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jinx-on-mars-19xx · 1 year

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A Chieftain's Vow

⚔️ All Previous Parts Here ⚔️

Dom x Colson (Yungblud x Machine Gun Kelly)

Warnings: future ABO/Omegaverse, viking Col (mentioned violence), fae Dom, still pretty tame though, slow burn maybe, mentioned sacrifice, mentions of cannibals, naked boys, longing stares, playful wrestling, Col being a cocky viking, mild sexism, bathing, claiming (but not in the way you think) ☠️ Rating: mature

All ideas talked out with and helped by @iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker 🖤

Damhnaic woke slowly, the events of the day before rushing back at him. His jade eyes blinked fast as they adjusted and he looked around the room. He tried not to move as he let his senses search, he was nervous waking in a stranger's bed, even if it was on his own pelt. The Viking had been so kind but that didn't mean in the light of day he would show the same care. Perhaps it was a game to him. The selkie had witnessed the brutality of some of the clan already, Kol'son was humane but his uncle? Just the thought of the brash bastard made the boy shiver. He calmed himself with the combined scent of his own pack soaked deep in his fur and the smell of his new companion he was slowly getting used to. It was strange how nice the leader smelled to him. Humans were dangerous and disgusting things- at least that's what he'd been taught.

A soft sigh escaped him as he sat up and stretched. It felt strange being in his human form so long, normally he woke on sun warm rocks surrounded by his family. He just hoped they were alright and not cursing his name. He knew at times he could be daft but this was a whole new level. Tom would yell at him, that he was sure of. At least they were long separated from his parents, he'd truly never hear the end of it from them. The boy whimpered when he realized he was completely alone but he instantly chided himself for the noise. He shouldn't be hoping for more time around the human, if anything it was good he was alone. He could take his pelt and leave, just as he thought the night before.

He would miss the soft gruff voice and the sight of those sea blue eyes raking over him. He'd been watching him so long and he wouldn't stop now but it certainly felt different having the chieftain looking back, recognizing him as an equal instead of an animal of the sea. He'd only been so close once before, in his other form he'd been napping one day and was awoken by someone scratching his belly as if he were a wolf of the land. Part of him had been embarrassed but so much of him fell in love. It wasn't allowed of course and he'd never try but… "I'll miss you Kol." He sighed, pushing himself to stand and pulling his skin around him as if it were just a blanket. He couldn't shift here, it would be far too hard finding his way back to the sea but he tried to make it look somewhat normal. He could hear the clan awake and starting their day.

Dom snuck carefully through the small village, he tried to stay away from most of the humans because he knew he didn't look like them even in this form. He'd caught the shock in the man's gaze when he noticed his fangs, the darkness of the inner rim of his lips and around his eyes, the way his eyes shined, and his skin felt wet to the touch. Thankfully they were all so busy no one looked twice at the boy escaping with a seal fur but he hurried into the forest anyway and followed the scent of the sea. That was until he heard a familiar voice singing and unbidden his path was changed. He truly couldn't help it, and here he thought he was the siren. Well… half.

"Good morning Dom! I meant to bring you breakfast but this is the only time I can get to myself. I thought you might sleep longer after your journey." The singing changed to a soft rasped voice speaking to him and again he was enchanted by the human. It made his belly flutter with nerves. He didn't know how the leader recognized him before he was even in view but he sped his steps until he found the man. Naked again. Bathing in a warm spring. "Were you looking for me?" He asked, his brow arched. He grinned playfully at the sight of the newcomer covered by his new bedding. It was precious honestly and interesting how well it seemed to fit over him. Almost as if it were made for the boy.

"I…" Dom trailed off and bit his lip, he couldn't exactly say he was running home, he might get put to death for daring to do anything with the chieftain's explicit permission so instead he nodded and sighed. "I was. I woke alone and got worried. I should um.. leave ya to your baff."

"Don't be shy kid, join me? You must be a mess after walking through the woods alone. Come on, it's a special honor. I never let anyone share." He grinned, dropping under the water to wet his long blonde braids before he came back up and swam closer to the edge. The selkie was having a hard time not staring at the wet skin. The black ink covering almost every inch of his skin, the scars from numerous battles, but the hardest thing to ignore was the human's surprisingly large cock that appeared even more massive from under the water. Of course he noticed it the previous night but now everything felt different. His brazenness was more exposed in the light of day. "Get your ass in here kid, do you really wish to ignore me?" It wasn't truly a threat and Damhnaic could tell, if not by the tone the bright smile would give away the tease. He'd never known Kol to be full of himself. Always only in jest.

He took a breath and shed his skin yet again, it was becoming a dangerous habit around the man but no one was watching to tell him no. He wouldn't listen to them anyway. He was used to the cold of the sea so when his foot hit warmth he shivered but he must have been testing the water too delicately. "I don't know how your tribe does it boy but here-" The man paused as he lunged close, curling his big palm around the selkie's ankle and he tugged, pulling him into the spring. The boy came up spluttering and coughing up a taste of water he wasn't accustomed to directly into the chuckling bastard's face. "Here we act as men. I didn't take a cannibal for such… cuteness."

Dom paused as he pushed his drenched hair back and he hoped he didn't look like a wet rat. He knew the man thought him cute in his seal form but- "Cannibal?" He knew the word the man spoke but he was confused. He'd never eaten flesh.

"I just figured. Your teeth and the ink, isn't that what it means?" Kol'son wasn't trying to be rude and he hoped he hadn't just put his foot in his mouth. He was known to do that and he'd rather not embarrass himself so quickly around the boy. He didn't know why he cared so much but the kid was pretty and… nice. There was just something about him.

Damhnaic could say a lot, he could be honest and explain he'd never been touched by ink in the way his companion had, he could say the fangs were natural but to do that he'd have to tell him he was magic. He was fae. That… didn't feel smart. "Yes um… well. I don't like to talk about it. Let's jus' say I left me family. We… didn't agree on every'fin."

"So you're not gonna eat me in my sleep?" The leader joked, trying to cheer the boy by splashing him. He could understand family differences, he didn't always agree with his uncle. The man could be callous and terrifying but he was what a viking should be, Kol knew he was too soft.

The boy giggled and splashed back, surprised when the man acted so familiar and comfortable with him. The water play got more intense, the human was raised a brute and he couldn't seem to help teasingly battling the smaller man. When Dom tried to swim away he dove for him, wrapping himself around the kid's back.

Damhnaic froze the moment the human curled around him, the front of his body getting pressed against the rocks. He wasn't surprised by the blood rushing to his dick the moment his friend's much larger length slipped against his skin but he was surprised by the rush of nerves in his belly and the strange new feeling in his core. He'd been born an omega, he was raised to know he was a virgin bride sacrifice for his family's god- one of the reasons that had sent him running away but… he never learned what that entailed. His mother didn't explain it. He had always known of the secret place between his legs but fuck he'd never been so aware of it as he was in that moment.

"Pinned you. I don't know who taught you to fight kid but they were lacking. I should teach you to defend yourself better. You're far too small and pretty to be out here with just those teeth to scare people off." Warm breath tickled the selkie's skin and he couldn't help a soft whine when he felt something even hotter between his legs. He just prayed whatever was happening to him the human wouldn't notice. "Did I hurt you?"

Kol worried and pulled away, turning the boy around in his hold to look over him. He shouldn't be so concerned for someone who wasn't even part of his clan but he couldn't seem to help it. There was something special about the kid. "I'm alright, fanks. Wha' ya mean I'm too pretty?" He huffed, playfully pushing the chieftain back and trying to get a little distance between them. Part of him was almost scared he was hurt. He wanted to check himself but he was quite sure human men didn't have what he did, he couldn't let Kol see. He'd be shunned for sure, possibly killed.

"You're fucking with me right? You're pretty like a girl. Even with those scary ass teeth. You have the cock of a man but the face of a nymph." Kol'son shrugged. He didn't mind being honest, if anything he'd always been blunt. It was a side effect of being the leader's son turned leader, he got away with basically everything.

Dom blinked slowly, he'd never heard someone speak so plainly or call him pretty. Whatever had stirred in his belly was only getting worse. "I'm not… fucking wiv you Kols. I don't know wea'ver to say fanks or not." He scoffed.

"You should. It was a compliment." The man sighed, giving the kid a little space and washing himself. They'd already taken so much time in the bath. "You should also stay. If you're on the run I can offer you a place here. Protection. I can tell you can't do it yourself."

"I… I shouldn't." Dom huffed, he was getting in too deep. He needed to get back to the sea. His pack must be worried and wondering. The human paused in his movements, his muscles bunching as he swam closer again. His blue eyes were almost hard but there was still a smirk on his lips.

"You must. I'm the only chieftain for some distance kid. You try to leave you might die. Stay, at least for a while. I'll take care of you." It was a simple promise and one he probably shouldn't give. He didn't even ask his people what they thought but what did it matter? He was their leader and he could offer asylum if he wanted. "Alright? You'll be mine. If anyone asks, just say that you're mine." It could mean a myriad of things, his slave, his adopted son, his second in command, his whore even. It didn't matter how it was clarified, if he claimed the boy he could be kept safe. They could figure everything else out later.

"You- I- fuck." Damhnaic was near infuriated. How dare the man just decide for him? But as that warmth flowed between his thighs again at the sight of those blue eyes staring him down he knew his body was deciding for him. He would have to stay, at least until a chance to steal his pelt was presented again. "Fine. Cocky bastard. Fine."

Author's Note/Tags: @manicpixiedreamb0y @hollywoodxwhore @jaxbreaker @iamnotanearthlingmotherfucker @cole-way-iero28 🖤

I'll try to do a cheat sheet of terms and stuff soon but if anyone has questions just ask. I hope you enjoyed this, don't worry I'm not finished with the other it's just hard to write smut when I'm so exhausted and I don't want to leave y'all with nothing. I'm really excited for this one too, so I really hope y'all enjoyed ☠️

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kookicat · 1 year

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Eternity Is Just One Step Away

Chapter One

It's an ugly bridge on a street without a name, hidden in the middle of rural nowhere. Just concrete barriers like prison walls holding a two lane road that's rutted with potholes. He ditches the rental car in the scrub next to the road and kills the engine, leaving the lights on even though he doesn't need the light to do what he's planning. Realises with a shudder that he has no idea where he is, then shrugs, because he's been lost for so fucking long that it's almost become a comfort to him. Lost is a destination when you have nothing else to surrender, and slowly but surely his own bad choices have stripped anything good from him.

It's raining; fine heavy drizzle that soaks through his shirt and makes him shiver. The water stings the cuts on his back and shoulders, and the cold makes the broken wrist and both of his bruised knees throb like a busted, rotten tooth. He swipes a hand across his face, tastes blood like old iron on his lips. Gravel crunches under his boots and sounds no different to the gunshots still echoing in his head.

The animal part of his brain wants to retreat to the scant shelter of the car. He ignores it, just like he's ignoring the pain, just like he trained to do, back when he had a flag on his shoulder and hands that were still clean of blood. Back when picking up a gun meant protecting someone weaker than him, rather than more slaughter under the banner of yet another PMC. Back when he could meet the eyes of the man staring back at him from the mirror.

He reaches the middle of the bridge. There's a constellation of broken glass on the road and a nasty gouge out of the concrete, still marked by red paint where the bridge had held up against assault by automobile. He feels similarly battered, the bright and shiny new walls he'd built up doing good for a change crumbling because the foundation he'd built them on was giving way.

Moonlight reflects off the murky water twenty feet below him. It smells silty, thick with mud, the channel and banks choked with tangled weeds, but that doesn't bother him, because it suits his purposes just fine. The comfortable numbness that had descended on him when he picked up the gun in the warehouse wavers for a second, shards of good memories turned to pain slicing so deeply for a moment he thinks he won't need the gun tucked into his jeans at the small of his back. He breathes through the pain and the memories, lets them fade away under the quiet, bottomless depression he's been swimming against for too damn long.

The gun is warm - shockingly so, as he forces his stiff fingers to close around the grip. He's thought about this day, more times than he can count, planned it down to the smallest detail, but he never included leaving behind good people who loved him and accepted him for what he was. That was never in the plan, because he never in a million years thought he'd finally be part of something good again.

Until I fucked that up, too, he thinks, and leans back, resting his weight on his broken wrist until the clean white-hot pain engulfs him and he doesn't have to think about the team any more, because he's not entirely sure how or when they found out what he'd done, but they had, and he'd walked into the hotel room to a welcome as warm as a midwinter morning.

None of them will look at him, and his bags are neatly packed, piled by the door, clearly and devastatingly separate from the rest of the team's luggage. His spare boots are on top, laces free from fancy knots and that hurts more than anything else, a sharp, lancing pain where friendship used to be. There are words stuck in his throat, sharp edged like razors, but he can't get them free, so he just scoops the bags up and backs out of the room, retreating to the rental car like a wolf that's chewed off a limb to be free of a trap. Limping and bleeding and knowing life will never ever be the same.

A fish jumps in the water below, landing with a splash, snapping him out of his memories and he shifts so he's sitting on the concrete barriers, back to the water and lifts the gun. The metal is warm against his temple, a sharp contrast from the chilly wind blowing over his newly shorn scalp. It had been hard, one handed, crammed in a tiny convenience store bathroom, hacking at his hair with his knife until most of it was gone, falling to the floor like leaves from a dying tree.

It's better, this way, he thinks, good Eliot had long hair and God knows I ain't really that man.

He closes his eyes, finger tightening on the trigger and suddenly he's falling, weightless, and finally free.

Read the next chapters at

#leverage #eliot spencer #fanfic #whump #fanfiction #emotional whump #fan fiction #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #suicide #hurt eliot spencer #big bang job tag #the big bang job #attempted suicide #chapter fic

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ckret2 · 3 years

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Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

#gvk #godzilla vs kong #gvk spoilers #godzilla vs kong spoilers #godzilla #meta

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

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Humans Are Space Orcs, “The hypothetical

I decided to go back to and play around with my older style of writing today. Taking a bi of a break from the main plot line for a little bit :)

As a doctor, I often wonder about hypotheticals. What would happen if my patient was injured in this way, what would I do. Working with humans I find each scenario has to be more outlandish than the next assuming the human is going to do something stupid.

However, in all my time with humans there is one hypothetical that I find most interesting: what would happen if early human/nonhuman communication never happened, and like animals in documentaries, or at zoos we learned about the humans purely through observation.

Humor me for a moment as I write this as I think it could be an interesting thought-experiment for the scientific community.

I imagine we would see them as a series of logs made by the zookeeper as the humans were captured and placed into their enclosures, not knowing that the humans were sentient.

I see it going something like this.

Day 1 - we encountered the strange creature on a distant planet. We have never seen anything like them before. They tall, though that is only by way of the walking bipedally. Their arms are very long, and their eyes face forward. We were forced to capture them through tranquilization as they were uncooperative. We have a group of them, about six that we released into the enclosure. They are very agitated, and we must do what we can to calm them or otherwise worry about causing them significant stress. I can see them now lying on the ground resting their heads, they do not look well from the drugs, but we hope that the side effects will not last long.

Day 2 - We have yet to determine the genders of the creatures or even if they have any. It is difficult to tell, though there are subtle anatomical differences that we assume might have some bearing on the subject. Luckily for us they ate within the first day, and continue to eat well. As far as we understand their diets, these creatures can eat a large range of food, more than any animal or alien we have ever seen, and this including meat, plants, and plant byproducts.

Day - 4 They have a very large range of vocalizations, in a very complex structure that almost seems as if they are speaking to one another. They grunt hiss click hum, and so much more. As far as we can tell, they seem very social and tend to congregate in a small circle to commune with each other. When they sleep, they tend to sleep in a large group, or within the same general vicinity of each other. It sees they have a strong pack mentality.

Day- 3 we were forced to move them to a new enclosure as, last night one of the zookeepers ran across the creatures scaling the wall of their enclosure using the digits on their hands and feet to hold to the rough surface and pull themselves upward. I and the other scientists are a bit put out as we should have known this based on the anatomy of their flexible toes, and the sockets of their shoulders. These creatures are very good at climbing. For this reason the new enclosure is much larger, it has a pool of water and many tall branches to climb though there is a field around it to keep the creatures form climbing out.

Day 4 - The pool was a good idea as the creatures seem to enjoy submerging themselves in water. We know now that their strangely colored skin is not actually skin but some kind of artificial covering. They take off this artificial skin if they enter the water and put it back on after they leave. We also know the difference between the males and the females now as the males have more defined muscular structures and the females are more rounded with softer angles. As far as we can determine there is no behavioral difference between the two species.

Day 5 - We think they know they are being watched, as they have a habit of obscuring themselves in the furthest end of the enclosure where it is difficult for them to be seen. They have even taken some of the fallen branches and erected a bit of a screen to hide away prying eyes, or at least that is how it seems. Some of our experts assume it was actually in order to build a proper nest though we cannot be entirely sure about that.

Day 30 - We are worried about one of the females. Her body structure has begun to change over these past few weeks, and her belly is becoming distended. We are worried about some sort of blockage or bloating caused by the misuse of food. The other creatures seem to be worried about her as well. We might go in and tranquilize her and bring her out to examine her at some point tomorrow.

Day 31 - we had to sedate every creature in the enclosure in order to pull the female out and separate er form her pack. We tried to separate her naturally from them, pulling her to one side of the enclosure, but it seemed as if they knew what we were doing and the other large males and the one aggressive female would not allow her to go. We had to dart all five of the others to capture her, though when we pulled her out we were delighted to find the reason for her distended belly has nothing to do with the food. It seems as if we had inadvertently picked up a pregnant alien creature., which is likely why the others were so protective over her. We worry though because upon examining the internal structures we are concerned that the head of the offspring will not be large enough to fit through the pelvis. We are not sure if this is what the natural progression of their child bearing is supposed to look like.

Day - 50 we have been doing some tests on our creatures and have found a few interesting things. Their senses are far superior to our own. We once thought that their eyes would be adapted to hunting and racking movement, and while that is true in low light situations, they actually have very sharp sense of binocular vision, and are very competent at guessing distances. They seem to be a primary visual creature, and we assume that their vision is even better than ours. There is some evidence that they can even see somewhat in the dark, though based on our examination of their behavior they are primarily a daytime animal.

Day - 61 We think that they can hear us talking outside the enclosure. In fact, we think they have a very sensitive set of hearing organs. They often behave in ways that make us think they might be able to hear us. They always seem to know when we are coming into the enclosure to feed them. They tend to stand very close and watch us very carefully. We are worried that they might attack, but so far they have not. The most disconcerting is the large male and the smaller female. The way they watch some of our handlers unnerves them, and I am going to have to hire new hands to help with this project

Day 70 - They can use tools! It is an exciting and amazing discovery. But just the other day we say them begin to make things using strips of their own not-skin and some branches. They have tied rocks together and are even using them to smash up bits of food. Their hands seem very capable of doing such things as they are actually quite delicate in their movements. Each diget can be controlled to the finest degree and the rotational movement of their wrist implies extreme dexterity. Many of us think that this leaves them on a path towards sentience. Our scientists estimate that they have the intellectual capabilities of a five-year-old child.

Day 90 - great progress has been made! The creatures extreme vocalizations has added to their advantage, in that we have taught them how to speak! The sentences are very rudimentary of course, like a child, but they can ask for food, help, and express their displeasure. However, the problem is, they seem to have discovered greater words of displeasure from the people observing them and have taken to yelling rude slurs at the attraction goers. We think they like getting a reaction. They are very aggressive, and are becoming more so as the days go by. We worry about their health.

Day 100 - two of the large males got into a fight yesterday. We assume it was over mating rites with the remaining female, though that is only a theory. The way the creatures fight is very strange, they ball their hands into fists and then hit each other like using a club. Sometimes they use the hard bony ends of their elbows, or the tips of their knees. A few times they even used their legs to strike at the other. The feat of balance was quite amazing and the power generated from blows like that was scary. Visitors were urged away from the enclosure when wounds started appearing. Both males were covered in blood. We had gone to sedate them but by the time we came back the fight was over and the two males were sitting with each other at the edge of the pool washing their wounds. We think they find the water soothing, though we worry about sickness or infection.

Day 140 - We cannot get to them, overnight and out of sight of our keepers they have constructed a sort of den or nest surrounded by thick leaves and tree bark. There is no way to see in, and there is no way to dart one of these creatures while on the inside. We have been to get them while they are out in the open, but they always hear when the enclosure or the windows open and have taken to carrying around large shields made of leaves and branches. None of our darts have made it through sticking uselessly into branches. We worry greatly considering the female is coming closer and closer to her delivery day.

Day 170 - We have a plan for sedation, though it will require an enforcement team armed with the tranquilizer guns to preform it. We are worried about the female and the offspring, which we intend to rear by hand. We have no idea how the other larger humans are going to react when the smaller human is brought into the enclosure. They could kill it. We do not want this happening, and besides, we think this creature could be very docile if hand raised by us.

Day 181 - The mother went into labor last night, and we were called in by one of the zookeepers. We have to act very fast and are assembling a team. We are worried she might die as the sounds coming from the enclosure has caused us to close down the entire zoo. She seems to be in great pain as we have never heard a creature make that sound before. All of the creatures seem agitated as well, those who are not in the enclosure with them are pacing around outside. They seem very nervous.

The team has been assembled and it has been quiet for some minute except for a distant squalling. The large ales and other creatures are encircling the little habitat as if curious. We are worried the large males will find this as a sign ofweakness and attack.

Day 182 - please help us. We went into the enclosure as we had assumed with hour weapons ready to take the little offspring away to safer area for cleaning, however as soon as we got close to the den, the creatures attacked. We did not see them camouflaged in the leaves, and they seemed to erupt out of nowhere. Our leader was violently bludgeoned with a rock, and another was strangled manually by the small female. Each one of them was violently killed.

Two of our team managed to make it to the door of the den but as they did, the still blood covered female leaped outward and attacked screaming. She was the most violent out of all of them and practically ripped the limbs off two of our men before killing them. Protecting her young.

The large male carried the sleeping creature fin his arms as the female searched around for any more survivors. There were none and the door had been left open. One of our valiant men tried to go and close it, but he was murdered as the door was flung open crushing him against the back wall. The child was handed back to the mother and now they are hunting about the zoo in a pack. I have locked myself in this room hoping they will not find me, but even now I can hear a rattling outside the door.

Day of freedom - Hello you slimy bastards. Didn’t think you could talk did you. Either way you better hope we get back to our home planet, otherwise we will take this one for ourselves and make you suffer till your bones bleach dry under and unforgiving sun.

A little bit melodramatic there at the end I know, but I have spent far to long with humans, and I understand that they would probably be just as dramatic as I am making it sound. Also, I just realized that I technically just wrote some fiction, which means the humans are definitely rubbing off on me

#humans are space orcs #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

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kendo413 · 3 years

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ValVarez headcanons pt 1

Here are Judy/Fem!V (or ValVarez as I have started calling them in my head) headcanons that kind of took on a narrative, and then kind of lost the plot along the way. These were the result of possibly the worst migraine of my life. I needed a distraction, so I started typing up some headcanons I thought of for the streetkid!V I was playing at the time, and then kept expanding it until I could finally fall asleep.

I will try say there are some spoilers for the game in here, and I will try to hide them under the fold or whatever. None of this is likely unique at this point, so if anything feels like it should be in your fic, have at it. Will be at least two parts after I realized just how much I had typed up during the migraine.

Something is off about this Merc. She isn't posturing, or boasting - she doesn't even seem to be wearing clothes that fit. When she speaks Judy can reluctantly admit that she does so without even a trace of guile.

The merc - V - is a BD virgin. Judy was confused about this turn, to say the least. Not many make it to her age, or at least as old as V appears to be, without at least making use of an educational BD.

Judy has never seen someone as strong as V, or at least, not someone with 'ganic limbs. Even the Animals probably haven't put as much steroid-free effort into their body as V clearly has. Judy has a lot of opportunity to admire her while V is in the test BD.

Evelyn has to convince V not to bolt from the chair the second the trial BD concludes. The merc shifts with anxious energy, looking a little green around the gills, and any doubts Judy had that V may have been lying about being a BD virgin go right out the window. She is intrigued, despite herself.

A netrunner is brought in, and Judy spends the whole of the Konpeki BD scowling at her monitors.

Not many people say "Thank you" in Night City. Somehow it fits that V, the big bad merc that she is, makes a point to say thanks despite how nauseas the BD experience has clearly made her. Maybe it was a mistake to give her that BD wreath.

Evelyn thinks she's sweet, and Judy is all too quick to remind her of her terrible judgement when it comes to people. Present company excluded of course.

Judy thinks this is all a terrible idea. Capable or not, nothing good can come from putting faith in the candid merc. Evie insists that V is an adorable murder machine regardless.

Judy was right in the end. She wasn't happy about it though. Not when Evelyn went back to Clouds a few days later.

V is back, Evelyn is missing, and they need each other right now. Judy doesn't have to like it.

It was terrifying to watch V work. Like a switch flipped and all of the restless, shifting energy she returned from wherever-the-fuck with was exchanged for focus.

V is uncommonly fast as well as strong, apparently. Her blade sings through the air with merciless precision, and her footsteps only make noise when she wants them to. V is is like a vengeful specter, and Judy is glad they're on the same side.

V enjoys her work, and seems more alive than ever leaving a trail of scav bodies behind her. She also stops to check every broken and discarded corpse along the way to make sure it isn't Evie's so that Judy doesn't have to.

After they rescue Evelyn and bring her safely to Judy's apartment, Judy realizes she can still hear the echoes of screams and gunfire left over from the rescue. She can't feel an ounce of remorse even now, hours after V sent heads and limbs flying as they hacked their way to Evelyn.

Judy is grateful to V for the care she's shown. For listening to Judy's direction in the scroller den, for saving Evelyn's interrogation for another day despite how desperate she was to find the Doll when they first made contact. For the first time, Judy feels ashamed of her snap judgement of V. Yes, her clothes never match or even fit her on any of the occasions they've interacted, and yeah, she has personally watched V pick up a discarded can of Chromanticore and finish it off, but she is also kinder than anyone Judy has met in years.

Evelyn is dead, and V is the only one she can call. V who is terrible with words but somehow knows exactly what to say to help Judy focus on the important things. She's helpful, and trying so hard to keep them both together.

V distracts her when the badges come. Tells her about meeting Jackie - how he shoved a gun in her face, then brought her home for lunch a few hours later. By the time they leave Judy isn't in cuffs, so the distraction must have helped.

Judy begins making plans. Wallowing in sadness never helped anyone in this city.

She's getting the feeling that V may have a crush on her. She also gets the feeling that V didn't like whatever she found while snooping on Maiko's comp, if the line of not-subtle-at-all questions as they leave are any indication.

They kill Woodman, and Judy doesn't feel any better. V tries her best to help, and it's the earnestness that Judy once found so off-putting that helps more than the words themselves.

V checks in on Judy in between jobs. She sends pictures from the Badlands that she thinks Judy would like to see. Judy ignores the way it bothers her to see some other woman in the background of more than a few.

Maiko makes it clear that she doesn't want the "freak merc" anywhere near this revolution. Judy is extra pleased to inform her that V is a vital, non-negotiable part of the mission.

V is dying, and Judy feels like someone pulled the rug out from under her. She thought V was being dramatic the first time she said so, but now she knows better. V falls asleep on her couch while Judy tells her about the unsuccessful line of BD blooper reels Sue had her work on a few months back.

V invites Judy to El Coyote Cojo a few days later for dinner. Rather, she invites Judy to Mama Welles's place for dinner, because V can't cook to save her life.

Mama Welles has endless stories about V and Jackie's misadventures. Judy is impressed that neither of them ended up in jail based on the amount of times they've had to pull each other out of the fire. By the end of the night, Mama Welles insists Judy call her when she needs to.

Sometimes, on a particularly bad night, Judy idly wonders how many people V has murdered that day. It seems she is always finding trouble to get into the middle of even just walking down the street. She doesn't want a number, but on very bad days it comforts her to know that if nothing else, they all at least had it coming. Maybe the world is a little bit better because V is in it, doing her thing.

V disappears without a trace for a few days. No pictures, no texts, not even a blip on the street about that sword wielding merc jumping into save some random citizens from gang violence. Judy tries not to worry but ends up going through a whole pack of cigs anyway.

Judy ends up calling Mama Welles who reassures her that V is probably just sick. V gets sick a lot with the way she eats whatever she finds but it's a habit they've not been able to break. Judy still can't reach V on the holo, but she does get an invite to dinner so she at least has company in her worry.

When V reappears, she is only slightly worse for wear and closed off about her whereabouts. Rumors start to surface about a massacre in a Pacifica church, and Judy doesn't ask.

Despite Maiko's best efforts, Clouds is liberated. Judy visits Evelyn's niche to tell her it's done, and finds V has left her cigarette case there.

Judy begins planning something new.

Judy gets a call from V, but not V. Panam on V's holo, the woman in the background of the photos. Panam is rude, but seems terrified and keeps going off on tangents about how V doesn't even have a security pin on her holo. "Doesn't she realize how dangerous it is when anyone can just access all her shit if she loses it?"

V is getting worse, and Judy feels helpless when all she can really tell Panam is to let V sleep it off. Panam thanks Judy for "being so helpful, truly appreciate the insight." If Judy weren't so sure Panam was V's output, she would admire how much "Fuck you" the feisty woman managed to inject into every syllable.

V stops by late the next day and apologizes for Panam. Judy suspects it's on Panam's advice when V not-so-subtly insists, on six separate occasions during the visit, that she and Panam are just friends.

Later, Panam calls Judy herself and apologizes. Judy makes a joke about V surrounding herself with temperamental women, which sets off teasing on Panam's followed by bickering between the nomads Judy wasn't aware could hear them chatting. She thinks she understands what V sees in Panam, now. It must feel like coming home, having to pull Panam out of the fires she creates after losing Jackie.

Judy invites V to Laguna Bend, and aside from V nearly drowning, the evening is perfect.

#valvarez #judy x v #cyberpunk 2077 #headcanon #judy alvarez x v

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wits-writing · 3 years

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What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

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Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

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“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

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fandom-imagines-stories · 4 years

Text

Sounds of Someday

Dean Winchester x Reader

Words: 3108

Summary: A fight leaves a rift in your heart and a split in Dean’s soul. Going your separate ways, you find that every road leads back to each other.

Notes: Eeeee, I loved writing this one so much guys! I’ve been wanting to write a Dean imagine based on a Radio Company song and I just had to do this one. I also incorporated the song “Who’s Cryin Now” by Journey because I felt it fit the plot.

Warnings: This one is a little steamier than other imagines I’ve written, but only for like, two seconds. I’m a tease.

Special shout out to my amazing beta reader Sarah, @suckmysupernatural . I love her so much and honestly, she’s helped me so much in getting these imagines out for you and she has some absolutely killer writing of her own!

Want more Supernatural? Find it HERE

All gone is here today

Finding room to breathe

“I’m done.” Those two words ripped through you as they left your lips. The anger on Dean’s face changed into remorse.

“What?”

“I can’t live like this anymore, Dean.” Your voice was hoarse from screaming at each other. This wasn’t the first fight you had had. But they’d never gotten this bad.

“So what, you’re just going to pack up and leave?” He crossed his arms. He may have started this fight, but he hadn’t anticipated it to go this far.

“Dean…” You ran a hand down your face in aggravation. “I can’t keep staying here, waiting for you to start the next apocalypse and then die trying to stop it.” The comment stung, but Dean wouldn’t show it. He set his jaw in a hard stare.

“Fine.” That was it. That’s all he said to you.

He stayed in the library while you went back to your shared room. You didn’t pay any attention to the clothes you grabbed, you just stuffed them into a duffel. The faster you got out of that bunker, the sooner you could stop fighting the tears that were burning your eyes. Dean hadn’t moved a muscle when you stormed back through. He wouldn't even look at you.

“I-” You started, but you stopped yourself. It didn’t matter. You got up the stairs before he finally spoke.

“This is on you.” He said in a steady, seething voice. You laughed bitterly, shaking your head.

“No, Dean. It’s not.”

The sound of the door closing echoed through the bunker and in his head. Dean kept his eyes trained on the ground even when Sam entered the room.

“Where’s she going?” His brother didn’t answer. “Dean, where is Y/N going?”

Dean just stared up at the closed door as if he were waiting for you to come back in. The silence weighed heavily on his chest, crushing the air out of him. He’d pushed too far this time. You weren’t coming back.

As soon as the bunker was in your rearview mirror, you broke down. This wasn’t just a break up. You had just left the only family you had. Your heart was screaming at you to turn around and forgive him. To let him hold you and kiss you until you forgot what you were fighting about. But it wouldn’t work. Not this time.

Dean’s words still rang through your head.

“Maybe you just aren’t cut out for this.” He had spat. “You can’t bear the idea of losing us because you wouldn’t last a day on your own.”

In your relationship, Dean had always helped you find your strength, but in that moment, he made you feel weak. Useless. You couldn’t stay.

You turned on the radio to drown out your thoughts.

Dean did the same as he laid in his bed back in the bunker. It felt… strange without you in it. He thought of your hurt and angry response.

“Yes, Dean. I am terrified of losing you. Every time you go out that door, I pray that whatever it is your facing won’t take you away. But you leave without a second thought. You go out, guns blazing and ready to die. It’s like you don’t care if you come back to me.”

He pressed the button aggressively and listened to Journey fill his room.

“One love feeds the fire. One heart burns desire. I wonder who’s crying now?”

You were half tempted to turn it back off. It was too fitting. The words made your heart ache.

“Two hearts, born to run. Who’ll be the lonely one? I wonder who’s crying now?”

Dean covered his face with his hands. Hearing your tearful voice was like listening to your heart break. And it was his fault.

Why couldn’t he just accept that someone cared about him? He had been pushing and pushing you away for months now and it finally got to be too much. You’d given up on him just like he’d given up on himself a long time ago.

You found a motel to crash at and plan for the days to come. You needed a case and you needed one fast. You pulled up news sites from surrounding areas and checked for anything strange.

Dean needed a case. It was the only thing that would get his mind off you. He enlisted Sam to help him with the search, though his younger brother kept badgering him with questions.

“Where is she going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she coming back?”

“Don’t count on it.”

“What happened?”

“Just help me find a damn case!” Dean yelled. Sam stared at him and leaned back in the chair. He wasn’t surprised by his brother’s outburst, but he wasn’t backing down. Y/N wouldn’t just pick up and leave. He raised a brow, waiting for an explanation. Dean sighed. “She’s done, Sam.”

“What do you mean, ‘She’s done’?”

“I mean, she said she’s done. She said she can’t live like this anymore.” Dean ran a hand down his face and took a swig of his third beer. “She’s not coming back.”

“Dean, I’m sure if you just call-”

“No.” Dean gave him a silencing stare. “Sam, just stay out of this, okay? She’s a big girl and can make her own damn decisions. This isn’t the first time a woman walked out angrily and it certainly won’t be the last. I’ll live.” But you weren’t just any woman. You weren’t a one-night-stand. He loved you. Which meant he would just have to try harder to forget you.

Go on beyond your way

And see

Yellowstone National Park. You used to visit this place all the time when you were a kid. Your parents were park rangers here until they walked into the woods one day and never came back. You never did find out what happened to them. After they disappeared, you were taken in by your aunt, who spent her days hunting down monsters, trying to find the one that killed her sister and brother-in-law. You watched the job destroy her.

You wouldn’t watch it destroy the man you loved.

You had found some reports of campers going missing over the years. Not the usual bear attack either, though that’s what local authorities assumed. You had a particular creature in mind; wendigo.

Dean threw his duffle onto the cabin bed and surveyed his lodgings. He had told Sam to sit this one out. He needed to clear his head, but he told his skeptical brother that he would call if he thought he couldn’t handle it. From the research he’d dug up, it looked like a possible wendigo. It had been years since he fought one of these bastards, so he would have to stay sharp.

Dean figured that a fed would stand out too much in this environment, so he posed as a researcher looking into bear attacks. The ranger just gave him a smile.

“You must be that nice woman’s partner! She was looking into the same string of attacks you are.” He shook his head grimly. “A damn shame. If people just left the animals alone, we wouldn’t have such a problem with these attacks.” He rambled on for a moment before Dean cut him off.

“Young woman?” The ranger’s brows furrowed.

“Yeah, she was in here just a second ago. Wanted to know about those campers. Tough-looking, but man, she was a pretty one.” With a glare from Dean, the ranger corrected himself. “Didn’t know she was here with anybody.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“Do you know where she was headed?”

After you checked in with the main desk, you found your cabin. The mountains around you gave you a bittersweet nostalgia. You used to love it here. You sighed and stuck the key in the lock, freezing when you looked at the cabin next door. The slick-black exterior shined in the sunset. Son of a-

“Of all of the gin joints...” A voice mused behind you.

You quickly unlocked your door and went inside. Dean caught the door before you could slam it on him. His expression was grave and his eyes still held the hurt that they had just two days ago.

“This is my case, Dean. You can go.” You looked anywhere else in the room but him. You could brave leaving him once, but you didn’t know if your heart would let you do it again.

“I found this case fair and square, so I’m not going anywhere sweetheart.” He said gruffly. You put your hands on your hips and he crossed his arms over his chest. Unless one of you said something, you could be in this stand-off for God knows how long.

“I don’t have time for this, I have a wendigo to fry.” You started to pack your backpack, but Dean still didn’t move.

“We have a wendigo to fry.”

“No.” You shook your head. “No we. Just me.” You stuffed the last of your flare guns in your bag.

“You’re not seriously going to take this on by yourself.” Dean scoffed. You narrowed your eyes.

“Oh, and you are?”

“I hate to break it to you, Y/N, but wendigo’s are nasty sons-of-bitches. They’re big and they’re fast and would snap you in half before you could even light a match.”

“Right, and a big macho man like you would be totally safe.”

“I’d have a better chance of fighting it off, that’s for sure.”

“Look here, Winchester.” You stalked towards him, jabbing a finger at his chest. “I know this area better than you, I’m a better tracker than you, and I can fight just as well as you can.”

“This is different.”

“It’s really not.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I want you to stop underestimating me.”

“I should just lock you in here and throw away the key!”

“And I should give you a black eye!”

“When are we leaving?”

“Nightfall!”

“Fine!”

You dropped your bag on the floor as Dean’s lips collided with yours. His arms lifted your legs up and you wrapped them around his waist. This kiss was fervent and intense. Your back was pressed against the door and Dean helped you shed your jacket and you undid his belt. Your lips moved down to his neck, leaning forward to encourage him towards the bed.

You slammed down onto the mattress, his green eyes looming over you and making your head spin. You started to lift his shirt over his head, but he paused.

“Wait wait wait,” His brows furrowed together in a way that could only be described as extremely hot frustration, “is this break-up sex or make-up sex?” You used your legs to roll him to the side that you were straddling his waist.

“Let me get back to you on that.”

Even the fires on the road

Trying to get away

You hadn’t really said anything since you started hiking. It was just after twilight and stars were starting to dot the sky. You were focused on listening to the nature around you, hand prepped on your can of bear-spray. Just because a bear hadn’t killed those campers didn’t mean one wouldn’t kill you.

Dean had a very uneasy feeling. Every snap set his nerves even more on edge. A wolf howled in the distance and he grabbed your arm, eyes wide. He definitely was not in his element out here. You just chuckled and shook your head.

“And you said I couldn’t handle it.” He just gave you a cocky smirk.

“Hey sweetheart, you’re legs sore from hiking yet?” He raised a brow and your cheeks flushed.

“You’re a pig, Dean.” You scoffed, quickly turning around. It was his turn to chuckle. A silence fell between you as you continued to listen to the sounds of the night. A seriousness came to Dean’s expression.

“Look, Y/N, about what I said back at the bunker-”

“I don’t think we should talk about that now.” You interrupted. Your head was fuzzy enough from the last couple hours in bed with him. Revisiting the break-up wouldn’t help anything. But Dean grabbed your hand, forcing you to stop.

“I know that you can handle yourself. And I know that you’re afraid of me getting hurt and leaving you. But that’s not going to happen, baby.” He brought your hand to his chest so you could feel his heartbeat.

“You don’t know that.” You looked at the forest floor. “Dean, how many times have you walked out ready to sacrifice yourself to save the world, or Sam, or me?” He didn’t answer. “I can’t live like that. I’ve watched too many people I love destroy themselves. I won’t watch it happen to you.”

Before he could respond, a voice cried out in the woods.

“Y/N! Help us!” Your eyes went wide.

“Mom?” You gasped.

“Baby, come find us!”

“Dad?” Dean grabbed your shoulders.

“Y/N, those aren’t your parents.” He said, trying to get you to focus on him rather than the phantom voices. “Your parents are gone.”

“Y/N!”

“Mom!” You screamed. You broke away from Dean and took off into the trees.

“Damn it, Y/N. Don’t!” Dean yelled after you. He tore through the foliage, but it was too late. You were gone.

And all the stars seem on a roll

Out of control today

You groaned, your head feeling like a bowling pin.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” You muttered angrily. How could you have fallen for a trick like that? Wendigos could mimic human voices. But how did it know what your parents sounded like?

That’s when it clicked. Their disappearance in the woods, the destroyed camp site, the wendigo’s memory of them. This was the bastard that killed them.

You were tied to a root or something in the ceiling of the cave. It was dark, but as your eyes adjusted, you could see the faint outline of other people across from you.

“Hello?”

You were greeted with a quiet whimper and a little movement from the smaller form. The other body remained still.

“Who’s there? Did that thing get you too?” It was a woman. You wracked your brain to remember the report

“Yeah,” You sighed, “Yeah it got me. But I have a friend out there. He’ll find us.”

“It’ll come back.” She cried. “It already… it killed Steven.” She was on the brink of hysterics, so you did your best to calm her down.

“Jessie, right?” You said softly. You could just see her nod. “Jessie, it’s going to be okay. Dean is going to get us out of here and then we’re going to kill this thing.” How Dean was going to find you… you tried not to think about.

A figure materialized from the dark. At first, you hoped it was Dean, but it was too big. It’s limbs were too lanky.

“Oh my god, it’s back.” Jessie cried. You assessed the situation and spotted your bag just behind Steven’s hanging form.

“Jessie, I need you to get a hold of that bag.”

“I can’t! I can’t!” She bawled. You gave her a hard stare.

“If you want to get out of here, you have to try.” You ordered. Seeing her movement, the creature picked her as its next target. She started to scream. Here goes nothing. “Hey!” You shouted at the monster. “Come and get me you freaky bastard! I taste good!”

Thankfully, the beast took the bait. You started swinging back and forth, hoping that the root holding you would break, or at least wear down the ropes that bound your wrists. The wendigo clawed your arm, making you cry out as blood spurted from your bicep.

“Hey!” Another voice added to the chaos and a flash of red zoomed by your face, nearly singeing your hair. Distracted by the newcomer, the wendigo turned away. Luckily, the creature had also scratched the ropes and with a few more jolts, your bindings snapped. You rolled towards your bag, ignoring the flood of pain that shot up from your arm. Jessie had been able to move it closer so in a few quick motions, you grabbed a flare gun and shot it into the monster’s stomach. The glare was bright enough that you needed to shield your eyes.

Once the creature was fully cooked, you could finally see Dean. He moved towards you, but you motioned to Jessie.

“Get her first.” He cut the frightened woman down and she threw her arms around him.

“It’s alright, you’re safe now.” He tried to keep her line of sight away from her shredded boyfriend. You couldn’t help but watch him with admiration. The way he cared so much… it was what made you fall for him. He looked at you. “I’m going to take her out of here.” His expression was reluctant. He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving you here.

“I’ll be fine, Dean. Go.”

He swiftly ushered the woman out of the cave and you dug through your pack for bandages. Dean gave Jessie a can of bear spray and told her to wait while he went back for you. When he found you, you were leaning over a pile of old human bones.

“At least now I know what happened.” You held up a small gold chain that you had found on one of the skeletons, buried beneath years of other victims. It was your mother’s. Dean knelt beside you and you took a shaking breath. “You were right, you know. Maybe I can’t handle this. I mean, I rushed into that forest with even a little hesitation. And I know what those bastards can do. I just didn’t care. I heard their voices and I just ran.” A tear fell down your cheek and you quickly brushed it away.

“Y/N, you nearly got your arm clawed off and you still killed that thing.” Dean exclaimed, helping to wrap your injury tighter. “You are a great hunter. I just said that stuff because… I’m just as afraid of losing you as you are losing me. When that thing took you, I lost my damn mind.”

You leaned your head against his chest and let him wrap his arms around you. You clutched the chain in your hand. Someday, all of this would make sense. How you found each other, how you continued to be pulled together even when you had given up, how you were willing to risk everything to stay together. Until then, you would enjoy the view.

And though, the Sounds of Someday

May

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#radio company #dean winchester x reader #winchester takeover #sam winchester #wendigo #jensen ackles #sounds of someday

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scottymcgeesterwrites · 3 years

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Final Fantasy VII Review

Year: 1997

Original Platform: PlayStation One

Also available on: PC, PlayStation Store

Version I Played: PlayStation One

Synopsis:

The Shinra Electric Power Company rules over the city of Midgar, and the eco-terrorists AVALANCHE stop at nothing to try and prevent the life essence of the planet from being used as energy. Barrett, leader of AVALANCHE, hires a mercenary named Cloud Strife for their bombing mission on a Shinra Mako Reactor. Cloud doesn’t care much for the greater cause and only wants his pay. But then, after a mission goes awry, he meets Aerith, a flower girl who is the descendant of the Ancients. He quickly finds himself wrapped up in the greater conflict against Shinra.

Gameplay:

Final Fanatasy VII utilizes magic spells via Materia – little orbs that come in a variety of colors pertaining to the natural elements. You can mix and match them on your weapons and equipment, which gives you access to different spells and stats. All your equipment varies with the number of slots for how many Materia orbs you can put in. Leveling up not only upgrades the character but the equipped Materia as well.

Final Fantasy VII also uses an ATB system but is known for introducing Limit Breaks – finishing moves that build up after the character gets hit over time. Final Fantasy VI had a prototype called Desperation Attack – but it was very rare as it only appeared when your character had 1/8 of their total HP, and there was a 1 in 6 chance of performing the Desperation Attack after selecting Attack. I actually had no idea that was a thing until long after I finished the game, and never experienced it when I played Final Fantasy VI.

Graphics:

Out of all the Final Fantasy games, I have to say that this one has not aged well. It has the worst graphics of the entire series. The battle and cinematic graphics are passable.

(Most of the graphics power seemed to be put in Tifa’s, uh, bosom.)

But the characters in towns, the overworld, and in-game cutscenes are incredibly blocky. PC versions are supposedly sharper, but the PlayStation One version makes it nigh impossible to see any facial expressions.

The graphics are definitely a product of its time. I always say that the beginning of 3D gaming was essentially like puberty – awkward and full of zits. It wasn’t yet at that stage where it could be aesthetically pleasing. We marveled about it when it was first released, yes, but then we cringed in retrospect.

The environment backdrops however are probably the strongest points, where they capture the industrial nature of Midgar, the reactors and other such buildings.

Story:

Final Fantasy VII became legendary the minute Square released it. Every aspect was memorable. Part of it could be due to the fact that it was the first Final Fantasy game to enter the 3D realm. Another part was Tetsuya Nomura’s character designs, which hit the cool meter to the point of sub-zero.

The cinematics blew our minds. The opening action scene with Cloud, Barrett, and the rest of AVALANCHE attacking Shinra’s mako reactor is the most memorable opening to a Final Fantasy game. Period. Final Fantasy games really do know how to start at the right spot, no matter how good or bad the overall game is. The opening is always the best part.

Then there was the motorcycle chase. Cid’s airship. The gun fights. Battles with Sephiroth. The extra stuff to find, like summons and extra bosses. So much was jam-packed into the game.

But the story was the primary factor in making VII famous. It’s definitely one of the better ones. Man, the story became so famous that even gamers who haven’t touched a Final Fantasy game knew the major spoilers. It is the equivalent to knowing Darth Vader’s line, “I am your father” without having actually watched Star Wars.

Aerith (Aeris in the English releases) Gainsborough – the innocent flower girl who holds the secrets of the Ancients – develops a romance with Cloud and fucking dies at the end of Disc 1 by the main villain – Sephiroth. The scene shocked everyone and practically made headlines. Everybody has seen the horrible image in one way or another.

It seems to me that since Final Fantasy V, the stories have gotten more and more used to main character deaths, ultimately transforming into a heavy-hitting TV series rather than simply a video game series. In other words – it matured. Looking back, Final Fantasy IV appears to be child’s play and a prototype of later dramatic storylines with fully realized worlds.

Final Fantasy VII was also the first Final Fantasy game to create a world much like ours – one with cars and trains and airplanes and machine guns and even cellphones. The main city of Midgar reflects industrialization at its worst, with miles of slums and claustrophobic cities. Shinra Electric Power Company is a reflection of capitalism at its worst - a single entity in charge of so much that it’s pretty much the government. For the first time in a Final Fantasy game, you play as characters who dance between the morally ambiguous line of terrorism and activism. Funny enough, the theme of neglecting the planet resonates with us now more than ever. This game ended up being rather prophetic about the uncontrollable growth of corporations.

While the story is memorable with many intriguing elements, the plot itself is a tangled web. In my opinion, they really hashed in so many things that it’s easy to forget crucial details. It’s not straightforward, but at the same time everything does connect by the end. While Shinra is the driving force as a whole as the villain, Sephiroth takes over, then you learn about his backstory and then with the evil scientist Hojo and the extra-terrestrial Jenova and then “Weapon” and then the planet’s history and this and that and the other thing.

If I were to put Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII together and contrast them, as many gamers do, I would find that Final Fantasy VII is the summer blockbuster and Final Fantasy VI is the Oscar winner. Final Fantasy VII started introducing the sappy romance subplot to the series. A love triangle forms among Aerith, Cloud, and Cloud’s childhood friend Tifa. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a love triangle, the writing is like watching middle schoolers trying to express their feelings. Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IV treated any romance with dignity and realism.

But maybe I’m being a bit harsh. After all, Cloud Strife did go through some suffering as an adolescent. His backstory clearly drives his antisocial behavior, so that becomes a good arc.

The goofiest but memorable part of the story deals with Don Corneo and Wall Market and running around store to store doing tasks in order to free Tifa from Don Corneo. It ends with Cloud needing to cross-dress as a woman to get inside Don’s mansion. Because, you know, it’s not like Cloud can just break in with his sword and Aerith’s magic or anything like that. But whatever. It’s anime.

The recent Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS4 seems to streamline the story, and actually enhances the emotions they were trying to deliver in the original. I will be talking about the remake in a separate post altogether since I’m almost done with it at the time of this writing. But there’s a lot that I want to say about comparing and contrasting the remake and the original.

The latter half of the plot takes a couple weird turns. At one point, Cloud became catatonic and confined to a wheelchair.

That part of the game became the sluggish part for me. Sephiroth also tries to confuse Cloud, which confused me. Cloud apparently suffers from some alternate subconscious mumbo-jumbo and like. . .ungh. I get an aneurysm thinking about it sometimes.

Complicated plotlines like Final Fantasy VII start showing up from here on out in the Final Fantasy series. The trend of bishonen characters also begin here, bishonen being the Japanese term for “beautiful boy.” Cloud and Sephiroth have that look. The series starts hashing in sappier romances and much more of an anime feel.

Final Fantasy VII ultimately marked the start of a new era for the series – introducing both cool and overused tropes.

Music:

Hands down the best Final Fantasy soundtrack of all.

The entire soundtrack of this game is memorable. The opening tune, with its light twinkle when the stars show up, is enough to make any gamer know exactly what that’s from.

With a story set in a more modern world, we have music that is more modern. After Final Fantasy VI had a more serious and operatic score, Uematsu displayed his love of progressive rock here. The motorcycle chase incorporates a lot of synth, which was fitting for zipping through the streets of Midgar. However, Final Fantasy VII is the first Final Fantasy game without that familiar starting bassline for the battle them. The battle theme is instantly recognizable but also radically different from its predecessors. It’s dramatic and displays danger.

Meanwhile, the boss theme is one of the best boss themes in the series, or any video game really. It’s an electrifying progressive rock piece, and it’s my personal favorite boss theme.

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The more instrumental pieces are somber, given the dreary atmosphere of the planet. The world map music is very different from its predecessors. It’s romantic one moment, soaring the next, and then dips into foreboding terror. I guess that sums up the story of Final Fantasy VII.

And we cannot leave out One-Winged Angel, which I will talk about below.

Notable Theme:

Without a doubt, One-Winged Angel – played during the terrifying final battle against Sephiroth – is the most memorable piece of music in Final Fantasy VII.

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It may very well be the most popular song of the entire series. Nobuo Uematsu was inspired by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It’s a whopping 30 something minute classical piece. If you look it up on YouTube and browse through it, you can definitely note the similarities. However, Uematsu didn’t want some boring classical introduction to the piece. He wanted to add the destructive impact of rock. The theme has a very distinct stamping-your-foot-down quality to it.

I had noticed a certain piece-by-piece feel of the song and that’s exactly how Uematsu composed it. This is the only song that Uematsu has composed where he created several tunes in his head and then rearranged them to make a single comprehensive song.

If you want to get technical, One-Winged Angel is the first Final Fantasy song with lyrics. The chorus sings in Latin about Sephiroth’s burning anger, with some lyrics actually taken from the medieval poem Carmina Burana. It sounds fantastic when fully orchestrated.

In Advent Children, the animated sequel to Final Fantasy VII, the music is accompanied by hardcore metal. This new rendition really illustrates the destructive power of Sephiroth. Uematsu changed the lyrics for Advent Children. They are more original now. I specifically noticed the lyrics “Veni, veni, mi fili”, which translates to “Come, come, my son.” Sephiroth is inviting you so he can kill you.

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Uematsu has stated that the original orchestration didn’t sit well with him. As I suspected, Advent Children’s hardcore metal version is the one he preferred, the one he would have composed had he the technology at the time of Final Fantasy VII.

Verdict:

Another must-play for any RPG fan, even if you think it’s overrated. It’s a must-play because of its popularity, in the same way that people are wide-eyed when you say you haven’t seen Star Wars or such-and-such other popular movie. It’s a whole lot of fun, especially in the scenes that involve other forms of gameplay, such as the motorcycle chase and even a battlefield strategy game in protecting Fort Condor.

Direct Sequel?

Yes – first there was the CGI movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I actually watched Advent Children before playing Final Fantasy VII. I had already known most of what happened in the game and Advent Children became a monumental craze when it first came out. Everybody was talking about it. Watching the sequel before playing the game skewers your interpretation of things. My first impression of Cloud was that he was always whiny and angsty, and meanwhile Tifa kept nagging him to move on. I felt really bad for Cloud losing Aerith.

Then when I actually played Final Fantasy VII, I saw that Cloud starts as this badass mercenary. Tifa is spunky and clearly is the better choice (IMO) but Cloud is enamored by Aerith after only meeting her briefly. WHAT? Cloud. Bro. Make a move on Tifa, you nitwit. Tifa is AMAZING.

Square Enix then continued the story with Dirge of Cerberus – Final Fantasy VII. This video game sequel focuses on Vincent Valentine, a fan favorite of the original game.

Let me remind you about something – the original game revealed Shinra’s inner deep secret experiments, namely with Sephiroth and Jenova. Dirge of Cerberus introduces an even deeper research team within Shinra called Deepground. I don’t know about you, but it already sounds like the start of a terribly redundant string of sequels, like how the Jason Bourne movies keep revealing an even deeper level of conspiracy theories. Vincent’s mysterious background is now fully revealed. He is defined by – guess what? – another angsty lost lover story, this time with a woman named Lucrecia. Now, okay, look, maybe I’m just being a dick about these types of love stories. But when it keeps popping up within the same series in the same manner, I start asking if you have anything else to offer on your menu.

Lastly, there is the prequel for the PSP – Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Of all the games in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core has received the most positive reception. If anything, play that after playing Final Fantasy VII before bothering with anything else.

Oh, and of course there is the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which we thought wasn’t going to happen for the longest time but they finally released it in April 2020. More on that later after I finish it, and after I post my entire series of Final Fantasy reviews!

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concussed-to-pieces · 4 years

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To Tell You The Truth Part Three

Fandom: Prospect [2018]

Pairing: Eventual Ezra/Prospector!Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Good morning, good evening! I hope you're all doing well. Enjoy!

Tag List: @huliabitch @renegademustelid @wrestlingfae @zombiexbody @sporadic-fics @rzrcrst @lackofhonor @the-feckless-wonder @arrowswithwifi

Part One

Part Two

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains graphic depictions of gore and allusions to previous abuse. Stay safe!]

Bakhroma loomed massive and pinkish-tan on the horizon ahead as you bent double, hands on your knees while you struggled for breath. No doubt you had pushed your filter carbon far past its limits with your headlong sprint heats through the Green. A quick look confirmed your suspicions; the indicator blinked sluggishly at the bottom of the red lines.

You bit your lip, barely reining in the panic threatening to engulf you yet again. You had no idea where you were. Damon was the one with the map, and Ezra...he was the only person alive who might be able to help you. Your heart dropped as you realized that all your running had really done was prolong the inevitable.

You sank to the ground, staring up at the planet that dominated most of the sky in front of you. The hazy atmosphere around it was bright orange, fading into the navy blue of the cosmos backdrop. Checking your watch, you saw that the first cycle had kicked into the second several hours ago, though the light level didn't seem to have changed at all. The cloying, overbearing vegetation around you abruptly made sense. This moon was not only humid, it was also bathed in light for much longer than the standard twenty-four cycle.

Moving robotically as your legs began to protest, you lumbered stiffly back to the treeline to suss out the spring you had passed by. You would need water. Even if you weren't in the right headspace to be thirsty, dehydration was not something to sneeze at.

You knelt in the mud alongside the spring, the coolness welcome on your overworked knees even through your suit. Pumping and purifying water always took longer than it ought to, and you found yourself staring blankly off into the distance as you filled your first jug.

You were working on the second when your helmet earpiece suddenly crackled to life with a shrill whine of static.

"-llo...hello to the Green."

Ezra?

You swiveled your head wildly to look around and the static increased with the motion, making you slow to a stop. It was a stationary transmission, then. Your helmet must be picking up a long range somewhere nearby.

You rose to your feet while rushing to stow the jugs of filtered water in your day pack, tilting your head and mentally begging Ezra to keep talking. He did not disappoint, his drawling voice and the bursts of intermittent static your compass through the tangled overgrowth.

"...one or two pearls...that I will be willing to part with for well under the peakest commercial rates. Nothin' funny."

It sounded like he hadn't managed to get what he needed to fix the drop pod. Your eyes burned with tears.

"Just a desperate man tryin' to make a bad deal with the right holdout."

Brick red flickered through the Green's lush verdancy and you realized after a moment that it was canvas. A tent solidified out of the thick brush as you advanced, the roof coated in a generous layer of amber-yellow dust.

"...anyone is out there...don't hesitate to click on." The signal was nearly free of static at this point. This tent was the obvious origin of the broadcast. But now the question was...whether that message was prerecorded or not.

You hid beside a large, gnarled tree and pondered your next move. Sure, you had the pistol. If it did you any good was an entirely different animal, but you definitely had it.

It felt sturdy in your hand compared to the flimsy Boscelot thrower rifle. Solid.

Maybe...maybe you could reason with Ezra at gunpoint. Strike some kind of new bargain. You had nothing to put on the table this time, however. Everything had been in that pack, and you highly doubted the other prospector was interested in your sketchbooks. It would have to be at gunpoint. He had the resources, but you had the gun.

Just like Damon.

You hated yourself in that moment, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. Then, you darted across the space to the tent, ears straining to catch any noise from inside the structure. You couldn't hear much through your helmet to begin with.

After a quick prayer, you unzipped the tent and cautiously ducked your head to enter, leading with the thrower pistol clutched in your hands.

Someone seized your arm like a steel trap and you were ripped through the doorway, the pistol getting knocked out of your grasp in the process. Your plan effectively destroyed, you succumbed to panic, thrashing and attempting to claw at your assailant even with your gloves on. You twisted your head around to try and catch a glimpse--

And those bloodshot blue eyes seemed to loom up at you from the dimly-lit interior, making you scream out in terror, "No, no, Damon please!" as you struggled to get free.

He all but wrestled you bodily into one of the tent bunks, grunting in pain when you beat your gloved fists into his ribs. You weren't sure if it was just because of the adrenaline or if it was due to how long you had been separated from him, but you had never fought him this hard in your life! You had always just accepted, given in, bowed to his demands. Where had this tenacity even come from?

"Not again, not again!" You sobbed, futilely kicking your legs to try and throw him off of you. "P-Please, please, please--!"

"Gentle soul, if you do not cease tenderizin' my ribcage in this most belligerent and unneighborly manner," a familiar drawl met your ears through your thick helmet, "I will have no resource but to employ far more drastically militant tactics. Be still."

That voice! You froze, your hands still bunched up to tear at the fabric of his exosuit. Ezra.

His large form seemed to solidify in the exceedingly-dreary tent lighting now that you weren't fighting for your life, and you realized with a rush of embarrassment that it hadn't been Damon's eyes you saw, but the distorted reflection of the whites of your own in your helmet's dome. That, coupled with your imagination...

Damon was dead. How could you have forgotten? Damon was dead. It was just Ezra.

Does that make it any better?

You released him without a word, scrambling back as far as you could and drawing your knees to your chest in a defensive stance. Ezra stumbled upright, reaching overhead with his left hand to press a few buttons. The tent's air scrubber rattled sluggishly to life. "You can take off the helmet." He muttered.

You did so almost immediately, taking a greedy inhale of the dubiously-clean oxygen. A bit bar hit the threadbare bunk webbing by your feet and you ripped the colorful wrapper open, tearing chunks out of the crunchy substance with your teeth. As you devoured the bar ravenously, you realized that Ezra was utterly silent.

You dared to flick your eyes up and found him studying you, his expression pensive in the sickly orange twilight of the tent. You gulped down the bite of Calori-paste that now threatened to choke you. "I...I'm sorry." You apologized thickly. "I shouldn't have-"

"Be quiet and finish the bar, gentle soul." Ezra instructed softly. He sounded unsettled, of all things. Like he expected you to turn on him any second. "I believe I have unfortunately deduced the answer to the mystery I had pondered earlier, though I wholeheartedly regret opening that proverbial Pandora's box." He shook his head.

The Calori-paste sat in your stomach like a block of lead. You struggled through the last few bites, washing them down with swigs of plasticky water from your canteen. You held out the other bottle that you had filtered as a sort of silent peace offering and Ezra accepted it without hesitation, the older man proceeding to gulp half the bottle in one go.

"I know you may not be overly inclined towards listenin' to me at the moment," he gasped out, wiping the moisture off his mustache. "But I'm afraid my situation has grown even more dire than previously implied." He raised his eyes to meet your own. "I...I need your help." He confessed.

You took another drink of water to give you the time to collect your thoughts. You were certain your disbelief was plain on your face; you had never been gifted in the art of hiding your turns of expression.

Ezra snorted, lowering his body to sit on the far end of the bunk. "The Saders were not exceptionally keen on barterin' with me once you made your timely departure." He held his arm, wincing and no longer looking at you. "I managed to convince them to swap me some of their ambrosia for supplies, instead of-" He halted, his shoulders going rigid before he carefully continued, "I cannot excise the infection without assistance, and if I do not remove it with an exceedingly low degree of error, I will lose the whole arm."

You swallowed hard, clenching your fist so tight that the handle on the water jug creaked as you asked, "Were you going to give me to them?"

You knew that all Ezra had to do was say exactly what you wanted to hear. But you could live with the prettier lie if it got you off the Green. You could pretend to trust, pantomime the partnership.

His eyebrows drew together in a dark frown and you watched his jaw work sporadically before he finally exhaled a singular, monosyllabic, "no."

You waited for the rest of the sentence, the emphatic declarations of I would never! or what kind of man do you take me for?, but he remained silent, staring at the tent floor. Weirdly, the lack of long-winded antics made his answer feel more honest somehow. He was obviously a gifted liar, tailoring his technique to his target.

You sighed heavily through your nose. "Okay."

You told yourself that the bewildered gratitude in his eyes must have also been part of his ability to tell falsehoods.

Ezra prepared the sparse surgical supplies from your kit with a somber, almost funereal air. He seemed to be already convinced that his arm was a total loss. Maybe he knew better than to put much stock in the abilities of a battered floater.

You were seized with the uncanny urge to prove him wrong. Your need for validation was what had landed you in this mess with Damon all those stands ago, you reminded yourself, but you couldn't shake the habit so easily. "Did I hurt you? When I...when I hit you?" You asked before you could think better of it.

"No more than the average lighthearted dig dust-up would, gentle soul. Do not trouble yourself on my behalf." Ezra replied dully. "I offer my most sincere reparations for givin' you a fright."

"I spooked myself. I...I saw the reflection of my own eyes in my helmet and I thought…" you trailed off, nervously sipping your water.

"That man, Damon." Ezra hesitated, struggling to secure the band around his upper arm. "I know it is rude to ask after personal affairs, but did he-"

"Don't." You said softly.

To his credit Ezra stopped immediately, busying himself with the tourniquet. After he had completed that arduous task, he bit the cap off of one of the porta-surge syrettes, spitting it out to land neatly in the lid of the field kit. He jabbed the needle home in his shoulder with a poorly-muffled gasp of pain, nearly crushing the tube with the force of his motion before dropping that into the kit lid as well. "The lid is for sharps." He informed you. "We lack a tray or a proper sterile environment, so keep your hands clear."

"I'll cap that once I get gloved up." You assured him. "I'm not leaving a sharp in the field kit. Knowing me, I'd forget it was in there and wind up accidentally pricking myself or something."

Ezra nodded, swallowing convulsively. You took the Ralon scalpel from his slightly-shaky hand. "You ever used one of these?" He asked, his voice gone a bit reedy. His breathing in general seemed poor, off-tempo. He was afraid. The knowledge that he was just as scared as you were made you feel more sure of yourself, for good or ill.

You shook your head in reply to his question, explaining, "I've never used this model before. The one I have for harvesting is much older."

Ezra reached over, flashing you a disingenuous smile. "It's easy."

He pressed down on the side of the scalpel battery pack, activating the laser blade. The whole handle buzzed in your grip, feeling uncannily like your handheld stitcher.

"There's five levels of intensity. Use two for flesh. Four for bone." Bone?! You jerked your head up, meeting his terrified gaze. "You got it?" He choked out after a second.

You nodded stiffly. If he wanted you to know the bone setting, then by Kevva, you would.

His eyes softened and for a split-second he looked like he might cry. "Thank you." He rasped, blinking rapidly and then glancing away.

You rummaged around in the porta-surge for the tiny, standard-issue penlight, immensely thankful that the battery still had enough power to work. The tent was poorly illuminated, outside light barely able to filter through the thick material. "Will this...when I start, is it going to hurt you?" The sterile glove packet made an ungodly amount of noise, crinkling and crackling in your hands as you fought to tear the seal.

Ezra scoffed, demonstrating the sensation that his right arm currently possessed by slapping his limp hand a few times. "I won't feel a thing. Hack away." His breathing was still too fast even as he continued to prattle, "quick, confident strokes are best. Try to go full circuit on the first cut."

You nodded again, one-handedly scooping the syrette and pushing it against the side of the lid to shove the cap back on. Then, you disposed of it in the trash bag by the door. Holding the penlight between your teeth, you smoothed your gloved hand down his arm to pin it securely in place. You were really going to do this. Well, if he wasn't able to feel it...

You had peeled multitudes of aurelac gems in your mining career. You were exceptionally delicate when it came to skinning the pearls. You couldn't recall the last time you had punctured one of the blisters and ruined a pull. Surely...surely this wouldn't be much different.

"I've never had to use these syrettes before. Kinda' nice. Tingly." Ezra commented as the scalpel buzzed to life. "Almost like it's…" With something that might have resembled quick confidence, you began your excision. The laser blade whirred through his epidermis with enviable ease, smoking slightly. "Oh shit. Oh shit." The older man muttered over your head, his whole body gone tense.

"What?" You asked around the penlight. Ezra started panting, his chest heaving violently underneath his threadbare waffle thermal layer. "Does it hurt?"

"No. N...h--I-I don't know. Keep goin'." He stammered. "You're doin' great, k-keep goin' until you think you've got it all." His left hand was clenched so tightly that his knuckles had gone nearly stark white beneath the layers of ground-in dirt. "Once y...once you finish, dump the juice into the wound and th-then cream it a-all sh-iiit, shut, shut." He continued to instruct you through gritted teeth.

You nodded, wholly focused on your task. At least it wasn't difficult to spot where the infection had reached. It turned the tissue and muscle it consumed to a sinister purple-black. You tried to keep your brain separated from the fact that this was a human arm you were methodically carving a chunk out of, a human arm attached to a living person who, despite his incredibly convincing big talk, could definitely feel what you were doing. You deliberately narrowed everything down to being as rapid and thorough as possible, like when you had to harvest in a poor environment. Every extra second you spent was a precious resource you could ill-afford to waste, literally. Thank stars that he had the tourniquet wrapped so tightly, even if the blade did it's damnedest to cauterize as you cut.

Once you were as certain as you could conceivably be that you had removed all the infected matter from the wound, you sloshed some of the Sader's juice from Ezra's canteen onto the exposed area. It hissed and steamed like boiling water and Ezra buried his face in the crook of his left elbow, biting down on his sleeve and screaming into the fabric.

Your hands finally started to tremble as you loaded the patch gun and listened to him dry heave, but you doggedly kept at it. Just a little more to go. It felt like it took an eternity for the stupid cream to expand. The reload was probably years past its expiration date.

And then it was over.

You carefully gathered up the grotesque little pieces of your handiwork that had fallen on the floor, balling everything into your fist. The gloves squeaked wetly when you stripped them, turning them inside out as you did to keep the blood and organic matter contained. They dropped into the waste bag by the door, plopping sadly down next to the spent syrette on a bed of bit bar wrappers.

You shakily switched off your penlight and took a step back, reaching for one of the tiny antiseptic wipe packets. Despite your best efforts, the skin of your wrists was spattered here and there with blood. You scrubbed at the rusty fluid silently.

Ezra's whole body was shuddering with every groaning retch, saliva hanging in thick strands from the bottom of his slack mouth as he rocked his way through the pain and clearly fought down the urge to vomit. Moved by the admittedly-pitiful sight, you tugged loose your bandanna and wiped off his chin. "It's done." You informed him softly.

He caught your wrist before you could pull away and you were shocked when he pressed a sloppy kiss to your knuckles. "You are Kevva-sent, gentle soul, never let anyone t-tell you otherwise." He grated, "Divinity incarnate; a damn valkyrie in floater's clothing, decidin' my fate on the battlefield."

You squinted at him, down at the grisly mass of expanded foam and then back at his face. "I don't know if I would count this as a battlefield, Ezra."

"Martyr's malfeasance," he swore, his voice cracking, "you can attempt to dismiss it but I will never forget this kindness, gentle soul. Not even in the next life."

"Don't...look, let's just hope I did everything right." The insanity of the task you had just performed struck you anew and hysteria bloomed in your chest. At the same time, his heartfelt proclamations of gratitude settled low in your belly, a flickering flame of pride that you wanted to shelter and nurture. You sat down hard on the bunk, pulling your knees up again. The still-smoking scalpel gleamed at you in the dim light of the tent. "I'm probably gonna' be sick." You warned him faintly.

"You are far from alone in that camp, gentle soul." Ezra replied dolefully. "We'll be spewin' in the same trough shortly, I imagine. I have always been a man...afflicted by the trials of sympathetic vomiting."

"Oh no!" You found yourself caught between laughing and gagging, settling for a retching little snicker. "Come on, don't say stuff like that, you're gonna' make me hurl."

After several queasy moments had passed, he spoke up again, "I know you are just as eager as I to continue on to that mercenary camp, but I must insist on a short reprieve. A burge...burgeoning cloud of exhaustion is relieving me of what little sensibility I possess." He tucked his wounded arm against his chest as he curled up in his bunk. "And I will need time for the syrette to wear off, lest I be rendered an incompetent, staggering buffoon."

"We have to go to them, don't we?" Your voice was tiny.

Ezra sighed. "It would appear so. We will have to throw ourselves upon their proverbial mercies and hope that they are willing to acquiesce in exchange for our harvestin'." He cocked his head to look at you curiously. "Do you actually believe that it's the Queen's Lair they've stumbled upon entirely by chance?"

"Does it matter?" You asked. "Damon thought it was legitimate enough to throw the both of us across the universe in a trashy rental pod. I would say that must count for something, but…" You shrugged, propping yourself up against the end of the bunk.

"I understand. Still though, we will need rest if we are to successfully tackle this conundrum." He drowsily watched you as you dug around in your suit pockets to locate your sketchbook. The current iteration was a beaten memo pad from the pod rental company, each page stamped with the letterhead of Dasha Landcraft Rental.

This was a familiar ritual to you. Turning your brain off whenever you needed to rest was a difficult thing to manage. In your mid-teens you had begun sketching before lights out and found that for some reason, the activity emptied your thoughts enough to allow you to sleep much easier than you had ever managed without it.

You unwound the twine that kept the pages closed and flipped to a fresh one. Trying to recreate the scenery you had witnessed earlier, sketching Bakhroma hovering imposing on the Green's horizon.

"An artist, now that I did not anticipate." Ezra commented. You flinched, realizing how close he had leaned in to watch you. "What else have you drawn, gentle soul? Might I peruse your work?" He requested, his hand extended.

"I'm not--!" You floundered, tilting away and clutching the pad protectively to your chest. "I-I'm not...I'm not an artist. I just…I can't sleep without um, doing. Something like this." You tapped the notepad nervously. "It helps me relax."

Drawing is a waste of time, you should be spending that time cultivating skills relevant to your field.

"No harm in that." Ezra replied agreeably, his words striking a sharp contrast against the echoes of Damon's belittling in your head. His hand remained outstretched, patiently waiting.

You let out your breath slowly, rooting around in your hip pocket for the previous pad you had filled. That one you had pilfered from the Jata Bhalu processing facility, it had an actual hard cover and a loop for a writing implement. You tugged it free and hesitantly passed it to him, stammering once again that you weren't an artist, this was just something you did.

Ezra was devastatingly silent as he leafed through your tiny sketchbook. For someone that you had come to expect to talk, the stillness that permeated the tent made you unnaturally fearful. Your fingernails dug into your memo pad. What if...what if he was judging you? Some of the sketches were tired and messy, some of them smudged from your environment. Tea and coffee and tears blotted the pages. What if he didn't like them?

This was why you didn't show anyone your drawings, you-

"Have you ever considered acquirin' one of the draw-pads? I am no artist myself, but I know that the digital method saves precious space in pods." Ezra suggested. "And a single rainy day could ruins months of this hard work you have stockpiled."

"I...I want one, of course. It's just...they're so expensive and I could never justify it." You murmured, a little sad as you thought back to standing outside the pawn shop of the last freighter and gazing down at the battered box in the window. Out of date models alone were well removed from your price range. You could only imagine how much a brand new one would set you back.

"Puggart Bench West! I'd recognize that dock anywhere." Ezra exclaimed suddenly, wiping his hand off on his leg before he tapped on the page. "West dock is a real hive, isn't it?"

"Oh, y-yeah." You stuttered.

"And this one...a deep space miner? Thing looks at least Fringe kestron grade." Ezra continued, squinting. "Not quite Testin, but it'll do in a pinch. I had a few stands on one of those. Food was shit."

"That was...um, it was just a ship that went by the transport freighter that I was on. Out in the Fringe." You shrugged, grimacing. "I didn't know what kind it was." You reached over with your pencil. "How do you spell 'kestron'?"

"K-e-s," Ezra paused, his brow furrowing, "t-r-o-n. If I'm not mistaken. Hell, it might be t-r-e-n." He admitted. "I'm uncertain, gentle soul. It has been so many stands since I've...since I've seen…" he yawned widely, then set off on another tangent. "In the Pug, there was this...vendor, you follow me, in this mercado." He rolled the 'r' in the unfamiliar word, like he was luxuriating in being able to say it. "They had--shit, it was some sort of...treat, the name is eludin' me. Drizzled honey, cinnamon, that fancy sugar dustin'…"

"Little pillowy things?" You supplied. "When the place made them fresh you could smell them all the way down the block?"

"Kevva, yes, now you got my stomach beggin'." Ezra groaned. "What were they called though?"

"It started with an 's', so...pa-"

"Sopaipillas!" He erupted, his eyes lighting up. "I swear, gentle soul, my heart just skipped a beat." He chuckled dreamily, "As much as I bemoaned the drudgery of it when I was there, I'd love to be back on the Pug right about now. Bench was a eternal shit hole, but at least I could breathe." He lolled his head to the side, looking at you once more. "When you and I escape this Green hell, I insist that you give me the pleasure of your gracious company on an expedition to that hallowed mercado." The older man slurred, his eyes sliding closed. "We will devour countless treats in safety and stroll the docks. A heavenly concept, you must admit."

"That does sound nice." You replied wistfully.

"It is settled, then." He held out his left hand to shake yours and you obliged, feeling childishly hopeful about the whole thing. "Now, set the alarm on that platinum chronometer of yours. Maybe...four hours or so? Kevva knows I'd love longer, but if we hope to arrive with adequate harvest time, we'll need to manage ourselves with caution." Ezra squeezed your hand, his smile weary. "Rest well, gentle soul."

Part Four

#ezra (prospect 2018)#ezra prospect #ezra prospect x reader #ezra x reader #ezra prospect imagine #pedro pascal #pedro pascal imagine #slow burn #eventual romance #prospect 2018 #prospect film #prospect fanfiction #I love one man #also take care of your sharps ffs #canon-typical violence

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serararku · 3 years

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Rime and Reason Pt 2

They had to make their way on foot from Falcon’s Nest. Before the last rays of sunlight gleamed on the snow dunes, before the giant ravenous polar bears rose from their caves to begin their night hunts, they ventured out into the bitter cold in single file; how anyone could live beyond the safety of Ishgard and settle down in this unforgiving frozen hellscape- or why- remained a mystery.

Osric was first in line. As the tallest of the group and the only one who knew where he was going, it was only natural he led the party forward. The torch in his grasp was triple-wrapped with linen and triple-dipped in tar, a blazing orange beacon that remained their only source of light and warmth out here in the Coerthas Western Highlands. S’mira followed closely behind, blinded by the howling wind and snowfall and guided only by clinging to Osric’s belt. Then came Dawn and S’era, who both shuffled to push as much snow out of the way for the final member of the party; Conobharo would have been buried alive if it weren’t for his taller companions paving the way for him.

"This b-b-benighted bauble'd better be worth it!" The Lalafell groaned through chattering teeth as he hectically analyzed the rear front. He could handle wild animals, but the thought of a wyvern swooping down on the party for an easy snack had him on edge. "Any sign o' Bleakpoint, twin-spear?"

A scoff came from the front of the group - though given Conor’s size and location, he probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it. “There’s not much of a sign of anything, excluding snow. With this weather we probably won’t see anything until we’re there.” Osric tightened his cloak around his shoulders before turning briefly to make sure everyone was still there. “But we’re moving in the right direction, and if we keep this pace we’ll make it before dark.” Gaze scanning the seemingly endless expanse of white out in front of them, he scowled, his grip on the torch tightening. “And we need to get there before dark.”

"R-r-reason bein'?" He pried his eyes from the horizon to shoot a glare at the Dragoon; if S’era wasn’t busy stomping down fresh fallen snow so Conobharo wouldn’t vanish in the cold dying light, she would have bopped him on the head for asking such a silly question.

There was another quick glance cast over the Dragoon’s shoulder. “I can hear your teeth chattering from up here, Conor. Do you really want to be caught out here, in the middle of a snowstorm, with no shelter and no viable source of heat - excluding those traveling with you, overnight? Unless you want to be a Lalafellin popsicle, it’s best that we reach Bleakpoint before dark.”

The presence of conversation seemed to soothe the lad. "Hah. I was f-figgerin' 'is place after sundown'd be all 'at c-cold an' darkness, plus some nocturnal beasties what eat yetis an' shite voidsent. As ye were, t-t-torch-bearer." Bringing his overactive imagination to heel, he returned his eyes to the wasteland, one gauntleted hand ready at his greatsword's hilt.

Dawn, arms around S'mira looked back as she rebutted, “S-some sh-shelter is better than n-none! Even a b-battered building would be b-better than being out in the open like this!”

S'mira silently obliged as she led Dawn on in the strain as the group trudged on until she finally said something, breaking herself from that quiet set of self mantras and self motivating to address Dawn, “Best to keep moving, if we stop we might not get back up and moving.” the Miqo’te chattered.

S'era lifted her straw hat and took in a deep breath; she almost suffered a brain freeze, but the rich aroma of salted meat sizzling in an oven was unmistakable. "Gods… do you smell that?! We must be close! We have to be!"

Hard-packed snow gave way to loose rocks and solid stone, with the sudden steep incline taking them out of the snow entirely; before they knew it they were back on the road like it had been under their feet this entire time, the freshly-fallen snow turning to steam when they neared the enchanted cobblestone pathway. With nowhere else to walk, they followed the crevasse with six feet of snow on either side, until they took a sharp turn between some withered trees and under naked branches to find themselves staring down the familiar- and welcome- sight of a village.

Bleakpoint was larger than any of them anticipated. Two dozen buildings were visible at first glance, with possibly twice that many further along the path that cut the village straight down the middle. Chimneys were billowing smoke from lit fireplaces, lanterns swung and shook in the frigid wind, and the aroma of cooking meat wafted along their noses, beckoning them closer to the tavern near the start of the village. Yet there was something off about Bleakpoint; the fires were lit, the lights were on, but… “Where is everyone?” S’era blurted out, squinting her eyes to see through the fogged windows. All five of them stood on the edge of the perimeter- in a relatively safe distance.

"May'ap they're all gathered in the pub for a town feast?" Conobharo found it difficult to focus on anything other than the aroma of food, yet the icy bite of the climate kept him lucid. "But… 'ow's a town like 'is get a reputation for bein' poxed by the damned? Summat ent addin' up 'ere. Fink we should 'ead in an' investigate?"

“I’d suggest approaching with caution. The village didn’t get its reputation by being hospitable.” Osric’s eyes narrowed as he looked over the village - loosening his cloak before handing it back towards Dawn. “You need this more than I do - and it’ll only get in the way if fighting breaks out. I suggest everyone stay close and keep an eye out - there’s...more to this town than may meet the eye.” The healer welcomed the additional warmth, clutching the edges of the cloak near her neck.

The Plainsfolk nodded with a grunt, retrieving his weapon from its rime-coated sheathe. Immediately S’era placed her hand on Conobharo’s shoulder to stop him. “Whoa-ho-ho-ho, buddy. Easy there… five foreigners walking into a village with their weapons drawn isn’t exactly a good look.” She gave everyone else a glance for confirmation. “Let’s be careful… but let’s not jump the gun, okay?”

Dawn arched a brow, “Look, it’s freezing outside so it makes sense no one is about, let’s not all get suspicious at everything…” she commented flatly. Everyone aside from her seemed to be a seasoned adventurer, perhaps she was wrong, or perhaps they had dealt with too many worst-case-scenarios. Regardless, in the moment, she felt that there was some level of overreaction without having assessed the situation further. “Maybe we should knock on some doors and ask around if we don’t see anyone else as we get to the center of the village. But… either way… we should probably find a place to stay at least...”

"Ugh...fine, fine, I'll keep me steel at me back… fer now. But keep yer 'eads on swivels. I ent hesitatin' if'n the locals try anythin' fecky." Conor's gaze fell upon the inn. "What say we pop in an' see who's cookin'?"

While the lot had been busy chatting and debating, little-ol'-S'mira had already wandered up to one of the doors and gave the cold wood three loud knocks, tucking her hands under her arms for warmth as she awaited a reply, perhaps some motion within. The tension was palpable and even S'mira found herself readying to draw chakram at a moments’ notice. Dawn considered perhaps it was this very intuition they all held that separated her from the rest of the group- they were wary and on guard; she just wanted to get out of the cold.

Creeeeaaaaaaaak….

The door slowly swung open with a loud whine, hanging off one hinge and just about ready to fall off. A burst of that succulent aroma and the warmth of a fireplace rushed out to caress their faces, but it was uncomfortably dark inside. S’mira and S’era naturally went in first, the Miqo’te deciding it was best to put their sharpened senses of sight and hearing to good use; slowly but surely they checked their corners and stepped over the threshold, finding themselves before an untouched banquet. As S’mira kept along the walls to keep herself from getting ambushed from behind in the dark, or from above on the rafters, S’era cast her mudra on her uchigatana and set the blade aflame. Both Miqo’te almost had a heart attack when they saw the twinkling eyes of the Elezen barkeep standing behind the counter and cleaning a glass like it was a slow Tuesday.

“Come in, come in!” He gave them a wide grin, setting the glass he was cleaning down and beckoning them closer. “Feast! You must be hungry after traveling so far? Have your fill! It’s on the house!”

Osric, Dawn, and Conobharo hurried in once they heard the stranger’s voice. They gawked at the giant polar bear gutted and roasted on the long table, surrounded by apples, melons, and other unrecognizable fruit. There were already plates set for a party of two dozen, and the rich scent of salted meat was almost too tempting to ignore.

"Sweet mother Tutuli, I ent seen a feast like 'is in years!" Conor caught his enthusiasm by the tail, remembering that he was still in an allegedly blighted town.

“You… made all this?” S’era asked, dipping the edge of her sword in a nearby oil lantern to illuminate the tavern better. “Are you expecting company?”

“Weary travelers like yourselves must be exhausted.” He continued, turning to grab five mugs to set on the counter. “And thirsty. Can I get you something to drink? Ale? Rum? Wine? Scotch?”

Dawn giddily bounced ahead of the others, her voice laced with hopeful optimism, “Oh! Do you have hot chocolate?”

“Of course! Hot chocolate, and ice cream, and coffee, and tea! Anything your heart desires!” He began to shuffle into the back of the tavern. “I’ll be right back with some!” He called out, vanishing into the darkness.

S’era eyed the banquet with suspicion. “How many taverns do you know that just… give food and drink away like this for free? Especially when they had no idea we were coming…”

"The right bleedin' odd kind. I advise ye lot against eatin' a scrap 'at bizarre bugger gives ye." Conor had watched the barkeep until he was no longer in view, then ambled over to the fireplace.

The healer tapped her cheek, “Isn’t this a blessing? We were cold, I’m sure some of us were hungry…” she could hear S'era’s stomach growling. “I mean… it was weird that it was so dark inside but maybe they didn’t want to burn extra oil or attract anything dangerous, especially since there were no customers inside there would be no reason to keep all the lamps lit, right?”

“Mmmn… I suppose that makes sense…” S’era slowly slid her sword back into her scabbard and warily approached the table. “... but he was just… standing there in the dark. He didn’t even say anything until we spotted him…” It smelled good, real good, and the thought of feasting on exotic bear was making her salivate. Gingerly she reached over with the carving knife and sliced herself off a piece, taking another sniff of her plate before glancing over her shoulder at the group. “We should ask him about the missing travelers to this place. He might know something.”

“I mean… did you want him to startle you in the darkness first? Oh! Yes. That’s a good idea.”

S’era was still suspicious, but by the third deep growl of her stomach, she couldn’t resist the free meal any longer. She pulled out a chair and sat down, helping herself to the juicy bear flanks and all the fruit she could fit on her plate. She took another sniff of her meal before biting down, causing her ears to flatten along her head and a low purr rolled from her throat. “Godsh… sho good…!”

Conor stared daggers at the Miqo'te. "Godsdamned fool…" he muttered beneath his breath. He had half a mind to smack S'era one good, but elected to watch things play out, folding his arms.

Watching S’era was enough to make her stomach churn as S’mira witnessed the other Miqo’te woman chow down. She hadn’t forgotten the conversation on the way here. Conor speaking about the ‘some void-touched shire’, S’era and the others suggesting curses and it being haunted. Stilling at the back of the room S’mira seemed to observe where she could even against the small rumble in her stomach that begged for a nibble.

“Ah, you like it?” The barkeep returned with a long glass of chocolate milk. He scooped whip cream from a bucket beneath the counter and spiraled it out on top before setting it down next to Dawn. “Dig in, everyone! Enjoy! Can I get you something to drink, ma’am?”

“Wine pleash!” S’era joyfully raised her hand, her cheeks puffed out with food.

Osric kept his lance firmly in his grasp, along with the torch. “People have ventured out here only to disappear.” He watched the barkeep like a hawk. “Do you know anything about it?” The hot chocolate almost reached Dawn’s lips before she heard the Dragoon, pausing to listen at his somber tone.

“No one’s come by in a few weeks. Maybe they got lost out in the blizzards that have been going on and off all year.” He popped open a bottle and poured crimson wine into another tall glass. “Come, eat! Don’t you want to join your lovely companion? I know you must be hungry, eh? Don’t be shy- have your fill!”

He smiled across the room at the Lalafell, who glowered at him a moment before stating, "I ent got much of an appetite."

The Dragoon rubbed at his chin thoughtfully; it would be rather unlikely to find any corpses frozen in the snow with how much they had to dig through, but not a single person made it to the village? “Can I get you some wine as well, friend?”

“Aye.” His scowl never left his face, but the barkeep was clearly unarmed, so he didn’t have to worry about getting attacked- not by this man at least. He gave another glance in S��era’s direction, who was purring loudly as she stuffed her face. Keeping his gaze locked on her, he leaned his lance against the counter, reached out, and firmly took the offered cup. “My than-” His eyes drifted down to the crimson wine; it was murky and thick, more like watery ketchup than the wine he was expecting. “What kind of wine is this?”

“A-ah, an old vintage.” He gestured for Osric to drink it. “Won’t you try it? I assure you it’s the smoothest wine you will ever taste!” He raised the glass up to his lips while he stared at the barkeep, and held it there for a few seconds before extending his arm as an offering.

“You first.”

“What? Me?” The barkeep pointed at himself. “No thank you, I… swore off the stuff myself. B-besides, it’s bad business to drink your own wares, don’t you agree?”

“You said this feast was on the house.” Osric gestured for him to take the glass again. “Isn’t that bad for business too? Go on, tell me how it tastes.”

“I-is everything alright Osric?” His grim countenance and tone concerned Dawn as she watched the tense interaction. He didn’t answer, instead the Dragoon stared at the man in a chilling silence. Even in the dim light from the lit lanterns he could see small beads of sweat glistening on the Elezen’s forehead. The Lalafell's hand drifted toward his weapon.

“Drink.” He repeated, pushing the cup into his hand.

A horrid realization came over the healer as her eyes widened, turning to look back at S’era. Slowly the Miqo’te stopped chewing, her eyes darting between the exchange before settling on Dawn.

Slowly the barkeep opened his mouth to speak, but his face grew paler each passing moment, and he was trembling in his boots. “Y-you look h-hungry… g-go on… eat the f-f-f-food…” Conor's fist clenched upon his hilt.

Without hesitation Osric snatched his lance from the countertop and stormed straight to Dawn; with a raised gauntlet he slapped the drink out of her hands and tossed her plate across the room away from her, before turning to S’era, his eyes flashing in the lantern’s light. “SPIT IT OUT! IT’S POISONED!” She gawked at Osric in a stunned stupor, her eyes growing wide with fear. He didn’t waste any more time- he quickly stepped around the table and yanked the glass of ‘wine’ from her hand before tossing its contents onto the floor. S’era spit out everything that was in her mouth, but Osric still grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved his finger into the back of her throat; everything she ate since waking up this morning came spewing out onto the table, splashing on the roasted bear and dripping down the tablecloth.

“No…!” The barkeep let the cup slip from his hand as he slowly made his retreat into the back. “No no no…! You could have been taken painlessly in your sleep… now you will feel every tooth and talon…"

Dawn snapped out of her shock and stupor, reaching for some vials inside her pouch, she started talking to herself, symptoms and treatments for different ailments aloud to focus and calm her nerves. She finally clacked a vial into an injection device she kept on her person and without warning stabbed the generic antidote into S’era’s neck. “Twelve… I hope this works.” She uttered an incantation in an attempt to increase efficacy. She held onto the injector and S'era, “Beneficent wind, please bless this unworthy child with a sliver of your healing grace, Esuna!” The grind of a blade being loosed hummed from beside the fireplace.

“After him!” Osric commanded, but by the time he looked back, the man had vanished. S’era slumped over on Dawn, coughing and gagging on spit and vomit as she desperately tried to catch her breath. “Where did he go?! We have to go after-!"

"AAAASHOOOL GOOORRRRAAAAAAUGGGH THUUUUUMMMM!"

The floorboards shook from a deep guttural roar below. Something huge in the basement stirred from the dark and began slamming against the floor beneath their feet. The party exchanged wary glances, but the following silence only lasted a moment.

The floor beneath the feast swelled and cracked, sending splintering wood and dust into the air as the table slid down toward S’era and Dawn to smash them between the back of the tavern and the banquet. The Miqo’te had just enough reaction time to sweep Dawn’s legs out from under her and flatten them against the floor, letting the table slide over them harmlessly. Then just as the bulge reached its peak, it collapsed into itself, causing a sinkhole to form in the center of the tavern. “Go! Go go go!” Osric shouted over the rolling growls coming from below. Conobharo cleaved through a sliding table and leapt out of the nearest window while Dawn carried S’era toward the window closest to them as well, allowing the Miqo’te to smash it open with her blade as they hobbled out into the dark. S’mira took a few calculated steps back, before dashing forward to launch herself clear over the sinkhole and into Osric’s outstretched embrace; the Dragoon wasn’t about to wait around and find out what was making that ungodly noise, and with a heavy kick to the old door, he ripped it out of its hinges and dove into the snow outside.

---

Collaborated with: @hadriel-ffxiv @osric-slater-ffxiv @smira-asah-xiv @conobharo-cobharo-xiv

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xengsu-the-devil · 3 years

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I'm in love with a monster

Summary:

Two hearts that couldn't be more different, connected by chance. One heart has been scarred and cold due to its past and not open to new people, the other is still young and warm full of trust. Can one heart heal the other? Perhaps.

But they have a long way to go with fear, trust and maybe even betrayal.

Interested? Then don't be shy and go to the wild west and learn more about the history of the two different hearts.

Pairing: Ezra (OC) and Elizabeth (OC)

Chapter 1 - What a bitch

Ezra wish nothing more than somebody to laugh with, talk with, and somebody who he can really trust. At the age of 25 he once had a friend he could really trust. At

least he thought he could. But he was wrong. His so called friend, betrayed him and because of him two racist lawman hunted him. That's why he has that nasty scar on his left cheek.

He is the son of a indian mother and a Finnish father. He lost his parents at the age of ten, as a racist gang burned down their camp. He barely got away. He almost didn't survive. Since that he live alone on the streets. He learned how to shoot guns and became an Outlaw. But due to his Indian roots he prefer the bow over his guns. Today he is 37 years old. And he is a pretty good hunter, rober and Outlaw now. He feel so lonely. He wish he knew what love is. But he's pretty sure he will never know.

Elizabeth is a 21 year old girl from England who lived in wealth since she was born, but her family decide that they wanted to leave England to make a new start in a new country. But she was separated from her family by a landslide and a subsequent storm and from then she was looking for her family but without any success. Although she had money to buy food and something to drink but she had no experience of surviving in the wild or how to handle a gun, which brought her many problems with wild animals and stubborn men.

Ezra POV

I'm in a bar at Valentine. There I see a beautiful girl. She's talking to the barkeeper. She's asking if he saw her family. He say now. And so she buy a bread, and then she leave. She's alone! That's my chance. I quietly follow her to

her camp. There I hitch my horse a bit father away, and wait. After a while, I think that she's asleep now. I grab my lasso and sneak to her. I carefully hogtied her. I tried to sit on her, but suddenly a pain went trough my body. I fall gasping to the floor. I made a mistake, and so she could kik me hard between my legs. Fuck it hurt! That bitch!

I sit up. We both lock eyes. We have an angry facial expression. She free herself fully now. But I hardly notice it. I only focus on the pain between my legs.

Elizabeth POV

I freed myself from his ropes and looked at this strange man who was now kneeling in front of me, his hands between his legs and growling in pain.

"What the actually fuck asshole did you tried to do!?" I screamed at him in anger, what the hell was he thinking to attack me while I tried to sleep. " didn't your mama teach you some respect?"

I packed my things up while I was watching him trying to stand up. I grind at him before clapping my hands together to scare his horse away, just to sit on mine. " I wish you the very best, next time try to be better" I made my way out of my former camp and left the man who tried to attack me behind.

Two days later

I sighed and made my way back to the village I visited days ago, which left me the bitter sweet taste of the night this man tried to rob me. I was sure that he was in this pup and heard that I was alone and saw his change to rob me so I wasn't really exited to go back but I really needed some thing from the grocery so I had no choice but to return to the cursed city full of scums like him.

After I had everything I left the grocery just to bump into a other human, I wanted to apologized for my clumsiness because of that I looked up just to meet an familiar face, it was the same guy who tried to rob me.

"Well we'll look who's there, the ass who tried to rob me, searching for a new prey? Or do you just like me and that's why we meet again?"

He just ruffed at me turned on his heels and walking away, ignoring me like I was a ghost.

"Hey Scarface I talk to you, you didn't apologize for that night"

For sure it wasn't the brightest idea to piss a guy off a head taller than myself but I was still angry, and he couldn't do anything since we were in the village.

He stopped when I called him Scarface and turned around to look down on me with everything but no good emotions.

Ezra POV

Did she just call me scarface? I turn around and look down at her, with anger in my eyes, and growl at her. I don't care that it sound more wolf than human right now. I see that she get afraid and then she rush away. I sigh, and turn around. Then I walk back to my camp.

#rdro oc #rdr online #red dead redemption 2

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imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs · 4 years

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The Lost World Rewrite

So, I recently watched the Lost World: Jurassic Park for the first time and all I gotta say is...

Yeah. So, in spite of the fact I feel that it would be Superfluous and self-aggrandizing, and a maturely written well thought out review would be a better use of my time, I decided to do a rewrite of the Lost World to make it a half-decent movie. I apologize to any fans of the film in advance. This is a rough Idea based on what could be done without completely throwing out the script. Here we go...

The film starts the same; little girl gets mauled by Compies on Isla Sorna

Cut to not Ian Malcolm; there is no Ian Malcolm in this film. There will never be Ian Malcolm in this film. Instead, we cut to Dr. Sarah Harding (played by Julianne Moore) who’s photographing a crocodile nesting. We learn a little bit about her from her assistant, Nick Van Owen (played by Vince Vaughn), namely that while her theories on Dinosaur young rearing are as on point as Alan Grant’s raptor research, she’s not so hot at rearing young herself. Case in point, she’s late for her daughter’s gymnastics performance.

Her daughter is of course Kelly Curtis played by Vanessa Lee Chester, who in this version will have a larger role and more developed personality. Kelly is Sarah’s adopted daughter and the two have been at a loss at what to do with one another since meeting. Kelly is the daughter of one of Sarah’s oldest friends who died while traveling and Sarah took her in. While their relationship isn’t horrible, it’s definitely awkward. Like when Sarah bursts through the gymnasium doors to see Kelly has completely finished her routine and the seat reserved for her has been given to someone else (maybe Michael Crichton or Steven Spielberg in a cameo?)

Later that night, Sarah is called by a mysterious voice on the phone, telling her to pack a suitcase and go outside. She does so and a black SUV pulls up. “Get in.” a man’s voice tells her.

“OK,” Sarah says, annoyed, “who are you people and what’s with the G-man routine?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a G-man routine.” says a familiar voice.

We pan over to reveal John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) sitting across from Sarah.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks.

The conversation is much the same as the movie with Ian Malcolm (Hammond explains Site B, tells Sarah about the JP incident, etc.). Only this time, there’s a big difference: InGen wants to cut ties with the Jurassic Park debacle and intends to let the Costa Rican Government fire bomb it. Hammond wants to get people onto the island and document the animals to drum up environmentalist support for turning it into a preserve and at least stave off the destruction until a humane solution can be found.

“How can I say no!?” Sarah says. A chance to photograph real Dinosaurs. Never in 65 million years did she think she’d get this chance.

The team she’ll be going to the island with includes herself, Hammond, Van Owen (“Nick’s the best person for the job” Sarah insists), equipment manager Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), Dr. Robert Burke (Thomas F. Duffy) (“are we sure he’s not a country singer?” Sarah asked, eyeing the supposed paleontologist’s ten gallon hat and beard), celebrity big game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), and InGen executive Peter Ludlow, Hammond’s own nephew (“I made the mistake of trusting too many people last time,” Hammond said, “this time, I’m playing it close to the vest.”)

The team arrives on the Island, where Peter suggests setting up camp in a low clearing, much to Tembo’s chagrin (“that,” Tembo said, rolling his eyes, “is a game trail, Mr. Ludlow. Carnivores hunt on game trails. do you want to find dinosaurs or serve them lunch?”)

The group wanders through deep Jungle, Hammond and Ludlow being the slowest, one due to their age the other due to being a little on the wimpy side. As the journey goes on, it becomes apparent that there’s some friction between Peter and John, with Peter second guessing John every chance he gets and trying to act like the leader of the group.

They finally come across a family of stegosaur and we get that adorable pet the baby scene from the movie. Eddie is flabbergasted, Nick is taking pictures like crazy, Burke’s having a conniption, Hammond swells with pride, and we don’t really know what’s going through Peter and Tembo’s heads.

Something startles the Stegs (Tembo reached for his gun. “No!” Nick grabbed the barrel of Tembo’s gun.)

Nick fumed “An animal that hasn’t been seen in over a million years turns up and the only way you can express yourself is to kill it?” Tembo smiled. “Remember that chap about twenty years ago? I forget his name. Climbed Everest without any oxygen, came down nearly dead. When they asked him, they said why did you go up there to die? He said I didn't, I went up there to live.” (cryptic, no?)

“What could have set them off like that?” Wondered Burke. Roland, however, scented the air. “Smoke,” he said simply, pointing “coming from that way. They must have thought it was from a forest fire.”

The group rushes back to their camp, discovering the campfire burning. Eddie and Burke make to smother it. However, the camper door opens to reveal—

“I was gonna have dinner ready when you got back.” Kelly said.

Sarah and Kelly have an argument inside the camper, about how Sarah’s never there for her and how she just washed out of her gymnastics team (“I got bronze,” she said, “not that you’d know. You didn’t even stick around long enough for that part.”)

Kelly convinces Sarah she can stay. We cut to a scene of the group in jeeps, riding through grasslands in a heard of various Dinosaurs. Nick’s in the jeep with Tembo, Peter, and Hammond, while Sarah is with Kelly, Eddie, and Burke. (Tembo turned to Nick. “get in the outrigger. You're closing in on a parasaur.” “Parasaurolophus,” Nick corrected smugly.” “Whatever,” said Tembo, “The one with the big red horn! The pompadour! *Elvis!*”)

Nick climbs into the outrigger and begins to film the dinosaurs. In the other jeep, the group is trying to coax Eddie into their own outrigger.

“No way I’m getting into that thing,” Eddie said “not surrounded by dinosaurs.” “We’re gonna need better shots if we want to save these dinosaurs,” Sarah said, “and you’re the only one who knows how to work the equipment.” “So do you,” Eddie said, “Why not pull over and let me drive? I used to drive cabs for a living.” “I know how the use the camera.” Kelly said. Sarah stared at her. “You do?” “I was in AV club before gymnastics.”

The group snaps Kelly in and they begin their own filming process. For the first time in a long time, Kelly and Sarah seem to be having fun together.

After that moment of chipperness, we cut back to camp. (Roland nodded to Nick. “Tree hugger got a great shot of a Pachy... a pachy... oh, hell. One of those fatheads with the bald spot, Friar Tuck!”) Peter and Hammond are looking over a map. Peter insists that they should go to the abandoned worker village on the other side of the island, where they can find easy shelter and supplies (“IT runs on geothermal power, so it’ll still have power”). Hammond disagrees. (“Absolutely not,” Hammond said, “that part of the island has been overrun by Velociraptors.” Peter frowned “What’s that, veloc-o-?” “Velociraptor,” Burke said, “Carnivore, pack hunter. About two meters tall, long snout, binocular vision, strong, dextrous forearms, and killing claws on both feet.” “That doesn’t sound promising.” said Peter. “You should read Alan Grant’s latest paper on them,” said Burke, “It’s like he met one in real life!”)

Meanwhile, Roland Tembo is now kneeling, looking at a track.

“Come take a look at this.” he says. Everyone gathers around. “do you know what this is?” he asks. Sarah’s eyes grew wide. “We have to leave.” she said. “Why?” asked Kelly. “That’s a T-Rex track!” Burke said. “A T-Rex!” Eddie looked as if he was about to break for the beach and try to swim home. “That’s impossible!” said Hammond “the satellite photos showed that the Rex territory is nowhere near here.”

The group decides to risk staying in the area. Later that night, Kelly hears a noise. Curious, she goes outside to investigate. In the moonlight, she sees a team of unknown men in night vision goggles capturing the dinosaurs that they had been filming earlier that day. As the drive off, Kelly grabs onto the back of one of the trailers to follow them.

We cut back to Sarah’s tent. She’s asleep, not having been roused by her daughter’s departure. But she is roused by what sounds like deep breathing outside. She surreptitiously looks around and sees a massive snout sticking into her tent. It’s the Tyrannosaur!

Just then, Peter Ludlow comes out of his tent with a roll of toilet paper, but upon seeing the dinosaur lets out a scream that wakes the whole camp. The rex turns and bellows at him, trashing their camp all the while in a show of dominance. Soon, the whole group is running through the forest. Hammond is almost eaten by the thing if not for Tembo’s intervention.

Soon, however, the groups are separated from one another. Hammond slips down a river bank into a ravine, Peter just up and vanishes, and Sarah, Van Owen, Tembo, Burk, and Eddie run behind a waterfall with the rex in pursuit. The dinosaur, unable to follow, gives one last roar of anger and leaves. Out of all the people, however, Tembo looks the least scared. He looks…thrilled, actually.

Meanwhile, we cut away to Hammond. He rises (roughly) shaking away the delirium. He looks around, wondering where his party got off to. The T-Rex’s roar is heard in the distance. Better find the others, he thinks. He begins to follow the river; if the group has any sense, they’ll make a new camp on the water. But then he hears a noise and looks down. It’s a Compy.

We get a very similar scene to Dieter Stark’s (Peter Stormare’s) death in the movie (which was based off of John Hammond’s in the first book) with one or two caveats. First, we don’t cut away in the middle. We maintain the scene and the suspense as long as possible (with Compys popping out of the woodwork the more Hammond tries to get away from them). The second…

There was a sound of rifle fire. The Compys scattered and Hammond felt himself pulled up from the shallow water, finally able to breathe. “Tembo,” he coughed.

“If you have any more suicidal ideas,” said Tembo, “keep em to yourself.”

Cut back to Sarah’s group as Hammond and Tembo rejoin them.

“Has anyone seen Kelly?” Sarah asked, worried.

“I think I saw her run in the same direction as Ludlow,” said Tembo.

“Hopefully, they’ll be safe once they leave the Rex’s territory.” said Burke.

“Don’t bet on it,” said Sarah, “Tyrannosaurs have the second largest proportional olfactory cavity of any creature in the fossil record.” “What’s the first?” asked Eddie. “Turkey vulture,” said Burke, as casually as someone would talk about the weather.

“Any idea where we are?” asked Eddie, desperately trying the change the subject. “Somewhere west of the worker village, I think,” said Nick, examining a map of the island (one of the few they managed to salvage from the camp) “It’d be an easy hike there.” “Maybe that’s where Kelly and Peter are,” said Sarah, turning to Hammond. “Yes, but if they did go there, they’re in grave danger.” said Hammond. “Velociraptors,” said Burke, trying to be helpful.

“Danger or not, we need a radio,” said Tembo, “that buck tore the hell out of our camp and I don’t think we can contact the mainland with smoke signals.” “How do you know the T-Rex was male?” asked Sarah.

Before Tembo can answer, a different roar is heard. A helicopter passed overhead.

“I thought you said we had a few weeks before they started razing the island?” Sarah said. “We do,” Hammond replied, “I don’t know what that helicopter’s doing her.” “It was headed towards the worker village,” said Tembo, “so, if we want to see what’s what, I think that’s where we’re headed.”

Cut to a scene of the group walking through the forest at night. Finally, they reach a vantage point overlooking the worker village…and it’s anything but abandoned.

More than three dozen people, some of them armed, are walking over the compound. Chain link fence ran the perimeter of the camp, newer than the rest of the camp. Tents, vehicles, mobile generators, the works.

Dozens of dinosaurs sit in cages, all bearing the same logo

“It says InGen on the side of that truck!” Eddie said. Everyone turned to look at Hammond. “I had no idea about this,” said Hammond, “why would I ask anyone to come here?” “I think I know who we should ask,” said Nick, pointing down at the camp.

It’s Peter, down in the camp, talking with the armed guards.

“What’s he doing down there?” asked Sarah. “I think,” Hammond said, sadness in his voice, “I’ve made the same mistake twice.” “Anybody seen Tembo?” asked Eddie.

Indeed, Tembo has disappeared.

Cut to Kelly, hiding in one of the trailers. She’d managed to evade her captors, but for how long she can continue to do so is up to debate. Stealthily, she creeps out of the trailer and around the camp over to one of the cages. She undoes the latch. She moves on to the next cage. Rinse and repeat.

Cut to inside one of the tents, Peter and several other people, all InGen personnel, stand around a card table where plans labeled ‘Jurassic Park San Diego’ are lain out.

“San Diego?” One man (a high ranking InGen worker) asked. “it’s already famous for its animal attractions,” said Peter, gesturing to plans on the table, “San Diego zoo... Sea World... The San Diego Chargers.”

“I don’t think John Hammond would have approved of having these animals on the mainland.” An InGen executive said.

Peter frowned. “Well, Hammond’s not in charge anymore. I am.” He turned to another man, this one a hunter by the look of him. “How’s the hunting going?”

“We’ve got plenty of plant eaters,” the hunter said, “some eggs. no raptors though. And our man hasn’t brought in the T-Rex like he said he would.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “What makes you think people want to see a bunch of veggiesaurs and eggs! They’re gonna want a T-Rex!”

“We’re trying, sir!” the hunter says, “but we haven’t seen any raptors since we got here!”

Suddenly, a worker bursts into the tent “The baby’s gone!” he said.

Almost as suddenly, a Triceratops bursts into the tent, smashing into the table and scattering the group. The camp is in chaos! Dinosaurs are running amuck. Vehicles overturned, people tossed into the air. But this is the chance Hammond’s group has been waiting for. They make their way down to the village in the bedlam, and make it into the main building of the worker’s village. Eddie manages to contact the mainland, and things are looking up. But then, we hear an ungodly moan from behind a nearby door. Slowly, Burke heads towards the door, picking up a nearby screwdriver to use as a weapon. He jerks the door open to reveal…

“Kelly!” Sarah cried. Kelly sat inside a broom closet, in her arms a baby T-Rex.

“They just left him tied to a stick out there,” said Kelly, “and I think his leg is broken.”

Despite the limited materials, the group sets to work splinting the baby’s leg. It’s pretty much the same as in the movie. Until the sound of a rifle cocking is heard behind them.

“I’ll be taking that rex now, Dr. Harding,” Roland Tembo said. Tembo has been on Ludlow’s payroll since the beginning. He was never here to protect the group. He’s here to hunt the T-Rex. He was the one who staked the baby out, to attract it’s parents.

Outside, the cacophony has died down. The Dinosaurs have mainly been recaptured. Hammond’s group has been brought before Ludlow, who looks at them condescendingly. “You really thought you were still CEO when you got here, Uncle John? I bought you out the day you asked for my help. We’ll still use the footage you took for our attractions, don’t worry.” “So, you’re going to reopen Jurassic Park then, is that it? Despite my warnings?” “No, not reopen. We’re moving these animals to the mainland so we don’t have to fly out here every time there’s a problem. You put us six million dollars in debt every day since you started making dinosaurs. It’s time to see good on that investment you promised. And the board agrees with me.”

InGen Exec: it’s nothing personal John. Why have a dinosaur and not use it?

“These are animals,” Sarah said, “they deserve respect”

“They’ll have the best of care.”

“And what if they break out! What then?”

Cut to part of Hammond’s team (Hammond, Sarah, and Kelly) being shoved into a trailer with the door locked behind them. Sarah tries to force the door open, to no avail. Kelly runs around, trying to open the windows. Hammond just sits down, despondent at the betrayal of his own family.

Sarah (trying to yank the door open): come on! You stupid…

A familiar roar is heard. A car flips past the window.

“What is it?” Hammond asked, “What’s going on?”

Sarah: I think things just got complicated.

The buck T-Rex from earlier has tracked the them to the Worker village and crashes through the fence. Suddenly, another roar is heard from the other side of the camp. It’s the female Rex, and she’s even more pissed than the male.

“There’s two of them!?” Sarah asked, incredulous. “We spared no expense,” Hammond said.

The rexes wreck the trailer the rest of Hammond’s team is in. Nick, Eddie, and Burke make a break for it. The female Rex sees them and gives chase. She and her mate bare down on them and soon capture Eddie, each taking one end in their jaws and pulling him apart for a snack.

Afterward we get a faceoff between Roland Tembo and the male rex (one that would have been really cool in the movie but we didn’t get it).

Tembo wastes two shot gun blasts on the rex. Out of ammo, he switches to tranquilizers, which finally manage to bring the beast down. The other rex is soon felled after. Subdued in special harnasses, the rexes are air lifted by helicopters to a boat waiting of the coast of Isla Sorna. All in all, the bad guys’ mission is a success. Well, Tembo wouldn’t say so. If you’d told him a year ago he’d get to hunt not one but two T-Rexes he would have kissed whoever told him that square on the mouth. But in the end, it had been so stupidly simple to catch them he just feels crapped on. Didn’t even get a trophy.

“You know, I remember the people who've helped me, Roland. There's a job for you at the park in San Diego if you want it.” Roland turns him down.

Cut to a group of hunters patrolling the tall grass outside the worker village. Suddenly, one of them is pulled under. A hunter a few feet away looks in his direction. “Manolo?” he asks. Another nearby hunter is pulled out of view. The hunters are starting to get scared. “Look alive, people.” one of them says. We hear a familiar coughing sound.

A velociraptor jumps out of the grass and mangles one of the hunters. Soon, pandemonium ensues. The crafty raptors had been evading the InGen hunters, watching them, waiting for the right moment. And with two dinosaur attacks in a row and both rexes out of the picture, now was the time to strike! (And there are no tails sticking up out of the grass cartoonishly! Raptors are supposed to be dangerous, not goofy).

Back at the camp, Roland runs towards the danger while Peter climbs aboard one of the waiting helicopters. “Get me out of here!” he cries.

The raptors swarm the camp. Roland manages to kill a few, but not before they massacre most of the InGen workers there. Tembo even has to watch Burke die in front of him. We get a scene where Hammond’s group escapes their trailer, Kelly defeats a velociraptor with gymnastics and the group plus Tembo manages to get onboard a helicopter.

The rest of the movie follows the actual TLW movie pretty closely with a few differences. Namely, there’s more than one dinosaur rampaging through San Diego, Tembo is helping the remaining team route the dinos back to the ship, we acknowledge the fact that the car they picked in the movie was due to reasons of masculinity, and Peter suffers a nervous breakdown when the dinosaurs break out of the ship’s hold and allows himself to be eaten by the baby rex out of guilt.

Roland fires a tranquilizer shot at the buck rex before it can clear the door. When that’s done, Sarah asks him what he’s going to hunt next.

“I believe I've spent enough time in the company of death.” he said.

We cut to Kelly and Sarah asleep on the couch while a TV plays news coverage of the boat being returned to Isla Sorna with a statement from John Hammond (once again CEO of InGen).

His speech is pretty much the same, ending with “as someone once told me, life finds a way.”

The final shot of the film is the rex family, the stegosaurs, all the dinosaurs back on Isla Sorna. Content as the Jurassic Park credits theme plays in the background.

So, what did you think? Like it, hate it? As always, I welcome feedback and comments!

#Jurassic Park #The Lost World #the lost world: jurassic park #Jurassic Park 2 #Jurassic Park II #Steven Spielberg #Rewrite #Re-Write #Dinosaurs #My Writing #Well Sort of #Fix It Fic #Sarah Harding #Roland Tembo #John Hammond #Kelly Curtis #Nick Van Owen

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