#koudelka spoilers

[savingthegeneration]

Is it okay child? For you not to follow him?

Yeah, it's okay. I have a feeling that someday, somewhere we'll meet again.

Koudelka (2000) dev. Sacnoth

[hellishfig]

the best part of getting other people to consume media i like is inflicting my ideas about said media upon them

[hephaestuscrew]

When I think about Minkowski, Eiffel, Hera and Lovelace post-canon, the relationship I imagine is something that could be described as a group queerplatonic relationship. As I like to think about it (and other people are obviously entirely free to think about it differently), the relationships are entirely platonic, but they prioritise each other, they take care of each other, they live together (although with a fair amount of individual comings and goings), and they are the most important people in each other's lives. External people tend to wonder who is dating who in that house and are surprised to learn that no one is. But I don't think they'd feel the need for a term like QPR. I don't think they'd be searching for that language to describe their dynamic to the world or to each other.

Of course, I also think of them under the term 'found family', but I'm not sure they'd use familial language either. I think they'd leave that unspoken. And words like 'friends' and 'housemates' - while true - don't fully capture who they are to each other.

In fact, when I'm thinking about how they describe their relationships to each other post-canon, the word that I keep coming back to is that they are a crew.

They are still a crew post-canon. But "crew" means something different now that the station is gone. "Crew" had already started to mean something different while they were up there. (See this post.) It's a choice now. It had already started to be a choice while they were up there. Once, "crew" described their shared relationship to the Hephaestus. Now it only describes their relationships to each other.

I think Minkowski definitely still calls them "her crew". And the others end up doing so too, although perhaps to a lesser extent. Sometimes it's in a casual or joking way: talking about"Crew Movie Nights", or despairing "Does no one else in this crew know how to load the dishwasher?" Sometimes it's in a purely internal way: thinking "I ought to head home - the crew will be wondering where I've got to", or ranking "Keeping my crew safe" at the top of a mental list of priorities. Sometimes it's in a serious way: asserting "I won't let the crew down", or saying "You'll always be a part of this crew" as an act of reassurance in moments of doubt and fear.

And when they call each other a crew, it means family and commitment and love and responsibility and trust and care. It means all those things that Goddard Futuristics didn't care about when it gave them that word.

There's a kind of reclamation in that, in turning a piece of that military language into something different and beautiful outside of that context, in knowing "The mission was a lie, the station was a deathtrap, but some of the people I met up there are my people now."

[herawell]

Me: Infidelity is one of the worst things you could do to someone, to take someone who loves you so much and stab them in the back.

Dominik Koudelka: *exists*

Me: Get cuckolded idiot.

[nobodysdaydreams]

💐

Thank you, Milk!

Sadly, I'm behind on my tmbs stuff at the moment, but I have slowly begun to dip my toes into the world of Wolf359 fanfic. So, with no context, I hope you enjoy this:

The man said other things as well, something about Goddard Futuristics sending their deepest condolences, life insurance policies, generous financial compensation and assistance for the families, anything they could do to help, but all of it was white noise. Dominik covered stories and tragedies like this, but he didn’t…he didn’t live it, and Renée…no Renée was too brilliant, she was unbeatable, she couldn’t be gone, that couldn’t be right, there must be a mistake of course, it had to be a mistake.

But there was no mistake. The representative came straight from Goddard itself.

Renée was gone.

[sharpestasp]

Vorkosigan Again

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold, copyright 1991

Chapter One

"I am afraid"

Hell of an opening line.

Apparently Betan medicine is far better than Barrayaran, for Cordelia's damnation of how Koudelka's injuries were handled.

"In those mirrors, I am altogether beautiful" - her thoughts at how Aral looks at her. I may have cooed.

Oh he called her Dear Captain.

I love that Cordelia asks about the duties entailed, and how that briefing goes.

"I'll keep trying to change your mind." And I feel like Aral loves that, too, about her.

Poor Illyan. I see his argument, but having a remove from the Palace is also, as Aral says, good PR.

Now we meet Kareen and Gregor, and both Cordelia and Aral are trying to be reassuring.

Business for Aral, socials for Cordelia... that won't last.

I have not yet taken in any spoilers about Kareen. I probably ought to, given she was involved with the Prince. Willing, unwilling, victim, co-conspirator? That kind of thing is making me antsy about her.

OH BLESS THAT OPENING, once they are alone. Even if Cordelia did not kill the man.

And it looks like Kareen might be untainted, loyal to the Emperor, not her husband.

Droushnakovi, an amazon in pining for open service, perhaps?

OH! And she's been assigned to Cordelia, by Negri, with accord from Kareen.

PLEASE DO NOT BE PART OF THE TRAP.

[mcalhenwrites]

6 Name the frogs

13 Geckos Automata

Thank you for the ask! :D

6 for Name the Frogs: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

A few of the reasons are spoilers, so I’ll have to navigate around those to answer this question. Some of them deal with the types of relationships I write in the story! (Though I did add a reporter character friendship again.) While I do tend to stick with certain themes in all my stories, like characters navigating trauma, in this one the main character, Irving, is the son of someone openly detested. It makes him a pariah, even though Nestor mistreated him. People think he has been groomed to take over for his father. That has led to some interesting relationship developments in his adult life… And a lack of them, sadly, especially for a kid who acted out in class to impress his peers for laughs. He has been crying out for friends his entire life. 13 for Geckos, Automata: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading? Geckos, Automata doesn’t have much of a “playlist” - a lot of my stories don’t, since I tend to either get hooked on a new soundtrack or song in a moment OR I’m repeating the same Yasunori Mitsuda music as I always do. Can’t help it, Mitsuda is good.

Uh, anyway! Here are some songs I definitely recall listening to while writing:

“Abel’s Ark” from Xenosaga Episode III OST, by Yuki Kajiura I want to note that I listened to a lot of this soundtrack recently while editing, and it really fit the mood. But “Abel’s Ark” is the one I keep putting on repeat.

“Dead” from Koudelka OST, by Hiroki Kikuta A peaceful melody from a horror game works well for some of the more heartbreaking moments in Geckos, Automata.

“Waking the Monster” by Darren Hayes When listening to this song, you can definitely sense why it fits the story so well. I actually listened a lot of his music during the writing of this, from “The Future Holds a Lion’s Heart” to “Hero”, but “Waking the Monster” maybe fits a little too well? I’m worried I subconsciously took a lot of plot from the song, even though I actually converged a recent plot with an old one in order to develop the one in Geckos. The old one is from 2011, and yes this song was out back then, but it was about necromancy and stealing from tombs. The one in 2020 that developed alongside some new characters (Duncan, Rosalia, and Kieran) was simply a desire to write a story in a post-apocalyptic world where a group of people banded together and traveled along the train tracks.

“Coffee with a Bullet” from Shadow Hearts OST, by Yoshitaka Hirota I listened to a lot of both SH I & II OSTs, but this one stands out to me a little more than the others. If Hirota didn’t compose it, Mitsuda did. Yes. Mitsuda. I’m predictable.

There’s also a massive chance I was listening to KHUX music at this time, because it hadn’t finished yet, and I was obsessed. This includes a lot of songs from the earlier Kingdom Hearts soundtracks, especially any related to darkness. The game wrapped up in June of 2021, a few months after I wrote the original Geckos draft in one month, so it’s very possible that I was listening to KH music frequently at the time.

[auncyen]

23 for the ask game!

23. A "wow" moment--very old school on this one but Shadow Hearts: Covenant just popped to mind so going with that. (also SPOILERS but like this game is old enough you've either played it or won't.) A thing about the Shadow Hearts series and the spiritual predecessor Koudelka is that all of them have some attempt to bring back the dead, typically with very very very bad results. In Shadow Hearts: Covenant, one of the people who tries it is actually your protagonist and the wise-albeit-crackpot old man helping him, both really ought to be knowing better from past experiences. If you played Koudelka/SH1, you know it's not going to go well. You kind of hope it does anyway because they're trying to bring back the heroine from SH1.

It does not go well. But it also does not go quite as disastrously as some of the other attempts in the series (Koudelka's and Shadow Hearts: From the New World's failed rites are literally the catalyst for the entire plots of those entries) and for a moment, you get to see my favorite female character from that series again, and you get to see normally tough cocky brawler start crying as he tells her he loves her before her soul goes back to the afterlife.

And then they figure out what the final antagonist is planning to do with a component of that ritual but like w/e that's the Big Damn Emotional moment of the game and it knows it and that's part of what makes it an 'awe' moment for me, it just goes all-in on the emotional stakes.

[amfictheatre]

Minkowski hcs because she’s cool

She has a lot of scars that eiffel often asks about post-story. She’s too embarrassed to tell him they’re from piercings she got in her teens.

She has naturally wavy dirty blonde hair- although it used to be very damaged cause she dyed it a lot. When plaited ( she usually wears it in a single french braid or a bun ) it reaches just past her shoulder blades.

Post-story, she ends up having a very amicable divorce with Dominik. He ended up finding someone else approx 2 years after she was pronounced ‘dead’ anyway.

Her, Eiffel and Jacobi and hera ( haven’t figured out out how that works but it does) live together and Lovelace has a room but is often away travelling.

She’s pansexual and had a gf in high school.

[captainfaygeleh]

so i’ve had this headcanon

effiel is sent to earth as planned and works with mr. koudelka to save the world from decima until everyone else makes it home

rattling around in my head for a few days now and honestly it’s just jammed in there, so enjoy the expanded version

the ship is on autopilot so it goes right back to canaveral, and it’s a shuttle so it lands of all things. effiel is thankful he didn’t get dumped in the ocean for one (1) whole minute until he’s shuffled off it and stuck in a very dark room at Goddard

he doesn’t know how long he’s there for, but long enough to lose his voice.

he screams about decima, about cutter and pryce betraying all of them, about bob, about his blood and his immunity, hoping that there is at least one sane person out there, someone willing to realize what kind of shit show they are about to enter into

he has meals delivered, twice a day, through a slot in the door, but no one speaks to him

he doesn’t stop talking

he talks to renee (refuses to talk to her, the her in his mind, at first, but he can’t help himself) to hera, to loveless. to hilbert, even. he calls out to bob.

the meals stop coming. effiel stops talking.

and honestly, the fact that he doesn’t completely break down is a testament to all of the other shit he’s survived. and it’s not like he hasn’t already tried to escape, but he’s a sealed room with no door, so what the hell is he supposed to do?

thank god for alien blood. it takes two weeks for them to find him

he’s laying in bed to conserve energy when the door slides open and a tall hazmat suit walks in

“aren’t you a little short for a storm trooper?” he croaks.

the hazmat suit introduces himself as dominik, doug says hi, and then passes out

he wakes up with a bunch of needles in his arm, and a crowd of hazmat suits above him

he learns that the decima virus had been activated, leading to the quick death of 40% of the population, the slow death of another 10%, and the mutation of another 10% into rapidly healing, incredibly strong--

“zombies,” says effiel

“we haven’t actually--”

“nope, they’re zombies, do not go with the ‘Walking Dead, oh no for some reason we can’t call the things hungering for our brains zombies’ nonsense. they’re zombies. i need this win.”

he learns that goddard had been abandoned after the outbreak, that rumors of the companies involvement with the virus had led this group (of journalists? really?) to break in and see what they could learn

“most of it had been burned, but there were still security recordings.” the hazmat suit paused. “of you.”

“greaaaaaat.”

“mr. effiel-- doug.” he says. “i’m-- my wife-- your commander--”

“you’re renee’s husband? holy shit.”

“yes, I--”

“look i know this is not the time for this, but i am so fucking mad at her”

aaaaaaaaaand then they fight decima zombies and try to save the world and then renee and co finally show up with bob to save the humans

[sciencematter]

31. “You haven’t lost me.” Minkowski/Koudelka?

31. “You haven’t lost me.”

Dominick Koudelka is tired. As it stands, a space station that he had written a story on, one that every crew member from was apparently dead, has just been heard from again- more or less. His wife- Renee- Renee had contacted Earth and he really isn’t entirely sure how he feels about that. Of course, he’s relieved- she’s alive and she’s okay, he’s going to get to see her again- but on the other hand, she’s been legally dead for three and a half years.

He’d never given up hope, of course, wearing his wedding ring on a chain around his neck so that it can rest close to his heart, occasionally twisting it when he’s nervous. His hope, as determined as she has always been (and, he hopes, always will be), had paid off. Renee was coming home.

She would be a little battered and damaged, hurting and so- she wasn’t going to be the same woman he had kissed goodbye in Florida, that much he knows. Extreme events have a way of changing a person and she would always be just that- a person.

“She’s coming home,” he says to himself, quietly, as he folds a shirt in preparation for a long journey. The crew of the Urania (which, from local stories, was not the same crew that had left for the Hephaestus) were in a hospital halfway across the country. A military one, of course. 

 Yes, his Renee is home- or, at least, she will be. Soon.

For now, it’s enough to keep repeating she’s coming home in his mind in the hopes that she, alive, home, is thinking the same.

When he sees her, it takes almost all of his willpower to hold back tears as she scans the room. Renee meets his eyes and he sees something in them, a spark, and he rises from his chair and simply smiles.

“Renee,” he breathes. Then, she’s hugging him, pulling him close and burying her face in his neck with a sob-laugh sound he never really wants to hear again. He holds her close, hand tracing up her back as he says “I thought- they told me that you were-”

“You haven’t lost me,” she replies, voice soft. “I’ve missed you, but I’m here. We’re going home.”

“Missed you, too,” he laughs. “Yes- and yes, we are. Home.”

[hephaestuscrew]

How pissed off at his assistant do you reckon Dominik Koudelka was when he discovered that his presumed-dead wife called his office from space and wasn't put through to him?

[herawell]

Not me thinking about how part of why Minkowski didn't want to go back to Earth may have been because she and her husband didn't part on good terms after she chose her career over him (not shaming her for it but a two-year absence is not the kind of decision you unilaterally make when you're married) and she can't face him now that she chose a death trap over him. Not without having something to show for it.

[fromthecommsroom]

Adjustments

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2E1qOMb

by timetosin

The survivors club have returned to earth and must live with the consequences of their time in the stars. Hera, Eiffel, and Minkowski figure out who they are in relation to one another, those around them, and themselves. The survivors club grieves their losses and Eiffel and Minkowski create new memories together. ((Minffel Centric))

"Here, home back on earth, the little survivors club ate dinner together as a family, laughed and talked immensely, and when Hera insisted played the questions game until they screamed. Yes, things were by far much better on earth for everyone, despite the sadness. Regardless, Hera missed the hectic abyss and the star systems, she missed the time of their lives that brought them all together."

Words: 2922, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Wolf 359 (Radio)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M

Characters: Hera, Doug Eiffel, Renée Minkowski, Daniel Jacobi, Isabel Lovelace

Relationships: Doug Eiffel/Renée Minkowski, Mr. Koudelka/Renée Minkowski (past), Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler (past), Hera/Alana Maxwell (past), Isabel Lovelace/Renée Minkowski (implied onesided), Minffel centric

Additional Tags: Post-Hephaestus, Post-Canon, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Adultery, everyone is sad, minffel, minffel pinning, spoilers from finale, doug hera and minkowski centric, everyone is adjusting to life on earth kinda poorly but they are a family and together, minffel more in second part, survivors club, some mentions of things happening between canon episodes

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2E1qOMb

[koudelkalightnovel]

Cool Koudelka Posts by Pesky Splinter #4

Another little detail, this battlefield background is covered in runes;

I can't tell if they actually mean anything, at least nothing in English 

edit:     Don't know enough about this game to say if this counts as a spoiler or not, but θυσία is Greek for "sacrifice".

Relatedly, the other words are (assuming I'm reading it right): θεό - Theo νυξ - Nyx σας - Sas οις - Hois ωρα - Hora

Dunno if that makes a sentence together. To echo TDI, it's odd that they didn't make an actual puzzle out of it - just do what they do normally and don't let Koudelka interact with it until she's got all the glass pieces, if they didn't want the player to brute force it. Maybe they ran out of time, or were too focused on their weirdly deep combat system.

[honorarycassowary]

So I finished Wolf 359. Spoilers and long AF ramblings under the cut.

I loved the finale! I had been hoping for a long time that the show would have an open ending, and especially one that’s ambiguous/bittersweet (because those are my absolute favorite kind and I love them) and it delivered.

I took kind of a long break from the show after I listened to the season 3 finale, because I was ... pretty upset about Lovelace, Hilbert, and Maxwell’s deaths, since I really cared about all three of those characters. But on further reflection, I think that killing them off, and keeping Hilbert and Maxwell dead, was a good choice. Huge chunks of the fourth season dealt with the emotional fallout from their deaths - Lovelace had to come to terms with her true nature, Hera had to sort through her emotions about Maxwell, Jacobi had to grapple with the death of his best friend and the role he played in it, Minkowski had to deal with the calls she made. Taking these deaths and keeping them dead, and adding in the deaths in the season 4 finale meant the actions and struggles the crew faced during the course of the show had weight. 

Speaking of deaths, Mr. Cutter’s death was satisfying. After all his gloating, and his utter moral bankruptcy, he got a harpoon to the head, courtesy of the people he’d hurt most. Honestly, fuck that guy. He had an even more convincingly awful person voice than Kepler.

I was surprisingly sad about Kepler’s death. I spent all of season 3 wanting to stab the man - he was a very effective and hateable villain, so absolute props to the writer and the voice actor - but season 4 made me actually start to like him. Wolf 359′s habit of introducing bigger villains and repeatedly forcing an Enemy Mine situation works wonders at making genuinely awful people sympathetic. Jacobi trying to get Minkowski to kill him in Dirty Work was just amazing. Anyways, Kepler finally doing the right thing for once in his life, in such a way that he dies with every other character (except Ms. Young) thinking he was ready to let everyone on Earth die, is GREAT. I think it’s possible that the remaining crew figured out what he did, but I would actually prefer they don’t realize it and go through their lives thinking he was prepared to go along with Cutter. It’s more painful like that, and I like that.

On the flip side, it was interesting to see Dr. Pryce live - but get her threats to Hera turned around on her, and effectively get a personality rewrite of her own. I’m interested to see what she does with her life, and how the Hephaestus crew treats her. I wonder what Hera said to her. Hera lived her whole life afraid of her personality matrix being overwritten, and then she erased Dr. Pryce’s memory. It was the only option she had with the tools on hand, but she has to feel some sort of way about it. They could potentially have a really interesting dynamic, and I’d love to see fic that explores it. I also find the transhumanist element of Dr. Pryce’s character to be intriguing. Personally, I think the problem with what she wanted to do is the idea of forcibly changing humanity, and making them compliant to her will, not the inherent concept of radically changing the self. I would be interested to see the new Pryce exploring how her former self’s ideas could benefit humanity, even though her methods, morals, and life philosophy were horribly flawed. It’s a similar thing to Hilbert, I think - they started from an understandable point, but veered off somewhere down the line. Now that her memories are erased, I want her to figure out who she is, and what she wants, and how that will shape the future of Goddard Futuristics. (I’m really curious how they - and the government - will handle so many people returning from the dead, getting amnesia, or dying for real. Mr. Koudelka is gonna break one hell of a story.)

Then, there’s what happened to Eiffel. He really gets put through the wringer over the course of the show - injected with a deadly virus! launched into space, where he nearly dies from cryostasis overuse! threw himself into a sun! mindcontrolled! and now, finally, has his memories erased. Eiffel has been the main character (though it’s definitely an ensemble show, especially once you get past season 1), and he’s grown over the course of the show. So I didn’t actually think that he’d be harmed, going into the finale. But I liked what happened to him. He tried his best to get out of the situation, and then sacrificed himself so that Pryce could be defeated. I also liked the ambiguity of whether he is the “real” Doug Eiffel. There’s been an overarching theme in Wolf 359 of “what makes a person a person? what makes you you?” and I want Eiffel to be able to explore that. He has all the logs - but that’s not a complete picture of Doug Eiffel. Eiffel had secrets, he had hidden depths, he had a life beyond his job (as he was wont to remind everyone). In the brief time we see the new Doug Eiffel, he’s similar but the not identical to the OG Doug, most notably indicated in how he says Minkovski and his confusion at the pop culture references in his logs. It’s fascinating that he’s approaching the question of “what makes you you?” from the opposite direction of Captain Lovelace - he has the same body, but none of the memories. They could get a lot of good conversations out of that. I’m not any more sure than he is about who he “really” is, but he has a life ahead of him to figure that out, which is the important part.

Hera erased both Eiffel and Pryce memories, and, like I said above, I wonder how that affected her. Don’t get me wrong - I’m proud of her! She spent her whole life fighting against people trying to beat her down into shape, and she never gave up, and she won. She was brave, but she did something very, very hard. I hope she’s able to make a good life for herself on Earth. I think she’ll fight for it. I think everyone else will help her.

I’m proud of Jacobi! He saved the day - he not only figured out Cutter had him bugged, he came up with two plausible plans and then saved everyone’s lives once things went a little pearshaped. I’m also so happy that he doesn’t think he’s a good person, and he’s not trying to be one (at least not now). I prefer to think of him as a bad person who does have moral lines he won’t cross, as opposed to a good guy fallen on bad times (even if he is sympathetic). He was so enthusiastic about being monsters with Maxwell. But I think his time on Wolf 359 has really shaken his faith and given him a lot to think about. Also, I love his arguments with Kepler all through this season. His “just admit you were wrong!” rant to Kepler really speaks to their long history and loyalty twisted into frustration and hatred. He’s got an amazing sense of palpable betrayal in regards to Kepler, and that’s why I mentioned above that I don’t want him to learn that Kepler saved them. I think it’s more narratively interesting to have him hit with the full brunt of that betrayal. Also he’s gay and I’m DELIGHTED.

Minkowski sending the ship off with Eiffel inside it was a real betrayal, and I’m glad Eiffel brought that up as a bad thing, even if he did forgive her. And, uh, immediately lose his memories. But I totally understand why she did it, and I love how strongly her protective sense towards her crew comes out. And she gets to kill Cutter, after everything he did to her and her crew. I also liked her flashback with Hera to when they first arrived - it’s a interesting contrast being awkward Minkowski who’s not sure of herself, but who immediately respects Hera’s wishes, to hardened Commander Minkowski who kills a man and saves a planet, but who maintains that love for her subordinates. I really hope things work out with her husband. Between the two of them, they might just be able to take down Goddard Futuristics.

Lovelace’s continual fight to be herself comes (mostly) to an end. I wasn’t expecting Cutter to find a new way to mind-control her, but I did now she would fight til the end. She and Minkowski make a great team, and they must have made record time on those engines. I also like that bonding moment between her and Eiffel at the start of the episode. There’s something very human about stealing your awful boss’s fancy food for stress relief, and I like the reference to the seaweed tea. She absolutely 100% deserves that vacation. I hope she’ll be able to relax long enough to make the most of it, but I feel like it’ll be a while before Goddard is dead enough for her to feel comfortable.

There’s so many ways everyone’s stories could go after the finale. I’m glad about that - I like to think of everyone’s lives as a continuing narrative, so I love it when canons leave the ending open, so we can see how the characters have changed and wonder what they’ll do in the future. It feels more real, and less neat. There’s so much aftermath that they’ve sorted through, and there’s more to come, but I’m sure that whatever they do, they’ll be good at it.

Also I felt a real emotion at “That was Wolf 359.” instead of “This has been Wolf 359.” I’m also a sucker for changed endings for finale episodes.