#I think that's what we call maximum authenticity
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I AM considering picking up knitting purely to make myself a purple scarf for a Caleb cosplay, but also, I think at that point I become a farce of myself, so perhaps not.
#I think that's what we call maximum authenticity#for the record the only thing I DO really need to make for a caleb cosplay is the book harness but I don't wanna do that :(#I also to be clear do not want to knit. knitting seems irritating to me. but also imo I always like the feeling of knit better so#cursed to increasingly difficult hobbies 😔#anyway I do think this would be VERY funny of me. I am probably not gonna do it cuz it took me like 27 years to manage to crochet but.#REALLY I should pick up sewing properly and make a dress for my wizard PC. it would take a decade but alas
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N7 Month, 2023 - Day 21: Omni-tool
Continuing Mshenko drabbles in the Shepard museum.
++
More people were milling about in the Shepard Exhibit. The Reaper War wing was the reason most people came to visit the Alliance Military History Museum, and the museum knew it. The architecture of the place basically bent the crowds toward the popular wing, and the exhibits themselves were designed to facilitate those crowds and still offer each visitor an experience that felt personal.
“Do you suppose when this exhibit travels, every museum it goes too is gonna be this big?” Kaidan whispered.
“…this exhibit travels?” Shepard turned his head, eyes wide but brow heavy, looking at Kaidan overtop his sunglasses.
“Yes,” Kaidan snorted. “It’s been in the Smithsonian, Pathanaxx Provincial, the British Museum…”
“I thought it lived here,” Shepard’s expression was growing stony. “It at least makes sense here. What’s my armor doing hanging in a salarian natural history museum?”
“Attracting visitors by the millions,” Kaidan hissed conspiratorially, turning Shepard by the shoulders to show him how many people were now, at this very moment, gawking at his armor.
“This couldn’t feel any stranger.”
“I’ll take that bet, look over here,” Kaidan took his hand and led him to a wall of alcoves. Before Shepard could read the plaque, his audio-tour began to speak.
“Essential to every soldier, the omni-tool has seen use on the frontier and the front-lines for almost a decade. Commander Shepard’s omni-tool would have not only have been by his side day-to-day (from sending and logging comm signals, to processing messages, to reminding the Commander his schedule), but also on the battle field modifying his arsenal.
In these alcoves, you can access a copy of Commander Shepard’s authentic omni-tool. Fee free to scroll through the battle data taken during every battle of the Reaper War in which Commander Shepard took part. Listen to the famous comms recordings that signaled the turn of the tide in real time! ‘Spectre Access Granted’ to read the messages from the Council during the Citadel Coup! See what mods Shepard used to win the war!
Due to high traffic, we ask that you please keep your experience with the Commander Shepard Omni-Tool installation to a maximum of ten minutes.”
Shepard didn’t even respond, casting a side-eye towards Kaidan, who may or may not have noticed it before dragging Shepard toward one of the alcoves. Still ahead of the morning’s traffic, it wasn’t hard for them to find an unoccupied alcove. There was a cylindrical, rigid sleeve mounted tastefully on a pedestal within the enclosure, a sign indicating you should put your arm through the sleeve.
“Well?” Kaidan said, smiling/
“’Well’ what?” Shepard scoffed. “You’re the one who wanted to come in here.”
“It’s gotta be you, c’mon!”
Shepard rolled his eyes, but put his arm through the cylinder. A familiar orange haptic interface of an omni-tool glittered to life around his forearm. It was tastefully dim inside the alcove, and Kaidan removed his dark glasses to huddle closer to the interface.
“Well, it looks like my old home screen…” Shepard tapped interface and called up the menu.
“Look,” Kaidan pointed gingerly. There was writing on the home screen, dimmer orange than the rest, nestled in one corner.
Commander Shepard’s omni-tool was destroyed in the Crucible explosion, this recreation is an imprint of that omni-tool from several days before the battle of London.
“How about that?” Kaidan grinned. “What imprint are they talking about, I wonder?”
“Cronos Station? EDI would have backed up all ship networks before the battle with the Cerberus Fleet.” Shepard scrolled through the data logs. There was a log of all comms he’d received in the last six months of the war, there was telemetry data on various battlefields, maps coded in from planets where Shepard’s war effort had taken him. An idea struck him, “I think I have something to show you, actually.”
“Oh?”
Shepard quickly navigated to his notes page, finding the way surprisingly familiar, given he hadn’t touched the interface in years.
His notes page was blank.
“Hmm,” Shepard frowned. “I… I guess they didn’t transfer everything.”
“You gotta figure they’d go through and at least remove all the top-secret and personal stuff, huh?”
“I guess so…”
“What is it you were hoping to find?”
“A letter I wrote to you. I could’ve sworn I typed it out on my omni-tool before Cronos Station.” He looked up at Kaidan, “I thought I lost my chance to give it to you when the Crucible went off. Was just me talking about how I feel about you.”
Kaidan smiled, a warmth in his eyes. His voice was rich and deep when he finally spoke. “That’s… that’s really sweet, Shepard.” He leaned forward and they kissed above the orange glow. “Guess they couldn’t leave a love note in a museum exhibit.”
“I didn’t ever think I’d see that letter again and now that I can’t get it back, I’m upset.” He slipped his arm out of the haptic display and it disappeared. Before he could exit the alcove, Kaidan took his elbow. Kaidan put his own arm into the sleeve and the interface reappeared.
“Here’s how I know how you feel about me,” Kaidan said softly. It took him seconds to get the hang of Shepard’s home screen and quickly find the data he was looking for. “Look,”
“What is that?” Shepard stared, numbers, names…
“Hardsuit data from your fire team, based on mission. Look:” Kaidan let the screen scroll. ‘K. Alenko’ was at the top of the hardsuit data list for every encounter of the late war. “I was with you the whole time. Look, I’m all over, here!” He used both hands to gently take Shepard’s face inside his raised hood, with the haptic interface dimmed, he stared at Shepard. “And I will always be here. With you. I knew how you felt about me then, and I know now.”
Shepard didn’t know what to say, so he let Kaidan kiss him deeply.
“ExCUSE me!” Came the trilling alto of a young salarian voice. Kaidan and Shepard leapt apart and fumbled for their dark glasses. “If you’re just going to use the kiosks to make-out, please try not to stay past the time limit, hmmmmmm?”
They made hasty apologies and slinked out of the alcove.
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hello everyone!!
i just wanted to make a quick little announcement:
that is absolutely insane! thank you all so much for your support, i could have never imagined this when i opened this blog at the beginning of this year. i have had the pleasure of meeting so many cool people with the same interests as me, and have been lucky enough to get to know you all and talk about books we love, tv shows we love, and even just trivial stuff like what our favourite food is.
tumblr has truly become a safe space for me to just be my authentic self and i truly owe that to the 201 of you that have decided to follow me.
i think this calls for a celebration, so below are some things you can send (maximum of two) to my askbox, so i can give back to all of you!!
�� - give me a ship or a character, and i will write you a short drabble/one shot
🍪 - give me a ship or a character, and i will give you a headcanon
💌 - i will drop a letter into your askbox
🤎 - tell me some books you like to read, and i will give you a book recommendation
📻 - tell me the kind of music you like to listen to, and i will give you a song recommendation
🏷 - i will handwrite something for you (you'll have to tell me what you would like and what colours)
🧸 - authority to ask me any question you would like me to answer (within reason)
thank you once again!! i will tag some mutuals below <3
@ninacarstairss @arangiajoan @steven--with-a-v @wildegremlin @carelessflower @dustandducks @rinadragomir @erch0maii @kit-rooks-abs @delightfullyterrible @literallytypogod @learningshelfcontrol @alrighty-lo @lifeofbrybooks @bookishjules @bloodthirstyduck8 @tys-kitty @elettralightwood @the-defiance-of-dreamers @completeanduttermess @numbintheam @witchlightdreams @aroace-cat-lady
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“All this is to say that the concept of “selling out”, while central to my adolescent value system, was pretty much entirely bogus. Yet it was bogus at the level of epistemology, bogus in its lack of coherence and precision; at the level of ethics, or whatever can be called ethics in art, it pointed to an important value. It is that value that the abandonment of “selling out” as a concept threatens to lose sight of, possibly for ever.
Obviously, you want your entertainment to entertain you. Paradoxically, though, it is less entertaining to watch a musician – or, for that matter, a writer or film-maker or comedian – do only what they think you want. We prefer the work of artists who to some degree do what they want. That’s probably because such work is more likely to surprise us, and the element of surprise is necessary to feel like culture is moving forward.
(…)
Digital distribution changed that. By generating massive amounts of more precise and almost totally accurate data, online sales and then streaming gave artists, labels and platforms a much clearer perspective on what sells and what doesn’t. And because this perspective is (a) provable and (b) quantitative in ways that ideas such as “selling out” or “authentic” or “good” are not, the people who decide what music to promote are pretty much obliged to decide according to one metric: what audiences like, defined as what they have liked before. To a greater or lesser degree, this phenomenon has for the past two decades shaped every field of popular culture: not just music but also television, movies and online publishing.
And there is something wrong with popular culture in the 21st century, isn’t there? You don’t have to be a middle-aged punk to think that it feels less surprising and alive than it once did. The entertainment industry in general and music industry in particular have become exceptionally good at selling the maximum number of units, but selling units is not what music is for. As flawed as the idea of “selling out” was, it captured one incontrovertible truth: only a fool would write a song to make money. You write a song to surprise yourself, to give other people what they never knew they wanted. Perhaps what is missing from popular culture in the 21st century is sufficient contempt for those who give us what we asked for already.”
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Tips On Repairing Windshield Cracks
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Advice on the Edge, Episode One
Note: The following opinions are from fictional characters, and neither they nor I bear any responsibility for the authenticity, accuracy, or intention of claims and counsel. In fact, I advise you totally ignore their advice and use your own best judgment.
This week’s contributors are Mariot (from Legacy of Seconds), Franklin (from Odin’s Tillit), Time Sneak (from Time Sneak: Emergence), and Raf (from Terraform Charlie).
The question is from Becky (thank you, Becky):
Should I dress provocatively or conservatively on a first date?
Mariot Ghan elegantly moves a strand of red hair from her cyclops and runs her hands down her chest to her waist. She then eyeballs me like I’m a three-layer cake she is about to devour before speaking.
“You have to ask yourself, Becky, do you want to get laid or not? As for me, I dress however I want, and whether I wear a low-cut blouse or a potato sack, that guy will want to bang me until next Tuesday, if he should be so lucky. But then again, I am the hottest and most desired woman on the planet. Now, chances are you don’t have my amazing body, ginger awesomeness, and skin to die for but do use your assets to their maximum potential. Or, alternatively, get him in a dark and quiet place and grab him by the junk; he will come around.”
“Ah, thanks for that, Mariot, or “Riot,” as your friends call you.”
Please note: Riot is insatiable and a clone.
Franklin Daring wipes the sweat off his bulbous balding head and chimes in:
“Oh, toot, toot! I both love and hate this question, Brandy! Honestly, I don’t give a shit. Well, maybe I do. I remember a first date with this fine southern gal named Sue. She reminded me of my mother but with my cousin Randy’s peach fuzz. Her upper lip stayed white from the milk she was drinking for far too long, but no biggie, for I couldn’t keep my eyes off her tremendous rack, toot, toot. I’ve always been a tits guy, so be “daring,” I say, for I am Franklin Daring by name, daring by nature.”
“You certainly are daring, Franklin (looking away eye roll).”
Note: I’ve learned to appease Franklin, for if he senses you don’t like him, he may gut you like a pig.
“By the way, Franklin, whatever happened to Becky?”
“She married my cousin Randy. They met and fell in love at a family reunion, toot, toot.”
Say what you will about the Darings; they are a tight-knit family.
“How about you, Raf?”
The enormous white raven jumped from side to side on his limb, then sat motionless, clearly pondering the question.
“What the awwhhk is first date?!”
“Basically, the first encounter with another to see if they might be a good mate.”
“Mate, mate! Ravens, no clokes, no clokes!”
“Yes, you are right, of course, Raf. However, I will pose the question differently. Should a raven do anything special to attract a mate?”
“We uck in flight, uck in flight, so best she can fly!”
“Ah, okay.”
“Raf horny now, must go.”
Raf winged off before I could say goodbye.
Time Sneak arrived today, animating the body of Donald Trump.
“Fake tits, that’s all we have to say.”
“Oh, come now, Lord of the Greyworld Faces, surely you can do better than that for Becky?”
Agitated, the depends-able, orange-topped septuagenarian morphed into a cloud, with fylfots mostly disguising a cold black sinister snake eye.
“Becky, another useless human,” came the words into my brain, which was the manner of the fifth-dimension entity’s communication to mere mortals in his original form.
“You say that about everyone, your highness.”
The cutting edge of a swastika grazed my neck, and I swallowed hard.
“In our realm, we don’t date; we take.”
“Kind of takes the fun and romance out of it, doesn’t it?”
A finger of cloud knocked my cap off.
“Fun is incorporating the essence of a being and giving it meaning, a meaning that far surpasses anything a bag of flesh and blood and bone might otherwise attain.”
“With all due respect, I don’t think your advice will help Becky.”
“Perhaps, not, but it doesn’t matter, for my friend, Clutch, already invited her to play.”
Oh, shit.
Becky, if you’re still out there and haven’t been possessed by a one-eyed, hideous being, I advise you to dress however you want. Be confident, for that, and intelligence are truly sexy.
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I didn’t watch The Repair Shop: a Royal Visit in October, but from several accounts it was an enjoyable and wholesome slice of palace PR – a chance to see the Prince of Wales (as he was at the time it was recorded) as the relatable, accessible and sympathetic figure he surely is. No former prime ministers or archbishops jumped into print to tell us not to watch it. Which is a pity, really, because if they had, the programme might have achieved even higher ratings.
By contrast, a cauldron of disdain has been upended over the latest season of The Crown by these and other august personages. As a result, it’s a fair bet they have successfully pushed the award-winning Netflix series’ viewing figures even higher.
This goes to the heart of a dilemma faced by royal press secretaries. In a perfect world, all TV shows about royal folk would show them as admirable, lovable, hard-working servants of the common good. But sadly, the world is not that tidy and nor are the lives of people born to royal status. This creates an opportunity for dramatists to fill the gap between the sanitised talking points dispensed by courtiers for public consumption, and what we might suspect is the more pungent reality.
If the creative classes decide to fill that gap, how they do it is up to them. That’s called freedom of speech and it’s a right worth defending, even against those who live and work in palaces. In fact, especially against those who live and work in palaces, given their controlling instincts. What’s more, no playwright ever did as much harm to them as they have done – and continue to do – to each other. Ultimately, if the luvvies get it wrong then the market (and the courts) will punish them accordingly.
But if they get it right, they will have added something valuable to our understanding of how the most famous and revered national institution actually works. They will help us judge for ourselves how close their interpretation of the truth comes to the version the palace would prefer us to believe. With that understanding may even come a more informed and nuanced appreciation of how much royal people pay for what many of us see as a life of privilege. That is the challenge the writers and actors of The Crown have set themselves.
Having already seen most of Season 5 (and having had no involvement in Season 6), I think they’ve made a remarkably good effort. Since I was witness to quite a few of the original events portrayed here, I accepted the producers’ invitation in early 2019 to contribute my first-hand perspective on what really happened. After all, it was my life too and I wanted to make sure they got the bits I knew about as authentic as possible.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I sat in a screening room to see the final version. I was on maximum alert, watching for malicious twisting of words and dishonest presentation of historical facts. I was looking out for lies and cruel falsehoods that would have allowed my inner critic to throw metaphorical tomato soup all over the picture the artists were painting.
I didn’t find any. True, dramatic artifice was sometimes used to make a point more concisely than might have been the case in real life, and some chronology has been adjusted to cram years of events into the time constraints of a TV series. That’s a challenge faced by all creators of historical drama. Surely the acid test is whether any contrivance serves the overall cause of authenticity in the picture being presented.
For example, in Episode 1 Charles borrows a Greek billionaire’s yacht for a family cruise in the Mediterranean. The Crown portrays this, touchingly though improbably, as a “second honeymoon” and gets considerable dramatic value out of the contrast between the romantic ideal and the fractious reality. A cheap and cynical invention?
Not at all: a second honeymoon was exactly how the media reported it in 1991, encouraged (I was told that summer) by sources in the prince’s office who calculated that such an apparent show of romance and generosity would counteract rumours of his adultery (also – coincidentally – angrily dismissed as “lies” at the time). The public, understandably, was happy to buy into the falsely optimistic illusion.
During the same holiday, Charles is seen scathingly dismissing Diana’s suggestion that some shopping might be squeezed into the programme alongside visits to archaeological sites and cultural attractions. In reality, this conversation didn’t happen on the yacht, but it did certainly happen – in much more damaging circumstances – during an official visit to the Middle East in 1989.
Does that make it a damnable Crown lie – or a truth justifiably transposed to meet the demands of coherent and essentially accurate storytelling? If so, it has the incidental effect of mitigating the prince’s ill-judged jibe by shifting it from a very public setting, in front of royal hosts, to the relative privacy of a family holiday.
A further example sees one of Charles’s advisors eagerly showing his boss an opinion poll apparently indicating public support for the Queen’s abdication so that the crown can pass directly to the Prince as Regent. We later see Charles discussing the poll and possible regency with the prime minister. Again, this is not strictly accurate: the discussion was actually held with a previous prime minister. A legitimate sleight of hand – or a wicked untruth?
What’s not in question is that the poll – one of several during this period – was published in The Sunday Times (in January 1990) and, in subsequent discussion with a journalist from the newspaper, I was told this was recognised inside the paper as one of several kites flown by elements in the prince’s office to test the public mood and encourage perception of the then beleaguered heir as a credible monarch-in-waiting. Buckingham Palace moved swiftly to close down the subsequent discussion, but the damage was done.
As an example of legitimate dramatic invention – as opposed to transposition – it’s hard to beat the scenes depicting Diana allegedly summoning up her courage and dropping on the Queen the bombshell news that she had secretly recorded an interview with Martin Bashir for Panorama. This part of the story was made up, and therefore might reasonably earn the ire of The Crown’s scholarly-exact detractors.
I know it was made up because I was there, and I can tell you that the princess absolutely failed to summon up the necessary courage and delegated the job to me. So, sitting beside her in her Jaguar en route to an official engagement, I used the car telephone to call the Queen’s private secretary and break the sensational news. In a comedy of confusion – the genuine mark of reality – the only person in the Queen’s office at the time was Her Majesty’s press secretary who thus got the vital information seconds before he received it first hand from the BBC.
I suppose I could be upset that The Crown failed to spotlight my moment of glory. But it had better things in mind – a high-tension confrontation between the Queen and Diana, which spellbindingly adds authenticity and narrative value to their on-screen relationship. It didn’t happen, at least not as portrayed here. But, on balance, I think head writer Peter Morgan made the right call, as I expect you will too.
What’s also beyond doubt is that, in working with The Crown’s researchers and writers, I certainly learned the validity of Mark Twain’s observation that truth is stranger than fiction because fiction is obliged to stick to probability.
As has been repeated often, The Crown isn’t a documentary. If you want attempts at historical accuracy there are shelves of books and hours of film to satisfy your curiosity. Truth-seekers should bear in mind, however, that much of that material was authorised by members of the Royal family to serve their own agendas, sometimes even to settle family scores. In the royal world, truth is more than usually a matter of opinion.
What I saw in the preview theatre created in my mind a story that chimed truthfully with the reality through which I had lived. And not just in my mind: there were scenes so real that I forgot to breathe, my heart thumped alarmingly and my palms grew clammy with cold sweat. I didn’t have time to nitpick the minutiae – I was too busy reliving the immersive, overall experience.
That won’t suit everybody. Season 5 sometimes makes for uneasy viewing. And so it should, if it’s authentically to re-create a traumatic period in recent royal history. It brings those troubled days to life with such astonishing theatrical power that we’re left to wonder if Peter Morgan is being criticised because The Crown is all lies… or because it contains too many uncomfortable truths?
Perhaps the critics are unsettled by the (actually rather sensitive) resurrection of a furtive stage in our new king and queen’s relationship when the joint coronation now being planned would have seemed prohibitively unwise.
I’m tempted to call after them, “Hold on, chaps, it’s not the Gunpowder Plot – it’s just some talented actors performing a well-written and expensively staged historical play.” Viewers aren’t stupid: they know what “fictionalised” means.
Because of my previous service as Princess Diana’s private secretary, my attention focused on how she and her story were portrayed. And, again, this all rings true. The actress Elizabeth Debicki is utterly convincing as wife, mother and global icon, struggling to cope with loneliness, divorce and betrayal, yet still with an undimmed sense of compassion – and trademark quick wit.
Just as vividly, Morgan reminds us that Diana was far from perfect – her shortcomings accurately if fictitiously catalogued in a searing scene towards the end of Episode 8. For all her flaws, Crown Diana – very much like the real one – still attracts our sympathy for her gutsiness and grace. And before Dianaphobes cry “bias”, let me add that all the major protagonists keep our sympathy to varying degrees. That’s because the production forces us to open our eyes to the pressures, temptations and futilities of so much royal life, through which the characters persevere with a sense of duty that at least hints at the burdens carried on our behalf by the real Royal family.
Eventually, you begin to wonder if there’s an agenda behind the orchestra of outrage. Perhaps the critics are put out that an independent (and very carefully researched) new voice is offering alternative opinions on events that palace press secretaries hoped we had forgotten.
This is a familiar reflex among some single-minded royalists: the issue is not what we are being shown but the gall of those who are revealing it. Princess Diana herself faced a similar reaction when her secret co-operation with Andrew Morton in the writing of the explosive Diana, Her True Story became the sole focus of palace attention rather than the urgent need to do something to acknowledge the unhappiness the book had revealed.
For some of us, Diana’s unhappiness and its many causes have never settled conveniently into the distant past. “Draw a line and move on” works with many of life’s harder experiences. But royalty is different: its whole purpose is to ingrain in us an appreciation of its relentless continuity. Monarchy can never draw a line without losing its own reason for existing.
Yes, it’s perhaps unfortunate that Season 5 has coincided with a mood of national prickliness over all things royal, from the death of the Queen to the posturing of the Sussexes, the embarrassment of Prince Andrew or some niggling cash-for-honours questions over The Prince’s Foundation.
Perhaps that explains the intemperate reaction to Season 5. But the world it immerses us in did actually happen. The Crown’s writers didn’t have to make up the bad stuff and actually left unused quantities of even more controversial material.
How much easier to forget how we got here. How much more righteous to condemn those who dare try to understand and explain it through the language of drama. How much more comfortable, in truth, to settle down to an endless future of royal visits to The Repair Shop.
After all, that’s real reality TV... isn’t it?
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Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).
Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)
The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.
In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.
Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?
I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.
Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.
And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.
I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.
Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.
I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.
One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)
Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.
Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.
It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.
Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.
#nile freeman#linguistics#TOG POC Love Fest#nileweek2021#tog meta#tog#long post#mine#antiblackness#jewish things#hi i'm an antizionist jew no i don't really want to talk about it
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Babylon 5 Rewatch Season 3 Ep 03 A Day in the Strife
The Centauri/Narn peace continues to be one-sided as the current government sends Na'Far, a Narn dignitary, to Babylon 5 to fetch back G'Kar who is the last free member of the Kha'Ri. Meanwhile a Star Trek episode happens when a probe appears to give the command staff a pop quiz. Also Garibaldi challenges Franklin on his substance abuse. They eat Italian.
ALSO! DEVELOPMENT! For those of you out there who don't have HBO Max, all of Babylon 5 is now on IMDBtv! Watch the original series before they start putting out the remake for maximum in-joke appreciation! Straczynski said the new show is going to be a brand new take on the material, so you won't be spoiling yourself for the new one to watch the old one. Maybe I'll Pic an Episode the new series when it drops, too! Guess I better get this rewatch a-goin'
Things I liked and Didn't like about A Day in the Strife Below:
Things I like about A Day in the Strife
Ta'Lon is one of my favorite characters in this show. He doesn't show up often, but when he does he brings such a warmth and gentle strength it really leaves an impact. It was great seeing him get a drink with Sheridan after their escape together in the last season. It's a great handshake to the past to have this character come back and it feels like the two of them actually did forge a friendship that survived Freind of the Day status. Seeing Ta'Lon standing behind Na'Far feels wrong on a deep level, since it's obvious that Na'Far is short for Nafarious, but following him around means that Ta'Lon is inside all these political dealings. He is able to give G'Kar some well-informed advice, and explains the meaning of the K'Tok! Aka the sword JMS handed him to make him look different than other Narns. I kid Ta'Lon. Marry me.
I love G'Kar. I love how brave all the Narns are. I love how much it both heartens and hurts G'Kar to see the faith his people have in him. It's quite a burden to put not only the fate of their people on his shoulders, but the blood of all their families.
Finally confronting the drug abuse storyline that's been simmering under the surface is a good thing. I appreciate that Garibaldi had the hard talk with Franklin and that we got to see it. It felt very authentic to the twos' relationship as friends, and esp with Garibaldi's own substance issues... its a shame this wasn't the end of it, but a nice talk and a promise rarely is the end of a dependency, so even in that it's better storytelling. Also Franklin having a Stim problem makes sense within his story and his position. It's not just a drug problem for the sake of a drug problem, we as an audience can see how it would arise. Makes it a better representation of such a thing than other shows sometimes do.
Londo demonstrates to Vir what he considers "good politics." Which is to do what he must do as best as he can... and he's real good at it, too. Him talking to Na'Far about the executions is chilling. He can be a real monster when he wants, and Vir is appalled to watch it. This is what convinces Londo to send him to Minbar, to protect him. To save that little light of good inside Vir that Londo, himself, used to have. These characters are so goddamn complex you all. They love each other, they think things that are different than their behavior, ugh this goddamn /show/. And that scene with Delenn where she's convinced and Londo is evil now, but sees a little crack in the mask herself when he seeks her out in order to send Vir to Minbar. Londo loses two more friends. He really is alone and has no one to blame but himself.
Things I don't like about A Day In the Strife
The space probe plot really aches of "The Earth Force folk need something to do" syndrome. I made the joke that it's a Star Trek episode, and that wasn't to call it bad, but it's very in tone with the high-minded syndicated space show. Such a plot would make an excellent TOS episode without changing the twist or anything... but this isn't TOS. This is B5. This is 1995. It feels a little derivative and unexplored. That's a small complaint in a good episode, though. On to the next!
#babylon 5#babylon 5 rewatch#babylon 5 spoilers#season 3#episode 3#a day in the strife#g'kar#ta'lon#narn#art#jenstoart#pic an ep
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The Witcher: The Games vs The Books
Coming to the fandom this late, I can only assume the relationship between the Witcher games and the original novels has been long since talked to death by others. But I'm far too fascinated by the whole glorious mess that is this canon not to want to get down some of my own thoughts about how it all fits together.
See, on the one hand, the games (Witcher 3 especially) are arguably only too dependent on the novels to stand alone. They do a wonderful job of picking up a number of unresolved plot points the books left hanging, and a woeful job of explaining so much a player coming in cold would really like to know – Ciri's history with Geralt, Yennefer, her powers and the Wild Hunt itself just to begin with. This is an issue that only increases as the games go along: cliche as Geralt's amnesia may be, it's used to good effect to introduce the world to the player in the first game. By the third, Geralt has all his old memories back and two extra games worth of new experience, and good lord is it all alienating to the newcomer.
On the other hand, so much about the games (again, the third especially) contradicts the novels in painfully irreconcilable ways. That wouldn't necessarily bother me – adaptations are allowed to rework and reinvent, stories can and should evolve in the retelling – except, well, see point one above. So you're bound to come out of the games with a lot of unanswered questions if you haven't read the books, and just as many if you have.
Spoilers to follow, of course, for both the books and the games.
Here's one of the big ones: just how did the world – Ciri included – discover that one of her long-presumed-dead parents was actually alive and well and now ruling the entire empire of Nilfgaard? Fucked if I know. Neither the games or the novels have any explanation. In the novels, in fact, the world at large believes Ciri is married to the emperor of Nilfgaard. Naturally, this 'Cirilla' is a fake, but the scandal were the full truth ever revealed would redefine Emhyr's reign. Yet somehow, in the games, everyone seems to know he's Ciri's father, and that whole awkward incest angle is never mentioned. Continuity has been tweaked pretty significantly, and it's left to the player to guess how. If that wasn’t bad enough, the games apparently still included a Gwent card of the fake!Cirilla (artwork above) just to ensure maximum confusion.
Before I get too sidetracked with all that stuff that doesn’t add up though, there really is a lot to be said for what does work about how the games expand on the plot of the novels. The Wild Hunt itself is the big one. The spectral cavalcade appears several times through the novels and hunts Ciri across multiple worlds in the final book before apparently losing her trail and vanishing to make way for the 'real' big bad, never to be mentioned again. While TW3 left me pretty underwhelmed by the revelation that the spectral Wild Hunt were just a bunch of dark elves in skull armor, the books had introduced the Hunt and let us spend some time on the dark elves' world before we get the reveal that the two may be one and the same. So for all the ranting I could do about missed opportunities regarding the Wild Hunt, they're the natural candidate for the games to pick up on as their new big-bads.
To my surprise, Geralt and Yennefer's "deaths" and subsequent recovery in pseudo-Avalon also comes straight from the novels. That everyone thinks Geralt dead at the start of the first game isn't, as I'd first assumed, a convenient excuse to have him reappear with amnesia, but simply how the novels end. Why Ciri leaves them and goes world-hopping isn't clear, but "because the Wild Hunt was after her again" is as good a theory as any. So, another point to the games there.
And there's so much more. The Catriona plague has only just appeared at the end of the novels, but we know it's posed for a major outbreak – one that’s in progress by the time of the games. The second game in particular does a terrific job of taking the ambitions of the expansionist Nilfgaardian Empire and the still-relatively-new Lodge of Sorceresses and building an entirely new conflict around them – even taking two of the least developed members of the Lodge (Sabrina Glevissig and Síle de Tansarville) and expanding them into major players. Dijkstra similarly ends the novels on the run from those in power, and having already taken the same assumed name 'Sigi Reuven' he's using in the games – while the books assure us that prince Radovid will grow up to pay back his father's assassins (ie. Phillipa) and become Radovid the Stern.
The twisted fairy tale origins of the novels are something the games actually seem to have gotten better at as they went on: the 'trail of treats' to the Crones is the great example, the monster-frog-prince and the land-of-a-thousand-fables of the expansions are two more, and many more are hidden in sidequests. And I'd be remiss not to mention that in again asking Geralt to pick a side in the conflict with the Scoia'tael, the first two games not only recreate a scenario Geralt repeatedly deals with in the books, but a major theme. It's interesting too how much the broad structure of the third game feels like an homage to the books, with Geralt searching for Ciri, interspersed with sections from her POV. You can nitpick the detail of any of these examples, but the intent is unmistakable, and a lot of credit is due for it in the execution too.
Some of the detail that's gone into translating the world of the Witcher books into the games is just insane – not just in the geography and history of the place, but right down to the names of the wine you can pick up. There's the fact the Cat potion makes Geralt see in black-and-white, or the fact the basilisk and cockatrice monsters are clearly based on the same model, but the basilisk is reptilian where as the cockatrice is more avian – which is exactly how Geralt describes the difference between them in The Lady of the Lake. There's a point where Book!Regis recounts a detailed list of all the lesser vampiric species, ending with the only two violent enough to tear apart their victims: almost all can be encountered in the games, and the last two (Fleders and Ekimma) are indeed the most animalistic. This kind of thing is everywhere.
My favourite examples tend to be those that blend into the background if you haven't read the books, but will get a grin from those who have, such as a peasant in Velen who will call out to Geralt (paraphrased from memory, alas) "Sir, sir! We be up to our ears in mamunes, imps, kobolds, hags, flying drakes... oh, and bats!" – which is a lovely little reference to a couple of conversations from Edge of the World wherein Geralt explains that most of the monsters the locals want him to take care of don't actually exist. Or all those soldiers chanting "Long live King Radovid!" – natural enough, but it takes on a whole new life if you've read the passage in Lady of the Lake where the young prince Radovid grumbles internally about having to sit and listen to the city chanting 'long live...' to every other notable figure present except him.
Really, it would be faster to list the things the games introduced that don't come from the original source material in any obvious form, because it's a struggle to come up with very many. The villainous Crones of Crookback Bog and Master Mirror of the Hearts of Stone expansion are the biggest ones that come to mind, along with a great deal of the vampire mythology from Blood and Wine. To the witchers themselves, they’ve added mostly game mechanics: the use of bombs and blade oils, the names of most of the potions, and three new witcher schools (all with their own specialised gear). There are a number of new creatures and monsters – Godlings, noon-and-night-wraiths, botchlings, shaelmaars and so on – and though trolls are mentioned in the books, the games take credit for giving them so much character. Obviously, there are new characters, like Thaller and Roche – but not technically Iorveth, because a Scoia'tael commander of that name is mentioned in the books, if only in passing. And already, short of just listing off every new character the games introduced, I’m running out of ideas. Credit where credit’s due on that front: most of the new characters and locations they’ve created feel authentic enough that Kalkstein or Thaller would be right at home in the novels’ world.
But for all their dedication to the detail, it's hard to feel like the games have really managed to capture the spirit of the books in their storytelling: the mundanely corrupt bureaucracy that does so much to bring the world to life, or their cheerfully cynical sense of humour, or the flamboyant wonder that is book!Dandelion, or their enthusiasm for putting women in positions of power, or the bigger themes about the differences between the story that gets sung by the bards and what really happened – or so much else from the novels that came as such a surprise to me when I started getting really sucked in.
And if we’re going to talk about all the little things they got right, it’s only fair to point out there are just as many little things they got wrong, and sometimes pretty glaringly at that. "I thought you bowed to no-one" says Emhyr to Geralt – almost as if book!Geralt doesn’t happily bow in most every situation where it would be polite or diplomatic to do so. "This would never have happened if the council was still around!" says Geralt upon finding a sorcerer's lab full of human experiments – as if none of his experiences with Vilgefortz or the wizards of Rissberg ever happened, back when the council was very much still around. In TW2, he mocks the idea of a woman like Saskia leading a rebellion – almost as if women like Falka and Aelirenn haven't led some of the most storied rebellions in history (and we can't even blame the amnesia, because Geralt himself mentions Aelirenn later – oh yeah, this one annoyed me particularly).
Book!verse 'Lady of the Lake' is basically just Ciri being surprised while bathing
Yennefer's studious aethiesm and willingness to desecrate Freya's temple is entirely in character – but only if we forget that she had her own personal religious experience with the goddess Freya herself in Tower of the Swallow. And then there’s the fact the Lady of the Lake is now a literal lake nymph who distributes swords to the worthy, as if no-one writing for the games ever got past the title of that particular Witcher novel (let alone got the joke). And the list goes on. It's easy to get overly caught up in contradictions like this – it's hardly as if Sapkowski's novels don't contradict themselves in places, as almost any long-running series eventually will – but it's going to stick out to those who’ve read the novels nonetheless.
While we're talking about how the games pick up where the books left off though, the big contradiction that has to be touched on comes in bringing Geralt back at all, at least in any public capacity. There's plenty to suggest that Geralt survives the novels' end and even goes on to have further adventures, but it's also pretty explicit that the history books record his death in the Pogrom of Rivia as final. The last two novels by order of publication (Season of Storms and Lady of the Lake) go so far as to feature characters far in the future with an interest in Geralt's legacy, and they discuss the matter in some depth. As far as the world knows, Geralt is dead.
Book!Geralt fanart by Diana Novich
But it's hard to blame the games for ignoring this – true, thanks to Geralt's longevity, they could have set their conflict many more years after those future scenes – maybe even used Ciri's established time-travel powers to let you pop quietly in and out of the past (and, okay, now I've thought through all that, I'm kind of sad they didn't). But there comes a point where that kind of slavish devotion to preserving the source material really doesn't do a story any favours, and I'm not sure I could name any other successful adaptation that's bothered.
Besides bringing Geralt back at all, most of the bigger changes pertain to Ciri. In fact, as much as I'm about to get deep into the nitpicks below, you can make a surprisingly good case that the games have made only one really big change, and that's in simplifying the prophesies surrounding her. See, in the novels, all those world-saving prophesies aren't technically about Ciri, they're about her as-yet-unborn child. Who gets to impregnate her is the big driving force behind most of the villains of the books – one that all the main contenders seem to see as more of an awkward necessity rather than the inspiration for violent lust, but even so. To Emhyr, having to marry his own daughter is a bug, not a feature – but he's willing to do it to become the father of the savior of the world. But if Ciri is capable of fulfilling those prophesies herself, then Emhyr is already the father of the savoir of the world, and the revisions to his relationship with Ciri start to make a lot more sense.
Ciri's history with the Aen Elle elves seems to have been similarly revised – if not quite so cleanly. Avallac’h and Eredin are, naturally, both book characters – in fact, a lot of personality has been left behind in the books, since Avallac’h originally had a rather camp flair, and Eredin is less the power-hungry kingslayer you might imagine. When Geralt meets Avallac’h in the books – which happens briefly in Toussaint, for one of those "everything you're doing is going to make everything worse because prophesy" conversations – he's busy decorating a cave with fake prehistoric paintings in the hope of confusing future explorers. (Surprisingly, there does seem to be official art of this moment on one of the gwent cards – see above – though the Avallac’h who jokes about adding erect phalluses to the picture and admits his vanity won’t allow him to resist signing it hasn’t entirely survived the transition to the new medium).
We also meet the former Alder King, Auberon, whose death we see in flashback in the game. (Fun fact: Auberon is actually blowing bubbles through a straw in a bowl of soapy water when we first meet him in the books, hence the straw in the illustration below. The books just have more whimsy than any of the games would know what to do with.)
Ciri spends some time in the final book as a prisoner on the world of the elves, who are as keen as everyone else for their king to father her unborn child. Avallac’h eventually convinces her that this is all for the greater good: her child will be able to open gates to allow the people of her world to escape when the apocalyptic White Frost arrives. But their king, like most older elves, is impotent, leading to multiple nights where Ciri allows him to take her to bed (in some of the frankly more disturbing scenes of the series) to no result. Eredin, moreover, doesn't appear to have intended to poison the king: the vial that kills him was supposed to contain some sort of fantasy viagra, and even Eredin seems genuinely shocked to learn its actual effects.
Regardless, Ciri eventually discovers that Avallac’h and the Aen Elle have deceived her, and intend to user her child's powers to invade her world, not save it. Neither world is threatened by the White Frost for at least several millennia, it's just a pretext to make her cooperate. And so she flees, and Eredin (already leading his Red Riders aka The Wild Hunt long before he was crowned king) pursues her.
With the books as context, why Ciri would ever trust Avallac’h is very hard to understand. It's a little easier if that whole awful episode with her and the former king is subtracted out – Ciri's child is no longer necessary for Eredin's goals. So it's odd that the game still references the deadly vial Eredin gave to the king. Are we to suppose the vial genuinely contained poison in this version of continuity? I'd rather it didn't – Avallach's ruse is far more interesting if he underwhelms Eredin's support by revealing a half-truth – but the games aren't telling us.
And then we have to factor in that one last detail I'd forgotten when I originally started playing with this theory: TW3 does contain one last, dangling reference to the time the old king spent trying to impregnate Ciri, when Ge'els very reasonably asks why on earth Ciri would ever trust Avallac’h now. It's a damn good question, and the game offers no real answers. So in Avallac’h, we're left with a character who is vital to the final chapters of the games, who comes out of nowhere without the books as context, but whose role makes no sense with that backstory in mind. Frankly, the writers would have been much better off avoiding the whole mess altogether and inventing some new character to take Avallac’h's place.
The treatment of the White Frost is even more confusing. The books are ultimately fairly explicit about just what the White Frost is: a ice age, most likely caused by the same mundane climactic factors that produced the real ice ages of our history. The only escape is intergalactic emigration, as Ciri (or her children) might some day enable.
In the games, the White Frost has instead become some sort of nebulous, free-floating apocalypse which will eventually reach all worlds, which is basically fine – up to a point. We briefly visit a dead world that the Frost has decimated, and even the Aen Elle are now supposedly planning to invade Ciri's world because it threatens theirs as well (I mean, apparently – their motivations are so underdeveloped you could miss them by accidently skipping just one or two lines of dialogue). When the Wild Hunt appears, it's always in a haze of cold. Their mages can invoke its power still more dramatically through portals which can freeze you in your tracks. So obviously, the Frost has already reached their world, and time is running out, right?
Well, no – you visit their world too (again, briefly – to meet a character who has never been mentioned before and won't be again, for reasons which have also never been mentioned before if you haven't read the books) – and there's no Frost in sight, apocalyptic or otherwise.
So why does the White Frost follow the Hunt around? No idea. It's never explained.
At the very end of the game, a second "Conjunction of the Spheres" occurs (possibly because of the Wild Hunt's appearance?), and the Frost begins to invade (or possibly Avallac’h summons it, so Ciri can go into it and destroy it?) It's all painfully unclear. The game is too busy pulling a bait-and-switch over whether Avallac’h's betrayed you to tell you what's actually going on instead.
But if Ciri could destroy the Frost completely (at great personal risk, but still) why is this not more clearly set up? Why did the Aen Elle think that escaping to another world (which will ALSO eventually be destroyed by the Frost) was a better solution than sending Ciri to face the Frost directly? For which matter, why do the Aen Elle need Ciri at all if sending enough ships to carry an army is no problem? Why does Ciri spend so much of the game questioning Avallac’h's true intentions, if they were ultimately so noble? When did he tell her the truth? If Avallac’h did summon the Frost, why did he pick that particular moment? And if he didn't, and it all just happened spontaneously, we're back to questioning why invading that world ever seemed like a good solution to Eredin – it all collapses in on itself.
None of these questions couldn't have been answered with a little creativity, but then the game would've had to dedicate some real time to explaining its backstory and developing its core conflict – something it's bizarrely reluctant to do. And if you think I may be drifting from the point a bit in the name of getting all my gripes about the ending down in one place, you're not wrong, but I feel Avallac’h and everything surrounding him is pretty much the ur-example of what doesn't work about the way The Witcher 3 depends on the novels: the backstory the writers are building on doesn't actually exist in any format available to the rest of us.
There are plenty of ways TW3 could have incorporated its backstory into its own narrative (yes, even excluding the method "by expecting people to read many many more pages of text from in-game documents", because that's bullshit and always will be). There are times it does this brilliantly, such as in the quest ‘The Last Wish’: everything you really need to know is covered in Yennefer and Geralt's conversation in the boat, and without ever making the dialogue sound unnatural. In fact, TW3 has even more options here than many works with the same problem, because Geralt is famous and people already think they know his story. You could have bards singing Dandelion's ballads, you could have characters confronting him with misunderstandings about his past to force him to correct them. You could also have Geralt visiting people and places he knows Ciri remembers fondly because of the time they spent there together, or include playable flashbacks similar to the time you spend playing as Ciri. You could stick chunks of backstory in optional sidequests or scenes old-school fans can skip through quickly. So many of my questions (how did Ciri get so close to Yennefer if they were never at Kaer Morhen together? Why has no-one tried training Ciri in her powers before? What does the Wild Hunt even do while it's not hunting Ciri? Why is Ciri princess of Cintra if her father is Emperor of another country altogether?) could have been answered so easily.
Seriously, summarising the Witcher books is not that hard. Lots of things happen, but only a fraction of it is really relevant in retrospect, and you could hit all the major plot beats in a handful of paragraphs. (Heck, I’d do it here if this post wasn’t already ridiculously over long.)
But then, TW3 has a bizarre problem with leaving so much of its best material off screen, even from its own story. It's criminal that we never get to see any of Geralt's time (or Yennefer's) with the Wild Hunt, even in flashback or dream sequence. This is material that directly sets up the relationship between the main hero and the main villain, and the most we ever hear about it is a few vague allusions to it being like a strange nightmare. Really? That's it? What was it like? Was Geralt in a trance, unable to control his own actions – was he brainwashed into believing he belonged there, or was he merely unable to escape? What atrocities might Eredin have forced him to commit? Did he visit other worlds? Was he paraded among the Aen Elle as a captive? There is no way this isn’t a part of the story worth talking about!
We never see the moment Ciri rescues Geralt from the Wild Hunt. We never see how Avallac’h convinces her to trust him, we never see the moment he was cursed, or any of her efforts to save him – all these big, story-defining moments are left off-screen, to be vaguely recounted to you later in dialogue. Then there's the entire political situation in Nilfgaard – you hear about it second-hand, and it's all resolved off screen. And the list goes on. Yet you and Ciri still have time to run around Novigrad so she can thank a bunch of throwaway characters you've never even heard of before, nor will again. The priorities on display here are baffling.
The Witcher 3 was such a wildly successful game that it’s obvious these sorts of issues didn’t seriously hold it back, and it’s such a big game that I could have sat down and written just as many words focusing only on the parts that do work without much difficulty. It boasts stunning visuals, addictive gameplay and some truly wonderful characters, and so many parts of the story work brilliantly in isolation that it’s strange to come out of it feeling that it ultimately adds up to so much less than the sum of its parts.
I’m glad TW3 exists – if it hadn’t been such a runaway success I doubt I’d ever have discovered Sapkowski’s universe at all, but for myself, TW3 will probably always be remembered as a somewhat-overlong introduction to the really good stuff, in the expansions and the original novels it came from. I looked up the novels after finishing TW3 in large part because I’d been left with so many unanswered questions – and I’m glad I did, but I’m honestly surprised more people weren’t turned off by TW3′s scattershot approach to its own narrative. You’re allowed to change and rework in moving to a new medium, but I can’t imagine it would’ve hurt games’ success to tell a complete story in the process.
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Are you jealous?
Book: Bloodbound
Pairing: Adrian Raines x MC (Amy)
Warning: None
Words: 1.289
*Inspired in 'Lucifer': S5, E6*
Note: I don't know if it's my PC or just Tumblr but I can't cut the text! Sorry about that 😕
Permanent tagg list: @eileendannie @desireepow-1986 @dawn-1994 @darley1101 @blackcatkita @flyawayboo @drakewalker04 @choicesficwriterscreations
Adrian Raines x MC tagg list: @senator-adrian-raines-wifey @alesana45 @choicesfannatalie @mattrodriguezmylife @perriewinklenerdie @x-kyne-x @livingpurpose @adriansbiss @badgoodfishes @amyraineshessa @bloodboundismylife @bloodboundhoe @choices-addict-25 @lexilooloolovessenatorraines @bloodboundstuff @a-raines
When Adrian walked through the crystal doors of Raines Corp that morning the first thing he noticed was Amy waiting for the private elevator, which he had given her the key to a while ago, checking her phone. The night before flashed through his mind as he went towards her, trying to avoid a too obvious grin at the mere sight of her, remembering her sweet lips on his, the soft and at the same time intoxicating touch of her delicate hand on his body and how incredibly perfect their bodies fit together. He knew they shouldn't go that far, having this kind of personal relationship but there was something in her that drew him to her, like a magnet wanting, no needing, more. So much more. But when she mentioned that they should keep it between them because she didn't want to be "the office 'easy girl' who is fucking the boss", a phrase that Adrian tried vehemently to denied, he agreed, unsure of her feelings about their relationship.
"Good morning, Amy." He stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder, his free hand brushing hers.
"Good morning, Adrian." She smiled and he couldn't avoid thinking how different his name sounded the night before in her moans and how desperate he was to hear it again.
"You had a restful night, I hope?"
"For sure! I did a few hours of… Work out before bed." Her face didn't show any mischievous glint, smiling like everyday, as the elevator 'dinged' and they headed inside. When the door closed behind them, Adrian took a step closer to her. If she wanted to keep their distance at a maximum in the office, she just needed to take a step back and he would give her her space. To his pleasure, she took a step forward. She stood on her tiptoes and, taking her lead, he held her waist and lowered his mouth, finding hers halfway as a warm feeling, that after so many years he thought he would never feel again, stormed inside him in the most wonderful way. "Now, that is the perfect way to say good morning." Adrian chuckled before his mouth covered hers once more.
"You look beautiful today."
"Thank you, boss." She retorted with a playful hint of a sexy smile.
"I missed you this morning." His hold on her waist tightened a little.
"I missed you too but I needed to change my outfit." Before Adrian could answer, the elevator arrived on their floor and she took two big steps to the side as the doors opened.
"What is on today's agenda?" He asked as they walked out.
"In an hour, you have a meeting with the heads of sectors, after lunch the three candidates for the research team are coming for their final interview with you, at 5 o'clock Senator Vega will be waiting for us at his place and 6:40 with Priya in her mansion to talk about… you know."
"It's going to be fine." His hand found hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"After what you told me, how can you be sure?" There was an uncertain tone in her voice as her brows knitted together, worried.
"Because I'm going to do everything in my power to make it fine." His thumb unconsciously caressing her knuckles as a soft smile creeped on her face.
Before he knew, the morning had transformed into the afternoon and the interviews had started. The first candidate was a middle-aged man, with a remarkable resume but with some weak answers towards his questions, when the man left from the office, Amy handed him the file of the second candidate and he called Josie Adams inside as the elevator doors opened and a young man, that he supposed was the last candidate, came out, flashing a smile at Amy.
As he led the interview with ease with Adams, he caught a glimpse of Amy's conversation outside.
"Wow, Ames, you look really great!" The voice of who he presumed was the young man echoed in his brain. So this man already knew Amy. "Beautiful." Adrian felt a bubbling sensation inside him, a mix of anger and something new… something he didn't like.
"Thanks, Matt! It's so good to see you! You look great too! I didn't know you had applied for this job!"
"I didn't know you work here either!" He replied and they both chuckled as Josie kept talking about her experience. Adrian tried to concentrate until his own name pecked his attention again.
"...Adrian? He's honestly the best." A fond tone in her voice, he could almost see the smile on her face. "He's smart and respectful, I don't know anyone in the office that doesn't respect him."
"Any tips?"
"Just be authentic, he'll appreciate that." A tiny grin lifted Adrian's lip at Amy's words. Of course she would know the perfect way to approach him by now. Adams continued talking with confidence at his gesture, unaware the real reason for it.
"So, how have you been? Are you seeing someone?" Adrian blocked out the woman's voice, concentrating his hearing sense on the outside, curious about her response.
"I…" She hesitated. "No, I'm not." Well, that definitely wasn't what he was expecting to hear. They had agreed to keep it a secret but completely denying the relationship was further than what Adrian thought.
"Glad to hear."
"That is all I need, Ms. Adams." He suddenly cut the interview, standing up. "We will contact you soon." He shook the woman's hand.
"Thank you for your time, Mr. Raines." Amy led her to the elevator, took the file from her desk and entered Adrian's office, closing the door and handing it to him.
"You’re acquainted with the next candidate." It wasn't a question, and even though he was using the most professional tone possible, something else leaked out, making Amy smile.
"Yes, I do." She observed him with an almost satisfied grin without saying anything else.
"I see." He took Matt's resume and started to read it, being completely honest, some of his accomplishments were truly remarkable. "An old friend?"
"Not exactly." He lifted his gaze towards her, his right eyebrow rising up. "He's my ex-boyfriend. We broke up when I moved here, I didn't even know he had come too."
"Perhaps he's trying to get back with you. Especially if he thinks you are single." Amy giggled walking around his desk and sitting on the edge as her hand lowered the file that he was 'reading' and their eyes connected, deeply and intensely.
"Adrian, are you jealous?" His jaw clenched as she kept smirking. "Oh my god, you really are!"
"I do not get jealous."
"Then why do you care what he thinks?" Her feet barely touched his leg as they kept staring into each other's eyes.
"I don't."
"Mhm, sure you don't." She lowered from the desk and leaned closer to him, softly lifting his head cupping his right cheek, until her lips quickly but sweetly pecked his. "You are the only one I want to be with, that's why it is so important to do things right, even if it's hard to keep this as a secret for a while." She headed to the door as her hips swayed from side to side, clearly enjoying the power she had over him. "And by the way, I told him I'm single because he's the nosiest person I know. If I tell him or if you hire him, he would drive me nuts until I tell him who I'm dating." And just like that, she went back to her desk, closing the door as Adrian smiled, thinking he would do anything for this woman, even get jealous now and then.
❣️
#choices stories you play#play choices#adrian x mc#adrian raines x mc#adrian raines#choices fanfiction#choices fanfics#choices adrian#fanfic writing
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Game Review : CSR Racing 2
INTRODUCTION
- As you know, the CSR racing game was invented on 11 June 2012, but the features of the game was not as good as the new one which is CSR 2. The CSR 2 had been invented on 30 June 2016. Which is a lot of features have been ugraded to recruit their cars more advance. Actually, the features between the two games are exactly the same but what can I explore in CSR 2, it has been improved a lot by detailing their graphics and it almost looks like a real car. So basically, playing CSR 2 is a lot more interesting and fun better than CSR 1.
-On the other hand, by setting a new standard in graphics for car games, CSR2 delivers hyper-real drag racing to the palm of your hand. This game is a celebration of cars in your pocket! Racing games have never been so real. CSR2 gives a lot of opportunities to let the players customize their cars, drag race against players around the world, and take over the city on our own, isn't that fantastic >>
-Futhermore, CSR2 has been upgraded into the best of the best. Thus, CSR2 you will also compete in races against live players across the world with your custom-built supercars, including LaFerrari, Koenigsegg One: 1, and many more. To be more precise in customizing your cars, you must tune and customize your rides for maximum speed and dominate the competition in global crew events. Indulge your passion for owning the latest and greatest cars on the planet. Unfortunately, other car games can’t compete. This is such an incredible chance to get real. You can also ultimately race games for free and start your collection and get to race.
- Therefore, about the greatest update that gives a lot of satisfaction for the audience which is their graphic features. CSR2 redefines what you thought possible in car racing games on your mobile device. They were using outstanding 3D rendering techniques, which is incredible, the game features the most beautiful and authentic supercars to date. I have been playing these games from CSR 1 to CSR2, and I do really love the changes that have been made all over the years. The csr2 racing game is really surprised me because it was really good and so detail until it really looks like a real car. The interesting part is, you can experience the greatest type of cars compare to the car in the first version. The car can be earned by winning the race and collect all the money from the race until we can afford to buy a new car and we also can upgrade the turbo, the grip, and Tyre. Based on my experience, in playing racing games, that one game that can get you to be real while playing it, is the CSR2 racing game, there are no racing games that don’t get any more real than this!
THE LATEST, GREATEST & HOTTEST CARS
-Moreover, you may also can collect the racing cars and supercars of your dreams to show them off in your huge warehouse garage .CSR2 features over 200 officially licensed vehicles from popular and renowned car manufacturers, including Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, McLaren, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Pagani, and Koenigsegg. No other racing games can deliver the latest, fastest cars. I'm going to show you my entire garage that I have played before. I had bought a lot of cars and it is almost full in my garage and will going to open the second garage for my cars. Other than that, CSR2 lets you keep and buy a lot of cars that you wanted too, and the best part is there is no limit in owning as many of garage that you wanted to, isn't it interesting!!
This is my first garage so far:
I will summarize a few of the cars above for you guys:
TOYOTA 86
- If you wonder what cars that I have been collected over the month, the first car I drove from the start is the green one which is TOYOTA 86. Before that, this game has five levels of the car called a tier, so my first car for tier-one is TOYOTA 86, and this car is one of the fastest cars for my first tier. I rate this car 8/10 because it's good for tier 1 which is level one.
FERRARI 250 GTO
Next, is the most vintage car and I really love it!! It is called FERRARI 250 GTO. The best part about this vintage car is you will be going to win when it comes to long-distance but when it comes to short distance it will going to lose because it takes a lot of time for acceleration to the top speed, I used this car for my second tier.
MITSUBISHI LANCER EVOLUTION FINAL EDITION
- This car is for the tier 4. As can be seen, the car looks like an aggressive sporty car, and I also change the body kit at the front and the back car and yaw its hit different right!! This is the fastest car that I had played in this game. This car can really reach 300 km per hours for just 5 second!! I'm definitely rate this car 9/10!! This is so awesome.
HOW THE CSR2 GAME WORKS?
- Moreover, the cars available are split into tiers into the simple terms we called as level, there are five levels and you must beat crews to unlock each new tier, you can not only unlock the tiers but you also can get to unlock your favorite cars and the car that you interested too. The in-game currencies consist of two parts: dollars and gold. Dollars are relatively easy to obtain, by winning races and through special one-time deals where if you buy a certain vehicle the manufacturer supplies you with dollars for upgrades. Gold, however, is harder to earn and can only be obtained through leveling up, defeating bosses, every third daily battle. Both dollars and gold can also be bought with real money.
THE UNSATISFIED PART OF CSR2
- In other words, this game gives me joy and fun to play but still, there is something to be improved. From the first time I played this game, the matter that they have to improvise is the sound of the car's exhaust because all the cars have a really similar sound. Furthermore, this game has a really good and detailed graphic. I am sure it will rock this game more when we race. We have to spend 1 bar of fuel and from the start we play it, we just can carry 10 bars of fuel which means we just can have 10 races. To fill the bar of the fuel again, we have to wait for a few minutes for just 1 bar and that is what I think makes it annoying or maybe it will be boring to be waiting to play this game.
CONCLUSION
-Finally, CSR2 racing is just about winning the race and beat the crew and get an upgrade to buy a new car, a new garage and also do some changing on your car design or their body kit. Whenever I play this game, I feel the excitement is worth it. CSR2 racing game has a great graphic and the upgrade really makes the audience satisfied for their features and yeah. Indeed ,you also get to own your big garage and your dream car and collect it into your imagination garage. I don’t know but somehow this game has made me feel like a dream come true, again imagine owning the only car that you have been dreaming all the time even it is just a simulation but it had made a huge impact on me and the audience.
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Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)
(previous chapter)
Chapter 46 – I Heard Nothing
“Don’t kill him. Not just yet. We’d better figure out how big is his dagger and how much he managed to unsheathe and plunge it into our backs.”
Said M-21 to Lunark, who was rummaging her cloak.
“...Can’t guarantee I’ll remember that, but for now I’ll give you my word.”
Countered Lunark to M-21, who was turning away to get his clothes changed.
She was ready to warm up her joints, with nobody to send her away due to her rejection, when a sound stilled her steps.
“Lunark.”
Familiar were both the voice and the name. However, with the two combined Lunark jumped as if she were caught on fire.
It was the very first time having none other than Raizel calling her name.
She assumed only something important would have urged the Noblesse to delay her at such emergency; thus she obediently held her movements and waited for his following words.
Contrary to her assumption he merely stared at her in silence, and Lunark gently crushed her teeth against each other in anxiety.
She decided to ask for his understanding and save whatever it is for later if it falters in necessity. After all, the situation was dire.
Alas, that was when he chose to voice himself.
“At last I have come to see a promise.”
She could determine neither the purpose nor meaning of his words, and her pink eyes flipped like a pancake on a frying pan.
Before she could request for his explanation regarding this promise, Raizel began to retrace his steps back into his home. Apparently he never intended to keep her locked in her place for long.
At the same time, he left something that grabbed Lunark’s steps in their places for good.
“I shall count upon you concerning Frankenstein.”
She could not move for a while even after his disappearance.
She knew that the timing was outrageously wrong for her to speculate so, but it was as if she was watching a father who is sending away his treasured son to be someone’s husband.
‘Husband my behind. Snap out of it, Lunark.’
She had to shake her head to free her mind from idle thoughts. And by doing so, her brain brewed a duty that awaits her, sharpening her concentration to maximum.
Next up came rage, upon picturing a certain white-haired man; now she felt like punching herself in the face for not finding herself an opportunity to use his head as a shovel to dig up a grave for him when they were both elders of the Union.
With her fury driving her, Lunark finally kicked off and threw herself in the air.
Her mind was still keenly reverberating with wrath, shock that did not fade a bit, and hurried commitment.
On the other hand, a corner of her mind was echoing with desperation, and Lunark minced her lips as if her life depended on the action.
‘Please stay safe, Frankenstein... Please hang in there!’
*****
Few days later, Frankenstein’s island
“Welcome back.”
Frankenstein merely flapped his hand to 3rd Elder’s greetings and walked past him, which whipped the latter’s heart with cold biting sensation.
‘...He didn’t notice, did he?’
He knew, of course, that there was no way Frankenstein would know.
Because now he knew the recording device and camera Frankenstein implanted in him are no good.
And he wanted a word with the man regarding the matter.
He watched how Frankenstein was tramping forward, looking too exhausted he could bet the lord of the island would fall by simply having his name called, and he could feel guilt kicking and wrenching his conscience.
Are you sure it’s simply because you’re about to deny an exhausted man of his rest?
Muffling a voice whispering from a corner of his heart he could not pinpoint, 3rd Elder decided to speak.
“...Wait.”
Frankenstein, whose steps were weighed with fatigue, turned his head with much struggle.
Based on the fact that such ridiculously simple gesture was embedded with struggle, 3rd Elder could clearly see how serious Frankenstein’s state was.
That did nothing to make 3rd Elder change his mind, for this was the only chance he had.
“There’s something I’d like to ask.”
“...Be quick about it. I have a long way to go.”
Now that he was handed with the mic, 3rd Elder could not help but gulp.
‘...Just how did things turn out like this?’
The original plan was supposed to end with his immediate evacuation, instead of this confrontation.
‘...Who would’ve known our encounter would be led to this?’
Just a day ago, a weapon against heads of noble clans – or Sol, who has made the body his house and ride – presented himself at the island.
Here. Take it.
What’s this...?
It’s the chemical Union has been keeping. You know, the one that renders a substance its countersubstance. I believe I wouldn’t have to brief you about its use.
The man nodded, and that was supposed to be it.
Yet he asked Sol how he found out about this place, which ultimately rolled a snowball that raced all the way towards his conversation with Frankenstein.
I tracked down your whereabout. Do you remember what happened when you first ran into Ms. Helga?
Yes, but nothing in particular ha... Wait a minute. She did land a blow on my torso as soon as we recognized each other. Is this what you’re referring to? Speaking of which, after that Frankenstein did announce that my camera and recording device were jammed. Though he soon replaced them with functional ones.
Actually, that’s when Ms. Helga planted something in your body, and that thing is equipped with tracking feature. Forgive me for telling you now; she believed we shouldn’t tell you until we are assured that you’re with us.
There’s something inside me...? What did you do?
It’s a sort of distractor. We figured Frankenstein would leash you with a surveillance kit or two, so we requested our conspirator to come up with an anti-kit.
Conspirator? You mean...
Yes, he’s the inventor. It’s a mixture of a stealth device that absorbs sounds above certain decibels and a device that emits special signal to cause only noises for every type of footage-recording device. Both devices distract instead of destroying or freezing, so it would prevent Frankenstein’s knowledge, given that he calibrated his devices so he would pick up as soon as they are unavailable in function. And it’s a unique invention from its proposal to completion.
Shortly expressing marvel at devices that flaunted creativity, 3rd Elder feasted upon the thundering pounds of his heart.
If Sol’s words are as authentic as they could be, Frankenstein has been left in the dark concerning his behaviors ever since he met Helga.
Simultaneously, he could feel question nudging his cognition.
If his camera and recording device did not work properly after replacement, there is no way Frankenstein would not have pointed it out.
Nevertheless, the blonde scientist has never once sought him after replacement.
One excuse he could think of was that Frankenstein’s judgment is now fatally clouded, thanks to the sleeping issue he has been suffering.
Notwithstanding, his past history at Union was telling him there must be more than it seems behind this mystery.
And it was coercing him to find out more.
Sol, I know this is out of nowhere, but I need your help.
My help? For what...?
I’d like to find my voice and footage files Frankenstein would have collected so far.
With Sol’s hands in action, 3rd Elder could sneak a peek into Frankenstein’s personal files.
The firewall failed to stand against their infiltration, perhaps the network security compromised due to loss of connection during the failed activation of QuadraNet.
At the end of his navigation, 3rd Elder was turned speechless.
‘...How can this be?’
He could find records of his words and actions only from the times when he was beyond the shorelines.
The counterparts from the times when he was tucked within the boundaries of the isle were nowhere to be found.
‘Was he lying when he said he’s got his eyes on me on this island?’
Impossible.
That devilish homo sapiens will never do that.
We were adversaries to start with, and he’s keeping me alive just because he can make use of me.
Despite his uncertainties, 3rd Elder could not stop himself from dispensing the topic now that he was faced with the man of interest.
“Am I free of surveillance while I am on this island?”
In a flash, Frankenstein’s face marred with exhaustion and a bit of annoyance was sparked with icy glare.
Though the change did nothing, other than lightening the shade of the bags under his eyes by a tone.
“Don’t get me wrong. Before your return, I was reminiscing my days at Union and... Uh, I muttered something that you might take as a hint that I’m waiting for an opportunity to stab your back. Yeah, that’s right. I’m turning myself in, so you wouldn’t make a Dark-Spear-skewered meat out of me.”
The man did not miss how Frankenstein flinched albeit very faintly the moment he mentioned the cursed weapon.
Exhibiting none of his observations, he continued on.
“There’s a possibility that you didn’t check my voice print yet, but allow me to dare ask you, since you hadn’t burst into my room to throw a fit at me so far. Is this voice recorder inside me actually working...?”
Before either of them knew it, Frankenstein had fully turned to gaze at the speaker, who could feel his throat clenching as he witnessed how the master doctor was not even blinking.
I shouldn’t have asked. If only I can go back in time. If only I can have a word with the past me.
As 3rd elder was winding up bunch of thoughts, Frankenstein muttered, “...This is something students from my school used to say at a time like this: there’s a reason why sometimes it’s better to walk around in underpants than with smarty-pants.”
“...Beg your pardon?”
“That’s right. The voice recorder and the camera are off when you are in this island, via my judgment.”
The 3rd Elder’s face scrunched up so hard it almost looked foul: the one person ought to stay vigilant upon him was practically playing vigilant all this time.
“...But why?”
“Why? Isn’t it obvious? I’m not like Union, that’s why. I have no intention to keep tabs on each and every word and action of someone sharing my roof, like the Union lot had done. Most importantly, I happen to have a family. A family that had to go through horrible manipulation of body and mind under the Union. So there’s no way I’m doing what you have in mind. Now, if that answered your question, please excuse me.”
Frankenstein did not even wait for 3rd Elder to thaw from his mute stupefaction and promptly left.
That did not release 3rd Elder from his petrification.
‘He’s been neglecting me so far...?’
No, he was not neglecting me.
He was trusting me.
Perhaps it was too soon for him to employ the synonym of faith, but at least there was no doubt the way Frankenstein is treating him is different from the way he treats him.
When he explained why he was not keeping surveillance on him, the vocabulary he pulled out was ‘Union.’ Not ‘you Union folks.’ Or ‘your people.’
Which was a proof that Frankenstein no longer identifies him as part of the Union.
He thereby showed how he unconsciously crossed off 3rd Elder’s name from his list of foes.
As soon as he relished in the fact, he could feel something straining his heart.
And then he recalled what he had done at Frankenstein’s lab before his return.
Feeling something striking his chest, he turned halfway towards the lab, only to stop dead not after long.
The table was toppled, and the pieces of what used to lie on top cannot be restored.
‘...There was no other choice. This is for the Union. For the humanity.’
I heard nothing.
I. Heard. Nothing.
He endeavored to cover the fact that his hands are bloody, tagging definitely-not-nothing as nothing.
And he sprinted to get away from the crime scene on the double.
(next chapter)
Yes, 3rd Elder did feel guilty; yet he decided to stab Frankenstein in the back. :’( And this isn’t the end of his appearance. Of course it’s not! Please stay tuned to find out what he does after this what his betrayal will bring about; I can guarantee that the result will be nothing close to meaningless.
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