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halfmoth-halfman · 7 months

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My MWIII Thoughts

I’ve finally taken the time to get all of my thoughts about the new campaign together and put them in a single post. There are no spoiler tags since the game is officially releasing today/tomorrow, but everything is under the cut with a warning. I have a lot of things to say here, so I’ve tried to organize it point by point. The points I think are most important are first, and I ask that you take the time to read through them. If you want to skip to the points about characters and that death, the beginning of those sections is marked with red, but be prepared to scroll.

I watched the custscenes, with gameplay, all the way through once and I’m not doing it again. I tried to go back to specific scenes to reference in this post, but even that was a lot for me, so if my timeline in here is a little screwy don't fault me too much.

If you just want my quick, overall thoughts: This campaign was two hours of egregiously incoherent, poorly written, shoddily thrown together military propaganda, even more than the cod games usually are, and your money would be much better spent donating to help Palestine - there are links to do so in this review, marked with green, as well as boycott information, and the same donations links are also provided on this shorter post if you want to go directly to them.

(There are spoilers below, and this is long. I'm not kidding. Do not click the readmore unless you are prepared to scroll.)

Military Propaganda/Islamophobia

I spoke about this some already here and here because I felt this was an important enough topic that deserved its own post.

Call of Duty has never been has never been the game where I expected to see proper representation of the Middle East or Middle Eastern politics. It is first and foremost military propaganda. More than that it is American military propaganda. Just like with every superhero and pro-military movie post-9/11, it should be expected that you’re not going to get any kind of meaningful insight or depth when it comes to Middle Eastern storylines and characters, but there is usually more of an effort to hide the Middle East = Terrorist subtext.

To say I was shocked at how overt and blatant the Islamophobia was in this game is an understatement. We get four deaths of named characters in this game. Two of whom are Middle Eastern women, Dena and Samara, from the country Urzikstan, the fictional combination of Syria and Afghanistan and home to terrorist group Al-Qatala (real subtle, right?). Both of these women are associated with the ULF, the Urzikstan Liberation Force, Farah’s group of freedom fighters whose goal is to free their country from foreign subjugation with Samara no longer being an active member. Both of these women are introduced in this game. Both of these women are minor characters. Both of these women, Samara in particular, are trying to live their lives peacefully now that their country has been freed.

Both of these women are given deaths more brutal and more shocking than the other two deaths of two main characters in the series.

We meet Dena at the beginning of the game when we’re first re-introduced to Alex and Farah. We see her have a heartfelt reunion with Farah, and the two have a conversation while driving where Dena expresses her concerns about wanting Urzikstan to remain peaceful but assures Farah that everyone will support her. After, Dena is suddenly shot in the chest, and Farah is forced to take control of the vehicle they’re in, which ultimately flips over and we get Farah’s first death fakeout.

It’s in this cutscene that we see a lingering shot on Dena as well as her corpse being thrashed in the car as Farah tries to take control and as it flips. We are given a Middle Eastern woman showing hope for her country that the peace she has fought for will be maintained only to then watch her die for shock value and a fakeout for another character, and watch her body fly across the car as it flips. We don’t get that with either of the other two gunshot deaths in this game. Soap’s is just as sudden, but we see it coming, and there are no shots of his body being thrown about, no closer views of his face like there are with Dena. Shepherd’s is entirely off-screen and all we’re left with is a shot of him lying face down on his desk - no blood or bullet wound in sight.

Notably, the only other person we see a comparable amount of blood on in this game is Makarov, the enemy of the series.

Samara, who gets the worst death in this game, in my opinion, is a retired ULF soldier we’re introduced to on a plane. I’ll start by saying I was under the assumption this may have been the reboot replacement for No Russian, the mission in which Makarov and Co. shot up Zakhaev International Airport to frame America for terrorism in the original series, and the mission that was teased after the credits in the MW2 reboot. We get the scene of Makarov and his men at the airport before boarding the plane, which could just be a nod to the original mission. However, until there is an official reboot of the No Russian mission, I’m going to assume this was Activision’s new take on it.

In this mission, we learn that Makarov plans to use this plane bombing to frame Urzikstan, Farah and the ULF specifically. The thing is, as Big Mak and friends are in the airport preparing to board, we are shown that the ULF is already being blamed for the missile attack on Arklov Military Base from the previous mission where their missiles were stolen, capped with Konni’s chemical gas, and one was detonated. There’s even a news sequence showing that the world already thinks of the ULF as a terrorist organization, and has not-so-quietly thought that for years. That makes this upcoming scene feel not only unnecessary but like a deliberate choice made by Activision to be extra cruel to a Middle Eastern character.

We see Samara text with her family and are shown a picture of her husband and children before the man next to her begins speaking to her in Arabic. He compliments her family and, I assume as we’re not directly shown, gets the No Russian text - a text, for those who have not played the original games, meaning to not speak Russian to not tie the terrorist act they’re about to commit back to the Russians. The Traveler, as he's called, then reveals that he knows who she is, knows her family, and knows that she is a former ULF soldier and fought the Russians. He then pulls a gun on her and Makarov and Konni take the plane hostage, purposely speaking Arabic and declaring this is for Urzikstan.

We are then forced to watch as Samara fights back, but is ultimately taken to Makarov where a bomb is strapped to her chest. He gives his usual cryptic speech, and over-explains to the audience what’s happening before diving out of the plane D.B. Cooper style.

Samara is then dragged to the back of the plane by a Hijacker, where the remaining passengers are, kicking and fighting and trying to reason with him to stop. He pauses and we then get this exchange:

Hijacker: Are you a terrorist?

Samara: No…

Hijacker: You look like one.

He then puts a gun in her hands, tosses the cellphone that will let her stop the bomb, and shoves her into a crowd where we have to watch her struggle to explain what’s happening to her and that she needs the phone to a crowd of people that are either afraid of or angry with her. She is shoved to the ground by a random man, forced to fight through people trying to tackle and beat her, and, when the phone is finally within reach in the hands of a scared passenger, the plane blows up.

I want to emphasize that most of this is a cutscene. There are a few button presses for the player to try and get the phone, and you are allowed to look around and try to fight back, but that is quickly stopped, and you are forced to sit and watch through Samara’s perspective. The end result? There’s an investigation for who may have done this, and you play as Farah collecting evidence from the crash site so Makarov can’t frame the ULF. The mission succeeds, because it’s a story mission and it has to, Makarov is unable to control the narrative so people can only suspect the ULF did it but can’t prove it, and Samara…died for nothing. All of that was so people could suspect the ULF was a terrorist organization, which the game has previously gone out of its way to establish was already happening before Makarov got on that flight. This entire sequence and the mission after added nothing to the storyline other than the brutal forcing of a Middle Eastern woman to hijack a plane 9/11 style and die a death worse than two of the series’s main characters.

Two side characters, two Middle Eastern women who have never existed before this game, are put in this game solely to die in ways where their deaths are more emphasized and graphic than a character we’ve played as since the series began, and one of the main villains.

There is a genocide happening in Palestine. Islamophobia in the United States, and the West as a whole, is rising to post-9/11 heights. There is already so much propaganda being spread in an attempt to dehumanize the men, women, and children who are being murdered by Israeli forces, to justify the actions - the war crimes - of the Israeli forces. Could this be a sloppy attempt at Activision trying to mirror real-life stereotypes and how quick the media is to jump to the Arab = Bad narrative? Possibly. I don’t think it is. I think this was a deliberate change from the original No Russian mission in which America is framed for terrorism, made by an American company that makes games meant to garner interest and support in the American military, during a time when the American government is being criticized for funding and aiding an ethnic cleansing.

As slapped together as this game was, I don’t believe they couldn’t have changed the campaign in the time since the situation in Palestine escalated to this level. I firmly believe it was a purposeful choice to write that scene, to film that scene, to keep that scene.

It is blatant, it is clear, it is as in-your-face as it can possibly be. It is not something this fandom gets to ignore because they don’t like the campaign. It is not something this fandom gets to overshadow with Soap’s death as poorly written as it was. It is not something this fandom gets to stay silent about while also posting about #freepalestine.

I have never expected the best when it comes to Islamophobia from the Call of Duty games or its fandom. I’ve never expected anything beyond mildly okay. Call of Duty is military propaganda, I know. The fandom is known for its racism and it’s not getting better, I know that especially. But I don’t see how anyone, in the times we’re living in right now, would be able to look at this and not acknowledge it for what it is.

It is the purposeful brutalization of Middle Eastern characters.

It is propaganda.

It is racism.

It is Islamophobia.

It is wrong.

Engaging Critically/Acknowledging Privilege

While I may be stepping back from the CoD fandom, I understand that not everyone is going to. For some people, these games are a comfort or an escape. I’m not here to call for a boycott of Call of Duty or Activision while there are more important boycotts to be focusing on - and you can find more info on them here & here.

What I am asking, particularly of those of us in the fandom that are not being directly affected by what’s happening in Palestine, is that there is more acknowledgment of the level of privilege that we have and that people learn to engage more critically with the media they consume.

It is a privilege to play a game like Call of Duty and not have to think about the propaganda. It is a privilege (and ignorant) to say “it’s not political”, “it’s just pixels”, or “it’s not real”. It is a privilege to be able to just turn the game off and never have to think about war, and the impact of the representation of the characters, and the real-life events that these games base themselves on. And this isn’t just a CoD issue, this is something that should be considered with every piece of media you engage with.

There is no such thing as a “politics-free” book/movie/game/show. Everything carries the biases - conscious or subconscious - of the person or people who created it. There is no such thing as media or fiction not having an effect on real life, especially in a fandom for what is essentially War Crimes: The Game.

I’m going to take a quote from this post by @yeyinde.

"It’s incredibly egregious to pretend that the media you consume isn’t based, in some part, on real life or has no repercussions outside of it just being fiction. And it’s especially dishonest to say this isn’t the case within the COD fandom when people have said that the erasure of Gaz from the fandom in favour of a white character is traumatising. The portrayal of the Middle East is traumatising. The portrayal of Makarov in fiction as an uwu-sympathetic babbie is traumatising. The portrayal of the military as heroes is traumatising. These are real people expressing real emotions and bringing up important matters that impact them long after they’ve logged out of tumblr. Just because they stop being relevant to you after that does not, and SHOULD NOT, matter. Their trauma, their feelings, and their interpretations shouldn’t be ignored in favour of some catch-all excuse to limit your responsibility as a consumer to think critically about the media you’re devouring just because it has no consequences for you."

Fiction mirrors real life whether you want to admit it or not. It shows real biases, and it affects real people. Participating in fiction and the surrounding culture does not magically absolve you of consequences. It does not suddenly mean you get a free pass at things like sexism, racism, ableism, colorism, romanticization of abuse and sexual assault, etc. just because your escapist fantasies are conveniently free of people who are different from you.

It may be your fiction, but it is someone else’s non-fiction, and you do not get to decide that it isn’t or that the impact doesn’t matter because it’s about fictional characters.

I'm going to link another post from @yeyinde with another quote here.

"It’s easy to get swept up into something when you have no tangible ties to the effects of what’s being portrayed, which can lead to making dismissive or hurtful statements out of pure ignorance. My biggest gripe was the excuses being laundered out and (either unintentionally or intentionally) giving the creators a pass for what they created and the harm they caused other people to experience. Just because they did not experience the same trauma, it does not diminish its impact on others. This is a very important distinction, which I think was being missed."

Does this mean you can’t ever write or read about traumatic things, or that you can’t enjoy the CoD games ever again? No.

But I need you all to understand that you can criticize the media you enjoy. You should criticize the media you enjoy. Criticism does not mean never letting yourself enjoy a piece of media again. Criticism does not mean trying to get a character or creator “cancelled”. Criticism does not automatically equal hate.

Criticism is an act of love, and it is necessary when deconstructing and confronting biases - both yours and other people's.

Resources To Support Palestine

The lovely @moondirti provided some organizations where you can donate to support the humanitarian aid in Gaza with the note:

It's important to acknowledge that, while limited aid is being allowed through, recent negotiations have allowed your charity to reach the people of Palestine.

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS

PALESTINE CHILDREN RELIEF FUND

UNITED MISSION FOR RELIEF – PALESTINE EMERGENCY

ANERA

Onto the actual game.

The 141

I don't know what happened during development between this game and MW2, but the relationship between the members of the 141 is severely lacking. We get the usual Soap and Ghost banter for one mission, because, let’s be real, that's what got a lot of people into the last game, but that's about it? There’s nothing new, nothing added to their relationships, and the game sticks to the same duos (Ghost/Soap & Price/Gaz) that we’ve had for the past two games. Even Soap and Ghost’s banter during the attack on Milena’s private island doesn’t have the same impact on the characters as their banter during the Alone mission in MW2. They get a few lines about Soap admiring Milena’s cars and Ghost taunting him about marrying an Oligarch, and…that’s it until the cutscene where they interrogate her.

There’s maybe a few quippy lines here and there, but overall the 141 gives off the same feeling as a group of semi-friendly co-workers that sometimes work on the same project rather than an actual team that has shed blood, sweat, and tears with each other.

This would’ve been such a great time to explore deeper into the team dynamics, show us pairings we don’t get to see as often and build on those relationships, make us really feel for these characters on a personal level. In the original series, you got a feel for every character and their team dynamics, and the player felt the impact of each death as they watched the other characters react (something I’ll talk about later). With this game, we get…what? Four men that desperately need a lozenge throwing a few sassy one-liners at each other and giving each other a harsh pat on the back like a bunch of dads at a barbecue?

I feel like so much of the heavy labor regarding the 141 in the reboot is done through fanfiction at this point because this game especially gives us barely anything to go on, and that’s such a missed opportunity on Activision’s part considering how so much of MW2’s popularity came from the relationship built between Soap and Ghost. It all just feels so hollow and surface-level; there’s no depth here, no attempt to build a connection from the player to this group as a team. In my opinion, Activision relies too heavily on the older fanbase’s connection to the original series, and the newer fanbase’s self-created characterizations, to fill in the blanks so they can leave these characters as empty and vanilla as possible in order to appeal to a broader audience.

And they’ve still somehow managed to fail at that. Speaking of failing...

Graves and Shepherd

Graves should’ve died in that fucking tank, and I will stand by that opinion even after I die. It was such a cop-out to have him live, and for him to suddenly come back with the excuse, “Well, I wasn’t in that tank, blah, blah, blah.”

This is supposed to be a game series where characters die and stay dead. The characters die. Some die heroically, some die horrifically, some die quickly, some die painfully slow, most die bloody, but they die. It’s a staple of the series, like Game of Thrones pre-season 5. I don’t know if Activision didn’t know what to do with his character, or if they realized he was semi-popular with the fans and decided to magically bring him back via deus ex remote-controlled tank, or if they were trying to “subvert expectations” and give us all a little surprise plot twist, but it sucked.

Also, no one checked the tank for a body? That seems to be something everyone has a problem doing in these games, and I don’t know what Activision thinks that does for the 141, but what it does do is make these elite military officials look incompetent as hell because their “dead” enemies keep coming back.

There was nothing different that Graves did in this game from what he did in the previous game. We get the same air support mission from him that we got last game, and really that’s it. Okay sure, he’s working with Farah now, that’s a little different, but what did he do in that mission? Give her vague instructions on where to find some GPS trackers and then give her more vague instructions on where to find the missile containers to slap the trackers on? He could’ve easily been replaced with one of Farah’s people who scouted ahead, or Alex, or a decorative cowboy hat, and the mission would have gone the exact same.

Other than that he spends the entire game hiding behind Shepherd like a scared child up until the end when he ultimately turns on Shepherd, and even that felt so blah. He faces no consequences for his (racist) actions in Las Almas other than Gaz refusing to shake his hand, he faces no consequences for betraying the 141, going so far as to lie that it even happened in front of Congress, and he gets off completely free as far as we know. There was no point to his character, no point to bringing him back, no point to him being in this game at all, and if I find the Activision employee who decided to keep him alive I will be throwing hands expeditiously.

Shepherd was…there, I guess? I’m sure he was meant to be a menacing, sly, back-stabbing character, but he came off as more irritating than anything. His rescue mission felt akin to being forced to babysit your annoying younger sibling who questions everything you do. They give you a cute little nod to the OG series with his cutscene with the 141 in the snow (because Activision has to rely on nostalgia and easter eggs since they know this game is emptier than the promises of an absentee father), but most of it is spent with Shepherd preaching about how great he is and threatening the 141 like he’s been doing the entire game. I’m sure he’s supposed to come off as clever, outsmarting the 141 and tricking them into rescuing him - this big, bad, battle-hardened General - but all of that is undercut by him getting captured to begin with.

The General Shepherd in the original series killed two of the player characters. How am I supposed to be intimidated by this nagging grandpa briskly jogging through the snow behind me in his ugly pajama jumpsuit? Even his ending is lackluster. He’s outwitted in front of Congress by Graves of all people, and then we get a cutscene where Price shoots him off-screen. That’s it. There was no satisfaction like in the original series, no triumph, no sense of vengeance, only a tired feeling of thank god I don’t have to deal with this anymore. This constant attempt at build-up in this reboot series of Shepherd being this looming figure over the 141 ends not with a bang, and not even with a whimper.

Makarov

I’m going to start this off by saying I mean absolutely no hate to Julian Kostov, Makarov’s actor, he definitely did his job.

Unfortunately, that job was playing a random Russian man that happened to have the same name as the Vladimir Makarov from the original series. He’s literally just a dude. There’s nothing particularly menacing about him, nothing that really screams Leader of an Ultranationalist group, nothing that would set him apart in a line-up of kind-of-gruff white men. I wasn’t expecting him to be some over-the-top supervillain, but he feels too normal, too regular, too everyday. Maybe that was the point Activision was trying to make - that having a villain with too-sharp features, eyebrows with in-your-face arches, and two-toned eyes is realistically too much - but it feels like they leaned too far in the opposite direction to compensate.

How am I supposed to take Makarov seriously when they gave him such big, brown, babygirl eyes? Though I realize this may be a character model issue because everyone in this game seemed to have huge doe eyes at one point or another (looking directly at you and those unblinking baby blues, Soap).

The first time we get a proper cutscene with Makarov, he shoots one of his own men – one who had questioned his plan in the rescue mission – and he gives some passionate Make Russia Great Again speech that involves a lot of big gestures, promises of showing the world “true power”, and him being weirdly touchy with one of his men. It’s not a bad scene, and I think Julian really shines here as Makarov. It’s a little in-your-face for me, but overall not a bad introduction to what is supposed to be the overarching big bad for the rest of the series. It gives you a good enough sense of danger, and just enough worry for the main crew as they get ready to go up against this guy.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn’t really follow through on that. Makarov spends more time monologuing, asking his men “philosophical” questions about prisoners and guards, and cryptically foreshadowing at the 141 than he does doing…anything. We are told about all of the bad deeds he’s done. We are told how evil he is. We are told that Makarov needs to be stopped at all costs. The only problem is, we aren’t shown any of that. We see the aftermath of Verdansk, a distant explosion after Makarov has been captured, but we never see Makarov do any of that. When we do get to see Makarov, his men are doing all of the dirty work while he stands around and looks evil. It’s his men fighting and killing guards to get him out of prison, his men attacking Farah and her soldiers, his men launching missiles topped with biochemicals, his men forcing Samara to blow up a plane, his men guarding Milena and his finances. The most he does during any of these scenes is order his men around and give evil villain speeches to give the audience exposition about why he’s doing all this.

We probably see more of Makarov’s shirtless Tinder pic than we see him in action.

In the original series, we see Makarov being at the forefront of his movement, unafraid to get his hands dirty. He is part of the group that commits the massacre/terrorist attack on Zakhaev International Airport, he kills the two FSO agents protecting President Vorshevsky, he’s the one who shoots and kills Yuri, and that’s only part of what we see in-game. Sure, we’re told about his other crimes, but we’re shown enough to back up the claims that he is evil. In this game, he kills two people himself, one of them being his own soldier that I mentioned earlier, and the other being Soap (and we’ll get to that later). Two extremely lackluster deaths that are over before you get the chance to really digest them. Maybe he kills more people during the intro mission when you rescue him, but it’s during gameplay and easily missed when you’re too busy trying to fight your way out of this Arkham-esque prison. I think I could look past it if he wasn’t also present during some of the scenes where his men are carrying out his atrocities for him, but instead, Activision chose to have him in the background standing there…menacingly.

I don’t want to say Makarov was a bad villain; he was certainly better than Shepherd and Graves. I just think Activision made very strange choices with his character that resulted in him becoming this weird mishmash of an average monologuing movie villain and the micromanaging boss that stands over your shoulder, and it took a lot of the “oomph” out of his character for me.

Soap's Death

I hope whoever made this decision at Activision has to live the rest of their life constantly feeling like they have to sneeze and are never able to. What the fuck happened here? In what world did Soap’s death make any kind of sense here? This felt like they knew fans were expecting someone to die (and they already retconned the yeehaw war criminal) so they put a bunch of names in a hat and had some poor unpaid intern pick one out.

I have not been quiet about how much death I wanted in this game. I expected at least two deaths, with one of them preferably being Price. Going into this I was prepared to lose characters, and I was prepared to lose them to a heroic sacrifice, to an exhaustingly epic gunfight, to an explosion in a clocktower, to literally anything, but I was not prepared to lose a character to bad writing. And that’s what Soap’s death was. There is no build-up to it throughout the game other than a cryptic, “I’ll see you again, MacTavish.” from Makarov in a flashback scene. There’s no exploration of Soap’s character arc, his background, his family. There’s nothing.

Price and Soap try to defuse a bomb, Makarov shows up and his men overpower them, Makarov goes for the kill on Price, and instead shoots Soap when Soap tries to stop him. The entire cutscene can be summed up as A Series Of Conveniences. Makarov conveniently gets to Soap and Price just as they’re about to defuse the bomb, the officers they have with them are conveniently incompetent to stop any of Makarov’s men, Makarov’s men conveniently don’t notice Soap getting up to stop him from shooting Price, Ghost and Gaz are conveniently one second too late save Soap, and a train conveniently passes by to let Makarov make his escape. It’s over in less than a minute, and there’s little to no reaction from the surviving 141 members before the game starts shoving in your face that there’s a bomb you have to defuse that has conveniently not gone off yet and was conveniently missed in all of the gunfire.

Aside from the bullshit way it happened, the most disappointing thing here was the cutting of Soap’s arc and the lack of reaction from Price, Ghost, and Gaz. There was no growth for Soap in this game, no building of his story that would make his death feel like a satisfying conclusion. We just got the same Soap we’ve had in the rest of the series, and then he was gone. And the fact that we got absolutely nothing from the team in that moment was so…frustrating. Yeah, Ghost kneels by his body, and gives a brief, “Johnny!” but that’s…it? Price says nothing. Gaz rushes to the bomb and says nothing. After that moment in the cutscene, Ghost says and does nothing. There’s not even a hitch in their voices as they finish disarming the bomb. In Soap’s original death, we got Price screaming and begging over his body. We got to see his grief and pain and hurt at losing someone so close to him. Here we get…them standing over the body, a cut to black, and then a funeral cutscene that doesn’t feel earned full of commiserations that feel empty, hollow, and generic.

Maybe I’m too nostalgic for the Captain MacTavish we had in the original series, and the death they gave him that was impactful enough that people still talk about it to this day. Maybe there’s something meaningful here that I’m not seeing. Or maybe Activision can’t write for shit and rushed Soap’s death without a care just like they rushed this game as a quick cash grab to ride the hype of MW2.

Whatever the reason, these characters deserved far better.

Soap deserved better.

And I deserved to see a rebooted Captain MacTavish.

Gameplay

This section is going to be short because I didn’t spend money on this game to actually play it, I only watched gameplay. The general consensus seems to be that this game is nothing but glorified DMZ, and I can’t disagree with that. Supposedly, at least two of the campaign settings were ripped straight from Warzone, the Gulag and Verdansk Stadium, and I think that really shows how much of this game was slapped together because Activision wanted to hurry to release so they could capitalize off the CoD hype as much as possible. The combat is the same in every mission, the air support mission is as boring as ever, the NPC AI is all over the place, and the character models constantly shift from being really good to mobile game bad within the same cutscene.

I’m not saying I could do better, but I don’t think I could do worse. You can take that however you’d like.

The Writing/Storyline

Starting off, I’m going to say this with my whole chest:

Main story content should be in the main story, and not in optional or additional content.

Look, I don’t mind an easter egg here and there in DLC. I don’t mind the mention of a big bad in an extra, paid quest to build up hype. What I do mind is when the understanding of the main storyline of your game is dependent on things that happen in content that players are required to complete outside of the main game.

Do you know how we found out Alex was alive? An optional Raid.

Do you know how we learned Graves was a little bitch and wasn’t in the tank? An optional Raid.

Do you know how we–

You get my point. These kinds of reveals should have been in the main storyline because they pertain to the main storyline. Otherwise, you have people reacting with confusion because the main campaign was all they played, and they were left under the assumption that Alex may or may not be dead, that Graves burned in that tank in Las Almas, that Farah’s brother (Remember him? Activision doesn’t.) was alive and out there somewhere, etc, etc. It feels like they’re trying to do what Marvel does when they interweave their cinematic universe with their television shows: leave references to things only the more committed audience - the audience who will watch every show, play every game, see every movie, buy every DLC - would understand while punishing everyone else. It feels lazy on Activision’s end, and cheapens any kind of suspense they may leave us with going forward.

I wouldn’t even be surprised to see something like “Oh, Soap died and Makarov escaped at the end of the main campaign? Just kidding! They revealed in the newest Raid that Soap actually survived, and Makarov got hit by that train at the end.”

Outside of that, the whole storyline just feels unnecessary. This whole game feels unnecessary. I know there are rumors that this was meant to be a DLC for MW2 that got extended into a full game because Activision wanted more money, and if I didn’t already believe that, the writing would confirm it for me. Nothing feels fleshed out. Not the story, not the plot, not the characters. It all feels very surface-level and shallow, like more of the exact same thing we got in the last game, but somehow worse. The banter between the 141 is just not there, the tell don’t show when it comes to Makarov, the rapid POV switching, it all feels so thrown together, so last minute, like the writers had no idea what they wanted to do up until release.

One thing that really bothered me was the constant death fakeouts. It felt like every mission something awful would happen and one character would be left with their fate unknown in a dramatic cut to black as a cheap way to build suspense…only for that suspense to be immediately undercut by showing them alive in the very next cutscene. This happens with Farah (twice), Price, Alex (partially, there’s no cut to black, but there is a fakeout that he has been captured), and Laswell all within the first half of the game. At some point, it starts to get irritating and kills any and all suspense going forward. I was spoiled on Soap’s death, I knew it was coming before I watched the cutscenes, but by the time I got there, I was almost expecting Soap to show up in the next sequence without a scratch on him. Up until that point, I had stopped caring when characters were in danger because the writing led me to believe everyone was safe. There’s a way to build suspense, and every writer understands that, a majority of the time, less is more, so I don’t get how this went so unbelievably wrong.

The characterization is also so weirdly off. In what world would John “Somebody has to make the enemy scared of the dark. We get dirty, and the world stays clean.” Price not immediately take a kill shot when he has Makarov in custody? Soap was ready to kill every person he talked to in this game, so why did he let Makarov live? Why would Gaz advocate for giving Shepherd a gun after his multiple betrayals that he shows no remorse for? Why would Farah continue to begrudgingly work with Graves after learning about Las Almas? Why is Makarov over-explaining his plans to his victims?

I’m not saying I expect Shakespeare-level writing from a Call of Duty game, but I expect something better than whatever this is.

I don’t know who Activision hired for their writing team, but there are so many instances here where I almost have to believe that they may not have hired one at all.

Overall Thoughts

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to who I was before I watched this campaign. This whole game was nothing but a DLC lazily stretched to two hours with assets taken from other games and a storyline that was slapped together using blindfolds, a dartboard, and too much alcohol. Please do not use your money to buy this game. Your money would be much better spent donating to help Palestine.

#moth talks #game got me so heated i'm using proper grammar and punctuation and shit #call of duty #modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare #modern warfare 3 #modern warfare iii #call of duty mw3 #call of duty mwiii #cod mwiii #tw: racism #tw: islamophobia

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beesorcery · 3 months

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hello it's part 3 of 3 for my cool fun graphic design adventure!! part 1 and part 2 got too long. to recap i am recreating this t-shirt design but with the magic 8 ball songs instead of city names:

here is the current draft, updated through 3/27 (pittsburgh) (!!!!)

#aaaa!!!#tried doing image descriptions for this one #feel free to send me better ones though and i can update the alt text!! or just put them in the replies/reblogs lol #bees' graphic design adventure #only 7 more shows........ wowie #OH ALSO ppl have been expressing interest in getting this as an actual shirt which is!! cool!!#idk how to do that though!!#if anyone has recommendations for websites or something to do that please please send them or reply to this post or something #at the very least i'll make the file available at the end so ppl can print it on whatever they want #i was gonna make a poster #but yeah let me know if there's a good way to do that!!! it's really cool that people are enjoying this i am having a lot of fun doing it #fob #fall out boy #2ourdust #gonna update after nashville des moines and minneapolis so 3 left!!!#i have already changed it since posting this because i am a freak <3 and i cant leave good enough alone lol #also i now have all the fonts <3 for the cities anyway #not the states but i’ve only used the states a few times so far for like the parentheses or punctuation or whatever #so if i end up needing those ill go find them whatever #anywayyyy yeehaw see u all in like 4 days

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doriansbutt · 10 days

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@ Y’all tagging veilguard stuff: can you tag as something other than just ‘dragon age’ or ‘da’? Folks who want to block veilguard stuff have to block ALL dragon age tagged content if you only use the generic dragon age tag.

Also note that adding punctuation in a tag does not get filtered, even if you block that tag. For example: if you block ‘da:tv’ it won’t actually get filtered bc it has punctuation in it.

#dragon age #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age veilguard #dragon age 4 #dav #datv #ran into the punctuation problem w bg3 which is annoying as FUCK #why do people insist on using the ‘baldur’s gate 3’ tag still pls just do bg3 #this isn’t about spoilers tbh this is just about blocking this #u can be a fan of the other games and not give a goddamn fuck about da4 #I’m in the middle still on this one #but if it becomes like bg3 I will block this tag so fast

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couch-house · 1 year

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Wrote something short about post-Exit Sonic Kintobor and Sonic. lots of thoughts about them lately

Future Plans in the Present [link]

Sonic nodded again from where he stood, arms crossed. He stared forward, unfocused, for a moment before clearing his throat. “So doc, you think you’ll be staying up here on Angel island?” “Hmm? Oh, for my research—yes! I imagine I will.” “Oh,” Sonic said. His grip on his arms tightened. The walls soaked up sound in such a strange way, the silence between his words felt particularly heavy.

#sth #stc #sonic the comic #sonic the hedgehog #ovi kintobor #exit sonic #fic art #fanfic #fanart #id in alt text #i used sooo much incorrect punctuation but i will not fix it </3 #anyway 👆 he got worse #jk i hate the colored lineart

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saotoru · 6 months

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OH... OH DID I HEAR PUPPYBOY LEON?

puppyboy leon who gets so sad when you have to put him in a cage!! especially when you go out!! he doesn't understand.. he didnt mean to chew on ur shoes while u were gone, he was just so bored! that was when you decided he ultimately needed a cage. you try to give him a nice big comfy cage but he still whines and paws at the bars whenever you put him in there :( he'll try to satisfy his want for you with the soft blanket that smells like you that's in his cage<3 when you come back he's immediately getting up from the nap he was taking (he fell asleep after tossing and turning without you), wagging his tail, barking excitedly for you!!

but it's even worse when you put him in his cage for when he was naughty... catching him going through your laundry :0?? yelling at him telling him he's a bad dog, and he feels so bad he swears he'll never do it again, but it smelt so much like you! and you weren't paying attention to him!! his ears are all droopy pleading with you but you end up having to lock him in there, ignoring him for the rest of the night. it feels like hes gonna die in that cage...

AGSIDHDKDK!!!🥺 the image this gave me is so cute and sad!! him putting things in his crate that smell like you so he’s not so lonely when he’s gone is SOOO SWEET:( poor baby just wants to be comforted by your presence is all!! clings to a random shirt of yours with his face smothered in it and falls asleep like that :(

normally you’d fold when he paws at the bars with sad puppy dog eyes but!! he needs to learn his lesson !! puppies aren’t supposed to go through dirty laundry and chew your dirty panties and socks >:// punishment is punishment. and to make it worse you’re ignoring him. no matter how loud he whines. like he doesn’t even exist! after an hour or so of howling you obviously won’t acknowledge him so he’ll curl up on his tummy and try to go to sleep; he’s grateful his cage is in your bedroom and he can at least watch you sleep, even if it hurts that he’s not in bed with you 😭 <33

#kit tag #special kit tag <3 #i think this is the right tag #HELLO KIT ILY #i need to stop using ‘ :( ‘ as punctuation #i wan him as a doggie #doggie leon <33 #im feeling nice and wanna take him on a walk rn :)#thirsts tag

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thorin-apologist · 1 year

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the big debut

sooo ive been writing this bagginshield fic on and off for the past 2.5 years, it isnt quite finished but im going to start editing and posting chapters very soon (expect month long hiatuses because im terrible) but i just wanna get it out there!!! so heres the prologue, which will be posted to ao3 along with chapter 1 whenever i finish editing it. if so much as one person likes this shit im gonna be spurred on to work faster. ANYWAYS heres the prologue under the cut!! (approx 2.7k words, no TW just slight angst)

Prologue

“You’d think I asked my cousins to die and leave behind a parentless child,” Bilbo said bitterly to Balin. He was getting quite sick of Thorin Oakenshield hastily leaving any room Bilbo walked into. In this instance, it was one of Erebor’s libraries.

“He doesn’t resent your decision to leave us,” said Balin as he led Bilbo to the section of books written in Westron. “In fact, I think he’s more ashamed of how upset he is – he thinks it is you, and only you, who should be allowed to grieve at this time.”

“Sounds ridiculous enough, so you’re probably right.” Thorin’s strange, stubborn ways never failed to exasperate Bilbo, even after one and a half years of knowing him. “So, is he just going to hide from me until I’m gone?”

“I’ll talk some sense into him, laddie.”

Bilbo perused the shelves with Balin at his side, flicking through books and handing Balin the ones that caught his eye. Although he had to force himself to skip over the thick, heavy, leatherbound volumes, he was determined to take as much of the Lonely Mountain he could carry back to the Shire with him, regarding all his chosen books and keepsakes as his real fourteenth share.

On the 22nd of September, just days ago, Gandalf had stopped by the Lonely Mountain to wish Bilbo a happy birthday - though of course, this was not his sole motive for coming. He joined the dwarven birthday celebrations, eating and drinking and singing with them all through the night, waiting until Bilbo’s merry mood began to dissipate with exhaustion before taking him aside and extinguishing any residual cheer left in him.

“I am sorry that I must dampen your spirits on a day of celebration, but there will be no right moment fit for this news and it’s best that I get it over with sooner rather than later.” Gandalf paused, waiting for the sleepy smile to slide off Bilbo’s face. “Upon my last visit to the Shire, I learned the news that your cousin Drogo and his wife Primula had drowned in a boating accident not long before my arrival. This was mere months after their son Frodo was born. He was taken in by the Brandybucks and will live at Brandy Hall indefinitely.” Gandalf fell silent again, but not for nearly as long as Bilbo needed to process the blow from this information. Gandalf’s next words echoed from far away: “Today is his first birthday - he shares the day with you. He would have a better life at Bag End…”

Bilbo had viewed the Shire as something he would ultimately return to when it pulled hard enough at his heart, but until that moment came, it wouldn’t hurt to stay in Erebor a little longer. However, a month had turned into two months, and two into three, and three into ten, and still he had not felt compelled to leave. It was only at this horrible news that he realised that life went on without him there - hadn’t stopped in his absence, waiting patiently for him to return at his leisure. In the end, it was the grief of losing two dear relatives, the thought of the orphaned boy, and the guilt of completely missing something so important that prompted his journey back to the Shire.

Balin must’ve done as he’d promised and given Thorin a talking to, because he finally came out of hiding and approached Bilbo just before his official send-off the next day. It was dawn, so the Lonely Mountain’s vast foyer was empty apart from him and Thorin. They faced each other in dim light by the towering entrance gates, Bilbo with an armful of books that Thorin narrowed his eyes at.

“Haven’t you outgrown burglary, Master Baggins?”

Bilbo smiled at Thorin’s folded arms, knowing he was not in any real trouble. “Maybe not. Why, going to banish me for it?”

Thorin laughed softly and dropped the stern façade. “Take whatever you desire. Erebor is forever indebted to you.”

Bilbo’s bare feet shuffled sheepishly on the smooth stone floor. He always felt awkward whenever anyone acknowledged his part in reclaiming Erebor. His actions had led to victory, but also to devastation for so many people, and the latter was what he remembered whenever it was brought up. He tried to push it from his mind, not wanting to dwell on it during his last moments inside this place. “Don’t tempt me, I might take something expensive.”

Thorin asked questions about Bilbo’s route home, whether Gandalf would accompany him for the whole journey, and if he had enough food and supplies to last them both. None of these things warranted a private conversation before the rest of the company came down, but Bilbo was glad for it to be this way.

Despite his close friendship with Thorin, they had rarely been alone together over these past ten months. Thorin was either out on regular visits to Dale and Lake Town, overseeing Erebor’s reconstruction, or being forced to sit down and look over what Bilbo liked to call ‘kingly paperwork’, which mainly consisted of reviewing outdated laws and renewing old trade agreements. Thorin worked hard, but for all his work, Bilbo knew that his gold-sick mistakes still plagued him. In any case, it was in Thorin’s nature to be among his people, joining in the grunt work instead of lounging on a throne and ordering others around. Bilbo enjoyed helping with the paperwork when he could, usually accompanied by Balin and sometimes Dain Ironfoot – Thorin’s most trusted royal advisors. On many occasions, Bilbo was invited to dine in the King’s private hall, meant only for royalty and any desired guests. This party usually consisted of Thorin, Fili and Kili, their mother Dis, and often Dwalin, Balin, and Dain. Bilbo would’ve liked to have seen Thorin outside of these settings, but this was virtually impossible. Now that he was leaving however, he knew he would cherish all the time he got to spend with Thorin’s family and the rest of the company.

The small talk drew to a natural close and a short silence fell. Thorin broke it.

“Do you have any intention of returning?” Thorin said it casually enough but refused to meet Bilbo’s eye. A book began to slip from under Bilbo’s arm. He caught it and wedged it back into place. Thorin added, “It will be a sore loss for Erebor’s counsel.”

“Balin will keep you right,” said Bilbo, stalling as he thought of how best to respond to the original question. “I would hate to never return. I hate that I’m leaving now.”

Thorin brightened. “So, you will come back? When you are able, I mean.”

Now it was Bilbo’s turn to avoid Thorin’s eye. “It’s not that simple. It was irresponsible of me to stay so long. Really it was irresponsible to come in the first place.” Thorin nodded, his eyebrows sinking back down. “Not that I regret it,” said Bilbo quickly, “No, not at all. But I have family; obligations…” Bilbo bit the inside of his cheek. “And I have already let them down by not being there. The funeral would’ve been months ago. And the boy, he needs—”

“Yes, of course. I know,” said Thorin gently, quelling Bilbo’s anxious rambling. “I know you must go back to your family. It was selfish of me to hope for anything else.”

On the contrary, it warmed Bilbo to know that Thorin Oakenshield wanted him to stay. A bolder Bilbo might’ve made it known to Thorin that he felt equally selfish, and that if Thorin elaborated on what he hoped, it might just persuade him to abandon his plans. But this conversation was already looking to become uncomfortable. Bilbo needed easy, clean goodbyes today.

Luckily, it was at that moment that the chattering of Fili and Kili began to echo into the foyer. They soon emerged from a connected hallway, accompanied by Dis, whom Bilbo had come to like very much. She had silver-streaked dark hair and a strong nose, like her brother Thorin, but she shared the same kind brown eyes as Kili. However, her beard was by far the most impressive of all her family; tamed, glossy, and styled in intricate braids.

“Knew he’d be the first one down. Thorin! Changed his mind yet?” Fili called as they all approached. Thorin rolled his eyes.

As soon as they came to the place Bilbo stood, Fili and Kili pulled him into a group hug, making him drop most of his books. Bilbo decided drop the rest so that he could reach up and put an arm around each of their shoulders.

These two had come especially close to death during last year’s war, as had Thorin. In the recovery tents as the battle died away, Bilbo sat at their bedsides with Dis, who had been a part of the army from the Iron Hills but had not managed to get to her family during the fight. During this time, she had opened up to Bilbo, telling him stories about Fili and Kili as children, and some surprising tales about Thorin in his youth. Bilbo learned about Frerin, her and Thorin’s brother who had been killed in battle before he could come of age, and of Dis’ late husband, who had died alongside him. It was then that Bilbo realised that her sons and Thorin were the only family she had left, and how close she had come to losing everything.

“Tauriel sends her love,” said Kili as he and Fili broke away, “she and Legolas are working on repealing the Elvenkingdom’s law against marriage between dwarves and elves. You might run into them in Mirkwood, actually – if they don’t end up banished again.”

“If I come past the Elvenking’s Halls, I’m marching inside and giving Thranduil a piece of my mind on the matter,” said Bilbo.

Dis stepped forward, smiling at him. “You are sweet, Bilbo,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It has been a joy to have you here. Our family will never forget what you have done for us.” Fili and Kili nodded in agreement.

“It has been an honour to be allowed to stay here for so long,” said Bilbo graciously, choosing again to ignore the uncomfortable latter statement.

“Don’t be silly, I am reluctantly allowing you to leave us,” she said. Bilbo smiled.

Dwalin and Balin came down next. Bilbo pretended not to notice Balin’s overly wet eyes, not wanting to copy them. Next came Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. It had been Bofur whom Bilbo had ended up spending the most time around during his stay, as he was simply wonderful to be around; always finding ways to make Bilbo laugh after such a dark time. He gripped Bofur especially hard when they hugged, receiving hearty pats on the back in return.

Oin and Gloin soon joined the throng, and finally Ori, Dori, and Nori. Now that everyone was there, there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Dwalin and Dori headed over to either side of the gates and hauled the chains that opened them. The gates slowly parted outwards, revealing the bare grounds stretched out before the Mountain. The only things that had been added since the battle were some hastily built pens and huts dotted here and there. Mist obscured the horizon and muted the low-hanging sun’s rays.

Just outside the gates, Gandalf was standing by a cart attached to two horses and laden with all of Bilbo’s things. Bilbo and the company walked forwards into the chilly autumn morning. He reached the cart and loaded the last of his books. Gandalf looked down his long, crooked nose at him with sympathy in his eyes. Without saying anything, Gandalf gently patted Bilbo on the shoulder and boarded the cart. Bilbo turned around to face the fourteen dwarves, who were already huddling around him. They all took it in turns to embrace him (with some coming back for seconds), wishing him good luck and a safe journey.

When it was Thorin’s turn, he murmured in Bilbo’s ear as he held him, “Please write.” Bilbo nodded into the thick furs of Thorin’s cloak. They came apart for a moment. Then, to Bilbo’s shock, Thorin brushed his forehead against Bilbo’s. It was brief, but unmistakeable.

He heard a murmur from the group and hid his face as he climbed into the cart. Bilbo had been around dwarves long enough to know the gravity of that gesture. Bilbo valiantly tried to maintain his composure as he faced his dwarves for the last time.

“I will visit, if I can,” said Bilbo to the group, though he was looking at Thorin. Maybe it wasn’t as impossible as he had been telling himself; he might be able to find a babysitter once Frodo was old enough. Another impulse of irresponsibility might attack him again, and he could find himself running out the door without a handkerchief or a second thought. He would have to try a bit harder to fight these impulses now that he would have a child to look after. But if the last year and a half had taught Bilbo anything, it was that he could never be certain of what he might do next.

“You’d better,” Dwalin growled, and many of the others agreed in mutters.

“And likewise,” said Bilbo, his voice dangerously close to breaking, “you are all welcome at Bag End. Anytime.” As soon as you can, as often as you like, as many of you as Bag End can fit.

Gandalf took the reins and started the horses, guiding the cart away from the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo tried to keep his gaze on the dwarves, trying to burn their faces into his memory as they shrank away from him, but found that his eyes began to well. So, he twisted back around in his seat and faced the road ahead.

As soon as all the formalities regarding Frodo's adoption were dealt with, he had written a letter to Thorin, recounting his journey home, and greatly emphasising that he would love for them to meet again soon. The local postman would've surely fainted if Bilbo handed him a letter addressed to Erebor, so Bilbo entrusted his letter to Gandalf, who claimed he would be flitting to and from the East and West on ‘business,’ and would make sure it was delivered in good time.

Months later, Gandalf returned with Thorin's strangely formal response; that he would like nothing more, but he had to prioritise his duties as king and the ongoing restoration of Erebor. Bilbo understood of course - he had his own duties, what with being something of a parent, to be getting on with. Instead, he kept Thorin up to date with lengthy letters containing details of his contrastingly quiet life in the Shire, and many questions about the wellbeing of the other dwarves and what life as King under the Mountain was like. Sometimes he asked for advice on bringing up his nephew, as he knew Thorin had experience with Fili and Kili.

Bilbo wished for the same level of enthusiasm and detail in Thorin's replies but did not get it. In fact, each letter Bilbo received became shorter and more impassive than the last. Each time, Thorin found excuses to turn down Bilbo's (now somewhat persistent) attempts to reunite, whether it be in Erebor or Hobbiton. Bilbo couldn't fathom why this was. Thorin had earnestly requested that Bilbo write to him. Surely, he was not so busy that he couldn't write more than a few sentences. And if he was, why couldn't he get one of the others to write for him? After four years of this, Bilbo grew tired of how one-sided their friendship had become, and let frustration get the better of him. Halfway through a letter wishing Thorin a happy 200th birthday, he switched his tone and stated that Thorin need not reply if he no longer had the time of day for him.

Six more years passed, and he had not received another letter.

*****

aaaand because theres absolutely no way you could guess whats actually gonna happen in this fic just from the prologue, here’s a cheeky synopsis!

After years of lost contact, Thorin turns up on Bilbo’s doorstep with an awkward greeting and a dire warning. Upon learning about Gandalf’s uncharacteristically sinister plans regarding the ring, the hobbit and the dwarf king decide to take matters into their own hands. But are their hands the safest ones to carry the ring? (Spoiler: absolutely not).

#hope this at least intrigues someone lmao #if ive used a word/punctuation wrong PLEASE let me know i havent gone to school in 3 years #my fic #bagginshield #the hobbit #lotr

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beauzos · 1 year

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it's doooone :] i made a palette edit of the main section of Tazmily using the palette from the sunset version of Alec's house! i had to do a little custom coloring to make it work, but it turned out really well!! it's just such a pretty palette.

#psy's no punctuation posts #mother 3 #mother tag #tazmily #tazmily my beloved ....#it loooks so cozy this time of day #i wish they used that sunset palette for more than just Alec's house cause it's GORGEOUS #though Tazmily looks nice in every color palette tbh

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possibilistfanfiction · 1 year

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ava and bea, in a hospital

mother superion squeezes your shoulder gently and then takes her leave, the door clicking shut quietly behind her. it’s hard to get the image out of your head, on a horrifying loop: beatrice, blown backward by an explosion you hadn’t been quick enough to shield her from, her body hitting the wall with far too much force and your world turning to red as you ran, battle forgotten.

you scoot closer to the side of the hospital bed, where she’s so small, so human, wrapped in clean, white bandages, connected to way too many tubes and wires; you smooth down her hair, kiss her forehead, lace your fingers together, and then — everything in heaven and earth righting itself — she opens her eyes.

#wn #prompts #avatrice #yes i Will use the most insane punctuation to drag out those 3 sentences #sixth grade me would die trying to diagram this god bless

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apparitionism · 1 year

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Tabled 3

Hello yet again, @barbarawar ! I swear I’m not dragging this @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange out on purpose—the thing is, I always think, “This will be the time I make these loons get it together with reasonable speed,” but I’m (almost) always wrong. This third part follows part 1, in which Myka met Helena for that Boone-mentioned coffee and suffered its consequences, and part 2, in which more coffee caused her to suffer more consequences, leading her to decided that the only way to mitigate the suffering was to cut Helena out of her life, choosing to do so on a busy concourse in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Helena for some reason (tragicomedy?) responded to this idea by dousing Myka in coffee.

Anyway, this third part will in turn be followed by at least one more part, because god forbid they work anything out unwordily. (In semi-positive news, I don’t think this will extend to the seven-part opus I inflicted on my poor giftee last year.) (However: I should acknowledge also that, unlike the book Myka consults in this story, I can’t predict the future.)

Tabled 3

Myka’s head tilts down again, involuntarily, to behold her now coffee-stained shirt. Just as involuntarily, she then raises her head, and, yes, Helena’s still looking like she’s proud of herself. Proud and calm and at peace. Myka voices the bafflement in her head: “You... what did you do?”

Helena’s expression doesn’t change. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Obvious? Yes? “You threw your coffee at me?” Obvious but incomprehensible? “You threw your coffee at me... on purpose?”

“Yes,” Helena says, like it’s an accomplishment. “I can do that. I’m not a hologram.”

That’s true, and... good? Important? But... “But you ruined my shirt,” Myka says, which is objectively a fact. Even though the fact makes no sense.

Helena offers a tiny shrug. “So take it off.”

At that, Myka hardens: You don’t get to say things like that to me! she wants to yell. She settles for demanding, “Are you insane?” As the words leave her, she feels their carelessness. But they had come in response to the extremity of the situation, and that was all Helena’s doing. Your fault not mine, Myka thinks, in mulish self-defense.

Instead of objecting, Helena blinks a slow, condescending blink—a blink of I know you know better—and says, “The answer to that question depends entirely upon whom you ask.”

Nobody better ask me. Not right now. Reassembling her outrage, vowing not to fall victim to any impulse to protect Helena (from careless words or herself or anything else), Myka sputters, “I have to get back on a plane!”

Helena gestures, lazily, at the disaster she caused. “In that ruined shirt?” she says, now with a tsk-tsk, as if Myka is the one whose actions are inexplicable, given that they’ve landed her in this unfortunate situation.

“I loved this shirt,” Myka says, and it’s an embarrassingly, tellingly true statement... why did she let it escape? She’s wearing the shirt because of that love, which she feels because it enhances the green of her eyes in a very particular way, a way she has all along admitted to herself she’s hoped Helena would notice: notice and... maybe... regret the loss of.

But choosing to wear it was, she sees, yet another blunder, because of course she’s now the one doing the regretting. Of course she is.

“Did you?” Helena says, with one of those maybe-I’m-just-vain head tosses. It displays her neck. It’s probably intended to display her neck. “More so now.” She follows that with the challenge of a trickster eyebrow-lift.

Myka wants to strangle her, for all the reasons but mostly because she isn’t wrong. Because this shirt, even if the stain washes out, will always now be this shirt. Particularly if the stain washes out: if Myka wears this shirt, or even considers wearing it, on some eventual, otherwise unremarkable day, the this shirt of it will occupy her thoughts.

Hey book, she thinks in the direction of South Dakota. Look at me, predicting a future I didn’t see before today.

Calmly, now, she gazes at that future. She can live with this unspooling, because being reminded of Helena, having to process nostalgia, is something she knows how to handle. So many things in the course of a normal day spark a similar memory walk, and she imagines—no, she sees—that they always will.

That retrieval will always be that retrieval—matteringly large. That aisle will always be that aisle, a place of unfinal goodbye. Quietly, in the kitchen, that tea will always be that tea. Et cetera.

This airport, in fact, will now always be this airport.

This shirt will always be this shirt.

She looks down again; the coffee has fully reached her skin, and the entire scene—the increasing damp chill, combined with the initial splash as well as Helena’s words and face and neck and this familiarly angry need to put hands around that neck—it’s awakened her. And it’s awakened them, or Myka’s sense of them, the two of them together, that perfect entity: Wells and Bering, Bering and Wells...

Myka picks up her (surprisingly) unempty cup from the table and removes its lid. She then lifts her eyes to, and her own eyebrow at, Helena, who smirks. Myka tightens, brightens, and she flings her remaining coffee at the pristine, creamy expanse of sweater, surely cashmere, adorning the perfect body across from her. An uncanny joy floods her as the liquid hits—as a stain blooms, marring what was previously flawless. As, even better, Helena’s smirk enlarges into a smile.

But the moment has no chance to resolve, for they’re interrupted: Myka hears a throat-clear from behind her. Helena widens her eyes, then rolls them like some adolescent book-artifact. Myka, unclear on what that reaction says about who the intruder is, turns herself around... ah. An authority figure. A woman whose badge and uniform identify her as airport security.

“Ladies,” that authority says, tired and resigned, as if that Myka and Helena’s little coffee assaults barely even rank for her as inappropriate behavior but she supposes she’d better intervene before some overvigilant busybody attacks her for not doing what they see as her job.

“I’m sorry,” Myka starts, but that’s a knee-jerk remnant of table-lying. Or, no: hiding. In any case, she’s not sorry. Not at all. She closes her mouth.

“Ladies,” the careworn agent says again. “This is not the way.”

Not what Myka expected to hear. She swallows a laugh at how the words sound like advice from a parallel universe—one in which she and Helena are in couples therapy. The laugh tastes of regret.

Helena shakes her head. She says, with seriousness, as if the agent’s words were what she expected to hear (as if that parallel universe were this one): “I assure you, this is the way.”

And Myka can’t help but confirm, as she suspects she would in that other universe as well, “The only way.”

To that, Helena offers a beautiful, open affirmation: a soft-eyed, beneficent nod.

Wells and Bering. Bering and Wells.

The agent gives them her own eyebrow—pretty effective as chastisement, as far as Myka’s concerned—then makes them show her both their cups, ascertaining their emptiness. She says, again, “Ladies,” cautionary but also long-suffering, like she’s seen this exact scenario play out too many times. Myka finds her jaded view comforting: she and Helena aren’t singular. This isn’t once-in-a-lifetime; it’s over and over in everybody’s lifetimes.

The agent takes her leave, but she stations herself only a gate and a half away, communicating quite clearly that Myka and Helena—Wells and Bering, Bering and Wells—can’t be trusted.

Well. That’s certainly true.

Focused on each other again, they breathe and look for a little. The respite is heavenly. Myka stands in her coffee-spoiled shirt, looking at Helena in her similarly marred sweater. It’s the least complicated span of time she’s enjoyed in months. No: years. She is regarding someone, a non-hologram someone, she wants to regard, at momentary peace, with the next moment (at the very least, the next moment) undetermined.

“I’m so very relieved to have passed inspection,” Helena eventually says, breaking it.

The fracture threatens to let the complications back in, but Myka resists. “You know she’ll be watching to make sure we don’t go back to Starbucks for refills. Or even to a water fountain.”

Helena smiles. Myka feels no need, in that moment, to spare a thought for what the renewed winch of circumstance will bring. Their accord, in that moment, is full. It’s them.

Them, full, beautiful, but it’s not for keeping. This is one last hurrah of their beautiful connection—and it does warm her that Helena would take such drastic, security-attracting action to resurrect the feeling, to call it back into being, as this coda.

That’s all it is, though, for there is Giselle. And there is Pete.

Myka looks, one more time, down at her shirt: ruined. Up at Helena’s sweater: ruined too. Then she says it aloud, what she knows, in the wake of all the destruction: “It’s the end.” Then, because they might as well rule the day, she lists the proximate reasons: “There’s Giselle, and there’s Pete.”

“No there isn’t,” Helena says, enviably serene.

Also obstinate. Myka supposes she should have expected that. “Yes there is. I won’t tell you again.”

Helena’s eyeroll now is no less exaggerated than the one she produced in response to the agent. “Won’t you? Thank god for that. However, my disbelief regarding ‘you and Pete’ aside, my meaning is that there is no Giselle.”

Hope is a muscle, according to cliché. If that’s true, Myka’s will one day blessedly atrophy, for it will no longer be subjected to Helena saying things that make it expand. “You broke up?” she asks, unable to control a traitorous tremor.

Helena purses her lips. It’s distracting. “I should say yes,” she offers.

What does that mean? As Myka wonders, she watches Helena fidget: she has her cup in her hand again, and she’s picking at the label, which refuses to come free. Myka waits out the struggle, until Helena finally abandons the task and says, “I should, but I’m newly committed to pursuing a policy of truth. And the truth is, there is no Giselle. There never was.”

An involuntary “what” escapes Myka’s mouth. It isn’t really a word; rather, it’s her placeholder when she has no coherent response to... anything.

“I made her up,” Helena adds, unhelpfully.

“What,” Myka says again, low and quiet, and this time it’s holding the place of—holding her back from—a scream.

“In that coffeeshop in South Dakota,” Helena says.

Myka registers that she’s touching her wet shirt, wrapping her arms around it, seeking protection from... this. She removes her arms and thinks herself down: What is a rational response? She turns to a nitpick. “That’s... when. When you made her up.”

“Yes,” Helena says.

“But why. Why.” Myka’s arms want to move again, and she doesn’t stop them. They press her shirt cold against her. Cold, so cold.

Helena delivers yet another infuriating shrug as she says, “You wouldn’t connect.”

“I wouldn’t connect.” Nightmare, nightmare. Myka is slogging through a cold, wet nightmare: the dream-logic of it, of Helena saying that Myka did what Helena actually did, makes that so, so obvious. But obvious also is that it isn’t a dream; Myka is awake and confused and if she could just go to sleep maybe everything would be put back where it belongs, but probably not, because her shirt is coffee-sticky and she is tripping, falling, drowning, all these but awake, awake and still stupidly willing to partake of hope, that drug she will never, ever be able to kick.

“I said there was someone else,” Helena says, schoolmarm-severe.

How dare she. “I know. I was there.”

Helena does dare: she dares to look wounded. “Yes, you were. And yet you weren’t, in that you so obviously, so coldly, refused to entertain the possibility that ‘someone else’ might be you. Given that, I had to protect myself.”

Myka had thought it a nightmare only seconds ago—she’d had no idea how much worse it could get. She can’t in any way process that “might be you,” and certainly not followed by the “given that.” The consequences. She can’t. She forces out, irrelevantly, “So you made up your ‘new’ girlfriend right on the spot?”

“Yes. I suppose I took some perverse pride in being able to do so.”

Of course she did. It’s exhausting. “On the spot, you made up someone named Giselle?” Myka is offended by how... believable this is. How if this thing had happened—as apparently it had—this was its necessarily, entirely credible form.

“What?” Helena says, in that familiar there is no reasonable basis for your skepticism tone. “It’s a name.”

“But that’s the name you came up with?” Myka pushes, knowing she’s pushing—seizing on it as exemplifying the absurdity, as if by forcing Helena to make sense of that, she can make everything else fall into place.

Helena’s slight hand-wave isn’t a shrug, but it’s even more infuriating in its dismissiveness. “On the flight to South Dakota I may have read an article about the ballet.”

That’s “making sense,” in a very Helena way, but it sure doesn’t help. “Thanks, ballet,” Myka snarks.

“Does the name matter so much?”

“I told it to people.” And the people she told it to remembered it, because it was memorable. She’d been subjected more than once to Pete “joking” about Helena and her fancy French girlfriend. It had been awful.

“To people at the Warehouse,” Helena guesses. Presses.

Myka isn’t prepared to acknowledge that pain, not here, not now. “To my sister,” she says, because that is true, and, thank god, less painful.

“You told the name of my supposed girlfriend to your sister,” says Helena, not as a question, but with wonder.

Myka had. In a vague “someone I know” sense, in the context of supporting a contention that it was just fine for people to love who they love, and Tracy had been thrilled to connect it to ballet, so obviously everything was a stupid circle. “What does that matter?” she demands, though she has no right to be so defensive; she brought up that telling. Why had she? As a way of pushing the case for Helena’s wrongness in being so misleading... but Myka is now exposed as being overly invested in speaking about Helena... which she is, but... this is all going completely wrong again.

“You spoke of me outside the Warehouse.” Still with that tinge of wonder.

Myka has no way to counter that. Helena’s right about its significance. Myka sometimes finds herself desperate to speak of Helena, simply to savor the saying of her name, and when Steve or Claudia isn’t available or willing to indulge her, she calls Tracy. She tries a shuffle to the side: “I thought it was important. To you, I mean.” That’s a feint. “And I tell my sister about important things.”

“Such as your relationship with Pete?” That’s a taunt. Helena’s the one pushing now.

Myka wishes she could yield.... fall over, soft and easy, and let Helena win. Instead, what emerges from her mouth is an unhelpfully true “Not yet.” Helena smiles, and it’s mean, so Myka follows up with, “At least she’ll believe me when I do. She’s been on that team for a long time.” Now Helena squints. “The ‘men and women can’t be friends’ team,” Myka explains. “You know.”

“I don’t know,” Helena says.

History. Helena has offered a similar deadpan response, with that same dry emphasis on the “don’t,” just about every time Myka has said “you know” like this to her, and Myka used to find it charming. But she doesn’t want to start remembering patterns. Falling back into them. Not when she knows she’ll have to break them again. So she treats Helena’s objection as entirely literal, saying a pedantic, “Men and women can’t be friends without romance getting in the way.”

Helena literally turns up her nose as she says, “The grounds upon which to object to such an asinine generalization are many and varied.” Her upper lip then drifts in the direction of a sneer. “But you know that perfectly well. You know also that it doesn’t apply to you and Pete.”

“It does,” Myka says. It sounds pathetically petulant: an adolescent’s objection to a more-mature figure’s knowing judgment. Great. Now she’s the one aping the artifact-book.

“It does not. You are friends.”

“And then romance—”

“Got in the way? No.”

“Yes.” Myka hears herself say the word, knows it is yet more artifact-book puerility.

“Got in the way? No,” Helena says again, as if repetition is all that’s needed to cancel out Myka’s objection. Myka tries not to concede, even internally, that that might be true. “Occurred at all? No to that as well.”

“Yes it did! Stop making me say it!” Why can’t she just let this be? Myka let her be, back in Boone.

“If it had in fact occurred, you would be delighted to say it!”

That’s so true that Myka desperately wishes she could throw more coffee, or something heavier and more damaging, to get Helena to shut up. “Stop it!” she shouts, knowing that those words have no weight, that they won’t damage.

Surprisingly, Helena does stop it, and the pause rings in Myka’s ears, making her aware of how loud their voices have become. She dares a look around: passersby don’t seem to care, but the agent has turned to look at them disapprovingly again; she’s shifting her weight from foot to foot, most likely preparatory to drifting with intent in their direction.

Helena copies Myka’s gaze, then grimaces. “I don’t wish to be placed under arrest,” she says.

“I don’t think she’d do that. Maybe she can mediate.” The alternate-universe-couples-therapy theory certainly suggests that’s within the realm of possibility.

“I don’t wish to share our discussion with her either.”

Myka knows she shouldn’t ask what seems obvious. Knows, knows, knows. But she asks anyway. “What do you wish?”

Helena inhales and exhales, once and then twice, her shoulders and chest rising and falling, rising and falling—clearly she’s considering, and abandoning, a series of possible responses.

At last, she produces words: “To continue to speak together.”

Myka’s plane doesn’t board for another hour and a half. She can grant this wish. She says, “If we can just keep the noise level down—”

“In private,” Helena says.

“We’re in an airport.” Myka spends so much time in airports. They are so unprivate.

Helena swivels her neck around, as if seeking to confirm Myka’s statement for herself, then focuses on Myka again. She holds that focus, for one beat then two, and this time she obviously already has an answer in mind; she’s trying to pique Myka’s curiosity. Of course it’s working. If Myka could put her hands on that neck and be assured of forcing words from that intentionally withholding mouth, she’d do it.

But she stills her wishing hands, and at last, Helena relents. “An airport, yes,” she says. “But one that houses a hotel.”

Which brings Myka up short. It also opens a chasm. She entertains, for one morally evacuated second, the idea of being in a hotel room with Helena—and, worse, of doing what people do in hotel rooms with Helena. Then she snaps her spine back into place and says, “Absolutely not.”

“For privacy,” Helena says. “Nothing more. I swear it.”

Myka knows what being manipulated by Helena feels like. This... isn’t that. Or at least, it isn’t a “doing what people do in hotel rooms” sort of that. “Privacy,” she echoes.

“Do you dispute the notion that we have more to say to each other?”

In so many parts of the past, Myka’s answer to that would have been an immediate “no.” Now, she pretends she has to think about it—but Helena most likely knows it’s a pointless pretense. Myka gives up and says “no” out loud.

“And would it not be better, in saying that more, to say it freely?”

The answer to that is less clear-cut, despite what Myka would love to believe is sincerity in Helena’s eyes and voice. She would love to believe it. So much... so does that mean she should say no?

As she thinks about it, however, this has all the hallmarks of being another blunder. As foretold by the book. And really, who is she to think she knows better than a predictive artifact?

“Okay,” she says. “Hotel.”

TBC

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Tabled #B&W holiday gift exchange #part 3 #barbarawar #one B&W-interaction possibility of which the show cruelly deprived us #intentionally or otherwise #was how they might have behaved together in actual privacy #(I mean this mostly in a nonprurient sense)#I don't believe we ever witnessed that #(vaguely in Vendetta but not really)#(vaguely in Buried but not really)#although I could be misremembering #as the show itself has for me over time resolved into a series of peaks of beauty #punctuated by shovel-blows to the head #or maybe it's the other way around #anyway I'm saying my mental files are kind of corrupted

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