#is this map supposed to be accurate to what is possible to real life? no lol

[zestyderg]

Whoa, a map of the location of the mer au!

The shallow half and deeper half are separated by a steep cliff, represented by the thick black line.

The coral reef is the most colorful biome, sporting a beautiful variety of coral, and is abundant in fish for pups to hunt. During the day it is relatively safe for pups, as long as they don't stick their hands where they can't see them. The eels here can deliver nasty bites, and mantis shrimp do not hesitate to take a swing at anyone who dares provoke them. At night though, the reef sharks come out to hunt. While individuals aren't likely to go after pups, packs certainly will, so best not to stick around when the sun goes down.

The seagrass meadow is open, vast, and as the name suggests, lush with seagrass. Large fish will occasionally visit this place to hunt, including sharks, so exhibit caution when exploring. Passing dewgongs and sea turtles are a rarer sight, coming to eat seagrass. They do not pose much of a threat to pups. Stingrays hide in the sand while seahorses hide in the vegetation. Scatterly spends his days eating away at the seagrass, much like the animal he mimics.

The kelp forest is like a labyrinth. It is dense with its signature kelp, filled with small fish to eat and many sea urchins that, if one can get past their defenses, make excellent snacks. This makes it alluring for mer pups to visit, but once inside it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate, and it is very easy to get lost. Best for pups to stay on the outskirts, so they don't lose their way. The shark trio often hunt on the outskirts of the forest, seeking out the seals and sea lions that feed here.

The mer nursery is a sandy clearing bordered by both the reef and the meadow, and as it is usually guarded by the shark trio, it is considered one the safest places for pups to live.

Beyond the reef is the dune spires. At first it seems desolate, with the sandy dunes sporting only sparse patches of coral and the occasional crustacean, but small fish and even squid congregate here, often using the massive rocks that jut out of the sand like towers as shelter from predators. It's dark, and the waters here are far colder. Sharks, whales, and giant squid frequent these areas to hunt, even though they put themselves at major risk by doing so. The dune spires are Joe's turf, and the massive leviathan is one of the most dangerous beings in the region. He is luckily kind and very gentle with pups, which makes him an excellent babysitter.

The bone fields is a hostile place, and pups should steer clear of it whenever possible. Visibility is low, the water is even colder here than in the dune spires, so cold that pups risk freezing to death if they they stay there for too long. Bones litter the whole area, of both animal and mer alike. This place isn't a total wasteland, though. Many scavengers thrive here, especially invertebrates like isopods, crabs, lobsters, many kinds of worms, and more. Sleeper sharks and octopuses are also common here. This place is Zongazonga's domain, and he rules with an iron fist. A behemoth of a kraken mer, he is known for his ruthlessness and cannibalistic tendencies. Any mer with a shred of self preservation avoids the bone fields and pups absolutely should never be allowed to venture here.

[lyculuscaelus]

Yes I may or may not have researched a lot on the possible route of Odysseus’s journey and made a map myself. But if you ask me how I feel abt this…let’s just say, personally I’m feeling like I’ve stridden too far.

The thing is, we’re associating real-world places with magical realms. While we can still find a lot of archaeological evidence for those mythological kingdoms (Ithaca, Pylos, Sparta, Troy/Wilusa…), it isn’t really the case for magical creatures like Sirens and Cyclopes. It’s not that I dislike reconstructing the associations—on the contrary, I respect all the work done by so many researchers so much. But now that I’ve tried to do something similar, and almost ended up using it for my own reference—let’s just say, I’m feeling a bit lost.

How much is too much when we’re dissecting a story?

I do believe the criteria differ for different people, so persuading any of you is not what I’m trying to do here. But for me personally? Yeah, it becomes too much when we’re asking mythology to line up with reality perfectly, when it’s actually not always the case. Not especially when it might end up being used for our own reference.

No. That is something I personally do not enjoy.

As much as I appreciate some people’s effort to make mythology stuff as realistic (to that specific area and era) as possible (and these works are so amazing indeed), I personally do not feel the same impulse. Yes, anachronisms might be annoying for some, but sometimes, we just have to recognize the fact that some of them are inevitable, not because we neglect the details, but just because we don’t know.

We just don’t have enough information to completely reconstruct the ancient society and culture, events, and even the life of those heroes (if they did, in fact, exist). And some of the little knowledge we get from the archaeological analysis is still under debate. It would be nearly impossible to picture the story with completely accurate settings. That is why anachronisms will emerge more or less.

And Homer knew. After around four centuries of chaos, Homer knew.

He may or may not be bad at western Mediterranean geography as some may argue, there is the observation that the Homeric epics are Panhellenic epics with a wide variety of audience, which means sometimes certain epichoric traditions have to give way to Homer’s vision of the events, whether or not he was aware of their existence. The idea that the avoidance of real-world associations is an intentional choice to avoid clashes of opinions based on local traditions has been thriving for a while too, and to some extent I do agree with those scholars. There’s another point in this: the Panhellenic settings are more familiar to Homer, and easier to work on, compared with local settings such as Italy, which was still relatively new to Greeks in Homer’s time.

So between reality and fantasy, Homer chose the latter for the Odyssey—at least for Odysseus’s Apologoi. Our hero was wandering on that part of the sea which was supposed to be the western Mediterranean Sea but not entirely, on islands which might be totally fictional, encountering monsters and gods that might not even exist in real life. Meanwhile, those more realistic journeys of Odysseus were rendered mere falsehoods, in those Cretan tales” he made up constantly.

Reality cannot keep Homer on its leash, not this time.

Sometimes, it’s better off letting your imagination fly.

[strangelittlestories]

In the Mutable World, at the apex of the Wars of the Real, two men met in the Crucible of All Things.

This place had not existed a few days earlier. It would not exist the next dawn. But - for a brief time only - this was the most important place in existence. This was the spot where any choices made would echo and ripple, transmuting the world to match its shape.

Did the two men meet there because it was so important? Or did the place become important because the two men would meet there? Who can say. All I can say is what happened:

The men approached the Crucible. One came from the east. One came from the north.

The one who approached from the east was an old soul. He did not look it; his face was youthful, his eyes bright, his smile as easy as a breeze carrying the first scent of spring. But if you were around him for any length of time, you would know it. Nothing he did in particular would give it away - his every gesture was welcoming, his every utterance thoughtful and light.

It was just a vibe. A sense that some part of this man had *seen some shit*.

The one who approached from the north was a goblin. Or, to put it more accurately, one of the fair folk. His was a history of great and beautiful and terrible things - all the joys of endless summer and all the power of sudden storms. This being of noble grace and glory, who could have chosen any form, just so happened to prefer a more feral form.

But you would know as soon as you saw his grin, that this was a creature who had crawled happily out of a thicket of thorns. Who had stepped, whole and fully formed, from a vine of ripe grapes.

Yes, it would be more accurate to call him fair. But it would be more truthful to call him *goblin*.

The two walked, at no great rush, towards the Crucible. One at a steady and even pace, one swaggering.

They came to the centre of this locus of possibility, where a world breaking under its own weight could be made whole or sundered entirely, and they regarded each other for a moment.

"I've come to make things better." Said the Old Soul.

Behind his words, you could feel a history - of strange sights seen and weary roads travelled. Here was a person who had travelled the changing lands and had decided to stay in them. To stop, where he could, and to linger a while and help. A person who saw places and people with needs, and realised in that moment that he was a person with ability. It was only natural that he would do what he could.

"I've come to make things *worse*." Said the Goblin.

And his words were alive with mischief and deep with fatigue. It is so very tiring, after all, to have a good time for such a *long time*. This was a being that knew wildness, knew madness, and knew ecstacy and found beauty and kindness in all of them. He had made it his life's endeavour to help others to do the same. He was a person who had seen all the forgotten corners of the new world and the old and had carefully mapped the fractures that shot through them - who had mapped the world in its breaking and raged against them as much as he loved them.

A moment followed where the air around them was stretched with tension, ready to snap. It was the kind of moment where only two things could happen:

One, they would kill each other. The heavy air would break with thunder and these two beings - these two men who carried a world's potential in their shadows - would wreck themselves against each other.

Or two … what *actually* happened.

The Old Soul looked the Goblin up and down and saw all there was to see, then bit his lip and carefully said:

"Well … I suppose we could do both. If you'd like."

The Goblin stared with goblet-wide eyes back and grinned his grin that was like a crack in the void.

"Yeah. That sounds good. Let's do it … together."

And the two men walked back out of that place of change and brought it back into the world, side by side. 

They made it better. They made it worse. It was beautiful.

[orphancookie69]

Nintendo Switch: NS Sports-Update!

What else is Fall for? Besides too many holidays, but for free game updates! One of the games to get an eagerly awaited update is Switch Sports! Your girl was uber excited when I first heard that Golf was being added to our list of sports! 

Here is my review of the game: https://www.tumblr.com/orphancookie69/683985491686817792/nintendo-switch-nstm-sports

My Thoughts On The Update: 

The game keeps in its “active gaming” theme with this addition. There are a lot of golf games out there, but I was excited for this as I felt it was going to have the best “virtual golf experience”. I kind of know how to golf, in real life. I am not great at it, but my dad made sure, despite me being a “girl” that I knew how all the sports worked. Based on my knowledge on how one is supposed to hold a club, it is very accurate. Generally, your upper body stays straight as it rotates right then left with intentional force/spin to get your ball to its part of the journey. Where I have not yet gotten the hang of is how it is reading my wrist turns. This would almost be easier with one of those plastic miniature golf clubs you put the remote in. But it is quite enjoyable. 

You know what is more exciting...I think basketball is coming up next as the next possible free update for this game? How do I know? The map was extended to add the golf, and below it is a new section with a basketball looking symbol. I have a feeling it will be one of the more complicated games, like Volleyball, but it could be good. I think that will be one of the first new games to come to this version that was not in a previous version of this game. Excited! Let me know how you like the golf! 

[voteoakes]

"hey, man." this is the best, i'm sure many would agree, of knee-jerk reactions to the sudden presence of a pink-buzz that dom could manage. fifitz, true to form, announces his presence in many ways at once. the scrape of plastic wheel on rough concrete, the faint blare of music that floods from his headphones, the nickname— “wait, what did you call me?”

dominic is a strong believer in an offense routine. a regular sleeps schedule, an accurate water intake, navigating without a map whenever possible to keep his brain's grey matter... soft, or whatever it's supposed to be. in reality, today's daily run and nyt puzzle have a snowball's chance in hell at keeping him alive long enough to see him greying and finally out of the public eye, but a man can dream. that’s what fitz has caught him in, a contemplation of what the fuck do referee and candy cane have in common?, and thus understandably, eager to exit.

“fuck an açaí bowl, i think i’d settle for like, a sole sprig of broccoli. he’s definitely broken the world-record for most orange dye consumed without contracting real-life scurvy.” dom is contemplative a moment, looking between the silvery glitter on his own skin to fitz's flawless looking complexion, before he's leaning in, mouth agape for the gummy a la worm to be deposited into. "i worried he was gonna give our dorm room ants for like, years. i'd say we could do dinner, but... shit, scale of one to ten, how much you think asking him out on a double date'll make him break out in hives? worth the risk?"

@voteoakes

although skating started out as a vanity hobby, a way for fitz to entice the baddies with the whole he was a skater boy vibe, it quickly turned into one of fitz’s fool-proof stress managers. not academic stress, of course (fitz didn’t believe in all that), but the kind of stress that comes along with losing a brother or, in light of recent events, a professor with whom you shared a complicated relationship. he weaves across campus, skirting against bannisters and curbs when the opportunity strikes, his 5-grand headphones blasting tunes all the while. i like them girls with big butts and golds in they mouth / i come from the back road and a dirty house. admittedly, it was hard to relate to certain hip-hop lyrics as a billionaire’s baby.

at the sight of dominic sitting on a nearby block, fitz slows his swerves until he’s at a halt in front of the other man. “yo domma momma, what’s popping?” he asks. “you’re looking awfully contemplative, something gotcha down? besides, you know…” he trails off. “the obvious.” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out whatever snack is lingering in there, which happens to be a pack of sour gummy worms today. “can i offer you a gummy a la worm for your troubles?” before he gets a response, he dangles three over his mouth and drops them unceremoniously. “i nabbed them from chan the man’s kitchen,” he says between undignified chomps. he follows it with a chaser of a water bottle squirt straight down his throat. “have you ever seen him eat a protein source? or like, a fruit? he knows everything except the essentials of the food pyramid - somebody needs to get boy genius an acai bowl intervention, stat.”

[euphoricfilter]

Aliferous (Part 1)

Dreamcatcher

Destination one of the ‘Map of the Soul’ series

Paring: Jung Hoseok x reader (ft. the tannies)

Genre: puppeteer au || fantasy au || isekai || fluff || angst || strangers to lovers || non-idol au ||

Summary: It's funny, how the thing that's supposed to ward away bad dreams was suddenly a reminder of the possible nightmare you were thrusted into.

Word count: 3.7k

Tags/ warnings: nothing much happens worth warning about

Notes: remember comments and feedback is always welcome!!

my full masterlist || map of the soul series m.list || aliferous m.list

+++

You’d always been an avid dreamer. It was easy to get lost in the wonderous world of your own mind, easy to slip into a blissful state with the made-up scenarios your mind conjures up in the dead of the night. The dark corners of your mind a safe place where even your wildest fantasies could run free. And no one but yourself could judge you for your dreams, a secret guilty pleasure that you will take to your grave. Burned with your body if cremated, or would decay as you do six-feet under.

There’s something cathartic about laying in silence, the special moment where you’re teetering on the line between deep sleep and barely there-consciousness. (Bonus points if the pillow is cold against your cheek and the blanket is feeling extra soft and cosy that night.) The state so blissful that even the smallest of disturbances is enough to ruin the mood; a rouge pet asking for attention or your blaring alarm that reminds you of the real world, your real life that isn’t as perfect as your dreams mould it out to be.

You’d heard your fair share of dreams, people on the internet weren’t exactly that modest when they posted things online these days, and arguably the dreams you had were tame compared to some of the things you’d heard. Cutesy dates with a good-looking celebrity, choppy scenarios that make no sense but somehow did in your mind, and do you get frustrated when your brain skips all the good bits? Definitely. You hadn’t spent 6 nights dreaming about the build-up to kissing the barista that works at a café you regular with your friends, for you to skip the actual kissing part!

And that’s why you were currently a little confused how your dreams had changed from detail-lacked scenarios to this extremely vivid image of a mosaic on the ceiling. It was more welcome than the white walls of your bedroom, but even then, you had no idea how your brain had formed it.

You never really had an eye for art, you could appreciate a painting if told to but when asked to make a masterpiece with your own two hands, that’s where it all goes downhill. You try to think back to the last week, hoping you’d remember the mesmerising mosaic on the ceiling, fully convinced your mind hadn’t just produced something that could rival every well-known 16th century art piece. But nothing.

You’d spent the last week flicking between YouTube videos and social media posts on anything and everything that wasn’t remotely artistic. Although some may argue the 30 second videos on a certain music note app, were people’s artistic expressions of life; some you believed used it for their own free therapy though. But then again, some of the best artists had never been the sanest…

Maybe this meant something, a subliminal message weaving into your own realm; unfortunately, you weren’t familiar with many symbolic meanings so what looked to be 6 or so angels heading into battle against a black-ish grey looking sludge was beyond you. Unlike the biblically accurate depiction of what angels were; deformed looking beings, these were the stereotypical kind, with pure white wings that sprouted from their back and faces that could rival a modern-day model’s.

The mosaic was fairly monotone aside from the stark red scars that ran along the right side of the angels’ faces. Battle scars you guessed; if the long spears they held and ominous looking sludge was anything to go by.

Goosebumps prickle at the skin of your arms when the curtains surrounding the bed you lay on move in tandem with the gust of wind; the fabric sheer, whimsical in a way you could only assume was expensive.

You push yourself to sit up on the bed, eyes wide as realisation hits you full force.

The cold breeze felt oddly real for a dream.

Your fingers skim over the silk fabric of the blankets your lay under, and you wonder how your sense of touch was so vivid; you’d never had a dream that had felt this real.

Dreams always had that underlying fictitious quality; the small sane part of your mind reminding you that none of what you were dreaming about was real; you weren’t on a cute picnic with Hollywood’s newest star nor had you ever—or will ever—kiss the cute girl from the coffee shop (you’re pretty sure she has a boyfriend). But this all felt a little too real, a little too lifelike to be a dream.

Never one to lucid dream, you could only guess this is what it felt like; too coherent to be so deep in sleep, experiencing what could be the real world, except you’d woken up in a completely different place than when you had fallen asleep.

You don’t have time to ponder on whether you remember falling asleep or not when you hear what you can only assume to be the bedroom door click open.

You hold your breath, hand flying to cover the shriek of surprise that was sure to slip off your tongue as you eye the figure through the sheer netting surrounding the bed. Their footsteps are light as they saunter towards the where you’re sat, you feel your eyes brim with tears when you realise there’s nothing on the bed that could help you defend yourself. And you want to curse you from the past for not agreeing to those self-defence classes your friend wanted to sign up for.

It’s as the mysterious figure’s fingers take a strong hold of the sheer curtains you realise if this is a dream you can’t die. You don’t have time to calm the loud beating of your heart as they pull back the curtains.

You think you feel your jaw drop at the face that is revealed, the boy’s eyebrows furrow in worry as he looks at you.

You have to remind yourself to breathe as you watch his lips move, but the loud thumping of your heart in your ears seems to block out everything he was saying.

“I’m sorry what?” you exhale, fingers coming wipe your chin; worried you’d drooled at how pretty the man before you were.

“I asked if you were okay, Ms. Angel?” he asks, and you swallow thickly.

Angel? If anything, the man stood before you were the angel, with such a silky voice and that face—

“I’m happy to hear you like my face Ms. Angel. But I am a mere mortal”

Oh, had you said that out loud?

You feel the heat of embarrassment fizzle up your body, cheeks flushing. You wanted the world to swallow you whole, unfortunately you just sit there watching the very pretty man before you, a wide grin on his perfect face; eyes reminding you of little moons as he brings a hand to his mouth to stifle a laugh that seemed to be bubbling up his throat.

Your palms clap over your heated cheeks, the rapid beating of your heart feeling a little too real for this to be just a dream. If you knew any better, you’d believe you were mere moments away from going into cardiac arrest and it didn’t help that the man stood before you had made your heart swoon within the first minute of meeting.

“Are you a sleep paralysis demon?” you have the gall to ask, forgetting you hadn’t even asked the man for his name. Still hauled up on the idea of this being your own fantasy realm.

You watch his smile fall, a prominent frown pulling at his lips. He looks at you with saddened eyes, and you just watch as he shakes his head. A sudden wave of guilt consuming your being; the poor man looking like a kicked puppy.

“You must be disoriented, surely an angel that has fallen from the sky would be able to discern a human from scum”

And you swallow thickly at the sheer disgust in his voice.

“Why do you keep calling me an angel?” you ask, tone laced with genuine confusion.

The stranger’s eyes flit behind you, and you turn to look at what he could be looking at only to see the headboard of the bed. Black woven dreamcatcher hung right above where you had been laying. And you think you feel your heart stop momentarily, but decide to ignore that the implications of that very object mean.

When you turn back towards the handsome stranger, his eyes train onto the right side of your face; his tongue slips from between his plush lips, wetting them slightly as an easy smile pulls onto his lips.

“It must have hurt when you fell from the sky, why don’t you bathe while a cook prepares a meal for you. Take all the time you need to adjust to your human body”

Your eyes narrow at the man, “Are you hitting on me?”

“Hitting on you?” you watch his eyebrows furrow, and you’re seconds away from laughing at him when you realise how confused he looks.

You lightly shake your head, “Don’t worry about it” you give him a tight-lipped smile.

“My name is Priest Jimin, by the way. I’ll be overseeing your stay as you aid our humble town”

“Aid your town?” you ask, feet sliding into the slippers Jimin gracefully places on the floor.

He hums, “That is why you were sent here, no? To help with the evil that has taken our town captive?”

You shake your head, mouth opening to deny; ready to explain that you’d probably be waking up soon, so you’d probably take a look around the town before your alarm jolted you awake. It wasn’t every day you were this coherent during a dream and you wanted to take advantage of the small escape you had while it lasted.

Jimin however, didn’t seem to care about what you had to say, his stubby fingers wrapping around your wrist. He pulls you to a tall wooden door adjacent to the bed.

“I had a few of the other priests run a bath for you, Ms. Angel. A subordinate of mine will be waiting outside of the room for when you are done; then we shall dine together”

You have no time to protest as Jimin pushes you into the marble bathroom, shutting the door before you can even utter a reply.

You scoff, fingers clasping the handle; that’s when you hear a familiar click of a lock. You push down on the handle, pulling and tugging at the door. You call out for Jimin, demanding that he unlocks the door, but you’re met with silence.

You catch sight of your reflection in a large mirror opposite the tub as you wander further into the large bathroom, your hands come to run over your face; noticing how prominent your eyebags looked. Your fingers fiddle with the silk nightgown, wondering if your mind was desperate enough to try and make you look rich, forgetting about your usual animal print pyjamas. All dreams you’d ever had you’d always worn clothes you were familiar with, the few pairs of clothes that you rotated weekly, too scared to venture out of your comfort zone and express yourself with more extravagant clothing. The silky nightdress wasn’t an unwelcomed sight, but you were slowly starting to believe this wasn’t just an elaborate dream. (The thought of someone changing you while unconscious was a little unsettling and the fact there was dreamcatcher hung above the bed wasn’t helping you with your denial)

It wasn’t every day you got a steaming hot bath, so you take advantage of the opportunity, even if this was possibly only a lousy dream. The water scalds your skin as you sink into the large tub, and you’re left to wonder once again how real this all felt. You can feel the steam caress your face, and the sensitive tips of your toes could easily make out the crevices between each slab of marble tile.

And the room had begun to steam up so much, you could feel the tell-tale signs of scalding-bath dizziness clouding your mind. Something you had experienced one too many times with your own shower.

You pick up a bottle of what you assume to be body wash, the clear jar giving you no indication of what could be in your hands. You struggle to unscrew the lid, fingers too wet to get a proper grip. When it finally does pop open, your nose scrunches up at the pungent floral smell. You decide to try your luck, the consistency of the liquid similar to that of a body wash.

+++

You stumble out of the bath, fingers pulling the plush towel off the ledge. You wrap it around your body, taking a moment to wipe the steam away from the mirror. You grimace at the red hue of your skin, and you wonder if Jimin expects you to leave the bathroom looking like this.

Its then you remember the son of a bitch had locked the door, and you hadn’t heard the click of the lock at all while bathing.

You pull the towel tighter around your body, tightly tucking it in so it wouldn’t fall down while you try to bust the door open.

You take a deep breath, fingers taking a hold of the handle. Making the mistake of not checking the door could have miraculously opened, you push down onto the handle, shoulder ramming into the wood. It easily falls open, sending you flying forwards, stumbling over a rug onto the ground.

You groan at the stinging of your cheek, no stranger to carpet burns, having spent your childhood wrestling with siblings. You push yourself to sit up, watching the steam puff out of the bathroom, wisping into thin air as it wanders into the main bedroom. You push yourself to stand up, rubbing at your sore cheek and the throbbing of your elbow.

The sight of an outfit laid out neatly on the bed catches your eye, you slowly wander towards the side of the bed, fingers pinching the flimsy material. The fact that it was in your size, underwear and all concerns you a little; but you push those worries to the back of your mind as a cold gust of wind nips at your bare legs from under the door.

Just as you’re about to turn towards the main bedroom door to find whoever Jimin had sent to get you, your eyes catch sight of a purple envelope sat neatly on the nightstand.

You don’t know if it’s addressed to you, the cover had no name. But it hadn’t been there when you’d woken up, you think you would have noticed such a striking purple from the corner of your eyes.

Delicately you pick it up and upon turning it around, your initials are neatly scrawled in one of the corners.

You pull it apart, the soft paper pleasing to the tips of your fingers as you place the envelope back onto the nightstand.

[Y/n!

I’m {redacted}, a guide of sorts. Though we must not meet face to face as it could interfere with {redacted}.

Welcome to Gardenia! Named after the flower, like most places in this world are- isn’t that cute!

We don’t have much time to discuss details, you have a meal to attend, and I have {redacted}. On the back of this letter, I’ve drawn a map; the map to your souls. All starred locations are where you’ve picked up a lost piece of your soul, and those circled are where the last 8 pieces remain. And unfortunately, I have no specific locations that could help you with this task.

I assume you have some knowledge of what a soul is, and I wish I could explain the extent of your crisis but that would mean a history lesson on the creation of souls and ah… I seem to be rambling a little. All you must know is that your time alive is limited if you don’t find each fragmented soul soon. From my understanding the people of Gardenia think you’ve been sent from the heavens to help them in a recent crisis. It’s up to you if you wish to help them, but please remember your main goal is to find your fragmented piece of soul. Everyone else is able to see the angelic qualities you possess as seen in the mosaic you had woken up to, however they won’t show up when looking in a mirror, nor can they be seen with your own eyes.

Gardenia is where your first piece of soul is, hidden within the town. The {redacted}… So please be alert of {redacted}. He isn’t who he claims to be; so be careful!!

I wish you luck, and any letters you receive from me must be kept secret otherwise we both face the consequences. If {redacted} were to know I was in town, helping you then I fear for both of our lives, your broken soul the least of our worries if he were to know.

Enjoy your meal!!

{redacted} <3]

You read over the letter again, flipping it over to see the map drawn out by the mysterious person. The illustration of what you know to be earth is the only place with a star sticker besides it, and as your eyes rake over each of the other… planets? you can only dread what the world has in store for you.

You find yourself strangely calm at the news, and now you have some insight to why Jimin had assumed you were an angel and understood why his eyes would often wander behind you, he wasn’t looking at the dreamcatcher, he was transfixed on the imaginary wings that had sprouted from your shoulder blades. What didn’t help was the warnings being censored, a chill running down your spine; and you wonder if it’s from the wind under the door again or the weird sense of dread that suddenly consumes your being.

You fold the paper up neatly, making sure its placed deep within your pocket with no chance of escaping. You didn’t care so much for the mystery person who had sent the letter, you feared more for yourself if whoever you were being warned about was to try anything nasty. The fear of not being able to die in your own dreams was suddenly flung out of the window, if you were really living, trapped in Gardenia with no idea of how to escape then you couldn’t risk your life being stripped from you so soon.

You shove the purple envelope under one of the pillows that are scattered on the bed, chewing your lip in thought as you eye the black dreamcatcher.

You shoot to stand up straight when a loud knock on the door echoes through the room.

“Yes?” you call out, hand coming to cover your heart, worried you’d been caught doing something wrong.

The door doesn’t open however, “I was wondering if you were reading for your meal, Ms. Angel?” a voice slivers under the door.

You take a deep breath, hands coming to slap your cheeks a few times before you saunter towards the bedroom door, opening it up. You come face to face with another extremely handsome man, and you wonder if everyone on this world is as good looking as Jimin is.

Your eyes widen when the man stood before you kneels at your feet, hand pressed to his heart as he introduces himself.

“I’m Jung Hoseok, Priest Park’s subordinate. It’s an honour to be in the presence of a hero.”

You don’t have the heart to tell Hoseok that you had no plans of helping the people of his town, if what you had read in the letter was correct then you had little to no time to care about what these towns people were facing. And as much as you would have loved to have been of service, the selfish part of yourself was more worried about your own life.

It’s not every day you wake up in an unfamiliar world, with nothing to your name; then being told you were going to die soon. A small part of you believed that maybe this was a prank, that as you followed Hoseok into the large dining room with Jimin sat at the end of the table, a few men with cameras would pop out from around the corner and laugh at how hard they’d gotten you.

But as you sit and eat your meal, Jimin explaining their town in immaculate detail, you slowly start to realise that no, this was really happening. Surely it was impossible for some stupid prank to write out such a detailed script, from the history of their culture to the meaning behind each meal set before you on the table, and Jimin made no slip-ups, no loopholes or misinformation being presented to you.

You had been flung into the lion’s den alone. For all you knew, whoever had written the letter could want you dead, but you swallow back that thought with another mouthful of dinner. Maybe it was being sat in an off looking church—familiar but so different all at once when compared to those back on earth—because you’d never been religious, never thought to pray to some higher being, but in that moment, you whisper into the darkness of your mind, that whoever had sent a letter was really on your side, that maybe, hopefully this was just a dream.

But the dreamcatcher hung above the bed looms in the back of your mind, a nauseating reminder that this was your new life, your old one stripped from you. You own world, now merely a dream that was out of reach. Because dreams stayed in the dream realm for a reason; they usually never came true. So now, you fear your old life is too hard to attain, just like all those times you’d snuggled up in bed—ready to live in a world so different from your real life, your real life had become nothing more than a wish.

And now you were possibly trapped inside a nightmare, no dreamcatcher there to ward away the bad dream turn reality.

[oatmilkovich]

i didn't ask for your thoughts on the football date, but i am so glad you wrote them 🥰 yesterday i listened to some podcast with edvin and he said he spent a lot of time mapping out wilhelm in his head to make him as nuanced as possible. i know we think in this other fandom that the actors know their characters better than some writers ( i wholeheartedly agree and i'm sure you do too), but for edvin to improvise the other football field scene as a 17yo and be so accurate? that scene is pure magic tbh. like wilhelm's life must really seem like it's all fake, he needed to lie to the entire nation about the reasons why he went to hillerska and erik (😭😭😭) also told him to just pretend to be someone else on the days the parents visited. his whole life has probably been full of similar situations. and edvin made up the perfect lines for when wilhelm finally found something that wasn't fake and that was JUST REAL. Just. !!!!! kdjfjdkdjs.

have a safe trip tomorrow and enjoy! 😊

i'm very glad you didn't mind me dumping my thoughts on you (i always feel a little bad when i can't just simplify what i want to say into a sentence or two) 😘❤️

but this is exactly it! easily the biggest thing – in my personal opinion (from my training and experience) – that will help your performance be the most authentic and grounded in the moment is your preparation and character work prior to do absolutely anything in the scene, on screen or on stage. filling in every single detail and mapping out your character's nuance is they key. you're supposed to be yourself under your character's circumstances, so you truly need to be able to exist within those circumstances and understand them in great detail. the effort you put into mapping out and colouring in the details of your character's different relationships, childhood, hopes, dreams, fears, wants and needs etc – literally everything – will 100% pay off, tenfold. nuance is everything! nuance is the micro-expressions and the look behind the eyes that tell us more than the things they say. nuance allows you to react truthfully in the scene and not just follow a plan – and that's why edvin's moments of improvisation worked so well for wilhelm, why they feel like the absolute perfect thing for him to say in that moment (because it was! because it came from the circumstances in the moment!).

i could definitely go into this in greater detail but it truly doesn't surprise me that edvin put such an effort into mapping out wilhelm in great detail because you can really tell. the detail is there in all of wilhelm's relationships, in his feelings towards hillerska, the royal family. you can feel his desperation for something real, anything authentic, in practically everything that wilhelm interacts with. the royal family is fake, his relationship with august is fake, hillerska is all fake. that's why his connection with simon is so real – because simon isn't fake. simon doesn't pretend to give a shit about the royal family or anything like the stuff wille has been dealing with his entire life. that's why it all pours out during the football field, because wille finally, finally has the moment (and well, he's inebriated) to let himself say what he truly believes. and that all comes from edvin's preparation work – that's why it's such an impactful moment of improvisation. why it's so perfect and why none of us could possibly ever come up with anything else that would fit that moment.

i hope you don't mind me rambling again lol! and thank you so so much, have a lovely lovely day anon! ❤️

[florvinhara]

felt it ripping me apart (part 1)

summary: kira deals with the aftermath of turning

warnings for heavy angst !!!

word count: 2.2k

read on ao3 or below the cut:

Kira wakes from a nebulous, pained darkness to the memory of a familiar voice- beloved, broken- calling her name. 

At first, she wonders if she’s hungover; the lights are dimmed but too bright, and she feels sick with a hollow emptiness that tangles her stomach into knots. She sits up with a groan, and scrubs at her face with her hands until flashes of recollection start to surface from the depths of her foggy mind. They are more sensation than anything else, brief impressions of moments in time. Blood. Please. Pain. I’m sorry. Cold. Stay with me.

Blood… no, she is decidedly not hungover. She had woken up before, she recalls, feeling stiff and strange all over, and upon trying to stand up had been overcome with a tidal wave of nauseated exhaustion so strong she’d had to sit hunched on the edge of the bed holding her swimming head between her knees until she’d stopped feeling like she might pass out. Her second attempt had not been much more successful, and she had resigned herself to laying back and irritably shoving at the scratchy sheets until someone came to explain why she was once again in the Agency’s medical wing.

She had remained entirely silent while Elidor gently explained what had happened, pushing aside complicated swirls of emotion and focusing only on the concrete facts, of which there were three. In order, she’s been going through them again and again, turning them over in her mind like puzzle pieces which don’t quite fit into the rest of the picture.

One- she had been mortally wounded.

Two- they’d turned her; there had been no other option to save her life. Which means that:

Three: she is not going to die. Not now, perhaps not ever.

It’s a short list, but she repeats it religiously- one, two three, one, two three- because otherwise, her mind will start wandering. The trek from these simple isolated truths to their messier implications is a short one she can’t stand to make. Will she have to leave Wayhaven? It had been in her plans, eventually, but there’s a difference between moving and having to slowly disentangle yourself entirely from human society as an unforgivable amount of time passes you by untouched.

More pressing, how will she leave this hospital room? Because beyond this controlled environment, with its drawn shades and soundproofed walls, is a noisy, chaotic world that had already at times overwhelmed her until she couldn’t breathe.

And there is one more concern; she has pointedly not allowed her train of thought to drift in that particular direction, but the seed of fearful doubt is rapidly taking root in the back of her mind anyway, snarling around her spine and curling purposefully at her throat. After all, it is one terrifying thing to love someone knowing that your lives run on different tracks, that you must fit the vast expanses of your devotion into the span of 60 or so years. To promise your eternity to another person is another animal altogether, and she cannot ask Nate to give her that- it is a gift she doesn’t deserve, and why would he want to offer it anyway? She knows how much he misses humanity, seeks out the echoes of it wherever he can- without hers, will he recognize her, or just see the chasm where that mortal part of her used to be?

It doesn’t bear thinking about for long, the inevitable, and so she pulls her focus back to the safety of the past, the proven. She’s managed to delay whatever is going to come next so far, having asked Elidor for some time alone to rest. It had been a flimsy excuse, but he had kindly pretended to believe it and let her be, staring blankly at the wall and mentally reciting the concise points that comprised her list until sleep had claimed her.

Perhaps it had helped after all; she still feels hollowed out and numb, but the sickly dizziness is gone and the lights above her no longer leave sharp, star-like patterns in the backs of her eyes. The signs are promising enough that she decides to try standing again, shoving the blankets off and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. This time, she does manage it, though she immediately stumbles upon making contact with the ground as a strange, shaky sensation skitters up her calves, pins and needles pressing against the soles of her feet and making her wobble like a newborn foal. She grabs at the pole where an IV bag would usually be hanging for support, wincing at the bright spark of unexpected chill where her hands make contact.

Did this get shorter? she thinks distantly, and then remembers that the pole isn’t shorter, she’s just taller now, and she wonders if that means she’ll have to buy new clothes. Which is just so stupid, so ridiculously not important a detail in the grand scheme of things, the fact that her mind jumped there first makes a laugh just left of hysterical fizzle in her throat, and it is so profoundly unlike her that it makes her feel sick. She stumbles to the adjoined washroom as she feels her chest constrict painfully in feverish panic, dragging the IV pole behind her half for balance and half for comfort, and leans over the sink, gasping for breath, until her heart stops beating against her ribs like a caged animal and she can inhale without the air stabbing knife-like at her lungs.

Slowly but surely, her breathing evens out, and she glances up at her reflection in the mirror- then freezes.

The differences are slight, so much so that at first she thinks it must be a trick of the light, but the more she casts her gaze over the face reflected back at her, the more she is sure it cannot be hers. Or, more accurately, it is hers in the way that an old picture is one’s self- similar enough to recognize but changed enough to be almost another person entirely.

It looks as though she has never lived in this body, never tested its limits by climbing that one unsteady tree branch and knocking a deep, jagged scar into her forehead for her trouble. Never pierced her own ears with a needle and ice cube in a misguided attempt at rebellion. Never stayed up through the night and marked the sleepless hours by the dark circles under her eyes. She grips the sink as she searches for familiarity in the reflection before her; the porcelain crumbles like sand beneath her shaking fingers, and this too is hideously unrecognizable, the strength and the unintentional destruction it can bring, the need to exist cautiously.

The more she looks, the more untethered from herself she feels, unmade and reformed by an architect with little regard for detail, the outline and not the shape itself. And she supposes she has been, in a way- she remembers, if nothing else, the searing agony as her bones had separated and knit themselves back together. It shouldn’t be real, it shouldn’t be possible for these traces of her life, the storms she has weathered and the consequences of her recklessness, to be wiped from her body as if they had never existed. A map unmade. A history forgotten. Even the scar she’d gotten from Murphy is vanished, a feat not accomplished even by the Agency’s healing magic. And for some reason it is this, the absence of a scar she never wanted, that finally breaks her as she sinks to the floor with a dark dismay rising in her throat like bile.

---

The linoleum floor is cold against her shins, but she welcomes the bracing shock it gives her, focuses intently on the sensation of it pressing on her legs as another swell of dread threatens to drown her. Her hands find each other, twisting anxiously until she realizes she does not recognize them either; the familiar divots of old scars and callouses are gone, as are the crooked slant where she had broken her fingers. Frantically, she wrenches them apart, despising their unfamiliarity.

Enough of this, she reprimands herself sternly, one clear thought in a swirling sea-storm of panic and confusion and what-ifs. She latches onto it desperately, presses her hands, still fluttering nervously as they seek out the comfort of a repetitive motion, flat against the cold floor and thinks it over and over again- enough, enough, enough- until the word has lost its meaning and she feels somewhat calmer again.

Her mind is still spinning in anxious circles, tying itself in knots the more she thinks. There’s only one surefire solution she knows of to ease the worried maelstrom; it’s time to remove herself from the equation, consider this from a more scientific standpoint. This doesn’t have to destroy her. Or maybe it does- after all, creation is a promise of violence, in and of itself born from destruction. Cells beget new cells by ripping themselves in two; the body is constantly sloughing off parts of itself which have outlived their usefulness. And this must still be true, even though so much is different, because stasis is death to the thousands of systems constantly at work to keep someone operating. Maybe there is some comfort there, then, that even though she cannot see it, at the smallest level, the familiar processes are continuing.

She imagines she can hear them now, blood rushing from her heart to deliver oxygen to the rest of her body, cells splitting apart and bursting as they die only to be replaced instantly, even her DNA unwinding and reforming as it encodes new strands of her genetic information. How much of it changed along with her- which genes were snipped out of existence and remade in a different, ‘better’ image?

Damn. Not even two minutes later and she’s already cycled back to her horror at the transformation, visible and invisible- perhaps this won’t destroy her after all, she’ll just do it herself fixating on the sharp, shattered pieces of the dissonance between the self she recognizes and the one she sees reflected in the mirror.

A worried voice cuts through the thick miasma of dismay choking her like poison- Elidor, knocking at the door and asking if she’s alright. Is she? No, she thinks, even as she calls out, “Yeah, just a minute,” and feels so much sudden relief to hear her voice, unchanged, that she nearly blacks out. Slowly, and with much aid from the IV pole, she pulls herself to her feet and chances another glance at the mirror. Immediately, she feels an overwhelming urge to punch it, to shatter the glass until her reflection is torn apart by the spiderwebbing shards, but she shoves it down forcefully, searches for resolve in the eyes looking back at her. She finds nothing there, but knows Elidor is waiting outside and opens the door, resigned.

“I was wondering where that pole had run off to,” he says with a teasing smile that falters the moment they make eye contact. Well, that was a short-lived act. “Kira, what’s wrong?”

Nothing that can be fixed, nothing that she doesn’t just have to get over and deal with. She starts to tell him as much, but her throat is so tight that her voice grates painfully as she speaks and she gives up halfway through the sentence, ending with a dismissive wave that falls too far flat of insouciant to be convincing.

Elidor’s brow furrows in concern. “I’ll get the rest of the team, and-”

“No!” she cuts in, flinging a hand out to stop him. If there’s one thing she’s absolutely sure of, it’s that she cannot be around them right now, can’t let them see that she can’t handle this, can’t deal with their thoughts or feelings or opinions when her own are still such a confused mess. And she especially cannot see Nate, not when she knows what’s going to happen; of course, he is going to be perfectly kind, even as he tells her this can’t work, she’s too different now that she is divorced from her humanity, he had never intended for this relationship to last centuries.

His gentleness will cut deeper than the words themselves, and if she could, she would do it herself, end it for him quickly and impersonally so she can spare them both the pain. But she is too unmoored right now, too frustratingly unsure of herself, to face a reality that has fundamentally shifted. “No, please, just- can you tell them I’m not awake yet? Or- just, anything?” Some small, unchanged part of her mind rebels violently at that, hates her for the cowardice, but it is too easily drowned out by the tumult of dazed doubts and worries shadowing her to be heard.

It takes about ten minutes of pleading for Elidor to uneasily agree to give her more time; eventually, he concedes, and leaves the room with a concerned glance over his shoulder. The door closes behind him, and she lets herself sink to the ground once more, curled over like she could belatedly shield herself from the injury which necessitated all this, until she drags herself back into the bed and seeks relief in unconsciousness.

[allcrncthing]

TITLE :: WHAT?

DESCRIPTION :: Flynn gets an unlikely visitor early one morning.

TIME PERIOD :: July, 2012

CHARACTER(S) :: Flynn Aspen, Nick Fury

WORD COUNT :: 1.7k

WARNINGS :: Swearing

NOTE :: This is part one of two in the DON’T RUIN HER mini-series!

It was seven in the morning when knuckles thumped against her apartment door. Flynn shuffled out of her room, rubbing her eyes as she went. God, I hope it’s not Mrs. Baust complaining again. Mrs. Baust was Flynn’s elderly neighbor located on her right. For whatever reason, she didn’t like the redhead; always complaining about stupid shit and trying to her the landlord to kick Flynn out.

She opened the door then nearly slammed it shut. Standing before her was Nick Fury, director of SHIELD. “Can I help you?”

With his one good eye, he looked her up and down. “You know why I’m here. Get important shit and meet me on the roof.”

“Mister, you must be confused.”

Fury scoffed. “Me? Confused? Hurry up and grab your shit, I’ll see you on the roof.” He closed the door for her, leaving a dumbfounded Flynn in his wake.

She pressed her forehead against the cool wood of the door. “How the hell did he find out?” She groaned, agitated. “Christ Flynn, he’s Nick Fury, he always finds out.”

Around three months ago Flynn found out she had powers. She gained them after a chunk of alien tech fell from the sky. Crazy, right? The tech--which was a good sized piece of metal if she was being honest--slammed into the back of her neck, embedding itself in her skin. Flynn could still feel it back there, sometimes rubbing her finger over the weird bump when she was nervous or bored. It must have been from a far-off society that thrived off radiation or something, because these new powers were seemingly radiation based. It was all still very new to Flynn, so she wasn’t 100% sure of anything regarding her abilities.

She trudged back to her room, shrugged off her lavender old lady nightgown, and stepped into bleach-stained grey sweatpants and an oversized I HEART NYC shirt. It was left over from her parents’ visit a while back. Hey, she wasn’t going to get all dolled up for a stranger who told her to “pack up her shit” at seven something in the morning.

Flynn grabbed a duffle bag and filled it with the basics; toiletries, a few pairs of clothes, and chargers for her devices. She hopped whatever Fury wanted with her was quick and easy. Trying to explain her disappearance at work would be a bitch.

Minutes later she appeared on the rooftop, seeing Fury standing off at the ledge, looking off into the distance. “Seen Fallen Soldier recently?”

Her blood ran cold.

Flynn licked her lips, “No.”

“Not after your skirmish in the alley?” He pressed, turning to face her.

Flynn shook her head.

Fallen Soldier was one of HYDRA’s goons. He was a fallen World War I soldier by the name of Dennis Van Dyke. According to what Flynn had read--which may or may not have been on the dark web. . .--HYDRA recently reanimated his once frozen corpse to snuff out anyone with powers. His supposed mission was to kill his target before dragging their body to a local HYDRA lab for testing.

It just so happened that he went after Flynn. Three nights ago while walking home from her shift at work, the corpse struck. He came at her with stinking, peeling flesh and the sharpest bayonet she had ever seen. While he moved at a slow pace, every time he made contact with Flynn she would get knocked over by his force. The fight was her first real power test-run. Flynn discovered she could fly and somehow create fireballs among other things. Going against Fallen Soldier was tiring. So much so she lit him on fire then proceeded to pass out on a nearby rooftop. Flynn was lucky he didn’t find her and kill her in her sleep.

Fury turned back around, facing the sun once more. From his coat pocket he drew a remote. In the sea of buttons he pressed a white one off to the left.

Hundreds of feet in the air floated the SHIELD Helicarrier. Flynn had never seen the beast of an air ship in person before. She only saw pictures of it from the battle in New York.

“Wow,” she breathed, nearly dropping the duffle bag.

“Welcome to your new home.” Fury said, watching as a ramp came down from the helicarrier’s underbelly.

Her brows immediately furred together. “My what?”

“New home! Can’t let you stay down here with that undead bastard looking high-and-low for you.”

Fury walked towards the ramp, taking quick strides. “Hurry up so we can get started on paperwork.”

She scampered after him like a puppy. “Why?”

“You’re just full of questions.”

“Oh no, how dare I question the man who told me to pack up my stuff and follow him.” Flynn groaned.

A look flashed over his face, like she did have a point. “I watched your fight with Fallen Soldier and I liked what I saw. Had to get to you before HYDRA.” Fury pressed another button, opening a door on the carrier’s side.

“Is this a temporary thing?”

“Temporary?” He howled. “Does Tony Stark shop at Walmart?”

“No. . .”

“Well, you have your answer.”

The inside of the helicarrier was bustling with life. Scientists in crisp white lab coats drifted around while armed security members marched from corridor to corridor, looking for any threats. Standing in the middle of that mess was Maria Hill.

The brunette had her arms crossed, eyes focused on Flynn. “How the hell did you get her onboard so quickly?”

Fury chuckled, “I have my ways, Hill.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “Welcome aboard, Aspen.” She held out a hand for a quick shake. “Come with me and I’ll take you for testing. It’s just to make sure your physical health is decent. If not, we have world-class doctors on board.”

“Don’t forget about that paperwork,” hollered Fury, walking away from the two women.

The ladies made eye contact. “The paperwork isn’t much, don’t worry. Most of it’s just new stuff the council requires.” Maria explained, easing Flynn’s mind just a little.

They walked down the hall, heading towards the lab wing.

Walking through the helicarrier was just mind boggling. Each part of the air ship held a certain meaning, and all of them served it well. She passed by a holding cell of lower-level, petty villains sitting inside. Many of which were whining about calling their lawyers. Another section was dedicated to the testing out of weapons. A tall ginger dressed in precautionary armor threw a small, onyx colored orb at a rubber dummy (akin to the ones found in dojos). Upon making contact with the dummy, the circle exploded, wrapping it in two thin but sturdy pieces of white rope. The tester let out an impressed noise and went to scribble something down on the clipboard next to her.

Now, they were in the lab wing. Each scientist aboard the helicarrier had their own designated lab, Maria explained. The one they were heading to belonged to their lead medical examiner, the one they sent all of the new recruits to, Doctor Sierra Warner.

Dr. Warner was a tall black woman with thick dreads dyed light brown almost blonde, pulled into a ponytail atop her head. She greeted the two with a smile, motioning for Flynn to take a seat on the examination table. “Welcome,” she said, voice as sweet as her smile.

“Thank you,” Flynn replied as she hopped onto the table.

“Fury’s newest recruit?” She inquired, eye flitting between Maria and Flynn.

Maria nodded, “Yup.”

The following minutes were taken up by basic tests; ones where Dr. Warner would check Flynn’s reflexes and her eyesight. Pretty standard stuff. Then she kind of went off track. “Fury showed me footage of your. . .fight with David Van Dyke--”

Flynn’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. He has footage of that? “How the hell did he get footage of that?”

Dr. Warner chuckled, “SHIELD has cameras all over New York.”

“God, you guys are like big brother.”

“I like to think we have flashier stuff here,” said Warner. “But as I was saying, Fury showed me your video and I thought it would be smart to use a dosimeter on you; just to check your radiation levels.”

“But why?”

The doctor shrugged, “I just have this gut feeling. Here at SHIELD we developed our own version. Instead of having you hold it, you’ll breathe into it like a breathalyzer. The results come back much faster and more accurately. For whatever reason.” Dr. Warner reached into a desk, and pulled out the SHIELD dosimeter, which did look a lot like a breathalyzer. “You can tell that I didn’t help in the development of this.”

“Who did?” Flynn inquired, grabbing the dosimeter. She brought the tube to her lips, sending a steady stream of air into the piece of tech.

“Dr. Celeste Flores-Rivero.” Warner replied, pulling the dosimeter from her mouth after it beeped, allowing her to know it was done processing the sample it had received. “Before she dropped off the map,” she muttered, observing the data displayed on the dosimeter’s digital screen.

“I’ll tell you later,” Maria whispered, giving Flynn’s shoulder a pat.

Dr. Warner chewed on her bottom lip, eyes flitting from Flynn to the dosimeter. “Flynn, I’ve never seen numbers like this before.” She rubbed at her chin, face full of uncertainty. “You’re as radioactive as Chernobyl. Hell, I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Me?” She pressed the tip of her finger right in the middle of her chest. “Me? Flynn Aspen me?”

She nodded, “Yes.”

Flynn’s fingers went right to the back of her neck, feeling the foreign object just below her skin. “What will happen then?” God, I should’ve just stayed in my fucking room.

Dr. Warner wheeled her chair over to Flynn, resting two gloved hands on her knee caps. “We’ll figure something out. We’ve dealt with the Hulk, we can deal with some radiation. For the moment we’ll keep doing tests and then figure out what our next steps are. Some of the most brilliant minds are here, we’ll find a way to help you cope.”

She let out a heavy sigh, deflating a little bit. “Okay, yeah, that’ll work.”

[mrsmaddiebobaddie]

MCYT High School Teacher AU

I don’t know if this has already been done but with student teaching on the brain this was invading my subconscious.

Phil: Principal

The most chill admin you’d ever find (He kind of has to be with the staff at the school)

Will let most things slide if you ask nicely

Has a quiet space in his office for students to take a moment to calm down after acting out. He’ll offer them candy and talk through the situation with them. 

Started out as a counselor at the school, so he still holds a similar mentality when it come to talking with students and staff. 

Always takes the side of his staff. The district is usually in the wrong anyway.

He knows the teachers are the experts, screw whatever requirements the state has, he lets them run their classrooms whichever way is best for the students’ learning

Technoblade:  Literature & Composition

One of the most engaging teachers at the school

Most students love him because he’s real and he’ll tell it like it is. 

Has a coffee machine in his room. It’s rare that he’s not holding a mug in his hand while he teaches

Has high expectations for his students

Rarely gets angry. Even when he’s upset he still comes across as calm.

Usually stays at the school late making sure to give the best possible feedback on papers and reports. He genuinely wants each kid to learn something from his class.

Tommy: Speech and Debate

It’s only his second year of teaching

The students would run the classroom if not for Tommy basically being a student himself

There’s a strong chance his class will be off topic at any given point. It’s always an adventure walking past his door, you never know what you’ll hear

Somehow still gets high scores on average from his students

Keeps students after class when he notices them struggling with school or life in general to talk with them. The conversations are always beneficial.

Will 100% fall asleep during professional development meetings.

Karl: Biology

Tries to act hip, fails most of the time.

Always has the most energy in his lessons, finds unique ways to teach the concepts other than slides and worksheets.

Usually the first one in the building each morning

Will give students different options for final projects so they can chose the best method of showing their evidence of learning. 

Gets lower scores than he should on observations because he doesn’t do well under the pressure. One year Phil didn’t announce when he’d be coming in and watched from the door to give a more accurate review. 

Wears a sweatshirt to class more often than he should

Quackity: Spanish 

Hands on learning whenever possible

Uses the home ec. room to make authentic Mexican dishes with his students when they cover the food and restaurant unit

Will just forget that the kids don’t speak Spanish fluently and ramble on until someone interrupts him.

Slow grader, you get your scores when you get them.

Known to be a bit chaotic with his teaching style, it works for some kids but he does need to reteach certain sections every now and then

One time a kid feel asleep in his class so he had all the other students leave and they had class outside to freak the kid out (They were right outside the classroom window, he could still see the sleeper, he told Phil)

Skeppy: Algebra

Like’s his job, pretty much your average teacher

Can’t stand freshmen, but tolerates them since that’s half the students he has. He prefers teaching advanced algebra to upper classmen

His lessons are always formatted the same, starting with a lesson on how to do that days math, with the remainder of the period being free work time

Holds math challenges with his class and gives out prizes. It’s usually candy, though one time he gave out cash. He made his kids promise not to say a word about it. 

Very good at teaching the same math concepts in different ways to help struggling learners

Always one minute away from being late for first period, but makes it just in time every morning.

Dream: Health/Football and Assistant Basketball Coach

Took the teaching job mainly to coach sports

Still cares about making connections with his students, he uses his class to teach life skills and promote positive social and mental health.

If any of his players are in his class he will pick on them. He has no mercy.

Dreads sex education because no one can be mature about it. He gets revenge by making the students film a “how to say no to sex” video with someone in the class.

His wheeze laugh is iconic. You can hear it from down the hall.

If you meet with him and are honest when you’re struggling, he’ll work with you to pass his class. He isn’t going to ruin your GPA over a project on the negative effects of smoking.

Wilbur: History & Geography/Theater 

The teacher who sits on his desk when he lectures

Is very sarcastic with his students, but knows who can take the teasing and makes sure not to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Prefers class discussion over solo work time, he likes hearing student’s perspectives and ideas.

Turtlenecks

One of the teachers most likely to be the crush of teenage girls. 

Not afraid to mark you down for sloppy work. You use a black ink pen and draw precise lines when turning in maps and graphs or you redo it.

Speaks in musical references 

George: Physics

The chillest teacher by far

Due dates? Don’t worry, he’ll accept an assignment literally months after it was supposed to be turned in

Makes difficult topics seems simple when he describes them

He doesn’t really care if you have your phone out in class as long as you’re paying attention and learning the material

The students straight up call him George, he doesn’t seem to care

Placing near the top for the most crushed on teacher

King of multiple choice questions

Eret: Economics & Government

Makes any student in his class feel welcome

One of few teachers who can lecture the entire period without students falling asleep. He always has interesting stories

Let’s kids chose where they sit

Freshmen are always caught off guard by his voice when they hear him for the first time

Spends too much of his own money on supplies for his students and classroom (Honestly most teachers have to spend their own money on necessary supplies, he just goes about and beyond.)

There’s always a group of students who eat lunch in his classroom 

The Union Rep at their school, will fight tooth and nail for the staff members

Tubbo: Band Director

Super cheerful whenever he’s teaching

He rarely has any free time before or after school because he has so many one-on-one lessons and meetings with students

Likes to have practice outside when the weather is nice

Does his best to make his students feel comfortable and relaxed whenever he does performance based assessments. 

He’s also a new teacher, but you honestly wouldn’t be able to tell

He will be in tik toks if you ask him to, and he’s familiar with all the pop culture trends

Let’s the students chose a song to play at the last band concert. Some years have been less chaotic than others, the worst (or best, depending on who you ask) being when the students voted to play Deja Vu from Initial D.

Fundy: Computer Science/Coding 

Begins each class with a cheesy computer joke. Every class.

Everyone knows you can’t get anything past him technology wise. He can see that headphone in your ear from across the room.

Isn’t afraid to assign extra work when students are disrupting class

Once took up an entire class period showing his students how he coded different difficulties in Minecraft. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he plays the game in his spare time. 

About half the students in his class aren’t really interested in computers, they just want to have him as a teacher since everyone says he’s cool.

Known to hack school computers to bypass restrictions

Sucker for pizza parties. Has at least one per semester  

Sapnap: PE/Basketball Coach

Hella competitive 

Abuses his power of having a whistle. Someone should really take it away from him

Gyms shorts every day. Even in the winter. Sometimes he wears sweats, but never jeans.

Doesn’t let anyone sit out of activities

Tries to set up fun tournaments for each activity they do, makes sure to balance the teams so no one has too much of an upper hand.

He’s usually the teacher who mans detention, he tries to make it as positive as it can be though.

Keeps extra sets of gym clothes to give to students who forgot or can’t afford to buy them

Schlatt: Calculus and Stats/Business  

You either love him or are terrified of him

One of the only teachers who can have an “aggressive” teaching style and still connect with students

You will learn something from his class, he makes sure of it. 

Doesn’t accept late work unless you have a really good reason why you couldn’t turn it in

Wears a tie every day

If another teacher needs a last minute sub during his prep period he’ll cover them. Doesn’t matter what subject, he can wing it

He was the reason the school started offering business studies as an elective due to some vague threats towards the district

Niki: Art/German

Teaching voice is so soft

You can’t tell whether or not she’s giving you constructive criticism because everything she says sounds so positive 

Let’s her students lead learning for the most part, she will cover topics that most interest them while still trying to hit the district required standards (luckily teaching electives gives her a bit more freedom with her curriculum)

Her classroom always smells lovely

Will bring in homemade goodies each Friday for the staff room

Holds art galleries at the end of each semester to show off the arts since they often go unappreciated. It has turned out to be a super popular event for students and staff.

Bad: Special Education

This man has endless patience. It’s crazy

Even after the longest days when none of the students are cooperating, he still has a smile on his face

If he hears cursing in the halls he will call you out in front of everyone. Teachers included. 

Makes sure to keep a list of all his students favorites so he can surprise them with gifts on their birthdays or around holidays

He works closely with the other teachers to make sure his kids can be as involved in general education as possible.

Always wears something fun, be it a tie, socks, shirt, or even a full outfit. His students love seeing what new wacky garment he’ll be wearing that day. 

More Head Cannons

If someone brings food for the staff room Tommy WILL take it. Sometimes he’ll come back for seconds, there will be none left by the end of the day. He’s not as bad as Skeppy though, who will literally pack it up to take home for later.

For the past few months the staff members have been receiving anonymous email chains with photoshopped pictures of each other. Everyone was sure Fundy was behind it, Eret thought he saw him teaching his students how to use the program by editing their favorite teachers into stupid situations (they’ve all been school appropriate of course). Fundy did in fact start it, but now so many other teachers have joined in that it can’t be traced back to one person anymore.

All the teachers love going to sporting events. They’ll join in with the student section to cheer on the teams. If they know there’s a kid who doesn’t have family that will come to watch them they’ll make shirts with that players number to show support for them.

Wilbur, Niki, and Tubbo work together on musicals. Niki does the sets and costuming, Wilbur directs, and Tubbo leads the pit. There are plenty of long nights during tech week that devolve into chaos (especially when Niki isn’t there)

Spirit week is very intense, to say the least. The teachers are assigned a grade to be advisors to, and they get into it. For the duration of the week they practically become rivals with whoever isn’t in their assigned grade. They’ll pull pranks on each other constantly, especially when the students can see. It’s all playful of course, but it gets the kids more excited about spirit week when they can support their teachers and watch the amicable rivalries carry out.

Technoblade once joked that he knew every detail about every classic novel. His students took this as a challenge, and tried to find the most obscure and specific trivia questions they could ask him. He has yet to be stumped.

Dream and Sapnap had a running streak of about four weeks where they made everything into a competition. Who could enter their grades into the computer fastest? How many cups of coffee did they drink that day? Who got to school first that morning? There was a tally board in the staff room and the teachers had a betting pool going. Phil finally ended it when they accidently broke the school’s copier trying to see who could scan the most documents in five minutes. Dream was ahead by three points, Sapnap never lived it down.

In service days are incredibly boring, so the staff tries to make those days a bit more entertaining. They order in pizza or sandwiches for lunch. Since there aren’t any kids in the school they’ll do everything they’re no supposed to, like racing office chairs down the hallways and blasting non-school-appropriate music in their classrooms.

Wilbur accidentally started a black market of sorts when he took all the new whiteboard pens from the supply closest. He used this to his advantage, getting people to do him favors in return for the good supplies. When Dream found out he not-so-jokingly threatened to slowly steal everything from Wilbur’s classroom until he released the pens. The next day the closet was replenished once more

Quackity and Tommy are co-emcees for the school assemblies. They hold class competitions between the grades, including spirit chants and ridiculous games. Think minute to win it style, but way crazier. Everyone gets super into it, the upperclassmen usually win. The two have good chemistry and a fun energy.

George has a unit where students make bottle rockets and launch them outside on the soccer field. And every year Karl brings his class out to watch claiming that “it’s science, I teach science, I’ll have them write a paragraph about what they learned”. Really he just wants to watch rockets go brrr

For Schlatt’s birthday one year, Wilbur and Techno printed off shirts with his face on it for all the staff to wear. Schlatt was super confused when he came into work and all his colleagues were walking around with his face plastered across their chest. He got back at Wilbur for it by putting salt in his coffee for a week straight, but Techno never got his comeuppance. It’s debatable whether Schlatt just didn’t know he was in on it, or if he knew better than to mess with Techno.

Lesson planning and curriculum building is quite the process. Some departments can stay on task better than others. Schlatt and Skeppy get in, plan out the term, and get out. The math department has everything on lock. Social studies are also pretty good at getting pre-planning done. They tend to spend most of their time having discussions that aren’t necessarily related to the tasks at hand though. The English department is a mess. It’s really Tommy who’s a mess, he just projects that onto everyone else. Karl and George work well together to map out science curriculum. Even though teachers who teach electives aren’t required to collaborate with each other, they still get together and bounce ideas off each other and get feedback.

I have plenty more if people want a second part. I also only listed the MCYTs that I’ve watched enough to know their personalities at least a little bit, but if you wanted to see another person I may expand the staff list!

[merryfortune]

Gachaplum

Written for 100ships Challenge on Dreamwidth

Prompt #77 Plum

Ship: Rocksaltshipping | Kureha/Spectre

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS

Word Count: 2,143

Rating: G

Warnings: No Warnings Apply

Tags: Fluff, Self Indulgen, Inspired by a Tweet

   “Are you enjoying your drink?” Spectre asked conversationally.

   “Yep.” Kureha chirped around her straw.

   The drink in question was a tropical iced tea with strawberry bursties as the bottom. It was sharply sweet, right to the core of her teeth, and that’s exactly how Kureha liked it. However it, in combination with the empty tote bag Spectre was carting around, was a horrible omen to Kureha. Her boba tea had been the only non-necessary treat that Spectre had bought for either of them and clearly he meant for impulse purchases, otherwise he wouldn’t have brought a bag.

   But Kureha, with a little bit of dread and unuttered complaint, supposed that’s the kind of guy Spectre was. He was very mission oriented and put his organisation above himself. Today’s mission was grocery shopping, as mundane as that sounded but since Spectre and the others could be at sea for weeks on end, grocery shopping was huge and important. So, even though Spectre was empty handed right now, he had already spent big at the restaurant they had visited earlier and before that, at the luxury grocery shop they went to where they bought in bulk and would have it delivered to the docks for the Lieutenants to unpack.

   And Kureha had been lucky enough to tag along since this was a somewhat rare opportunity for her and Spectre to hang out in real life. But what was the point of hanging out if they weren’t doing anything special? Kureha agaonised, maybe it was her fault for assuming it would be a date. Then again, they also had a fancy lunch together so maybe it was a date. This was too confusing, Kureha scolded herself. Besides, it's not like she wasn’t enjoying herself. She really was and that was probably the main thing but she wanted Spectre to enjoy himself too.

   They had a delicious lunch at a Thai restaurant that had excellent decor and a wide range of food. They ordered a plate of their favourites each yet somehow ended up sharing their meals and soft drinks anyway. It had been wonderful, even if Kureha got a runny nose afterwards and that was a little bit embarrassing but Spectre didn’t bring it up, thankfully - except to rib her that even how she blew her nose was cute. Then, once they had had their lunch, it was time to get to business and Spectre had a very long shopping list.

   He took her to a grocery shop inside of a mall with a celebrity level atmosphere. It was stocked with items and brands that Kureha had never heard of because they were so, so, so expensive and yet, he handpicked what he needed from them without so much as a blink at the price tag. Though, he did assure her that he and the other Knights had already budgeted to a tee so there was nothing to worry about. He was in and out rather swiftly, hardly looking at all the things that Kureha was certainly dawdling out and once he was done, he had his things whisked off and taken to be shipped off within the hour by truck.

   With the shopping done, they had begun to exit the mall where Kureha had gotten thirsty and she had a keen eye for spotting cute and quirky shops that sold even cuter and quirkier drinks. Spectre had been more than happy to pay for her boba tea, even though she offered and it was very sweet of him but did make Kureha feel a little guilty since, again, that one drink had been the only splurge Spectre had allowed himself and it wasn’t even for him.

   Now they were just sort of wandering along, making light conversation whilst Kureha finished her drink. They were sort of on the look out for a tram line or bus that would put them on a route where Spectre could drop off Kureha close to home and then continue back to the mariner but it was difficult since their homes were such polar opposites to another. Though, given that Kureha wasn’t quite ready to end this not quite and maybe it actually was a date-date, it was something of a blessing in disguise so they got to take in the sights of this precinct.

   There were all sorts of pretty and intriguing buildings, the paths were lovely and well kempt without a nary crack or dip. The road was fairly busy with cars, taxis, and buses but it was the sidewalks which were busier with people coming to and fro. It was almost overwhelming with all the interesting things to see and do but even so, Kureha kept her eyes peeled for something - anything - that might just serve to prolong the inevitable and then she saw it: a bookshop.

   Out of nowhere, to Spectre at least, Kureha grabbed his arm and tugged on it. He pulled back and twisted round to scold Kureha, a scowl on his face but Kureha was already prepared with the best puppy dog eyes she could plead with.

   “I want to check out that bookshop, please.” she begged.

   Spectre’s scowl softed, “That sounds fine.”

   “Yay.” Kureha smiled.

   Kureha pointed out the bookshop that she had spotted and Spectre escorted her there. Although, once inside the pristinely white doors, they sort of split off. Not that Kureha minded, that was sort of her plan. Spectre was a bookworm, albeit an incredibly fussy one, so maybe he would find something in here to read and even buy for himself whilst Kureha was mostly killing time. Mainly by trying to covertly stalk Spectre from the manga section whilst he investigated the language arts section a few rows of books over.

   She held her breath, whilst trying her best not to get distracted by the latest volumes of a few series of manga that she had been keeping up with, as Spectre pulled out various books… only to all but immediately put them back once he was done looking at their backs. It was a little bit disappointing. Kureha sighed and her eyes downcast to a shiny new volume of her favourite manga but if Spectre refused to buy things for himself, so would she so she scuttled in closer to Spectre again across the floor of the bookshelf.

   “See anything interesting?” Kureha asked.

   “I’m considering learning French or Spanish as a hobby but I’m not sure which would best extend my current literacy skills so I think I’ll do more research before branching out from bilingualism to multilingualism.” Spectre replied.

   “Fair enough.” Kureha murmured.

   “Are you ready to go?” Spectre asked. “You seem equally empty handed as me.”

   “I saw a few things but nah.” Kureha shrugged.

   “Understandable,” Spectre said, “well, would you like to keep going on our way home?”

   Kureha fidgetted, “Yeah, that’s fine.” she murmured.

   Spectre made an odd expression but it was only the briefest flicker, Kureha was lucky to have caught it. Regardless, they did move on and left the book shop, unsuccessful on all fronts. Maybe their date had just run its course in the most uneventful way possible.

   As they walked, Spectre checked his phone and noticed that they should be getting close to a good spot where it would be easy for them to find public transport to suit both their needs. At least according to the maps app that he was looking at, anyway so he had his fingers crossed that it ought to be somewhat helpful even if it wasn’t entirely accurate or true to life. Kureha smiled and agreed. At least she would have part of a bus trip left to spend with Spectre before woosh. 

   Back to video calls and texts as their only form of contact. It was nice, Kureha didn’t mean to complain, she did genuinely enjoy getting photographs of how Spectre’s plants were going and sending him back the homework she was struggling with but quality time was nicer. At the very least, Kureha wanted a memento of what little quality time they did get and a receipt from a Thai restaurant hardly counted.

   Then, once more, in a complete stroke of luck, Kureha’s eye was caught by something that she saw. Not the building - it was just a generic convenience store - but by what adorned it: gachapon machines. Her face split into a huge grin and once more, Kureha grabbed Spectre’s arm and tugged on it.

   “Yes?” Spectre said through gritted teeth at Kureha’s prompt.

   “I want to use the lucky dip machines. Please, please, please: look, this one has plushies for that virtual pet game I like.” Kureha begged, clutching Spectre’s arm desperately, and her hazelly-green eyes were sparkling so how on Earth was Spectre meant to resist all of that?

   The answer, of course, was that he couldn’t. Though, he did give a long suffering sigh, he did let Kureha pull him aside as she used the gachapon machine that she saw outside the convenience store that they had been passing by.

   “Would you like me to give you some loose change?” Spectre asked as he stood next to it, trying to look like a mature adult whilst his girlfriend was very much happy to enjoy her childish side.

   “No, I’m right, I’ve got it covered.” Kureha said as she dug out her wallet from her handbag. She put in more than enough coins for herself and for Spectre, too. If he refused to treat himself then Kureha was going to force whatever thing she got from it.

   She turned the crank a handful of times and heard the plastic balls rattle inside deep within the machine. Kureha smiled as she waited for the internal mechaninations to stop and then she opened up the flap. She grinned as she held onto both lucky dips that she had bought.

   “Here you go, you can have this one.” Kureha said as she forced Spectre to take one of them.

   Spectre made an unamused expression as he let Kureha put an orange-coloured plastic ball in his hand, “And what am I meant to do with this?”

   “Open it and let’s see.” Kureha replied and she demonstrated, as though Spectre didn’t already know how to open a gachapon.

   She struggled, a little bit, but eventually got the two halves of her purple plastic ball to split open. She squealed in joy as she unveiled her mystery toy. It had a keyring so she threaded her finger through it and swirled the toy itself off her finger. The little plushie that she had won took the form of a felt, anthropomorphic plum with American style cartoon features adorned with a stitched on ribbon bow.

   “This is Plum and she’s my favourite of the virtual fruit pets.” Kureha said.

   Somewhere in the back of Spectre’s mind, that did ring a bell. Kureha might have sent screenshots to him of her virtual pet habit and an animated cartoon plum may have been one of them. So, his expression of bemusement faded and turned to surrender. He opened up his gachapon too but Kureha was way more excited than him regarding it.

   “I got…” Spectre idly commentated and was mildly surprised by his lucky dip. “I got Plum, too.”

   “Wow, what’re the odds?” Kureha laughed.

   Spectre’s eyes flicked to the poster plastered to the inside of the gachapon machine that displayed which possible toy was possible to win, “Well, it looks like there are seven characters and we got two, so it was likely a one in fourteen chance assuming all the characters are present in equal measure inside the machine.” he said.

   “I didn’t mean it literally.” Kureha laughed even harder.

   Spectre smiled a small smile and began to inspect his plush Plum. He thought it was kind of ugly, to be honest, but if Kureha liked it then he could perhaps entertain some fondness for it. The felt was a bit too coarse for his liking.

   “I’ll be sure to look after this.” Spectre murmured.

   Kureha blinked and her heart fluttered, “Really?” she exclaimed softly.

   “Of course,” Spectre said, “it's a precious gift from my precious Kureha. I will treasure it.” He put his own finger through the keyring at the top of the small toy’s head and then put his hand on Kureha’s shoulder, the toy bumping between them. Spectre leaned in and kissed Kureha’s forehead. “I promise to treasure it.” His words brushed over Kureha’s skin like a flower’s petal.

   Kureha’s face went bright red upon being kissed, “I’ll treasure mine too.” she eked out in a tiny voice.

   “That goes without saying, my silly darling.” Spectre replied and he pulled back. “Come on, we’ve had a long date already, don’t you think? Aren’t you ready to go home yet?”

   “I’m ready now.” Kureha said, smiling huge and holding onto her little toy.

[callioope]

HEY GUYS! I watched the livestream of Rogue One with writers Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz. I took notes. Because that’s what I DO. I jotted down some of my takeaways. Please note I was watching RO, watching the stream, taking notes, and also doing a few other things so these MAY NOT BE PERFECT. Please feel free to correct me if you see something I misrepresented. That said I tried to be accurate. 

YES they DO TALK ABOUT the romantic chemistry between Jyn & Cassian but that is literally at the end, but feel free to peruse the rest of the points because there’s some pretty interesting insights (some good and some bad O_O like Cassian’s original storyline, yuck)

ANYWAYS let’s go

Inglourious Bastards inspired the Lah’mu scene (Gary Whitta wrote this scene, although he admitted it changed a lot but a lot of the structure and ideas stayed in)

In the original version of the script, Lyra was a Jedi in hiding, but this was one of the first things that got killed

Mads thinks he plays a bad guy, but Gary thinks he played a good guy

They talked about how Galen originally wanted to use kyber crystals for energy, but it got weaponized (which is talked about Catalyst)

stormtrooper doll is a gareth edwards touch

idea was that there’d be good people on the Imperial side and bad people on the rebel side

Cassian’s first scene on the Rings of Kafrene was written by Tony Gilroy (who wasn’t present in the stream) later. In the earlier versions, the DS is something that Jyn goes and finds. It was much more like Zero Dark Thirty where she was putting together the clues, and it was a battle for Jyn to get the rebels to take it seriously, but that was too much of a slow burn. So the Tivik scene was to replace that and introduce the idea that Cassian can be dark. Everyone admired Diego’s beautiful bit of acting as he's just lost a little bit of his soul in the fight for justice, the morality is the first victim. It’s very subtle but it’s one of Gary’s fave pieces of acting in the movie

Chris said for awhile they had Ord Mandell, then shifted to the notion of something more like in Casablanca, so a bit of a flavor of that, a part of the Empire that has been taken over that is under violent oversight

Gary said in the original, Jyn went to Ord Mantell (mentioned in Empire?) to find an arms dealer to help her find Saw, then went to another planet where Saw was living on a moon called Yarid

Budget realities played a part in the decision making to scale this back; they wanted to put so much more but just couldn’t fit it in

Originally we were supposed to see the rebels evacuate Dantooine and move to Yavin 4, but it didn’t really accomplish anything in the story accept to nod to SW fans. It didn’t move the story forward and would have cost too much

It was Tony Gilroy writing with Jyn getting freed on Wobani. Some original ideas had toyed with possibilities that she was a deserter or Rey-like scavenger, but obviously you can’t do that once you learn what the the Empire does (chris)

Only time they didn’t use a title card was Mustafar bc they wanted fans to go OH SHIT IT'S MUSTAFAR, also worked bc Mustafar would have been one of those off-the-map planets

Gary was responsible for getting Mothma in the movie

How much did the Yavin 4 briefing get worked on? A lot. sort of inspired by a scene from Apocalypse Now.

“I think this movie really beautifully bridges the gap between the original and prequel” and one of the ways it does that is JIMMY SMITS

Lots of gushing over Yavin. “Gareth just shot the shit out of this movie.” so much praise for Gareth’s vision. “Gareth can compose a shot unlike anyone I know.”

The Yavin 4 set was fully contiguous; you could walk from the inside all the way outside in one continuous shot.

K-2SO is a great example of how one character can have many fathers. John Knoll originally came up with him and he was originally a rebel logistics droid envisioned to be a “black C-3PO” (whatever that was supposed to mean - Gary wasn’t sure). Gary proposed that he could be an Imperial droid that was captured by the rebellion and reprogrammed. K-2 was really limited with what he could do working for the Empire, but once he was liberated, he was going to speak his mind. Chris and Tony and Alan all gave him more life, everyone has a little piece of K-2′s parentage.

Only ever one casting choice for Saw, which was Forest Whitaker. Gary also knew Ben Mendelsohn would be cast as krennic, but no one else was cast at that point -- he knew it was down to 3 choices for Jyn, but wouldn’t say who

Chris brought Bodhi into the story (Gary said so but Chris wasn’t sure)

For Tarkin, they took shots from the ANH and unused takes. There was also a mold of Peter Cushing that had been sitting in a prop shop for decades (I didn’t get what movie it was, something where he needed a large prosthetic eye or something), and they scanned that.

Binoculars that Jyn and Cassian look through on Jedha were inspired from the scene in ANH (like when luke looks through them on Tatooine)

Chris was responsible for Jedha, Temple of the Whills, and Chirrut’s connection to the Force. And Bor Gullet, I think. They said Bor Gullet delights in traumatic memories (more delicious to him). There was a cut idea/scene: Bor Gullet made Jyn trade her traumatic memories for information she wanted.

They talked about the two dudes Jyn runs into that are also in ANH and how they survived the destruction of jedha only to get killed by a Jedi the next day - they must have needed to get a drink at a cantina after narrowly leaving Jedha. Puts their presence at the cantina in a new light.

Screenwriters would tell you this [Jyn saving the girl on Jedha] is a classic “save the cat moment” so that we like that character that otherwise we might not -- like jyn [RUDE, but I think they were joking]  [also i took beginner screenwriting in college and YES the “save the cat moment” was like lesson 1 lol

They wanted this war to look like a proper war, and [Jedha] really looks like something you might see happen. Wanted people to feel like it wasn’t just about stormtroopers hassling the guy on the street corner but there were real lives at stake

Commentary on Jyn’s Awesome Fight Scene: this is the first moment Cassian really realizes that Jyn is no one to be messed with 

They guessed that Tony came up with the K-2 gag after Jyn’s fight sequence

Lots of good commentary here about how action scenes need to serve a purpose, they can’t just be fighting: they gotta reveal character and story -- don’t write the specifics of the fight, but write what the action is supposed to mean, let choreographers make it look good

Chris said Gareth kind of requested a character like Chirrut, and Chris had been messing around with a Force priest and they became the same guy. Baze was originally a murderer and criminal, and Chirrut was his confessor figure, and they had a weird codependent relationship in which Malbus would commit crimes and Chirrut would forgive him for it. But in this they are both Guardians of Whills. Baze saving Chirrut reminds Gary of Indiana Jones shooting the guy with the sword. Good example of action sequence having a purpose: showing Chirrut & Baze’s dynamic

Coming up with names in SW -- no real formula, you just know it when you hear it

Lots of freedom to come up with new stuff as long as it doesn’t grossly violate canon. Two Tubes was Tony Gilroy or maybe someone just before him

Allegedly Bib Fortuna’s cousin is in scene at catacombs

Someone wanted a Tusken Raider to leave Tatooine to be one of the rebels, but that was vetoed bc they don’t leave Tatooine

“you don’t want every star wars movie to feel like a remix of your greatest hits” - gary [me: LMAOOOO not everyone got that memo!!!]

Guardians of the Whills: Chris said when he came on board, he wanted to go into some deep George Lucas stuff so he looked at the OG screenplay of SW which is pretty “cuckoo bananas” but it’s unfilmable because it’s so gigantic. but there were so many cool things in it. Originally the Force was known as “The Force of Others" by Lucas so he had Chirrut often referring to it as such

There had to be physical tapes because that’s what was mentioned in ANH. Similarly, Tarkin said it was the first time they destroyed a planet in ANH, so they had to do a smaller test that didn’t conflict with canon but we still get to see the DS do it’s thing

Gary said he got sick of everyone on the internet saying “If the empire’s so smart how come--” so he wanted to make it happen for a reason

Chris said - John Knoll, who apparently has some kind of engineering background, said a project the size of the DS, there’d be hundreds of flaws that would bring down the station. Gary responded - it makes sense that there would be a flaw, but it’s more interesting if the flaw would be there deliberately

They went back to the idea that SW was a fairytale and “only one key that the lock fits in in a fairy tale”

They talked a bit about the “nerdy stuff” and technical details, like how fast does a Star Destroyer go, how fast is travel through hyperspace,” but they were pretty insistent that Star Destroyers go at the speed of narrative. Hyperspace moves at the speed of plot. They don’t think about the gritty details. Story always wins. You try to hide those bits. If tech stuff comes into conflict with story, the story has to win. If you can make it work great, but story should win otherwise. [MY TAKE: I think it’s lazy and you might as well try to make it work if you can, BUT I agree that it shouldn’t necessarily hang up the process, per se.]

They talked about Jyn & Co witnessing the test on Jedha and how it’s important that Jyn & Co witnessed the terrifying destructive power of this weapon, so they know better than anyone how important it is to stop this thing

They said Saw always died in the weapon test. Originally it was on a different moon, but always planned for him to die like that.

Gary mentioned in ANH, there’s more than one empty chair in the DS conference room, but Gary wished there had been only one chair so it could have been Krennic’s specifically and he wasn’t in it.

The idea was that Mothma and other Generals were desperately trying to avoid a war and trying to find a political solution to this crisis, but Palpatine is stringing them along long enough for the DS to be ready. So the Rebels have been strung along and played for fools by Palpatine, but once we realize the Empire has built a genocide weapon, the Rebels finally wake up to the idea that the only solution now is war. Empire has forced our hand. the movie is about the idea that tyrannical regimes always fall bc they go too far and they do something so terrible that people are forced to stand up and fight back. If the empire had never built the DS, Gary thinks they could have won the war and ground the Rebellion down. but bc they got greedy they forced the entire galaxy to take the war seriously, so the DS was really the Empire’s undoing

The Rebellion was like the equivalent of the Second Continental Congress, with squabbling factions and not able to get anything done, and the Empire was able to win in the beginning bc they are authoritarian, unified top down

Gary came up with Eadu, but it was originally in the first act. The whole movie got restructured. Originally they went to Eadu very early and discovered they were building the giant dish for the DS. That was the first scene that Jyn had the clue that the Empire was building something terrible. Later it became less a place where the dish was built and more just where they were harvesting and refining the kyber crystals.

It was originally Saw’s X-Wings that attacked Eadu

“rain = mood” idk who said it but that line popped

originally there were local people called Eadui who told story how facility had poisoned rivers and valleys and farmland. Gary wanted to put a face on the crimes the Empire had committed

Mads doesn’t believe that what Galen did absolves him

In Gary’s version, Krennic came to inspect final version of the dish

Cassian was always meant to be compromised in both Gary and Chris’s versions. He was a double agent: for a long time, he was working for the Empire. Chris added: he had lost people who had been killed by Saw Gerrera, and all he wanted from the Empire was the go ahead to kill Saw rather than Galen. That transmogrified along the lines post-Chris and post-Gary into a rebel intelligence officer who had done terrible things. In the original idea, he changes heart after seeing the Death Star bc it wasn’t what he signed up for, and he had to win back Jyn’s heart bc that DS reveal happens after his double agent ness is revealed.

In the original, Jyn actually gets Galen back to the rebel base, but he’s beyond saving, but his whole speech he gives Jyn in his last moments happened in a medbay

They talked about the score instead of the awesome fight scene after Eadu so BOOO on that. I mean yes the score is brilliant but still I wanted insight into this scene.

I blanked out a little because I was mad they didn’t talk about the Eadu fight scene argh

They were talking about Krennic standing his ground against Vader. and then someone said it was probably something among the Imperial officers that “you haven’t really made it until you’ve been choked by Vader.” O_o sorry we could be talking about Jyn and Cassian DAMNIT

the debate scene on Yavin 4 was recontextualized. always this idea that the rebellion is not one monolithic entity, it’s a collection of worlds all of whom have own leaders and own opinions. rebellion historically messier because it’s democratic and harder to get things done. 

briefly toyed with a Leia appearance (chris) at the big conference scene, but best for Jyn to give the most rousing speech here. 

Who wrote the hanger speech? Spirit of it might be Chris’, but Chris thinks it’s Tony Gilroy. Big difference from version Gary wrote: Jyn convinced the rebels. But he thought it was cool now that Jyn goes rogue and it’s only when Mothma finds out she’s committed to that that she makes the decision to back her up. But in the original she convinced Mothma, and everyone got around the table and said here’s the plan. Chris thinks it was in one of his drafts that they went off on their own. 

in Gary’s version Jyn was Rogue Leader. 

Chris had grunts complaining all the flyboys create dramatic names for their squadrons but that got nixed

Gary had idea that K-2 had scraped off his markings but had to have them painted back on to go to Scarif and K-2 hated it

Mothma talking to Bail is one scene that survived word for word form Gary’s original script

They talked a little bit about the decision to have the characters die, but I was drafting a question and missed it

They talked about how they came up with Scarif and decided to make it tropical -- what sort of place hasn’t been seen before? sort of coming from production and gareth. but also building these places to fulfill the needs of the story -- like building a walkway that only one person can get across

a lot of extras in Scarif were real ex-military, and Gary said a couple of the X-Wing pilots were real-life RAF tornado pilots

didn’t have Blue Squadron in the ANH bc it interfered with the blue screen

Gareth said “give me a mon calamari that looks like churchill’ and that’s Raddus

Chris and Tony killed pretty much everybody. Sounds like Gary just killed K-2? Unclear bc I missed the main part of that when they were talkinga bout it.

They commented on how RO is one of the darkest tonally movies but also so colorful, beautiful blue sky

They wanted to pay tribute to Battle of Endor

they couldn’t remember who was responsible for ‘stardust’ but it wasn’t gary or chris

who’s idea was it to cut off the “I’ve got a bad idea about this”? gary had a different version of it, Jyn said “I've got a good feeling about this” (which ultimately got used in Solo) 

Someone asked about the footage in trailer that wasn’t in the movie: Chris heard on good authority that the TIE fighter in front of Jyn was actually never intended to be used, was always a trailer-specific moment. he said he didn’t know how she would have gotten out of that one. k-2 died on the beach. chris wasn’t sure but as the scenes get cut together in production and post, the narrative necessities can change bc of logistical needs. but some shots were so cool they were perfect for trailers. Some talk on how trailers and movies are very different things in general.

Gary said originally there were two separate facilities on Scarif: vault and comm tower were separated by stretch of beach. so needed to liberate plans from vault and get across beach to tower. as they looked at what they had, there were too many moving parts and they wanted to simplify, so they put vault and tower in same complex.

did they ever consider letting Chirrut pull the lever using the force? NOPE. 

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me” was Chris. it goes on, it’s supposed to be like a psalm for Jedi, but eh wanted a sort of lord’s prayer type of thing. 

HELL YES someone asked about the romance between Cassian and Jyn! Was there any romantic potential in any script? YES!!! they said!! yes!!! And Chris said he wouldn’t be surprised if a kiss was shot either! 

BUT they went on to say they wanted to side-step the trope that every male and female hero have to be involved.

But clear GARY said yes early on, there was definitely romantic chemistry that got scaled back to a mutual respect, but they’ve obviously grown close. Gary doesn’t think there was anything romantic and they said people found that refreshing. ‘what they’ve been through is the meaningful part” and “‘the stuff that is happening around them is too important" and “it speaks to their character that they wouldn’t let that intrude”

someone said it was like they were walking into a sunset but it was a mushroom cloud and THEN someone QUIPPED that it was sorta like the sunset walking into them RUDE

There was more after that but that was pretty exhausting to keep up with!!!! so i’m wiped. anyone else get any fun takeaways that I missed?

[mmidsay]

EnderMemiorSMP (Maze Runner AU)

A/N - I’m so sorry if I missed anyone I don't keep up to date with ender smp! (I only really watch remi’s pov i tried to ask questions and make it as accurate as possible!)

God my head, it smells of steel. I struggle to open my eyes as I feel the texture of the metal I’m laying on. It reeks, My body slowly let’s every sense come back. The last to return was my hearing, the banging of the chains almost impossible to miss yet moments ago It all sounded like nothing existed. 

I sat in the box for what felt like hours, I don’t remember anything about myself, that’s fucking terrifying. All I know is that my hair is shaggy and out of place then I’m used to I could tell by the uncomfortable and foreign feeling it brought, I’m a decent height and my voice is too quiet to hear with the chains rattling. 

Wait 

What’s my name..

Where am I.. 

What is this..

I try to recall the people in my life and it all seems to have faded. I can smell the room but I can’t see the people, or why they’re there. The bright red and black hair gives a sense of friendship, the brunette seems as if they are proud of me? But what do I do? The memory fades more as I try to think about it. I felt like I was in hell, each memory I tried to recall slipped from me.

My memories are falling apart. I remember the brunette hair, and the- the uhm.. what is it.. as I think harder it slips even harder. The box halts hard and fast, sending me fast first into the ground.. for a moment I think the cage will finally open, but it doesn’t not for a while.

The top of the cage opens and the bright rays of sun hit my eyes.. My name is yuckles.. fucking yuckles? Really thanks mom for that one. Ugh I push myself up and someone jumps into the box.

Someone with a split dye of blonde and Brown hair appears in front of me.. “Day one greenie.”

I push myself trying to adjust to the sun's heat, the people around me are trying to help pull me up and out of the box, I look around for a minute and feel lost. This is not my home, I shifted to look at the looming stone walls before- Someone grabbed my shoulder, “hello greenie!” 

I nod towards them, “I feel it’s best if you come meet Alexa and Reggie before we do anything!” 

Who is this, who are the names. I’m so confused. “What’s your name?”

They turn to smile at me, “Names Bloo! I’m the keeper of the builders!” 

They look at me as if they're asking a question, “you want my name?”

They nod excitedly.

“Yuckles… at least I think?” It felt foreign coming off my tongue.

“Yuckles? Well alright shank! Let’s get you too Alexa so you can deal with that whole mess! Mess hall won’t fix itself!” Bloo smiles pushing me towards a shed

“Alexa! Reg! New greenie coming in!”

Two voices shout back in unison, “Let em in!” Bloo opens the door letting me in before it hits me in the back as they run away yelling “good luck!” As they go.

Alexa and Reggie told me they were the leaders and what I needed to know and what I didn’t need to question, I guess they could tell from my eyes I was curious.

“We’ll leave you with last months greenie Andrea”

I looked at them with confusion, they act as if I’m supposed to know who that is..

They seemed to get the memo, “go to the gardening area. You’ll see someone with bright pink hair, their name is remi.. they’ll be able to help you to remi.”

I nodded, asking one last question before I got to the door, “where are the gardens?” Alexa I believe follows me out and starts me off in the direction of the gardens. 

“I must be going now,” I nod as she talks, “See remi over there?” I look at the pinkette with a purple ribbon holding back their hair.

“Remi!” Alexa shouts from beside me

Remi looks up from the crops and raises her body to stand, you can see a younger person who was copying her movements, “Alexa! Hey!”

She shifts her eyes to me and then whispers to the person next to her then runs over to where we are.

“Hiya greenie! I’m remi” she mimics as if she was tipping a hat.

“Rem, this greenie is stuck with you until the doors shut.” Alexa pushes me forward towards remi before the turn around

“You got it boss!” Alexa starts walking in the opposite direction, remi wraps her arm around my shoulder

“I guess I basically have two greenies under my ranks!” Remi smiles as we walk back to the gardens

“Remi who’s this?” The person who was crouched down now standing with curious eyes.

“This is our new greenie but don’t you worry Andrea! You’ll still be called greenie.” Andrea sighs in defeat before smiles 

“I’m Andrea! I now have the privilege of calling someone greenie, so when you do remember your name I’m going to call you greenie anyway” Remi snickers lightly next to me.

“Just out of curiosity greenie what is your name?” Remi smiles as we walk toward the crops

“Yuckles I think? It doesn’t sound like a real name but it’s all I can remember.”

Remi smiles “whatever works, works. Is it cool if I call you, Yuck? Yuckles is too long.”

I nod before Andrea shouts out in laughter, “YOUR NAME IS YUCKLES OH MY GOD THAT IS SO FUNNY.”

They continue laughing until they see Remi’s glare. Remi is a bit smaller than Andrea and Significantly smaller than me, yet I would not fuck with her.

“I’ll be leaving the gardens a bit early today, so you will be with Andrea from dinner to sun down. They'll run through everything.” She smiles sweetly at me. Andrea nods their head.

Remi starts teaching me the basics of a gardener, constantly apologizing for the fact that I have to start as a gardener. They know everyone hates the job.

Eventually after enough remi gets up, “alright Kofi and Sky are back. I got to go, Andrea, be nice.”

Andrea smiles and shouts as Remi leaves, “No promises!”

I keep an eye on Remi as they walk over to a Tall strong and built black man wearing baggy clothes with a satchel across his shoulders and a shorter raven haired with a red hat with a notebook and a pale complexion smiling at Remi as she walks up to them both giving her a hug. 

They walk to a wooden structure before someone yells out. “DINNER FOR WORKING GLADERS! LETS GO!” The voice seems as far away as you can be in this area

“Okay come on greenie let’s go get dinner.”

We both walk to the mess hall, they guide me through the line. They smile at the people saying hello. They led me to sit down the the person who pulled me out of the box, another guy similar to the guy remi had run up to but significantly less built, and someone else with a brown curly hair and a black mask covering their face.

“Guys this is the new greenie!” They yelled as they sat down at the table pulling me along.

“Hello again Greenie!” The person with the split dye says to me as I place my plate down, after explaining and giving names of everyone at the table They then turn to Andrea, “Will Kofi,Sky and Remi be here soon?” Bright shrugs, “It’s always a toss up with them, I heard they’re mapping everything while Sky interrogates Remi about how they’re feeling. 

The mess hall door opens with laughter, The boy named Matt speaks “Speak of the devil. Hey Guys!”  Remi and Kofi come in and sit down, Sky walks to the food line grabbing three plates, I assume for themself and the other two. “Sky and Drell are probably gonna be a minute they haven't seen each other all day.” I pipe up, “Who’s drell”

“Sky’s sibling.”

[theirrationalzone]

Yakkin ‘bout Games: Wolfenstein: The New Order

Yakking ‘bout Games is a series where I talk about games that I’m currently playing or have just finished. It can be new or old, console or PC, good or bad, it really doesn’t matter. If it’s a game worth talking about, you’ll see it covered here.

I think it’s fair to say that the FPS genre has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance over the last decade and a bit. The modern military shooters that dominated the late 2000s and early 2010s have become less common. We have seen the return of classic franchises like Doom and Half-Life, and we have also witnessed the influx of “boomer shooters” like Dusk and Amid Evil. A lot of cool stuff indeed.

With that being said, let’s take a trip back a few years. 2014 to be exact.

This was the first year of the (then) brand spanking new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The two consoles were not off to the best of starts though. Their early exclusives like Killzone Shadow Fall, InFamous Second Son, Forza Motorsport 5 and Dead Rising 3 had failed to impress. The only games picking up the slack were multi-platform releases like Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag. The only FPS games available at the time (other than Killzone on PS4) were Call of Duty Ghosts (dull as dishwater) and Battlefield 4 (I enjoyed it but it was completely broken on release.)

Not exactly the most exciting of times for an FPS fan on console.

Wolfenstein: The New Order finally came along that May. It had been announced the year prior but it didn’t have much fanfare behind it. The initial E3 showing didn’t really impress anyone and there wasn’t really a great excitement for the game’s release. Perhaps it was because the previous Wolfenstein game was largely ignored by people or maybe because people were skeptical due to the game being MachineGames’ (the developer) first effort. People needn’t have worried though. The game turned out to be a massive surprise. It ended up being one of the best of that year.

Why am I covering this now? It’s because I recently got the urge to play it again after all these years. Plus I wanted to see how it would function in a post modern Doom world. So with that in mind, let’s get psyched and see how the game holds up.

Never has a smile brought terror to my heart so fast. Well this and my last dental appointment...

The New Order is set in an alternate universe where the Nazis won World War II due to their advanced technology being too much for the Allied forces. After an operation to try and assassinate the spearhead behind this growing technological evolution goes horribly wrong, Captain William “B.J.” Blazkowicz ends up taking a piece of shrapnel to the back of the head which puts him into a vegetative state. He ends up spending fourteen years in a Polish mental asylum before finally being awoken again due to witnessing a horrible atrocity committed by the Nazis. B.J. is now in the alien world of 1960 where the Nazis rule over the world with an iron fist. It’s up to B.J. to link up with the remnants of the Resistance and take the fight back to the Nazis once and for all.

The story was and still is one of the most surprising elements of The New Order. It paints a brutal picture of a world controlled by an evil and ruthless force who will stop at nothing to assert their dominance. The cast as well are very memorable. You have the plucky and likable Resistance fighters who you get to spend quite a bit of time with. You then have some memorable encounters with the evil figureheads of the Nazi regime at certain parts of the story. Anyone who has seen the train sequence in this game knows exactly what I’m taking about. I have to give MachineGames credit as well for the characterisation of B.J. himself. They managed to turn a character who was known for being a badass Nazi killer to a very sympathetic and likable Nazi killer. B.J. in this game is weary and tired after years of fighting evil and tyranny at every corner. The man wants nothing more than for the war to be over so he can hang up his guns and finally settle down. How could you hate the man after hearing something like that?

B.J. is such an upstanding guy that he would infiltrate a Nazi controlled train just to get you some coffee. Liberation and a Cappuccino, you can’t beat it. 

The real bread and butter of The New Order though is the gameplay. It has held up fantastically for the most part. Combat is a blast thanks to the very meaty arsenal at your disposal including assault rifles, shotguns, marksman rifle and a Laserkraftwerk which allows you to blast enemies to smithereens. You’ll have plenty of enemy types to cut through including rank and file soldiers, big mech suit soldiers with heavy weaponry and robots that have massive lasers. B.J. has a few abilities though to help turn the tide of battle. Leaning is one such ability and it’s implemented very well. How it works is that if you hold the L1 button, it locks B.J. in place and you can then use the left stick to lean at different angles. It’s super useful. Earning a well placed few shots at a Nazi from a very awkward angle never gets old. B.J. also has the ability to dual-wield certain weapons to deal even more hefty damage to his foes. Press up on the d-pad and prepare to bring the carnage. While this is a pretty fun feature, it does limit your movement speed and it can result in you burning through ammo quite quickly. It also is restricted to two types of the same weapon. You can also find upgrades for weapons which give them different ammo types and fire modes. The Laserkraftwerk, for example, can be used to cut through certain boxes and materials which is pretty nifty.

In terms of how health works, it’s a hybrid between classic pick-ups and regeneration. You can recover health by picking up health packs and food throughout the game. Armor can be found as well to allow you to take some extra damage. If you take health damage and managed to find cover, you’ll eventually get 10 health points back. You also have the ability to overcharge your health. How this works is that if you end up picking up a health item that takes you over your max health, you get higher health points for a brief period which is quite useful. You can increase your max health by finding hidden health upgrades throughout some of the levels.

AI is decent for the most part. They will attempt to find cover in the heat of a firefight and they do try to flank you. Some of the heavy soldiers will also attempt to rush your position. I certainly didn’t notice any unusual behaviour from them. Boss fights are a bit unremarkable for the most part. The game pretty much spells out how to take them out and they don’t really put up much of a fight. The main exception being the final boss but even then, it really isn’t that hard.

The secret painting boss fight was an interesting idea though. Definitely a canvas for them to work on in the future. (Apologies for the bad pun and joke.)

The game does have a basic stealth system and it works fine. When you enter most of the areas in the game, you will be informed that there are two commanders in the area. Take them out without being spotted and you can sneak through the area without having to worry about reinforcements if you get spotted by an enemy. You can take down enemies stealthily by using a silenced pistol, throwing knives or by sneaking up to them and performing a takedown. Stealth can feel a little overpowered during some of the early sections because the pistol is super accurate and it only takes one headshot to take some of these enemies down. The game does balance this a bit better later on as areas are populated with more elite enemies that harder to kill without being spotted.

Being a Wolfenstein game, you would expect exploration to be a big part of the gameplay and it does play a part for sure. There are hidden areas to be found with collectibles such as the Enigma codes which can unlock new difficulties and cheat codes. You can also find hidden max HP upgrades and other stuff as well. Maps can be found in each level which will indicate possible hidden secrets with a question mark. Levels are definitely more linear than some of the prior Wolfenstein games so don’t expect huge hidden areas or levels.

Key and item hunting still exists of course. You will find doors that require a key or a tool needed to progress which requires a bit of skulking around to find that key or item. You see this especially in the Resistance HQ sections which occur after most of the levels. In these sections, you will be tasked with finding a certain item for a character to progress to the next level. There are also side missions where you can do the same thing for other characters in the HQ and completing these unlocks extras such as artwork. I’m mixed on the Resistance HQ sections overall. On the one hand, they’re good from a lore perspective because you can overhear conversations from some of the characters and there are newspaper clippings and notes to find which do a good job of building up the world. On the other hand, they do feel a little bit like filler. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose...

I don’t really have many issues with the gameplay as a whole. My only real gripe is how the weapon wheel works. Weapon wheels are commonplace on console because a controller doesn’t have many buttons when compared to a keyboard. Makes perfect sense. The New Order’s one however can be such a temperamental thing to use. How it’s supposed to work is that you hit the R1 button to bring up the wheel and then you use the right stick to pick the weapon you want. Sounds simple enough. In reality what happens is that the game ends up giving you the wrong weapon time after time. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times that I tried to switch to the assault rifle and the game switched me to the dual-wield pistols instead. It can be a bloody nuisance. Part of this is down to how sensitive the stick is when using the wheel. It’s way too fast. Also why do the dual-wield options even need to be there? You can already hit up on the d-pad to dual-wield a particular weapon plus I didn’t really need to dual-wield all that much so it’s just clutter. They could have cleaned this up a lot better. I also had issues with swapping back to the previous weapon. It would sometimes default back to the Laserkraftwerk even though it wasn’t my previous weapon. Thankfully these issues didn’t get me killed but they certainly got on my nerves a little bit.

Textbook schadenfreude here from one of the villains. Shouldn’t be that shocked really...

From a graphics point of view, Wolfenstein: The New Order still holds up remarkably well. It runs on the same idTech engine that powered Rage before it and it certainly looks great. Character models are well detailed and they animate well. Cutscenes are well framed and the angles are perfectly done. Environments are beautifully crafted with amazing detail so whether you are in rainy soaked London or even the friggin’ Moon, you feel immersed in the world of the game.

I wasn’t kidding about the Moon. Look Ma, I’m in space! (In a video game...)

The game is quite aliased on the consoles. You definitely see sharp and jagged edges at times. Plus the textures look a bit low-res when viewed up close, but the game still looks great, and I imagine the PC version cleans up most of this stuff anyway so there’s that.

Tumblr’s image compression doesn’t do this environment justice. Oh well. C’est la vie, I suppose...

I can’t fault the game’s sound though. All voice performances are pitch-perfect with Brian Bloom (the voice of B.J.) being the standout. The music is incredible too with a great balance between atmospheric tracks and hard edged ones when the action really kicks off. It’s composed by a guy named Mick Gordon. Don’t think he’s done anything of note since though.

In terms of length, you’re looking at about roughly 8-10 hours for a first time playthrough. There is replay value with the collectibles and the Timeline system. To briefly explain, the Timeline system is related to a choice you make at the start of the game which changes some of the characters you encounter during the game. It doesn’t drastically change much. The events remain the same. You just get some unique dialog and a scene or two. Not much else.

So as you can see, I think that Wolfenstein: The New Order is still a bloody good time. The shooting still feels great with some really meaty weapons, the story and characters are super engaging, and the presentation and sound still kicks some ass. It has some minor issues here and there, but this game is well worth experiencing. You can pick it up pretty cheap nowadays on most of the platforms and it does go on sale quite often.

It’s nice to go back sometimes and revisit a classic, isn’t it? 

Check back here soon for Part 2 of this where I take a look at The Old Blood. Until then, stay safe, folks!

[starscheme]

Change My World

Chapter Twenty-Six: Separate Paths

Spinel was helpless as the bubble was hurled off and away from Steven. She was knocked forward by the force of suddenly being flung across the sky, but as she watched the bubble smash through the trees, Spinel wondered if it would ever stop. 

“Take me back!!” She shouted, pounding at the bottom of the pink sphere once it finally began to slow down and lower itself towards the ground. Luckily, or perhaps by Stevens will, the bubble seemed to stop on a hill covered with large trees, most which had been damaged by the bubble upon entering the small forest. 

“I said to take me back! Dammit, Steven!” Spinel shouted again, this time kicking her foot hard against the bubbles surface once it had stopped against the trunk of one of the larger trees. Angry tears gripped at the mermaids eyes, frustrated that she was once again unable to do anything while Steven protected her. By now the soldiers had him and who knows where they would take him. If they somehow knew he was harboring a mermaid, he’d surely be charged with treason and sentenced to death. “This isn’t fair,” began Spinel in a huff, still kicking at slamming her fists against the bubble in an attempt to escape and vent her frustration. “You’re always only thinking of me! Well now you’re alone and I can’t help you! What do you mean separated for a little while?! I don’t want to be separated at all you moron!! What if you-“ 

Spinel stopped shouted and quickly wiped her eyes, swallowing the large lump in her throat as she stopped herself from saying aloud what she feared the most. What would she do if Steven actually died? Was that woman’s premonition about this? Is this how Steven loses his life? Garnet told her that she needed to stay with Steven, but they were separated now. “No, no, no, no...!” Mumbled Spinel anxiously, “...come on, let me out of here,” she pleaded to no one in particular. Surely the bubble couldn’t hear her, but what else could she do? “Please!! I have to get back! I have to find him!” 

Waiting in silence for a moment, Spinels anxiety doubled with every second that passed by. How long was she going to be stuck in this? With a tired sigh, Spinel slumped to her knees and tugged at her pigtails, trying to calm herself down and think. For the time being, she was stuck, so her best course of action was to come up with a plan for when she got out. 

Finding out where Steven was taken would be her first priority and the second would be to find a way to get to him. Now that she was thinking a little clearer, Spinel realized that finding Steven may not have been as hard as she previously worried about. Though she didn’t like that he’d done it without consulting her, Steven had bound himself to her. Their hearts were linked together now. If she preformed a little ritual, finding Steven would be easy. It would be painful and a little risky considering she’d never done it before, but it was the most accurate and fastest way to find him. Another risk in performing this ritual was that she had to be in her mermaid form to use magic, so she’d have to find a private place to drench herself in water. 

Once Spinel had calmed down a little, the bubble began to dissipate. She quickly got to her feet and stepped out, finally feeling like she was getting some control over the situation. Now all she needed to do was find a source of water. Any place big enough to submerge in would be watched over for sure, but surely the nearby town had an inn. She didn’t much like the idea of interacting with humans without Steven, but she didn’t have a lot of options. She’d also have to eventually find some transportation, which meant she’d have to go into town sooner or later. Spinel steeled herself and gripped the duffles strap that hung across her chest. Without wasting anymore time, she began to make her way down the hill, thinking it would be best to avoid any clear paths. The sun was going to set soon and it might have been wiser to set up camp, but the sooner she could find Steven, the less anxious she would feel. Not that Spinel was too confident in her survival skills without him anyway. Steven was the one who found shelters and made fire, he was the one who read the maps and bought what they needed. Spinel wasn’t sure how to do any of that on her own. She’d never read a map in her life. 

“This is so stupid...” she muttered to herself, climbing over a fallen tree, “...how am I supposed to find you if I can’t read directions...” 

Spinel grumbled her complaints to no one, trying to remember everything she would berate Steven for when she found him, until she started to feel a horrible pain in her stomach. 

Her body lurched forward with the sudden rush of pain and Spinel was dropped to her knees, holding tight to her stomach and trying her best not throw up. It wasn’t like anything she felt before. It burned. As if a fire was trying to force its way out through her skin. The pain was localized to her stomach, but she could barely breath from the intensity of it. This was worse than receiving the Gem. It was worse than growing her legs. 

“Wh-what is th—?!” Spinel tried to speak, but when she opened her mouth, it felt as if the fire tried to surge up through her throat. 

“Does it hurt?” 

Spinel’s heart jumped when she heard Stevens Familiar voice. With a quick gasp, she looked up, only to see him staring down at her, his hands bloodied and his eyes turned pink. 

“Ste-Steven?” 

“...I’m so sorry,” he began, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want-“ 

“STOP IT!” Spinel screamed, her voice echoing amongst the trees.  “I don’t want to remember!” 

Steven knelt down and reached out towards her stomach. “I can make the pain go away...” 

Spinel panicked. Though the pain was unbearable, she had a terrible sense of dread as he came closer to her. “No-! Stop it! Don’t touch me!” 

Steven stopped, visibly hurt by her words. “...do you hate...for what I’ve done?”

“N-no! I don’t hate you,” replied Spinel quickly, doing her best to stay focused as the pain made her vision blur. The line between reality and this illusion was becoming thinner and thinner in her mind. It was difficult to tell what was real any m more.  

“I didn’t want to do it...” Steven said again. 

“J-just stop!” Spinel pleaded, not wanting to hear anymore. It was just like back in the cave. Steven kept talking about a possible past between them and all Spinel could feel was an overwhelming fear. She didn’t want to know. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to remember. 

“You need to sleep, Spinel...” whispered the illusion as he placed his hand over the gem on her chest. 

“No!” Shouted Spinel as she swatted his hand away and shuffled back to put some distance between them. Moving was difficult, but she couldn’t let this beat her. Whatever this was, it wasn’t her Steven. “Don’t touch me! I need to find-I need—“ 

Spinel gasped for breath, unable to speak anymore as the pain became simply unbearable. She huddled over and closed her eyes, gritting her teeth in an attempt to get through this. The fire inside was growing hotter and hotter, as if melting through her skin to get out. Without Spinel noticing anything, the illusion of Steven had turned completely pink and sat beside her, placing its hand on her back. 

“...I’m sorry...” he whispered once again, leaning over to kiss her forehead. 

Though she couldn’t feel his lips, a cooling sensation rushed through her body and her eyes became heavy. The pain was slowly fading away, but so was the scene in front of her. When she looked up to try and stay awake, the pink Steven smiled down at her. 

“Sleep for now...” he said softly. 

“N....no...I...” mumbled Spinel as she struggled to keep her eyes open, the illusion of Steven watching silently as her body fell limp against the ground and everything went dark. 

While Spinel lost her battle to stay awake, Steven was being placed onto a large bed by several soldiers. Each one trying to move him as quickly as possible. Once the bubble had disappeared around him, they found it very difficult to transport the young man. A strange, pink light glowed around Stevens body, causing harm to anyone trying to touch him. Even though they were able to transport Steven to the bedroom with a stretcher, the soldiers that had to lift him had their hands burned through their gloves. 

When Steven was finally placed onto the bed, the soldiers that lifted him rushed out of the room for medical care, holding their burnt hands as they clambered away. 

Their leader, Caden, now stood beside the bed, staring down at the slumbering young man. “So what now?” He asked as Garnet entered the room. 

“...I haven’t seen anything yet,” answered Garnet, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.

“Are you sure we need the girl?” He asked again with a sigh. “The soldier I sent after her hasn’t returned.” 

Garnet shook her head slowly, “To get what you want from Steven...you’ll need Spinel, but remember what I told...it’s a dangerous strategy. When it comes to Spinel...Steven can become a bit unstable.” 

Caden groaned lightly, “I should’ve grabbed her when they were separated at the festival.” 

“You and countless others could have died if you did,” insisted Garnet stoically. “You have to be careful about how you handle this. Steven doesn’t know how to control himself yet.”  

“Yeah...well now we are running out of time. If that mermaid isn’t caught before we begin, we’ll have to deal with some acceptable losses or move on to plan B. The lab said they’re ready to move.” 

“...you’re underestimating him,” warned Garnet, “He’s not one of your experiments. His power is-

Caden held up his hand to stop her, “-I know. I remember, but I have a job to do. So just do whatever it takes to keep him calm until we find the mermaid. Stay with him and call for someone when he wakes up.” 

After giving his instructions, Caden left the room, closing the large double doors behind him. Garnet waited for several minutes in silence, making sure that no one was going to come back inside before she took a chair and placed it beside the bed to sit next to Steven as he slept. 

“...forgive me, Steven...” she mumbled softly, placing her hand on the bed, careful not to touch him while he was emitting that pink glow. “...soon...you’ll understand everything.” Surely he couldn’t hear her, but for now it was all Garnet could offer him. The wheels were turning. Steven and Spinel had set down their paths and Garnet was doing her part to set it in motion. There was no turning back now. 

[miloscat]

[Review] Conker: Live & Reloaded (XB)

Let’s see just how well this misguided remake/expansion holds up. This will be a long one!

Conker’s Bad Fur Day is my favourite N64 game. It’s cinematic and ambitious, technically impressive, has scads of gameplay variety with fun settings and setpieces, and when I first played it I was just the right age for the humour to land very well for me. A scant four years later Rare remade it for the Xbox after their acquisition by Microsoft, replacing the original multiplayer modes with a new online mode that would be the focus of the project, with classes and objectives and such.

First, an assessment of the single-player campaign. On a revisit I can see the common criticisms hold some water: the 3D platformer gameplay is a bit shaky at times, certain gameplay segments are just plain wonky and unfair, and some of the humour doesn’t hold up. It’s got all the best poorly-aged jokes: reference humour, gross-out/shock humour, and poking fun at conventions of the now dormant 3D collectathon platformer genre. I also am more sensitive these days to things like the sexual assault and homophobia undertones to the cogs, or Conker doing awful things for lols. Having said that, there’s plenty that I still find amusing, and outside of a few aggravatingly difficult sequences (surf punks, the mansion key hunt, the submarine attack, the beach escape) I do still appreciate the range of things you do in the game.

As for the remake, I’m not sure it can be called an improvement by any metric. Sure, there’s some minor additions. There’s a new surgeon Tediz miniboss, the new haunted baby doll enemy, and the opening to Spooky has been given a Gothic village retheme along with an added—though unremarked on—costume for Conker during this chapter based on the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing flop. Other changes are if anything detrimental. The electrocution and Berri’s shooting cutscenes have been extended, thus undermining the joke/emotional impact. The original game used the trope of censoring certain swear words to makes lines more funny; the remake adds more censorship for some reason, in one case (the Rock Solid bouncer scene) ruining the joke, and Chucky Poo’s Lament is just worse with fart noises covering the cursing.

The most egregious change, and one lampshaded in the tutorial, is the replacement of the frying pan (an instant and satisfying interaction) with a baseball bat which must be equipped, changing the control and camera to the behind-the-back combat style, and then swung with timed inputs to defeat the many added armoured goblings and dolls carelessly dumped all throughout the game world. This flat out makes the game less fun to play through.

On top of this, all the music has been rerecorded (with apologies to Robin Beanland, I didn’t really notice apart from instances where it had to be changed, such as in Franky’s boss fight where the intensely frenetic banjo lead was drastically reduced as a concession to the requirement to actually play it in real life), and the graphics totally redone. Bad Fur Day made excellent use of textures, but with detail cranked up, the sixth generation muddiness, and a frankly overdone fur effect, something is lost. I’m not a fan of the character redesigns either; sure Birdy has a new hat, but I didn’t particularly want to see Conker’s hands, and the Tediz are no longer sinister stuffed bears but weird biological monster bears with uniforms. On top of all this you notice regular dropped details; a swapped texture makes for nonsensical dialogue in the Batula cutscene, and characters have lost some emotive animations. Plus, the new translucent scrolling speech bubbles are undeniably worse.

I could mention the understandable loading screens (at least they’re quick), the mistimed lip sync (possibly exacerbated by my tech setup), or the removal of cheats (not a big deal), but enough remake bashing. To be fair, the swimming controls have been improved and the air meter mercifully extended, making Bats Tower more palatable. And some sequences have been shortened to—I suppose—lessen gameplay tedium (although removing the electric eel entirely is an odd choice). But let’s cover the multiplayer. Losing the varied modes from the original is a heavy blow, as I remember many a fun evening spent in Beach, War, or Raptor, along with the cutscenes setting up each mode.

The new headline feature of this release is the Live mode. The new Xbox Live service allowing online multiplayer was integrated, although it’s all gone now. Chasing the hot trends of the time, it’s a set of class-based team missions, with the Squirrel High Command vs. the Tediz in a variety of scenarios, mostly boiling down to progressing through capture points or capture the flag. Each class is quite specialised and I’m not sure how balanced it is, plus there’s proto-achievements and unlocks behind substantial milestones none of which I got close to reaching (I don’t think I could get most of them anyway, not being “Live”).

The maps are structured around a “Chapter X” campaign in which the Tediz and the weasel antagonist from BFD Ze Professor (here given a new and highly offensive double-barrelled slur name) are initially fighting the SHC in the Second World War-inspired past of the Old War, before using a time machine, opening up a sci-fi theme for the Future War. These are mainly just aesthetic changes, but it’s a fun idea and lets them explore Seavor’s beloved wartime theming a bit more while also bringing in plenty of references to Star Wars, Alien, Dune, and Halo; mostly visual.

Unfortunately the plot is a bit incoherent, rushed through narration (unusually provided by professional American voice actor Fred Tatasciore rather than a Rare staffer doing a raspy or regional voice like the rest of the game) over admittedly nice-looking cutscenes. They also muddle the timeline significantly, seemingly ignoring the BFD events... and then the Tediz’ ultimate goal is to revive the hibernating Panther King, when the purpose of their creation was to usurp him in the first place! It expands on the Conker universe but in a way that makes the world feel smaller and more confusing. It’s weird, and also Conker doesn’t appear at all.

On top of this, I found the multiplayer experience itself frustrating. To unlock the full Chapter X, you need to play the first three maps on easy, then you can go through the whole six. But I couldn’t pass the first one on normal difficulty! The “Dumbots” seemed to have so much health and impeccable aim, while the action was so chaotic, obscured by intrusive UI, floating usernames, and smoke and other effects with loads of characters milling around, not to mention the confusing map layouts, the friendly fire, the instant respawns, and the spawncamping. Luckily I could play the maps themselves in solo mode with cutscenes and adjustable AI and options.

I found some classes much more satisfying than others. I tried to like the Long Ranger and the slow Demolisher, but found it difficult to be accurate. The awkward range of the Thermophile and the Sky Jockey’s rarely effective vehicles made them uncommon choices. I had most success with the simple Grunt, or the melee-range Sneeker (the SHC variant of which is sadly the sole playable female in the whole thing). You can pick up upgrade tokens during gameplay to expand the toolset of each class, which range from necessary to situational. But ultimately it’s a crapshoot, as I rarely felt that my intentions led to clear results.

Live & Reloaded is such a mess. The Reloaded BFD is full of odd decisions and baffling drawbacks, while the Live portion feels undercooked. I’d have preferred a greater focus on either one; a remake is unnecessary, especially only four years on, but a new single-player adventure would have been ace. And a multiplayer mode in this universe with its own story mode could be cool if it was better balanced and had more to it than just eight maps. As a source of some slight scrapings of new Conker content I appreciated it to some extent, but I can’t help being let down. I guess it’s true what they say... the grass is always greener. And you don’t really know what it is you have, until it’s gone... gone. Gone.

Yes, that ending is still genuinely emotionally affecting.