#there’s an elliott/sunshine fic in there too now bc why the fuck not at this point right

[lvllns]

okay well—

#reed.txt #it’s not DONE #and it’s part 1 of 3 i’m #me a known foole: this won’t be that long at all #i spend yesterday complaining abt trying to end fics and then i go and do THIS #instead of FINISHING THE OTHER FICS #there’s an elliott/sunshine fic in there too now bc why the fuck not at this point right #this fic is getting done it’s. the brain worms will be released.

[gingerbreadmonsters]

director's cut for 'motion capture' anddd 'you're the cat's meow'?????

star and zo are talking about this ask game (still open!)

damn we're going in HARD!!! thank you babes for asking about these because the world of motion capture is one of my all time favourites that i've done - elliott nation star and zo stay winning 🤩🤩🤩

the fics in question: motion capture + you're the cat's meow! spoilers for both of those under the cut 💕💕

ever since elliott and sunshine got caught and captured in canon i wanted to write something about that, but the concept for motion capture only really materialised properly in the summer when scorpius' first audio ('A Deal With a Demon') dropped - it's no secret that i LOVE me an unreliable narrator, and that dramatic irony is my favourite thing EVER, and what better way to combine those than with a brainwashed elliott??

brain stuff and the manipulation of minds and thoughts has always been a massive thing for me in my writing - i think it's incredibly versatile and adds lovely dimension, whether in terms of the way your worldview changes when you're in love with someone, or the inherent horror of not being able to trust your own mind and sensibility 😍😍 i bring it up a lot, but i think elliott and sunshine fit both of those very nicely, so it was only natural to give elliott a taste of that hehe

i don't think i made it very clear in the actual fic, but the song that elliott wakes up to is 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life' by stevie wonder - the title is, of course, delightful for these two, and the particular bit of the song that elliott hears is MAGNIFICENTLY painful in the context of the fic 🥰🥰 i was kind of thinking about those, like, late 90s and 00s american teen movies where they always like to start with a pop song that plays over the opening montage, that melts into the protagonist waking up and hitting snooze or stopping the song bc it's their alarm - you know the kind i mean? and of course, this fic was inspired by the elliott fic of all elliott fics, rowan's bring me a dream, which incorporates music BEAUTIFULLY - it felt like the appropriate thing to do 🤩💖🫰

this fic was actually meant to unfold very differently, and you can kind of see bits of that original storyline that never got used - there's a set up with the deodorant and the left hand door of the closet that was supposed to pay off later, but never really comes to anything. elliott was supposed to be looking for something (i think it was going to be a hoodie?) and realise that it was probably behind that door, and then when he opened it he'd find all of sunshine's clothes - that was going to be what fucked up his brain, but alas i couldn't find a way to make it work 😫😫

there were also meant to be more pages in elliott's notebook!! i actually had some of them ready to go when i scrapped the idea, but it was getting too confusing - basically, before he left for closeknit, past-elliott would have written an "if you're reading this, i'm dead" letter in the back of the book, which present-elliott was going to find and absolutely lose his mind over what that implies about his life right now! it was a good idea, but the logistics behind it were too complicated - why would elliott only be finding that letter now, instead of days or weeks or months ago? what's special about today? what's different? it was all getting too much, so unfortunately that had to go 😭😭

my favourite favourite bit from the whole thing is DEFINITELY the bit where he makes tea - the line "(The mug is blue. Elliott is lactose intolerant.)" is, in my opinion, one of my all-time best lines i've ever done, and i love the way that whole bit came out 🥰🥰 the way he tries to rationalise and deny what's very clearly happened, the way the narration starts to repeat and bleed over itself.... UGH it was so much fun to write hehe 🥳🥳🥳

it took AGES to try and logic my way through exactly how elliott was able to keep himself alive in the flat, and the logic i ended up with isn't entirely watertight but i think it does the job! he needed to be getting food, water, electricity etc but no internet, and he couldn't be allowed to independently leave the house because i needed him to not accidentally run into people he knew on the street who might give the game away - but at the same time, people who know him (like family, friends, people from his job etc) needed to not raise the alarm that he hasn't been seen for some indefinite period of time 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

(in my mind, what happened was that closeknit was able to (by hook or by crook) get elliott assigned to one of their own people on some big 'top-secret' project that needed total secrecy and probably an extended stay abroad or in another state or something, and then to distribute that fact via elliott's phone (that they've definitely had access to, bc we know that the SIM card has been removed) to his family and friends - that way, nobody would go looking for him and radio silence wouldn't be too suspicious. obviously they wouldn't be able to keep this up forever, but i imagine that a) closeknit intends to kill elliott before long, regardless of blake's promise to sunshine, and b) this was all done in a bit of a hurry, when they captured elliott and sunshine and were then like "oh fuck what do we do now", and that panic is part of the reason why scorpius' memory modification didn't quite work correctly!)

the idea of the locket came from lyric on discord, who was kind enough to listen to me kick and scream about how i had no idea how to resolve all of this and then zapped me with the biggest brainwave imaginable - this is another shameless reference to a real locket that i own lol (the same one that gavin is wearing in get in, loser!) ✌️✌️ i loved the idea of elliott getting hit with that huge wave of dread and confusion as he looks at something that very clearly shouldn't be possible if the world is as he thinks it is - basically, he's seeing a glitch in the matrix and it's terrifying!!

i don't know if it came through very clearly in the narration, but in that last bit what happens is as follows:

elliott drops the pen, and kneels down to pick it up

he notices something shiny under the sofa, and sticks his head underneath there so that he can reach it

while he's still under there, he picks it up - it's a locket - and opens it, confused because he's already wearing an identical one

his is empty, but the one he found is not, containing a picture of him and sunshine, and the words "for my sunshine." - overwhelmed by the undeniable proof that something is very very wrong, it triggers a bout of lightheadedness

he tries to hold onto the memory, but hits his head on the underneath of the sofa, dropping the locket back where he found it and causing him to lose focus just long enough for the lightheadedness to make him forget

it's implied that this has happened before, and will continue to happen every day indefinitely

(also, "navy blue cotton" is a reference to thy fair imperfect shade, my first elliott fic - it has no bearing on the story here, it's just for fun hehe 🥳🥳)

we can definitely talk about you're the cat's meow!, although it's quite short so there might not be much to say! they both take place in the same universe, and i'd had that song in the back pocket for a few months at least - although it was meant for a fluff fic, i'm a sucker for tonal dissonance... 🤩🤩🤩

this fic is, to me, the chaser to motion capture - not so much a narrative foil, but showing that closeknit didn't keep their promises to either of them. sunshine was told that elliott's off living a normal, happy life (he's emphatically not), and elliott was under the impression that sunshine didn't even exist (they do, but not for much longer if blake keeps chipping away at them).

i do hope it's clear, but just so we're all on the same page:

closeknit did not give sunshine a radio - that's them singing the same song over and over again in an attempt to comfort themselves and block out what's really going on

the 'house in the forest' that blake keeps burning down is the one from elliott's BA that he and sunshine designed together

the 'little friend' who has a nightmare is blake's listener - his one weakness, and inadvertently the reason why blake's goal to talk to brachium has yet to succeed

the reason sunshine is still there is because they won't give in - in their mind, they've pivoted to protecting elliott the way they couldn't do physically, and so blake is now having to try and wear them down in order make them pliable enough to get access to brachium

sunshine is wearing a straitjacket - that's why the jacket is so 'cuddly and soft', and why their arms specifically are so warm

#ooh a game! #redacted asmr #redacted audio #god DAMN this was a long reply i do apologise #but i love talking motion capture!! it really is one of my favourite things i've written and i love it to bits so thank you 🥰🥰 #zo beloved <3 #star beloved <3 #ginger speaks to lovely blogs