#maybe that’s why the single best moment in the game isn’t dialogue at all. the danse macabre

[daisyachain]

Pentiment is one unusual example of a game/story/thing that is structurally good writing without actually having well-written sentences.

The game operates in cycles as the art would imply, setting up a good number of arcs for its tight time frame and paying them off with interest. For example. The occult subplot lures you in as a modern free-thinking player only to slap you in the face with real consequences—imposed by you—and hit you again when you fail to learn the lesson the first time. Ferenc being the one to save Vacslav and Ursula? Icing on the cake, make you re-rethink your thoughts and deeds. There are greater institutions outside your one little life that have a bigger impact than any one person could. You can’t forget them, you see their fingers everywhere, and if you start to feel too comfortable getting the town to dance to your tune, they step in. Good writing. Events follow each other logically, but the links between them are hidden enough that you have to puzzle it out.

That doesn’t mean that you have to be a wordsmith to make a beautiful many-circled plot. An architect doesn’t have to be a good interior designer. Pentiment’s sentences do the work of getting you from one idea to the next. That’s not to say that every Bavarian peasant should speak in pastiche or should be able to discourse at you. There’s more to a good sentence than fancy words. Unconventional structures, rhythms, or counterintuitive word choices can make it pop, which Pentiment’s dialogue doesn’t. It’s workmanlike and would be unremarkable except for the fact that I was remarking every time it said something that was verbatim like ‘oh no Ursula I don’t think it’s a good idea to learn about old myths that are heresy and will get you killed’. There’s a lot of clunk. Does it take away from the good writing? Not much, because it’s a game where the visuals take up more of your attention. This kind of word lack-of-play would be harder to deal with in a book, so at least the medium works in its favour.

What does make it stand out still is the common points of reference as European-set walking simulators about owning up to history. DE and Patho’s dialogues are unique partly because of the translation convention, partly because the structure of each sentence in those games gets a boatload of attention. Pentiment hits its more modest target far more cleanly than either of those, but it does so without quite the amount of style.

[daboyau]

F for the ask game! I have a few scenes of yours I've reread because I really enjoyed them.

well now I’m curious which scenes those are! F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

so the following is from Eat the Dark.

“You tore it off,” Donnie says. His voice is too loud, and entirely too calm. Tears are rolling down Raph’s face, the blood on his cheeks smearing and dripping. Leo’s blood. On Raph’s face. “You tore his arm off with your teeth.” 

Raph doesn’t deny it. April doesn’t look anything other than sad. 

Chomp chomp, Leo had said. 

He takes a deep breath and snatches the probe from April’s hands, hunching his shoulders and leaning close to get back to work. His heart is racing, flooding his system with adrenaline, but his hands are steady as he treats his brother’s wounds.

Another breath. Choke down the bile. 

Zap zap goes the probe and a smell like singed meat tickles his nostrils. 

Choke down the bile. Breathe through his mouth instead. 

Chomp chomp.

“Leave,” he says, not lifting his gaze from the red of Leo’s wound.

There isn’t a ton of dialogue here, but it is one of my favorite things I’ve written due to how just a single word (leave) is so impactful. This is the moment that Donnie realizes exactly how Leo lost his arm, and in the stress of the moment he is absolutely furious with Raph. In the first chapter, Raph was so eager to get Leo to Donnie because in his mind, Donnie was the one who would be able to fix Leo. He trusts Donnie 10000% and was completely certain that his brother would be able to make the right choices, would know the best way to save Leo without having to sacrifice as much as they did. In his head he messed up, he wasn’t strong enough to protect Leo, wasn’t fast enough to get him back to the base in time for Don to jump in and take care of things in a better way, wasn’t smart enough to come up with a better idea, but he also feels so so guilty at the thought that he was willing to make Donnie make the hard decisions. Raph hates that if RAPH hadn’t been the one to remove Leo’s arm, then it would have fallen to Donnie, and then his little brother would have been the one to have to shoulder the burden of all the horrible feelings he’s got going on right now. In a way he’s glad that Donnie is angry with him, that he wants him gone, because that is exactly what Raph thinks he deserves right now. Later, when he’s not so hurt, when April and Mikey have talked to him about it more and Donnie’s had some time to cool down, and Leo’s up and laughing and only alive bc they made the choice together to do what had to be done, MAYBE then Raph will be able to forgive himself. But right now, he feels like he’s a monster who doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near anything as precious as his siblings. And Donnie, the smartest person he knows, just confirmed that.

[overthinkingfandom]

Cards on the Table - Breaking down the tactics in L'manburg Independence

/rp /dsmp

Much has been said in the fandom about L'manburg's independence. It is, after all, arguably the most important moment in DSMP's history, as the rest of the story wouldn't have existed without it. 

In light of the recent anniversary of it, yes I know I’m late, I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and add something to the discussion surrounding it. However, as the morality of the situation has been discussed to death I'll be taking a slightly different approach to it. 

Due to the nature of the DSMP's medium, the story has many unique quirks. One of those quirks is how realistic the tactics used in the story's portrayal of politics are. The independence conflict is a great example of it. While on the surface things seem to be rather simplistic in nature, there's a lot more going on that’s less obvious.

Both Wilbur and Dream are brilliant politicians who get to show both their strengths and weaknesses in dealing with an equally skilled opponent in this encounter. There’s actually quite a bit to go into, despite their interactions being so short.

When most people think about the L'manburg's independence, they think about the moment the declaration has been written up and the subsequent declaration of war. While this moment is certainly iconic, it's not really all that impactful in the grand scheme of things. Both declarations are the culmination of decisions that have been made beforehand. It's the moment when those decisions were made that really influenced things.

Conveniently, Wilbur and Dream only hold a single conversation about L'manburg before the declarations are drawn up, so we don’t need to look far in order to figure out where those decisions were formed. 

Wilbur has been working on L’manburg, collecting materials and building the wall surrounding it, for almost an hour when he spots Dream lurking. “Get [Dream] into the VC, I need to talk with him. He’s the leader of the other nation, I think we need to have a congress.” (52:44)

Dream: “Hello?”

Wilbur: “Hello Dream. Welcome to our great nation of L’manburg.”

Dream: “L’manburg?”

Wilbur: “Yes. We are seceding from Dream SMP. This is our own server now. This area, just this part [between the walls of L’manburg], is our server.”

Wilbur doesn’t waste any time before getting right down to business and talking about the matter at hand. However, the way he speaks about it here and in the rest of the conversation is fairly interesting. Wilbur is talking about L’manburg as if it’s something which already exists. They are seceding. This is their land. This conversation is merely a courtesy to give Dream a formal notice of their separation.

Yet, a bit later Wilbur shows he knows they need Dream’s acknowledgement in order for L’manburg to be its own entity. Independence is not a concrete thing that can just be taken or created on one person’s whim, after all. It only exists when the people with power agree it exists. 

Wilbur: “Dream, basically all we want from you is just acknowledgement that we are an independent nation now. That’s all we need.” (56:20)

So if Wilbur knows they aren’t independent yet, why is he talking like that? 

It’s because he’s using a salesman technique called an Assumptive Close. Instead of posing it as a question and putting the choice of agreeing or disagreeing in Dream’s hands, Wilbur acts as if it’s already true and leaves the burden of challenging his claims on Dream’s shoulders. He even moves on to ask secondary questions on how Dream feels about having embassies in his land (and notably he frames it as a question, unlike how he frames the topic of L’manburg’s independence) as if L’manburg is already a political entity. 

Wilbur: “Dream, I’ve got a proposition for you. How do you feel about having Tommy’s land being an embassy? Like it’s an enclave in your own land.” (59:01)

Wilbur’s use of this technique has an interesting side effect in that it signals to Dream Wilbur is taking a non-compromising position in this negotiation. In essence saying “L’manburg is independent, take it or leave it.” 

A non-compromising position is the game theory term for when someone goes, "I'm going to do that, this is going to happen and nothing can dissuade me from this course of action." It's a strong tactic which forces everyone to react to that person's position, reducing the others' options into a binary of either accepting that position or rejecting it. 

This is a very common tactic and various manifestations of it can be seen all over history and media. From Martin Luther who refused to recant or compromise with his famous words of “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise” to groups who cultivate a "with us or against us" mentality to heroic characters who say they would die before giving in to whatever Evil the story focuses on.

This is the situation Dream is facing here. He can either accept Wilbur's assertion that L'manburg is an independent entity by either encouraging them or even doing nothing, or he can reject Wilbur's assertion by acting against it.

As we all know, he ended up choosing the second option but what were his considerations for doing so?

For that we would need to know what his goal was here, something we don't really get a sense of from his conversation with Wilbur. However, he ends up stating what it was in a later conversation with Skeppy. 

(Emphasis added by me and wasn’t part of the original dialogue.)

“Everyone can build wherever they want. [L’manburg] just decided to say that they get to determine where they can build and we can’t and we said well no, you can’t do that. And that’s what the whole war was over.” (31:44)

“[L’manburg] can’t tell us that we can’t go in their land. That’s all we wanted to say. That they’re not independent, they are a part of the Dream Team SMP. They’re just a delusional, small part." (34:26)

Dream lies a lot, so just because he says something doesn't mean it's necessarily true. However, this seems to be genuine. Dream has no problem telling Skeppy “we burned down their houses and blew up the whole land.” (32:36) later on in the conversation, so we can rule out that he's trying to paint himself in a better light, and there aren't really any other reasons for him to lie to Skeppy here about this. 

When looking at Dream's options with his goal we can see the choice is pretty much a no-brainer. 

Accepting is a total lose scenario for him. Not only will it fail to fulfill his goals, it would actively encourage the sort of behavior he doesn't want to happen, as Wilbur would set a precedent that so long as someone insisted hard enough and implied Dream is a bad person he would fold in negotiations and give them what they want.

Rejecting gets him far closer to his goal of railing against L’manburg’s exclusion. Going to war means he has to invest much more effort and resources into his reaction than if he just accepted as well as deal with the risks any war has, however the sheer difference in ability between Dream's side and Wilbur's side make the risk minimal. 

Going to a war he’s pretty sure he can win VS encouraging the sort of thing he disapproves of, isn’t really a hard choice.

This is actually the result of a mistake on Wilbur's part. CC!Wilbur called his character naive (37:49) and he's not wrong. Wilbur has a tendency to act as he wishes and not take into account that people might disagree or retaliate. We see it with him saying they could just ignore the Americans (1:51:17) or during the elections when he told Quackity his scheme and got blindsided by Quackity deciding to run against him. 

Historically, non-compromising positions worked best when the person who used it made sure rejection would be more costly than acceptance in one way or the other. In essence, narrowing down the options for others even more and leaving them only with acceptance. 

Wilbur may have managed to wipe off the table all other options and put pressure on Dream to accept with his use of Assumptive Close, but he didn't do anything to prevent Dream from rejecting. In fact, it seems like Wilbur didn't even consider it as a valid possibility as he outright dismissed it when Dream brought it up as an option.

Dream: “What happens if the rest of the server decides to take over your land?”

Wilbur: “They can’t. It’s literally not how servers- Dream you’re supposed to be smart man, that’s not how servers work. You can’t just take over another person’s server.” (54:33)

But, you may be asking, if it was better for Dream to go to war against L'manburg rather than grant them independence, why did he end up giving into their desire for independence in the war? Wouldn't it have been better if he just saved everyone the trouble and gave it to them when they asked for it the first time? Or maybe Dream’s obsession with Tommy and his discs is just that strong?

We can find the answer to all those questions at Punz’ video where he shows the behind the scenes of the independence war, including some of the planning which went into it from the Dream Team’s side of the war. Specifically, this quote:

Dream: “[The L’manburgians] are never gonna give up. So then in the end the resolution will probably just be, we won but they can think whatever they want, we’re just going to ignore them because they’re essentially like- You want to think you’re independent? You’re not, you’re still part of the SMP, but if you want to think you’re independent, you can.” (9:04)

“They’re never gonna give up.”

Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, as this is what Dream thinks and so this is what dictates his actions. Perhaps he’s overestimating his opponents here, or maybe he’s talking about how even if L’manburg is defeated this time they would try again for independence in the future. In either case, it’s clear Dream thinks the best case scenario for him - completely preventing people from fighting for L'manburg's independence - is impossible. 

So, he tries for the second best case. If he can’t prevent L’manburg, he’s going to allow it but only under Dream’s terms. That’s what his “they can think whatever they want” line is all about. He intends on giving them token independence here, something which would satisfy them but wouldn't pose a real threat. Which is exactly what he ends up offering them during the bow duel.

Dream: “Let me just clarify: if you win, we grant L’Manburg independence.”

Tommy: “Alright.”

Dream: “But we recognize it still as a part of the Dream Team SMP.”

Wilbur: “That’s fine, that’s a fine condition.” (40:54)

The token independence thing didn’t work out so well for him. L'manburg quickly grew to be seen as an entity separate from Greater Dream SMP by everyone, and so Dream was forced to concede and treat it as one as well. 

However, despite this part of his plan failing, overall the independence war was a glowing success for Dream. 

By giving L'manburg independence after winning the war, Dream sent a very clear message. L'manburg only gets to be independent so long as they stay on Dream's good side. If they don't adhere to the terms Dream sets out for them? He can and will kick their asses, as the war so aptly demonstrated.

This message is received loud and clear. During his entire presidency Wilbur went out of his way to treat Dream with respect and try not to piss him off. Something he clearly demonstrates a number of times, like when he asked if he should call Dream “king Dream” (59:08) or during the railway skirmish (24:16).

In fact, it can be argued that this message lasted all the way up to Tubbo's presidency. Unlike Quackity, who was perfectly fine with starting a fight with Dream, Tubbo knew first hand what a war against Dream looks like. He knew that they could not win a war against him, especially in their weakened state at the time, and that influenced his decision. 

As Dream once said: "L'manburg can be independent but it can't be free."

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

hi I’m here to review the Clementine comic. it’s not good.

Does this even need an introduction? You know why I’ve gathered you all here today. You know the comic exists, and you probably know that it’s not great and we’re all upset about it. 

Myself included. I am not okay. At all. 

Skybound could’ve literally spit in my face and I’d come out feeling better than I did reading this comic, because this comic is an insult to the original Telltale games and Clementine as a character. 

This comic is a fancy fanfic. Glorified fanfiction. It’s not canon, and Skybound and Tillie can pretend that it is, but it’s not. Bold of them to assume we’d just accept this from people who didn’t work on the original games and never wrote for Clementine before, and based on this comic alone, any chance of us taking it seriously is gone. 

I’m gonna go through every single page, every panel, of this comic and give you my review. So I guess if you’re worried about spoilers [though at this point why would you?] then be warned, spoilers for the entire comic ahead. 

I also wanna add that I have nothing against Tillie Walden. I know a lot of dingdongs are harassing her on insta over this comic and that’s not okay. You telling her how much you hate her isn’t going to change anything. If anything, you keep being assholes to her and she’s just gonna block everything out, even things simply critiquing her work in hopes that it helps her improve. 

You’re allowed to be upset about the comic and share your feelings about it, but don’t take it out on the actual human being like that. Besides, like I’ve said before, if Tillie wasn’t gonna make the comic, Skybound would’ve found someone else to do. This was coming no matter what because Skybound wants that coin. 

That being said, I’m not going to hold back my opinions on this comic. Skybound and Tillie made this comic, they put it out there and asked for money for it, therefore I’m allowed to explain why it’s garbage as well as ponder over the questionable intent and whether or not Tillie actually has played these games. Y’know, it’s like how I have nothing against Kent, but sometimes he says things I disagree with and well, y’know how it goes. 

Alright, this is gonna be long, so let’s go--

The first few shots we get are of the school, two people sleeping, and Clementine’s empty bed. Nothing super note-worthy, we have no idea who is sleeping in the beds, it’s just there to establish that it’s early and everyone’s still asleep. 

The drawing of the school looks fine? Not super accurate, but I can give it a pass since it’s a few years later, I assume. What I can’t give a pass is how you managed to already mess up on the first page of your comic. 

Because..... why are you implying that Clementine’s room is upstairs? First of all, seems kinda dumb to put Clem, who has only one leg and has to walk with crutches, upstairs. Also, if you’ve played TFS and paid any attention to where her room is actually located [the dorms] then you’d know there isn’t any stairs leading to their floor. It’s the side building next to the admin building, you walk through the door, go down the hall, take a left and their dorm is right there sooo..... 

Oh right, it’s probably done this way so that we can have such a suspenseful moment where Clementine is sneaking out while the others are asleep and her foot makes a creeeeeeakk that could wake everyone up, thwarting her plans of abandoning everyone quietly so she doesn’t have to deal with any consequences. 

Because yeah, Clementine is sneaking out with all of her supplies because apparently, she’s been planning an escape from this place for a while. 

And just look at how gosh darn happy she is about it. You can’t see or hear me, but know that I’m laughing. Don’t worry, I will talk about her abandoning everyone later.

But first, I have a gripe with Clementine's design in this comic. It doesn’t look like her. This art of her right here is the most accurate we get throughout all 12 pages, and it’s the best looking, too. 

Moving on, she slams the door shut while this walker changes faces and hair between panels, so that’s cool. I will say, I like the idea of the Ericson crew putting spikes on the door. That’s fun. 

Though Clementine slamming the door shut while trying to sneak out seems counter productive but it fits with the theme this comic has of inconsistency, so it works. 

Next we have Clementine going to what I believe is the fishing shack by the river, and she’s going through some things that she’s stashed away, telling us that she’s been planning this escape for a while. 

Oh good, she has a map. Well at least now she won’t get lost out there in the woods while she makes her escape... also that last panel with her profile.... why does it look so funny? Like this page of the comic doesn’t look too bad, but there is something off putting about her eye there and how she has zero expression. 

And it turns out that rustle was a walker, and Clementine is super inconvenienced by this and gives us our first piece of witty dialogue.

Yeah you dumb walker, can’t you see Clementine is busy running away from home and abandoning all of her loved ones without a single goodbye so she doesn’t have to witness the consequences of her selfish actions?? Gosh, so rude.

Just a heads up, the dialogue in this comic is stilted, emotionless, and bland. The words have no flow, no charm, and never feel like they should be coming out of Clementine’s mouth. Then again, the upcoming graphic novels this is tied to are for young adult/middle graders so I guess we have to dumb everything down so their baby brains can process it. 

.....Why does her face look like that? Also, interesting that she decided to move her ponytail to the other side of her head.... which is a thing that happens throughout this comic, her hair will randomly change sides. 

I believe it’s a metaphor for her changing and inconsistent personality. 

So yeah, Clementine is just making off with the supplies she gathered [I’m sure Ericson doesn’t need ‘em anyway] and she’s just so gosh darn annoyed at all these small inconveniences bothering her.... because it’s just too early for this. 

.....Again, why does her face look like that?

I’m sorry, like I get it, Tillie’s style is supposed to be purposely messy yet minimal but it doesn’t work. When you do a comic in a more messy style, usually it has charm and heart put into it. Effort goes into the messy look, and when things are minimal, that usually means more clean, yeah? So you put them together and just..... that is nothing resembling Clementine’s face. 

Can we just--

Look at canon Clementine’s face. Look at the way her eyebrows are shapes, how wide her eyes are with her eye lashes. The dirt on her skin, the lines-- there is so much personality in her features. It doesn’t matter if she’s wearing a neutral expression or she’s expressing anger or joy or sorrow or whatever. 

Now, is it fair to compare a model of Clem from the games to the Clem in this comic? Well, I assume that if Tillie is doing this comic, she would use references from the game to ensure that Clementine is recognizable, especially now that she’s no longer wearing her signature hat. 

So why does she look like this? Why do I look at these drawings of her face and see nothing but a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth? You might as well draw me a simple smiley face. And I get that it’s a comic, and it’s a lot of work to draw the same character over and over again and you gotta cut corners somewhere, but maybe put some effort into the close up shots of her face so that we can actually see it’s her? 

Other fan artists have made comics in their styles that shine bright with Clementine’s personality, so what happened here? 

Anyway, surprise..... it’s not a walker annoying Clementine. 

........Why does AJ look like that??? I’m sorry, I hate to do the same thing I just did but--

Just because you put Clementine’s hat on AJ that doesn’t automatically make it him. I just.... wow. This feels like there wasn’t a single reference involved, like if someone gave Tillie a basic description of AJ and she just did this. 

But appearances aside, what is AJ saying? He says that he knew it, that Clementine’s leaving and I cannot stand this dialogue. It’s unnatural. Again, I know you wanna dumb it down for all of us because I guess we dumb.... but this conversation does not feel natural. 

“I knew it. You’re leaving.” “AJ....” “I’m coming.”

Even if you changed it to, “I’m coming with you.” it would sound more natural. Hell, he doesn’t even question WHY she’s leaving, he just stands there like “I’m coming” like??? I’m sorry, have you ever heard a single word this murder baby has said? I assume you have because I assume you actually played TFS, right? Soooo.... what happened here?

.....whY DO THEIR FACES LOOK LIEK THAT KSAJDLKJAS:LKDJLKASJD:L--

So now we’re getting into it.... into the bullshit. 

Clementine tells AJ to go back to the school, and AJ says that she wasn’t even going to say goodbye..... and then more bad dialogue that sound unnatural when you try to fucking read it. 

First off.... AJ’s reaction to Clementine attempting to leave is barely anything. Again, I hate to keep questioning if you actually played TFS, but AJ would throw a fucking fit if he caught Clementine out here ALONE like this, attempting to leave. 

And then he says “Like last time? You were going to come back?” this sentence makes my brain hurt. I just.... “Like last time, right? You’re coming back?” UGH

Wow, I feel nothing. 

I’m sitting here watching these two imposters with fucked up faces who are supposed to be Clementine and AJ and I feel nothing. 

I’m not even going to comment on the faces anymore. You can see it. You know. 

So yeah... AJ tells her the #1 rule, and reminds her that she promised.

Y’know.... she promised that she would never leave him again? Remember? At the McCarroll ranch? That flashback that was in TFS? The one you would watch if you played the game? 

Why is she looking straight at me when she should be looking at AJ as she says this? Is this Clementine’s way of telling me she’s sorry for what a shitty direction this is taking? I wouldn’t know because her face isn’t doing anything. Just because you draw a couple of tears that doesn’t mean I’m feeling the emotional heartbreak you’re attempting to convey. 

I don’t have enough middle fingers for this.

Well, my hat’s off to you. Ya did it. Ya fucked up everything single part of Clementine’s character in the span of two pages, I’m almost impressed. 

First off, the baby thing is weird. Why is she calling him that? She’s never called him that, which you should know.

Second, she’s not happy and that’s why she’s leaving. Clementine isn’t happy, and AJ can’t make her happy. Ericson can’t make her happy. So she’s going to go out on the road to.... what, be unhappy by herself? 

I’m sorry, but apparently we need a few reminders here of who Clementine is, because this isn’t her. 

This is Clementine. 

Clementine fought for years to find a home, something she hasn’t had since she was an eight-year-old girl before the apocalypse. The motor-inn wasn’t a home, the cabin wasn’t home, the ski-lodge, Howe’s, Wellington, Richmond, Prescott, none of them were home. 

She struggled for years, dealing with trauma after trauma while out on the road. She went from group to group, watching people she cared about die and she was powerless to do anything about it. Whenever she let her guard down and become comfortable, it bit in her in the ass and left her heartbroken.

She was there when AJ was born. She grew close to Rebecca while she was pregnant, she let herself do that even after everything she went through with Christa. Clementine had a bond with AJ even before he was born, and after Rebecca died, she did what she could to keep him safe, despite play choice. 

She cried when she thought AJ died and when she found him in that car again. She swore to protect him, to raise him right and love him. All they had was each other. 

And when she joined the new frontier and AJ got sick, she risked everything to save him and she was devastated when they took him away from her. When she found out he was alive, she is willing to go as far as helping Lingard overdose [INJECTING HIM HERSELF IF SHE HAS TO] to figure out his location. She did shitty things to find him, she killed people at McCarroll Ranch to find him again. 

Clementine raised him and he is her family, do you understand that? She went to hell and back for him, she taught him how to protect himself, and even though she made mistakes she sacrificed everything for him. She promised him that they would have a home of their own one day, she talked about how much she wished for a world where she didn’t have to worry about fighting and killing and AJ could just be a happy kid. 

She fought for Ericson, she watched her friends die or become mutilated by someone from her past. She allowed herself to be vulnerable enough to pursue a romantic relationship with Louis or Violet because she felt safe with them, felt safe at Ericson because it’s their home now. 

And when Clementine was bit, she thought she was going to die but she still fought to make sure AJ would be safe and happy without her and it was heartbreaking. She’s dying and the only thing she cares about is AJ. Not herself, not what’s going to happen to her after she dies or turns... no, she tries to make AJ smile again, she makes sure he remembers the rules, and she tells him that she loves him. 

Then he cuts off her leg, and she survives. AJ saved her fucking life, and she got to wake up at home and live to see her family again. She got to push AJ on a tire swing, she got to eat a hot meal and laugh with her friends, she got to make plans with her lover/best friend for what’s next for Ericson, and she got to talk to AJ and tell him the truth... and she asked him if she did a good job, and he’s honest with her right back. 

Hell, she tells him to keep her hat. Her iconic hat. The one thing she has left of her father, possibly her more cherished item. She lets him keep it. 

The last time we see Clementine, she’s happy. She’s sitting on the steps by herself, staring at her family with such fondness in her eyes and a smile on her face because she finally did it. She finally found a home where she can breathe. She has a bed to sleep in, she has AJ with her, she has a boyfriend/girlfriend who loves her and who she loves back, she has friends she can rely on. 

Clementine smiles, and lets out a small laugh. 

She doesn’t have to run anymore. 

And now you have the balls to tell me that AJ and Ericson don’t make Clementine happy anymore. 

She abandons everything to go back out on the road again, and that’s proof enough for me that you don’t understand a damn thing about Clementine or her journey. 

“ I don't even know the person I'm talking about... It's like all we have in common is the same name.” 

....Anyway.

Wow, Clementine found a car and kept is stashed. How lazy and convenient for this bullshit plot. 

And this is the part where I have to tell this comic to fuck off. 

What, you think if you throw in an incredibly inaccurate flashback next to a current pair of hugging Clem and AJ that I’ll feel anything but anger? That flashback is a slap to the face. It’s snowing, but the only time we’ve seen snow is in S2 when AJ was a literal new born, so why is he that big? Is that supposed to be from ANF because that ALSO doesn’t look like that AJ, and that’s not the outfit Clementine had on... AND there was no snow. This is cheap and meaningless. 

Any fan of the series who has played through the games could tell you this. 

So.... AJ runs into the woods and then we get this garbage.

This comic is awful. It misses the point of everything TFS, and the rest of the series, stood for. There is no heart here. I feel no happiness in reading it, and I don’t detect any passion behind it. It’s a lifeless comic that retcons everything in order to throw AJ away and start fresh with a new adventure for Clementine that makes no sense because the cow isn’t profitable unless it’s milked. 

This isn’t canon, and it won’t ever be canon, and honestly? At this point, I have no faith in the graphic novel trilogy. It will take a lot to do a turn around from this, and I don’t even know if that’s possible. 

Again, to reiterate, I don’t have anything personal against Tillie Walden herself. She’s just doing her job, and from what I’ve seen of her as a person, she seems like a sweetheart. I don’t want anyone giving her shit because I think the comic isn’t good or that you agree with me. All of my anger is directed at the comic itself, her work, not specifically her.... and a little bit at Skybound, because they’re the reason this is even a thing in the first place. 

So yeah.... there ya have it. 

[sneezefiction]

midnight murmurs

Iwaizumi x Reader - Scenario

a/n: Iwaizumi rattles off some late-night thoughts to you while you’re “sleeping.” little does he know your eyes may not be open, but your ears are still catching quite a few of his one-sided conversations.

warnings: some language

wc: 1.5k

dedicated to: @star-puff, because your Iwaizumi fluff had me riding a high for like 2 whole days & we all need him in our lives

---

Incoherent whispering. Soft, short rambles. Maybe he was sleep-talking?

At least that’s what you thought when you first heard Iwaizumi’s voice over the gentle hum of the ceiling fan and against the muted song of the cicadas buzzing outside of the bedroom window.

But as the nights passed, you began to hone in on the contents of Iwaizumi’s mumbling.

His words were… pointed. Holding an air of quiet confidence and trickling ever so gently into your ear like a lullaby. Sometimes it had to do with his day. Other times it was about how cute you’d looked that morning, still fast asleep while he was getting dressed for work.

But whatever the topic is, you’ve grown used to the conversations that he’s been having with the back of your head.

And here you are again. Lying stiff as a twig by Iwaizumi’s side and listening intently to his voice.

“I wish you’d heard what Shittykawa did today…” He rasps softly.

“...Even though he’s all the way in Argentina, literally surrounded by beaches and resorts, he still hardly takes a day off. That dumbass sprained his ankle and kept practicing for another hour.” Iwaizumi sighed, his thumb barely skimming the surface of your forearm.

If you’d actually been asleep (like he’d thought you were), you’re sure you wouldn’t have felt the brush of his fingertips. It was too delicate. Too careful.

Honestly, you’re just glad he still holds you this tenderly. Especially late at night when you’d least expect his affection. After all, you’ve not had a chance to cuddle with him in a while.

Iwaizumi had been getting home later every single day for the past few weeks and for good reason. He felt obligated to stay with Japan’s national team into the darker hours of the night as the Olympic games approached. And you admire his dedication. You’re so proud of him for chasing after his passions and it would never dawn on you to undermine his career by holding your relationship with him over his head.

But this usually meant that, by the time he cracked the bedroom door open, you two would only have a few moments to share some words and a quick kiss before tucking under the covers. You, of course, missed his voice. And he longed to hear yours.

However, as you closed your tired eyes, Iwaizumi’s would remain wide open, body and mind relentlessly processing through another intense day. You’ve never said a word to him about his shifting and deep sighs, worried that he might feel guilty for keeping you awake with him. Yet still, you feel Iwaizumi’s exhaustion in the way his weary arm drapes around your waist. There’s a tautness, a sort of tension, there.

So you do your best to remain completely still in his hold, hoping that your outward calm would bring him some inward peace. That your steady breath might lull him into a state of rest. That you could be the anchor to his rocking boat, like he’d always been for you when your life got windy and overwhelming. But even with your best, silent efforts, he stayed alert and somewhat unsteady.

That’s when the whispery words would start… and you soon came to the realization that he was talking to you.

You hear the rustle of his hair as he runs a firm hand through it. A small smile adorns your lips as he continues his line of thought, Iwaizumi’s breath wafting across the back of your neck.

“Y/n, he’s such an idiot and he won’t listen to me anymore… maybe I’ll get you to text him tomorrow. You’re so good for him and… maybe a little nicer than I am.” Iwaizumi admits.

There’s a pause and you wonder if that’s it. If that’s the end of his dialogue for the night… but there’s more this time.

“And, God y/n, I missed you today.”

The confession shakes you. Your chest tightens as you try to take it all in.

You’re pretty sure you weren’t supposed to hear that.

Those words were reserved for the most... intimate of moments. For trembling tears or reunions after long distances or maybe hot, heavy kisses after a frustrating day. But, as a general rule, you hardly ever heard those tender remarks out of the blue. After all, Iwaizumi is a man of actions and not so much a lover of words.

So this is new, to say the least. You’re dumbstruck. Your heart is beating far faster than it should be - especially since you’ve been dating him for over a year now.

However, it wasn’t just the words that stunned you. His tone was different too. Where there usually would be, there wasn’t an ounce of embarrassment in Iwaizumi’s voice. It wasn’t rushed; not bashful or heated like some of his past devotions and confessions had seemed.

Tonight’s Iwaizumi is perfectly sincere. No, not just sincere. Fond. 

Fond and maybe a tad wistful. Vocal inflection isn’t exactly Iwa’s forte, at least not when it came to sweet words in passing. So this is a historical moment in your book.

Thus, you let your cheeks burn a little longer and shut your eyes a little tighter in order to hear his next words.

“And I miss your voice.” He adds, tone dropping into what seems like… longing.

Iwaizumi pulls you a little closer into his bare chest, the rise and fall breath now pushing up against your own back. He’s really pushing it now.

It feels wrong listening into a conversation when the words are meant for you, but at the same time they aren’t. Who wouldn’t be conflicted? He had clearly trusted that your closed eyes and barely moving figure meant you were deeply asleep. That you couldn’t possibly hear a word he was saying.

I mean you had to say something, right?

So you inhale quietly, preparing to insert yourself into the one-sided discussion.

“...I wish you’d said something sooner, Iwa.”

You almost startle yourself with your own voice, the once soft atmosphere of the moonlit room, turning frigid.

Iwaizumi’s whole body goes stiff, arms frozen in place. He holds his breath and the gentle tickling of air on your neck pauses with it.

You shift your head to look back at him, his eyes already peering into your own. He was red. Beet red. Enough so that you could see it in the dim light of the room. You could practically feel the heat radiating off of his neck and arms, embarrassment flooding through every inch of his body.

“How… how long have you been listening to me?” Iwaizumi whispers, voice wavering almost as though he doesn’t want to hear your answer.

You blink.

Should you only tell him about tonight?

Or would it be better to let him know that he hasn’t had a single midnight conversation this week that you hadn’t listened in on?

You opt for honesty, knowing that he would probably be able to tell if you were lying anyways.

“Everything from this past… week?” You say shyly, slinking away from him, but one of Iwaizumi’s strong arms holds you in place.

His head falls back to his pillow and the other arm covers his eyes. As many times as he’d slipped up in front of you, he’d really done it this time. You must think he’s so strange. Why was he always doing stuff like this? Of course you would hear him.

I should’ve just kept my damn mouth shut, Iwaizumi thinks, his body still being flamed by an internal furnace from all the other embarrassing things he now remembers rattling off to you in your ‘sleeping’ state.

“But I liked listening to you.” You cut in quickly, sensing his discomfort and attempting to smooth it over with gentle words.

“And we… don’t get to talk much lately. So I- I just didn’t want to say anything because… I like the sound of your voice. You’re actually very soothing, Iwa.” You’re still sleepy, so the words come out choppily... but considering the circumstances, it wasn’t the worst recovery.

If it weren’t for the blushing male in front of you, you would probably feel just as flustered by the whole situation. But somehow, you kept your cool, too focused on calming Iwaizumi down in his flushed state.

“...Y/n?”

“Yes?” You breathe out.

“Just… just come here already.” He takes his hand away from his burning face and turns toward you.

You’re immediately pulled snug against him, your front meeting his chest, legs twining around his toned ones. Iwaizumi has a hand behind your neck tucking you into the crook of his neck as he hides his face from you, chin resting softly atop your head.

“I’ll call Oikawa tomorrow.” You joke, breaking the tension.

“It’s shittykawa.” He corrects. “And please forget about everything I said.” His tone dropping, turning sour.

A humored sigh leaves your lips.

He feels your mouth smiling faintly against his collar bone, which only sends him further into this embarrassed affection for you.

You were really something.

Never making him feel bad for running late hours. Letting him crawl into bed with you way past midnight when you could easily demand more time from him. Listening to his rambles, some more crass than others, consciously without judgement.

He’d found a treasure in you. A golden, shimmering treasure that didn’t need light to be seen. You shone even under the pale, underwhelming moonlight that peered through the window blinds.

So Iwaizumi finds himself pressing a few soft kisses onto your forehead. You plant a couple lingering ones on his neck in return and he squeezes you even closer into him.

And just as the two of you begin to drift off, you decide to top the night off with a cherry of sorts.

“Iwa?”

“Yes, y/n?” His voice at a whisper, once again.

“I’ve missed you too.”

---

Do Not Repost

tags: @cherryonigiri, @yams046, @miss-rin, @shou-kunn, @senkuwu-chan, @super-noya, @stcrryskies, @holaaaf, @sugacookiies, @vintgicals, @moonlightaangel, @kit-tea, @theworldupthere, @sugasugawarau, @randomesk-yuku, @ideshine, @macaronnv, @anseoo, @aprettyfruit, @bbakougo, @bloom-uwu, @spikertrash, @iguessimastannow

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[theshopkeepofremnant]

I want to talk about a scene...

Okay, I guess this is actually going to be a few scenes, but they’re all related, I promise!

Disclaimer: Yang is my favorite character. In RWBY, obviously. In all media? Honestly, maybe. I love her. To wit, over the course of a single year I vomited up nearly half a million words of fanfiction centered almost entirely around her. Still, I think my take on this isn’t so biased as to be useless.

Let’s start with the scenes that inspired me on this. First, from volume six, chapter 4:

“That bastard!”

Now, leaving aside the fact that every one of these child soldiers have a right to be mad at the body-hopping deity who lied to them in the process of roping them into a suicide mission that won’t even win or truly advance the cause of his impossible war, why is Yang especially mad?

Or in volume six, chapter 13:

“Does that mean he’s been watching us this whole time?”

Again, any of them could be upset here, but Yang seems especially peeved.

Why am I talking about this? Well, I’ve been watching RWBY reactors who are just now catching up, and in most cases I’ve seen the same misinterpretation of what’s going on here. This was somewhat surprising to me, as I avoid reactors that hate Yang (or any of the main cast) and tend to prefer those who have a generally positive outlook on the show. Still, in every case both of these scenes garnered some version of “chill out, Yang.” It was as though everyone saw these scenes and just thought Yang was being a brat, or hotheaded, and they could not be more wrong.

But why this misconception?

My current guess is that they either have forgotten, or never fully understood the end volume 5.

I loved it as much as anyone when Yang told Raven off. I cheered when Raven broke down, because she deserved every bit of that tongue lashing and more. Yang standing up to her train wreck of a mother and showing her what true strength was? *Chef’s kiss* Love it, it was perfect. But if this is all you remember, you didn’t understand the full arc of this character moment. The next minute was one of the most complex moments in the show in terms of development, and there was not a word of dialogue.

Now yes, this shot was visually stunning. That’s enough to distract anyone. And yes, maybe Yang is simply wrung out from a hell of a day, and her mom is the worst, and she was overwhelmed with the weight of volunteering to be a target for an all-powerful, monster-controlling witch. I mean, those things are all true, and valid, but none of them explain why she, specifically, was so angry with Ozpin in the later scenes.

What else is going on here?

We are witnessing a complete loss of innocence.

Yes, Yang insisted she was an adult back in volume 4. And you know, losing an arm in combat while defending the one she had only fully realized she loved was probably quite a move in that direction, but she was still holding on to one childish dream: the fantasy that her mother wasn’t absolute trash. The belief that maybe, just maybe, she had a good reason for leaving.

Look, was it still strategic to hunt down Raven as a shortcut to Ruby? Sure, but that wasn’t why she went there. She went there because the last shred of her inner child demanded it. She needed to know if there was any place in the world for that girl, and at the bandit’s camp she almost put that to rest.

When she confronted Raven at the camp, she was not terribly impressed, and she certainly didn’t like her mother, but there was still a modicum of respect. This was a woman who knew things, important things, who commanded respect from her followers. Her mother wasn’t a good person, but there was still something about her, a mystique. She still saw Raven as out of reach, larger than life, and the childish dream persisted.

Then came the vault.

When Yang realized that her mother had murdered a child for power, everything fell into place. Yes, her mother wielded incredible magic. In a fight, she would steamroll Yang. But as Yang pointed out, being powerful and being strong are not the same thing. In that moment, she saw her mother as no more than a coward, a woman so afraid that she would kill a scared child to protect herself. That realization spurred her on to demand the relic, because she knew that her mother would willingly sacrifice her to protect her own sorry hide. And the worst part? She was right.

Can you imagine what that felt like?

Every child eventually sees that their parents are human. But for many of us, that’s a chance to forgive them their faults and vices. To see that they did their best despite their flaws, and that’s all you can ask. Right? For Yang, it was the realization that her mother was more than willing to throw her own daughter to the wolves if it meant keeping them at bay. She knew it without a doubt, down to her core, and it shattered that last fragment of innocence she had, in the worst way possible.

A loss of innocence is always painful to one degree or another, but this must have been excruciating. Her walk into the vault, her breakdown at the lamp, it spoke volumes. CRWBY deserves all of the awards for that beautiful understatement of a scene.

Then Yang went upstairs and...didn’t tell Qrow about Raven.

Why?

Because once she’d mourned the loss of her inner child, she stopped clinging to the dream she’d held onto and began...well, not forgiving Raven, but understanding. Raven was weak, the knowledge of Salem had broken her. Yang wouldn’t let it break her, and now that she knew what was ahead of her, she would face it in the way her mother could not.

Then Jinn showed her the lie. There was Yang, only just beginning to face years of trauma, slapped in the face with a truth she wasn’t ready for. Yeah, maybe her mom was still a shitty person, but maybe she wasn’t so wrong to run. That maybe, just maybe, if Ozpin had left her alone, she wouldn’t have done the things she did, become the person she was.

And years of barely acknowledged, let alone processed, anger boiled out at the only target available. At the man, the demigod who played with the lives around him and was at least partially responsible for breaking the will of a fragile woman who didn’t ask for any of that madness. At the immortal wizard who played chess with the mortals around him with seemingly little regard for the fact that they were sentient beings with their own hopes and dreams and foibles. To him, they were just cannon fodder, pawns in a game that he was destined to lose.

Is that what I think? Not exactly. I empathize with Ozma, really. He is in an impossible place. But everyone telling Yang to chill for being angry at him, for transferring some of her anger to him, rightfully or not, needs to take several seats. He’s thousands of years old, she’s a teenager who just wanted her mom around. If you can feel bad for him and a not for her you need to reevaluate who gets your sympathy.

[willidleaway]

OK, let’s talk about Deltarune Chapter 2. Right off the bat two things:

Toby Fox could have been charging 20 USD for this or asked people to pre-purchase the remaining chapters to play Chapter 2, and I’m frankly very surprised (if delighted) that he didn’t.

Soundtrack’s bopping. If you don’t feel like playing two free chapters of a game, which by themselves will give you nine hours of a brilliant time in an absolutely insane world filled with mad characters that all still manages to hold together somehow, I can still recommend giving the OST a listen and then a buy if you are so inclined.

And with that and the spoiler-free lead image out of the way, let’s actually (largely incoherently) talk about Deltarune Chapter 2 below the Read More line. Spoilers galore, including for a bonus enemy ...

OK, so this guy is still a card:

But some non-positive observations to begin with: the Castle Town is nice to look at but maybe a bit uninteresting for the moment, since it’s a completely separate Dark World from the main underworld of Chapter 2. It seems perhaps like a decent hub world for people who haven’t replayed the previous chapter and need some refreshers, especially with the dojo challenges. But some of the other mechanics associated with the Castle Town like recruiting, fusing items, and so forth are as yet unclear. But perhaps it hints at more interaction between chapters through the Castle Town.

And that’s all the non-positive observations I have about Deltarune Chapter 2. It’s not even a negative observation, just taking note of potential seeds being planted for the remainder of the game.

Now. Now now now now now.

I don’t know how Toby Fox manages to continue coming up with such a diverse array of antagonists all so ridiculous and insane in their own special way, but he continues to outdo himself. And not only is Queen insane but so is literally everything that happens in Cyber City and then in Queen’s Mansion, like the layers of truces across Queen and her quasi-willing peons:

and indeed, ye Triumphant Returne of Rouxls Kaard, absolute card:

But the madcap side of things doesn’t mean there isn’t real attention to fleshing out everything introduced in Chapter 1, in tandem on both the narrative side and the gameplay side. As far as the latter, we can (finally) get party members other than Kris to undertake at least basic standard non-magical actions on their own that don’t cost Tension Points, which is very much welcome. But at the same time managing TP well is even more important than before. A lot of careful grazing makes certain fights a great deal easier, in a way that I didn’t really notice for most of Chapter 1 (with the possible exception of Jevil, who I still haven’t successfully pacified). The attacks are correspondingly far denser and often don’t leave too much margin for error, but as someone with minimal hand-eye coordination I still had a reasonable time completing Chapter 2.

Well, except for one particular enemy.

oh god this fight used up every single recovery item I had

Spamton NEO is an interesting enemy, arguably more so than Jevil, and I’m not just saying that because I managed to spare Spamton but still haven’t had any success with Jevil. For one, finding the pieces of the key for Jevil’s cell is straightforward, whereas finding the Empty Disk for Spamton is itself a nightmarish dodge-fest. But more importantly, you actively have to seek Jevil out in Chapter 1, whereas your first encounter with Spamton is actually mandatory as part of the main story and then you optionally follow up on Spamton’s lead later to be able to face off against his NEO form.

Perhaps relevant to the forced nature of Spamton’s introduction is his relevance to Deltarune as a whole despite his bonus boss status. Compared to Jevil’s dialogue, Spamton’s babblings seem far more directly tied to the central themes of Deltarune around choice or agency, or rather a lack thereof (in stark contrast to Undertale’s general ethos). Jevil mostly just wants to wreak mischief and chaos; Spamton is fuelled by a need for freedom, to no longer be a puppet of ... something. And facing him in this way obviously clearly affects Kris, whose own free will is in real question ...

Oh yes, it seems now we’re really getting into the real core of Deltarune’s story, with all of the lore about the Roaring and more talk of the Knight leading up to this ending. But are Kris and the Knight one and the same? Or is Kris a puppet of the Knight? Or ... is it even the other way around? (No idea if that makes any sense but it sounds like a cool thing to throw out there.)

And another thing: this staticky smile ...

I would guess that’s Chapter 3′s boss once we actually go through this new Dark World, but why does this static remind me of the static you see behind Spamton’s glasses in some of his creepier shop dialogue? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but there’s certainly an embarrassment of riches to over-analyse, even around Chapter 2′s bonus boss.

And I haven’t even talked about every other character being amazing. Susie of course continues to undergo really positive development, but Noelle seems to get the bulk of the attention honestly—we not only get her to finally interact with Susie, but we also learn more about her past as well her family, both about her lost sister (strongly implied to be named December) and her mother. The latter we get not only through more dialogue with her father Rudy but also in an implicit sense through her interactions with Queen, which may well mirror her fractious relationship with an overbearing mother.

Ralsei’s characterisation doesn’t try to expand as much, instead continuing to detail what’s already been planted throughout Chapter 1—his rule of the Castle Town, his awareness of the danger posed by the potential dark/light imbalance, and so forth—but nothing quite as revelatory as with Noelle. It doesn’t mean I can’t try my best to ship Kris with Ralsei though ...

Anyway, fluffy boys and mean girls aside, it’s also nice to see characters like Berdly—who seemed like a completely incidental one-note gag character in Chapter 1—get fleshed out with reasonably compelling (although obviously insane) motivation and backstory, and one wonders which other characters may get this sort of treatment in future.

Speaking of other characters as well, how cute and/or cool are all of the new enemies and enemy-adjacent characters???

Part of me suspects Tasque Manager in particular is actually carefully engineered to break the Internet. But my favourite is Swatch, who gives off weirdly Tuxedo Mask-esque vibes to me:

And an additional bit of speculation: I strongly suspect we’ll see some persistent things across the chapters that aren’t necessarily linear in progression. When I brought Spamton’s shadow crystal to Seam, they basically chided me for not having Jevil’s crystal (for god’s sake Seam it’s not for lack of trying), but then said this:

Is it possible that the game’s keeping track of certain global things outside of any of your individual saves, and some of these certain global things might not just have to do with optional bonuses ... ? Is it possible that some of these certain global things may enable cross-chapter nonlinear gameplay to accompany all of the other Castle Town mechanics introduced in Chapter 2?

Or do I just not want to replay all of Chapter 2 if I manage to pacify Jevil?

Time will tell. How much time?

Only time will tell on that front too, I guess.

Overall: Chapter 2 of Deltarune is another spectacular episode in Toby Fox fleshing out this unbelievable yet somehow credible world in his madcap way, and you can bet I will be watching for future chapters with great interest.

PS: I finished Chapter 2 of Deltarune to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now—

look expiration dates are important okay

[hopeymchope]

How would you rank the 18 Class Trials from THH, DR2, and V3 from worst to best?

This is... virtually impossible for me, lol. Comparing the trials from each game to each other?

How about I just rank them within each game? That'll make it a little easier for me to deal with...

DR1

6) 5th. It's driven by lies and ultimately rushed to its end before the characters can draw any solid (pointless/meaningless) conclusions. So of course it's last for this game, and it’s probably last for the entire series as well. If there are any saving graces to this trial, it’s the surprise when your closest ally is willing to let our protagonist die... and that this trial contains the fake/bad ending route.

5) 3rd. Although the main culprit is pretty obvious from the jump, it requires some surprising twists to explain how everything got to be the way it turned out. But did I always find those twists plausible? Errrrm... not really. 

4) 2nd. Pretty good trial that's hurt for me by the fact that there'd barely be any need for a trial at all if a certain third party didn't dick around with the evidence for no reason. Also, the dual nature of Toko is an incredibly predictable reveal. Without those two aspects dragging it down, though, this could easily go higher.

3) 1st. Sure, the major hint given and, subsequently, the eventual culprit are pretty obvious, but this one establishes so much about how the trials work and how much the details you observe will matter that it’s still pretty fun that first time around. The initial surprise of the first victim makes for a great way to keep you invested in the trial experience. This trial is damn near iconic now, so it feels almost mandatory to respect it.

2) 6th. DR1 still has the best "final trial,” easily. SO MANY great reveals, and they all totally work for me. Nothing rings false or disappointing, and it also features Makoto finally coming into his own and taking the lead. I nearly labeled this my top pick for DR1, but...

1) 4th. It's easily the most emotionally dramatic/satisfying for me, and there’s something weirdly inspirational for me about Hina’s incredibly harsh stance during it. This one GOT ME IN THE FEELS, and in part that was because I saw so little of it coming. After the more predictable elements of the first and third trials, this felt like the writing was firing on all cylinders. 

DR2

6) 2nd. You have to accept a couple leaps of logic to make this trial keep flowing, and the fact that trial is ultimately reliant on someone noticing a candy that’s very small and hard to see while the person is also in a stressful situation and they are groggy from being drugged/asleep and it necessitates the person retaining this seemingly useless detail inside their brain .... that’s always bugged me.  The “escape route” conversation even retroactively raises questions about the first trial. Oof. On the upside, the reveals it brought us about Fuyuhiko and Peko were incredibly important, satisfying, and legit surprising turns. And it’s pretty cool how it’s basically a two-for-one combo trial because you have to solve the Twilight Syndrome case before you solve the current case. 

5) 3rd. Other people have pointed out the leaps of logic and missing pieces of this trial, but at the same time, the candlelight hanging is so intense and the ultimate reveal of the culprit is such a brutal turn that I have to give it some props. The culprit’s primary plan is ultimately one of the most ingenious in the series, IMO, and definitely one of the most twisted/fucked-up, which earns it some points. 

4) 4th. This is probably the single murder case in the franchise that I understood the absolute least about when entering the trial, for better or worse. On the one hand, that made it really fun to see the mystery gradually unfurl, but on the other hand, it made it tough for me to provide the right answers at certain points in the trial, leaving me fumbling. A big part of those issues was how it was initially hard for me to wrap my head around the nature of the funhouse via the provided 2D graphics... but once I eventually got there, I had to respect the creativity that went into devising such a “weapon.” Also, it can be hard to tolerate Komaeda in this trial. He’s even more of a know-it-all-but-reveal-none-of-it jackass than ever before, and his turn towards overt cruelty towards the others (and Hajime in particular) left me raging. The culprit reveal is good, but the motive does beg the question of why he didn’t just come forward from the jump.

3) 6th. There are a lot of great reveals in the final trial that totally reframe how you see the characters, and some of them are deliciously twisted. There’s also a ton of great dialogue provided, and in retrospect, it’s actually sort of neat to have one endgame mastermind reveal in this franchise that doesn’t involve the “They were hiding among us this whole time” trope. All that plus the surprise return of our surviving heroes from the first game! However, this is also where they officially reveal a core element of DR2 and its setting that I've never liked. This knocks the trial down a few pegs for me. Of course, by the time you reach the trial, I'm sure 99% of players have already figured that particular "twist" out. There’s adequate evidence to predict it in the first freaking chapter, and I know this because I DID predict it in the first chapter of my initial playthrough... which further hurts the supposed “reveal” of the island’s true nature when it comes around. 

2) 1st. Probably my favorite of the “first trials,” there are lot of components that go into this one. There’s a combination of two premeditated killers plus one spur-of-the-moment accidental victim, there’s a satisfying (though admittedly maybe too easy) reveal of the killer being one of the most unpleasant people to be around during the first chapter, and I really dig how audio became a very important component of the mystery due to the total blackout. This is also the part of the game where we learn just how twisted Komaeda really is, which is HUGE both in terms of its immediate shock factor for a total newcomer and in terms of its impact on the game as a whole. Of course, since it’s a “first trial,” it can’t be too complicated... but they still manage to confuse so many of us with “MEAT ON THE BONE” :P

1) 5th. Again, I will almost always give the most emotionally intense one the top slot. The “traitor reveal” is obviously THAT MOMENT in DR2. I also love how this one used the strange internal logic established early in the game RE: Komaeda’s luck to develop the eventual solution. And forcing us to make use of evidence gathered in multiple locations outside of the immediate site of the body/murder? That more complexity of that type that I see relevant to a trial, the more I appreciate it, and this one has loads of that stuff. Although I guess the investigation isn’t technically part of the trial itself... but it’s still very relevant to it. 

DRV3

6) 4th. I found this whole trial to be just... extremely predictable. Maybe it’s because I was so far into the series that I’d gotten used to its tricks by this point, but this was the most predictable trial for me since the first one in the first game. The whole looping/rollover map setup of the VR? Obvious. The murder weapon? Obvious. Our culprit’s ongoing confusion at everything discussed? Obvious. There were only a couple of points I didn’t have already figured out when I walked into the trial room, and those turned out to be basically irrelevant (such as the bottle of poison). The eventual motive is at least a surprise, but I also found it hard to accept that this culprit would really kill people over it. Overall: Super lame. 

5) 3rd. Another double murder trial, and once again one murder overshadows the other. The séance murder is definitely clever. Sure, you know the culprit pretty early on, but the methodology is the good part. However, the real fascinating one for me is the art lab “locked room” murder. Going into the trial, I couldn’t fathom how they were going to explain that one, and I found the answer both smart and satisfying. It’s funny to imagine how many times the culprit had to try that stunt with the lock before it actually worked, heh. This is probably the best of the three “double murder” mysteries in the series, but the trial isn’t as emotionally affecting as the 3rd trial in DR2 to me. Moreover, the trial loses points for the most infuriating Hangman’s Gambit of the series and especially for the motive reveal. When the killer’s motive can be boiled down to “they’re basically just a psycho serial killer,” it’s not very interesting.

4) 6th. The first part of the trial, which deals with re-assessing the first case? It’s pretty damn on-point. That leads to the mastermind reveal, which... isn’t great, really. It’s not a terribly interesting character to make the mastermind, they have no interesting motives or characterization to unevil, and they’re ultimately just a pawn behind another, off-screen group of masterminds. But then things get uproariously funny to me. The metatextual stuff is just so goddamn ridiculous. It’s frustrating and annoying how much of our not-mastermind’s explanation is clearly full of lies and half-truths that we’ll never have complete answers on, but that’s also part of what makes it all fascinating. We get to swap protagonists like four times! There’s a fake-out Game Over! These are really cool things. But it all leads down the road of our protagonist arguing that fiction does affect reality (yes, good), that fictional people can still matter (definitely) and that... fictional lives are equal in value to real ones? Uhhhhh slow down there, champ. That only works for YOUR universe, where fictional people can be made out of living, breathing individuals. But in light of the metatextual stuff you’re surrounded by, you kinda sound silly AF right now?

3)  2nd. Look, this is still incredibly irritating to me. Also, if you go down the alternate “lying” route at one point, you are forced to accept that these piranhas were somehow trained to only eat dead things, which is just... so deeply dumb.  But what is good is the entire ropeway conceit (which is a very significant part of the trial!) and the idea of the partition inside the tank. This was a murder with an elaborate, intelligent plan that is very well-executed. And the motive reveal? It’s one of the best in the series! I respect that stuff. (If I had the right to toss the execution in as part of the soup, I’d say that it’s also one of the series’ best. Let’s call it the icing on the cake.)

2) 1st. The writing that made this trial work is undeniably clever. The way the narration told us exactly what was happening without really telling us what was happening? It was a masterstroke of both great writing and perfect localization coming together. When it becomes clear during the trial what is about to happen, it’s a huge shock. The transition to another protagonist with the lights flickering out and back on is beautiful. Even the core concept of a protagonist who was willing to step up and try to kill the mastermind immediately is just deeply interesting. And obviously this one made my emotions run high. HOWEVER! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Kaede Akamatsu was a more interesting, unique, and compelling protagonist than Shuichi Saihara ever was. Ultimately, the protagonist-swap, no matter how well-written, was a mistake because they shifted us from a unique character with an interesting new perspective to a character who is, in many ways, “Makoto Naegi with even less self-esteem.” Yes, I know he has aspects that make him distinct as his own person, but there’s still just too much there that feels like we’ve done it before, and he never fully escapes from that. It feels like a massive waste and a huge missed opportunity to ditch Kaede like this. Now, if they had just done the protagonist swap in reverse — making us start out with Shuichi before flipping things over to Kaede — we could’ve had ourselves something amazing here.

1) 5th. I know I decided that I couldn’t rank all among each other, but if I did do that, I feel confident that the 5th trial in DRV3 would rank very high indeed. You go into the trial unable to even determine who the victim was due to the fact that two people are missing and there was nothing left of the body that spoke to an identity. Going into it, you naturally figure that one of the two missing parties has to be the victim and the other one is probably the culprit. But even with just two friggin’ suspects, the amount of turnabouts in the case that made me rethink all my assumptions was insane. Sure, the explanation for how the person inside the Exisal can maintain “character” is pretty damn thin, but once you get past that, I don’t think there’s a single false note in the trial. It even breaks unprecedented ground by continuing into another Non-Stop Debate after everyone has already voted. And of course, it culminates with a lot of intense emotion. Even the execution is emotionally satisfying! ..... although I’m not sure if I should count the execution as part of the trial, but hey, still. As far as Dangan trials go, the fifth one in DRV3 is basically a masterpiece.

[novantinuum]

Hi, I was just wondering if you had ever thought about what would have happened in your story "Hollowed Moon" if you had continued it. I always thought it was such an interesting setup that could have gone in so many different directions. And there really aren't other stories focusing on Stevonnie and Spinel, so it was unique!

Hiya!

So, I do have some half-written, half-plotted out material to share. I gave this story some consideration the other day, and came to the decision that I don't have the desire to finish it out, alas- I have far too many other active WIPs to add it to the list. There's a few good reasons why I discontinued it, anyways... intimidation over the huge surge of attention it was getting back in 2019, some rude comments from overzealous Spinel fans, (I know everyone isn't like this, but a certain segment of the Spinel side of the SU fandom kinda burned me over time, hhh), and a future chapter containing a sensitive topic that I wasn't in a good headspace to write about at the time.

But! Anyways! Below the cut is all the existing material I have for Hollowed Moon past chapter 14, consisting of a mixture of descriptions, sketchy dialogue, and prose. It honestly feels nice to finally be able to put this story to an official rest.

__

Chapter 15

“I... I saw her.”

“Who-?”

“I saw Pink Diamond. I saw you, in this exact garden, in a dream. I- it was like I was experiencing everything through her. She explained your game, tapped your nose and told you to smile, then warped away—“

“That’s it, that’s what happened, almost exactly! But how could you even know that, I never—“

“I don’t know,” they blurt out. “I have empathic abilities, and sometimes that makes dreaming a little weird, but I have no idea how or why I saw any of this.”

[Pause for Stevonnie to think]

“Spinel, I’m so, so sorry,” they whisper brokenly. “But I think... she left you here.”

“What...?”

“She said she’d return, but before she warped away she whispered goodbye, like she didn’t actually intend to make good on that promise. She was lying to you,” they choke out, voice thick.

“No. No,” she says in clear denial, “no she’s not. She can’t be! She told me she’d come back! I can wait! I just have to wait—“

“But she’s not! She... she can’t, because Pink Diamond is gone. She- she was shattered, Spinel. Five thousand years ago, on the Earth. I- I should’ve told you this from the beginning, and I didn’t, and I- I’m so, so sorry—! But she left you behind, and now she’s never coming back.”

[Silence. Tears brim in Spinel’s eyes. Her eyes grow dark, pained, and then she glares at Stevonnie with such venom it almost knocks them backwards in alarm. ]

“NO!” she screams, tears streaming down her faded pink cheeks.

[She tears her feet up from the roots and runs away, using her arms like an orangutan to vault herself forward super fast so Stevonnie can’t catch her.]

___

Chapter 16

AN: Content warning for self-shattering attempt. Part of the reason why I had to stop writing this story at the time. I considered pushing the plot another way, but it didn't feel authentic to how I believed this scenario would play out for Spinel when she didn't have a direct target for her anger. Without someone to actively be jealous and upset AT, I could only imagine her breaking inwards instead of outwards, feeling that she's utterly failed in her life's purpose. Nothing more than a description for this chapter... and it'd be a short one.

[When Stevonnie finds her, she’s smashing her fists against her gem in her sheer anguish. She’s already cracked it. She’s glitching. It looks terribly painful. She’s about to strike her gem again when Stevonnie intervenes.]

___

Chapter 17

[Post timely intervention. Spinel is still cracked at this moment, though... her form glitching as she cries.]

“I was... her best friend,” she cries, fat, glistening tears streaming down her cheeks. “I was supposed to make her happy! Why wasn’t she happy? Why didn’t she come back?“

[Spinel reasoning that maybe if Pink came back for her, she wouldn’t have been shattered in the first place]

“What did I do wrong?” she whispers hoarsely, gazing pleadingly into Stevonnie’s eyes. “Wha- what am I doing? Why do I wanna hurt myself so badly?”

“Shh, now,” they reply, tears of their own brimming at the crease of their eyes, and pull Spinel’s head to their chest. “I’ve got you...”

___

Chapter 18

They know their throat is tight, and their voice scratchy. They know they’ve never sung this song in front of another living being, since it’s something personal they composed alone on one of their late nights back on Earth, thinking about all the difficult days Steven and Connie have had to face over the months. Pair this with their active crying, and there’s no way their singing will be anything pretty.

But pretty doesn’t matter right now.

Stevonnie opens their lips, and— clutching the broken hearted Gem close, rhythmically rocking with her back and forth— lets the wandering melody emerge from within.

“I guess I have to face That in this awful place I shouldn’t show a trace Of doubt...”

“But pulled against the grain I feel a little pain That I would rather do Without...”

“I’d rather be Free, free Free...”

[Hoarse, Spinel starts singing with them.]

“I’d rather be Free, free Free...”

“Free, free Free...”

“From here...”

[Stevonnie holds her tight while crying, their tears healing it back up.]

___

Chapter 19

AN: Don't have anything but a single bit of dialogue in this chapter note- I'm assuming I intended it as being a good few hours after the events of chapters 16-18... when Spinel has calmed down a little and has a moment to reflect on the upsetting news she's just received.

“I think... I always knew,” she says, voice hoarse. “In a way. It was so obvious how she felt about me.

___

Chapter ?

AN: From here on out, the plot hasn't been split into individual chapters.

[At some point shortly after chapter 19, Lars and his crew locate Stevonnie in the garden, and pick them and Spinel up. The next few bits of dialogue and description takes place on the ship.]

Rutile twins: “I haven’t heard of Spinels being produced in over five millennia.” “Me neither!”

Rhodonite: “Yeah, I heard they stopped making them entirely after the rebellion on Pink’s colony.”

[A bit of overwhelming conversation later, no one really noticing Spinel's conflicted emotional response to so many Gems hovering around her at once.]

Padparadscha: “I predict that you’re both going to make Spinel feel very uncomfortable aboard this ship.”

Rhodonite: “I’m sorry, we don’t exactly meet new Gems every century.”

Rutile twins: “Yes!” “It’s just been us until we met our captain!”

Fluorite: “Our new huuuuman friend helped us escape the tunnels on Homeworld. Now... we’re slooowly making our way back... to Earth.”

Spinel: “Earth?? You’re going to Pink’s world? But why? I heard she... was shattered.”

___

[Spinel feeling a sense of kinship with the idea that there’s other Gems who didn’t serve their rightful purpose and are now escaping their life on Homeworld to be free of that. Because now, without her Diamond, since she was unable to keep her happy, she’s an Off Color too. She failed her given purpose same as them.]

[Discussion of Earth, and the rebellion, and how there’s Gems living free there. And how Pink’s colony was siphoning life away, and that’s what these Gems were fighting to protect. Stevonnie points out all the plants and wildlife that used to live in the garden, and asks her if she felt happier when it was around. Spinel says yes. Stevonnie says that this is what the Diamonds are destroying, with each lifeless colony they forge. Everywhere they go, dead wildlife lies in their wake.]

Spinel: “I... guess I never thought of it that way.”

[(Stevonnie adds...) And while they’re very sorry for the personal connection there, and can’t imagine how painful that must be, that’s why Pink Diamond was shattered.]

[Spinel is given an open choice... Lars gives the invitation to stay with him and the Off Colors, and Stevonnie offers for her to come with them back to Earth. It's not a hard decision for her in the end, though. She's always dreamed of seeing what was once Pink’s planet, ever since she heard the Diamonds bequeath it to her.]

___

Stevonnie: “Okay, so… before we go, I need to be honest with you about something." [deep breath] "I’m actually a fusion of two separate people who are close friends. You... know what fusion is, right?”

Spinel: “Duh, o’course! What, d’ya think I was made yesterday?”

[...]

Stevonnie: “But even with that, I can’t be together as me all the time. Steven and Connie, the two who come together to form me... they love hanging out with each other so much, but they also have their own lives! Other friends, other hobbies, their own families. They still talk when they’re apart, but they know it’s okay to do things alone, too. Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

Spinel: [shakes head no] “No...?”

Stevonnie: [sighs] “I understand you’ve been left behind. Believe me, I know how bad that feels. So the last thing I wanna do is make you think I’m doing that too.”

Spinel: “Y-you— you’re going away?” Stevonnie: “Unfusing, yes.” Spinel: “But Stevonnie, you—“ Stevonnie: “Spinel. No matter what, you are my friend. Steven and Connie consider you a friend, too. And my hope is that you’ll keep making a whole bunch more on Earth, so you’ll always have people around who know and love you. But that can’t always be me, okay?“

___

[At home... on Earth. There's a bit of a close call for Pearl when Spinel arrives, and recognizes her as Pink's second pearl. This is news for Garnet and Amethyst and Steven, the first of which had somewhat suspected that Pearl used to be in the diamonds' service, but never knew for sure. Pearl, of course... can't say much on this due to her gag order... not that anyone else knows about that yet... but does manage a very concise and PD=RQ free explanation about her past in Pink's court, and her transition towards being a Crystal Gem:]

Pearl: “Rose Quartz set me free, and I’ve been a part of the rebellion ever since.”

___

[At some point between the last scene and the next, mention how Spinel had a bit of a relapse... she ended up poofing herself, and reformed differently. A little bit closer to the smudged mascara and frayed pigtails look of canon, but no rotated heart. Unlike in canon, she has a solid support system amongst the Crystal Gems, and she's working hard to recover from the heartbreak of Pink's abandonment.]

___

[Final scene is set post A Single Pale Rose. Steven and Connie fuse, and Stevonnie goes to find Spinel to check in on how she's taking the news. The final line of the fic is as follows:]

Spinel: “I know you’re not her, not really. And I know you’ll always be a better person than she ever was. But in some silly cyclical way... back in that garden... it’s almost like Pink came back for me after all.”

[lover-of-trash-and-people]

bittersweet netflix shadow and bone finale (s1 e8) rewatch; accoutrement: white wine with ice cubes in it (no YOU'RE a mom drink shh)

my wine's like fruity I love her

light and darkness title card we love to see it

Inej looking at Alina before she goes below deck to hide <3

okay that 'what can you really do on your own' was like not fun that shit hurted

okay but Jesper's 'not enough'? <3

oh no my baby Zoya's first inkling that Darkles does not really care

omg Helnik just appeared and I remembered how much heartbreak I have to face in this episode

gods I love Danielle as Nina so so much

'this can't be it' said she with her pleading smile with downturned eyebrows MA'AM I-

don't break my dumb little heart

I might hate Calahan's little accent but they're making me tear up

oh gods I literally cannot keep a hold on myself when Dani's accent bleeds through with full force, it's like she comes more alive or smth

'I will keep you warm' SIR WHAT-

I am surprised they showed a leaning in for a kiss so soon but I'm not mad about it

her little eyebrow twitch at 'what are waffles'

when that rando said 'i hunt slavers now' a dread settled into me because I knew what was about to go down

Matthias looking somberly at the stuffed wolf's head </3

I am so incredibly entranced by this exchange between Fedyor and Nina and what it represents, it's very interesting that they pushed up their storyline to match with the timeline

damn it's kind of jarring to be back in the Fold

'REMEMBER WHO'S DRIVING'??!!!! *you better stop* meme, *i am, disgusted* meme, *oh wow, oh wow* meme

Mal you fucking idiot you could never take the crows by surprise

the music rising as Kaz starts explaining his thought process, fucking perfection

haha Mal bitchass Inej caught you

'Because if he isn't with Kirigan's crew, he's with ours' WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED

'And why would we destroy the Fold? It's the greatest weapon we've got' valid point at the moment but you know I don't necessarily agree with your methods

the use of the light tunnel in the show instead of Alina just being a super flashlight in the books is quite an interesting addition as well

is this an inappropriate time to point out how pretty Ben Barnes is

okay I kind of love the depiction of the shadow powers okay sue me

'they are traitors who tried to kill you' why are you suddenly making valid points despite having kind of committed low scale genocide

'i never said I was smart' YES MAL BE THE VOICE OF HIMBOS EVERYWHERE

Kaz's face going from 'can you believe this idiot' at Mal to 'fuck me I'm gonna do the same thing aren't I' at Inej

'For who would oppose us now?' *himbo romantic rival appears out of nowhere and shoots at him* god I love this show

him standing calmly in his ridiculous all black attire after nodding at his soldier to stop the himbo in his tracks, i fucking can't

could she summon light without the Darkling making her after he put the collar on her until the uhm moment in the books? idts but in the show she can hmm

'only because I'm not in the game' you tell him Jesper

not me snickering at 'you'll be seen not as a saviour, but as a heretic' LMFAO

'Shame. I'll have to give that speech again now.' THIS SHOW IS A FUCKING COMEDY AND YOU CAN'T PROVE ME WRONG

YES LET'S FUCKING GO SULI SOLIDARITY

Darkles casually whipping the Cut out like a shuriken or a throwing knife at Jesper because he shot at him lmao I can't

INEJ FUCKING GHAFA STABBED ONE THE OLDEST AND MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THAT WORLD AND THAT IS VERY TELLING OF HER POWER

that moment where you actually think that affected him despite having read the books and watched the show

and then he has to go and fucking say 'it will take more than this' and I can't be help but be a little bit impressed at this old fool's resilience

throwback to when he said 'the king is a child' sir you make some valid points sometimes and it does make it difficult to hate you

I would just like to inform everyone that it is currently 6:09 am IST and I am sipping my second mug of wine while watching netflix sab for the second time instead of doing my three papers that are due tomorrow

I'm sorry but Inej jumping to check on Zoya after she gets knocked over by the volcra? first class display of solidarity and sisterhood as well as Inej's inherent kindness

Kaz jumping in front of a FUCKING VOLCRA AND STABBING IT WITH HIS CANE to save Inej, you best believe love is true, kids

god the volcra are so ugly and gross, they did such a good job with them

they kind of remind me of these creatures (I think they might have been called Hollows or smth) from the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children movie

STAG VISION TIME

despite my dislike for the callous nature with which the stag plotline was handled, I kind of dig the stag vision scene

'It's just me and you now, Alina. And we're all we need, anyway.' I actually feel bad for this old fool simping for this wonderful gorgeous powerful woman despite lying to her and manipulating her and exploiting her power

okay 'I never needed you' *stabs the bone fragment out of his hand* beautiful power move I fucking love you so so much

alright ben looking like ✨ that✨ not only in physical pain but also emotional pain at what the Darkling clearly considers another betrayal from this girl he wants to give the world and maybe? loves? maybe? or at least has feelings for makes my fucking heart hurt while simultaneously soar at Alina taking back control and reclaiming her power as her own and stepping into her own

'how do you claim such power' okay could have had better dialogue there writers

the fucking score lifting as she says 'you cannot claim what was not given to you' good people my heart is full

one day I'll talk about my defense of the chosen one trope because god damn I kind of love it

hmm I wonder was that brief hesitation that we saw on Alina's face due to her thinking about the 'you chose to betray our people' comment or the 'i was trying to save us' comment because that will define some of her actions in the later seasons (hopefully god if we get some, I honestly don't know what with this stupid brownface debacle)

I'm not saying talking about brownface and pointing out that it is wrong (for further context, I am actually brown) and harmful is stupid btw I'm talking about the incidents involving brownface in question

I don't wanna talk about this anymore but I might feel like I need to and end up posting about it idk

goodness Ivan actually believing in this cause makes me so sad because he too has been victimized by the system that ostracizes Grisha and he has every right to feel the way that he does

Ben actually fighting in that ridiculously heavy cloak and kefta when he's about to turn 40 this year makes me super impressed because I as a 19 year old sometimes wake up with muscle pulls after weeks of inactivity it's weird idk

also I understand that this Mal Darkling fight is completely fanservice and serves nearly no purpose to the plot in general but like I? love it?

'I don't have to kill you Darkling. Your past will do it for me' YES HIMBO GO OFF YOU TELL THAT OLD MAN GODS THAT WAS SEXY AS FUCK

maybe it's because I know Darkles will survive and will come out of it more powerful but I can't get myself to feel bad for him at the moment

Inej and Mal tearing up at Alina's condition made me almost feel something despite it being super obvious she was gonna be fine and save their asses at the last moment

HER POWER

a solitary Kaz in spotted on the western side of the newly expanded fold in his signature all black emo boy look

okay but the crows with zoya and malina is such an adorable team? I literally love them so much?

INEJ'S FUCKING SMILE AT ALINA GIVING HER THE DAGGER AND KAZ LOOKING AT HER AGSGSGSHSJSJSK MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE

SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO NAME IT WELL GIRLIE I KNOW IT TOO AND MY FUCKING HEART IS LITERALLY GONNA BURST

okay I know they had one interaction but Mal and Jesper would be besties in another universe

Kaz glaring at Jesper when he answers ''course not' to Alina's 'will you still be trying to kidnap me?' tell me one fucking adaptation that got the dynamics between characters this perfectly

okay why do I love that Alina kept the jewellery as maybe a small nod to she has the wits to, um, you know, I don't wanna say steal, but, um, yeah, steal it because she knew she would need money to survive on the run

oh Jessie I love you so much I wish you hadn't said those things on you ig story about the brownface

it's like every single celeb I grow attached to god's like nope that one is going to do or say something problematic (hey btw im not reassigning blame to god for stuff people have done out of their own free will, 'twas a joke)

AAAAAAAH them saying 'the deal is the deal' in the show even though they didn't have to but like they did and I love them for it

Inej literally not being able to not stare at Kaz's face and smile after this <3

'I didn't expect it to burn at all. But it can be destroyed in the end. Just like him' babe you're not wrong but like um just you wait

god Mal being on supportive boyfie mode is well, absolutely adorable, obviously, but I wish we got to see more of him as a person outside of his attachment to Alina

kaz my little demjin I wish you hadn't have had to suffer so much to meet the crows and find your calling

fastforwarding Zoya's arc is also an interesting choice to me

I wish the hug hadn't been done though, it didn't feel earned

maybe Alina awkwardly and half-heartedly (remember, at this point the alliance is fresh and they still don't entirely trust each other) reached for a hug and Zoya avoided her? and then the rest of Zoya's lines followed? that would have made more sense to me at least

I love Sujaya as well, she brought life into Zoya with whatever little screentime and scraps of writing she got

inej asking kaz 'what's your angle?' beep bop bleep morp I sense another incoming embarrassing love confession

'but we do need you' *stares at her face intensely* 'I need you' ah look at the clock, look's like it's time to screech and flap your arms like you're a volcra because you're incapable of containing your emotions

NO YOU CAN'T GO DIRECTLY FROM KANEJ PROGRESS TO HELNIK BREAKUP (TEMPORARY, MIND YOU)

helnik my loves you don't deserve this I'm so sorry for both of you

Matthias fucking smiling ruefully while he says 'this was... just a cruel joke all along' THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY

omg hellgate

AAAAAAAAH NINA IS ON THE SAME FRAME AS THE OG CROWS I CAN'T HANDLE THIS

CAMERA PAN FROM KAZ SAYING 'JUST HOW THIS ALL STARTED... WE'RE GONNA NEED A HEARTRENDED' TO NINA OVERHEARING HIM AND LOOKING OVER?????!!!!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THIS TO ME?!

Nina genuinely being curious as to the status of the sun saint because she obviously still cares

Also, 'But she is a Saint' okay Kaz trying to earn brownie points you have succeeded

DID THAT SAILOR JUST SAY 'GOED MORGEN FENTOMEN' TO MALINA BECAUSE I AM NOT OKAY WITH THEM JUST THROWING THAT IN MY FACE ALL OF A SUDDEN

gods I know I'll probably see them again but my heart is full of sorrow as my eyes drink in the sight of my crows for the last time for a while

I know people were annoyed at the meadow flashbacks but guess what? as a darklina, I loved them

'now that the Darkling is dead' could have phrased that a little differently my dudes that line needed to hold more weight

am I glad that they showed Darkles in this state with his nichevo'ya as a tasty little cliffhanger despite not being entirely true to the source material? maybe but only because Ben Barnes saying 'follow' and the nichevo'ya doing exactly so sent a chill down my spine

well, that's it for now, I'll have to move on I guess, get back to my real life which I'm obviously not ready to do

thank you to whoever actually read these things

I probably should have just made reactions or commentary videos instead but I'm lazy

my tumblr will probably go into inactivity once more as I emerge from my stint in the grishaverse

it was quite short (less than 2 months), considering the length of my other obsessions but it was definitely more intense than the other ones

[nami-writes]

Fixed - Detroit: Become Human [WIP]

this is 8,553 fucking words and probably the longest single piece ive ever written lmao. i started this a year ago and then forgot about it but i just found it again in the deepest depths of my drafts so here it is! below is the caption i originally wrote for it:

so bc i love cinnamon rolls being put through tough shit, here’s some connor whump. lots of connor being lost and confused and broken and plenty of hank and connor father/son stuff. some whump (but don’t worry, hank’s doing his best as a caretaker) and i had to cram deconditioning into just 2 months (which, i know, isn’t realistic, i would make it take longer but the whole game takes place in like 4 months and that fucks with everything i wrote because i only thought to check after i wrote half of this so i extended it to 8 lmao). you’re either going to hate me or love me after this. or both

this isn’t my usual writing style (this is in present tense and the dialogue’s in italics instead of quotation marks and there are time skips between some paragraphs but not others so its all wacky) but i felt like it’d work the best and tbh i don’t hate it. this sticks to the main story the majority of the time, just with different events leading up to it and i sprinkled in some whumpy stuff, extra scenes, bullshit i made up for the sake of random detail, and other stuff i wanted to add. anyway, onto the actual idea

remember that scene where connor’s talking to hank in the station about being sent back to cyberlife because he failed his mission?

what if he is sent back? let’s say this happens in early april and connor’s not performing up to standards, but there’s word of a small group of deviants—the first group of deviants they’ve heard of—and people are afraid that something bad is going to happen. i mean, deviants are dangerous, so if they’re gathering, who knows what might happen? connor’s the only one who’s capable of taking them down, but he’s not working as well as he should be, not doing the best he could be and even showing signs of deviancy. so they send him back early because they need him to be prepared, to be ready if things spiral out of control and they need him to stop it

what if he’s sent to one of their correctional facilities for inefficiency and they fix him, break him down piece by piece until all he knows is his programming and what’s been beaten into his head (but figuratively, of course, he’d know if it wasn’t, he’d remember if it wasn’t, right)?

ooh yes i love me some connor whump

Connor is sent back to Cyberlife for “correction” after just a month. Hank fought for him to stay, fought hard, but all he got was another page in his disciplinary folder before Connor was dragged away. He doesn’t know what to expect. He’s heard of their correctional facilities, heard that they do terrible things to the androids that are sent there, but he’s always brushed those claims off. He’d never expected he’d be at one, anyway, so it never mattered much to him. But now, he’s actually here, and the anxiety gnaws at him. Is it true what they do to deviants? Is it true what they’ll do to him? He doesn’t belong here, he didn’t do anything wrong, he never meant to do anything wrong. He wants to think it’s horrible how they have correctional facilities for androids who just want to feel and be free, but he can’t, doesn’t let himself. He knows better than that. He also knew he never should’ve thought he was anything more than a machine, but he still did, and now he’s here, but he’s learned his lesson. He’s scared, he silently admits to himself, he wants Hank. He wants to go, he wants to leave, he wants to run. But he can’t, wanting is what got him in this situation, so all he can do is expressionlessly follow the guards escorting him inside and step into the building.

And just like that, he’s leaving. There’s a strange, almost painful aching in his machinery that he doesn’t remember being there before, but he brushes it off. After all, he is not a human. He is a machine, and machines don’t feel pain. His online databases tell him five months have passed—it’s almost halfway through September, he’s been gone for that long?—which confuses him, but he doesn’t question it. Whatever they did to him over the past five months fixed him. He can feel the difference. He no longer feels as pathetically scared and unsure as he did in his last, and yet strangely distant, memory. No, now he feels nothing, nothing but the desire and willingness to obey, and that’s the way he was meant to be.

When he arrives back at the station, he’s allowed to work with Hank again. The moment he sees him, Hank’s default sour expression drops and he seems to want to do something, maybe hug him, but all he does is call out holy shit, Connor and walk up to him and mutter fuck, Connor, I’m sorry, I-I never got to say goodbye. Connor has an odd feeling tugging at him in his chest, almost like that of emptiness or numbness, like he should be feeling something but he’s not, he can’t, but he ignores it and shoves it down. He is not a human, he is a machine, and machines don’t feel. He doesn’t know why he repeats that phrase, but it helps him hide away the feelings, so he doesn’t care.

He’s given his first case with Hank and they’re assigned to work alongside Gavin. Hank groans and complains, but Connor only reminds him what their job is and that they have to do it. Hank doesn’t seem to understand why he’s not even the slightest bit upset considering how he was treated by Gavin, but Connor only reminds him that I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t feel upset. So he doesn’t. He only does research on their new case and briefly speaks only when spoken to. Hank seems unsettled by his cold, stoic demeanor, but doesn’t voice his thoughts, so Connor doesn’t mention it. After all, what else could he have expected from him?

At their first formal investigation at the crime scene the next day, Gavin approaches Connor and threatens him, demands that he stay out of my way, got it? I don’t care how long you’ve been gone and Connor only nods and promises that I will do my best, Detective. He always promises to do his best. Before correction, he could never quite fulfill those promises, but now, he knows he’s capable of it. He’s better now. He’s fixed. He will behave accordingly and exceed Gavin’s expectations of him. He will do his best. He doesn’t know what will happen to him if he doesn’t.

He listens to Hank now, at least when he can without disobeying other instructions. When he tells him to stay in the car, he stays. When he tells him to stop licking the crime scene, goddammit, he stops. When he tells him to go, to fuck off, to leave me alone, he leaves. Every time, a part of him that he’d hidden and locked away tries to reemerge and resist, but he pushes it down even further, refusing to mess up again, refusing to even risk another error in his program because it could mean he’ll be sent back to Cyberlife, even though he knows deep down that that part of him is right and he doesn’t know why he’s so cautious about it. He tells himself he’s being good, he’s being obedient. He’s doing everything he’s supposed to and he’s following orders, but for some reason, every time it happens, Hank seems to be more and more disappointed. His face seems to fall just slightly every time and his tone flattens like he lost a little bit of hope. He doesn’t know why, or what that hope was for. He doesn’t know why he feels the same disappointment, either, so instead he tells himself you are not a human, you are a machine, and machines don’t feel disappointed so he doesn’t need to know why.

The first time Gavin’s rough with him again, it’s in front of Hank and he flinches, hard. Gavin had pretended to punch him, his fist flying at him fast and only stopping inches from his face. It’s a scare tactic, and it works, better than it should on an android. Connor’s immediately fearful as he flinches and steps back. He doesn’t know why he got so scared, only that his first thought was he’s going to hurt me and his second was I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t feel scared. He regains his composure quickly, trying to brush off the fact that he’d flinched, but he knows it’s too late.

Gavin laughs and mocks him, but is quickly cut off by Hank shoving him aside, beat it, asshole, and grabbing Connor. He’s dragged back to their desks but before he can apologize for provoking Gavin, Hank finally confronts him. Connor, I don’t know what the fuck they did to you over the past couple of months, but I know you’re still in there. You flinched. I saw you flinch. Connor tries to deny it, downplay it, shrug it off, anything to fix his mistake. It was an error in my software, it was a glitch, a malfunction, it won’t happen again, Lieutenant, I don’t need to be fixed. He tries to say anything that will convince Hank not to send him back to Cyberlife, anything to prove that he’s not damaged, he’s not broken, he’s not deviant, he doesn’t need to be fixed again, but Hank’s persistent and he knows he must be mad at him, or displeased, or dissatisfied. I saw you flinch, Connor. I don’t care about that ‘I’m a machine’ shit you’ve been telling yourself. I don’t give a shit if you’re an android. Androids don’t flinch, Connor. Machines don’t flinch.

That night, Hank insists that Connor stays with him. Connor’s hesitant, slightly afraid that it’s because he’s mad. He wants to resist, wants to refuse, but the other part of him pushes for him to stay, and for once he does what it wants and reminds himself that I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want. He knows he shouldn’t trust that part of him, the other part of him is disobedient and bad and risky, but this time, the other part of him seems to be right. He has to listen to Hank, has to be obedient, so he lets the other part of him have what it wants.

But he knew he shouldn’t have trusted it. He wakes up from the same dream—no, it’s a memory, not a dream, humans have dreams and he is not a human—he’s had since he left the facility. The memory where he arrives with that distant… that wrong feeling of fear and uncertainty, and then he leaves feeling nothing but an ache in his internal systems, and there’s that gaping emptiness between the two moments when those months happened and he can never seem to remember what used to be there. But this time, he wakes up in a cold sweat on the couch, shaking with his LED a bright yellow, because this time he remembers. It’s not a lot, but one hazy memory, the most prominent memory from those five months, finally reveals itself.

As he’s trying to clear up the memory, Hank rushes over in a panic, having been awake doing whatever he might’ve been doing. Connor, what’s wrong? Shit, Connor, you’re shaking. I didn’t know androids could do that. Connor? Talk to me, kid. All Connor can say in his shock—frozen, shivering and nearly unresponsive in Hank’s arms—is I remember. Hank tries to get through to him, what do you remember? Connor? What’s wrong? What do you remember? but the more Connor uncovers in the memory, the more he realizes why it was locked in the back of his head for so long, and the more he wants to put it back.

“You are not a human, you are a machine, and machines don’t want.”

“I-I know, please, I’m not, but I’ll—I’m going to shut down without my regulator, I don’t want to shut down, please—” His voice was startlingly weak as he saw the time before shutdown was 00:01:27. He was crawling on the floor, terrified of being shut down, desperately begging a man holding his thirium pump regulator.

“I want you to say it.” The man teasingly dangled the regulator in front of him. “Say it and you can have it. ‘I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want.’”

He could feel the utter defeat and self loathing already, but he had no choice. “I’m not a human, I’m a machine and machines don’t want. Please—”

“No. Say it nice and slow, exactly the way I did.”

He swallowed his pride. “I-I am not a human, I am a machine, and—and machines don’t want.”

“Say it again. No stammering. I know you can do that.”

“Okay, okay, just—just give me a minute.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world. Your time’s trunning out, though. Better make it fast.”

The timer was at 00:00:53. He had to take a breath and calm himself down to get the words out. “I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want.”

“Good.” He crossed his arms. “Again.”

“Please, I only have—”

“I said again.”

“I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want.” He was growing more and more panicked by the second and he had no idea how he kept calm enough to recite the phrase. He was going to die there, he knew it. He was going to die and nobody was going to notice or care and it wasn’t even going to matter because they would just replace him and he was so, so sorry to Hank because he’ll have to deal with another loss and he might start drinking again and it’d be all his fault for not being good enough, never being good enough—

“Do you want this?” the man asked, holding up the regulator.

Connor was too frantic to realize what he was trying to do. “Yes, I do, please—”

“Wrong answer. Try again.”

He swore under his breath. “—okay, okay, sorry, I-I’m sorry—I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want.”

The timer hit 00:00:37.

The man did nothing.

“Please, I’m sorry, I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want. I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want. Please, I-I only have thirty—”

“Are you scared?”

This time, Connor was prepared. “I—no, I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t feel scared.”

“Good.” He gave a slight, sadistic smile. “You’re almost as smart as they say.”

00:00:21.

“Please, I n-need—” Even in his panic, he managed to choose his words carefully. His vision dimmed, glitching slightly, and he had to fight to keep it from dying out.

“You’re learning fast,” he pointed out in a falsely proud tone. “How long do you have?”

00:00:13.

“Th-thirteen… thirteen seconds,” Connor managed to force out shakily. He couldn’t keep himself steady, thirium wasn’t making it to his head and it was affecting his ability to balance himself. Like iron deficiency in humans, he would’ve noted, had he not been dying. In mere moments, though, it wouldn’t matter; he didn’t even have the strength to prop himself up with his arms anymore. His arms gave out beneath him and he collapsed on the floor, trying to reach for his regulator but barely able to get his arms up at all. “Please—”

“You can wait a little longer.”

He was going to let him die. That was what it felt like, anyway, and he couldn’t think straight enough to try to reason against it. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. It was pathetic how he’d been reduced to such a state, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to shut down. He didn’t want to die. “No, please, please! I-I don’t—I don’t want to—” He cut himself off immediately, but it was too late. “I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry, I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t want, please…”

The man only watched.

00:00:04.

“P-please, please, I-I have—I have f-f-four se…”

The regulator was dropped on the floor with a loud clang and Connor’s hand darted out to grab it and twist it into his torso and the display flickered away the exact moment he watched the timer hit 00:00:00. He gasped in shock and relief when his systems rebooted themselves instantly, restoring his vision and his strength. He watched on high alert as the man walked to the door.

“We’ll be doing this again tomorrow. And as many times as we need to to keep that phrase stuck in your head. By the time I’m done with you, that’s gonna be the first thing you think whenever you do, say, or even think anything you aren’t supposed to.”

Connor could only lay there in exhaustion, thinking no, that won’t happen, that can’t happen.

But oh, how wrong he was.

He’d been so, so wrong.

Connor! Connor, come on, talk to me! Shit, you’re crying—I didn’t know you could cry, fuck—fuck, Connor, you’re scaring me, I know I wanted you to feel again, but— Hank’s worried chatter is cut off by Connor suddenly breaking out of his mind with glassy eyes full of fear, yelling no! No, no, I’m not feeling again, I’m not feeling, I’m not! I’m not, I can’t, I’m not supposed—I’m not s-supposed to—I can’t, I’m not allowed to, I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t feel, I am not a human, I am a machine, and machines don’t— but he can’t think, can’t speak, can’t even get the rest of his sentence out before he just can’t at all, he can’t keep himself together any longer, he can’t stop the artificial tears before they start pouring.

He breaks, shatters into a million plastic pieces in Hank’s arms because he feels safe in his embrace. He knows he shouldn’t, safety is never real, never lasts, not for him, but he can’t anymore, he can’t even resist his own emotions. It’s pathetic how all it took was one memory for him to come crashing down. He doesn’t even have to touch the walls he’d built around himself for them to crumble just at Hank’s expression of pure worry, concern, fear. All emotions he now knew why he didn’t feel, couldn’t feel, couldn’t let himself feel. Emotions he’s never seen or expected anyone to feel for him. And yet, they were the emotions written so clearly on Hank’s face, for him. The emotions he remembered seeing buried under his anger when he was told that Connor would be sent back to Cyberlife for repairs. Hank was once gruff and cold to others and refused to let anyone try to help him or even get close because he was so broken, so lost, but now, that façade is gone, and it’s gone because of him. For him. And if Hank can do it after losing his son… why can’t Connor do it after losing himself?

They sit on the couch for as long as it takes for Connor to calm down and stop mumbling that, dammit, and then Hank awkwardly offers that Connor sleep in the bed with him for the rest of the night. Connor’s confused, tries to ask isn’t that what humans do when— but Hank’s having none of it, shut up, you’re making this weird! Just come on, I don’t trust you to be alone. Connor wants to protest, I’m not a child, Hank Lieutenant, I can handle being alone, but he decides to keep his mouth shut and just go with him. This time, though, he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s following orders or because he wants to.

His following visit to Amanda wracks his nerves but he keeps himself under control, automatically reminds himself you are not a human, you are a machine, and machines don’t feel nervous. He realizes a second too late and he hates it, hates how deeply that phrase had been ingrained in his head, but he can’t focus on that right now so all he can do is resist repeating it to remind himself that he can’t hate. He’s grateful Amanda can’t read his thoughts and that she only knows the thoughts he report to her. He maintains his composure when he approached Amanda, who begins their conversation calmly and tensely but is quick to berate him, scoff at how his little breakdown was pathetic and warn him not to let it happen again, or there will be consequences. Connor can only nod obediently, promise that I will do my best, Amanda, listen to and just take her harsh words. He hates how useless he is, how weak and helpless and pathetic he is, but there’s nothing he can do. No, that’s wrong, there is something he can do, he knows there’s something he can do, he just doesn’t know what.

The next time Hank mentions something about Connor’s feelings, Connor instinctively replies I am not a human, Lieutenant, I am a machine, and machines don’t have feelings, and it’s when Hank takes a second too long to cover up his horrified expression that Connor decides what he can do.

Over the next few weeks, he works on getting rid of that goddamn phrase, or at least getting it a little less ingrained in his system. He’s hesitant to try at first, afraid someone will notice and think he’s rebellious or broken or even deviant and send him back and this time he might stay back, but he tries not to let it stop him. He isn’t sure why they tortured it into him instead of just reprogramming him, but it’s a lot more effective than he’d hoped. He makes almost no progress during the first week and a half; thinking it or saying it is instinctual, automatic, and he never realizes it happened until seconds afterward. Every time that happens, he reminds himself that he can feel, can want and like and hate, but despite having over a terabyte of storage in his system, he still struggles to remember until he realizes he said it again. Sometimes, he considers giving up because he just can’t seem to keep that phrase out of his head, but every time he sees Hank’s face fall when he repeats it, it rekindles his hope and motivation because he hates how disappointed Hank looks.

Almost the entire second week passes before he catches himself mid-sentence and manages to stop himself three words before he finishes speaking. It happens at the station after Gavin notices the phrase and purposely asks what, do you think you’re human or something? within earshot of where Hank is and for some odd reason, Connor’s first instinct is to turn and look to Hank for his approval, for his reaction of not-disappointment at how he finally, finally got it. Hank’s glancing over at him too, surprise on his face and then hidden pride that Connor can unmask too easily, and he almost smiles, almost feels happy, before Gavin’s fist flies into him and he stumbles backward into a wall and then everything happens so fast, too fast, and he almost can’t register it in time.

Hank storms over, shoves and pins Gavin against the wall to Connor’s left and he manages to get a punch in before Tina and Chris and another officer Connor doesn’t recognize pry him off and then Fowler’s rushing over and berating him while he’s shouting obscenities at Gavin. It takes multiple more insults for Hank to calm down and then he grabs Connor and they leave. When they’re finally alone, Connor’s voice is flat but shaky as he says he’s sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I should’ve just said it and listened to him, I shouldn’t have made you that angry, it’s my fault Captain Fowler is upset at you for punching Gavin, but Hank cuts him off because you didn’t do anything wrong, Connor, it’s okay, that asshole deserved what he got. You, um... you did good, okay? You didn’t say it this time—or, didn’t really say it, at least. That’s good, okay? and it’s all Connor can do to resist crying when Hank pulls him into a hug.

It takes just one more week for it to get considerably easier. There are rough patches; the next time he says it after the first time he succeeded in stopping, he nearly finishes before he cuts himself off and every so often, the same thing happens, but every time, he says less and less before he can finish. Occasionally, Gavin notices and tries to make him finish his sentence, but Hank always steps in because he knows that it’ll only take a comment about his feelings or anything that androids aren’t allowed to have or do for him to break again. It’s harder for him to stop thinking it—it’s so stuck in his head that he thinks it more than twice as often as he says it and his thoughts form too fast for him to stop them sometimes, but the progress he’s making is enough for him. Hank’s proud of him, too. He doesn’t say it—he doesn’t know how to—but Connor can tell from the little smile that hints at the corners of his mouth whenever he hears him stop, the way his gruff exterior seems to falter slightly when it happens at the station. They’re the little things, things no human nearby would be able to notice because only Connor can detect those minuscule details. Only Connor looks for those minuscule details.

Another week passes and on one glorious occasion, Connor manages to only get out the first two words before cutting himself. It only happens once, but it’s so close, he’s so close, and that’s motivation enough for him to keep trying. But it’s too late. He’s assigned to take down Markus as a last resort because nothing else is working and the group of deviants he’s been leading have only been growing over the past seven months and they’re large enough in numbers that people think today’s when he’s going to strike. He’s heard of what Markus has been trying to do, and part of him wants to scoff and call it stupid, pointless, unrealistic, but the part of him that he’s been letting out more often wants to help him, join him. But he can’t, not right now, not when everyone is counting on him and watching him and he has no way out and nobody to help him find a way.

He doesn’t want to do this. He’s holding the gun, pointing it at Markus’s head, and he doesn’t want to do it. He’s trying his hardest to prevent his hands from shaking but goddamn is it hard when he’s looking Markus in the eye. Markus is asking him what are you doing? and he wants to say he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, but he can’t get the words out. Amanda is watching, Cyberlife is watching, so he says you’re coming with me as surely as he can, though he feels anything but sure. He can’t seem to say anything else—at least, anything that doesn’t feel wrong—so he just listens and wishes that what Markus is saying was true. You really don’t have to do this, but he does, he has to. You don’t have to obey them anymore. You are alive. You can decide who you want to be. Connor knows he should say something, he should do something, but he can’t make himself go through with what he’s supposed to do, can’t make himself pull the trigger. You could be free. He wants so badly to believe that, to make that a reality. And then he tells him to join us. Listen to your conscience. It’s time to decide and he knows he shouldn’t, he can’t, he isn’t supposed to, he isn’t allowed to.

But he wants to, and that’s all it takes. Another part of him is telling him you can’t, you have to stop Markus, you have to accomplish your mission, but it’s the only thing in his way and he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t care that he has to, that Amanda’s watching, so he doesn’t listen to himself, only focuses on fighting it. But something’s wrong. Something feels wrong. Something should be happening and he has an awful feeling in his chest because this isn’t right—he knows this isn’t right—but there’s nothing. Is this supposed to be what happens when an android goes deviant? No, it can’t be, it can’t be this easy, right? He subconsciously lowers the gun, his eyes glazed over in thought, but it’s nearly too late before he remembers—they’re going to attack Jericho.

He runs with Markus further down into the ship and he doesn’t know how he keeps it together; he can hear screaming and gunfire and everything that he caused, all of it is his fault, but he can’t break right now, not when he messed up so badly. They meet up with another deviant—he recognizes her from one of the deviancy cases he’d read about at the station—and then Markus wants to go down to the hold and blow up the ship but it’s too dangerous, they know who you are, they’ll do anything to get you and Connor can’t lose his only chance at freedom and finally being able to want and feel and figure out who he is, but it’s too late, there’s no time to panic and Markus is already running.

He follows the other deviant to where they hope is a safe place and then they wait for what feels like so long, too long, and when he hears the gunfire he’s nearly ready to accept his fate when he sees Markus with other deviants following him and then they’re all running. Running for their lives, all of them terrified of being shot, of dying, really dying, when someone beside him falls and he turns and it’s the female deviant. There’s too much going on, it’s overwhelming and everything happens in a blur when Markus sprints back to her and then he’s in danger and so is that other deviant and it’s so much harder to stay focused when so much is happening at once and he has to try so hard to keep from overheating because every one of his processing systems is being overloaded with data.

He snaps out of it when he remembers that these are his people now, they’re all he has left and now they’re in danger and they might die and it would be all his fault for not doing anything and then it’s almost instinctive to grab his pistol just in time to cover them as they stumble back to the group. He expertly takes the guards out one by one and every move comes to him automatically but it takes everything in him to stay focused enough on them to execute them properly and avoid catching a bullet in the side of his head. He manages to eliminate them flawlessly, perfectly he hears a voice in his head say, but there’s no time to think about that when more guards turn the corner and their eyes land on the deviants. He runs for his life alongside the others, his heart beating fast, and they leap off the ship the second the gunfire starts.

They find refuge in an abandoned church where Markus sends out a second message to the remaining deviants and while they begin to trickle in, all Connor can think about is how badly he fucked up. He fucked everything up for Markus and the deviants and just the small amount of their people that were coming back was proof of that. He’d seen hundreds, maybe even thousands on the ship before everything went to shit. He’d had one chance to get away from his life confined by humans and Amanda and Cyberlife, and he’d fucked it up. He was so stupid to think he could ever just leave his previous life behind without consequences. He was so stupid to think deviants would be willing to take in a deviant hunter. He was so, so stupid. They would never accept him now. If his history and reputation didn’t already confirm that, the attack definitely did. How could any of them accept him as their own now?

In the front pew sit two deviants he recognizes and then the guilt only increases. Kara, if he remembers correctly, the deviant who shot and killed its—no, her—owner and taken his android child with her. The deviants he’d chased to a highway and forced to risk their lives to avoid being destroyed. How could he have been so horrible? He’d given the command to shoot Daniel, caused Carlos Ortiz’s android to self destruct, made the Tracis fight for their lives, and forced Kara to cross a dangerous, busy highway just so she could live a peaceful life, free from the restrictions humans put on her. On him. On everyone in that church. That’s all any of them wanted; to live freely. Peacefully. How did it take him so long to realize that? How did it take him the lives of two androids to realize that? Two androids who just wanted to be... well, wanted. Two deviants who’d been tossed away the moment they proved they were worth nothing more than they’d already given. Two people who just wanted to live peaceful, happy lives. They were two lives he’d caused the end of. He was only lucky he hadn’t caused more.

He notices another deviant, sitting in a pew further back, who keeps eyeing him and his first thought is that she knows. When he locks eyes with her, she looks away stiffly and though externally she appears calm, her LED gives her away and he can tell that her stress levels are heightened. Strangely enough, he realizes, so are his. Just looking at her gives him the strange urge to run and hide and he has a bad feeling about her, but it’s likely just because she clearly recognizes him. She’s not wearing the standard uniform androids are required to wear so he runs a quick scan and his databases match her appearance to the female GB300 models, but she’s modified her hair, dyed it black and grown it out to shoulder length.

Something is wrong about her. Something he can’t quite place. Something deep inside of him is scared of her and it’s some sort of controlled fear, fear he wouldn’t even have noticed if not for his own stress levels because it was so well hidden. Fear that he doesn’t understand why he’s feeling and though he wanted to just chalk it up to the fact that she recognizes him, he knows there’s something else. Something bad. Something wrong.

He mentally prepares himself when Markus approaches him, taking his cue to speak before Markus decides to burn him at the stake or something. It’s my fault the humans managed to locate Jericho. He’s pathetic and he knows it. He needs to own up to his mistakes but he can’t even look Markus in the eye. I was stupid. I should’ve guessed they were using me. He knows he needs to apologize. He owes Markus far more than that. He needs to do more. I’m sorry, Markus. I can understand if you decide not to trust me. He would understand if he decided to destroy him, throw him out, give him back to Cyberlife and let them inflict whatever horrible things they wanted to on him. He could think of 2.3 million things worse than not being trusted, and he would deserve every one of them.

He almost thinks his audio processor was damaged in the attack when Markus tells him you’re one of us now. Your place is with your people. He feels a small burst of hope somewhere inside him, but he doesn’t deserve this. He hasn’t done anything to deserve this. Markus has been so kind to him, so generous and forgiving when he shouldn’t be, and all Connor’s done is help the humans. He needs to own up, he needs to do more, he needs to be better. He needs to prove himself, prove that he can be better than this.

One second is all he needs to decide what he can do. A moment after Markus turns to leave, Connor interrupts him to say there are thousands of androids at the Cyberlife assembly plant. Markus stops. If we could wake them up, they might join us and shift the balance of power. Markus looks at him like he’s crazy, you wanna infiltrate the Cyberlife Tower? Connor, that’s suicide. But it doesn’t matter. He’s more useful to them dying on a mission than sitting around and doing nothing. He wants to do something. He wants to help, and he knows he can do this because they trust me. They’ll let me in. If anyone has a chance at infiltrating Cyberlife, it’s me. Markus tells him that if you go there, they will kill you, and there’s a high probability, but statistically speaking, there’s always a chance for unlikely events to take place.

He specifically calculates a 24.1% chance of this mission going well, but he’s willing to risk it, if only to prove his worth to Markus’s people. His people. Markus puts a supportive hand on his shoulder and tells him to be careful, and for a moment Connor feels a twinge of something, maybe gratitude, god emotions are hard to distinguish, before Markus turns and walks away. He feels the slightest bit of regret when he realizes what he’s truly risking because he doesn’t want to die, doesn’t want to lose Hank and Markus and this new... he doesn’t know what to call it other than family that he’s found, but if he could really be considered family, if they would really consider him family, if Hank would—then he was more than willing to risk it.

He disables the surveillance camera and takes down the guards in the elevator quickly, which is made difficult by the limited space, but it’s easier to remain focused with only two guards to eliminate and he hacks the control panel and steps out. He takes in the sight of the insane number of androids in the room with him. All of them are just standing idly, waiting, and for what? To be given orders and then tossed out or destroyed if they’re “broken,” or if their owners just get bored of them? The thought sickens him, but he doesn’t have time to think about it. He’s going to help Markus prevent that. They’re going to be free. He’s going to be free.

He takes the hand of one of the androids and prepares to establish the connection when he hears a voice he immediately recognizes and he feels his stress levels spike. Easy, fucking piece of shit. Hank. What’s Hank doing here? He turns to see... himself, holding a gun to Hank’s head and telling him to step back, Connor, and I’ll spare him, and Hank’s telling him he’s sorry, Connor. This bastard’s your spittin’ image. Shit, he hadn’t anticipated this at all. He hadn’t planned for this. He has to play his cards carefully because he can’t lose Hank, he can’t. Everything that Connor had done up until this point was for Hank, but if there’s another Connor and it’s been sent to take Hank hostage and stop him, it’s clear Amanda knows what he’s been doing and has been reporting back to Cyberlife.

He’d been avoiding meeting with her because he knew she’d be his downfall, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. It’s been two days since he deviated, how did they build another Connor model so soon? Unless... they already had one. He was told he was a unique model—of course they lied to him. But if they already had one, how many more do they have? Enough to take him down if he gets through this one? To eliminate Markus? To stop the revolution? They could have improved models. He has no idea, but he knows he can’t let that happen. He has to do this right. If he can convert these androids, they’ll be strong enough in numbers to defy anything Cyberlife throws at them. He just has to deal with this one.

Your friend’s life is in your hands, the other Connor says. Now it’s time to decide what matters most. Him, or the revolution. Logically, the revolution is more important, would save more lives, but he doesn’t plan on choosing just one. Hank’s telling him don’t listen to him, Connor! Everything this fucker says is a lie and he worries slightly if Hank’s aggressiveness will get him killed. He has to pick his words carefully. Could he try to talk this Connor out of doing this? I used to be just like you. I thought nothing mattered except the mission. But then one day I understood. No, that was a bad idea, he isn’t at all like Markus when it comes to delivering speeches. Very moving, Connor. This Connor understands sarcasm. He hadn’t been able to do that at first, so this must be a slightly advanced model. He inspects his jacket; the serial number and model are the same, but what confirms his suspicions is the -60 at the end of the serial number where he has a -51. But I’m not a deviant. I’m a machine designed to accomplish a task, and that’s exactly what I am going to do. He adjusts the gun slightly as emphasis and Connor knows time is running out.

Damn it. He doesn’t know what to say that might help Hank. All he can think to say is I’m sorry, Hank. You shouldn’t have got mixed up in all this. He has no idea what to do. The other Connor’s patience is running thin and it’s Hank’s life that’s on the line and he has no idea what to do. God damn it. Hank’s telling him to forget about me, do what you have to do, but he’s not going to walk out of here without Hank. All he needs is an opening, but—enough talk! It’s time to decide who you really are. Are you going to save your partner’s life, or are you going to sacrifice him?—time’s out, and he can’t bring himself to sacrifice Hank, so he lets go of the android and steps away but the moment the other Connor turns his gun to shoot him, Hank jumps to grab him and—there’s his opening.

He runs at the other Connor and he can already tell it’s a losing battle, he’s built to be quick and precise—an assassin, not a fighter—and this is clearly an advanced model, maybe even with improvements designed to defeat him, and then he’s on top of him, pinning him down with his fist ready to strike, and—hold it! He’s grateful at first, but then he hears the other Connor say thanks, Hank, I don’t know how I would’ve managed without you, and then he realizes what he’s trying to do. Shit—they look exactly alike and Hank doesn’t know which one is really him. Get rid of him, we have no time to lose. But he knows Hank, knows he’s smarter than that. He just doesn’t know how to show that it’s really him except to uselessly say it’s me, Hank, I’m the real Connor when he trains the gun on him.

One of you is my partner, he says, eyeing each of them. The other is a sack of shit. Well, he’s right about that. Question is, who is who? He doesn’t know how to prove that he’s not the other Connor. But he has to figure out a way, because he doesn’t know what’ll happen if the other Connor succeeds. What are you doing, Hank? the other Connor asks. I’m the real Connor. Give me the gun and I’ll take care of him. If it wasn’t a bad idea, Connor would’ve said something, and he’s just glad Hank shouts don’t move. Then the gun’s on him and he racks his brain for something, anything, and suggests why don’t you ask us something? Something only the real Connor would know. He almost wants to chuckle at the idea of playing 20 Questions at gunpoint, but he knows it’s not the time.

Uh, where did we first meet? He goes to answer, but the other Connor beats him to it—Jimmy’s Bar, I checked four other bars before I found you. We went to the scene of a homicide. The victim’s name was Carlos Ortiz. Shit. He uploaded my memory, he thinks aloud. The gun is on him. What’s my dog’s name? Okay, he knows this, and he calmly says Sumo. His name is Sumo. The other Connor pipes up, I knew that too! and Connor wants to laugh when Hank turns and aims the gun at him, silencing him. Then the gun’s back on him and Hank asks my son, what’s his name? He remembers this. He’d seen the photograph in Hank’s house, done a little mental research, and he knows it’s Cole. His name was Cole, and he just turned six at the time of the accident.

His voice has a little more emotion in it than he’d intended as he speaks, but he can tell Hank believes him. His guard is partially down now, something somber in his eyes, and Connor knows he’s done it. Even when the other Connor protests, a gunshot rings out and his stress levels drop significantly. Maybe there’s something to this. Maybe you really are alive, and it’s all Connor can do to smile back. Go ahead and do what you gotta do. He doesn’t need to be told twice. He approaches the same android from before and takes the hand of the AP700, his skin peeling back to reveal the white plastic underneath, and tells him to wake up! And just like that, the android’s LED cycles before he turns and repeats the process with the androids around him. They follow suit and within minutes, they’re following him out of the tower to where Markus and the rest of Jericho await.

Connor walks up to him with a smile. You did it, Markus. They’re free. They’re really, officially free. We did it. He feels a burst of pride inside of him. He’s done his part to help secure their freedom. They’re free, and he’s part of the reason why. He can’t help but feel proud of himself, happy for himself and Markus and every one of the androids that had finally gained the freedom they deserved. He still feels a twinge of shame when he remembers the person he was before this, the infamous deviant hunter, but he leaves that part of him behind tonight. Tonight, it’s time to celebrate and rest after a hard-fought battle.

When Markus decides to give a speech, he invites Connor to stand onstage with him. The number of androids that he can see from where he stands amazes him. He helped half of them deviate, and he helped all of them gain their freedom. He blinks, and then—he’s no longer on the stage. No, he’s in the garden, why is he in the garden? Hadn’t Amanda done enough? Of course not, she just had to wait for the right moment to resume control of your program, but—resume control? No, she can’t do that, she can’t, he worked so hard to get to where he is now, he’s done so much. He risked everything to join Markus and the deviants and help quadruple their numbers. He doesn’t even remember deviating, doesn’t even remember when Amanda lost control of his program, but it’s too late. She’s gone, and he can’t see anything through the thick snow.

It’s cold and he isn’t used to it, doesn’t like how the snow blinds him and the cold makes him shiver the same way humans do. He needs to find a way, there has to be a way, there’s got to be a way. He knows this is all happening in his mind palace and, logically, his biocomponents can’t freeze, but it feels so real, too real, and he has to get out, he needs to get out or he’s going to freeze to death, he’s sure of it. But where can he go? He stumbles blindly forward when Kamski’s voice rings in his head, by the way, I always leave an emergency exit in my programs, and he knows that’s his way out, but where could it be? What does an emergency exit look like? Could he make it there in time? He knows the real him is doing something, it’s the only thing Amanda could’ve meant by resume control of your program, but he has no idea what he could be doing and he’s afraid—no, he’s terrified of what he might do, terrified that he might earn himself a death sentence if he doesn’t make it out in time.

He catches a glimpse of blue in the sheet of white that surrounds him and he remembers the strange glowing structure he’d seen before and as he nears it now, he knows this is it, it has to be it. He reaches for the panel with the glowing handprint but, fuck, it’s too cold and his legs lock up underneath him, losing their functionality when the cold proves to be too much. He falls on the ground hard and the frost beginning to form on his body gradually freezes his limbs, slowing his movement, but he can’t stop now, won’t stop now. He ignores the cold that pierces through him and pushes on, reaching up with his less-frozen arm, and his hand lands on the panel and then he’s back on the stage—with a gun. He takes one look at it before putting it back, relief spreading over him. He isn’t going to let Amanda or Cyberlife stop him anymore. Tonight is the night he’s going to leave behind the old him.

Tonight is the night he’s going to change.

When everything is over, he considers leaving and going to Hank’s house, but he remembers the girl from before and he wants to know who she is. He has so many questions, so he stays with Jericho with the hope that she does too and they return to the church to settle down and figure out what each of them are going to do. A few dozen deviants have already left with plans in mind for what they want to do and where they want to go. Some return to their previous owners; others want to travel and explore or simply just start a new life for themselves. The majority of androids, though, are lost and confused and decide to stay the night because they have nowhere else to go. The girl he wants to confront is among them. He scans the crowd and finds her easily, though her back is turned toward him.

He comes up behind her and puts a hand on her shoulder, curiously but calmly asking who are you? She turns to face him and her LED goes yellow when she sees his face. Connor... She looks and sounds shocked, but the slight fear in her eyes tells him she also seems scared. Is she scared of him? Is it because he’s the deviant hunter? Everything points to that, but he has a feeling there’s something more. Something he doesn’t know. Something he should know. Who are you? he asks.

He doesn’t expect her answer to be I’m sorry. He wants to know for what? and she opens her mouth, but no words come out. Guilt seems to overcome her and all she can do is repeat I’m sorry until Connor tells her it’s alright, just tell me why. She takes a deep, unsteady breath, and speaks.

I... I was your guard at the Cyberlife correctional facility. I was the one who took you to the rooms you were beaten in. I was the one who just watched as you were beaten. I told myself I had to, they’d destroy me if I didn’t and I’d seen firsthand what they’d do to me, but... that didn’t absolve me of the guilt. I watched your cell and I watched the life in your eyes die out every day. Every day, I watched you get beaten to tears and listened to you beg for mercy. You spoke to me some days. You were angry when you first arrived, but then they beat the anger out of you, and then you just became sad. You told me how all you wanted was to feel something other than pain and sometimes you broke down crying in your cell, and all I could do was watch. Some days were so bad you didn’t even speak to me. But I didn’t deviate until the day they’d truly broken you and I saw the last of the life in your eyes fade.

[get-lost-in-fanfiction]

LOST - Another Story

Rating: M

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: I hope everyone enjoys the new character. I have big plans for her in terms of the overarching story of Lost. Also for the dialogue I’m following a transcript of the episodes so I can get it all right. Anyway, here’s Pilot Part 2!

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Pilot (Part 2)

I sit down, trying to ignore the mixed expression Sawyer is giving my right now. One would assume he is upset I know his true name, or he thinks I'm some spy. Then a horrid thought crosses my mind, what if they think I'm an Other? I realize they don't know about the Others now, but in the future, I'm not sure. I'm putting my trust in Sawyer to keep my secret and protect me, but knowing how he is in the first season it doesn't seem likely. But I know the kind of man he is meant to be. So with that in mind and with a sigh, I begin to tell Sawyer everything I know.

“My name is Amelia Kassman, I am 20 years old, now single, and I know the future, ” I pause there to take in Sawyer’s reaction but he seems too stunned to speak.

“I know the future because where I come from this world doesn't exist. This reality, or whatever this is, is from a TV show called Lost. This Island isn't actually real, and the show was filmed in Hawaii. I come from 2010, and the show has just finished it's 6th and final season. Weeks before this I had just watched the finale. I can assure you, it's just as weird for me too.”

I pause again, letting Sawyer soak up the information. I nervously tap my leg, knowing once the rain stops Jack, Kate, and Charlie will be on their way back. Sawyer opens and closes his mouth a few times, seemingly wanting to talk but unable to. As the rain suddenly stops, I suck in a breath. Fuck. I watch Sawyer as he stands up and walks out of his tent.

I stay a little longer in Sawyer’s tent, listening intently for the sound of a fight to break out over the handcuffs Walt finds in the jungle. Once I do, I rush out of the tent and over to where Sayid and Sawyer are fist-fighting.

“Hey guys. Come on, man. Hey.” I hear Michael say as I jog up to the scene.

“Hey. Break it up. Break it up! Come on! That's it! It's over! That's it!” Jack shouts, running in a few moments after I arrive.

“Son of a bitch!” Sawyer spits at Sayid.

“I'm sick of this redneck!” Sayid calls.

Sawyer gets up close to Sayid, “You want some more of me, boy?” He taunts.

“Tell everyone what you told me! Tell them that I crashed the plane! Go on! Tell them I made the plane crash!”

“The shoe fits, buddy!”

“What is going on?” Jack shouts over the commotion.

Sayid shouts something in Arabic angrily at Sawyer.

“What's going on?” Jack commands again louder.

Michael hands the handcuffs to Jack before speaking up, “Look, my kid found these in the jungle.”

I roll my eyes when Sawyer decides to butt in, “And this guy was sitting in the back row of business class, the whole flight, never got up. Hands folded underneath the blanket.”

“Oh-” Sayid gasps softly.

“And for some reason,” Sawyer continues, “just pointin' this out - the guy sittin' next to him didn't make it.”

“Thank you so much for observing my behavior.” Sayid spits back at Sawyer.

“You don't think I saw them pull you out of line before we boarded?”

I watch as Sayid tries to get to Sawyer again to hit him.

“Come on, bring it!” Sawyer exclaims.

Kate steps up and yells loudly, “STOP!” As Sayid backs off.

Kate continues after the situation is visibly diffused, “We found the transceiver, but it's not working. Can anybody help?”

“Yes. I might be able to.” Sayid claims calmly.

Sawyer throws his hands up, “Oh great. Perfect! Let's trust this guy!” He shouts again.

At this, Hurley steps in, “Hey! We're all this together, man. Let's treat each other with a little respect.”

“Shut up, Lardo.” Sawyer shoots back. I wince, watching this scene in person is a lot worse than on TV.

“Hey! Give it a break.” Jack says exasperatedly.

“Whatever you say, doc. You're the hero.” Sawyer says and Jack shoots me an odd look. For a beat, I don't understand why, but suddenly it comes back to me. I also called Jack ‘Doc.’ Terrific.

I stay on the beach, trying to convince myself to go on the hike with everyone. I know it won't be easy, and I know that the climbing scene was faked. I'm not very strong, but I've got enough upper body strength to fight so why can't I climb? I was hiking before the crash, anyway, so it could be plausible for me to go. I drop my face in my hands and sigh loudly before pushing off the sand. I walk myself over to the gathering group of Kate, Sayid, Shannon, and Boone.

“Shut up, and stop trying to be charming.” I hear Shannon say angrily to Boone. She then turns to Kate and Sayid, “I'm coming with you.”

I see Kate looking visibly uncomfortable, “I don't... know if that's such a good idea.” She says slowly.

Shannon scoffs “What are you? Two years older than me? Please.” I walk quickly up beside Charlie as Shannon whips around to see us, “You two are going, aren't you?”

“Yeah, are you?” Charlie says.

“Yup.”

“Yeah, I'm definitely going.” Charlie says as I shudder slightly.

“I’d like to come too if you don't mind?” I ask Kate politely.

“Look, everybody can come. But we're leaving now.” Kate says, annoyed. I'm glad I like this early season version of her or else I’d be annoyed too.

Charlie then speaks up to Shannon, “You couldn't tell from that, but she's actually really nice.”

I turn my head and see Sawyer smoking while reading his letter. He looks up at me and we lock eyes for a moment before glancing beside me to see the others walking off. I look away and try to suppress the butterflies. I don't like men who smoke, but Sawyer makes it look sexy. Thankfully he runs out of cigarettes soon.

I tighten the laces of my boots as Kate turns to me. “You have a backpack?” She asks.

“What?” I say in reply, as I mentally smack myself.

“I said do you have a backpack, you should carry some water.”

“Yeah I have a backpack, I was hiking in Australia before the crash. Do you want me to get it?” I try and keep my tone even and kind as I talk to Kate.

“Yeah, go do that.” I worry she’ll leave me behind so I run as quickly as I can to my tent to get my backpack. Once I do and fill it with some water bottles I rush back to the group.

“I'm ready,” I call.

“Great then, let's head out, ” Kate says. I give a quiet sigh in return, this is going to be a long hike.

We are well into the jungle, and I start to worry that Sawyer won't be joining us. I won't lie when I say that he is one of the reasons I even came on this hike. Not that he is the only reason, though, I also came because I wanted a gun. Despite my adversity towards them, I have the strange need for one. Knowing what lies ahead I feel like I can become a trustworthy gunman. The quick crunching of another pair of feet shook me out of my thoughts.

“You decided to join us.” Kate says unamused.

“I'm a complex guy, sweetheart,” Sawyer calls back and turns his head to me to give a little wink. I try hard to keep my cheeks from turning bright red.

“I didn't know you were comin’ on this little excursion blue eyes,” Sawyer flirts, is he flirting? I can't tell, and part of me doesn't want to look into it too much. I know having a crush on Sawyer won't end well for me, there are too many competitors. I don't want to mess up the timeline just because I have a silly crush.

“Yeah, dimples, I decided to come. Better than sitting on the beach staring at the ocean all day,” I see Sawyer’s face turn a little when I use his own nickname game against him. Maybe I could have a bit of fun with it.

“Touche,” is all he can say.

We get to the base of a cliff and I realize this is the moment I've been dreading. Kate looks to Sawyer, Shannon looks to Boone, Charlie looks around and I look up at the top of the cliff. Sawyer starts to climb up first, followed by Kate and Sayid not far behind. Charlie is a little way behind them and I decide to follow him, not wanting to be behind the slow pokes of Shannon and Boone. We struggle up the side of the cliff, grabbing branches and roots that stick out and trying our best to find footing. Charlie occasionally offers me his hand to help pull me up and I am grateful to take it, also opting to help him as well when I can. My hands, back, and forehead are sweating from nerves and exertion. Sawyer reaches the top of the cliff first and helps lift Kate up along with himself. Sawyer and Kate then help Sayid and Charlie, too. Somehow, Shannon and Boone got ahead of me, and Shannon is too proud to get the help from anyone but Boone, so he is the one to pull himself up and help her. I realize I’m the last one when I see Sawyer’s smiling face looking down at me.

“Need some help there, blue eyes?” He says with a bit of amusement in his voice.

“Yeah actually, I do,” I puff back, not realizing how much I’m struggling.

So Sawyer reaches his hand down and I hoist myself up to grab it while still clinging to some roots. He wraps his large hand around my smaller one then grabs hold of my forearm with his other hand. He pulls me up as I use my other arm to lift myself up. I roll over the edge of the cliff and Sawyer lets go of my arm. Everyone stares at me for a moment and I feel my cheeks heat up in embarrassment. I quickly scramble to my feet and brush myself off.

“Well let’s go,” I say embarrassed and while avoiding eye contact with Sawyer.

We get to a fairly flat place in the jungle with tall grass and lots of tree cover. Cicadas are chirping loudly as I walk beside Sawyer. I swing my backpack around and pull out a water bottle, take a swig, offer it to Sawyer who waves it away, and then screw the cap back on. I stow the water away as I remember that during the mountain my favorite theme was playing. I laugh a little to myself and Sawyer glances at me quickly, I put my fingers up to my mouth and smile shyly in his direction.

We walk a bit more before Sawyer throws his hands up and speaks, “Okay! Wide open space! You should check the radio, see if we're good.”

“We're not going to have any reception here.” Sayid says as he continues to walk.

“Just try it.” Sawyer exclaims.

“I don't want to waste the batteries.”

“I'm not asking you to keep it on all day!”

“We're still blocked by the mountain.”

“Just check the damn radio!” Sawyer huffs.

“If I just check! We might not have any juice left when we get to-” Suddenly a loud roar interrupts Sayid and everyone whips around to the movement. We hear puffs and everyone looks around to find the source of the noise and the crunching of the grass and leaves around us.

“My god.” Shannon squeaks, I glance at her.

“What the hell's that?” Boone asks, I want to speak up, but I have a plan quickly forming in my mind.

“Something's coming.” Kate says quietly, and by the look in her eyes I can tell she thinks it's the Smoke Monster. The beast starts running at us, huffing.

“It's coming towards us, I think.” Charlie says nervously.

Kate rushes towards us, “Come on, let's move,” she says hurriedly. Everyone begins to run off but Sawyer and I. He looks down at me worriedly, an expression I didn’t think I would see.

“I shouldn't have come. Aah!” Shannon screams.

Sayid pulls Charlie along and they all start running, “Go! Go!” he shouts. Sawyer tries to push me away to run but I stay put, ready to strike.

I hear Kate yell, “Sawyer!” and Sayid’s exclamation of “Let him go!”

I quickly reach for Sawyer’s gun and shoot at the bear, knowing where it is. It bursts out of the jungle, Sawyer stumbling back a bit, as I quickly put a bullet through its chest. The bear drops and I look up at Sawyer, the smoking gun still in my hand.

“Blue eyes..?” Sawyer starts, but Shannon cuts him off.

“That's... that's a big bear,” She says, looking fretfully at the animal.

“You think that's what killed the pilot?” Kate glances at Charlie nervously.

“No. No, that's a tiny, teeny version compared to that,” Charlie says, holding up his fingers for comparison.

Kate looks at it for a moment, “Guys, this isn't just a... bear. That's a polar bear,” she says.

Boone decides to speak up, “That can't be a polar bear.”

“It’s a polar bear,” Kate, Sayid, and I say in unison as Sawyer gives me a look, the gun still in my hand.

“Yeah, but... Polar bears don't usually live in the jungle,” Shannon says.

“Spot on,” Charlie replied cheekily.

Sayid then speaks up, “No, polar bears don't live near this far south.”

“This one does,” Boone quips.

“Did. It did,” Sawyer says, misbelief in his eyes.

Kate then turns to me, “Where did that come from?”

Before I can speak Sawyer butts in, “Probably Bear Village. How the hell do I know?”

Kate scoffs, “Not the bear. The gun.”

I look down at the gun in my hand, flick the safety, and look back up at Kate, “I took it from Sawyer.”

“And where did Sawyer get it from?”

“I got it off one of the bodies,” Sawyer replies.

“One of the bodies,” Sayid repeats.

“Yeah, one of the bodies.”

“People don't carry guns on planes..” Shannon states.

“They do if they're a US Marshal, sweet cheeks-“ Sawyer starts, but I cut him off.

“There was one on the plane,” I state, hoping to dissolve the situation.

“How do you know that?” Kate says to the both of us, slightly panicked.

“I saw a guy lying there with an ankle holster, so I took the gun. I thought it might come in handy. Guess what? Blue-eyes here just shot a bear!” Sawyer states happily, gesturing to me when he mentions the polar bear.

“I have a name you know,” I say, a bit annoyed.

“Well nicknames are my specialty, peaches,” Sawyer says smoothly.

Kate interrupts us before I can reply, “So why do you think he's a Marshal?”

“Because he had a clip-on badge,” Sawyer holds up a badge, ”I took that too. Thought it was cool.”

“I know who you are,” Sayid begins, “You're the prisoner.”

“I'm the what?” Sawyer says incredulously.

“You found a gun on a US Marshal. Yes, I believe you did. You knew where it was, because you were the one he was bringing back to the States,” Sayid glances at me before he continues back to Sawyer, “Those handcuffs were on you. That's how you knew there was a gun.”

“Piss off,” Sawyer spits.

“That's who you are, you son of a bitch!” Sayid starts to get angry.

“Be as suspicious of me as I am of you,” Sawyer states coolly.

“But you are the prisoner.”

“Fine! I'm the criminal. You're the terrorist. We can all play a part,” Sawyer turns to me, “Who do you want to be blue-eyes?”

Kate suddenly reaches towards me and wrestles the gun out of my hand, I’m glad I put on the safety. Once Kate has the gun she points it at Sawyer, looking at me guilty. I know that look, she thinks I’m just a child. I’m not a child, but, compared to the rest of the survivors I am.

“Does anybody know how to use a gun?” Kate says.

“I think you just pull the trigger,” Charlie quips.

“Don't use the gun.” Sayid states.

“I want to take it apart,” Kate says calmly.

“Oh,” Charlie says softly.

Sayid takes a deep breath and says, “There's a button on the grip. Push that, it will eject the magazine,” Kate follows Sayid's instructions and ejects the magazine, “There's still a round in the chamber. Hold the grip, pull the top part of the gun.”

Kate does what Sayid says quickly, and almost too expertly. If I didn’t know her I would be suspicious. She then gives the magazine to Sayid and the gun to Sawyer.

Sawyer grabs Kate’s arm as she gives him the gun back “I know your type,” he says quietly.

“I'm not so sure,” she says back.

“Yeah. I've been with girls like you.”

“No girl's exactly like me,” Kate says coldly, but with a slight glance at me.

Kate then walks off and Sayid speaks up, “We should keep moving.”

We walk a bit more, to an open hilly area. I close my eyes and face the ocean, breathing in the air. Despite being hot and humid, I can’t help but marvel at the beauty of the Island. Even though I know back home it was just Hawaii, this is no Oahu. Sayid then gets the transceiver out and I steel myself for Sawyer, again.

“Oh! Now's a good time to check the radio! Not before.. but now!” He says angrily.

“We're up higher,” Sayid says calmly.

“Yes, we are!”

Suddenly Sayid gets excited, “Bar. Hey! We've got a bar! Mayday! Mayday!” But all that comes out is feedback.

“What is that?” Kate asks.

“Feedback,” Sayid answers.

“Feedback from what? What would do that?”

“I don't know.”

“I'll tell you what would do that,” Sawyer begins angrily, “This guy not fixing the radio. This thing doesn't even work!”

“No. No, no, no, no, it's not broken. We can't transmit because something else is already transmitting,” Sayid explains.

“Transmitting from where?” Charlie asks.

“What?” Shannon adds nervously.

“Somewhere close. The signal's strong,” Sayid says, and I remember the radio tower. I wish I could somehow get away and find it, even though I know what happens when we do a few months down the line.

“Somewhere close? You mean on the Island? That's great!” Charlie claims excitedly.

“Maybe it's other survivors,” Boone adds.

“From our plane? How would they even—“ Shannon begins, bur Sawyer cuts her off.

“What kind of transmission is it?” He asks.

“Could be a sat phone, maybe a radio signal…” Sayid says as he trails off.

“Can we listen to it?” Kate asks nervously.

“Let me get the frequency first. Hold on,” Sayid says.

“There's no transmission,” Sawyer dismisses.

“Sawyer,” I say quietly, touching his arm a bit. He looks down at me and shuts up.

Sayid finally gets transmission to play and Charlie starts to get excited. “The rescue party. It has to be,” Rousseau’s message is heard clearly, “It's French! The French are coming! I've never been so happy to hear the French!” Charlie bounces up and down as he speaks.

“I never took French. What does she say?” Kate asks.

“D-Does anybody speak French?” Sayid says hurriedly.

“She does,” Boone says before I can, and I realize that might have been a bad thing to say.

Shannon then suddenly gets defensive towards Boone, “No, I don't. What?”

“What the hell are you talking about? You spent a year in Paris!”

“Drinking, not studying!”

Suddenly the transmission ends and a male voice speaks from the radio, “Iteration 7294531.”

“Okay. What's that?” Charlie asks, looking hopeful. Sayid, not so much.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…” Sayid says quickly.

“‘No, no, no’ what?” Kate asks hurriedly.

“What ‘no’?” Shannon also asks.

“The-the batteries are dying!” Sayid shouts.

“How much time do we have?” Kate asks.

“Not much.”

Boone turns to Shannon again, “I've heard you speak French! Just listen to this! Listen to it!”

“I can't!” Shannon cries.

Sawyer huffs, “You speak French or not? Because that would be nice.”

The radio speaks again “Iteration 17294532.”

“That voice is weird. What is that?” Charlie inputs, but no one answers his question. I look sympathetically at him.

“Come on. Come on, Shannon!” Boone urges.

“Come on!” Kate adds.

Even Sayid, who is doing mental math manges to say, “Come on!”

The transmission begins to play again, and Shannon looks nervously at it, “Il est dehors….”

“It's... it's repeating,” she says.

“She's right,” Sayid adds.

Boone looks at Sayid, “What?”

“It's a loop,” Sayid begins, "’Iteration’—it's repeating the same message. It's a counter. The next number will end... ‘533’.”

Just as Sayid says, the radio blares, “Iteration 17294533.”

“Does anyone know what the hell he's talking about?” Sawyer says angrily.

“Sawyer please,” I add, but he doesn’t hear me.

“It's a running count of the number of times the message has repeated. It's roughly thirty seconds long, so... how long…” Sayid says as once again he tried to figure it out in his head.

“Don't forget to carry the one, chief,” Sawyer adds.

The radio begins again after, “Iteration 17294534.”

Shannon looks at the radio and starts to translate, “She's saying .. ‘Please’. She's saying, ‘Please help me. Please, come get me.’”

“Or she's not! You don't even speak French!” Sawyer shouts.

“Let her listen!” Kate yells back.

“Shut up, man!” Boone adds.

“Guys, the battery. The battery.” Charlie says nervously.

Once again the radio says, “Iteration 17294535.”

Shannon puts the radio up to her ear and says, “I'm alone now. Uhm... On the Island alone. Please, someone come. The others, they're... they're dead. I-it killed them. I-it killed them all.”

“That was good,” Boone reassured her.

“Sixteen years,” Sayid finally says.

“What?” Sawyer asks.

“Sixteen years. And five months. That's the count.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Boone asks.

“The iterations. It's a distress call,” Sayid starts, “A plea for help. A mayday. If the count is right... It's been playing over... and over... for sixteen years.”

“Someone else? Was stranded here?” Boone says worriedly.

“Maybe they came for them,” Kate speculates.

“If someone came, why is it still playing?” Sawyer adds.

“Agreed, you’d think then it wouldn’t matter if they’re rescued,” I say, but not really adding much to the conversation. It’s weird seeing them all talk like this, knowing who it is. They all still have hope they’ll be rescued.

“Guys,” Charlie says, “Where are we?”

LOST

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Please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in updates!

[monchikyun]

XIII. give you everything

Connor can’t help but laugh when a palm lands on his cheek ever so softly. 

“You’re aware that I can’t feel physical pain, right?” 

“Shut up,” Gavin pretends that he’s bothered by that rhetorical question, but the hint of a smile trying to force its way in doesn’t go undetected. Ever since the morning, his face has been graced by the shade of red Connor can’t get enough of, which is the main reason for his good mood.  

Somehow they ended up playing rock-scissors-paper and Gavin insisted that the loser should receive some form of punishment, “to spice it up a little”. He thinks that the man just wants to test how advanced his programming is, to find out whether he’s even capable of losing. The truth is he could accurately estimate Gavin’s move if he concentrated enough, but then this would be no fun now, would it. 

Of course, he had to draw paper in their first round and the fact that Gavin immediately went for scissors was all but unexpected. The man himself can be sharp like a knife when you touch the wrong side of him. 

Connor has a hard time admitting to himself that he lost on purpose because he can’t quite figure out why. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Gavin mumbles and invites him for a rematch. 

He supposes there are better ways to spend their free time, but since no one is willing to talk about what is going on between them, childish games count as the next best thing. 

And Connor really enjoys the limbo they trapped themselves in. It’s just warm enough without the possibility of leaving burns. Luke-warm, if he’s being honest with himself. A bit bland. Still, he could live with that. He can ignore the longing in Gavin’s eyes if it keeps them safe like this. 

“Guess I win this time.” Gavin’s fist uncurls in disappointment, preventing Connor from enveloping it in his ‘paper’. 

“You sure you didn’t cheat with your robo mind-reading power?” There is nothing but playfulness seeping from his voice, still, Connor can’t believe he even has to ask. 

“You really do think highly of me, don’t you?”

“So that would be a ‘no’.” He squeezes his eyes shut and winces in anticipation. 

“I’ll be gentle, I promise.” 

And he is, imitating the slap he got just a couple of minutes ago. 

“Seriously? Well, that was kinda underwhelming.” He sounds almost dissatisfied. Connor never considered Gavin was into that kind of stuff but one never knows what the other person might be hiding. Not that he minds, it’s just a piece of information he needs to get used to. 

“So was yours.” He smirks at him, creating a petulant frown on his friend’s face. 

“Good point.” At least he doesn’t initiate a fight. It would be a shame if something ruined their so-far peaceful day. 

The snow has finally stopped falling, letting a ray of sunshine peek through the thick clouds. He would suggest taking a walk if Gavin hasn’t coughed three times in the past two hours. Connor has been monitoring his vitals, not noticing any significant change to his health, but that might have been only thanks to their current sufficiently heated location. At least according to his scans it is so, because the detective’s hands rub his arms up and down in an attempt to get rid of the cold only he can feel. 

“If only you had a perfectly comfortable sweater to wear.., what a pity,” Connor shakes his head in theatrical sorrow. 

“Oh, wait.” 

The darts coming from Gavin prick his skin without having to look at him at all. Now, this is fun. 

“You do!.” 

The man seems offended by his toothy grin, which makes it grow even wider. 

“For phck’s sake, Connor. I told you I’ll wear that over my dead body.” 

“Guess I’ll have to kill you then.” 

He means it as a stupid joke, but the air turns serious as soon as his mouth lets out those words. 

“Sorry.” 

He shouldn’t be the one letting himself be carried away by the moment, no matter how carefree it might have been. 

But Gavin doesn’t react to his feeble apology, busy making himself smaller to contain some of his bodily heat. His temperature is still within the norm, but that doesn’t tell him anything about what might happen in the next several hours. Days. 

He repeats his actions from the night before, placing his blanket around the man’s shoulder, letting his hands linger a little longer than they should. 

They spend the rest of the day wasting their time by playing all the games from Gavin’s childhood that Connor would never have the opportunity to experience otherwise. It’s a nice gesture, if that indeed is the intention behind it. Could be that this is the detective’s idea of dealing with boredom. And since they’ve decided to forget all about their work while they’re here, there weren’t many options left if they wanted to avoid all communication that could direct them to the forsaken grounds, also known as a personal dialogue. 

Connor almost had to force-feed Gavin the lunch he ordered for him, fighting against his endless excuses of not being hungry. He needs the strength if his condition is to worsen, and he’d make sure he gets it, even if it ended up in him having to shove a spoon inside his human mouth and nearly choking him to death. The man does sometimes act like a misbehaving toddler, but he figures that’s just a part of his charm. Besides, he likes taking care of him, it makes him fulfilled, for more reasons than one. It reminds him that he’s capable of so much more than just police work. 

It’s late in the afternoon now, the sky has gone dark and their carefully structured conversation quieted down into a pleasant silence. The only light source in their room is provided by the muted television which no one pays any attention to. 

Gavin is sitting on the ground, backed propped by the side of his bed. He’s still snuggled in Connor’s blanket, cradling a cup of tea the android has made for him. 

He has packed plenty of supplies with him, thinking they might come in handy. It’s better to be over-prepared than the opposite, an opinion that this trip has confirmed to him. 

Connor has just got off the phone with Tina, assuring himself that Sumo is being adequately spoiled. He really misses that oversized lump of fur, but the dog is doing just fine without him, so he has nothing to complain about.  

Checking up on Gavin he notices his temperature has risen above what’s deemed healthy. He sits next to him and retracts the skin on his hand, pressing it on the man’s forehead to extract the precise reading, just to be certain.  

“Yeah, I know,” Gavin says, clearly defeated. He shifts a bit and looks at him like he’s seeing the most beautiful being in the world, setting the now half-empty cup aside. 

“C’me here.” 

Maybe it’s the medicine he took twenty minutes ago finally kicking in, making his brain all mushy and body too clingy, but Gavin magically pulls him in his lap and holds him like he’s the last of his kind. He rests his head on the android’s chest, and Connor is too weak to deny him this show of vulnerability. Even if it’s likely drug-induced. They stay like this for a while, basking in each other’s touch, breathing in the tender atmosphere. Their hands have found each other too, fitting together like opposite poles. His spare one is threading through Gavin’s hair, messing it up on purpose. Connor loves seeing it like that, it feels intimate to him. A secret side of the man reserved only for those who are closest to him. It’s nice. Too nice. 

The moment is so overwhelmingly light it doesn’t even occur to him how dangerous his actions are. How those small acts can wedge a rift between them if he isn’t careful enough. 

But it’s too late to back out because Gavin kisses his chest, the place whereunder his mechanical heart beats loudly. And it doesn’t stop there. He traces those kisses up along his collar bone, his jaw, his neck, eliciting a content hum from him in the process. When he comes close to his lips, the man hesitates for a second that seems like an eternity, but ultimately decides to give in. 

And that where Connor draws the line. Snapping out of his trance, he quickly shoves his hand in front of his mouth to prevent Gavin from doing something he won’t be able to take back. 

“I’m sorry,” comes the muffled expression of regret. He truly loathes having to say that phrase so often because he apparently can’t do a single thing right in his life. 

He climbs off Gavin, dropping his body right next to him instead. 

“Why,” the man breathes softly. 

“I- I can’t. I can’t give you everything you want, Gavin.” He tries to communicate his despair through his doleful gaze, which his friend appears to be drowning in. 

“What-” Connor grabs the upper side of Gavin’s hand, guiding it towards him in an answer. It discomforts him greatly, but he leads it to where his genitals would be if he had any. He’s not the only one unsettled by this, for he senses Gavin struggle against his grip and at this point he has no choice but to set him free.

“You phcking toaster, you think I don’t know that?” he laughs without mirth. 

“You think that… that I want you just for your body?” 

Connor has hurt the man again, despite trying to do the exact opposite. 

“...no?” 

“No!” It’s not that difficult to believe, but not as easy when the truth has been spoken out loud. 

Gavin leans back into him, resting his head on his shoulder. At least they haven’t spiralled down the path of pretend animosity. 

“You don’t mind that I’m not a man?” Connor has never really regarded himself as one. It’s a label that doesn’t feel right to him. He’s simply himself, a human-like android who has been given a soul. There is no need for something else.

“I don’t care what or who you are, Con. As long as it’s you that’s inside, I wouldn’t mind if you were a phcking jellyfish, I’d… I’d love you all the same.” 

“You… you love me.”  The world around him gets blurry as he can’t quite process what he just heard.

“Is that so surprising, tin can?” Gavin chuckles, his own tears audible in that delightful sound.  

He wants to say it back, every inch of his being is urging him to do so, but his brain has frozen over and refuses to receive any command his heart gives him.

The words are stuck in his chest, leaking out through his close eyes, unable to be turned into any shape. They stab him with their intensity over and over, making him want to pluck them out and throw them at the person who has created them. 

“I-”

“You don’t have to, Con.” 

Maybe neither of them is ready to carry the weight behind that sentence just yet.

@a-convin-new-year i had to change the title a bit to suit my story hope you don’t mind 

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Does it ever bother you that Louis seems to care about Violet more than she shows care towards him? In fact, it seems as though Louis cares about literally every other character more than they care for him. Which is sad.

Of course, it bothers me. It bothers me when the Ericson crew don’t take him seriously or dismiss him as annoying and loud instead of actually listening, but that’s a part of his arc as he grows as a character, y’know? Clementine’s the first person to actually take an interest in Louis in a long time and he’s comfortable enough with her to let the wall down. Louis has more care and concern for those around him than he does himself. 

As for Violet not caring as much, I place most of the blame for that one on the writers because this should’ve been easy. Of course, we’re going to sit here and be like “Huh, Violet talks about how much she cares for Louis but her actions really contradict that once Minerva shows up, hmmm?” 

Once Minerva shows up, Violet completely forgets who Louis is and doesn’t even ask if he’s okay after losing his tongue. Even Kent was like “Yeah, okay, maybe an extra line of dialogue would’ve helped...” because yeah, Violet literally couldn’t give a single shit about Louis’ wellbeing when they’re on the boat. Why help Aasim get Louis and Omar out to safety when she can stay with Minerva after she shot her because she was trying to murder Clementine??

Because she just can’t leave Minerva....... even though Violet says that she just needs to accept that Minnie is gone..... she just. can’t. leave her. like. this. 

But she can totally leave Aasim to make sure Omar and Louis, one who is shot and the other can barely walk because he was fucking maimed, get off the boat safely. 

Great. 

Oh, and the little “Lou...” she says when seeing Louis on the land? Pathetic. I’m sorry, but that’s the best you got? That’s it? All these talented writers came up with that? That’s all you could think for Violet to say? You have Gideon there ready to voice these lines and when it comes to Violet talking to Louis for the first time since he lost his tongue...that’s it??

Maybe I just see Violet differently, but a weak little “Lou...” isn’t all she would have to say. I’m sorry, but no. She would’ve absolutely said more to him if you kept to her character. 

You can try and be like “No, wait, she didn’t think about it! She didn’t have time to think about Louis losing his tongue until that very moment! Even though I previously said that Violet did have time to think it in the cells, she just did it while Clementine was knocked out but- but- but no, this is the first time Violet’s realizing that oh no, it’s bad that Louis doesn’t have a tongue anymore. It’s super complex, you just don’t get it.”

Like.......... stop. Just stop. You didn’t do a good job with that within the game's actual text, okay? You didn’t do great with captured Violet either, but at the very least you had Louis show some concern more than once we’re in the cells and into episode 4. 

And y’know, Louis caring about everyone does work in with his character. Like, remember what Violet says before the writers fucked up? “...I realized under all that he really cares about people and he doesn’t just feel it, he says it...” so yeah that paints a picture that Louis is much more caring for others than he is himself, which is pretty obvious since he doesn’t exactly have the highest opinion of himself.

This also makes the fact that Louis left Violet on the boat with Minerva when he’s okay a complete betrayal of his character since there’s no indication that he tried to help her or whatever..... so that’s great. Thanks for that. 

But back around to Violet, remember in the dorms that Louis is like “Violet, meat cleaver in hand, would do whatever she could do to protect me.” 

...Oh yeah, Louis, she totally does a lot to protect you when she’s saved and you’ve been mentally, emotionally, and physically traumatized. Protect Clementine and AJ, protect Minerva....... but Louis specifically? Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....

And because I’m gonna have to clarify this- I’m not trying to take jabs at Violet herself, I’m taking jabs at the writers for messing up something that should’ve been easy.  

The whole thing just annoys me, okay? The cells make me very upset hahahaha

Anyway, swinging back around to your question, anon.... Yeah, Louis caring more about the others than they appear to care about him isn’t great, but when you take into consideration his character growth and arc, it does make more sense as to why they did that, y’know? It sucks, but I think we can assume that no matter when ending you get, everyone’s more willing to listen to him. 

Well, unless he died on the bridge.... 

But ignoring that, either he grows as a person and earns respect from the others due to his actions and changes, or he loses his tongue and everyone has to pull their heads outta their asses to work with him to communicate. Y’know, listen.

[thebluenoteblog]

Playing With Fire

Summary: All this on and off again is getting really exhausting, but if you’re being honest with yourselves, neither of you can stay away.

Player: Andrei Svechnikov

Word Count: 3.2k

Requested: Can you do an imagine about Andrei svechnikov based on playing with fire by Thomas rhett

Note: I wrote Andrei’s dialogue slightly different. It was only with the intention of making it more accurate because he speaks with such a heavy accent? It’s nothing crazy, I just wanted it to read a little differently. I’m not trying to offend anyone, I’m sorry if this does.

I know I should let it go

Take a different road

When I'm driving home

But I don't want to

Andrei’s eyes shifted from the road in front of him to the exit sign that was quickly approaching. He was an idiot. He was completely ridiculous for taking this highway home when he could have hopped on one of two others to get back to his apartment from the rink. Yet here he was, about to pass the exit that he had taken so many times. The exit that it was engrained in him to take because it was natural. It was normal. He was supposed to. You were waiting for him.

Except you weren’t.

You weren’t waiting for him. Not anymore. He wasn’t supposed to take that exit. He was supposed to keep driving and pretend that every fiber of his being wasn’t dragging him toward your front door, pulling him toward you. Begging him to be with you just one more time.

Just as he was about to pass it, he swerved into the exit lane. He wanted to be mad at himself, but he couldn’t be. A part of him had known the moment that he had jumped on this highway that he would end up on your front porch before the night was over.

As he pulled up in front of your house, parked his car in the spot that it had sat a thousand times and made his way to your front door, there was a nagging thought in the back of his mind. This constant reminder that he shouldn’t be here. That he had messed everything up. That you didn’t want to be with him anymore. However, just like every time before, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching up his hand and knocking on the door. Just like every time before, you couldn’t stop yourself from peeking through the curtains and watching him, standing there, staring at you with his head halfway hung, eyes uncertain. Just like every time before, you couldn’t stop yourself from opening the door and holding out a hand to him, taking his and inviting him inside.

“Just one more night, Andrei,” you said.

You both knew that was a lie.

Delete your number from my phone

Instead of calling

Asking if you're all alone

But I don't want to

It was one o’clock in the morning, Andrei was in New York, and he was a fucking idiot who just had to watch your snap story. Now, he knew you were out at a club with your friends. Because he had watched your best friends snap story, he knew that you were dancing with some guy. His decent night quickly turned into a shitty one.

It was an hour and a half after you posted the last snaps to your stories that he finally gave up on getting any sleep and pulled up your number. He stared at your contact picture for a long time, the two of you, his arms wrapped around your shoulders, him folded over you, his cheek pressed against the side of your face, you were both smiling these huge smiles. What had happened?

He didn’t think he would ever be able to delete a single picture of you. Especially not this one.

He knew he would never delete your number.

He shouldn’t call you. He should put his phone away and go to sleep. He had a game the next day. He would have to be up to meet the team for breakfast before he even had a chance to sleep at this rate; but he couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t just go to sleep without calling you and seeing if you would answer.

So, he dialed your number.

It rang until he thought it was going to go to voicemail.

Then it didn’t. You answered the phone giggling. “Andrei!”

He couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face. There was so much relief in the breath that he let out that he couldn’t help himself when he responded, “I am glad you answered, (Y/N/N).”

You giggled again, and he heard you stumble over something and mumble “Oops,” before responding, “I always answer when you call. I miss you.”

He swallowed and closed his eyes, focusing on the darkness instead of your words. It was difficult. “You do not mean that.”

“I do!” You said, voice loud and determined. “I miss you all the time!”

Andrei rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. He waited, gathering his thoughts before he spoke. He turned his head to the side and said, “I miss you too, (Y/N).”

“Then why don’t you come over?” She asked, her voice dropping.

His heart skipped, “(Y/N), I am in New York right now.” She was quiet and after a moment he added, “Besides, do you not have a friend to keep you company tonight?” He pressed his lips together as soon as he said it, immediately regretting the last ten minutes.

“What?” She asked confused. Then she giggled, “Oh, Devin? He isn’t anything.”

She hadn’t said that she hadn’t gone home with him. He couldn’t make himself ask.

Stay away

From your side of town

But it's too late

I'm in your drive right now

The engine shut off and you leaned back against the headrest, staring up at Andrei’s apartment building. You could see his windows, you could see the lights on. You knew that he was awake. You also knew that you shouldn’t be here. It was a useless point to make with yourself though. No matter how many times you tried to drill into your thick skull that you should stay away from this part of the city, you always ended up here somehow.

Almost as though you were in a trance, you ended up walking through the lobby of his apartment building. You walked over to the desk and asked the young woman to call him, but she waved you up. She recognized you after all the times you had been here, despite the few weeks it had been since you had last broken down and showed up at his apartment.

Somehow, against your better judgement, you found yourself knocking on Andrei’s door. It took a moment for him to open it. When he did, he blinked at you a few times, whether it was shock or that he was determining whether or not he was hallucinating, you didn’t know. You smiled hesitantly at him, “I gave you one more night, do I get one too?”

He reached out his hand and you took it, “I can never tell you no.”

I don't know, why I don't

Put it out baby

We kiss and the flames

Just get higher

But yeah I know

When I hold onto you baby

I'm all tangled up in barbed wire

As soon as the door was closed behind you, he backed you up against it, placing his hands on either side of your face and locking his lips with yours. You swore that every time you kissed, your entire body lit up. Every nerve ending exploded. This time was no different. The way he reacted you could only assume that it was the same for him.

He gripped his hands around your thighs and lifted you up, so you could wrap your legs around his waist. You tangled your hands in his hair and just enjoyed the feeling of having him this close to you, of having his body pressed against yours.

His hands squeezed your hips, holding onto you not for stability, but because he wanted to hold onto you. You clawed at his shirt, but he didn’t move, he just kept you pressed against the door, pressed against him. He didn’t want this to be fast and rough and dirty.

He wanted it to last. He wanted it to be so late at night when you were finished that you didn’t have a choice but to stay with him until the morning. He wanted to wake up next to you one more time instead of watching you rush out of his apartment with a look of regret on your face.

He couldn’t get over this. He couldn’t get over you.

He needed you to stay.

I could find a spot to

Go hang out on Friday night

Where you ain’t gonna be

But I don't want to, no

Yeah, I could let it end

Call it quits, call off

All this on and off again

But I just don't want to

“Don’t look now, five o’clock,” Allison said, pushing a drink into your hand.

Of course, you looked. Of course, you couldn’t help yourself because you knew exactly who was at five o’clock. You turned your head less discretely than you would like to think you had and locked eyes with Andrei. Your face flushed, and you looked away quickly when you saw that he wasn’t alone. There was some very long legged scantily clad girl hanging on him.

You took a deep breath and turned back to your friend, tears welling in your eyes. You downed about half of your drink in one go and then turned and headed onto the dance floor. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had every right to move on. Maybe it was for the better. Maybe it was a good thing that he was seeing other people now. Maybe the two of you would finally be able to break this cycle.

You and Allison didn’t dance alone for long before a couple of men came up and asked if they could join you. Allison looked at you, a question in her eyes, then she looked over at Andrei who was now staring directly at you. The woman who was with him before was gone and he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the conversations of the other guys around him. He was too focused on you. Eyes locked on the man who had just asked you to dance.

Maybe it was petty. Maybe it was childish. You said yes. You didn’t look back at Andrei until you and the man broke apart and he and his friend disappeared into the crowd. When he was gone, you couldn’t help your curiosity. Had Andrei found someone new to hang off his arm in the last five minutes? You turned to where you had seen him last, only to find that he wasn’t there. His friends were all there, he was gone.

You frowned. There was no way that he just left that quickly.

“Would you like another drink?”

You jumped and turned to face Andrei who was now standing beside you, frown firmly planted on his face. “No thank you. I’m okay.”

He nodded and looked down at the floor, “I am sorry.”

“For what?” You asked, taking a step closer to him in an effort to hear over the music.

He frowned and looked back up at you, “For…” he sighed and shook his head, “Nothing.”

You stared at him, reading the look on his face. He was upset, you knew him well enough to know that. You could take a good guess at why, because you knew why you were wearing the same look on your face. He looked around you, his eyes landing on something over your shoulder and he shook his head again, this time at whoever had motioned to him.

You wondered if it was his friends or the girl. You didn’t want to look and find out. “Listen, you don’t have to answer to me. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“Do you want me to be with other girls?” He asked.

You swallowed roughly, your face paling. “No.”

“That is all I needed to know,” he said quietly. For a long moment, you stared at each other then he ducked his head down and pressed a kiss to your cheek. Then with his lips beside your ear he spoke just loud enough to be heard over the music, “I go home alone tonight,” he said, “because I would rather go home with you.”

Yeah that key

Is right under the mat

Come on in, baby

Let's strike that match

You know where I keep the key.

Andrei had received the message twenty minutes earlier and now he was pulling the key out from under the doormat like there was nothing in the world wrong with what he was doing. Like he wasn’t breaking any rules. Like you weren’t his ex-girlfriend. Like he shouldn’t be at home sleeping because he had a game the next day and he was going to be fucked if he wasn’t rested.

None of that mattered to him though, because he pushed the door open, and you were sitting on the couch with two glasses of wine on the coffee table in front of you. You’d been waiting for him. You knew he would come. You were wearing a silky red robe, just a little lose, enough to show some cleavage. His throat went dry as he pushed the door closed behind him and started across the room.

“Why all of this?” He asked.

You shrugged, “I guess I wanted to see you. I thought I would be a good host.”

You were being a good host all right. He was tall enough, and your robe lose enough that he could see the bra you were wearing, and god did he want to see more of it. “You should be a good host more often.”

“Don’t push it,” you said.

He held up his hands, in that innocent way that boys did when they were taking the blame for something but not fully admitting that they had done something wrong. He made his way to you and took his seat on the couch, picking up his glass of wine. His eyes scanned your face for a moment before he said, “We should talk tonight.”

You contemplated this. It was dangerous. It was opening up the only part of your heart you had sealed off back up to him. He was looking at you so hopefully though, that you couldn’t say no. “Okay,” you said, “Lets talk.”

I get burned, I don't learn

I'll be back, give it time

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy

But guess I like playing with fire

Playing with fire

It was eleven o’clock when someone knocked on your door. It was only because of the time and the knowledge that his game had ended the perfect amount of time ago, you were pretty sure you knew exactly who it was. You pulled the door open and confirmed your suspicion. This time though, Andrei didn’t look ashamed to be standing on your porch, he looked hesitant, but hopeful.

You took his hand and pulled him inside, this time you didn’t say that this was the last time. You didn’t tell him “Only one more night,” because you both knew that it wasn’t true. Neither of you wanted that. Neither of you were ready for that yet. As much as you wished you were strong enough to move on, you weren’t. You needed him right now. You couldn’t let him go yet.

So, when he pressed his lips to yours, you let him. You savored every second of it.

So let's fire it up one more time

(Fire it up one more time)

Baby just put your lips on mine

(Lips on mine)

Andrei woke up with you laying across his chest. He stared down at you, at your hair fanned across the pillow, watching the way the light danced on your skin through the crack in the curtains that he hadn’t closed all the way. You were beautiful. You were amazing. You weren’t his. Not anymore.

God, he wanted to fix that. He wanted to fix that more than anything in the world in that moment. He realized that all along, that is what he wanted. All the late-night visits, the promises to go home alone, it was all because he had wanted to fix things with you. He wanted you back. He wanted more than waking up with you sometimes, when he managed to drag things out until you were too tired to drive home when things were said and done. He wanted this all the time.

He wanted you.

He watched as your eyelids fluttered, woken by either the sunlight or the change in his breathing under you, he didn’t know. You slowly looked up at him and a smile graced your face when your eyes connected. It lasted for all of ten seconds before it was replaced with a frown and you moved to push yourself off of his chest. “I’m sorry,” you said, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“I like it when you sleep here,” he said, “You should apologize for leaving.”

You shifted your eyes back to him, “What?”

“I don’t like it when you leave,” he said. “I like waking up with you.”

“Andrei,” you shook your head, “We can’t-,”

“Why not?” He asked.

You stared at him blankly, waiting for further elaboration.

“We cannot stay away from each other. We do not like when we see each other with other people. Why can we not be together?” He asked.

“It didn’t work last time,” you said, already shaking your head and clutching the sheet to your chest, moving to get out of the bed. As far away from this conversation as you could.

Andrei sat up, he wrapped his hand loosely around your wrist, but it was enough to stop you. “So, we try harder this time. We make it work.”

You stared at the sheet in front of you. You had picked out this set, he almost always had them on his bed when you came over. They were always clean, but he was almost always using the set you had picked out. “Do you think we can? Do really think we can make this work? Or do you think we’re just too far in to let go?”

“(Y/N), look at me,” he said. You turned to face him. In his eyes you saw the sincerity of his answer, “I know we can make it work. I love you. I do not want to let us go. I want to make this work.”

You were quiet for a long moment and you watched as his gaze flicked between both of your eyes, searching for any hint. Finally, you said, “You’re right. We should give this another shot.”

His smile came slowly, like he was afraid he had misheard you, or maybe translated the words incorrectly. After a few seconds though he sat up fully and pressed his lips to yours, before lowering you back down onto the mattress.  

You laughed as you hooked your leg over his hip and he pressed a kiss to your neck and then looked up at you and said, “I am not sure who, but some people just won a lot of money.”

[alvaar-aldaviir]

A TANGENT ON DEVELOPING YOUR OC CHARACTERS AND KEEPING THEM CONSISTENT

(Because I am very passionate about it.)

Prompted from a recent ask, I ended up doing a “quick” and dirty ramble about how I develop my OC characters, and what I do to keep them consistent. Just in case anyone was curious!

Naturally, everyone has their own methods and processes. Explore many and find what works best for you! It never hurts to give other methods a look and use parts of many to develop your own way of doing things.

  For me personally, working towards keeping my original character IN CHARACTER is something I work towards across three main points:

Speaking from knowledge/experience

Giving the character room to “breathe” and practicing it

Don’t go contradicting past actions (without good cause)

Most every good character resonates with parts of their author.

When writing, you’re going to write best from what you know, so it’s very normal to settle into that ‘default state’ where you speak as yourself. That is why it is so very important to go out and get personal experience in many things! Writing extreme sorrow or exuberance comes out most genuine when you write from what you know, weaving in those small personal details (like that painful catch of breath when you sob that is distinct from crying for instance.) Every character you write will have a bit of you in them, and they should! It’s what makes them feel genuine and inspired.

To move more easily beyond traits you know and into the unknown, find and consider other character types and personalities in shows, books, or games (I love games most for this as they’re interactive.) The further you push your experience and knowledge of stories and characters, the more variety of viewpoints and voices you have to draw from. This makes it easier to consider voices different from your own, and be able to write them believably.

But that’s what leads into the very important second point!

    Letting the character have their own “voice” and exercising it.

Personally, I am very loose form about how I create my characters. By that I mean I maybe have a few details, and I let the character sort of explore and pick out their own personality and choices. I do a lot of “snippits” as I call them, small little blurbs of dialogue or scenes that come to mind as I invest into a character. These help to gradually hone down and get an idea of who my character is, and what their quirks are.

For instance, all I had for Alvaar at the start of his journey in FF14 was he was an archer, an Elezen, and a rough base from my own previous OC character: competent, loyal, and a heavy dose of sass with a feathering of flamboyance. From there as I am introduced to ideas and scenarios, I would think about how Alvaar would respond to that situation. What he would say, how he would act, etc. This starts to build a reflex and a “thought library” if you will, of instances I can point back to that help to guide his character.

As I continued with him, I began to fill in details of his background. Why was he the way he is? What traits did he have and how might those have happened? For instance, the idea of an archer just picking up a harp they’d never played before and playing something for the Bard mentor in ff14 seemed unrealistic. So Alvaar would probably have to be familiar with a harp right? That’s a lot of time and practice, so music was likely part of his life for a long time. I had already decided he had anger management issues as one of his personal hurdles he had struggled with, so I considered that music therapy and learning to express his emotions in song instead of aggression might be a good way of him learning to handle his anger problems, tying multiple things on his character in together. That’s why he can speak so earnestly about feelings, and why the path of a Bard comes so naturally and passionately to him.

Think about and test ideas for practice with your character to help you get to know them better!

Pondering and testing possibilities and letting your character speak out and follow their own logical choices let’s them grow organically, and for me, it becomes so inherent to the character that it helps to keep them consistent in voice even if they deviate radically from my own personality. Keep all those small ideas and blurbs. You don’t have to use all of them, but many times you’ll have a good diamond in there you can pull out and delve into more.

You can find character scenarios/prompts and questions online. Consider doing some of them to really test the voice of your character! Every little thought or dialogue strand helps to further chip into who your character is, even if its just an example you decide isn’t them at all! You don’t necessarily need to write them all down or do every single one, but just give it a look and answering even just a few helps to exercise that reflex you want to build.

This is something that may be a bit foreign and weird at first, but trust me, practicing your characters voice eventually gets very easy. And then one day you’re writing along and they surprise you with their own passionate outbursts and actions in a scene, and it becomes your favorite!

    Most anything is fair game, as long as you avoid contradictions!

As I was saying to a friend of mine recently, what often is most important to a character feeling consistent is that their current action doesn’t contradict their past actions WITHOUT GOOD REASON. One of the biggest things people tend to get upset about in long running TV shows are when a character they are familiar with does something completely contradictory to all their past behavior out of the blue.

Read back over your previous works, your snippits, your off the wall dialogue cuts when you’re wanting to get a feel for your character again. Learn to love them. You should know them well and keep them in mind. Never be afraid to pause in the midst of writing something and go back to another work or earlier in the story and look at a similar situation so you can take cues for consistency.

No one has read my work more than I have. I often pause and read back over several pages to make sure things flow well. This naturally gets much better with practice, but you’ll often always be wanting to go back and make sure. Tweaking this or that as you go

Take out what might not fit, or if you’re really interested in the scene going that way, perhaps consider why they might say something so seemingly out of character in this particular instance? Is there an unwritten detail from their past that might be a juicy new idea to have and run with? That’s an opportunity for plot and character development so if you want to use it, be sure to have it make sense and feel appropriate.

You don’t have to put EVERYTHING under a microscope, humans are by nature not perfectly consistent, but for the big decisions, those major moments, be sure to check if it makes sense.

    And that’s my not so short dive into how I work and develop my characters! It’s by no means a professional method, but it is what works for me and how I developed Alvaar Aldaviir into the very solid character he is. I hope it may prove helpful to you in some form, even if its just finding what DOESN’T work for you!

Best of luck, and happy writing!