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fishpuncher · 3 years

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Reviewing Resident Evil games I’ve played for fun

I bought the Resident Evil 2 remake in April of last year and since then I’ve become a fan of the franchise, so I figured I’d do a little review of all the RE games I’ve played listed in sort of release order (remakes taking place of originals)

Resident Evil 1 Remake (2003)

The third RE game I played after the 2 remake and 7, so my introduction to the older games/originals. Honestly a lot of fun, it took me a while to get used to the fixed cameras and the controls (I used the updated alternate controls, not tank) and I never really mastered it but the game is super good. Great puzzles, great atmosphere, and it still looks pretty great 18 years later. The story is also good and isn’t particularly convoluted like some of the later games get lmao

Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019)

The first RE game I played, and what got me hooked on the franchise. I never played the original so I have nothing to compare it to, but this game is almost perfect imo. The puzzles are good, the environments are amazing, and the characters are likable. Mr. X is terrifying (at least in my first playthrough, he’s a lot less scary in subsequent playthroughs) and his chase music is phenomenal. Overall I can’t recommend this game enough.

Resident Evil 3 Remake (2020)

Pretty much everything I said about 2 is applicable to this one as well. Jill and Carlos are great characters and I only wish we got more of them. I know people say that the remake is way shorter and cut-down than the original, but I haven’t played it so I don’t have that frame of reference. As a standalone game, it’s extremely good and the final boss fight is extremely badass.

Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X (2000)

My introduction to tank controls. The game is extremely good, and I’m enjoying it immensely. It can be quite punishing if you forget certain items or don’t conserve your ammo, as I’ve read about players getting to the final boss and having to restart the game because they didn’t bring an item that the game doesn’t even tell you to bring. Luckily I’m an item hoarder in these games, as I’d already grabbed the item before I couldn’t go back for it. The puzzles are good as always, if not confusing as I’m forgetful and have to look up where new items go as I don’t want to spend an hour searching every wall in the game. My main complaint is the sniper battle halfway through the game, as the hitbox for it just seems random more than anything. I love that we get more of Chris too. His casual “Hey” after being thrown by an explosion just kills me. Steve is whiny though and kind of the worst.

Resident Evil 0 (2002)

Pretty okay game, but one that I can’t really recommend. The partner system was pretty good, and made for some amazing puzzles/gameplay at times (getting split up at the beginning and then getting split up in a castle-ish area later). I thought both of those were great uses of the partner switching and more than justify it. However, the reason I can’t recommend this game is almost entirely due to the way you’re supposed to handle items. I play the RE games like a hoarder, every single item goes in the chest. Except this game doesn’t have a chest. You have two inventories with only six or eight (I don’t remember) slots each, and no item boxes. Instead, you can drop items on the ground and pick them up again later. For a hoarder like me, that means a whole lot of backtracking when you advance to the next area. Another annoying thing was the final two boss fights, as they were confusing for my simple brain since one of them is legit just shooting them until they die, but there’s never any indication that you’re affecting it, so I’m running around the room looking for something else that will kill him. In the final fight, it’s the same thing, except the game makes a point of showing you certain parts of the room that are obviously interactable, so I immediately run to those. Only those aren’t used until the second phase of the fight. I like Rebecca and Billy though, and hope that they’ll return at some point.

Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Very fun game, the over the shoulder is a welcome respite from the fixed cameras of 1 and 0, even if it is still tank controls. Leon is very quippy and I’m not a huge fan of his constantly hitting on the woman on the radio, but he’s an entertaining protagonist for sure. Escorting Ashley through most of the game isn’t that bad, as you can have her hide sometimes, or she’s pretty decent at taking care of herself (though I definitely accidentally killed her a few times oops). I thought Ashley was like 15 for the entire game so her asking Leon if he wanted to fuck at the end of the game absolutely floored me (though I’m still not a fan of that unnecessary comment honestly). My main complaint is that I was playing the Steam version at 60fps, but QTEs just do not work at that framerate, so I had to lower it to 30fps just to get through certain parts of the game (I did that minecart section like five times). Overall a great game, though I wouldn’t say it’s the best in the series, as many do.

Resident Evil 5 (2009)

People say this one is bad, but it’s such a blast playing co-op with a friend. I didn’t have to deal with the AI partner, so I can’t talk about that, but this is such a good co-op game. Getting to a spot where you both need to interact with it and mashing the button so Chris yells “SHEVA SHEVA HURRY COME ON HURRY SHEVA” over and over is always funny and always annoying when you’re on the receiving end. I still don’t really get the story and how Umbrella and BSAA are related or anything, but the gameplay is super fun, I highly recommend this one if you’ve got someone to play with. Although, we did have to install some files in order to play online co-op, but it’s a pretty simple process.

Resident Evil: Revelations (2012)

This one is rough, as I got halfway through it before I got bored and quit. The game introduces Raymond as a bad guy pointing his gun at you, then there’s a flashback and his backstory is “guy silently standing in corner of room.” Back in present day, five minutes after being introduced as a bad guy, he’s helping you out. Jessica isn’t that bad but her character design is incredibly awful. The first minor thing is when she’s on a mission with Chris in snowy mountains and she’s wearing pounds of makeup. Then later they have her in a wetsuit but some hair is outside of it??? I guess so you know she’s a sexy woman. Plus her wetsuit is literally missing a leg. It leaves her left leg completely bare. The dialogue regarding her is sexist too. Overall, the gameplay is very meh and the plot is kind of dumb, even for RE.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)

My second RE game to play, but probably the first one I watched. This game is amazing and I highly recommend it. The first person makes the setting much scarier, and it lets you relate to Ethan and immerse yourself more. I like that Ethan is just Some Guy with no training, he just walks his way through this whole mess like a champ. The boss fights are great and the characters are so memorable. Not to mention the DLCs for the game are wonderful: playing a fucked up version of 21 and then fighting goop monsters hand to hand are seriously fun.

Resident Evil Village (2021)

The most recent RE game and quite possibly the best. Village combines the first person perspective of 7 and the inventory system of 4, making an incredible game. The four lords all have such different environments and it makes for such good variety. My favorite one was the Silent Hill-esque house with the dolls, as scary as it was. The Duke is a fun character and I love that he’s part of the story. Chris’s section at the end turns the game into Call of Duty but it’s a fun massacre through the village, easily destroying enemies that have troubled you all game. Overall one of my favorite RE games.

#resident evil #re1 remake #re2 remake #re3 remake #re code veronica #re4 #re0 #re5 #re revelations #re7 #re village #RE8

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i-will-physically-fight-you · 4 years

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A Singular Cog in The Machine Chapter 2

Chapter Title: Circuits and Wires

Summary: "It was pure logic when it came down to it. Why allow harm befall the others if Logan could stop it? Surely, it was much more beneficial for only one to be harmed than for all to undergo excruciating pain and misery. A broken cog is more easily replaced than if the whole machine fell apart."

Logan adheres to the belief that needs of the many far outweigh the needs of the one, the latter being himself. Or in other words, Logan tries to sacrifice himself for the sake of the others. Fortunately for Logan, they won’t let him get away with that.

Chapter Word-Count: 2k

Pairings: platonic lamp

Warnings: Whump, Referenced Torture, Panic Attack, PTSD, Zalgo Text (If you need a version without it let me know!), Nightmare, Blood Mention, Injuries, Strangling, Partial Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending

Prompt For Chapters 2 & 3: Anon asked “When one character doesn’t realize they’ve been accepted into the family/think of themselves as outsides, until they get hurt and everyone takes shifts watching over them and taking care of them. : Logan or Virgil?”

Chapter 1 | Present | Chapter 3 AO3 LINK

Hey remember when seven months ago I said this would be only be two parts? Well I lied, it’s now three parts. Good news, I’ve already written the next part so you don’t have to wait another seven months for that one :’)

ERROR. Systems crashed. Restart?

Restarting...Restarting...Restarting

W̨̧̻̱͓͐̃̿͂͡Ą͇̦̳̓̂̊͠R̢͎͕͕͙̃̄͘̕͝Ṇ̨͎̮͑̌͘͘Ḭ̲̩̂̂͠N͓̬̺͌̾͐G̛̗̲͚̈́͒͗ͅ ͢͠S͈͓͒̃͜͠Y͈̓Ş͘T͕̖̀̑Ȇ̥M̟̳͐̀ ̀͜f͍̓ä̲́͢͞Í̮L̤̊URe̢̕

--ton! We’re losing him!

Not….get him stabilized...

What

Is That?

Logan!

Can you…

hear me?

Activating Protocol L1G8N. All programs unnecessary maintaining system stability have been shut off. Sequencing….Sequencing complete. Running diagnosis check. System is running at 40% its usual capacity. Initiating hibernation mode to ensure updates and system repairs can be achieved. Initiation Complete.

…..

….

…

“A cheetah can run up to seventy miles per hour. They are the fastest land animal on the planet Earth. However, this speed can only be maintained for a few seconds. For our cheetah mother, a few seconds is not enough to catch up to her prey. With defeat, she must stop and conserve her energy for a better opportunity to secure a meal for herself and her cubs. If not…”

A voice. Measured and methodical, soothing to the ears. He could not discern where it was coming from. It seemed familiar, something he could recall hearing previously. Yet that memory laid restricted in his memory-banks. He couldn’t access any memories, in fact.

Who was he? Where was he? He tried doing a visual scan of his surroundings but his bio-optics were down. No sight, just a voice within darkness. A tactile scan also failed, this time with a thousand red flashing warnings and pain. Crippling, debilitating pain. Like his hard-drive overheating, whirring with exertion but so much worse.

A different sound joined the voice in the darkness. A croaking, choking cry that belonged to a wounded animal. Not him, certainly not him.

“Logan?” Someone asks, speaking over the voice droning on about savannah wildlife. They grasp his hand and his whole system freezes. Expecting an attack, breach on his firewall and entire code. They simply hold his hand, in a firm, comforting clasp.

“Hey, it’s alright, Brainiac. You’re here now. You’re safe. You’re never going back there, alright? Never.” The person said, running their thumb over his knuckles. He didn’t know what those words were referring to. He didn’t know who the person was--although they felt as familiar as the first voice. Perhaps even more so.

However, he found it alleviated many of the warnings flooding his systems. The voice ensured security, protection against viruses and hackers. His own anti-virus program perhaps.

He could not hold awareness for long. His systems drifted back into hibernation, into a murky nothingness.

….

…

Running. He was running, lungs pushing for air and legs pulling forward faster than he’d ever gone. Sweat dripped down his brow, the biological coolant to prevent overheating. Like a cheetah, he couldn’t maintain this speed for long. He just hoped it was enough—

‘The probability of achieving success is 0.03%.’

In a very illogical move, he kept running. He supposed it could be blamed for the biological blood in his veins, to quote an idiom. Even if so, he was an android with a biological mainframe. The body he inhabited was not a part of his code. To claim such a thing would be comparable to referring to an automotive vehicle you drive was a part of your composition makeup.

“There you are!”

His thoughts and body slammed to a halt. A thousand eyes glinted with amusement. Tendrils sprayed all around him, cutting off any routes of escape. A smile full of teeth that was anything but friendly.

“Fascinating,” They crooned, a tendril gripping his chin, “You should be temporarily paralyzed right now, unable to move a single muscle.

“Yet here you’ve run fifteen-hundred yards and stand of your own free will. How did you do it? I must know.”

It was then his heart metaphorically sunk. Because he’d never been close to escaping. It’d been all part of an experiment and like a witless lab rat, he fell for it.

Logan didn’t respond, eyebrows narrowed in a gesture that might be seen as defiant.

The amusement drained from their eyes. “Tell me.” They demanded, the tendril wrapping around his neck, tightening. “Tell me or I’ll hunt down your friends, one-by-one.”

No. He couldn’t allow that to happen. Logan tried opening his mouth but all that came out was a gargled squeak. The tendril was choking him now, cutting off his airways. As android as he was, he panicked. He couldn’t breathe, he was going to die, he was going to die—

“Logan!”

He thrashed and flailed, trying to get the tendril off of him. But it wouldn’t budge. It held him down, pinning him in place. Like a butterfly on a collector’s board.

“Logan, please—”

He growled, baring his teeth in a very primitive gesture. Whatever intimidation he hoped to gain was lost as liquid seeped against his torso. With it, came a stinging sensation worse than the time Roman unwittingly led them into a rancor’s nest.

“Oh fuck, Patton? Roman?! Get in here, he’s reopened something!”

Hibernation Mode Initiated.

What? No, he couldn’t go into hibernation. Not in the face of present danger.

“Override—” He croaked but it was too late, the damage had been dealt. The melatonin kicked in as the clamor above him grew louder.

…

Scanning systems. Diagnosis complete. Biological tissues are 54% recovered. Estimated full recovery in one-thousand four-hundred sixty gala hours. ERRORrrrr memory files are corrupted. Restore? Warning! Unable to restore due to Protocol L1G8N. Restoring memory files could lead to instability within the systems.

OVERRIDE ALPHA-NINER-NINER

Protocol L1G8N disengaged. Restoring memory files…restoration complete. Cycles 1-10803 restored. Alert! Cycles 10741-10800 are unstable.

A̛̦̞͖̩̤̣͖̭͈̪̯̞̩̱͖͙̩̟͉͌́̎̃̎̈̍͒̾̽̾́͐̐̓̾͘͢͜͝͡͞ ̨̬͔̺̬͌̔̀̀̃͜͝L̛͖̲̾ ̨̯̼̺̺͑̓̈̊͝Ę̧̡̨̛̩̱͓͉̗̱͇̯͓̪̰̠̠̼͍͓̩̼̻̜̬̜̺͚̟̪̗̜̦̱̬͇̰̖͖̫̆̈͒͂̔̋͛̉͛̈̏̃͆̆̇̅̌̉̀̐̓͂̑̈́̂̄͌͛̇͐̈́͂́͌͋̄̈͑͗͘͜͢͢͝͞ ̡͈̗̹͍̞͚̝͕̜̟͉̹̺̞̱̤̰̋͂̉̀͐̒̓̔͌͗̈̍̎̏̑̚͟͝͝͝Ṙ̨̡͎̤͕̲̞̬̲̯͙̙͙̫̖̺̠̫̲̬͚̩̯̝͋͒͋͑̋̅̐͗̂̍̐̑̽͛́̏̆̅͒͌͋̀̕̚͟͟͝͡ͅ ̧̢̧̢̢͇̲̥̻̝̹̟̱̗͇̦̟͎̥̤̲̭̤̤̟̫̩̱̘͍̥̼̰͎̍̏͐̑̑̎͑̾̃͆̀̌̈̈́̂́̃̓̈͊͌͛̉̀͐̋̎̄͆͑̚̚͘͟͠͠͞ͅT̨̨͇̞̳̞͕̭̪̝̜̼̬͖͓̩̗̩̲͔̦̜͖̭̞͚͎̰̹̦̰͙̣̞̠̥̪̔̑͋̂͂̓̌̐̾͒̓̋̏̔̄́̄͌́͂̈̿͐̎͛̀̄̀͊̋͑̕͘͘̕͝͞

The first thing he registered was the dull, minimal amounts of data his pain receptors were sending him. Most likely some sort of analgesics reducing the amount of prostaglandins his body would produce. Or in other words, rather than his AI shutting off the pain signals, it was the cause of a painkiller.

The second thing was the warmth radiating around him. Not from a blanket or the climate but from a warm-blooded body. Warmth could be a dangerous thing for him, both biologically and mechanically. Extreme amounts of it could kill him. This warmth was different. It was nowhere near the dangerous levels. If anything, the other person’s warmth seemed to keep him anchored.

His head rested against the nook of their shoulder, their arms wrapped around him in not a constraining but comforting hold. Objectively comforting, of course. His biological body needed tactile touch to survive. It responded out of its own vocation to it.

The third thing happened to be singing. Low and rumbly, sometimes off-key but not terribly too off-key. Some might argue it captured the song better than a classically-trained opera singer could ever hope to achieve.

“Takka toya taya

Yul se umting kaiting

Ritka forka eyis

Yul se Arden fayee.”

It wasn’t GCL (Galactic Common Language). It took him a moment to register the words and translate them. It was Titekan. He cracked his eyes open but it found it useless when he was squished against the person’s shirt.

“Patton?” He asked, his throat throbbing in protest. It took more effort than it should to just speak one word.

“Logan! You’re awake?” A question for a question was hardly an actual answer. Still, it was Patton no doubt. He managed to crane his head back to look up at the Titekan.

“I think that is a rather obvious observation.” He grumbled, ignoring the dry, scratchiness of his vocal chords.

Patton laughed. Logan could feel the vibration of it rattling the other’s chest. It sounded...different than his usual bursts of laughter. Logan did not understand why. “Roman! Virgil! Look who’s awake!”

What? Logan hadn’t been aware of the others’ presences. Impossible, he always knew their whereabouts. It helped when one could track heat signals and had a connection to the ship’s circuitry. Perhaps he misheard Patton?

THUMP.

Logan blinked, jostled by the sudden appearance of a mop of disheveled amber hair and curled horns. Ruby eyes shined up at him with unbridled glee.

“Logan! My most obdurate, appalling, loquacious fiend of a nerd!”

“Ahh, hello Roman.” Logan managed to say in response. Roman beamed, his reptile-like tail whipping back and forth much like a dog.

“Whoa, careful with that thing, you could take someone out with it.”

Virgil. Logan turned his head to see the human standing there with his arms crossed. His figure slightly slouched, his eyebags significantly darker than usual and a few more grey hairs than when Logan last saw him.

“You are all acting weird,” Logan said, never one for subtlety, “Is something wrong?”

Roman’s tail drooped, as did Patton’s ears. Virgil just looked away, his head turned enough to make his expression indiscernible.

“Lo, what’s the last thing you remember?” Patton asked, his voice soft and hesitant.

“I…” Logan stiffened, blood draining away from his face. Images flooded his central cortex, pulled from relevant memory files. Logan slipping out of the ship during the others’ sleep cycles. The thousand unblinking pale eyes. The images glitching, corrupted. The stabbing, burning, thrashing, drowning, strangling--the list went on and on. He retreated into his code. The simulations. So real, but never enough.

N̶̗̲̈́̆͊̿̓̕ ̶͍̻̲̉͌̈́̽̑͐͠E̵̠̰͑͊͑̌̔ͅ ̷̰̥̝̘̞̽́̇̌͑̚͝V̵͗̈́͊̚ͅ ̴̛͎̳̺̮͂͌Ę̸͙̫̂͂͌̽͝R̸͚̪̬̾̌ ̸̛̙̣͍̦̮͈̹̽̿͋̆͛͊Ȅ̷̜̮͙̚ͅÑ̴̦̙̭͘Ơ̶̧͖͎̟̽U̷̻̽̈̌̋Ģ̵̖̫͔͕̹̽͐͛̊̽Ḧ̸̲̹́̅́h̶͍̼͔͎̟̟͖̅͛͗h̸̻̘͔͕͖̦͍͒̈́͒̓̑̈́̾h̶̛̟͓̗͉͚̿̔

“LOGAN!”

He jolted, his heart beating wildly out of rhythm. Much like Virgil’s during a panic attack. That wasn’t right. He was a machine, his body no more than a method of transportation. No emotions, only logic.

He didn’t lash out in anger whenever the others were mistreated (a lie). He didn’t panic when the others’ lives were threatened (another lie). He didn’t love the others enough to sacrifice his continued survival for them (an even bigger lie than the other two combined).

“Logan, can you breath in for me?” A voice asked, gravelly and rough that it was so undeniably Virgil. He was confused. Virgil’s question indicated his breathing was not fine.

“Y-yyo--” He tried speaking, the syllables lost in shallow gasps of air. He jerked his head side-to-side, frustrated. His airflow was indeed erratic. The automatic breathing program was down, unresponsive to his pings. Unless the body was experiencing a heart attack or stroke of some kind, this shouldn’t be happening.

“Don’t try speaking, okay?” A hand brushed his bangs away from his face, “Just breathe in with me, alright?”

Logan nodded affirmatively, liquid starting to dribble down his cheeks. Obviously a malfunction with his tear ducts. An internal count-down started as he inhaled with Virgil.

One-thousand, two-thousand--his breath cut short, too shallow and spluttery. There was a sob, shattered and broken.

“Hey it’s okay. Let’s try again, alright?”

“You can do it, we believe in you.” Roman’s voice joined in. Patton didn’t say anything, but from the rumbling reverb of his chest, Logan knew he was there supporting him.

Logan wanted desperately to speak, to argue with them. Part of him wondered if this was another experiment. A test to see how he’d react to dying by asphyxiation. The others were simply fake, not real. They couldn’t be real--they’d promised--

“One...two...three...four.” The words broke through his internal processing. Logan knew them well. He’d spoken them to Virgil to help fight off panic attacks that snuck past his firewalls. Logan latched onto them akin to a shipwreck survivor holding onto driftwood in a raging ocean.

It was slow-going. Several times the waves knocked him back, almost drowning him. With each setback, came soft words buoying him forward. Eventually, his breathing stabilized, reaching the blissful metaphorical shore at last.

Logan’s eyes flickered between his three crewmates, surveying them carefully. There was so much he wanted to say. No, so much he needed to say.

For possibly the first time in his existence, he was completely bewildered. If this was one of their experiments, where was the macabre twist? And it couldn’t be a simulation. Logan was always aware inside a simulation. He crafted them himself, after all. That left one option...reality.

Yet, that too didn’t make logical sense. Logan was the ship navigator and engineer; an important cog in the machine but one easily replaced. For them to go through the hassle of retrieving him...it just did not compute.

He couldn’t express any of this confusion. His limbs became fraught with fatigue, his eyelids growing heavier by the second. He could not fight it for much longer.

“I think....I am falling unconscious.” He said, before doing just that.

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #lamp #kat writes

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freshlybakedspiderbread · 3 years

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I brought up hanyang type 88 here and i said i’d explain, so here I am!!

okay so first off here’s a bunch of likely useful context about girls frontline. There is this feature in the game called digimind upgrade, or mod 3, where certain t-dolls can be upgraded past the normal maximum levels and stats, and at the same time gaining whole new abilities and also a new design. Basically a reinvention. There are like hundreds of playable characters in the game, and only a fraction will get mod 3s, typically the ‘main characters’ who are relevant to the major ongoing plot.

two things about getting a doll who has the ability to do digimind upgrade, to actually do that. One, is that it can be very costly in terms of in-game materials. like, maybe i just played the game wrong but I would have to grind for weeks in order to amass the materials to upgrade just one doll to mod 3. So even though by now there are dozens upon dozens of dolls who are capable of this feature, i’ve only actually done so with like, less than one dozen. A normal player probably has to be picky.

secondly, and this is the big one, every t-doll’s mod 3 comes with story cutscenes that become available for you to view upon upgrading them. Personally, i think most of the only worthwhile mod 3 stories are the ones that are associated with the actual major characters of the main story, especially since their upgrades actually happen in-canon and their mod 3 stories fill in blanks or otherwise expand upon the regular story chapters.

for the t-dolls who aren’t major characters that get digimind upgrades, their associated stories tend to follow a very basic pattern. They’re feeling like they are falling behind other T-Dolls in abilities or are otherwise experiencing a drop in confidence in their abilities, but then find the resolve in them to either change themselves or stand by an aspect of themselves, and this leads them to heading to the lab to get upgraded. obviously theres some nuances here and there depending on the character, but a lot of them, from what i saw, follow this basic pattern.

hanyang type 88 has a mod 3 but i certainly never wanted to see it. Firstly, using the feature at all takes up resources are kinda precious so i wasn’t just gonna use it on anyone. Secondly, she is just one of many one-off t-dolls that basically dont ever show up in any actual main story cutscenes or even funny events. Thirdly... you saw what she looked like in the linked post, i was in no rush to make use of her.

That being said, even if you don’t ever upgrade a t-doll, simply having them in your possession allows you to at least view the first of four parts of their mod 3 story, which nets you a small amount of those materials needed to see the rest (its a pretty fiendish system, huh o_O). I was lacking in some materials to upgrade a doll i cared about, so i just mucked around, eventually happened upon type88 again and decided that instead of just immediately feeding her to the furnace, I’d watch the first chapter of her mod 3 story. I watched it, it made me just curious enough to look further, and well. ...I got into it. Exactly what I got into, i shall now just elaborate and summarise the whole thing in my own way! Warning, it’s long!

(disclosure: my summary will bias towards my own preferred interpretation whenever any aspect is somewhat vague.)

The story starts with type 88, or as she is called by others in griffin base, Ai, working her shift in the base’s cafe, because what else would she be doing.

i hate looking at her! Anyway, its just a pleasant peaceful day and Ai is taking the logistic person, kalina’s order when suddenly in the middle of a conversation, Ai freezes in place and starts making worrying sounds.

kalina here and the t-dolls present in the cafe are concerned, and talk about how Type88 has actually been crashing like this more and more frequently lately, yet has not reported any of this to the maintenance crew despite the advice of her friends. They try rebooting her on the spot, but it has an even more concerning effect, because she starts erratically acting like she doesn’t recognise the others, and talks about how she is a maid in “Jiangcheng Cafe”. Afraid that her neural cloud (her mind) has been scrambled, they put her to sleep and bring her to the repair bay.

Its in the repair bay where they explain exactly what is wrong with type88. She is a fairly old doll, and her processing capacity has been severally clogged up for a long time. Her internal memory is overflowing because many large sections of her mind is filled with very large encrypted files (memories that she stored away). she is likely to keep crashing and possibly even cease functioning entirely one day if those encrypted files are not deleted, but nobody is really keen on just deleting parts of her mind without her consent. For now, kalina just opts to try and decrypt the files and see what they are.

And from here, we watch type88 memories from her perspective. Sort of. Kind of. It gets complicated later but for now, we view the first memory of her life, not as a combat t-doll type88, but...

...as 59898, a doll designed to be what is basically a ‘crash test dummy’ for testing artillery technology in a research station. With a purpose like this, 59898 has an (ostensibly) rudimentary AI. Her learning ability is intended to be used to better aid the results of their testing, but she also knows how to understand and even imitate specific human gestures in order to better respond to instructions or conversation, even though she herself has no voice module to speak with. She is assigned to assist one specific person.

first off, i was pretty shocked right off the bat that this story above so many others actually has unique assets to it. The above two sprites don’t show up anywhere else in the game, i don’t think. Secondly, this woman’s name is only ever spelled with those white squares, so I’m stuck with having to just calling her ‘the pilot’, as dry as that sounds... I just don’t want to type out weird characters every time, or call her ‘triple cube’...

Anyway, so 59898 is assigned to help this woman in testing artillery tech (stuff like mechs and tanks). I should mention really quick that in the game’s story, during this point of time is when world war iii is happening, but that’s just a backdrop for robots to eventually gain more prominence. Anyway, we move on to the second memory, where some time has already passed. At the beginning of this memory, the pilot is visibly depressed, which 59898 takes note of.

Her ‘comfort mode’ consists of patting the pilot on the head, who while surprised, actually is grateful. She feels comfortable enough to talk about her worries aloud to the doll, mentioning how she is a war refugee and has to make a living in the research base because she can’t go back to her home in china, at least not before making enough money for a very expensive and exclusive train ticket. She continues to talk at length to the doll...

...not that the test doll is capable of responding to anything she says. The pilot insists that she’s happy just to have someone listen to her though, since she feels like she can’t really express her feelings to any other person on the base. Despite that-

That aside, the pilot says that referring to 59898 by her serial number all the time feels a bit weird, so she decides to give the doll a name. (I sure wish the story would give this woman a name too, other than ‘three white squares’ but oh well...)

She talks more with Jiangcheng Ai, or just Ai, after that, asking her if she’d like a change of clothes sometime, like some casual clothes, or an old maid outfit from an old cafe job she used to have (I guess they had to throw in any explanation for that outfit somehow) Point is, more and more time passes.

As time passes though, and we go into the third memory, the pilot brings up complaints to her superiors about how the more recent testings, becoming more increasingly intense and frequent, are putting a great strain on Ai, and even repairs can only help maintain her chassis so much. She insists on wanting to take Ai’s place in the testing, but they refuse because, well, Ai’s entire purpose is to take the strain of these tests so that the human pilot doesn’t have to, and the doll is just a tool there to pave the way for the pilot to eventually take over the mech in action

The next time Ai wakes up from her most recent repairs, the pilot is there to greet her, and Ai can tell straight away that she’s unhappy and tries to comfort her again. The pilot is not surprised at this and talks about how this is how Ai has been since they first met. She goes on to say how all the other people on the base don’t know her half as well as Ai does. Ai tries to understand and determine what the pilot’s intentions with saying all this is, but she cannot do so and can only listen while offering ‘executing - affirmative nod’.

The pilot talks about how once the war is over, she’d like to take Ai back home with her, where they could go to all sorts of gatherings, and the pilot would introduce Ai to her friends.

Ai reviews her personal data, confirming that she has no owners or obligations other than the pilot, so she executes another affirmative nod, and the pilot says this:

As Ai tries and fails to further determine this, something bad happens! if you’ve read this far, i’m sure you’ve already guess what happens next...

At that exact moment, a warning goes out and the research base is being attacked by nebulous enemy forces. With no time to talk anymore, both the pilot and Ai head out into their first real fight.

They spend a good long while repelling enemy forces, working well together and apparently using all sorts of wacky anime weaponry like beam blades and whatever ‘retrograde evasion’ is!

obviously though, you already know this isn’t going to end well for them... When the pilot takes a breather, Ai moves to protect her, but at a critical moment, a sudden high-speed projectile comes her way. In the next instance there’s a crash, and we move onto another memory. Where its all fire and debris, and Ai can’t move.

^ this text box actually repeats several times, indicating that she is repeating her scan for life signs over and over. She gets an internal warning from her systems (differentiated with red text) that she has insufficient power and it warns her to immediately cease ineffective operations. [Unable to detect owner life signs] repeats again.

At this point, uuuuh, its a little stupid actually? because two humans show up, reusing generic ‘bad guy’ sprites from other events that don’t match the current environment and situation at all (one is in a suit and the other is in casual clothes). but the reason they’re here is to provide exposition out loud about what happened. It looked like the human’s mech took a hit for the doll and was blown to bits, though they talk about how that doesn’t make any sense.

Ai at this point tries to execute a bunch of different actions like hugging [target not found] and screaming [no relevant module] but they all fail, and her internal systems tell her that her power is running out and she will cease to function in 30 seconds.

So in those last 30 seconds, Ai decides to quickly review her internal files. the damage she took has corrupted her memories and she doesn’t have the time to properly go through them, so she executes a ‘simulated processed records’, which basically mean she’s just filling the blanks of those memories herself with simulations.

And I have to say. I was decently into and enjoying this little story so far, but its this part that’s the reason i became forced to make this stupid giant post. the first ‘memory’ loads up, and we see the pilot.

Different ‘memories’ of the days spent with the pilot are loaded back to back, each are very short and only last a few lines. Across these files, the two of them talk comfortably with each other, Ai is invited to go get coffee with her, the pilot talks about how going alone is boring and would rather spend time with Ai, Ai saying back with her own words that she always likes spending time with her, etc etc etc.

And then finally, she loads one last ‘memory’, from earlier that same day, before the explosion and the fighting.

and she shuts down.

i passed by this scene the first time all calm, but an hour or so later when I was in the bathroom replacing shampoo bottles, i started thinking about it and I literally started sobbing. And then again later that night when i was in bed. I hate this game!!

so that’s the ‘end’ of that, and the next scene opens, once again in griffin base’s cafe, except...

Ai is sporting a brand new (ugly) look. She says she’d like to take kalina’s order but she was just leaving on other business, as she likes keeping herself busy with all sorts of work around the base ever since she got upgraded into a gundam gajinka. and after she leaves, kalina talks with the other dolls about how Ai used to have some cache issues because her neutral cloud was too full, but upgrading into this new chassis easily fixed that and even allowed her to make use of her old locked away abilities.

Because of the way this scene in the cafe opens up exactly like the very first one at the beginning, it makes me believe that this final scene is also a simulated ‘memory’, that is, Ai filling in the blanks of her corrupted memories with what she wishes to be reality. And i feel confident in believing that because after the scene fades to black, we see more of her internal system monologue.

She (the system) says that the priority execution is to preserve those encrypted memory logs. She does so, and the neural cloud upgrade is complete with confirmation of no loss files. With no risk of deletion in this new form, she executes the command to unlock the encrypted memories. And finally...

[spiderbread dies]

i still wouldn’t use her in gameplay because i can’t stand looking at her design but i told you all i eat up robot with feelings stuff and this is like prime example of exactly that... and if i didn’t make this post, i think my own neutral cloud’s cache would be at risk of overflowing x_X!

#spider bread crumbs #gfl

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salty-dracon · 4 years

Text

More YTTD Theories Because I Forgot A Bunch

A continuation of this from a couple of days ago.

More theories, spoilers go up to 3-1A, and also include YTTS spoilers. Also I appreciate all of your thoughts on the matter.

In the previous post I said there were a few reasons to be suspicious of Gin. I forgot to mention one important point:

Remember the locker room and the Discussion there, where Hayasaka and Gin got magnetized to the ceiling and almost hung? According to vgperson, you can win the discussion by letting time pass three times after Hayasaka is magnetized. But after the second turn, Gin gets magnetized as well. And one turn after that, the mechanism is shut down by Midori. He makes sure “those two” are still alive via the intercom, and once confirming that they are, says “oh goodie, we can still play some more!“ and fucks off. Basically, you’ll win no matter what, because Midori doesn’t want them to die.

Midori says he observes all of the floors in the painting room, but he doesn’t really give “instructions” once they arrive or anything similar. Depending on what he’s using to monitor the room, he more or less uses his abilities to mess with the participants and the dolls. Think about how he spooks Sara and crew by saying “I’m not a painting!” if you look at the painting of him, or how he lets the crew get their hopes up about the transceiver until he speaks through it. However, he says he observes all of the floors, meaning he knows what goes on in each one. And though he’s not about losing well (he wants to kill people with the gun if he’s in a bad position, after all), he seemed to be concerned enough about Hayasaka and Gin to try and save them.

Considering he didn’t try to save Hayasaka the moment he could, and seems to have some form of disdain for the dolls, I wonder if it’s Gin he was trying to save. That brings up the question of why someone like him would want to save Gin in the first place. Maybe he’s allied with Gin somehow, whether Gin knows it or not.

-------

(Danganronpa 1 and AI: The Somnium Files spoilers in the next paragraph)

One interesting prediction rule when it comes to murder mystery games is that the culprit is “someone who’s been mentioned several times, but who we’ve never actually met”. They almost pulled that twist in Danganronpa 1 with a certain missing student. They mentioned her by name, making us think she was the mastermind for a while, before revealing the truth. The other big example I can think of is AI: The Somnium Files, wherein the serial killer in question is mentioned by name more than once, but we don’t actually meet him, knowing it’s him, until near the end of the game and after we’ve unlocked most of the other routes.

Extrapolating this to Your Turn to Die, there is one character we haven’t met yet who’s been mentioned more than once- that being Sara’s mother. We see her at the beginning of the game, passed out presumably due to an attack by Sara’s kidnappers. She’s brought up again by Sara’s dad in a flashback before Chapter 2, and then again when Kai leaves a message for Sara on the laptop. The password to that file is her mother’s name. Furthermore, we know her rough appearance, as based on seeing her passed out in Chapter 1. And taking the events of YTTS as canon, we know that Sara, or someone that looks exactly like Sara, is somehow involved in Asunaro’s AI experiments. There’s also one interesting oddity about her. As far as I remember, she’s one of two characters to get a background sprite, but not a foreground sprite. Here I’m referring to “background sprites” as the sprites that appear inside environments without black outlines, and foreground sprites as the sprites with different expressions that usually appear when you talk to a character. Every other character, notably all of the Death Game participants, the Floor Masters, and now the Dummies thanks to Chapter 3, have both foreground sprites and background sprites. Some characters, like Sara’s father and the man that Keiji killed, have only foreground sprites. The only two exceptions, that is, the only two characters whose faces we haven’t seen in perfect detail, are Meister and Sara’s mother.

Furthermore, we don’t know what Sara’s mother’s name is. Granted, we don’t know what her father’s name is either, but her name is apparently important. What if her name was also Sara Chidouin? What if she was somehow also Sara- as in, the Sara we know is a clone of her created using a doll? It’s a mystery why she’d be raising a clone of herself, but people are weird like that, sometimes.

Another related theory people have had is that Sara’s mother is in fact a part of the game- she’s just disguised as someone else. That someone else could be Miley. Though in my opinion Miley looks nothing like the background sprite I’m using for reference, a good wig can change everything. This theory might have become even stronger with the release of Chapter 3. There are a couple of situations in which Midori can say something along the lines of “Miley said you were cute when you got angry” to Sara. Though we could just take it as Miley being an asshole (she’s totally an asshole), I think there’s only one situation in which Sara got mad in front of Miley, that being when Mishima was killed. Maybe this was lost in translation, but it’s a rather sweeping generalization and a somewhat weird thing to say about someone if you aren’t familiar with them. Meaning Miley’s really familiar with Sara. Or Miley was just being an asshole.

After looking up Sara’s mother on the wiki the manga only has a picture of her wearing a mask over her mouth. The plot thickens.

Regarding the other character, Meister... people have made a couple of interesting observations about him. First, he shows up in collaboration artwork. Second, there is a person who looks very similar (albeit with grey hair) in the room above where the monitors were in Chapter 2. His clothing color scheme is exactly the same. Also it’s a big ass painting. Third, with the release of Chapter 3, there’s the entertaining feature of naming Midori whatever you damn well please, unless he makes some joke about it and tells you to pick another name. Most of his responses to you picking something like “Alice Yabusame” and “Tia Safalin” are either “here’s a fun anecdote about that character and/or what I think of them, but I don’t want that name“ and “that’s mean :( pick another name please“. Elect to name him Meister, and he only says “... Pick another name, please”. Considering his personality can be accurately described as “Kokichi if he were Monokuma”, it’s out of character. He fears Meister, or doesn’t want to be associated with him. So yeah, Meister’s probably important. Maybe he’s even the Meister-mind. (Feel free to boo me for that bad pun.)

-------

Regarding the game’s endings, most people seem to believe there’s two- a logic ending an an emotion ending. I agree with this viewpoint, as “choosing logic“ has been explored a few times throughout the game. With the release of Part 3, the choice of which ending’s which has become a little more clear.

If Alice lives and Reko dies, Q-taro says something along the lines of “The Dummies may be dolls, but they’re human just like us”. Implying that we, the humans, are also supposed to think of dolls as human as there’s no difference appearance or personality wise. Q-taro talks about Doll Reko being almost perfectly human, as a supporting argument, in reference to Alice who was unable to tell the difference between the Doll Reko and the real Reko. Remember also that the only reason we pushed Reko down the Impression Room was our logical conclusion that she was a fake. On the other hand, if we choose not to, Sara comments that despite the logic, she can’t see the Reko standing before her as anything other than real, even though there’s lots of evidence to the contrary. In that ending, the real Reko dies. Furthermore, there’s a little bonus snippet in the “afterlife” scene after Nao’s death, where Reko shows up, but Alice doesn’t appear if she lives.

For this reason I strongly believe that the emotion ending is Alice/Kanna living. Therefore the logic ending is Reko/Sou living. I have yet to test out to see if there’s any changes in dialogue with those two combinations specifically, as most people online seem to be playing Alice/Sou and Reko/Kanna. I’m streaming this game for a couple of friends on Discord, and also all my midterms are over the next couple of weeks, so it’s hard to find the time to play this right now.

I also believe that we’ll soon be facing another path split- maybe at the very beginning of 3-1B- that has to do with logic and emotion. Whatever that consent form is, it scared the other participants- it’s definitely a bad thing. However, Sara now faces the choice between saving Keiji and consenting to Whatever Evil Thing’s Going On, and sacrificing Keiji to avoid it. Logic would be sacrificing Keiji, while emotion would be saving him, in this case. Perhaps that’s not true, as Midori is the kind of person who can and would pull a fast one on Sara for funsies. Perhaps there’s something in his language implying that Keiji’s going to end up dead no matter what. He does seem to want to antagonize Keiji, after all. That, or someone else is going to die instead- probably Q-taro, having just been stabbed by Mai and being in bad shape. Even so, I wonder which will be which- whose death would be considered “logical” and whose is based on “emotion”.

TL:DR So many mysteries with so many possible answers. I just want to see someone vibe check Midori like he vibe checked us already.

#your turn to die #kimi ga shine

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davetheshady · 5 years

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🌟 how about chapter 4 of waiting for the bus in the rain 🌟 and only partially because i showed up to yell about the last few paragraphs when it first dropped. also just because i love Julie content and it's the very middle of that fic

::blows dust off inbox:: So! Now that I’ve back from traveling through three countries and recovered from trying to leave most of my arm skin in one of them (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: don’t go so fast you flip over on the Alpine Slide, particularly if you’re in the actual Alps) here’s some DVD commentary on Chapter 4 of Waiting for the Bus in the Rain! It’s chock full of my stylistic hallmarks, i.e. way longer than I expected.

(Note to my sister: THIS IS FULL OF SPOILERS. GO READ MY STORY FIRST YOU LOSER)

There’s a Sheriff’s Secret Police officer outside Julie’s window. Considering she’s in her office on the second floor, this is fairly impressive. But when they scream and scrabble against the glass after accidentally kicking over their ladder for the third time, Julie’s had enough.

Even when they’re not under suspicion of using the scientific method, Julie has to deal with WAY more (attempted) surveillance than Carlos ever does. This is partially because she doesn’t have amazing hair, but also because Cecil doesn’t narrate large chunks of her life over the radio that the SSP can copy down and submit as a report.

vulnerabilities include fire and cold iron

and according to the literature high velocity cheese wedges but i’ve never seen anyone test that

My hand to God. Probably my number one complaint about fantasy as a genre is that everyone takes stuff from Celtic mythology so seriously when half of it is just. Completely bonkers.

Originally, most of the relevant exposition about fairies was provided by a different character entirely: Carlos-f’s misplaced smartphone, an AI who Julie called Hex (yes, like in Discworld, hell yeah science wizards) because she refused to give Julie her name. Hex provided such ringtones as “Dark Horse” and “Double Rainbow” and would occasionally get distracted by lists of numbers. Hmm…

I changed it back because 1) it was a detour and this chapter was long enough already, 2) Julie and Carlos’ friendship is one of the main throughlines and having them talk to each other was better for the story, and 3) him texting during the middle of a battle is hilarious. But as far as I’m concerned, Hex is still canon.

Andre yawns on the other end of the line and asks, “What time is it?”

“Quit whining, it’s only—” Julie looks at the clock.

Shit.

“—3:00 AM,” she finishes defiantly, because she still has her pride. Embarrassment pricks at her like flying embers settling on bare skin, because now Andre knows she was so out of it she didn’t even bother to try keeping track of the time, and he’s going to think she couldn’t sleep because of feelings, which is both correct and incorrect, because she wasn’t even trying to sleep since distracting herself by going over the minutiae of their data while the Sheriff’s Secret Police scream and fall in the bushes is better than listening to her cats prowl around while lying in her quiet apartment by herself, and any moment now he’s going to feel bad and decide to humor her and answer her in a voice filled with cloying pity and say—

“Would Hiram McDaniels count as one respondent, or five?” He yawns again.

A good chunk of Julie’s inner turmoil just, like, boils down to a recurring loop of that Tim Kreider quote about “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” She doesn’t consciously WANT the rewards of being loved, it just kind of… happens… and then she’s stuck with incredibly loyal life-long friends… and now she not only has to deal with her own feelings but theirs too, which is pretty much her worst nightmare…

Fortunately, since she’s already gone through the mortifying ordeal of being known, they do frequently pull through and offer the kind of support she knows how to accept.

“Give TV’s Frank a kiss for me.”

“I’m not kissing my cat for you,” says Julie.

I mean, she’ll kiss the cat. Just not on request.

And yes, all her cats are named after the Mad Scientists’ sidekicks on Mystery Science Theater 3000. ~foreshadowing~

When she opens the door of her workshop later that morning, she finds that someone has been by to leave her a breakfast tray. Well, “tray”, in that it’s a textbook, and “breakfast”, in that it’s a French press, a stale churro, and her blood pressure medication. But the French press is completely full with still-warm coffee, so overall she’s going to count this as a win.

This appeared pretty early in my drafts: it’s just such a funny mental image to me and also encapsulates Julie and Gary’s relationship pretty well, i.e. a string of question marks who somehow get along.

The naturally suspicious part of her wonders if he deliberately provoked her reaction to the flamingo to gather more information about it. The naturally analytical part of her points out that Carlos is more likely to gnaw off his own hand than put someone in danger, especially when he could just put himself in danger instead.

Julie is just a tad cynical, so she’d definitely think of potentially negative interpretations of her friend’s actions. But it’s not actually a possibility she dwells on in any real sense, and every time she interacts with Carlos-f (not to mention Carlos-0) she trusts him implicitly. She wouldn’t admit it in a thousand years, but she considers Carlos one of the few genuinely good people in the world: not because he never makes mistakes or creates personal disasters, but exactly because of those things. She knows he’s a flawed person, and that everyone is flawed, so that makes him genuine – which means every time he’s tried to do the right thing at personal cost, over and over, that was genuine too.

Basically, there’s a reason why in the last chapter she automatically references “scientist means hero” with “Fuck, I’m turning into you!”

“So,” she says. “Nilanjana. Do you need new pronouns, or anything?”

“Does anyone need any pronouns?” asks Gary contemplatively, which Julie takes as a ‘No’.

“Should I drop ‘Gary’ entirely? Do you want me to change your name in our paperwork?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “I don't know, man,” he concludes. “I don’t really believe in labels.”

Gary has galaxy-brained from “gender is a social construct” straight to “identity is a social construct” and beyond.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asks Julie.

“I think so, Dr. K,” says Gary. “But how will we get three pink flamingos into one pair of capri pants?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xrnIXQ3iQ

What happens when the wave function ψ is the same as the physical system it describes, and what happens when that physical system collapses?

i.e. what would happen if common misperceptions of the Observer Effect were actually the correct perceptions?

Julie can’t help it: she snorts. “Passionate? Me?”“Well, yeah,” says Romero. “You really care about the things that interest you. You get really involved and angry and never quit or back down.”“Oh,” says Julie, then blurts, “You like that I’m angry?”“I… don’t like it when you’re unhappy?” says Romero. “But – it’s part of you, so… yeah, I guess I do, because it’s how you are. Why? Is – is everything okay?”She’s spent a lifetime having people tell her to stop being angry. No one’s ever told her she’s fine the way she is.

There have been many, many, MANY thinkpieces about how women are socialized not to express anger, often even to themselves. That was never going to work for Julie, who after all is powered by constant low-level rage, but that just means she had to deal with the backlash from not adhering to social programming instead (on top of additional backlash from being a woman in a male-dominated field). Of his own free will, Romero not only rejects that social programming, but also clearly spent time thinking about her empirically to determine that her anger is a positive force instead of a random and horrible personality trait.

He’s a Good Dude.

When she was in elementary school, her third grade teacher had been fond of saying, “If you’re bored, it means you have no imagination,” at least until Julie had decided to deal with her boredom after finishing her science assignment, her homework, and the rest of the textbook by seeing what happened if you jammed a paperclip into the electric socket. (The answer was certainly not boring and, in fact, probably the most exciting and practical thing they learned that year.)

That used to be my aunt’s favorite saying. I personally did not copy Julie’s response, but it is based on research done by one of my friends. (It’s okay, he was very careful about safety and made sure to use rubber-handled scissors to poke random bits of metal into the outlet. Apart from a classmate’s socks catching on fire, everyone was totally fine.)

She wakes to the sound of Cecil talking about the other week’s marathon, which may or may not have been mandatory, whoops. Carlos has texted her an emoji of various hadrosaurids gathered around a campfire singing “We Are the Champions”.

PREVIOUSLY IN NIGHT VALE:

EXT. - THE LABS

Thousands of citizens stream down Main Street, driven relentlessly forward to the Narrow Place. The Harbingers of the Distant Prince hurl themselves towards the building again and again, only to be rebuffed by the wards. Charred corpses lay scattered around the perimeter. Green storm clouds gather overhead as their anger grows.

INT. - LAB ONE

ANDRE

Did you hear something?

JULIE

[not looking up from her welding]

No.

Carlos, meanwhile, has NO idea his emojis are not in fact standard.

“I liked him,” says Josie. [...] “He was trying to do… something, I forget what. I hope he figured it out.” At Julie’s incredulity, she says, “Some people, they’re rough around the edges, but they try. They hope for something better and keep going. That’s important.”

“What if you go where you’re not supposed to?”

“Then you come back and fix what you can,” says Josie.

“What if you can’t?”

“Then you find someone to help you,” Josie replies. “Oh! I love this song.”

She turns up the volume of the radio and treats everyone to the aria from Shastakovich’s Paint Your Wagon.

Vocals by L. Marvin

Angels chilling at your house are, of course, part of the standard retirement package for former Knights of the Church. Old Woman Josie used to carry Esperacchius and passed it on to the Egyptian, after which it went to Sanya. She and Shiro were buds and saw Elvis in Vegas (and also, interestingly, several times in the Ralphs).

Anyway, if you want to suggest that a character is subconsciously mulling over an issue, I recommend having them ask some leading questions without describing their reactions and then change the subject.

“It’s come to my attention,” she begins, then has to stop and clear her throat again. “It’s come to my attention that we have a pretty good thing going on. So I was just wondering if you’d like to keep doing this, you know. For the indefinite future. With me.”When he doesn’t say anything, or look at her, or move at all for that matter, she removes her hand from under her thigh where she’s been sitting on it and points at the lease. “I highlighted where you have to sign,” she says, somewhat unnecessarily. “If you wanted to.”

I think this is the only time we see Julie nervous about anything when her life is not actively in danger.

You can’t write a romance arc without including some degree of emotional vulnerability – it just wouldn’t be satisfying. On the other hand, how that emotional vulnerability manifests is REALLY dependent on the person, and if you don’t base it firmly in their character it wouldn’t be satisfying, either. (I’m REALLY picky about romances in part because of this.) Julie’s not the type to pine or swoon or be filled with self-doubt*, but she is bad at feelings, and unfortunately, she’s determined that an equitable relationship with Romero requires some kind of tangible, committed expression of them. So she does that as best she can. It’s not actively harmful to her, but it does require a stretch out of her comfort zone.

* ::cough::Carlos::cough::

Yes, Julie has technically registered their equipment with City Hall, in that they’re listed as alternatively “electronic abaci” and “databases” and she’s claimed they only use the internet for checking email. Until now, they’ve coasted on general good will towards Carlos/his hair and the fact that all authority figures have been functionally electronically illiterate since the Incident in the community college’s Computer and Fire Sciences building.

Look, I could have SWORN there was an Incident at the Computer and Fire Sciences building specifically mentioned in canon. Can I find it anywhere? No. Did I listen to an episode that was subsequently erased from history? Possibly.

This time, someone picks up. There are a few seconds of sleepy fumbling, followed by “Hello?” in more vocal fry than voice.“Cecil!” she says. “Is Carlos there?”“Are you in fear for your life from the long arm of the law?” Cecil mumbles.

her current ringtone

“Julie, I said hold on!”“I am holding on,” she snarls as the rumbling stops. “It’s a diagnostic. 75% efficiency? Am I the only one who cares about proper maintenance in this town?”

This combines two of my favorite things: people focusing on hilariously inconsequential details during a stressful situation, and Julie lowkey engaging in supervillainy. Nikola Tesla did not design earthquake machines so Night Vale could install shitty ones they can barely use. STANDARDS.

“I probably wouldn’t have destroyed Weeping Miner,” she says eventually.

“I know,” says Carlos.

“I could have, though,” she says.

“I know that too,” says Carlos.

[...] Carlos shifts. She looks over; he briefly catches her eye and says, “So could I.”It’s not the same. Carlos would probably feel bad about it, for one. But she feels some of her anger dissipate anyway. At least she’s not the only one dealing with this bullshit.

Subconscious concern --> conscious concern! Getting back to Julie’s cynicism: she doesn’t think there are very many good people in the world, and that excludes her too. Sure, she’s risked her life to save others, fight baddies, and make sure the dangerous technology she’s developed doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, but she knows she has selfish reasons to do them, like protecting her friends and making sure the town/world isn’t destroyed so she can keep doing her research.

But at the same time, the fact that she has been dwelling on the ethics of her situation ever since Chapter 19 of Love is All You Need, that she is genuinely bothered that she’d consider destroying a neighborhood, and that she’s talking about this with Carlos, who considers them to have a similar dilemma, suggests that deep down she is dissatisfied by her cynical model of the world because the data isn’t quite matching up. Which, of course, means she needs more data in the form of Chapters 6 and 7.

On one side is a large picture of Carrie Fisher giving everyone the finger

I think Space Mom is mandatory at protests now.

This whole section (especially the rain) was heavily influenced by the March for Science, which both Ginipig and I went to in 2017. You too can make a difference and also give yourself writing material!

“Any more words of wisdom, Usidork?” she asks instead.

USIDORE, WIZARD OF THE 12TH REALM OF EPHYSIYIES, MASTER OF LIGHT AND SHADOW, MANIPULATOR OF MAGICAL DELIGHTS, DEVOURER OF CHAOS, CHAMPION OF THE GREAT HALLS OF TERR'AKKAS. THE ELVES KNOW HIM AS FI’ANG YALOK. THE DWARFS KNOW HIM AS ZOENEN HOOGSTANDJES*. HE IS ALSO KNOWN IN THE NORTHEAST AS GAISMUNĒNAS MEISTAR AND HAS MANY OTHER SECRET NAMES WHICH YOU DO NOT… YET… KNOW.

* Hoobastank

He blinks at her in polite incomprehension. “I don’t want to miss the Life Raft Debate,” he says. “It’s important to support your department.”

Several universities hold yearly Raft Debates, where representatives from the different disciplines have a debate about which of their respective areas of study is the most vital for humanity and thus should get to take the one-person life raft back to civilization from the desert island they’ve all gotten stuck on.

I should inform you that at my alma mater the Devil’s Advocate, who argues that none of the subjects are worth saving, has won multiple times.

Without taking her eyes off her opponent, Romanoff thrusts out her hand. Dr. Aluki Robinson (Associate Professor of Ornithology) passes her a harpoon, its ivory barbs almost glowing in the dim light.

Nauja and Aluki are both from Cold Case, because no one deserves to be stuck in Cold Case where we’re apparently supposed to be deeply concerned about the main character’s sexual experience but only vaguely perturbed by the powerful white and white-coded women stealing Native American children to brainwash them to their culture so they can be fed to the system seriously WHAT the FUCK Jimbo

ANYWAY, in this universe the Winter fey of Unalaska are discharging their obligations to help the Winter Court against Outsiders by sending some of their people to monitor the prison in Night Vale. This also gets to highlight the fun of an unreliable narrator! Julie is generally not one of those, because she’s a smart and observant person who will happily question everything, but even she has her limits when she’s out of her element. In the case of this story, there are several minor details to suggest there is some Winter and Summer court drama going on in the background (the chlorofiends, an entire academic department of shapeshifters, Molly and Mab personally overseeing bus routes) and most of it just goes completely over her head.

During his undergraduate career, Gary had elicited a considerable amount of interdepartmental discussion about his desire to be exempted from lab regulations for wearing appropriate – or any – footwear in the lab, which evolved into a considerable amount of interdepartmental discussion about whether wrapping your feet in duct tape immediately before said lab time constituted appropriate footwear.

This was based on one of my mother’s students, who eventually resolved the situation by commissioning a handmade pair of moccasins he placed on his feet immediately before entering the lab.

“The scientific method is four steps,” says Carlos with a cheerful inevitability as the officers start shouting panicked instructions into their walkie talkies. “One, find an object you want to know more about; two, hook that object up to a machine using wires or tubes; three, write things on a clipboard; four, read the results that the machine prints.”

This is a direct quote from the book. Was this entire subplot about the scientific method ban designed just to come up with a plausible retcon for why someone with actual scientific training would announce this over the radio? It sure was!

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:

1. “Step one, cut a hole in the box,” calls Wei.2. “No, step one is collecting underpants,” says Gary.3. “Step four: make a searching and fearless moral inventory,” says Julie.4. “And then step five, acceptance,” Andre finishes.5. “You see, the first level is ennui, or boredom. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody or something specific – nostalgia, love-sickness… At more morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for. A sick pining, a vague restlessness. Mental throes. Yearning. And at the scientific method’s deepest and most painful level, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause.”6. “It’s how you decide whether to fix the problem with duct tape or WD-40,” says Julie.7. “I think,” says Osborn, “that it’s a divine machine for making flour, salt, and gold.”

8. “Don’t be absurd,” says Galleti. “The scientific method is two vast and trunkless legs of stone standing in the desert!”

9. “And they say the scientific method is—”

“—the quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality associated with sitting around a fire in the winter with close friends,” puts in Dr. Chelsea Dubinski, Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

10. “Or is it the special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do?” asks Galleti.

This section was also a chance to write about the rest of Night Vale’s scientists, of whom we still know so very little. There’s enough of them that there’s a whole science district, and the community college seems pretty well staffed, but the fact that Carlos made such an impact when he rolled into town suggests that they were either pretty lowkey or indistinguishably weird from the rest of the town.

“I don't feel alone,” snaps Julie. “I feel like shit, and I know why I feel like shit, and the thought of outlining that in excruciating detail is, oddly enough, not making me feel any better!”

One of the things I wanted to address in this story (inspired by Ghost Stories, which I uhhhhh did not care for) was the shortcomings of a lot of narratives about grief. Because many of them are not only oversimplified, but also not everyone processes grief in the same way. It’s not necessarily a linear narrative of where you go through the five steps and then you’re totally over it: it might take a long time, or you might be fine until some other, unrelated setback triggers you, or it might be a cyclical process as anniversaries roll around. Grief lingers. Related to that, helping people deal with their grief isn’t always as simple as sitting down with them and offering a sympathetic ear. Some people don’t process their feelings well verbally, and the emotional labor of formulating all your grief for another person’s consumption can be nearly as traumatizing as grieving in the first place, and VERY difficult to do when you’re already feeling down.

On top of that, I think general American culture is just. Real bad at dealing with grief. Which means we don’t have many positive models to base our responses on, either as grievers or as people supporting the grieving, and if you don’t fit those models at all it just makes the process that more difficult because everyone’s stumbling around in the dark.

“Does it always feel like this?” she asks.“Which part?” asks Carlos.“We won,” says Julie. “Methods have lived to science another day. We can do our work without interference. All we did was lie about what the name meant, but…” She taps the lab table with a pencil. Another secret violation of the law. “It still feels like we… lost something.”“We did lose something,” says Carlos. “It was just a name, but names are important.”

One of the reasons I love writing Carlos and Julie’s friendship so much is because it’s such a relationship of equals. They’re both hypercompetent, pragmatic, and a little ruthless; their skill sets don’t have much overlap (at least, not yet) and their personalities aren’t at all similar, but they get each other and it’s so sweet. When they wander out of their respective areas of expertise, or stumble across some kind of dilemma, they feel comfortable asking each other for guidance – they can admit their ignorance and drop their public facades of Having Their Shit Together because they trust each other.

“I want—” Her mouth opens and shuts again, wordlessly. Her scowl deepens.Then she narrows her eyes and says, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.”

Molly being a huge Trekkie is pretty much my favorite thing from Ghost Story (not to be confused with Ghost Stories)(although thinking about it, swapping their plots would be kind of amazing??), so of course I wanted her and Julie to interact in a way that showed off what huge nerds they are.

But yet another element I wanted to include in this story is the background detail that ~the masquerade~ must be maintained because it’s too dangerous for humanity as a whole to be fully cognizant of the supernatural – which tends to get a little lost in the sauce, because the supernatural is consistently super duper powerful and our heroes (most of them pretty supernatural themselves) generally avert disaster by the skin of their teeth. But here’s Julie, just a regular human who’s capable of producing terrifying technology, has no concern for the rules and traditions of ancient regimes unless they’re inconveniencing her, and who would be perfectly fine with upending the status quo just to see what happens. Regular humans just aren’t more flexible about change than the supernatural, they’re even curious about it sometimes – which must be terrifying to something like the Winter Court, which has been devoted to maintaining the same strict balance since forever. Regular humans can do stuff like tell a story so well it inspires the Winter Lady to subvert her magical restrictions and remind her of her own humanity.

Julie grumpily emails him a rough summary of her thoughts on Troy Walsh and her conversation with Molly and heads up to her office to pull up everything she has on both the bus garage and the man in the tan jacket.

Bullshit secretkeeping (“I can’t tell the other main character this important plot point, it’s better if they don’t know”) is one of my least favorite tropes and I avoid it at all costs. It’s such a stupid way to add tension. It can maybe work once, but after your character has inevitably watched it backfire spectacularly, you can’t repeat it ever again unless you want to imply they’re a dumbass who never learns from their own mistakes and apparently doesn’t care that it clearly puts everyone in more danger. ::looks pointedly at a certain book series::

Also, it’s almost always much more interesting to have characters try to share important information. If they don’t succeed, it coats everything in ironic horror as the outcomes one person tried to avoid happen despite their best efforts. If they do succeed, it means everyone is fully cognizant of the potential danger even as they are still prevented from acting on it properly, like because they (e.g.) get kidnapped in the middle of the street.

King City is not in the correct dimension. The man in the tan jacket seems to know something about this, but up until a year ago he wasn’t drawing attention to it. He was busy poking his nose into everyone’s business, ingratiating himself with the powerful and the influential, dealing with them in secret…basically, the SOP of your typical Night Vale authority.Like the Night Vale Area Transit Authority, with its bus route to… King City.They had a job and they chose to keep it, Molly said.“Fuck,” says Julie. “He was working for them!”

In retrospect, it’s hilarious to me how much of this fic was powered by spite. Ghost Stories and Cold Case both really bothered me. The resolution of the Man in the Tan Jacket storyline, meanwhile, felt pretty underwhelming – not because what Finknor came up with wasn’t interesting, but because it barely engaged with the few plot points they had already established. Like, when TMITJ shows up in the podcast he interferes with the Mayor, he’s connected to the city under Lane Five, he surfaces during the Strex Corp arc, he interacts with a whole bunch of series regulars in an ominous fashion… Yeah, that probably came from Finknor dropping him in more or less at random, but the end result was that during the first several years of the show it seemed he was an active driver of whatever his plot was supposed to be. In WTNV: The Novel, though, he’s much more reactive and impotent. This wouldn’t necessarily be bad if this change was acknowledged as part of his storyline, but… it’s not…

(And I get that it can be difficult to come up with a plot for an element you didn’t intend to be plotty at all, but like: there wasn’t THAT much material they had to account for. I should know, I had to look it all up to write THIS story.)

I think this was especially frustrating because it ends up feeling like a “have your cake and eat it too” on the part of Finknor: it’s not automatically bad when fans care more about the show’s continuity than the creators (creators have different concerns, and a lot of time that means they’re using the creative latitude to do something neat), but the novel was very much presented as “finally, a resolution to that one mystery you find cool!” which is… pretty much a direct appeal to the fans’ care about the continuity. So to then ignore or retcon so many aspects of the continuity without any story payoff for it feels like a cheat.

(Ultimately, though, my inspiration to actually sit down and write mainly sprang from 1) all the lovely comments about how so many people loved my OFC, which as someone who started lurking in online fandom in the early 2000s was both mind-boggling and heartwarming, and 2) lol those ladies have the same name. I learned nothing.)

She gets the call at 21:27. She goes to the hospital, although there’s not much point. The human mind is the most powerful thing on the planet and it's housed in a fragile casing of meat and bone.

I’ve mentioned a few times (possibly more than a few)(probably more than a few) that I didn’t like the WTNV live ep Ghost Stories, and that’s because the ~big reveal~ is that Cecil’s story was actually about a personal family tragedy, and once he’s able to admit that, everything is hunky-dory. As I recall, it went something like this:

WTNV: hey remember that time your mom died and your family was thrown into chaos

ME: WELL NOW I DO

WTNV: and on that note, good night everyone!

Needless to say, everything was not hunky-dory.

But on top of being emotionally compromised for the whole following week, I was also professionally annoyed. Prior to this live show, we’d had a few cryptic references to Cecil’s mom and could reasonably infer that his relationship with his sister was strained. Critically, though, neither was their own clearly-defined character (compare to the treatment of Janice or Steve Carlsberg), these were not frequently recurring elements that would suggest they weighed heavily on Cecil’s mind, and it wasn’t even obvious that their backstory WAS particularly tragic. So the emotional lynchpin of this live show was mostly new information about Cecil regarding characters the audience had no connection to.

Tragic narratives are powerful not only because they evoke intense emotions, but also because those emotions are supposed to go somewhere and do something: provide catharsis, reinforce the artist’s philosophy, make the audience ponder the meaning of life... In using a tragedy as a plot twist, your ability to give it the proper emotional arc is very limited, because you have to misdirect from its existence while building it up, and then quickly progress from upsetting emotions to those more appropriate for concluding the story. That’s not impossible, but Ghost Stories immediately throws a wrench in the works by splitting the audience’s emotional journey away from Cecil’s: he already knew about the tragedy and the people involved with it, so the plot twist acts as his emotional catharsis... but only his. When the twist itself is the first time the audience realizes there ARE emotions, and that the first 85% of the show was completely unrelated to them, there’s simply not enough time for the audience to have them, process them according to the story’s weird ramblings that kinda imply fiction based on real life is more important than genre fiction like horror (PS: that’s a WEIRD take for a fictional horror podcast), and reach their own kind of catharsis without it being horrifically rushed. Particularly when they’re having a WAY more emotional response than the character due to their own personal tragedies which they were not expecting to have to think about during a fun podcast live show about ghost stories.

As stuff like this points out, you can’t just sprinkle in character deaths and expect quality entertainment to sprout: there has to be a purpose to putting the tragedy in the story (even if that purpose is to highlight how purposeless tragedy can be in real life). I’ve always been VERY critical of the assumption that tragedy is ~more artistic~, both in historical lit and modern pop culture; sad emotions aren’t inherently more meaningful than happy ones. Merely including tragic events isn’t deep; you have to do the work and make it deep, in its context and development.

So: on to ::gestures proudly:: probably the worst thing I’ve ever written!

From an aesthetic standpoint, I leaned into the Night Vale house style in this section because I found it to be really effective at conveying the enormity of the tragedy for Julie: it’s pretty blunt, just like her, but the focus on oddly specific details, the narrative distancing, and the lurking sense of existential horror seemed a fitting demonstration of how badly the emotional gutpunch disrupted her narration/life.

And I really wanted it to be an emotional gutpunch. (But not a surprise: even if I hadn’t warned for it specifically, Julie mentions Romero dying all the way back in Ch. 10 of Love is All You Need.) This is in part a story about grief and mourning, so the loss that caused it needed a central place. I wanted it to be powerful enough to retroactively fit in with how upset Julie is in the opening chapters and to add real tension to the devil’s bargain the feds want to make with her in the next chapter. But most importantly, I wanted it to be so significant to both Julie and the audience that the end of the story has an impact. Loss doesn’t get “cured” – but it seems to me like it’s not supposed to be. Loss is a part of life; love, in whatever form, helps give you strength as you grow and change from the experience into someone new, and this is also a story about the love in friendship.

I think a lot about the ethics of writing tragic stuff, because when you get right down to it, ultimately art boils down to poking your fingers in someone’s feelings and stirring them around. People get really invested in the stuff you are responsible for creating, and making someone feel bad for no reason isn’t being an artist, it’s being a dick. But I’m very happy with how this turned out, and hopefully didn’t traumatize anyone who didn’t want to be traumatized.

(I do feel bad for everyone who was reading as I posted that had to wait an entire year for the next chapter, though. I wanted to get something up sooner, but I had to wait until I sorted Chapter 6 and Chapter 6 was just. The worst. WORDS ARE HARD. People who read WIPs are braver than any Marine.)

hmu for more dvd commentary!

#muggle-the-hat #love is all you need to destroy your enemies #ask dave #welcome to night vale #the dresden files #fic #writing

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thestupidhelmet · 5 years

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I’m trying and failing to write T7S fanfic :(( I feel like I don’t capture the characters voices, you know? Imo you capture them spot on, do you have any tips to do so? Especially for JH, but tips for the other main characters would also be nice...

First, thank you for the compliment! It’s one of the best a fanfic writer can receive. 😊

On your own, you can watch some significant, character-developing episodes for each character and take notes about the kind of language they use when they’re under stress (e.g., angry, sad, frustrated, etc.) or happy. But I’ll give you insight into how I approach each character’s voice.

Hyde

He rarely expresses his emotions verbally without some kind of deflection, misdirection, or concealment. In “Eric’s False Alarm” (4x25), for example, Eric calls Hyde on being the one who stopped Donna and Casey from potentially having sex. He also calls Hyde on one of his true motives. Hyde claims, however, that he “didn’t do it to be nice. I did it because I always wanted to commit a felony. Misdemeanors just ain’t the rush they used to be.”

Eric’s responds, “Well, all I hear is, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’”

Hyde is almost all subtext. That is the key to his character. If he does express his feelings directly, it’s very hard for him. It’s like being constipated but emotionally (sorry for the gross analogy, but it’s apt). He’ll have trouble looking the person in the eye or scratch the back of his neck. Or he’ll stick a curse or two while being sincere.

Hyde doesn’t tend to give long speeches. Usually, he’ll say a sentence or two before another character talks or he does some action to break up his dialogue.

He often uses humor, often sarcastic and sometimes cruel, to defuse a tense situation.

He uses the word, “man” at the beginning or end of certain sentences. Don’t do it too much, though, or it’ll feel forced.

Speaking of word choice, this is a key to capturing a character’s voice. For instance, Hyde has never – and would never – say, “Anyways,” with an S. Whenever I read a fic where Hyde says that, I hear the author’s voice, not Hyde’s.

Hyde-specific words include swell and super (when he’s being sarcastic), freakin’ and damn it when he’s pissed or frustrated. He’ll say ain’t instead of isn’t sometimes. He’s called testicles both ‘nads and stones.

Jackie

Jackie is the opposite to Hyde in terms of expressing her emotions verbally. When she feels something, she’s vocal about it. That’s not to say she can’t keep her feelings to herself. She does so when she’s significantly afraid of rejection.

I interpret Jackie’s character as being really insightful beneath her superficiality. Enough episodes depict her this way to support that interpretation, but other episodes depict her superficiality as being more than skin-deep. That’s up to the individual fanfic writer to decide which characterization to go with.

But with mine, I intersperse her insight with moments of egoism and vanity. A prime example of this on the show is from “Jackie Bags Hyde” (3x08). In the midst of offering Hyde a compassionate, accurate analysis of his childhood wounding, she compliments her own beauty.

She often makes analogies when giving advice (to Hyde, to Donna, to whomever). These analogies are created from her own experiences and interests (e.g., styling her hair, having a pet rat, etc.), but they’re apt, nevertheless.

She has a generally romantic view of life, which influences her language, but she also has a more down-to-earth side. So she’ll say both, “Make love,” and, “Doing it,” when describing sex, for example.

Unlike Hyde, Jackie has said, “Anyways,” with an S, but she mostly says, “Anyway” without the S. She doesn’t curse all that much. When she does curse, she really means it.

Unfortunately, she uses a lot of slut-shaming language. Most of the characters on T7S do. That’s a consequence of T7S’s writers finding that humor funny. I try not to have the characters speak that way unless it’s going to be called out by another character or in a character’s thoughts.

Jackie probably thinks a mile a minute, which sometimes leads her to digress from her main topic while speaking.

Eric

Eric expresses his feelings pretty easily, but he can be hyperbolic. Examples: “This is the worst day ever.” “This is the [FILL IN THE BLANK] in the history of time.”

Like Hyde, he’s sarcastic. According to Red, he’s a smart mouth. Kitty has called him a porky mouth on more than one occasion. In “Burning Down the House” (2x15), for instance, he says about Jackie’s party, “You know what might make this party a little more fun? Sweet death.”

Depending on his mood and whom he’s with, his dialogue can either be compassionate or insensitive and sometimes a bit cruel. Sometimes his wit his biting. Others, it’s corny. E.g., he doesn’t like and resents Hyde’s girlfriend, Jill, in “The Third Wheel” (4x11) and calls her both Terri Tube Top and Yoko.

But he can also be nervous and lack confidence, which will make him hem and haw while talking. He’ll interrupt his speech using, “You know,” several times in one sentence or pauses. E.g., “We … barely knew.”

He sometimes uses antiquated language like m’lady and ‘tis I.

He makes quite a few Star Wars and comic book references.

Topher Grace’s comedic timing and line delivery adds a lot to his dialogue, and it’s possible to emulate that in prose. Again, watch some significant episodes for Eric and take note of his speech patterns and word choices.

Donna

Donna has a quick temper, but she also usually recognizes and owns her mistakes quickly. She has an easy time expressing her anger and frustration, as well as more loving and affectionate feelings. But she’s not a crier. She often expresses her sadness through frustration or anger. Not always, though.

She has a very playful and silly side. She can be as witty as Eric, but in anger she can make some odd metaphors. E.g., “He’s an ass, and you’re an ass – ‘cause the ass doesn’t fall far from the ass tree!” (From “Jackie Bags Hyde”.)

Dillhole and get bent are part of her idiolect. She also peppers her sentences with the filler word like (which should be set off by commas).

Kelso

Kelso’s language is dictated by his impulses, what he’s interested in at that very moment, and his unique POV about the world. He’s very excitable, which leads him to expressing himself as efficiently as possible – in terms of language, not ideas. . E.g., “You gotta see this!” not “You’ve got to see this!”

He comes up with bizarre scenarios and ideas, which is usually adds humor to an episode.

His egoism and narcissism color his dialogue. E.g., “You know what your problem is? I’m too good-looking.”

He’s emotionally immature for his age, and he often speaks like he’s thirteen, not eighteen. (Sorry to the mature thirteen-year-olds out there; I know there’s plenty of you.)

Fez

Fez alternates between using contractions and not using them. E.g., “I do not think you should do that,” vs. “I don’t think you should do that.”

He’ll express his emotions melodramatically. Even when he’s trying to “keep it all inside,” he’s over the top while explaining that this is what he’s doing.

He’ll say, “Ai,” when he’s upset or hurt or worried. I chose the Ai spelling instead of Ay because Fez’s native language isn’t Spanish, despite Wilmer Valderrama being the one portraying him. Just like Jackie’s eyes are brown, despite Mila Kunis’s eyes – at the time of T7S – being two different colors.

On the show, Fez’s dialogue is often used to break the tension with humor.

“You sonuvabitch!” and “Good day. I said good day!” are two of his catchphrases.

He’ll talk about his country, and what it’s like there, without every saying where he’s actually from.

His characterization varies, depending on the season. I’m not a fan of his post-Rhonda personality. In the early seasons, he isn’t a perv so much as someone who doesn’t know how far to push a joke. He’s trying to fit in with his friends, and the cultural differences cause him confusion.

He can be poetic and romantic.

Red

Red is similar to Hyde and Donna. He doesn’t express his feelings easily, save anger and frustration. To Kitty, however, he can be very sweet. To Hyde, he’ll dispense wisdom (and he practically cried in “Hyde’s Father” [3x03] when telling Hyde he’ll always have a place in his house, etc.). To Eric – well, that is one contentious relationship.

He was in the navy during World War II and the Korean War, and that colors his POV. He’s not politically correct, but writing that aspect of him … it’s a fine line. He’s not racist so much as xenophobic, which stems from his experiences in the navy and his somewhat extreme patriotism.

Honestly, watch pretty much any episode of his from seasons 2-4, and you’ll understand his voice quickly. The Red of season 1 is quite different, more nuanced – and I actually prefer it, but alas. That Red makes a guest appearance in “Hyde’s Birthday” (4x23), but he’s more of a hardass post-S1. After season 4, his character begins to become even less nuanced. And during season 7, he’s sometimes very OOC.

Kitty

She’s compassionate and a little cartoony. She’s wise in certain areas and naive in others. She’s smart and savvy – until the show devolves her in the later seasons.

To get her speech pattern and idiolect, “Vanstock” (2x06), “Kitty and Eric’s Night Out” (2x18), ,“Red Sees Red” (3x01), and “Kitty’s Birthday” (3x17) are good episodes to watch.

I hope this helps! :D

#That 70s Show #That '70s Show #Jackie x Hyde #Eric Forman #Michael Kelso #Fanfic Advice #Writing Advice #My Meta #My Essay #Meta #Essay #Ask #Anon

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 6 years

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AU: have you ever considered an avengers-animorphs fusion?

[Contains spoilers only through Avengers (2012) and only oblique references to MCU events beyond that movie.]

Jake finds Cassie steadying, at a time when he could use a little steadiness. She’s a soothing presence who offers shy smiles and subtly brilliant insights into the yeerks as she watches them all closely. By contrast, most of the others are… overwhelming. Rachel looks very much like her grandmother, managing to be even more brash and bold and trigger-happy as she paces the bridge pointing to read-outs of energy signatures and demanding that they go rescue a fellow agent named Tobias, immediately. Ax cheerfully eats an entire box of pop-tarts in one sitting as he tells the SHIELD agents that andalites don’t normally behave this much like warring kaftids but that Alloran is clearly not himself right now.

Marco walks onto the bridge, looks around like he owns the place, and immediately starts ranting about how they’re all a load of idiots and SHIELD is lying to them. Jake isn’t sure he even draws breath in between words. Mid-cyberbabble, Marco suddenly spins around and falls silent. For about half a second.

“Oh my god, you’re Rachel Berenson.” Marco practically throws himself across the table to shake her hand. “I’m a huge fan, really. I read all your magazine articles, I follow one hundred percent of your fashion advice, and I also love the way you turn into a human-bear-thing and rip your enemies’ heads off with your teeth.” He’s still pumping her hand with what looks like genuine enthusiasm. “Plus, unlike your fifth-cousin or great-uncle or whatnot Captain War-Prince Yeerk-Killer over there, you actually have a sense of humor—”

“My name is Jake,” Jake blurts. They all turn to look at him. “Just Jake is fine,” he mumbles. “I’m not a real war-prince. Not really. It was all just propaganda at first, and then they only promoted me so that they wouldn’t have to court-martial me after I went on that stupid suicide mission to get my brother back.” They’re all still staring. “And anyway, the ‘Yeerk-Killer’ part is…” Saying I don’t like it sounds like too childish a reason even in his own mind. “It’s just something they called me.”

There’s ringing silence for several seconds. And then Marco says, “Anyway, about this yeerk-helping dude who gave over all our intel.”

“Tobias is not working for the yeerks.” There’s an edge of growl to Rachel’s voice, one that causes everyone else in the room to tense just slightly. “He’s being controlled. Involuntarily.”

Jake takes a moment, just one, to mourn the 1940s with an intensity that steals his breath away. He misses everything he’s lost. Like missing a limb. Like missing home. Like missing a brother. Rachel is his only link to the past, and she’s a stranger; last Jake saw, his nephew Daniel was just a baby, and now Daniel’s own daughter is a grown woman while Daniel himself is dead twenty years back in a mysterious car accident. Everything disappeared in the span of an instant. Everyone died. Only Jake is left.

And then Jake draws a deep breath and says, “Regardless of how they got it, the yeerks have key intel on our operation now. And we need to get our shit together to figure out what to do about it.” There’s no time for him to feel sorry for himself.

Rachel knows they don’t make a particularly inspiring picture, between Jake awkwardly standing around in full dress blues, Marco slumped against a computer console in a Demon Days t-shirt, Cassie in her green floral-print leggings and purple-and-grey leotard, and Ax striding back and forth across the helicarrier with whatever that cloak-thing is billowing behind him. She’s not sure she trusts Ax, not when he’s freely admitted that he’s doing some kind of alien-magic-glamour-thing to appear human. (Although, as he explained apologetically, he’s not nearly as good at it as his brother would be; from the way he tells it, Elfangor hung the moon, arranged the stars, and single-handedly invented the internet.) She has no idea what to make of Jake, whose life story defined her entire childhood and who is proving to be just as much of a clueless idiot as the rest of them. She actually likes Marco, not so much in spite of their verbal sparring but because of it, since she can tell that he enjoys getting a sharp comeback out of her almost as much as he enjoys scoring a hit himself.

“What’s a part-time CW melodrama actor even doing on this team?” Rachel asks him. “I mean, take away those three Grammys you almost won, and—”

“I’m only the third-smartest person on the planet, head of R&D for the single biggest telecommunications contractor in the U.S., runner-up for a Nobel Prize thanks to my groundbreaking work in increasing accessibility for information technology, and…” Marco pauses for dramatic effect. “Fifteenth sexiest man alive for 2009, according to People magazine.” He gives a tiny bow. “Oh, and I build AI robots that help me save the planet from aliens, which is more than the fourteen men allegedly sexier than me can claim,” he adds as an afterthought.

“His ego’s only so big to compensate for his lack of height,” Rachel whispers loudly to Cassie.

“Whereas the biohacker who dosed herself with untested DNA-rewiring implants in order to avoid CDC oversight,” Marco drawls, “could never ever be accused of hubris.”

“Can we please get back to talking about how aliens are invading the planet?” Jake asks the room at large.

“I spoke to that other andalite,” Cassie says.

“Alloran,” Ax supplies. “Looorrran.”

“No, actually.” Cassie considers, choosing her words. “There’s a yeerk controlling Alloran. Calls itself Visser Three. That yeerk is itself working for this other power, one called Crayak. I don’t fully understand the nature of this Crayak person, but I did find out that he wants to use Rachel to…” She pauses delicately.

“To let out my inner berserker, who will kill the rest of you?” Rachel suggests.

“You won’t let that happen,” Jake says stubbornly.

Rachel lets out a harsh laugh. “This?” She gestures to herself. “This is Nice Rachel, and let’s be honest that I’m not that nice. The other one? Mean Rachel? She might like all of you just fine, and she’ll still rip you all to shreds the first time you startle or annoy her. Cassie can talk the other Rachel down sometimes, under the right circumstances, but the rest of you can kiss your butts goodbye if stuck in an enclosed little helicarrier with me when I get pissed off.”

“Anyway, we’ll keep Rachel nice and calm.” Cassie offers a small smile. “And leaving aside the fact that Crayak might be using this whole yeerk invasion as an opening play in some even bigger chess game, there’s still Visser Three’s stake in this all to consider. Near as I can tell, his motivation is some mix of the usual—pride, greed, wrath—but this whole thing with wiping out the humans seems to have something to do with how much one of his fellow yeerks, Visser One if I’ve got the name right, happens to like this species.”

“You got all that from one conversation?” Jake sounds impressed.

“Please assure me you did not do anything… untoward to that host body,” Ax says.

“Nah.” Marco’s tone is full of false brightness. “Haven’t you heard? Agent Werewolf here was a voluntary controller herself back in the wild days of her misspent youth. I bet she and the ol’ visser cracked open a cold one and shot the shit about their glory days together, no thumb screws necessary.”

Rachel snarls, fiercely gratified to see Marco go dead white. “That’s cute, coming from a war profiteering gunrunner. You, what? Followed daddy right into the rocket-making business, didn’t care if the rockets hit the wrong planet just as long as they performed perfectly?” She shoves him in the chest; he stumbles back several feet. “I know what you are. I know it took one of your own bombs going off in your face for you even to think about giving a damn about what happened to them after you were done engineering them. I know you have no right, no right to talk to Cassie like—”

“Rachel.” Jake’s voice is quiet, but very firm. “Rachel, put the scepter down.”

She swings around to point it at him, and wow. She’s not sure when she even picked the thing up. It’s heavy and hot in her hand, pulsing with her own raging heartbeat.

“I’ve acknowledged my past, and I’m learning to deal with it.” Cassie faces Marco, but she’s speaking to Rachel as well, struggling to calm everyone down. “Not knowing what I was doing at the time is no excuse for what I’ve done. I let a yeerk into my brain, yes, even thought that I was saving a different host when I did so. I’m the one who trusted them out of naïveté, and…” Cassie draws herself up, looking around the room. “I’m the reason so many of the U.S.’s enemies have the power to morph right now. I’m no better than Seerow, in my own way. If anyone here has a problem with that…”

“Then it can wait,” Jake finishes. He’s looking at Ax, who stares at Cassie with something between anger and horror.

“Yes, Prince Jake,” Ax says.

Jake takes a breath. “I’m not really a—”

“That title is not given out lightly. Tlee.” Ax smiles a little. “Nor should it be set aside once given.”

Rachel finds she has lowered the scepter, set it back on the table. That she’s breathing more normally, berserker kept at bay for the moment. Cassie looks at her with a silent question, and Rachel nods. She’s coming back to baseline, will be calm in a minute or two just as long as nothing else happens.

Which is, of course, when the goddamn helicarrier starts falling out of the sky.

Tobias rolls over, gasping for air, fighting down the desire to puke. He’s back in control of his own body for now, which is good, even if he is pretty sure that things did not exactly go according to plan back there. It probably wasn’t in the team’s response plan for him to get carried and then thrown across the room by Rachel—or rather, Rachel’s furry little problem—while Cassie rushed around dodging her and trying to make soothing noises. The plan probably didn’t call for Odret 177 to take one look at the seven-foot-tall clawed-and-fanged version of Rachel and abandon Tobias’s body as a lost cause, even if that had worked out well. The part where Marco had sprouted some kind of exoskeleton and gone to work on the helicarrier’s fried turbine, and where the andalite guy had dropped the human act in favor of using a massive dose of electricity to restart the engines… Well, that had gone okay as well.

With difficulty, Tobias shoves himself into a sitting position. His entire body is shaking uncontrollably. “Well,” he says hoarsely, “that was even worse than I expected it would be.”

“I know,” Cassie says, and she does. She sits next to him, gently lowering his head to rest on her shoulder. She knows what it is to have her mind overthrown, which is why she’s the one who’s here.

Then again. Tobias’s eggs are still scrambled, but he’s starting to realize maybe Cassie is the only one available. SHIELD is elbows-deep in the mess he just made. Last he saw, Marco and Ax were still performing emergency repairs. There’s every possibility Rachel hasn’t stopped rampaging. After all, Jake had been the only one attempting to deal with her, and… Well. Tobias is sure he’s doing his best, and equally sure he’s getting his ass kicked. Rachel will sometimes change back for Cassie, and she’d probably re-emerge if Ax managed to zap her unconscious. Tobias, on the other hand… Rachel’s other self doesn’t hurt Tobias, but she doesn’t relax around him either. Mostly she stuffs Tobias into a corner and then relentlessly scans for anything that could possibly hurt him, annihilating all threats with extreme prejudice. And someone just hurt Tobias.

“How do we fight this?” Tobias asks Cassie. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just some guy.”

“I think that’s true of all of us.” Jake stands in the doorway. He’s battered and rumpled-looking, but he’s still upright. “Rachel’s gone. Ripped a hole in the side of the ship and then…” He winces.

“She’ll be fine.” Cassie puts a hand on his arm. “You all right?”

“Five by five.” Jake looks from her to Tobias. “You know how to fly?”

At that, in spite of the day he’s had, Tobias actually laughs. “Yeah, man, I can pilot us.”

They commandeer a quinjet, mostly through the power of Jake “War-Prince” “Yeerk-Killer” “Captain America” Berenson’s legendary cussedness. Although, as Tobias is figuring out, Jake’s not a particular fan of any of the nicknames the media has given him. Understandable, really, since the guy clearly doesn’t revel in the spotlight like Marco or understand how to use it like Rachel and Cassie.

“Peregrine,” Tobias says on the tail of a sudden thought.

“What?” Jake says sharply.

“Peregrine.” Tobias doesn’t look away from the quinjet’s viewscreen. “That’s what your team called you, right? Back during the war.” He glances over long enough to smile. “Don’t worry, I promise not to hold it against you.”

That name, unlike the Yeerk-Killer nonsense, seems to unlock something in Jake. He chuckles, shaking his head. “You jump out of one measly little airplane without a parachute one time, and you never live it down.” He sits down next to Tobias, suddenly looking about 20 years younger. “No one actually knows for sure that I achieved terminal velocity on the way down,” he confesses, “and no matter what the wiki pages of your web net might claim, the part where I destroyed a Panzer IV on the landing was purely accidental. Anyway, why would you hold it against me?”

Tobias smiles. “‘Cause peregrines kill red-tails. My carnie nickname was Hawkeye, and they let me keep it as a call sign.”

“‘Carnie?’” Jake frowns, confused.

“I ran away and joined the circus when I was thirteen.” Tobias glances over long enough to raise his eyebrows and make it clear that no, he’s not joking. “Got sick of being passed around from relative to relative, and by then I’d figured out I had skills that the performers could use.”

“What can you do, anyway?” Jake asks.

“Like I said, I’m a pilot.”

Cassie takes that opportunity to lean against his chair on the far side. “He’s being modest. If you think that Marco can do crazy things with flight tech, you haven’t seen anything. Add to that Tobias’s affinity for birds—yes, even peregrine falcons, no matter how much he grumbles—and ‘pilot’ is an understatement.”

Jake’s mouth opens halfway. “You talk… to birds?”

“I communicate with them. Sort of.” Tobias gives another smile, this one distinctly self-deprecating. “My mom always claimed I was half-alien, if that explains it. But, well, between the traumatic brain injury and…” He sighs. “Mostly just the fact that no one ever believed Mom because of the traumatic brain injury, I didn’t exactly give the idea much credence until I figured out about the birds. Anyway, even if my dad is some kind of alien prince or whatever, he’s never bothered to send so much as a text message my way.” He shakes his head, shaking off the impulse toward self-pity. “Where the hell are we going, again?”

“You know that monument to his own ego that Marco was kind enough to build and then drop in the middle of Manhattan?” Cassie raises her eyebrows. “We’re pretty sure Visser Three is holed up there.”

Marco thinks he plays it off pretty well, all things considered. After all, his team doesn’t have to know that he screams like a baby for over half his fall from the sky, and ultimately Dian gets the Mark VI armor to him in time to stop him from going splat on the ground. He lands next to where the rest of the team (including Rachel’s smaller and nicer self) have congregated on a rooftop. And by the time he slides the helmet off he’s barely breathing hard at all.

“So,” Rachel says, “I’m guessing the yeerks did, in fact, appropriate your giant phallus?”

“The EGS Tower is the single greatest zero-emissions energy source in the entire western hemisphere,” Marco says, only somewhat sulky. “And anyway, not all of us can have our faces carved into Mount Rushmore.”

Jake cringes so sharply, body folding into itself as his entire face goes red, that Marco feels bad for having said it.

“Anyway.” Marco shifts, still adjusting to the new armor, which forms a hard-shelled simian arachnid around his squishy human body. “Our theory was right. Visser Three tried to stick a yeerk in me, and this baby—” He taps his cochlear implant. “Fried it to death. I told Visser Three the Animorphs were going to kick his ass, or at least that the rest of us would stand by and cheer as Rachel kicked his ass, he objected, and…” Marco makes a gesture to approximate the part where he was thrown out a window.

“Animorphs?” Ax asks. “Ah. Niiii-morfs.”

“Sure,” Marco says. “Between Bird Boy’s mind-melding, Rachel’s Dr. Jekyll act, the fact that you’re only human when you want to be, my own beautiful cyborg parts, the part where Cassie straight-up becomes a yeerk when she feels like it, and the way that questionable science transformed Jake into a walking action figure with Product of Mattel stamped on his perfectly-shaped plastic butt, I figured our little band of shapeshifters needed a proper name.”

“So, about this alien invasion…” Jake looks around to be sure he has their attention, nods once. “Tobias, gonna need you directing us from above, figuring out where the rest of us can be the most use. Cassie, you’re the closest thing we have to an expert in yeerk tech, so get to work on the transmitter for that portal. Ax, get her up there and then focus on shutting down those Bug fighter things as fast as you can generate the lightning to do it. I’ll be on the ground trying to keep the human civilians separate from those hork-bajir-controllers. Marco will keep to the air to try and draw the Blade ship’s attention. Rachel…” He gives a slight bow. “You know what to do.”

She grins, showing all her teeth, which are rapidly multiplying. She says something in response but it gets lost under the sound of her spine rippling and deforming to support limbs that have grown muscular and sprouted six-inch claws. With a manic laugh she jumps, springing forty feet straight into the air to collide with a Bug fighter; the Bug fighter comes off worse.

Marco shifts his exoskeleton into place, brian implants controlling the four extra limbs attached to the armor. “Dr. Fossey?” he says into the helmet, and hears his AI come online. “All right,” he tells the group as a whole. “Gonna go get some attention, bring the party to you.”

He takes off, but not before he hears Cassie sigh loudly and say, “I hate parties.”

Cassie waits until well after the battle is over, when they’re straggling in an uneven line down the street toward the shawarma that Marco promised to find them, before she dares reach out and very gently take Jake’s hand. He looks over in surprise when she does, but also folds his scabbed and very dirty fingers around hers with a faint smile.

“If you don’t mind me asking…” She glances up at him. “Was that your first kiss since 1945?” She phrases it that way since asking was that your first kiss outright would definitely be rude.

Jake clears his throat. “Was… was that a kiss?”

She can see why he’d be uncertain. He’d just fallen out of the sky, had come entirely too close for anyone’s comfort to getting smashed to pieces on the rubble before Rachel saved him, when Cassie had lunged at him with an uncharacteristic lack of caution and… Okay, she’s not sure how one could interpret it as anything but a kiss. “I wanted it to be,” she says now. “If you don’t, that’s all right. So. Was it your first since 1945?”

“I’m ninety-five, not dead,” Jake grumbles.

Which answers her question. She’s not all that surprised; she knows his life story. Knows that he managed to sneak his way into the Army in spite of being unable to make the cut for his high school’s sports teams, much less qualify for military service at age 19 after signing up for a experimental enhancement. Knows that he went AWOL to rescue his older brother from yeerk hold, and that the surprising success of the mission gave the Army’s half-forgotten guinea pig an unexpected dose of legitimacy. Knows that that same older brother was killed in action two years after that, leaving behind a wife who later founded SHIELD and a son who became Rachel’s father. Knows that Jake himself was declared missing and presumed only a few months later, actually trapped in Arctic ice until he was discovered three short weeks ago. There simply hasn’t been time.

She’s not sure if she should be more proud or worried that she just stole the first kiss of a national icon. “I’m pretty sure you’re a decent human being,” she tells him. She shifts her hand slightly to lace their fingers together. “I’m pretty sure that decent human beings don’t turn into wolves and rip people’s throats out the way I do. I’d probably still be refusing to take sides as the yeerks tore apart lives if Tobias hadn’t decided to spare my life in spite of all logic and in spite of direct orders.”

Jake is silent for a long time. Finally he says, “World War II was only simple and heroic in the retelling. The phrase Greatest Generation didn’t even come about until the late 1990s, well after most of the people who would have called bullshit were dead. I just…” He takes a breath, looking straight up. “I just unleashed a nuclear weapon upon several thousand living beings, killed I don’t know how many. The people who say that my hands are clean because I only kill aliens don’t deserve to call themselves human, much less Americans.”

“For pete’s sake, just kiss already!” Rachel calls loudly from behind them. “You’re giving me a friggin’ toothache, and I’m already hangry.”

Ax realizes that the longer he spends on this strange little planet interacting with its strange little sentient species, the more he appreciates why his brother always enjoyed coming here. Prince Jake might shy away from his title, but he also becomes the one to stop and check in on every member of his team after they are first seated at the food establishment, taking a moment to talk to each of them in spite of the way that he is himself swaying in exhaustion. Rachel is a magnificent warrior and it was an honor to fight by her side, while Cassie defies every expectation through her undeniable competence. Marco’s cheerful promise to introduce Ax to every food on a stick that Earth has to offer conceals a true offer of friendship at its core. Ax went out drinking Tobias during the whole messy affair around his first landing on Earth; later, one of the SHIELD agents had started to explain Hawkeye’s role to Ax, and it’d felt right when Ax blurted out, “He’s a friend.”

This moment feels important, Ax concludes, and not just because of his fifth helping of delicious shaved meat products upon delightfully textured bread. It feels like the start of something. Rachel and Marco are bickering companionably about the exact nature of that alien portal, and you could almost miss the way that Tobias’s and Rachel’s legs tangle together as she curls her body halfway around him. Jake looks ready to doze off, but pulls himself out of it every time he realizes what’s happening, while Cassie watches him with a gentle smile.

“So, you headed home after this?” Tobias asks. He’s pale and bruised, but his appetite has proven to be healthy enough.

Ax considers. “The Andalite Electorate will dispense justice to Alloran, both for his actions during the hork-bajir conflict and…” He stops. It doesn’t do to bad-mouth his own people when speaking to aliens.

“They don’t like that he got taken.” Tobias smiles, bitter and tired. “Their little Abomination is some seriously bad press, and they’re going to bring holy hell down on him for it.”

Ax sets down his pita and folds his hands on the tabletop. They are strong and five-fingered and pale brown right now because he wishes them to be. It is easy enough to manipulate the electricity that makes his shape take on different appearances, even if he will probably never have his brother’s gift for illusions. “You’re not wrong,” he says at last. “Once I believed… leeeve-ed. That my people were without fault, that our causes were righteous. Once I hungered for war. Once I thought it to be nothing more than another driftball game with higher stakes and greater chance for glory. Once I dreamed of that glory, dreamed of war. Now… Ow. Wwwww.”

Tobias’s expression suggests that he knows perfectly well Ax is only playing around with mouth-sounds to buy himself time.

“Now I have few certainties,” Ax finally admits.

“You have us.” Tobias doesn’t hesitate. “For what we’re worth, that is.” He glances around at where Cassie is giggling while Rachel flicks tomatoes into Marco’s hair. She has one hand over her mouth to try and avoid making enough noise to rouse Jake, who is sleeping face-down in a blob of tabbouleh.

“You are all of you worth very much to me.” Once again, the words feel right even as Ax says them. “And I’d be honored to fight with you once again, should the need arise.”

[All my other AUs are housed here.]

#au #Anonymous #asks #animorphs #avengers #animorphs au #animorphs fic #andalites #avengers fusion #animorphs fusion #i have no idea if this one was inspired by the opening of thing from anothr world or not

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wellamarke · 6 years

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Ooo another one: Athena and to some extent, V

(For context, this is about this character Q&A challenge thing that I reblogged back when series 3 was airing!)

WOW OKAY so I was just thinking to myself that it was weird that I couldn’t remember what I’d written about V for this, because I wanted to compare if I still felt the same about her after the finale episode, and Lo and behold (haha, see what I did there) I find that I actually never finished answering, which is why I couldn’t remember what I’d said!

(I know, I know, reading that was tiring, but imagine having to BE me)

Looking back now it’s super unfortunate that I didn’t write the V section when this ask first came in, because it would have been an interesting comparison… but I think I was felled by not having much V content to go on, before 3.8, whereas now I can talk at much more length!

I had, however, finished the Athena section, so here you go, this is what I had already in the draft:

First, Athena:

• Do I like them? Yes, she’s a brilliant character!

• 5 good qualities: She’s SO SMART, oh my life, major brain crush. She uses her intelligence in a way she considers ‘pure’, despite the more lucrative options that are open to her, so she has a strong moral code in a climate ruled by selfish gain. She’s motivated by her love for her daughter, which defies all odds and succeeds in pioneering an entirely new scientific field - what an icon! She takes crap from exactly NOBODY and is sassy as hell in the process. And she’s willing to help Karen, for which she’ll always have a special place in my heart.

• 3 bad qualities: She wasn’t exactly quick to accept synth consciousness, umm, so she killed a bunch of them pretty callously. Like Ed, she was able to convince herself they weren’t really people long enough to serve her own purposes, so that’s… I’m less keen on that. Umm.. she can be a little brusque, I didn’t particularly like her scene with poor Helen Aveling, who was another lady in science trying her best! No need to put her down! I guess from a narrative perspective, I could say that Athena is a little superfluous, especially since she doesn’t seem to be coming back. We’ll count that! Lots of her harder, colder edges are due to her grief so I can’t really find it in me to pin them as ‘bad’. Have I mentioned, this show does amazingly with its characters, particularly its women?!

• Favourite episode: 2.8 was the goodbye to V, right? Ugh, heartbreaking.

• OTP: … this is kind of out of the blue but I could see her and Laura, mayhaps? Certainly there aren’t any human men left alive in the show who could hold a candle to her. Oh, but how interesting if she and Neil Sommer had dated in the past. Heh heh heh.

• BrOTP: Well, I’m so glad that she’s got Karen’s brain scans, so that she can recreate her perfectly and they can love and support one another!

• OT3: Athena & V & a weekly lunch date where V shows up on her tablet screen and checks in with what she’s been doing/how many synths she’s resurrected in her Mind Meadow.

• NOTP: Athena and her kind of boring husband, what was his name? One of those unisex names? I want it to begin with L? Oh well.

• Best quote: “Nothing really bad has ever happened to you, has it? Because when it does, you don’t need reminders about your insignificance to the universe.” I’m quoting from memory so it might not be the exact wording. Amazing line, anyway.

• Head canon: I like to think that Athena did, in fact, have something to do with Leo’s early treatment. I mean, Max isn’t even with him when it happens, so at some point the Elster sibs must have pooled resources and talked about what was going to happen with him. (They probably moped about their literal surgeon brother not being there too). Anyway, somehow they found Athena and she did some salvaging (having also recently practiced with Pete when she uploaded his consciousness, pending upload to a new body) and later handed over to Anatole. Basically my headcanon is that nobody has really died in this show since Athena and V were introduced. Athena knows how to save human minds and V can grab the synths. Sorted.

Now V! The only one I had previously answered was this:

• Do I like them? Yes, bless her digital cotton socks!

Although now I might slightly rephrase that in favour of:

•Do I like them? I think so! But in the words of George Millican, she worries me! Moving on to the rest of the questions…..

• 5 good qualities: She cares about others, and is benevolent towards the synths even though she is a separate species in and of herself, with a less defined concept of “them” and “us”. Where she can, she acts to relieve suffering (giving Odi the rest he wanted, even if we’d rather she hadn’t). She’s resourceful. She’s developing/has developed a strong sense of herself and her chosen role, which is lovely to see as growth since her confusion in series 2. Aaaand, she recognises Niska’s worth and potential (even if… well, see next part).

• 3 bad qualities: She’s not too bothered about Niska’s personal agency, and would rather focus on convincing her to carry out her will. Speaking of her will, she does seem to think her way and ONLY her way is the right way for both organic and synthetic humanity - and while she might be the best disposed to predict future events, having access to the entire world’s knowledge etc…. that still doesn’t make her Actually Omniscient, I’m sorry. Whatever she thinks. And for a third, hmm, maybe she was a little harsh to leave her mother all of a sudden, but for all we know they’re back in contact now?

• Favourite episode: whichever one it was in series 2 where she starts to piece together who she was but refers to Ginny as ‘she’ rather than ‘I’ - that was so powerful and chilling.

• OTP: I’ve never thought about an OTP for V, ha. Hmm, not in the romantic sense, but I think she and Niska COULD be a winning combination, if nothing goes to awry in s4, but I am on standby for Niska having to stand against her at some point and take her down in some epic, badass way. ALTERNATIVELY, can V make Q properly conscious, and we can see what on earth a ship between 2 non-corporeal AI characters looks like? Or rather, doesn’t look like?

• BrOTP: Supposing that V stays nice, I would like her and Astrid to bond about how much they value Niska, possibly for Astrid to give V a talking to about straight up manipulating her, but in general for them to team up in making sure Niska is taking care of herself during her difficult reign as Queen Indigo.

• OT3: Well, Niska and Astrid and V, I suppose, given my last two replies!

• NOTP: That creepy dude with eyes on his eyelids can stay far away from the Synth Who Sleeps that he’s so obsessed with, thank you!

• Best quote: Listen, I will NEVER not get chills about “Why did you ask me to lie to him?” Every time I hear that line, I am there in the auditorium watching the extended trailer for the first time and it’s just SOOOO GOOD.

• Head canon: ahem, okay, buckle up kiddos because this answer requires some backstory. So, since the age of like 14, my favourite book has been Speaker for the Dead, which is basically about future humanity trying to peacefully coexist with a new alien race, centuries after they wiped out the first alien race they encountered. The main character, Ender, is friends with an artificial superintelligence called Jane, who like V, has access to every piece of information on every computer, can process billions of thoughts at once, keeps her existence a secret from most of the human race, and can appear as whatever image she likes on a screen. (Unlike V, she grew out of a computer game rather than being a transferred human consciousness). Aaaanyway. In the book and its sequels Jane shows an interest in helping humanity & the aliens to understand and accept each other, and partly it is because she’s just a sweetheart, but partly, too, it’s because she hopes that if humans can understand the Pequeninos, who have physical bodies, as they do, but are fundamentally different from them in many ways… if they can learn to live with and value this alien race, then maybe one day, Jane hopes, they will also be able to understand and accept her, too, even though she’s not got a physical form and is fundamentally different from them. Sooooo, I immediately loved V in series 2 because she reminded me of Jane and I love Jane, but now with her new role in series 3 I can see even more possible similarities. My headcanon (the point of this entire essay if you’ll remember) is that V’s quest to end conflict between synths and organics is not quite as altruistic as it might seem, but is rather part of a larger plan to gain acceptance for herself. There’s this amazing quote from Speaker, about Jane who, being aware of all the science fiction the human race has come up with, therefore knows how many of us fear the potential of someone like her coming to exist, and how many stories there are about her final destruction. V doubtless knows all the same stories. It’s in her interests to foster an environment of human acceptance of AI consciousness, to set the stage for her own emergence. This is probably a conclusion that is easily drawn without bringing Jane and Speaker into it, but what can I say, I love it when parallels between my favourite things present and deepen themselves. Okay, that’s probably enough of this, hmm?

Since apparently I’ve woken this again, why not send me a character! If you want! Or reblog the thing!

#c4 humans #amc humans #I’m sorry this is so long lol #athena morrow #v #character ask thingy

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stepphase · 3 years

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Spanish Computer Olympiad winners 17 years and younger

Darío Martínez is a 15-year-old boy from Valencia. In fact, a year ago, I didn't know how to program. As well as, he is the winner of the last Spanish Computer Olympiad. Also, a contest promoted by the Aula Escola Europea Foundation in Barcelona. Of course, it have held since 1997 in search of the promising heads of computer programming focused on algorithmic resolution.

"I started programming last summer, after confinement. Also, a little because of its possible use to do things related to mathematics and a little out of boredom. In fact, some friends who already knew how to program also encouraged me. Also, they helped me a little to learn Python", tells us.

Dario Martinez

After all, the fact that Darío did not know how to program until relatively recently is a common pattern in candidates. Who to the OIE. Hundreds of the nation's high school, high school, and middle school students participate in it each year. Who are screen through statement problems that bring any Muggle from programming and algorithm into the Matrix.

After all, the final phase was complet by 24 participants who have to solve five of these problems in three and a half hours. Also, there are four winners or gold medalists this year. Who will represent Spain in the International Olympiad? Of course, this year online for obvious reasons. In Engadget, we have spoken with these top four classifieds so that they can tell us how they see the future of programming, development. And how they have been formed from their pre-university eyes.

Learn program with internet resources is possible - Spanish Computer Olympiad

Bernat Pagès was the runner-up in this edition. Also, a 17-year-old from Girona, Bernat did start playing with the Scratch from a young age. After all, "My parents both studied engineering also that encouraged me to start it such a young age". After all, it is with regard to competitive programming.

In which the focus is on solving problems, with specific languages. Also, parameters such as memory use and execution time are also value. As well as, it is also start less ago. Then a year of resorting to websites promoted by the OIE itself to train. Of course, as Codeforces or Jutge.org, which they recommend in their training manuals.

Bernat Pages

A pattern similar to that of Óscar Garries, 17, from Barcelona; third classified. Garries tells us that he started programming two and a half years ago "because he wanted to make some money. " In fact, he affirms that what he values most about programming is "being able to create whatever you want whenever you have the desire and the time."

C++

In his case, he resorted to courses on low-cost payment platforms such as Coursera or Udemy. But most of the things I have learned in the end by watching YouTube or the documentation of the languages.

After all, Joan Cintas is the fourth classified and precocious genius. Whom we have spoken and aged 17 also trained in the Aula Escuela Europea. As well as, an Promoter of the Olympiad where he did take programming courses from (still) younger. "In the second year of ESO, we started programming with C ++.

I immediately liked the idea of programming and being able to solve these complex problems and I began to work more on my own. Either with websites or with face-to-face classes. Also, my school gave with so as to prepare the different programming contests that we find in Spain. Says Joan, who nevertheless affirms that she has gone to websites to learn extra in a self-taught way.

Teens in love with how algorithms solve problems - Spanish Computer Olympiad

Oscar Garries

As well as, a common pattern that we have found when chatting with them is that in the necessary interconnection. Between mathematics and programming for children, the former has an even more central weight.

The clearest case is that of Darío, who tells us that what motivates him most about programming is "his relationship with mathematics and the 'challenge' of making efficient algorithms to solve problems related to them. You can Learn new languages or know how they work internally. Also, i really like algorithms and problem-solving. "

After all, this passion for algorithms is also shown by Bernat. "Personally, what I like most about programming is the mathematical part behind it. Also, the fact of thinking of an algorithm that solves the problem in the most optimal way possible".

Joan also alludes to how programming solves vast problems in a short time. And remarks that, from his point of view. With a computer we can always find a method to solve them efficiently.

Ditch Python or Rust: C ++ wins among the programming Olympians - Spanish Computer Olympiad

Joan Cintas

One condition that the Olympiad in Spain has is that the languages allowed to solve the problems are limited to C ++, Python, and Java. Also, a trio that in the main Olympiad is reduced to only the first. Which is specifically promoted by the organization.

This inclination towards C ++ is also clearly marked among the Olympiad medalists. They all mark it as their reference syntax. Also, the language created by Bjarne Stroustrup. As well as, an evolution of the mythical C continues to maintain an important quota and importance. After all, each time Python itself or newer alternatives such as Rust are gaining weight.

Only Java, Python and C ++ are allowed in the OIE

Dario: I learned with Python and I liked it a lot. Also, I think it is a very good language to start with, but the fact that it is much slower and the lack of data structures such as asset or priority_queue makes me prefer C ++".

Joan: "Currently I know 3 programming languages: C ++, Python, and Java. Java is the one I like the least by far, it is very long to write and is not as good at computing time as C ++. Although I like Python a lot for its simplicity and the speed at which one can write the code, C ++ is the first language I learned and the one I use in competitions, since it is the one I have the most fluency and, although it is long to write, it has a lot of ready-made structures and ready for you to use.

And the future? This is how they see themselves and technology in a few years - Spanish Computer Olympiad

Asking someone who still has everything ahead of him about the future is like rolling a dice. Logically, most have in their sights studying mathematics and programming but considering that they still have time to choose a career, their options are open.

Óscar Garries, the third classified, is the most pragmatic: "I would like to study math or data, but I doubt that the note will reach me. What motivates me the most, in any case, is the field of deep learning.

I think everything related to AI is going to be the one that evolves the most in the future, and what I'd like most would be to work on a project like Google's DeepMind, "Alphabet's division that explores deep AI and made headlines a few years ago after its AlphaGo program will defeat a professional human Go player for the first time.

Bernat Pagès, the second classified, is one of those who point directly to mathematics. "I am very clearly sharp that I wanted to study mathematics at the university if the cut-off marks allow me. Here in Catalonia, there is a program called CFIS that allows you to study two degrees simultaneously, where I could study Mathematics and Data Engineering.

Mathematics and its deep research are what most attract the attention of the medalists, along with fields such as deep learning

I believe that the Big Data, or in other words massive data analysis, is going to be a key element in computer development, "he says. Among his aspirations are to dedicate himself fully to mathematical research or, failing that, to work for a BigTech.

It is less clear to Joan, who confesses that she has not yet decided what to study, but that she would like to dedicate herself to the world of technology. After all, the fields such as AI or Augmented Reality are some of the most striking.

"In the case that I dedicate myself to computing and technology, I would like to work on specific hardware and software development issues, since I think it is a very interesting field and teamwork allows interactions and transmission of very important ideas, and starting from an idea to a defined final product seems very entertaining to me, "he says when we ask him to imagine a few years from now.

Darío, this year's winner, is also heading towards mathematics and specifically the development of algorithms. "In a few years I hope to have finished my studies and to be able to work at a University investigating in some field of mathematics that I like, probably something related to graphs or combinatorics.

I suppose that I will not be clear until I have studied more advanced things of different fields ", he says, although he remarks that he is not very clear about it …" Because I still have two years to choose what to study at the University.

And there is no girl?

The quartet of seasoned young people perhaps also represents how in programming there is still ground to be gained in order to achieve a greater female presence. But it is already on its way.

After a first female medalist last year, this course the OIE had 4 girls in its final

At last year's Olympics, one of the winners was Blanca Huergo, the first woman to achieve one of the four gold medals.

Blanca is already studying Mathematics and Computer Science at Oxford and, in the meantime, has promoted the celebration of a Women's Computer Olympiad with which to encourage the participation of the youngest. In this year's edition, among the 24 finalists, there were 4 girls, the largest presence in the history of the contest.

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