#gale being very more then pals

[floofle-universe]

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Dani(left) belongs to @captainsaltypear and Bean(right) belongs to me

Plus flat color alt

[leiflitter]

So, Mystra-

The more I think about her, the more I want to egg all of her statues, because I am honestly convinced that she's likely way more embroiled in Gale's fall from favour than she seems- and that she likely never cared for him in any meaningful sense.

This is gonna be long, gang.

Also I am 1000% up for screaming about Gale/forming an anti-Mystra union so y'know let's be pals

My thoughts are thus:

She has likely always known about his potential and capability of power. He was a child prodigy, after all- and she's a GODDESS. From the first time he truly used the weave, he was on her radar.

This also makes Gale's relationship with Elminster seem too convenient. As much potential as Gale demonstrates, it's also important to remember that Elminster is Mystra's chosen- and Mystra's chosen are often tasked with upholding and protecting balance in the weave. There are countless wizards that Elminster could mentor- so why Gale specifically?

The same is true of Gale's magical education. I've seen plenty of speculation about his possible potential as a sorcerer, and there's a lot of questions around the circumstances of him entering the Blackstaff Academy- as well as a confirmation of his power when he, a little baby trainee wizard, uses The Actual Blackstaff to cast a spell.

As an aside, Gale's little story about his misadventure with The Blackstaff is especially scary when taking into account that the staff is very devious, and it's primary purpose is to protect Waterdeep- although this is again speculation, I don't think the portal to limbo was just the spell going very, very wonky. I think the Staff, sensing Gale's ability and (through the very clear context clues of him using the fucking staff that you normally would need to attune to and that belongs to the top fancy wizard in waterdeep) his ambition, decided that he was clearly a potential threat that might be better off being quietly removed via Death Slaad.

We also know of at least one story of a young, powerful wizard who, y'know, led to the death of Mystryl and the loss of all magic- in part because he lacked the discipline that he should have learned at Wizard School.

So Gale comes along. Karsus 2.0- he's back, he's human and- most importantly- he's lonely.

How better to neutralise him as a threat than to make him loyal to her? Why would she cast aside a possible asset when she could use him?

The main problem with her plan is Gale himself. She can get him into wizard school. She can get Elminster to mentor him. She can make sure that Gale gets the best magical education, so hopefully he will be content and settle for being an archmage.

She can't, however, account for Gale's brain. Let's be honest, Gale is neurodivergent as fuck, and magic is his number one special interest. He was never going to be content to enjoy magic a "normal" amount, so no matter how many hours he may spend being taught about how great Mystra is and how the limits she sets are to be respected... he won't stop learning, growing more powerful, becoming more and more of a threat to her.

So how does she cement his loyalty? By getting personal. This is why him being isolated is important- it gives her an advantage. She can be number one without any effort. If he has an actual bond to her, not just the concept of her, then he won't be dangerous. Except, again, she's assuming that he'll be like so many other mortals and be so awed by her presence that he'll finally be satisfied. But he isn't.

Why the fuck would a goddess take someone so clearly, deeply intense about magic into her personal realm? Why would she show him all the power he would never be able to access?

Because, to her, he's just a mortal. There has to be a point in which he'll either be sated or he'll realise his limits and give up, because he's just an extremely powerful ant in comparison to her. Mystra has never considered getting to know Gale. If she had, she'd have realised that doing the grand tour of All The Magic You Can't Ever Do was a huge mistake. That making herself the focal point of his entire existence was an absolutely dogshit move.

Gale throws himself so hard into Being Mystra's Best Boy because he has nothing outside of magic other than his mother. He summoned his best friend, and he admits that he has colleagues and acquaintances, but nothing much else. He and Elminster clearly care for each other, but it's clear that Mystra's placed barriers between them- and even if they were able to be best buds and make friendship bracelets, together, they're at vastly different stages of life.

It's also likely that Mystra's interest in him led to his isolation. He has been marked as Special- the old gifted child problem where him being So Smart So Magic meant he bypassed the social side of things.

So of course he wants to prove himself, to impress her- his entire metric for his self-worth is Being A Wizard. He says he's bumped uglies with mortals before- but he doesn't mention anyone specifically. And, let's be frank, the man has a case of foot-in-mouth syndrome- if he had any meaningful romantic experience before Mystra, you know he'd have brought it up at least once. "Ah, autumncrocus- back in my apprentice days I picked a bunch for the object of my youthful affections. Unfortunately I hadn't realised they were allergic- but they certainly appreciated the gesture, if you catch my implication... Once they stopped sneezing, of course."

She becomes his whole world. He wants so desperately to be on her level, to be what he thinks she deserves- and yes, it was incredibly stupid of him. However, what the fuck was Mystra doing?

Throughout BG3, high approval Gale is actually incredibly receptive if you tell him not to persue power. Yes, his earlier mistakes may play into this, but I find it hard to believe that he'd be any less receptive to Mystra.

To quote- "I pouted. I pleaded. I swore my ambition was only to serve her better. But she only smiled and told me to be contented."

So, then, why did Mystra not actually engage with Gale on this?

Because she never cared about him.

She tried all the options she thought would work on a mortal, and when they were done she didn't consider trying anything else. She never knew him well enough to understand his motivations- he should have been satisfied with Magic Sex because surely any mortal would be. She couldn't even consider that his love wasn't just him liking the company and getting laid, that he'd still want to prove himself to her. To be worthy of the Mystra she'd let him believe in.

And when he fucked up- if she had helped him, even in a tiny way, then she'd have achieved her goal. Imagine if he'd come to her, agonised by the dark magic within him, and she'd been merciful. The way you would be, if you loved someone. If she had actually known Gale? She'd have done it.

But Mystra doesn't see it as an act of love gone wrong. To Mystra, it's proof that she can't control him, that his potential isn't worth whatever effort she'd need to put in.

She abandons him to die- expects him to go on a pilgramage into the wilderness and just go boom.

When he doesn't? She decides that, fine, she'll deal with it- by sending Elminster to tell Gale the good news! She'll "forgive" him if he detonates himself, honest! He trusts Elminster, Elminster's a father figure to him, he'll do what Elminster tells him. Except that's another example of her not understanding Gale in the slightest. Instead of hope, she's rubbing salt in his wounds- she's flexing her power and showing Gale that his bond with Elminster was always conditional on Mystra's approval, and that Elminster's loyalty lies with her.

No wonder Elminster sent a construct- it's the closest thing he can do that isn't abject refusal.

I am gonna stop rambling now but in conclusion:

Mystra, you absolutely suck. Get wrecked. I hope Bhaal shits in your pocket dimension.

[mumms-the-word]

Illithid Souls - Part 3

The Case Studies: Karlach and Gale

Welcome to the third and final part of this wild deep dive rabbit hole monstrosity that is the three-part series about illithid souls and whether mind flayers, or specifically you as a mind flayer, have a soul.

If you read Part 1 and Part 2, then you know that yes, illithids have souls, they're just different souls that the gods don't recognize as souls because they're non-apostolic, or incapable of divine worship (as opposed to being apostolic like most humanoid souls). You now also know that you turning into a mind flayer is a bit of a special case because of the Netherese magic in the tadpoles, and this might be why you retain more of your soul than normal mind flayers would.

Also, a quick reminder of the two theories we're working with here: Theory 1 is that when someone becomes a mind flayer they essentially just die and their (apostolic) soul moves on to the Fugue Plane and the mind flayer body just gets a new illithid soul from somewhere. Theory 2 is that when someone becomes a mind flayer their soul is transformed and altered into an illithid soul, which remains tethered to the mind flayer body. BG3 seems to operate more on the Theory 2 side of things, but as we'll see with Karlach and Gale, it's more complicated than you think.

So let's deep dive, shall we?

The Case of Karlach

I'm going to be candid here and say that the mind flayer ending for Karlach makes me really sad, even knowing that there's a very high chance that her soul is mostly intact and she is mostly still Karlach. But there's no denying she's at least a little different, though the game tries to comfort us otherwise after she transforms.

Narrator: *She is transformed. Her body is no longer hers, but her eyes, her heart - she is still Karlach, for now. Only - there's a hunger in her eyes that wasn't there before.*

That "for now" is rather ominous, isn't it? But we have enough evidence from Tav/Durge/other Origins and Orpheus to suggest that the likelihood of her retaining her memories and her personality is very high. In fact, when you talk to her during the epilogue, she does seem mostly the same, though her language has mellowed out to a more formal tone and she speaks less colloquially (and swears less and less).

If you talk to her immediately after she transforms, she marvels that she's still "herself" but also "more," which again reinforces that we all get to be special mind flayers who don't completely lose our souls. But I think there are some interesting lines in this dialogue:

Karlach: This is wild. I'm myself but... but more. Player: I don't like the sound of that. Karlach: Don't worry, soldier. It's still your old pal under all this purple. But suddenly 'I' am different than I ever knew. And my engine, it's... it's... silent. No heat. No gears. Still there, but no longer threatening to explode. Soldier... Player: I guess turning into an illithid has its perks. Karlach: Here I thought I was making a sacrifice. Thank the gods I'm a noble fuck! Shit. I'm gonna be all right. I get to be alive. I get to stay. As a hideous monster, sure. But one that can feel. Think. Live. But I'm still myself. And I know what our mission is. I'm glad I get to the do the honours.

Karlach reiterates over and over that she's still herself, but you can literally hear the change in her voice. Where normally her tone and volume would be boisterous, loud, and energetic, she's now calm and mellow, even when she's swearing. Her tone here is more one of wonder. It isn't just the internal and external fires that have calmed down, her overall demeanor seems "cooler" too.

Also, in her romance ending just before the epilogue, where you're both in the Elfsong Tavern room, you can mention that she does seem a little altered.

Player: I still love you, Karlach. I still want to be with you. Karlach: I love you too. Before, that love was an irrepressible inferno. Now it is a calm, cool object of beauty. Player: I can see you're still yourself, but there's something else in there too. An illithid calm. Karlach: Maybe you're right. I feel less... changeable. Less afraid. I feel ready for whatever is to come.

It doesn't tell us much, but it does reinforce that when we or any of our companions turn into a mind flayer, we likely retain a lot of our former personality, but in a much more calm, even-keeled kind of way. Again going back to the idea that our soul is still there, still mostly the same, but has been made a bit more illithid.

What is more interesting for Karlach, specifically, is her discussion of her diet as a mind flayer. Remember what souls are allegedly made up of? Intelligence, personality, and what else?

Memories.

Karlach: For example, my favourite food used to be mutton chops. Do you know what it is now? Brains, soldier. Brains. Player: Comes with the illithid territory, I suppose. Karlach: True. But I've found ways to maintain my values while respecting that which I am - that which made it possible for me to live. I've made arrangements with a healer in the city. When a patient is beyond saving, but still able to speak for themselves, they're offered a choice. They can go as nature intends to take them. Or, when they're ready - when their goodbyes have been said, their affairs settled, and all that awaits them is pain - I relieve them. When I consume their brains, I am nourished by much more than the physical nutrition. Their memories - from birth to death - become part of me. I've lived hundreds of childhoods, first loves, marriages, feuds and friendships. I remember them all. And in this way, we all live on. Together.

There's so much to unpack here. One, she still remembers her values, even six months later, but is trying to negotiate her former humanoid values (and personality, I imagine) with her needs as a mind flayer. That seems very Karlach, through and through.

But then, when she consumes these dying patients' brains, she absorbs and retains their memories. I imagine their souls still go on to the Fugue Plane, because I highly doubt that mind flayers also consume souls when they eat brains, but it still leaves me with questions. Karlach isn't part of a hivemind, which normally circulates memories between each other, but she's becoming a similar kind of receptacle for memories, and only she is the one that contains them, rather than an entire hivemind.

I have to wonder how much something like constantly consuming and remembering memories that are not your own affects you as a person/creature. Does that eventually lead to a loss of self, as you begin to "live" multiple different lives? Or does it all count as mere knowledge?

In some ways this would put her in competition with any elder brains still out there, but she's also not collecting knowledge for the sake of knowledge. She's collecting memories and living them out in her mind, which is a certain kind of tragedy. She's literally living vicariously through these people because her mind flayer body is too scary to go out and about in, and she's making up for a decade of life she didn't get to live. She's alive, but she's not...living if that makes sense. And again...how long before all these memories start to change who she is?

(An aside. I really don’t think her eating brains and collecting memories keeps someone’s soul from moving on. If you use the spell Speak with Dead, you don’t call back an entire soul, but the corpse still has access to its memories. I think in this case, even though memories make up part of a soul, Karlach consuming brains and collecting memories is more like her downloading a copy of the memories for herself. The dead person likely still takes their own memories with them to the Fugue Plane, where they will be judged by Kelemvor or collected by their favorite deity. She’s just copy/pasting data, not transferring everything from one hard drive to another, if that analogy makes sense.)

This arrangement where Karlach consumes the brains of dying patients is expanded or clarified a bit if you're romancing her during the epilogue, and also includes a reference to souls as well.

Karlach: I can’t wait to say hello, but to be honest, I’m keen to visit the doctor before it gets too late. He said there’s a potential in his infirmary. A very old woman recently diagnosed with a wasting sickness. She seemed interested in what I have to offer. I’ll want to have a good long talk with her before we make an arrangement. Though if I’m being very selfish, I hope she’ll say yes. I’m absolutely famished - and think of all those memories. Player: Glad to hear. I was worried you were getting hungry. Karlach: I don’t hide it well, do I? Some things don’t change, even when everything else does. It’s funny. I’m hungry in my body, but in my soul too. That woman has lived a long life - births, deaths, love, misfortune. And if she agrees, I’ll be able to give her a dignified end, and remember it all in her honour.

Or if you go with a different option:

Player: I'm still not sure how I feel about this arrangement. Are you sure it's ethical to feed on the dying? Karlach: I'm sure of very little these days. But at least this way, I can live. And those who offer themselves to me can live on too. Births, first loves, marriages, losses - I remember them all and always will. Each memory I've consumed is of value.

It's just so interesting to me. One, her remark that she's eager to say hello but slightly more interested in chatting to a doctor about her next meal suggests that some elements of becoming a mind flayer are much harder to ignore. I imagine if she's hungry, she feels less like Karlach. (And I have thoughts, for another post, about whether she becomes "too fixated" on living when she's a mind flayer, given the cost of what it means to stay alive as a mind flayer.)

But she also says she's hungry in her soul. Her soul seems deeply interested in these memories, and I wonder if that's because memories are (or could be) part of souls themselves. Maybe the remark isn't really that deep, but she specifically connects the hunger of her soul to all the memories a long-lived woman will have. It's almost as if these memories nurture her soul, but it's unclear whether that is because it's somehow healing to see and "experience" life in ways she can't now that she's a mind flayer, or if it's because the memories have some kind of tangible effect on her soul/souls in general.

I suppose we won't know for sure. What we do know from Karlach's case, however, is that a great deal of the original soul (personality, memories, etc) seems to stick around even six months later, though there are noticeable changes in personality, such as an overall calm demeanor. There are also hints that consuming brains could lead to further changes down the road, but there's nothing really concrete. Just hints.

In the end, Karlach is still Karlach, and her soul still has plenty of elements of the original Karlach, even six months later. This is a good sign, but we can't completely ignore that her new body/mind as a mind flayer will necessarily mean some things have permanently changed. Whether you judge those changes as good or bad is up to you.

With that said, let's move on to the final and most mind-boggling case.

The Case of Gale

If you play a companion as an Origin run, the mind flayer decision typically works out the same way as Tav...unless you're playing as Gale. Gale gets some extra options at the end of the game.

This is mostly because Gale has perhaps the most apostolic soul that hangs in the balance, second only to Shadowheart, and her soul pendulum swings between Selûne and Shar. Gale, however, seems to be walking on a knife's edge trying to retain or earn back entry into Elysium, Mystra's domain in the Outer Planes. He's allegedly already been there, though not as a dead soul, so he knows what's at stake if his soul suddenly becomes non-apostolic or disappears.

In other words, Gale has a formerly Faithful apostolic soul, but he spends much of the game probably worried his soul will be judged as False when he dies (since he lost Mystra's favor) until Mystra offers her brand of forgiveness, which is essentially "if you sacrifice your own life, I'll let you into Elyisum again." It's a guarantee that he ends up in the afterlife he wants to be in. That's what Mystra's forgiveness really boils down to.

Now, this is a man who does not want to sacrifice his soul, and also (Netherese orb aside) does not want to die if his soul is going to be judged as False by Kelemvor rather than welcomed into Elysium as a Faithful soul. We know that Gale finds the Fugue Plane exceedingly depressing, so I can't imagine he has any desire to wander around it for any stretch of time, even if Mystra does eventually deign to invite him into Elysium. I'm sure the thought of becoming part of the Wall of the Faithless might as well be hell to him.

Gale: It’s a relief to be back in beautiful Faerûn. The dreariness of the Fugue Plane oppresses one’s soul so very quickly.

[mumm's note: yes my man died in service of a Tactician battle against Grym, but he got better]

It's a little surprising to see how adamantly Gale would prefer to choose the Netherese orb over letting himself or anyone he cares for become illithid. Look at some of what he says when he tries to offer the orb as an option for the final battle:

Gale: An easy proposition for the Emperor to make - 'become a mind flayer' - it has no soul to sacrifice. If it did - perhaps it would understand the weight of what it's asking of us. And why we might seek an alternative.

I couldn't get this next dialogue to trigger in my game, but in the same conversation as above you might potentially get the option to remind him about Mystra's offer to cure his orb condition, and even then he reminds you of the stakes that come with becoming a mind flayer.

Player: Mystra will cure you if we bring her the Crown of Karsus. You don't need to do this. Gale: To cure me of the orb, yes. But what of the guilt of allowing one of my friends to sacrifice their very soul and become illithid?

Now keep in mind, up to this point no one has shown any evidence that turning into a mind flayer won't actually mean the total destruction of one's soul. Up until now, the only evidence anyone has of an original soul remaining intact inside a mind flayer body is the Emperor (we have no frame of reference for who Omeluum was before he was a mind flayer), and most of the companions do not trust the Emperor one bit. So Gale genuinely thinks that becoming a mind flayer means your soul is either destroyed or changed so much that it's no longer you.

I mean, think about it. He's half expecting you to take the tadpole the Emperor offers and literally cease to exist. He's expecting to fight alongside a mind flayer who has, at best, your name and a few scraps of your memory, and at worst, no shred of you at all. Because again, up until this point in the game, none of them realize that they could become a special mind flayer who does actually retain most (if not all) of their soul, including their personality and memories.

Gale literally thinks that blowing up and going to the Fugue Plane is better than you or any companion becoming a mind flayer.

But that's in a companion run. Obviously, if you play him as an Origin, you can have him turn into a mind flayer as a different kind of ultimate sacrifice. The decision plays out the same as a Tav/Durge run or any other Origin run. But after the game ends, Gale gets unique dialogue if he (1) sacrifices himself or (2) does not sacrifice himself and goes to meet Mystra with the Crown in hand.

Any run of his sacrifice (aka, using the orb, regardless of whether or not he is illithid) results in Withers finding him in the Fugue Plane for a brief conversation. This conversation isn't much different if Gale is a mind flayer when he uses the orb, since all it does is add an extra option to their conversation that references being illithid ("One illithid for the whole of Faerûn seems like a fair trade to me," which replaces the option "One wizard for the whole of Faerûn...etc").

(An aside, I don't have an Origin Gale run so I can't test this, but I think if he ends his life on the docks as a mind flayer, the way Tav/Durge can with a knife got the stomach, then he just gets the usual Tav/Durge conversation with Withers about how his form has "something of the spirit" about him. See Part 2 if you're curious about that conversation.)

What this conversation with Withers reveals is how much control Mystra seems to have over his soul, especially if/when he's a mind flayer. If Gale decides to sacrifice himself using the Netherese Orb, Withers remarks about how surprising it is that Mystra hasn’t picked him up yet.

Withers: Who flickers there ‘twixt the shadows? Gale, who didst surrender his very self for the salvation of Faerûn. I feared I might not find thee here - that Mystra would have already plucked thy thread from the tapestry of fate. But she may wait a while yet.

It’s a little unclear if Withers uses “plucked thy thread from the tapestry of fate” to mean Gale gets to go to Elysium or something else, and it’s equally unclear whether Mystra waiting is a sign of displeasure or a sign that she is interested in sending Gale back to the Material Plane. She is capable of doing that, after all, and has frequently resurrected her Chosens, like Elminster, if it suits her.

But I highlight this conversation to show that you can get it as a mind flayer, and (if you are a mind flayer during this scene) that Mystra waiting isn't because he's a mind flayer and she can't find his soul. She waits for a minute regardless of whether he's illithid or not. But Withers is certain Mystra will be able to find Gale's soul, because he was able to find Gale's soul and recognize it as Gale.

So, not to harp on this again and again, but it's proof that turning into a mind flayer didn't destroy Gale's soul. It's still Gale's soul, even in the Fugue Plane, even if he's mind-flayer-shaped, and that soul is still capable of journeying to Elysium, should Mystra bother to find it wandering the Fugue Plane (or wherever he is).

But things are a little different if Gale decides to become a mind flayer and then goes to visit Mystra with the Crown of Karsus in hand. Keep in mind, Origin!Gale always has the option to face off against Mystra after the defeat of the Netherbrain, and this face-off is where he decides to hand over the Crown, become the god of ambition, or straight up try to fight Mystra.

However! If Gale is a mind flayer, he gets a secret fourth option.

If Gale goes to meet Mystra as an illithid with the Crown of Karsus and then gives up the Crown to her, Mystra offers to take Gale to Elysium with her. More than that, she offers to literally restore his humanity and cure him of illithidness.

Sort of.

Mystra: So, Gale of Waterdeep, you have become the inheritor of Karsus’ powers at last. What do you intend to do with them? Gale: I came to surrender them. The Crown, the Karsite Weave - take it all. Mystra: This offering cost you greatly. There is no hope in life as an illithid, devoid of soul and conscience. It is within my power to restore your soul, and your humanity, if you are willing to leave the mortal realms behind. Return with me, to Elysium.

No one else is offering this kind of deal to an Origin-turned-mind-flayer. Selûne and Shar don’t care if Shadowheart turns illithid, and Withers isn’t exactly offering to restore souls and humanity (or…mortalness?) to everyone else. This is a signifier of the sheer amount of power Mystra has, yes, but this also hints at some other things.

One, despite evidence of the contrary, Mystra is adamant that Gale-as-illithid is or would be “devoid of soul and conscience,” even though we know that that likely isn’t true (just see Karlach, Tav/Durge, etc). Perhaps Mystra is unaware that Gale is a Special Mind Flayer (seems unlikely), or perhaps she’s simply trying to convince Gale to come with her. After all, what she’s offering is still a kind of reward.

Then again, maybe Gale and/or Mystra fear the long-term effects of illithidness. Maybe over time he would become less and less like Gale, perhaps due to consuming memories, or other factors that come with being a mind flayer. Still, though, saying that his life would be "devoid of soul and conscience" seems like a massive stretch on Mystra's part.

But anyway, the reward for him turning into a mind flayer and giving her the Crown is a restoration of his humanity...but only in death.

Mystra: Return with me, to Elysium. Devnote: respectful - Gale sacrificed his humanity to achieve what she asked. If he’s willing to die on the mortal planes, she will restore his soul and body but in the heavens.

Now before I get to what happens if Gale agrees to this reward, I want to point out that Mystra herself sort of acknowledges that Gale isn't exactly devoid of soul and conscience if he refuses her offer. Here are some of the ways Gale can turn her down, with her answer to each option being the same:

Gale: [Option 1] Thank you, but no. I have someone waiting for me. Gale: [Option 2] Perhaps one day, but for now there is more I need to accomplish. Gale: [Option 3] Being an illithid has its advantages. I'm content as I am. Mystra: Then you are free to go with both my thanks and my promise - henceforth, your prayers will always be answered.

The whole idea of an apostolic soul is that it means the person is capable of worshipping a divine being, and this worship ncludes prayers. She might have said that him being illithid would mean he would be devoid of soul and conscience, but in nearly the same breath she promises to answer all his prayers. So she recognizes something of a soul within him. So why say he would be devoid of soul?

Of course, things get weird if Gale accepts her offer to be restored and go to Elyisum. If Gale agrees, then she fulfills her promise and even restores his place as one of her Chosen.

Gale: I crave nothing more. Take me to Elysium. Mystra: So be it. Gale of Waterdeep, Chosen of Mystra. Cinematic Tag: Mystra transforms Mindflayer Gale back to his human form (hollow) and grabs Gale’s hand. They return to Elysium.

This is wild to me. You see, originally when I started this project I thought I was going to be writing posts about how interesting it is that when you become a mind flayer, your soul is probably hanging out in the Fugue Plane or something, and eventually I’d suggest that Mystra is able to restore Gale’s soul to him because it’s already gone to her domain or she knows how to find it because he used to be so faithful to her. But none of that works now.

Because now I’m convinced that the Netherese tadpole changes everyone into a Special Mind Flayer whose soul is still present in their mind flayer bodies, just altered or transformed. So what’s up with this stuff from Mystra? She recognizes Gale as Gale even when he's a mind flayer and promises to answer his prayers, so clearly there's some kind of apostolic soul thing going on here. So why does she offer to "restore his soul," and also, why only in death?

She does say that she will restore Gale’s humanity, so now I assume that somehow her powers allow her to un-alter Gale’s soul so that it isn’t so illithid anymore. My idea is that she’s essentially restoring his soul to its former state and not, as we might otherwise infer, literally giving him his soul back, as if it were separate from his body. Gale’s soul is still in his mind flayer body, if all the rest of the evidence holds any water, so Mystra must have merely changed it back to the way it was.

quick picture break, this is from Northalix's video, linked below

Which makes me wonder, can a completely original, apostolic-type soul exist in an illithid body? Or does the body dictate that the soul must be somewhat illithid in order to be compatible?

Because the thing is, this deal comes with an ultimatum. She’s not going to let him go back to the mortal realms after she’s restored his soul. She probably could—she’s probably capable of doing that, if only by giving him a completely new body (she's done that before with Elminster). But she doesn’t. The cure comes with a cost. He only gets to be human again if he agrees to die completely and join her in Elysium. There is no undoing the illithid sacrifice, which seems more like a game limitation than a Mystra limitation (although we can certainly brainstorm reasons why Mystra would be so petty as to basically say "I can make you human again but only if you die completely.")

I want to point out that Mystra doesn't offer to let Gale come back to Elysium as a dead guy if he's not a mind flayer. Like, we don't get the sparkly ascension scene if he blows up with the Netherese orb, we get the Withers visit in the Fugue Plane. This Elysium offer is an illithid-only option. If he's not a mind flayer and he returns the Crown, she cures him of the Netherese Orb and sends him back. There's no option to join her in Elysium. Why is this an illithid-only option?

Also, just...I need you to watch the scene.

There's a lot that bothers me about this. One, the gestures she makes are the exact gestures God!Gale makes when he ascends Tav/Durge if they romanced him and agreed to become a god with him. Do with that what you will. But two...it just gives me the ick. This is a different kind of ascension for Gale. It's a restoration of his place in Elysium, but it ultimately means his premature death. If this is the route you take as him...it's hardly better than him sacrificing himself using the Netherese Orb without becoming a mind flayer. Only this time, we get to see the scene where he goes to Elysium, I guess.

It also massively complicates the whole idea that everyone gets to be a special mind flayer with a mostly-intact, mostly-apostolic soul. If the soul didn't change, why does Mystra need to "restore" it? And if it did change, why is Mystra the only one capable of un-changing it back to its original form (is it because he’s her Chosen and is/was so faithful)?And if such a thing is possible, why offer it and then say "but you're dead now"?

It seems as though her "fixing" Gale's soul was really just her...I don't know, separating it from his physical mind flayer body so the illithid anatomy wouldn't mess with it as much, and then dusting off his soul, which is now bodyless, and taking it with her to Elysium. I'm not saying that's what she did, but that's the weird vibes I get from this interaction. Like, there seems to be some kind of implication that you can't have a fully humanoid, apostolic soul housed within an illithid body. The soul has to be altered somehow to work with the illithid body.

So why not just give him a new body, Mystra??? Fix is soul and give him a new body! You’re absolutely capable of that!

I have so many questions.

Of course, keep in mind that Gale can reject her, obviously, and return to the mortal realms as a mind flayer. She does acknowledge that he has at least something of a soul that can pray to her so...I mean, there's that.

Anyways, what have we learned?

The Summary

With Karlach, we see that being a mind flayer does necessarily change parts of a person's personality (which, again, is part of their soul). Usually this results in a person seeming calmer, more mellow, less emotional than they normally would have been, but it does seem that for Tav/Durge, the companions, and Orpheus that turning into a mind flayer doesn't completely destroy their soul. It just seems to alter it a bit. In my opinion, the soul just becomes a tiny bit more illithid. Karlach’s case does leave us with questions about how “good” consuming and retaining so many memories might be in the long run, but as of six months post-ceremorphosis, she seems fine.

From Gale, we learn that apparently it's possible to restore or un-alter a partly-illithid soul so that it goes back to normal, but this power is extremely rare and likely relegated to the gods alone (or a particularly powerful Wish spell). We're also reminded that keeping recognizable parts of one's soul, like the personality and memories, is a huge surprise, because that's not how normal mind flayers work. We know this from Orpheus, but Gale just kinda reinforced it.

I guess we also learned that Mystra is a massive—but I should keep this civil. We all know what Mystra is.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that she's unwilling to accept Gale into her domain while he is still a mind flayer, even though his soul obviously would fit the bill based on what a soul is/does for the gods. He has a viable apostolic soul, it’s just mind-flayer-shaped!I'm sure Mystra thinks she's being magnanimous by offering him eternity as a human in Elysium, but I think it ultimately just shows how shallow she can be. Gale only gets to come back if he’s not mind flayer shaped.

And I think, deep down, Gale has always suspected that would be the case.

And on that familiar note, my friends, thank you for joining me on this excessively long deep dive into mind flayer souls and things we can learn from the game and the lore.

~*~*~

If you made it to the end, congrats! More gold stars for you!

✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨⭐️🌟⭐️✨

If you read through all three parts and also made it to the end of this one, you are the real MVP and I wish I had stickers or achievements to give you so you can be like "I survived another three-part deep dive from mumm." But I don't even have a lousy T-Shirt to offer you.

You can have this random picture instead though :> it's my Tav Dani looking very unimpressed by the Emperor's offer of sexy times (sorry not sorry Empy, she's got a man and his name is Gale and she prefers him and all her friends to be tentacle-free)

Enjoy the lore and remember that it's all up to you to decide what you want to keep or reject! I'm just showing you what's out there!

Tags for those who wanted an update! @galesdevoteewife @stuffforthestash

[therealslimshakespeare]

Dear John | Part 2

Masters of the Air Fanfiction

Series Summary: Major John Egan wasn’t the pen-pal sort but a couple of hours into a dark night full of writing condolence letters he finds himself wondering why he never tried his hand at the nicer forms of correspondence. Who better to reanimate his numb inspiration than the glamorous Miss Lana Tierney? -the army’s girl next door, the pinup so prolific she was practically a wall paper print and Bucky’s long-standing cinematic crush. It’s not like she’ll read it anyways. Right? Right.

Warnings: suggestive language, crass vocabulary, the vintage form of sexting -honestly this is mostly fluffy in reply to his more overt letter

Author’s note: after episode four I’ve got feelings and fics for this universe that are far ahead of these establishing pieces. So I’ve gone ahead and tossed this preliminary one out but I may very well skip around and ahead to October next. At least now y’all know: she wrote him back. Hehe. If it’s of interest, I’ll probably end up writing John’s reaction to receiving this response as well as Gale’s response to realizing his friend actually went and sent that awful thing.

Date: Early August, 1943

Dear John, (I’m sorry Major Egan, I just had to)

Thank you for your kind letter of the 18th. It’s been many years since I received so delightful a correspondence or so candid an expression of admiration. And you should know I keep most of the letters the sweet people of this country send me. They’re stacked in quite an orderly fashion in my various garages, kept for the rainy days to peruse and keep the blues away and also so I might try very hard to reply. I don’t take such affection for granted. It’s humbling really, always has been, to be so loved by folks but it’s another level entirely to be singled out by someone as brave and impressive as yourself.

I found your letter to be heartfelt and wonderfully brave and in an effort to be equally transparent, you should know that when I finished it I clutched it to my breast and whispered half a dozen prayers for you. Or as you might say, I held it to my knockers.

That’s an awful word, you must know that Major.

As is “rack”, for that matter, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion that you would make it sound charming as even your blotted paper was electric. How could you dare to praise my film set flapjacks and mention making babies? I’m fizzing just glancing at it. You really must be quite the fella and I’m terribly sad now that our rendezvous, such as you say it was, got cut short. You must reprimand your friend -Buck, is it?- and tell him he did an bad deed that night. There’s nothing I like better than duets and hamburgers, we might’ve been one of the great loves by now if he hadn’t meddled. But don’t be too hard on him, if he’s the sort to take it well, kiss him for me, after you chide him.

But since we are being honest, I must admit, reading your letter, being privy to your thoughts, seeing myself through your eyes as it were - dear man, I feel rather riled. Quite riled, in fact. Why, I haven’t felt riled in a while, not like this. Not like an ordinary girl with an extraordinary boy. Do you know what I mean?

Maybe you don’t.

I mean regular, old fashioned flustered. That’s what you’ve made me. And thank you for that, John. Can I call you Johnny? I wonder if you’re the nickname sort, or if you’re real stern and serious, a real John-John. Not a Johnny at all. But either way, I think you deserve a treat, for being so nice, Major Egan. For reminding me I can feel my pulse somewhere besides my wrists before a show -and for all you’re doing in the war, besides. There seems to be no safer hands to trust this to, you do seem so very fond of them, I am led to believe you’d be protective of them, too.

Enclosed is something for the personal morale, I hope you’ll think of me nightly with it at hand, in fact, I’m so excited about it I’ve taken this ill advised measure to insure you do. I’d very much like a report, do they live up to your expectations? They’re homegrown, after all, I hadn’t much say in them but now I’ve got them, I don’t see why they shouldn’t do their bit to keep you alive. A small sacrifice.

One of those reasons you mentioned, John, you’ve so many of them, more than you know. A million souls over here rooting you on, insisting you make it out the other side.

I’m forefront among them, I’ll be scanning the crowd when I come to Europe -because I will, at your invitation. Perhaps if you send me a picture of your own mug I won’t be looking a fool asking every man in uniform if I remind them of an acorn. Are you going to tell me what on earth that means? I’ve tried to work it out but I always end up with some mathematical conundrum and I just know in my heart of hearts you wouldn’t let me down like that, would you Major? It’s something awfully salacious, isn’t it? Please let it be!

I’m a vain little thing and I can’t deny the way this poor heart of mine is all pitter pattering at the thought of you being so awful while also so nice. It’s a strange blend, and rather like my coke, I do prefer my men mixed.

Best wishes, may you have cloudless skies and fresh coffee to your heart's content. My sources -and I’ve excellent ones, an upside of working the war bond circuit- tell me you’re airforce. I think that’s remarkable and I hope you give that picture some thought. Mine, and yours.

Your vain little friend,

Julia Jean Turner

P.S.-I’m only ever ‘The Lana Tierney ‘ to strangers, and we aren’t strangers now, are we? not if you’re to take my picture to your bunk. i suspect you may have already taken that liberty. who’s to say I did not take similar liberties upon reading certain stirring passages of your letter? Xx 💋

__insert vintage titty pic__

Whew this week was a doozy wasn’t it? Here’s some fluff for those of y’all who needed it, and I can promise angst soon for those who want to stay in the soul shattering mood. Hope you enjoy. Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, let me hear your screams.

Drop a comment to let me know if you’d like to be tagged in any of my MOTA fics. Xo

Taglist:

@stylespresleyhearted

@ab4eva

@earth-to-lottie

@suraemoon

@blurredcolour

@steph-speaks

@crazymadpassionatelove

@rubyfruitjungle

@taestrwbrry

[luminouslywriting]

How do you think the guys would react when one of their friends starts dating their sister? Like maybe she read in a letter that their buddy wasn’t getting any and decided to take matters into her own hands and strike up a pen pal-ship with them that becomes serious…

Imagine coming home from war and your baby sister runs straight past you to jump your buddy who she can’t possibly know

DeMarco?? As a brother? And Brady? As a lover?? I can see it now. LISTEN, I have thoughts under the cut, so buckle up kiddos haha! Reminder that my requests are definitely open and I don't mind spam :)

Cut for length, more under the cut, some light occasional spice haha:

-It doesn't mean to happen??? Like actually though?? Benny mentions in one of his letters home that a friend of his does not have a girlfriend and is feeling a little lonely at times

-And you, being the angel that you are, just take matters into your own hands

-So imagine Brady's surprise the week before he goes down in the Stalag to receiving a letter signed Y/N DeMarco

-There he is, going about his day, trying to get training in, and just minding his own business, and mail call comes and he has a letter?? He doesn't recognize the return address and he's a little baffled. But he's not about to turn down mail.

-So he opens it up and starts reading and it's this very sweet letter explaining that your brother mentioned he had a friend who didn't have anyone writing him and you were just going to fix that for Brady :)

-John Brady is many things—including flattered—but he's also like WTF?? Like where did this person come from, how old are you (is this allowed lol), and maybe it'll be nice to have a friend??

-So he writes you a letter back with these questions included and he fully means to mention it to DeMarco

-It's just that DeMarco goes down on a mission with Gale Cleven and there's nothing he can do about that

-And then HE goes down on a mission with Bucky Egan

-He honestly forgets all about it until letters to the Stalag start to arrive

-The thing about this entire situation is that he likes having a little something to himself? It's hard to get privacy and anything that's really 'yours' in the Stalag, and so these letters become an escape and a safe place for him

-He relies on your good humor and stories to get him through the day and all the while, he's falling in love with the person that you are without ever having seen you

-And it's the exact same situation for you

-Brady isn't stupid though, he burns all of the letters that you send him so that the Germans can't use anything against him when it comes to you

-So by the time that they switch Stalags again and again and he hasn't gotten a letter in months, he's already decided that he's in love with you and is going to ask you to marry him

-The only problem in this foolproof little plan of his is a short king with a dog named Benny DeMarco who will be absolutely furious about the turn of events that he has not been clued in on for over a year and a half

-So he figures that it's probably best to just....not mention anything until he sees you??

-LOL SIR NO

-But anyways, the war ends and the boys get to go home

-And Benny DeMarco is having a GREAT day. He's ready to see his family, his beloved little sister, eat some good chow, and sleep in an actual bed.

-He's fully prepared for the tears on the train platform and everything else

-What he's not prepared for is to see you run PAST him and jump into the arms of none other than Captain John Brady

^Actual footage of Benny DeMarco, seconds after seeing you and Brady kissing at the train station^

-So yes, he's baffled, bamboozled, shocked, dismayed, BETRAYED and majorly confused

-But after a whole sit down conversation about the letters and everything, he's super jazzed to be getting Brady as a brother in law and he's actually pretty happy about the whole thing

-But he absolutely turns to the younger siblings that you both have and warns them to never do something like this lol

-And yes, there may have been a fist fight that you heard about later between Brady and DeMarco, but it was never really that serious....just a protective older brother making sure Brady was good enough for you lol

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

"Gale says I never smile except in the woods." - Katniss, THG, Ch. 1.

I present to you: Instances of Katniss effortlessly smiling/laughing around/because of Peeta in the first book:

Peeta unexpectedly laughs. “He was drunk,” says Peeta. “He’s drunk every year.”  “Every day,” I add. I can’t help smirking a little. 

“Where is Haymitch, anyway? Isn’t he supposed to protect us from this sort of thing?” says Peeta.  “With all that alcohol in him, it’s probably not advisable to have him around an open flame,” I say.  And suddenly we’re both laughing. I guess we’re both so nervous about the Games and more pressingly, petrified of being turned into human torches, we’re not acting sensibly. 

When we finally escape to bed on the second night, Peeta mumbles, “Someone ought to get Haymitch a drink.”  I make a sound that is somewhere between a snort and a laugh. Then catch myself. It’s messing with my mind too much, trying to keep straight when we’re supposedly friends and when we’re not. 

“I hope that’s how people interpret the four I’ll probably get,” says Peeta. “If that. Really, is anything less impressive than watching a person pick up a heavy ball and throw it a couple of yards. One almost landed on my foot.”  I grin at him and realize that I’m starving. 

Peeta, it turns out, has never been a danger to me.  The thought makes me smile. 

“Lean down a minute first,” he says. “Need to tell you something.” I lean over and put my good ear to his lips, which tickle as he whispers. “Remember, we’re madly in love, so it’s all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”  I jerk my head back but end up laughing. “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.” 

“Katniss?” Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words.  “How about that kiss?”  I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can’t stand it. 

Peeta’s struggling to get up when I reach the cave. “I woke up and you were gone,” he says. “I was worried about you.”  I have to laugh as I ease him back down. “You were worried about me? Have you taken a look at yourself lately?” 

“So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says.  “Oh, please,” I say, laughing. 

“What’s the problem?” I say with a grin.  “The problem is we’re both still alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your mind that you did the right thing,” says Peeta. 

“Ah, that’ll be nice,” says Peeta, tightening his arms around me. “You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games’ tales.”  “I told you, he hates me!” I say, but I can’t help laughing at the image of Haymitch becoming my new pal. 

“Hey, Effie, watch this!” says Peeta. He tosses his fork over his shoulder and literally licks his plate clean with his tongue making loud, satisfied sounds. Then he blows a kiss out to her in general and calls, “We miss you, Effie!”  I cover his mouth with my hand, but I’m laughing. “Stop! Cato could be right outside our cave.” 

[majorproblems77]

Bonus links is back which means so am I! Welcome back to my Comic analysis corner :D

You liked my rambling last time so here I am to once again ramble about this comic I love.

Its a wonderul comic and always so well made. Please go look at it if you haven't, it's well worth it. :D

All comic panels and art belong to @bonus-links and the artist @ezdotjpg. Please go and look at their other stuff too!

Grab some popcorn and a drink, and let's get started, shall we!

First these two, I love this frame right off the bat.

Give me more of these two please I love them okay

Loft looks so worried can you hear the fear i can hear the fear. Poor man give him a break.

Oblatory obsession with SKSW link in various links meet aus.

I love him a healthy amount. I love his design and think about him often.

Oh this frame

This frame is very pretty

I love the golden light in the middle, and how she basically makes up the lower part of the symbol. It reminds me of ribbon. Which is fitting considering we get red string all over this comic. (I still need to go into that at one point)

It makes me wonder if we see the other Zelda's more in this context if they too will get the golden ribbon rather than the red string. As I'm seeing it as a way to show how they are connected like how the links are connected.

Panic mode engaged

I'm living for evil laser eye slate. Straight up looks like hes about to pounce on this man and kill him

Slates thinking face

Fangs?

I love it

I love these two. Interesting how dismissive Wolf is being at this stage. (currently playing through TP so I dont know a lot about the triforce in it but I assume it's still there)

Lots to unpack in this one and i love it

Wake vibing in the rain i can kinda understand.

Wolf just looks kinda done with it tbh and I'm here for it its a vibe.

Slate covering the little fairy pal from the rain is low-key giving me life I love him

And Loft, looking up at the clouds with just pure annoyance in his eyes. Like my man, I know you don't like storms but please the clouds didn't do anything to you. (Yet...)

HES A GRANDMA'S BOY AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

ALSO ALSO

I can hear the music in my head as these actions are being done. Like, they are ingrained into my soul after watching enough wind waker playthroughs.

It's awesome he gets to use it with the melody he's learned. More windwaker melodies please i love seeing them used more

Hold on tight indeed! Cause it's about to get HECKIN WIMDY

Such an excited bean i love him

Help him

Help him so much man has fear

This little picture has me cackling, im sorry loft but omg.

And Slate looks so damn excited for this and honestly he deserves it.

Just his little face

Goddammit linebeck, man is just so done with the shenanigans by now. Impressive he's managing to drink from a cup while they are spinning like that. Man has got some amazing arm control to keep it together.

Tetra and Aryll! Them!!!

Also, can you hear the splash as the ship hits the water? People must be used to hearing the sound of a huge gale, then a massive splash and are just like...

Oh, link must be back again.

Love it

Hope you had fun with me today as I went through this one. More rambling than questions this time around which is nice i love just being excited about characters I enjoy. :D

That's all from me tho, until next time!

[thelikesoffinn]

Hola giiirl! I'm curious about your wildshape playthrougj, tell us more! How's it going?

Eh, it's going, that's for sure!

I haven't had too much time to play big games recently, so I'm not very far into the game yet, but generally it's been going better than I expected! Bearheart and Minka are pals, Spidergale is at fucking 98 approval and we barely entered the Underdark so far and Badgestarion is at...like...nine? I think?

Yes, I'm also confused as to why Gale suddenly adores her - probably because of the cat shape, seriously - and why Astarion is super fed up with her but...Uh...it is what it is?

There have been other issues along the way - issues like me not being able to do certain things the way I'm used to, so I have to find other ways around but honestly, mostly issues induced by the fact that Minka is predominantly useless since a cat has 2hp and makes close to zero damage, haha, so she just stands somewhere in the back and meows while Astarion, Gale and Shadowheart get their arse handed to them at every step. Curse of the low-level druid! But oh well, it makes it interesting, at least.

One thing that sort of annoys me is how your wild shape doesn't change based on, I don't know, hair colour. No matter what species or haircolour or whatever, it's always a white cat...and a white bear...and a grey wolf. And a...you get it.

Sadly, most cinematographics either force standard shape or are a bit...rough around the edges while you're wildshaped, so I can't take many screenshots but here's one of Mirkon and Minka, staring around the lake shore!

[bg-brainrot]

Rewatched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with my partner for Valentine's Day (ugh I freakn' love that movie), and new Astarion x Tav fic thought...

After a bad post-game breakup with Tav, Astarion, as bad at emotions as he is, decides that a 9th level Modify Memory is the best way to get over them.

He tries to get his buddy, ol' pal Gale to do it, but Gale refuses on account of this being a terrible idea. Astarion, still determined to get these atrocious feelings out of the way, is forced to find some other high level wizard to help him.

The only other one he knows is Elminster, so he goes knocking on his door (or tower). Elminster barely knows him, only knows Tav a small bit more, but he's an eccentric old man so he shrugs and says, sure why not.

So the wizard dives into his memories, ready to rewrite them as only a max-level archmage would. However, as he's diving deep, Astarion begins to relive his best and worst memories with Tav. Astarion, the dummy that he is, finally realizes that he regrets his choice, that to love and lose is better than forgetting them completely.

But of course it's too late. As Astarion struggles against the memory erasure, Elminster is thrown off of his game and, while the spell is completed, it's botched. Astarion doesn't remember Tav anymore, but he does have this inkling that he needs to see someone.

Elminster, unbothered by the messed up spell or Astarion's worries, takes his payment in stolen meats and cheeses and sends Astarion on his merry and confused way.

From there, Astarion would try to talk to Gale, get yelled at, realize he's gotten rid of someone very important to him (who also happens to not want to see him on account of the whole break up). The whole story would unfold as he tries to restore his memory and remember his lost love.

...

Anyway, maybe someday I'll write it lol.

[napstabl00k]

Obligatory but Sonic and Shadow for the system headcanons?

sonic

sonic, the og. nonverbal, but enjoys being fast and hitting motherfuckers like eggman. kick his ass !!! extremely cunning

gale. easygoing as a breeze. gale allows the rest of them to be as chill as they are, as he takes their issues and keeps them with himself. he isn't obvious about them at all though, and appears more relaxed than anyone else. if they went to therapy, gale would lead the talks.

nick. the modern sonic! loud, boistrous, confident, and all around very much a teenager. while he associates himself with the name sonic, as that’s what everyone outside calls him, when differentiating between him and the og, he calls himself nick.

roar. not the name he's decided on, but one that nick's made up for him. it stuck. roar doesn't have a name for themself. hes emotionally unstable, but really good at being angry when they need to. the other three aren't great at keeping anger in their hearts, but when it's necessary, roar's there to help. the only one who's ever been interested in murdering an enemy. not great friends with anyone else.

shadow

shade. the hedgehog dna of project shadow.

shadow. the black doom dna of project shadow. the creation of project shadow wasn't as cleanly made as it was meant to be. black doom's dna created a consciousness split from the very beginning, as it was an alien thing that didn't combine with the mobian dna, but rather connected to it side by side. [or whatever. i dont care. listen the point is the alien dna is its own thing because i want it to be]

maria. factive created after the ark raid. believes in keeping themselves alive and safe most of all, but has a greater love for the world's beauty than anyone else.

ultimate. the host, technically. gets about 40% of time outside, the other 60% split between shade and shadow. about as nice as shadow [the whole] ever gets, but also the proudest of their role as ultimate lifeform. doesn't hold the trauma that comes with the name. not nice, by any means, but certainly the least rude.

terra. they split a therapist except they've never actually gone to therapy so it doesn't work great, but she can theoretically give them a therapy session on the spot. it works sometimes! but sometimes it just annoys whoever she's trying to help. she and maria are pals. maria refuses the therapy thing worse than anyone else though

[trash-can-sam]

Can I just say I adore Qi’s relationship with Mint. I feel like its such a good way showing the other side of Qi before they get close enough to see it, and idk I dont think people talk about it enough.

I find it interesting partially because it reveals a lot about Qi’s tendency to be sentimental and hold onto the past (despite the fact he would never admit it.) I find this an interesting aspect of him I dont see brought up enough. He keeps memories of his family and espeically his grandfather very close, I feel like he’s one of the characters with the most photos of family in his room actually (idk correct me if im wrong on that im not sure) and holds on to even small ideas he had as a child (gunghamm mobile suit, katana thing, etc.) 

Now, this could be for several reasons. I feel like a lot of it is rooted in wanting to prove himself to people, wanting to make his dreams reality for himself, absolutely, but also wanting other people to see that he was right to believe in himself and his intellect. He mentions people thinking he was crazy for going to Sandrock, and he doesnt really hide that he wants to be known for his acomplishments. Qi cant stand being wrong and even if it seems impossible to make his childhood dreams a reality he’s going to try his damnedest, so part of the reason he holds onto his childhood dreams is out of spite.

I also feel like theres a component of not wanting to have wasted potential. He talks a bit about how he thinks his parents are wasting their lives and potential by being perfectly content with being simple fishermen who dont desire measurable improvement (money, fish caught, that type of thing). So I feel like he has definetly internalized that dissapointment in his parents by doing the opposite and desiring measurable improvement above all else, because otherwise how can he be sure what he’s doing is worth much?

A lot of this is in contrast to Mint, who doesnt hold onto his past that much. He barely talks about it at all, largely because well, there isnt a lot there. Mint doesnt care that much about proving himself to others, he doesnt care about proving himself to himself. He’s willing to largely take life how its given to him. DONT GET ME WRONG, hes not necessarily a slacker by any means, nor is he unmotivated, But I feel like by Qi’s means he definetly would be.

Mint does what he needs to, he does it well, and he takes a nap. Qi does what he isn’t required to do, does it well, and then does more shit he isnt required (and often he should not) do. In a lot of ways, Mint does what he does directly to help others where Qi does what he does for himself, and if others get helped so be it. You see this in the type of jobs they choose too, with Mint being an engineer who goes around the free cities and helps with town improvement and Qi being a solitary researcher who went to a town on the verge of collapse, not necessarily to help the people there, but to find an old world spaceship, for himself and for recognition for his work.

I also find it interested in how theyre united in their isolation from others. Neither Mint nor Qi really have that many friends. All Mint really has is Gale, whos more of an uncle than a friend really, and all Qi has is well... no one that he acknowleges as a friend ( I feel like hes on a lot friendlier terms with a lot of the town than he would mention BUT THATS FOR ANOTHER TIME ). They both clearly struggle with making friends, Mint because hes on the move, and Qi because its not a goal. For both of them, making meaningful connections with people aren’t really a priority. The priority is always their work, both of them wanting to be recognized more for their work than for themselves as people. 

IDK I just think its very interesting. I could probably write more TBH but this is kind of insane. I just like thinking about them rly theyre the bestest of pals.  

[stealthnoodle]

Mothman ruined everything! Hooray! And in particular, he ruined Wyll.

See, the most interesting part of this playthrough has been that the main character has been Wyll all along. Wyll is the Sherlock Holmes Corruption Arc to Mothman's John Waston Murder Spree. This poor man no longer has a functional moral compass; he really likes Mothman, despite everything, leading to moments like this:

Protest all you like, pal, but your approval rating, like Shakira's hips, doesn't lie. (I made him a wizard even though he double-sold his soul because why not, no one could stop me.)

He's so far gone. Wyll babygirl I am so sorry, I don't even know how this happened, I somehow backed you into a universe where all the druids and tieflings died in Act 1 and you still stuck around, and now here we are. Broken.

Anyway, Mothman got a neat new antenna-helmet:

He wore it to fight the Netherbrain, which gets DIRTY TRICKS in Honour Mode. The final battle was a real nail-biter, like I needed to get up and have a few deep breathing exercises afterward. I need you to see this shit, which took place on the final round, my last turn before everything would have been over but not in the way Mothman wanted:

Everybody say, "Thank you, Murderdaddy."

Because I would not have won this fight without Power Word: Kill. Especially because Mothman entered the final battle with four summonable allies, which is honestly more than I expected but not enough to do effective crowd control. I kept Gale's severed hand in my inventory all game, and looked at it sorrowfully every time something especially unfortunate happened in the battle that he could have spared me from.

Anyway, here's how we thank Murderdaddy properly:

Shadowheart's objections are very funny to me because Mothman has been nothing if not upfront about his plans. Volo fled my camp because Mothman wouldn't stop being like, "I fucking love being a Baalspawn! I'm so good at murder! I'm gonna murder everyone! :D"

You all deserve this tbh

Then I immediately created Pizzazz, the cool half-orc monk with cotton-candy hair, because if I could slog my way through Dishonour Mode making terrible pig-headed choices, surely I can play Honour Mode for real making smart ones.

[quartings]

The Mystery of Munchlax: A Diamond and Pearl theory

By now, it's pretty common knowledge that Munchlax in Sinnoh is one of the most infamously rare Pokemon to find in history- having just a 1% chance to spawn from 3-4 honey trees in all of Sinnoh every 6 hours after honey usage. With the specific trees differing per save file.

But WHY is Munchlax so rare to the point where it's practicaly impossible to find in your average playthrough? I may have a theory.

The main point of evidence is that Diamond and Pearl are the first games with the GTS, allowing players to finally trade Pokemon with people across the world, and not just in their small hypothetical local groups. And making Munchlax so rare was a way to motivate more people to try out the GTS, this fancy new feature that Gamefreak worked so hard on.

Data shows that Diamond and Pearl sold over 17 million copies. so out of the 17 million people or so playing through the game, maybe a few hundred of them are lucky enough to get a Munchlax in their playthrough. Out of these several hundred, maybe a few dozen take the time to evolve their Munchlax into Snorlax and give it a Full Incense to breed more Munchlax. Since unlike other rare Pokemon like Legendaries or shinies, Munchlax is still a normal Pokemon who can be bred (essentially "duplicated"). Of these few dozen, maybe 9 or 10 have the intuition and wifi access to put their Munchlax on the GTS for a hefty price (like Dialga or Palkia or whatever).

And hopefully, as more and more Munchlax spread throughout the GTS, more and more players can get them for "cheaper" prices, as they become more common and people are just asking for normal Pokemon in exchange for them, like First Partner Pokemon Starters and regular version exclusives. That way, the "main" method of getting Munchlax during a normal playthrough would be to try and get one off the GTS.

And let's not forget the mass-marketing campaign Pokemon did to make Munchlax more appealing- an extended cameo in Destiny Deoxys, giving May one of her own in the anime, having appearances in Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Dash, and XD Gale of Darkness, and LOTS of merch, as well as Barry having one on his team to remind you that it's in the game. All on top of being a pre-evo of Snorlax, one of the most beloved and strong Gen 1 Pokemon around. If Munchlax's rarity was given to a weak standalone new Gen 4 Pokemon (like say, Carnivine), way less people would even try hunting for it.

But why is this not common knowledge to all of us? Why didn't this strategy work how Gamefreak intended? Well, there's a few reasons for that, too.

First of all, why even attempt the grind for Munchlax via honey trees when the Pal Park exists? Back in the good old days where transferring Pokemon between gens was free and humane, the amount of people able to transfer their Snorlax from FireRed/LeafGreen to Diamond/Pearl was likely MUCH higher than the aforementioned tiny amount of people who found a Munchlax via honey tree and were willing to breed more for the GTS.

And the amount of age 6-12 kids who were able to understand a new global wifi trading feature in their Pokemon games and ask their parents for wifi connection help in 2006/2007?? I don't think that number is very high, either.

Plus, let's not even get into how much of a mess the GTS was in the first few gens of its lifespan- kids (or just Pokemon fans in general) are nowhere near restrained enough to make reasonable trade offers even if they do happen to have a Munchlax.

Lastly, the final nail in the coffin came when HeartGold/SoulSilver released in 2009 with a static catchable Snorlax in its postgame. If there wasn't a reason to hunt Munchlax via honey tree before, there definitely wasn't one anymore.

And so, that's the story of Munchlax's debut! A fun little experiment by Gamefreak, but thankfully not one they ever really tried since.

[emmy-dekarios-bg3]

Heart of the Weave - chapter 55

Gale and I are getting ready for our evening out and Jenevelle had just woken up from her long nap. Karlach is feeding her and giving her all the attention while we prepare for a night ahead.

“I’m so sorry you had a horrible confrontation with your mother. I wish none for that would have happened. Betrayal like that… I’m not sure I could ever forgive it,” Gale comments, his voice quietly so our friends don’t hear. “Are you feeling alright?” I fluff my dark curly hair and slide into my red velvet dress, feeling as lovely and confident as ever.

“I feel great. More than I imagined I would, if we’re being honest. I promise I’m okay, my darling.” I turn around and smile, noticing him observe me from head to toe, his eyes widening as I flaunt my new outfit in front of him.

“Gods, you’re so beautiful. I’m so very lucky to call you my wife.” He places his left hand on my cheek and leans in to kiss me, his soft lips lingering on mine as I stroke his dark hair with my fingertips. He chuckles from the tickling sensation, moving his hands down to my butt and grips it, giving me a smirk as he does so. He makes me so hot. Unfortunately for us, who knows how long it will be before we have very intimate time alone?

“And you, Professor Dekarios, are so handsome and I’m madly in love with you.” The twinkle in his eyes makes me want to explode into a million pieces, and then come back to kiss him many, many times.

“You have no idea how much I love it when you call me that, baby.” As he leans in to give me another kiss, Karlach comes running from the other side of the room with Jenevelle being held in front of her, ruining the very romantic moment between us.

“Gale! If you ever get baby fever again, just remember this.” She approaches Gale with Jenevelle, and he tilts his head to the side in confusion. “Smell her butt!”

“Karlach, PLEASE —“

“COME ON! Smell her butt!” Karlach proceeds to follow Gale around the room with the baby being held out in front of her, causing me to laugh hysterically at the entire scenario in front of me. Wyll stands next to me, rolling his eyes as he watches Karlach chasing Gale around the room.

“I always tell myself I know what I signed up for, but she still manages to surprise me every day,” Wyll comments to me, laughing. “I can only imagine how it’s going to be when our child is older.”

“Karlach, I just got dressed into my dapper attire. Don’t you want the practice? I’d rather not change a very dirty diaper while I look this nice. This is my best suit for crying out loud.”

“As long as you’re in the same room with me, you handle it.” Gale sighs and takes the baby from her arms. “Oh, I was totally kidding, but if you insist.” Gale nearly gags and squints his eyes, holding Jenevelle out in front of him as he makes an expression of disgust. I can’t help but chuckle at his expression, though I feel bad for him. I offer to change her but he shakes his head no, though the moment Jenevelle is in his arms, I can tell he wishes he said yes.

“Oh by Mystra’s Mantle, that is rancid. You would think I’d be used to this by now. Okay, Karlach. Valid. Emmy, my love, you’re changing the next one.” I bust up laughing as I take a drink of my ice-cold water, feeling a sensation of refreshment as I chug it down. “These next few months sure will be interesting, won’t they?”

“You said it pal,” Wyll responds. “Hey, at least you two will get a night out. And you know Karlach makes for interesting company.” I won’t lie, watching the entertainment between them makes me feel better about the events from earlier today.

“You’re not wrong, Wyll. She is the source of our entertainment, that’s for sure. You are lucky to have her,” Gale responds, smiling. He puts Jenevelle down to get her cleaned up while I prepare her evening bottle for her in the meantime. I hand it over to Karlach.

“She will just need this right before bed. So, about a couple hours from now. We shouldn’t be gone too long, of course. Now only to figure out where we will be going for our outing tonight,” I say suggestively, hoping Gale comes up with an idea. “And before anyone says anything, I promise I won’t have a glass of wine.” Gale chuckles and turns around to face me as he buttons Jenevelle’s onesie, his left brow furrowed.

“Oh I’ll make sure you’re on your best behavior tonight, missy. No really. There’s a baby in there.”

“AND THE BABY IS MINE!!!” Karlach shouts, startling Wyll who places his hand over his chest from the intense jump scare. Unfortunately for him, he was standing right next to her. “Sorry Wyll. I mean ours.”

“You’re sorry about the wording, but not sorry about how scared you just made me? I nearly stained my pants, love!” I gather my sweater from the table next to our bed and put it over my top, feeling nice and warm as I prepare to embrace the chilly weather outside on this beautiful autumn night. I approach Jenevelle and kiss her forehead, smiling as she reaches up to touch my face with her tiny hand.

“I love you little one. Daddy and I will be back soon.”

The golden aura of the sun setting is so beautiful, and the bustling streets are beginning to settle down. I don’t even remember what restaurants are around here, it’s been way too long. Gale holds my hand as we stroll calmly throughout the city, and it makes me truly happy. I’m not bothered by what happened today, I feel at ease. I hope I feel this way all the time and it isn’t just a temporary emotion that’s masking any sort of hurt.

“We could have a nice dinner outside at the Blushing Mermaid?” Gale suggests. “I hear it’s been completely revamped.

“Probably because Karlach and Minsc got into a little bit of trouble and she almost burnt the place down.” Gale lets out a loud laugh and rubs my knuckles with his thumb.

“Unfortunately, she did burn the place down. But hey, it looks wonderful now and less of a ‘bar’ environment. Would you like to give it a try, my love?” I look at him and flash a smile, thrilled to see the new structure of the Blushing Mermaid. The stroll through the city is so peaceful, and I enjoy taking in the beauty and good memories we had here, though there weren’t too many…unless you count reuniting Shadowheart with her parents, defeating Astarion’s abuser, helping Gale find a way to fix his orb, saving Karlach’s life, and many other risky yet fun adventures. It exhausts me just thinking about every single thing we accomplished.

We made it to the Blushing Mermaid and he was right, it is completely refurbished, and it looks beautiful! It doesn’t even look like the same place, except maybe the boat part on the side. One would never even suspect it was once a bar full of drunks, unless you’ve lived here and walked past the place every single day. As we quietly tread inside, I notice the walls are painted a gorgeous shade of crimson; not too bright, just a little darker, like blood. I hate to compare it to that, but here we are. The tables are spread apart just a few feet apart, each one draped with black tablecloth and candles sitting on top of them. There are two bards – one female tiefling on the violin and a male high-elf on the piano – in the middle of the restaurant, performing soft and beautiful music to help keep a soothing environment. Gale and I get seated by the host at one of the tables, and get handed our menus. As I’m looking through the menu, I slowly peek up and notice Gale smiling at me, his eyes admiring me as I try to decide what to eat.

“My Gods… I love you so much. I’m so proud of you and I couldn’t be more lucky to have such an incredible wife. From all of the adventures we’ve had to raising our child together… Now here you are, being a surrogate to our friends and the most selfless person I’ve ever met. There’s nothing I don’t love about you.” I bite my bottom lip and blush, trying to fight some tears but I feel them coming anyway.

“Even though I trip over my own feet and I’m kind of gassy?” Gale laughs at my comment but stops himself from laughing too hard.

“Yes. It just adds to your goofy qualities that I love so very much. You are perfect just the way you are.” I want to just cry from how special this wizard makes me feel, how incredible he is to me, and how I can’t imagine a life without him. Where would I be if I never met him? Would I be dead somewhere from the tadpole, or would I be with someone who makes me miserable? Regardless, this man has saved me one way or another.

“Gale… Thank you. I needed those words. You truly make me feel like the most special woman in the world and I can’t imagine being in a world where you don’t exist.” I reach out for his hand across the table, taking them and admiring the wedding ring on his finger. I chuckle quietly as I rub his knuckles with my thumb. His tan skin is soft like velvet, and smells of rosewater and even a hint of lavender. He stares down at our hands and closes his eyes, and after about ten seconds, his eyes are locked back onto mine.

“I feel the same way. I love you more than words will ever express. In fact, words alone can’t begin to explain my love for you. I could write quill on paper and still…no amount of pages could do it justice.” The loud growling of my stomach interrupts the sweet moment between us. “Ha, is my sweet girl hungry?”

“Maybe a little. A venison sounds delightful. Maybe some mozzarella and….oh my gods they have lasagna.” Gale chuckles and opens his menu.

“Any particular meal sound satisfying for any pregnancy cravings, my love?” I study the menu, trying to decipher exactly what sounds pleasing to my pallet; and for the baby, of course. If this child is anything like Karlach, it will highly enjoy the pleasures of meat. “Something tells me you want the venison, don’t you?”

“You know me so well.”

A delightful talk and dinner with the love of my life is all I really needed today, and I feel the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ve always been truly happy with Gale, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. There’s something about today in particular that’s made me feel butterflies all over again, as if I had just met him for the first time. Often, I’ll reminisce about the day I met him and how it seemed we just clicked that very day.

“Hello, I’m Gale from Waterdeep. Apologies, I’m usually good at this.”

“At introductions?”

“At Magic.”

After a fulfilling meal, we slow dance in the middle of the restaurant, his hands on my waist as he pulls me close. I gaze up at him as our bodies touch, feeling the magic between us spark as we sway amongst the floor.

“You’re glowing,” he murmurs, smiling as he brushes my curls out of my face. “You’re so beautiful.” His right hand moves to my belly, placing it there for a brief moment. I feel that he wants to tell me something, but he’s afraid. I can sense it.

“Love, is there something you want to tell me? Please don’t be afraid.” My voice is as soft as a whisper as I smile up at him, matching his dance movements. His expression shifts to one of mild sadness, and he hesitates for a moment.

“I…feel so selfish for thinking it…”

“What is it, love?”

“I almost wish that baby was ours. You know… When you were pregnant with Jenevelle, it was such a fragile yet beautiful time. I was so excited that we were having our first baby. At first? No. But as the months flew by, it was such a happy time for me. For us. I’m so glad we will be giving our friends this chance, and I know earlier I said I was so afraid—“

“You want another baby, don’t you?” I say, interrupting his thoughts. “You can tell me.” He smiles and looks down at the floor nervously for a very brief moment, then his gaze is back on mine. He shrugs.

“Kind of, but I know the risks and what it would entail. So, adoption would be best since the child would actually age and all that. I feel so silly saying all of this considering I just told you a few weeks ago that I don’t want another child. Anyway, that’s a conversation for another time. For now, I’m enjoying just being with you and having you all to myself for a couple hours.” I smile and lean my head on his chest, dancing the night away slowly and full of love.

[therealslimshakespeare]

Dear John || Something Borrowed

Masters of the Air fanfiction

Summary: Upon the sudden stop of all their correspondence, Miss Lana Tierney finds herself bereft of her pen pal John Egan’s support -not however, without him first having made a heavy declaration and entrusted her with a precious bit of himself. Battling Tinsel Town’s awful labyrinth of censors, agents, and an ever disloyal mother, Lana seeks to find John, and having once found him, to remind him of his promise to try. Meanwhile in Stalag Luft III, Major Gale Cleven may loiter at his incriminating radio longer than strictly necessary in hopes of hearing a voice that would bring his best friend a shred of hope.

My many thanks to: Christi and Ashley for endless amounts of encouragement and advice and enrichment of the plot, y’all are invaluable darlings and precious friends. To Bri who has been the brains and requests behind the concept and the beating heart behind giving Bucky a love of a lifetime

Warnings: 18+ disturbing content. Not so much war focused but rather Hollywood in the 40’s which can be horribly gruesome itself. We are happily ripping off Lana Turner’s real story for much of this, and so in this chapter you will find mentions of certain harrowing abuses she endured. Such as: brief references to a forced, studio-required abortion, bugging of a woman’s room, arranged engagements, drugging, hinted sexual exploitation, willing current sexual favors in return for a role, Bucky going a little nuts as a POW, Lana’s mother being the worst, John Huston making a cameo that will probably make you wanna punch the guy. It’s ok, the real fella deserved it. Go ahead. Again, nothing explicit, didn’t wanna get all yucky but these themes are prevalent in here in passing.

Word count: a whopping 8k

Character name reminder: Julie Jean Turner goes by the Hollywood alias of “Lana Tierney”

Lana lay abed and stewed. She was past grief, or perhaps it was easier explained that Grief and her sisters, Denial and Betrayal, were more of Julie Jean Turner’s privilege. Miss Lana Tierney, academy hopeful and box office gold, had little left but rage and the moist silk of her pillow pressed to her burning cheek.

“What an awful few days it’s been.” she’d allowed herself to say a few weeks back.

The Julie Jean of that week didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Life was bad enough then, back when he called, but his voice cured everything from her terrible week. Vincent and the engagement and the studios, all of it. But then came a letter, one written awfully like a goodbye, and another one after it but all of them were little provisions for if he were to go down.

Scribbled hours before going up.

“I love you, I know it’s a lot to spring on a gal who’s just doing her bit and keeping me happy but I do. It’s an awful type of love, Julie, very tight fisted and I think I only love you because you love me so well in your way. I don’t think that’s the sort of love to do anybody any good, but I’d regret not saying it, beginners can’t be haughty. Here I wanted to stick my toe in and you gobbled the whole leg, and I love you. I love you for it. I love you.”

She’d rubbed over his signature, not a bit of cursive in that scrawled -John- a million times.

And then, just like that, just like what had happened to her friends and a million women across the world- his letters simply stopped. Julie Jean learned elsewhere he’d been shot down for weeks by the time she’d gotten the last one. It was hard to have finally heard his voice and known of his purpose, but now? -a dead silence that had a voice and face and love attached to it. It was agony of a sort she’d never known and was made worse by the loneliness in her secrecy of not being able to mourn it aloud.

She moaned into the mess of her pillowcase and ignored Bertha's fifth knock of the afternoon. Who’d recognize the glamorous Miss Tierney now? Pitiful and tear streaked and pale from blood loss. She still lay on a chucks pad the studio nurse had rolled her onto, a feeble trickle still seeping between her legs. Curled on her side with eyes glinting at the afternoon sun, she seethed at one more thing taken from her.

Lana could hardly stand it. But she had to try. She’d made John promise he would. They’d promised each other, and somehow she hadn’t any doubts that wherever he was, he was trying.

“Miss Tierney?” That was Herbert’s voice and Jean rolled her eyes at the predictability of this household. After not answering Delores they sent in Bertha and upon not answering Bertha here was Herbert and if she didn’t answer him, her mother might manage to rouse herself and drive over.

“Come in Herb, if you must.” she groaned, hand outstretched and patting blindly for a cigarette on her nightstand.

Her old driver came in with an unusually light step, it bespoke a sympathy for her plight that Jean would have preferred a thousand times never to read on his usually persnickety face. “How are you holding up after -“ he stood awkwardly at the foot of her bed as Jean rummaged and when she sat back with cigarette and holder in hand, she found him looking down at her with such concern she nearly threw the lamp at him. “Tonsillitis, huh?” he hummed sympathetically.

“Oh yes, nasty bout.” she lied merrily, the ache in her violated womb protested her move to sit up. “They had to take them clean out.” it was the only printable explanation for her ailment.

“Yeah.” Herb had been a renowned stuntman before he’d been demoted to driver, and before stuntman he’d been a soldier in the trenches and before that he’d been a clerk. If anyone knew about coat hangers and poor girls held down to be kept forever virginal and ever in use, Herb knew. Herb had warned her even, told her what a sick racket they ran here in Tinsel Town. Much good it did her, she was in too deep before she knew she had so much as stuck her toe in.

Rather like Bucky in love, apparently, and that thought made her madly blink away a stupid rush of tears.

“What’s that?” she pointed at the parcel she just now noticed was tucked under his arm.

“Oh, this? Chocolates. Here, my lighter miss?” Whatever was under Herbert’s arm wasn’t shaped like any chocolates she knew and Jean was about to give him a talking to for being insipid when her mood was so poor but then she saw him press a warning finger to his lips. He walked around the side of her bed and indeed pulled out a lighter, metal and rude and no doubt a relic of the first war, and flicked it for her to light up. Bending down he smelled of tobacco himself when he took the unprecedented liberty of whispering in her ear: “They bugged the room during your operation, Miss. Must be careful. Especially if you want to keep your gift.”

He pulled away and looked down at her sorrowfully before quietly laying the dirty brown package atop her pristine sheets. Mother had them changed after the bloodbath of the…operation. They were spotless before and now they were sooty. That pleased her.

Jean forgot to look away from him. She was startled and upset by the news but she didn’t doubt it. They’d probably bugged the phone ages ago, god knows they’d stop at next to nothing and she did so want to keep something for herself. If she couldn’t have a baby, her baby, then she’d keep a parcel, damn them all. Then a cold feeling of dread filled her and she thought to grab at her books and look for the hidden letters.

Gone. Mother. It must’ve been mother, it was her sort of thing to have rifled through Lana’s things while she was being operated on and found them and took them and-

The rage spurred her to look down at what Herb brought her, cigarette forgotten between her quivering lips. She expected it to be from him, a little pep up. Perhaps a doll or a stuffed animal to cheer her. But no, this parcel in its plain brown wrapping had come from afar, smudged and delayed a million times judging by its redirected stamps -and she’d know that writing from anywhere.

Her Johnny.

Julie Jean’s little gasp let slip the cigarette from her mouth but not before Herb caught it from singeing the sheets. He was quicker than anyone gave the old man credit for, banged up head or not. “Thought that might cheer you.” he grinned in that begrudging way of his, as if he were cross at the joy made manifest on his face.

“I’m scared.” she admitted in a whisper, hands hovering over the brown twine strings. Whatever was inside was squishy and giving. And whatever it was, John had sent it before he’d been shot down. But still, somehow it felt like a gift from him on this, the worst day of her life. Like he was sending some comfort even from hell on earth and without a clue of her own dispair. Herb seemed to read it the same way, and that’s how Jean knew she wasn’t being a delusional, hysterical wreck, if that crusty old sod knew its significance in coming today, then it was plain as the irregular nose on his face.

“Scared of chocolate?” His tease covered a strong reminder for her to watch her words.

“Mm, yes, what if there’s raspberry filled ones?” she whispered back. “You know how I can’t abide raspberries.”

“Guess you’ll just have to be brave and see.” he nudged her.

Nodding her head solemnly, Jean tugged apart the twine that had kept John Egan’s package together for an entire transcontinental delivery. It fell away with a crinkling sound and she found folded upon it, without a bit of fuss or wrapping, the oddest piece of cloth. Almost a patchwork of pale leather and a zipper and -Jean’s throat closed as her hand descended and felt along the soft fluff of a sheepskin collar.

He didn’t. He didn’t send her his jacket? Surely —

Herb made a noncommittal noise beside her which sounded awfully like some touched sorta gasp at the sight, but as it was Herb and he had a tobacco wad where he should have had a heart, so he must’ve been coming down with the same cold that landed Lana in tonsil surgery.

Hands shaky and heart hammering, Jean reached in and pulled the garment out, a tiny little note fluttered out. Someone else’s penmanship. “To the care of Jean Turner, until it can be retrieved by Major Egan.”

“Oh god.” she felt like sobbing before pressing her face into the sweat fumed plushness of it. “Johnny. Johnny. Johnny.” she kept his name buried in his jacket, secret like his gift and his love and his comfort and her desires. Eyes and mouth muffled into the darkness of something that was his. She felt Herb’s gentle hand pat on her head and the following click of the latch as he went out.

“Mister Vincent called to say there’s dinner and photographs scheduled for tonight, Miss Tierney.” he informed her levelly before he left and her ears were not so buried in Air Force Shearling she couldn’t hear of her doom. “There’s been some speculations -they want to smooth it over. Bertha was trying to pass it on.”

Bertha wanted to wipe off whatever remaining blood was on her and primp all signs of coercion off her devastated face, that’s what Bertha was here for. Jean vaguely wondered if her mother’s clenching hand print still lingered on her cheeks, she rubbed John’s jacket against the soreness of her mouth, muffling her sobs the way her mother’s hand had stifled her screams of pain only hours ago.

Back to work, asap, it would seem. -Bleed down your nylons dear, it’ll be alright, so long as they see a happy face and a lucky new couple.

Vincent. She wasn’t sure how she’d face him, the weekend getaway and his little “test drive” of her had been bad enough, the fact he hadn’t the brains to prevent it from having consequences or the spine to stand up for the life of the child he made- oh, she wondered how she’d manage to down her asparagus in the face of it all. Acting, she presumed, a true talent that had suddenly become a personality since -since? -she wasn’t sure when.

Beside her for months now, stacked beneath the pile of new Runyon books she’d taken out of the library, had been a pile of letters that didn’t have a bit of acting in them. Raw and true and terrible and wanton, each of John Egan’s thoughts tumbled off their confining pages and into her heart in mirrored response to her own. Now mother had them.

Jean wondered where all her own letters to him were, now that he was gone and someone else was in his bunk.

Funny to think of that, the most honest account of herself was most likely moldering in the bottom of some MIA airman’s footlocker.

It was all a bit self indulgent, she admitted even as she stripped out of her bloody gown and down to her bare skin, but she had lost plenty and she needed him: so she slipped him on, soft wool caressing her and stopping the shivers of shock that had wracked her all morning. It smelled so manly and sweaty and terribly real she about swooned at the sensation of having a bit of him next to her. Now she’d seen him -all those darling candid photos in repayment for hers- and she’d heard him -oh that awful, wonderful telephone call right before he disappeared- and now she was smelling him.

Jean would have to bathe and take a handful of aspirin and cinch in her girdle and kiss her fiancée tonight, but for a brief hour she layed in bed naked as a baby with her gift wrapped around her like swaddling clothes.

Vincent came later with the car, one of his father’s for certain, and eyed her choice of outerwear with a sour mouth. Fleece and chiffon was an odd mix but Lana always had been a trendsetter and it was early November, even if it was Los Angeles. Of course, for her the jacket was John, and so she wore him like armor -and if she was wearing it, they couldn’t take it without her knowing.

“I’m cold.” she answered Vin’s unspoken question sharply on the ride over, “I’ve just had tonsil surgery, you may recall?”

“It stinks.” he huffed back, his nose presumptuously nuzzling under her curls and very near the sweat soaked fleece, “Smells like a barnyard.”

What it smelled like was a red blooded American man’s honest days work killing Nazis. But Vincent and his pale hands and arranged medical exemptions weren’t likely to know what that smelled like, so Lana felt compelled to give him a pass. “It’s for the war effort,” she sighed, “we must all make sacrifices. Mr. Warner told me it would be grand press to wear it.”

She’d never spoken to Mr. Warner about much else but weather and her tits, but growing ever more desperate as these days went on, Lana thought perhaps she’d pay him a visit.

“Great press?” Vincent seethed, charmingly one track focused, “The press should be about our engagement! Not the war!”

“Be a realest, dahling,” she soothed, “nothing, not even the great scion of a prestigious family such as yours is half as fascinating right now as ball bearings and top turret production in Greenfield. If we want them to print about our engagement, it’s got to have something to do with the general war, see?“

“Ah, ah I see.” Vincent swallowed her lie well enough, still perturbed at the fracturing of his beloved media attention but consoled that Lana was not aspiring to make him a fool.

Oh how foolish that was of him, Lana hummed to herself as they pulled up to the restaurant, perhaps not tonight or in a week's time. No, for now she was down and out and no doubt about it, but eventually, she’d scramble on top, she had to or she’d be offed eventually by it all. She knew that now, it was plain with each aching step on wobbly legs and each smile of her crimped, anemic face, Vincent’s pliable hand more vice than support on her elbow as she stepped out under Chasens’ green awning.

There was conversation and photographs all through dinner, her agent and a Warner Brothers executive kindly gracing the table with heavy, stilted and very implied conversation. Lana might’ve breathed better in her booth had they held an actual gun to her head and told her to finish her parsnips that way. They were very happy she had recovered from the tonsillitis so well, they were very eager to see her on set bright and early tomorrow, they were very eager that any doubt about how in love she was with the respectable Vincent be ameliorated -a very big word to say with a mouthful of steak- and very hopeful that Lana wouldn’t get any ideas about a repeat of the War Bond tour. Yes the last one had been very effective and the government was pleased, but too much exposure to common crowds had a tendency to lessen the goddess effect, she must be let out to the pubic sparingly, and they in turn must not feel entitled to her in any way.

Such as…reaching out through the post, for example, much less expecting to be answered with anything less standardized than what Bertha might write twenty times over in her name in an afternoon.

“I just want to do my part.” Lana demurred.

“Oh honey, you’ve done your part, and now you’ve got a new part. Make a wish.” And there before her was brought out a cake slice with much fanfare, icing making a pretty little drizzle of words -“speedy recovery Lana, love from everyone at Warner Brothers Studio.”

She’d seen actresses carried out plastered to the four winds on sedative from slices just like this one, chivalrously poured into a waiting backseat of a producer or studio head, taken back to be put to bed. God knows what else happened in those beds. Her nausea returned fourfold and it wasn’t acting when she gasped a need to go to the powder room.

Instead she dashed to the phone, the one in the cubby near the toilets, trying resolutely to ignore the spying eyes of waiters and curious waves of famous guests passing by.

“Pick up, Herb, pick up.” she begged, listening to it ring and ring, then suddenly felt a horrid fear at the realization she’d left the jacket slung over her chair at the booth, with Vincent. “Herb please, please.” she moaned, stomping one well shod foot against the marble floor.

“Hallo?”

“Herb, oh Herb!” Lana gushed urgently on hearing him pick up, “You must come pick me up, they’re onto me with the letters and they’ve brought out cake and- bring a car, Vincent brought his father’s-“

“-Thank yeeew, Herbert, that will be all.” Mother’s affected transatlantic sent shivers down Lana’s spine right as she felt the cold clasp of her rings around her wrist, receiver wrenched effectively from her nerveless hand, “This is a family matter, your services are not required.”

“Mommy dearest.” Lana felt her lips trembling in a odd way that fought against the creeping numbness, “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Would that I could say the same, Lana.” Mother reproved, “To abandon your fiancé without thought? And to find you calling on Herbert, like this were some otiresome fundraiser from which you may carelessly abscond -really. Your behavior is nothing but deplorable lately, I hardly know you. The cost, Lana, think of the cost of it all, this recklessness.”

“Who told you?”

“That you weren’t appreciative of the cake?” Mother smiled shyly, “Alfonso.”

The owner, of course, when he couldn’t get a hand up Lana herself he had become quite partial to mother, loyal to an opulent degree. She suspected that cake more than ever, the phone, too. God there was no getting out of this town, this place, this life.

“Alfonso says you’re distracted,” mother went on, “pale and sniffing some jacket? What has gotten into you?”

“Vincent.” Lana joked miserably and if half of Hollywood wasn’t sat so near, she’s rather sure her mother might’ve struck her.

“You’re going to go back out there, and you’re going to smile for the pictures, and you’re going to like it.” Mother laid out the case, the plan and the rest of her life, “And when we go home you’ll be getting a piece of my mind.”

“Oh really mother,” Lana sighed heavily, “I couldn’t take the last piece.”

The pinch on her arm was familiar of when Lana was a child and refused to sing in yet another talent show - the fifth that weekend. “Your fault for falling ill, now we must make up for lost time.” they were gliding back to the table arm in arm with Lana’s pale skin pinched between mother’s manicure, “Smile, darling, smile and wave.” as they wove between one starry guest and another.

Mother’s gait stalled for one fraction of a moment upon coming up to the table and seeing the bizarre article of clothing hanging over Lana’s chair. “Works better than a mink.” Lana proclaimed quite loudly, giddy enough to attract most male attention around who craned their necks to watch her shimmy it on for a try-on, much to Mother’s feigned amusement. She shimmied in the fleece, chiffon doing little to hide the jiggle of her derrière beneath the jacket’s hem and the flash of a bulb cracked significantly amongst the dinner chatter.

“It’s much too large for you -the sleeves, the shoulders-“

“That’s because it’s a genuine article mother!” Lana preened, satisfied to have caught the eye of the one she wanted as he sat in his booth.

Powerful and dark and lecherous, The Jack Huston stared at her unabashedly over the haze of his cigarette, his own date forgotten, taking in the way the man’s coat dwarfed her little body in a pantomime of covering her physically, masculine leather and zipper in stark contrast to baby soft skin swelling out of her neckline. She knew that look well, one of a man sizing her up for how she’d look beneath him.

Lana smirked at him significantly, squeezing the material around her dreamily and created a significantly more substantial amount of decollage for him to view upon doing so. “Lana, sit down for god’s sake.” Mother was hissing and Lana saw Huston laugh at it, she rolled her eyes and dramatically shrugged, seating herself as asked but refusing to break eye contact with him until he raised his glass in a toast to her brazenness.

“Lana, photographers! Come now! Chin up, smile, smile darling.”

There were so many flashbulbs here it was obnoxious to not only Lana’s throbbing eyes but the other patrons, still a hard launch of a stilted, lab grown relationship was hardly an oddity in Hollywood or its most favored eating spots, and so it was endured.

“Doll, open up,” Vincent cajoled in Lana’s ear, hand kneading her waist and nose pressed to her hair, “practice for the wedding.”

It looked quite humorous if a little uncouth in the papers next day, Lana’s gasping and amused indulgence of her green boy fiancé as he playfully stuffed her mouth with cake in that pitiful tradition of marital provocation.

“Look at my dearest daughter, tonsil surgery yesterday and already, so eager, can’t be kept from dinner with her darling fiancé!”

The world grew fuzzy as Lana did her best to keep the wad of cake in her gums until she could spit the most of it out. “Tell your studio i want compensation for having to share press with the war effort.” Vin was complaining to the executive and Lana felt her world swim, only one single, dire hope remaining -Herb.

She gripped the edges of the jacket tighter and tried to focus. Mother was being called away, taking her leave with a photographed kiss to Lana’s clammy temple -some business with Aunt Lu and that promised check for her swimming pool. Lana had put in a lot of swimming pools for a lot of relatives, she was beginning to lose track between the pools and the houses and the cars and the wardrobes and always -“it’s family, Lana, they depend on you. Chin up, smile, smile darling, smile for the cameras, there’s my golden girl, box office magic.”

“Lana it’s very important you understand the role of an engaged woman-“ the executive was very insistent and Lana was very tired and very fuzzy feeling, which apparently Vincent could sense as his hands began to grow courageous in his petting, “-it’s a fine balance between respectability and attainability. The studio has worked so hard to give you this life, made enormous sacrifices so you could have a chance at this career, created an expertly crafted persona for you -if you were to jeopardize it all in any way, by inviting speculation about yourself or your lackluster roots-“

Lana was about ready to stand up and scream “I’m Julie Jean Turner from Broken Arrow Oklahoma!” and watch the deflated disinterest cover her audience like snow, it would ruin the effect -she wanted them to care that her life was a lie, but as soon as she told the truth, they’d lose all interest either way. Fame was funny like that.

“Mr Vincent,” Alfonso was most solicitous as well as perispring when he hurried over to her fiancé’s side, “there’s been an incident, your car, sir! The windows, they are smashed! And there appear to be eggs?”

Lana wasn’t sure she successfully suppressed the bubbling little laugh that flitted out of her leaden chest at Vincent’s deathly white pallor. There were two of him in her fractured, drug impaired vision and he acted like looney twins, scrambling up from the table in a flurry of hands and pomade, tux tails flapping like a frightened bird. “It’s my father’s car you idiot! Where was the doorman? Where?”

“Ooooh daddy’s gonna be mad.” Lana cooed to herself, amused at how this failure of a son couldn’t land a deal or a car or his own, only a troublesome actress who was in dire love with a man she’d never met.

Dear Herb, the eggs were such a nice touch.

The executive was waving off the cameras, this part of the night hardly suitable to be recorded. “Stewart, phone call for you.” A commanding, sonorous voice beside her sent goose flesh popping along Lana’s arms beneath the jacket, Jack Huston and his cologne suddenly pervading the place like an ominous deity casting its shadow over the now almost empty table.

“Mr. Huston.” Lana simpered sweetly when Stewart had left and it was just them alone with his hand on the back of her chair, thumbing at the lamb skin. There were two of Huston too, in her vision, and Lana gulped in trepidation of having to please both.

“Miss Tierney,” he replied, grinning a little too wide for her to focus, “you know what you look like you need?”

“What’s that, Mr. Huston?”

“Call me Jack.”

“What’s that Jack?” she tittered, happily courting ruin.

“A nightcap.” Jack declared and was extending a large palm for her before she could second guess. It was the choice of a lion over a wolf here in Hollywood, and Lana had such plans for Mr. Huston. But, like most things, Lana’s plans must wait until Mr. Huston’s plans for her had been satisfactorily met.

Of all the backseats to be poured into in Hollywood, Huston’s was rather plush and smelled nice and had a clinking little bar in the console, well stocked and vintage. Better yet, the car wasn’t his father’s, it was his. As was his mind and his time and his appetite. Lana could only dream of having that sort of brash freedom, for now she must attach herself to those who did if she so much as wanted a taste.

“So what’s with the jacket?” Mr. Huston had the liberty to be casual on a ride back to his house with a much desired starlet, after all, he had a slam dunk assurance she wasn’t going to say no on arrival.

“It belongs to a man who loves me.” she slurred earnestly.

“Pilot?”

“Yes. He writes the sweetest, filthiest things.”

“To you?”

“Only to me.” she whispered with drunken vehemence.

“I bet he does.” Huston laughed.

Mr. Huston enjoyed ribbons: tying them around her, to be specific but of all the novel and varied ways to be satisfactory it wasn’t so bad, and when he lay next to her afterwards as the drug began to take her fully under, Lana was pleased by the heavy arm around her waist. He didn't care about the tonsillitis. Bucky’s jacket hung carefully over the armchair in her line of sight, Jack had been nice about that, too.

Yes she could make some use of Huston and his ribbons and his new army uniform and his government contracts.

————————————————-

“I was insensible.” Lana maintained the following day at a meeting with Mother and Stewart and a slew of concerned agents and executives who were pleased enough by the engaged cake smashing photographs, less so by the discreet vandalizing of their blonde product by John Huston. “I don’t know what you put in that cake but it did the trick and I was as aghast as you upon waking up where I woke up.”

“And the jacket?” Mother had her priorities straight, troublesome memorabilia first, dear daughter’s virtue second.

“Shoot, I think Huston has it.” Lana whimpered, “I was in such a state, such a rush to leave-“

“Well that was a very unfortunate oversight, Lana.”

“I know.”

“He could use it against us.” Mother fretted.

“He’d make a fool of himself if he did,” Stewart shined best when full of his self-bloated importance and meetings such as these were essential fuel for that importance, “it would look like he took a pilot to bed.”

“Stewart, she’s all over the nation’s morning paper’s wearing the horrid thing!” Mother snapped and while she herself was admittedly awful most times, Lana never doubted she was shrewd, far more than Stewart and all the men in the room she jockeyed for lead with. “In fact Lana, this has really brought to a head a growing issue. Your restlessness, your ingratitude, it’s become insufferable and now it jeparadizes everything. I am speaking of the coat but also of the letters. Oh yes, I know all about those.”

A wise performance required Lana to play the frightened and shocked little miscreant and so she did, wide doe eyes looking beseechingly penitent and horrified in the face of having been caught doing a single independent thing. “Oh mother-“

“They are bad enough with their filth and their familiarity,” mother cut her off, “but to have written to him in your old name! Lana, the carelessness! It’s a mercy he’s dead, think of the presumptuous attitude he would have adopted had he returned. Unthinkable!”

“Dead?” Lana felt her throat close up, wishing desperately to be back in his jacket again, regretting most harshly her high-priced scheming of last night. All of it had been for him, and he was dead.

“Quite dead.” Mother was irritated by her crestfallen state but not so much as to prevent her crowing over little Lana’s misstep. “And now I am burdened with the necessity of tracking down his effects, getting your side of the correspondence back, think of the unpleasantness of contacting his family! Conversations with dead servicemen's families are always so tedious. You do recall what a bore it was for me to have to carry-on with them on your tour. And all of this to get back your filthy, perverse break of discretion.”

“Were they to get out they’d ruin your reputation.” Stewart put in the obvious, “They’d reveal your plain and common upbringing, your drab name and worse, you would be known to be a horny, hungry young woman.”

Lana stared at him across from his desk, that adrift feeling of aloneness taking over her, such as she’d only felt a few times in her life, like when her mother left her on her first studio couch for an audition, despite her pleas to stay. “Yes,” she agreed faintly, “it would be a terrible thing for an object of desire to appear willing. Or wanting, at all capable of their own needs. It would really ruin the shine of it all, I see.”

“Lana!”

“Oh mother, really, pimped out all my life -all for it to be ruined by the suggestion I might like it!”

“It’s worse than all that.” Stewart insisted gravely, immune to female objections and tantrums, “I’ve been contacted this morning by one of the branches of our government dealing with espionage and information,” -no wonder he was feeling so very important today- “and they’re concerned that the German Air Force is aware of your correspondence with Major Agen-“

“It’s Egan, actually.”

“-Agen and a tapped phone call as well, they have concerns, Lana, about the Germans using this connection as leverage on him, now they have him in their camps, under their thumb, at their mercy.”

Lana’s fractured world slid together again like a suctioned mosaic, one focal point of reason being clear. “He’s a prisoner of war.” she knew just the right inquisitive tone to encourage Stewart to keep blabbing.

“Yes.” Stewart was very grave and very important about being privy to this information, and Mother let out a fuming little cluck of her tongue at his fumble.

“So, he’s a prisoner.” she smirked triumphantly at Mother and was not corrected for once. “Not dead.”

“Good as dead.” Mother clarified.

Lana still smiled, she could work with “good as.”

———————————————-

“Jack?” Lana had timed her delicate attack most carefully, waiting until Huston was relaxed but not asleep, dressing but not in a hurry, happy but not restless, and most importantly, not remotely tired of her.

“What doll?” Jack had a broad back and nice hands, sometimes Lana imagined they were rather like Egan’s, or maybe that’s what she told herself to keep the tears at bay long enough for each amorous performance to conclude, “Your mother bitchin’ about me again?”

“Well,” she shied away into the bedding, “to be honest, yes.”

“Little rebel.” he praised her on his way to sling on his suspenders, apparently he was going out tonight, she felt a clench of panic in her gut at the need to throw her pitch before he left or hushed her.

“Jack I’ve been thinking.” She began again.

“Not what you’re payed for, doll.”

“No, true.” Lana was used to laughing at that same joke told by a couple dozen different men, “But is that skit competition still on? The one for the CBS slot?”

“Yeah, few more days left, why?”

“Anything promising yet?” Lana ventured carefully, Jack was so very busy with all these government contracts for documentaries and proganada shows, and ever since then he’d had a very short fuse, fussy over his stalled artistic dreams. Not that he didn’t care about the war, he did in fact, and that’s why Lana liked him if she liked him at all. But he liked it the way a movie maker does, he wanted to tell stories and he wanted to be somebody important, and if he wasn’t going to be shot at he damn sure would be known to hang about the guys who were.

He was off to the Pacific to film some Marines mucking about on some godforsaken Atoll in a month or more. She had to make her move.

In the meantime, he was to organize a broadcast. Lana bad learned that from the grapevine at Warner’s, Betty D. dropping as much over her three carrots at lunch.

“I was wondering why we haven’t got ourselves an anecdote to Axis Sally.” Lana chose to be blunt, Jack was different from other men, he liked her babified act as much as the next man, but he’d belted her too for ‘playing dumb’. Since then she’d said her mind, as much as she dared and he called her idiotic often, but she’d not been belted again. “Our boys keep listening to that trash, and the housewives too, just to hear reports on the missing and the prisoners.”

“They listen ‘cause she’s sexy and funny.” Jack informed her with a pointed look.

“That too.” Lana contemplated the sheets before her, “But can’t we be funny and sexy too? Instead of demoralizing we could be happy! And we’d not have reports on prisoners but we could give them clues and hope, in case anyone's listening in.”

“Listening in.” Jack had stopped his halfhearted listening to her, wheeling suddenly with cuff links partway hanging, “You mean in camps?”

“Camps. Resistance. Wherever.”

“They don’t let them have radios, ya know.” Huston pointed out, but it wasn’t said in argument, he was pondering too.

“You know they still manage.” Lana smiled softly and he smiled back.

“Ok, what’s the pitch?” He sighed and sat himself down again on the side of the bed, evening plans abandoned for the moment.

Lana’s heart swelled with hope and the delicious feeling of being taken seriously. Even if she was lying in his bed with hair a mess and dignity mighty rumpled. “Perhaps we could tack onto Fred Allen’s spot? Hasn’t he got a vacancy? A variety show? A skit? I don’t know, but we could have repeat actors and we could have guest stars. And it could- it could be a girl-“

“-Allied Sally.” Huston joked and Lana genuinely snickered at that.

“Something like that.” She agreed, chagrined at the need for a catchy, corney radio name, “And she could be waiting for her sweetheart, sending him messages and well wishes and jokes and -Oh! The score! The scores on everything! Baseball! Jack!”

“Calm down, calm down, it’s decent.” Jack hushed her, waving her giddy self back down as she warmed to her topic, “And you could be her.” he stated the obvious.

“Don’t you think I’d manage it well?” She cajoled, cocking her shoulder in her best pantomime of a coquette. “Aren’t I funny and sexy, Mr. Huston?”

“Hmph,” he scratched his cheek and stared at her as if summing up the likelihood of this working, “needs another angle. Beyond skits.”

“Alright. Like what?”

Huston secured his cuff links, smile broadening as his mind began to whirl, “Letters.” he stated and Lana’s heart froze, “Love letters, we gotta keep it sexy, you said so yourself. There’s nothing so funny as a redacted letter being read out over the censors. The constant beeps alone will get laughs, give it the right inflection in between and you’ll have a game on your hands with the listeners guessing and filling in.”

“Letters.” Lana mumbled in agreement, numb at the brilliance of it and filled with horror at the idea of monetizing what John Egan had given her -connection, love, devotion, grit, humor. But this broadcast, it might be the only way to keep in any sort of contact with him. At what cost? Would he care at all for her after it? Would he think she used him up for a little business inspiration? Oh she couldn’t bear it, yet worse, she couldn’t bear life as Vincent’s wife, locked in for another ten years at Warner’s under mother’s thumb. “It’s brilliant.”

“Almost uncanny how likely a story it is.” Huston grunted as he pulled on a shoe, sending her a sly look that broke her a heart a little more, “Nothing so powerful as a tale based on a real thing, Lana.” he reminded forcefully.

The letters, the blackmail her mother hung over her, all of it dealt with if this pitch became a reality. It would all fade into a myth. And with it all the realness John had brought her. “Yes, I said -it’s brilliant.”

“Yeah, well, easy does it for now.” He cautioned, “Gotta sort your mother and let that contract expire gently. I’ll pitch it myself. See what CBS can wrangle up. Don’t get your hopes up and keep that jacket safe, it’ll be invaluable when we get you a storyline for it.”

“Right.”

“Well go on, tell mommy dearest.” he goaded, nodding to the phone.

“Oh they wouldn’t be approving.” Lana disagreed, referring to the whole pack of them, her mother and her lawyers and her agents.

“Why not? Sounds like great business. Solves all the scandal too.”

“Something like this part-“ Lana demurred, “-wouldn’t suit my image, mother says.”

Jack barked out a rough laugh, plopped back down on the bed and tugging the sheets from her clutches. “Your mother does realize you’re walking wank material, right? That’s your image.”

“Yes,” Lana sighed, “but…unwilling, she says. That’s the crucial part.”

“Oh. Yeah, well,” Jack eyed her up, “you do make a great impression of a scared lamb in bed.”

“They’re concerned it’ll make me too independent. Like the War Bond tour,” she gave a wistful smile, “I kissed so many boys my lips swelled right up. It was grand.”

“Now Lana,” Huston cautioned, “I’m not on any crusade to liberate you, myself.”

“Oh I know!” She was quick to assure, ever the obliging little lady, “And I don’t want to be. Not from you or the studio-“

“-just from mother dearest?” he nodded knowingly, not knowing the half of it.

“Yes.” she pretended great relief at his perception.

“Huh, well, good. Because this idea would have a contract of its own, and it would be long if I’m any judge of the longevity of the project. You’ll be locked in for years.”

“But it’ll be my choice.” She reaffirmed, and this time she meant it.

“And you’ll look willing.” Jack grinned and she grinned back, compulsively like a child mimicking their threat. “Might take some practice though, to make you look willing. Get over here, doll.”

———————————————-

Major Gale Cleven was appreciative of the dangers of listening to the radio in camp, it was one of those necessary and crucial risks that required responsible stewardship and utmost care. It wasn’t a flippant pastime and it wasn’t a recreation, but then again, neither was it strictly business. Like much of their lives as prisoners of war, he and his fellow soldiers toed a strict line between honoring their captors’ jurisdictions while also thwarting their imposed restrictions at every possible juncture.

Sometimes one should listen to the radio because that is what free men did, and Gale Cleven tried by any means possible- letters, books, calculus or his frigid metal headset- to stay free in his mind, to comport himself with the same surety as his free counterpart.

Otherwise, you lived like a ghost in your own body. And that was no good for oneself or those around you. As everyone who shared a bunk and combine with John Egan was quickly learning. The immediate joy of reuniting with him, the fear of losing him to his wounds, the relief of his recovery, it had all leveled out at the end like a anticlimactic ride on a rollercoaster, skidding to a plateau where he was neither well enough to be exempt from Gale’s concern, nor ill enough to warrant the patience required to put up with his rabid moods. Always restless, being kept in the glamorized equivalent of a dog run was hardly fitting for his nature. It was hard on everyone, but Gale wasn’t such a relativist as to assume John Egan had it the same as everyone. Some folks required more miles and more sky to keep them sane, and Bucky was one of those.

It had tipped Gale into a habit that could no longer be qualified as strictly informative, nor could he defend it as necessary where he to get caught. It was undoubtedly poor stewardship to spend an extra half hour listening to the inane comedy of a BBC guest production. But he had started it to cheer Brady when Glenn Miller’s band was on, and it had done such good for him and Bucky as they crowded ‘round, that Gale had since stayed alert for any other such ‘triviality’ that might be of use.

If the Colonel walked in and demanded an explanation for this extra bit of carelessness, Cleven thought he might make a decent defense about waiting for Ed Murrow to come on, broadcasting for CBS from London, always with a decent take on what was happening in the war. The motivation of Murrow often having stars on his program was completely erroneous.

Or so Gale swore to himself for the tenth time as Demarco kept watch and he himself painstakingly tuned the dials and bent his ear to sort the static.

There was music and the typical overlap of voices for awhile until he honed it down, British and American accents floating in, obnoxiously layered all on top of each other still, yet this time intentional. He must’ve hit a variety show. He gave himself two minutes, that much he’d allow and if the thing he’d been waiting for in secret for months did not occur,

he’d move right on or pack up for the night.

“I’m not sure about no boy writing you letters!” a man’s voice crackled through, comedically irate.

The next voice was girlish, smooth despite the poor frequency and made the hair of Gale’s arms stand on end from universal male appreciation and a gut wrenching sense of recognition: “Well I don’t know any more about it, paw paw, except that he loves me and I love him!”

“Yeah?” -Gale thought perhaps that was Bob Hope’s voice, play acting as the fuming father figure, “Yeah, then tell me, dear daughter, what sorta fella calls the girl he loves: Acorn! Huh?”

Gale’s eyes bugged from his head, glassy and shocked and Crank rushed over in solidarity, terribly sure the whole continent of North America had just been reported as broken off into the sea. “What is it Buck?”

“Crank!” Gale croaked, “Go! Go get Egan, tell him his girl’s on the radio and to get his ass in here, goooo!”

“Egan’s got a girl?” Benny was bewildered.

“Acorn!” Brady and Gale yelled in unison.

“But that’s Lana Tierney.” Crank pointed over the spunk wall, or as it was called in more noble moments of higher aspiration, the Wall of Hopes and Dreams, where Lana and Rita smiled tantalizingly and warm from their crinkled posters, down on the men’s bunks.

“Yes, Acorn. Go!”

Gale held his breath and listened harder, trying to gauge how far into the sketch he had caught them, wishing them to linger, as if by sheer willpower alone he could make her stay on until Bucky got there.

Fuck -acorn? Why would she use that? She had to be out of her mind to dare a thing like that, had to be just to get his attention, right? Surely? Had to be out of her mind, Gale decided, which was just another diagnosis for love. And that gave him pause.

“What’s your feller anyway? He a squirrel?” Bob Hope was pressing the issue right as Bucky burst in with a flurry of flapping overcoat and steaming breath.

“Get in here, come on, get over here.” Gale stood up and pointed to his vacated seat, shoving Bucky down for good measure and crouching to press the headpiece to his ear, wanting to share it for some idiotic reason, as if like a parent he could cut the cord if something sad or risky came on.

“Maybe he is,” Lana was breathily defending, “and we’ll live happily ever after in our tree. And there’s nothing you or Jerry can do to stop us!”

“Shit.” Egan breathed out reverently like he’d been punched real and good and an epiphany on life was brewing beneath his shuttering smile. “Holy hell it -it is her. It’s acorn.”

“On a show called ‘Dear Acorn’, Bucky.” Brady chimed in, face as lit up for Egan’s current happiness as if it were his own.

“So what’re you twos gonna live on, huh?” Bob Hope crackled through “Love and nuts?”

“Oh well dunno, I do so love my nuts.” Lana rejoined.

“Jesus!” Gale pulled away from the headset like it had personally accosted him for a tumble in the sheets.

“Acorn.”

“Yeah paw paw?”

“You’re nuts.”

“About him I am.”

“Uhuh.”

“And there’s nothing you or Jerry can-“

“-can do about it, I know, acorn.”

“Pinky promise!” Lana chirped a couple thousand miles away, and John Egan obeyed her once more with a raised hand and a crooked finger.

That night at roll call they had something to whisper about, and for once it wasn’t half cooked schemes to climb the barbed wire or try smothering the commandant in his sleep. Instead Bucky was rocking back and forth joyfully on his heels in the bitter night air, trying hard to keep his grin in check as the spotlight swooped over, choosing the intermediate bits of darkness to nag Gale for any bits he’d missed.

“I sent for ya right away, Bucky.” Gale insisted in a gentle whisper out the side of his mouth, “They were just starting to joke about letters being written to an acorn.”

“Can you believe it?” Egan hissed, almost demented in his sudden good cheer, “She’s that proud of me, built a whole damn show on it. Fuck, it makes a man wanna fight a dozen wars.”

Gale eyed him up carefully, the inside of Bucky’s head a foreign place even to him, but if his friend was hopeful and generous enough not to mind his intellectual (or rather, lack of intellect) property being capitalized on for the war effort, then Gale wasn’t about to sow seeds of doubt. “She’s somethin’ else.” he agreed nebulously, and meant it, “Bombs Away Betty, huh?”

“Showing partiality to one branch of the armed services, Buck.” John was back to grinning, “She must’ve liked the jacket.”

Hope you enjoined, thank y’all for all the screams and thoughts you’ve sent through my asks, the comments and reblogs too, I treasure each.

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[jones-friend]

BG3 is an all-timer

Since 2017 I’ve been making more of an effort to play more games. Two have always sat at the top for me: Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Bloodborne. The first game to be added to these two since my Bloodborne fascination is Baldur’s Gate 3.

I’ll be sharing my thoughts and experiences on the game, spoilers will be below the cut.

Very few games conclude with me feeling like I’ve earned the adventure the game wants me to feel. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a whole ass adventure full of twists and turns, puzzles, combat, fantastic sound design, incredibly well written companions, a legendary soundtrack, and a full suite of antagonists to face off against. It is the widest game I’ve ever played with so many systems below the surface I stop seeing the inner workings of the clock and it appears to me as magic.

Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t do anything New per say, but what it does is incredible. Everything is bound together in story, everything becomes a piece of the whole and all of it works in concert in a way that enchants me unlike any game I’ve played before.

A playthru of Baldur’s Gate 3 is the hour equivalent of the entire Mass Effect trilogy.

We don’t get games like this often at all. They just don’t come around like this. If you have not played BG3 I cannot recommend it enough, it is incredible in every facet.

In my playthru of Baller’s Gate 3 I made Jones the pal-adin, oath of the ancients.

Dragonborn look so fucking good in this game. I romanced Karlach and was so taken by her personality that when we left to Avernus to fight together so she could live it brought me to tears.

All of the companions are top tier quality. All of them. I will say some have stronger storylines than others but all voice actors and writers are bringing their A games and I can recall incredible moments with all main six party members that endeared me to them:

Astarion: when I discovered his performative voice and his vulnerable voice and we held an entire intimate conversation in his vulnerable voice after all our companions went to sleep

Gale: when after all the game he approves of so many actions you take and is so quick to be your best friend/lover as you support him with his struggles with Mystra he triggers a Disapproves when you try to talk him out of ascending to godhood

Wyll: when after he declined to dance earlier in the game you catch him dancing about and he offers you to join, having a moonlit dance led by Wyll to an orchestra vers of the game’s main theme between just the two of you

Shadowheart: when I offered her to let her heart decide what was best with her parents and she chose to save them, shunning Shar’s teachings of Loss to excise Pain

Lae’zel: when after being saved from Orin in the Temple of Bhaal her demeanor shifted, using Faerûn customs to thank me and asking me “is something burdening you” whenever I talked to her in camp

Karlach: her anger over killing Gortash and how it fixes nothing for her, her pivot from I’ll never go back to Avernus to I want to live bc now she doesn’t have to go it alone 😭

What is incredible is the climax of each storyline of these characters hinges on your understanding of these characters and characters. If in 100hrs did you learn the people you travel with. And thats just the companions. Theres Halsin, Jaheira, and Minsc I was so entirely taken with. Then there’s NPC’s both allies and antagonists.

A lesson I learned from this game is make your antagonists HATE each other, this gives the players exploits that make the story thrilling. The antagonists in this game are incredible. Ketheric Thorm is my favorite of the chosen, when you ask him if he’s going to betray the other two chosen and he gives this resolved “Yes. Its going to happen. Everyone will die bc Myrkul is the only god who answered me. So I’ll be the best chosen he’s ever had”.

Orin and Gortash are excellent pinnacles of their deities and you’re given so many opportunities to interact with them beforehand letting you really get to know who you’re up against.

Raphael is also absolutely incredible. A devil in hell with the House of Hope who preys on the desperate offering contracts to be their savior while reaping all the benefits. Raphael, who watches your progress to let you get in over your head before striking with an incredibly juicy deal, and refusing to steal from him is an entire questline created from the player’s defiance and NOT from an NPC setting it up for you, AND his final fight has a disney villain song he sings. Holy shit is all the House of Hope stuff good.

But what really sets all the pieces of BG3 together is The Emperor. My roommate and I have had discussions for HOURS on his half truths and metered out information. When Ansur called me the Emperor’s thrall I FELT something. I felt played, betrayed by this character who reassured me they were my friend at all times bc I knew Ansur was RIGHT. I was being manipulated hardcore even if we had the same goals. This was NOT an even alliance. The emperor and his execution is one of the best characters I’ve ever seen in any video game.

And thats part of what BG3 does so well. Characters so rarely just spit out what they’re feeling. You have to listen and watch how they speak and interact with them as if they were a person. To me that’s the greatest triumph of BG3, I have to approach all the game’s characters like characters in a dnd session, like people. Its a really REALLY hard trick to pull.

Mechanically this game is a joy. The sound design is so chunky that all the actions and effects feel great to use. Respec’ing is easy and quick, and bc gear doesn’t upgrade you can respec and get back in the game instantly. It felt GOOD to deal 333 damage in the last round of combat with Huge Pal-adin Jones.

Btw, Elixir of the Colossus and the Growth effect on the giantslayer stack.

The fights are executed so well with multiple allies and enemies, casters in almost every combat, lots of uneven terrain and hazards, and not every combat is a “combat”. Many endgame scenarios caused me to sit back and say “oh? So we’re gonna cheat huh? I’ll show you cheating”.

Theres also bits I learned here I’ll be applying to dnd. The Blood of Lathander is a great example. Its a +3 weapon on a subpar weapon die, a +3 1d6 mace is just a more consistent +1 longsword. And its undead boons don’t do much if there’s no undead around. And its 6th lvl spell only gets cast once per long rest. Its a great weapon that makes the player feel overpowered against undead without breaking the game.

And thats just thoughts from running a custom character. I’m on Dark Urge and co op playthru and I love how the Durge playthru is just a cursed version of a custom character playthru.

I would be remiss to post my thoughts without mentioning The Bugs. This game has some major bugs that would have been a dealbreaker for me in a lesser game, but I’m willing to forgive BG3’s bugs bc of how much its trying to do. Some of them include:

Lae’zel T Posing on top of the altar she should be shackled to

The entire fireworks quest not working from guards always getting involved to fireball being thrown through two stories of wood floors and ceilings

The sound not working during the first final battle requiring a reload

Gale reprimanding me for taking a deal that had yet to be offered to me

Black boxes constantly flickering over Karlach’s campsite

There were more. And they did dampen my enjoyment of the later Act 3. However these are in the process of being fixed and with the game’s scale I’m willing to look past them. I will also say in its current state, 11/13/2023, the epilogue is far too short. Shadowheart didn’t even appear in mine. I’d at least like to know the fate of my main 6 party members, maybe more about the world after the ending. The ending is currently lacking for how well juiced the rest of the game is.

This is one of the best. Through and through. Its an experience thats left me changed, I truly feel I’ve gone on an adventure with my companions and we’ve gone through some intense trials and tribulations, faced down monsters and menaces, and played the big hero and saved the day. I cannot recommend the game enough, its a must play for anyone with capable hardware that can run it. Instead of a top two I now have a top three: Zelda Breath of the Wild, Bloodborne, and Baldur’s Gate 3.