#bunny rants about the quarry

[ghostradiodylan]

Probably a lukewarm take, but other than the (lack of an) ending, the Laura and Ryan scenes are some of the worst written and conceived parts of The Quarry.

And this is completely separate from whether Ryan is interested in Dylan (he is, but that's another post and not important to this rant) or Kaitlyn; even if Ryan had no other potential relationships in the game, even if Laura wasn't practically married to Max, wearing his ring around her neck the entire time they're talking, it still would feel flat to me because nothing about it is earned.

Laura is on a killing spree with the single-minded goal of saving Max. She genuinely believes the only way to do that is to kill Chris Hackett. Even if you've made her argue with Max to the extent that they can, they're still a strong unit when she goes out to solve this werewolf thing once and for all. Even if you don't believe in love think their relationship would survive all this trauma, she deeply believes she owes it to him to rescue him, that is her entire guiding ethos during the game.

Ryan is going with her to try to keep that from happening because Chris has been his friend and mentor for years. We know Ryan has an absent mother, unmentioned father, and a potentially turbulent family life, and he's been coming to HQSC for so long that it feels like home to him, that Chris and his kids feel like family. Laura has already killed Kaylee. Even if Ryan completely bought into the werewolf thing by now, that would be a tough pill for him to swallow, given his reaction to her death.

Then, they fall in the titular Quarry and suddenly have the option to express a completely unearned sort of camaraderie with each other. Why is Laura asking Ryan about his love life in the first place? The question about him being single makes sense as a dig, but it doesn't make any sense for her to ask about him being a 'brooding and mysterious loner' because... she hasn't actually seen him do anything brooding or mysterious? How did she even get that impression? If Laura's got some kind of borderline psychic intuition then this is really the worst possible use of that ability--she should have foreseen her need to go to that motel and stay the fuck out of locked storm shelters instead.

It doesn't make a lick of sense for her to say that Kaitlyn looks up to him either. She hasn't seen that. Hell, we as players haven't even seen that! Kaitlyn seems generally tolerant of but unimpressed by Ryan. She has the option to be impatient with him multiple times and even get the chyron that she's ‘losing respect’ for him if he suggests she take the gun and go after Nick instead. This seems like an objectively good idea, since she's a much better shot than Ryan, a fact which the game keeps telling us despite refusing to give her a gun until the last possible second, though maybe the concern is that she'd have to drag Nick back to the campfire herself. (Honestly, I think Kaitlyn could do it, I think she's like a mighty ant who can lift many times her own weight, but that's not what this post is about.)

Ryan, for his part, shouldn't really be willing to talk about any of this with Laura either. He canonically doesn't even want to talk to his coworkers about his animation school decision (in the office scene with Dylan and at the campfire with Emma if you choose truth like a lunatic) and he's known them for at least two months, if not for years attending the same camp. But he met Laura a few hours ago and is suddenly willing to spill his guts about who he does or doesn't have a crush on and who does/doesn't have 'the hots' for him, despite the only experience they have together being her leaving his friend of several years dead facedown in a pool and expressing a strong desire to kill his father figure? I simply do not buy it.

I'm not sure if this was supposed to go along with the relationship system that they scrapped or what (there's not a single shred of Ryan and Laura stuff in the datamine that I've been able to find), but all it really serves to do is muddy the waters by trying to force some level of intimacy on Ryan and Laura before the big confrontation at the Hackett House. But that confrontation itself should have been the thing that forged that intimacy between them and allowed them to go on to fight Silas together.

Overall, I think it's a major sign that the back third of the game got a very rushed and, frankly, bad chop job (which we know is true) and that they struggled to tie the resulting loose threads off in a way that made any kind of narrative sense. It's a shame, because the writing in The Quarry is actually way better than most people give it credit for, it just wasn't allowed to pay off in a lot of ways that clearly were intended.

[bangtaninfiresaubrey]

Taehyung: Alien!au- TOTALLY EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (AND COMPLETELY OUT OF THIS WORLD) Pt 1

Summary: “I’m sorry, did you want me to destroy the barn while I was in the process of nearly dying?”

Word Count: 2461

Third Person P.O.V.

“I’m sorry y/n, I won’t be able to make it to the get-together this year.”  Your sister’s voice sounded anything but sorry as she informed you two days before the reunion that she wouldn’t be present.

 “You can’t possibly be serious!  The only people that haven’t canceled are Aunt Sierra, Mom, and Grandpa Sal,” you pouted.

 “I know, and I really am sorry but work just called and someone fucked up the conveyor belts again and apparently I’m the only one that can fix it, but they want me to work on them when there’s no one there?” she explained quickly, going into a near rant because she really didn’t want to spend her Saturday at a freaking factory cleaning up someone else’s mess.  Pausing to take a deep breath and sigh, she continued, “I’ll try to make it over there on Sunday afternoon so I can make it up to her. I’ll even bring over some of those raspberry-filled chocolates she likes.”

 Your sister was undoubtedly one of your aunt’s favorite nieces because of her job.  Your Aunt Kiara was a huge chocolate-lover and your sister being a DeBrand Chocolate Factory Mechanic had its advantages.

 “Fine,” you sigh in return. “I’ll tell her you couldn’t make it and it’ll just be the four of us,” you concluded.  Giving your sister a farewell and a ‘good luck’, you hung up the phone and set to packing your duffel for the weekend visit.

 After finishing your shift the next day at work, you threw your bag into your trunk and headed off to Auntie Kiara’s house so you could help her set up some of the preparations for the next few days.  Every year, your family had a get-together at your aunt’s house for Easter Weekend. Traditionally, mostly everyone that could attend for the two days spent Saturday night at the house and then everyone else arrived for the Easter Sunday festivities after they either woke up or got out of church service.  This year was unfortunately not going to turn out as well as you’d hoped.

 Nevertheless, even after nearly everyone had cancelled on this year’s reunion, you knew your aunt would want you there to help out with decorating just like always.  So that’s what you did, because hey, someone had to step up and make your favorite aunt happy for once.

 That whole Friday evening was spent with your uncle.  He insisted that Kiara was in the kitchen and it would benefit everybody if she had some time to just be in her element by herself and cook.  She enjoyed cooking, it put her mind at ease.  So the only thing you could do was listen to your uncle and do what he asked.  You both strung up the basement with streamers and little chicken and Easter Bunny trinkets, placing pastel egg and flowerpot props in the basement and along the driveway for when everyone arrived.

 When things were set up and Kiara was finished with making food for the next two days, the three of you set to work on making dinner for yourselves.

 “So, y/n,” Chase’s deep farmer voice began, holding a hint of curiosity in its tone.  “How’s life treating you?  Have any fun with friends lately?  Any boyfriends to speak of?” he quarried.   It had been a while since you’d last spoken to your aunt and uncle, but only because you lived nearly an hour from their house and they never picked up the phone to talk.  Neither party ever seemed to have the time anymore.  But, you understood the struggle because such is life, and there’s not much you can do about it except for catch up whenever possible.

 “Things are good,” you told him.  “I got promoted at work, so I have more hours and a few more things on my plate, but things are good.  One of my friends just moved back to our town since she finished with college, so I helped her move in a little over a week ago.  And as for boys…” you said, thinking carefully about whether to lie or not. It seemed like your whole family was afraid you were a lesbian at this point, always asking if you had any special interests and offering to set you up with someone.  Even your brother was starting to tease you about having you date one of his friends.  “I’ve got someone I’m talking to,” you stated, putting on a sly smile for good measure.  Not surprisingly, your aunt’s ears perked at that and she stopped stirring the pot of spaghetti to turn and look at you.

 “Is he coming over tomorrow? I would love to meet this handsome young man as soon as possible,” she gushed.  You chuckled at her response, trying to come up with something that would keep her from questioning so you wouldn’t have to prove this make-believe-man real.

 “Unfortunately he can’t. He just went on a work trip for his firm.  He says they’re hoping to get a good deal on a company partnership of some sort, so he went with his boss to Michigan to work out the details,” you explain.

 “Oh, that is unfortunate,” your uncle’s voice sounded completely sincere, but when you looked at him he gave you a wink and a discreet thumbs-up like he knew you were lying about the whole thing.  You ignored him and got the plates out of the cupboard to set the table.

 The next day, your grandparents arrived in their small, blue, dust-brushed Mazda.  You went to greet them and help them get out of the car and led them inside before getting their things out of the trunk for them. You set their things inside and went to take your shoes off, but just as you unlaced the first one, Uncle Chase came into the mudroom where you were sitting.

 “Oh, hey y/n, can you do me a favor?  Since you’ve already got your shoes on and I haven’t had the chance to say hi to the grandparents, could you get the mail for me?”

 “Sure, Chase,” you replied with a smile.  “No problem.”

 You walked to the end of the long driveway and turned the corner to walk the quarter-mile to their mailbox.  Their house was so old and this part of the rural area was so remote that everyone within a mile radius had their mailboxes at the end of your aunt’s street, which you didn’t think was a good idea at all for some of the older couples living in some of these houses, but your uncle assured you that everyone was fine with it.

 After having retrieved the mail and returning to the house, you got to the end of the driveway and noticed something off in your periphery.  You looked around the side of the yard and you saw a single, brown line of dirt in the grassy field that was definitely not there when you left.  You walked the moderate distance to the side of the backyard and saw that the freshly-made, shallow ditch led all the way up to the dull-white barn in the corner of the field.  The dirt-moat had made a sudden change in direction a good forty feet before reaching the barn, showing a car-sized, oddly shaped airplane smushed against the far corner of the small building.

 A part of you was screaming that this was a bad idea and that you should go back to the house and get someone else to look at it.  Another part of you was terrified that there was a crazy person in a weird invention of theirs crashed against your family-member’s barn.  The biggest part of you though, was mindlessly curious and partially worried that there was someone in there that may have been in trouble.

 You hesitantly walked up to the uniquely-built vehicle and peered into a small window on the side of it. As you looked in, you saw a tall, slender figure bashing his fists into the control panel of his airplane.  You tapped on the window of the vehicle, which surprisingly, didn’t look like it was made of glass.  The person inside froze and bunched up his shoulders like he was wincing at the sound of someone noticing him.  He slowly turned his head in the direction of the window, and when he caught your eyes staring straight at him.  The next thing that happened startled you.  The man screamed a high-pitched, fearful, girly scream and jumped out of his seat backwards, trying to keep himself as far away from you as possible in his enclosed space.  You ducked your head below the window so he couldn’t see you anymore. Had he never seen a girl before? You didn’t like to call yourself pretty, but you weren’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination.

 After a couple of seconds, you popped your head back up through the window to look at him again. He screamed then, too, but also began speaking through his desperate screeches.  “Please don’t eat me!  I don’t want to die!  Oh, God, please don’t eat me!!”  Was this guy serious?  Where did he come from to think that you were going to eat him?

 “What makes you think I’m going to eat you?”

 “You’re big and scary and you eat just about every other living organism on this planet.  I have every reason to believe that you might eat me!” he defended, almost like he himself wasn’t a human.

 “You’re a person too! You do realize that, right?”  He just blinked at you like you were the stupidest person on the planet.

 “Surely you’ve come across others like me, haven’t you?  What pianeta am I in?”

 “I’ve come across a lot of attractive men in my lifetime!” you countered, not understanding what he was talking about.  “And I have no idea what pianeta is, but I think you mean ‘what country’.”  You were trying to help this guy out and all he was doing was making you look really stupid. He stared at you for a moment, then spoke with a cautionary tone.

 “I meant planet, but I started using the wrong language for a second…  I’m going to get out of my vehicle, and you’re going to be nice to me, or I’m going to slice you with my pocket-knife if you so much as get within five meters of me,” he warned.  “Okay?” You rolled your eyes and nodded, crossing your arms over your chest while you waited for him to come out.  He pulled on the handle of his vehicle, which looked like an advanced car-door-handle with some type of extra seal on the door to protect him from the outside conditions.  You stayed where you were, but allowed him to come closer to you.

 “I’m going to explain my situation to you, but you have to promise me something,” he informed you, folding his hands together with his two index fingers pointing to you as he gestured at you with sincerity.

 “Okay.”

 “You must swear on your life that you will not tell anyone the truth.”

 “Okay yeah, got it. Swear on my life that I won’t tell anyone the truth because they’d get scared, cool.”

 “Actually, telling the truth goes against my morals, but for your sake we’ll say it’s for that reason too,” he corrected you like it was completely normal to lie.  “I’m not from here.  I’m from a different planet, so it would be super awesome if you could tell me where I’m at so I can evaluate the situation.”  You opened your mouth to respond, but he just held up his left hand in reply, stopping you from speaking.  “After I finish.  Shall we start with an ice-breaker?  My name is Taehyung and I have 600 languages in my cerebral translator, which is why you can understand me, but you should probably know that the one I have is updated, so it’s a little glitchy.  I am twelve years old on my planet, but my friends say I have the brain capacity of a three year-old.  I have six siblings, one younger, five older, and they’re all boys…  And that’s about it,” he concluded cheerily.  “So you’re probably wondering why I’m here, on your planet, and crashed against the side of your house—”

 “This is a barn, not a house, and it sure as hell isn’t mine,” you corrected, looking at Taehyung and waiting for him to continue. He only stared at you with annoyance written all over his face.

 “I’m not so sure you want to hear this anymore,” he huffed curtly.  “I guess that means I’ll have to kill you,” he continued with a sense of mocking finality in his tone, sighing.  “Which really sucks, considering I haven’t even gotten to tell my story,” he complained offhandedly.  You rolled your eyes and smirked.

 “That’s funny that you think you can kill me, considering you were pissing your pants less than two minutes ago begging me not to eat you.”  He went silent at that and your smirk grew, knowing you had won.  “But, go ahead and tell your story.  I promise I won’t try to interrupt too much,” you grinned.  After a few seconds of a cold stare and a dramatic, annoyed eye-roll, he began speaking again.

 “I was supposed to test-drive a new model of aircraft for our company.  The manufacturers didn’t even teach me how to drive it, so I had to learn on my own.  The firm I work for does inter-planetary vacations and rental vehicles, which is completely safe because we have partnerships with many other planets that house sister-species.  And since I’m the new guy, I was told that I could go on my own little vacation so I could better understand the services that we provide.  But what I didn’t know, was that I had to figure out how to land the damn thing.  Which, as you can see, I didn’t do that great of a job at.  But in my defense, I was freaking the fuck out and screaming like a school-girl.”

 “To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t crash into the barn like they do on movies.”

 “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want me to destroy the barn while I was in the process of nearly dying? Why don’t you try flying that thing, see how far you get without pissing your pants,” he challenged, slightly annoyed that you underestimated him.

 “I barely know you,” was your only reply.  He chewed on his bottom lip for a second, considering the very factual information you just gave him.

 “But you know more about me than I do about you,” he reasoned.  “What’s your name?”

 “Y/n,” you replied simply.

[durenjtmusings]

My flipping brain, I swear...

@mayalean - this rant is in your general direction (but not AT you)

This is the story of how plot bunnies drive my brain (or how stories happen).

tl:dr - my brain a) works weird and b) won’t let go of story ideas

Further explanation below the cut.

So, about a week and 1/2 ago I woke up remembering only bits from a very strange and disturbing dream. Which is not uncommon for me. What WAS uncommon, was that the dream images were presented in Anime. While I've read and watched some in this style, (notably Last Airbender, Domu and Akira), it is not, by any means, my thing. So, to have it in my dreams made it really stick with me.  In addition, the dream was indirect - there was a feeling of impending doom, of monsters hidden/in the deep. Ancient huge leviatan like monsters. But at no time was anything actually spoken. (It was like watching anime on mute, or in Japanese - all you get is the sound and the visuals.) Huh, I said, shared it briefly with my husband, and moved on with my day.

But my brain WOULD NOT LET IT GO. It wanted to know what was going on - what was the story? Who were these people and what was the danger...

So, laying down to sleep, I said, FINE. You want a story, let's make it a story. And because there were two young boys/brothers in one scene and a dark haired boy in another, I of course tried to make it an SPN story.  And because the setting was a deep dark quarry/cove of water, the horror from the deep needed tentacles. [And then smut happened - horror poly smut - 'cause, brain.] I did indeed draft it in my head and it all seemed to be working out. I got to the point where I needed to put it on paper (literally) in order to sort out plot points and feelings, etc.

It did not work out well. I had no idea how to communicate the ANIME feel in writing. The impending doom. The inherent knowledge the characters had - that I KNOW they had - came out flat and overdone on paper.

So I shelved it. But my brain WOULD NOT LET IT GO. For a week, I'd glance at the notes pad and think "I should try to type those up, take another look at it.." "NOPE, let it go - lots of other easier stuff to write. LEAVE IT."

THEN. THEN. I see the reblogged post of @mayalean‘s SPNcoldesthits prompt for November: Galactic Tentacles.

My brain CROWED. "Look, look, they WANT us to write the thing!"  "No, no, we still have no idea how to write the thing, having a deadline and accountability does NOT make it any easier, SHUT UP” (Ok, maybe it does) ”And how on EARTH would we fit in the Galactic Cap part?" "We can! We can...um..." "Yeah, right. Hang it up. Just STOP."

So I went to sleep - after beating my brain into submission.

THEN. THEN, while I am BRUSHING MY TEETH this morning, a quiet voice (yeah, a 3rd one) says, "Hey, what if we did THIS?"  "OoooOo, OOO, YEAH! That would work! We could do THAT, couldn't we? Can we, CAN WE?! PLEASE????"

Yeah. That will work. That will work VERY well, totally overcome the Anime description problem and make it REALLY EASY to work in the dick bandaid part - hell, it will be FUNNY (and this fic is gonna need some lighter parts).

So SHIT. I think I'm gonna try to write a thing for this month's coldest hits. We'll see if it happens. If the plot bunnies stop breeding for long enough. If the words flow. If my real life doesn't kick it in the pants...then maybe I can get this plot bunny OUT OF MY HEAD and move on to other things.