#Salvaging Is What We Do; Ghost Ship
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Elesa climbs to celestial tower to ring the bell. Emmet, stuck in between the distortion world, finds his way home.
Part 1/ Part 2
The conductor falls, down, down, down.
“What’s my name?” He calls to the abyss in terror (what is terror?)
He’s a singular being, right? (That’s not right. He’s one of a pair.)
The abyss gazes back. It has no answers to give, in its multitude.
Not to someone that’s so, so alone.
———
Somewhere else, one Elesa of Nimbasa rings the Celestial Tower’s Bell, over and over. Her companion, Chandelure, keeps watch.
Nothing happens.
Elesa’s stomach sinks. The reverberations of Celestial Tower’s brass bell mocks her in its echo. The vibrations of it’s distortion only makes the tears she tries to hold at bay worse.
In the blur of her failure, she sees chandelure’s flames suddenly die. Part of her panics.
The rest of her is apathetic and numb.
What’s the point? It didn’t work. Elesa closes her eyes. Tries to swallow, and fails. She’s so tired. She’s so, so tired. The deal with Azelf, the media storm she’s weathered, the constraints of her job, the almost loss of chandelure-
Emmet has been gone for three months. Ingo has been gone even longer.
They have gone where she can’t follow.
Elesa, the ghost whispers in her head. Elesa shakes her head in denial. She doesn’t want to plan right now. She wants to curl into herself, and disappear, just for a bit.
Elesa!
“I can’t do this,” she croaks. The sob in the back of her throat bubbles outwards. She wants Zebrstika. She wants Skyla. She wants her friends.
The paliphet Azelf forced her forward. It permeates her thoughts, drowning out logical thought.
(Too much willpower, and it will become an obsession, Azelf had warned her once in Ingo’s voice. And then, in Emmet’s voice: And when you fail, it willll break you. And finally, in her own voice: you will not have a choice but to move forward, with this curse.
I accept, elesa and told it back in the lake.)
I’m so tired, Elesa thinks now, two months later.
But she keeps moving forward. The bell rings again as Elesa strikes it, with all the hurt and rage and longing forced by her own hand into her soul-
-And that’s when chandelure screams, and there is a terrible rolling crack, and Elesa feels the sudden lurch in her gut as she looks up, her apathy torn into shreds as-
The sky tears open in a fractal wave.
Elesa gapes.
She can not comprehend the sudden black webbing across the sky. In the distance, sirens suddenly start wailing as people stop to perceive the impossible.
But Elesa does not care, because in that moment, the wrench in her gut is so great she almost staggers off the platform. Chandelure is by her side in an instant, her glass body a warm comfort to the sudden chill, because-
Something white is falling.
Elesa’s doesn’t know what she yells. But the tug in her chest feels like the beat of a drum, and she is helpless to the melody that calls for action.
Azelf’s blessed takes a leaping step forward, off the building. Chandelure lets out a panicked chime and the warmth of psychic cradles Elesa as she reaches out, arms outstretched, falling and flying and-
And Emmet, sparking with white electricity, reaches back.
NOTES:
AU’s Salvaging the Ship of Theseus! Everybody has a Bad Time. (Emmet and Eelektross go to Hisui and learn about the joys of the distortion world. Elesa hunts legends and makes bad deals. Ingo babysits some sneaslets.)
Backstory and explanation:
Prior this scene, Emmet was travelling Hisui with Eelektross before he falls through a mirror and becomes lost in the distortion world for a month. Elesa and Chandelure, meanwhile, refuse to give up on their remaining friend. (Ingo’s fine! He’s in Hisui right now trying to get fired so he can go searching for his memories. Eelektross is… less fine. We will Worry about That Later.)
Disclaimers: Everything’s a work in progress and subject to change!
Part 2!
#submas#submas au#salvaging the ship of theseus#(gives you a drabble)#this fucking scene…. living in my head… HARASSING ME UNTIL I WRITE AND DRAW IT.#BEGONE FOUL DEMONS#emmet#elesa#chandelure#pokemon#pokemon au#hope this haunts you as much as it haunts me#critdraws#critterbitter screams into the void#submas angst#submas fanfiction#fanfic#Spotify
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G.I.G.S. PLAY LETHAL COMPANY
STREAM RECAP
Skizz, Grian and Impulse appear in orange spacesuits in a down-at-heel salvage spaceship. They are met with a glowing red display informing them they have 4 days left to meet profit quota.
Impulse makes a good-faith attempt to read the training manual, but this is aggressively ignored by the other two, and even Impulse gives up completely when Scar arrives.
Grian hates that they all look the same and demands they change suits.
They all succeed in changing their suits to exactly the same shade of orange as they have only unlocked one color.
Grian deals with his frustration at being thwarted by jumping over the railing of their ship as it starts to land shouting WHEE!
Skizz: Did he just jump?
Grian: [has sustained enormous amounts of fall damage] MY LEGS
Eventually they discover the main point of the game, a mysterious abandoned facility.
Grian: HEEEEEEE [jumps over the railing into the depths of the facility]
Grian has died.
Grian’s ghost commands the ship to leave early.
The whole party are left by Grian to perish on a hostile planet.
Skizz: So, what did we learn?
Scar & Impulse together: Nothing.
Grian: Falling hurts?
Impulse discovers a valve he can’t pull. Scar asks if he needs a man to come down and pull his valve. Scar finds he cannot pull the valve either and suggests maybe we need someone else to come down and crank it.
Scar: Should we have left Grian to his own devices? [This is slander, Grian has begun to find valuable items for the crew.]
Scar and Skizz are eaten by sand monsters.
Scar and Skizz attempt to abandon the others but Impulse and Grian make it back in time.
Grian: I can’t believe how bad we are at this.
1 day left to meet profit quota.
New planet! it is raining. Scar and Skizz get lost on an old rail track for about five minutes. When they return, they find the mysterious splattered corpses of their dead friends.
Both of them stand there inspecting the mysterious splattered corpses of their dead friends beside an inexplicable jar of pickles. Scar picks up a corpse. Skizz retrieves the pickles.
Scar get splattered by exactly the same monster as the other two, in the same place, doing the same thing.
Skizz: I saved the pickles!
Impulse’s ghost: Really? 😒
0 days left to meet profit quota.
Argument over the value of pickles all the way back to the company planet, where a small window with a bell is apparently where to sell their stuff. Impulse tells the others to ring the bell and stand back. A dark force scythes out of the window and consumes their scrap. They return to orbit.
Ship: YOU HAVE NOT ACHIEVED YOUR PROFIT QUOTA. WELCOME TO OUR DISCIPLINARY CLASSES.
The airlock opens and sucks the whole party out into the airless void.
Impulse: Noooooooo!
Scar: Did we get spaced!?
Grian: [in a tone that suggests he thinks the Company have a point about incompetence] We’re being disciplined. In space.
Scar: I don’t like our boss.
Grian announces that he has a NEW STRATEGY. We stick together, we find stuff together, and we leave together.
Grian immediately runs off after landing.
Impulse: I think he’s dead.
Scar: Have faith in him, he’s British.
Grian: [reappears] The profit quota is 130 credits. We can do this if we do it PROPERLY. [These are rich words for a man who has jumped unnecessarily to his death several times.]
However, Grian is absolutely determined they are going to succeed. He finds a whole scrap engine. Meanwhile Scar, wondering if he will ever find anything of value, is delighted to find and recover an ominously glowing light.
Skizz: [hearing the new hum] What did you do?
Scar: I salvaged a lightbulb!
Impulse: YOU TURNED ON THE RADIATION, SCAR.
Scar: That wasn’t me, that was…Grian.
They have collected a big metal cog, an engine, Scar’s ominously glowing lightbulb, and miscellaneous junk. Skizz has died again. In site of Grian’s agitation for efficiency, they are still a few credits short of the quota. They are once more sucked through the airlock into the cold void of space.
Impulse: AUGH!
Skizz: OH NO COME ON.
Grian: [disgusted] We deserved it.
New planet again! They are definitely going to do things better and more efficiently this time.
Impulse: I’ve bought four flashlights! We should see a rocket landing to give them to us.
The rocket arrives playing a jaunty ice-cream truck tune. Skizz welcomes it by standing under it and yelling.
Skizz is killed by the rocket.
Scar: That’s so sad. [steals his flashlight]
Scar has found a horn
Grian: I think—
HORN NOISE
Grian: I think I’m going—
HORN NOISE
Grian: …
HORN NOISE
Grian: I’m going back to the ship.
HORN NOISE HORN NOISE HORN NOISE
Skizz: Well at least I always know where Scar is now
HORN NOISE
Grian: [back at the ship] SCAR I’m going to have to ask you to DROP THE HORN.
Scar will not drop the horn. They travel to company planet to sell. Visibly at the end of his rope, Grian finally convinces Scar to put down the horn.
Grian immediately steals the horn for himself and starts using it.
The next mysterious abandoned facility has nothing to offer but a very difficult parkour jump over a dizzying drop.
Grian: We gotta do the jump.
Impulse successfully makes the jump and gets to the other side. A giant braineating slug instantly drops on his head. The others assist him via encouraging shouts of ‘look at that idiot!’. Eventually it is decided there has to be a rescue party. The other three make the jump and try ineffectually punching the slug (Scar: BANG HIM. JUST BANG HIM!) The slug finishes eating Impulse’s brain and starts eating Grian’s. (Grian: IT’S ON ME). Scar attempts to pick up Grian’s body. The slug lands on Scar. The slug eats Scar’s brain while Skizz runs away and starts the ship.
Skizz: [having abandoned all his friends to die and failed to pick up any scrap] A grade D? This is outrageous.
Scar picks up the horn again in revenge.
They return to the company planet. Grian rings the bell several times to sell their stuff.
An eldritch tentacle monstrosity eats Grian.
Impulse: There was a bell. You knew he was going to press the button too many times.
Scar: WHY DO WE WORK FOR SOMEBODY LIKE THIS.
Newly resurrected, Grian proposes for their next run on a new planet they buy some flashlights. Impulse proposes that they save the money as they will probably die and need them on a future mission. Skizz proposes they buy Impulse some OPTIMISM and BELIEF IN HIS TEAM. This motion is carried.
Scar proposes they all take a moment to remember the airhorn and how fun it was. This motion is summarily discarded.
Grian jumps into a sand creek in his great excitement at the arrival of the ice-cream truck supply rocket and slowly falls to his death shrieking HELP ME.
Impulse: I’M HELPING [Impulse also slowly falls to his death]
Skizz: Here’s the ice-cream truck!
They were too slow and the rocket has left without giving them the flashlights.
In an act of protest at being a ghost, Grian starts playing a Switch game with the music up and his mic on.
Scar dies to another carnivorous slug and Impulse and Grian’s ghosts tell the ship to take off and let Skizz perish on the hostile planet, leaving once more with no scrap and a mission grade of F.
Scar: We’re all dead.
Impulse, the man who originally threw away the instruction manual: Maybe we should read up and see if there’s something we missed about this game.
Scar: I liked the air horn.
Impulse: … What if we played Phasmophobia instead?
#stream recaps#long post#team gigs#goodtimeswithscar#impulsesv#grian#gtws#skizzleman#this one IS a recap not a fic#i know this is also my fic format but this did all actually happen#and i'm still laughing at it#glossy text
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[ ID a screenshot of an apple music lyrics page. it is from christmas kids by roar and it reads "you'll change your name, or change your mind and leave this fucked up place behind but i'll know i'll know, i'll know (repeated four more times) appearing unsightly, with devils inside me. if you ever try to leave me, i'll find you, ronnie (repeated 3 times)." END ID ]
hey hon? Christmas Kids by Roar. You know what to do (spread ‘oh my god this song is so j.d./veronica because it’s so toxic of a relationship!! i hate j.d./veronica.’ propaganda)
okay i actually don’t mind people who do ship jdronica because i recognize they can salvage the relationship with AUs as is any other Heathers ship.
However,
(Ramble Under Cut)
JDronica as Christmas Kids is genuinely something that works. The gift of him pretending to understand her (which, I believe he understands her intentions and opinions on a superficial level, but that’s something else) and welcoming her somewhere that she can actually be heard and agreed with and engaged with, that’s what drew her in, that was the gift. But- after everything. Veronica could change her name or change her opinions of the world, change whatever about herself she thinks is what drew JD to her; she could leave Sherwood, she could change everything and he would know.
Whether as a ghost or a hallucination as are the ghosts of Kurt, Ram, and Heather, he would know.
That’s something I love about Veronica’s character as a whole; she can never truly escape. Where the fuck would she run to? He’s everywhere. He’s in the reflection of the mirrors, he’s in the dark corners of the streets, he’s in the angry shouting or slightly aggressive grabbing. He’s in the sound of explosions, he’s in the blood spilled— their love is God because God is Always Watching. Whether he interferes or not, He Knows.
As the years pass since the massacre at Westerburg High School, the meaning of the phrase “Our Love is God” changes from “We, Being Lovers, Being Partners, Being One, Give Us the Power of Creation and Destruction, of Everything” to “I Am Always Watching”.
#rant#ramble#anti jd#veronica sawyer#jason dean#heathers musical#heathers movie#jd heathers#heathers the musical#angst#heathers angst#veronica sawyer angst#🤖 : asks!
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I wrote a synopsis of the beginning of age of sigmar for a fren
I’m forcing you to read it now
In the beginning the world exploded
And magic brought back 8 entire flat earths each based on each kind of magic
Hysh: The realm (flat earth) of light
Ulgu: the realm of shadow
Chamon: the realm of metal
Ghur: the realm of beasts
Ghyran: the realm of life
Shyish: the realm of death
Aqshy: the realm of fire
Azyr: The realm of heaven
As well as the aetheric void and a bunch of other sub realms we can talk about later
After the world exploded a few funny friends were still kickin around somehow
One of which was Sigmar Heldenhammer, who for all intents and purposes is British Zeus. He hit his head on a rock and died kinda but woke up in azyr and thought “huh, I guess I should build a city” and so azyrheim was built, from here humans kinda appeared and started populating the other realms slowly through grueling pilgrimages called dawnbringer crusades, where they literally DRAG A FUCKING CITY ALONG A LEY LINE
In between Ulgu and Hysh, a few other gods were still hoppin about
Tyrion and Teclis, the twin gods of light
Malerion(formerly malekith), the god of shadows
And the only gods to canonically fuck: kurnoth and allarielle, the god of the hunt and the goddes of life
They were huddled around the sorta dead sorta captured body of the chaos god of excess, slaanesh, who ate all the elven souls from the world that exploded. Slaanesh didn’t do that tho that was Archaon, we’ll talk about him later. Anyway slaanesh ate all the elven souls cuz they were hungy and the elven gods didn’t like that, so they cut slaanesh open to retrieve the souls
But just before the do, malerions mortal mom, morathi, pops out of slaanesh and is immediately mad she’s not a god.
But they use her survival to help take out elven souls from the tummy of slaanesh
The first souls sucked and telcis hated them and was gonna kill them all but they fled to the depths of the seas and became the idoneth, the sea elves
After that malerion and morathi were like “you suck” and took a bunch of souls out and they become umbraneth, the dark elves
Morathi also took the opportunity to start slowly eating a bunch of souls herself to become a god, which we’ll get to in a few millennia
The other gods thought that was very rude and kept salvaging souls
Next came the kurnothi and sylvaneth, wild and wood elves (wood elves are mostly trees) which kurnoth and allarielle decided to take care of
Finally teclis and tyrion took out the last of what they could and made the lumineth, the high elves.
Back in not space there are a bunch of frogs and lizards in ships, they aren’t important yet
Meanwhile the dwarven gods get no lore except a few sentences, grungi is helping sigmar with a special project, and grimnyr fuxking exploded
During this time a bunch of cool stuff happens in the age of myth
But the good times can’t last and the gods of chaos figure out “oh hey, people are still alive???” So they break reality and start subjugating the mortal realms
Khorne, the blood god
Nurgle, the plague god
Tzeentch, the magic squid man
Slaanesh is still being help via her cock ring in ulgysh (I’m not kidding)
After a few billion years of this (not really) sigmar and grungi finish their special project and make the stormcast eternals to kill chaos, this is using souls stolen from nagash, the god of death and he’s all bad
Nagash and his most not loyal followers start fuckin with both chaos daemons and the other “good” guys and invent skeletons, ghosts, ghouls, and vampires
Meanwhile orks appear out of nowhere and there are goblins piloting majoras mask moons, there’s also rat men
Congratulations that’s the base knowledge. I’m so sorry I went too hard
#trans#transgender#trans woman#please help#wlw yearning#age of sigmar#warhammercommunity#warhammer#tabletop#lore
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♻: Scrapped Idea and 🤔: Story you haven't written/started yet?
Hi hello thank you for asking!! For a scrapped idea, The Station -- And by scrapped I definitely mean recycled because I'm using the general premise for a sci-fi novel now. I'm gonna include an excerpt though because I low-key really liked what I did write for it:
Ghost thumped on the door, and it finally popped open, the hydraulics making a defeated hissing noise. Gaz disconnected from the door panel and bumped fists with Ghost. “Thanks, bruv. Must’ve been jammed.”
“Dried blood in the gears,” Ghost grunted. “Seen it before.”
They continued on. Gaz had downloaded a schematic of the station while he was plugged into the console, and displayed it on his holo-tool. “Engineering’s a good place to start. These stations use crystalline fuel— Nice and stable, and expensive. We can load up Salvo and send him back to the ship to unload, and then come back for more. I gotta build a second one some day. Would be worth havin’.”
“Should be enough around ‘ere to build three or four,” Ghost said, kicking a half-destroyed android out of their path. “We can pick up a service cart in engineerin’ too. These stations are full of redundant parts. Backups for backups.”
“Any life signs?” Soap asked nervously, wide blue eyes fixed on a gutted corpse lying to the side of the hallway.
“I’m working a decryption program in the background,” Gaz said, holding his tablet up with his other hand. “I’ll let you know once I get into security systems. I can probably tap directly into the computer from engineering too.”
“Good job, Gaz,” Price said. “Be nice to have an idea where these beasties are holed up.”
“Bridge, most likely.” Ghost said. “Might know we’re ‘ere.”
“Well, if they’re listenin’, we don’t give a damn what they’re doin'. Want nothin’ to do with ‘em, and won’t get in their way. Just here for salvage.” Price glanced up at one of the security sensors, wondering if there was a scalie, shark-toothed bastard looking back at him from some console somewhere. “But we’re also a tougher mouthful than these civvies. Wouldn’t try it.”
As for something I haven't written/started yet... I pretty much start everything I think about (which is how I have like 19 wips right now lmao) but I have some like, alternate event ideas for a really long fic I've been working on called Sparrow where Morgan (the mc) runs away to Montana instead of getting involved with the 141's mission and Price comes looking for her a few months down the line and gets a little mad and sexy with it. But I gotta write and post Sparrow before I'm allowed to write alternate universes for it.
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Hi, I was wondering how do you imagine the Team Treasure spending Christmas? Who cooks, who decorates the house, who dresses up as Santa?
Holiday Hijinks, Angst Edition
Hi @thesere1418!
Thanks so much for your question! Let’s have some holiday fun.
Right off the bat I’m going to divide this into ‘pre-treasure hunt’ and ‘post-treasure hunt’ Christmases, because they’ll look very different and I think the contrast will be useful and full of angst, muahaha.
What follows is 100% pure headcanon and conjecture. I have no source for any of this other than I feel like it : )
A Pre-Treasure Christmas
I think it’s important that we start here because before the events of National Treasure, our four heroes are all living isolated, solitary lives to varying degrees.
Angst & headcanons ↓
Ben
Ben spends his pre-treasure hunt Christmases, well, treasure hunting. I imagine that the holidays don’t factor much into the way he lives his life. He pours over books and old archive records for hours and days at a time. He eats frozen meals and fast food, takeout when he can afford it. He’s not one to decorate his apartment, because he’s not home that often. He can spend weeks at a time away on salvage dives, or off in New York or Boston or Paris searching for Charlotte’s whereabouts. If he is at home, he might have one or two sentimental decorations that belonged to his grandfather that he’ll put out. The remind Ben of early Christmases as John’s house.
At some point over the holidays Ben has to visit his mother. Emily seems like the kind of person who puts on a classy Christmas party, maybe not on the day itself, but sometimes around it. She has her professor friends over for wine and an a delightfully pretentious selection of cheeses. It’s a great time, if you like parties that come with their own subscription to The New Yorker. Ben is always invited and he has two options: attend and know that every other guest thinks he’s a crackpot, or disappoint his mother. Neither is great. Sometimes he’s conveniently out of the country. Sometimes he toughs it out. If he can, Ben visits her on the actual holiday instead. Then it’s just a quiet dinner with a few close friends and the guy she’s seeing, if there is one. If he’s out of the country he always calls.
On Christmas itself—or maybe Christmas Eve. Ben feels like a Christmas Eve person to me—he puts on an old record and splurges on some real takeout, Chinese or Thai. It’s that and a beer and another late, lonely night reading through ship manifests and learning about arctic weather patterns.
If you live in a world where Book of Secrets does not exists, then Ben’s mother probably hangs over the holiday like a fondly remembered ghost. He was quite young when she died, but the memories he has of her are dear to him, as are the traditions that come with them. If she made the best fruit cake in town, then Ben finds himself wandering into the bakery or that one and sampling the wares, never finding one that tastes quite the way he remembers it. If she had a favorite decoration, maybe a ceramic angel tree topper with delicate lace wings, Ben always finds a prominent place to display it, even if it’s the only thing he puts out.
What about being “cavalier in [his] personal life,” you say? Never a Christmas girlfriend? Sure, maybe once or twice. But Christmas with the family is a big step, one I think Ben would be reticent to take. Although he’s apparently going around telling at least two “someones” that he loves them, I think deep down Ben knows none of these relationships are as important as his one true love, Charlotte and the Templar treasure. He tries his best to get out of it. If he can’t, well, I imagine he’s his usual completely normal self and I’m sure that’s a big hit with some unsuspecting family.
Abigail
Abigail’s pre-treasure Christmas is the least isolated of any of them, but she might rather trade with Ben honestly. Her holidays start by suffering through the office Christmas party. Stan has too much eggnog and hits on her while her assistant does her best to run interference, and Abigail pretends to like coworkers she barely knows during an awkward secret santa. Then, after a brief stop at home to change and collect her already meticulously packed suitcase and meticulously wrapped gifts, its time to drive to wherever her family lives. I’m feeling Connecticut.
So she drives to CT to her favorite Christmas jazz CD. She likes the quiet hours in the car.
Then the Christmas chaos sets it. I don’t imagine Abigail comes from an especially large family, it’s her mother and step-father, her brother, his wife, and her two grade-school-age nephews. I also headcanon that she has an older sister who moved back to Germany, but more on that some other time. Abigail arrives a day or two early to help with the preparations, and that’s one of her favorite parts. She and her mother make Lebkuchen (German spiced Christmas cookies) and other family recipes, as well as prepare a fish dinner for Christmas Eve and a roast duck or goose for Christmas Day.
The Chase family partakes in the German tradition of decorating the tree on Christmas Eve. This wasn't a huge part of their Christmas before they moved, but after they moved to the States it became an important way to stay connected to their roots.
Other favorite activities of hers include playing games with her nephews. She got them into go a few years ago, but Abigail is also surprisingly competent at Mario Cart.
But there’s also the comments about whether she’s seeing anyone, and the questions that make it clear that her family doesn’t understand what she does for work or why. She loves her brother and his kids and she’s always grateful to be home, but it’s also very clear to her, between the lines, that her family thinks her life is too small. When the noise and the people get to be too much, she escapes to the kitchen to work on the endless pile of dishes.
Riley
Riley, Riley, Riley. My problem child. Who are you??
Riley seems like he comes from a big-ish family, let’s say four kids, and he’s second youngest. Maybe it’s the way he seems to roll with the punches. We’re breaking into the National Archives? Sure, fine. I can’t stop you, so let me get my laser.
There’s also a good chance that he’s Jewish. Justin Bartha is Jewish, and Riley does say “Mazel Tov” to Ben when Ben says he looks alright for the gala. For the sake of this post let’s say that Riley is from a mixed family that celebrates both traditions. But if you have a take on how Judaism informs Riley’s character, I want to hear it!
Before meeting Ben, Riley worked at a dead-end office job (at IBM, according to the 2003 script). I imagine he was pretty low in the office hierarchy if a probably-fruitless, dangerous treasure hunt seemed like an appealing alternative. Otherwise he’d keep toiling away in a sea of gray cubicles, underpaid and under appreciated. The thing about offices is that when the holidays arrive, the people leave but the problems keep coming. And when you’re know as That-Guy-Who-Can-Solve-My-Problem, you get stuck with the problem. So as Riley’s coworkers and colleagues start to head out on vacation, more and more problems pile up on his desk. His nights get later, and on the last work day before the holiday, his is the last light on.
When all the workplace fires are finally put out, Riley stuffs the presents for his nieces and nephews into his clunker of a sedan and heads for the family home in…Florida? Michigan? My gut says it’s not one of the original 13 colonies, based on how geographic symbolism tends to work in the National Treasure-verse. (Riley listens to metal in the car. He gets sick of Christmas music by November.)
The celebration is at his aunt and uncle’s house, on his dad’s side. By the time he gets there, the house is capital C Chaotic. His cousins and most of his siblings have kids, so there’s a whole flock of nieces and nephews running amuck (and Riley is only too happy to join them). His dad and his sister are bickering over the best technique for cooking the roast. His sister and his brother-in-law are having a heated debate over who knows what. And his other sister—that’s right, I’ve decided he has all sisters—is trying mediate a spat between some of the kids.
Uncle Riley is a big hit with the kids. He’s cool. He’s techy. He always knows the latest video games and can troubleshoot any problem with their GameCube. With the adults…not so much. Riley was a bit of a late bloomer career-wise. He might have stayed in his parents’ basement for a year or two after college. He’s obviously incredibly smart, but he never applies himself to what he’s “supposed to.” Also please stop telling our kids that Bigfoot is real and the moon landing was fake, thank you.
Once he’s through with that and back in his broom closet of an apartment, Riley has a second holiday gathering, this time with his online squad. Riley has to be part of some online groups. Hackers. Conspiracy theorists. Random internet weirdos. Maybe they play D&D together, or swap code or challenge each other to hack into places they shouldn’t just to see if it can be done. In a lot of ways, Riley feels more at home with these usernames on a black background than he does with the family he grew up in.
Patrick
Any way you slice it, Patrick is having a pretty sad Christmas. He’s estranged from his only son. His wife either died thirty years ago or hasn’t spoken to him in thirty years. Either way, his belief that she was his “one and only” means he isn’t seeing anyone, and it appears he has no siblings, so he probably doesn’t have much in the way of family plans. Maybe he has a friend or two who invite him to their family gatherings. Patrick always says he’ll try to swing by, but he knows he won’t. He doesn’t want to intrude, and he has no interest in pity invites.
In the week leading up to Christmas, Patrick’s poker club meets for their holiday game. There’s eggnog and music in the background and enthusiastic discussions of everyone’s holiday plans. Maybe they even tried a secret santa once or twice. It’s a fun little time, but it’s not Christmas.
Christmas for Patrick Gates is a pre-ordered meal and a glass of whisky and an old record on the record player, alone in that big old house.
Conclusion
Okay! Have I broken your heart yet?
Sorry for the angst, but the contrast is going to be important!
This was actually a great opportunity to reflect on what Team Treasure’s lives were like before the events of the film. It highlighted for me just how lonely and isolated they each were, and how something was missing from their lives even if they didn’t know it at the time.
Of course, I’m making most of this up whole-cloth, so feel free to disagree with everything! What do you thing their families and family holidays were like?
This year, the holiday lead-up has been really hectic for me, but this question helped me get into the holiday spirit a bit and think more about my own Christmas traditions as well as the characters.’
Next time, I will answer you actual question about post-treasure Christmas!
I am trying so, so hard to have it ready by Christmas, fingers crossed.
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Will Turner Is Not Smart: At World’s End Edition
The final installment of this series, because the subsequent films do not count!
Previous discussion of Will’s unhinged decision making in Curse of the Black Pearl is here, and a record of his clownery in Dead Man’s Chest is here.
Will Turner in At World's End is just… wow. He is trying so hard to be smart, and failing spectacularly at it. I was going to say that he should have figured out by now that Elizabeth is the brains of their relationship, but honestly, Elizabeth makes some very poor decisions in this film as well. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Prologue: Believing the Pearl can beat the Dutchman
As with Dead Man’s Chest, the set-up for Will’s worst decisions in At World’s End originates in the previous film. In this case, it’s his bizarre conviction that he needs the Black Pearl in order to rescue his father, which he appears to have decided based solely on the fact that the Pearl is fast enough to outrun the Dutchman.
As stated previously, this makes no sense. The Pearl managing to outrun the Dutchman does not mean that the Pearl would win in a fight, even without taking into account that the Dutchman is a ghost ship captained by a supernatural entity who can only be killed in one very specific way. If Will had managed to take the Pearl and used it to catch up with the Dutchman without first obtaining Davy Jones’s heart, Jones would have just killed him.
Blunder 1: Not talking to his fiancee
There’s a time skip between the second and third films. We’re not sure exactly how much time has passed, or how our main characters manage to get to Singapore, but based on the speed of travel at the time, I think it’s safe to say that between three and six months have passed since the end of the second film.
During this time, Elizabeth is distant with Will, because she is hiding the fact that she doomed Jack to the kraken so that everyone else could escape. Will, meanwhile, is distant with Elizabeth because he saw her kissing Jack during said treachery, and therefore decided that the reason Elizabeth is being so distant must be because she actually loved Jack, and she’s in mourning until they can get him back.
Three to six months is a very long time to go without meaningfully speaking to your fiancee. Elizabeth shares the blame on this one, but it’s unfathomable to me that they went this long without having a conversation about this. If these two morons had sat down and discussed their feelings with each other for fifteen minutes, then Will would never have doubted Elizabeth’s love for him, and Elizabeth could have sensibly pointed out to Will that his plan to save his father didn’t make a lick of sense.
Instead, the two of them moped all the way to Singapore, and everyone suffered. How Barbossa tolerated this, I have no idea.
Blunder 2: Bargaining with Sao Feng
It’s cute that Will thinks he can plot and backstab with people who’ve been pirating for decades and still come out on top. While there are parts of Will and Sao Feng’s interactions that are open to interpretation, I get the sense that Will has betrayed their mission to Sao Feng before Barbossa and Elizabeth even arrive at the bathhouse.
Sao Feng makes this comment:
It seems the only way a pirate can turn a profit anymore… is by betraying other pirates.
He then glances meaningfully at Will, and the expression is more conspiratorial than condemning. I can’t decide if this means that Will turned himself in—I can’t think of any good reason why he would, since they do genuinely need the navigational charts to rescue Jack and the Pearl, but Will does plenty of things without good reason, so I’m not ruling it out—or if Will was genuinely captured during his attempted theft and made what efforts he could to salvage the situation.
Regardless, it doesn’t sound like the first time they’ve discussed the topic when they are later taking cover from the East India Trading Company’s assault:
Sao Feng: It's an odd coincidence, isn't it? The East India Trading Company finds me the day you show up in Singapore.
Will: It is coincidence only. If you want to make a deal with Beckett, you need what I offer.
Sao Feng: You cross Barbossa. You are willing to cross Jack Sparrow. Why should I expect any better?
Will: I need the Black Pearl to free my father. You're helping me to get it.
Sao Feng asks a good question here, and Will lays out his motivations quite plainly. What he fails to do is consider the same question in the reverse: if Sao Feng is willing to cross Jack Sparrow and Barbossa to make a deal with Beckett, then why would he not betray Will, too?
He has no reason not to, and so that’s exactly what he does. And Will has the gall to be surprised.
The result is that Will ends up locked in the Pearl’s brig while Elizabeth turns herself over to Sao Feng in exchange for freedom for the Pearl and her crew.
Clever by accident: Leading Beckett to Shipwreck
Will escapes the Pearl’s brig and leaves a trail of corpses tied to barrels in the Pearl’s wake so as to lead Beckett to Shipwreck Cove. It isn’t clear at this point exactly what his plan is, beyond potentially bargaining with Beckett for his father’s freedom and Elizabeth’s safety.
This ends up being sort of clever, but mostly due to the fact that Will is now in a position for Jack to use him as a chess piece in his quest to draw in Beckett, the Dutchman, and Jones’s heart, thus allowing him to kill Jones and simultaneously clear his debt and achieve immortality. As Beckett later comments, Jack is the grand architect of the coming conflict, and Will is merely a tool to achieving his ends. Thus, accidentally clever.
Clever on purpose: Nudging Calypso in the right direction
It’s not clear from what we see in the film whether Calypso was aware that Jones was the one who told the Brethren Court how to bind her.
The fond way she greeted Davy Jones when he visited her in the Pearl’s brig makes me think she didn’t. She probably suspected it, but didn’t want to believe it. I imagine very few in the world would have possessed the knowledge of how to bind her, and that information may well have been something Calypso told Jones as a gift of sorts, to demonstrate how much she loved and trusted him. It’s easy to see how she would have preferred to focus her anger on the Brethren Court, rather than acknowledge that the man she loved could have betrayed her like that.
She was certainly gearing up to kill the Brethren Court upon being released from her mortal bonds, as evidenced both by her conversation with Jones in the brig, and a deleted scene with Barbossa where she encourages him to turn the Pearl’s cannons on the Brethren Court and force them to release her. It was actually very clever of Will to remind/inform Calypso of just who was responsible for her imprisonment in the first place.
Good job, Will. You managed to do something clever.
Blunder 3: Stabbing Davy Jones
Will, Will, Will… why? Why???
Did you forget he doesn’t have a heart? Y’know, the titular point of the last movie? What did you think was gonna happen when you stabbed him, hmm?
Your surprise about this is what got you stabbed, and landed you in charge of the Dutchman instead of Jack. I get that you were trying to draw him away from Elizabeth, but still. You’re a competent swordsman. You could have saved Elizabeth without getting stabbed if only you hadn’t inexplicably forgotten that Jones can only be killed by stabbing his heart, which is very much not in his chest.
Oh, well. At least, with Will's heart in Elizabeth’s hands, she can be assured that her fool of a husband can no longer get himself killed from his own poor decision-making.
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I only started playing last season, and now we can go back and play the old exotic missions, would you mind giving me (and others who didn't play the past seasons) a rundown on the story behind them?
With pleasure!!!! Presage is my favourite thing in the Destiny ever so I'm more than happy to, and the other two are also really cool. So first, this week is Presage.
Presage was an exotic mission from Season of the Chosen, which was the second season of the Beyond Light year. We were in negotiations with Caiatl at the time, still not anywhere near being fully friendly. During these negotiations, we detected a signal for a ship ("Glykon Volatus") which was later found abandoned and derelict in the Reef (the start of the quest had to be found in a crate in a secret area in the Arms Dealer strike):
After talking to Zavala, who wanted to investigate this personally because it appeared to involve one Guardian being exposed to Darkness on a ship belonging to Calus, we start the mission! The Vanguard authorised salvage operation is led by "Osiris," at the time largely unknown that this was actually Savathun in disguise. Caiatl joins "Osiris" in the operation and this was one of the first times we actually had a relatively normal and friendly conversation with Caiatl, despite Savathun's best efforts to rile her up at certain points.
Here's the playlist with all parts of the quest and all voice lines and stuff. Here's the lore book we uncovered through scannables hidden in secret compartments. In short, Calus hijacked a ship called Glykon Volatus in order to have a vessel to gather a mass of Scorn and bring them to the proximity of the anomaly of a missing planet, in this case Mars. Calus wanted to use the Scorn as a sort of an antenna that can channel Darkness through them by linking their minds with the help of Psions and the Crown of Sorrow. He believed that this would allow him, through the anomaly of Mars, to speak to the "Voice in the Darkness," the thing he met once before in deep space that promised him to be its herald. Calus had grown disappointed in the meantime because the thing never appeared to him again, despite his best efforts to follow its commands, so he sought to talk to it again.
Glykon was pushed to its limits and plunged into the anomaly. Most of the Scorn, except one, have died through gruesome experiments. The one that survived, the Locus of Communion, turned into a monster stalking the soldiers on the ship and killing them. As the ship went into the anomaly, it got infested with egregore, twisted and fused improperly, leaving only the Scorn "alive" to wander around the hallways. The Guardian onboard, called Katabasis, eventually died and begged his Ghost to keep him dead until help arrived, but he and his Ghost (Gilgamesh) developed a strained relationship, stemming from their collective trauma of the Red War and what they've been through then. Gilgamesh became more and more fascinated by the Voice in the Darkness, eventually becoming completely corrupted.
The ship emerged from the anomaly "wrong," abandoned in the Reef. Then we came along, got through it's confusing passageways and hallways, we killed as many Scorn as possible and took care of the Locus. We also learned, for the first time, that there's a difference between Darkness as a force and the "Voice in the Darkness" as an entity, eventually leading us to the Witness. Presage was our first real exposure to that idea and it came from Savathun, who I guess couldn't resist to tease us just enough, but not fully explain it. This also set up Calus' disappearance and transformation that we would later see in Season of the Haunted and Duality. Once he managed to do what he wanted in Presage, he disappeared until the Leviathan returned, equally infested with egregore after also having gone into an anomaly (though a different one). The Glykon was basically Calus' test run. This was also our first proper introduction of egregore; although we've seen it before on Drifter's ship, we didn't have a name or classification for it until Presage.
The other two under:
Vox Obscura was an exotic mission in Season of the Risen, which was the first season of the Witch Queen year. It focuses on the Psion Conclave (sometimes Enclave), a group of Psions who have split off into their own thing all the way back following Season of Dawn and Worthy. They follow in the footsteps of the Psion sisters that hijacked the Sundial and tried crashing the Almighty into the Last City. Their leader is Yirix, curiously, a Psion that participated in Calus' experiments on the Glykon Volatus who has also met Katabasis there.
Yirix has been suspicious for long, but she and her Psions defected from Caiatl when Caiatl freed all Psions; some Psions saw this as a loss of rank, because before being freed, some would rise up the ranks and have a unique status among Psions. Not only that, but Caiatl clearly allied herself with the Vanguard and humans, something that this group could not abide by and still wanted vengeance for the Psion sisters from years ago. Psions under Yirix were also the ones who attempted an assassination on Zavala. Yirix organised psionic broadcasts to be sent across the system, only detectable to other Psions, encouraging Psions to defect from Caiatl, enticing mutiny and even going as far as to urge defectors to join the Black Fleet.
Caiatl asked us for help with dealing with these broadcasts and the Psions involved. We stormed the base where they're hiding, in an old bunker on Mars and made our way through to stop the transmissions. Among the transmissions were also Psionic prophecies that have, since then, all come true. Playlist for the mission stuff. These were the prophecies, as Caiatl saw them, in the final visit:
These must be Psionic divinations! Impressions of things yet to come. I never dreamed I would see them for myself. I... I see... a city, besieged. The Shipstealer revived. The Leviathan reborn. Your Traveler infected by Darkness... these are the futures our enemies seek. We must remain united if we are to forge a different path.
The "city besieged" is most likely referring to Neomuna, making this and the final prophecy the furthest away. Shipstealer revived would happen 2 seasons later, in Plunder. Leviathan reborn would happen a season after, in Haunted. Finally, "Traveler infected by Darkness" is very likely referring to the portal at the end of Lightfall.
This is a much different exotic mission, much more action oriented. It also has several timers as we constantly have to rush against time to stop the Psions from achieving their goals.
Operation Seraph Shield was an exotic mission in Season of the Seraph, final season of the Witch Queen year. In this season, we were trying to finally rebuild Rasputin so he would defend us against Xivu Arath's invasion. As part of the preparation for that, we had to secure an orbital station above Earth where it was possible to gain control of the Warsat network.
The Witness instructed Eramis to assist Xivu Arath and take control of the station, and therefore the Warsats so that we can't use them to protect ourselfs. We needed to make sure that this network is safe in our hands so we launched into an operation to clear the station from Eliksni interference and keep the Warsats safe. The station was not only attacked by Eramis' Eliksni, but also by Xivu Arath's Hive and the Scorn, which at the time we learned the Witness was making from Eliksni on purpose (as a way of both punishment and control of Eramis) with the final boss being Eramis' ex-lieutenant Praksis, but now as a Scorn.
We make our way through the station, bypassing various security protocols and removing the enemies from the base, making sure that the Warsat network is safe. We also find an exotic gun in there! Playlist here.
Ultimately, despite all of that work, we end up losing the station to Eramis who shows up herself in the final mission of the season and locks herself in the room with access to the Warsat network. This all culminates in the final cutscene of the Season of the Seraph. This mission is unique in that way, because despite our best efforts and all that work, we end up failing and Eramis gains access anyway. We lose the Warsats and Rasputin at the same time, but on the upside, that prevents the Traveler from being shot down and Xivu Arath isn't capable of moving her army through the ascendant plane.
I'm sure these will all be really cool to play through for the first time! Highly recommended to go through them with as little information as possible. I tried adding mostly the context for the missions here, and some background information, but I feel it should still be interesting to go through them on your own for the first time.
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What is your favourite Doctor Who story?
ROUND 1 MASTERPOST
synopses and propaganda under the cut
The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood
Synopsis
It's 2020, and the most ambitious drilling project in history has reached deeper beneath the Earth's crust than man has ever gone before — but now the ground itself is fighting back. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in a tiny mining village, and find themselves plunged into a battle against a deadly danger from a bygone age.
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
Night Terrors
Synopsis
The Eleventh Doctor receives a distress call, bringing him, Amy Pond and Rory Williams to Earth. George is a young boy terrorised by the monsters in his cupboard. Are they imaginary, or are they real?
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe
Synopsis
Christmas Eve, 1938. Madge Arwell comes to the aid of an injured Spaceman Angel, the Eleventh Doctor, who promises to repay her kindness – all she has to do is make a wish. Three years later, Madge escapes war-torn London with her two children for a dilapidated house in Dorset. Crippled with grief at the news her husband has been lost over the English Channel, she wishes to give her children the best Christmas ever. The Arwells are greeted by the Doctor, who acts as their madcap caretaker. However, a mysterious Christmas gift from him leads them into a wintry, magical world. Madge must learn how to be braver than she ever thought possible... and that wishes can come true.
Propaganda
its trash, but its my trash. for the longest time series 7 was the only one I had on dvd, and we were on holiday one year so I couldn’t watch it on iplayer like I usually would. I was 10, I was deep in the trenches at that age, Doctor Who was literally the only thing I ever watched, I watched that DVD multiple times, and this was the first episode on it, it’s almost as much a part of me as series 1 at this point because I have such strong memories and nostalgia for watching it. I mean, and this is no word of a lie, I haven’t pronounced majority correctly in my head for about 10 years (and think god it hasn’t affected my actual speech), no, madge arwell has imprinted herself on my internal vocabulary, I think madge-arwellity. (anonymous)
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
Synopsis
In 2367, the Indian Space Agency is on high alert as an unidentified spaceship hurtles towards the Earth. The Eleventh Doctor assembles a team to investigate, including the legendary Queen Nefertiti, a big game hunter named Riddell, Amy, Rory... and Rory's father, Brian. Materialising aboard the mystery ship, they're surprised to find it populated by dinosaurs. With time running out before the ship is blasted out of the sky, the Doctor must confront a vicious criminal named Solomon, as the lives of his companions and the dinosaurs hang in the balance...
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
A Town Called Mercy
Synopsis
Missing Mexico by 200 miles, the Eleventh Doctor ends up in Mercy, Nevada, where something's not quite right... The locals are hostile to strangers, and a border of stone and wood surrounds the town. As the Doctor soon finds out, a gunslinger is behind this, and not just an ordinary one.
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
Hide
Synopsis
Clara and the Eleventh Doctor arrive at the haunted Caliburn House, set alone on a desolate moor. Within its walls, a ghost-hunting professor and a gifted empathic psychic are searching for the Witch of the Well. Her apparition appears throughout the history of the building, but is she really a ghost? And what is chasing her?
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
Synopsis
The Doctor's TARDIS is captured by brothers running a salvage company in space. In the process, Clara gets lost inside the time machine. To save her, the Eleventh Doctor promises the brothers they can have the TARDIS if they'll help search for his missing companion. They agree, only to find that what lies at the centre of the TARDIS can kill them all.
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
The Crimson Horror
Synopsis
In 1893, the Eleventh Doctor's old friends, Vastra, Jenny Flint and Strax find an optogram of the Doctor on a victim of the mysterious "crimson horror". They head for Yorkshire, where Jenny infiltrates Mrs Winifred Gillyflower's community of Sweetville to find what has happened to him.
Propaganda no propaganda submitted
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Thoughts on Starfinder’s Pact Worlds Setting, Part 2
Following from this post, I’ve now finished reading through the Pact Worlds setting book. Some more thoughts:
Of the six outer planets I hadn’t gotten to yet, Liavara is my favourite, and I promise that’s not just because it’s clearly borrowing notes from Bespin and Lando Calrissian stole my childhood heart. Honest. But. For similar reasons to the Diaspora, I do love the kind of hard-space, SF edge that this gas giant has, the frontier-style, rough-and-tumble, gas mining, protecting-the-environment vs business-of-survival-and-greed vibe it has. Roselight also has serious Sunless Sea vibes, and is also just a very pretty idea. But the main thing on Liavara, as with the Diaspora, is all the random mysterious junk floating around. Hullheap, where ships inexplicably get dragged to their death on a shepherd moon. The Old Hulk, the pre-Roselight mining station and hub for Liavara, which failed during the Gap and now just occasionally surfaces back up into the non-crushing levels of the gas giant like a ghost ship or vanishing island on faulty-but-still-trying buoyancy engines. And Deep Station, the gas giant equivalent of a deep-sea exploration platform that is so much tougher than any of its support ships, so no one can follow it when it goes down into the crushing depths of the planet. So, naturally, it’s gone down and gone dark, and no one knows what’s happened to it. I love a good lost-expedition quest hook.
I’m going to say, a thing I love in general in this book is how happy they are to hang adventure hooks all over their setting. Pretty much every bit of the Pact Worlds has some random mystery knocking around for you to poke your nose into. And, you know, also faction politics and general ‘you can be hired to do any damn thing’ sort of vibe, but I’m drawn to the mysteries in particular. I would totally play a xenoarchaeologist character and just hope to get sent to investigate any of these. Between the First One cities on Aballon (and their other potential facilities further out into the system, like the Footprints of the First Ones in the Diaspora, and possibly the entirety of Apostae?), the mysterious structure or ship that’s sitting pretty inside the Eyes of the Ancients on Bretheda where no one can hope to reach it, whatever’s causing the Hum in the Diaspora and the Hullheap on Liavara’s shepherd moon (are they linked?), the random hovercar 370 miles down the horrifying biological ‘throat’ on Aucturn that has mileage on it equal to several times the thickness of the planet and the ominous message ‘we found the one who calls’, or the weird ghost city on Eox that seems like a normal ghost city on a dead world where everything is undead, except that it couldn’t have existed pre-calamity because it would have been under the ocean, so what’s up with that?
I would play a whole campaign that’s just a team of xenoarchaeologists and other specialists getting sent on dungeon dives, *ahem*, I mean archaeological digs in all the mystery hot spots around the Pact Worlds. There’s so many. That’s not including the overtly supernatural and/or occulty sites, like the Gap-era prison in the Diaspora where everyone’s vanished, and anyone who stays there now has horrifying nightmares and talks about flayed figures in yellow rags menacing them (hello King in Yellow! Always a pleasure!).
On that note, you could also easily have another campaign that’s just the part as cult hunters or investigators delving into places like the Fastness of the Ordered Mind on Verces, or the House of the Void in the Diaspora, or Aucturn. Like all of Aucturn. Mind you, they’re all pretty up-front cults, it’s more getting into what they’re doing and how worried does anyone have to be longterm about them.
If you want a more survivalist party, there’s also a salvage campaign where you’re extreme salvage specialists, and you’re taking on the Everests of Pact World salvage like attempting to get into and out of the Hum with your ship, sanity and salvage intact, or going after Deep Station or Old Hulk on Liavara, or Hullheap. Or the depths of Apostae. Or, again, the First One cities on Aballon. There’s so many like ghost ships and ghost stations and mysterious (and deadly) piles of junk floating around the system, and it’s your job, and vocation, badge of pride, that you’re going after them. Heh.
There’s a lot of adventure hooks strewn liberally around the system, is my point here, and many of them I’d be entirely happy to follow purely from the brief mentions given in this book. Do I want to play 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea meets the Abyss trying to reach a lost research station diving the crush depths of the interior of a gas giant? Absolutely I do. Do I want to investigate and figure out what the hell is up with the creepy ghost prison in an asteroid field that’s probably been taken over by an outer god? You bet! Do I want to play a trucking contractor venturing out across an ice-sheet under endless night to pick up a shipment from a frozen industrial platform that’s suddenly gone dark, and there’s trails of blood leading out across the ice to a series of caves? I am that fool. Do I want to be a government investigator assigned to figure out why orbital greenhouses around the sun, all of them belonging to one particular company, are suddenly turning into ghost stations after their cargo ate their crews? I will play that game.
The book does a good job of giving you hooks and tools to set stories in this place, is what I’m saying here. There’s a lot to work with. And those are just the bits that I, personally, immediately want answers to and a chance to explore. There’s many other types of adventures and campaigns that also immediately jump out, whether you want a social or political or war or exploration sort of game.
It’s such a cool setting. The Pact Worlds themselves, before you ever get out to Near Space or the Veskarium, or the Azlanti Empire, or the Vast, or the Drift, already has a crap tonne going for it.
Ahem. Anyway. I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed it a lot. If you enjoy lore and worldbuilding and setting exploration, great pick-up. Do recommend.
I wanna be a Pact Worlds xenoarchaeologist so bad …
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I think I've realized why I've taken to Lethal Company moreso than I have other "Definitely needs to be multiplayer"/collaborative games (Yes, you can try to play LC solo, just like Minecraft, all the zombie survival base-builders, etc. But they all work best with a group):
Because my schedule's rather asynchronous with a lot of my friends, I'd pop in when I'm able, but in the meantime my friends would have developed so much more of the base/tech tree/etc. Which is great for getting geared up and running out to do things, but it's so easy to feel completely left behind, and have utterly no idea what's going on with new mechanics, or just not having gained the personal experience/skill to equip to you do things in the world like they are. Plus, like, it just feels kinda bad to show up, grab a bunch of gear, help for like, 1, maybe 2 best-tier available things, then not help again until they're several tiers down the road - You're just mooching gear and appearing occasionally, y'know?
Lethal Company has a built-in mechanic (unless you're using specific mods) that after a certain point, the loot quota will become impossible to meet. Total party wipes - complete ones, not just a lost round, though those happen too and are fine - happen at some point, and the game is reset - All the new gizmos you had are gone. What little decor there is to the base gets wiped out.
This means you jump back in and off you go again, no muss, no fuss.
And even with better weapons/tech, there's only so long you can be out in moons before the ship will leave, so your daily cycle's gonna be overall pretty similar. Plus, there's certain monsters that are just plain immune to all damage and can fuck up even the most experienced of salvagers - Your coil-heads, your ghost girls, etc.
Even discounting them, the traps, hazards, and regular monsters can still end you very quickly - You don't get any extra health/defense ever. No immunity to lightning or quicksand, and a bracken or balaclava worm can still mess you up if you don't notice them in time.
So basically, there's only so much anyone can do to gain better equipment in this game, and personal skill and familiarity with the game are helpful, they're not complete protection against what the game throws at you. You're expected to die frequently. Everyone is. It's not a huge deal if/when you do.
Also - The whole use of cycles means that the gameplay loop only lasts so long - One day's visit to a planet at a time. Then 3 days before you have to sell items and get a new quota to meet.
Plus, like my current ongoing-staple, Dead by Daylight, once dead, you can spectate your friends and cheer them on - Bonus, your other dead friends join you in doing this. Meaning you can take a quick break if you'd like, or have something to do while waiting for next round [Okay, yes, you theoretically might want to stick around and watch to cast a vote to JUST LEAVE, but it's not super-common that we've encountered scenarios where that was necessary] -- Also, the orbits between rounds mean that you can take a break without hampering your friends, everyone can be ready to get going before you start - Something that's not really possible in real-time/persistent games).
Actually, the group I'm in has been having a lot of fun with doing low-gear runs, since that's going to be the default state of many runs - We'll get a ton of flashlights, and the teleporter to recover bodies/the occasional emergency evac. And that's usually it - We might get a handful of shovels here and there, to varying degrees of success. We've started using ladders for certain pain-in-the-ass fire exit ledges.
But almost nobody uses walkies, because that tends to get us killed as often as not because of the noise - Or you have to shut them off preemptively, which means they're not helpful anyway. And I say this as the team's most frequent ship-duty guy. If monitoring, I can usually get doors and hazards from the monitor screen and hopefully send codes when necessary.
Limited gear makes it easier to replace when you have a crew of like, 8+ people at any given time (because if you're playing this game, you really, really should be playing with a mod that lets you have an utterly ridiculous number of crew and get everyone in on things). Having that many people contributes further to the overall slapstick mood/feel of the game.
Anyway, yes, TL;DR: - I've been loving Lethal Company. And I think I'm understanding why this game is clicking for me while cooperative survival/base-building stuff hadn't been.
Can't wait for more content (might have to take a shot at modded new moons/facilities, perhaps).
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like a movie i've seen before.
once again i dont know how this happened but i am left... very fragile. the one in which ron is a ghost from the 40s haunting daisy's grandmother's house, and at one point was believed to be an imaginary friend known affectionately as Sparky. this is sad. i am administering so many apologies. there will also likely be multiple parts to this because I am not normal. also we got the title from this so have fun with that. its part soulmate au, part ghost au, and 100% left me laid out on my bed in shambles.
Either this is a real thing, or she needs to talk to her doctor about switching her anxiety meds. She has half a mind to check to see if she’s taken the wrong amount and that this is the start of a very bad trip.
Nana’s house was… special, in its own way. A small thing built in 18-thirty-something for a batch of Clarkes fresh off a ship Daisy couldn’t remember the name of. As ancient as the engagement ring that sat untouched on her dresser at home in her apartment.
From mother to daughter as most things went, or in this case, grandmother to granddaughter.
It was more pragmatic to sell the old house anyway, once they were done packing the boxes of personal relics — the photo albums and the one-of-a-kind cutlery, salvaging the hand sewn blankets before the moths could get to them.
It’s what she came here to do, it’s what she’s been doing all of yesterday, before the chill creeped in that night and she found herself sleeping in her old bedroom — because sleeping in Nana’s bed didn’t feel right.
She reaches up to touch her head, and the shimmering apparition across from her smiles.
“You got big,” He observes, looking her up and down. “Taller.”
She shifts in her spot. He’s still the same, Sparky, in that same well-pressed dress uniform, his hair neatly combed, stern brows but kind eyes, pins up to the collar signifying a bunch of achievements she didn’t understand at the time.
“You…” Daisy feels like she’s scrambling for words, questions, but coming up empty. “Sparky, right? Is that still…”
“That’s what you picked, yeah,” He nods, taking a step forward, and it’s like his body seems to shimmer from the light streaming in from the windows. “Ron works too. Ronald.”
“…Ron…” Daisy tests out, slowly. Her heart still pounds in her chest, and part of her thinks this is still a part of a bad trip or a concussion suffered without her knowledge. “I thought you were imaginary.”
The sun makes him more… transparent. But she can make out the way his lip curls in amusement and her cheeks burn with newfound embarrassment.
“It was a little funny.”
She’d burst into tears once, when she was five, because her dad sat in Sparky’s seat at breakfast one Easter Sunday. And she remembers his hand on her shoulder, as real as the stack of waffles in front of her. He couldn’t wipe her tears back then, though.
And there’d been the times where he’d flick James’ ears when they were kids — when her brother would tease her to the point of distress. Or he’d move her toys around, the dolls and the plastic tea cups. She’d talk her mother’s ear off about all the things she and “Sparky” got up to during her weekends at Nana’s.
And then she told him to go away, one summer, and she never saw him again.
“I think you scarred James for life.” He chuckles, rolls his eyes.
“Kids have active imaginations.”
“Not me, apparently,” Daisy wants to reach out, to try and run her hand down his jacket, but the thought of her hand going through is too much for her to take. “I see dead people.”
“Still pretty active, Princess Cordelia.” Daisy laughs, partially out of surprise — most of her childhood games are a blur of colors and sound now.
She figures for someone who's lived as long as him — the whole thing must be a 4K movie. What else is there to do, but remember?
She takes her lip between her teeth for a moment.
“So… when I told you to leave, did you leave leave or just…” She’s pretty sure he’s frowning, the strange shadows on his face indicating as much, how the light bends as it shines through him.
“I was still there. You just couldn’t see me anymore.” He explains, and Daisy begins to pick at her nails.
She didn’t have a good grasp of breakups or lost friends when she was that young, but it had to feel something like that. You gotta go away, Sparky. I’m too big for you now. He’d smiled, fond, a chilled hand caressing her hair. There was no goodbye. No proper one.
She watched him fizzle away in her bedroom and was upset over the whole thing for three days. Her school counselor said that was normal, apparently — that weird imaginary friend grief.
“Christ, don’t beat yourself up over something you said when you were nine.” Snapped from her thoughts, she notices that he’s stepped closer, out of the sunlight, the chill’s gotten a bit more prominent. She can make out some actual lines of his face beyond the mouth and the eyes and hints of a nose.
“Don’t tell me ghosts can read minds now too.” She states with a huff. He arches a brow, then shakes his head.
“No, not that. You two just make the same faces. It’s not hard to put two-and-two together.” He keeps it blunt, accompanied with a look over her face that makes her feel especially exposed. Which is a little ironic since she can see through him in the most literal sense, but that’s neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things.
“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that,” She watches, as he makes a motion with his hand and one of the cardboard boxes slides forward, the flaps popping open. She narrows her eyes. “Okay, no mind reading powers but you can move shit around? Where were you when I was packing all that up?”
His lips press into a line, brows furrowing — like he’s having some sort of internal debate, before coming to some kind of agreement with himself.
“Deciding whether or not to show up again,” he states, and as she opens her mouth to press forward, he quickly goes “Blue album, gold piping. Fifth page.” He jerks his head towards the box again. Something in her tells her that this isn’t the time to press, so she gets on her knees, rummaging through the box, until she finds the aforementioned album.
Opening it up, it’s a lot of old, grainy photos. Not nearly as old as the house itself, but definitely up there — seeing as it’s all grayscale with no dates in the corners to indicate when they were taken. Boys with hairstyles similar to the one Ron wears now, girls in skirts and Mary-Janes with those short bouncy curls. His hand comes into sight, pointing to one photo.
The woman, she vaguely recognizes, from time spent skimming the old albums as a kid. Nana’s aunt, in a lacy white gown and a veil with a big bouquet in her hands. She’s smiling up at the man next to her — the groom, Nana’s uncle.
It takes her a moment, but she recognizes that man on her opposing side. Looking at her, rather than at the camera. Ron’s smile is… wider than hers, eyes crinkling at the corners. Daisy looks up at him and although his face is impassive, the room feels a little more dreary, like the air around them shifts with his disposition.
“You’re a lot alike. Same name too,” That she knew about. It was cute at the time, naming the kids after her great grandfather and greataunt — but she’s pretty sure that after the divorce it’s one of her mother’s biggest regrets (one of many, it isn’t hard to imagine Irene spitting the words out like venom). He reaches out, as though he can touch the photo. “Walked her down the aisle. Gave her away. We sort of… fell out of contact after that.” He doesn’t smile, necessarily, but she watches as he almost zoned out — like he’s in a different time.
“I didn’t know you knew her.” Is all she can surmise. Then, he cracks a bit, with a sort of distant smile she watched her Nana get in her old age, as she reminisced on the past. It ages his face in a way — no longer a twenty-something year old, more like the hundred year old apparition that he is.
“She was my best friend,” There’s an almost uncharacteristic softness to the way he says it. She looks down at the woman in the photograph, how the smile isn’t exactly reaching her eyes, but Ron’s is. “She loved this house. I was right across the street.”
“Then how’d you fall out?” She watches as he sits opposite her, criss-cross they used to sit in her room during tea parties.
“I was career military. I moved around a lot for work. Makes it hard to stay in contact with anyone, really.” He says it simply, like he’s resigned himself to that fact, but it leaves a foul taste in her mouth. She bites the inside of her cheek for a moment.
“You must’ve missed her a lot then. If you’re… here and not there.” She doesn’t know who lives there, she’s never met them. She’s got no clue how they would take to ghosts hanging around, either.
“That’s probably it,” his gaze lingers on the photo a moment longer, before clearing his throat, and were it not for the solemn resignation that flashed on his face she would’ve laughed at the thought of ghosts actually having phlegm. “Anyway you’re… a lot like her. You wear things on your face. That’s how I knew. No mind reading.” Ron rises to his feet again, averting his gaze.
Whatever wall that started to crumble as they stared at this old photo is being promptly rebuilt. Scrambling, she lets the album drop to the floor with less care than she should’ve given it.
“Wait, Ron, did you…” He looks at her, the last part of the sentence caught in her throat. Deep in her gut, she knows the answer to the question, because people don’t look at people like that without something behind it. And if anyone should be hanging around this place, missing her, it should’ve logically been her husband.
But her husband isn’t here, and Ron is, and has been for as long as Daisy could remember.
“You have lunch with Ginny today, right? Have fun with that.” She doesn’t know if pushing further will send him away. And Daisy doesn’t want him to go away, so she lets the question fizzle out before she can finish it, nodding as she packs the album away.
“Yeah just… be here when I get back.” Is what she settles on, and that gets the smallest of smiles out of him.
“Always am.”
#ron x daisy#. daisy clarke#au: like a movie i've seen before#ghost au#band of brothers ficlet#band of brothers oc#band of brothers au#poet’s notepad#my sincerest apologies to shoshi and cody#this one HURTED
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Star Wars: Crosscurrent, by Paul S. Kemp (Legends)
Did anyone read this? I'm guessing not, as it is a oneshot novel published in 2010 featuring side characters in the "Legacy" era, right before Legends got rebooted by Disney, featuring time travel and an unexpected, albeit tenuous, Mara connection.
Admittedly, I mostly skimmed this, but the plot followed Kyle Katarn's student Jaden Korr, who is suffering from PTSD and gets a vision of various ghosts (including Mara!!!) telling him "it all begins in a black hole on Fhost". This turns out to be the name of a bar (heh), where Jaden meets a crew of salvagers who take him out to the site of his vision, where they encounter a Jedi from 4500 years in the past and a secret Sith dreadnaught carrying macguffin ore that amplifies dark side powers, all of which got shipped through time through a bad hyperspace jump.
Just in case you thought I was making this up, here is an actual quote:
Khedryn licked his lips. “Just so I know what to tell him: you’re saying I have an old Imperial distress call coming from a moon no one’s charted before, a five-thousand-year-old Jedi aboard my ship, and a five-thousand-year-old Sith dreadnought with some evil ore aboard flying through my sky?”
Oh,yeah, and Jaden's being stalked by an Anzat assassin in the employ of (wait for it) Darth Krayt, because the Anzat are vampires who feed off life energy ("soup") and eating Jedi gets this one high. The Sith want the macguffin ore, because Sith gonna Sith. The past Sith and past Jedi duke it out, and destroy each other, as you’d expect.
Meanwhile, Jade and co. all go down to the nearby planet, which has a secret abandoned lab full of secrets--the Empire under Thrawn was making Jedi-Sith genetic recombinants, which of course ended badly for them.
“I suspect they recombined the DNA of Jedi with the DNA of Sith.”
Khedryn’s lazy eye floated in its socket, fixing on nothing, as if it did not want to see. “Why would they do that? Being a Jedi or a Sith is a choice, isn’t it? It’s not biology.”
Jaden shook his head. “We didn’t know all there is to know about how biology meshes with Force use. Perhaps they sought to create some kind of breakthrough Force-user, one unbound by the limitations of light and dark.”
“How is that possible? Light and dark sides are exclusive, aren’t they?”
Jaden turned off the computer and Dr. Gray disappeared. “The line between light and dark is not as clear as many think.”
Even if the explanation is total bullshit, the laboratory exploration is genuinely creepy, A++. The clones are worshipping the cloning tank, which they call "Mother" and fill it full of bodies. The only one we see is a clone of Kam Solusar, but the implication is there was at least one Mara clone at some point who might still be alive. Jaden kills the "Kamclone," but is distracted by the Anzat assassin, and then the rest of the clones get away, leaving the three survivors to band togther to track them down. And I guess no one thinks to tell Luke or any of the other Jedi anything??
Anyway, this is okay, I guess, but it's hard to get into it because there's such a tenuous connection to the characters I actually care about, AND it's a weird little oneshot that doesn't really make an impact in larger plot. The time travel and the clone plots are two separate storylines that feel like they have very little to do with each other and the former was just there to pad out the story, especially since it doesn’t have any real effect on Jaden’s character or his quest. I was not expecting the tenuous Mara connection, though. I'm also amused that apparently hyperspace time travel was actually canon and not just a thing that fanfic writers made up.
I'm not really sure what the point of this was, but to be fair, Legends was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel--to be brutally honest, it was due for a reboot anyway. The real problem I have with it wasn't the reboot per se, so much as one that got rid of most of the genuinely good bits of the EU in exchange for its own brand of WTF--but that's a rant for another day.
Here are some more passages that struck me:
The deep snow clutched at their feet, as if trying to slow their advance and give them time to reconsider. Jaden looked up, eyed the slate of the sky, imagined not snow falling but reified evil.
Um...dramatic, much?
Jaden knew that at some top-secret Thrawn-era facilities the participating scientists would be forced to endure surgical alterations of their facial structure while on assignment, changing back to themselves only after their work was completed. None would be able to recognize another afterward. He wondered if that had happened in the facility, and if so, why.
The Empire is a piece of shit, full stop.
Also, fuck this ageism so hard:
“It means he has an intuitive connection to the Force,” Jaden said. “Were he younger, it would mean he was trainable. But given your age, Marr, even with your mathematical gifts, training is probably out of the question.”
But by the end of the book, Jaden agrees to train him anyway, so I guess that was character development for him? IDK. I still hate it, though.
Also, every time someone says "Grand Master Skywalker," I want to down two shots of vodka, because WTF, Luke. Seriously.
#star wars means never having to say you're making it up#star wars legends#crosscurrent#book reviews
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Issue #18
Jay
“We’re not going to be able to move him.” Sky said, sitting down heavily next to me.
“I suppose we’re staying here then.” I replied. I could tell by the reverberations that the cave was a decent size, it could make a good enough shelter for the time being.
“What if they come back?” the girl asked, voice tight.
“We’ll be ready for them.” Sky answered firmly, getting back up to get to work.
The rest of the day was spent gathering materials to fortify the cave entrance and salvaging supplies from the sunken ship. By the time the sun disappeared over the edge of the canyon wall, we had built a decent barricade and stocked the cave with the supplies we needed. All that was left was to wait for the monsters to come. Lighting a fire, we pulled out the food Sky and I had brought.
“Reminds me of camping in enemy territory back with the Last Army.” Sky remarked as she warmed her food tin over the fire with a stick.
“The Last Army?” the girl asked.
“Our scavenger band back on earth,” I answered.
“We weren’t much of an army anymore by the time Seer here joined up. Only so much raiding and fighting a band of kids can do before you get tired of watching friends die.” Sky recalled, “We were a force to be reckoned with back in the day though, savagest band to roam the East Coast.”
“Your name’s Seer?” the girl asked.
“No,” I chuckled, “that’s just what they called me. I’ve got good hearing and could always tell when we were about to be ambushed, like I could ‘tell the future’ or something,” I explained using air quotes. “Plus, they thought it was funny.” I smiled a bit. I didn’t mind it now but I remembered not finding it very funny when they had given it to me as a kid. I was still bitter about losing my sight back then.
“What band was your friend here a part of?” Sky asked.
“How do you…?” the girl said in surprise.
“Saw his scars while we were getting him bandaged up, those are combat scars. I know a raider when I see one.” Sky explained before she could finish the question.
“Midnight Ghosts,” the girl admitted after a pause.
I felt Sky stiffen next to me. That name meant something to her.
“What did they call him?” she asked, her tone was supposed to sound casual but I knew her too well.
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My dearest Charlotte,
All is well and I am calm again, lest you fear a repeat of my previous letter. There has been too much work this week to listen to the spirits for long, and my exhaustion is so complete that when the day breaks I collapse entirely until such time as I may rise again. Certainly it is this that brought me ot this post in the first place, that I may think on the work and nothing more.
Still, I would not complain should the work be a little less frantic! That great fish the whale I am cursing this week, for as the rains broke overhead, the oil that fuels the lamps at last ran dry, or near enough that the wicks would not light. Hours in the lashing rain and with the sound of breaking waves on the rocks below, I toiled---first struggling with flint and candle to try and re-light the wicks, then taking apart the lamp with only my fickle lantern as a guide, should there be any stoppage preventing the wicks from taking up that oil which the whale does provide for those of who take these lonely watches, and then at last cracking open the barrels should there be any oil remaining that could be burned.
Rain plastering my clothes to my body and cloaking the night in darkness beyond my circle of lanternlight, I could barely glimpse the distant flash of a ship out at sea, tossing in the waves. The spirits hissed at my shoulder, whispering of those soon to join them should the ship be dashed against the rocks---should my laxness be the death of these poor souls on the water, for want of what oil I could not scrape from the bottom of the barrels. Nothing to be done, they said. Nothing to be done; feel their drowning hands, soon they will join us.
In a moment of panic, as it became clear the lamp would not re-light in time for the freighter to correct her course, I did that which I could think of---kicked the near-empty barrel into that space where a lamp might ordinarily sit, and through enough of the wreckage I could drag up from beneath to get a good blaze going, like some ancient Alexandrian tending a wood-flame in the Mediterranean dark.
Perhaps it was Providence that guided my hand, for the salvage brought by the storm more or less replaced some of that which was sacrificed to the flame. You may picture your poor brother heaving his broken-off table legs into the flame in some desperate prayer to Vulcan and Poseidon alike, as in Mother’s stories, only to have the latter heave up another from his briny depths that very night. It is waterlogged, of course, and out in the pale sun in case that should do some good, but I believe it can be cobbled together into something like a replacement---at least, should dark nights before the resupply not demand its life first.
Pray, then, that those great fish give up their oils, that I might not lose what remains of my furniture! Perhaps you might intercede with good cousin Joshua’s ghost---you remember when we traveled down to New Bedford to see his ship return from its whaling voyage that we might bring news of his father’s death direct? We would have been young then---traveling with Mother, I am sure, though the memory is hazy, beyond receiving the news of Joshua’s loss at sea. The choice to go whaling may have been a foolish notion when he first thought of it, but should his soul be out there in the lashing waves, may he intercede with the great fish even as Jonah did, and let it give itself up that I may keep the lamps lit.
Perhaps his ghost, at least, does not desire the creation of others. I cannot be so sure of those which are with me---it may be only that they seek to return to the life which they no longer possess, or that they linger around the living in the hopes of a way in, but I am not convinced that their whispers of the freighter were not seeking to welcome more of their kind.
But the hour is early, and this is all rampant speculation, and none of the good solid news which I am sure you would rather hear from me. Suffice to say, then, that while the sun is up and the mirrors doing the light’s job, I am off to sleep off the night.
As ever,
your loving brother,
Charles Taylor
(Part One, Part Two, Part Four)
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Purgatory or Bust || Closed
Death was only a problem if one knew they were suffering from the affliction. The problem came, of course, when the individual didn't know they were actually dead. Reid Munder, unfortunately, was one such unlucky soul. One moment, he'd been beneath the icy, frigid waters of the arctic, within the Antonia Graza...
And the next, he was seated in a hospital chair in Anchorage. How he'd gotten there was anyone's guess. Memory was choppy and he couldn't recall anything but the way the cold had pressed against his wet-suit like a living thing, threatening to climb in with him and freeze him to the core. There had a been a brief, blinding moment of panic and then; and then nothing.
Munder rubbed at his temple and stood, figuring Epps was gonna sleep the night away. He had no idea if Dodge had made it out alive, but he suspected it had to do with that shit-ass Ferriman who had dragged them out for fucking gold.
Gold, that was now long gone, he was sure. If Epps didn't have any of it, there was no retrieving it now.
No one paid him any attention as he walked from the room, though, and it rankled him. Was he dead? Was this his own personal hell for not being a perfect human being? Purgatory, maybe? He thought about that dumbass movie with Patrick Swayze and wondered if he could poltergeist some chaos while he figured out why he was still around. If he was dead, where were the others?
And why was he still there?
@pikeschaoticmuses
#Here's To The Fookin' Sea; Reid Munder#Salvaging Is What We Do; Ghost Ship#Ghost Ship RP#Ghost Ship AU#only mildly canon divergent#post movie
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