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readingforsanity · 1 year ago

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | JK Rowling | Published 2000 | *SPOILERS*

It is the summer holidays and soon Harry Potter will be starting his fourth year at Hogwarts. Harry is counting the days: there are new spells to be learnt, more Quidditch to be played, and Hogwarts castle to continue exploring. But Harry needs to be careful - there are unexpected dangers lurking...

Harry is invited to attend the Quidditch World Cup with the Weasley's. Together, he, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George, Percy, Bill and Charlie, the two oldest Weasley boys, and Mr. Weasley, head for a field with the Diggory's, Amos and Cedric.

Cedric is two years ahead of the rest of the group at Hogwarts, in the same year as Fred and George. Popular and handsome, he is quite friendly with everyone, despite previously having bad blood with the Gryffindor's after he beat them during a game of Quidditch the year before. Despite this, the ragtag group travel by Portkey to the event, where they erect magical tents and begin their festivities.

During the game, which is being played by the Quidditch teams for Ireland and Bulgaria, Harry is privvy to Quidditch facts that he didn't know otherwise. When Bulgaria's best player, seeker Viktor Krum, gets the snitch but was still 10 points behind Ireland, Ireland is able to take home the cup. Harry, Hermione and the Weasley's spend the rest of the evening celebrating Ireland's win and head off to bed, but are woken around 3:00am to screams and fires erupting.

Strange cloaked and masked individuals are wreaking havoc on the campers, and they attempt to flee, while the older Weasley's go to help where they can. Harry, Ron and Hermione become separated from Fred, George and Ginny, and they are met with the Dark Mark being set off above them by an unknown person in the woods. The Mark was meant to instill fear in those attending the event, as the Mark was Voldemort's during his reign of terror.

They are questioned by members of the Ministry, but the alleged individual who set the mark off was none other than Barty Crouch, a prominent member of the Ministry of Magic, house-elf named Winky. She is let go by Mr. Crouch and everyone returns back to the Burrow the following morning.

Soon enough, the group is returning to Hogwarts, where they learn that Quidditch and the Inter-House Cup will not take place this year. Instead, there will be a once-popular event resurrected in the Triwizard Tournament. One champion from three of the biggest and most popular Wizardy schools will compete in three separate tasks until the remaining champion is crowned at the end of the third. Previously, any one of any age could enter to compete, but due to deaths of former competitors, they have decided to place an age limit of 17 years old. Fred and George are quite upset by this, as they'd be 17 in April of the next year, and they begin concocting plans to get around the age line that will be erected around the Triwizard Cup.

On Halloween night, the champions are chosen: Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff house is the Hogwarts champion; Fleur Delacor, a beautiful young girl from Beauxbatons and none other than Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian seeker, for Durmstrang's School. Dumbledore, along with Madime Maxime, a rather large woman and headmistress of Beauxbatons, and Karkaroff, a very imposing man and headmister of Durmstrang's, will be judges, along with Barty Crouch and former Quidditch beater Ludo Bagman.

It is very unfortunate that Harry Potter is chosen to be the fourth Triwizard tournament champion. Ron, most of all, is quite upset that he believes Harry was able to get around the age barrier and didn't tell him, but Harry is adamant that he did not place his name in the cup as he didn't want to compete in the first place. People are crying out that it is unfair, but since the cup chose his name, placed in the cup under a fake school, he is currently bound by the contract that it bears and MUST compete.

For the first task, of which Harry had help from Hagrid in learning what it was, and passed that knowledge onto Cedric, as the other two champions would be told by their headmasters, is to acquire a golden egg that is being protected by dragons of various breeds. Harry is the last to go, and he is able to use his wand to call for his Firebolt, in which he flies and manuevers himself around the angry dragon in order to acquire the golden egg. The other champions were also successful in getting their own golden eggs.

In the meantime, Harry is still corresponding with Sirius, who is off in an unknown land with the Hippgriff, Buckbeak and worrying about his classes as normal. After Cedric is able to make out the clue in the egg, he passes on the knowledge to Harry, as a thank you for giving him a heads up about the first task.

The second task is for Harry to reclaim something that was taken from him and that he would miss the most, which he is able to surmise is Ron. Hermione was also taken for Krum, while Cho Chang, Cedric's girlfriend, was his and Fleur's younger sister, Gabrielle, was hers. With the help from Dobby the houseelf, Harry is able to consume gillyweed, allowing him to breathe underwater for an hour to retrieve Ron. Cedric is able to save Cho, while Krum is able to save Hermione, but Fleur is nowhere to be seen and Harry is taking the clue seriously, that after an hour, those under the water to be saved would die. He is able to get Ron, as well as Fleur's younger sister, above the water, where they are all well-passed the one hour timeframe, but given points none the less, where Harry is able to get quite a bit of points for his bravery in saving someone that was not his to save.

The remainder of the school year passes without incident. The third and final task for Harry to complete is a large maze that was erected inside of the Quidditch stadium. Filled with obstacles of unknown nature, Harry and Cedric are allowed to take off at the same time, as they are tied for first place, with Krum after them and finally Fleur. Harry knows that he needs to head north in order to get to the cup which is placed in the middle, and he is able to do so after saving Cedric from Krum, who is attempting to harm him.

Cedric believes that Harry should have the cup, as he would have made it first had he not injured his leg, but Harry is adamant that he is meant to be the champion. But, the two of them agree to go ahead and touch it at the same time, tying for first place and they would split the winnings evenly. However, when they touch the cup, they are transported to a graveyard in an unknown location, as the cup had unknowingly been made into a Portkey.

Unfortunately, Cedric happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when he is killed by the killing curse, Avada Kedavra, by Wormtail, who has returned to being a loyal servant to Voldemort. Voldemort is only a shell of himself, but Wormtail is able to conjure him back to full strength with various items, including his own hand and blood from Harry. When he returns, he calls to his former followers by the Dark Mark's tattooed on their arms, and they appear, including that of Macnair, who was the executioner in Buckbeak's trial the year before; as well as Lucius Malfoy himself, the father of Draco Malfoy and Harry's mortal enemy at school.

He attempts to kill Harry through a duel, but Harry is able to get away, secures Cedric and the cup and returns back to the maze. He is dazed and confused, but is taken away by Mad-Eye Moody, their new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor as well as a former Auror for the Ministry. However, whom Harry had thought was a confidant in this strange professor turns out to be an imposter. "Moody" explains that it was he who had placed Harry's name into the cup, and who had conjured the cup into a Portkey in order to transport Harry into the graveyard to witness Voldemort's return.

But, luckily for Harry, Dumbledore followed when he became suspicious that Moody had taken Harry away from him after his return from the graveyard. With Snape's help, with a powerful truth serum, it is told that the person who had been impersonating Moody the entire year was Barty Crouch Jr., who had mistakenly been assumed to have died the year after he was put into Azkaban for being a supporter for Voldemort. He says that his mother had requested to his father, Crouch Sr., that he be saved from the prison, and the two of them conjured a Polyjuice Potion in order for his mother to become him, and he to become his mother, in order for him to escape. Therefore, the person who died in the prison was his mother. For many years, he was kept a secret and looked after by the family house-elf, until the night of the World Cup, when Winky was let go, and he was able to return to himself for the first time in many years.

The real Mad-Eye Moody is found to be unconscious, but seemingly okay, at the bottom of his bewitched trunk. Dumbledore escorts Harry to his office, where he is reunited with Sirius, and gives his recount of the events that occurred, before being taken to the hospital wing, where he is met by the Weasley's and Hermione, the people who have become family to him.

When the Minister of Magic comes to the hospital wing, and is informed of Voldemort's return, he refuses to believe it, despite having proof in Snape, who is tattooed with the Mark himself, and shows that it is no longer faded, but is now a dark black, and that it burned him when Voldemort had touched it to summon the followers not imprisoned within Azkaban. The Minister still refuses, and leaves, while Sirius is revealed to be the large dog that accompanied Harry. Dumbledore requests that both Sirius and Snape begin working to battle with Voldemort and they leave, while Harry is left to rest.

The next week, Harry and everyone get on the train to return back to King's Cross station. Despite her pleas, Dumbledore refuses for the Weasley's to take Harry in for the summer at first, but he is assured that he will be with them soon enough. Harry gives his winnings from the tournament to Fred and George, 1000 Galleons, and tells them to start planning for the joke shop they want to open after they admit that Ludo Bagman owed them moeny and refuses to pay them their life savings they had bet at the World Cup the year before.

Harry knows that in order to move forward, he has to move on.

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anthonysstupiddailyblog · 2 years ago

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Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (307): Tue 17th Jan 2023

I couldn’t be bothered to get the bus to Newcastle to see Rashomon. I don’t know why I booked to go and see it so early. I will eventually go to see some movies at this independent cinema but getting out of bed early on my day off then a waiting in the cold at the bus stop followed by an hour long ride in a bus filled with my least favourite kind of people (living ones) was too much for me to bear.

Tonight’s episode of Hollyoaks featured the debut of Jemma Donaldson and damn she is one fine piece of ass. Made me completely forget that Verity even existed (it totally didn’t by the way. I’m now super pissed at the show for robbing me the chance of having these two hot chicks in the show at the same time).

Her introduction centred around Tom telling Hunter and Prince they needed to find a new roommate by the end of the day or they would be getting kicked out. After trying unsuccessfully all day they return to the flat to find that Tom has already found two new roommates: Rayne and her friend Lacey and that he was just fucking with them because they left the flat a mess the previous evening. It’s so depressing to me that when I first started watching the show Tom was just slightly older than a toddler and now he is married and running his own property business. The way Tom has been written lately (a dork who thinks he’s a cool heart-throb) reminds me of Chris from Kenan and Kel. At the end of the episode Tom saw Hunter and Prince fighting over which of them should be allowed to pursue Rayne romantically and Tom, knowing that they previously fell out over a girl made them both agree not to pursue her for the sake of their friendship. I thought that the episode should have included a scene where Tom told Rayne that he made Prince and Hunter make a vow that neither of them would try and bang her as this would fit in with his dork character.

Before bed I watched twin zombie movies: Planet Terror and REC. Planet Terror was a lot of silly, over the top fun from Robert Rodriguez (director of Sin City) featuring a scene I never thought I’d see with Rose McGowan having her leg ripped off and replaced with a machine gun which she uses as a weapon. How she fires it is anyone’s guess but who the fuck cares? It’s not supposed to be deep or even make a lot of sense, it’s a throwback to when these kind of movies were commonplace in the seventies but back then the awkward, cartoonish style wasn’t being done ironically. I’ve known about REC for a while but never seen it until now and although has hints of a fuckload of zombie movies that came before it is still entertaining and at times unnerving. The film was made in a real life apartment complex which brilliantly adds to the sense of claustrophobia. Although the origin of the outbreak is hinted to be supernatural the entire movie still manages to retain a realistic feeling except of course for the obvious believability busting flaw that ruins all found footage films, namely the fact that it makes no sense for the cameraman to continue filming all the shot that’s happening instead of just putting it down and running. If the entire film was set in the dark then it would make sense for the cameraman to be filming nonstop because he’d need to for the torch in his camera and the night vision. The only found footage franchise that really fixes this issue is the Paranormal Activity films because they feature CCTV camera rather than handheld ones. I know that when done well found footage movies can be really enjoyable but for the most part it feels like you’re watching someone playing a computer game.

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dreamsfreckles · 4 years ago

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[7:21p.m.] A Couple of Whipped Besties, One Could Say...

Sapnap x reader

Fluff

A couple of sus betsies - enjoy!

Sapnap smiled proudly at the beautiful view in front of him: you sitting in his gaming chair, beating the shit out of George on a minecraft PVP server.

Naturally, as Sapnap’s best friend, today marked your third night sleeping over at his house, the usual.

You two simply couldn’t get sick of each other.

Sure, he was annoying and relentless sometimes, and maybe you were a bit stubborn and moody; but regardless, both of your personalities clashed and complimented each other perfectly - creating a close friendship.

Even though your friendship was his most precious treasure, Sapnap couldn’t help but be dissatisfied with it.

Not because he wasn’t happy with you... but because he wasn’t happy with you.

incase you need further elaboration:

Sapnap done went and caught feelings for you. (no earnings)

Leaning over your left shoulder as you gamed, Sapnap side-eyed your facial expressions as you passionately played on the computer monitor in front of you, flexing your weirdly amazing skill at PVP.

He admired you; you looked cute while concentrated. Critting George’s player with your diamond axe was Sapnap’s favorite sight to see. Your eyebrows furrowed the slightest bit and your eyes shined as you attempted to predict George’s next move.

Not to mention you were also hot as fuck. Sapnap didn’t need to admit that though...

Not only were you his cute best friend, but you were also a super skilled player. He seemed to get the best of both worlds when it came to you.

You can be risky, fun, daring and stupid, but at the same time smart, soft, sweet, and safe. It’s rare to have someone as unique and different as you. You were irreplaceable.

It also just makes things 1000x better when you’re the reason George regrets his entire PVP career.

Sapnap leaned back into his spare chair, laughing in disbelief at you mercilessly owning George in the game. He could hear George’s screams of absolute terror leaking from the headset on your head; his headset. (dollar tree)

Goddamn he’s whipped. (what a shrimp)

The headphones were a little big on you, which added to the cuteness. Sapnap secretly peered at you love-sickly, sighing in content. It was rare for him to be completely in a haze by you simply doing nothing; for some reason you had him completely under your control today.

Your sudden yell broke Sapnap from his trance and brought his attention to the monitor showing the signature “victory” screen. You squealed hopping up from your chair and doing a small victory dance, laughing at George as he wallowed in defeat. You turn to Sapnap, a wide smile on your face. “Were you watching that? George is SHIT!” You laughed. Sapnap shook his head in disbelief. “Have you been practicing? I have to get you to duel Dream... I doubt you could beat him though. Gogy is just trash.” You giggled with Sapnap at his open criticism towards George, while the trash PVP player on the call scoffed and mumbled incoherent curse words. (ignoring the fact Sapnap lowkey called you trash)

“Well,” you start, relaxing back into his gaming chair. “I’m kind of hungry now. Do you want to go get Chick-fil-a or something?” Just before Sapnap could respond, he was rudely interrupted by George screaming on his headset. “YOU’RE GOING TO GET CHICK-FIL-A?!” The headphones rung. “Are you trying to get cancelled Sapnap?” George joked, making literally no one laugh. You glanced at Sapnap in amusement. His face is twisted in playful annoyance as he ends the call with George. “I guess George is right... Don’t want our precious Sappy getting cancelled.” Sapnap scoffs and rolls his eyes at you playing along with George, a smile on his face. You smirk evilly, standing up to walk across his room to grab your purse. “Whelp, looks like you gotta get your own fast food.” You sling your purse over your shoulder and start heading towards his bedroom door.

Sapnap’s eyes widen at your statement. There’s no way he’s letting you go along with George’s stupid-ass joke.

Before you could leave, Sapnap scrambled to wedge himself between you and his door, stopping you from exiting the room. “Um? You’re dog water if you think you’re pulling that bullshit on me?” He sasses, backing you away from his door.

You hold in your laugh and shrug, putting up a serious face. “We should probably have a break from each other anyway... Why don’t you go out and get McDonald’s instead? I’ll be back in like,” you check your phone for affect. “Like 45 minutes.” You state, looking back up to his pretty eyes filled with betrayal.

Sapnap is frozen. He didn’t think that this Chick-fil-a joke would actually be taken some-what seriously. You wanted time away from him? What the fuck? You two have always been clingy to each other! You can barely go to his fucking kitchen by yourself!

He took a second longer looking into your shining eyes. Then it all clicked.

You little rat. How cruel are you to be playing with his little heart like that?

Sapnap could turn this situation around in a few different ways.

1.) He could call out your cap right now and you two would go out and get your chick-fil-a, or whatever you want to eat.

2.) He could football tackle you to the fucking ground and make you apologize for saying such buffoonery.

3.) He could go along with your cruel joke, and make you think that he 100% agrees that you two “need to take a break.” He can even go as far as calling it a night and telling you that he’s too tired for another sleepover night.

Sapnap was never the merciful type. As much as he is unconditionally in love with you, he don’t play.

Option 3 was game.

Sapnap looked up and to the side, pretending to think about your suggestion of “taking a break” like it was a valid choice. Stepping away from his place in between you and the door, Sapnap motions for you to go. “You know what, you’re kinda right. You can go ahead, I think I’m going to call someone.” Sapnap whips out his phone from his back jean pocket and turns away from you, pretending to scroll through his contacts.

This makes you stumble for a second. Did he just... agree with you..? Your heart stops beating for a split second and you debate if you should tell him that you were joking or not. You can barely go to the kitchen by yourself, why isn’t he catching on that it was a joke? You stand still there, looking at his turned back. “Okay... I’m just going to go then.” You say, still not making a move to leave. After a moment of him not acknowledging a word you just said, you start again. “Do you like...” you pause. “want me to bring you back something...” Sapnap turns back to you at that, suddenly deciding to pay attention to you. “Uh no thanks, I’ll just eat something here. You should probably call your mom, she probably wants you home. You’ve been here for what-” he checks his phone for the date. “Like 4 days?” He states, looking back up to you.

Your mouth drops. Hurt fills you heart. Did he really just say that?

Yeah... you have been at his house for a while... but you didn’t think that he was getting sick of you. You usually stayed over there for 4 nights on average before you went home.

You’ve stayed there for 6 days before! And you both STILL mourned the loss of each other’s presence when you left!

(Isn’t this simp culture?)

What does this mean? You stand there is silence just looking at him. It’s not like you could argue; you were the one who said you needed a break first.

You felt like crying. Yes... Sapnap is your best friend and this literally isn’t that big of a deal, but... you love Sapnap. You’d spend forever with him if you could. And you thought he would too. You stiffen for a moment. You know he isn’t your boyfriend; as much as you wish he was, you need to stop acting like he is.

Him saying he wants to be alone shouldn’t be that big of a deal to you! You guys are friends! He’s standing there, looking at you expectantly, waiting for you to go on, do anything.

While you stand there debating your life choices with hurt written all over your face, Sapnap’s mind is racing a million miles an hour. He literally can’t decide if he should burst out laughing from how well his plan worked or hug you and say sorry for being so mean.

He literally can’t decide - so he does both.

Just as you feel your eyes getting the tinniest bit glassy, Sapnap roars with laughter and pulls you into a bear hug, squeezing your waist with one arm and using the other to pet your hair fondly. “I’m so sorry, I had to, it was too good, that literally couldn’t have gone better-” he rambles. You immediately sulk and smack his shoulder, aggressively hugging him back. “YOU ASSHOLE I GOT SO SCARED!” You groan in embarrassment. You literally almost cried.

Sapnap giggles and hugs you tighter, his smile couldn’t possibly get wider. You sigh in relief, snuggling into his arms. “You actually scared me so bad. That was so weird.” Sapnap laughs again, leaning back from you slightly to get a look at your pretty face. You were pouting. Cute. Sapnap smirked and squeezed your cheek with the hand that was previously petting your semi-tangled hair. “You did it to me first you dimwit, what the hell did you think I felt like?!” He exclaimed. “You literally told me to go home you asshole!” You exasperated. Sapnap threw his head back laughing, pulling you back towards him again. He nuzzled into the side of your neck, sighing happily.

As hilarious as it was watching you go through the 5 stages of grief over this situation, it was also heart breaking all at the same time. He hopes he never has to see that again on a serious note, if he’s being honest. If you ever looked like that when you guys were being legit - it would quite literally kill him.

After what felt like 20 minutes of hugging, you pulled back from the hug and looked up at Sapnap, his arms still attached to the ends of your sweatshirt, keeping you in place.

As he stared down at your pink cheeks and flustered expression, he felt like he could stand with you here for hours. He wishes he could kiss you.

You rolled your eyes at him as he giggled. “Whatever.” You state, walking out of his hold and over to his bed side table. Sapnap watches your movements in confusion. Once at the table, you open the top drawer and snatch his wallet from inside, your back facing him. “I’m getting fucking Chick-fil-a and if you don’t come, I’m literally going to buy the entire menu with this.” You turn facing him and hold up his wallet. Sapnap’s eyes widen in realization at what’s in your possession. He makes a move to run over to you and snatch it back. Unluckily for him, you were already bolting out the door and to his car.

Hello 🥺

I hope u enjoyed sorry it took so long hehee

I’ve had lack of motivation, as we all in this tough pandemic - I hope you guys are all doing well and stay happy and safe 💕

Thankfully we have our fav mcyt gang to help us through tough times :)

Ik sapnap says fuck you, but think of it in an endearing way LOL LOVE U GUYS

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sif-the-tsunami · 4 years ago

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The Love I Can’t Give

Warnings: Pregnancy, fertility, motherhood, emotional neglect, jealousy, and emotional trauma

Authors note: I feel a deep, soul cleaning cry coming on. I had a conversation with my spouse today where I talked about how I realize that I don’t think I’ll get to be a mother again. And it hurts my heart in a real tangible way. Pregnancy announcements make me cry. Working with my pregnant coworker is difficult. We spent the afternoon with friends of ours and watching my friend who I adore with their husband just being doted on brought up a lot of emotions for me. I had a traumatic pregnancy and I know that my husband did the best that he could at the time. We were not ready to be parents when it happened. I guess I feel like if I have to cry, someone else needs to cry with me.

Anyways. Summary, Clark is in a long term relationship with a woman who was previously married. She has children from the previous marriage and has since been sterilized due to medical problems during her pregnancy. After a game night spent with a very pregnant friend, Clark comforts her as best as he can.

Clark lovingly gazed at the woman he adored across the table from him, she was one of the strongest women he had the pleasure of knowing. His beloved could weather any storm life could throw at her, she might swear and complain the whole time, and she would make it out the other side. But just like how he had his own weaknesses, she had her kryptonite. He could hear her voice crack ever so slightly as the night wore on, emotionally exhausted from holding back her feelings. Clark, who was acutely aware of his love’s heartbeat, could tell that she had been doing some of her breathing exercises when she excused herself earlier, trying to get control over her emotions. He knew when she was having a panic attack, she was trying her best to get herself back together and not worry him.

He pretended to get a text from their babysitter and brought the evening to a close earlier than they had planned. Ever the masochist, she would have stayed until the end despite the heartache she was enduring.

When they finally left their friend’s house, he caught what she had been pushing back as long as she possibly could. The staggered breath that was the only other outward sign she would give until her face would crumple and the tears would erupt.

“Hey, hun, do you want me to drive?” Without a word, just a slight nod, Clark came up behind his favorite human and kissed her shoulder. “You’re ok, I promise. You can let it out.”

They made it halfway to their apartment before the tears started to pour down her cheeks. Between broken gasps, she miserably choked out, “I’m sorry, Clark. I didn’t mean to ruin our evening...”

“You didn’t ruin anything. Sweetheart, you can always talk to me about whatever is going on.”

“Its... its so stupid.” She said softly. “You got a look on your face when Sarah was talking about her baby. And watching her husband just... so lovingly take care of her. My whole heart just broke. I can’t give that to you, I don’t get to experience that with you. Clark, you would be such a good daddy. You are so so wonderful with the girls. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I love you, I love the girls. Our little family feels complete to me. You made the right choice for you, you told me how sick you were during your pregnancies. I don’t think I could do that to you. Knowing I was the one that caused you that kind of pain would be difficult for me.” Clark reached across the car to hold her hand.

“I wish I could have had a chance to celebrate from the very beginning, where we stand in the bathroom together waiting for the little pink line to develop. Where the first reaction is joy, not terror.” She sniffed hard, “I felt like I ruined our lives when I got pregnant the first time. That he would never forgive me. I loved her immensely from the moment I knew, and all I could think was how badly I failed her because I picked the wrong person to be her dad.”

Clark gently lifted the hand he held and kissed it. “He grew into fatherhood though. I’ve seen how he is with the girls, he adores them and they love him.”

“Yeah, but this wasn’t the life he wanted. I gave him so many opportunities to walk away, and I wouldn’t have held it against him. Then one day he accused me of cheating on him. And bear in mind, this was supposed to have happened when I was so severely depressed that all I could do was try to keep my baby from screaming.”

“I don’t think you’ve told me this before.”

“I think I’ve only told my therapist about this.” She looked out the window, and softly added, “There are some nights that I stay up and I hope that you never grow to resent me because I can’t have more babies. I love you so much, and the idea that I’m keeping you from something you want hurts my heart.”

“I could never resent you, the only thing I want is to show you that you and the girls are enough for me. Besides, I was a adopted, I know that blood doesn’t make someone your family.” Clark looked at her face after they parked. He watched the matriarch of their household compose herself before getting out of the car. He walked up behind her and held her gently to him. “Let’s take the scenic route upstairs, shall we.”

She wrapped her arms around his torso and placed her head on his chest, Clark placed a kiss on her forehead as they quietly ascended into the night sky.

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #my apologies to henry cavill #clark kent #fluff

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painless-innit-colourful · 4 years ago

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‘Where I Go, Will You Still Follow?’ - A Clingyduo Fic from the Hunger Games AU

In the most ironic twist, I missed Tommy’s lore stream on Monday writing Clingyduo comfort/hurt (in that order). I wasn’t sure whether this fandom needed any more angst right now, but whatever, take this anyway. This fic is set in a Hunger Games AU where the characters of the Dream SMP reside in Panem and must compete in the Games. Only Tommy + Tubbo appear in this fic though. Angst reigns supreme on Reaping Day, where the boys face the possibility of being picked for the deadly Hunger Games for the first time. (Also I promise you don’t have to have read HG to get this.)

tw nothing really, they’re only being reaped here.

word count: 3102

On the morning of the reaping, two boys tread carefully through a desolate orchard.

At this time of year, the trees are mostly left to their own devices. In about six months their boughs will bear fruit, and there will be plenty of people scurrying to and fro beneath them collecting their bounty to be stored and sent to the Capitol. Those very boys will join them. However, on that late Spring morning there is no one about. During this season the trees require only the occasional pruning, and everyone’s still in bed this early anyway. No reason to get up on a day where you don’t need to. Public holidays like this are rare.

Tommy and Tubbo hold hands as they move through the trees. Old habit, they suppose, a defense mechanism against getting split up, for better or worse. With the number of people in their district it can make public gatherings hazardous for lonely children, and if there’s anything worse than getting caught alone in a stampede, it’s getting left behind in a chase. If one boy falls, so does the other. If one boy is caught with his hand in the larder, the other will be nearby. The two of them are a package deal: where one goes, the other follows.

They only stop when they’re sure they’re properly alone, deep in the orchard. It would take anyone hours to find them; it would take most people hours to get out from this point. But years spent traversing these paths - both from the ground and the branches above - have given them an instinctual knowledge on which way to go. They settle in beneath a large apple tree; lush and green now that the blossoms have since blown away. They go about unwrapping several grease paper packages that were previously weighing down their pockets as Tommy hums a tune to keep them company. Tubbo shuffles uncomfortably as they lay out a small breakfast of half a loaf of bread - dark and dotted with seeds, District 11’s signature - a petite disc of cheese that Tubbo suspects Tommy sat on at some point, and an apple each. Food they either squirreled away from the pantry at the orphanage or stole outright. The thought pinches Tubbo’s cheeks.

“What’s that sour face for?” Tommy asks him, flicking his eyes up every so often as he arranges the cheese on the bread with a tiny knife stashed in his boot and breaks the half-crescent of bread roughly in half. “You’re not still worried about getting caught.”

Tubbo sighs, and it tells Tommy all he needs to know. “C’mon! We covered our tracks and literally no one saw us.” When Tubbo’s expression doesn’t change, he puts a comforting hand on his friend’s arm. “Well, definitely no one saw you. I’ll take the hit for it, if they find out.”

“No, it’s- fine.”

“Your face says otherwise, my friend.” All the same, Tommy retracts his arm and finishes haphazardly spreading the cheese upon the bread. He nudges one of the apples towards Tubbo with his foot, “Here, start.”

“Excuse me, the apple comes after the main course, how dare you break tradition.”

“My apologies, my liege.”

The easy smile returns briefly to Tubbo’s face as they laugh, then quickly melts away again. Tommy fixes him with a sympathetic look. “What?” Tubbo asks, locking eyes with him as he finishes brutalising the cheese and hands him his half. “You’re worried about the reaping.”

“And you’re not?”

“Should I be?” When Tubbo gives him a sideways glare, Tommy shrugs. “Dude, it’s a tiny chance. Two in thousands and thousands. You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than have either of our names fished out of the bowl.” And though Tommy was likely skewing his numbers a bit, he supposed it was true. It was their first year of reapings and neither of them had taken any tesserae. They were about as safe as you could be between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Still…

“Besides,” Tommy continued. “If your name gets called, I’m sure someone would volunteer for you.” He barely makes it to the end of his sentence before Tubbo’s noise of dismissal drowns him out. “Yeah right. Let’s be realistic here.” Tommy leans back against the tree as he eats. Sunlight peeks through the branches at random intervals, illuminating him in softly glowing patches. He turns his head slightly and beckons Tubbo over with a nod. They shift their bodies and the food around until they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder between two large roots, and Tubbo finds that the sunlight is almost as warm as Tommy beside him.

They remain in that position for some time, eating their way through their swindled picnic. It’s a bit much for an ordinary breakfast, but it’s somewhat of a tradition to have something special on reaping day. Makes the hours standing in the square while the Mayor drones on about how it’s right to send two children to their deaths a bit more bearable. According to those traditions, you’re supposed to celebrate with a meal after the reaping too, though neither boy is quite sure where that convention came from. Not many in District 11 could afford it in any case.

At some point Tubbo drops a hand to the floor between them, and at some later instance Tommy places his where their fingers can interlace. “You’re nervous too.” Tubbo states without looking at his companion, instead remaining as he is, staring past the leaves to the clear blue sky. “No way.” Tubbo giggles at Tommy’s indignant tone. “A big man like me is not scared of being picked in the reaping.”

“Fearless he is, Big Man Tommy.”

“Too right!” They laugh, and the terror their giggles mask bubbles just beneath the surface, a pot mere seconds from boiling over.

“Look, Tommy,” Tubbo’s voice becomes serious, and Tommy’s laughter peters out. “It’s all well and good laughing and joking about it, but… In the event one of us is chosen…” Their eyes meet and Tubbo squeezes Tommy’s hand, to which Tommy returns the grip. “I need you to tell me you remember our promise.” In response, Tommy sighs, drops Tubbo’s hand, puts that arm around his best friend’s shoulder, pulls him close and runs his free hand through his hair, almost all simultaneously. “Yes of course I remember it.”

“And?” Tubbo replies expectantly.

“And what?”

“Say it, you dummy.” Tommy places his free hand over his heart like a salute. “I, Tommy Innit, promise my dearest friend Tubbo Underscore, that if he is chosen for the Hunger Games in this afternoon’s reaping, I will not volunteer to take his place.” He waits for Tubbo to relax, satisfied, before tacking on: “Thus letting him be led away to a faraway place to be on television then get brutally murdered, also on television. “ He can feel Tubbo’s eye roll without even looking. “You made me promise the same.”

“Yeah I did, didn’t I?” He admits quietly, leaning his head against his best friend’s, brown curls obscuring half his vision.

“It’ll be okay, right?”

“Yeah.” Tubbo’s hair smells faintly of apples, somehow. Tommy squeezes his best friend and hopes he won’t have to betray him.

Unbeknownst to him, Tubbo has the same thought.

---

The duo spend the hours before the reaping as they usually do: sleeping in each others embrace somewhere they technically shouldn’t be, pretending the clothes they have to change into back at the orphanage are any better than what they’re changing out of, and hogging the second floor bathroom for way longer than necessary. The black storm cloud that is the reaping casts a longer shadow than previous years, but they manage to ignore it for most of the morning with enough shenanigans to fill their quota for the year. The clouds threaten to burst however when the time reaches half twelve, and the parentless teenagers of the district begin to make their way towards the square where the ceremony will take place. The once-blue sky darkens as the crumbling facade of the Justice Building comes into view, as if nature were waiting for her cue, and Tommy wonders if he jinxed himself with his earlier comments about being struck by lightning.

He’s holding Tubbo’s hand again - standard crowd procedure - and he’s thankful for about the millionth time that they’re the same age. They head with the other twelve year old orphans to the corresponding pen for their age group, and find themselves sandwiched in the centre. Tubbo exchanges a few words with some of their peers, most likely to be ‘Good luck’, but Tommy’s not really concentrating. The square is already full and still there’s many more people to come, and with every person that joins the crowd there will only be more cramming the possible tributes together like sardines in a tin. There have been crushes at reapings before; they tell them in school about the reaping for the seventh games, where too many spectators packed the floor and there was a panic that killed four people, including one kid in the crowd. In an ironic twist, their name was later pulled from the ball, and their escort had to be informed live on stage in front of the entire nation that they’d died earlier that day.

Decidedly, the odds were not in their favour.

Tommy doesn’t like to admit it, but tight spaces get to him. And here, packed in by bodies with camera crews perched high on the rooftops over the crowd, scanning for the faces that will leave the district tonight, he feels like a fish in a barrel. “Hey-” Tubbo’s voice reaches him through the din of thousands of people talking at once, but he sounds a million miles away. He practically crushes Tubbo’s fingers with his own, and, in retaliation, Tubbo flicks him on the nose. He blinks at him angrily for a second, the distraction welcome despite his show of annoyance. “Breathe, Tommy.” He forces air in and out of his lungs for about thirty seconds just to make sure he still can. Tubbo traces stars on the back of his hand.

By the time the Mayor’s stepped up to the podium and began his yearly recitation of the history of Panem, Tommy thinks he’s calmed himself down somewhat. Tubbo still traces stars in little pentagram patterns on Tommy’s hand with his thumb, and though it’s starting to get a little irritating, something stops him from signalling him to knock it off. He glances briefly sideways to Tubbo, and though his expression is mostly blank, the two have gotten used to watching each other’s tics and tells, signs that are imperceptible to anyone else but them. The small twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way he scrunches his nose slightly when he blinks, even the way he presses a little too hard with his thumb, his patterns becoming less uniform and the edges of his nails leaving little scratches. He’s as scared as Tommy. So he lets him keep doing it, for both their sakes.

The Mayor finishes his history lecture, reads the list of past victors and then finally introduces the District 11 escort, a spritely-looking man in a bottle-green suit called Montaque. He’s been the district’s escort for a few years, and Tommy and Tubbo used to joke his mustache was so spiky-sharp looking you could win a Games by using it as a weapon. He seems to glide across the stage as he gives a speech about District pride or some nonsense, then utters the classic phrase, “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour.”

He crosses the stage to the front where two glass balls sit, holding thousands of tiny slips of paper. A lump forms in Tommy’s throat. Somewhere in one of those balls there’s two slips of paper that could serve as their one way ticket to the Capitol. He knows they’re somewhat lucky: some kids their age have many more slips thanks to tesserae, but Tommy feels a pang in his chest even as he thinks about it. Some kids have parents. Some kids have somewhere to put their tesserae so it won’t immediately get stolen. He and Tubbo may have considered it, but what use would they have for grain and oil when on most days they could barely hold onto their bedsheets? It was one less thing to worry about.

Montaque the Stupid sticks one of his disproportionately-large hands into the first glass ball, and retrieves a slip of paper, and Tommy begs inside his mind, not us not us not him. He reads the name, and the entire world suddenly stops spinning. Somewhere in the back of Tommy’s mind is a lag, like when one person in a chain of people passing produce from a field to a wagon disappears. The chain does its best to keep up, but it’s very quickly overwhelmed, leaving debris in the form of dropped vegetables and a backlog that needs to be attended to.

That’s how it feels inside Tommy’s head as the crowd parts for him, a sea of people craning their necks as they shuffle aside to form a runway for him towards the stage. This can’t be happening. His mind can’t catch up to the fact, doesn’t want to catch up to the fact that this is happening. He glances to his side and immediately regrets the action, for Tubbo stands beside him looking equal parts shell shocked and distressed. Their eyes meet, teary and desperate, and Tommy only has the strength to mouth ‘Promise’, before his feet start to carry him towards the stage alone, and his hand in Tubbo’s becomes an outstretched arm. When they finally let go Tommy can feel the ghost of his friend’s hand in his own, and knows that it will be one of the last kind touches he ever receives. He tries not to think of that as he half-marches towards the veranda. He doesn’t look back for fear it’ll set him off crying, but if he were to, he would see Tubbo standing impossibly alone in such a huge crowd, holding the hand that held Tommy’s to his chest.

He mounts the stage and looks out over the people of the district he calls home, a tiny voice in his head telling him to make the most of this last time. Last time. He searches for Tubbo in the crowd, spotting him easily by the empty pathway he just walked down being slowly absorbed back into the crowd. He can see even from here the tears shining on his cheeks, the way his whole body shakes with the effort of holding more back. There’s a couple orphanage kids looking like they’re trying to console him, and, if Tommy should weigh in, doing a pretty sh’it job. He looks away to watch Montaque snatch the second slip of paper from the glass ball, and he tenses every fibre of his being shouting internally please please please. The name is read, and this time Tommy finds himself still breathing and present as some older kid makes his own shaky way to the podium. He’s about fourteen, with a stocky build that betrays work in the crop fields. As he takes his place opposite Tommy, the young boy is reminded that the Games will be full of people like him. Stronger, older opponents. Tommy, at the monumental age of twelve, doesn’t stand a chance.

The moment lingers, and then it keeps lingering, and then Tommy turns to Montaque to find out why the da’mn moment won’t move on. He’s staring out into the crowd once more, and Tommy’s heart, already too heavy, drops straight into his boots as he follows Montaque’s gaze. The crowd parts once more, and Tubbo strides forward, a shaky confidence marking his every step. The murmurs around the square hush, as he comes to stand mere metres from the tributes. Tommy wants to catch his eye, shake his head, scream at him to stop, but Tubbo doesn’t look at him. Tommy knows exactly what he intends to do as he opens his mouth; Tommy mouths the words along with him.

“I volunteer as tribute.”

Now you’ve gone and done it.

Montaque, biggest pri’ck on the planet, waxes lyrical about courage and bravery while he arranges the exchange of the fourteen year old for Tubbo. As if he’d ever know what it is to be brave. As the Mayor takes over once more, reading the Treaty of Treason as he is bound by duty to do, Tommy tries to catch the attention of his best friend, who’s acting annoyingly aloof. He watches as Tubbo stares into the distance, looking alarmingly calm with the whole ordeal. Tommy wants to scream, and do a bit more than scream and call him all the foul names he can think of and demand he un-volunteer and why? You stupid bi’tch absolute idiot why would you volunteer when we had a promise, why did you betray the promise? Why? Why why why why why?

As the Mayor wraps up the Treaty bore-fest, he motions for the two tributes to shake hands. Tributes. Now bound unrelentingly for an arena where they will kill other people. Other children. Maybe even each other.

Tommy feels some comfort in how helpless their situation is. Odds are they’ll die long before each other are a threat. They’re going to be a team obviously, and Tommy’s going to protect Tubbo as long as he can. That’s what he promised him the day they met, and that’s what he intends to do.

They shake hands, and Tubbo finally looks at him. The tears have dried on his cheeks. They take a little longer than is necessary, conducting a silent conversation between them.

‘Sorry.’

‘I am so fu’cking mad at you.’

‘You thought I would really leave you?’

‘I hoped I was wrong.’

They stand for the anthem. They are carted into the Justice Building to wait for people to come and say goodbye. No one comes. They weren’t expecting anyone anyway. They are all they have; all they’ve ever had. And where one goes, the other follows.

Tommy waits alone in the Justice Building, trying to figure out if the first thing he’ll do when he’s alone with Tubbo is hug him or strangle him. Beyond that though, he has to protect his boy. He has to keep his promise. An uneasy feeling stirs his gut. One promise has already been broken today.

And the odds aren’t playing nice.

#hell yeah i finally posted it #honestly i don't have a lot to say other than i hope you enjoyed #let's keep rereading the fluffy parts right?? anyway #i'm distraught over current events on the dsmp and this is how i'm coping #dream smp #hg au #tommyinnit #tubbo #dsmp fic #dream smp fanfic #crim writes #real proud of this one #all in one go. never written 3000 words in a day before

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dia-b-harvester · 4 years ago

Text

Until Dawn:SMP Dusk Butterfly Effects Part 1

“A tiny butterfly flapping its wings today may lead to a devastating hurricane weeks from now.”

Due to the amount of effects and and possible length, this was cut into two parts. Link to part two is right here.

Butterfly Effects are the most important aspect of the game, and remains the most important aspect here. While most Effects will be the same, some might be altered or changed a little, some might not exist, and even new Effects.

With 2 more characters to keep in mind and try to keep them alive, it seems the hurricane is already coming....

“How does it feel? Do you enjoy feeling terrorized? Humiliated? I mean, panicked? All those emotions that my sisters got to feel once one year ago! Only guess what? They didn't get to laugh it off! No! Nope! No no no! They're gone!"

Any of Your Business

Protagonist: George

Affected characters: Tommy, George

George decides whether or not he should see who's calling Tommy or ignore it and zip up his bag.

Results

Their relationship will decrease if he does snoop. Tommy will later insult George, stating that his actions with Eret are justified since he did the same to his privacy. If he did not snoop, Tommy will still steal Eret’s letter and will not bring George into it.

Outcomes:

- Tommy was happy to see George

- Tommy continued to trust George

_________

- George looked at Tommy’s incoming message

- Tommy was offended by George’s indiscretion

- Tommy criticized George for being nosy

Rats With Bushy Tails

Protagonist: Tommy

Affected Characters: Tommy, George

Tommy decides whether to shoot the bag, shoot the squirrel, or shoot nothing for the final shot at the shooting range.

Results

If he shoots the bag or does nothing, his relationship with George will increase. If he shoots the squirrel, their relationship will decrease and George will be attacked by a crow, which will affect later Butterfly Effects.

Outcomes

- Tommy chose not to shoot the squirrel - Nature remained in balance - (Possible) George, unharmed, hid successfully

_________

- Tommy shot the squirrel - Nature bit back: a bird attacked George - (Possible) George’s fall through the door opened the wound - (Possible) A drop of George’s blood gave his position away

The Soul of Discretion Effect Doesn’t Exist

Whose Side Are You On- edited feel more natural to characters

Protagonist: BadBoyHalo Affected Characters: Bad, Eret, Sapnap (Argument was caused after Sapnap said something about the circumstances that upset Eret)

Bad decides whether to side with Sapnap or Eret during their argument.

Results

If he sides with Sapnap by provoking the fight, his relationship with Eret will decrease. If he sides with Eret by defusing the fight, his relationship with Sapnap will decrease and he will be hostile later on, adding to a different Butterfly Effect.

Outcomes:

- Bad sided with Sapnap during the fight with Eret

- (Possible) Sapnap was sympathetic to Bad

_________

- Bad sided with Eret during the fight with Sapnap

- (Possible) Sapnap was aggressive with Bad

Be “His” Hero does not exist

Something for later

Protagonist: George

Affected Characters: George, The Psycho

George has the option to pick up a baseball bat in Chapter 2, while Dream tinkers with the hot water heater.

Results:

If he shows him, he has the option to either be serious about it or joke.

If he is serious, her relationship with Dream increases.

If he jokes, their relationship will decrease.

Later on, if he did show him, when he chooses the second "Hide" option and either attempts to run or moves during the "Don't Move" segment, he is able to escape through using it.

If he did not show him, he will not have the option to use the baseball bat and be caught, which will affect later Butterfly Effects.

Outcomes:

- Dream locked the baseball bat in the cupboard

- (Possible) The Psycho captured George in the cellar/...But George made the right choices to avoid the Psycho in the cellar

- (Possible) George was caught in the old hotel/George made it to a hiding place in the elevator

——————

- George found a baseball bat and left it in the cellar

- (Possible) George had the option to use the bat when being chased

- (Possible) ...But he missed the chance to use it/George hit the Psycho to escape

- (Possible) George was caught in the old hotel/George made it to a hiding place in the elevator

To the Rescue

Protagonist: Wilbur

Affected Characters: Wilbur, Eret, Bad (Determinant)

Wilbur decides to either choose the risky paths or the safer ones while chasing after Eret, attempting to save him.

Results:

If he chooses all four safe paths, Eret will die.

If he chooses three, all quick-time events must be hit in order to save him.

If he chooses only one or two, an uncertain amount of quick-time events can be missed without him dying.

If Wilbur fails to succeed in reaching him in time, Eret will die and be absent, later on, in Chapter 9.

If Bad or Eret choose to run ahead, move during the don't move segment, fail to make a decision, or if Bad fails to catch Eret or abandons him, Eret will die.

Eret’s status will be stated here.

Outcomes:

- Wilbur stumbled when chasing after Eret

- Wilbur was too late: Eret was dead

- (Possible) Bad was all alone in the mine

———-

- Wilbur successfully chased after Eret

- Eret was still alive!

- Eret failed to escape a second time/Eret survived until dawn

...And Which One Will Die

Protagonist: Tommy

Affected Characters: Tommy, Tubbo, Dream

Tommy decides to either save Tubbo or Dream, after The Psycho knocked them both unconscious and forced them into a trap. The choice Tommy makes will affect his relationship with Dream (as his relationship with Tubbo remains the same either way), as, later on:

Results:

If Tommy announced that he would save Tubbo, Dream will antagonize Tommy which will decrease their relationship. However, no matter which way you turn the lever (or if you choose to do nothing at all), Dream will still be "killed" and Tubbo safe.

Outcomes:

- Tommy said that he would save Dream, but then didn't

- Dream was sympathetic to Tommy and antagonised Wilbur

————

- Tommy said that he would save Tubbo

- Tubbo was grateful and felt indebted to Tommy

- Dream felt betrayed and antagonised Tommy

- Tommy considered violence/Tommy hit Dream

At What Price

Protagonist: Wilbur

Affected Characters: Wilbur

Wilbur has the option to interact with a possible collectible or item in Chapter 5, which is a moving hand with a name tag placed on it.

Results:

If he chooses to do so, two of his fingers will be caught in a bear trap. He has the option to either amputate his fingers or manually open the bear trap with the machete he found earlier.

If he chooses to amputate his fingers right away or after trying to open the bear trap once, he will still have a usable machete and, later on, George can express sympathy.

If he chooses to manually open the bear trap or hacks off his own fingers after trying to open the bear trap twice, he will no longer have a usable machete and, later on, will only use his shotgun to shoot one of the Wendigos and use the lighter to set George free (if he was captured in Chapter 5), instead of using the machete.

Another event regarding this butterfly is how much progress Wilbur did without getting himself in peril.

If Wilbur successfully incinerates the Sanatorium, George will rescue Wilbur in the mines.

If he fails to do so on the way out, or getting attacked by a Wendigo when not even close to the way out, George will rescue Wilbur in the Sanatorium.

Outcomes:

- Wilbur got to the morgue/Wilbur hacked off his own fingers

- Wilbur still had a useable machete

- (Possible) Wilbur used the machete to defend himself

- (Possible) Wilbur found another way through the Sanatorium

- George rescued Wilbur from the Sanatorium/George rescued Wilbur in the mine

- Wilbur freed himself from the bear trap/Wilbur hacked off his own fingers

- Wilbur no longer had a useable machete/Wilbur no longer had a useable machete after hacking off his fingers

- (Possible) Wilbur had no machete with him to defend himself

- (Possible) Wilbur found another way through the Sanatorium

- George rescued Wilbur from the Sanatorium/George rescued Wilbur in the mine

Man’s Best Friend

Protagonist: Wilbur

Affected Characters: Wilbur, Fundy

Wilbur, when first meeting Fundy, has the option to either kick him or to not.

Results:

If he chooses to not kick the fox, he will join Wilbur’s adventure later on in the game.

In the same room in which Fundy inhabits, Wilbur can find a chest containing bones, in which he can give to him. If Wilbur previously kicked the fox, they will have made amends and Fundy will still join Wilbur.

If the bone is not picked up at all, the first decision will affect later gameplay in Chapter 9, in which Fundy will join Wilbur or run ahead on his own.

There, if Wilbur was nice to Fundy and as long as certain quick-time events are hit (if not, Fundy will die), and Wilbur barricades the door instead of running (the latter will result in the fox’s death), Fundy will survive. If Wilbur chose to kick the fox and did not give him the bone to make amends, Fundy will not join Wilbur and will act hostile with him. However, no matter what, Fundy will always save Wilbur if certain quick-time events are failed, and, if the door is barricaded, he will never join Wilbur past that point, but he will still be alive. <in this au, Fundy will find Wilbur again after the final butterfly effect if he managed to survive>

Outcomes:

- Wilbur didn't kick the fox/Wilbur kicked the fox, but he made amends

- (Possible) Wilbur made a friend

- The fox guided Wilbur around the Sanatorium

- (Possible) Wilbur was saved by the fox/Wilbur’s new friend survived/Wilbur failed to protect his new friend

——————-

- Wilbur kicked the fox

- Wilbur was alone in the Sanatorium

- (Possible) The fox didn't protect Wilbur

On the Same Page

Protagonist: Bad

Affected Characters: Bad, Sapnap

This decision has a lot of possible outcomes depending on if Bad decides to agree with Sapnap at the cable car station. <Important later on>

Results:

If he agrees with Sapnap and he is given the flare gun, he will shoot it at the top of the radio tower.

If he does not agree with Sapnap and is given the flare gun, he will not shoot it and be able to use it later against a Wendigo if he tries to save Sapnap in the mines.

Outcomes:

- Bad supported Sapnap’s plan to go to the tower and get help

- (Possible) Bad fired the flare to signal for help

- (Possible) Bad had no defense against the attack

——————-

- Bad resisted Sapnap’s plan to go to the fire tower

- (Possible) Bad kept the flare gun

- (Possible) Bad had a defense against the attack

- (Possible) ...But failed to use it and was killed/...And used it to save his life

Run or Hide

Protagonist: George

Affected Characters: George

This butterfly effect will be a series of choices George makes when he tries to either run or hide from The Psycho.

Results:

If he manages to escape the cinema room, runs instead of hiding under the bed or manages to kick The Psycho, runs instead of hiding behind the shelf in the boiler room or uses the baseball bat to hit the Psycho, and hides instead of running down the long hallway in the Old Mountain Hotel, he will escape and has the chance to explore The Psycho's workshop.

Otherwise, The Psycho will capture him and use him as bait for Tubbo and Tommy to lead them into another trap.

Events might be altered by the outcomes from the butterfly effects Rats with Bushy Tails and Something For Later.

If Tommy chose to shoot the squirrel in Chapter 1, George regardless will be unable to escape from the Killer, even if he makes the correct choices to hide in the Hotel, since his flashlight cannot be turned off for the Psycho.

If George showed the baseball bat to Dream in Chapter 2, hid in the boiler room, and stayed, he would be able to use the baseball bat to hit the Psycho and escape in exchange for a QTE.

Outcomes:

- George got himself caught

- Tommy and Tubbo found George

- George needed to be rescued by Wilbur

—————-

- George made all the right choices during the chase

- Tommy and Tubbo found a dummy in George’s clothes

- George explored the Psycho's workshop

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blackjack-15 · 4 years ago

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Silly Rabbit, Ecological Terrorism is For Kids! — Thoughts on: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (ICE)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. As ICE sends off the Jetsetting Games category and moves into the Odd Games category, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I’ll go into what storyline marks this game a bit Odd in the Nancy Drew series as a whole.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: ICE; TRT; mention of FIN; mention of CUR; mention of TRN; mention of SEA.

This meta is under a read more because of its sheer length.

The Intro:

Ughhhhh. UGHHH.

The White Wolf of Icicle Creek has a lot of things that make it distinct in the Nancy Drew video game series — it sports the first new interface since SHA, it has the world’s most boring list of ‘enticing moments’ from the game on the back, its assets look like they were forcefully molded out of gummy bears, it randomly was released on Wii, it’s the best-known game among non-fans thanks to the Game Grumps — but it also stands out because not one of those things make it enjoyable to play or to watch without a heavy amount of MST3K-style commentary.

Also because it features the fandom’s least favorite puzzle of all time…but more on that later.

A point to get out of the way before we get into the game proper is that this game feels a lot like a cheap knock-off of Treasure in a Royal Tower. Like, a lot like a cheap knock-off. One of those animated films called “Bemo’s Lost in the Ocean” or “A Toy Tale” that come out around Disney/Pixar films to try to trick hapless grandmas into buying them.

Just lining it up, we have Nancy stuck in/around a lodge in winter, an edict from the owner of the lodge to figure out what’s up with repeated Incidents and possible sabotage while most guests have left, an academic around Nancy’s age, an Old Coot, an Olympian whose grandparent was important, chores (including food related chores) to do in order to progress in the story, a suspect you can only talk to face-to-face for part of the game…the list honestly goes on in both big and small ways.

While ICE isn’t the only one that tries to do this (since I’m not doing a SEA meta, I won’t get into the fact that SEA literally just remastered DDI’s characters and said ‘good enough’), it does feel particularly egregious because, for all its copying, there’s not enough in the game to distract from it even a bit.

ICE is a game searching for an identity and unable to find one, no matter how many plot points, chores, or games (horrible, unskippable games) they throw at the player. We have full on international espionage and ecological terrorism here (more on that in the next section), and it just…doesn’t matter, at the end of the day. It also takes place in Canada, but your only clue to that is that one of the characters says “eh” a lot, so that’s not great either.

If ICE is a new game to you (it can be a bear to install and even worse to complete, so I’m going to go off the assumption that not everyone will be familiar with it), you’ve probably only heard of the cooking chores, fox and geese, and that this is the game with the Return of Tony Balducci, previously of TRN fame. (Honestly, ICE had a big enough cast without its phone characters, but HER decided to shove three phone characters along with one partial phone character at us anyway.) And, to be honest, that’s pretty much all there is to the game.

Now I know this sounds harsh, but there is a possible explanation to the lack of content in this game. In my previous meta (link at the top of this post) I made a note that CRE’s production in all likelihood suffered because the company was focused on ICE’s new interface. I don’t think it’s a leap at all to say that ICE’s story and characters could also have suffered because of the same thing.

The biggest problem with ICE — besides the weird stuff we’ll get into below — is that it’s a shallow game. None of the characters have any real depth, the plot is a paper-thin copy of TRT, the puzzles are alternatingly impossible and extremely easy, and in an effort to add “depth”, we get…well, we get this next section.

The Weird Stuff:

With each of the Odd Games (ICE through RAN, Heaven help us all), there’s something that makes the game truly…well, odd. Odd for the Nancy Drew series, odd for the age range specified on the front of the box, and odd in general when you look at the rest of the plot.

In this game, it comes in the form of terrorism — or rather, two types of terrorism. Guadalupe is our first (and only, in this series) ecological terrorist, belonging to a fringe group called “Run and Go Free” and being perfectly fine with illegal acts (destruction of the fishing lodge, sabotage of personal property), even telling Nancy that she’s done worse in the name of Run and Go Free.

Nancy Drew Games are no stranger to hippie/naturalist types (see DOG, DDI, CAR, etc.) but Lupe is our first to be legitimately dangerous. Sure, she doesn’t end up being the ultimate Bad Guy, but she is A Bad Guy, and it really does seem very odd to me that after everything Lupe does (and insinuates that she’s done), that she gets away with barely a slap on the wrist in having to leave the lodge.

Lupe in no way fits in with the rest of the plot; there’s nothing to justify her being present in the game, she can appear about halfway through the game and then leaves to become a phone contact soon after, she’s not present enough to be an actual suspect — she has no place in the plot nor the game, and it really does just boggle the mind that a character is in it at all, especially with ICE having a greater than average number of suspects to begin with.

On the other hand, however, we have Yanni, an Eastern European Olympian spy/terrorist, sent by the Fredonian (a commonly used fake country) government to bomb around the lodge to find uranium under the cover of training for the next Olympics.

That is a whole lot of things for one character.

You’d think with the presence of Lupe that Yanni would fit right in, but he doesn’t make her — or himself — any less odd or out of place than he would have been alone. It’s a ‘suspicious Olympian’ character that we already got with Jacques, but he’s a million times worse, setting off friggin bombs to find a metal that his government wants for…well, the normal reason that governments want uranium.

So we can add in “reference to ongoing nuclear warfare” as another thing that makes this game Odd.

Yanni doesn’t fit the game or the plot, which is pretty bad considering he’s responsible for about half the plot in the first place. He also has that weird aside about his grandmother being eaten by wolves, as if HER wants the player to suspect him because of some twisted revenge against wolves plot (which would have been Very Weird) so that they can pull the rug out at the end and be like “see?? He’s a political terrorist looking for uranium for nuclear bombs for his country!!! Gotcha!!”.

Like, it’s not a Gotcha if it’s absolute lunacy. My land.

With that explanation out of the way, let’s get to something a little less Odd.

The Title:

I actually don’t have much to say here. The White Wolf of Icicle Creek is honestly a great name; it tells us the focal point of the game (the wolf), the location, (Icicle Creek), and even pretty much tells you the season that this game is happening in (white, icicle). It accomplishes a lot in a very short amount of words, and pertains accurately to the game we’re dealing with.

We’ll chalk that up in the “Win” category…especially since we’re going straight back into the “Lose” category with the next section.

The Mystery:

The mystery is a mess, full stop. There’s way too much going on for the amount of payoff (i.e. little to none), and the plot, thin at best, completely drops off at the 2/3rds mark when all the player has left to do is wait for random events to occur and keep putting off fox and geese.

Anyway.

We begin with strange, destructive incidents of sabotage happening at a renowned winter resort. Most of the guests have left, and there’s been some damage to parts of the resort. Asked for help by the owner of the resort who’s away on business, Nancy must pick up the slack left by staff who have quit, run food-related errands, and discover who might be behind these attacks before it’s too late.

Oh wait, that’s Treasure in a Royal Tower. Lemme start again.

We begin with strange, destructive incidents of sabotage happening at a renowned winter resort. Most of the guests have left, and there’s been some damage —

You get the picture.

The biggest difference pre-game is that after every incident, a white wolf is spotted, only to disappear before the police get there. People start connecting the wolf to the crimes, and go as far as blaming it for cases of food poisoning and slashed tires, as if the wolf is cooking food and using a knife with its paws.

Just as Nancy’s arriving on scene, the bunkhouse is blown up and she hears the wolf howling — so obviously there must be a connection there, and a wolf definitely isn’t just responding to a loud noise.

This part honestly feels a bit like the beginning of CUR, where the game tries to establish Scary Feelings and Ominous Threats and just comes off ham-fisted.

The back of the box features three ‘exciting’ things that Nancy gets to do in this game, which are as follows: cook lunch and dinner, ride a snowmobile and wear snow shoes, and do snowball fights and ice fishing. While it’s sad that those moderately exciting things are the best that the box can boast, it’s even sadder that they really are the best the game has to offer.

It’s easy to lose thread of the mystery nearly as soon as Nancy gets to the lodge, because she’s immediately bombarded with laundry that has to be done before a certain time, meals that have to be done within a certain hour or two, and a suspect (Lupe) that can just refuse to show up.

Oh, and the return of Tino Balducci.

Returning in a game where he doesn’t fit in and where no one wanted him in the first place, Tino’s there to “help” Nancy solve the mystery by giving her a questionnaire for her suspects to fill out that asks what planet they see themselves as, among other inanities.

Honestly, this whole section could be summed up as “Tino returns, among other inanities”.

Nancy, throughout all of this, somehow has time to do a bit of detective work, interviewing a cast of rather one-note suspects, figuring out that more than one person is responsible for the many accidents. Guadalupe’s sabotage is discovered and she’s sent home, Yanni is increasingly unavailable (which is hugely suspicious), snowball fights are more prevalent than necessary, and finally the villain is exposed, all culminating in a glitchy, nigh-impossible snowmobile chase.

Oh, and there’s a half-tamed wolf storyline that kinda pops up every now and again.

All in all, the mystery is a weak thread throughout the game — which is a problem, because it’s the only thread throughout the game — that’s easily overshadowed by the chores, games, and frankly awful visuals throughout the game.

Now, to those who contribute (in a way) to the non-entity that is ICE’s story:

The Suspects:

Ollie Randall is our resident grumpy caretaker and is Chantal’s right-hand man, along with being on the Avalanche Patrol and a firm believer in the bad luck that wolves bring. His wife can’t handle cold temperatures due to a nerve condition, so he’s also his daughter Freddie’s sole parent during the winter.

As a culprit in the game as it now is, Ollie would have been the only sensical option; fed up with the awful guests that come and cause havoc, he starts causing little easily-solved accidents to spook away the less hardy-type guests, but it keeps spiraling as it doesn’t keep out everyone but people like Bill Kessler. Frustrated by the treatment the lodge gets, he decides that if people don’t treat it nicely, they can’t have it at all…

Unfortunately, Ollie is limited to being Grumpy, and not a lot else.

Freddie Randall is Ollie’s daughter and the self-proclaimed Snow Princess due to her ability to stay out in the cold for hours in her snow fort, and to take repeated snowballs to the face courtesy of a teen detective.

Freddie is…I know I talked about how Yanni and Lupe don’t really fit into the game, but Freddie really doesn’t fit any version of this game. She’s there for a mini game, she doesn’t have a personality, you can’t skip her mini game, she’s voiced by Lani Minella…the list goes on and on. Her shining moment of glory is acting as a red herring by throwing a snowball through Lou’s window.

She’s pointless to talk about as a potential culprit, even though she would have been an interesting “culprit” in a case where all the incidents are actually Freddie accidentally causing trouble, but that probably would have been even less satisfying than how the game actually went, so we’ll just move along here.

Our cross-country skiing Olympian from the fictional Eastern European country of Fredonia, Yanni Volkstaia is both our only suspect wearing a onesie and our only suspect with a family member eaten by wolves.

I know, that’s already a high bar to top. Don’t worry, he’ll fall very, very far below it.

Yanni, as mentioned above, is our odd spy/terrorist villain who is disguising his being there for uranium by saying that it’s his Olympic competitors trying to throw off his training. Why an Olympian is training alone without any coaches or security…well, let’s just say that Yanni didn’t really think his cover story through.

Just because Yanni’s the obvious culprit doesn’t mean he fills the role well; Yanni is obvious, annoying, and his paper-thin cover is just annoying enough to be…well, annoying. He throws out that his grandmother was “killed and devoured” by wolves as if he wants Nancy to believe that that’s the reason he’s targeting the lodge but…it still points directly to him. It’s just not great all the way around.

Joining Yanni in terrorism is Guadalupe Comillo, activist from California and hard-to-find suspect. Lupe can, as mentioned above, literally just not appear for a bit, stalling out the game and making her even more annoying than she already is.

Lupe’s cover is that she’s a bird watcher, but she knows absolutely nothing about birds — like honestly nothing, even though she had time to make her cover story (not unlike Yanni).

She gets sent away by destruction of private property (Ollie’s gun – super dangerous to make a gun misaim out in the wild and she’s lucky he didn’t hit anything problematic [like another person] because of it) and good riddance, but appears as a phone friend to rather pointlessly exonerate herself and do pretty much nothing else but stop the game in its tracks until she lets it proceed.

As a culprit, Lupe would have been the other obvious choice, but she’s just not in the game enough, so she’s easy to ignore. Her cover is thin, but so is her motivation (!!! Save the wolf!!!), so she’s one of the most annoying non-entity suspects in this series.

Our second Californian in the cast is Lou Talbot, who is a college student, master of ‘earthitecture’ (inspired by Poppy Dada) and stealer of dinosaur bones for money. He also plays fox and geese with Bill in his spare time. He does a really good impression of the Guy in my MFA twitter as well, but that’s literally it.

No, really, that’s his entire character. I can’t even posit what he would be like as the culprit because that is LITERALLY all we’re given on him. End of bio. My gosh, what a waste of pixels.

Lou’s partner in fox and geese is Bill Kessler, who loves to fish and whose grandmother used to own the lodge before Chantal. While he feels that his grandmother Tilly was cheated out of the lodge, he has little desire to get it back, and really just wants to hide the fact that he’s been to the lodge before (an odd thing to hide, but whatever makes him feel better.)

Like Lou, apart from that, he really doesn’t have any character. He basically is a mix of TRT’s Jacques in his family connection to the lodge and SHA’s Dave in actual amount of motivation (i.e., 0 motivation) to do anything about it. He is, however, the person who makes Nancy play fox and geese, and for that alone, I hate him.

As a culprit, Bill’s played as a red herring for a solid 5 minutes of gameplay (though not very well — why would an avid fisherman blow up a fishing shack?), and then totally discounted the moment Nancy finds out his backstory. He’s really just there — like most of the cast, worryingly enough — to pad out the number of suspects and to give Nancy a taste of Hell through fox and geese.

The Favorite:

There are a few bright spots in this confused mess of a game, so let’s go through them.

My favorite moment in the game is when Nancy, after Yanni says the horrific line about his grandmother being killed and devoured by wolves, can ask “how”. As if that’s a sentence that needs a ‘how’. It’s a great moment of Nancy being absolutely tone deaf, and I giggle like a madman every time I think about it.

My favorite puzzle in the game is probably the cooking minigame, which I dislike in frequency and time requirement, but do love in actual practice. It’s fun to cook in every Nancy Drew game, and this one is no exception. I just wish it wasn’t regimented so heavily.

I love the atmosphere of the lodge; it’s beautifully animated (in fact one of my favorite locations in the ND games), big without being too big, and is never boring, even by the end of the game. The lodge is largely a character unto itself, and is quite successful as a wonderful location.

The Un-Favorite:

There’s a lot to unpack here, but we’ll keep it short because the fix section of this meta is gonna have me by the throat.

My least favorite moment in the game is the moment Tino comes into the game. As the game now stands, there’s no reason for him to be involved, and short a comment about him by the Hardy Boys, which would at least justify it a little, he’s purposeless. He’s worse than that, actually — he’s there to slow the game down, and that’s a cardinal sin.

My least favorite puzzle in the game is a tie between fox and geese (UGH) and the final snowmobile chase. My problems with fox and geese are obvious — they’re everyone’s problems with fox and geese: it’s a required puzzle, it’s hard to do, there’s no way to cheat through it, and it takes forever.

The final snowmobile chase is somehow even worse. It’s buggy, laggy, has nothing to do with the actual plot, has arbitrary win conditions — it’s the worst (or at least among the worst) that HER has to offer with final puzzles. If everything else about ICE was perfect, engaging, fun, and thought-provoking, this final puzzle would still put me off of playing it. It’s just that bad.

The storyline with Isis and that whole backstory isn’t treated well in game; it’s almost as if they came up with the title and then remembered at the last minute that there’s supposed to be an actual wolf. I would have loved more of a focus on that storyline; as it is, it barely counts as a blip on the game’s radar — which is a shame.

The Fix:

Gosh, how on earth will I fix The White Wolf of Icicle Creek? The answer is that I don’t feel like I can just apply a few quick fixes and be on my way; the only answer I could find is to approach this as if I was at the proposal meeting for this game — how would I outline the barebones scenario?

This section will be long, as I’m going to start just from the skeleton and build things in. What follows is my own imaginings of what my own personal ideas would be to create ICE, rather than to fix it from what the finished product was. As an important note, the side-plot with the wolf, as it was really neglected and bare-bones to begin with in the game, is mostly removed.

The first section I’ll work on is structure. Though it wasn’t done perfectly in FIN, I feel like the pacing of ICE could be vastly improved by putting a clock on the game by assigning designated days and tasks. Three days is still probably a good idea, as it lets us easily break the story into a 3-act structure and delineate certain tasks for certain days without overloading one day in particular. We’ll get more into what should happen in Days 1, 2, and 3 later in a general overview of how the plot would go.

The mechanism used to get Nancy there — Chantal being a friend of Carson’s — isn’t bad, but I’d change it up just slightly. Nancy’s not yet a “professional” detective, but we’re only 2 games from her being hired by a foreign country’s authorities, so she should be making her way up there. It stands to reason that Nancy would attract some attention from the business in CRE since the Hardy Boys would definitely mention Nancy in their de-briefing and Aikens is a big name, so let’s build on that from here. Chantal is still Carson’s friend, and she still wants to get these incidents solved while she’s away from the Lodge for legal matters — someone got injured at the lodge and is now suing.

Carson decides to officially hire Nancy — paperwork, legal documentation, etc. — as a “concerned third party” in Chantal’s problems, telling her that her job is to find out two things: find out what’s causing the incidents of sabotage, and give Carson enough evidence in favor of the lodge’s safety that he can prove reasonable doubt against the people accusing Chantal. Nancy will be there undercover as a family friend of Chantal’s, with only Ollie knowing that she’s there in an official capacity.

ICE has a cast that is both unwieldy and characterless, and I feel like the way to fix that is through combining characters. Starting out we have Ned, Chantal, Tino, the ex-maid, her boyfriend, Ollie, Freddie, Lupe, Yanni, Lou, and Bill — 10 characters that we deal with in the present, plus one other player (in the boyfriend/stalker guy). 11 in total. That is a huge, huge cast that we definitely need to pare down.

The first thing to do is to take out Tino Balducci. He slows down the plot, is completely unnecessary, and isn’t even entertaining. Since there’s no Hardy Boys to play off of him (and I would keep the Hardy Boys out of this game, even with my love for them), Tino needs to go the way of the dodo. And good riddance to him, honestly.

Freddie, an obvious subject to axe, should instead be aged up to around 20 and combined with the maid whose ex-boyfriend’s letter Nancy finds at the beginning of the game. Freddie would handle all the chores the first day except the cooking.

Instead of a nebulous, incident-causing ex-boyfriend, Freddie would have just started a relationship with Lou, keeping our cast tight and visible, rather than one-off characters with nothing else to give to the story.

By now we’re down to Carson, Ned, Chantal, Freddie, Ollie, Lupe, Yanni, Lou, and Bill. I think we can do a little better than that.

The next step I’d take is to remove Yanni entirely. Yes, I know it’s a big change to remove the canonical culprit, but bear with me. With Yanni and Lupe having so many similarities and together being guilty of 99% of the Crimes in this game, I’m pretty comfortable in combining them. I’d also make the minor change of having Lupe be an Indigenous Canadian rather than Hispanic and from California, since our game is set in Canada and there’s absolutely no reason for a large portion of our cast to be American.

With Yanni gone, Lupe (or whatever her new name would be, since the name ‘Lupe’, all nationality changes aside, in a game ostensibly about a wolf makes me want to kill myself) assumes a few of his personality quirks – most importantly, a family member with a past with wolves. It doesn’t really matter if it’s positive or negative, you just want the association there as a herring (red or otherwise).

That puts us down to 5 suspects to talk to and three phone friends for a total of 8 players in the present. Since Chantal is supposed to be busy, I’d remove the ability to talk to her entirely — anything that Chantal could offer can come through Carson as Nancy’s official “employer”, which brings us to a nice 7 players — an entirely manageable number.

So let’s begin.

The beginning of the game with Nancy at her desk always includes a case file, so this time the case file would say that Nancy, at the behest of her ‘client’, Carson Drew, is flying out to Alberta to investigate strange happenings at Chantal Moique’s lodge. Chantal is trying to settle with people who got hurt there and are trying to sue her, and Carson’s helping to advise her. Nancy’s mission is two-fold: figure out what’s causing the incidents at the lodge, and find evidence that Chantal can’t be held liable for the injuries incurred by the guests suing her.

Wolves are commonly seen around the area of the lodge — Northern Alberta has some of the highest population of wolves in North America — and there’s a rumor at the lodge that the spirits of the wolves that are hunted in the area every winter are causing some of the sabotage.

Chantal thinks the rumor is being spread by whoever is doing the actual sabotage to make her guests leave and force her out of business, so Carson tells Nancy to pay attention to the stories about the wolves — and one snow-white wolf in particular, who is often sighted very close to the lodge. Carson suspects that, if it exists, the white wolf is actually a trained dog (a white/white and silver Siberian Husky, for example) being used to whip up panic, but tells Nancy to keep an open mind.

As Nancy’s arriving at the Lodge, an explosion occurs in the distance, causing the rumbling of snow to start. Ollie, who’s picked up Nancy from her plane, says darkly that he’s been waiting for something like this to happen, and that this will probably cause a minor avalanche (his opinion as the head of Avalanche Patrol in the area), making it impossible to leave the lodge for a few days. He tells Nancy to head straight to bed once they get to the lodge, as she’s in for an exhausting time dealing with the “weirdos” still left at the lodge.

Nancy wakes up and Day One begins with Freddie freaking out outside Nancy’s door. After explaining that the regular chef (who was off for the last month visiting family) can’t get back to the lodge until tomorrow and that Freddie’s only manned the kitchen once or twice, Nancy says that she has experience cooking and offers to take the chef’s duties for the day.

Day One has Nancy meet all the suspects – Bill’s playing a game (I don’t care what it is as long as it’s something that involves writing things down) with anyone who passes by and talks about how out of all the lodges in Canada, this one’s his favorite; Lou hangs out near the bones (make him an archeology major or something related to but not exactly paleontology) and Definitely Doesn’t Know the Cute Girl Who Works at the Lodge, How Dare Nancy Assume; Not-Lupe is gone until 4pm when it starts getting dark because she loves spending time in nature, especially with the Super Special Wolf running around the place; and Ollie’s in the workshop fixing the things that have been sabotaged, worries about his daughter being away from her mother and about her ‘cavorting’ with a guest.

Nancy still preps lunch and the day goes on without a hitch other than Lou having an overheard argument with someone at around 6. Nancy cooks dinner, accidentally (due to smudged instructions from Freddie) sprinkling paprika in everyone’s food and setting off an allergic (mild to moderate anaphylaxis, helped by an epi pen) reaction + hives in Freddie, who they fly out via helicopter that night.

Ollie, feeling hostile towards Nancy, takes a look at the instructions/recipe that Nancy worked off of and says to her that the first page is Freddie’s handwriting, but the second page isn’t — someone did this on purpose. Nancy calls Carson, who says that the soonest he can get there is the day after next, and to keep herself safe above everything — he’ll check in with the hospital Freddie’s at since it’s also in Edmonton, where Carson and Chantal are. Carson warns Nancy that the guests were about to settle the lawsuit when the news about the explosion hit the news, and are now more determined than ever to sue for all Chantal’s worth.

Day 2 opens with the cook (who’s unseen and just exists in order to relieve Nancy of kitchen duty) arriving and a phone call from Carson asking for Chantal/Freddie if Nancy can grab the laundry bags from the guests’ rooms and that the spare key is in the register at the front (of course guarded by a puzzle — I’d even accept a mini fox and geese, as one of the big problems with that puzzle in the vanilla game is that it goes on way too long.

While snooping in the desk, Nancy finds evidence that Chantal might have been guilty of criminal neglect — a few things around the lodge are listed as “fixed” and totally safe when really they still need some maintenance — and wonders how she should tell Carson and if she should wait until she has more evidence. Before she goes out for the day, Not-Lupe mentions to Nancy “in confidence” that she overheard Lou fighting with Freddie before dinner, calling it a “lover’s quarrel”.

After lunch and talking with all the suspects again, Nancy goes to grab the laundry with the master key and snoops in everyone’s rooms, finding various clues and suspicious things: Bill’s journal detailing how Chantal is running the place into the ground and needs to be replaced, along with a few lodge magazines; Not-Lupe’s gloves with suspicious specks of things on them (Nancy takes a sample of it in a Kleenex or something); Lou’s heavy suitcase that has a case with imprints of bones in it; Ollie’s has maintenance books that also detail how to take things apart and maintenance notes that say he saw the wolf around but didn’t have his gun; Freddie’s only thing of interest is a little dinosaur pin on her dresser.

Nancy takes the opportunity to snoop in Chantal’s normal room and finds that the things that were listed in the documents in the front desk really were fixed; Ollie reported to Chantal that things that he fixed were un-fixed by the time he went back to them the next day — most of the time suffering damage as well, such as the sauna that injured the guests that are suing Chantal. Nancy calls her father with the news, and Carson says to save those documents so that he can come get them tomorrow, and to see if she can find any clues to who might have done it.

After dinner Nancy talks to Lou, who confesses that he and Freddie started dating a few days ago after meeting online last semester in a dinosaur enthusiast forum — hence his decision to come to the lodge, as Freddie said there were cool bones here. He was originally going to steal a few small ones and thought no one would notice if he replaced them with resin-cast replicas, but Freddie caught him and they had a fight which ended with Lou deciding not to steal, and Freddie saying that she could help him make replicas for him to take home and keep in his house.

Nancy asks why he’s telling her, and Lou says that Ollie seems to get along with Nancy well, and he’d like Nancy to calm Ollie down if Ollie discovers that he’s dating Freddie. Nancy asks Lou about the wolf, and Lou says that some of the stuff could be a wolf — he’s seen one around the lodge once or twice — but he hasn’t really been paying attention to anything except the bones and Freddie (who he’s looking forward to visiting once he can).

When talking with Bill, he offhandedly mentions that he used to be a handyman — the sink in his room started acting up, but he fixed it easily because he thinks that Ollie has enough to do without doing this easy fix. Bill says that this would never have happened when Chantal’s father was running the Lodge and accuses Chantal of preferring to spend long “business trips” in the city to actually paying attention to the Lodge — he says she should just live in the city and hire a manager with experience who actually cares. Nancy asks Bill about the wolf, and he says if anyone could be haunted by wolves, he’d believe it was Chantal.

Nancy, it should be noted, during her explorations around the lodge, sees a few pawprints and some chewed-on debris, but otherwise hasn’t seen the wolf in person. Just traces and tracks.

Not-Lupe and Ollie both dodge Nancy’s questions – Ollie’s busy as everything seems to be breaking at once, and snaps at Nancy that without Chantal around, he’s the only person keeping the lodge afloat, and he’d be better off without the stress of this job. When Nancy asks him about the wolf, Ollie says that the last thing they need is some idiot tourist being attacked by a wolf, and so he refuses to believe that there’s a wolf around the area.

Not-Lupe is at her normal place at the window (though there’s a chair there because no one stands all day), and when Nancy asks about the wolf, says that that’s why she’s there — she heard the rumor about the wolf and wanted to see it, but that her visit’s been very disappointing — just a junky lodge with incompetent staff and no wolves anywhere. Her hobby is visiting winter lodges, and this one just Isn’t up to snuff.

Nancy tries to pry deeper, but Not-Lupe shuts her down and goes to bed; Nancy investigates the living room as everyone leaves for bed and finds crinkled up under the couch a magazine cutout about the Premier Lodge Group, a company that owns winter lodges all over Canada and the United States, and their plans to build a group of lodges in Alberta as soon as a few “minor inconveniences” with location are solved.

The day ends with Carson calling; Nancy tells him about all the suspects (Carson confirms Lou’s story by having talked to Freddie), the magazine, Ollie wanting to quit, etc. Carson promises to do some research on Premier Lodge Group and tells Nancy to send him a picture of the stuff she found on Lupe’s gloves. Nancy does so, and that’s the end of Day 2.

Day 3 opens again with Carson’s phone call, informing Nancy that he’ll be there in the early evening — he’s having a contact of his look at the photo Nancy sent, but he’s pretty sure it won’t be good news.

Premier Lodge Group was investigated a few years ago for sabotage to their competitors but ultimately nothing came out of it, and Carson suspects that people were paid off to keep quiet about it. Carson says that he’s looked into Ollie (since Carson suspected him the most) and apparently Ollie always grouches about quitting when he’s stressed but has been there for 20 years and is as loyal as they come, so Nancy says she’ll focus on Not-Lupe and Bill — the two lodge-hoppers who seem dissatisfied with the lodge.

Both Not-Lupe and Bill are gone when Nancy gets downstairs, and Lou (who’s planning on leaving that night to go to Edmonton) says that they both got a sack lunch from the kitchen and left early in the morning to go explore outside. He tells Nancy she can borrow his snowshoes and says that they both headed out (independently) in the direction of Skookum Ridge.

When Nancy gets up to the Ridge, she spots the “wolf” — really a Siberian Husky, like Carson thought, who seems very well trained. When the dog comes up to Nancy, a gunshot ripples through the air and nearly hits the dog, who would have gone running off had Nancy not grabbed her collar and yelled not to shoot. Nancy sees Bill across the ridge and waves him over, explaining that it’s a dog, not a wolf. The dog (whose name is something way better than Isis — literally anything else would do) is suspicious of Bill at first, which convinces Nancy that it’s not Bill’s — the only suspect left is Not-Lupe.

When she tells Bill what she knows about Not-Lupe, Bill admits to having seen her before at a lodge that went out of business due to mysterious accidents, but thought it was a coincidence before digging deeper in the magazines he brought and finding Not-Lupe in the back of a small photo of Premier Lodge Administrative Staff — he was worried about keeping it safe and knowing that there would be no cleaning staff until at least the next day, crumpled it up and put it under the couch he normally sits by.

A happy, friendly dog in tow, Nancy and Bill head back to the lodge only to find Ollie and Lou standing outside looking worried. They tell Nancy that they both went outside because they heard a loud noise, only to find the door locked behind them — and every other door locked as well. After realizing that Not-Lupe wouldn’t open the doors for them, Ollie went to get an axe for the door, only to have a note appear on the door’s window that if they forced their way in, the whole Lodge would be burned to the ground in an instant.

Carson calls then, saying that he’s a few minutes away, but that his friend got back to him — Not-Lupe’s gloves were covered in residue from explosives. Bill takes Nancy’s phone and begins to fill Carson in on who they think Not-Lupe is working for and who she is. Nancy asks Lou and Ollie to hoist her up to her own window, which she keeps unlocked, and crawls in, creeping downstairs to the main room to try to find how Not-Lupe will burn the lodge and stop her.

Nancy confronts Not-Lupe, who confirms her identity as a saboteur for the Premier Lodge Group, saying that with the bad press around the lodge Chantal would have already had to sell — but she’s going to go one step further and cause an ‘incident’, blowing up the lodge with fuses hidden around its ground floor — Chantal’s father won’t spend the money to rebuild the lodge, and the only proof that is against her is the word of two American kids, an old man, and a lodge-hopper with a very incriminating diary that would be found soon enough. She tells Nancy that she can either try to catch her or try to save the lodge and runs out the back, intent on escaping as she pushes the button to arm the explosives.

Nancy yells out the window for them to catch Not-Lupe, who’s got to be headed out to the main road, tossing the cushion of the seat Lupe usually sat in so that her dog can catch her scent, then has the final timed puzzle be switching off each detonator (which would be in each of the places where the suspects usually were, with the exception of Ollie’s whose is in the front desk).

As soon as Nancy disarms them, Bill calls out to her that Carson just called — Lou and the dog tracked Lupe to the main road, and Bill called Carson to let him know. Carson’s car stops Not-Lupe (Carson brought a policeman on a hunch), and the day is saved. Premier Lodge is snagged in a major lawsuit by Chantal’s father and other lodge owners who have had the same thing happen to them, and Chantal hires Bill as co-manager to ensure there’s always someone there to manage the lodge and for his wealth of knowledge of what makes a good lodge and good experience for guests.

The game ends with Nancy writing her letter to Hannah (so that Hannah doesn’t worry about them), and with her dad’s praise for a job well done.

I realize that this is a monumental fix; it’s a brand-new game made out of the skeleton of the old one. I also realize that there are a million and one ways to re-write this game; this one takes the idea of sabotage, one of the most frequent inciting incidents in the Nancy Drew world, and just makes it a little bigger.

No terrorism required.

#nancy drew #clue crew #nancy drew games #white wolf of icicle creek #ICE #long post #video games #nancy drew meta

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maximumsnow · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 6/? Fandom: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware, HLVRAI - Fandom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta, Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Bubby (Half-Life), Benrey (Half-Life) Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical swearing, Basically an au exploring what if HLVRAI followed Half Life a little more closely, Au where there isn't a betrayal in that one spot, Mainly was wondering what would happen to the others if they hadn't been in on it., Some things change some don't, Oh also this is sort of intended as a not a game au

Summary: Anyone who knows original Half-Life knows that the ambush happens in that spot no matter what. What would have happened if the ambush was as rough for the others?

It felt like time itself froze when Gordon walked in, arm raised in greeting. Seeing Coomer try to kill a clone was… honestly still unsettling even if he had a vague reason for it. However, something about this image was wrong.

Coomer looked directly at him and cheerfully said, “Oh, hello there!”

And that’s when his heart dropped.

This couldn’t be his Dr. Coomer.

His eyes dropped to the limbless Coomer lying on the table, but before he could look any closer, the presumed clone started speaking again. “My clone!” The exclamation was a perfect copy of Coomer’s usual speaking pattern, and the unnerving similarity sent a shudder down Gordon’s spine.

In lieu of any explanation, the clone tensed his arms in preparation to swing, and Gordon found himself quickly moving towards him. He tripped over his words as he tried to distract the man with the sledgehammer. “Hey, uh, wait. Isn’t this a bit much?”

The previously still Coomer on the table jerked at the sound of Gordon’s voice, and the head turned towards him. Whatever was said became a muffled grunt due to the cloth.

Confusion overtook the other Coomer’s face as he tried to figure out what Gordon meant, and it allowed Gordon enough time to get next to him. “No, this is the perfect amount of force to take out a clone!” He exclaimed as he prepared to swing again.

The clone found the sledgehammer unmoving when he tried to move it. Gordon gripped the handle halfway down the weapon with both hands. The grip was difficult to maintain since he had kept the crowbar in hand, but he refused to let it budge even as the clone tried to pull it over his head.

Gordon could never beat Dr. Coomer in a strength contest.

The clone struggled against him, but the awkward angle and the added weight made it a losing battle. “It’s just a clone. Let me finish-”

Cutting through the bullshit, Gordon argued, “You’re not Dr. Coomer.”

That snapped the clone out of the persona he had been putting on. He let go of the sledgehammer to properly face Gordon. “… Yes I am. We’re all Dr. Coomer.” The flat tone dared Gordon to keep arguing.

Suddenly losing the tension of the impromptu tug-of-war on the sledgehammer nearly caused Gordon to tip over, but he caught himself in time to glance at the clone. The expressionless look on the clone’s face made Gordon drop the heavy sledgehammer and clutch the crowbar in front of him.

He didn’t even get to swing it before the clone charged into him. Despite Gordon’s height advantage and this clone’s apparent lack of cybernetics, it didn’t take much for Gordon to lose his balance as he struggled against the Coomer clone’s assault.

He saw stars as the back of his head connected with the hard floor, and it was a miracle he didn’t pass out again immediately.

It hurt.

He screamed in pain. “FUCK!”

The clone tried to cover Gordon’s mouth to stifle the sound, and in the ensuing scuffle, Gordon’s glasses got knocked askew. Even as he fought for his life, he could hear the clone mutter, “You won’t get in my way. As long as 13 doesn’t suspect me-”

The blurry figure of his assailant suddenly sat stock still as they heard the automatic door open.

Gordon could only see the white of a scientist’s uniform, and while that could be one of his friends, he didn’t know for sure.

Until the intruder spoke. “What the hell are you...” The snappy tone trailed off as Bubby presumably took in the scene.

“Get off.” The sharp order was emphasized by the pump of a shotgun, and Gordon felt the weight of the clone lift. Without someone trying to suffocate him, Gordon was able to readjust his glasses so he could see what was going on, but when he tried moving too much, his head started pounding.

Bubby had the shotgun trained on the clone, and with the look Bubby was giving him, Gordon was surprised that the clone hadn’t caught on fire yet. Once the clone was no longer too close to Gordon or the Coomer on the table, Bubby pulled the trigger.

Click.

No gunshot. Bubby looked down at the useless weapon.

“What? I just loaded-” Bubby was cut off as the clone lunged at him. The shotgun was dropped as Bubby was caught off guard in the sudden hand to hand struggle. Despite the surprise, Bubby was able to grab the hands reaching for his neck and held them away. At first, Bubby looked like he would overpower the clone. He was stronger than he looked, and it was easy to forget that fact.

Until the clone stomped on his bad foot, causing Bubby to let go and stagger backwards. The clone was quick to pounce on the opening and managed to shove the unbalanced scientist to the ground.

At this point, Gordon struggled to sit up as he fought his aching head and body, but the sudden action made the room spin. Shutting his eyes so that he could get his bearings, he patted the floor frantically as he tried to relocate the crowbar. His hand finally landed on something, and when he pulled it close, a familiar metallic grating sound as he it dragged across the floor told him that he managed to find it.

After a few seconds, the smell of smoke assaulted his nose, and it caused his eyes to snap open again. The clone had apparently tried to run back towards Gordon and the sledgehammer, but Bubby had managed to latch onto his leg with his hands. Fire was licking Bubby’s sleeves as it climbed down his arms and onto the clone’s leg.

The clone furiously tried to pull his leg away, but Bubby’s grip did not falter even as he was jerked around the floor. Fire climbed as he did up the clone’s body. More flames joined the existing ones even where Bubby wasn’t touching him, and soon the clone’s entire body was aflame.

That was when Gordon finally noticed the screaming over the ringing in his ears. It was so similar to Coomer’s screams of pain that it made it watching the scene unbearable. Despite knowing this wasn’t his friend, it still made a quiet voice in the back of his head question whether this was actually a clone or not.

Even though the clone himself admitted the deception, he couldn’t ignore the almost instinctive fear for his friends that kicked in. He managed to stagger to a standing position, and despite the obvious distraction in the room, he finally got a good look at the Dr. Coomer on the table.

Despite the head being turned towards the fight, Gordon could see the eyes were wide with terror, and there was a large red mark on the side of his head that was partially hidden by the curly white hair. A slashed hospital gown had been the only thing he had been deemed worthy to wear.

He was also trying his damnedest to move his limbless body towards the fight, even if he couldn’t really help.

This had to be his Dr. Coomer.

With a shaking hand, Gordon reached for the cloth that was covering the poor scientist’s mouth, and when he made contact with the back of Coomer’s head, he suddenly twitched and fixed Gordon with a fearful look.

It quickly melted to relief.

Until burning hands snatched him off the table.

“NO!”

Gordon wasn’t sure who yelled that. Or if it had been his and Bubby’s voices melding together.

The clone desperately held onto Coomer’s torso like a koala, clearly determined to either use him as a living shield or to take him down with him.

The fire was quickly spreading to Coomer’s clothing.

Gordon was so fixated on that sight that he missed seeing what Bubby was doing. Until he saw the bald scientist lunge towards the clone in a way that brought back a primal fear in Gordon. It reminded him way too much of how the feral prototypes had tried to bite his face off.

Well, Gordon could at least say Bubby didn’t aim for the face.

He sure bit the hell out of the clone’s shoulder as he tried to yank Coomer away, though.

With the clone distracted, Gordon quickly stumbled his way over to the fight and took the easy opportunity Bubby had provided. All he knew next was that he was swinging his crowbar at the clone’s head in fury.

A loud THUD sounded as the blow connected.

As the clone dropped to the ground like a burning rock, Bubby was finally able to yank Coomer away from his embrace and immediately worked on putting out the few flames that had managed to take hold.

Gordon just stood there in shock. He hadn’t expected him to go down so easily, but the clone wasn’t breathing or reacting to the fire still engulfing him.

Maybe he should put that out before they started smelling it...

The automatic doors opened again.

Gordon already had his crowbar up for another swing, and Bubby pulled Coomer closer to him.

“Mr.-Mr. Freeman? Dr. Bubby? What-What happened?”

Tommy was standing in the door carrying a much bigger gun than a pistol, and it was easy to see the extra ammunition poking out of his pockets.

The tension immediately eased, and Bubby took the opportunity to finally get the cloth removed from Coomer’s mouth.

“Oh thank God, it’s you, Tommy.” Gordon sighed in relief. “We uh-”

“Hello, Gordon!” Coomer’s voice still possessed its usual volume, startling the hell out of everyone in the room. In the silence that followed, he simply said, “My clone!”

“Yeah, uh, the Dr. Coomer we found wasn’t our Coomer,” Gordon tried to explain. “I found him trying to kill Coomer and things went south.”

“That’s vague as hell.”

“He was trying to collapse my head in like a rotten watermelon! And then tried to strangle Gordon!”

Gordon rolled his eyes, but there wasn’t much bite in the action. “… Yeah, and then Bubby came in-” He stopped as a question hit him, “Wait, how did you get here so quickly? I wasn’t gone for that long.”

“… I have my reasons.” Bubby was pointedly looking away from him. With Coomer no longer in danger of burning and able to speak, Bubby didn’t have an easy distraction for his hands, so he wandered over to the observation area to snoop around.

“Did you suspect something already?”

Bubby didn’t have a chance to deny the answer when Coomer spoke up, “Probably! The project was supposed to make a hive mind between me and my clones, but, well, things didn’t quite work out. In other words, no clone can perfectly impersonate me. Even if they try.” Despite starting in his typical chipper voice, the last few words were spoken softly.

Gordon didn’t like the realization that it had taken him so long to figure out something was wrong. There had been a few things that seemed off, but with how things had gone ever since the Resonance Cascade, it had faded into the background.

“Damn, you must know each other pretty well, if Bubby caught on so quickly.” The observation posed a question if they wanted to answer it, but it also left them an out if they chose not to elaborate.

Which they didn’t. Bubby was digging into a box he found, and Coomer had seemingly turned his attention back to Tommy.

Tommy hadn’t moved since the conversation started.

“Tommy?” Gordon went in his direction, and with the adrenaline wearing off, his body started its loud protesting of the treatment he had just given it. A few more bruises to join the already existing ones. He staggered, and that seemed to snap Tommy out of the daze he was in.

“Mr. Freeman?” The response came out so quietly that Gordon almost didn’t hear it. Tommy closed the gap between them and offered an arm to help Gordon stabilize before gently guiding him to the ground to sit. “Take-Take it easy.”

While appreciative of the concern directed towards himself, he was worried about Tommy. The guy had only gotten quieter as the day had progressed, and it seemed like he wasn’t entirely there. Before he could ask, Tommy had already left his side and went over to the very dead clone.

And fired a full clip into the corpse. Which was suddenly no longer burning.

Once again, everyone jumped at the loud, sudden noise, and Gordon called out, “Hey, he’s dead! He can’t hurt us anymore! Don’t waste the ammo.”

Tommy didn’t respond until the gun clicked to signify that the clip was empty. “Had to-had to make sure. They always say to uh, double-double tap, right?”

“That’s- That’s a bit more than just a double tap, man.” Despite the words, his voice didn’t have any reproach. He ended up patting the ground next to him, “Why don’t you rest a minute? You’ve been going non-stop for a while now.”

“I’m fine, Mr. Freeman. I gotta-I gotta make sure Dr. Coomer is okay.” Tommy temporarily dropped the gun to his side for a moment as he went to get a better look at Dr. Coomer.

Gordon thought about joining them, but his eyes started to flutter shut as their voices blurred into a background hum. Maybe just a few minutes…

“Are you alright?” The sudden question and the identity of the person asking surprised Gordon so much that he forgot to answer. Eyes snapping back open, he looked up at Bubby, who was cradling the shotgun from earlier again.

Instead of answering the question, he asked, “Isn’t that broken?”

“No, it’s just jammed, but I’m getting the shells out of it to use in a different one.” Bubby pointed the gun away from him as he started pulling out the ammo. “You probably shouldn’t throw guns like that anymore.” Once he finished, he nudged a green army supply box towards him. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be sleeping, so help me look through this.”

Despite the phrasing, as soon as Gordon opened the lid, Bubby walked away. Oh well. There wasn’t much else he could do, so he started to dig through the various supplies to see if there was anything they could take.

Which got boring really quickly when most of it was junk. To help keep his mind moving, he asked Coomer the first thing that came to mind, “Hey your, uh, clone mentioned something earlier and we overheard some soldiers talking about it. Did you see a monster alien thing running through?”

“Why of course, Gordon! You can clearly see the blood on the ceiling and walls from the soldiers it killed and from damage it took!”

Now that Gordon wasn’t preoccupied with saving Coomer, he finally took in the rest of the room. And Coomer wasn’t lying.

There was a blackened blood spray dried onto the ceiling which looked like it came from the monster, and there were a few splotches on the wall intermixed with a dark red from at least one injured or dead human.

Interestingly, the smear on the floor went around the table. Given some of the damage earlier, he didn’t think it would have cared about slamming into another piece of furniture, but apparently it had cared about this one. Or it was chasing someone who decided to go around.

He shuddered.

“It didn’t bother you at all?”

“Nope! When I heard the soldiers radio in that it was coming this way, I laid very still and kept very quiet!”

“And it just. Ignored you? And did you see what it looked like?”

“I had to keep my eyes closed, Gordon. Otherwise it might have guessed I was still alive thanks to my sparkling eyes!” The unexpected moment of pure self confidence drew a short laugh from Gordon, and Coomer continued. “I heard it stop and sniff, but given my current state, it must have assumed I was already dead!”

Current state.

Wait.

“Shit! Where the fuck are your arms and legs?!” Sure he noticed that they were missing when he first walked in, but given what he walked into, figuring out the hows and whys of the situation had fallen to the wayside.

“Are you fucking blind?” Bubby shouted from the observation room. “He’s been missing them this whole time!”

“I NOTICED THAT, MAN, BUT WHERE DID THEY GO?”

“Oh the military took them! They’re top of the line cybernetics, and I would be too difficult to contain if they didn’t remove them.” If this had been anyone else, Gordon would have interpreted this as overconfident bragging, but he knew Coomer well enough that he was stating a fact. “And it would increase the chances of at least something from me getting out.”

“Oh hell yes!” Bubby’s triumphant voice echoed through the chamber, drawing all present to look towards him. After a minute, he exited the observation room with some clothes and something metal.

“Good job, Bubby, you found my Power Legs! And clothes! I can’t wait to wear something other than this cold hospital gown.” The genuine warmth that seeped into Coomer’s voice eased something in Gordon’s chest. Sure Coomer had kept his chipper attitude throughout the conversation, but it had been teetering the line of being forced.

Not that Gordon could blame him.

Bubby thankfully seemed to know what he was doing when it came to helping Coomer get his legs reattached, so Gordon went back to focusing on Tommy. At some point during the conversation, Tommy had reloaded his gun and was standing near the far exit. Gordon called out, “What’s going on, man? We’ve taken out most of the soldiers by now, right?”

“There-there has to be at least one soldier ahead of us, Mr. Freeman. Whoever took out the mon-The monster. And the aliens have been just- They keep teleporting around.”

Yeah, Gordon felt dumb after that. Tommy was right, and he should have connected those dots on his own. “Sorry. Gordon’s head kinda hurts still.” He gingerly leaned his head forward and closed his eyes in hopes that the ache would stop.

He would have stayed like that if Tommy hadn’t crossed the room at record speed and knelt by him. “You-You okay? Don’t-You-You can’t fall asleep.”

Gordon opened his eyes to see Tommy’s frightened visage hovering nearby, and the closeness made a faint trembling in the other man’s frame much more obvious.

“I’m-I’m fine, Tommy, I wasn’t dozing off.” Right then, anyway. “I’m just...” He quickly debated lying, but he didn’t think he could make it believable. “It hurts a lot. The clone slammed me against the floor.” He raised an arm as if to rub the back of his head, but caught himself halfway and lowered it. “Just. Don’t worry about me, right now. You can keep guarding the door.”

After a moment of almost uncomfortable staring, Tommy nodded before retaking his spot.

They’d be so fucked without him.

Before anymore musing could happen, Gordon was distracted by watching Bubby help Coomer sit upright. He still had the hospital gown on covering his torso, and it was left on while Bubby buttoned up the shirt he threw on him. It wasn’t until there were a few buttons left that Bubby pulled the gown out through the hole.

Gordon had no idea why they went through such a complicated method of taking the gown off, but it felt like it was ringing a bell. Unfortunately, said bell made his head ache more, so he mentally shook that line of thinking for now.

Bubby must have somehow figured out the pants while getting the legs on, because once they had settled the shirt on, Coomer twisted himself around so that his lower legs hung off the table. The position allowed Bubby to shove on some socks and shoes with ease, and with that, Coomer scooted off the table.

Bubby was close enough for Coomer to lean against as he tested the legs, and soon he was standing upright with few troubles. His balance seemed to be off, but that could easily be attributed to his lack of arms and readjusting to having legs.

As an afterthought, Bubby tied the labcoat around Coomer’s waist. “Alright, that should do it.”

“Thank you, Professor!” Coomer was beaming at Bubby with a mischievous glint.

“Doctor.”

“Professor!”

Gordon couldn’t help but laugh as they continued the old argument. It was such a ridiculous thing, and he had heard it several times by this point, but it was familiar. He was laughing so much that he didn’t notice when Coomer had come over.

“Hello, Gordon! We should get moving! We still have to find a scientist who can let us out of this building.” The announcement was enough to jolt him out of his laughing fit, and he wiped his eyes before standing up and giving Coomer a wide, genuine smile.

The now familiar aches of his body were still there, but it was easier to ignore them with a lighter heart.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”

#My Writing #Hlvrai #Half Life VR but the AI is Self Aware #Gordon Hlvrai #Tommy Coolatta #Bubby #Dr. Coomer

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canchewread · 4 years ago

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Editor's note: The War on Sharing is an informal journal about my life as an anti-capitalist dissident in a burgeoning Pig Empire police state, during a time of normalized fascist reaction. Given the deeply personal nature of this writing, please consider citations to be arbitrary, profanity to be praxis, and slang to be artisanal.

Those who control the present take great pains to control our understanding of the past." - Michael Parenti, History as Mystery (City Lights Books, 1999)

The War On Sharing: Thunderheads

So why the fuck am I starting an informal meme blog? It's complicated.

If I'm being completely honest in this space, I should start by confessing that I don't know how to tell you the things I need you to hear. That is of course a terrifying thing for a writer to admit openly, but recent events in both my personal life, and the world at large have convinced me that I might not have as much time to perfect my revolutionary rhetoric as I had previously believed. What I have come to understand as the global capitalist war on sharing is clearly escalating; in both scope and violence. In light of a recent illness, and my own personal brush with a burgeoning Pig Empire police state, I find myself questioning the value of debunking the individual lies of the capitalist order, and the wisdom of exhausting myself in a hopeless battle against both the neoliberal, and modern fascist propaganda arms of said order. I feel a desperate, almost primary need to put these events into their proper context and reveal the larger picture, but the plain truth of it is that I'm beat up, exhausted, and frankly I don't know how.

Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not as if I haven't tried to communicate the horror of what our capitalist society really is and where it's clearly heading; I most certainly have, by means both painfully earnest, and humorously circuitous as it happens. Unfortunately I am an imperfect messenger, and I have never quite mastered the trick of getting folks to understand something they know is true, but do not want to believe because it's simply too horrible to bear. Faced with the reality that possessing a library with hundreds of books cataloguing the monstrous functions of capitalism, and the historically verified crimes, deceptions, and outrageous abuses of its enforcers, isn't very useful if nobody who hasn't also read those books is even willing to believe you about the established facts of history, I find my academic writing wholly insufficient to properly communicate this larger, and admittedly quite terrifying picture of the reality my studies have revealed to me.

Therefore, I need a blog, or a journal if you'll humor my vanity, because I don't know how to artfully tell you there's a storm coming, or perhaps more accurately, already in progress; a violent pincer "reaction" that's as predictable as rain after thunder, driven by the multiplying crises of capitalism and the rising public embrace of socialist alternatives. I need to tell you these things in plain language because this phase of the class war is going to be hard on folks who sincerely believe you can't get in trouble for having ideas and I cannot allow myself to be misunderstood; the reality is that under the thumb of Pig Empire capitalism, the only truly outrageous crime is having ideas that threaten the continued dominance of capitalist extractivism, and the ruling classes it benefits.

Like clockwork the emergence of an even vaguely cohesive Pig Empire left, has already resulted in the unleashing of yet another flavor of fascist political violence, and legalized oppression by the bourgeoisie capitalist state. As we literally run out of planet to pillage, rising global inequality leads to what amounts the mass murder of the poor, and the bald-faced inhuman monstrosity of our ruling ideology (and the classes of folks who benefit from it) forces the protesting masses into the streets, there is no reason whatsoever to believe this situation is going to improve. Indeed, history says that both the reactionary right, and neoliberal police states in the Pig Empire, are quite capable of inflicting far more violence and terror in the service of protecting the capitalist order than we've seen so far in this particular round of the endless struggle.

The knives are out lads, and reality doesn't actually give a fuck if you feel a way about what is and isn't possible in a so-called "liberal democracy." The simple truth is that the world does not work the way we have all been led to believe, and perhaps more importantly, trained to uphold. Capitalism is not an economic system; it's a hierarchal social order, an ideological prison, and (particularly as expressed in the Anglo-American sphere of influence) a predatory cult. The extraction of wealth from the underclasses, at bayonet point if necessary, is not only the driving force of the last five centuries (and counting) of Pig Empire history, but maintaining, strengthening and obfuscating that primitive accumulation through legalized violence, is ultimately the very reason most "liberal democratic" institutions exist in the first place; from media and politics, to policing and the military.

Does that sound like a conspiracy theory to you? Well let me inform you that it's a simplified Marxist historiographic analysis of modern society, but the fact your brain immediately told you to question my sanity demonstrates the effectiveness of the explicitly capitalist propaganda model that utterly dominates our educational and media environments - does it not? “All that is solid melts into air,” indeed.

So I'm starting a journal, because there are some things I still need to say and don't feel I can express any other way. I'm starting it because there are some nights that I'm just too damn broken and tired to keep proving basic Marxist analysis is not a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to folks who genuinely want to believe you can topple capitalism at the ballot box. And I’m starting it because I still don't know how to tell you the world is a fucking vampire in the proper Oxford vernacular. As it turns out, life during wartime is no place for meticulous footnotes.

This irregular feature won't replace my regular writing, but given that I'm currently stone incapable of engaging with polite fictions and necessary illusions, it is a vital activity for the preservation of my sanity; if not other's perceptions of the same. If I'm lucky, we'll never do this again; but given that the other option is literally staring at a blank page with tears of frustration welling in my eyes for what feels like the fifth consecutive night, I assumed readers would prefer my emo ravings to continued radio silence.

Additional Reading:

Manufacturing Consent – Chomsky, Herman – Review – Margin Notes

Necessary Illusions – Noam Chomsky – Review

Political Mind Games – Roy Eidelson – Review – Margin Notes

History as Mystery – Michael Parenti – Review

Inventing Reality – Michael Parenti – Review – Margin Notes

Propaganda, Inc – Nancy Snow – Review

Debt: the First 5,000 Years – David Graeber – Review

A Brief History of Neoliberalism – David Harvey – Review

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

#journals #informal writing #nina illingworth #memes #anticapitalism #Marxist analysis #capitalism is a cult #reaction #fascism #neoliberalism #The War on Sharing #propaganda #counterinsurgency #COINTELPRO #Pig Empire

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kellanswritingblog · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde Characters: Zolf Smith, Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming) Additional Tags: air sickness, Brawl - Freeform, Prosthesis, Depression, Nightmares, Isolation, Quarantine, Spoilers

Summary: When Cel asks if Zolf is involved with Wilde, his mind flashes back to all of the times it felt like they could have been.

“Have you ever been romantically involved with that really cold guy up there?”

“What, Wilde?”

Zolf couldn’t help but think back to that day, shortly after they’d started working together, when Wilde took Zolf to get fitted for new prosthetics. Wilde had been talking with the shopkeeper, then cast a glance over at Zolf, only for Zolf to smile and wave back at him. He still didn’t entirely understand why he did it. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t shown up together, as if they wouldn’t be leaving together, as if Wilde wasn’t actively talking about Zolf and his legs. Zolf felt like such a fool, cheeks blushing, but Oscar smiled and waved back, and Zolf couldn't help but feel some of the weight in his chest lift away.

And the week they had to take an airship - a proper one this time - but Zolf’s air sickness didn’t cease. Despite Zolf being grouchier than usual, Wilde didn’t leave his side, save to bring him tea and the scarce meal here and there, regardless of whether Zolf would manage to keep it down. Wilde practically carried Zolf above decks so that he could properly see the horizon, hoping it would help keep his tumultuous stomach at bay from another bout of illness, and stood beside him the whole time. And as they watched the sunset, Oscar put a hand atop Zolf’s and held it tight.

Or the time Wilde had been cornered in an alley by some people he’d previously insulted and wronged – whether or not it was related to the current business with the veins, it didn’t matter. Zolf saw that he was in trouble and immediately stood in front of him, blocking him from their blows. Blood poured from Oscar’s broken nose, and Zolf growled with rage as he took on the attackers with nothing but his fists. In the end, both Oscar and Zolf were bruised and bloody on the floor of the alley, but they laughed anyway, and there was something unspoken in Oscar’s eyes when he thanked Zolf for stepping in.

How could he forget the days when the pain of his past got too much? When it was all Zolf could do to get out bed, laden down with losses and grief so strong that even hope couldn’t see him through? And how, on those days, Wilde would knock quietly on the door to his room, bring him tea, and sit with him for hours. He let Zolf tell stories of his past or simply sit in silence, and he always held him tightly when Zolf cried. They both had plenty of tears to shed, and it was easier to bear the pain when they embraced each other.

And that late night when Zolf stepped into Oscar’s office on a whim, just to make sure he’d gone to bed like he swore he would, only to find him sprawled out on his desk, asleep but murmuring. The words got louder until he was yelling and screaming, thrashing against the hard wooden surface as the nightmares manifested. Zolf rushed to his side and tried to wake him, but he was too far gone, so instead he hefted him into his arms and carried him through the halls to his room. Even though he dinged Oscar’s feet into the floor several times along the way, it wasn’t until he hit the mattress that he awoke, eyes wide with terror until he saw Zolf there, promising him that it would be okay, he was safe now.

When they awoke in the morning, side by side, they both remembered how Oscar begged not to be left alone and pleaded for Zolf to stay with him. As if Zolf needed any persuasion. He crawled in beside Wilde and pulled the covers up around them until they both fell asleep, hand in hand to pull each other out if the nightmares returned. The morning light struggled to break through the shutters and cast dancing colors across Wilde’s expression, a smile, despite his exhaustion, and they found themselves leaning their heads closer together until their lips were mere millimeters apart. They were safe, and they were safe together.

But Zolf could also not forget the anguish he felt when Oscar drew back, fear in his eyes and a quiver in his lip. He rushed from the room and left Zolf alone, wondering what he had done wrong this time, only to be told later that they both knew it was a risk to have attachments and relationships in a time like this, they were things that could be exploited and used against them. Maybe, when the war was over… but not until then. They weren’t safe yet.

Zolf understood, of course he did. But that didn’t change the force in his heart that tugged toward Oscar, both when they were together and apart, hoping beyond hope that one day the world would be safe enough for them. And when either of them caught the other’s eye and smiled, all of those memories played back in a flash and they wondered if they would ever reach their horizon, the steady point where they could be together.

So many answers danced on Zolf’s tongue. So many almosts.

Instead, he laughed at Cel’s question.

“No,” he insisted, still trying to laugh through the deluge of memories. “I mean, I care about him, but no.”

Maybe someday. Maybe someday they would reach their horizon.

#rqg #rusty quill gaming #rqg spoilers #Zolf Smith #rqg Oscar Wilde #Zolf/Wilde #hey tumblr if you could keep my formatting this time #that would be great

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blaster-aichi · 5 years ago

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Some -IF- thoughts and theories

Bearing in mind haven’t kept up as well as would like because Life(tm) — hopped in on most YouTube premieres thus far — so some things might have already been debunked, clarified or what-have-you but wanted to get this all down before Epi 7 happens this weekend (plan on marathoning everything so far again before then). It’s pretty clear they’re going for a much lighter tone with all the goofs and gimmicks but Vanguard’s not new to starting light and fluffy before taking a sharp turn.

IBUKI’S SIN

— Considering Ibuki’s talked about Vanguard Koushien in the past tense, it’s been on my mind what his “past sin” could be. That maybe there’s a possibility that Ibuki Deleting Aichi might have played a part in what’s happened to him — though it was brief and rectified quickly by allies on Cray, it was long enough for intervention, it could have equally been long enough for something else to take advantage of and bide its time, if the Outside World Aichi is wrapped up in this at all.

SHUKA

— Being the only character without an Outside World counterpart, Shuka’s a very odd character in comparison to everyone else. She’s very forthcoming about being from Cray when the writers were always really cryptic about Takuto and the truth surrounding him. Have been wondering if she chose Emi specifically because of the potential she held or because of her and Aichi’s relationship, but also her motivations about the whole thing.

Someone in YouTube comments posed a theory that Shuka messed up and inadvertently caused what’s caused everything to go awry and she’s trying to make things right.

— At the same time, something feels fishy about her. Firmly believe she’s got more to do with the distortions than she’s or the writers have yet to let on. The final shot of the Epi 7 preview feels ominous. Been suspecting that, if she really has a darker side to her, she’ll betray Emi at some point down the line, that particular shot fuels that feeling.

REN

— If we don’t get an actual recreation of the “my job is done / but you didn’t do anything” meme, I’m storming Bushi HQ.

— Even though they’ve established Majesty Lord Blaster as being beyond Emi’s ability right now, hopeful that there’s more to Ren’s role than just to be the other half to Realizing him. Haven’t gotten to see Epi 6 subbed yet because been under the weather so chances are this has been debunked but, but hear me out.

Being able to combine himself with Blaster Dark in the same way Aichi has Alfred, would like to hope they’re playing with the Royal Paladin / Shadow Paladin feud that’s been ongoing since the latter’s introduction to the game, it’d be neat to take advantage of that and Aichi / Ren’s dynamic.

— It’s also a curious thing that his existence got erased as well, making me wonder if the same happened with Leon, when Aichi reached out to the both of them during Legion Mate to help him and they both refused. Did he attempt the same thing this time around? It’s a different continuity, but their being a trio of Psyqualia users remains.

GENERALS

— Their lack of presence and there being three left has my suspicions leaning towards Kai, Misaki and Kamui being the remainder of the Generals — and if that were the case, would really like to know if they had a choice in the matter. When we know full-well they’d never go along with anything of the sort previously. Even if they haven’t gone through the same experiences, this continuity has demonstrated how quick they are to mobilise when something goes wrong or one of them needs help.

Personally, would rather they not be the Generals. We didn’t see Misaki when Shin namedropped her, so maybe someone else has been put in her place as part of the greater distortion.

— Though doubtful about it, would really like to believe Leon, Koutei and an alternative Ren (/ Outside World Aichi?) are the remaining generals. If two Ibukis can exist at the same time, why not two of another character?

— The dream team would be Gaillard, Rati and Sera, but Bushi’s been doing whatever they can to minimize Legion Mate’s presence, so I can dream but it’ll be a pipe-dream if anything.

AICHI + THE BIGGEST DISTORTION

— Naturally my biased butt has a lot of thoughts about Aichi and what put him in the antagonist role. It’s great that we get to see him and Emi face-off in some capacity as we never got to see them cardfight before, and that she gets to play a more active role when it’s been left to his friends to help him while she’s on the outside or in the dark altogether. About why he’s completely fine with blasting her out a castle without a second’s hesitation? It points to him not being in his right mind; Emi already stressed he was a kind boy before so it’s likely he’s under something/someone’s control or something drove him over the edge. His vizor making it impossible to see his eyes has to be to cover up a visual cue of the sort, Psyqualia isn’t the maddening power we’ve seen in the past, but not so sure about ruling it out just yet.

— The photo on him and Emi in the Epi 7 preview raises a big red flag: it’s always been evident that Aichi went back to Miyaji of his own volition and seemed ready to do so, but the Aichi in this image looks anything but. There have been theories floating around that IF Aichi never received Blaster Blade, he never played Vanguard, etc., which would explain his apparent lack of confidence, but why go back in the first place if he felt so uncomfortable with the idea? Maybe he felt it necessary for the sake of university and beyond? Have I been able to stop thinking about this boy’s sad expression since Saturday? Absolutely not.

— Suiko mentioned Aichi is the biggest distortion and after sitting on the thought for maybe an hour, it drove home just how much changes without his existence, even in the manga/Reboot-verse:

— Kai doesn’t really ease out of his Solitary Fighter phase, Aichi was pretty integral to that. — Ren’s Psyqualia is never bested, so who knows what state of mind he’s in. — By extension, Foo Fighter is still be actively terrorizing card shops in the area — Kamui’s old shop doesn’t get saved from Foo Fighter’s control — Naoki doesn’t get his chance to make amends/redeem himself (though if Aichi never existed, maybe he’s a completely different person altogether now) — Miyaji doesn’t have a Cardfight Club — Brandt should still be a threat, pretty sure

Though it’s all pending the Outside World Aichi’s state in all of this.

“Rena, stop reading too deeply into things”. I can’t, help me.

P.S. Let Emi fight units directly.

#Cardfight!! Vanguard IF #boop #don't mind me these have been running circles for weeks #yet when it finally comes to putting them down in words said words run for the hills

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peachyteabuck · 5 years ago

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saints can’t help me now

summary: I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. Kings give their power and authority to the beast, and those who are with him are the called and chosen and faithful.

pairing: forest god!thor x reader

words: 4,642

trigger warnings: dub con, attempted sexual assault, vague biblical allusions that seem quite out of place in such a pagan context

notes/other: this was done for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor ‘s in the dark challenge + my prompt was “shh, it’s okay. it’ll only hurt a little.” this is also a part of @spacelabrathor‘s forest god anthology bc te amo forest god thor.

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

There are drops of truth in every legend, however flimsy or warped. A lie doesn’t come from nowhere, lore isn’t rolled off tongues without pretext. Little children don’t lie in their sleep, in the middle of the night; they don’t lie without purpose (or the illusion of one). Behind every threat is certainty, behind every falseness a reality.

You’re smart enough to understand this, to trace the oaks back to their roots. When a villager begged for refuge from a storm and whispered to you to heed warning about some deity that had been cast away from his throne, you listened – and never traveled too deep into the deep woods. Gods are never meant to roam such an unholy place as this, which its ravenous terrain and its isolating nature and its punishing climate. Gods prefer the busy cities, the lovelier farms, perhaps even their own homes on a planet you don’t know of. An almighty being? In a space such as this? You merely laugh at the thought. Such an image is not one that inspires hope or wisdom or rebirth, rather one of a spirit thrown from its rightful place, rightful palace. Such a spirit would be vengeful, vindictive, deceitful, despiteful, unprincipled, unforgiving.

When a merchant took your money and told you of a divine man who hunted without care, you listened – and kept your cat in whenever the sun was not at her highest. Woodland creatures you rehabilitated and travelers looking for rest were sequestered within your walls until you felt it was safe. If you had to leave your home (as you often did) you refused to travel alone, preferring to starve than die at the hands of some ruthless beast. The light of day, the heat from a fire, the illumination from a torch – you trusted it all to keep you from a harm you felt was preventable.

When a fortune teller read your cards and spoke of a demiurge who threatened the peace of your home, you listened – and used every moment of every step as a way to prevent conflict. You gave what you could of whichever soul asked for it, you never disturbed the ground, you kept to yourself. Your voice remained undersized, your movements diminutive. A camp four miles away called you wee, the fortune teller called you cautious, you called it survival.

But none of that, nothing you had done or prepared or pushed to the forefront of your mind seemed to matter as you were being chased through the thickest set of trees you’d ever seen by a pack of wolves (werewolves, no less) who had spotted a way to broaden their gene pool and stalked you til dusk. Each press of your bare feet to the hardened ground forced bits of bark and bone into the callous flesh; normally you’d wail at such anguish, but the blood pumping in your ears drowns out any of your nerve’s attempts at reaching your bran. While you wince at each point of contact, the pain never seems to come.

From behind you their howls of laughter hit the trees and then your eardrums, a reminder that for them this is a game. Their idea of said game going poorly is if they do not catch you, if they cannot drag you back to their settlement as a token of their hard work.

It seems as quickly as your hunt for food had gone sour you’re plucked from the freezing ground and tossed into a barren field, slammed into the ground as your shoulders continue to rise and while your heart continues to beat at a rabbit’s pace, your eyes moving faster than the organ as they take in the scene in front of them.

Your thoughts are quick, like the blood in your veins.

Rolling hills. Crops. Yellow Crops. Deep yellow crops. Corn? Dead crops. Still cold. No snow. Yes ice. Stones, under you. Small stones. Broken stones. Bad dirt. Bad crops. Bad yield. No settlements. Sky dark. Feet hurt. Still cold. Feet really hurt.

The distinct sound of a boot digging into the ground makes you turn around, knife in your corset drawn with a shaking, aching hand.

In front of you, a man. A man in shoes meant for winter. A man dressed in dark clothes. A man with a large chest that rises slowly, slowling, slower. A man with golden skin, as deep as the flora around you. long, dirty beard. A man with long, dirty hair. A man with a set of horns that curl like a ram but peak like the blade in your palm. A man who towers over you. A man who looks less like a man as your eyes focus, but his form doesn’t become clearer.

The man is the first to speak, his lips thick and turned up into a sinister looking smile.

“What’s a little thing like you strolling alone in these woods?” His voice flows like honey with each step of gravel as he circles you. You’ve seen vultures spot prey with less purpose as his gruff laughs bring thick clouds of condensation, which fill the air between you and him. “Big, mean wolves prowl these very woods, looking for cute little things like you to prey on.”

You try to swallow what little spit remains in your dry mouth, but it seems the only thing in your throat is a thick knot of fear. Stuck in place from terror alone, each cell that makes up your body is more frozen than the ice hanging from the bare branches above you.

“I- “you’re momentarily distracted by a twig snapping in the distance. “I’m not that small!” The man (if he even is a man) laughs, loud enough to make you flinch (of course that’s all I can do, you curse yourself. Can’t run away, but can flinch at some fucking laughter.) “In these forests you are. You’re a pretty little toy for all the packs that try to stake their claim here. It’s useless, they’ll never succeed, but that sure doesn’t stop them from trying.”

Your heart beats faster than you’ve ever felt before, each painful expansion of your ribcage syncing with the blood pounding in your ears. “Wh-what happened to them?” He cocks an eyebrow. “What happened to who?”

You speak again, a little louder. “What happened to the packs, why haven’t they laid claim to this territory?”

His broad chest shakes as he chuckles at your insolence. “Because I already have.”

Your heart quickens again. “But you’re only one man,” another twig snap, another sound ignored as a different kind of fear rises in your abdomen. “How can you overpower those powerful packs, they’ve formed a coalition – the village hasn’t stopped talking about it – there’s at least a hundred of them altogether, I-”

An answer comes after a beat of heavy silence, though the tension of waiting seems better than the truth that comes all too quickly. “Because yappy puppies can’t usurp a god,” he hisses.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

Thor, the god you’ve been petrified of since you were a child, has been the guard of this forest and everything in it for a millennium. In like fashion to other sprawling hills and tall trees, he beckons in the seasons and calms the bears into hibernation and tells the snow when to melt. Thor is the life of the forest, attuned to the air every living breathes day in and day out. Yet he’s incomparable to his benevolent siblings, hungrier and more desperate and willing to throw away his duties to sink his jowls into anything unpardonable. This god is jaded, exhausted of the mind-numbing monotonous work of running the home of so many creatures; like knife dropped in the dirt, he threatens even the ones who step careful as marksmen watch their targets.

For a few moments you think your mouth will release a quip, a sarcastic response that would get you killed, or worse. Somehow your lips stay still, warming as each pant releases hot, white puffs into the cold night air.

There’s fear in your eyes and it permeates the air around you. The god’s nostrils flare as the pheromones hit his nose. In a far corner of your brain you wonder what it smells like – such a strong emotion. Is it thick and sweet? Does it coat his tongue the same of when you bake fresh bread? Or is it deep and revolting – the smell of one’s soul decomposing before the corresponding body’s gone cold.

He steps closer.

You wince. “Please- “

He laughs like he’s watched a child fall to the ground in a field. “What? Are you scared?”

The word leaves his lips much slower than the others, like thick syrup in his mouth. Guess your fear is a much sweeter scent than expected.

“Should I not be?” The defiance in your voice comes like the wolf that bursts through the thinning trees behind you.

With the air knocked out of your lungs and each muscle stunned into inertness, there’s not much you can do but watch the god as you’re dragged away while two wolves trail behind you.

The grey sunlight fades as the flora becomes thicker, and for a hundred or so yards you feel as if your life is crumbling around you. But soon with the shadows from the trees comes the realization of familiarity.

Their faces – their snouts, eyes, ears, fur – they’re one you’d seen before. They’re the same ones from the small fairy circle down the way from your cabin, where you’d been trying to find something to eat besides dry mint leaves and crunchy bread.

These aren’t the wolves from the coalition near the village, these aren’t those nasty wolves who steal and plunder and take without end, these aren’t the wolves who chased you into the arms of the god who previously stood before you.

This is something worse…so much worse.

You’ve housed some of them, their yellow eyes and pink snouts have been fixtures of your spare room – you’ve stitched their paws and rubbed salve into their poison ivy rashes and brushed matts from their thick fur.

As one of them jumps on top of you – one you recognize from the scar you’d helped heal after a hawk had attempted to take out his eye – you can feel another pry your arms flat above you and two others hold your legs apart.

His long, wet tongue traces from your shoulder to your temple, his snout breathing hot air onto your feverish skin.

“I’ve been waiting to do this,” his voice is muffled, as if you’re talking to a person resting at the bottom of the sea. “Oh, I’ve been waiting to do this since I saw you and your brow furrowed with worry at that wound the wicked bird left upon me.”

He nudges under your jaw, grazing his sharp teeth across the fragile skin above your jugular as he pants.

If your hands were free, if your lips could move, you’d push him away and call him some mutt in heat, spit in his face and kick him away and run until you could not see the wretched creatures and they could not see you and the distance would make you forget everything that had and would happen and you never would have to think of their paws clawing at your body again and…

And…

“Stay the fuck away from her,” the god from before snarls from behind his teeth. The wolves, now thrown more than a hundred yards away from you, are nearly frozen in fear and realization that their plan has taken a toll for the worst. Your hands dig into the earth in an attempt to gain footing, but you can barely hold yourself up on your elbow as your vision spins. “If I find you again I will rip your heart from your thoracic cavity and leave you all to be found by the rest of your pitiful kind, do you understand?”

The wolves do not nod, but they also do not stay. Within an instant, you find yourself blessedly alone and then cursedly close to the very thing you fear the most.

“Why don’t I take you back home?” Thor whispers, watchful as you finally pick yourself up from the mud and moss. Bits of twigs and leaves and crushed bugs litter the light fabric, but you make no effort to remove it from your person – none of that matters when he locks eyes with you, blown pupils glittering with something you can’t place.

Still, with chest heaving and hands shaking, you lead him back to your homestead.

It’s not a long trek through the woods, yet Thor’s breath is audible like a deer sprinting from a pack of canids. You question nothing, though, absolutely nothing as you lead him on the winding, invisible path that leads you less than a stone’s throw away from the entrance.

You don’t say anything as you pull away, not a promise nor gratitude nor acknowledgement of his actions. The silence from you is met with Thor tugging your back to his front and wrapping your arms around you.

“I think you should thank me,” he coos. In the window of your dwelling is your cat, eyes wide in fear as she paces. She knows something is wrong, something bad is happening. But she doesn’t know how to fix it. “For protecting you.”

Some parts of you – maybe a few ribs, the bottom of your spine, your dry mouth – know what he wants. Behind your eyes you see images of you, him, your large bed. Of your small, begotten frame under his large form as he takes what he desires.

Some part of your brain, the logical side, knows you should feel fearful at this massive beast laying you down onto your worn, soft sheets. The other part, though, feels a particular heat flood your center and between your legs.

“And what is it that comprises such appreciation?” you ask, still facing your home as the god lingers behind you. Your breath – already shaky and shallow – hitches as one of his clawed fingers pushes aside your thick hair to expose the smooth skin of your neck. He places such small, light kisses there that for a moment you believe it was simply whispers of wind from the night, but once sharpened teeth graze your heartbeat you’re aware of the affections being his.

“Oh, little pet,” at his words your eyes shut on their own accord, and your bottom lip finds itself between your top and bottom teeth in the same fashion. “We both know what I want.”

You gulp, trying to find verbal footing as he begins to kiss down the back of your neck to the top of your spine. For a moment you try to speak, but it seems with each attempted sentence his hands move closer and closer to undoing the ties that keep your shift from falling off of you.

The god leads you into your home with a large hand pressed into the small of your back, and into your bedroom as if he had been there before, as if he had memorized the hallways in your home from years of spending time there; as if he was some constant fixture of your household.

The yards and yards worth of fabric from blankets and pillows alike have only ever smelled like you; pockets of your pesky familiar here and there maybe, but nothing that cannot be overpowered by a good night’s rest. It’s a comfort after a long day, something familiar and comforting.

As Thor lowers himself onto the edge of your bed you fear the stench of him will never leave you. A candle of doubt in you wonders if this is a bad thing.

With no hardship he pulls you to him, like a suitor inviting a debutante to be a partner in a waltz – though, this feels less like a dance as each second passes, your heavy breathing akin to a kidnapping than some public displays unadulterated affection.

“It’s cold out here in these woods,” he whispers to you. His hot breath sends shivers down your spine as his hands pet over your shaking form. “I must admit, it would be nice to have a toasty little thing like you to help keep me warm in such a chill.”

You shiver, hoping this behemoth does not mean what you think he means. Alas, as he pushes your long, wild hair to the side to expose the tender skin of your neck – your wildest fears bubble to the surface of your flesh. It’s his hands, so calloused they feel like bark, that manhandle you in the gentlest way possible into a position that makes your face burn hotter than a bonfire.

You’re in his lap now, spine pressed to sternum with him towering over you. For a moment you feel safe in his embrace, his larger-than-life stature making you feel like some protected child. It isn’t until he’s tearing at your clothes with a loud rrrrrrrip that you understand how little this creature truly cares for you. Still, it’s hard not to feel like some fragile, blown-glass vase from the village beyond the mountains, where boys with similarly rough, burnt hands create the most beautiful little sculptures you wish you could afford; an object of which is revered and magnificent, but an object of which holds neither agency nor uniqueness to the rest of the pretty things surrounding it.

It doesn’t occur, in that very moment, that there is no way this god would be cold in the thick of winter – not with heat radiating from him akin to your cat’s fur after being warmed by a particularly warm beam of sunlight. But the deity doesn’t have much need for the truth, not when he’s got your soaked cunt free from its increasingly uncomfortable confines and is tracing the slick up and down the lips between your trembling thighs.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he coos like a mother lying to her child while pulling a rose thorn from a tiny, smooth foot. “It’ll only hurt a little"

Thor’s hands are huge already, but now they seem omnipresent as he pets over your form. Part of you – the sensible part, the part that guided you through being banished from your family and made you carve out a piece of this expansive, soul-crushing forest – that wants to, or at least wants to try to, push him away; tell him no, stop, please, I’ll do anything.

But nothing, nothing but desperate whimpers, ones you wish were from displeasure, leave your lips.

“You know, gods can still starve,” you gulp as the short, wiry hair that patterns his jaw rubs against the skin of your neck and shoulders. “The fish from rivers and boars from the deeper parts of my forest quiet the growling in my gut, but there is another hunger I need satiated.”

You remain silent as before, fearful a protest would make your periled situation that much worse for pitiful little you.

He grips between your legs, palm flat against the hottest part of you, his own hand rough against your own silky folds. As you squeak from the contact Thor laughs deep in his broad chest, leaning down to nibble at the edge of your hot ear. “This piece of fruit will do,” you gasp as a single, thick finger enters your dripping heat. “I love a good juicy peach. You’re absolutely dripping for me, aren’t you?”

Again, he is met with silence. Never one to be deterred, he slips another finger into you. “Humans are so cute,” he purrs. “You all think you’re so strong, always fighting wars that never end and death that always comes. It seems the things you can never resist are a good fight, a good fuck,” a pregnant pause fills your bedroom as he crooks his fingers just right, soliciting the desperate whimper he’s wanted since he spotted you in the woods all those hours ago. “And me.”

He fucks his digits in and out you with slow motions, ones that drive you to the brink of madness. You’ve never been one to coo and moan so unabashedly, to let yourself fall apart so easily for someone who holds so much pure power over you. If you weren’t already vulnerable, you would be now – for as assuredly that the sun rises in the East and you wake up soaked in blood every some thirty days, this man, this god will look down on you and understand how little you can do to fend him, his advances, his charm, from your trembling body.

Thor lays down on your sea of blankets, leaving you feeling empty without his touch. A smug look paints his face as he waits for you to climb up his chest, but you do not move, simply peering at him with a heaving chest and feverish cheeks. Your mind wavers, wondering if his horns will tear into the fabric that paints your bed – but you do not have much time for such frivolous thoughts before they are interrupted once again.

“I wasn’t asking,” he tells you pointedly. “Now, come provide me with the sustenance I so desire.”

Sans your dress, moving up the length of his body is relatively easy. As he grips your hips and lowers you down to his mouth you wish you had some sort of obstruction, some reason to resist the god below you.

No such luck. As before, you are unimaginably vulnerable to Thor and his ways.

He begins with light kisses on the inside of your thighs, still tense and desperate to run away. Thor seems to notice this but does nothing to soothe you and your resistance – he understands much better than you how much he holds above your foolish head.

It doesn’t take long for you to forget your plan of escape, the path of freedom dissipating in the pleasure pooling from your scalp to the nailbeds of your toes. This god is nothing if not skilled, wide strokes of his tongue and nips at your innermost thigh and kisses on your sensitive nub soon having you rutting against his face like a dog in heat, like the wolves from before. Your hands try to find purchase in his wild hair, but with the horns in the way it’s easier to wrap your own fingers around the keratin masses than dig your fingernails into the scalp of the man below you.

You wonder if you’d have considered them less such wild beasts if you knew this was the pleasure they were chasing. Would have not run so quickly if you, too, understood the magic building in your core as you balance yourself against the wall your bed leans against. When Thor leaves you, would the animals accept your contrition and give you the same pleasure this god is? Or would you be left to chase a high no mortal could gift you?

It’s trail of thought cut short by him bullying three of his fingers into you as his lips suck at you, your screams filling every empty bit of air in your homestead. As your own yelps of pleasure fill your ears you cannot sort what is babble and what is tongues, what are incoherent syllables and what are pleas to celestial beings to never leave you.

These, too, are soon muffled, Thor making quick work of your mute state to flip you onto your stomach and propping your ass up toward him. “You know,” he says mostly to himself, knowing his words will fall on ears deaf from ringing. “The Christians who pass through my forest often speak of how the original woman was tempted with an apple and I never believed their silly tales.”

He pauses a moment to trace his fingertips up the ridges of your spine before grabbing at the base of your hair. You yelp, but he ignores you.

“But now…” his unoccupied hand comes down to SMACK at your ass, eliciting another squeak. “Now I feel able to comprehend how such a person could be tempted by the prospect of such delicious sin.”

Too far gone to be ashamed now, you push back against him in hopes of reprieve from your suffering. Without much further wait Thor enters you slow and steady, the one hand still in your hair while the other grips your hip. Thor’s bigger, much bigger than your fingers or the occasional drifter, and your walls and scream the unfamiliar girth.

The man behind you does nothing to soothe you, merely hissing into the cold night air. “God, you little witch,” he grunts behind grit teeth. “Maybe it was worthwhile saving you from those wretched wolves.”

Your mouth hangs open and your lips remain mute, your hands grasping at the sheets until they become impossible to open up again. Nothing, not a single sound of yours, bounces form the walls – merely Thor’s loud grunts and the sound of his skin slapping against yours. It isn’t until his fingers release your hair and move to your neglected clit that you begin to sing for him, screams out of tune and sharp but still smooth music to his ears.

“Yes,” he moans, feeling you contract around him. “Yes you temptress, cum on my cock, fuck let me bring you to your peak.”

How could anyone refuse that? Certainly not you, the spell-caster who was saved by this magnificent, sympathetic creature with a heart of gold and pure intentions. The tight coil in your organs releases with a shout from you and a deep groan from Thor, who continues to fuck into you as you collapse and become limp under his touch. He reaches he peak quickly, stilling for a moment before flipping you over again.

You move easily under his touch, dead weight instead of some feisty, feral little lamb with too much fight in her. On your back, he spreads your legs once again, moving to revere your swollen cunt and his thick seed dripping out of you.

It reminds you of when the artists in the villages step back when they’re finished with their works, admiring their handiwork and talent. You recognize that same affection of progress and of a finished piece in Thor’s eyes, the focused, blown pupils trained on the white trailing down to your sheets and the corners of his mouth turning up into a small, satiated smile. He’s some paragon of silent pride, one hand moving up and down your folds before pushing his seed back into you.

“Beautiful,” Thor whispers, kissing where you are most sensitive once more before moving to lay beside you. The world spins around you as he pulls you into his broad chest, his heart thumping dull in the ear pressed to his heaving ribs.

You say nothing to the contrary, succumbing to sleep like a babe after a long feeding.

orThor disappears just as he entered, confidently and without much fuss. You wake up alone, more alone than you did that morning, surrounded by the very scent of him. Somehow, as the sun comes over the horizon, it’s enough.

Over the next few weeks, everything mostly returns to normal. You go through the ebb and flow of your routine; watching over your territory, eyeing the dark of the night each time the wind made the trees move like children listening to songs around a bonfire. Sometimes the swaying calms you as you clutch a cup of mint tea in your trembling hands, but others it mirrors the churning of your stomach.

Tonight, it feels like both. And tonight, you bury your face in the last of him left with you while hoping you never have to see the god again.

#inthedark!challenge #thor odinson x reader #thor x reader #lukis writes stuff #kinda had a breakdown and thought abt being in the church #if god can be vengeful than i can be flowery with my language #as with all of my works this is barely proofread and i hate it #but whateva

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fallout4holmes · 5 years ago

Text

Journal 54

We encountered a group of the Mechanist's creations distressingly close to Abernathy farm. An eyebot broadcasted a message from their creator as we struck;

"People of the Commonwealth. Again, I, the Mechanist, have come to warn you of the Scourge that terrorizes this land. Many of my robot allies have been defeated, leaving you all vulnerable to the insidious predators of the world today. But fear not! I have increased production of my robots. Soon, our patrols will be doubled, and there will be nowhere for our enemies to hide."

"Scourge?" I wondered aloud.

"I believe he is referring to you, sir!" Ada called as she shot down the offending floating speaker.

As the last robot fell, Valentine quipped, "Gotta say, this Mechanist fella sure gives a good villainous monologue."

I felt like an idiot. No wonder the name had sounded familiar; I was closely acquainted with The Mechanist's number one foe. That, however, was something to be considered later. The most pressing matter at hand was the restoration of Jezebel’s body, and holding her to her bargain.

Sturges was hard at work with a handful of volunteers from Sanctuary to assist with improvements around Red Rocket. When I handed him Jezebel’s head, he nearly dropped it in surprise and disgust. “Uhh… right. Ok. Building a robobrain, then?”

“Supposedly this one will be able to tell us how to get inside the Mechanist’s facility, provided we restore the body that raiders scrapped.”

“Got it.”

“Wouldn’t go crazy on the accessories,” Valentine said as he lit a cigarette. “She’s got a pretty damn big gap in her logic protocols, so. I’d stick her on something as non-threatening as possible.”

Sturges nodded, “I’ve got just the thing. Won’t take long.”

When Jezebel came out of standby mode, she found herself attached to an armless, armorless, protectron's body. She was… underwhelmed with the development.

"... Interesting. This body isn't quite what I had envisioned."

"Well, I was going to have Sturges connect your head to Liberty Prime's body," I said, "but I’m afraid relations with the Brotherhood are a little strained at the moment. This will have to suffice."

"If you're attempting to use sarcasm as an intimidation tactic, I'm afraid you're wasting your time."

“Intimidation?" Valentine was amused, "Can't say I've ever considered being a smart-ass to be intimidating.”

I've never heard a more impatient robot, “Why don't you ask me everything you wanted to know and then I'll be on my way.”

"Very well," I said. "Tell me everything you know about the Mechanist."

"Amazingly adept at programming, a veritable genius with electronics," she said, clearly impressed. "I've been dutifully carrying out the Mechanist's instructions to help the people of the Commonwealth for quite a long time."

Valentine, Ada, and I shared a glance. "Helping the people of the Commonwealth?" I asked. "You?"

"Absolutely," Jezebel confirmed, "it's my primary directive. The Mechanist instructed me to seek out and help the people of the Commonwealth. By my calculations, the easiest way to help a human is simply to destroy it. There's no point in prolonging a laughably fragile life. It's the most efficient way to assist them. Any other effort to help tends to result in numerous complex side-effects."

Valentine was aghast and furious, "You don't help people by killing them, that's insane!"

"On the contrary. Assisting a human to the best of my abilities only affords a twenty-five percent survival rate. That means there's a seventy-five percent chance that despite my efforts, the human I'm assisting will die from something beyond my control. Therefore it's better to hasten the human's death and put them out of their likely chance of misery than to deplete my limited time. It's actually quite elementary--"

"Enough," I commanded. "How do we gain access to the Mechanist’s facility?"

"It's rather simple, really. In order to gain entry to the Mechanist's facility, you're going to need to outfit one of your robots with an 'M-SAT' modification."

Ada was impressed. "A custom modification that acts as a key to the Mechanist facility. Very smart. In fact, chances are high the M-SAT may be required for multiple access points, like a robot identification card."

"Precisely," Jezebel said. "I'll upload the plans to your Pip-Boy device, and I will have fulfilled my portion of our agreement." She did so, and commented, "Perhaps I'll remain here for a while and see how things resolve between yourself and the Mechanist... purely for my own amusement, of course. I suspect you'll have quite a tale to tell once you return, but then again, I'd be surprised if you ever return at all."

"Don't wear out your welcome," Valentine warned, and we moved away to show Sturges the plans.

"Were you able to decrypt the signal, Ada?"

"Yes. The source is coming from a RobCo Sales & Service Center. Most likely a front for a larger operation."

I nodded, "Then it's time to confront the Mechanist."

"I hope you're allowed the opportunity. I too am curious as to what the Mechanist would have to say."

Sturges confirmed he had all the materials necessary for the M-SAT at hand. Ada volunteered for the installation. As she said, "I may be a robot, but I feel a strong amount of personal investment to see this mission through."

And so, "key" in hand, we headed east.

At my insistence, we made a detour south to Diamond City. Not only did I want to see my son before confronting a mad inventor of robots, but there was an item I wanted to take with us. I was fairly certain it would help.

Shaun was ecstatic to see us, greeting both his fathers with a tight hug. Codsworth greeted us warmly and asked if the rumors of war were to be believed.

"I'm afraid so," I confirmed.

"But why?" Shaun asked.

"The Brotherhood refuse to stop hunting synths. They've discovered the location of the Railroad; the only reason they haven't attacked is because the Minutemen and Railroad are allies.” I knelt down in front of him, “I wish I could have done or said something to change their leader’s mind. Perhaps I could have, but whatever needed to be done, I didn’t do.”

“Will a lot of people be hurt?”

“Probably. Let’s sit down a moment.”

Codsworth and Ada occupied themselves talking in the workshop while my partner and I sat on the sofa with our son between us and attempted to answer all of his questions. Shaun understood the concept of war, he fully realized what was going to happen. Violence born of fear and anger and hate is something one quickly becomes all too familiar with in this world, even when sheltered behind a wall. I suppose it is especially true when one’s father is responsible for destroying an entire underground civilization. What he didn’t understand was why the Brotherhood didn’t simply leave. I told him they believe they are in the right.

This did not seem to be a satisfactory answer, but he accepted it and asked why the Railroad wasn’t involved.

"The Railroad are spies, not soldiers," I told him. "A few members might be considered exceptions, but they do not have an army. I do. I had to choose whether I would ignore the Brotherhood, let them do what they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt any Minutemen or our allied settlements, or I could stand against them and their misguided desire to destroy that which they see as strictly evil. Either choice I made, people would die. I could not choose to ignore the Brotherhood."

"Ignoring would be like apathy, right?" Shaun asked.

"It would be similar." I’ve previously made my opinion of apathy dramatically clear.

Shaun was, of course, worried. "Promise you'll come home safe?"

I sighed, "Well, Valentine will be fine, it'll take more than a few bullets or energy blasts to stop him, after all."

"Don't joke, Sherlock," Valentine said softly.

I held my son's hand and gathered my thoughts. I thought my partner would assist, but he seemed to think I was the one that should do the talking. "Shaun,” I tried again, “I… don’t know what to expect in the next few days. The next week. I can’t even say when you’ll see us again. It might be a few days, it might be a long time. But if there is one fact I know for certain to be true, it is that Nick and I both love you.”

“I love you too, Dad. Promise you’ll be careful, at least?”

“That I can certainly promise,” I smiled. “However, first we have to stop the madman releasing deranged robots into the world.”

Shaun made a face, "The Mechanist."

"That's right."

Valentine chuckled, "Awful strong look of disgust for a name. You take after Dad for dramatics."

The comment got a quick laugh from me, but a frustrated huff from Shaun, "What's the point of building robots that only kill people?"

"It seems that was not the intention," I said.

Valentine nodded gravely, "Sounds like the killing bit might just be a horrible misunderstanding."

"Then why doesn't he stop?" Shaun asked.

"We must assume the Mechanist doesn't know what his creations are doing," I said. "Either that, or there is no misunderstanding at all and this is some twisted plot."

"Whatever it is, you're going to stop him, right?"

"Yes. Now, Valentine and I are only here for tonight, so let's make the most of it."

We played. I had scavenged a chess board together a month ago and taught Shaun the basic game; he'd been practicing with Codsworth and was eager to play against me. Valentine became complicit in a teddy bear's murder, and Shaun proudly informed us he had fixed Public Occurrences’ printing press while Piper was in Goodneighbor. According to Nat, she’d gone to tell Mayor Hancock about Diamond City’s decision to remain essentially neutral between Brotherhood and Minutemen, a decision which rankled me a bit, I must admit. I don’t know what Hancock is going to do with this information, if anything at all. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have time to worry about it.

Valentine and I smoked on the roof once Shaun was in bed that night. “So what's the plan when we get to the Mechanist?” he asked.

“That depends on how convincing The Mechanist finds my Silver Shroud performance.”

“Wait. The Shroud costume? That’s the item you wanted to pick up?”

“If The Mechanist wishes to model his career after a radio drama villain, why shouldn’t the hero make an appearance?”

Valentine shook his head with a smile, “God help us if Shaun’s this dramatic when he’s older.”

#fallout 4 #fan fiction #nick valentine #The Mechanist #ada #Sherlock Holmes #crossover

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