this is just my own little headcanon, but i feel like mack's role in iswm: part 2 was to represent the paradox trying to resolve itself. because he was obviously there to replace mark, the creator of the paradox. so maybe the paradox pulled in a replacement that it deemed more 'competent'; someone who wouldn't create the paradox in the first place. someone like mack.
the downfall of that attempted solution was that the captain still existed, was aware of the fact that this wasn't their universe, and capable of either erasing mack from existance or allowing him to glitch his way into the worst possible universe (that was something i actually missed on my first playthrough; mack doesn't start out wanting to kill the captain. at first, he's just a control freak. but everytime the universe glitches, he becomes worse. i feel like that almost represents the paradox realizing he's not different enough from mark to resolve it, so instead the paradox starts pulling him in all possible directions to try and resolve itself. it's the paradox desperately looking for a way to fix mark's role in the universe, resulting in it thoroughly fucking up the role of his replacement).
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HUMMINGBIRD; an iswm fic
Mark lives and dies infinitely in the twitch of a hummingbird’s wing.
(In which the Captain sees one thousand iterations of their Head Engineer, but he only ever sees of them… including the one life they never talk about.)
(Or, the Head Engineer isn’t the Actor, but his Captain sure is the District Attorney.)
chapters: 1/1 (2.5k words), oneshot character study !! ^_^
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“Captains Call”
Summary: My take on the “Hold On” ending of ISWM. Also the Captain can speak, but is very quiet.
Warnings: General sadness, spoilers for ISWM, angst, not proofread
Words: 517
This is also completely platonic.
The Captain sat down in front of the warp core, head in their hands, sighing a mix of despair and relief. Mark was behind them, so they thought.
He sat down next to the Captain, who didn’t move a muscle. For once, it was like they didn’t know what to do. Like they were lost. Through all of this it was shots of adrenaline, one after another disaster, dying all those times and never having the luxury of so much as a break. They’ve died, they’ve killed, and for what? For a dead starship in a sea of dying stars?
“I… I built the warp core.? It was me?” Mark finally broke the silence. The deafening, horrible silence, though this was hardly better. “..It was me.?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” The Captain spoke. Mark wasn’t quite sure he’d ever heard them utter more then a couple words once every blue moon or so.
Mark looked up at them, who was idly staring at the ground, their eyes glazed over with a look of exhaustion. Mark expected anger, rage. Maybe the Captain expected it too, but there was nothing. If anything, there was sympathy.
Mark closed his eyes, looking down. “Captain.. Captain I’m tired.” He said that as if it wasn’t already completely obvious. The bags under his eyes and the look of weariness. He had died far more then the Captain had, and you could tell by how he carried himself, how he talked, everything.
The worst part is that he didn’t die quick by a gunshot or head trauma like the Captain, if he was really here for as long as he claimed, it would have been dehydration that took his life. No doubt one of the slowest and most painful ways to go.
The Captain felt horrible. This was their crew. Their head engineer. They were meant to keep things this this from happening, it was their job to make sure nothing went wrong and yet… everything seemed so, so horribly awful.
“I don’t think I’ve slept, I don’t think I’ve slept at all..” He turned to face the Captain, this was the first time they made eye contact since Mark was begging them to let him go while the Captain looked him in the eyes while they destroyed what he spent an eternity in hell making, which already felt like an eternity ago. “Have… Have you..?”
The Captain shook their head and choked out what was meant to be a laugh, but sounded more like a choked sob and smiled a sickly sweet smile that was meant to be comforting. “No, no I don’t think I have.”
Mark nodded, looking back down at his feet with a a combination of regret, shame and agony painted on his face.
“Like I said—“ The Captain stood up, offering their hand to him to help him up. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over, we can go back to our ship and finally land on that planet with our colony. We can have what we wanted. Finally. Deal?”
Mark looked up at them, took their hand and nodded. “Deal.”
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hello i am new to posting in the plier universe tumblr world so here are some doodles… if anyone has a good damien/dark playlist please give it to me ☺️ (these designs are a little divergent just bc thats how they look in my head + these were kinda rushed so i forgot some stuff sorry)
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