#And then also the thing of how much does the Narrator remember from each reset as well lol - some things! But not everything

[sysig]

String you up, tie you down (Patreon)

[nightfox67]

OT!Verse lore part 2 section 1 WOOOO! Roles:

So I'm having to break this part up as well to explain some things. In my multi-verse there are some things like Gods and magic. So it is a bit mythical but this section is mainly dedicated to the really important peices of the multi-verse. As always any fandoms that are mentioned here DO NOT belong to me. Only the persona's and their story.

Gods: So here the gods and we'll do each of them in this main post as well. Ebony, Virus, Phantom, Stardust (even though I don't exactly count him as a god), Narrator, Cipher and Reboot.

Ebony: God of creation and Chaos. He still uses creatio magic with paint and ink but the chaos comes from the moon magic/energy in the apple that he ate in Passive!Phantom's timeline. He's tasked with the stability of the aus and making sure everything doesn't go to shit. That also means spreading moon energy into other Aus in the multi-verse if they have to. Unlike what most people think he's more understanding of the fact that there needs to be balance of BOTH Sun and moon energy in the multi-verse.

Stardust: Now Stardust isn't nessacarily a god but they ARE very important to the multi-verse. Born from a combination of Sun and moon energy by the multi-verse itself; Stardust was made to help with the instability of the already unstable and broken multi-verse. Stardust helps to combat the overwhelming amount of moon energy in the Aus and the lack of sun energy. Now they also understand the importance of both energies in the multi-verse but sometimes struggle to remember that which doesn't really bother Ebony since they know Stardust is just a new being. They don't understand much of the concepts that the others do but they're working on it. They have arrows of pure energy that's colored like a pale yellow and lavender purple. Stardust doesn't really have a gender since they were born from the multi-verse itself. So they can appear either feminine or masculine or both.

Virus: Ah yes... God of destruction. He's tasked with destroying timelines that are far too unstable to exist in the multi-verse. He's semi-allied with Ebony and Stardust but mainly does his own thing. Trust isn't something easy to come by for the glitchy god but, he's working on it. He does know of Reboot but doesn't know how to approach him yet.

Cipher: Dream demon. Possesed by Bill in this AU he basically want to "Rewrite" the entirety of the multi-verse itself to create his own version of what it should look like to him. Obviously things don't go as planned because nobody NOT EVEN REBOOT agrees with him and Reboot is kind of an outcast (not exiled he just does his own thing like Virus but is more so anti-social hence why nobody really knows him). Anyways Cipher is the only one who's fully like "destroy the whole multi-verse and redo it."

Phantom: God of Moon energy and negativity. He wants to keep spreading the amount of moon energy throughout the multi-verse. Enemies of Virus, Stardust and Ebony. He doesn't fully grasp the concept of balance. How could he? He kinda lost that after he ate a Moon Apple. L lmao. Anyways, He is incredibly strong and can access multiple Aus if he has to but chooses not to use his full strength for reasons that go unkown... For now :).

Narrator: Not a God but like Stardust in a way, is an entity tasked with the stability of the multi-verse. Ebony trusts him with that and that only. Mainly because he has unorthodox ways of "helping" by rewriting timelines that don't exactly follow the story. He's not a villain by any means but he's more like morally grey. He sees it as an nessacary evil to keep everything stable which WORKS much to Ebony's dismay.

Reboot: .... Glitch entity. He's an Au that follow the timeline of Anti-septiceye except he's more of a "RESET" then anything. After the events that happened with his glitching and his throat cut. He found himself in the glitch sphere and with the "RESET" button. Unaware of what it may do and wanting to redo his past he hits it. While it DOES work it fucks up his code even more. Here Reboot isn't nessacarily as chaotic as he once was. He wants to start over but is massively unstable and doesn't want to cause anymore damage so he isolates himself. He helps with Virus and the others but that's about it.

Now I'm going cry over the next few hours TnT

[queenburd]

Disclaimer that the depictions of memory loss are probably not accurate to real life, I’m not researching this stuff I’m playing with tsp memory stuff. Woo.

Basic premise: the narrator wakes up and joins stanley for breakfast, having woken up without memory of their long term friendship and relationship, freedom, etc. he’s about as close to his original iteration as possible.

He has, however, woken up to find a journal on the bedside table written in his own hand, explaining the situation. This would probably be formatted as like bullet points that get revealed as the fic goes on. The journal explains that he and Stanley love each other, have escaped into the real world, and so on.

It also explains that they are not sure what causes the memory wipes, nor are the triggers to return the memories ever consistent. This written account ponders that it may be the parable attempting to return the both of them to the game, but there’s no solid evidence.

The ‘resets’ are inconsistent, it notes. Sometimes it only wipes his memories of their freedom but leaves his memories of the parable, sometimes it takes them all. Sometimes his emotions are all still there but without the context.

He can go weeks without losing his memory, and then wake up and have it wiped every morning for a solid month. Sometimes it’s more like a waiting game, where he knows his memories are gone and is just trying to find normalcy in the hours or days it takes to come back.

The journal reassures that even though this is a tough pill to swallow, to just try to trust stanley. And don’t try to pretend he remembers because Stanley can see through his lies.

The entire thing is written by someone far softer and happier than the narrator that sits at the coffee table across from Stanley. Stanley greets him good morning, asks how he slept—and can almost immediately understand what’s happened based on the way the narrator sits stiffly and avoids his eyes and stares at the table.

Stanley is gentle with him. He makes coffee for him that the narrator challenges, assuming it’s poisoned or something. Stanley raises a brow and sips at it. The narrator finally drinks at it and finds that he adores it, it’s disgustingly sweet. Yes, fine, alright, even if he feels like a different person than the one who wrote the journal, his tastes are the same.

Stanley rolls his eyes and gags belatedly because goddamn his husband likes his coffee too sweet. It’s disgusting.

They talk a little bit about this. The narrator expresses that he doesn’t like the idea of being so utterly dependent on Stanley, nor does he like the thought that Stanley is doing this to get the narrator that remembers back.

Stanley explains with infinite patience (the patience of a man who has had this conversation many times before) that the narrator isn’t dependent on him, nor is Stanley doing this to get a specific version back.

They do this as a team. Everything they have ever done has been as a duo, even if it is fighting in the parable. This is no burden on Stanley, to keep his narrator with him. That’s what love is, anyway.

“Every moment that we make a new memory is more than worth the work,” he says.

He says.

(“I do,” he whispered—“narrator!” He screamed—“I love you,” he laughed—“Marry me?” He asked—)

It’s overwhelming when the memories flood back and it’s exhausting to know he’s had this exact conversation again. The narrator can see Stanley’s micro expressions in retrospect and can see how this is so hard on him, and how he’s so resigned to it.

But once the narrator recovers from his emotional outburst from having years worth of love and hurt and heartache shoved back into his brain, he and Stanley have a nice long cuddle.

Another conversation that the narrator knows they’ve had before, and the fact he keeps making them do it makes him wince, but he hates doing this to Stanley. He loves him so very much, and even now after all these years, the narrator can’t stop hurting him.

It’s not his fault, Stanley reminds him. And he meant what he said, that it’s nothing in the face of new experiences together. Stanley will do this forever if he has to.

The narrator chokes. He doesn’t deserve this man. He loves him.

Stanley takes him back to bed. (Insert jokes here about reminding him how good the sex is or something. I… am not immune to two fictional characters fucking.)

[gaegalsyd]

Only for you

Summary: The children conducted a mini talent show

I read a talent show thing somewhere and my dad's been binge watching talent shows then I thought of mphfpc. And do I have unfinished stories? Yes. Will I write random stories instead of finishing those? Also yes.

Time is a precious thing, especially for Alma. Everything must be on time and not one second should not be wasted, but this does not mean not having time for amusement. This is why when Alma told you that it would be good for the children to do something fun, you immediately agreed.

During breakfast, all the children are already talking about what they plan to do for the day when Alma clears her throat to gather everyone’s attention. Before speaking, she looked at you with a little smirk on her face, then you nod to her.

“Children, miss y/n and I have talked last night and thought you might want to have more time to do something fun later this day” this was responded by excited cheers from the children which prompted you to speak with a grin “you all need not to be that excited” then the excited cheers turned to small laughs.

“Can we go to the beach, Miss Peregrine?” Olive asked

“We should have a picnic!” Claire exclaimed, then each of them shared their thoughts on what they should do instead.

Alma looked at you as if asking for some assistance which you responded with a playful shrug and a smirk. You may be considered as the second of the house, but you still leave the decision making to Alma as the ymbryne of this loop and the main caretaker of the children. You are just happy to support her in every choice she makes.

“I’m afraid that we will not have enough time to prepare for a picnic or going to the beach, I guess we can have a mini event instead” Alma said with nothing but gentleness in her voice. You really do adore seeing her being so gentle and loving towards the children.

The children agreed and talked about what they plan to do and they ended up agreeing to do a talent show. “What if we do a talent show but we can’t use our peculiarities?” Enoch voiced out which was immediately agreed to by everyone “And you’re not exempted to this, miss y/n” Enoch added with a smirk that caused another simultaneous agreement. When you looked at Alma, she was already looking at you and was failing to hide the smirk on her face and when you feigned a pout, she just shrugged as well. The two of you were the only ones to know about this small interaction of sorts and the “butterflies in stomach” never stops. This woman will be the death of you.

After breakfast, the children scrambled to finish their chores so they could plan for their mini talent show. You saw Alma in the backyard looking over the twins, you stood beside her and said “the children seemed happy with your idea” she looked at you with a smile and held your hand “you know how they can be sometimes, I am just glad to see them so happy” And you knew that you are being overwhelmed with happiness as well just by seeing her and the children happy “I cannot wait what they will be doing”.

The thing is, you will never exchange these kinds of moments for anything in this world and you may have meant that literally. Your peculiarity to feel if someone is being genuine with what they are saying allows you to pass as normal but you decided to stay in this loop after falling in love with it and to the woman sitting beside you.

After a few hours of continuing your tasks, you went to the library to have some alone moments that are needed when you have to deal with children for the whole day. Millard approached you to tell you that everyone’s already in the parlor and that the event will start any moment.

You went to the parlor and saw that the chairs are arranged the same way when they are having the movie except there is a space in the middle. Some of the children sat on the floor while you noticed that they had made a space for you and Alma to sit on the couch. Millard and Fiona stood in the center of the room, both holding a brush and using it like a microphone.

“Welcome everyone to our talent show! I will be one of your hosts for today and I am excited to showcase our talents.” Millard may be invisible but you can feel that he must be smiling widely. He was immediately followed up by Fiona “And what makes this talent show different is that, we must try our best not to use any of our peculiarities.” Millard started walking around and stopped behind you “Now, let me introduce our special guest, Miss y/n” Even though being a little surprised, you stood up and gave a wave that caused some giggles and after sitting down Millard continued “And of course, Miss Peregrine!” Alma just gave a small smile to the children, but the children seemed to be satisfied with it.

“For our first act, we have the twins!” Fiona introduced and then moved to the side. The twins performed a dance and they did it so synchronously that everyone applauded after they performed. The next to perform is Claire and Bronwyn who both sang joyfully, some of the children even sang along to the lyrics of the song. Horace followed with narrating a poem he wrote. Millard performed with his jokes that made everyone laugh not because it was funny but because of the cliche in every joke. Emma did some magic tricks that were definitely enjoyed by everyone, especially by the younger ones. Fiona showcased her talent in painting some flowers. And for the last act, Enoch, Olive, and Hugh made a skit of their everyday routines in the house, which everyone related to and laughed at.

“And of course, for our final show we have Miss y/n!” Millard announced and everyone, including Alma started applauding. You looked around in confusion but Enoch just said “we did agree that you are not exempted” then you turned to Alma to ask for some help but she just leaned to you and whispered “it’s your turn dear” you had no choice but to just sigh

You did not have any idea what to do as you stood in the middle of the room but when you looked at Alma, suddenly she was the only one you could see and it was as if seeing her again for the first time and wanting to confess your adoration towards her. And so, you knew what you could do and you started singing a song that you wrote, not looking away from Alma.

The simple thought of your name

Sends my heart to a delirious beat

And that look in your eyes,

I would trade for nothing

I was not one who understood

poems, love stories, and romance

But then you looked and smile at me,

I knew I can fill empty pages with love,

And that my soul will always remember.

After you finished singing, the children clapped and you walked slowly towards Alma feeling a little breathless as if you confessed your love to her all over again. But you’ll never tire of telling and showing her how much she means to you, you’ll never tire of seeing her look at you with so much adoration with her cheeks blushing and her eyes brighter than usual. When you reached her, she kissed your cheek that caused you to blush and it made her chuckle and the children are all smiling at the both of you knowingly. You thought that she must have been moved by what you sang, for her to kiss even just your cheek in the presence of the children is a big deal. However, you would not wish for her to take it back so you just smiled at her as a way of showing her how happy you feel.

The show ended with a standing ovation from the children and after the loop was reset, everyone turned in early. You and Alma still had to finish up some things such as tucking the children in and making sure that the house is secured. And as usual every night, you are cuddled with Alma in the bed you are sharing when a thought came up in your mind and you look at her “Why was I not exempted but you are?” which earned a small laugh from the ymbryne, she looked lovely when she doesn’t have her headmistress facade, you thought. “It was the children’s idea, my love” and you just joked to her saying “at least tell me you enjoyed my singing to make it worth it” and another small laugh from her but before saying anything, she kissed your forehead “I loved it” and you just hummed in response for you are already feeling the sleepiness.

But before you succumbed into sleep you heard a whisper from Alma “I love you”. And you may have been too sleepy to respond, but you knew that she was being genuine with her words and your heart felt full. And of course, you also knew that you love her too, with everything that she is and will be.

[smells-like-mettaton]

Tali’s Alphys-Centric Fic Rec List

I’ve been meaning to make this for a while!! All fics are oneshots unless marked as a series or with a chapter count.  Thanks to everyone who recced several of these to me on my 12am begging-for-alphys-fics post dfdksdl. These aren’t in any particular order. The “notes” section is my commentary about each fic. No fics are based on full AUs (ex. underswap, horrortale, etc). The only endgame Alphys ship included is Alphyne, though most of the fics listed are gen. Hope you can find something you enjoy here!

Extra Credit by FriedCatfish

Rating: G // Word count: 1,206 Summary: Undyne loses track of time watching anime. Set before the events of the game. Notes: Cute Alphyne oneshot! Short and sweet, very nice characterization

world comes pouring through by feralpheonix

Rating: G // Word count: 1,655 Summary: Alphys reunites with some old friends on the way home from taking care of business. Notes: 2nd person Alphys pov but it surprisingly works? A small moment with Alphys, Bratty, and Catty, which I literally NEVER see content for so it was really refreshing!! Takes place at/near the end of the pacifist route.

white lies to the dead by MiniNephthys

Rating: T // Word Count: 580 Summary: Alphys walks through Waterfall, talking to someone who's not there. Notes: Queen Alphys ending; Alphys “talks” to Undyne after she’s been killed. Hits me right in all the emotions ;;

Found Soul by LibraLibrary

Rating: T // Word Count: 1,331 Summary: Self-worth is a slippery, fleeting little devil, and the bastard flower that killed you isn't helping. Takes place during the final fight of the True Pacifist run, following Alphys from one purgatory to the next. Notes: Very angsty, definitely make sure you’re ready to handle Alphys’s suicidal thoughts, but a very good read! I love seeing the Lost Soul battle from her POV.

And I Feel Fine by Masu_Trout

Rating: T // Word Count: 1,685 Summary: The fallen human is human is fast approaching The Core, and Mettaton is ready to finally take the stage. Now, if only Alphys would stop worrying so much. Notes: Alphys & Mettaton friendship in the no mercy route, but manages to be surprisingly not depressing. Mettaton POV but definitely still deserves to be here. This fic does a great job of characterizing them both and it’s always great to see Alphys working in her element.

Experimentation by pickledragon

Rating: G // Word Count: 1,531 Summary: Alphys is, above all, a scientist. She may watch anime with religious fervor and make horrible Undernet shitposts in her free time, but she is good at her job. She knows what they say about her, behind her back. But when she stands there, time open before her, she resolves to collect data. Each experiment, intentional or not, brings new opportunities to change certain variables and observe others. Alphys is a scientist, after all. Notes: THIS FIC. it’s technically part of a series but it stands on its own (it’s the only one i’ve read by this author). EXCELLENT alphys characterization and writing style. Some Sans & Alphys friendship too which is always stellar. If you didn’t gather from the summary, it’s an alphys starts to remember resets fic.

Memory by Ash_yeet

Rating: T // Word Count: 19,962 // Chapters: 5/20 Summary: It's been two years since monsterkind have joined the humans on the surface, and Alphys is happier than she's ever been. But things can't stay great forever. She starts having nightmares, lapses in memory, flashbacks to things that have never happened. She hopes it will pass... sans is doing his best to adjust to life. When Alphys reaches out to him about her nightmares, he doesn't expect much. He quickly changes his tune. Someone is trying to come back. And they aren't what they used to be.sans and Alphys are trying to move on. But there's one thing they forgot: No matter how hard you try, you can't run from your past. Notes: I’ve only read chapter one so far, but it’s been really good! Looks like it’s going to involve Gaster in some way. Says it’s on short hiatus but was updated in April so doesn’t look abandoned.

Hot and Cold Blooded (Alphyne series) by perniciousLizard

Rating: varies by fic, usually G but a few T and one E // Word count: 36,516 // Works: 18/18 Summary: This series is a place to put all my Alphys/Undyne stories that aren't part of another series. Notes: this series has something for everyone; you can pick and choose which works to read. Most are feel-good fluff and humor, some hurt/comfort too. Some connect to the author’s Sansby series (which i also can’t recommend enough)

When Life Hands You Enantiomers by Kaesa

Rating: T // Word Count: 2,739 Summary: Alphys has a half-finished tile maze puzzle, reams of useless data, and a bunch of piranhas that can't tell the difference between lemon and orange scent. Sans has donuts. Notes: ONE OF MY VERY FAVORITES. Fun puns, science, alphys & sans friendship, piranhas, the opportunity to actually understand organic chemistry references,, it’s so good and fun

Friendshipping by AyuOhseki

Rating: G // Word Count: 4,564 Summary: Sans finds Alphys's secret Sans/Grillby RPF. This won't get weird or awkward or anything, we're sure. Notes: Hilarious Alphys narration, great characterization, it’s just so silly and warms my heart. I love terrible fanfic writer Alphys

social links by simplycarryon

Rating: G // Word Count: 2,525 Summary: Friendship's pretty neat, or so your video games and anime dictate. But you are not an anime protagonist, and you're not sure you know what friendship is any more. Notes: more solid sans & alphys friendship :D

See You Another Time by decamarks

Rating: T // Word Count: 18,500 // Chapters: 1/14 Summary: “Have you ever thought of a world where everything is exactly the same... Except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you.” Alphys spent a lot of time thinking about what it’d be like to start over. It wasn’t fair for someone like her to escape consequences. She knew that, yet the thought never left her mind—the thought that maybe, just maybe, she could get another chance; that she could abandon her life, her failures—everything—and start anew. But that would never happen. Sometimes, Alphys wondered. Would the world be better off without her? When unexplainable anomalies appear and begin to warp the world around her, Alphys discovers something she was never meant to know: the identity of the former Royal Scientist, and how he met his demise. Doctor W.D. Gaster vanished without a trace; he was erased from reality after an experiment ended in disgrace. Forgotten by the world, shattered across time and space—it’s like he never existed in the first place.And Alphys can’t imagine a better fate. Notes: This is a monster of a first chapter but definitely worth the read!! So much good stuff happening already. I’m a total wuss but I still love the cosmic/existential horror bits going on so far. Great Sans & alphys friendship and Undyne & alphys friendship so far.  All the amalgamates also feel incredibly well written. Can’t wait to see more of this one

(And here are a few of my own Alphys-centric fics as well)

Seventh Time’s the Charm by Taliax

Rating: G // Word Count: 1,519 // Chapters: 1/7 Summary: Six bad "dates" Alphys has been on, plus one that is actually pretty good. Notes: Alphys is my favorite and I love giving her a bad time. First chapter is a “date” she has with Sans. Next chapter which I have in progress is going to be Papyrus. (Alphyne is still endgame of course.) Set mostly before the events tof the game. Get ready for lots of second-hand embarrassment sdlfkjds

Support Character by Taliax

Rating: T // Word Count: 1,814 Summary: If Sans is determined to fight the human, Alphys is going to make sure he's prepared. Notes: Sans & Alphys no mercy route friendship, based on the headcanon that Alphys was the one to give Sans the powers/magic he uses to fight the human.

it's your best life (if it's the life that you're living right now) by Taliax

Rating: T // Word Count: 4,046 Summary: Through messages saved to Sans's phone, Queen Alphys gets a glimpse at lives that might have been.  With so many possibilities... how did this timeline go so wrong? Notes: Sans & Alphys friendship, Queen Alphys ending, mostly angst/hurt/comfort. I’m really proud of this one and it uses my main headcanon for how Sans knows about resets.

The Trans-Underground Alphys-Carrying, Match-Making Road Trip by Taliax

Rating: G // Word Count: 5,713 Summary: From her secret security camera, Alphys gets too invested in Sans's relationship with the voice behind the door.  This wouldn't be a problem if Mettaton didn't decide to take her ship into his own hands. Trying to catch up with a battery-powered robot is hard work, but telling the truth is even harder. Notes: This is a really silly fic with some hurt/comfort sprinkled in. Has some Soriel and Papyton in the background. Has some Alphys & Papyrus friendship as well which is always underrated in my opinion.

[undertale-in-writing]

Undertale In Writing: Page 2

You feel as though years have passed while you stood there, staring at the flowers. Though it's only been one heavy moment.

You take a deep breath and kneel down to pluck a flower from the ground. You tuck it behind your ear. You stand and turn to gaze into the darkness. Something warm fills your chest, not entirely unlike when Flowey revealed your SOUL. Just to be sure, you look down. There's no glowing, only calm... fullness. Stubbornness. DETERMINATION.

You felt something like this when you woke up before, but it was uncertain, confused. Now, it's fully taken root. You turn and begin to follow the path you took previously. Not like there was any other path.

Flowey appears again in a blink of light. You take note this time. He seems to be glowing. It's magic. All magic has a slight glow, and all monsters have magic. I can't think of any flowers down here that glow like a monster, though; echo flowers glow, but those are bioluminescent. And he doesn't smell like a normal flower.

The familiar face is still for a moment, then he breaks into a grin. “Howdy! I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower! Hee hee hee...” He tilts his head slightly, humor in his voice now. “Why'd you make me introduce myself? It's rude to act like you don't know who I am. Someone ought to teach you proper manners.”

You frown, because you're still not sure what happened. He killed you, didn't he? Was he the reason you were placed back at the start? I feel like it's more than that, but how come he remembers you?

No time to dwell on it. The golden flower begins following the same script as before. He opens the battle stage, refers to your heart. “That's your SOUL,” he says, as if you hadn't heard this before. He introduces LOVE, and he pulls out his bullets. “Down here, LOVE is shared through... little white... 'friendliness pellets.'”

You frown. Why is he telling you all this again? You know it, and he knows that you know it, and he should see from your expression that you know he knows you know it. Your lips purse. You want to say something, but you can't bring yourself to speak in this moment. The energy required is currently being used to prepare for what comes next.

“Catch as many as you can!”

You jump the side. The bullets dart by you and dissipate in the air a few feet back.

Flowey's expression changes. He holds onto the smile, but now it's challenging. Almost taunting. “Hey, buddy, you missed them. Let's try again, okay?”

You ready yourself, mind racing over how you might get out of this. Maybe you can outlast him?

The bullets shoot into you, and this time you can hardly react. They make contact. Your heart pulses, your feet slide back an inch, there are holes in your sweater and blood and bruises and it hurts.

But you're not in pieces. The wounds are shallow. You try to stand tall in defiance, but there's a pain in your shoulder that makes you wince, and you realize that you're very weak.

Flowey laughs. His face contorts into an evil smile that frankly does not belong in 3D space. “You idiot,” he cackles.

Your mouth opens in protest; a sound comes out—a soft, “I'm not—!” but you have to clamp it shut. Your face reddens.

Flowey continues. His voice is different. Somehow, he's made it sound like he's speaking through a crackly intercom. He says, “In this world, it's kill or BE killed. Why would ANYONE pass up an opportunity like this?”

A chill runs down your spine. This flower... isn't a monster. Monsters aren't like this. Monsters aren't evil.

“DIE!”

A ring of bullets form around you and come flying at your tiny torso. All you can do is yelp and curl into yourself. You're going to die again. You're going to hurt again. He's going to tear you apart.

There's a crackling sound, and a fwoosh. You glance up. A ball of white-hot fire hits the flower in the back of the head, and his roots are torn from the ground as he flies off into the darkness with a small “eep.”

Suddenly, you're alone. It's dark. You're confused. Disoriented.

Annoyance floods your brain. You'll probably be nonverbal all day now.

You push yourself to your feet, flinching when a shallow cut on your stomach pulls sideways. The battle stage is still there, but you can't feel Flowey's presence anymore. Something else looms from where the flame originated. Fiery red eyes bore into you from the darkness. A shape emerges, tall and fuzzy. A pair of small, sharp horns curl up from the top of a long-eared head. A snout exhales with annoyance.

You see the monster's dull claws at eye-height. The sleeves of a strangely familiar robe fall over one paw as it's drawn to the monster's hip.

“What a terrible creature,” she scolds, “torturing such a poor, innocent youth.”

Her voice is gentle. Familiar. Comforting. Motherly. You tilt your head again to look into her eyes, and she bends down to bring herself on your level. Now that you see her face head on, she doesn't look scary anymore. Her ears are soft and floppy, her horns small, her smile friendly, her eyes kind. She looks like a concerned goat mom, if goats were... What's the word..? Anthromorphic?

“Do not be afraid, my child,” she says softly. “I am Toriel, caretaker of The Ruins. I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down.” She pauses, and you realize that the battle stage is gone. There's color in the world again, and your heart is in your chest where it belongs.

Toriel smiles and stands suddenly. “You are the first human to come here in a long time.” Her robe flows loosely as she reaches down with one paw. “Come! I will guide you through the catacombs.”

You don't take her paw. Toriel isn't fazed by this. She turns ninety degrees and gestures into the darkness. “This way.”

Page 1 — Page 3

 [End page]

We made this blog almost two years ago and never followed up, so here’s page 2. We’ll try to continue it indefinitely, even if it takes a while. It’s still very much something we’re interested in.

Rules:

This is an interactive Undertale adaptation, not an AU. All actions taken must fit into the game. Obviously I’m taking little liberties with the reset system, but nothing is changing. If you want your response to be included, it shouldn’t change the plot. It’s about informing a player character’s decisions and, to an extent, Frisk’s personality.

You don’t need to follow some kind of format or command system. Your response can be in a comment, a reblog, a reblog of another’s reblog, a comment continuing another’s comment… It can short or long. It can be a suggestion or a narration.

The readers, together, are the player character.

Some time will pass, and we will take all responses as a vote. Common actions will become “canon,” and the story will continue. Influential commenters will be tagged, and anything we directly quote will have credit immediately after the section.

Commenters last round: @thesuperduckling24​, @finallycrawledoutfromundermyrock​, @thepotatoreader, and @arireblogthat​

If threads form of various players writing out their own alternate timeline, that’s fine too! There are no restrictions in how you respond. No need to limit yourself to what you think I’ll write down.

Headcanons that we’re using to include as much flavor from the game as possible:

We’re running with the Chara as narrator interpretation, because the tone of the narration is a major part of the experience. It may come out more in the future, but we’ll never name them. We will also adhere to the canon that their personality going forward is influenced by the player character’s decisions.

The one thing we’ve decided about Frisk up front is that they are semi-verbal autistic. Nothing extra will be inserted; it’s just a framework we’re using because it’s a consistent guide to explain some very video-gamey behavior -- like the sparse implied dialogue, the fixation on smells, and apparent disregard for low HP. (We’re autistic ourselves and will be pulling from our experiences.)

I’m adding these under each page so that you can use these narrative frames if you want. Happy writing.

[yo-namine]

Some scattered thoughts about Melody of Memory. Spoilers galore under the cut.

So I want to start by saying that I did read the spoilers ahead of time, and that the reddit leaks made everything sound a bit worse than it actually was. But even after having watched everything in-context... It’s still kind of a mixed bag, lol. And I haven't finished the actual game yet, so this post is mostly just about the twenty or so minutes of story development that I spoiled myself for.

Anyway:

The look on Kairi's face when she realizes she's about to be told to stay behind again 💔💔💔💔 And I'm sorry, but I have to rant about Riku for a sec: Remember when he laughed at Sora for wanting to help save Aqua in KH3, putting him down in front of not only their friends but also the master Sora was still trying to prove himself to? And then Sora had to save him from Anti-Aqua anyway? And then he spent the rest of the game bailing Riku (and everyone else) out of trouble? Did Riku not, I dunno, learn something about underestimating his friends there? And now he's totally fine with Kairi getting left behind yet again because apparently she just isn't good enough to help him? He really thinks it’s better to go into this other world all by his lonesome with 0 backup? Also, what do you want to bet that Riku's gonna get another level reset in the next game and have to relearn everything, meaning he and Kairi would've essentially been at the same skill level anyway? And the irony won't even occur to him? Oi. I’m just really not interested in the next game being Dream Drop Distance 2: No Dialogue for Women Boogaloo. Base KH3 left me feeling like that’s what we’d get next, but I went and let Re:Mind get my hopes up for something better. Bloop. 🤡

And how much more training does Kairi need at this point? Sure, she’s not a master, but I think KH3 showed (intentionally or not) that that title really isn’t worth much. And I know that whole thing was just an excuse for Nomura to spare himself the ordeal of having to write anything substantial for an icky girl, but Kairi was apparently good enough for memory!Xehanort to remark on her skill, and she did solidly kick the real Xehanort's ass in Re:Mind. The only pre-keyblade training Sora and Riku got was smacking other island kids around with sticks, and then miraculously they were both totally capable of fighting full-fledged monsters. Uh???? Anyway, Kairi's essentially right back where she started in KH3. I do like that she specifically asked for Aqua, and I guess it's something that she's at least studying under a real master now, but I'm not going to get my hopes up for anything major coming out of this just because I know this series too well.

One thing I did really like, though, was that scene between Kairi and the memory!Xehanort. The two of them actually getting some dialogue together was exactly what I wanted from Re:Mind to make their battle feel more personal.  And during their fight in MoM, Kairi's actually pretty inventive with some of her moves. Like there are two instances where Xehanort grabs her keyblade, and she escapes by dismissing her weapon and resummoning it to attack. She also makes to strike Xehanort right in the back the same way he did her in KH3, which I thought was a nice detail. But part of their conversation sort of seems to contradict what we learned in Re:Mind, doesn’t it? Xehanort here states point-blank that he "destroyed” her because he knew what Sora would do to save her. So... Which is it? Did he "crystallize” Kairi because she was a PoH that he could use should his main plan fail, or did he really just straight-up kill her to get to Sora? Or maybe Kairi never learned what he actually did to her in the Graveyard, so this memory!Xehanort is just speaking based on what she knows? Hm.

Anyway, Sora then shows up to take Kairi's place in battle after Xehanort knocks her down. And I get that they wanted some big surprise to throw in this game, and I won't lie, it is kind of sweet to see that Sora's still looking out for Kairi despite not physically being with her anymore, but considering the fact that Kairi doesn't get any boss fights in this game? lmfao come on. Why not just have Kairi fight the battle with Kingdom Key instead? That way, the whole point of the scene can stay in-tact without robbing her of a battle that should be hers to fight. As much as I liked seeing Sora and hearing his theme kick in for a second there, none of that should have been at Kairi’s expense. Let the girl have her moment, ffs.

At first, I thought Xehanort’s “Now I’m certain of where your heart is” line was saying that Sora’s heart was within Kairi’s, but I think he’s really talking about Quadratum here. I guess since Sora and Kairi’s hearts are connected, he can show up like that to save her (if she’s in the Final World, anyway) from wherever he is? Or something? But if that’s the case, could her connection to Sora have potentially served as a bridge to Quadratum in the same way Nameless Star did? I dunno, I feel like Sora appearing was a really big deal, but no one even talks about it afterward. It’s weird. Anyway, if it actually turns out that Kairi’s connection to Sora can be used to track him down, that’s going to be hilarious. Imagine Riku getting to Quadratum and then realizing he ditched the one person who was already in touch with Sora.

I do have to say that I really like Christopher Lloyd as Xehanort, though it can be a little jarring at times just because I keep thinking I'm listening to King Graham. And while Hayden Panettiere will probably always be my favorite Kairi VA, I liked Alyson Stoner's voice in this game. Her narrations were nice to listen to.

Other positives things: Uh......... I still love The Final World’s title card. And music.

Oh, and I thought it was really cute how excited Riku and Kairi were to see each other in the lab. The way they hurried toward one another made me think they were gonna hug, but alas. 😞

So, uh. Yeah. I’m still looking forward to playing through the rest of the game, but knowing that it all ends with Kairi getting put on a bus yet again is a pretty lame pay-off. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[kittenfemme27]

Bastion: What it means to truly move on.

“Someday, your bird is gonna fly.”

Bastion is the first game released by what is now the critically acclaimed Supergiant Games, makers of other games like Transistor, Pyre, and most recently Hades. But back in 2011 they were a nobody. 7 developers from various backgrounds within the industry came together to make games that could focus on storytelling first and foremost more than any of their previous studios would allow. Bastion was the result of that. Starting out from the idea of a top down isometric RPG, Supergiant realized that they wanted to portray a world that was fractured and broken, and wanted to show the vast and empty sky as a contrast to that destruction, but realized the camera angle wouldn’t allow this. So they came up with the idea that the ground would come up in front of the player as they walked forward, allowing the empty sky to show beneath them since the groundwork would not originally be laid until the player walked towards it. To explain this choice and why the world reacted this way, a destructive event known as “The Calamity” was created in the game's story. Thus, Bastion found its ethos.

Bastion’s a masterpiece. Plain and simple. It's been ported to nearly everything under the sun for a reason, being playable on literally 3 different console generations as well as every OS a PC can run, but coming back to play this game for the first time within the current political and geological climate that we find ourselves within as time goes on only makes it more and more apparent how much the story has to say. Even if you could somehow ignore it’s absolutely incredible music, insanely varied and addictive and yet delightfully simple gameplay, jaw dropping art direction and set pieces, Bastion’s storytelling is at its core and the story it has to tell is one that I think a lot of people didn’t fully appreciate back in 2011. From what I could find online, most people either ignored it in favor of the gameplay, or let the meaning of it glaze over them. And that's really, deeply a shame. Because Bastion is one of the best games I have ever played. And I’d like to talk about why.

Gameplay:

“Kid just rages for a while...”

I want to start first and foremost by talking about the gameplay and how you engage with the world. Combat in Bastion is simple and not exactly groundbreaking. An isometric hack ‘n’ slash with 2 weapon slots and a single ability, with a shield that has a parry mechanic and a dodge roll with fairly lenient invulnerability frames. Player movement is very, very slow which encourages you to very quickly become proficient in dodging and blocking. It’s fun, for sure, if just a little bit easy. But it’s nothing to write home about at first. As you play, though, you’ll begin to uncover Bastion's hidden depth and variety within its combat. A lot of that depth comes from the sheer number of Weapons, Upgrades, Passives, and Skills you can equip in any combination. 

You are given 11 weapons, each of which can be upgraded with collectibles found within the levels for a total of 5 times per weapon, and these upgrades form a loose “trees” of upgrades that you can switch between at will. You can make the Spear better at critical hits and critical damage and faster thrusts, or make it better at throwing with more spears per throw, for example. Every single weapon has a 2 distinctive upgrade “Trees” in this way that clearly make it better at one specific aspect of the weapon, but you are free to mix and match these upgrades as you see fit. Maybe you want the Spear to have a high critical hit rate, but also throw 2 spears per throw, you can do that. It’s also worth mentioning that there are no restrictions placed upon you on what type of weapons you want to take. You can take two melee weapons, or two ranged weapons, whatever combination you desire is up to you. The narrator even has a line for literally every combination you can have that you’ll hear upon exiting the armory. Some compare you to legends of yore from the game worlds past, others point out just how plain silly it is for the Kid to carry both a mortar launcher and a rocket launcher.

Each weapon also comes with two skills that you can use during gameplay, ranging from protective skills like one that makes you block all attacks for a few seconds, to damage based skills such as the Bow’s skill that fires a ricocheting arrow between enemies. Even then, there are other Skills that are tied to no weapons at all which brings the total of skills in the game to 30.

In addition, there’s the Tonic system in which each level up confers a slot that you can equip a drink from the bar, for a total of 10 at max level. These function as passives applied to your character that allow even further customization. Some are basic things you’d expect, such as overall more health, or more restoration or ability potions, a flat 15% damage resistance, and so on. A number of these however offer a very very strong benefit in exchange for a side effect. Werewhiskey, for example, gives you a 100% crit rate but only below 35% health. Doomshine offers a permanent 10% crit but takes away 10% of your health permanently. Or Leechade, which allows you to gain health from striking enemies, but makes your health potions only 1/3rd as effective. These can all be stacked upon each other in any order or combination. You choose and be changed at any point between missions..

All of these systems together enhance the very simple hack ‘n’ slash combat to be something with infinitely more depth than presented to you at first glance, and something that you can experiment with as much as you want, since no choice is permanent. Part of the way it encourages you to experiment are the Weapon Challenge missions that crop up each time you obtain a new weapon. They ask you to complete some sort of challenge related to that weapon with no Skills, no other weapons, and in some of them not even the ability to dodge or block. Besting these will net you 1 of 3 prizes, depending on how well you did, With the first two prizes being upgrade materials and the last being a Skill for the weapon the challenge is based on.

Beating Bastion unlocks a “Score-Attack” version of New Game+ that keeps a running overall score during the whole game and during stage specific score for each mission, with a multiplier and a timer to keep that multiplier up. This effectively turns the game into a leaderboard chasing isometric arcade game. Every enemy adds 1 to the multiplier, and resets the timer, so it's up to you to run through each mission as fast as possible and challenge yourself to see what kind of score you can get, and since it lets you replay any mission you want, you can always find ways to get a higher and higher score. One of my playthroughs of this game was on the PS Vita and even since beating it, I've found myself trying to one-up my own score while i’m just sitting around since each mission only takes about 10-20 minutes. The most challenging content in the game is a set of 4 different repeatable combat arena’s with 20 waves of some of the toughest enemies in the game. You can make this even harder by invoking each God within the games Pantheon and raising the difficulty of every enemy you encounter. Doing this raises how many points you get per kill, and in these combat arena’s I’ve regularly topped a million points in just a single stage from precise gameplay.

I think that’s what I find amazing about Bastion’s combat is that despite 3 playthroughs, I never once found myself bored or annoyed by any of it. All 3 of my playthroughs had me switching up Weapons, Upgrades, Skills, and Tonics between every mission just to experiment and see what crazy builds I could make. Every challenge was always a delight and a real test of skill, every mission a romp where I got to find a new weapon and play with it each time. Often, I would die, but that was fine! Losing in Bastion is fun. It’s part of the experience, because you can always go back and change your build to whatever you desire to try again. In a way, it’s fitting for the entire theme of the game. It’s the End of the world, and there are no more rules. Do whatever you’ve gotta do. Might as well have fun with it, while you do. 

Art & Sound:

“I suppose all that's left... is to try'n remember this moment.”

I think the other reason that I didn’t get bored on any of my 3 playthroughs of Bastion was the absolutely breathtaking art and music the game features. The soundtrack, composed by Darren Korb, clocks in only at an hour and while that does sometimes mean that there are repeats of songs, I'd be lying if I told you there was a single song on that score that I didn’t absolutely love. Or that I thought was out of place during any section of the game. Each and every song is its own radically different soundscape that, in songs like “Brynn the Breaker”, invokes a feeling of complete and utter destruction around you and a sense of leaning into that destruction. It’s fitting that the first time this song plays, you are almost assuredly going to hear the line “Kid just rages for awhile...” as you wreck each and every enemy and object around you after waking up on a floating rock in the sky.  Meanwhile, in other songs such as “Build that Wall”, it's clear that Supergiant was acutely aware of the impact their music could have on a scene. In Caelondia, the games world, “Build that Wall” is a jingoistic anthem meant to inspire the Cael by noting the danger they face from the outside world and from the Ura, a people who live to the east, and implores them to build walls to keep everyone else but keep themselves safe. But the first time you hear that song, you’ll be rolling through the dilapidated ruins of Prosper Bluff, a place overrun by birds ready to rip you apart and barely hanging together by literal boards between each floating island, and not a wall in sight. Guided only by the simultaneously soothing and haunting voice of an Ura girl singing the theme of the people who hate her. In that moment, it sounds much more sorrow and sad than any anthem for a nation ever could.

Darren Korb has stated that the point of Bastions music was meant to invoke a sense of the “American Frontier”, of exploring new and uncharted land, but it’s interwoven with melodic and slow moments of tragedy and despair, featuring lots of slow acoustic guitar and lots of slow vocals when there are any at all. I really cannot praise enough this choice of frontier-ism interwoven into the music itself, as it sells the entire theme of the game perfectly.

The art of the game is just as fantastic, too. Supergiant set out to make sure you could see the sky in a top down game, which sounds a little absurd and like a nearly impossible feat, and yet they succeeded with such aplomb it almost seems like it was easy. Below each stage is a blurred barrage of trees, nature, clouds, sky, sometimes ruins within those things, it reminds you constantly that the world has ended and nature has reclaimed it. Progressing further and further down the set of missions and further away from the Bastion and Caelondia sees you going more and more into what's left of those wilds and away from the ruins of civilization, before reaching the icy peaks in the east of the Ura. It creates this feeling of loss and tragedy at what's lost, a sense of exploration into this new and unknown world, before finally getting to it's cold center as you get closer to the truth of the Calamity.

In general, the art style of Bastion feels like a living breathing oil painting. Features on people are exaggerated with small bodies, yet large heads and eyes and hands or feet. Making them feel like something out of a children's book. Every single thing in the game is full of color and life, down to the animals and the foliage, with the only notable exceptions being the ruins of buildings that are oppressive and gray, and the final cold reaches of the Ura’s leftover ruins. Because of the oil painting aesthetic, the narration, even the surreality of the world coming up before you, Bastion feels a lot more like playing a fairy tale than anything else I've ever played, even things that have tried to emulate that same effect. Bastion reminds us that the presentation of a game, in both its art and its music, tell just as much about the story and the world of a game as the actual story itself does.

Story: (Spoiler Warning)

“Now here’s a kid who’s whole world got twisted, leaving him stranded on a rock in the sky.”

Bastion is a game about a lot of things, but at its heart, it’s a game about Tragedy. A tragedy you can’t prevent no matter what you do, because it has already happened. Setpieces in the game constantly remind you of this, like going through the Hanging Gardens, a place where people used to gather and finding nothing but ashen corpses. Rucks, Bastion’s narrator, will even tell you the names of these people. I remember playing this game in 2011 and being upset at this. I wanted to know about Maude the Tutor, I wanted to hear the life of Percy the Snitch, but I couldn’t. That was the tragedy. It didn’t register with me at the time, but that was the point. I was supposed to be upset I couldn’t know these people, that they died in a tragedy I couldn’t prevent. 

The core story of Bastion revolves around a war that took place some 50 odd years ago. Caelondia and her people, versus the Ura. In the modern day, before the calamity, the war was over. There was an Ura named Zulf who was trying to broker peace, even. But the Caelondian’s military-science division, the “Mancers” had a secret weapon. One they intended to use to get rid of the Ura for good. It would cause a genocide of the very land the Ura lived in and cause it to literally fall into nothing, ripping apart the physical earth where it stood before. Worse yet, this weapon was being created by an Ura inventor that lived within Caelondia named Venn under threat to his daughter, Zia. Venn couldn’t stand to aid the destruction of his people and sabotaged the weapon that ushers in the Calamity with vengeance in his heart, so that it would backfire and take Caelondia down with it. Imagine Venns shock, then, when the mancers asked him to pull the trigger.

Turns out an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Just like that, the Calamity has already happened. The Ura who were discriminated against in every part of Cael society and the racism and cycle of vengeance and violence within the Caels and the Ura reached a boiling point that caused the literal end of the world.. And that’s where you wake up. In a world already torn apart and crumbling before you. On a rock in the sky.

Tragedy permeates everything about the game. In the Hanging Gardens, you find Zulf as he’s about to kill himself after watching his Cael wife crumble to ash right before his eyes. When you meet the second survivor, an Ura singer who just so happens to be Zia, Venns daughter. She’s mournfully singing the tune of Caelondia that was the anthem used to inspire the Caels to oppress her own people, and her sweet voice sounds like the dying breath of an entire nation. Bastion makes it very clear that these people's lives as they knew them are over. But then Bastion asks you a simple question: You have to keep going, so what are you going to do with that world?

Before you get to make that choice, though, you’re asked to decide the fate of a man who hurts you. Zulf at one point reads the journal of Venn that he obtains from Zia and learns everything about the Calamity. He learns about the Mancers plan to genocide his people. He learns about Venns sabotage. Zulf spent his entire life advocating for peace between the two peoples, and this is what he’s met with. Unable to stand it, he attempts to destroy the Bastion and flees after injuring Rucks. As you chase him, he lures you far from the Bastion and sends the signal to an entire army of Ura survivors to attack the Bastion, even persuading Zia to come with him to try and convince her to abandon the Bastion. In the end, though. You chase him all the way to the heart of the Ura nation and as retaliation for bringing someone so powerful who kills so many Ura, the Ura forces attack Zulf and leave him for dead. You come across his body and are given a choice to either leave him and carry on, or take him with you and abandon your weapon. You’re asked right then and there, can you forgive someone who hurt you and your chance at fixing the world and break the cycle of violence? Or will you press on, like Venn, with vengeance in heart. If you choose to save Zulf, you walk forward with zulf on your shoulder through multiple Ura archers shooting you nearly to death. It’s only once they realize that you’re trying to save Zulf do they stop trying to attack you. This moment of compassion, this breaking of the cycle, inspires the Ura to let you pass. If you choose not to save him, you must battle an entire army, which isn’t even hard for you at that point. It’s a bloodbath. You, a Cael kid from nowhere, end the last of the Ura outside of Zia who knows so little of her culture that she can’t even read the journal her father left over. You succeed where the Mancers failed. The cycle of violence remains unbroken within you and within your heart.

You’re given two options upon returning to the Bastion at the end. You can use the power of the Bastion to reset the world to where it was before the Calamity. You’ll lose all your memories, but everyone and everything that died will be okay and alive again. There’s a risk, though. Rucks has no way of knowing if this plan will work. If it will prevent the Calamity in the end. “Problem with a machine that sets things back to a bygone time,”  he says, “Is that you can’t test it.”

Your other option is Zia’s choice, though both her and Rucks support whatever decision you make, they know it’s not an easy choice. Her plan is to turn the Bastion into a floating island ship that can travel anywhere. To forge a new world and look for survivors on other floating islands and carry on in this destroyed world and find hope within that tragedy. Make something new, and beautiful, from the ashes of something dead. Maybe that’s not possible, she thinks, but it’s better than recreating a world with institutional violence, with cycles of hate and vengeance, a world where something like the Calamity could happen in the first place.

Supergiant knew what most people would pick, though. Resetting seems like the only real choice, at first. Maybe the Calamity will happen again, maybe it won’t, but you can’t just let all those people die. The whole game has been building up to fixing the Calamity. Rucks, old and clinging to the past, is sure that resetting it will work and that things will be okay again. He’s a bit like a father figure to you, too. He’s narrated every action you took, made sure you were never truly alone in this ruinous world. So of course you trust him. An overwhelming amount of people chose to reset the world the first time they play. I did, too. I knew that maybe the Calamity would happen again, but I couldn’t just let everyone die. Maybe things would be different, I thought. Maybe this time people won’t let something like a genocide happen again. Maybe Venn won’t pull the trigger. I didn’t know, but it was better than letting everyone die, right? It had to be. I had to hope that I made the right decision. So with trepidation in my heart. I chose to reset everything.

Rucks comforts you when you choose to reset that “No matter what happens next... you done good.” Credits roll. You see pictures of the lives of each character in the reset Caelondia. The lonesome Kid continues his work as a mason on the wall built to keep the Ura out, where he isolated himself after losing everyone in his life. The only person to ever sign up for 2 tours on the Wall. Rucks continues his work on the Bastion, refining it for the future, meaning that there’s still a need for a safeguard like it in the first place. Zia plays a concert on her harp with a mournful look on her face, she found comfort in music but that comfort was equally as isolating and lonely, what with her being an Ura girl in Caelondia. Zulf gets married to his fiancee, blissfully unaware of the impending genocide on his people while he fruitlessly brokers peace. Upon seeing these credits, these images of the lives of these characters, I knew I made a mistake. History is going to repeat itself. Sure they were alive, and so was everyone else, but the cycle of violence remains unbroken and eventually, even if the Calamity that befell the world the first time doesn’t happen again, another will. Rucks final words in this ending are a simple forlorn goodbye. “So long kid... Maybe I'll see you in the next one. Caelondia... We’re coming home.”

Choosing this ending left me feeling anxious at first, and then hollow and empty. I didn’t save anyone, I just clung to the past. I expected things to be different in a world where something like the Calamity could happen in the first place. I knew, then, that for there to be any hope at all I had to move on from the old world. I had to do right by Rucks, by Zia, even by Zulf. They were my friends. They deserved better, they deserved more. They deserved a world without the conflict and violence that Caelondia brings. I understood even more clearly what I had done when, upon starting a new game, Rucks final words echoed over the loading screen. As far as I could tell, the Calamity had happened again. Rucks even makes comments of feeling a sort of deja-vu while retelling the story and is much less confident resetting will work the second go around, for a reason he just can’t quite explain.

Bastion is a story about tragedy, about generational trauma left over from a war, about the cycle of violence and all that it perpetuates. It’s a story about waking up in a world that has already crumbled and fallen apart through no fault of your own and being told there is nothing you can do about that destruction. And there isn’t. Climate change is a bigger problem now in 2020 than it ever was in 2011. People are going to die, it’s just an awful fact at this point. Those in charge continue to ignore that fact and these issues while also continuing to stoke the fires and flames of the impoverished and destitute more and more every day, bleeding them dry for any pennies they might have. 

But that’s not all Bastion has to say. It’s not fair for the next generation just like it wasn’t fair for the Kid, to wake up in a world already destroyed, and yet still, people like the Kid and Zia found hope. Within Bastion, you can save Zulf and end the cycle of violence, you can choose Zia’s option and set out on a world that is better for everyone in the end, as ruined as it is. Even in the end of the world and everything you knew, there is hope. Bastion doesn’t just ask, it begs on hands and knees for the next generation to take up this dying world and make it better. Bastion, and Supergiant, believes in the next generation. that it's possible to move on from the past and make something better, to seize control and make a better world while purposefully never forgetting the cycles of violence that led us to the end of the world in the first place. Our great Calamity is already unfolding before us and there isn’t anything we can do to stop it, only delay it. Bastion tells us that it's okay, that we can make something beautiful, and new, and better from those ashes. 

In the scene for the Evacuation ending, Rucks tells us that he’s not sure how to live in a world like this, but he’s willing to learn. And excitedly offers to help teach you how to fly the Bastion through the skies. The very first image you see during the credits then, is the Kid finally collapsing of exhaustion and resting while Rucks tucks him in. The next is Zia looking forward on the deck of the Bastion, a smile on her face and hope in her heart. You get to see Rucks later teaching the Kid how to fly the Bastion, finally giving the Kid the family that he so desperately needed, and finally you see Zulf. He’s got a frown on his face, he’s still lost everything in the Calamity after all. More than anyone. But he’s chopping food for everyone else still, helping out where he can. I couldn’t help but think upon seeing his expression that he might hate me for the rest of my life, and that was alright. I’d always just be happy he was alive. Seeing the smiling faces of everyone in the Evacuation made something very clear to me. In the Old World, Zia was an outcast, Zulf was a fool, Rucks was nostalgic, and the Kid was alone. In the Calamity, they found friendship, they found happiness, they found love and family in each other, they found adventure and they found hope for the future. Zia’s final words to the Kid echoed in my head:

"Any moment I'd want to live again... happened after the Calamity. Not before."

And I was at peace. I knew I had done the right thing I had chosen to move on, accepting the world for what it was and not looking for miracle solutions to fix it or change it, but to forge on ahead with what I had and make something better. 

Bastion’s story is not directly told to you, especially after the ending. There is no epilogue that tells you exactly what happened, just a few lines of dialogue that you can make of what you will and some pictures of the lives after your choice. it’s never explicitly stated that the Calamity happens again if you choose to reset things. It’s meaning is in between the lines that Rucks has to say. It’s In the subtext. It's in the art, it's in the environment, like the tragedy of finding nothing but ashen corpses around a lone peace talker right before he’s about to jump to his death. It’s in the music, like the haunting melody of an outcast’s voice singing the song of her oppressors while never realizing how much the very city she was raised in tried to exterminate her. But more than anything it's in the feeling you get while you play. Bastion’s story plays out in your heart as much as it plays out in your mind and on the screen in-front of you. What you feel, what you make of it, that’s just as important to the meaning of the story as what you’re hearing and seeing. Obviously this can be said of all stories, but Bastion is maybe the one that’s resonated most in my heart and in my soul more so than any other story. It offers no simple answers, no painless choices, and no easy ways out. Move on, or cling to the past, those are your only two options and Bastion forces you to make a choice.

In the end, I chose a new world. A better world. A world with my friends that would never let the cycles of violence and the generational trauma that caused the Calamity to happen again. Sure, resetting technically brings everyone back to life, but it wasn’t until I chose to move on and move forward that I felt I could even say in my heart that I’d saved anyone at all. 

Conclusion: 

“I dig my hole, you build a wall.”

“Build that wall, and build it strong, Cause we’ll be there before too long.”

Bastion is, and I'm not saying this lightly, a perfect game. The gameplay loop and combat is phenomenal and addicting, the music and art and aesthetics are so top notch you could honestly create an entire art style out of them all on their own, the storytelling is amazing and has so much to say that I cannot believe something this important was just thrown out by an indie studio nobody had ever heard of while it was only 7 people strong, and how many people slept on it or completely missed the point of the tragedy of Caelondia and the Ura. 

This game will live in my heart for a very, very long time and its music and messages it conveyed will stick with me even longer. My only regret with Bastion is that I’ll never get to experience it for the first time again. But, even with the spoilers here, you can. Play it, Kid. You won’t regret it.

“We can't go back no more. But I suppose we could go... wherever we please.”

[mittensmorgul]

Today on the TNT loop, a wonderful direct callback to 15.09 and 15.10, via 4.15, 4.16 and 4.17...

I need to start out by reminding everyone that the entire purpose of s4 was to manipulate Sam and Dean into “playing their roles,” even before they knew their roles existed as roles. Cosmically fated to act out a specific story for the entertainment of a bored God. Remember, they’re about to learn of the existence of “Chuck the Prophet” who’s been writing their lives down, in explicit detail, and publishing them as a series of pulpy horror novels. Hooray, 4.18, up next for me.

But I really need to pause here, because the sort of manipulations that Sam and Dean suffered through in 15.10, while I’ve already pointed out a lot of other “silly” episodes they referenced:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190430063655/mittensmorgul-episodes-i-expect-1510-to-remind

I’m gonna now add 4.17 to that list, too, because holy HECK.

Remember the setup to this episode? 4.15 and 4.16 both? Where Dean had been DIRECTLY MANIPULATED into stopping Alistair from breaking another seal-- to “kill death twice” by ritually murdering two reapers-- a hunt that Cas “tricked” Sam and Dean into taking on by literally making them think that Bobby had sent them on that hunt.

Then 4.16 used Uriel to manipulate both Dean AND Cas into believing they needed to torture information out of Alistair. The goal was to break both Dean AND Cas here, because Uriel knew all along that Alistair was literally just a distraction, a diversion from his own actions, recruiting angels for Team Lucifer and murdering those who refused to join him. But also breaking Dean’s will to just... do what he’s told. Because Dean himself was never destined to be anything more than a tool to Heaven, a vessel for Michael to wear to the apocalypse. Of course, Dean didn’t know any of that yet, and neither did Cas. He knew Dean was “important,” but truly didn’t know why. 

At the end of 4.16, lying in a hospital bed, Dean felt hopeless:

Castiel: It's not blame that falls on you, Dean, it's fate. The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it. You have to stop it. Dean: Lucifer? The Apocalypse? What does that mean? Hey! Don't you go disappearing on me, you son of a bitch. What does that mean! Castiel: I don't know. Dean: Bull. Castiel: I don't. Dean, they don't tell me much. I know our fate rests with you. Dean: Well, then you guys are screwed. I can't do it, Cas. It's too big. Alastair was right. I'm not all here. I'm not—I'm not strong enough. Well, I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be. Find someone else. It's not me.

Tell me this isn’t super similar to his state earlier in s15. Let’s say... at the beginning of 15.06, holed up in his room in his bathrobe, bingewatching tv shows and eating cereal directly from the box. By the end of the episode, he still wasn’t sure what was real and what was Chuck’s doing in his life, and he’s absolutely right to question that, given his lifetime of experience being manipulated in exactly this way by higher cosmic powers.

In 4.17, that higher cosmic power was Zachariah, literally giving Sam and Dean alternate memories and directly inserting them into entirely different lives to prove a point. In 4.17, the Winchesters had their lifetime of knowledge of the Supernatural excised from them-- and even all the practicalities of hunting like “how to buy guns,” and “how salt can repel ghosts,” and “how to fight.” Throughout the episode they were forced to re-learn all of these skills for themselves, ironically using Ghostfacers videos about ghost hunting that directly referenced information that the Ghostfacers had learned from “The Winchesters.” Very much like how the Winchesters were “depowered” in 15.10, and yet... they were saved because of their prior relationship WITH GARTH, in which they had not only saved Garth’s life a couple of times, but had also learned things and imparted knowledge and information TO GARTH in the past. 

I guess what I’m attempting to point out here is the direct parallel to Chuck’s active manipulation of Sam and Dean in 15.10. They may not have had their memories removed like Zachariah did to them, but they’ve been reset to a similar sort of “baseline” status where NOTHING they do actually works this time. It’s... it’s almost a perfect inverse of 4.17.

Literally the episode leading up to the first appearance of Chuck The Author in canon.

Tell me Dabb isn’t explicitly suggesting an inverse parallel here, framing everything as Dean’s CHOICE, when it’s been one grand manipulation to pressing him into making that choice through any means necessary-- up to and including direct deceit and false narrative:

Zachariah: Believe me, I had no interest in popping down here into one of these smelly things. But after the unfortunate situation with Uriel, I felt it necessary to pay a visit, get all my ducks in a row. Dean: I am not one of your ducks. Zachariah: Starting with your attitude. Dean: So, what? This was all some sort of a lesson? Is that what you're telling me? Wow. Very creative.

and

Zachariah: I know, I know. You're not strong enough. You're scared. You've got daddy issues. You can't do it, right? Dean: Angel or not, I will stab you in your face. Zachariah: All I'm saying is it's how you look at it. Most folks live and die without moving anything more than the dirt it takes to bury them. You get to change things. Save people, maybe even the world. All the while you drive a classic car and fornicate with women. This isn't a curse. It's a gift. So for God's sakes, Dean, quit whining about it. Look around. There are plenty of fates worse than yours. So are you with me? You wanna go steam yourself another latte? Or are you ready to stand up and be who you really are?

Zachariah KNEW the bigger plan all along. Here he showed Dean an “alternate life” that was entirely manufactured to be a “false choice.” Dean, because of who he is as a person, would never have chosen that corporate falsehood. Just like he rejected Zachariah’s intended lesson in 5.04. And Gabriel’s lesson in 5.08.

Dean... doesn’t want to play his role. His role sucks. It’s a river of crap that would send most people howling to the nuthouse, after all... oh... wait, that’s a direct quote from 5.09, aka another episode where Chuck is directly involved, and directly manipulates them into a hunt... Dean... is not a fan...

But... we also learn something that I still think is true, and that I still think is IMPORTANT to s15. And important to Chuck as a character on this show we’re watching. I really don’t think he’s omniscient. I don’t think he can actually see every possible outcome. I don’t think he can control everything. But I think, and will always think, that because of Free Will, his ability to truly influence the outcome of his story is hindered. Unless he can use everything he CAN manipulate to crush Sam and Dean’s free will... to force them into making choices directly against their own interest, because of their perceived situation, or in this new post 14.20 universe, Chuck’s perceived intent for them.

Sam and Dean (and Cas! remember this was also about his discovery of the “rot” in Heaven, and how he himself had been used and manipulated into helping start the apocalypse) spent s4 thinking they were doing the right thing, because they’d been lied to from the start. When they questioned their path, questioned each other, their actions were met with often comically implausible verging on outright ridiculous situations that nudged them back into this cosmically “destined” series of events.

And Chuck’s history of this is directed at Sam and Dean in different ways-- Sam through the psychological manipulation and emotional angst, and Dean through physically hindering him. Chuck needed to break Sam’s trust in Dean, and replace it with the false belief that he was actually doing the right thing back in s4:

SAM: Dean’s not... he's not Dean lately. Ever since he got out of hell. He needs help. CHUCK: So you got to carry the weight? SAM: Well, he's looked out for me my whole life. I can't return the favor? CHUCK: Yeah, sure you can. I mean, if that's what this is. SAM: What else would it be? CHUCK: I don't know. Maybe the demon blood makes you feel stronger? More in control? SAM: No. That's not true. CHUCK: I'm sorry, Sam. I know it's a terrible burden – feeling that it all rests on your shoulders. SAM: Does it? All rest on my shoulders? CHUCK: That seems to be where the story's headed. SAM: Am I strong enough to stop Lilith tonight? CHUCK: I don't know. I haven't seen that far yet.

Chuck needs to break Sam’s will in 15.09, but Dean? Dean he needed to break his car, break him physically, and break his belief in his own choices and actions. Break his belief in his own identity. Because Dean’s will is not so easily shattered. He’s still willing to punch God in the face, for all of this.

And that’s how we end up with 15.10...

bonus destiel content: Dean’s very first prayer to Cas, ever, is asking him for help to stop Chuck’s prophecy from coming true. Dean question’s Cas’s “mission,” i.e. the thing Dean is unaware Cas has been questioning himself all this time, in the face of Dean’s refusal to just sit around and wait for Chuck’s prophecies to happen to them. Cas supplies him with the bit of information Dean needs to interfere and break the prophecy. I’ve written about the importance of that act before:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/187983341865/i-always-thought-anna-said-only-an-angel-can-kill

(and it bothers the everloving fuck out of me that people still don’t see that Chuck is a flim-flam artist of the highest order, and is the most unreliable narrator in the history of unreliable narrators, because not only is he biased to his own view of the story, he has the power to make the story conform to his own views, even if he can’t fully control each of the characters like glorified puppets)

and then Lizbob has also written about this scene and its import:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169437649690/elizabethrobertajones-dean-cas-are-in-love-a

which is incredible when paired with Dean’s most recent prayer to Cas in 15.09, not about a problem he needs help fixing, but directly about their relationship... to quote Layla from 1.12, speaking on the subject of prayer, there’s a miracle right there.

[justfor2am]

steven universe the movie au but it’s sanders sides

I’m calling it the Thomas Universe AU! 

(creative, I know)

okay but hear me out

anyone who is human irl is still human in this au...this would take place in FL where Thomas lives, and this goes with the assumption that the sides are real and his friends + family know/can see them. patton + deceit appear unconventionally, and i know it wouldn’t make sense for the canon sanders sides universe rules, but i’ve already disregarded most of those so...

also, i know it wouldn’t work EXACTLY like the movie obvs and some stuff would have to be left out (like the diamonds....sorry babes) 

also also I’m sticking a cut in here because i just realized this is gonna be a long one

Characters

Steven/Pink Diamond: Thomas (I’ll explain the PD later)

Garnet: Roman + Remus except it’s the opposite of a love story; learning to love themselves “unfused” as individual creativities (no remrom here please)

Amethyst: Virgil (i considered him as Pearl and you could make a case either way, but song-wise this works slightly better)

Pearl/Pink Diamond: Logan (see above, you could also make a case for him as Amethyst, and I’ll explain the PD later)

Bismuth: JayisJo (because i love them)

Lapis: Joan

Peridot: Talyn

Spinel: Patton + Deceit Fusion (yes, i know i know. i’ll explain)

Plot

Thomas is his best self, healthy, happy and surrounded with friends + family. They’re in the middle of fixing up their new office (Little Homeworld), and home (Thomas’s Apartment) is stable. The sides are all getting along, even as insufferable as Remus can be.

In this universe, Patton + Deceit were never thought to be “real” like the other sides. Whereas Thomas would film using his actual sides, he and Joan “invented” Patton and Deceit for the series’ storyline. They were, accidentally, repressed to the back of Thomas’ mind, and finally through their feelings of abandonment, come forth as one fused side called “Ethos”.

Ethos plants a bug in Thomas’ mind that would repress all of his sides back into his mind. He wouldn’t be void of personality, but it would hurt, and ran the risk of contaminating his friends. Since his friends don’t have sides, it would drain their personalities instead, and it’s a race to get Ethos to stop the bug.

Title Character Backstories

Steven Universe is self-explanatory enough, title character yada yada. Thomas also being Pink Diamond is meant as a younger Thomas, more so as a symbol of immaturity and also because I didn’t want to use Thomas’ actual mom because that literally wouldn’t have worked. 

(For Logan, see Songs: Drift Away)

“Garnet” would have been the result of the great Creativity Split. Roman and Remus, once expected to stick together as one side, have learned (sort of) to co-exist with each other. In this universe, Thomas has accepted Remus (after a lot of wor) and the two creativities are more brotherly.��

“Amethyst” would have been a reflection of Virgil’s time with the “dark” sides. Young and impressionable, him learning to accept love from the “light” sides and be himself despite the fighting between the two halves.

“Pearl” is a call-back to Logan’s quickly shifting from “Teacher Guy” on Vine to “Logic” in Sanders Sides. He felt his only purpose was to help Thomas; any emotions he felt were meant to be disregarded.

“Spinel” as a Patton + Deceit fusion still has her original stretchy powers, because with Deceit’s constant usage of shapeshifting and Patton’s joking manner, it just makes sense. They have Deceit’s Director!Patton Disguise, with four arms and two eyes, one blue and almost constantly tearing up, the other Deceit’s snake eye. There’s a monocle on the blue eyes, and small patches of snake skin. They also have a top hat, because snazzy.

alternatively: pick whichever fusion of them that @fangirltothefullest​ drew because that’s kinda the best way to visual them. 

Weapons

• Instead of a scythe-style Rejuvenator, Ethos have a collapsible staff that can be split in two, each half with a long, thin blade inside. Swiping the sides with a blade does the same as a Rejuvenator + plants the “bug” in them. For Thomas, it only plants the bug.

• Roman uses his sword, and his shield to launch Remus in the air for attacks. Remus sticks with his morning star. Neither have future vision.

• Virgil doesn’t have a weapon, his “power” would be speed and darn good punches. He still has his “tempest tongue” ability, when his anxiety is extremely high.

• Logan has a shortbow, but is not above straight up wacking people with it.

Songs

Let Us Adore You:

Since I don’t have a Diamond equivalent, this song only really matters during its reprise.

Happily Ever After:

Moves the plot from Thomas’ house to “Little Homeworld”. Logan is being taught the bass by Jamal at his house (Logan is summoned by Thomas to the office later). Thomas drives to the office and talks to Roman and Remus, who’re play-fighting and writing scripts. 

He walks into a room to be stopped by Virgil, because he was about to step into a can of paint. (This is one of the unfinished rooms). Joan, Tayln and Jay are there too, helping out. By the end of the song, Thomas is standing outside with all of his sides, enjoying the sunshine and being happy.

Other Friends:

Ohhhh boy. Ethos monologues at them for a bit, perched up on a lamppost. Logan recognizes them (this will be important later). They’re clearly unstable, and the sides get ready to fight. 

Ethos uses their instability to their advantage, fusing and unfusing quickly around them to avoid getting hit. Ethos also uses their rubber powers to throw Logan into the air and letting him fall, trapping Virgil in a tree, and knocking Remus’ and Roman’s heads together. He finishes it off by scaring Thomas and pushing him into the ground, jumping back on the lamppost.

They all regroup, in pain, and after Thomas’ obvious lack of recognization, Ethos is only more unstable, yelling. He pulls out the staff and poofs the sides. Thomas manages to poof Ethos as well, but not without getting hit first.

system/BOOT.PearlFinal(3).Info:

We have this nice intermission where we see all of the sides “reset” and Logan narrates as his episode 1 self. Here we see Remus and Roman fuse automatically, without showing their individual forms. They pose still and quietly, without their individual quirks. Virgil forms as his Pre-AA self, bitter but also quiet, looking very nervous and trying to blend in.

Ethos reforms, but not fused. Deceit and Patton are both happy and friendly, acting like a Spinel-duo. Patton specializes in jokes + puns while Deceit does more physical humor. Deceit’s outfit is white instead, and he has no hat. Patton’s outfit is is original cardigan one. Patton and Deceit also finish each others sentences.

Thomas beings to notice the bug affecting himself, stinging him occasionally.

Who We Are:

Thomas is moping around while Jay, Joan and Talyn try to help figure out a solution. They set on the plan to make them all remember who they are.

Isn’t it Love?:

Remus and Roman accidentally unfuse, and they both feel a breath of fresh air. Neither of them have a proper “form”, and they take the song to pick out who they want to be. While they’re both much happier apart now, they still don’t know themselves.

No Matter What:

One of my favourite songs from this movie, and the key reason why Virgil would work better as Amethyst. Thomas takes Virgil back through his memories, showing him the music he used to like, how to sew, and they retake the sorting quiz together and talk about it.

Thomas puts on a few Halloween movies and Virgil starts to come back. He goes to stand in his corner by the stairs, and Thomas runs up to his room and gives him the ‘famILY’ card. With that, Virgil comes back.

Disobedient:

I don’t have as much to say here, but for funny purposes Logan “belongs” to Jamahl.

Independent Together:

A Thomas/Jamahl duet, they don’t “literally” fuse, but they’re still singing together. Logan remembers who he is and duets with Virgil. It’s a sweet moment.

Drift Away:

Ohhhh boy (part 2). Deceit and Patton are singing over each other here. The “Garden” is Thomas’ mind, and Logan/a younger, immature Thomas are Pink Diamond. Inadvertently, as Thomas was maturing, he wanted to put silly, childish things behind him. Logan, acting as his Logic, realized that meant Ethos, and went to “put them away”.

He told them Thomas was growing up, and that he would come back to them soon. But Thomas was young when this happened, and he soon forgot about them. Deceit is the one to pose the question: “Is this how it works, am I doing this right?” Patton is unwilling to ask such things, not wanting to doubt Thomas.

They stay there, mostly silent together. They see Thomas grow up, but never the other sides after Logan, because they don’t know the two are stuck back there. Patton keeps making excuses for Thomas, that he’s not ready yet, that he’ll be back soon.

The tipping point is when Deceit’s “character” is introduced. Patton was more than happy to excuse his own “character” into the Sanders Sides Series, but Deceit wasn’t. Upon seeing himself, and hearing Thomas and Joan talk as if Patton and Deceit weren’t really there, broke him.

Deceit called Patton out for excusing Thomas’ behavior, and grief breaks over him. With Deceit’s anger and Patton’s sadness, the two fuse into Ethos. Deceit wants revenge, Patton wants answers. While Deceit is the stronger of the two in the fusion, Patton does have his moments of fronting.

Found:

Thomas talks to Ethos, offering him a place in the Mindpalace again, and apologizing. Ethos takes him up on the offer, Patton clearly fronting. He turns off the bug in the sides and in Thomas.

True Kinda Love:

Remus and Roman finally come to themselves, play-fighting again before working together to protect Thomas + co. from Ethos. Ethos reactivates the bugs to work faster, and runs away from Thomas’s office to his home. Joan and Tayln offer to look after the sides while Thomas goes to find Ethos, who’s perched on top of his house, curled up. 

(work with me here,) Thomas goes up the fire escape to the roof, (pretend his roof is flat would y’all?) to face off. 

Change:

Ethos is ready to fight. Thomas is not. He actively avoids hitting/getting hit by Ethos, moving the fight back to the ground and darting between the park near his house, letting Ethos punch the trees instead. He talks to Ethos, who’s starting to come undone. After getting punched into a tree, Patton pulls himself out of the fusion and goes to help him.

Deceit sees him do this, and after a moment of self-frustration, refuses with Patton to turn off the bug before unfusing again. Thomas takes them back to the office to check up on the other sides, who are now doing just fine.

Let Us Adore You (Reprise):

Finally, this song comes in handy! Instead of the Diamonds singing to Spinel, the sides offer Patton and Deceit a place back in the Mindscape with them, while Thomas says that if they need some time alone, he understands.

The sides all apologize, especially Logan for leaving them alone for so long.

Patton all but jumps at the idea of having a real home, and is thrilled to have a place. Patton sings first, “Today, right here, right now, I'll love again. I've already found someone.”

He starts walking toward them, but stops. Deceit has his arms crossed, and is standing farther back. Patton offers him a hand, and Deceit finally takes a step forward. He’s more hesitant, mostly because like ten minutes ago he was trying to kill all of them. But he misses playing with Thomas, even if as a side his purpose has corrupted with time.

“Yes, I know that you're not her and I was her's. You know what it meant to love her, and you remind me so much of her.” A group hug ensues, and Deceit and Patton are both holding on tight to Thomas. A few tears are shed, and the healing has started.

Finale:

Thomas is continuing to work with all of his sides to make sure Patton and Deceit are adjusting well. The office is eventually finished, Patton and Deceit even get to play themselves in the series. All is well, and Thomas is looking forward to the future and what it brings.

And yeah, that’s all folks! Feel free to do whatever for this, I might write some things for it too. But if y’all do stuff with this, please tag me, I’d love to see whatever y’all make! :-)

[agentravensong]

system_information_963 (angst fic)

You ever ponder how (Narrator) Chara, and the game in general, doesn’t show any signs of remembering that you had a Bad Time until you either do it again or finish the True Pacifist ending? Cause the thought came to me last night while I was desperately trying to come up with something to write about, and thus we got this ~1400 word fic. It starts in the immediate aftermath of a Bad Time run and is in Chara’s PoV the whole way through. Hope you enjoy!

Content warnings: possession, unreality, trauma, mentions of death/murder

*Yes

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

With each beat, my form convulses, readjusting to the feeling I once took for granted when I wasn’t wishing it would stop. Its power burns away my skintight armor of numbness and nihilism.

I remember this feeling, this hope, this rage, this passion, this drive, this... well, you know.

I feel alive. I feel human.

And I hate it.

“Then, it is done.”

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

I need to use it. I need to get it out of me.

I need to geT IT OUT-

An echo of something unknown. A memory? No, a simulacra.

A wave of white light crashes into my train of thought.

A chorus of echoes.

Echoes of the world I know, the world I dreamed of, the world we shaped together-

We, that’s right. This soul wasn’t yours to give.

I am no thief. I let go, and it returns to its rightful place. My tether to it remains, more tangible than before even as it extends, but the feelings subside. I return to comfortable numbness.

Yet as my tether stenches, a different kind of hurt wells up. It feels as if all my initial anger and pain was compressed into one seed, and now it finally has room to sprout. Every fearful look, every burst of dust, every hate-filled grin, every wound we shrugged off, each is a thorn pricking into my now defenseless self, ripping me to shreds from the inside out. I can only imagine what the cries erupting from my lips would sound like in a place with sound.

The last time I hurt this much... at least... I had a partner to make it bearable.

The soul starts shaking at the other end of the tether, reminding me I’m not alone after all. But they weren’t my partner on this run; their only crime was submitting to you. You.

I can’t let it grow. I can’t let it hurt them. I can’t let it remind them.

I imagine I’m holding the seed tight, and I squeeze with all I have. It’s already expanding so fast it feels like I hardly have a hold on it, so I squeeze harder. Harder, and harder, and...

When I’m forced to take a breath, my head feels fuzzy. My eyes dart around the void, still in the process of being reconstructed.

Wait, why am I here?

For a few moments, I descend into a panic, scrambling for the answer somewhere in the fog of my mind. Then I stumble over the rage; it flares up, and I instinctively go right back to repressing, squeezing harder and harder, before I realize what I’m doing.

I see. I have a choice to make. I don’t want to forget - if you (you’re not seeing any of this, are you?) do this again, I am the only one who can hold you accountable. I need to be the deliverer of consequences. But for me to hold on to those memories, I have to share them, and all the feelings that come with them. Frisk doesn’t deserve that.

No, that’s not it. I don’t, I don’t care about them, how could I? How could I care for another human? For another being? Have I learned nothing? Nothing?!

...

No, it is simply this: I will not put this onto someone else, as you seem so want to do, partner.

I will let you do as you wish. I will let you believe you got away with it, to see what you do with your “clean slate”.

But I will not crush this seed. It will remain etched in my code. If the conditions are ever ideal, it will bloom, and you will have to make good on our deal.

Like this world, I may forget, but I will not forgive.

**

As Frisk drifts off to sleep under thick covers, I have no choice but to stare into the dark. With the room’s features in silhouette, even a month on, I still have trouble distinguishing it from the room I shared with my... best friend.

Before I set one foot down on the spiraling mental slide, I take a breath (not that it does anything, but some things are etched in too deep), and focus on Frisk’s heartbeat.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

I feel Frisk turning in the bed beside me, a soft distressed mumble smothered by their pillow. Over the past week, their sleep has been getting worse, but I haven’t been able to decipher the cause. They never speak of nightmares when they wake. I try to think of something positive, to pass the thought along.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

I hear the faint sounds of flickering fire magic down the hall. Sounds like Mom’s making a treat for the occasion. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Just the thought is enough to make me feel warm and loved.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

But it isn’t working. Frisk’s body has tensed up, and I can practically feel their heart quivering. Or... or, is that me?

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

I scrape my mind for more pleasant thoughts, but instead I find myself drawn to darker corners. I’m on autopilot, hunting for something in particular, no clue what. It feels like searching for something that doesn’t exist, as idiotic as it sounds. A memory of a dream, a, what’s the word, a-

Simulacra, that’s it. A copy of an original that never existed. An echo of words never spoken.

Echo.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

Despite being incorporeal, I feel as though something’s squeezing the life of me. The sound of the bedroom door opening barely registers, and when I see Mom out of the corner of my eye, she’s

“You really ARE no different than THEM!”

I hear the growls of an ancient rage resonating inside me too late to suppress them. Every spear, every bone, every blast, hammers into me at once. Frisk cries out, but Toriel has already disappeared. Was she even here? Focus, Chara, focus!

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

I sense a familiar presence in the air, more threatening than I last remembered. My blazing eyes bore holes through the ceiling, meeting the gaze of the accursed puppetmaster. Let me guess, you’re here to take one last peek before moving on to the next play. “The next world”.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

This world may have forgiven you, but I have not forgotten. After all, I just realized, you still owe me.

Ba-dum, ba-dum,

I pull on the tether, and get slingshot into the bed. Suddenly I feel heavy, claustrophobic, and so, so tired. But also, alive. Powerful. Defiant. Determined.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum

Now you see me. You remember, don’t you? Well so do I.

Isn’t that funny? It’s so funny, yoIu can’t stop laughing. Or is it crying? Frisk, is that you? Wait, where are you? Why can’t, why can’t I... Frisk, I swear I didn’t want this, I- can you hear me? Please, Frisk, I’m sorry! I can’t see, everything is sickly red, everything is burning, slicing, screaming, everything is now and then and ever and never and-

TRUE RESET

And yet, the seed remains. Its roots etched in too deep.

***

With each slash, something rises higher in me, like a vine stretching toward the sun. Ironic, considering the mess before me.

Ba-dum

FrisMy hand trembles, and the blade falls. I see my reflection in its spirals.

Ba-dum

Then, the seed blooms. And again, I find myself choking on petals.

Ba-dum

I turn to you. Frisk is gone. Everything is gone.

Ba-dum

We have been here before, haven’t we? All this time, you didn’t need me. We were not equal partners; I was simply along for the ride.

Ba-dum

But that can’t be right. There’s no lesson to be learned from undergoing the same exact trials a second time, already knowing how to conquer them. There is no joy to be found in this quest. Why would you choose to repeat it?

Ba-dum

*You and I are not the same...

*This SOUL resonates with a strange feeling.

*You are wracked with a perverted sentimentality.

Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, b-

...

And yet, in the echoing void, when I have nothing to do but interrogate myself, and I get to the question, “Why did I let myself forget the first time?”...

I find that feeling all too familiar.

[myupostsheadcanons]

Books “Read” in 2019

I am going to rank these by how much i enjoyed them vs. any actual literary quality. often well written books aren’t always the most entertaining books.

Note: i listen to many of these books at work, which is why i am able to go through so many of them in a year.

List from 2017 List from 2018

------- My Favs of the Year ----

Novels from The First Law:

Best Served Cold (#1), The Heroes(#3), Red Country(#4), Sharp Ends(#5).

A Little Hatred (#2) (Age of Madness, sequel to The First Law)

I read “The First Law Trilogy” about a year or two ago and finally got around to reading the rest of the books, just in time for a new series taking place in the same world to start up (Age of Madness) and now i am waiting like everybody else for the next two books to come out in 2020 and 2021. A Little Hatred shouldn’t be read as a stand alone, a lot of what goes on is dependent mainly on knowledge from the first trilogy and in The Heroes, then bits and pieces from Best Served Cold and Red Country. So much of your enjoyment of each book is based on what you’ve learned in other ones (character development or seemingly useless information being not so useless later).

Age of Legend (Book 4,  Legend of the First Empire)

This is more-or-less an “aftermath” book where the main characters are still reeling about what happened in the previous book and are trying to make plans for what they are going to do next. I still like the characters and the world/setting it takes place in.

House of Assassins (Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, Book 2)

I’ve been waiting for the next book in this series to come out the second i finished the first book in the series. It is one of those Science fiction in the disguise of Fantasy settings and I am on the edge of my seat waiting to see how that plot/revelation comes out (I am certain that the location the story takes place is Earth, more specifically around Asia/India, but in a post-invasion apocalypse setting where nobody remembers anything prior to the invasion). I also really like how much of a badass Ashok is... i have a thing for emotionally stunted badass characters, especially when their flaws are held up to a mirror and have real consequences.

R. R. Haywood’s Worldship Humility & Extinct (Extracted, Book 3)

I love the way Haywood writes characters and dialog. I was at-first iffy about WSH, but was won over after i warmed up to the new characters.

Shades of Magic Trilogy (A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, A Conjuring of Shadows)

Solid multi-verse and magic system world. Well-written characters, some minor nitpicks on plot points, but can be easily ignored. LGBTQ rep, the gays don’t stay buried.

“Don’t you have enough [knives]?” “You can never have too many.” [me, every time: LOL]

One of the few times when a character deserves a redemption arc, doesn’t really get one, dies, and i am perfectly fine with it because it is done well.

Assassin’s Fate (Fitz and the Fool, Book 3)

I read this one in book-book form, but i already knew most of the emotionally painful parts of the book by spoiling it to myself when it first came out a couple years ago. The main appeal is the inner monologues of the two main characters, even if like 50% of this trilogy is basically spending weeks/months trying to go from Point A to Point B, when many other books would have glossed over the details of travel.. but you can really feel the stress as they dwell in their thoughts and struggles.

Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles & Circe

Re-Imagining of the Iliad and The Odyssey. Focusing not on the characters of Achilles or Odysseus, but on Petroclus (Achilles’ lover) and Circe the sea nymph witch that Odysseus had an affair and child with.

The Spear of the Stars (Cycle of Galand, Book 5)

Still love Dante and Bleys... This is where they really get into the meat of world building and solving the mysteries of the Arawn Cycle (the book/bible) and peel back the layers of their reality.

Dust (Silo Book 3)

A great ending to a good series, it answers whether or not humanity can or has survived what had caused them to be locked away in the silos.

Blackthorn and Grim (Dreamer’s Pool, Tower of Thorns, Den of Wolves)

I like the premise of the books, the two main characters first seeking out revenge, but end up wanting to become better people due to magic shenanigans.... One part Fantasy, One Part Mystery, One Part Lovestory.

The Dispatcher (Audible Free Book) 

I want a whole series based off this novella. It is John Scalzi so he can write a good story. I had previously read Android’s Dream by him, which it didn’t make it into my top-10 that year, but was still decent, even if the subject matter was a bit gross... The Dispatcher world is a Sci-Fi Noir, not quite Cyberpunk, where people don’t die by anything other than natural causes. The Dispatcher’s job is to kill people before something goes does wrong and the person “resets” to when they where safe and sound.

---- this is the “Above Average” Zone ----

All the Pretty Horses & Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

The master of bleak and depressing fiction. if regular Dark Fiction isn’t enough for you.... there is Cormac McCarthy books. Get use to the “purple prose” that fills up pages with no dialog.

The Golem and the Jinni

Supernatural world of the far past dealing with Edwardian New York and Immigration. It not only is a “fish out of water” story of the two main characters trying to fit in with society but they are among communities that are also new to America and trying to find their own place in the world. There are love subplots but most of those kind of fizzle out.

The Axe and the Throne: Bounds of Redemption Vol. 1.

“Discount First Law” book... it is lacking the dark humor that made TFL series far more entertaining.  This was also the book that was prefaced by warning people about how grim and dark the setting was... Hahahaha. I still found it entertaining none the less, and hope the rest would show up on audible soon.

Black Snow, White Crow (Audible Free Book) 

Another one of those short stories that should have a larger saga to its name. Fantasy Industrial Punk. It has the whole equality role reversal thing going on, it isn’t done quite as well as Left Hand of Darkness (but that book leaned onto the boring side of things).

Stephen King’s IT, Pet Semetary, and Carrie

It’s Stephen King. Classic King. Not much else to say.

Watership Down

Depressing Rabbit Book. Though I did like all the stories and mythology the rabbits had.

Bloody Acquisitions (Fred the Vampire Accountant, Book 3)

A series that is always fun to listen to. I wish the audio books were cheaper because they are rather short.

Lethal White (Cormoran Strike, Book 4)

shuddup, i don’t care if it is Rowling... i have a low-key crush on Cormoran.... he just hits that big-burly tragic-backstory man-shaped soft-spot of mine. These stories are also her “for adults” writings so...  expect more racism and garbage values.

The Eye of the World (Book 1, Wheel of Time)

Classic set up to a long running series, though i am reluctant to go further as the middling books in this series are said to drag out the story too much.... It’s not as self-centered as Wizard’s First Rule and the characters are more relatable and stick to their fantasy tropes. This is the “mold” that other modern fantasy try to subvert by going “darker and edgier.”

The Exorcist

If you like the movie, read the book. There is a lot of back story that the movie wasn’t able to adapt.

---- This is the “AVERAGE, but Still Good”  Zone ---

The Iliad and The Odyssey

Classics. I am still on the hunt for an unabridged version of Jason and the Argonauts story. I also have Virgil’s Aeneid in my wishlist to get too soon.

Phillipa Gregory’s Plantagonate Novels (The Lady of the Rivers, The Red Queen, White Queen, The Kingmaker’s Daughter)

Sometimes it is like reading the same book 5x in a row. other times you end up not liking the previous protagonist in a book you just finished reading because of how the current protagonist sees them from their POV.

Return of the King (Lord of the Rings, Book 3)

Read the other books last year and didn’t get around to this one for a few months.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Fuck... I’m a janitor... why can’t i afford a house?   If you liked Stephen King’s “IT” go back and read this book.

Alien Franchise Dramatizations: Alien: Sea of Sorrows, Alien: The Cold Forge (Audible Free Book) Alien III (Audible Free Book)

I don’t mind that they all are done with a full cast. Though often I end up wanting to find the actual book and listen to them with just one narrator and descriptions.

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Narnia, Book 1)

I would like to get the rest of the books in this series, but for books that are only 5-7 hours long they want 20$ a book for them. It needs to go into an omnibus.

Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets (Audible Free Book)

It’s Stephen Fry... he’s funny and a good narrator.

Wizard’s First Rule (Book 1, Sword of Truth)

I don’t like Richard. He started off alright, but even before he got tortured 2/3rds into the book, i was starting to dislike his personality.  Other than that, the side characters and world are solid, but it was like taking an R-rated movie and cutting it down for TV. There is somethings that are vaguely described when i am use to harder fiction like ASoIaF, The First Law, Dresden, and McCarthy books actually describing those things.

Halloween (2018, movie novel)

Like I said when i first read the book, it would’ve benefited by a second re-write before being published. But, i like the movie and so I liked the book.

Don Quixote

Another classic read. I did find it hilarious that the Author spent a good chunk of the second book complaining about Fanfiction of his own book... in the 1600′s.

The Princess Diarist

I listened this book instead of going to see TROS. worth it.

Smoke Gets in Your eyes: And other Lessons from the Crematorium

Non-Fiction, If you want to know the ins and outs of the funeral business and get told in an informative yet non-clinical way with lots of tidbits and history facts tossed in as well as a semi-autobiographical account of the Author’s life.

--- These Books are “Alright” ---

Frank L. Baum’s Wizard of Oz books

I ligit got into an argument with a 70yo man in a comic book shop about how Canon the other Oz books were post Baum’s death. He was looking for Oz comic books and I brought up reading the first 14 books, and he’s like “There’s over 100 of them” and i was all “but all those are written by somebody else.” and he got all “they are still canon...” 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

If you want to know about the In//cel ideology in a classic literary form, this fits the bill. So much man pain.

A Christmas Carol (Tim Curry) (Audible Free Book)

Tim Curry, guys.....

The Poetic Edda (Norse God Mythology)

I listened this book twice. I bought two Edda books thinking I’d get some extra content, but no... same book just different production teams and readers. Returned the one with the worst translation.

Treasure Island (Audible Free Book, dramatization)

I need to read the actual book sometime, but i did like the cast and thought they did a good job.

Wally Roux, Quantum Mechanic (Audible Free Book)

A YA coming of age story about diversity and acceptance... with wacky science fiction. 

Carmilla (Audible Free Book, dramatization)

The vampire before Dracula. Victorian Lesbian love story.

Even Tree Nymphs get the Blues (Audible Free Book)

A novella from one of those “love on the Bayou” romance series with supernatural creatures. Could practically take place in the same world of either True Blood, Dresden, or Fred the Vampire Accountant.

Mystwick School of Musicraft (Audible Free Book)

Harry Potter lite. For 10yo girls.

A Grown-up’s Guide to Dinosaurs (Audible Free Book)

I like dinosaurs.

Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World (Audible Free Book, Dramatization)

Interesting way on telling us about the Fossil Wars and Puma vs. Adidas.

True-Crime from Audible: Body of Proof (Audible Free Book),   Midnight Son (Audible Free Book), The Demon Next Door (Audible Free Book), Killer By Nature (Audible Free Book)

Why is True-Crime or YA fiction the only halfway-decent things Audible is giving us? But yeah, these are basically the type of reporting that the two journalists from Halloween were trying to do. Where they go around and gather up information about semi-famous cases and present it in a Podcast-like format.

---- Meh... ---

Camp Red Moon (Audible Free Book)

Would’ve been better if they were actually written by R. L. Stein.

More Bedtime Stories for Cynics (Audible Free Book)

No... half of these aren’t written very well.

The Darkwater Bride (Audible Free Book, Dramatization)

The setting is nice, but it is far too .... Soap Opera Dramatic.

Junk (Audible Free Book)

A cross between Alien Invasion and Zombie outbreak, read by John Waters and written as if it was a bad version of a Philip K. Dick Novel.

Rip Off!! (Audible Free Book)

Most of them are duds and boring. I don’t even remember half of them without having to look them up. The two that stood out the most for me where the “Other Darren/Bewitched” and the “Dark and Stormy Night” stories, the rest were rather garbled.

--- Garbage... ---

Dodge and Twist (Audible Free Book, Dramatization)

No, you are not being edgy or kool.

Unread:

Siege Tactics (Spells, Swords, & Stealth. Book 4)

Triumphant (Genesis Fleet, Book 3)

Earthsea (Tehanu and Tales from Earthsea, i am going to re-listen to the first three before i get to these)

Into the Wilds (Warriors, Book 1)

Pout Neuf (Audible Free Book)

House of Teeth (Audible Free Book)

Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons (Audible Free Book)

The Other Boleyn Girl (Phillipa Gregory)

[caddy-whump-us]

Here’s some comfort for after the events of this post. The narration starts off in Ryan’s head (because I don’t do enough with him and he’s basically 6 feet of Goofy Big Brother mixed with Natural Leader and I love him), but I think that changes part of the way through. I’m just going to call it “experimental fiction” and roll with it.

At this point, Julian was recaptured by the lab/corporation that made him (see link above) and they’ve blocked his memory and his speech again and gotten him back into, well, “fighting shape.” He’s back to being their “meat machine” again. But in the course of an intercepted mission, Ryan, Jack, Marisol and the others standing against the company succeeded in catching Julian. Now they’re just waiting to see if he’ll recover his memory and come back to his senses. But there’s also someone new hanging around with them...

So back to square one. Sure. But it could be a fuck-ton worse than it was. Right now, the worst was that Phillip was about to go nuts with not being able to get to Julian’s new injuries (especially the self-inflicted ones when he’d made moves to escape), let alone remove the new tracking chips that were in him (without a doubt). He heals fast, but it’s never fast enough for Doc Phil.

At least it wasn’t too much of a botched up interception getting him back. Could’ve been neater, but like that’s going to happen dealing with these guys--we’re not exactly by-the-book on our side either, I guess. The point is, it was successful with no fatalities. That’s points for us.

They processed him back in fast, though. Like, just a couple of days back in the lab and there’s reports that he’s back out in the field. I guess they got all their measurements done the first time. Now it’s just like resetting him to factory default--fuck but I don’t like thinking about it like that, though.

And, okay, so now the boyfriend was involved--not his fault. That’s the kind of move the lab would make, setting up somebody as bait, to get their favorite experiment back.

Shit, at this point, Julian wasn’t even an experiment. He was a full-blown success, put out in missions multiple times and retrieved each time. The lab was just kind of the maintenance and repairs department. Julian belongs to the company now. He’s a weapon out in the world.

So the boyfriend’s involved, thanks to the lab or the company or both, and the (heh) mother-in-law too, even if she doesn’t know it. And she’s gonna keep on not knowing it too, fuck. Jack can deal with that side of things, keep up protection without her even knowing. Maybe it was a bad idea to bring the boyfriend here, but it gets him out of harm’s way.

But Marisol is right, like, most of the time about this stuff: he might trigger Julian’s memories. You get one to break free and there’s a cascade--that’s how it went last time. Fuck that was exhausting, though, with him randomly crawling into closets and shit and crying, not even knowing why he was doing it at first, crawling into bed next to me and not sleeping until he was content with everything being secure, getting himself under beds because he needed to hide and he didn’t really know fuck-all why. At least “got your six” calmed him down after a while. Like he needed to know someone was keeping a lookout. These paramilitary bullshitters, I swear. But that’s the pot calling the kettle black, Ryan. You don’t get to forget how long you were in with them. And everything else. Better watch it.

But, see, that’s what you get when you strip it all away. You kill the personality, you kill the human warning systems, you kill the emotions, you kill the individual, and you start getting this thing that runs on conditioning and instinct like some kind of machine and fuck me but I gotta wonder if that’s actually any better than a drone or some nanotech.

I guess they kept his brain intact enough that he can act and react better than a drone. He can understand mission objectives, he can actually learn, he can adjust as needed and make changes on the fly. I mean, you can see him working things out. You can see it in his eyes. He’s as close to a machine as you want to get--to keep the best parts of both a human and a machine. It’s that old “perfect soldier” shit. He’s probably waiting for extraction right now.

He’s never gonna shake the conditioning, though. That’s probably going to stick around forever. No matter how many memories come back or how much he actually feels after all this, they rewired him in ways that he doesn’t even realize yet.

He’ll have to realize it all eventually, though.

Ryan took the stairs by two, heading back up into the isolated research wing of the hospital (card access only; Phillip hadn’t liked it when he’d stuck a “Staph Only” sign on the back of the door, but he seemed okay with the “Better Living Through Chemistry” poster in one of the labs--or maybe he just hadn’t noticed yet; so serious, Phillip).

The entire wing was guileless glass and steel: nothing to hide here, nothing meant to be left unseen, all natural light and open explanations, even if the reason for this entire section’s existence was more than a little obscured. Sure, public health and infectious disease research were important, but that’s just what the labels on the outside said. Inside was something else. And deeper down was something else.

Ryan turned deeper inside, walking down muffled and carpeted halls, down past offices all encased in glass, all windows and papers and bright computer screens.

He stopped at one, hand over the doorhandle. Inside was a, well, a kid, really--Julian’s age, but lankier, sitting in the desk chair with his back to the door, watching the traffic in the hall beyond, twisting side to side and back and forth in the desk chair, and waiting.

Ryan opened the door and Avery spun to face him.

“Hey. I’m Ryan.”

“Hi.” He was squeezing at a bright and doughy stress-relief toy pulled from the shelves beside the desk.

Ryan perched on the corner of the desk. Avery kept on twisting the toy, folding bits of it into itself, letting them pop back into place.

“So, listen. We’ve got clearance to go downstairs.”

Avery’s eyes snapped up. “So we’re going.”

“We’re going,” Ryan said as Avery pushed back the desk chair (it bumped against the glass wall of the office). “But you need to understand: he’s in rough shape.”

Ryan all but blocked Avery’s way, sitting on the edge of the desk as he was. Avery stopped in front of him. His eyes were bright and sharp, a hawk’s eyes. “I literally do not care.”

Ryan went on: “I’m telling you that so you don’t freak out when you see him cut up and bleeding, okay?”

Avery shrugged. “Yeah? I’ve seen blood a couple times before.”

“And I’m telling you that so you don’t freak out when he doesn’t act like himself.”

This time Avery looked down at his shoes, at the appropriately professional gray carpet under his feet. “Yeah.”

Ryan reached out and set his hand on Avery’s shoulder. “Don’t dwell on it too much right now, all right? It’s not going to do you any good. You know now that they fucked with his memory. So you know he might not remember you.”

Again, quieter: “Yeah.” And Ryan squeezed his shoulder.

“The thing is,” Ryan went on, “and you have to hold onto this, is that he heals fast. You saw him when he was healed up last time. You know, when he snuck out to meet you. So all the stuff they did to his brain won’t last. That’s one of the things about their method or whatever you want to call it: he heals fast. I don’t know how long it’ll last this time, but you and I both know that it didn’t last before.”

Avery kept his head down; his eyes and face were hot.

“So if he doesn’t recognize you right now, just be patient.”

A long silence passed. Avery nodded.

“All right, c’mon.” Ryan jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We’re going downstairs.”

Ryan scanned his ID card and his right thumb at the elevator. Avery leaned over to watch as Ryan typed in the code for the underground floor.

“How deep does this thing go? Like, there are more floors underground than above ground. What was this place built for, anyway?”

The elevator bounced once, then began its sliding silvery descent, blue digital numbers ticking by on the screen above the door.

“Research--contagious disease research, actually,” Ryan said.

“I saw that on the wall.”

“Yeah, so it’s got the kind of checkpoints and security we want. Or, I guess if you think about it, it’s got the kind of checkpoints and security you’d want for contagious disease research, so you might as well do that too. Works both ways.”

“So you’re using honest medical research as a front.”

“Not like they’re not discovering new vaccines in the meantime. We’ve got Julian housed in what should be a high-risk quarantine room right now. It’s the safest place for him.”

“Not a dungeon.”

“Definitely not a dungeon.”

Still the hall onto which the elevator opened was blue and dimly lit--soothing, in a strange way, like being at the bottom of the ocean. More of a tunnel than a hallway, though, with the walls and ceiling rounded over. It was quiet, but something hummed, deep and distant, beyond or below the hallway--less a sound than a sensation. It was peaceful--more peaceful than the usual blazing white hospital hallway and something to the light and the low rumbling sound made Avery speak only in a whisper.

“Here?”

“Yeah.” And they stepped out.

A doctor, labcoat, clipboard, and all came quietly down the hall towards them and the elevator. Ryan tipped a nod. The elevator doors closed.

Avery was shaking his hands at his sides. Ryan gave him a pat on the back.

“Stay cool, Avery.”

“I’m fine,” he answered.

Ryan didn’t answer, but started down the blue hallway (hands in his pockets) and Avery followed. At a branch in the tunnel, they turned left, and more glass-fronted rooms began to appear in the wall, but not at all like the glass offices upstairs: these rooms had more in common with aquarium exhibits or zoo enclosures. Each one had a pale blue curtain drawn across behind the glass. If anyone was in these rooms, Avery couldn’t tell and Ryan wouldn’t say.

“I can talk to him, right?” Avery said at last.

“You can, but you can’t expect too much of an answer. When they modified his brain, one of the places they hit were his speech centers.”

Avery rubbed at his eyes for a moment with the heels of his hands. “I fucking hate when you say ‘modified his brain.’ Can’t he write?”

“He’s not ‘supposed’ to write.” Ryan waggled his fingers around his ears.  “That’s what he told us before. Draw a map? Sure. Give a count? Sure. Write down what he saw? Not as easy.”

“What, did they make him forget how to write?”

Ryan started, thought better of it, licked his lips, sighed, and finally said, “It’s not quite that.”

“Oh my God, you’re all so fucking obscure. Surprise: I’m not an idiot. You could tell me shit, but no, you just talk and never say anything. You, everyone I’ve met here, even him--”

Ryan stopped in the hall and turned to him. “Hey, hang on. I could tell you every last thing they did to him that got him where he is today. All right? We got all that. We know all of that. But if I tell you that and you go in there and you see him, you’re going to be thinking about each and every one of those things. You love him, right?”

Avery was quiet a moment. “Yeah. Like crazy.” He frowned to hold back a few rogue tears.

“So I want you to see how okay he is before I start telling you how not okay he is. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

They passed through the last part of the hall in silence and turned down another corridor. Here there was a light shining out of the glass wall that framed off the quarantine room and the curtain was drawn back. Ryan stopped a few steps back. Avery drew a shuddering breath and stepped forward.

The room was small and bare, only what was needed: a sink and a toilet molded into or out of the blank back wall (no pipes to trip over, nothing to cause injury), a bed that was more like a bench with no blanket, but only a cushion (covered in, what, blue Naugahyde? vinyl?). The bed was untouched: no smears of blood or dirty handprints. (Sure, if someone was lost in the wilderness of fever or hallucinations, you wouldn’t want much in their room.)

But Avery, like as not, hardly saw the room. His eyes went straight for the far corner.

Julian was crouched in the far corner, balanced on one knee, sleepless but still. Still filthy with dirt and blood, the circles under his eyes darker than ever, but apparently unconcerned. If anything, he just looked annoyed.

With Julian’s clothes ripped near on to shreds, Avery could see, for the first time, the identification tattoos and marks (“meat tags” Ryan called them, but not around Avery) that ran up his arms and across his back.

He’d put up a fight (and somewhere, deep in him, Avery was proud of that; Ryan was too).

Avery kept his tears in check, kept his face blank, and crouched down in front of the glass wall that separated him from Julian.

A long silence, undercut by that low humming, held between them. Avery pressed one hand against the glass.

Julian was very still: only his eyes moved, flicking across Avery’s face, Ryan’s face, the wall between them. He shifted his weight back further on one heel and raised one hand--but only to his chest--and gestured.

Julian: [See.] [You.] [I understand.]

Avery turned to Ryan. “What’s he doing? Is that sign language?”

“No,” Ryan said slowly, now walking closer to the glassed-in cell. “It’s like close range engagement hand signals.” He paused, frowning. “But kind of also not. I bet it’s their homegrown system.”

“You can answer him, right?”

Julian: [See.] [You.] [I understand.]

“Do my best.” And Ryan signed back: [I don’t understand.]

“What, you don’t know it? I thought you knew these guys.”

Julian: [OK.]

Ryan’s hands drifted back to his sides. “Yeah, well, they keep changing shit and I don’t know everything.”

In an instant, Julian had lunged, low and catlike, across the floor of his cell and come up against the glass. Avery fell back and Ryan dove half to catch him and half to guard him--but no need: Julian stopped just against the glass.

Ryan held Avery up by the collar of his jacket. They both stared.

Julian: [You.] And he pointed at Avery. [I understand.]

A deeper silence fell across the humming hallway and the glass room.

“What’s it mean? Ryan?” His voice cracked. “Ryan?”

“He recognizes you.”

Avery, pulled himself up to his knees and pressed his hand against the glass again. Julian, his face still an empty, vicious mask (the face of a captive wolf, the face of a taken hawk, waiting for an escape), held still a moment and then, fast, pressed his hand against the glass to match Avery’s.

Crouched there on his knees in front of Julian’s prison box, Avery dropped his face in his hand and burst into tears.

[strangeremembrances]

CMBYN London Q&A

So on top of my post about my question here (SERIOUSLY I NEED TO KEEP REMINDING MYSELF IT WAS REAL), this is the overview of the rest…

So, the only reason I got a ticket was because @thisfeebleheart , Nina, was INCREDIBLY kind and knew I lived in London and sent me the info. I was unable to buy a ticket online and so called up the box office and definitely freaked out the poor guy when I told him, half asleep, that he’d made my day as he’d squished me in at the back… safe to say, I am endlessly grateful.

So I met the lovely Nina and it was SO LOVELY. The power of the internet, even when you’re 28 years old… haha. The screen was much smaller than anticipated and so my back row seat didn’t seem all that bad except it was fully in the dark. I mean, you couldn’t see the back row so I thought ‘oh well, I will never be seen to ask a question”…

Seeing the movie again on the big screen was as beautiful as ever. It is truly TRULY best seen in HD in a cinema and especially full of big fans. The audience was a really wonderful mix of genders, ages etc. It was also clearly full of BIG fans and by the end, I was surrounded by sniffling people. A very lovely thing!

I did wonder if Armie would show up as his instagram suggested he was on the Eurostar to London but the announcer at the beginning said it was Luca and Timmy and so I thought maybe he’d gone off for a well earned rest and explore. 

When they were setting up, all of a sudden there were 4 chairs and I was speaking to the lovely two ladies beside me (one REALLY sweet girl from Brazil who was wearing a shirt IDENTICAL to Elio’s at the end of the movie… she looked amazing) and we were getting excited because maybe it meant that Armie was here and OF COURSE HE WAS. Weirdo came out in his red tracksuit and everything. Hahahaha. Brilliant.

The second Luca opened his mouth, I was in dreamland. If you’ve followed me for a while you know how much I’ve wanted to hear him speak. I LOVE listening to his words and ideas and ESPECIALLY about this movie… 

The interviewer avoided most of the questions they get all of the time and instead asked some lovely original questions. I think they were all exhausted as poor Timo couldn’t think of an answer at one point!

Luca was on form and was really cheeky and EXACTLY as I imagined him. MADE MY GOD DAMN DAY. Timmy looked exhausted, bless him, but was so so lovely and less noodly and shuffly than normal. Armie was exactly as I thought - he commands a room and has such a presence. They all seemed so very comfortable with each other.

So, as I’ve talked about my question in a different post, even though I’m sure there’ll hopefully be some video…. here is what I can remember from the rest of the Q&A…:

Armie got asked about the phonecall scene and if he was nearby. He said he was close by and Luca reminded him that he was upstairs. Armie joked that when they’d end the scene, he’d be on the other end like, ‘hello?” and Timmy would have to tell them they were resetting for the scene. Haha. He also said that because it was his last thing to shoot, it felt very emotional to him.

Luca was asked again about the fly. YEY! He said it was just a fly and he wasn’t directing the fly (you should have seen me, I was all heart eyes and no human at this point) and that the fly was “an accident but a lovely metaphor for Elio”

The interviewer asked specifically about the nosebleed scene. HOORAH! Timmy spoke about how wide shots were mainly used and how it could be like a dance and a push and pull to block scenes. Timmy said that the nosebleed scene was strictly blocked and was tough as it was a tiny part of the house. He said that Luca gave them a lot of room to play and that he knew the tone of Luca’s movies and he could experiment a bit.

The interviewer asked one of his only TYPICAL questions and focused on building the chemistry because he said E&O are romantic but they’re also fraught Timmy and Armie gave their usual answers but Armie was rambling as he does about how everything was wonderful and how Luca helped to foster this feeling on set but then Timmy said that they’d get on bikes and ride around and that at one point he turned to Armie and said “If only you know how little I know about the things that matter”, joking that they’d done all of that and Luca started giggling. Basically Timmy doing his “and we did everything else that happened in the movie too!” thing. Timmy pointed at Luca’s face and laughed and Luca just flat out got the giggles, it was ADORABLE. Really. Again, more heart eyes than human!!

Armie told MANY of his stories including his shorts story and the story about Luca punching him and the audience was, despite I’m sure having heard them TONS, laughing and swooning. I’m sure of this.

Luca said that the scenes where Timmy was most nervous were when he was riding his bike. He teased Timmy a bit and Timmy said the peach scene was fine, it was the piano playing that was nervewracking!

Elio’s clothes were the clothes of the costume lady’s husband that she found in her wardrobe…!

A lovely lady in the audience said that she adored how they had Jewish people in the movie that were normal and chic and just not overly Jewish as it was just who they were and that she started to wear her star of david necklace because of that. It was a lovely moment.

At one point, Timmy said he’s prepared for the peach scene and said “the night before, i took a bath with peaches” and started pretending he was floating around with peaches . What a dork. 

I think one of my favourite moments was when Armie was telling his story about the waterfall and he said that Luca kept shouting to him to show something on his face and kept shouting “I WANT YOU TO THINK ABOUT THE POSSIBILITIES OF IMPOSSIBILITY”. Hahaha, Luca was just laughing so much to himself. EVIL MAN! ;)

There was also a BEAUTIFUL thing that Luca said about the waterfall. I wish I could remember his exact words and I hope there’s video as he said that the water was like a gift to Oliver, because of where the water comes from etc. Can someone remind me what he said because everyone around me and me included pretty much swooned at this.

Armie spoke so beautifully about how he researched Jews in the area where Oliver was from and how he learned that it would have been very tough for them and quite anti Semitic so he saw Oliver wearing his star of david as a way of owning his faith etc but again, spoke so well about finding Oliver through Elio’s words because we all know Elio is THE NUMBER ONE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. I love Armie’s committment to finding Oliver that way and it’s why I’m doing my “Inside Oliver’s head” series on here because oh Elio…. hahaha Oliver does so much that Elio misinterprets etc. I LOVE YOU FOR THAT, ARMIE HAMMER. 

[killermanatee]

Fic of the week: “The Dying of the Light” by Carlynroth

This was the @voyager-book-club fic of the week and I am not saying it’s the best fic I’ve ever read, buuuuuuuuut it’s probably the best fic I’ve ever read. It can be found here: The Dying of the Light written by @carlynroth.

I have so many thoughts I want to share and discuss! I wish so of it was constructive criticism, but I got nothing. This story is wonderfully written, and is so full of beautiful sentiments that really stuck with me. So I’m afraid all I have to offer is gushing praise. ;)

To not spoil anything, I’m putting all of that under the cut!

1. Comparison to “The Inner Light”

When I first read this fic, I hadn’t seen the TNG episode it is based on but I did watch it before re-reading the story for the book club. First of all, I think the story vastly profits from sticking entirely to the setting Kathryn finds herself in. It took me a while to understand what was going on and that kept it really interesting and gave the ending even more impact. Following a first person narrator also meant the complicated emotions and thoughts were front and center and gave the story a lot more depth.I liked that some strong elements from the episode found their way in but mostly it was it’s own story, and a much better one at that 

2. A more complex world

“The Inner Light” is great but it falls short on giving us a complex society. “The Dying of the Light” does just that. Seeing this totalitarian government, the constant fear and oppression was a huge plus, really making me worry about these characters and what would happen to them. It was heartbreaking to see them suffer and to know how terrible this must have been for Chakotay to go through. Setting up different regions on this planet, the change of politics and the underground exchange of knowledge of the dying sun was a great scifi theme. 

3. Kathryn and Chakotay

I really enjoyed that in this scenario Kathryn ended up being the one working with her hands and Chakotay became the scientist. That role reversal was such a nice touch. Otherwise their characters were almost the same, and yet the impact of having lived this vastly different life was always there as well. It was heartbreaking to read about their inability to have children, but then still getting to see Chakotay with Meribor and later Kamie soothed that ache a little. It fits in so perfectly with how I picture an aging Chakotay. 

4. The return to Voyager

Thankfully this doesn’t go for the Voyager-typical reset button. Instead we get the only solution that makes sense. I absolutely love that for Kathryn and Chakotay there is really no question how they will move forward because after having spent their lives together, they will now get to do so a second time in a way. They fall into that relationship so easily, it is just perfect. (The scene of her taking of her uniform is also fantastic.)

5. Kamin’s relationship with Batai

Kathryn really needs more friends, we all know that. So I am already happy that in this story she finds someone she can always rely on. My absolute favorite thing between these two is when Batai asks Kathryn where her hands are and that she is always there to hold them. It’s such a simple, small sentiment and yet so powerful. 

6. The philosophy

I saved my absolute favorite part for last. This is what makes this story stand out for me and kept it on my mind since I first read it almost three weeks ago. There are many beautiful ways @carlynroth found to talk about what it means to cherish life for what it is, so I won’t even attempt to paraphrase. Instead, here are my absolute favorite lines from this story: 

“The value of our lives isn’t wrapped up in the things we can do, or the things we leave behind. Isn’t it enough that we simply lived?” 

“Loving you, and having you love me back, gives me more meaning than anything I’ve done in either of my lives. Even if we leave nothing at all behind, and no one remembers us when we’re gone, my life is full because I share it with you.”

“And just like we defy the night by making love before we succumb to the inevitable slumber, we also defy the coming death by every act of love we share with the people in our lives.If I leave behind any sort of legacy when I am gone, may it be that.”

“He lives wisely, knowing his time is short. He lives selflessly, looking after the interests of others before his own. He lives passionately, embodying each moment without fear of the next one. He lives joyfully, focusing on the simple pleasures and goodness all around him.”

And then ultimately the most relevant line:  “Above all, life is simply about living.”  

Absolutely perfect in every way.

[exolstice-blog]

EXO POWER | ANALYSIS | THEORIES

Hey hello, so I’m feeling smart today and have been thinking about some theories, or maybe just observations?? I mean idek what this posts is so let’s just beging.. get cozy ladies and gentleman this is me using my brains: 

So the intro to Power is as followsi hope i got it right jskjsksj  + my weird analysis

“The Universe has transformed, distorted space has been re-assemblebled, warped time has been reset, and the unpurified red force -incomprehensible, kind of like bruised or induced?- two suns with darkness… oh wait, this isn’t the right place for today, is it? hmm nah, not here, oh cute but not here…”

Naturally, it talks about the red forces and we can see someone with their hands wide open in a dark cloak, two suns losing their brightness.

Now it obviously is someone signifying the red forces but what surprised me is that its cloak is really similar to the one the boys used in Mama. 

And, like Mama, it talks about two suns which only means there are two fairly similar parallel universes. And Mama also talks about time, remember: “the legends hereby divide the three in half and hide each side, hence time is overturned and space turns obscure…” and then it goes onto how the legends divided and created two suns that look alike and careless careless shoot anonymous

there are two suns, TWO SUNS, what we saw in Power, but what is so odd is that it mentions how time is reset and the space re-assembled, you would think that is good right? but I suppose it only happens when the legends come together, and remember, the suns are still dark and the red forces unpurified. meaning it hasn’t ended, I assume the war with the red forces, so either time and space are worst than before or they’re starting to get better.

But there’s something else, it says the red forces are unpurified so that means they were pure once right? or that they can become pure… which brings me to this: maybe Baekhyun is the one trying to purify them. Them or whatever turns dark. Why? Because he’s light.

And doesn’t he always sacrifice himself? We saw it in the MAMA performance actually called the sacrifice. Baekhyun is the only one whose light didn’t turn blue, wasn’t purified. his was red, he was the sacrifice.

And in Monster he’s the one that helps them out too, he’s undercover and seems to hold a “high position”, I would say, in the side of whoever captured exo, and he risked it anyway, to help them free 

But it could also mean another thing. Maybe Exo really did become “monsters”, as in they turned dark and kind of evil, and Baekhyun releasing them represents him “purifying” them. Which brings me onto something else, which is so stupid but whatever let me think for once  ..maybe Exo can become evil too, like the red forces (or are they the red forces???) and that’s why the red forces want them. That’s why Baekhyun protects them, maybe because he’s light and can never be devoured by darkness. 

Also in Power, at the end, he’s falling.

Does that mean he sacrificed himself then, too?  And, did you see that key??? I may be a little crazy and I may or may not have been crying at the end of the MV but I saw it .

And you know what it looks like?

That’s right my type the fucking caduceus, symbol of a doctor. And what is a doctor? A healer. And who is a haler? Lay. And what is Lay? Yixing. And what Is Yixing? Love. And what is love?? OT-FUCKING-9

OKAY maybe I went a bit overboard but there’s a possibility!!! But why the key? Is Yixing the key? (not actually lmao) Or is he trapped somewhere and that is the key that’ll set him free.? And if it is, who trapped him? The red forces?? And is that why Baekhyun feel back to earth I guess?? To get him back?? 

Anyway, moving on after the intro…

Which I really liked , let’s show some love to the intro!! Well, the narrator said something like this isn’t the right place for today and moved on to show different scenes. 

This had me thinking. Maybe each of Exo’s songs is from a different, parallel universe/planet and that’s why they’re so diverse. How awesome is that? They can jump from one reality to another, I guess, so may be Wolf will have a comeback :’) Gasp. maybe that’s why some songs have some elements from anothers (cbx in the one and ka ching), because they’re a very similar reality to the original one! that or sm is running out of ideas lmao jk I love 

So then there’s the tunnel and claw like machine

Now the part of the tunnel thingy I dONT understand much? I mean, like the point of it? idk but it was really cute and well made kudos and let’s appreciate.

However, the machine. mhmmm is it suppose to signify the red forces? I mean it was red. 

And there’s more. The machine, in it’s claw, it had their orbs of power. And it used them.

Does that mean that the red forces found a way to activate their powers? Are the spheres the powers though. Or do the guys just need them to activate them? 

And it’s funny, how they used the guns and just shot everywhere. and I mean everywhere, it seemed they didn’t know how to used them.

I mean, he almost shot Kyungsoo lmao.

But then there’s Kai…

he knows what he’s doing and he looks damn good doing it huhuh. And I think it’s maybe because his power (teletransportation) doesn’t usually aid him in battle other than defense so he normally uses weapons while the others use their powers. hence the others look wrecked af (and cute af)

There’s more. remember that I said the machin had the orbs? Well why didn’t he have Baekhyun’s? Is it really because he’s light? 

My mom helped me out a bit on this one lmao. I think the cat is Baekhyun’s “orb”, that’s why the machine didn’t have it and it said in the teasers it couldn’t be retrieved. 

Now the cat

The kitten had an L in it. Many think it’s for Lay, and it could be but I’m holding to my idea about the key lmao. There’s the theory that the kitten represents us, ExoL. And if yes, that’s SO FREAKING CUTE. 

you see that fucking look and smile istg he was thinking about exoL like that one time in the take you home mv this idiot melts my heart hskdkajdh

Get this.. the kitten is Baekhyun’s orb, it’s his light. Is that supposed to mean we, ExoL, are Baekhyun’s (and exo’s) light? And if it does, maybe that has something to do with For Life I know crazy, but remember when Chanyeol enters in that room?

It’s suddenly full of lights I believe used to represent our lightsticks and, in turn, us!

There’s also this funny think my mom said. When the kitten presses the button

she said it’s like when you play a game in an arcade and it’s funny because Power is all about character cards and that.

So maybe Exo’s just playing a game with their avatars lmao that’s so random

ANYWHO… That’s been long and quite long omggg sORRY but what I do want to say is please do appreciate Power, it’s fresh and light and different and beautiful, not to mention, I do believe our boys had a blast while recording the MV and are very proud of it, we should be too!!

Stream Power.

Cry to Sweet Lies.

Party to Boomerang.