#and she was like theres a panther player that they just called that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

surpriserose · 3 years ago

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When you're not procrastinating on writing I'd love ur thoughts on the games!

okay i reached like 600 words written so

WHERE TO EVEN START???? this is gonna be long spoilers i guess but like the more relevant warning is for lots of bad shit. also mentions of car crashes, child death, rape, torture, police violence, gun violence, antisemitism, holocaust mentions, fascism, and drowning. not in too much detail but im not kidding when i say this is gonna get heavy.

Like generally david cage/quantum dream (his company) is racist specifically anti blank and anti indigenous, sexist, ableist like... just everything. I'm going to try not to speak over anyone here but its bad. Inside and out of the games. The company has an awful workplace environment that's been documented and it was one of those like... frat bro atmospheres. Which should tell you a lot about the differences between the games cage claims to make and the games he actually does. I'll get back to that with detroit become human, dbh.

omikron's not worth mentioning besides it being the first game and it being bad but having david bowie make the music for it???? that's some flash gordon and queen shit there

okay so after omikron was indigo prophecy/Fahrenheit. the different names are because there are different versions for north america and europe, with the european version having...sigh... interactive sex scenes. Thank fucking god those were removed. anyways, the story of indigo prophecy is that you play as multiple characters, the first being lucas cain whos not even a funny pathetic little meow meow he just sucks. The game starts and cain has been possessed in order to kill some random guy in a bathroom, he freaks out cleans up the scene and runs away. The other two characters are Carla valenti and tyler miles, the cops pursuing him. youll notice lots of cop characters in every game like all of them are varying degrees of copaganda. the game goes off the rails as lucas goes to see a magic blind woman who can tell him what happened too him, see lucas got possessed by some kind of nahua (but they're called aztecs) shaman? who yes...at some point turns into a panther :| and basically they want to take over the world using the indigo child, whos super special or something but she only gets introduced like thirty mintues away from the ending. also theres sentient ai who want to take over the world. also lucas has dragonball z powers.

Its a huge mess and its also really fucking racist. Like aside from the representation of the nahua you have a white va doing a racist chinese accent and wise old man shtick at one point, but its okay because that character...puts on the accent for customers? like cage thinks he did something really clever there but also carla does the same accent in a different scene so. carla also falls in love with lucas after meeting him like once and then they sleep together. cool. Tyler is also black and like...god... its so bad, hes just a collection of stereotypes and im like 95 percent sure hes voiced by a white guy. Also theres a spooky scary insane prisoners bit where you can get killed by scary CRaZy prisoners. so....yeah. Remember this when cage makes dbh a game like literally co ops civil rights era and blm terms and imagery and makes it about robots. Its the same guy who pulled this. but its okay since he says dbh isnt political...somehow.

so thats indigo prophecy but surely he got better right? Ehhhhhh critically yes, as much as i hate it critics loved both indigo prophecy and his next game, heavy rain. critical opinion has turned around after a few years, and i think they only got good reviews because theyre kind of considered groundbreaking in terms of cinematic games. or they used to be but then ppl realized how fuckin stupid and awful heavy rain was.

most people will tell you its biggest flaw goes like this, its a game that allows you to see the thoughts of the four player characters and it LIES to you. see the plot of heavy rain is ethan mars is a terrible dad. He lost one of his sons years before the plot trying to save him from getting run over and a few years later his other son gets taken by the origami killer. whos known for leaving origami dogs at the scene and taking children and then using the rain to well drown them. ethan is suspected of being the killer because he blacks out and then wakes up with origami in his hands. this was cut out of the game but the reason is in the car crash he ended up...forming a psychic link with the real killer but half of its still in the game as some kind of shitty red herring. But one of the player characters IS THE ORIGAMI KILLER, scott shelby, who never thinks about all the murders hes done even as he's investigating the murders. just literally going to all the parents of the kids hes killed like some kind of trauma tourist. also he kills someone while youre playing him and the game just... doesnt show it to you so. Like i guess he's trying to hide evidence but it would be nice if the player was allowed to KNOW that. The other characters are norman jayden, an fbi agent who just idk hes fine. if heavy rain came out a few years later he would be a tumblr sexyman thats pretty much all you need to know about him. oh he meets the only black character in the game i guess, a violent car thief called mad jack. yeah.

anyways the fourth person is madison paige. i hate her but its not her fault. she's probably the most sexist video game character in existence? like idk why people write think pieces about lara croft and bayonetta when madison is right there. see madison is a war reporter....i think...she doesn't rly seem like it. but shes introduced as having insomnia, which the game tells you by having you play a dream sequence where she walks around in her underwear, takes a shower, and then people break into her apartment and she wakes up just as they throw her on the bed :\ and that's just the start of awful scenes. she meets ethan and they have a okay its optional but its really super intended romance subplot while she heals him for no reason. Ethan's getting injured because the killer is basically putting him through saw:heavy rain trying to find out if hes a good dad or not, and if he succeeds he'll get his kids location. so madison starts investigating. idk she sucks and in her investigation she gets to go through two more attempted rape scenes because that's how david cage writes women. and yes... one of them starts off with her having to be sexy bait to get information out of a guy who later tries to assault and kill her. she just brushes all of this off tho. keep this in mind its another pattern. heavy rain sucks i think thats it

okay so cage moved on to beyond:two souls and he got elliot page and willem dafoe for some goddamn reason idk why people work with him. Elliot page had an awful time and i think sued the company. see he did mocap and acting for the main character jodie and they made textures for his breasts even though you never see them in game, which he did not consent to and there was no reason to make a fully nude model of his body. remember the work place issues i was talking about earlier? yeah.

anyways the story of beyond is jodie has special ghost powers because spoilers her twin died in the womb. its told non chronologically but for no reason except that cage doesnt know how to transition between scenes. seriously people just go places and then mention why theyre there every time. dafoe plays her father figure slash the guy studying her ghost powers because he wants to reach the ghost world and get his wife and daughter back. idk jodie is basically eleven from stranger things but this came out before that so cage didnt copy anyone....but stranger things did it way better.

basically jodie just does things for no reason until she has to save the world because dafoes character opened a ghost portal. one of those things is an attempted rape scene because jodie is a woman in a david cage game :\ at least theres some acknowledgement of trauma later but still, its not even a MAJOR scene it just HAPPENS. the other things she does inbetween being a carrie rip off are become a white savior and a cia agent. ill start with the first one

okay after running away from ah fuck it ties in with the cia thing give me a sec. okay jodie becomes a psychic cia agent because idk the government makes her she doesn't want to. she meets ryan another cia agent and her superior who is nothing but a jackass to her from day one and also hes a romance "option." quotation marks are there because even if you choose the other romance option you still have to go on a date with ryan and he kisses jodie during the climax no matter how many times she tells him to fuck off. yay. anyways jodie commits war crimes in africa, i want to say in an unnamed country featuring jodie bonding with a child soldier. and then is very surprised she committed war crimes because uh oh the cia tricked her oopsies and its rly unexpected that the cia would be involved in a regime change /s. anyways she jumps out of a plane and then is wanted for treason for being mad about doing war crimes with ryan, the guy whos okay with war crimes.

so that's where she's at when she meets oh my god i thought i just forgot it but they just dont have last names omg. okay she meets jay and his family, who are dine and GOD im sorry but this is the plot theyre haunted by a spirit they summoned to defend themselves from colonization. but it just kills indiscriminately. Jodie fixes it for them tho dont worry like im not kidding about the white savior part she just fixes everything with her ghost powers. jay is the other romance option. idk hes just there hes also kind of an ass at first but he has reason to be honestly jodie shows up out of nowhere and wont stop asking about their problems even when they tell her to stop. its... really bad. jays grandmother also dies in the process of fixing everything and they go and bury her in a sacred space and theyre just like hey jodie come on in which feels....really bad. like this is where im sure im over stepping but yeah. came out in 2013 btw.

also jodie goes back to work with ryan to stop the not chinese/north koreans from building a ghost portal because david cage made up a fictional asian country for the cia to fuck with. like its pretty blatant propaganda, like god, especially considering theres a scene where ryan is tortured and its just like guys do you not know how much america has condoned torture? hopefully that makes sense

there also another scary mental patient scene because cage is awful, its not as egregious as indigo prophecy but its another pattern in his work. I think...that's about it? beyond was also where critics started to turn around on cage FINALLY.

so this brings us to dbh where people decided they loved david cage and he was really smart again. now keep in mind when you read this, dbh came out in 2018.

okay dbh has 3 player characters. Kara, Conner, and Markus. Dbh takes place, obviously, in near future detroit and pretty much every major character is white except markus, amanda, and luther who...ill get to. The general story is...god...androids have been invented and its caused tension in america with androids....taking jobs from humans and causing the unemployment rate to skyrocket. At the same time androids are becoming deviant and therefore sentient...a lot of times killing their owners. Keep in mind...this game came out in 2018...its totally not political....but also the androids are literally kept in the back of the bus and markus' plot involves fighting for android freedom in a scene where you can literally chose the slogans for the movement, one of the options being LITERALLY I HAVE A DREAM and one of the logos you can choose being the black power fist. So its not political...but also its about race, using mostly white robots as a metaphor. you see the problem here? david cage is white but hes also literally from france if it wasn't obvious.

okay so markus starts out as basically this rich old painter guys caretaker and its a pretty amicable relationship, the guys even a father figure to markus as he literally calls him dad if he dies. anyways markus gets god...shot by the police for a crime he didnt commit and hes left for dead in a junkyard. I...its so bad i hate typing this out. anyways markus is basically android jesus and MLK or malcolm x, which ill get to. he literally comes back to life and goes to a safe haven for androids call jericho and basically takes over. The general idea of markus' plotline is as the leader and representative of the basically fuckin android civil rights movement is you have to choose between violence and pacifism. Hence the MLK or Malcolm X thing, its not accurate but that's kind of how they and the civil rights movement in general has been flattened and whitewashed by pop culture. Violence btw is associated with property damage which is literally not violent you don't even really hurt anyone. Although the game does force some...god... scenes where "bad apples" kill cops and i just like the problem is so glaring right? this is literally how right wingers and fascists view the blm movement like how come fans of dbh dont see this?? god im done talking about markus

so kara is the woman android so she gets to do basically nothing that affects the greater plot and take after a child instead. oh god im having flashbacks to karas story ill get to them. okay the main theme of karas story is human and android connections, but also the kid was an android the whole time and the game just lies to you again kara knew the whole time actually. so after rescuing alice, the kid, from her shitty not actually dad the two go on the run trying to get to canada. because canada doesnt allow androids so they can blend in. at one point the two of them go to this spooky resident evil mansion to get karas tracking chip removed but the guy tries to sell her for parts because hes basically sid from toy story. i only mention this because in this scene its possible for kara to gain an ally in luther, sid from toy story's android. luther is like fuckin 8 feet tall he's huge and hes black and before hes an ally that's used as an intimidating aspect of the scene. but really hes just the gentle giant trope and thats...kind of it. hes not even a romance option which kinds of sucks because it would really fit with cage's storylines? but luther is black and kara is white so its just not presented as an option. markus gets a romance option in north, a white android though, which feels really colorist. i could be speaking over people so im gonna stop there but yeah.

karas story gets worse though because they god...literally go to meet a black woman named rose who runs...an android underground railroad to canada. I am not kidding. Rose even mentions shes doing this because of the slavery parallels BUT ITS NOT POLITICAL THOUGH AND AHHHHHHH its just really really tone deaf and awful

okay heres where kara story kind of splits into things some players may or may not see. but if you fuck up enough late in the game kara, luther, and alice can get sent to...god...an android concentration camp because the government is really scared of deviancy and markus' movement pretty much no matter what you do. It is awful. what makes it worse is the androids also have specific clothing that includes a blue armband and a triangle symbol on the chest. so even if players dont see this specific scene which i can't really explain it but its so much worse than im getting into here i promise this shit is shit in your face the ENTIRE game. Cage just takes all these really traumatic historical events real people are STILL feeling the effects of and just slaps them all together and has the gall to pretend its not political at ALL. which leaves the question, is this supposed to be just pure entertainment? with all these awful things strewn about with no thought behind them besides...they would be fun? because if its not political than what do you want people to get out of it?

okay almost 3000 words in and im getting to the reason im writing this. connor my arch nemisis. He is, no question, the reason this game has had the staying power and fandom it has. because connor is a skinny white guy in a suit who you can reasonably pair with another attractive guy. he is the bane of my existence.

connor is a cop android, specifically built to investigate deviancy. hes a cop he gets a buddy cop story where he bonds with the guy who like 90 percent sure lost his son to androids. His name is hank, and yes since people wont stop mentioning it, he is mocapped and voiced by the same guy who does mr krabs. okay connors thing is at what point is an android a human, because he is constantly getting pulled becoming a deviant or following his program. it sucks its copaganda and connor sucks and i hate him i am trying so hard to remember what he even does besides look pretty i guess. this is where cages problem with getting from point a to point b are really apparent connor and hank just go places where crimes committed by androids happened and try to solve them. theres so much to talk about in like all of them but im gonna focus on the tracy case. because yes ive held off so far but cage did include sex androids.

okay so basically the story is these two sex worker androids became sentient and also theyre gay so they killed a customer to run away together. god. yes they fight you in heels and underwear. yes you are given the option to shoot them. yes they are the same model of android (tracies) so its really uncomfortable and playing into the lesbian doppelganger idea. yes if you shoot them later when you are trying to solve a puzzle you use one of their severed heads to talk to the other one. yes these are the only gay characters in dbh. i hate it. sure you dont HAVE to do the last one, but its an option and in a game with options you have to analyze ALL of them. which oh my god i will get to because one of the endings is literally so so so so so gross.

okay first step to talking about the ending. Connor investigates the guy who created the androids, kamski. he was taught by amanda, one of the other black characters and basically shes in connors head to get him to follow his programming and just be a cop and deal with god the android civil rights movement since its caused by deviancy. its really insidious people have written about the rise in the inclusion of black cops, gay cops, etc in copaganda and while amanda is not a cop she basically has the same role.

kamski is just shittier elon musk i dont care about him. but there is an ending where i have to care about him. see if you meet all the requirements when markus and connor meet and face off, connor will join the movement and as markus is speaking connor will shoot and kill him. and then its revealed deviancy is an outside force, created by kamski, a rich white guy. NOW THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS ARE SO BAD. i hate to type this out but see, fascists believe that jewish people are ultimately behind black lives matter. See the idea that george soros is funding protestors. its baseless obviously and racist and antisemitic but thats literally this ending in a nutshell. a rich white guy behind the movement all along. most players wont get this ending but its still a part of the game its still something that needs to be analyzed.

this is all mostly from memory btw besides a few names i had to remember, so ive probably missed half the awful stuff in these games. these games are awful dont play them. the reason i know so much about them is because ive watched playthroughs and honestly? david cage lives rent free in my mind, im brave enough to admit it.

so when i see the dbh fandom running around its just like...what are you people doing? these games are awful and even if they werent racist, sexist, antisemitic MESSES they would still be awful. but david cage has become this kind of george lucas figure, people dont say no to him and after dbh hes a critical darling again, even with all of this shit. I'm not the only one whos written about it if i can find some articles i might make another post so you can read something thats a lot less rambling. this shit is in your face its not hidden its not subtext its text ALL of it and people have been pointing this out for years.

but people ignore it because connor is hot and hes white and you can ship him with people also hes just a nice sweet cop awww /s. like basically the conclusion is you can get a fanbase for literally anything if you include a hot white guy in a suit. not a particularly new take but yeah. neither is the take that david cage is a piece of shit. sorry this got so long like i have ranted about this SO much obviously and also...english major

#ask to tag #im so tempted to tag this but idk ill think about it and maybe add tags later...for now #enjoy?

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greenninjagal-blog · 5 years ago

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Deja vu pt2

Wow, I did not expect this to get the following that it did. I’m so glad you guys are enjoying this! Here’s part 2 But if you missed part 1 you can find it [here]!

Summary: Four years after Remus runs away, he makes a friend and gets to see even more death.

Words: 5293

Read on Ao3 || My general writing Masterlist

Remus spends his twenty first birthday at his favorite location: The Basilisk Casino. Its a nice place, the type of place that drains life forces with people along with their wallets. The golden walls shimmer like scales if you look too long at them, which is all the more reason to focus back on the dice, the slots, the chips and coins and cards. The coins all have snarling snakes on them and Remus just loves rolling his thumb over the crevices of the design while he watches his opponents sweat. He can’t count the number of times he’s been cursed out at the table, the number of times he’s been checked for bugs by the debugging crew, the number of times that he’s had several dealers and security watch him as he played at the tables, the number of times where he cashed in his coins and called himself “Lucky”.

Luck, of course, has nothing to do with it.

But he usually walks out of the casino several thousand dollars richer and it’s nice. To have money, to have a room in the upstairs hotel that he paid for himself, to have clothes that he picked out, to wave his excess cash in the faces of every person who’s tried to figure out how he’s cheating.

(Because they all know he’s cheating. One doesn’t go a full night at the tables without losing once. It's actually impossible.)

((Unless, of course, you can see the future.))

Remus is twenty one and he’s never lost a game of cards.

The staff has mixed feelings about him and Remus knows this, because they hate cheaters when it reflects badly back on them-- and boy did a lot of them get yelled at those first three weeks before Remus had asked his poor dealer to invite her boss to the table to play-- but the number of cheaters that Remus outed purely for the fun of seeing their eyes go wide has landed him in the good graces of a few.

Which is weird, being in the good graces of people. And so is knowing that if he finds that one cute dealer with the scar on his knuckles, they’d go up to Remus’s room and they’d spend the night with two bottles of Baileys and no clothes.

“Hit” Remus sings as he knocks on the table behind his cards. His dealer, a girl who’s been working for a while and knows his tendency to give her instructions before she’s finished dealing to everyone at the table, nods to show she’s seen him. The players to his left and his right both glare at him.

Remus smiles, because he already knows what cards they’ve got and what they were going to bet now that he’s announced himself: the old guy with the silver watch was going to stand, the loser with the mullet was going to hit as well, and the woman who’s tag was sticking out was going to hit then split.

Only that old guy was going to walk away with any money earned, four rounds later, after the lady loses everything she made in a risky gamble and the slots catch Mullet head attention.

Remus stays because he likes Blackjack, likes the easy memorization, likes the repetition and the exchange of chips, and he flips one of his Barneys in the air as he waits for the table to refill.

“That’s certainly impressive,” A voice says sounding like silk even over the chattering of the slot machines to their backs.

“This? Its nothing!” Remus flips the coin again, letting the stranger catch it in the air. “I’m more impressive in the bedroom.”

The man hums, twisting his wrist to look at the coin he caught. “Do you often let people steal 500 American dollars from you?” The man asks so very teasingly as he rolls the coin between his own gloved hands.

“You’re going to give it back,” Remus says with a grin, “One way or another!”

The man has a nice smile-- a smile far nicer than the one the dealer with the scar on his knuckles has-- and its prettier in the present time than looking at it in the future. His teeth are all aligned and straight and his molars grind together just enough to look like a threat. He was dressed better than most of the people out tonight: no fancy tourist with rented suits that barely fit, and he had an actual handkerchief.

Remus wonders if he pulled it out would it be tied to another and another and another like every other clown he’s met?

--No. The man just laughs at him and and twirls the Barney between his hands.He does not ask for it back.--

“You’re awfully confident about getting your money back when this is a game between the house and I,” the man says. He’s got green eyes, and black hair that’s gelled right back out of his face. The way he leans against the table makes him so easy to push--

--The man hits the ground spilling his rack of chips and the nearby tables pounce on them like panthers. Its honestly funny to watch and Remus laughs the entire time as the police are called.--

“I’m confident about a lot of things,” Remus wiggles an eyebrow at him. “How confident are you?”

Instead of answering the man places the purple coin in the betting square on the table. Remus tosses a pumpkin just to top him.

“I heard a rumor that there’s a man here who’s never lost a game before,” The man with the green eyes says and even though there are four other people at the table (betting far lower than them of course; the table minimum is twenty five), Remus feels almost as if its just the two of them in the world. “Can I assume that man is you?”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Remus laughs as the dealer begins her deal, “It makes an ass out of me and you!”

There’s a four of spades in front of him, and an ace of clubs in front of the stranger. The dealer has a five of diamonds.

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He stands and the dealer reveals her second card: a jack of clubs. Fifteen to Fourteen to the house.--

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He hits a second time and receives a three of clubs. The dealer reveals here second card: a jack of clubs. Seventeen to fourteen to Remus--

The stranger is watching him, Remus notes with a feral grin as he taps the table behind his cards for their lovely dealer. The stranger who was betting using Remus’s money, scans the table and then taps as well.

The dealer gives Remus and Dee their matching Kings of diamonds.

“What are the chances,” The stranger muses. “Perhaps I should bet with your money more often.”

Remus taps the edge of the table behind his cards again.

“Don’t worry about that!” Remus waves him off, “You’re going to lose it in Poker in an hour.”

“Are you challenging me to a game?” the man says, half turning from the table to wave down a drink waitress. “Why would I ever want to play a game of cards with a man who doesn’t lose?”

“Beats me!” Remus admits, “but we end up over there anyway!”

The stranger laughs. It sounds like a melody to Remus’s ears, something soft and warm and Remus thinks he should hate it. Whats the point of soft and warm things when there are chips and cash and not-completely-terrible-whiskeys? Soft and warm things are illusions anyway: no mother’s love is unconditional, and no late night blanket forts in his brothers room last forever.

Isn’t it great? That whole “growing up” thing?

He’s thought about making a call with the payphone but Roman’s old number is someone else's now and Mom answers the landline with a different last name.

Remus is twenty one. Roman should be too. If he managed to stay alive this long without Remus being his godforsaken guardian angel.

The waitress returns with the drink and its a screwdriver that smells like oranges even from where Remus is standing. The stranger gathers up his chips won in the game, and slots them back into his rack.

“Well?” He says, “I would like to see this cheating trick of yours.”

Remus laughs at him taking his own tray. “No one knows my trick.”

“Oh?” The man sips his drink, “No one knows? Do I get a prize if I figure it out?”

Remus’s shoulder brushes with the man as they walk towards the poker tables. Its quieter here, away from the slot machines, and the tables are thick with intense glares at cards. The craps tables are going strong and someone must have just won big because everyone is clapping and someone is screaming. The roulettes are hardly any better, although Remus nearly cleared out a whole dealer last week with his multitude of correct guesses that got him physically dragged from the table because its literally a 1 in 36 chance every single game and theres no way anyone should be able to win three times in a row, much less fifteen.

“I’ll tell you what,” Remus says as they join a table for poker that was just clearing up. “If you can figure out my trick, I’ll do one thing for you.”

“For me?” The man echoes, “Interesting. Anything I want?”

“I will fuck you on this table if you tell me to,” Remus says, making the woman next to them choke on her pina colada.

“Charming,” The man hums, “But I believe I have a much better thought in mind.”

He’s taking it surprisingly seriously and Remus knows he should probably be concerned, but the truth of the matter was, he wasn’t. After all, he spent nine years physically telling the people closest to him that he could see the future, and they didn’t believe him. A strange man who was going to lose the first three hands is never going to believe in a magic like that.

The irony of it all. Remus wonders what he did that pissed off the big G up there so badly that they cursed Remus to never be believed. Maybe he should have just changed his name to Cassandra and started wearing tunics around the casino (because hell yeah those things would have been much more breathable than these slacks and button up he was currently wearing). Plus a tunic would totally show off his calf muscles.

--He gets to play three more games of roulette before he’s forced out by security who ask him very nicely to put on pants before coming back and Remus just thinks its funny how he got in to play in the first place. Turning the poor door boy bright red and stammering--

There’s something fascinating about the way the strangers lips look around the straw, the way his eyes settle on the cards of the table the way his gloves fingers weave over his chips with the certainty of someone who knows what they are doing. Remus thinks that he might have played a game with this man before, once or twice, (because he comes here often enough, doesn’t he?) but his memory hasn’t been great since he was seventeen and thought about crushing his brother’s windpipe.

Remus is twenty one and this stranger looks like danger no matter which way Remus squints at him. But is that such a bad thing?

“Are you going to look at your cards?” The man asks without looking at him.

“No,” Remus says, because he already has in the future and he’s got a seven and an eight both of diamonds. (The strangers fingers hover over his own cards-- a five of clubs and a jack of spades-- and his green eyes darting to glance at Remus in suspicion.) The other players at the table shift nervously and Remus thinks that even the old lady at the end is going to pitch a fit about Poker etiquette but she holds her tongue.

He sees ahead to the rest of the hand, something he glanced at earlier. By the time the dealer draws the turn card, Remus not looking at his cards makes the the business man to their left over confident about his chances about his straight. The couple on his right have both individually decided to back out, and the old lady is holding nothing but a two pair. She folds when she realizes that neither Remus nor the very attractive stranger to his left are going to fall for it.

The stranger folds, the businessman checks, and Remus wins the round with a straight flush without having picked up his cards before revealing them.

“You’re cheating!” The business man yells and Remus grins at him as he takes the two blacks and the quarter that the man bet with.

“Not in any way that you can prove, big boy.”

He’s twenty one and he wins the next three hands before the table clears out of all but him and the stranger who followed him there. Security is called twice to deal with another debugging ritual at the old lady’s insistence and the the dealer is screeched at by several parties. Remus thinks the old guy handles it with grace and elegance: threatening to have security called over if the players don’t sit down right then and there.

“How much do you make in a night?” The stranger asks, as the dealer changes from the older gentleman to a young girl.

“Are you planning something?” Remus asks, inhaling the scent of oranges that waft off this stranger, “Gonna get me drunk and in bed and then steal my money? Slit my throat for good fun?”

“I don’t think I’d have to get you drunk for that,” His eyes slide past Remus for a moment to something across the room.

“Oh, so true,” Remus agrees, “Everyone loves a good bit of knife play!” The dealer begins to shuffle the cards to nicely.

“Besides,” Those green eyes come right back to Remus, startlingly close and perceptive in a way that makes shivers run down Remus’s back. “Shouldn’t you already know the answer to that?”

Remus is twenty one, spending his birthday in a Casino as far away from where he grew up as he can be. And despite not having talked to his family in four years, he can still hear Roman’s voice in his head, chanting a mantra of “I don’t need you”, “I don’t need you”, “I don’t want you”.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, pretty boy,” Remus says picking up his cards to look at them, to feel them, to remind himself he’s here in this casino and not back in the room with his hands on Roman’s fluttering little pulse.

The stranger rolls a Barney from his tray, Remus’s Barney, and places it on the betting pool. “Interesting.”

Remus wonders what that means, but there’s no answering vision. Any time he pushes the stranger laughs it off until the dealer motions for them to play or leave the game.

Remus is twenty one and the way that this stranger said “interesting” is the way a scientist says it before they start dissecting a frog. Clinical, cold, like a knife straight to Remus’s throat. His green eyes are dangerous pins holding Remus in place at this table, but he can’t find it in him to wish he was anywhere else.

The stranger picks up his new cards and pretends to look at them. Remus isn’t sure what that means, isn’t sure why this stranger suddenly seems so much different, isn’t sure what could possibly be more interesting than the card game they're playing.

Until he is.

Of course because--

-- He places another three blacks in the betting pool in front of him and he turns just in time to see the stranger lunging towards the crowd that was passing behind them; towards the armed security guard that was wheeling the fucking cash box of the casino towards the elevator to the vault across the floor fuck. Several guns go off and and there’s a couple hundred screams that break Remus’s eardrums in the moment, but all he’s aware of is the body at his feet, the body of the stranger with pretty green eyes, with welts of red bursting out the back of that nice tailored suit that was suddenly shredded and that face smashed into the floor, but there’s no mistaking the way his skin on the left half of his face wasn’t--

There’s something in the back of his throat that tears him up inside, like he’s regurgitating a bunch of swords he forgot he had swallowed. Every hair on his body stands on end, curling with an electric current that didn’t actually exist but one that Remus couldn’t get out of his veins even is he started carving with a knife--

He forgot-- how did he forget? He hated the color red so damn much; how could he have forgotten that?

He grabs the stranger beside him with an iron grip and pressed him to the table as that cash box rolled by, as that future twists away, as that sight fades from his vision from something plausible to a nothingness in the back of his mind.

“Sir?! Sir!”

The stranger gasps for air, looking caught between surprised and not, with those fake green eyes and that stolen black hair, and that completely unmarred face and makes Remus’s skin crawl. Remus wonders if this stranger--this stupid idiot of a stranger-- knows his body reverts to normal once he’s dead and gone and passed.

The rest of the table is in chaos, and Remus isn’t sure if its because both his and this stranger’s chips just got tossed across the table with the viciousness of a life or death (or death or death or death) situation, or because the Dealer dropped her deck, or because Remus just grabbed a man and that wasn’t poker etiquette or something else entirely.

He doesn’t care.

He lets go of the stranger (the living, breathing alive stranger), and he shoves through the buzzed, singing pair behind him, knocking them both to the ground. His hands-- oh fuck his hands sting and shake with some emotion that Remus can’t remember the name of.

“Sir! Your chips!”

Remus rips at the collar of his shirt, tearing off an entire button as he struggles to get enough oxygen in his lungs. The golden walls shimmer and shine and distract, but Remus throws himself through the crowd to the exit.

Remus is twenty one the first time he meets someone else like him.

Well not entirely like him, because this stranger who stumbled upon him by chance doesn’t see the blood, or the deaths, or the future. He doesn’t know all the consequences, doesn’t know the feeling of seeing living, breathing people just stop, doesn’t know what it smells like to mix blood and a half finished screwdriver on the floor of a casino for a box of cash that he had no chance of leaving the building with in the first place.

The night air hits him like an eighteen wheeler (which Remus knows what that feels like, he does, because he thought about it once out of curiosity four years ago when he couldn’t quite believe that he had wasted seventeen years of his life on someone who would never been willing to do the same). Its bitter cold and harsh and it tears his skin almost right off his bones.

He stumbles and nearly falls, does fall, is caught.

Caught by the back of his shirt and hoisted back up, with a second hand stabilizing him by his chest. Remus starts to laugh because he didn’t see this coming. Of course he didn’t see this coming.

Its almost like that day when he didn’t see that argument with Roman coming, except back then he was looking ahead and that wasn’t an option, and now he just hadn't been looking long enough, hard enough, close enough.

Remus feels something against his back, solid, cold, oh its a wall. The stranger who followed him from Blackjack to poker, who bet with Remus's money, who just caused Remus to lose his first game of cards ever-- that stranger with green eyes that aren't real is right in front of him pressing him to the wall and holding him steady.

Remus laughs harder like he can dislodge the cancerous lump in his throat by the force of his will alone.

"Did I die?" The stranger asks as Remus wheezes for air.

And isn't that just hilarious?

"Everyone...dies!" Remus convulses under the man's touch, "Everyone dies... someday, Scales!"

The stranger isn’t like him, because instead of seeing things and wondering if they’re all in his head, he fucking changes his appearance.

Remus hiccups painfully-- a gasping air that shreds his diaphragm as he laughs with tears on his face. He forgot again: how he hates the sight of red, how he needs to breath if he wants to keep living, how he's too old to be crying over every single, little, itty, bitty death he sees.

"You can see the future," the man says like a statement while Remus drags his nails over his own face and through his hair to get rid of his worthless tears.

"Its funny!" Remus grins with all his teeth. "It's always funny! Did you know you revert back to your natural half snake self when you die?"

The stranger flinches, just like everyone does when Remus opens his mouth and talks about death, just like someone who’s afraid of dying, just like Roman.

“You,” Remus says gaining enough sense of his own to shove the stranger off of him and back, “You are…batshit fucking insane!” He laughs, because what else is there to do? Scream? Cry?

(He’s screamed and cried before. It doesn’t work, because they never believed him and then they go and get hurt and tell Remus to shut up, shut up, I don’t need you--!)

“How far in the future can you see?” The stranger asks.

“Take me to dinner first,” Remus twists a hand through his hair, then drags it down his face, smushing his nose and flattening his mustache and then dropping it into the empty air.

The stranger catches his hand, and the silk touch of the gloves freezes Remus’s where he stands, against the wall of a casino in a dark alley where the shimmering light doesn’t touch and the sound is strangely diluted.

“Answer me,” the stranger demands.

Remus laughs, “Or what? You’ll turn your hands into claws and rip my throat out? Maybe roll your body into a giant python and choke the life out of me without leaving a fingerprint? Can you secrete poisons too? Spit them right into my eyes--”

His other gloved hand goes right over Remus’s mouth, squeezing the hallows of his cheeks until its just borderline painful. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Remus already knows the answer before this stranger asks, already knows that despite the burning closeness between them, despite the cool indifference he’s been portraying, despite the millions of ways that he could kill Remus, he’s not going to, not in any way that matters.

He’s a good guy like that.

Kinda.

“You must think I’m insane,” Remus gurgles, shoulders shaking from laughing, with the future in his eyes and no air in his lungs.

“Are you?”

“Not that insane. Not yet!” He pushes off the wall and leans forward into his companions personal space until their faces aren’t more than a few inches apart. “Can’t you tell? I’m the pinnacle of stability, Slitherous Snape!”

“Stability is a lie made up by society to sell more products.” The man waves him off, easily without putting so much as an inch between them. “You are a seer. And I’m in desperate want of someone who can see the future.”

“Because you want to rob the casino we just left,” Remus says.

It sounds different coming from his own lips rather than the man before him. It sounds different hanging in the space between them. It sounds different being a real thing.

“Because I want to screw over the owner of that casino for some unsavory acts he performed against someone who was dear to me,” The man corrects.

“An altruist!” Remus does a shimmy with his upper body. “All that money is just a bonus then, right?”

“Oh yes absolutely! And How…” The man hesitates and clears his throat innocently, “How much money…did you say?”

Remus laughs at him, again. The hysteria is fading leaving another pesky emotion that Remus doesn’t know if he likes or not. Its dangerous, he knows that. Dangerous because even while he stands here, talking to this shapeshifter who is every bit a lie as a person can be, he feels his heels beginning to dig into this idea.

This stupid awful terrible idea. This What if---

---oh…. Oh no.---

“How many times do we die?” The man asks, breathlessly excited. “How many times do we get away?”

Remus is twenty one and he knows that stealing is morally wrong.

But.

But there’s a man in front of him who likes money far too much and a casino behind him that’s filled to the brim with cash waiting and six hundred fifty million futures where they both die painful, violent, expected deaths.

And for once Remus can’t even focus on that part of this frankly awful idea. He’s too busy focusing on the way that in every single future-- all of them-- there’s not even a little--

Remus watches them again and again, as many times as he can until he almost forgets that they haven’t even happened.

And oh.

The stranger is looking at him and there’s something in those green eyes that he can’t hide even if he wanted to.

“There’s a dealer,” Remus says, because he needs to see it happen for real. “Two inches taller, blue eyes, scar on his knuckles. Turn into him.”

The stranger blinks and his eyes are blue, his skin ripples like a puddle when a child jumps in it, and suddenly Remus is staring at someone completely different and yet entirely the same. The man before him is the dealer from the casino, but when he smiles so softly all Remus can see is that stranger who didn’t hesitate at all.

And oh.

Remus knows he’s in trouble, because he can feel electricity in his veins, that burns all of his nerves and hijacks his brain. Because this is what its like for someone to trust his power, for someone to have complete and utter faith in him.

This is what someone believing him when he said he could see the future is like.

“You’re bleeding,” The man says tentatively.

“Happens,” Remus says cupping his hand under his nose to catch the red splatters before they hit the ground. In the shadows he can’t see just how scarlet they are and he thinks that’s a relief. “You really….you really didn’t hesitate.”

“Should I have?” The man cocks his head to the side, half a grin on his face, as if he doesn’t quite get the joke Remus is telling. (There’s no joke, and that fact alone makes Remus’s stomach flip.)

The question is a loaded gun anyway and Remus doesn’t feel like pulling the trigger on himself today at least.

Remus is twenty one and he helps rob his first casino.

Which seems insane, because Remus is a lot of things, but he wasn’t really a lawbreaker until that moment he talked the man who could shapeshift into anyone straight through the four levels of security and the cameras and figured out the codes that he needed to get in to the vault and the path he needed to take out, which led him all the way up the stairs to Remus’s hotel room.

There’s enough money on the floor to fix the world hunger. The man, his partner in crime, the shapeshifter sits in the middle of it like a dragon watching his hoard, scribbling mathematics on the hotel provided pad of paper so that he can count it all. His shapeshift is off, allowing Remus a look at his green scales and yellow eye without all the blood.

He’s grinning like the cat that caught that little canary. Remus thinks its a good look on him.

Remus holds one of his poker chips in his hand, a Barney that wandered off from the casino floor and found its way to Remus’s hotel room.

“So,” He says, because silence has never been his type of thing, “What now? We split ways?”

The man makes another mark on his pad of paper shuffling through the green papers. “I’m afraid not. You still owe me.”

“What?” Remus turns to face him, and if there’s a spark in his chest, a nudge of excitement, well who can blame him? Its not like hes spent his whole life waiting for people to leave him.

Another dash on the paper. “We made a deal, unless you’ve forgotten. You said that if I could figure out how you were cheating, you’d do one thing that I want you to do.”

Remus snorted and waved to the money around them, “What do you call this?”

“This?” The man gave him a shark-like smile, “You did this of your own violation!” He held up a wad of cash, a smug superior smile on his face, that makes his fangs glisten.

“I seem to recall you asking,” Remus challenges.

“Not in this timeline, Love Muffin,” The man throws the cash at him. “You still have blood on your face by the way.”

Remus lets the cash fall to the floor because money is nice, but there’s something much nicer about the way that this man is looking at him, the way he’s still looking at him, like Remus is something more than a nuisance, more than a distraction, more than an unwanted, frustrating intrusion.

“What do you want?” Remus says, because he hasn’t looked ahead this far yet and the uncharacteristic fear in his chest is slowly turning all his organs to butterflies.

He knows what he wants this man to say, knows what he wants to hear come out of this man's mouth and he thinks that if he looks in the future and its not what happens, Remus will surely explode right there in his (their) room.

“Hm?” The man says tapping his hotel offered pencil to his chin. “Well, you did say anything I wanted right? Anything at all?”

Remus nods, rolling his finger over the snake design on his stolen poker chip.

“Well then, the one thing I want…” He hesitates, “...is for us to stick together. I think we make quite the team, don’t you? My name is Dee.”

“Remus,” He chokes, because suddenly there doesn’t seem to be enough air in the world, and he’s afraid if he inhales too deeply trying to get more, the whole reality will shatter.

Dee makes another mark on the paper. “Well Remus,” He says, “Any other places you’d like to rob with me?”

Remus is twenty one and he thinks that this is the best birthday he’s ever had.

(Part Three)

#sanders sides #Remus Sanders #deceit sanders #roman sanders #deja vu au #remus has precognition #casinos #Blood #violence #robbery #Sometimes you just gotta Oceans Eleven this Shit #the author probably should have slept instead of written but #oh well #Demus? Demus #The power of friendship compels you to rob a casino

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omgmicheal01me · 6 years ago

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'There are bigger things to worry about – like saving my brother's life'

Well, not today. But he had to step up in late 2017 when his mother, Betty, phoned and said that Ash need a new kidney or he was going to die. "I'm going to give him mine," she said. Mum, with all due respect, yours probably isnt in the best condition, Ivan told her. He can have mine. Recalls Ivan: I felt quite good about the whole thing. I was helping him and I was helping myself at the same time. I got a rush out it: I can save my brothers life. You dont do that every day. The Panthers are using this match to raise awareness about organ donation. A whopping 70 per cent of Australians are willing to be an organ donor but only one in three have joined the Australian Organ Donor Register. DonateLife will have a marquee at Panthers Stadium on Friday night where fans can add their name to the register. People think they are on the register because you sign your drivers licence and thats not the case, Ivan said. A lot of people dont know that. I didnt know that even after I gave my brother a kidney. Youve got to do it online. When I hear about doing something online, Im like, Oh God. But I was shocked how easy it was. Loading Turning around his sides indifferent start to the season? Not so much. Its been a perfect storm in the lead-up to the first Tigers match since he got off the bus: a flogging at the hands of Melbourne; revelations that general manager of football Phil Gould shook hands with Wayne Bennett to coach this season as Panthers chairman Dave ONeill was doing the same with Cleary; and reports that Gould is on the outer at his own club. Im blown away how big this thing has been this week, Cleary says. Im happy where I am at but not happy about the way the team is playing. Weve started slowly but were an evolving side. If I knew getting touched up by Melbourne was such a crime I wouldve been locked up years ago. Its happened quite a few times. Im not the only one. When he signed with Penrith, did he forecast the finger of blame would be pointed directly at father and son when the side wasnt performing? Or head coach and halfback, he says. They will always feel the most pressure. Yeah, I definitely anticipated that sort of scrutiny but I didnt appreciate the level of it. Everyone is under pressure ... You soon realise you have to give yourself an uppercut because there are bigger things to worry about. Ivan Cleary And what about your relationship with Gould? I havent been reading it but you cant avoid it, he says. Hes fine. Were fine. I know Gus better than most people. Thats rare but I can say that, although theres plenty you dont know. Its all good. There is no drama here. Any truth to the suggestion you only came back on the condition that Gould didnt interfere with your football team? That was never brought up, Ivan says. Never part of any conversation. Gould and Ivan were locked in conversation on Monday morning, trying to find a way to beat the Tigers. Then Gould addressed the playing group. For more info go to: donatelife.gov.au. Gould to Sharks an outside bet at best Gould to the Sharks? Given the fact he lives in the Sutherland Shire, and the mindscrew that is Sydney traffic, it would certainly make the trip to work less painful.

In demand? Phil Gould was spotted with Dino Mezzatesta at the Star, where the Sharks chairman is a casino executive.Credit:NRL Photos The Panthers board has been aware of speculation that Gould had been approached by the Sharks but, for his part, Gould says hes had no such approach. The story cranked up on Wednesday when he was spotted at The Star having coffee with Sharks chairman Dino Mezzatesta. Gould was there having lunch with a mate. Mezzatesta is chief operating officer of the casino and joined them afterwards. It's impossible to see Gould being at any other club other than the Penrith or the Roosters, where he coached in the 1990s. Meanwhile, deregistered Sharks coach Shane Flanagan has denied hes doing some work on the side for the NSW Waratahs. That doesnt mean hes unwanted. Were told that a couple of struggling NRL clubs made discreet inquiries to head office about the possibility of Flanagan being allowed to coach next year if they sacked their coach. The NRL has little appetite for Flanagan to return so soon. Hughes' relief after Butterfield scare Apart from the man himself, nobody was more relieved that former Knights prop Tony Butterfield survived a heart attack at the weekend than his teammate Mark Hughes.

Harrowing: Knights old boys Tony Butterfield and Mark Hughes.Credit:Peter Stoop Butts, one of the great men of rugby league, suffered the heart attack in the sheds after playing for Hughes team in a celebrity Oztag match in Newcastle on Saturday. As he sipped a beer after the game, Butterfield said: I dont feel too great. He then vomited, started slurring his speech and then went into cardiac arrest. Rachel Paton, an intensive care nurse and the partner of former Knights player Daniel Abraham, was rushed into the room, took one look at Butterfield and launched herself at him, feverishly pumping his chest. While this was happening, Hughes was understandably beside himself. Since fighting off brain cancer, he has dedicated his life to raising awareness and funds for research through the Mark Hughes Foundation. Loading In doing so, hes called on all his former teammates to help, and given the unshakeable bond between them, not one has flinched. Butterfield initially didnt want to play in the charity match but did so at the urging of Hughes. Mate, it was harrowing, Hughes recalled. And I felt responsible because I convinced him to play. We were in the sheds having a beer after the game like we did when we played for the Knights and then It was just very, very tough to witness. Good to hear Butts is recovering in John Hunter Hospital and is in good spirits. The quote Hes great to watch but hes not God. Pope Francis on the universal worship of Barcelona FC star Lionel Messi. Well, of course hes not God. Former Dragons hooker Mark Riddell is. Thumbs up If you get the chance, get on the interweb and watch the moment Sharks coach John Morris told Bronson Xerri he will be making his NRL debut on Saturday night. It was captured on a hidden camera in Morris office and the raw emotion is a nice reminder of what sport is all about. Thumbs down Having made fun of gay figure skaters, then Adam Goodes during the Collingwood racism furore, then criticising Goodes during the indigenous round, then joking in White Ribbon Round about drowning Caroline Wilson, is anyone surprised Eddie McGuire ridiculed double amputee Cynthia Banham for a coin toss? Its a big weekend for Storm captain Cameron Smith, who only needs to score nine points against the Bulldogs at AAMI Park on Sunday to go past Hazem El Masri as the games all-time leading pointscorer. Its an even bigger weekend for all the horsies your humble columnist will put money on at Royal Randwick on Saturday for the first day of The Championships, which includes the time-honoured Doncaster Mile. Big weight to carry. Andrew Webster is Chief Sports Writer of The Sydney Morning Herald. Most Viewed in Sport Loading https://www.canberratimes.com.au/sport/nrl/there-are-bigger-things-to-worry-about-like-saving-my-brother-s-life-20190404-p51ans.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_sport

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