashing your teeth. "Get off of me! You'll be sorry!"

You feel the man throb, and he laughs lowly. "Sorry how, sweetheart? A pretty thing like you, at my mercy…"

The chill of metal against your skin startles you into freezing again, and something about it seems…familiar. The cogs take a moment to turn, but then they click into place. You know that voice. "Murdock?"

He's quiet for a moment, then chuckles. "Well, well. Smart cookie. Not that I expected anything less from my kitten.”

Considering the shock of it all prevented you from thinking straight, he's lucky you didn't panic more. "Wh— What are you doing here? I had thought—"

"I couldn't resist the opportunity." Murdock tosses something to the ground—a mask he was apparently wearing. "And work…ended much sooner than I thought."

The lighting is terrible, but your eyes focus on the mask, which stares back at you with a bared grin, more bestial than you realized, and a memory flashes: Being pursued down the hall, sickly yellow light flashing across its exaggerated features— "But how—"

He shushes you, hands trailing across your neck to expose it to him. "I have my ways, sweetling. Not everyone is as careful as they could be." He starts pressing startlingly soft kisses to your neck, although it isn't long before they become more insistent, and you bite your lip and shiver. "Yourself included."

His dangerous tone sets off a nervousness in the pit of your stomach: it’s the type of tone he uses when you’ve been misbehaving. “L-listen, Murdock, I carry that pepper spray with me, you know I’ll be okay—”

“Do I? After all, look at how easily I stole you away…”

Shit. He’s not wrong. "You—you’re just abnormally strong.” You swear you hear a light chuckle, but you ignore it and squirm in one more attempt to get free. “The others, they're— they're waiting for me—"

"Are they?" He can't hide the hint of possessiveness that creeps into his voice, and one of his hands presses into your back to stop you. "They can wait, sweetheart. We haven't had our fun yet."

The sharp tip of something presses against your center, and you yip, jolting forward. “Don’t you dare! I’m not about to replace these—”

“Alright, I won’t. Help me get you out of them, then."

His hands push their way under your coat to find the band of your jeans, and a half second after he starts, your brain jumpstarts again and you scramble to assist him, finding the waistband before he does and pushing it down your body. Murdock takes over when it rounds your ass, shoving the material to your knees with impatience. You try and kick them off, although it is very difficult in this position; he helps a little bit, but once you’ve gotten it off one leg, he grips your thighs, forcing you to stay still. Slowly, the cold metal of the flat of his blade trails over your skin: along your thigh, pressing against the underside of your ass, across and down to the other thigh…then it’s pressing against your core again, and with nothing but your underwear left to protect you, you can’t help but whimper.

“These are easily replaceable, though. Aren’t they, kitten?”

His knife pushes a little firmer against you, and your breathing shudders. It takes everything within you not to press back. “...Yes, sir.”

His grin is as clear as day in his voice this time. “Perfect.” 

It’s the only warning you get before a gloved finger hooks between your skin and the cotton, pulling it away just enough to allow the knife to slip through and slice. Your underwear offers no resistance, cut through like butter and exposing you in an instant. The cold only chills you for a moment, his groin back against yours and grinding roughly, and all you can do is fail to hold back your moan. He only does this for a few seconds before pulling back. His jingling belt gives away his intentions, and your blood pumps faster in anticipation.

“Do you think you’re ready? Hm?” There’s a soft sound and fabric going flump, and his bare hand is on your clit, rubbing intensely. You gasp wildly, nodding without actually knowing if you are or not. Murdock’s fingers dip into you, checking for himself. You don’t resist lifting your hips towards them, trying to guide them further in with a desperate whine. He just teases you, sliding back and forth and occasionally thumbing your sensitive nub.

“Please,” you whisper without thinking.

“What’s that?” Fuck, he sounds so smug, and you’d love to snap back at him for it, but him slowing to a snail’s pace is too distracting. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

“Please, Murdock!”

His fingers leave you, and you pout and whine quietly. However, his zipper popping open has you changing your tune. “One more try.”

There’s little hesitation from you. “Pleasefuckme!”

“Mm.” His head slides through your folds, and you gasp again. This time, his gloved hand stills you before you can move. “Music to my ears.”

That’s all the warning you get before he slowly slides into you, gripping your hips. You squeak, lashes fluttering as your breaths come out in puffs, adjusting to how almost easily he stretches you. He rubs at you a little more, and he sinks in the rest of the way. A low moan is his reward, followed by one of his own. Murdock hardly moves at first, simply grinding within you and rocking his hips in shallow movements. Then, suddenly, he draws back all the way and snaps his hips against yours, and you yelp in surprise. You aren’t given much of a reprieve before he does it again. And again. And again. And each time, you let out a shout, although you try to muffle yourself, thinking you hear footsteps in the hall. At any moment, someone from the staff could come in here. Does he know this?

Better question is, does he care? You’re not sure if you want to admit that it kind of turns you on.

Murdock starts a steady pace, not so intense as before but just as overwhelming. You’re panting already, struggling to keep quiet. He notices and chuckles. "Go ahead and scream." His command is uncannily punctuated by muffled screams from within the haunted house proper. "Do you really think they can hear you over everyone else’s, let alone the sounds from the haunted house itself?" His breath is hot by your ear. "Nobody's going to investigate, sweet thing. I have you all to myself, now."

That shouldn’t excite you as much as it does, holding back a whimper, yet you can’t hold back the way you tighten around him. He slows, as if making sure of something, then growls. “Oh, naughty thing. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

You clamp your mouth shut, hoping that if you don’t answer, he’ll leave it alone. But alas, your body betrays you once more, and Murdock stops, a certain something sharp that you forgot about dragging against your neck just enough for you to be aware of it, your breath catching. “Answer me, kitten.”

“Yes, sir.” The reply rushes from your lips with more neediness than you thought it would have.

“First you let your ‘kidnapper’ fuck you, now this?” he teases, clicking his tongue with mock disappointment. “Seems I need to learn more about my kitten.”

Your face flushes intensely. It’s no different than when he’s chased you out in the woods, and he knows this. He just can’t help himself…but also he’s more than willing to play into the role of pursuer. This you know well.

“Maybe I should be making you beg more for me to fuck you.” His gloved hand trails along your thigh. “But I’m much too impatient for that.”

His grip grows tight enough to bruise, his thrusts growing intense to match, and you let out a sound unlike any you’ve made thus far, wild and raw and overwhelmed with pleasure. Murdock laughs, triumphant and deep like his thrusts, and more than tinged with lust. It almost seems to settle into your bones.

“God. What a rush you give me.”

His pace is technically slower now, but that doesn’t matter with the way your eyes roll with every impact. You feel him lean over, but don’t know what’s happening until his lips reach your neck, kissing and sucking the skin he can find. Your moan is so whorish that it would embarrass you under different circumstances. His lips curl against your neck, although you barely comprehend that’s what’s happening. You try and reach your hand to your clit, but he beats you to it, only to rub so harshly that you practically sob out a cry. “FUCK!”

“If you insist,” he says, his strained voice giving away how much you’re affecting him. That hand travels back up to hold your hip in a vice grip. He lets out that same guttural growl from earlier, this time low and long, and with it directly in your ear, you nearly lose your mind, fluttering madly around him. You're so close—

"There it is. There we are." Murdock growls again, shorter but nowhere less effective. "Do it. Cum. Scream for me."

Despite being so tightly wound, you’re almost not sure if you can obey…until he groans and slams once more into you—and with a shriek, you are undone, clenching wildly around him and thighs trembling with an orgasm more intense than you expected. Murdock grunts in surprise, trying to continue fucking you through it. Your mind fractures with every attempted stroke, whimpering and babbling curses.

“Oh fuck—”

Murdock grunts once, twice, then he’s spilling inside you, cock pulsing harshly, the heat of him and his skin flush against yours driving you mad. He gasps and huffs and puffs, hand blinding finding you and rubbing again just enough to feel you clench around him harder. You keen loudly, practically a shriek in and of itself, legs threatening to give out as your body is kept on that intense plateau.

Eventually, the rush of cum slows, as does his throbbing inside you, and your own body is, mercifully, allowed to relax, still fluttering but not actively climaxing. The both of you pant heavily, catching your breaths as the two of you recover. His hands slide over your body, the strange dichotomy of skin and leather over and under your clothes. Murdock slips from you, and you’re too tired yet to be disappointed by it. He guides you in rolling you onto your back, and you don’t resist, grateful to give your legs a break from supporting you.

You blink almost blearily at where he ought to be, your eyes needing to adjust again to the lighting. You find your legs spread wide, almost folded in half, and his cockhead against your entrance once more. He doesn’t do anything at first, probably just taking you in. It’s a welcome, true reprieve. His bare hand brushes against your cheek, and you lean into it on instinct. 

While maybe the break ought to last longer, Murdock is true to his word and impatient to have you. As he slides into you again with an unabashed moan that’s matched with your own, it strikes you as always that he’s already—still?—half hard again. If there’s one guarantee about Murdock among the other guarantees, it’s that he doesn’t stay soft for long.

Now, you can see him, face closer to yours. Even in the dimness, there's no mistaking that hunter's glint in his eyes. "Hello, sweetheart," he says, a wicked grin on his lips. "Miss me?"

He's devouring your mouth before you can respond, head spinning while he takes over your senses. His thrust scrambles what few thoughts you had left, eyes rolling into your head with a loud moan swallowed by him. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist, and he groans into your mouth. Your mind tumbles again.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Murdock pants against your lips, watching your unfocused expression as he resumes pounding into you. All you can manage is a long whine. “How much more, hm? How much more can you take while I show you just how much I missed you?”

You don’t know. You can’t even think enough to be able to consider how much more. 

But you’re certainly about to find out.

[kitekki-khaos]

GOOD MORNING LITTER HOUSE, IT'S SCHEDULE TIME!!

HAPPY SPOOKY SEASON ALL!!!!

IT'S OFFICIALLY OCTOBER, LET THE SPOOKENING BEGIN!! Costume reveals! Finally playing the Adventure Map! New Monthly Project! EXCITEMENT!!

I'll be revealing the first of the costumes on our Project Night, along with the new project and then, come variety night, we'll finally be playing through the Minecraft Adventure Map! You'll get 2-hours at the start of every Saturday stream to work your way through the map, solve the puzzles, find the secrets, and reveal the Lore! This'll be a month-long event! Good luck!

Schedule Tuesday: [Off-Stream Work] Wednesday on Twitch: Project Night Stream: New Project at 9PM PST / 12AM EST Thursday: [Off-Stream Work] Friday on Twitch: Indie Horror: American McGee's Alice at 9PM PST / 12AM EST Saturday on Twitch: MC Adventure Night at 9PM PST / 12AM EST Sunday: [In the Void]

Links: Twitch: Kitekki YouTube: Kitekki VOD Archive: KitekkiVODs Everything: Carrd

Channel Tags: General Tag: #KittenLitter Art Tag: #Tekillust Fashion Tag: #TekiWear NSFW Tag: #NSFKitten

[jooshthepunished]

TLOU Ep1:

This was initially a live review, so the bulk of my analysis was written in sequence as information came to me, rather than reflecting on it in retrospect. But I got tired of pausing for long stretches so I wouldn't miss anything while I wrote my thoughts, so I finished the episode close to the end and have now gone back to complete the analysis.

They opened with a talk show set in 1968 talking about how an evolved fungus could take over the world. This is relatively unobtrusive to me, because it does essentially the "collection of newsreel audio exposition" the opening credits the game does that would seem dated now. Somehow they swung John Hannah and Chris Heyerdahl for this scene.

They changed the setting of the beginning from 2013, as it was in the game, to 2003 so they could set the main events in the current year. A little ridiculous and pointless, but okay, they're trying something a bit different. In my opinion, though, it makes it even more patently ridiculous that anyone, let alone the Fireflies, could even hope to manufacture a vaccine for a fungal infection. Even now in the 2020s we haven't cracked it, though we're on the precipice. In 2013 it was extremely improbable. In 2003 it was factually impossible. Now take that 2003 medical technology, and age it a hard 20 years in the apocalypse. More than impossible. It's simply stupid.

It's Joel's birthday. He's stated to be 36. Joel in the game was turning 29. It's a weird change.

Sarah is noticeably 14-15 instead of 12, which undercuts her character a little and for me that makes her harder to connect with. They're inventing moments for her that won't matter later because she is literally doomed; She gets a watch fixed to surprise Joel with as a birthday present, but she took $20 from his drawer to pay for it and sneaked over to town after school to a clock repairman. I can assure you even in 2003 no watch repair cost $20 unless you were just replacing the glass or a hand. The clock repairman's wife nervously comes out of the back to rush Sarah out and makes the repairman close up the store. The watch is repaired just in time.

Sarah visits the neighbors' ultra religious nurse after getting back from town so they can have a moment where an old catatonic invalid lady can give the audience a spookin when she starts twitching in the background while Sarah "borrows" a DVD. Sarah is noticing the weird things going on before the upheaval, like helicopters flying overhead toward Houston in intervals.

We get a hint of the game's first opening moments with a reworked watch gifting scene. It's explained that it's Joel's old watch, and she admits to taking money to have it fixed. It simply feels less meaningful, as the player can assume she saved up her allowance to buy an affordable watch, rather than taking his own money to surprise him with his own watch. It comes across to me like the Everything Bagel comic. "You've always owned it. We've always/never had it." It has a vague hint of Troubled Kid Trope drama, but fakes out instead. She's just a little impulsive.

Joel and Sarah start watching the DVD, a cheesy '80s action movie (a good little memberberry from the games, I liked it), then Tommy calls. He's been arrested after a bar fight, so Joel has to leave to bail him out. Terminator Duck Fart guy is a good Tommy so far. Mando is a decent Joel for now.

Joel tucks Sarah into bed and leaves. A couple hours pass by, then another re-imagination of a scene from the game begins. This cycle of not-game stuff intervals game stuff in a frustrating way.

Sarah wakes up to more helicopter and siren noises in the distance. Neighborhood is otherwise dark and quiet. She gets out of bed and looks around the house for Joel.

Sarah is spookened by the neighbor's dog in the window so she can go outside and put herself in a perilous situation. She tries to take the dog back home, but the smart and good doggo runs away before she can be put inside. Hearing noises at the front door, Sarah goes in to investigate and sees the invalid neighbor lady's husband bleeding from the neck in the kitchen. He's been bitten by his wife, who is snacking on the Christian nurse lady with her mouth-spaghetti behind the kitchen island. Sarah is chased outside just as Joel and Tommy get home. Tommy shoots Mrs. Invalid lady. Joel tells Sarah to get in the truck. I wasn't terribly compelled by this, I think the game's scene is much more effective, and would have been less expensive to reproduce.

One of the many game-ish portions happens. A couple of small moments were added for dramatic effect. They cut around traffic to get to a town. People are running everywhere in the streets, a building is on fire. People are blocking their way, so they can't go forward. They back up, and a fucking plane crashes down the block right behind them. Cut to black.

Changing the truck getting T-Boned by a another vehicle to a plane crashing is very indulgent and risky, and in my opinion it doesn't really pay off.

Fading in from black on a shot of Sarah upside-down, the truck was thrown ass-over-end by the shock wave and debris from the plane crash. Joel pulls Sarah out through the window and it's clear that her ankle is injured. A flaming police SUV suddenly rams into the back of the truck (oh there it is) and for some reason, somehow, separates Tommy from Joel and Sarah. Through a gap in the flames, Tommy tells Joel that he'll meet them by the river. This simply isn't effective to me as Tommy escorting them through the alley and blocking the bar's back door with his own body while Joel and Sarah run for it. In the game you're concerned that Tommy is sacrificing himself.

(Through this whole thing by the way, Tommy has a deer rifle. I'll talk about this in a minute.)

Joel lifts Sarah up into his arms and carries her through an alleyway where they're chased by an infected through a diner and out the back door, where the infected is shot by a soldier.

That Scene™️ happens, but instead they're in the side lot of a diner instead of halfway down the hill to the bank of the river.

The soldier opens fire and Joel and Sarah tumble down the hill. The soldier follows them down and is shot by Tommy, and Joel desperately clutches to Sarah as she dies from her wounds.

Pedro does his best hurt me like Troy did, but honestly it isn't as good and he has a bit of a Jim Carey overacting moment.

Troy ran himself ragged with take after take of this scene. He simply couldn't nail it until he had a brief pep talk from Druckmann, who put it in a new perspective for him. Troy's performance in the finished scene stands as an example of remarkable acting. Pedro cries, whimpers, begs, and yells, but really, truly, genuinely can't do the scene much justice. It's not his fault, it's a difficult scene to capture. The deck was stacked against any actor for this scene when they decided to make a live-action series.

Changing Tommy's revolver into a deer rifle is an interesting choice that would seem inconsequential, but when Tommy comes out of nowhere in the game to shoot the soldier point blank, it's simply a more effective reveal than panning over to Tommy shouldering a rifle 10 feet away. In the game, we had just assumed Tommy must have perished. We were wondering whether we'd see him again, how long would it be, or if he was simply gone. We were excited when we saw him, and that high point of seeing him again is brought excellently crashing down by Sarah's death and the breaking of Joel and the wonderful performances that brought it together. With HBO Tommy, I was more wondering what route he took to get there so fast. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, because this could just be a quirk of knowing he shows up because that's what he did in the game.

20 Years Later.

We're presented with a lovely shot of a forest. A young girl, looking disheveled and filthy stumbles through the frame. She briefly stops on a hill with a wide vista overlooking the city of Boston, now decaying and falling apart. The little girl walks within eyeshot of the guards of the Boston Quarantine Zone, and then collapses. The guards rush over to investigate, and the little girl is wheeled inside the gates to a clinic of some sort. She's holding a FEDRA patch in her hands. A FEDRA soldier asks her some questions and notes a scrape on her leg, while another scans her for infection. He reveals to the camera that the memberberry scanner thingy has a big scary red light instead of a nice green one.

The first FEDRA soldier promises the little girl that she can have "her favorite food 🚩" after they "get her some medicine 🚩"

I'm sitting here wondering just what the fuck is going on. The wisdom of bringing a potential infected (EVERY stranger is a potential infected) within the QZ gates to examine her with the magical scanner doodad literally any dipshit FEDRA could have on their person is highly questionable. This practice could represent a danger to the entire zone. Triage, people, you have to triage. Scan her where you found her, you morons. You're putting everyone at risk. This is an excellent accidental allegory for the incompetence of power structures.

They stick her with a needle and we cut to a crew burning bodies. A big truck pulls up with more bodies to burn. Two masked crew members open the tailgate of the truck. One crew member notices something that disturbs her, and she taps the other on the shoulder and says "I can't." The camera finally reveals that it is in fact Joel, as he reacts to the sight of the (presumably euthanized) little girl (the very same) hogtied and hooded in the back of the truck.

Joel picks her up in the rescue position in which he carried Sarah in the opening of the episode, and tosses her on the fire like when Dakota Fanning chucked that toddler in Twilight.

"Fuck them kids." -Michael Jordan

He numbly watches for a brief moment and turns away to get back to work.

This is a really weird scene. As I watched this, I was forced to remember that HBO Joel is supposed to be 56 here. Pedro in no way looks 56, even with graying hair. It would be more believable that he's in his late 40s like in the game. Which Pedro actually is in his late 40s.

I think they made Joel 36 in the opening of the show because Pedro simply couldn't pass for late 20s, but I'd rather suspend my disbelief that way than this way. He simply looks too young in the bulk of his scenes.

We cut to a while later, Joel is scooping up the ashes of the burned infected. A loud buzzer goes off to alert that it's quittin' time at the Rockhead and Gravel Construction Company. I wish I could say Joel slides down the tail of a dinosaur, instead he sticks his shovel into the still considerable pile of ashes (no they are NOT done) as if to stand it up, and we cut to the burning pit crew being paid ration cards for the day's work.

Joel asks the FEDRA soldier in charge of payment if he has "anything else" for him, and the FEDRA soldier gives him a choice of street sweeping or sewer maintenance. Joel asks "which pays more?"

It's always the one with the shit, Joel.

I was hoping this would allude to FEDRA paying for smuggling on the sly, you know, a depiction of power structures' non-adherence to their own rules, but alas, no such luck.

Joel gets his work permit stamped for shit duty but we all know Joel isn't doing shit duty. He has a whole shit journey to get started on.

We get a few shots of the weary, bustling streets of Boston QZ as Joel walks home from his long day of burning little girls. He happens upon a public execution, I guess, and stops in the crowd to watch several people about to being hanged for unauthorized comings and going from the Quarantine Zone. This is a bit heavy-handed.

He and a shifty-looking guard make eye contact from a distance, and the guard nods toward a quiet alley, indicating for Joel to follow him there.

The guard gives Joel a stack of ration cards (dollar green ration cards in case you somehow missed that they were currency), which he counts. Joel informs the guard that he's short 5 rations. The guard pulls out a bundle of tin foil, which Joel opens to reveal some cigarettes.

These must make up the deal, because Joel pulls out a baggie of Hydrocodone and gives him one. Drugs. Joel sells hardcore drugs.

They have a conversation about the provenance of the opiates. The guard seems to be convinced that they're only real if they come from Atlanta, because FEDRA has a factory in the Atlanta QZ that "only makes two things; pills and bullets." (editing note: this won't matter.)

It's obvious to any fan of the game through the dialog that Joel gets his hardcore drugs from Bill (leave it to the gays to get party accoutrements even in the apocalypse).

Joel sells the pills to the guard, emphasizing that he needs the plastic baggie back. While the guard empties the pills into his pockets, Joel asks "how we doing with the vehicle?" The guard says that it's all set, he just had to get one last guy in the depot to buy in. The hairs on my neck are standing up because this element is new and I'm unsure about it.

Now, if you're a fan of the game, I don't need to tell you how massive a deviation these three scenes are. They certainly are... scenes. With the exception of that first one, they're not necessarily bad, and I don't think Joel would remotely balk at burning corpses or selling Hydros at this point in his life, I just don't think any of this is necessary to tell the story of The Last of Us. While they do somewhat of a job here, they feel like they'd be more at home in a mid-series episode of The Walking Dead.

The guard gives Joel back his all-purpose baggie (so he can pack the best sandwich of his life, I guess) and warns him to stay off the streets for the next few nights because the last few Firefly attacks have the FEDRA patrols tired and jumpy and "it's easy to make a mistake in the dark." This is implied to be a veiled threat.

Guard exits stage right.

The next scene reveals the absolutely scuffed casting. HBO Tess, played by Anna Torv, is sitting in a dark room with two lightweight heavies standing to either side of her. Great Value Brand Robert (Brendan Fletcher? Really? Jerome Flynn wasn't available?) voices his concern that she's going to bring trouble if he lets her go, because he sold a car battery she had already bought from him to someone else, and his guys punched her in the face. She's playing it off like no big deal, nobody needs to get hurt, Robert can just let her go and punish his men however he wants to and they can move on.

Robert notes that when Joel hears about this event, he'll become dangerous. Tess assures him that Joel "answers to me" (what??) and gives Robert her word that Joel won't come for him, because she'll just tell Joel some story about being jumped by some guys and they can all just let bygones be bygones. Tess states how Robert's whole bullshit has really killed her vibe and that she'd now like to go home and get exuberantly drunk.

That's when the fucking wall explodes.

Yeah randomly the wall just explodes. This would have made more sense if there was muffled gunfire heard outside, and the acting was more tense and obvious that Robert intended to kill her there. The explosion was obviously meant to get her out of the poorly-communicated sticky situation with Robert, nothing really motivates it except convenience.

Tess comes to and discovers that one of Robert's twinks was killed in the blast. Robert and the other twink have somehow fled the scene. She pulls herself from the rubble and stumbles onto the street outside. There's a reverse-shot from Tess' perspective of a burned out Humvee aflame, implying that the source of the explosion was a car bomb. Tess follows the sidewalk 'round the corner and sees a platoon of FEDRA soldiers get fired upon from above. She's caught in the middle of a firefight between FEDRA and Fireflies.

She looks down the street opposite the din and sees two FEDRA soldiers with clear riot shields (oh those'll help lol) coming to assist in the battle from shitfuck nowhere, I guess. Seeing no other option, she throws up her hands in surrender and calls out "they're shooting at us!" The FEDRA soldiers knock her down and arrest her because cops are fucking assholes.

Changing the dispute between Tess and Robert, as well as the dynamic between her and Joel is very confusing. While game Tess does playfully boss Joel around a little, it's obvious that she's not his boss. They're more or less equals in the smuggling trade.

In the game, the dispute isn't over a car battery. It's over guns. Tess and Joel run all kinds of things (which is why I'm not necessarily opposed to Joel selling drugs), but the particular problem is over a shipment of guns Robert and his men hijacked from her.

The events are more interesting and ironically more cinematic. Things make sense, fit together. With gameplay it's actually longer than the show thus far, but it feels like much less time.

[X] happens as a result of [Y], which is influenced by [Z] because of [W], which in turn influences [X].

You know, storytelling.

In the show, the end of Tess's first scene is about 47 minutes into the premiere as a whole. 12 minutes from the time skip. It's hard to compare this to the game, because the game doesn't have this scene. The timeline of the game continues with Tess' second scene 53 minutes in.

The show now introduces Ellie, who for some Godforsaken reason is chained up in a dingy room. Two guards and a woman with a clipboard enter.

The woman with the clipboard steps forward and Ellie dryly shoves a dinner tray with her foot across the floor at the woman. She instructs Ellie to "count slowly and clearly from one to ten", I guess as a test of her cognitive abilities. Ellie quickly mumbles 1-5 and the woman interrupts her to sternly reiterate "slowly and clearly."

She appears to be medical staff of some kind.

Ellie finally obliges, with much piss and vinegar, while the medic does clipboardy things, apparently tracking Ellie's ability to count. Ellie gets to eight, and counts nine and ten very creatively ("Fuck. You.") whilst hoisting her middle finger.

I don't mind this as a cognitive test to check for early stages of infection. In the lore of the game, Cordyceps Brain Infection (CBI) grows inside the skull around the brain, which increases pressure and creates cognitive dysfunction. Count to ten, touch your finger to your nose, walk in a straight line, recite the alphabet, et cetera. basically anything a cop would do for a field sobriety test (except shooting or robbing you) would be a decent way to gauge someone's cognitive state.

But I'm just confused. Why are we here? Why does show not happen like game happen? What is going on? This will go through any fan of the game's mind at this point. So far it resembles the game very little and it's taking a thumping great amount of time to get back to stuff you'd recognize from the game.

Medic begins to instruct Ellie to hold out her hand straight in front of her. Ellie does this before Medic even gets the words out, showing us that she already knows how a field sobriety test goes (you little lush).

Medic, slightly taken aback, instructs her to state her name slowly and clearly. Ellie says "Veronica. Same as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and the day before" revealing that she's been here some time under an assumed name. She says that sooner or later someone from FEDRA is gonna come looking for her, she warns them to "let me out or you're gonna pay, motherfuckers!" In somewhat of a clunker of a line. The guard shuts the door, which has a Fireflies logo painted on the back, clearly revealing that these people are Fireflies. Finally she yells "I'm not supposed to be here!" And, frustrated, sits down on the floor, with her head on her knees.

This appears to be an attempt to depict Ellie's quarantine process after the events of TLOU: Left Behind. I guess as a way to explain how she managed to avoid her infection being detected for three weeks while she healed from her bite wound.

I'm left with questions like "where does she go to the toilet?" And "why does she look so clean if she's been chained up in this room for three weeks?" Surely they don't unchain her to use the toilet and wash herself every day if they're so worried she'll spontaneously succumb to the fungus and run amok.

But the game never explains where Joel and Ellie shit and bathe either, so I guess I'm just nitpicking.

The game does explain Ellie's connection to Marlene, however. And game Marlene would never allow this to happen, because game Marlene knows how long it takes for people to turn. Two days would be off the charts, let alone three weeks. Ellie is supposedly the child of Marlene's dead best friend. I don't think she would have kept Ellie in the dark about whether she was in what Marlene would consider to be a safe place.

In his previous scene, Joel sells some Hydros, then the unrelated Tess scene, and the unrelated Ellie scene happen to bridge the events leading to Joel's next scene and distract you from a little sleight of hand. Joel's at a HAM radio operator's office, and cuts the line of desperate people waiting to connect with loved ones in other zones. He slaps the tin foil of cigarettes down on the table for the radio operator, and the radio operator opens up the foil and lights up as if he was expecting them as some kind of payment, even though they were given to Joel by the guard to make up for being short on his Hydro payment. It doesn't seem to make much sense, unless the radio operator decided to take up smoking just then upon being presented with some cigarettes.

Joel wants to know if a message has come through from Tommy. He's concerned because he sent one out and hasn't received word back and suggests that radio man may have missed it, but radio man explains that his family takes shifts and they communicate to the tower every day, so if a message had come through, Joel would know by now.

Joel says it's been three weeks and that it's never taken him more than a day to respond.

The radio man assures Joel that he's sure Tommy is fine. Joel slaps a map down on the table and says "show me where the tower is."

The radio man tries to explain that the tower is in Wyoming, and says "All this open country? You're a capable guy, but there are worse things than infected out there. There are raiders, there are slavers--" Joel interrupts him to say sardonically "But you're 'sure' Tommy's okay."

After an uncomfortable and considered silence, the radio man picks up a pencil, circles the tower on the map and explains roughly where it is and what it's called. Joel picks up the map and leaves immediately.

This scene is the least necessary so far.

I don't like it very much. I think it hurts the nature of their relationship. In the game, it's implied that Joel and Tommy haven't seen or heard from each other for a few years, maybe even a decade. If it had been the same as the show, Joel would know about the hydroelectric plant and the occasional raids, let alone Tommy's marriage, which seems to surprise him in the game.

Tommy and Joel had a falling out because Joel had gotten them involved in a bad faction of Hunters that was doing far more than they needed to to survive and had fallen into cruelty and evil. By the time they had cut a swath of innocents from Texas to Boston, Tommy couldn't handle it anymore and tried to convince Joel to leave with him, but wasn't able to do so. Tommy left for Wyoming. Joel stayed in Boston and left the Hunter life on his own terms.

When Joel makes it to Jackson in the autumn portion of the game, he states that even then he still looks back on that time as "keeping us alive" to which Tommy retorts "wadn't worth it." Blunting that S like a true Texan. This part of their lives is a major point of contention for the both of them in their relationship and they still failed to see eye-to-eye upon their reunion. Joel hanging on to a hope of a reply message from Tommy, let alone reaching out in the first place, is a distortion of Joel's fundamental dysfunction as a man and brother.

The radio message in this scene, and the references to "the vehicle" and "the car battery" have me thinking that in this show, Joel and Tess either have a plan to transport people between the Boston QZ and Jackson, or abscond together to Jackson. Perhaps a little of both. I cannot fathom why. They seemed fairly comfortable in the game, but in the show there seems to be an underlying desperation to escape.

It's again painfully obvious in this scene that Joel is supposed to be 56 years old, and simply doesn't look it. The radio guy looks 56 years old, Joel looks vaguely late-40s, the age range he SHOULD be and the age-range Pedro IS. It's very glaring and keeps grabbing my attention every time I see him onscreen.

Nothing keeps you young like hard living and expired canned food, I guess.

I want to note, very importantly that this is 51 minutes into this 90 minute premiere, and Joel hasn't even interacted with Tess yet. They haven't run into Marlene yet. They haven't met Ellie yet.

51 minutes. 16 minutes after the 20 year time skip. That's nearly two-thirds of the runtime and they're still farting around in Not The Last of Us Land. It's such a huge waste of time that it's almost insulting.

I started this episode before 8pm and it's now a quarter to 3 in the morning because I keep having to stop and write down everything I think they're doing wrong, which includes whole scenes. It's very tiring. (Editing note: I ended up going all night and it's now 9 in the morning) (Editing Note 2: it's 2pm and I can hear God telling me to take it easy... I think it's God...).

Finally Joel makes his way to his apartment. He pushes a wardrobe aside, pulls up some floorboards, and extracts a few items before finding what he's looking for; an atlas.

He pours himself a drink (or... three, apparently he drinks like it's going out of style... which I guess it is...) and goes over the atlas, referencing the map that radio man marked for him earlier, presumably plotting a course for the radio tower in Cody. He takes a few pills for some reason and washes them down with brown liquor. I guess Joel is a junkie? This stings a little. Wtf were those? He stumbles over to his bed, throws himself down on it, and falls asleep.

(Editing Note: We are now slightly closer to events resembling those depicted in the game.)

Joel awakes from bad dreams, as Tess saunters in to the apartment, and gets into bed with him. I was thinking that somehow this turned into an AO3 slashfic, but instead of what you might expect from HBO, she assumes the Big Spoon position and hugs him around the waist. They fall asleep. REMARKABLE restraint from the Everything Is Softcore Porn corporation.

Now, I'm not terribly opposed to this, but this presumption jumps off of a couple of throwaway lines in the game, which does much better at simple implication and subtlety than this premiere does. This premiere is outright stating that Joel and Tess are an item, whereas the game merely hints that they could be one. I mean, at the beginning of this next scene in the game, Tess knocks on his door. A lover wouldn't do that, especially if they lived-in.

I'm assuming this is merely to satiate the screenwriter's OTP or manufacture a more dramatic moment when Tess eventually reveals her fate to Joel later when they reach the Massachusetts State House.

As it stands here, she still needs to tell Joel what happened with the car battery and Robert, so they can confront Robert, so they can meet Marlene, so they can meet Ellie.

Reminder: 53:22 / 1:28:21. To make up the pacing, the events would have to closely follow the game to justify everything that's been set up thus far to get us on the road to State House in this episode. (Editing note: They proved me wrong with devious restructuring. More on that as it unfolds).

Joel awakes in the morning to Tess making coffee. He stumbles over to the dining table and sits down. Tess sits down and reveals the shiner Robert's men gave her. She explains that she was "jumped by a couple guys" fulfilling the promise she had made to Robert to lie to Joel. Joel prods "What guys?" And Tess says it was "Just a couple teenagers." From my perspective, the promise that she would lie to Joel was clearly made under duress as Robert was obviously considering killing her in that basement, which was severely undermined by a fucking car bomb that Tess seems to have rudely forgotten about, considering it likely saved her life, ironically, which would mean she owes Robert fucking nothing whatsoever. But I digress...

Joel notes that the cuts and abrasions on her face aren't fresh. As if that would matter, as everything happened yesterday regardless. Tess states that she was in FEDRA lockup all day, which doesn't really explain why the cuts and abrasions aren't new, the writer only thinks it does. It happened yesterday is the only explanation you need. And Joel wouldn't assume this happened today. You needed better editors on this treatment. This tries to justify the end of Tess' first scene where she's arrested by FEDRA to escape the firefight, but it does a worse job than simply cutting the scene as a whole and removing the line, as being arrested was completely inconsequential for her. Why they thought they needed all that to justify moving this scene to the next morning is beyond me. The writer makes dumb additions to try to justify needless ones. Water is wet. Epstein didn't kill himself. Bill Clinton swallo-- uh, inhaled.

Tess tells Joel to "take a breath and remain calm" before she comes clean about the true story of her being attacked. She says "The guys who jumped me were with Robert" completely undoing her pointless lie to Joel that it was a couple of teenagers. Tess is now an unreliable narrator and you shouldn't believe anything she says ever because it could be a lie.

If they were going to have all of that bullshit before trying to depict this scene from the game, they should have had Joel cut through her lie and infer that the guys who jumped her were Robert's guys, rather than her giving it up.

Tess piles on, revealing that Robert sold their battery to someone else. Joel buries his face in his hands, frustratedly.

Tess says that nothing's lost. "Shit like this is gonna happen." And they just need to shake it off and go get their ration cards back, or the battery.

"I need the battery, Tess." Joel interrupts (yes, Joel she just said "or the battery"), he slaps the table as he stands up. He says the truck's no good without one. "If I don't get to Tommy soon, he's gonna die out there."

Now the underlying urgency of leaving Boston is revealed. Joel is under the impression that Tommy isn't living an objectively better and safer life than he is. He seems to somehow think Tommy is in more danger away from him than with him. I can't really see why and they haven't explained what's made him think that. In the game, going to Wyoming is a last ditch decision after everything goes to shit. I really don't know why they changed this.

Tess says "Okay fuck it. We get our money back AND the battery." Which isn't the battery kinda more important since you're leaving Boston and ration cards would be worthless outside it? It doesn't matter that the battery is good enough, Joel reset her A.I. with his line and now she thinks the ration cards are still important. She stands up and walks over to Joel and continues, "Okay, but Joel, listen, Robert is terrified of you, so you march outta here all Clint Eastwood he's gonna get wind of it and skip." She reiterates "I need you to take a breath." There's a beat. Joel asks who Robert sold the battery to and where he is, Tess responds "I don't know... yet. But we're gonna find out quietly. Understand?" She says this authoritatively, like you might to an impulsive teenager.

"Now I promised Robert that you wouldn't hurt him," she says, "But I would very much like for you to hurt him. So let's go hunt that motherfucker down."

There's a couple moments in this scene where Tess tells Joel that she needs him "to take a breath." and where she speaks to him authoritatively; "Understand?"; "I would very much like for you to hurt him." It's obviously a not-so-subtle rebuke/embrace of some kind of temper Joel has. As if she needs to keep his emotions in check or he'll fly off the handle, unless she wants to wield him like an attack dog. Which isn't a very forgiving depiction of either of them and makes Joel seem somewhat subservient to a madwoman. I really, really don't like it, and not to sound a little ridiculous but it feels like it's coming from a vaguely sexist place. It perverts the equal peer dynamic they had in the game and I find it very distasteful.

Now we're thrown back into scenes not appearing in the game. A shot of a woman walking down a hallway, she stops at a cross hall and looks over at the guards and medic from the scene introducing Ellie, presumably sitting outside the door to the room she's imprisoned in. This is clearly Marlene, played by Merle Dandridge (Marlene's original actress from the game).

I'm hoping this is the last show-only scene in this premiere because they've all been unnecessary so far. (Editing Note: They couldn't even give me that respite).

Marlene nods at them and walks through a door at the end of the hall, where more Fireflies are. They go over their terrorist attacks (yes the Fireflies are terrorists, part of Joel and Tommy's falling out was that Tommy wanted to join them and Joel saw them as mad ideologues blowing up peaceful towns), the subordinates questioning the point of them. Marlene dismisses them, all but saying it isn't their business what the point is by telling them to just follow the orders given to them (I imagine Niel's Erika playing faintly in the distance).

The lower ranks ask Marlene why she has some random girl locked in a room. Somewhere Chris Hansen's Cordyceps-infected ears are burning, as it's a very good question because Marlene would never do this to this specific "random" girl unless her character had been hijacked by a hokey HBO writing team.

Marlene's answer is yet again to follow orders. She sends two of the lower ranks away before she rebukes the main one, Kim. "We are in a war against a military dictatorship to restore democracy and freedom," Marlene says, "does that sound about right?" Poor Kim affirms.

"Are we winning? Are we beating FEDRA here?" Marlene pushes, "Are the Fireflies beating FEDRA anywhere?"

Kim says that rebellion takes time. Marlene retorts that if you fight for 20 years and you get nowhere, you're not a rebellion.

Actually, Marlene, you're terrorists. This was originally by Druckmann's design, and he seems to have gone back on it. They liken themselves to freedom fighters, but all they do is attack relatively peaceful QZ checkpoints, expend valuable resources, eat hot chip and lie. Druckmann seems to have been smelling the Liberation Front Farts since 2016 (you know why) and I'm getting a bad feeling about the way they'll depict the end of the first game on this show. If they ever fucking get there between these show-only scenes.

"We're not hitting FEDRA 'all over' the QZ," Marlene explains, she points to several spots on a map, "We hit 'em here, here, here, here, here. Where are we right now?" Kim points on the map to the building where they are, opposite all the attacks.

Marlene explains that she wants FEDRA everywhere except where they are, because "every Firefly in Boston will gather here in this building" for a mass exodus from the QZ.

I'm not a guerilla tactician, but aren't there simply better ways to do this? And wouldn't FEDRA see the obvious gap in their perimeter if they pulled all of their manpower leaving a big un-patrolled portion of the QZ? You might as well climb up to the top of the building and fire signaling flares with bullhorns blaring "Hey FEDRA we're over here!" and invite them into the building for a club social. And hey wait, how on earth are all the Fireflies gonna gather there if they also have to stage distracting enough attacks in several other parts of the QZ to draw FEDRA away? Surely this would require a considerable amount of them.

It's six in the morning and I've finally progressed six minutes since the last scene. (Editing Note: It's 9:30am. Kill me)

Kim chokes "We're quitting?" Marlene finally explains "No, we're taking the random girl locked in that room west." She hands Kim a note "from our guy in the radio tower in Salem" which Kim reads and asks if its real. Marlene replies "I believe it is." She tells Kim to keep the information on the note quiet. We don't get to know what the information is yet, but I'm assuming it has something to do with Ellie being immune to the fungus.

After this, Kim is the perfect soldier willing to follow any order. And this pointless scene finally ends.

This is the portion of the analysis after I gave up on writing and decided to just finish the episode. Everything typed beyond this point is done with foreknowledge. When I'm done, I'll go through and edit mistakes, typos, and clarify badly explained things.

We cut to Joel waiting outside an outdoor dining establishment in an alley. Tess is over at the tables talking to some random dude, they look over at him. She hands him some ration cards, which he very nonchalantly (/s) tucks in his jacket pocket. A scuzzy-looking man approaches Joel and solicits a Firefly call sign. Joel tells him to fuck off in so many words, and he does.

Tess returns to Joel, she got information from Mr. Casual about Robert's whereabouts; a red-tagged building at the corner of Stillman and Cross. "The one Miguel used to use." Joel remarks. They discuss the route they can take to get there.

We rejoin Ellie, who is tugging on her chain. A drip from the leaky ceiling drops into her mouth and she makes a sour face and spits it out. She exclaims at the ceiling "Aw! You fucker!" Finally she gives up her efforts and sits down.

A door opens off-screen while Ellie rests her eyes in frustration. She begins to quickly recite "one, two, three, four" before she sees that it's someone new. Marlene has entered the room holding a backpack in one hand.

She tosses the backpack to Ellie, who quickly unzips it and rummages around for her switchblade while Marlene sits down next to her on the floor. Ellie flicks open the switchblade and holds it out, but notices that Marlene isn't afraid. She dares Marlene to unlock her chains.

Marlene says "How about we start with 'thank you'?" And Ellie says "for what?" Marlene reminds her that had she not intervened, the Fireflies would have shot her when they found her. Ellie asks why she stopped them. "We'll get to that." Says Marlene.

Marlene reaches forward toward Ellie, and Ellie recoils her hands. Marlene reveals that she's holding the key to the chains in her other hand. Ellie sheepishly holds her chained hand back out so she can be unshackled.

"So, 'Veronica'," Marlene begins, and inquires how she's feeling. Ellie says she feels the same as she did before the bite. She asks if it's gonna happen, alluding to turning. Marlene shakes her head assuredly and says "No."

Ellie asks "So can I go?" And again Marlene says "No." Ellie begins to bargain, saying she won't tell anyone about any of this. She swears it.

"Where ya gonna go?" Marlene inquires, as if there's nowhere for her to go, "Back to FEDRA Military School? You that anxious to be a soldier?"

Ellie exclaims that she didn't choose military school, "they" put her there when she was a baby, because it's for orphans. Marlene reveals "'They' didn't put you there, I did... Ellie." Revealing that she knows Ellie's real name.

Marlene introduces herself, giving her name and occupation as leader of the Fireflies within the Boston QZ. Ellie asks "Why would a terrorist dump me with FEDRA?" and Marlene explains that it was the safest place for her until she decided to sneak out. She balks at being called a terrorist, asking if Ellie thought her friend Riley was a "terrorist."

(And yeah Riley was kind of a terrorist. She intended to join a terrorist faction and commit acts of terror. That's this world's equivalent of a kid from your freshman class running away to join Al Qaeda).

This mention of Riley makes Ellie a little emotional. Quietly she asks "Why won't you let me go home." Marlene says that she has a greater purpose than they could have ever imagined, and she explains that they're leaving tonight. Just then a knock on the door. Medic comes in and says "He's here." (referencing Robert). Marlene says "Five minutes." And Medic leaves.

"What I'm about to tell you cannot be repeated to anyone," Marlene begins, "Because if you do... I assure you... you will die." The scene ends.

This scene does an okay job respecting the canon of the game, the DLC, and the canon comics (to a degree). It's well-written and well-acted. And on its own it justifies the previous Ellie scene, which introduced her. It does change it the canon slightly to work in a joke; When Marlene reveals that she knows Ellie's name, taken aback Ellie remarks "are you my fucking mom or something?" Marlene has black skin and Ellie is whiter than printer paper. It's a cute moment, though it does sacrifice the canon lore where weeks before the bite, Ellie encounters Marlene, who tells her her mom's name, gives her a letter from her mom before she died, and the switchblade, which belonged to her.

I'm sure they'll find a way to reconnect this whenever they depict Left Behind, a part of which I saw in the trailer. Maybe they'll depict American Dreams as well.

We cut the door of Haymarket Access B38, where Tess and Joel are fixing to skip a few checkpoints to get to Robert via train tunnel. Joel cuts the chain locking the door with some bolt cutters and they slip inside the building. They take off their packs and crouch down for a moment to extract their guns and flashlights, which are annoyingly not Fulton MX-991/U angleheads. You can get copies of them for $7 online. Props dept has no excuse here. I'll fight and die on this hill.

They sling their packs back on and descend the steps. We cut to them in the B38 train tunnel where they find their out. They climb the ladder I to the basement of the building above where Tess has a brief jumpscare with a spent clicker that's bonded itself to the wall and died. They have a brief conversation about how it got there. Apparently it wasn't there last time. Tess remarks that maybe he came down here after he got infected. Joel retorts that maybe down here is where he was infected. They decide to get back to their purpose.

Tess find the ladder, leading to the upper levels of the red-marked building and they begin to climb. Joel begins to remark at how it "looks like they reframed the whole structure. Probably in the '80s. Everyone was cutting down on apartment sizes to sell more condos." Tess threatens to steal my Flintstones joke from earlier. "This has been 'Construction Corner' with Joel Miller." I'm not scared of you, Tess Servopoulos.

Joel asks how much further up, and Tess exclaims that this is their floor.

This scene is clearly a restructured portion of the game. Joel's reference to "reframing the whole structure" seems to me to be an indication from the writer that you should expect things to be different from what you're familiar with, as they're "cutting down the size of their apartments to sell more condos". The curtains are never blue just because they're blue. These people leave subtext everywhere.

This is all but confirmed by the next sequence. As Tess explains that the panel she's pushing on opens into the hallway on the other side, it doesn't give like she expects. She wonders if it's been blockaded. Joel smells gunpowder in the air, and they see blood seeping through the sil of the panel. They unholster their guns, and Tess shoulders the panel it open, knocking away the obstruction. It's revealed that Robert was slumped against it, having been shot in the face in a Firefly firefight and is now dead. Among the dead scattered around the hallway are Robert's men, and some Fireflies, including the Medic from earlier.

Nearby Robert's corpse on the floor lies the battery MacGuffin. Tess examines it and determines it to be Toast 'ems, being covered in old corrosion. It would never have worked. She remarks that Robert knew that "And he still tried to sell it. Twice."

They hear a painful wince at the end of the next hallway. They quietly peek around the corner to see that Marlene is being helped up by Kim, who appears to be missing most of her right ear. Joel quietly advances down the hallway with his gun drawn, to get the advantage on them and probably ask questions. The door to room next to him begins to open, and Ellie lunges out with her knife in hand.

Joel counters her, yelling her into the opposite wall. The commotion announces his presence and Kim and Marlene turn around to see him.

Marlene says his name. He says hers back. Kim seems confused. Marlene asks Ellie if she's okay, and she quietly confirms. Ellie attempts to retrieve her knife from the floor, but Joel steps on it first to secure it. Marlene tells her to cool it and Ellie notices that Marlene's been shot. Marlene assures her that she'll be alright, and rebukes her for her reckless action.

Tess rounds the corner, seeing Marlene and remarking "So this is who Robert screwed us over with? The Che Guevara of Boston?" She further remarks that the war must be going pretty bad if the Fireflies are willing to buy merchandise from scum like Robert. Marlene obliges. Stating that the merch was bad and Robert wouldn't accept them backing out of the deal.

Ellie demands her knife back. Joel ignores her and asks why the Fireflies need a battery. Ellie attempts to pry at his boot, and he points his gun at her. Kim and Marlene raise their weapons, instructing him to keep pointing his gun at them. This is all kind of stupid. At this point they can all put the guns away. It's beginning to feel like the Mexican Standoff scene in that episode of The Office rather than the one from Reservoir Dogs.

They made poor Pedro stand like Mando with his gun drawn low at the hip.

Marlene "explains" that she needed the battery for a better reason than Joel did, because "Tommy's just one man." Reading the change in Joel's expression, Marlene says "It's our business to know things" before he can even ask the question.

"'to know things'" repeats Joel. "You're the cause of it. You turned my own brother against me." This is not mischaracterization, surprisingly. This is indeed how Joel would see it. It's just a clunky line.

"Okay, Joel." Says Marlene. Kim remarks that the exchange was a lot of gunfire and FEDRA's gonna be all over the place soon.

Marlene explains that they were gonna move Ellie out of the QZ tonight, but that they won't make it anywhere in the physical state they're in. Being only two now and they're both injured.

"So now I'm thinkin'..." She directs at Joel, "you're gonna do it."

Joel and Ellie balk at this in unison. Kim offers to take her. Joel turns to Tess and says that they don't have time for this. Tess asks who the kid is. Marlene insists that as far as they should be concerned, she's cargo. Joel insists that they don't smuggle people. These are lines from the game verbatim.

Kim insists again that she can do it. Marlene tells Kim that she doesn't "have a fuckin ear on [her] fuckin head."

Marlene explains that there's a team of Fireflies waiting for her at the old State House, and that now she doesn't have the manpower or the transport to do it, and with FEDRA on their way. But now she has them, and she knows what they're capable of. Marlene promises a sweet deal upon completion. Not just a battery but a truck, supplies etc. Joel considers for a moment.

He looks back at Tess and shuffles the knife down the hall to Ellie's chagrin. Tess and Joel take a moment to confer. Joel says the deal is good. Marlene pressures them by reminding them of her gunshot wound.

Tess turns to Marlene and lays out the counter terms. Payment on arrival, determined by Tess and Joel, and then they hand the kid over. Otherwise they'll kill her "there and then." Marlene accepts on a dime

Ellie exclaims "Really? That fast?" Marlene assures her that her team won't jeopardize her safety over some gear and a truck, and tells her to get her things.

Ellie gets her backpack from the room, and picks up her knife as Tess leads her back around the corner. Marlene briefly stops Joel to tell him not to fuck it up.

These changes are frustrating. We finally have the catalyst for the rest of the story without much of the substance we first enjoyed. A straighter adaptation would have been ideal, but no adaptation at all would have been better. Changing Robert's demise feels like a Han Shot First moment. While HBO Tess fully intended to kill Robert, she's undermined by a stupid off-screen firefight over a shitty car battery. It's disappointing. They certainly "reframed" this particular "structure" because if they had allowed her to follow through with it the way they characterized her earlier, she would have come across as psychopathic. Whereas game Tess gets away with it because she's simply a much better character.

It's now past noon the day after I started writing this review and I have not slept.

Joel and Tess take Ellie back to their apartment via the rainy surface streets, rather than a smuggling safehouse as in the game. Ellie very suspiciously turns her hood with her hand as she passes a FEDRA soldier and I'm grimly reminded of the trench coat scene from Kenobi. This isn't nearly as stupid, but it's threatening to be.

Tess unlocks the door, and they usher Ellie inside as they take a beat to talk strategy and consider risks and options. Through the door we hear Joel say they'll have to go to Bill and Frank's. Which doesn't make sense to me unless he's talking about after the exchange with the Fireflies. Bill and Frank live in Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is NORTH of Boston proper, which is well out of their way to the State House, which is IN Boston proper. So that must be what he's talking about. Unless they "reframed" the "structure" to out Bill and Frank between the QZ and downtown Boston. Which would annoy me.

Ellie fiddles with what looks like an IED on the table. Don't touch that or you'll all be in trouble.

The conversation is drowned out by Santaolalla's theme from the game while Ellie fiddles with Joel's possessions around the apartment. Finding a book of "Number 1 Radio Hits From the '50s to Now" left out by the radio. She opens it to find a simple code cipher that reads

"B/F

60 - Nothing In

70 - New Stock

80 - X"

Joel calls out to Tess, implying that she's leaving and will be back later. He comes through the door, barely noticing Ellie reading the cipher. She asks who Bill and Frank are. He doesn't answer, he sits down on the couch with an incredulous look.

She works out that the radio is a smuggling code, and asks what it means when 80s songs are playing. He takes the book from her and tosses it back down on the table.

A brief moment from the game happens, as Joel lays down on the couch. Ellie asks what he's doing, and he says "Killin time." She asks what she's supposed to do and he says he's sure she'll figure that out.

She grabs the song index again and crosses to the chair by the window, pointing out that Joel's watch is broken.

Joel awakens sometime later. Ellie notices immediately, and remarks how he mumbles in his sleep. She says she's never been outside the walls before and "look how dark it is." She asks when the last time they went outside the wall was. Joel says it's been about a year. She's looking for assurance that he knows the way, and that everything's gonna be fine. "Yeah." Joel obliges, lying.

Joel asks her if she's some important person's daughter. Ellie says "something like that."

She tells him song played on the radio while he was sleeping. Joel asks what kind, she says "they kept sayin' like... 'wake me up before you go-go'?" Joel has a grim look on his face. Ellie says "Gotcha!" and that she's cracked the code; '80s means danger. It's implied she playfully fooled him, but before Joel can get a straight answer as to whether a song really played, Tess walks through the door and says it's time to go.

They sneak outside the wall through a hidden hatch while FEDRA is on alert. Ellie stupidly stands straight up and exclaims "Holy shit, I'm actually outside!" I guess because the plot armor poison is coursing through her veins quite literally, and the writers forgot to give her any sense of peril for a moment.

This scene resembles the one from the game where they evade FEDRA soldiers just outside Boston QZ. but it's only a slight resemblance.

They pass under an old bus, around some ruins, a patrol drives down the road, the trio ducking from the headlights. They crawl through a holey pipe, and stop for a moment while lights pass overhead, casting interesting patterns along the tube. They wind through more ruins, turning a corner. We cut to a guard taking a piss break, illuminated by the lightning strikes which, in typical cheap fashion coincide with thunderclaps. The guard spots the trio, who apparently didn't notice him until he spoke up.

He raises his weapon and instructs them not to move. He recognizes Joel in the flash of a thundning clipe (no that isn't a typo). He raises his face shield to reveal that the "structure" has been "reframed" again to put the Hydro-popping guard from earlier right in their path.

He says incredulously "you gotta be shittin me." He puts them all on their knees to arrest them as he reminds Joel that he told him to say home. Tess try to balks at the scanner, taking it as an insult, "Really, man?" She says. He says he's doing this by the book. He scans Tess and Joel as they try to bargain with him. They offer him all the rations, plus a deal on pills. He seems To be budging, but he gets to Ellie. Before he can read what the scanner says, she attacks him, stabbing him in the leg with her switchblade.

This provokes him to try to shoot her, but Joel's put himself between them, trying to calm the situation down. He says they can fix it. The guard tells him to "move" which triggers a Vietnam flashback to the night Joel's daughter died. Joel rushes the guard, tackling him and beating him to death with his bare hands as Ellie watches. Joel finishes and looks over at Ellie, hand bloodied and a snarl on his face.

Tess picks up the memberberry scanner to show that the audience that the light is the scary red one from earlier and not the nice green one it showed for Tess and Joel. Ellie tries to explain that she's not sick. Tess yells to Joel and holds out the scanner like an Ape in 2001: A Space Odyssey discovering tools, but Joel can't Joel right now, his ears have to ring because he's been "Own The Libs" triggered. Ellie pulls up her sleeve and shows her scar, explaining that it's three weeks old, and nobody lasts more than a day. Tess drops the scanner and takes her arm to examine it.

Tess asks "when did it happen" as if Ellie didn't just say that it was fucking 3 weeks old. These people have a problem keeping time straight, I swear to Christ...

Joel slowly rises as sirens start going off in the distance. Ellie says they have to go or they'll be caught, and Tess snaps Joel out of his post-murder stupor with simple caveman words.

Joel picks up the soldier's carbine rifle, which is smarter than I was when I first played the game, because I ran past them bitches to get to the cutscene.

They bolt, slipping through a pre-cut gate and into the area beyond.

We cut back to Joel's apartment. The radio by the window lights up, playing Depeche Mode's Never Let Me Down Again. As the song plays we cut back to the trio entering the ruins of Boston Common.

SLUT.

I'm very tired. These scenes serve a purpose I guess. They try to do something with the parts of this portion of the game that aren't cutscene, but as a result they had to change what was in the cutscene to suit their narrative. This is a bit like changing the facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit the facts. It's having your cake, but also insisting that you do not have it, so you have to make your own cake. It's "reframing the structure, sacrificing apartment space to sell more condos." If that wasn't intended to be a metaphor for revision through adaptation, then I'll be dipped in shit head first.

6/10.

[myrandomthoughtsblog]

I know this bog is pretty much about me being aroace but here's a topic that needs to be spooken, especially coming from Christians - religious trauma.

I've never talked about my experience with it to anyone expect my parents because I've never heard fellow Christians talking about it, so for a very long time I thought that my trauma wasn't valid or something, but I think it's time to talk about it.

TW - eating disorder, trauma, mention of throwing up, mention of passing out, crying, starvation

-

-

I was born in a Christian household and always liked to go to Christians summer camps, but I had always went to only one, so when I was 7 or 8 I asked my parents to send me to one my best friend was going to, and they said okay.

The camp was going to last a bit more than a week and I was super ecxited to have fun there and stuff. Even when I was pretty young I was kind independent too, like I knew how to stood up for myself and was okay with being apart from my parents for some time.

When I arrived there I was very happy, even when I didn't end up staying in the same room as my bestie, I said goodbye to my parents and was waiting with the camp counselors for the rest of the girls that would be staying in the same room as me.

There was 12 girls in each room plus 3 counselors. We spent the morning getting to know better each other and by the lunch time I was friends with all of them.

Lunch time - when all of my issues started. I picked up the food I wanted to eat, and I was a pretty pick eater, still am, mostely because I have sensory issues, but anyways. At the time I didn't like to eat salad or pretty much any type of vegetable, just like most children, and since I was healthy my parents never forced me to eat it, saying that at some point I would start eating it cuz I wanted to.

The thing is, one of the counselors didn't like kids who don't eat "well", and she kept saying to all of the girls in my room about the importance of eating healthy foods but in a very agressive way.

No one really cared about what happened and we went on with our day. The activities the camp had were all very cool, and before I could realise it was dinner time, where again that same counselor kept being super agressive towards the girls that didn't like salad.

The next day was pretty nice as well, until lunch time. While I was getting my food, the other counselor kept trying to convience me to eat things I didn't like, she wasn't been agressive so I simply told her I didn't like it. Let's just say that the first counselor wasn't very happy to see my plate.

Later when we were all having dinner she sat next to me in the table and put salad, vegetables and things I had already told I didin't like in my plate. I politely told her again that I didn't like it and then procedded to not eat it, she got really mad and told me how I was in sin for throwing food away, tho she was the one that put it on my plate, like it littery was on her plate.

Being a kid and all I got sad over it and told her that it wasn't my intention, so I told her one more time that I didn't like it, not because I had never tried, but because eating that made me wanna puke. She said I was being exaggerated but she would let it pass.

I realised that she was been mean but I thought she would let it go, what did not happen. In the next day during our lunch she put food from her plate in mine again, I predented to not see and ate only what I had gotten for mysel. When everyone from my room had finished and we were about to go play volleyball she didn't let me get up saying she wanted to talk with me.

I thought she wanted to know if I was enjoying the camp since it was my first time but no, instead she told me that beginning from now I would only be allowed to leave the table if I ate salad, vegetables and other suff, I got really confused like ms girl what are you talking about this makes literally no sense, but to my hapiness the third counselor made us go with the rest of the group.

During the dinner she made me get the same amout of salad as the food I was eating, and at the time I was growing and stuff so I ate quite a lot. Since I didn't want to fight in the middle of the cafeteria I just agreed and went to my sit, but procedded to not eat what she wanted me too.

When everyone had finished and we were about to get up from the table she held me down so I wouldn't go and told everyone that they could go, and that since I was still eating she would say behind with me. I told her that I was actually done but she told me that I was supossed to eat all the stuff she literally forced me to get.

I was fr almost crying since I knew I couldn't eat those things without trowing up, so I told her that not even my parents made me eat it, then the said counselor had the audacity to tell me that she didn't care and that my parents would thank her when they came to pick me up for making me healthy, like if I wasn't healthy already. I saw no way out and ate almost everything while having to hold back my tears.

I told her that I couldn't eat everything since I was aready full from all the food I ate before, she didn't like it but didn't say anything. I went to the camp room, almost threw up and went to sleep crying and hoping she wouldn't do this tomorrow.

But she did. Everything happened again and she sat like super close to me and would whisper in my ear stuff like "not eating everything is a sin" or "your parents would not like if they saw you been so difficult". I knew I had no way out so I tried to cut everything and mix it with my food so I wouldn't feel the taste, I mean, eating it just one more time couldn't be that bad right, plus, maybe if she saw that I ate everything nicely she would stop it.

Even mixing it I could still taste it and feel it's texture, after eating all I could without throwing up I told her I was full, so she told me to get less food during dinner cuz I had to eat it, I just nodded and she proceeded to make me feel embarassed by making everyone that was in the table talk about how eating those things weren't hard at all.

I was very hungry when we were eating dinner since we had played a lot that day, so I got lots of food and for some reason that counselor wasn't there. When I was almost finishing everything she came to our table with a huge plate of salad, vegetables and tomatos telling me to eat it all. In orded to eat it and not feel it's taste I mixed it with the jelly we had for dessert.

All the kids there got pretty confused when they saw that and I said I actually liked mixing it because I was embarassed to tell all that was happening, plus, since she was the authority there I thought I could't disobey her and stuff.

The jelly mix was horrible, so during the rest of the days there I would eat very litte so the amout of salad and everytihng she made me eat wasn't much, making the mix a little bit more edible. After every single meal I would cry and try not to throw up. At some point I couldn't bare it anymore. Despite eating candies I would buy at the cafeteria I was starving and feeling very weak, plus, I didn't had much money left.

In the other camp I used to go, despite being in the mountains and the phone connection being terrible, The campers could call their parents if they wanted to, I had never done it since I could take care of myself pretty well and didn't miss my parents that bad. But I couldn't take it anymore.

So one day I asked one of the counselors (not the abusive one) if I could call my parents since I promised to do so and was missing them a lot, a felt very bad for lying and kept blaming myself for sining and stuff, and to make it even worse she told me that I couldn't do it and that the phone was only for the priest, since he was the person that took care of the camp.

I thought about telling him but didn't had courage to do so, thinking that he wouldn't believe in me and I would end up making things worse. I also didn't had courage to tell my best friend everything that was happening.

She never saw any of it since we didn't sat in the ame table cuz we were in different rooms, but she had realised that something was wrong with me since I was way more quite, looked pretty pale and was crying a lot more then I used to when we were praying.

I had always being amotional so crying while praying wasn't new or an issue, but I was crying because I was starving, feeling weak, being forced to eat things that made me sick and I fucking missed my house. We were all kids so my friend didn't really think of anything after I told her I was fine.

The trauma is here, the religious part came from thinking I was sinning since I wasn't been thankful for the food (which I was but the counselor was pretty good in manipulating me, cuz I wasn't paying attention during our Christian times - I was either crying or trying not to think about starving, and cuz it all happened in a Christian space, that in my head was supossed to be a safe space.

Finally the camp was over and as soon as my parents arrived they realised I wasn't okay, I was pale, skinny and very sad, also I told them I wanted to go home, what I had never done in the other camp. We were going to have lunch with my friend but cancelled and drove home.

During the ride I told them everyting and cried a lot. I had never seen my parents so mad and shocked. As soon as we arrived to our house I finally eat properly and my mom phoned the camp to tell the priest everything that happened.

The priest didn't really believe in it, saying that the abusive counselor would never do said things, but with the pressure my parents were doing by saying I was really weak he said he would take care of it.

Then he proceeded to call every single parent from those 11 girls and my best friend to know if they had seen it happen. After all of them told that their kid had seen weird things with me and that counselor, the priest called all 3 counselors and talked with them about it.

Only after all of it he called my parents to say that he was sorry for what had happened, that the camp had fired said counselor and that in order to make it up to me, the next time I went there it would be free. (like if I would like to go back there lol)

My parents assured me that nothing that happened to me was my fault, that I shouldn't do everything an authority says only because of who they are, and never made me eat those things.

Because of all of that I developed health issues, such as almost passing out if I don't eat enough, being scared to death when thinking about not being able to eat or having to eat things I hate that literally makes me want to throw up.

I still have to deal with this things, and in the first year of this whole experience I had a eating disorder where I would aways eat way more than I had to, and sometimes this still happens.

Also I lost faith in priests and in the church for a very long period of time, I couldn't pray or do anything God related since I thought that all that had happend to me was like a punishment for something I had done, I used to think that God made me go thru all of that because that was what I deserved.

I got very distance from God and it took me a good couple of years to understand that it wasn't my fault, neitheir a punishiment, that was when I undestood that all my trauma had nothing to do with God and everything to do with religion. Still because I had never seen a Christian say they had religious trauma I never spoke to anyone about it, but I thought that it was time to do so.

I never went to that camp again, and definetly don't plan on doing so, there are other issues that came from this whole experience, and yes, I'm okay now, but it doesn't mean that I don't suffer from it anymore.

So if you have any type of religious trauma, being a Christian or not, know that you are not alone, and while it does suck, it gets better and that you are very strong from dealing with it.

[neomysterio]

chokethelight:

This was the last thing he needed; okay, so he pulled off a few several … highly dangerous schemes. It was the best he could do back then - his outfit didn’t even look that good.    Oh, he regretted it to this day, but did that matter? No, it did not. What did matter was that he was stuck in contretemps. Just his luck - this was not what he needed. He was behind that wasn’t he? He sure hoped he was.

“All i want,” he said, trying to keep himself calm, “is to go back to normal routine of ignoring everything around me.” Not that it ever worked, but he figured it was something he could say that would at least ease over the tension ( or his own at least ).

“That’s it. I wasn’t even good at it.” Actually, he was… though that wasn’t exactly here or there. Not to mention his suit wasn’t even sophisticated as the rest of the Mysterio’s, but he figured that wasn’t something he needed to say.  

“All I did was have a little fun years ago and I never went back to it.”

The spectre paused for a moment, trying to process what the man had said.

“...........................I literally have no idea what you’re talking about or who you are.”

He didn’t let his act drop for a second, but he has no idea who this person is. Perhaps he is mad? Perhaps he could be useful.. perhaps not. No one else was around. Maybe there was still time to gather information. Let the spookening begin...

His voice boomed louder, as gas billowed all around and the walls began to wither and twist around the pair. Ghostly flames erupted around Phantasm Mysterio as he pointed at David.

“SPEAK. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT PURPOSE DO YOU HAVE WITH THE GHOST OF MYSTERIO?”

@chokethelight

[skybars]

skybars –> scarebars

let the spookenings begin

[browniefox]

The Dark And Light Sides Of The Moon 9

Pro No Even’s of @trulymightypotato‘s Royal Expectations

Snow and Gar finally talk it out

Aftermath of learning the truth goes smoother than one may think

oOo

On the bright side, the cut was fairly clean.

Lark’s face was screwed up in pain, sweat spotting his brow. Snow was running his fingers through Lark’s hair, muttering words of comfort. Gar meanwhile did his best to gently pull Lark’s hand off the part of the cut it was covering. It was hard, since by now Lark was doing extra harm as the nails started to pierce his skin.

“Lark, Larkspur, I need you to let go,” Gar knew Lark probably wasn’t paying attention. It was probably the kid’s first real injury that approached anything close to serious. Still, he managed to get not-his son’s hand off the cut and put his own hand over it. Carefully he eased his own magic over the slice, encouraging the flesh to knit back together, closing up at if it had never been opened in the first place, healing over without a mark.

“Lark, bird, you’re okay,” Snow comforted as Lark’s eyes darted over. He may be healed, but the echoes of the pain didn’t fade quite as quickly. Lark moaned and slowly sat up, rubbing his now-healed arm.

“Thanks dad.” Gar stopped breathing at the word. He didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t his to have.

“... you should get some rest.” Gar got up and pushed his way through the crowded grounds.

He should’ve just stayed in his room. Kept away from everybody until they figured out what was going on.

“Garuku,” Gar stopped at Violetscale’s voice. They were staring at him with those long-dead eyes that cut deeply into Gar. “You do know you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Gar didn’t respond to that, simply turned back around and continued on his way. People from the inside smiled at him, waved to him, believing they knew him. Not realizing he was just an imposter. He went back to a room that wasn’t his, sat down on the bed of a stranger, and pulled the medallion out from under his shirt.

At least back at home, he knew where he belonged.

*knock knock knock*

Gar didn’t respond, hoping whoever it was would leave. They didn’t though. The door creaked open and the person Gar wanted to see the least came in. Snow stood awkwardly in the doorway for a moment.

“Thank you for healing Lark.” Snow said after a long moment.

“I just did what any decent person would do.” Gar shrugged off the compliment. Snow didn’t leave though, if anything he came farther in. And farther in. In fact, the door closed and Snow was on the opposite side than Gar wanted him to be on.

He heard Snow draw a deep breath.

“Gar…”

This was it. It had to be. When Snow would finally lay into him about his anger, his disappointment. Gar braced himself for the onslaught of ‘stay out of this’ and ‘you’re not him’, ‘you should’ve have ever gotten the chance to even glimpse what you missed for your mistakes’. At least he’d already heard it all from himself.

“... I’m sorry I failed you.”

Wait what.

Gar finally looked over as Snow, whose face was overflowing with guilt.

“You became a-a demon and were forced to kill, ruined the magic of the Changing Lands when it was the last choice you had, lived longer than anybody should be forced to. And you still managed to turn things around, save the Realms, and where the ever-loving Fuck was I?!” Rage replace the guilt as Snow stared down at the ground, at nothing? “Did, did Soulstealer get me there too? Was I just some useless puppet? Did I die without the death even being able to help my Royal? You must-” Snow swallowed, afraid of the words in his own mouth. “You must hate me?”

“Hate you?” Gar stood up. “Snow, I, what… Snow, I don’t hate you.”

“Then why can’t you stand to look at me?!” Snow shouted, taking a step forward. “Why do you seem like you’re avoiding me?”

“Because YOU hate ME!” Gar shouted back. “I’M the reason L- Lo- Lozul is gone, I’M the reason those kids don’t have their father here, I’M the reason my world was so ruined for years! I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be ruining this more than I already have!”

“I. DON’T. HATE. YOU.” Snow stepped forward enough to grab Gar’s shoulders. They were finally looking each other in the eyes. “I… I’m proud that managed to do what you did. That you held in there… without me.”

“You didn’t die. I tried to save you but I messed up. But you were able to save my daughter, take her to the guardians, keep her safe. You’re the reason I’m human and alive now.”

And they stared at each other. The words shouted bounced around for a long while, and with them a weight felt like it was lifted off of Gar’s shoulder.

“I will find a way to get you home.” Snow promised.

“SNOW, SNOW, SNOW, SNOW,”

A crescendoing shouting drew the two Protector’s attentions, and Snow opened the door, looking out into the hallway.

“Yes?”

“SNOW! Snow, there’s-”

“He looks just like Lo-”

“-alking style was we-

“-ust sort of nodded to me, which only-”

“-estroy the Kingdom!”

“Piya, Crumpler, I can’t understand I word you’re saying.” Two soldiers skidded to a stop before Snow, moments away from bowling him over. Gar perked up at the familiar names.

“Snow, there’s an imposter Lozul walking around.”

“Is there really?” Snow raised an amused eyebrow.

“Oh definitely. I don’t think he knows we’re onto him yet though.”

“Does he look something like this?” Snow waved Gar over, a mischevious grin on his face.

“Hoi!”

“Demon!” One of the guys - he sadly had no idea whether it was Piya or Crumpler - slapped him.

“Crumpler, it’s alright.” Snow tried placate the upset man. “Everything’s okay.”

“Then who the hell is that?” Piya pointed at Gar, hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Just an old friend.”

“This is some magic stuff going on, isn’t it?” Crumpler squinted at Snow, then looked at Gar.

“You got us.” Snow held up his hands in surrender. Crumpler sighed dramatically.

“You two make it so hard to do a good job.”

“At least it’s not as bad as when we were younger.” Snow chuckled.

“When we were younger, we had less to lose.” Piya pointed out. “Now there’s kids to think about, and a definite future instead of just a Hopefully There Is One.”

“Those were the days.” Snow sounded almost wistful. It was easy to romanticize times you’d already lived through.

“Snow!”

Snow sighed and shook his head lightly at the familiar voice. Gar looked down the hall, opposite the way Piya and Crumpler had come, to see Agora.

Limping.

“Agora!” Gar shouted and rand down to them. The young protector looked up at Gar with wide, terrified eyes. They leg was bleeding, as was a slice on their stomach, and their eyes was steadily bruising. “Agora what happened?”

“Edel’s been taken.”

oOo

Despite Snow’s continual reassurance, Lozul didn’t trust Gar.

He just had a thing against a demon - ex or current - being so close to his family.

But, frankly, there was nothing he could do about it. Which was the worst part.

“Lozul, are you ready for today’s meetings?”

Lozul jumped as Molly entered, already dressed for the day. Lozul sighed and put the wolf helmet back over his head.

“I supposed I am.”

Oh, it’s the meeting time of year? Snow floated into view. I haven’t seen those troublemakers in a while.

Molly jumped upon seeing the shade.

“Don’t worry, it’s just my old protector, Snow.”

“How… did you get here?” The queen asked, watching the shade.

Bluescale brought me. Lozul needed an explanation.

“So, then, you know about Gar?” She bit her lip nervously.

“I don’t blame you for keeping it from me.” Lozul quickly said. “But yes, I do know now.”

“I’m sorry, I-I was just trying to do what I thought was best.”

“What’s done is done. Let’s not be late to the meeting.”

The rest of the Nobles were in there. A few had some unsettling grins on their faces. Phil was missing from the beginning. Molly took her place next to Wade, quickly scribbling something on a piece of parchment and pushing it over to her husband. Lozul’s eyes tracked the clump of shadows that was Snow as his deceased protector slipped under the table.

“Good. I was worried about this being dull.” Bluescale was standing against the wall, watching the group with a small, proud smile.

Lozul had to admit, he’d been surprised how… professional everybody was being. Sure, a lot of them were asleep or not paying attention by the end of the day, but nothing completely wild had happened. Perhaps it was because there were so few. When you had 98+ people in a room, there was constantly people getting away with things. Getting away with, as in before things just inevitably devolved into complete and utter chaos.

King Wade started to on about the financial state of the kingdom and and Lozul let himself get distracted by the shadow on the other side of the room creeping up near Protector Kjellberg.

“Snow?” The whisper caught him off guard, and he turned to see Amile also watching Snow’s journey to Felix.

“Is it a bit cold in here?” Felix asked, shivering.

“Oh, must be me.” Bluescale replied and winked at Lozul.

“Hey, what was that wink abo- AARGH!” Felix slammed his head back into the wall in a desperate effort to get as far away from the sudden chilling mass of darkness in front of him.

I’M THE GHOST OF PROTECTORS PAST, HERE TO RETURN YOU TO THE GRAVE WHERE YOU BELONG, Snow bellowed.

“Snow!” JP jumped up, staring at the darkness. “But I thought you were gone.”

I’m just here for a quick spookening. Snow floated to the center of the room.

“Please tell me you’re not actually going to re-kill me.” Felix pleaded, still pressed up against the wall to be as far from the shade as possible.

Don’t worry, it takes too much effort. I’m just here to… chill, for a bit. Carry on please.

He then proceeded to be the biggest distraction of the morning, floating through people, messing with notes, and generally being a nuisance. But it was pretty clear nobody was really focused today anyway. Not much progress was done that morning, and eventually Bluescale left early, apparently not being able to stand statistic for much longer. Not that Lozul blamed her in the slightest. If he wasn’t obligated as a ‘Protector’, he’d be doing something else too.

It was a relief when it the break for lunch came, and everybody basically ran down the dining hall. The first one through the door was the very unfortunate PJ. The second he stepped into the room, a vine whipped down from the ceiling, wrapped around his foot, and returned from whence it came.

“Oh hey PJ, nice to see you hanging around.” Phil’s voice could be heard from the dining hall.

“Great. It’s begun.” Wade stepped to the front of the group, drawing his sword. Dan cursed.

“I should’ve known by how Phil didn’t even try to come to the meetings. I guess I didn’t think he’d be up to doing something on this caliber. JP, where’s your wife when we need her?”

“Stick close to me.” Cry instructed, going up next to Wade. “We can make it through this.” Some lightning crackled around them like a force field. Half of the group stayed outside of the hall, cheering them on. The vines did try to grab them but jerked back upon getting zapped.

“Nice job Cry!” Jess cheered. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

And that was when Cry slipped.

The break in concentration was enough time for the vines to go down and pluck Jess, her Protector, Static, and Wade up to the ceiling. Lozul managed to freeze the two that tried to grab Molly and himself, and Cry started the electric field just in time to avoid the same fate as everybody else coming to Felix, Dan, and him.

“You might want to watch your step.”

Lozul looked up to see Bluescale and Greenscale lounging in vine-swings, Phil grinning down at them.

“PHILLY I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!” Dan shouted upwards.

“We’ve got to keep moving Dan.” Cry said, shuffling forward unsteadily on the ice. “The others are counting on us.”

“Oh he’s going to have it coming to him tonight.” Dan muttered.

Lozul couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled in his chest.

This was just starting to almost feel like home.