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imnotwolverine · 4 years

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A Devil’s Duet - Part 2

August Walker x OC Anna

Author’s note: Readers or not, I’m just going ahead with this -- Tumblr are you eating my posts again?! What’s happening? :(

Word count: 1.527

Warnings: unprotected smutty smut, stalking, strong language, references to graphic deaths

< Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 >

.AIR

“I flew up high, but the sun burned too hot. Too strong. And now my wings are but memories as I drift in an endless ocean.”

.AIR - I miss you

‘For international calls, please press *beep beep beep* [..] Cannot answer your call right now. Please leave a message after the..’

Sighing quietly Anna looked out through the frozen glass of the phone booth, dark silhouettes passing by in the gloomy New York night.

*beeeep* Sounded the shrill phone line.

'Mama, you’re not answering my phone calls,’ She hesitated. ‘I miss you and I’ll try to call you later, okay?’

With a heavy click she put the phone back, her arms wrapping around her winter jacket as she stumbled back out in the restless nightlife.

Not far off a man leaned into a grey sedan, most of his acne-damaged skin hiding beneath a fedora.

An embrace was shared, his wet lips brushing over her cheek like a snail’s trace. It was just for show, his face lighting up as he started some animated chatter, the two of them getting in the car.

‘Miss me?’ He pulled his door closed and looked at Anna, her eyes giving him an unamused glare before she quickly put a smile back on her angelic cheeks - aware that some might be watching.

‘You? Ha! Just drive already, will you? I have somewhere I need to be.’

.AIR - I forget you not

She had about three cocktails too many. She knew. But she was willing to suffer for it in the morning.

The bar she was leaning into was bustling with life, fellow clubbers pushing her left and right to get their orders in, her shoulders solid as marble as she twirled her straw in her mojito, uncaring about the heavy beat that rung in her ears.

‘Hello angel.’ Yet another jerk tried a move, and she was this close to beat him into a childless future, before she turned around and found the devil himself looking back at her. At least, it probably was.

Staring up at him, she decided it should be illegal to look this handsome with a moustache, the combination of his deep voice with the smooth curls and face hair leaving little doubt that this must indeed be the one she was looking for. The coincidence.

‘Hello devil.’

He smirked and eyed the dance floor. ‘No dancing tonight?’

She shrugged, then hinted at her feet; one bandaged in walking plaster.

‘You’d have to carry me.’

Another jerkish idiot pushed Anna into her ribs and before she could serve him the long impending groin-kick instead, she was hoisted up, her drink now abandoned on the busy bar.

‘HEY. FUCK.’ That heavy Russian lilt was back on her sharp tongue, but it was quickly silenced as this devil took whatever he pleased, hands groping at her bum as he placed the two of them in the middle of the dancing crowd, making them disappear from the world like dust in the desert.

‘Great idea, angel.’ The music of his voice teased and she was quick to recuperate, deciding that she might as well indulge a little more, her hands tugging aggressively at his blouse.

‘Is that how you dance?’

Their eyes shared a look and Anna licked her lips - him being here made everything so much easier. ‘No, this is.’ She whispered into his ear, climbing onto his hip as she twirled her groin into his.

And again he eagerly took from her gifts, her dress skirting up and his flies zipping down, the two finding a solid rhythm of lip-locks and hip-rocks. Uncaring of the consequences of their little escapade.

For a moment Anna flew again, her sorrows forgotten, her fingers marking him so he wouldn’t get away this time.

.AIR - I remember

‘How old are you?’ The solemn man settled on the metal chair before her, blue TL-light buzzing in the dense air of the empty grey room.

‘Fourteen.’ She bit, looking straight into his dead-pale eyes.

‘Ha.’ He settled back and eyed the files before them on the metal desk, crimson red spluttered over the corpse of one malicious ballet teacher, child pornography scattered around him like the wings of an angel.

‘A little young to go to the Gulag, no?’

Their eyes met as the man closed the folder before him.

‘I have a proposition for you, little girl.’

.AIR - I’ll take your breath away

The cigarette burned ash between his lips as he studied the crying figure near the fountain. Red hair, blue eyes. Foot in plaster. Her. He didn’t even know her name.

What are you doing there angel? He flicked the falling ash onto the cold pavement and licked his lips, his feet hesitating to get near when another person stepped out of the theatre, chubby cheeks soon laying eyes on the crying woman, too.

The two knew each other, apparently, his snaky fingers wrapping around her shoulder as he comforted the weeping angel, some conversation being exchanged before they both got up, a car now arriving which they both slid into.

But before she joined the man, she looked up. At him. Straight at him, blue eyes sparkling with not tears but determination, making him choke on the smoke of his cigarette, the ashen tranquilliser suddenly too hot in his lungs.

'Fuck.’

.AIR - I spy with my little eye

‘I see.’ Two hands pushed a folder away. One in a library in Easter-Upper, one in a gloomy office building, CIA.

A response that two pairs of watching eyes thought strange. Was something the matter with their best agent’s ability to see this mission through? It was already taking far too long.

The acne-damaged face of Anna’s messenger frowned. ‘I spy with my little eye that something is up with you, little angel. Get yourself sorted.’

‘I’ll get it done.’ Two voices confirmed solemnly.

.AIR - I crave violence

‘It’s done.’ She settled back in the car seat as the man started to drive, the string of red lights before them slowing the car before they could get to any significant speed.

‘Almost done.’ He corrected, making her frown at him.

‘A deal’s a deal, Sergei.’

‘You’re not done angel.’ And with that he pressed his phone into her hands, gesturing her to look at the video that was ready to play, the small screen showcasing a slumped forward, hooded and bound figure, a hand moving into the image to pull it off, red curls springing free from the rough material.

Air escaped Anna’s quiet lips.

Mom.

‘It’s the work of some terrorist group called..the Apostles. American. We’ve got news your guy may be involved.’

‘The one I tracked?’

‘Mm.’ He pushed in the gas pedal. ‘If we finish this, we’ll avenge your mother’s death and free the world of the American poison once and for all.’ He clicked on his direction indicator and turned his head to make sure he could make a safe lane change.

Anna blinked, replaying the video beneath her fingertips again and again, that same American poison bubbling back up in her throat after her reckless behaviour last night. She could still feel the devil’s traces deep inside her, bleeding into her usually calm nerves. She could still smell him, taste him, feel him. Big and strong between her quivering thighs.

In that moment she had tasted the freedom that was so close. But now it was taken from her yet again. Her wings clipped short and her hands bound, it was now that same devil she had to take down, the contract drawn in her own mother’s blood.

.AIR - I think we should dance

The Parisian air was different. Both in the lungs and in the atmosphere, the winter evening much less cold and harsh in comparison to New York.

Anna had opted for a slightly more revealing dress to visit this club, a high slit showcasing her long dancing legs, two heels clicking beneath her feet.

She was glad to be rid of that obnoxious fake plaster, and even more glad that she no longer had to lie to her now ex-colleagues. What she did miss however, was dancing itself, her feet already moving to the dance floor before she had gotten her first drink, the well-dressed crowd bouncing on the smooth low grind of an electronic bass.

‘Hey.’ A man in his fourties clasped onto Anna’s shoulder, ‘Aren’t you Anna Karikova? New York Ballet? Ha! What a small world..’

Anna’s face froze over as realisation hit that her boss had been right: never attract too much attention to yourself. With a swift tug she tried to free herself from his hand, but he only held on tighter, immediate panic bubbling up in her gut when another man intervened, wedging himself in between the two of them.

‘I’m sorry..I eh..think you are mistaken. This my wife..and, she’s hardly a dancer.’

Two devil blue eyes looked back at Anna, her breath escaping her lips as the world indeed had become terribly small, the risk of a failing mission suddenly much too close for comfort.

‘Looks like we’re dancing again, angel.’ He purred, the sweat breaking clear on Anna’s back.

Shit.

#henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill smut #mission impossible au #august walker x oc #august walker smut #a devil's duet #august walker fanfiction

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lightwoodsmagic · 5 years

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Hi! So I agree Liam is queer, and the pink🔺in his video compels me not to ignore it. I saw one of your Ziam posts making its rounds after the SIU video, so I thought you were the person to ask. I only joined the fandom after Zayn left, and I’ve always had a hard time finding info on why and how that played out at the time (nobody seems to agree). Could you elaborate (or link to previous posts) on why you think Ziam is still a thing, and how they are telling us? Thanks for your insight so far!

Hi anon!

Thank you so much for thinking of me! I’m sorry it’s taken me a little while to answer, but it took me a bit to gather all the info I wanted (while I should’ve been working oop).

Okay, please know that this post is gonna be loooooong, so I’ve popped it under the cut.

You’re right about nobody agreeing on Zayn leaving the band, and it makes sense that people have differing views. It’s such a complicated thing; there was a lot happening at the time.

I’m going to start by saying there’s a brilliant masterpost about Zayn leaving here. It’s incredibly detailed, talks about pretty much every aspect of it, and there’s so much to look into. It’s also wonderful to demonstrate how much the boys and Zayn still hinted at things and loved each other, like Harry using Zayn’s mic one night, Liam talking about him fondly in interviews, Niall still calling him by his nickname, and Louis wearing his clothes.

It’s a long read, but incredibly worth it, as it this stunting timeline.

Everyone is absolutely entitled to their opinion, so I’ll just give you mine. I’m gonna keep it (kind of) short though. A lot of what I’m about to say can be found in the masterposts I’ve linked above.

I believe that Zayn leaving was out of his control, and was never completely his decision. I believe that he was set to return, but for some reason, the plan changed. Mind of Mine was apparently written before he left, and while I think he would’ve been working on solo music before he left (and that all of them were to some extent), to tease an album right after the announcement that he left makes no sense. A contract like the one that 1D had/has with Syco would cost an obscene amount of money to get out of, and Zayn’s net worth didn’t change at all. They made it seem so simple in the very few interviews with Zayn afterwards, saying he just called his security, got on a plane, and left. I think Zayn struggled a lot with everything, they all did, but I don’t think he could’ve just left. There were articles put out about his new album that mentioned Simco and everything, but when people pointed out that it didn’t make sense with the narrative that Simon felt ‘betrayed’, the references were removed straight away.

There’s also a very solid theory that MoM was counted as One Direction’s sixth and final contracted album, and it really stands up. Check it out!

Look. There’s a lot to unpack with the whole situation, and I’ve hardly touched on it at all, but I really do encourage you to look into it with everything I’ve linked above 💞

Okay, now onto the second part of your ask!

Ziam. My loooovveesss.

I’m going to start by saying that there’s a lot of ways that Liam and Zayn have hinted that they’re still together, and honestly? The boys ain’t even subtle about it. I’ll start by talking about heaps of ways they’ve done that since Zayn left!

Alright, let’s start with the fact that they WILL NOT STOP LIKING, REBLOGGING, AND RETWEETING POSTS FROM ZIAM ACCOUNTS.

(x) (x)

These aren’t subtle Ziam accounts, and it’s not just these examples. This also isn’t just something in the past; that bottom right one references Stack It Up.

They’ve also both reposted fanart from a well known Ziam where each drawing referenced the other one.

(x)

The Zayn art says ‘Love Payne’ on the beanie. Well then.

And the Liam one? That he posted on his personal insta? The artist added the ‘love’ tattoo from Zayn’s hand onto Liam’s. It’s obvious, and it’s not like Liam wouldn’t have noticed that suddenly there was a new tattoo added ON HIS OWN HAND.

Not very subtle, hey.

It’s also not the only shady social media activity related to the boys 👀

There was the time that Liam explained why he’d written ‘personally’ twice in a thank you post in his insta story to Bvlgari.

But he hadn’t. What had happened was that Twitter account @TheZiamNews had made a small mistake, and had actually written it twice. The only explanation was that Liam saw it on a Ziam update page VERY quickly, thought he had made the original mistake, and then explained. Interesting that Liam keeps up to date with them.

There was also the time Liam blocked an account for talking absolute shit about Zayn, or when Herbie Critchlow (a producer from Icarus Falls) retweeted a tweet about Common being about Ziam. Also can’t forget Brandon Colbein posting on insta about some songs he’d written, and somehow there was one for Zayn and one for Liam.

Oh, and when Liam’s friend Andy (who seems to…split the fandom, but alas) posted a video of him listening to Icarus Falls, or every single mirroring insta post Liam and Zayn can’t seem to help making.

And their eyebrow slits! 😊 this goes allllll the way back to One Direction days.

(x)

Now, this is a constant, recurring thing for them over the years.

It’s usually at the same time, and it usually signifies something.

Zayn went ALL OUT one day, just after Z*gi ‘broke up’, and put a slit in his eyebrow, but it wasn’t a normal one. It was in the shape of an L. That fucking sap. Not to be outdone though, Liam popped a lil’ Z in the graphics for his show last year in Japan.

SAPS, THE BOTH OF THEM.

Now, jewellery.

OOOOOF are we in for it now. You’re probably regretting this ask already.

Cartier.

Say that single word around someone who believes in Ziam and you’ve lost them forever.

Back in 2015 (so yes, a while ago but bear with me) during the OTRA tour, Zayn suddenly started wearing a gold Cartier bracelet. It was interesting because Zayn didn’t wear bracelets at the time. It was particularly interesting because Liam had been seen earlier that day with jewellery bags buying a present. Curious.

Or obvious.

Either or.

A similar thing happened when Zayn attended the ‘Straight Outta Compton’ premiere, one of his first appearances after he left the band. He was wearing a Hublot watch, which was also interesting because Zayn didn’t wear watches either.

But GUESS WHERE LIAM HAD BEEN 2 DAYS BEFORE THE PREMIERE?

You’re damn right, anon. It was Hublot.

Now, the Cartier love bracelet.

This picture was posted when Liam was getting ready for the Brits in 2017. For those that don’t know, the Cartier love bracelet has little screws, and can only be undone with a little gold screwdriver that comes with it.

Liam wore it everywhere that year, and so often. It didn’t make sense for it to be ‘given to him by Ch*ryl’, because they would’ve used every opportunity to show that damn screwdriver.

But they didn’t, because she didn’t have it. Zayn did.

There’s also the other matching bracelets they’ve worn by Alexander McQueen.

And also the other time Zayn wore Cartier in his film clip, or the fact that Zayn started wearing a ring on his right ring finger that was sold and marketed by Cartier AS A WEDDING RING.

They also share watches if Zayn decides to wear one, because they’re cute like that.

Now, they also share clothes.

So many clothes, ohmygod.

(x)

A prime example of this actually happened just last year! TWICE! IN NYC WHEN LIAM WAS THERE (obviously to see his husband). Both times, Liam was out and about wearing two of Zayn’s jackets.

It’s also absolutely not a coincidence that when Zayn was staying at G*gi’s apartment on Bond Street, Liam stayed at a hotel a few minutes away a number of times, but when Zayn moved to Soho, Liam suddenly switched hotels to one in Soho, a few minutes away from Zayn’s new place. Just can’t stay away from an old band mate you hardly talk to, hey.

Also can’t ignore Liam wearing numerous Kooples shirts during the time Zayn was doing promotional stuff for them. Husbands givin’ gifts.

NYC isn’t the only city that relates to Ziam though!

Ahhhhhhhh. Ziami. What a time, what a time, what a time (for you and I).

Anyway.

At the start of last year, Liam and Zayn were both in Miami at the same time filming music videos for Let Me and Familiar respectively, arriving either at the same time or a day apart. It was at a time when Zayn was all over his socials, posting poems and selfies and generally being his relaxed, gorgeous self, which wasn’t incredibly common for a while.

People were convinced they could hear Zayn in one of Liam’s insta stories, talking in the background just before Liam realises and raises his voice. It’s definitely not firm though, and Liam has someone in his team with a similar accent, but I’ve linked it so you can judge for yourself! Regardless, we knew they were both there, but it was a fun lil’ talking point!

Anyway, according to people who live in the area and know the coastline, they were in the same area at the same time, and we also knew that Liam wasn’t with Ch*ryl because she was back in the UK. Now, Liam posted an Instagram story the next morning half naked in bed, his 4 tattoo (we’ll get to that) and roses on full display, and saying he’d wrecked his voice.

Well then.

He also posted this.

It was a video, but it was Liam, in his room ‘alone’ with two desserts for breakfast at a time when we knew Zayn was there and no one else was, and he suddenly had no voice.

Okay okay, we get it.

They also consistently reference the number 25, and honestly, no one knows why the fuck.

Just casually on Liam’s jackets and shoes, Zayn’s shoes and a shirt that was sold (even the red and yellow, ffs Zayn), and also Zayn’s NECK, which he got in 2018. There was also chevrons on a collection for Zayn, just like Liam’s tattoos.

Speaking of tattoos Zayn got in 2018.

That big, red wolf on his chest just up there?

One of the biggest Ziam things to ever happen.

Red was Liam’s mic colour in 1D, everything they fucking do seems to be related to red, and Liam’s nickname is Wolfie because he’s from Wolverhampton.

It’s a red wolf, directly on his chest, and it’s 100% for Liam. It’s not the only red wolf tattoo Zayn has; he also has one on his leg with feathers, just like Liam’s feather tattoo.

The media often talk about the eyes Zayn has underneath that, and that they’re for G*gi, but the eyes underneath are so much lighter than the surrounding ink, the shape fits easily, and to me, it seems clear they’ve been done in a way that they can easily be inked over. It was designed for a cover up, and hopefully it’s coming. Zayn also has Liam’s name literally inked into his skin.

They also have coordinating hand tattoos. The mandala on Zayn’s hand and the roses on Liam’s are explained brilliantly in this post. The two of these together mean ‘Symbol of Eternity’. Fucking hell.

The three roses on Liam’s hand also translates to ‘I love you’. FUUUCCCKKKKKKK.

Liam also wore a ring for a while, until he was forced to take it off, but then he rebelled anyway, and got this.

It’s important because not only is it on his wedding finger, it’s also what he said about it, and when he got it.

Now, not only is 4 as an angel number about changing the only things that you can in a situation, but Liam directly said that’s what it was. He can’t wear a wedding ring, so he did the next best thing.

It also came when Liam and Ch*ryl became ‘official’, and when he’d already quashed marriage twice in an interview. Interesting choice, then. He also spoke of the 4 and a ring forming a halo, but still somehow shut down marriage talk?

…….okay then.

Some incredibly brilliant people pointed out that it also came just before Valentine’s Day.

And just before he started wearing the Cartier bracelet from earlier.

There’s also the blatant references to a gorgeous, loving relationship throughout Icarus Falls, especially in Common and There You Are. There You Are was pushed as a Z*gi song, but people realised it was impossible when they found old pictures of the name of the song on his original plan for Mind of Mine, and realised it just hadn’t made that album. It doesn’t fit their timeline at all, but it does fit Ziam.

We don’t see Zayn very much at the moment, and I’m glad that he’s taking his time just doing what he’s doing! It does mean that we hardly see them interact or reference each other much, but I have absolutely no reason to believe they’ve broken up. The fact that they’re both still going through PR relationship bullshit, and the timing of Liam getting a ‘girlfriend’ right now instead of just rumours is very interesting to me, because Z*gi officially finished again not that long ago. When one is ‘single’, the other can’t be, it seems.

This isn’t even everything, anon. They’re not subtle; Zayn just isn’t in the public eye as much.

Everything they do screams love, devotion, and commitment to each other.

And it’s fucking gorgeous.

#ziam #zayn leaving #ziam tattoos #ziam coincidences #zayn malik #liam payne #ziam evidence #masterpost

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junie-bugg · 4 years

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Prospects and Propriety - Chapter One

Summary: Everlark Jane Austen AU

“We’re very similar, you and I.” He turns the leaf over in his palm one last time and then presses it into my hand. His fingertips are warm where the leaf is brittle.

We are, aren’t we? Me, a girl forced to marry by the rules and expectations of society and him, a boy whose freewill was stolen away before he could even walk. We’re both prisoners. Destined to fates we did not choose ourselves. Now I see what was so funny to him.

The two of us: we are absolutely tragic.

Katniss Everdeen and her younger sister Prim are the adopted daughters of Mr. Haymitch Abernathy, a wealthy man with no biological heirs. By the rules of Panem society, an older sibling must be married before the younger can wed. In a time when women have no means of making their own living, marriage is the only way for Katniss to save her sister from destitution and set her up for a happy marriage of her own. Katniss sets her sights on Mr. Gale Hawthorne, a wealthy man who just moved to Whitley and who seems to have his eye on her. But what of the poor baker’s boy who once took a beating to save her life?

Read here on Tumblr or on my AO3 account: izzacrosswriting

Author’s Note:

This is a story inspired by my love of Everlark and Jane Austen’s novels. I am in no way an expert on the Regency period and I include fashions/details that are not historically accurate.

The setting is an alternate England-like Panem.

The plot is my own (Gale is not Mr. Darcy people, don’t get it twisted) but does borrow aesthetics and ideas directly from Jane Austen and Suzanne Collins.

The cast of characters is a mix of canon Hunger Games and original characters I’ve created.

I plan on including links to music and ambiance videos I used while writing so feel free to explore those! I typically play nature sounds and music together on my laptop so sorry if you're reading on a phone!

Warning: I do plan on this series getting a lil smutty. There will be graphic depictions of violence, sex, and possibly death. I’m still working everything out:)

Nature ambiance(s):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9uyQI3pF0&t=1694s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUjUhZ1Yy7Y

Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cc9ofwF-e4

(If you want to listen to this on Spotify it's called 'The Secret Life of Daydreams' from the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack.)

Word Count: 1,727

Chapter One

I run my hands through the tall grasses at my waist. It’s the perfect morning. The crisp air doesn’t quite hold that harsh bite of winter that will soon sweep the countryside in blizzards and ice. Emerald leaves hint at the coming autumn with the slightest tint of yellow along their stems. The sun shines bright through branches and I watch the forest come alive with squirrels and chipmunks that scurry through the thick brush. The dirt path I followed to get here grazes the edge of the woods, but I’ve abandoned it to traipse through the wild-flower dotted hillsides instead.

From this high up, I can see everything. The village of Whitley lies to the west. I can just make out the rooftops of the squat brick buildings off the main square. By this time the merchants will have opened their shops for business. The rest of the countryside is peppered with grand estates and bountiful farmland. Rivers gleam like veins of silver and dirt roads are wreathed in the dust kicked up by horse-drawn carriages. I wish I could stay and sit here all day. I would drink in the sun and drown in the low hum of insects, though Haymitch has warned me of the nasty gossip that follows a lady with a tan and a set of freckles.

A lady. I almost snort. Apparently, that’s what I am. Or what I need to be if anyone is ever going to ask for my hand in marriage. The thought ruins the good mood my morning stroll had put me in. I throw myself down among the tall grasses and begin plucking mindlessly at their stems.

Haymitch Abernathy, the legal guardian of me and my sister, has never been one to force us into doing things we dislike. I’m allowed to ride my horse alone, hunt with a bow and arrow, and take off into the woods whenever I please, like some woodland nymph from one of my father’s old stories. If it wasn’t for Prim and my greenhouse back at home I would probably live out here. Until it got cold of course. I’m allowed more freedom than any other young girl in the county, I’m sure. But not even Haymitch can protect me from matrimony.

My sister is excited for me. I imagine she’s fantasized about her wedding since she knew what a wedding was. To her, marriage is a romantic fairytale. A strong, handsome man of large fortune will sweep her off her feet and give her an estate to run and small, cherub-faced children to care for. To me, marriage sounds like a death sentence. They say if I’m lucky, I’ll marry for love as well as for fortune, but I never want to love someone as much as my mother loved my father. Because when he died, in a way, so did she. The only person I know that I truly love is Prim.

Primrose Everdeen, my little sister, was never the outdoorsy type like me. She’s fair, with golden blonde hair that hangs in ringlets past her slight shoulders, and a face as fresh and as pure as a spring dewdrop. She spends her days drawing, flower arranging, and studying languages with my old tutor Mrs. Winthrop.

“She’ll be a highly accomplished woman by the time I’m done with her. Mark my words, this young girl is special,” Mrs. Winthrop had said to Haymitch mere days after first starting Prim’s lessons. She had been my tutor for years and had never said anything nearly as flattering about me. Sullen Katniss Everdeen must have been a lost cause in her eyes.

I’m four years older than Prim who’s a mere twelve. We share the same parents, though we look almost nothing alike. Where she received the fair skin, blonde curls, and gentle blue eyes of our mother, I received the olive-toned, straight black, and storm grey palette of our father.

I sit up suddenly, aware that I left home hours ago and it must be getting time for my lessons. I dread heading back to that stuffy room where I’m required to sit straight and learn to be “lady-like” under the scrutinizing gaze of Ms. Effie Trinket, my new tutor. Manners are of the utmost importance to her, seeing as she makes her living off of teaching them. She considers being late an unforgivable sin.

With this in mind, I take my time gathering wild-flowers. There are so many at my feet, their delicate white and yellow petals peeking up amongst the grasses. I deftly craft two flower chains. One for me, which I place on the crown of my head, and one for Prim clutched in my hands. I notice some dirt under my nails and smile, wondering what Effie will say when I arrive late and grimy.

She purses her lips and crosses her arms as I enter the room. “Where were you?” She demands in that high pitched voice of hers.

“Out,” I shrug. I hadn’t seen Prim on my way in so I’m still clutching her flower crown. I offer it to Effie instead. “Flowers?” She squints at my offering, probably checking for bugs, before gingerly taking it and placing it down on a side table.

“Katniss, I need you to take today’s lesson seriously.” Her clipped tone sets my teeth on edge.

“I always do-” I start, but Effie cuts me off.

“Don’t lie to me, Katniss. I know you don’t care for etiquette. I know that to you a spoon is just a spoon, even when that spoon is a soup spoon and should only be used for soup!”

Again with the soup spoon thing, it was one time. But she’s right. I find learning manners and etiquette a waste of time. I’ve only been out in society for a short while. I barely attend balls seeing as I’m sixteen and prefer to stay at home anyway. I look up and realize that Effie is still talking at me.

“Are you even listening? Mrs. Winthrop was right, you are hopeless.” She sighs and wipes non-existent dust off of her shimmery lilac skirts. “It is imperative that you start paying attention and make some kind of progress in these lessons. Mr. Gale Hawthorne has recently taken possession of Templeton and is traveling here, as we speak, to take up residence indefinitely. Do you know what this could mean for you?” Suddenly, her annoyance melts away and is replaced by a teary, almost hopeful expression. The way this woman’s emotions swing back and forth between happy and exasperated hurts my head. She comes to clasp my face between her palms. “Mr. Hawthorne earns ten thousand a year, Katniss. Ten thousand!”

I have in fact heard of the Hawthornes. Maybe those lessons have had more of an impact on me than I thought. I was forced to spend months poring over books filled with the names and family trees of wealthy, well-known families that I had either already been acquainted with or might be acquainted with in the future. A healthy knowledge of people, especially rich people, will get you far in life. At least that’s what Effie says.

Gale Hawthorne is the eldest son of the wealthy businessman Ezra Hawthorne. I forget exactly how Mr. Hawthorne first made his fortune but the word mine sticks around in my head. What his mine produced, I’m not sure. Precious gems? Gold? Coal? All I know is the Hawthornes are incredibly wealthy, and Gale being the eldest son inherited when his father died. He is in possession of everything from the family fortune to a legion of servants to the many extravagant houses in Town. Now it seems he’s grown tired with the city and has decided to try his hand at country living. Good, I think. A wealthy man who’s used to the high society of the Capitol won’t last long out here. He’ll be out of my hair before the month’s up. Effie must not realize this since she’s still staring happily into my face.

“And?” I ask.

“Well, he’ll fall in love with you and ask for your hand in marriage!” She beams as if this is obvious. “If you play your cards right of course. For instance, he won’t find you very agreeable if all you do is scowl at him like you do me-” I jerk out of her grasp.

Of course. Marriage. It’s one of the only things Effie has talked about the entire time I’ve been her pupil.

“Yes, Mr. Abernathy warned me that'd you'd be. . .avoidant. But don’t you see? That’s the reason I’m here. To teach you how to win a husband! It’s an art you know.” She sighs, probably seeing the panicked look on my face, and slips back into a tone of tired annoyance. “You’ll have to marry someone, Katniss. Might as well marry knowing you’ll spend the rest of your life in the lap of luxury.”

She’s right, of course. There’s no way for women to make their own living. I can’t go to university to study business or law, I can’t run my own shop, I can’t inherit Haymitch’s estate or fortune. When he dies the money goes to some estranged cousin on his father’s side. I am a woman, therefore, I am destined to either marry or die poor and unprotected. And Prim…

If I don’t marry, then Prim can’t marry. One of the rules of proper Panem society is that a younger sibling cannot marry unless the eldest has, meaning I must be happily settled before my younger sister can even entertain the idea of love. If I don’t get married and Haymitch goes and does something stupid like die, there will be nothing I can do. For either of us. We’d be turned out of the house and left to beg for scraps. And I will not let that happen to Prim. Not again.

I force myself to swallow past the lump in my throat and spend the rest of the afternoon paying careful attention to Effie. She’s trying to teach me to communicate with men via body language, long gazes, and the fluttering of lashes.

This is the only way to save Prim, and with each horrible flutter I produce and each disappointed sigh from Effie, I feel my chances slipping away.

#everlark #thg #thg fanfic #everlark fluff #katniss everdeen #Peeta Mellark #gale hawthorne #haymitch abernathy #finnick odair #pride and prejudice #jane austen au #regency #everlarkfic #The Hunger Games

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omnivorousshipper · 4 years

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12 Days of Shobbs: Day Three- Secret Santa

Summary: This is a serious of prompts following the relationship between Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw through the twelve days of Christmas.

Day 2 Day 4

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

“It’s your turn, Deckard,” Mr. Nobody said cheerfully, holding out a santa hat filled with names. Rolling his eyes, Deckard sat up in the chair he had been lounging in and complied, drawing out Ramsey’s name.

“Can’t believe you’re having a group of criminals doin’ a Secret Santa,” Deckard commented, already thinking of ideas for Ramsey’s present.

“Everyone needs some holiday magic, even hardened criminals, Deckard,” Mr. Nobody smiled. “Just remember, don’t do anything too illegal when getting a present.”

“Just take all the fun out of it, why don’t you,” Deckard mumbled to himself as Mr. Nobody walked away, finding anyone else who hadn’t gotten their Secret Santa.

Looking around the conference room, Deckard could see some merit in what Mr. Nobody had said: Ramsey was rapidly typing on her computer, while Dom and Letty had their heads together and whispering, and Roman was pacing back and forth in a corner, his face twisted in concentration. They all seemed to be invested in the idea of getting presents for each other.

Casting his gaze further, he could see Luke and Tej leaning against a wall, both staring down at the names they had gotten. Tej was trying to get a look at Luke’s, who pulled it away from him and glared. Smirking, Tej put his hands up, and apologized. Luke simply shook his head and looked down at the paper again, a look of despair crossing his face.

Tilting his head to the side, Deckard couldn’t help but wonder whose name Luke had gotten.

~~~

“And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet, and surprise 'em with the victory cry,” rang out in the quiet room.

Sitting in a hotel room bed, with his laptop on his lap, Deckard’s eyebrows rose. He wasn’t expecting Hattie to be calling. Hoping it wasn’t an emergency, he answered. “Hey, Hatts.”

“Hi, Deck.”

“Everything ok?”

“Always the worrywart, aren’t you?” Hattie chuckled. “Nothin’s wrong. Just wanted to talk.”

“About what?” Deckard asked letting suspicion color his voice. Usually, he and his siblings texted each other, only bothering to call when it was necessary.

“Well,” Hattie hesitated. “I heard you were doing a Secret Santa with that American team.”

“How’d you know that?” Quickly, Deckard typed out a few messages to the people he had been messaging. He wanted his full attention on this conversation.

“Let’s just say a little birdie told me. And then asked me to help them with your gift.”

“One of them contacted you?” Deckard’s confusion grew. The team didn’t even know he had a sister, let alone how to contact her. Then it hit him. There was only one person on the team who knew Hattie. “Hobbs is my Secret Santa?” “I can’t confirm or deny that,” Hattie said, but Deckard could hear the smile in her voice.

“What’s he gettin’ me?” “Deck!” Hattie playfully scolded him. “I can’t tell you! It’s a secret!”

“Not even a hint?” Deckard laughed.

“All I can tell you is that you’ll like it.”

“Very helpful, Hatts,” he said dryly.

“Oh come off it. He’s going to a lot of trouble for your present. You’ll like it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Deckard said, picking his laptop up again. “Hey, while I have you, do you know any hackers?”

“Why? I thought you could get through almost any firewall by yourself,” Hattie asked.

“Don’t you ever doubt my abilities,” Deckard huffed. “It’s not for me. We have a hacker on the team, Ramsey, and I’m her Secret Santa. I wanted to get her a list of hackers she could talk to. The team’s not really known for speaking tech talk.”

“I see. I’ll see who would be willing. Have you asked Oh’s hacker friends? He seems to have dozens of them.”

“Yeah, I already did. Most of them want to talk to her.”

“Really? What’s she known for?”

“She’s the one who created the God’s Eye,” Deckard responded.

“What?!” Hattie screamed.

“Christ! What the hell, Hat?” Deckard winced.

“You never you said that you were talking about the Ramsey! You have to introduce us!’’ Hattie excitedly shouted.

“Fine! I’ll see what I can do.”

“You better give her my number, Deck,” Hattie said with a note of threat.

“I’ll add it to the list,” Deckard assured, and rolled his eyes at Hattie’s antics.

“It better be at the top,” she grumbled.

~~~

Two days later, Deckard’s phone gave a small pinging noise. Deckard was having dinner by himself at the hotel’s restaurant and enjoying an after dinner cup of tea. Looking down at his phone, he saw he had gotten a few texts from his brother.

From ‘Oh No’: Finally got someone to go with me

“And do what?” Deckard muttered to himself, furrowing his eyebrows. Opening the text, he saw that Owen had also sent a video. Turning his phone’s volume off, Deckard pressed play.

Even with a helmet and large goggles on, it would be impossible to mistake Owen for anyone else, as he had a huge grin on his face, which took up the whole screen. He mouthed:

“See you at the bottom.” Before moving the camera to rest on the top of his helmet.

The view changed to a beautiful, snowy mountain range that was framed by a perfect, sunny sky, not a cloud in sight. The camera shifted angles, shifting downwards and showed a valley of pine trees below the cliff Owen seemed to be standing on. Deckard could feel his chest tighten with fear; he knew exactly what Owen was planning to do.

And much to his chagrin, Owen did exactly what Deckard predicted. The camera was looking straight down at Owen’s feet as he stepped off the cliff, and plumpeted through the air. Deckard lurched in his chair, eyes going wide.

However, instead of meeting the ground, Owen started to glide over the rocky cliffs dusted with snow. He went over several small outcrops of rocks and seemed to fly next to the walls of the valley he was falling into. There were several instances where Deckard feared Owen would crash into the mountain’s side or clip the top of a tree. But nothing harmful happened.

Instead, Deckard saw a beautiful part of nature, with no evidence of his brother getting himself killed. Suddenly, the camera jerked, and Owen’s descent slowed. In one corner of the camera, Deckard could see the edges of a parachute. Sighing in relief, Deckard finally relaxed back into his chair, feeling as if he had just aged ten years.

“You’re such a little prick, Oh,” Deckard sighed and rubbed his face in exhaustion before turning back to the video.

The ground was close as Owen kicked his legs out and made a smooth landing. The camera was once more shifted as Owen removed it from his helmet. He had taken off his goggles, and his face was lit up with manic glee. He seemed to be laughing as he turned to look back up at the sky, and Deckard could just see a small figure of someone else parachuting down. But, Owen moved the camera back on his own face as he once again mouthed something.

“You need to try this!” And with that, the video ended.

“In your dreams, Oh,” Deckard whispered.

~~~

“And here’s yours, Ramsey,” Mr. Nobody announced, his face nearly splitting in half by how much he was smiling as he handed out presents to the team.

Taking the small box, Ramsey opened it up, obviously excited to see what it was. She let out a laugh as she pulled out a small figurine of Gordon Ramsey.

“Very funny,” she giggled and fiddling with it. “Wait. What’s this?”

She suddenly was able to pull the figurine’s feet off, revealing it to be a USB stick. She stared at it for a second before racing to her computer and plugging it in. Everyone was watching her was her face twisted in confusion, before she gasped in shock.

“I can’t believe this!” She squealed with delight.

“What is it?” Tej called out.

“It’s an address book of the most famous hackers in the world! There’s Alec Hardison, Timothy McGee, Felicity Smoak, and even Clara Oswald!” Ramsey was almost jumping with joy as she read off the names.

“Do you know who any of those people are?” Deckard heard Roman whisper to Tej.

“Nope,” Tej responded.

Deckard tried to keep his smile from blooming across his face as he watched Ramsey drop herself down in a chair and her fingers fly across her keyboard. Hopefully she would be messaging Hattie first, as she was at the top of the list.

“All right then. Who’s next?” Mr. Nobody asked and picked up a large present from the pile. “This one’s for Deckard!”

Taking the box, Deckard was a little surprised by the weight of it. He swore that if Hobbs actually got him coal for Christmas, Deckard promised to deck Hobbs’ halls. Ripping the rapping and taking the lid off, Deckard was met with three more, smaller boxes. Frowning, he picked up the middle one.

Inside was a model car of a periwinkle Porsche Carrera GT, Hattie’s favorite car. The model was perfectly detailed, almost as if Deckard was looking at the real thing. Gently putting it down, he grabbed another box, revealing an emerald green Lotus Evora, Owen’s favorite car. Again, it was a perfect replica. Placing it next to the other car, Deckard went for the last box. Inside was a white Lamborghini Aventador, one of Deckard’s favorite cars.

“Those look impressive,” Dom said, looking at the cars appreciatively.

“Yeah, they are,” Deckard said breathlessly.

He couldn’t believe the amount of detail that had gone into the gift. Growing up, one thing the Shaw siblings had in common was their love of cars. And to have a memento of all their favorites was touching.

After a few more amazed comments from the team, Mr. Nobody was handing someone else their present, leaving Deckard to stare at his, thinking.

Once all the presents were opened, everyone dispersed through the room, enjoying their gifts. However, Deckard decided to confront his Secret Santa. He found Luke by the snack table, luckily by himself. Sliding up next to the other man, Deckard brushed his shoulder against Luke’s.

“Did you really jump off a cliff with my brother, just to find out what his favorite car was?” Deckard asked casually.

“Shit!” Luke yelped, nearly dropping the plate he was holding. “You need to wear a fucking bell!”

Deckard just smirked.

“And for your information, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke grumbled.

“Hattie already told me you were my Secret Santa, so stop pretending, twinkletoes.” “Of course she did.” Luke shook his head. “Knew she wouldn’t bother keeping her mouth shut.”

“She’s a little sister. Tattling is all she does,” Deckard said.

“Very true,” Luke chuckled. “And yes. I did jump off a cliff with your brother.”

“Just for future reference, if you want any information out of him, just give him a kilogram of chocolate instead. You’ll get the same results.”

“Wish I knew that before I agreed to go wingsuit flying with him.”

“Better you than me,” Deckard said. “He’s been bugging me to do that for ages.”

“Is he always such an adrenaline junky?”

“Yep.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Luke brushed his shoulder against Deckard’s to get his attention. When Deckard was looking him in the eye, Luke earnestly asked:

“So, do you like your present?” Deckard felt his lips form into a small, sincere smile. “Yeah, I love it.”

“Glad to hear it,” Luke smiled back.

They stood there, bodies touching from hip to shoulder, watching the rest of the party.

… Three fast cars

Two loaded guns

And a punch to the face!

#shobbs #deckard shaw #luke hobbs #hobbs and shaw #christmas fic #fanfic #my fanfic #secret santa #owen shaw #hattie shaw #ramsey

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Half-Life: Alyx review – a legend returns in elegant form • Eurogamer.net

The Strider is the greatest of all Half-Life’s creations, if you ask me. Sure, you could argue that it’s just another spin on HG Wells’ tripods, but seriously, look at the thing! Those legs, so horribly long and horribly jointed, that hideous hint of poultry flesh and machinery spliced together, all pain and wrongness. In Half-Life 2, I watched one of this awful lot stoop to duck under a bridge, and the thing about the Strider is that it never reminds you of just one thing, always a horrible bodging-together – almost a flamingo as its joints worked, yet almost grandparent nipping up into the attic for something heavy too. An internal life: that sense of self-preservation and cruel intelligence they have, of seeing only their own priorities. That sense of being autonomous in the moment, but also deeply mission-driven. They give me goose-bumps because it’s so entirely clear that they can probably get goose-bumps themselves.

Half-Life: Alyx review

Developer: Valve

Publisher: Valve

Platform: Reviewed on PC with Index

Availability: Out 23 March on PC

I had been waiting for this moment, then. Half-Life: Alyx, set five years before the events of Half-Life 2 and delivered sixteen years – is that possible? – since Half-Life 2 and thirteen years since Episode Two, the last installment. (How we had talked at the time about that gap between the first two Episodes. We had no idea.) Suddenly, City 17 lies before me once more. I am on a rooftop somewhere: Alyx Vance, 19-year-old daughter of Eli Vance, on reconnaissance for the resistance.

The metropolis is a mess of alien cables, black and heavy, draped thoughtlessly and sagging over honey-coloured European architecture with its weary finials and tiles and crenelations. It’s VR, so a moment or two to look at the creamy skybox dithering into distant mist, then another moment to delight in a nearby radio, fiercely analogue tech, that can be picked up and heaved around, the dials turning and moving a little marker along the display, an aerial that properly extends and everything.

Behind me, inside a little conservatory, there is a video call from Dad, and more importantly there’s a range of felt pens that have been used on the dirty glass to map Combine movements, but which can also be used to – what? – do anything really. Graffiti, Killroys, my daughter’s name in my own instantly recognisable handwriting, somehow captured inside a video game space. I’m on the move, so I heave back a hidden door and explore a few dingy Winston Smith bedsit rooms. Then out again onto a different ledge and, do tell me, what in the world is that sound?

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That sound is a strider, horribly large and horribly close, heaving its carcass body up the side of a building, stepping where it wants because the crumbling world of human things is not really a concern for an alien invader. It stops. Has it seen me? I stare up – because it’s VR, I’m actually staring up – at this awful, wretched thing that I have always loved, and which is now here more fully than ever before, its knotty joints bolstered with servo-motors and shards of the Combine’s black-slate tech. It hasn’t seen me. It doesn’t care. It turns and unplugs a clump of cables from a nearby building – the human world is its junction box – and then it’s off into the distance. And yes! I had been waiting for this moment. And this moment did not let me down.

Not my only encounter with a strider in Half-Life: Alyx, but I’ll honestly try to spoil little more than that. What I should say is that for the last few days I have been a bit of a strider myself, strangely focused on a private agenda, strangely blind to the finer details of the human landscape around me, as I have navigated City 17 with a VR headset covering my eyes – two worlds, one laid over the other. All this, as I’ve taken on headcrabs and Combine troopers and all the rest, all this as I have puzzled and rewired and upgraded – while simultaneously bodging around my own PC set up by my desk. House cats and scarves dumped on the backs of chairs startled me when I brushed against them at the wrong moments – generally moments involving headcrabs. My daughter, moving a doll’s house behind me one afternoon, almost finished me off in a boss fight when we bumped together. “When you’re behind me, tell me you’re behind me!” I said. Five minutes later, when I was deep in the horror of the underground somewhere, she obliged, having snuck up close before announcing, “I’M BEHIND YOU, DADDY.”

In other words, Half-Life was always going to work in VR. But what’s fascinating is how it works. If you’re expecting an explosion of let’s-try-anthing creativity a la Boneworks, a game in which every conceivable kind of physics interaction is gleefully gimmicked together as you tumble through its wonderfully scrappy campaign, you’re going to be a bit disappointed. Half-Life would rather focus its ambitions – and in turn rein-in the scope of what you can do – than risk breaking the illusion or frustrating the player. Something is lost in that decision, certainly. It’s Alyx’s way or the highway. But a lot is gained too.

As a result, Alyx is marked by restraint. Which is to say, I think, that it understands that VR itself is still such a continuous gimmick for many people that it can play things straight, paring the Half-Life concept back closer than ever before. Yes, it has radios to play with and the inevitable VR piano to prod out a Goldberg Variation on, but it’s not one of those VR games that serves as the equivalent of those early 3D movies where people were forever throwing knives at the screen. Most of the time, it uses VR to steadily put you deeper and deeper into the fabric of this grimy, flaking Victory Gin world.

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This is a simple story, direct yet consequential, studded with wonderful set-pieces, most of which are pitched towards a sort of sci-fi-tinged survival horror: you, a gun, ammo scavenging and them lurking all around as you slowly inch towards your next destination. VR is used to continue the Half-Life ambition, begun with that tram-ride back at Black Mesa and extended via the Gravity Gun and the magnifying glasses and the facial animation tech of Half-Life 2 to truly embed players in its reality. Cats, children, scarves and bookcases aren’t just victims of this approach. They feel like an important part of it.

The basics are straightforward. All I’m going to tell you of the plot is that you’re trying to meet up with your dad and figure out what big strange thing the Combine’s currently so excited about. Events zip along quite briskly and objectives are always clear. If there’s a problem, it’s that the game is hemmed in a little, in terms of narrative, because it so clearly has one specific job to do.

The controls are as clear-headed as the narrative. Playing room-scale or simply standing with a more confined space, you can choose one of four movement options, two of which work brilliantly as teleport jobs while the other two offer continuous movement guided by either the hand or the head and seemed to me pretty clumsy and nausea-inducing. Whatever movement you choose, one hand generally holds a weapon or gadget – switching them is as easy as pressing a button and waving your arm up and down – while the other is always free for interacting with the environment, opening doors, grabbing ammo clips from your backpack and ramming them home, priming grenades before lobbing them.

Both hands wear gravity-gloves, a cobbled-together precursor of the gravity gun. They’re beautiful things. Hold your hands up and it’s like some addled genius has built mittens for your out of diodes and Technical Lego, while little displays show you your health and ammo levels. These things are not for pulling sawblades out of walls and firing them into crowds of zombies, though. They’re precision affairs, a little flick of the wrist yanking a highlighted object out of the environment and bringing it into your hand with a neat little slap.

The gloves have been created by a new character, Russell, played by Rhys Darby, who despite being cast as a genius, stays wonderfully close to Murray, the dim and easily bruised band manager from Flight of the Conchords. Because Alyx also speaks – a performance from Ozioma Akhaga that is forever revealing different facets of personality, while being wonderfully alive to graveyard wit – the game is essentially a two-hander, Alyx out in the world while Russell monitors her progress from a distance, cowardly, prideful, tender and quirky by turns. I love this combination. Beyond anything else, following up the biggest video game in the world with a Rhys Darby simulator is a total power move.

The texture of the game these two travel through is relentlessly – and gloriously – practical, pragmatic and down-to-earth. This is a game about navigating space and killing everything you meet, but it’s all so carefully wrought. A nervous skittering on the soundtrack is ultimately the buzzing of an old fluorescent light tube. Puzzles are made of gravity, stacked boxes, and wood used to prop open windows. These challenges can be maddeningly clever, but Newton always keeps them honest at the same time. Elsewhere, a vaguely celestial sounding clue in the main plot turns out to have a very mundane solution, while car posters you pass on the remains of the subway show boxy Soviet saloons accompanied by ad-talk that’s even more oppressive than usual: Reality Defined. This is science-fiction with both feet on the ground.

This works because the interaction, enlivened by VR, is tangible and playful. It elevates everything, from wiring puzzles – a real theme of this game, using both a gadget that allows you to see electricity flowing through gates inside the walls, and a bit of good-old-fashioned cable-following – to hunting for ammo and other supplies, including the worm-eaten hockey pucks of grey stuff you use as currency in the machines that allow you to upgrade your weapons.

Weapons are real presences because of VR. It’s not just that you have to change clips and pull that slidey thing at the top of the pistol before you can shoot the zombie that’s already groaning towards you. It’s that they have a complex, weighty, rattly presence in your hand. You can sense these guns are each one thing made from many smaller things working together. Valve has always been good with this stuff, and the upgradable weapons of Alyx are very special. From that pistol and a shotgun to something a little more exotic, they’re filled with character and a sense of power, even before you start adding laser sites and bigger clips.

Gun management as well as gunplay, wiring puzzles as well as hacking challenges, traversal with physics hurdles so nicely weighted that you can predict the outcomes in your head: all of the various aspects of Alyx appear simple, but they all work together to bed you deeper and deeper into the game until you reach the point where, if you’re like me, you’re talking back to Russell out loud as you catch up after each fight.

Oh man, but never forget: at the very center of it is all is those incredible gloves. The gravity gun has always had a habit of working its ways into other games for me. Not directly, of course. It’s just that I’ll be playing Gears of War and I’ll see a grand piano or a panel truck and think: I wish I could just lob that somewhere. The gravity gloves have already gone beyond that. They have a habit of getting into my head. I’ll be lying on the sofa and thinking: I wish I could just flick that book from the other side of the room into my hand. At the front door I’ll wish I could turn around and grab my keys from the stairs. The things I could do with Jaffa Cakes, mate.

The gloves are a less ostentatious kind of magic than that offered in Half-Life 2 – again, you won’t be chucking a car at anyone with them – but in some ways they’re a more startling kind of magic. I was half an hour in and pausing mid-reload to pull an interesting bit of set design off a distant shelf and inspect it. The levels are filled with bits and pieces to pick up and examine: cutlery, pipes, video cassettes. Chuck in the reloading and this is stuff you can get good at – you can master it until you’re fighting through the apocalypse and foppishly checking out the detailing at the same time. Half-Life has always sought to startle, which is probably why the last instalment came out in 2007. The right material, the right opportunities, take time to present itself.

What detailing that lost decade or so has allowed for! This is a game that has been allowed to percolate. City 17, strangely noble in its ravaged state, a faded relic being steadily eaten by alien technology, is still one of the great locations in video games, even if you tend to just see bombed out apartment buildings, train yards and subway stations for a lot of the campaign. But the greatest details this time around are the Combine tech, which has never been so monolithically grim. Outside it’s grey sheeting and stark angles: designs that could give you a nasty cut. Inside, though, it’s often big chunks of offal instead of circuitry, as if Darth Vader had teamed up with Fergus Henderson, the man behind the nose-to-tail eating movement. Health stations, pretty much unchanged from the first game, are so much more visibly present in VR. You inspect the squealing white worm that is squished to make the lurid Mountain Dew healing substances, and then you have to pull down a plate and rest your hand on it, enjoying the dancing jabs of a dozen little syringes while you scan the surroundings for oncoming threats.

All of this stuff comes together with wonderful set-pieces. Due to the exhausting nature of VR combat, massive pile-ons like Nova Propsekt are out of the question, ditto the open-world ram-raiding of the White Forest. Instead, troops are dropped in surgically – their strangled tannoy barking giving you a moment to panic and hunt for ammo and hopefully come up with a plan. As for the bestiary there’s a shocking new enemy who I won’t spoil, but even the old guard return and bring a vivid kind of enhanced fear with them. I had dreaded VR headcrabs, and then the game not only introduces them but immediately loses the first one in some pipework. That was a nice two minutes. (I regret to inform you that there’s a new kind of headcrab now too, even if its design can’t quite match the queasy supermarket horror of the original.) Elsewhere it feels like a testament to the brilliance of the original creature design on this series that you feel dread rather than nostalgia whenever one of the classics turns up again. Or maybe it’s another sign of the sheer weight of immersion Alyx can conjure: there’s a real sense of apprehension when the game leads you out of the light and back underground for a spell. You live in these spaces while you move through them.

There are ingenious set-pieces, increasingly piling up towards the end of the campaign, but I’m so struck through by the sheer thrift of a lot of it. It’s that restraint again: make the VR work, get a handful of killer things out of it, and then repeat and remix without breaking the spell. There are Hollywood moments that will stick with me, but I also remember being in a room filled with oil drums while a tank of explosive gas was being winched up towards the mouth of one of those horrible limpet things that sit on the ceiling. That’s the kind of clock Valve likes to put in a scene to add suspense. Hitchcock would be proud: you can see all the moving parts and yet the magic is still there.

And the more I played of Alyx, the more I thought about how VR and Half-Life were made for each other. And the more this left me thinking about the G-Man, the shadowy figure in a suit who turns up at crucial moments throughout the series and does intriguing stuff. The G-Man is the focal point for a lot of lore conspiracies in Half-Life. Who is he? Is he human? Is he Gordon Freeman himself?

Let’s not worry whether he makes an appearance in Alyx or not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Because throughout the course of this game, I think I worked out who he really is. He’s Valve. Think about it: inscrutable Valve, a company that seems to see further than most, that seems to have a separate agenda to that of most developers – and who, granted, doesn’t always seem to be entirely benevolent. The G-Man disappears for long periods of time, but then turns up just as events have caught up with his intentions. It’s his way or no way at all. He waits for the right pieces to appear, and then he makes the most of them with little apparent effort.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/half-life-alyx-review-a-legend-returns-in-elegant-form-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=half-life-alyx-review-a-legend-returns-in-elegant-form-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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13walls · 7 years

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Joel Gion, best known for his work with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, is setting up to release his sophomore solo record later this year. Following up his sunny 2014 album Apple Bonkers, Gion speaks with A Love That’s Sound about recording new music with his BJM buddies, politics, psych festivals and spaghetti westerns.

David Lacroix: How are things going right now in San Francisco? Joel Gion: Things are fine, it’s freezing with a capital “F.” It’s been freezing rain which is not normal. It’s been keeping me off of my scouter, which I don’t dig but yeah, it’s cool man. Like in a lot of places, we’ve had the big march, a lot of stuff has been going on.

Joel Gion @ Levitation Vancouver, 2015. Photo: David Lacroix.

You have started the new year off with a new single called “Tomorrow,” which bears some political sentiment. Can you tell us a bit about that song?

Joel Gion: I feel like I’ve been on the planet long enough that you see certain patterns over and over again and one of them is never get either of our political parties in office more than two terms in a row. There’s a lot of different types of people in the country but there’s two specific big groups that can be lobbed into. The political parties, it seems like have to give it up and over to the other side after at least every 8 years or that side will end up going ballistic at what they don’t like. In order to actually keep the peace and keep people from getting together and from really making the moves to make actually change, they placate everyone by passing the baton back and forth before things get too hot and heavy for one side or the other. That’s been going on a long time.

I just wrote the song in the fall, at least I recorded the song in January, and for whatever reason there’s some red tape where I kind of expected my record to be out right now but it isn’t and I just thought “I kind of wrote this song with this event in mind so I thought “Im just going to put this out myself,” which I did. I don’t want to be Mr. Message, I don’t want to say “hey, I know what’s going on, let me tell you what’s up, kids” or anything like that. I’m just a dude living on the planet, I’m not looking for these things but they present themselves to me so often and it’s so in your face obvious that when I go to write about something, these sorts of topics present themselves. It was also “yeah, it’s complete horse-shit, but you still gotta have fun,” ya, know? It’s sort of a party song at the same time.

Matt Hollywood & Joel Gion w/ BJM, 2012. Photo: Bev Davies.

DL: Some of your friends were very politically active this past election. Did you watch your friend Zia McCabe (of the Dandy Warhols) speak in support of Bernie Sanders?

Joel Gion: I sure did. It was wonderful. That was the event when the bird came, flew in and landed on the podium. You can’t ask for a bigger sign to have then the bird of peace come down and want to hang out with this guy. We were all so optimistic. At the time that I wrote this song, it was during the Democratic National Convention when to me in my mind, the real villain was Clinton. She was for the corporations; she represented big money and the huge class divide that’s getting more and more insane. So yeah, I was a Bernie Sanders guy; at the time she was kind of the villain. Nobody thought that it would come down to this where Donald Dude-Bro is in there…. so that was the big concern back then. Now it’s nothing.

Joel Gion @ Levitation Vancouver 2015. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: This last fall, you released a song titled “Divide” that has a strong Tropicalia influence. Can you tell us a bit about that song?

Joel Gion: Yeah, that’s kind of a leak to some of the direction that the new record will be representing. There’s things that I enjoy in pretty much every genre of music, although I’m not a heavy metal guy. But I can find something that I love in almost everything. Brazilian music, jazz, soul and then of course my roots of shoe-gaze, psych, blues and classic rock stuff. I’m trying to incorporate different things into the mix. That’s definitely the most overt Brazilian song but there’s more of that type of energy on the way as well. We recorded the majority of the album in at Revolver Studios in Portland which is run by Colin Hegna, the bass player for the BJM. His band Federale has got some pretty heavy-duty spaghetti moves.

The Committee To Keep Music Evil.

DL: The Last album was mostly recorded with Rob Campanella, was it not?

Joel Gion: Yeah the last one was leaning more heavily to his studio, the Committee to Keep Music Evil and I also did some at Colin’s studio in Portland. This new one is kind of flipped where it’s the other way around. We did most of that album down there in LA. I had Dan Allaire from the BJM come and play drums on the majority of it; Plucky played on three songs. We got Rob and whoever else we could drag in there – Miranda Lee Richards who is a great soul singer and used to be in BJM way back in the day. You had the whole L.A. wrecking crew coming in. It was neat.

DL: What’s the title of your upcoming record?

Joel Gion: It’s going to be self-titled. I was the biggest influence on myself this time around. It represents more of where I am coming from. The first album was me staking my claim in the songwriting ring and really showing my colours on the music that got me here and probably the music I should have been making a long time ago. I think I just needed to get that “never happened” first album out of me. This one is much more influenced by the things that I listen to now. I’m making my own thing out of it, before I was just joining the parade as it were.

Joel Gion @ Levitation Vancouver 2015. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: What was it like playing with the Primary Colours?

Joel Gion: that was my crew, my local San Francisco crew. Because of the gentrification and the tech industry, there’s lots of factors where most of my friends no longer live here. These were my DJ friends that I made. I asked them if they wanted to play these songs with me and they were into it because the BJM who play on the record are all so spread out, there was no way to have a local band. You can’t have these guys come to San Francisco to play some 200 seater, ya know? We had a lot of fun.

DL: You played an excellent set at Levitation Vancouver festival in 2015. Will you be seeking Raymundo Calderon, Yvonne Hernandez and Christof Certik to be touring again?

Joel Gion: Absolutely! We kind of morphed into the lineup we had at Levitation Vancouver because some of the BJM guys became more available and got integrated in but I still have some of those primary colours people in my band., it’ll be the same group the next time around that you had there. But we have to get a flute player! Flute, congas, it’s expanding… it’s kind of blowing up.

DL: You have a few friends and bandmates in cowboy bands, are you a fan of spaghetti westerns and cowboy music music in general?

Joel Gion: Well, my favourite composer of all time is Ennio Morricone. I have a huge music collection and I have an entire shelf that’s just movies where Morricone scores the soundtrack. A lot of the movies aren’t that good but the scores are great. Primarily from the mid ‘60s to the late ‘70s is kind of the zone but yeah, spaghetti westerns and Morricone, I certainly do love that stuff.

On my new album there will be a little bit of that style well, more of his psych-lounge mode, not so much western. There will be a tiny hint of western on there but nothing like your Spindrift or Federale.

BJM @ Desert Daze 2016. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: What was your experience like at this year’s Desert Daze Festival? What did you think of the oil projections with the BJM set?

Joel Gion: I think it’s a great festival. We go to psych fest usually, either to play or just hang out in Austin. This had a very similar vibe but it was scaled down. But you know….. the whole place was built by Frank Lloyd Wright so that in of itself made it amazing for me. It was a really neat vibe, it was really similar to your Austin Psych Fest/Levitation kind of vibe. We had a great time. I couldn’t really see the light show. It was on me. [Laughs]. But I heard it was really good. I guess I saw some youtube clips, yeah. Somebody threw a bottle or a shoe or something. We were playing and I saw it rocketing straight for my head and I got out of the way just in time. There’s video if it on youtube… but yeah… enthusiastic crowd!

DL: Speaking about BJM history, your first involvement on a BJM recording was with Take it From the Man , which was the first record to go revisit ‘60s garage guitar instead of the louder shoe-gaze style present on Spacegirl and Methodrone. Given the recent resurgence in ‘60s music, do you feel that that record helped revive that style back in 1996?

Joel Gion: Yeah, I would have to and Matt Hollywood or Dean Taylor, Brian Glaze and anyone else who was around at the time would say the same thing. I certainly didn’t introduce that kind of music to Anton in any kind of way but when I came around I was a huge cheerleader for embracing that and turning people onto bands like the Small Faces and really pushing to embrace the Rolling Stones – Brian Jones kind of imagery.

I guess that you could say it all naturally happened at once, at least I better say that, but I was definitely pushing for things to go in that direction. I fell into a period where I basically fell off the face of the earth for a couple of months and when I came back Anton had At Her Satanic Majesty’s Second Request finished and he had just taken it to such a whole other level at that point. I was completely blown away by that record; it’s still my favourite; it’s a complete psychedelic piece. Also, I hadn’t heard any of it. When you are making albums, you hear tracks over and over again to the point where they lose some of their sparkle but I hadn’t heard any of it. Also, because of that, it might be my favourite album by the band. I was just blown away when Anton played me that.

DL: Do you recall the first time you heard or saw “Anemone” performed?

Joel Gion: Unfortunately, because of the same reason, I wasn’t around. Mara Keagle, who sings that song, joined the band right after I left on keyboard and played some tambourine and filled that part. I never got to play with the band when she was doing it. When I rejoined the band, that song wasn’t played for quite some time. It wasn’t really the standard and crowd favourite that it has become. I don’t even remember playing it until I rejoined the band after Dig! came out.

Mara Keagle w/ the BJM @ Desert Daze 2016. Photo: David Lacroix.

DL: 2017 marks half a century since the summer of love. What are your thoughts on music 50 years after 1967?

Joel Gion: Well, I dunno man, I don’t listen to a lot of new bands these days. Most of the music I listen to comes from the ‘60s and ‘70s, I think for a lot of people that is the case. There’s a huge vinyl resurgence going right now but its primary old vinyl. I like new music but for me, I dunno… I like the old stuff so I guess it is the summer of love for me; I guess the summer of love never ended.

Photos: Bev Davies, David Lacroix. Artwork: Marie Ingouf. Interview: David Lacroix.

BJM @ Austin Psych Fest 2014. Photo: David Lacroix.

A Love That's Sound speaks with Joel Gion of the BJM about his forthcoming 2017 record. Joel Gion, best known for his work with the Brian Jonestown Massacre, is setting up to release his sophomore solo record later this year.

#2017 #apple bonkers #Joel Gion #Psychedelic Music #take it from the man #The Brian Jonestown Massacre

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