#so now it's a little screwy

[bookwyrminspiration]

it does look like sophie!! if you wanted to help her look a little more youthful, you might try adding some roundness to the cheeks and emphasizing the cupid's bow a bit more

ty catherine I love you forever and ever dedicating this piece to you and you only <33

me vs the roundness of sophie's cheeks is an ongoing battle I keep trying but she is staying stubbornly a little angular. actually almost everything about her is fighting me.

I think the reason it's not quite doing it for me is that she doesn't match the other individual in the piece. Who has a certain *essence* to them, a style that Sophie doesn't have. So while she technically looks fine and like Sophie, she doesn't look like she belongs in the same piece as them. and I very much want the two of them to go together. Will continue trying, even though I have class tomorrow and will. get a bunch of homework </3

also!! thank you to everyone else who made comments and suggestions as well :)

[herebecritters]

Far far away in a magical land there’s a beautiful sparkly fairy princess who lives in a magnolia tree ~

Screwy belongs to @ickyguts

[lusalemaart]

uwu

[livwritesstuff]

written for @steddie-week day 2 (managed to tap into both hands and touch starved i think)

Eddie didn’t like to be touched, didn’t like how it made him feel.

Didn’t like the lingering ghost of a poke or a prod, didn’t like the way his spine itched when someone hugged him for too long, didn't like the way his screwy childhood had him flinching if someone moved a little too fast a little too close to him.

Sure, Eddie had no problem getting up in someone’s face, in throwing barbs he knew would hit close to home, in putting on a show whether the audience wanted it or not, but, for the most part, he kept his hands to himself.

He figured nobody noticed.

Steve did. Of course Steve did.

Steve noticed and he kept his hands to himself too for a while, and then their friendship started to morph into something more, and then Steve started to push just a little.

It started with just one hand on Eddie’s thigh while they watched a movie together – not that Eddie remembers the movie at all, because Steve’s hand was warm and he squeezed just a little during the scary parts and sometimes he mindlessly ran his thumb over Eddie’s skin, and it was making his insides churn (and maybe turning him on just a little in a way he didn’t have the wherewithal to unpack in the present moment).

And then that something more became something real and one night, after Eddie had a more heinous than usual nightmare, he called Steve because…he could do that now because Steve told Eddie that he could and because Steve wanted him to. 

So he called Steve, and Steve told him he was on his way over and Eddie said he didn’t need to come and Steve told him tough shit, I already put my shoes on and Eddie knew that he had.

When Steve eventually showed up and let himself in, he pulled Eddie into a hug, and by no means was it their first hug – not even close – but Steve was holding him a bit tighter, holding him in a way that made Eddie feel like he’d been gathered up, had him thinking this is what I needed, this is what I needed, and he waited for that itch to tell him when to pull away, but for the first time in maybe ever it didn’t come.

So Eddie relaxed into Steve’s hold, gave in a little to the weakness in his knees, and Steve’s lips fluttered against his neck as he murmured things that Eddie wasn’t really hearing, things about how it’s okay and he’s safe, which Eddie doesn’t really need to hear because he feels it now, feels it in Steve’s arm around his waist and in his hand curved around the back of his neck, and Eddie is feeling so much more than he’s ever felt before and it’s good and it’s boiling itself down into three words that Eddie knows he’d be saying too early if he let them slip out.

Steve’s gonna know though, even if it's too early to say it out loud, because Eddie’s gonna hug Steve just as tight when he needs it, and he’s gonna hold Steve’s hand over the gearshift while they drive together, and he's gonna grab his waist whenever the opportunity presents itself, and he's gonna run fingers through Steve's hair, and he’s gonna zip up his jacket when it’s cold out, and he’s gonna kiss him soft and slow, and oh, he’s gonna know.

[thewertsearch]

CG: IF WE CAN RIDE THIS OUT FOR A LITTLE LONGER UNTIL THE CRITICAL MOMENT, AND DAVE/ROSE CAN DESTROY THE SUN, JACK SHOULDN'T BE A THREAT. CG: CONVENIENTLY, IF THEY'RE SUCCESSFUL, THAT WILL SIGNAL THE BEGINNING OF OUR OWN ESCAPE PLAN. […] CG: APPARENTLY THE EXPLOSION WILL BE SO HUGE, IT WILL BE VISIBLE AT GREAT DISTANCES THROUGHOUT THE FURTHEST RING. CG: EVEN FROM DIFFERENT SESSIONS, LIKE YOURS AND OURS.

Alright, this escape plan is starting to come into focus.

The Sun's explosion will create the Ring's first ever landmark, allowing the trolls to pinpoint its 'location' without needing to build a Horrorterror Map. It's a little screwy that the explosion will be visible 'at great distances' when the Ring's concept of distance is nebulous at best - but on the other hand, this is no normal explosion, either. I guess the metaphysical details don't really matter here; the key takeaway is that the trolls will travel to the Sun.

CG: EVEN FROM DIFFERENT SESSIONS, LIKE YOURS AND OURS. YOU WON'T GET TO SEE IT BECAUSE BY THEN YOUR SESSION SHOULD BE WIPED OUT BY THE SCRATCH.

The kids, however, will not. The timing doesn't work out.

What I'm hearing, though, is that it is theoretically possible for other sessions to follow this new waypoint. Over time, the Sun's remains could even become a rendezvous point for sessions scattered across the multiverse, allowing Players to meet, collaborate, and share resources.

For now, though, it's just a way for the trolls to get out of dodge.

CG: SO YEAH, WE'LL MEET IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE EXPLOSION WITH OUR PEOPLE ON THE INSIDE, OR I GUESS I SHOULD SAY OUTSIDE. CG: I DON'T THINK THEY CAN COME WITH US THOUGH. EB: come with you where? who are they? CG: DEAD PEOPLE.

Dead people, as well as their cheerful psychopomp. Unlike the Ring's ghosts, Aradia could conceivably rejoin the team at this point - but I don't think she's actually likely to do so, because she's needed out in the Ring.

The Dream Bubbles are an extremely important resource, and I don't think anyone could manage them as well as her. This is her element.

CG: THE SCRATCH WILL REBOOT YOUR SESSION. YOUR WHOLE UNIVERSE ACTUALLY. SO SOMEWHERE IN THIS DREADFUL ABYSS, THAT NEW SESSION WILL START UP IN ITS OWN INCIPISPHERE, FROM SCRATCH. […] CG: THE IDEA IS FOR YOU ALL TO PRESERVE YOURSELVES BY ESCAPING THERE.

I sort of assumed that the reboot session would physically replace the original, by spawning directly on top of it. Apparently that's not the case, though; it just pops up somewhere at random.

Well, that'll make it a little harder to find, since we won't know where to look. I can't really think of any solutions, either, unless reboot-Rose is kind enough to post another GameFAQs guide. Preferably one containing her exact dimensional coordinates.

EB: through the lawn ring? CG: YES.

Through the lawn ring? So, what, the Yard is a physical pathway that they can move through?

Once again, I don't have any real theories - except that if the Yellow Yard is indeed some sort of 'pathway', I have a horrible feeling we're being teed-up for a 'yellow brick road' joke.

[trilobitepunch]

Time for some upgrades. Here's a battle shell design I was playing around with. I thought something a little sharper would be fun. He's also easing out of his arm/elbow pad phase to join his brothers on the arm/leg wrap train.

(Background: Space bridges are screwy so while his bros are all post movie timeline, Donnie's only from mid-season 2. 8];;; He has found out he's missed...a lot. And not at all upset that he's now somehow the little brother.)

I love Wearingeul's Verethragna. It is a very pretty purple.

[hey-hey-j]

god 'cause I haven't been able to stop thinking about this either like

alternate version of Band Together where Branch and Poppy team up with Hickory chasing leads on Floyd and that's how they end up running into Clay and John Dory

and here's a specific scenario I was thinking about this morning: in this AU Velvet and Veneer sent a forged letter to everyone in BroZone, but due to plot contrivance Bruce is the only one who received his on time and that's why he was the one to rescue Floyd.

but now picture John Dory finally finds his letter just a little too late, he gets to Mount Rageous after Bruce has already taken Floyd and just narrowly escapes getting captured himself. He writes the whole thing off as a hoax and a trap and it's as he's leaving Mount Rageous that he runs into the search party and realizes that oh, Floyd might actually still be alive.

(also Barb is here because this is post- Rockapocalypse and helping out Hickory with this is part of her making amends since the events of World Tour are what caused Floyd and Hickory to lose track of each other in the first place 😬)

(timeline of events is a little screwy so there can be more than a single month between World Tour and Band Together)

[hmslusitania]

Either 16 or 21 or both or neither

There was no specified ship, so it ended up being kind of pre-relationship TimKon

The party had been a questionable choice, Tim can admit that now. Nothing says “I’m so totally over a relationship, see how fine I’m doing!” like throwing a Halloween party, drinking a little too much at the sight of his ex-girlfriend making out with her new girlfriend who is, for most purposes, Tim’s sister, and then retreating to the bathroom because his more recent ex-boyfriend had actually taken him up on the invitation and brought a plus one.

Which is why he’s hiding in the bathtub in his own bathroom, not totally shielded from view by the novelty map of Faerûn shower curtain Steph had helped him pick out. At least it matches the elf ears that had seemed like a good idea six hours ago, and at least the porcelain he’s resting his face against is cooling and pleasant.

His relative peace — generally not helped by the thumping of the bass from the stereo in the party beyond his room — is interrupted an unknowable amount of time later by the bathroom door opening without a knock, and then he’s in the company of…

“What are you supposed to be?” Tim asks without lifting his head from the side of the tub.

Kon looks down at his “costume” which includes fingerless gloves, a denim jacket, and a black and red buffalo check shirt.

“Breakfast Club?” Kon prompts.

Tim blinks at him.

“Come on, we watched it for YJ movie night like last month,” Kon reminds him.

“I wasn’t there,” Tim says, miserable, and sags a little farther into the comforting embrace of the side of the tub.

“We were gonna do a whole group thing, right, except we decided you’d for sure have to be Ally Sheedy, not Emilio Estevez or Anthony Michael Hall,” Kon continues, unphased by Tim’s demeanour. “But then Cissie wanted to dress up like Wendy instead, and I’m pretty sure Cassie’s dressed up like me, which is kinda a head trip. And Bart had some whole situation where he can’t make our party because he got roped into babysitting Jai and Irey while they go trick-or-treating, because as screwy as my family might be, only when you’re a member of the West-Allen family do you really get to go babysit your, uh…”

“Second cousins,” Tim supplies.

“Huh, I definitely thought that was gonna be a weirder chain of relationship,” Kon says.

He sits on the bathmat next to Tim’s head and pokes him in the side of the face.

“Stop,” Tim says.

“So is there a particular reason you’re hiding from your own party in your bathroom?” Kon asks.

“I’m bitterly single?” Tim replies.

Kon considers him. “So, I get why you invited Steph, because she’s still for sure one of your best friends, and I’m pretty sure you’re, like, contractually obliged to invite Cass to events, and they’re a matched set. But like… your civilian ex-boyfriend who likes to conspiracy theory about the majority of the rest of your guests?”

Tim groans and shuts his eyes, only to have Kon pry one of them open and stare at him up close.

“I wanted to prove I was, like, mature and evolved and so totally over it,” Tim says, and feels stupid even saying it.

“Which is why you’re drunk in your bathtub, sure, yeah, I get that,” Kon says, and smiles when Tim rolls his eyes.

“You don’t have to be in here being nice to me, you can just like… enjoy the party,” Tim says.

“The party where my ex-girlfriend is dressed up in my clothes and making out with our other very good friend who’s dressed up like my all time fictional crush? That party?” Kon asks, and Tim snorts.

“Do you ever think about the fact you dated two girls named Cassandra and both of them turned out to be gay?” Tim asks.

“With really similar taste in women, also,” Kon adds. “And, like, yeah, every once in a while.”

Tim hums and closes his eyes again, but this time, Kon doesn’t pry his eyes open.

“I know you’re mad at me,” Tim mumbles finally. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Kon says, and this time the physical botherment he inflicts is tweaking the elf ear Tim had spent a stupid amount of time gluing on. “I was questioning your judgement, which is so not the same thing.”

“Judgement I definitely didn’t improve by throwing this party, right?” Tim guesses. Kon makes a noncommittal noise.

“Like I get that you have a thing for blonds with a penchant for getting into trouble, but…” Kon says.

“Not just blonds,” Tim mumbles before he can think better of it. He blinks when he realises what he’s said and finds Kon staring at him curiously. “I’m really fine, Kon, you can go enjoy the party.”

“Nah,” Kon says, and before Tim can move to stop him, he clambers over the side of the tub to squish into the narrow space between Tim and the shower wall, his combat boots which have a certain authenticity that say they might have been Pa Kent’s from the ’60s clunking against the basin. Kon wriggles his shoulders trying to get comfortable for a second, and then gives up and wraps his arm around Tim. It’s just for the better use of space, Tim’s sure, but it’s… it’s really nice. And when Kon tugs him sideways until Tim rolls over so he’s resting the side of his face on Kon’s chest rather than on the side of the tub, it’s so damn pleasant he can barely stand it. “I’d much, much rather be in here with you.”

It makes Tim’s heart flutter in his chest and he knows Kon can hear that, which is just embarrassing, and which he can only sort of blame on the alcohol.

“Yeah, okay, Bender,” he says, trying desperately to hit annoyed.

Kon gives him a full belly laugh that echoes off the bathroom tile, and squeezes him just a little closer. “I knew you’d seen the Breakfast Club before.”

Tim rolls his eyes and smacks Kon in the stomach with a light, open palm. It gets him another laugh, and maybe, just maybe, this party hadn’t been the worst idea after all.

[drakewyne]

me, thinking of the dress:

me: CRAZY

( cw: dark au, ünternet au, referenced sw. )

ISO nancy: *fazing in. out. in mirror. kicking gogo boot up. little spin.*

black cat tim: *on computer* " . . . *stops typing* . . . *looks over shoulder* "weird that you have an Appearance."

ISO nancy: *scowling* "rude." *buzzing beside him* "weird You have an appearance. weird you have one and barely do anything With it. *moving his chin* 'cause i've seen a Lot worse."

tim: "i pull a lot with the leg harness."

ISO nancy: " . . . pull Yourself, maybe." *buzzing* "anyway, what's That mean? you sound Stupid. coadjutor ISOs like me are evolved to be appealing."

tim: "fucking- Gross."

ISO nancy: "no shit." *buzzing, semi fairy like in air* "but it's so we're more predisposed to be spoken to. we're relayers. we relay. shitheads in the ünternet Already try to keep it lowkey. if you have to talk, might as well be to someone cute. 's why you see a lot of old ISO co's in the club doing bottle service faking IR girlie realness."

tim: "what if they get Horny?"

ISO nancy: "that depends." ( "on what?" ) "do they have Credits?"

tim: "oh that is so Fucked."

ISO nancy: "it's a darkseid and sivana project that kuttler blew a load all over- it's not a family friendly Place."

tim: "what do you need credits for anyway? you have everything you need."

ISO nancy, looking in mirror: "yeah, it's swanky. but it's Expensive to be on the run. you have to get fake Algos, fake Authorization, fake Lives. and ISO derezzer bots got Good. i've had to restart a million times. I'm not biting it. No. Fucking. Way."

tim: "so you've Slept with these assholes?"

ISO nancy: "Also No Fucking Way! be a Million percent real! look, *crossing arms, hip jut* i'll do a lot of shit, but not that. also those guys have Zero loyalty. they'll report you Regardless. they got what they wanted! no more skin in the game."

tim: " . . . so how'd you get the money?"

ISO nancy: "ooh. very good question. back in the day, coadjutors logged all your shit. if you were getting too screwy, they kicked you. but not me. i saw the writing on the wall. i got the logged shit. but I had the idea of using it for nancy Good. give me Credits, Or i boot all your bullshit into the outer world."

tim: "extortion."

ISO nancy: "you better believe it. and Because i'm the one that won't boot you, i log Heavy. i can't dog the others. it's still pretty psychosexual. i get All the big weirdos. because when you're unbound by moral in a moralless place, what do you Want?"

tim: " . . . you want to be grounded." ( "uh huh." ) "and users can't really Kill or Get Killed there in a way that matters." ( "now you get it." ) "nancy. were you Charging guys to Debase themselves in the name of higher Consciousness?"

ISO nancy: "don't look so shocked! i let You do it for free."

tim: "you knowing my Bullshit gives me Nothing sexual."

ISO nancy: "then why do you get me Presents?"

[aziraphales-library]

Hello! do u have any recommendations on fics that are corporate/work human aus?

Thanks!

Hi! Here are some office worker AUs...

When God Closes a Door… by wyrmy (T)

Aziraphale is a burnt out salesperson, stuck in a boring job selling sliding doors for a wildly incompetent boss. The highlight of his work day is a man he is fascinated by but has never met in person, Anthony Crowley, the sexy purchaser who buys doors for another company. Can two small cogs in two large machines somehow defy their bosses and find love?

Critical Upgrade (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tech) by Kirathaune (T)

Modern Office AU: Aziraphale likes his vintage computer equipment, but it's causing problems with his colleagues. Gabriel mandates an upgrade, and Crowley from IT is assigned to make it all work.

be mine tonight (be mine forever) by artenon (T)

Aziraphale knows he’s a solitary person. He knows Crowley may very well be his only true friend. He doesn’t mind this. He does, however, very much mind learning that his coworkers have a betting pool on whether he’ll be coming alone to the department holiday party next week. He especially minds when he learns that the reason there is a betting pool in the first place is because their intern, young Newton Pulsifer, is the only one naïve enough to believe Aziraphale might have a date. ----- In retaliation to a bet made against him, Aziraphale asks Crowley to be his date to the office holiday party. Certainly there are no flaws to be found in this plan. Certainly the secret love Aziraphale has been harboring for Crowley for the past several years won't be an issue. Certainly not.

House Style by soft_october (M)

“Since that's all settled, the real question is did he give you his number?” Anathema laughed. “He was looking at you the way you look at lunch.” “Forget lunch!” Michael declared. “He was looking at you the way you were looking at him!” Aziraphale is content in his job as an editor at Celestial Publishing, though he could go for a bit less of doing his boss' job for him. But everything goes a bit screwy when the CEO brings in a consultant with plans to build a program that will turn the entire editorial department on its head. If only he wasn't so handsome

Butterflies in a Bell Jar by Still_Not_King (T)

Arthur “Zira” Fell and Anthony J. Crowley both work for the same company in London, a big office building for Ethereal™ Investments. Crowley is in IT, which is good because his favorite coworker’s husband is kind of a mess with computers, plus his office-mate Zira is fricking adorable. Of course, then Zira finally joins Newt and Anathema for Karaoke Friday and comes face-to-face with the real A.J.. To say they hit it off would be an understatement - it’s like they’ve known one another for years. It’s an adorable little meet-cute. There’s navigating a new relationship, falling in love hard and fast, and the Incredibly Strict No-Fraternizing Policy at work. Cept, turns out that No-Fratrenizing Policy is mostly directed at THEM specifically...

i've found a way (a way to make you smile) by curtaincall (T)

Crowley worked in Sales. He had never intended to work in Sales. It had just sort of happened. One moment, there he’d been, a newly minted university graduate off to change the world, exquisitely useless Philosophy degree in hand, and now here he was, having sauntered vaguely downwards into a Hell that consisted mainly of cold-calling new customers and sucking up to existing ones.   AU based on The Office.

- Mod D

[uniquethingtastemaker]

I think ruggie is such a great character to have in Vil fics, especially ones that center the VDC training because you have a character who is so aware of the importance of food and eating and not being wasteful and a character who is spiking/drugging/cursing food (food the MC is known to not have a ton of) just because it doesn’t fit his diet plan. The juxtaposition is incredible, and if you have the reader be close to ruggie (say shopping for food deals or just commiserating over screwy bosses and lack of funds), this makes it that much more interesting!

I'm so glad you're excited to see Ruggie in one of my upcoming Vil fanfics! I'll admit I'm not using him as a counterpart to Vil. However, that is an interesting idea! I didn't even think about that. I'll give you a little teaser for his upcoming role: Ruggie is more connected to Epel than Vil. Ok! That's it for now!

I love hearing what other people think, so thanks for sending in a comment anon!! It always makes my day

[halfmoth-halfman]

My MWIII Thoughts

I’ve finally taken the time to get all of my thoughts about the new campaign together and put them in a single post. There are no spoiler tags since the game is officially releasing today/tomorrow, but everything is under the cut with a warning. I have a lot of things to say here, so I’ve tried to organize it point by point. The points I think are most important are first, and I ask that you take the time to read through them. If you want to skip to the points about characters and that death, the beginning of those sections is marked with red, but be prepared to scroll.

I watched the custscenes, with gameplay, all the way through once and I’m not doing it again. I tried to go back to specific scenes to reference in this post, but even that was a lot for me, so if my timeline in here is a little screwy don't fault me too much.

If you just want my quick, overall thoughts: This campaign was two hours of egregiously incoherent, poorly written, shoddily thrown together military propaganda, even more than the cod games usually are, and your money would be much better spent donating to help Palestine - there are links to do so in this review, marked with green, as well as boycott information, and the same donations links are also provided on this shorter post if you want to go directly to them.

(There are spoilers below, and this is long. I'm not kidding. Do not click the readmore unless you are prepared to scroll.)

Military Propaganda/Islamophobia

I spoke about this some already here and here because I felt this was an important enough topic that deserved its own post.

Call of Duty has never been has never been the game where I expected to see proper representation of the Middle East or Middle Eastern politics. It is first and foremost military propaganda. More than that it is American military propaganda. Just like with every superhero and pro-military movie post-9/11, it should be expected that you’re not going to get any kind of meaningful insight or depth when it comes to Middle Eastern storylines and characters, but there is usually more of an effort to hide the Middle East = Terrorist subtext.

To say I was shocked at how overt and blatant the Islamophobia was in this game is an understatement. We get four deaths of named characters in this game. Two of whom are Middle Eastern women, Dena and Samara, from the country Urzikstan, the fictional combination of Syria and Afghanistan and home to terrorist group Al-Qatala (real subtle, right?). Both of these women are associated with the ULF, the Urzikstan Liberation Force, Farah’s group of freedom fighters whose goal is to free their country from foreign subjugation with Samara no longer being an active member. Both of these women are introduced in this game. Both of these women are minor characters. Both of these women, Samara in particular, are trying to live their lives peacefully now that their country has been freed.

Both of these women are given deaths more brutal and more shocking than the other two deaths of two main characters in the series.

We meet Dena at the beginning of the game when we’re first re-introduced to Alex and Farah. We see her have a heartfelt reunion with Farah, and the two have a conversation while driving where Dena expresses her concerns about wanting Urzikstan to remain peaceful but assures Farah that everyone will support her. After, Dena is suddenly shot in the chest, and Farah is forced to take control of the vehicle they’re in, which ultimately flips over and we get Farah’s first death fakeout.

It’s in this cutscene that we see a lingering shot on Dena as well as her corpse being thrashed in the car as Farah tries to take control and as it flips. We are given a Middle Eastern woman showing hope for her country that the peace she has fought for will be maintained only to then watch her die for shock value and a fakeout for another character, and watch her body fly across the car as it flips. We don’t get that with either of the other two gunshot deaths in this game. Soap’s is just as sudden, but we see it coming, and there are no shots of his body being thrown about, no closer views of his face like there are with Dena. Shepherd’s is entirely off-screen and all we’re left with is a shot of him lying face down on his desk - no blood or bullet wound in sight.

Notably, the only other person we see a comparable amount of blood on in this game is Makarov, the enemy of the series.

Samara, who gets the worst death in this game, in my opinion, is a retired ULF soldier we’re introduced to on a plane. I’ll start by saying I was under the assumption this may have been the reboot replacement for No Russian, the mission in which Makarov and Co. shot up Zakhaev International Airport to frame America for terrorism in the original series, and the mission that was teased after the credits in the MW2 reboot. We get the scene of Makarov and his men at the airport before boarding the plane, which could just be a nod to the original mission. However, until there is an official reboot of the No Russian mission, I’m going to assume this was Activision’s new take on it. 

In this mission, we learn that Makarov plans to use this plane bombing to frame Urzikstan, Farah and the ULF specifically. The thing is, as Big Mak and friends are in the airport preparing to board, we are shown that the ULF is already being blamed for the missile attack on Arklov Military Base from the previous mission where their missiles were stolen, capped with Konni’s chemical gas, and one was detonated. There’s even a news sequence showing that the world already thinks of the ULF as a terrorist organization, and has not-so-quietly thought that for years. That makes this upcoming scene feel not only unnecessary but like a deliberate choice made by Activision to be extra cruel to a Middle Eastern character. 

We see Samara text with her family and are shown a picture of her husband and children before the man next to her begins speaking to her in Arabic. He compliments her family and, I assume as we’re not directly shown, gets the No Russian text - a text, for those who have not played the original games, meaning to not speak Russian to not tie the terrorist act they’re about to commit back to the Russians. The Traveler, as he's called, then reveals that he knows who she is, knows her family, and knows that she is a former ULF soldier and fought the Russians. He then pulls a gun on her and Makarov and Konni take the plane hostage, purposely speaking Arabic and declaring this is for Urzikstan. 

We are then forced to watch as Samara fights back, but is ultimately taken to Makarov where a bomb is strapped to her chest. He gives his usual cryptic speech, and over-explains to the audience what’s happening before diving out of the plane D.B. Cooper style. 

Samara is then dragged to the back of the plane by a Hijacker, where the remaining passengers are, kicking and fighting and trying to reason with him to stop. He pauses and we then get this exchange:

Hijacker: Are you a terrorist?

Samara: No…

Hijacker: You look like one.

He then puts a gun in her hands, tosses the cellphone that will let her stop the bomb, and shoves her into a crowd where we have to watch her struggle to explain what’s happening to her and that she needs the phone to a crowd of people that are either afraid of or angry with her. She is shoved to the ground by a random man, forced to fight through people trying to tackle and beat her, and, when the phone is finally within reach in the hands of a scared passenger, the plane blows up. 

I want to emphasize that most of this is a cutscene. There are a few button presses for the player to try and get the phone, and you are allowed to look around and try to fight back, but that is quickly stopped, and you are forced to sit and watch through Samara’s perspective. The end result? There’s an investigation for who may have done this, and you play as Farah collecting evidence from the crash site so Makarov can’t frame the ULF. The mission succeeds, because it’s a story mission and it has to, Makarov is unable to control the narrative so people can only suspect the ULF did it but can’t prove it, and Samara…died for nothing. All of that was so people could suspect the ULF was a terrorist organization, which the game has previously gone out of its way to establish was already happening before Makarov got on that flight. This entire sequence and the mission after added nothing to the storyline other than the brutal forcing of a Middle Eastern woman to hijack a plane 9/11 style and die a death worse than two of the series’s main characters.

Two side characters, two Middle Eastern women who have never existed before this game, are put in this game solely to die in ways where their deaths are more emphasized and graphic than a character we’ve played as since the series began, and one of the main villains. 

There is a genocide happening in Palestine. Islamophobia in the United States, and the West as a whole, is rising to post-9/11 heights. There is already so much propaganda being spread in an attempt to dehumanize the men, women, and children who are being murdered by Israeli forces, to justify the actions - the war crimes - of the Israeli forces. Could this be a sloppy attempt at Activision trying to mirror real-life stereotypes and how quick the media is to jump to the Arab = Bad narrative? Possibly. I don’t think it is. I think this was a deliberate change from the original No Russian mission in which America is framed for terrorism, made by an American company that makes games meant to garner interest and support in the American military, during a time when the American government is being criticized for funding and aiding an ethnic cleansing. 

As slapped together as this game was, I don’t believe they couldn’t have changed the campaign in the time since the situation in Palestine escalated to this level. I firmly believe it was a purposeful choice to write that scene, to film that scene, to keep that scene. 

It is blatant, it is clear, it is as in-your-face as it can possibly be. It is not something this fandom gets to ignore because they don’t like the campaign. It is not something this fandom gets to overshadow with Soap’s death as poorly written as it was. It is not something this fandom gets to stay silent about while also posting about #freepalestine. 

I have never expected the best when it comes to Islamophobia from the Call of Duty games or its fandom. I’ve never expected anything beyond mildly okay. Call of Duty is military propaganda, I know. The fandom is known for its racism and it’s not getting better, I know that especially. But I don’t see how anyone, in the times we’re living in right now, would be able to look at this and not acknowledge it for what it is. 

It is the purposeful brutalization of Middle Eastern characters. 

It is propaganda.

It is racism. 

It is Islamophobia. 

It is wrong. 

Engaging Critically/Acknowledging Privilege

While I may be stepping back from the CoD fandom, I understand that not everyone is going to. For some people, these games are a comfort or an escape. I’m not here to call for a boycott of Call of Duty or Activision while there are more important boycotts to be focusing on - and you can find more info on them here & here.

What I am asking, particularly of those of us in the fandom that are not being directly affected by what’s happening in Palestine, is that there is more acknowledgment of the level of privilege that we have and that people learn to engage more critically with the media they consume. 

It is a privilege to play a game like Call of Duty and not have to think about the propaganda. It is a privilege (and ignorant) to say “it’s not political”, “it’s just pixels”, or “it’s not real”. It is a privilege to be able to just turn the game off and never have to think about war, and the impact of the representation of the characters, and the real-life events that these games base themselves on. And this isn’t just a CoD issue, this is something that should be considered with every piece of media you engage with. 

There is no such thing as a “politics-free” book/movie/game/show. Everything carries the biases - conscious or subconscious - of the person or people who created it. There is no such thing as media or fiction not having an effect on real life, especially in a fandom for what is essentially War Crimes: The Game.

I’m going to take a quote from this post by @yeyinde.

"It’s incredibly egregious to pretend that the media you consume isn’t based, in some part, on real life or has no repercussions outside of it just being fiction. And it’s especially dishonest to say this isn’t the case within the COD fandom when people have said that the erasure of Gaz from the fandom in favour of a white character is traumatising. The portrayal of the Middle East is traumatising. The portrayal of Makarov in fiction as an uwu-sympathetic babbie is traumatising. The portrayal of the military as heroes is traumatising. These are real people expressing real emotions and bringing up important matters that impact them long after they’ve logged out of tumblr. Just because they stop being relevant to you after that does not, and SHOULD NOT, matter. Their trauma, their feelings, and their interpretations shouldn’t be ignored in favour of some catch-all excuse to limit your responsibility as a consumer to think critically about the media you’re devouring just because it has no consequences for you."

Fiction mirrors real life whether you want to admit it or not. It shows real biases, and it affects real people. Participating in fiction and the surrounding culture does not magically absolve you of consequences. It does not suddenly mean you get a free pass at things like sexism, racism, ableism, colorism, romanticization of abuse and sexual assault, etc. just because your escapist fantasies are conveniently free of people who are different from you.

It may be your fiction, but it is someone else’s non-fiction, and you do not get to decide that it isn’t or that the impact doesn’t matter because it’s about fictional characters.

I'm going to link another post from @yeyinde with another quote here.

"It’s easy to get swept up into something when you have no tangible ties to the effects of what’s being portrayed, which can lead to making dismissive or hurtful statements out of pure ignorance. My biggest gripe was the excuses being laundered out and (either unintentionally or intentionally) giving the creators a pass for what they created and the harm they caused other people to experience. Just because they did not experience the same trauma, it does not diminish its impact on others. This is a very important distinction, which I think was being missed."

Does this mean you can’t ever write or read about traumatic things, or that you can’t enjoy the CoD games ever again? No. 

But I need you all to understand that you can criticize the media you enjoy. You should criticize the media you enjoy. Criticism does not mean never letting yourself enjoy a piece of media again. Criticism does not mean trying to get a character or creator “cancelled”. Criticism does not automatically equal hate.

Criticism is an act of love, and it is necessary when deconstructing and confronting biases - both yours and other people's.

Resources To Support Palestine

The lovely @moondirti provided some organizations where you can donate to support the humanitarian aid in Gaza with the note:

It's important to acknowledge that, while limited aid is being allowed through, recent negotiations have allowed your charity to reach the people of Palestine.

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS

PALESTINE CHILDREN RELIEF FUND

UNITED MISSION FOR RELIEF – PALESTINE EMERGENCY

ANERA

Onto the actual game.

The 141

I don't know what happened during development between this game and MW2, but the relationship between the members of the 141 is severely lacking. We get the usual Soap and Ghost banter for one mission, because, let’s be real, that's what got a lot of people into the last game, but that's about it? There’s nothing new, nothing added to their relationships, and the game sticks to the same duos (Ghost/Soap & Price/Gaz) that we’ve had for the past two games. Even Soap and Ghost’s banter during the attack on Milena’s private island doesn’t have the same impact on the characters as their banter during the Alone mission in MW2. They get a few lines about Soap admiring Milena’s cars and Ghost taunting him about marrying an Oligarch, and…that’s it until the cutscene where they interrogate her.

There’s maybe a few quippy lines here and there, but overall the 141 gives off the same feeling as a group of semi-friendly co-workers that sometimes work on the same project rather than an actual team that has shed blood, sweat, and tears with each other.

This would’ve been such a great time to explore deeper into the team dynamics, show us pairings we don’t get to see as often and build on those relationships, make us really feel for these characters on a personal level. In the original series, you got a feel for every character and their team dynamics, and the player felt the impact of each death as they watched the other characters react (something I’ll talk about later). With this game, we get…what? Four men that desperately need a lozenge throwing a few sassy one-liners at each other and giving each other a harsh pat on the back like a bunch of dads at a barbecue?

I feel like so much of the heavy labor regarding the 141 in the reboot is done through fanfiction at this point because this game especially gives us barely anything to go on, and that’s such a missed opportunity on Activision’s part considering how so much of MW2’s popularity came from the relationship built between Soap and Ghost. It all just feels so hollow and surface-level; there’s no depth here, no attempt to build a connection from the player to this group as a team. In my opinion, Activision relies too heavily on the older fanbase’s connection to the original series, and the newer fanbase’s self-created characterizations, to fill in the blanks so they can leave these characters as empty and vanilla as possible in order to appeal to a broader audience.

And they’ve still somehow managed to fail at that. Speaking of failing...

Graves and Shepherd

Graves should’ve died in that fucking tank, and I will stand by that opinion even after I die. It was such a cop-out to have him live, and for him to suddenly come back with the excuse, “Well, I wasn’t in that tank, blah, blah, blah.”

This is supposed to be a game series where characters die and stay dead. The characters die. Some die heroically, some die horrifically, some die quickly, some die painfully slow, most die bloody, but they die. It’s a staple of the series, like Game of Thrones pre-season 5. I don’t know if Activision didn’t know what to do with his character, or if they realized he was semi-popular with the fans and decided to magically bring him back via deus ex remote-controlled tank, or if they were trying to “subvert expectations” and give us all a little surprise plot twist, but it sucked.

Also, no one checked the tank for a body? That seems to be something everyone has a problem doing in these games, and I don’t know what Activision thinks that does for the 141, but what it does do is make these elite military officials look incompetent as hell because their “dead” enemies keep coming back.

There was nothing different that Graves did in this game from what he did in the previous game. We get the same air support mission from him that we got last game, and really that’s it. Okay sure, he’s working with Farah now, that’s a little different, but what did he do in that mission? Give her vague instructions on where to find some GPS trackers and then give her more vague instructions on where to find the missile containers to slap the trackers on? He could’ve easily been replaced with one of Farah’s people who scouted ahead, or Alex, or a decorative cowboy hat, and the mission would have gone the exact same.

Other than that he spends the entire game hiding behind Shepherd like a scared child up until the end when he ultimately turns on Shepherd, and even that felt so blah. He faces no consequences for his (racist) actions in Las Almas other than Gaz refusing to shake his hand, he faces no consequences for betraying the 141, going so far as to lie that it even happened in front of Congress, and he gets off completely free as far as we know. There was no point to his character, no point to bringing him back, no point to him being in this game at all, and if I find the Activision employee who decided to keep him alive I will be throwing hands expeditiously. 

Shepherd was…there, I guess? I’m sure he was meant to be a menacing, sly, back-stabbing character, but he came off as more irritating than anything. His rescue mission felt akin to being forced to babysit your annoying younger sibling who questions everything you do. They give you a cute little nod to the OG series with his cutscene with the 141 in the snow (because Activision has to rely on nostalgia and easter eggs since they know this game is emptier than the promises of an absentee father), but most of it is spent with Shepherd preaching about how great he is and threatening the 141 like he’s been doing the entire game. I’m sure he’s supposed to come off as clever, outsmarting the 141 and tricking them into rescuing him - this big, bad, battle-hardened General - but all of that is undercut by him getting captured to begin with.

The General Shepherd in the original series killed two of the player characters. How am I supposed to be intimidated by this nagging grandpa briskly jogging through the snow behind me in his ugly pajama jumpsuit? Even his ending is lackluster. He’s outwitted in front of Congress by Graves of all people, and then we get a cutscene where Price shoots him off-screen. That’s it. There was no satisfaction like in the original series, no triumph, no sense of vengeance, only a tired feeling of thank god I don’t have to deal with this anymore. This constant attempt at build-up in this reboot series of Shepherd being this looming figure over the 141 ends not with a bang, and not even with a whimper.

Makarov

I’m going to start this off by saying I mean absolutely no hate to Julian Kostov, Makarov’s actor, he definitely did his job.

Unfortunately, that job was playing a random Russian man that happened to have the same name as the Vladimir Makarov from the original series. He’s literally just a dude. There’s nothing particularly menacing about him, nothing that really screams Leader of an Ultranationalist group, nothing that would set him apart in a line-up of kind-of-gruff white men. I wasn’t expecting him to be some over-the-top supervillain, but he feels too normal, too regular, too everyday. Maybe that was the point Activision was trying to make - that having a villain with too-sharp features, eyebrows with in-your-face arches, and two-toned eyes is realistically too much - but it feels like they leaned too far in the opposite direction to compensate.

How am I supposed to take Makarov seriously when they gave him such big, brown, babygirl eyes? Though I realize this may be a character model issue because everyone in this game seemed to have huge doe eyes at one point or another (looking directly at you and those unblinking baby blues, Soap).

The first time we get a proper cutscene with Makarov, he shoots one of his own men – one who had questioned his plan in the rescue mission – and he gives some passionate Make Russia Great Again speech that involves a lot of big gestures, promises of showing the world “true power”, and him being weirdly touchy with one of his men. It’s not a bad scene, and I think Julian really shines here as Makarov. It’s a little in-your-face for me, but overall not a bad introduction to what is supposed to be the overarching big bad for the rest of the series. It gives you a good enough sense of danger, and just enough worry for the main crew as they get ready to go up against this guy.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn’t really follow through on that. Makarov spends more time monologuing, asking his men “philosophical” questions about prisoners and guards, and cryptically foreshadowing at the 141 than he does doing…anything. We are told about all of the bad deeds he’s done. We are told how evil he is. We are told that Makarov needs to be stopped at all costs. The only problem is, we aren’t shown any of that. We see the aftermath of Verdansk, a distant explosion after Makarov has been captured, but we never see Makarov do any of that. When we do get to see Makarov, his men are doing all of the dirty work while he stands around and looks evil. It’s his men fighting and killing guards to get him out of prison, his men attacking Farah and her soldiers, his men launching missiles topped with biochemicals, his men forcing Samara to blow up a plane, his men guarding Milena and his finances. The most he does during any of these scenes is order his men around and give evil villain speeches to give the audience exposition about why he’s doing all this.

We probably see more of Makarov’s shirtless Tinder pic than we see him in action. 

In the original series, we see Makarov being at the forefront of his movement, unafraid to get his hands dirty. He is part of the group that commits the massacre/terrorist attack on Zakhaev International Airport, he kills the two FSO agents protecting President Vorshevsky, he’s the one who shoots and kills Yuri, and that’s only part of what we see in-game. Sure, we’re told about his other crimes, but we’re shown enough to back up the claims that he is evil. In this game, he kills two people himself, one of them being his own soldier that I mentioned earlier, and the other being Soap (and we’ll get to that later). Two extremely lackluster deaths that are over before you get the chance to really digest them. Maybe he kills more people during the intro mission when you rescue him, but it’s during gameplay and easily missed when you’re too busy trying to fight your way out of this Arkham-esque prison. I think I could look past it if he wasn’t also present during some of the scenes where his men are carrying out his atrocities for him, but instead, Activision chose to have him in the background standing there…menacingly. 

I don’t want to say Makarov was a bad villain; he was certainly better than Shepherd and Graves. I just think Activision made very strange choices with his character that resulted in him becoming this weird mishmash of an average monologuing movie villain and the micromanaging boss that stands over your shoulder, and it took a lot of the “oomph” out of his character for me. 

Soap's Death

I hope whoever made this decision at Activision has to live the rest of their life constantly feeling like they have to sneeze and are never able to. What the fuck happened here? In what world did Soap’s death make any kind of sense here? This felt like they knew fans were expecting someone to die (and they already retconned the yeehaw war criminal) so they put a bunch of names in a hat and had some poor unpaid intern pick one out. 

I have not been quiet about how much death I wanted in this game. I expected at least two deaths, with one of them preferably being Price. Going into this I was prepared to lose characters, and I was prepared to lose them to a heroic sacrifice, to an exhaustingly epic gunfight, to an explosion in a clocktower, to literally anything, but I was not prepared to lose a character to bad writing. And that’s what Soap’s death was. There is no build-up to it throughout the game other than a cryptic, “I’ll see you again, MacTavish.” from Makarov in a flashback scene. There’s no exploration of Soap’s character arc, his background, his family. There’s nothing.

Price and Soap try to defuse a bomb, Makarov shows up and his men overpower them, Makarov goes for the kill on Price, and instead shoots Soap when Soap tries to stop him. The entire cutscene can be summed up as A Series Of Conveniences. Makarov conveniently gets to Soap and Price just as they’re about to defuse the bomb, the officers they have with them are conveniently incompetent to stop any of Makarov’s men, Makarov’s men conveniently don’t notice Soap getting up to stop him from shooting Price, Ghost and Gaz are conveniently one second too late save Soap, and a train conveniently passes by to let Makarov make his escape. It’s over in less than a minute, and there’s little to no reaction from the surviving 141 members before the game starts shoving in your face that there’s a bomb you have to defuse that has conveniently not gone off yet and was conveniently missed in all of the gunfire.

Aside from the bullshit way it happened, the most disappointing thing here was the cutting of Soap’s arc and the lack of reaction from Price, Ghost, and Gaz. There was no growth for Soap in this game, no building of his story that would make his death feel like a satisfying conclusion. We just got the same Soap we’ve had in the rest of the series, and then he was gone. And the fact that we got absolutely nothing from the team in that moment was so…frustrating. Yeah, Ghost kneels by his body, and gives a brief, “Johnny!” but that’s…it? Price says nothing. Gaz rushes to the bomb and says nothing. After that moment in the cutscene, Ghost says and does nothing. There’s not even a hitch in their voices as they finish disarming the bomb. In Soap’s original death, we got Price screaming and begging over his body. We got to see his grief and pain and hurt at losing someone so close to him. Here we get…them standing over the body, a cut to black, and then a funeral cutscene that doesn’t feel earned full of commiserations that feel empty, hollow, and generic. 

Maybe I’m too nostalgic for the Captain MacTavish we had in the original series, and the death they gave him that was impactful enough that people still talk about it to this day. Maybe there’s something meaningful here that I’m not seeing. Or maybe Activision can’t write for shit and rushed Soap’s death without a care just like they rushed this game as a quick cash grab to ride the hype of MW2.

Whatever the reason, these characters deserved far better.

Soap deserved better.

And I deserved to see a rebooted Captain MacTavish.

Gameplay

This section is going to be short because I didn’t spend money on this game to actually play it, I only watched gameplay. The general consensus seems to be that this game is nothing but glorified DMZ, and I can’t disagree with that. Supposedly, at least two of the campaign settings were ripped straight from Warzone, the Gulag and Verdansk Stadium, and I think that really shows how much of this game was slapped together because Activision wanted to hurry to release so they could capitalize off the CoD hype as much as possible. The combat is the same in every mission, the air support mission is as boring as ever, the NPC AI is all over the place, and the character models constantly shift from being really good to mobile game bad within the same cutscene.

I’m not saying I could do better, but I don’t think I could do worse. You can take that however you’d like.

The Writing/Storyline

Starting off, I’m going to say this with my whole chest:

Main story content should be in the main story, and not in optional or additional content.

Look, I don’t mind an easter egg here and there in DLC. I don’t mind the mention of a big bad in an extra, paid quest to build up hype. What I do mind is when the understanding of the main storyline of your game is dependent on things that happen in content that players are required to complete outside of the main game. 

Do you know how we found out Alex was alive? An optional Raid.

Do you know how we learned Graves was a little bitch and wasn’t in the tank? An optional Raid.

Do you know how we–

You get my point. These kinds of reveals should have been in the main storyline because they pertain to the main storyline. Otherwise, you have people reacting with confusion because the main campaign was all they played, and they were left under the assumption that Alex may or may not be dead, that Graves burned in that tank in Las Almas, that Farah’s brother (Remember him? Activision doesn’t.) was alive and out there somewhere, etc, etc. It feels like they’re trying to do what Marvel does when they interweave their cinematic universe with their television shows: leave references to things only the more committed audience - the audience who will watch every show, play every game, see every movie, buy every DLC - would understand while punishing everyone else. It feels lazy on Activision’s end, and cheapens any kind of suspense they may leave us with going forward.

I wouldn’t even be surprised to see something like “Oh, Soap died and Makarov escaped at the end of the main campaign? Just kidding! They revealed in the newest Raid that Soap actually survived, and Makarov got hit by that train at the end.”

Outside of that, the whole storyline just feels unnecessary. This whole game feels unnecessary. I know there are rumors that this was meant to be a DLC for MW2 that got extended into a full game because Activision wanted more money, and if I didn’t already believe that, the writing would confirm it for me. Nothing feels fleshed out. Not the story, not the plot, not the characters. It all feels very surface-level and shallow, like more of the exact same thing we got in the last game, but somehow worse. The banter between the 141 is just not there, the tell don’t show when it comes to Makarov, the rapid POV switching, it all feels so thrown together, so last minute, like the writers had no idea what they wanted to do up until release. 

One thing that really bothered me was the constant death fakeouts. It felt like every mission something awful would happen and one character would be left with their fate unknown in a dramatic cut to black as a cheap way to build suspense…only for that suspense to be immediately undercut by showing them alive in the very next cutscene. This happens with Farah (twice), Price, Alex (partially, there’s no cut to black, but there is a fakeout that he has been captured), and Laswell all within the first half of the game. At some point, it starts to get irritating and kills any and all suspense going forward. I was spoiled on Soap’s death, I knew it was coming before I watched the cutscenes, but by the time I got there, I was almost expecting Soap to show up in the next sequence without a scratch on him. Up until that point, I had stopped caring when characters were in danger because the writing led me to believe everyone was safe. There’s a way to build suspense, and every writer understands that, a majority of the time, less is more, so I don’t get how this went so unbelievably wrong. 

The characterization is also so weirdly off. In what world would John “Somebody has to make the enemy scared of the dark. We get dirty, and the world stays clean.” Price not immediately take a kill shot when he has Makarov in custody? Soap was ready to kill every person he talked to in this game, so why did he let Makarov live? Why would Gaz advocate for giving Shepherd a gun after his multiple betrayals that he shows no remorse for? Why would Farah continue to begrudgingly work with Graves after learning about Las Almas? Why is Makarov over-explaining his plans to his victims?

I’m not saying I expect Shakespeare-level writing from a Call of Duty game, but I expect something better than whatever this is. 

I don’t know who Activision hired for their writing team, but there are so many instances here where I almost have to believe that they may not have hired one at all.

Overall Thoughts

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to who I was before I watched this campaign. This whole game was nothing but a DLC lazily stretched to two hours with assets taken from other games and a storyline that was slapped together using blindfolds, a dartboard, and too much alcohol. Please do not use your money to buy this game. Your money would be much better spent donating to help Palestine.

[herebecritters]

Overwhelmed ♥️

Screwy belongs to @ickyguts

[void-ink-studios]

Rinse and Spit [Part 4] - A Mouthwashing AU

Chapter 4 is here, and it's a messy one. Seriously. Read the content warning. It's Jimmy's breaking point. Seriously, this one's a doosey.

Read on AO3 here.

Content Warning:

There is not Sexual Assault in this chapter, but there are interactions written to intentionally mirror one

Forced Cannibalism

Torture with medical devices

Word Count: 3,000

If anyone feels I need to add more trigger warning tags, please let me know and I will do so.

Jimmy didn’t do much at first.  In the darkness of the Med Bay, after the screen’s sunset changed to a night scene, Curly could barely make out the outline of Jimmy’s face.

But he could see his eyes.  His empty eyes that just stared at him.

“You just couldn’t wait, could you?”

Curly watched as Jimmy stepped forward, the artificial moon light reflecting off his face.  The captain could see the blank expression on his face.

“All you people had to do was give me time to think.”

He tapped the empty gun lock box with his foot.  He slid it quietly out of his path in his slow approach towards Curly.

“I was fixing things.  I was going to make it all better.  I was going to set things right.”

Jimmy stopped at the chair next to Curly’s bed, taking a seat.

“All you had to do was let me fucking think.”

Curly watched him, trying to keep even his breathing as still as possible.  Maybe if he was as unresponsive as possible, he’d lose interest and leave?

“What did you fucking tell them, Curly?”  The captain flinched as Jimmy hit his fist into the wall next to his head.  “First Swansea’s telling Anya who fucking knows what… Then Daisuke stops talking to me… And now they’re all acting fucking screwy.  What did you tell them?  Was it before the crash?  Or have you been giving me the silent treatment this whole time?”

Curly shook his head.  He could hear his own heartbeat starting to pick up speed.  There was something in Jimmy’s eyes tonight.  But it wasn’t good.  It was something… unstable.  And he didn’t like it being directed onto him.

“Bullshit.  Trying to tell me you’d fix everything.  You were going to throw me to the wolves.  But I forgive you.  Even though none of you have ever apologized, I forgive each and every one of you.  Every night.  But I’m cleaning up the mess.  I’m making everything all better.”

Jimmy was leaning closer, invading Curly’s space.  The captain could smell something on his breath.  Mouthwash…?

“It’s a virtuous cycle.  You should be more considerate about what I’m dealing with, honestly.  I’m trying to be the best captain I can, given the mess you left me.”

If Curly didn’t think his life was literally in the hands of this man’s mood, he would’ve rolled his eye hard enough to fall out of his head.

There was suddenly a hand on him.  A hand placed on the stump that would’ve been Curly’s hand a few months ago.  It made his breath hitch as he tried to pull back, but Jimmy gripped it.  It squeezed a bit of blood caught under the bandages, making Curly wheeze softly in pain.

“How did things get so bad?  How could you let it all go so wrong, Captain?  I always heard about what a great leader you were…”

The hand traveled from the stump very slowly up his arm.  Jimmy’s nails dragged over the edges of the bandages, making them tug on the wounded skin.  Curly tried to pull his arm away, but the pilot wouldn’t let go.  He laughed a little at the struggle.

“You’re lively tonight.  Decided to be a person today, Curly?”

The hand reached the sleeve of the hospital gown and lingered.  Fingers reached under to pick more at the bandages, digging themselves to touch his actual skin.  Curly whined, the stinging sensation traveling up and down his arm and shoulder.  Still, he continued to try and pull back.

“I still think goodness exists, Curly.  Even in circumstances like ours.  If you sit still and wait for it long enough… it will arrive.  No thanks to the people around you though.  Is that what you did?  Is that where I went wrong?”

The hand traveled up the sleeve more, squeezing at Curly’s shoulder.  The touch burned, Curly could feel the lingering touch on his skin like acid had been left there.

“Maybe that was my problem.  I didn’t sit and wait for it enough.  I just kept struggling.  But you?  You just got to be you, unstoppable you, and you were floated up the ladder.  I bet you thought you were real generous when you graciously offered me a hand to get me on the ladder.”

Finally, mercifully, Jimmy removed his hand from under the sleeve.  It was covered in blood, but he seemed to pay it no mind as he placed it on top of the hospital gown this time, still lingering at his shoulder.

“People like me don’t live, Curly.  But, then again, neither do people like you, at least now.  No, we don’t live.  We survive.  I mean, look at you.  Surviving.  Relying on all of us to do so, but you’re surviving.  Look at that.  You’re sitting here, and goodness is arriving.”

The hand started wandering away from his shoulder, moving towards his neck and chest.  Curly thought he’d be in for another attempted strangulation.  He still doesn’t understand Jimmy.  How in the great inky void he can look him in the eye, call him his best friend, and then press all of his weight down on his neck.

I hope this hurts

It seemed he really didn’t understand Jimmy how he thought, considering the strangulation would be preferable to what he ended up doing next.

The hand traced around the dips of his neck, motioning like he was going to grasp it but… It didn’t.  Instead, it wandered down, resting on Curly’s chest.  He stopped to feel Curly’s heart beat.  He smiled… sadly?  The captain really didn’t know how to read his expressions these days.

“How did things get this bad?  I feel terrible about all the things… I feel terrible.  You tried to warn me.  How fucked everything is at the top.  Why didn’t I listen to you…?”

Curly’s breath hitched again at the hand slipped under the collar of the gown, digging into and under the bandages he found there.  The Captain squirmed, even trying to shove Jimmy back with his arms, but the pilot wouldn’t budge.

“Why did you have to go check, Curly?  I never meant for you to get this hurt.  We were going to die.  We were all supposed to die.  But you had to go fucking check, didn’t you?”

Curly’s breathing picked up as the hand continued to intrude, pulling at bandages to nestle onto his skin, continuing to squeeze and wander on his chest.  In the reflection of the artificial light, the captain could see tears in Jimmy’s eyes.

“...I never expected them to come look for you… I told them I saw you run out of the cockpit right before the crash.  But you just keep ruining things, don’t you?  You kept screaming.  For a fucking hour.  How did you stay alive to scream for a whole hour, Curly?  Why wouldn’t you just fucking die?  If you did, I wouldn’t have to keep looking at you.  Wouldn’t have to keep giving you your fucking medicine.  You keep staring at me like I’m the freak here.  Why did you do this to me?”

Curly was reeling.  He left him.  He fucking heard him screaming and ignored it.  Kept rescue away for an hour.  He could remember sitting there, screaming until his voice just wouldn’t allow him.  He knew the impact took his eye, took one of his hands and that side of his chest.  But the fire ate everything else.  Trapped under rubble and expanding foam, being eaten alive by fire.

The fire took his other hand.

The rubble crushed his legs, and the fire had its fill.

The fire chewed his flesh.

And then the fire took his voice.

He remembered getting finally found and dug out by Swansea.  He remembered Anya screaming, asking where he was.  He remembered Daisuke questioning how he was still alive.

And he remembered Jimmy asking what Curly had done.

And the next thing he knew, he was waking up wrapped in bandages, half blind, sitting in front of that stupid fucking sunset.  And in indescribably agony.

All this time, he thought he just couldn’t be heard over the alarm.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that.”

Curly snapped out of his rage fueled thoughts by Jimmy’s voice.  He didn’t even realize he was looking at him this whole time.  The grip tightened even further.  The captain could feel his skin ripping underneath his fingernails, warm blood starting to pool under his hand.

“Stop looking at me like that.”  The grip on Curly’s chest tightened, threatening to break the delicate layer of skin trying its best to heal.  “You’re always fucking looking at me like that, you’re always judging me.  You all do.  I’m sick of it.”

Jimmy mercifully let go, finally looking at the blood on his hand.  He wiped it off on Curly’s hospital gown before standing up, heading over to the drawers.

“I keep telling you to stop fucking staring at me, but you never listen.  I’m trying to help you, Curly, but I can’t do that when you’re looking at me like some kind of monster.”

He rummaged through them, silently cursing to himself.  Clearly looking for something.

“There’s enemies all around us, Curly.  They’re going to kill you.  I’m the only reason you’re alive.  You’re my friend, I’m the reason the others let you live.  You should be grateful.  But I don’t know if they’ll listen to me anymore.”

His voice was breaking, like he was ready to start weeping.

“You’re so ungrateful.  But maybe so was I.  I took your generosity for granted.  Never suspected you’d wipe your feet of me. You had so much power, power I never appreciated.  The highest rung on my ladder wouldn’t even be worth living to you.  But now…?”

He finally turned to look at Curly again.  The captain could see a glint of metal in Jimmy’s hand.

A scalpel.

No.  No, he wouldn't, right?

I hope this hurts

“You’re as powerless as I was.”

This wasn’t happening.  This couldn’t be happening.  No more did he want to scream than right this second, as Jimmy hoisted himself up on his bed and loomed over him.  The scalpel glinted in the artificial moon light.

Jimmy felt so much larger than Curly ever realized.  He could feel all of the weight of the man above him pressing down on his body.

He opened his mouth, hoping for some noise to escape, but Jimmy shoved his hand into his mouth, pressing down on his throat.

“Shhh… It’s okay.  Don’t scream.  This is for your own good.”

Jimmy held the scalpel close to his eye.  In a desperate prayer, Curly wrenched his head to look at the door.

Take Responsibility

I hope this hurts

“Who are you looking for?  The door’s locked.  No one can open that door except for you and Anya.  And… Well, we both know Anya’s not going to stop me.”

Curly felt rage burn.  It overrode his fear, the indignant fury.  An energy filled him, one he hasn’t had in months.

Take responsibility

His jaws clamped down as hard as he could.

I hope this hurts

The metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth.  He could feel his teeth crushing flesh.  Jimmy’s scream filled his ear as the man desperately tried to pull his hand out.  He heard the scalpel clatter somewhere on the floor.  Curly only let go when he felt his jaw go sore.

“You FUCKER!”

Jimmy gripped his hand close to his chest, looking at the damage.  Curly tasted the blood, felt it slide down his throat.  He wanted to vomit it back up, but his stomach was so empty…

There was a little knock on the Med Bay door.

“Jimmy?  You okay?”

Daisuke.

Curly opened his mouth to scream, only to have a hand press down hard on his throat, cutting off his air.

“Yes Daisuke, I’m fine .”

The door rattled a little.

“Why can’t I open the door?  Is it stuck?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s stuck.  I’ll find my way out, don’t worry.”

“Hold on.”

Jimmy cursed under his breath as he heard Daisuke leave.  Curly was starting to see spots in his vision as the hand pressed down harder.

“Now look what you’ve done.  They’re coming to kill us, Curly.  It’s mutiny.”

Jimmy finally let go of Curly’s neck, letting him gasp lungfuls of the stale air within the Tulpar.

“You deserve a captain’s goodbye… You haven’t had real food in months, right?  Let’s get you something to eat.  There’s no meat left in the kitchen.  But I have an idea.  Come on, Captain Curly.  We’re having a Hero’s feast.”

Jimmy climbed off of Curly and meandered back over to the cabinets and drawers.  The Captain had to think fast.  He didn’t know what Curly was thinking, but it couldn’t be good…

He tried to roll over and crawl, but where was he supposed to go?  It was just him on his little fabric island of a bed.  Then he looked down.

Nowhere to go but down.

“There we are.”

Curly didn’t even look at what Jimmy had found, just moved.  He used what strength he had to roll over and off the bed.  He tried to angle the fall in a way that wouldn’t hit his head on the chair, but it hardly mattered.  He felt the air drop out of him as his broken body hit the metal floor.

He made a slow, desperate crawl towards the door.  His entire body screamed for him to stop.  He felt barely healed tears in his skin split and bleed.  Every movement of his arms attempting to drag his weight across the floor made him feel as if he were made of lead.

“Jimbo.  What’s this about the door being stuck?”

Swansea.

Curly tried again.  Tried to scream, but now there was a work boot on his neck.  Jimmy stared down at him, a hack saw in his hand, the teeth of the blade reflecting the window screen.

“It’s just stuck, Swansea.  Don’t worry about it.  I’ll sleep in here and we’ll get me out in the morning, yeah?”

There was a long 

“Jim.  Is the door really stuck?  Or did you lock it?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Swansea.”

“I mean that if you were stuck, I know how you’d actually react.  You’d be complaining about how I don’t do my fucking job by making sure the doors don’t jam.  You’re not stuck.  You’re right where you want to be.”

“Don’t be silly.  I’m just tired.”

Jimmy took the boot off of Curly’s neck, bending down to scoop him up and carry him like a bride.  He unceremoniously dropped him back on the Med Bay bed, ignoring how the captain was kicking out his limbs to make him go away.

“Unlock the door, Jim.  You know we can unlock it from our side.  No need to make this harder.”

“I told you, I haven’t locked the door.  The door will open when it needs to.”

Jimmy sounded detached.  Like the borderline sobs he was holding back a few minutes ago were a long distant memory.

“Jim?  What are you up to?”

“Nothing, Swansea.  Nothing at all.”

Curly kicked as Jimmy approach him with the saw.  There was that emptiness in his eyes again.  A quiet acceptance.  As if what he was about to do was his solemn duty.  He grabbed Curly’s leg, hard, and held it down on the bed.

“Let’s feast.”

I hope this hurts

Curly didn’t see more than feel the next few seconds.

He felt the teeth of the blade sinking into his already ruined leg.  He felt the sawing motion, as if he was a piece of ham that Jimmy was carving.  He felt his vision go white from pain, and tears well up in his eye.  He felt his own heart pounding in his chest, he could hear the saw digging into the bone.

But he could mostly hear his own scream.

The first time he had heard his own voice in months.  And it’s a scream of agony.

He felt blood pooling out of his leg, trying his best to breathe through his agony.  It felt as if Jimmy has shoved a white hot poker into the stump below his knee and twisted it.

Jimmy inspected the piece of his leg he had sawed off.  The blade was dripping crimson, his hands were soaked in it.

“There.  This should be good enough.  Feast now, Curly.”

Curly didn’t even realize when Jimmy climbed back on top of him until his face was right against his.  The darkness in his eyes was inescapable.  Like he was staring into tar pits.  He thrashed and tried to push his former friend away with his stumps, but he didn’t move.  He didn’t even flinch.  He was smarter this time, using his hand to force his jaw open instead of sticking his fingers back in.

Please please please please no no no no no

Jimmy planted a soft kiss onto Curly’s forehead.

And then shoved the piece of meat down into his mouth.

Jimmy clamped Curly’s mouth closed, covering both teeth with his hand, and holding his jaw in place with the other.

Something was paralyzed in the captain’s mind.  A part that refused to process what was happening, refused to register what was in his mouth.  He struggled with every ounce of energy his body could muster, but Jimmy has always been bigger than him.  The pilot pressed down with most of his weight onto Curly’s head and face, keeping his mouth closed as tightly as possible.

No one heard the door unlock.

“Just accept it, Curly.”  Jimmy lifted and slammed down Curly’s head over and over, trying to jostle it off his tongue.

No one heard the door open.

“It’s your last meal, enjoy it.  Be grateful it’s not more Pony Express cake.”  Jimmy pressed his hand down, muffling any noise Curly could make.  He paid no mind to the bloody stumps the captain pressed into his face.  He never broke eye contact.

No one heard Anya cry out.

“Just fucking swallow it.”  The meat fell down his throat, his body reflexively trying to choke it down.

Everyone heard the gunshot.

[marlynnofmany]

Racetracking

“The good news,” announced the gravelly voice of Mimi the tentacle alien, “Is that this model defaults to zero-g when it breaks.” He led the way down the corridor with tentacle slaps instead of footsteps, which managed to sound exasperated.

I had the brief thought that he was louder than Mur and Wio when he walked, possibly because he spent so much time in the engine room where everything was noisy. But I put that thought aside. I had a pretty good idea what the bad news was.

“The bad news,” Mimi grumbled, “Is that the carrying cage that these high-paying customers insisted on is so broken that I can’t fix it. Even with the right tools.”

“So we have animals in zero-g,” I said.

Mimi waved a tentacle in a way that I privately found hilarious. “We just took off! Just! It’s like they’re trying to frame us for damages!”

I looked at him in alarm. “Are we sure they’re not?”

He made a dismissive motion, still walking. “That’s what the cameras in the storage holds are for. There’s proof that no one dropped it or whatever. And I think Captain Sunlight is already talking to them about it, which is a conversation I do not envy her.”

I winced. “Yeah. Which animals? It’s just one of the carriers, right?”

“The little ones. I dunno what they’re called. They were alive when I left, but they looked pretty upset.”

That didn’t narrow it down. As the ship’s resident animal expert, I’d had a look at each of the half-dozen life support chambers that passed for carriers among the rich folks. Each of them held a different type of little furry whatsit in wild colors. Each was sealed with its own supply of air and gravity — or at least it was supposed to be.

I couldn’t hear any distressed noises yet, but when Mimi poked the button for the door, it slid open to a chorus of muffled squeaks.

The six chambers were lined up in a row, on display in the center of the room, with nothing close enough to so much as touch them. Five held animals calmly nosing around the bottom.

One held a whirling tornado of blue fur.

I dashed over to peer through the glass, hands dancing uncertainly. I shouldn’t touch it, shouldn’t open it. But—!

…But.

I looked closer. “They’re running.” I dropped my hands and stared.

Mimi plopped down next to me. “Is that bad?”

“No, it’s just — Look at them! They’re doing this on purpose!” I started to smile as I realized why the squeaks sounded familiar. “They’ve made their own hamster wheel.”

“A what now?” Mimi wanted to know.

I gestured vaguely. “It’s an exercise thing for animals like this where I’m from. A wheel that they run inside of, and it keeps spinning. These guys—” I pointed at the chamber. “—Have created their own.”

“Uh-HUH.” Mimi tilted his head to watch the antics, which were slowing down as they noticed us. “That is a strange reaction to zero-gravity.”

“I’ve heard of mice that did that, actually,” I said as a memory surfaced. “It took them a while to make a game of it. I wonder if this isn’t the first time the carrier’s gravity has gone screwy.”

Mimi held a curl of tentacle thoughtfully to his face. “That is an interesting data point. The captain will want to know.” He lowered it. “And if you’re sure these things aren’t about to die of organ explosion or whatever, then we should go tell her.”

The blue furry things — which did honestly look a lot like mice — had settled down to some more even-tempered bumping around in there. None were limping as far as I could tell, and none had been knocked unconscious or worse.

“I think they’re okay,” I said, looking closely. “The food dispenser is closed, thankfully, so there aren’t any pellets or globs of water floating about. They just got a bit of excitement.”

Mimi levered himself off the floor. “They’re not the only ones,” he grumbled. “Annoying little meatsticks must be in cahoots with the rich jerks, trying to make our lives harder. Why would they even do that?”

I gave the chamber one last look, then stood and followed him toward the door. “I dunno, it looks like fun. Probably a lot of animals would enjoy that if they knew it was an option.”

Mimi stared at me with one large eye. “Animals from your planet.”

“Well, yeah. Probably others too.”

He made a wet-sounding snort of skepticism and led the way into the hall.

I followed, smiling. “Come on, it looks like fun. I was just thinking it would be neat to try in a zero-g room, though flat walls wouldn’t be as good as curved ones.”

“Your planet’s full of weirdos. You know that, right?”

“Oh, it’s been said before.”

~~~

Thanks to this post for inspiration! It was too good an idea to pass up.

Anyways, this is the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. But you probably already knew that.

[soaps-mohawk]

CR:CB is so ingrained in my head because of you Rory... (thank you, I love your writing🥰😘)

..that I caught myself using the term "distressing" when my dad had called just a bit ago asking why he heard me freaking out and sounding distressed while I was over at my parents place earlier. Told him "I was already distressing from stuff I'd found out (about my work schedule) last week." And now.. the paycheck I got today is all screwy and I have yet to receive the paystub for it. So yeah I'm distressing a lil bit

So congrats, you got me using the term "distressing" as if I'm a little Omega struggling to survive in this world. 🫡🤨

Which honestly, it kinda feels like it most days🙄😮‍💨😵‍💫

Omg not you using CRCB lingo in real life 😭 I feel that though I too am an omega struggling to survive in this world.

I am sorry you're going through that though that's super stressful 😭 especially paycheck stuff. That's the worst kind of stress to have. I hope it gets solved soon!!