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#Editing it despite me saying I am not going to do anything two years ago.

svcredveins · 1 month

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An introduction to myself!

So first things first, I’m 22 and female. Was so unsure to post on here since I’ve created this account three years ago to share my heartbeat. I have also a huge passion of mine - to become a Porsche factory driver in the coming future.

So bear with clips here and there, I do feel weird though doing this to the public but hey, we’re all heart lovers right?

Anyway, reason is to actually just check up on myself every once in awhile and see how my little lady is doing and appreciate her. I’ve struggled with a lot of things in my life with responsibilities to my own health and with this motivation to check up on myself. I definitely need to workout. And since becoming a Porsche factory driver is my dream, as a sim racer, I need to workout anyway because once I get my pedals and foldable rig, I have to workout because my little arms and legs will not bode well after 20 minutes of driving haha. For now I’m just on a controller.

So with this account made, I must be more aware of myself and even not just physically, but mentally too. Even though this is to the world, seeing others share their heartbeats is a reminder to myself to appreciate how our bodies were made and on how fascinating the human body is and what it’s capabile of. Also with the idea of more self acceptance for myself that I am living and breathing human being with a heartbeat and that it’s okay to fail. This alone will help me go a long way with that mindset for my sim racing as well! Hehe. Sorry. I love my racing. But! There’s also something to add on to that.

The dream

I’ve always been the type of girl to love speed. Anything that gets my heart racing (pun intended) I enjoy. The sheer thrill of going over the edge and that is where I found my biggest passion - sports car racing. The adrenaline, the awareness of knowing your putting your body over the edge, the unknown of what will happen when battling against another driver...I love that feeling and racing gives me that feeling and it bugs me everyday knowing that I am currently unable to race due to money, however, that is my dream and I strive to achieve it!

You need to be so fit for and that includes being aware of your breathing and heart rate. But oh to go so fast around a track over 200kmh feeling like everything around you is going by slowly. Heart pounding, breathing heavily, heavy focus on one goal - to win...yes! Give me my Porsche GT3 Cup, GT3 R, and 963! Let’s go!

Two passions intertwined

So since I was a little girl, I’ve also had those rare occasions where I felt my heartbeat. It’s always interested me feeling the “lub dub” in my chest. These things just began to intertwine for me and it’s actually perfect because since I love the sense of speed and adrenaline with it, my dream job is to be a cardiothorasic surgeon and that makes a lot of money’s worth to get into sports car racing which is definitely expensive as ever! So that will indefinitely support my biggest passion. Two passions in one? Crazy right?! I’m very excited for my future, despite my personal mental issues, but I am a huge dreamer so that’s my goal. I’m trying to work through it!

I’m aiming to get a stemoscope and a pulse oximeter. I would love to record my little lady working hard during my sim racing sessions! I just need the proper equipment to do it with a chest monitor strap.

Thank you for reading this far if you have. As you can tell I am super passionate about both!

Editing

Fun fact about me, I also do editing! I do photo and video edits and have been doing it for about 8 years. Time has flown by quickly!

The photo above is the Porsche 963 behind the human heart, portraying my passion for Porsche and the strong desire to become their factory driver.

My heart

I’ll try to say some info about my little lady.

She is a strong one with fire in her arteries. After getting an annual medical checkup about a year ago, my doctor remarked that I have a strong heart which was actually comforting to hear from her not gonna lie, knowing that my little lady is a strong and healthy one!

Strong and healthy speaks loudly about my passion for Porsche and racing for them as a factor driver, and that’s actually really heartwarming thinking about it because of how much of a passionate type person I am so it’s remarkable how she beats so strong and confident! I cherish that.

Cardiophilia intentions

I’m more on the light hearted (no pun intended) side of the cardiophilia. I just enjoy the functionality of the heart, and being fascinated with it, but I don’t mind some dark cardiopheila. It does, however, have limits. A lot of limits.

I have done a fanfic back in 2018 where I guess you could call it more on the dark side, but I do not involve myself physically in any of that, nor do I condone it. I’ll definitely write dark cardiophilia in some sort of form in books which I have in the past, as I’ve mentioned earlier, so anything else, I keep my little lady all out of harms way and treat her nicely. No resus, pressure, or poking. I do breathholds at times though, but other than that, I have one little heart so I must treat her well as she should be treated.

#cardiophilia #intro post #blog intro #cardiophile thoughts #heartbeat #my heart #stethoscope #adrenaline #fast heartbeat #pounding heart #beating heart #cardiophile

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winterxgardener · 1 month

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What makes Shourtney stand out to me (as a possible couple) is that despite all the LA influences and insane talent, they kinda seem like two people you could see hanging out in your neighborhood. They are so special but normal at the same time if that makes sense.

I also feel that neither of them are particularly great at hiding their true feelings about people and things around them - and I love that about them. I'm sure they do a loooooot of self-censoring but at the same time, have hard time maintaining a proper poker face.

Actually, there are some 2019-2020 videos where Courtney and Shayne start acting silly/flirty together, and the other person in the room (usually Ian and Damien) has a slightly amused but uncomfortable "here we go again" expression on their face. The expression is so relatable 'cause I've been in similar situations myself at the workplace and kept thinking "you guys really need to do something about this romantic tension 'cause we have a meeting with the boss in two minutes and she might have some questions". So awkward but hilarious at the same time.

Similarly to the previous anon, I also wish we could hear their own experience at some point since what we discuss here in Tumblr, is mainly just speculation/interpretation. Even if it turns out that Shourtney never happened and we shippers have been living in delulu, I'd still love to hear what their shared journey has been (bts) since it feels like they rarely talk about their friendship/something-else-ship anymore. Ian and Anthony discuss their friendship frequently in videos, Shayne and Damien make references to their shared past experiences from time to time, and I've even heard Amanda and Angela commenting on how close friends they are. But I can not remember the last time Shayne and Courtney had even a brief discussion about them as a duo, despite being one of the more iconic ones.

I actually think that it was the contradiction between their non-verbal language and verbal treatment of each other that led me to speculate (1-2 years ago) that something is going on bts. For me their "heart eyes" alone are not really a proof of anything since they keep looking at half the cast with similar endearment. However, I found it weird that they would look at each other so lovingly (at least in brief moments) but rarely ever say anything friend-like directly to each other or even act politely, like normal coworkers. Some people will explain that with their long friendship but they are close with Damien and Ian as well and rarely act in the same contradictory way with them. I just can't explain that with anything else but "something's going on".

As a background info: I started my Smosh journey with videos from 2022 and 2023, and initially, knew nothing about the Shourtney shipping that happened in late 2010s. Despite this (or because of it?) I sensed something between them and was not surprised to hear that they might be more than just coworkers. However, I def understand why shippers got a bad rep in Defy era because I can not sense the same chemistry between them in older videos and would have needed a fair amount of delulu to convince myself that they are together. Nowadays, it's the other way around: you need to make a lot of mental acrobics to explain why they are most probably just friends.

Btw, sorry for a long, not-so-cohesive ramble on this. I'm writing this in a sleepy mode, and am not sure myself what is the red thread of this anymore. :D

I am speechless while reading this. What do you mean by 'not cohesive'? This is a well-structured narrative. 🤯🤯

I agree that between 2019 and 2021, Shourtney appeared different, especially during their Twitch streams since they were unedited, unlike now, where they can easily censor or edit some of their moments.

Regarding their chemistry, from 2015 to 2018, it was just full-blown flirting as friends. (I don't know if I'm just being delusional), but something changed in 2019.🙉🙈

#shourtney #shartney #satire #i am delusional #dont mind it

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sweetly-yours-and-mine · 1 year

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“i’m never more at peace than i am in your arms.” with Steven Grant

Pairing: Steven Grant x Reader

Word Count: 887

A/N: Just opened up my askbox for some requests!

Warnings: fluff, hurt/comfort if you squint, poorly-edited

The service had been a lovely one. The reception even lovelier.

The reception is even lovelier.

Having stepped outside of the venue and into the cooled heat of the summer night for a moment’s rest from the festivities, you feel as if it was all a memory, a misfiring of neurons that made you believe that the day had truly happened.

You’re tired, tuckered out. The type that only comes from not eating enough and feeling too much.

Your bones ache, there’s a film of something stuck to your skin and inside your lungs. You’ve spent too much of the day outside, with too many people you’d spend at most an hour with.

A grating static is littered like chalk dust inside your mind. The more you try to wipe it away the worse it gets.

A rumble of laughter flows out from the open window, and it goes straight to your head in the worst of ways.

It’s a horrid combination of too many things that, each one in moderation, would be alright to handle but put together like this are too much at once.

You’re oversaturated.

There’s an increase and decrease in noise as the door opens and closes, the bit of a drag on the second step that lets you know that everything is going to be alright, that you no longer need to struggle to keep the cracking mask on.

“Hiya love,” his voice is warm, like the sun. “Everything alright? Lost each other in there, didn’t we? For a bit.” His arm comes to curl around your waist, he pulls you close to him.

Everything is alright now.

Guilt crawls up your throat at the poorly-hidden worry in his voice, “Sorry about that.” He’s wearing the cologne you got him for Valentine’s three years ago. He’s on his second bottle now. “Didn’t mean to run off.”

“Well you didn’t go very far,” Steven shrugs. The movement against your own body is a redemption in itself. There’s a purr of laughter around his voice, “If anything I’d say it was a piss-poor attempt at running off.”

You smile and laugh, breathing coming to you a little bit easier now that his body is warming yours up, now that it’s just the two of you again. “Didn’t take you long to find me.”

He shrugs again. You suppose there isn’t an answer to that anyways, the pull between you and Steven inexplicable, though entirely tangible to the both of you.

“You feelin’ alright, though, dearie? Somethin’ on your mind?” His free hand presses against your forehead, the side of your face. There’s a dimple between his eyebrows.

You turn and look up at him, pressing the length of your body into his side. Even the rub of the fabric of his pants against your skin is enough, the truth of his own skin underneath shining through it all like seaglass.

You know for a fact there’s a dopey grin on your face. Your arms come to circle around his neck like Saturn’s rings, your fingers come to play with the ends of his hair, “Just you.”

“You wanna go home? Really, I wouldn’t mind, the band was gettin’ a bit on my nerves if I’m being honest,” he turns away for a moment, his voice dropping to a grumbling tone like it always does when he complains. “Don’t know what kinda stick that trumpeter's got up his arse but he’d be doing us all a good favour if he took it out and threw it far, far-.”

“Steven,” your voice isn’t harsh, a gentle callback to the moment between you two that existed free of any trumpets. “I’m alright now,” you cup his cheek, gaze into the coffee cups of his eyes. He’s more concerned than you initially took it for, his light-hearted teasing a paper-thin veil. “Just needed a breather.”

“You sure you don’t wanna go? It’ll be much nicer at home, Gus’ll be there n’all.”

Steven loves live music, despite his complaints. He’s notorious for being the life of the dance floor whenever you two go out, and his eyes are still twinkling, the need to dance still present in his soul like a blossoming tulip.

“I'm never more at peace than when I’m in your arms…when I’m with you,” you smile, trace the ridges and grooves of his nose, press your thumb into the prominent pockmark on his left cheek, right above his mouth. “Thanks for coming and finding me.”

“‘Course honey, ‘course,” he swallows, tightens his grip on you a little. “You really wanna stay?”

You nod, “I think I’ve got an hour or two left in me.”

He doesn’t stray from your side once after that, sweat dampening his forehead as he spins and spins to the music he seemingly hated. In something beyond your soul, his presence is steady and quiet like a rusted anchor.

Steven’s hand is warm and soothing in yours, his voice hoarse and scratched an hour later, after you’ve said your goodbyes and are heading out.

Your feet ache a little. For some reason, the nails of your hands are throbbing. Your soul is calm, soothed.

As always, all you really needed was Steven.

And Steven always came to you.

Thanks for reading, if you liked it, please consider leaving some feedback! I don't usually respond, but I obsess and re-read reblogs and comments constantly.

Masterlist here, requests here.

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kuroashims · 6 months

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☠ CHRONICLES OF A BRAINROT ☠

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After many years simming in my corner, I finally decided to step out of my comfort zone and share my pixel babies with the simblr/tumblr sphere!

I started playing sims with the first opus when I was pretty tiny, and couldn't stop ever since. This game allows my creativity and inner world to express like no other game would, and that's what I love so much about it.

I created many different worlds, kingdoms and stories, but the one I enjoy the most is my One Piece save I started a year ago. It is the first time I am really eager to leave CAS to actually play the game!

Back in 2015 I've been introduced to the manga/anime universe and I never went back! It truly was a revelation, and a revolution in my own stories. But when I discovered One Piece, all of a sudden I was hooked. This universe is so colorful and deep at the same time, it is the safe place I go whenever I feel down, and it never fails me. It may sound silly but I can't explain how warm it makes me feel. Especially Luffy's vibe and laugh, he's so precious.

So last year when I had to stop working because of bad health issues, my last two brain cells met and said to each other "hey, why not One Piece sims?", and that was it, I began this crazy journey of looking for the perfect OP custom content for the perfect OP babies, being disappointed of not finding many or really old ones...and that is when, after weeks and weeks of research, I decided to create my own One Piece custom content, because, why not?!

I never touched Blender (and a year later I still feel such a newbie with it) nor Photoshop before, but it didn't stop me to throw myself into it and man, despite all the crying seeing my creations in game unexpectedly float in the air or be filled with "???" in CAS and such, I can say that I don't regret anything!

I can sing on stage, write songs or dance, but can I properly draw? No, I cannot. And I've been frustrated for so long since I wanted to do fanarts for my fandoms but I tried, aaand it was bad. Like, really really bad. Fortunately simming is now one of my places of expression, and I'm SO EXCITED about my lil creations & stories.

My wish is to grow a small community of One Piece fans and/or fellow simmers with whom I could share my passions and enjoy theirs. I know you guys are out there, and I love you already!!

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➨ useful informations for navigation:

• Some of my posts may contain dark topics, blood and mature rp ships (18+)

• I'll do my best to limit spoilers but take note that there might me some here

• I am WCIF friendly but it might take a while for me to answer since I literally use thousands of cc. So please ask for 1 or 2 items at a time. I will happily share their names and creators

• I will not share any download links of my own OP custom content, because I often use other artist's meshes parts, then I mix them with my own etc ; so claiming these items as my own and share them to dl would break those artist's TOUs. Thank you for your comprehension

• That said, if I ever grow a significant sim community, I would eventually contact these artists one by one to ask their permissions to share my content with you! (with credits ofc)

• On this page I'll only reblog sims from other people that are One Piece characters, as well as One Piece fanarts or anything related

• Aside from my sims I also really enjoy editing my own gifs and manga/anime panels so you can expect to see a lot of them ♡

• Don't be surprised if some of my sims seem really different from one screenshot to another, that is because I have different saves with different timelines (children, pre timeskip, post timeskip, Wano), and various AUs like high school, dark fantasy world etc. For example, by now I already have 8 different Sanji sims in several styles and stages of his life (my biggest number for a single character, but I can't help it...I just love him so much!)

• If there are any suggestions, requests, ships (personally into Zosan/Zolu/Lusan/Lawlu/Acesan/Shuggy/Mishanks/Frobin) and more that you would like to see, feel free to ask and I will enjoy making it happen for you!

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SO HERE WE ARE ☻

THANKS FOR READING...

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY ✿❁❀

#intro post #new simblr #sims community #one piece #cc creator #maxis mix #text post

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sometimes-men-need-help-too · 1 year

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So usually, I will discuss posts from reddit and provide screenshots but today I just wanna discuss the post itself. Most of the commenters are calling her out anyway

I'm reusing this throwaway to again avoid connection to my main.

I (38F) have been dating my current boyfriend (36M) for about 2 years now. It's very difficult for me to make long term commitments like this because of issues I've had growing up and with past relationships - however we've been making things work despite my baggage for the most part.

We hit a roadblock in our relationship a week and a half ago. My bf has his own familial baggage: to sum up without going into the nitty gritty his biological mom left him when he was young. They reunited half a year or so ago - and I guess things went ok there? A little bit over a week ago she passed away, and surprisingly he's taken it way harder than I expected. This is the first time I've seen him cry - and to be honest I hate it. I've done my fair share of crying over my years but I've grown past that phase and in the present I'm not sure I enjoy having that energy around.

Things got worse when he found out his bio mom's family would not let him attend her funeral. Because of this, he hasn't worked since to "take his own time to mourn". I've tried to talk to him about it as I don't get why he's exahausting so much effort to mourn someone who has barely been in his life. He's gotten angry with my reaction but he does know I'm not fit to deal with what he's doing at the moment because of my own experiences.

Now that it's been over a week I've grown both worried and annoyed about the situation. I had a sit down with him and another friend two nights ago to talk to him. I'm not one to hold back so I outright told him to just get over the whole thing already and how it isn't normal to react this much to someone who had wronged him so much. Our mutual friend wasn't expecting that - and to be precise she completely failed to mediate the talk from then on.

Some time into our fight he started crying - yet again. I was really uncomfortable and I outright demanded he stop. He had to be removed from our home. He's been staying with our friend since then and I've been really confused on how to approach further. Our friend has told me I was being harsh but again he knows how I am and how I deal with negative emotions. Still talking with her further has gotten me thinking about how I handeled things.

Edit - clarifying things.

This isn't about my bf's masculinity. The way he's acting triggers something in me. It brings me back to a dark place - that's the negativity I can't be around.

My boyfriend has been my emotional rock for most of our relationship - this sudden shift in his attitude is also contributed to my reaction to the whole ordeal.

I'm not heartless, as I said I have a very rough way of displaying my emotions. Genuinely I feel concern about how my boyfriend is acting.

This is so messed up

First of all, she had no business judging him for crying. If it truly brings her to a dark place(/her not being fit to deal with it) then she needs to get herself some help (and I'm not saying that to be snarky) instead of being in a relationship. You can't be in a relationship with someone, having them be there for you (in this case, emotionally) but you can't be there for them. It isn't fair at all. He can't just be her emotional rock while she doesn't do anything in return.

She also has no business judging him for why he's mourning. He's obviously torn up about it. Maybe he's mourning for the relationship he didn't get to have. Maybe they planned on further patching things up. Whatever it is, she has no right to act like he shouldn't be grieving, especially when she knows he isn't even allowed to attend the funeral.

And then for her to become annoyed--not cool, not okay. How do you just tell someone, a week after their loved one passed, to get over it? How? You don't just suddenly become okay again after a little bit of time passes by. Grief is hard and can be overwhelming. It's harder if you're in a situation like this with an unsupportive S/O.

The kicker is that she demanded him to stop crying and kicked him out. That is abhorrent.

#mens rights #double standards #relationships

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dontforgetyourmedstoday · 6 days

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So you just steal artwork and don't care? Got it. Either that or my ask asking about sources from your posts on April 8th disappeared. Or I guess you could be off tumblr and not have been here for two weeks.

Hi Anon,

I'm assuming this is you:

If it is, yes, I did see your last ask - but life has been a bit shit lately and frankly, I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to deal with an accusatory email that gave me absolutely no details about what you were upset about so I could investigate. So today, despite it being an incredibly long and shit one that isn't over I'm going to reply.

*Takes a deep breath* From this point forward I'm going to assume that, like me, you are just a real-live human with feelings that get hurt and not someone who just likes to yell at people on the internet. So let me apologise that I have used your artwork without attribution, it was in no way my intention. Please take this apology as someone who was just trying to amuse themselves and perhaps help some other people out by reminding them to take their meds too. I absolutely suck at art-type things so in my mind, no one would think I did them or was claiming the actual 'art' part of them as mine. I realise now this is the internet, you guys don't know me, and so I should have been clearer that nearly all of these are edits. (There are a few waaaaay back I actually drew myself). Looking at the 7th, 8th & 9th of April (allowing for time zones and assuming that's when you saw your artwork). All of them except one have a link at the bottom of the image that links back to where I sourced the original image - I don't know if this is visible on mobile so I'll show it below (the bit circled in red)

So I'm assuming this one is yours:

It seems that one doesn't have the link. I don't know why. I haven't made any new reminders for this blog in ages (again - life) - it seems like most of the ones from early April this year were originally posted back in 2021. I got briefly excited about this blog again a few months ago and loaded up a bunch of old ones so this blog was still functional for the people that find it helpful. Going back I have noticed that others seem to not have credit either. It is possible I made a mistake and forgot to add them. It's also possible that Tumblr has a had a glitch/error/weirdness which means it's disappeared. I also used a bunch of images from the editing app I was using to add the reminder message and I wish I could remember what the site was called because I cannot for the life of me remember. Honestly, who knows. I have deleted the post(s) with that image - if it's not the right one please let me know.

I have always gone out of my way to ensure that anything I use is either free use, or non-commercial under Creative Commons. As an aside, I'm an academic and a person who has artist friends and my partner runs a business where our customers are largely designers and artists, so I do actually do my best to give credit. Am I perfect - no I'm not. Part of the reason I stopped making new posts was because of difficulty giving credit even on images that were non-attribution and finding images where I knew what the attribution requirements were (along with trying to remember everything everyone asked me to tag, and doing the image descriptions etc.) If anyone else finds something of theirs in one of my posts and there isn't credit attached please either dm me or send an ask and let me know which post and how you would like to be credited and I'll add it in. If you want it removed, I'm happy to do that too.

Sorry for the long post, hope it helps to clear things up. Finally, let me take this opportunity to say

"Don't forget your meds today my friends"

#attribution #artwork #answered ask

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maaikeatthefullmoon · 1 month

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As promised to my darling friend @tismrot, here is the first of The Holiday Diaries *insert ominous music here*. Hope you enjoy it, dollface.

The drive was four hours. I can’t drive. Essentially, I lived in a country where I couldn’t speak the language when I was of an age to learn to drive. After that, once I moved to the UK at age 18, I’ve always either lacked the time or money (or both) for driving lessons. So I’m a frustrated passenger.

The destination was somewhere I said I’d never go again. A few years ago I ended up in A&E (not self inflicted - it was a treatment-resistant migraine, which means I end up on a morphine drip. It happens roughly every 4-5 years) and I can’t say my memories of this place are great as a result. On top of which I vowed last year that I wasn’t doing this type of holiday again and I’d be taking the kids separately from then on. Oh yeah, and then I lost my everloving shit last night as well. Oops. Meant to have that conversation AFTER the holiday.

Big words, big breeches…aaaaand here I am! On holiday! Fucksake. But hopefully it’ll be entertaining.

Hour one.

Kids argued within five minutes. Googled car games for them. They just looked at me like I grew an extra head. Felt like a dinosaur. Googled if I can do EMDR to myself. Results inconclusive. Atmosphere in the front of the car very awkward. BBC Radio 2 on.

Hour two.

Kids still arguing, although son has helped daughter build a rollercoaster on Minecraft. Told them about Rollercoaster Tycoon. Once again felt like a dinosaur. Messaged a LOT of people to pass the time. Still listening to Radio 2. Atmosphere obviously still awkward. Ignoring the burgeoning migraine that’s been bugging me on & off for the past week+. Definitely stressed. Saw someone with amazing green hair in a service station. Exchanged smiles. Kindred spirits. Despite being young enough to be my daughter. Do wonder if these people smile at me in a condescending way, wondering if grandma’s escaped from a home…Oh look, that was an ellipsis. And I DIDN’T PUT A SPACE AFTER IT. Ha. Anyway.

Hour three.

Fuck the migraine, took a triptan. Radio 2 still on, did pretty well on Ten to the Top. Dollface, you won’t know what this is…don’t worry about it. Read through the edits @tismrot made on my chapter I’d been struggling on. Felt like the shittest writer on Earth, but needed that kick up the arse. Realised by the end of the hour that the new triptans pack a punch and I was stoned off my nut. Is that a phrase? It is now. Atmosphere was…ah, fuck it, I didn’t care any more. It certainly passed the time.

Hour four.

Put my own playlist on. Well, a modified kid-friendly version. Still occasionally get caught out as I just filter songs out that have an ‘explicit’ tag, but sometimes the tag is missing, and sometimes they’re just fucking crude without using any swear words. Whoops. Oh well. Anything was better than Jeremy Vine. Was NOT listening to him. Took the kids for lunch at McDonald’s. Embarrassed the 8yo by putting on a silly hat, and singing, and dancing. It’s too easy. 11yo gives zero fucks, nothing embarrasses him.

Writing this in a caravan now. At least I have good reading material. I’ve finally got my over-arching plot & everything planned out for the first original book & these two books are great reading.

After the blowup argument last night I’m essentially spending time with the kids alone, reading alone or writing alone. A L O N E

Although there appears to be a case of amnesia that’s set in already. I’m choosing to laugh hysterically at this

#the holiday diaries #I dislike caravan holidays #they’re just not for me #four hours in a car is too long for my crumbling spine

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hollygl125 · 3 months

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On January 15:

Am I declaring another GSR holiday? Maybe. Why not? This is my Tumblr account, so I guess I’ll do what I want to do. Is it already over in pretty much every time zone except mine? Yep, that too. (Edited to add: it’s over here now, too, by the time of posting.)

January 15 is a pretty significant day in GSR history—perhaps the most significant. (Surely the first day of the AAFS conference would be in the running in the fictional world. But in the real world I’d say January 15 beats out most.) First, twenty years ago, on January 15, 2004, we got “Butterflied” (04x12). Then, exactly five years later, on January 15, 2009, we got “One to Go” (09x10), the episode that really should have tied it all up with a bow (and, for a time, did).

Last week I made a GIF-set for Sara’s introduction in “Cool Change” (01x02) then a day or two later I continued my CSI rewatch with “Invisible Evidence” (04x07). Inevitably I watched the (“Pin me down”) scene repeatedly before continuing with the episode. I know season 04 is the GSR angst season (*insert “TM” I can’t type here*). But, spending that much time with “I don’t even have to turn around” and “Pin me down” in such quick succession, I was particularly struck by the sadness of these two people having gone from friends (or “friends,” if you get my drift, of course) who were, despite the tragic circumstances surrounding their reunion, pretty darn happy to see each other to, in about three years’ time, colleagues who could barely have a normal, non-awkward conversation. (See: “I’m always over-talking around you.”) Viewed in retrospect it’s an enjoyable though angsty loop in the GSR roller coaster ride, but it feels really sad when viewed from the perspective of the time.

At the end of season 03, Grissom turns down Sara’s dinner invitation (“Play with Fire,” 03x22). In “Invisible Evidence,” “Pin me down” aside, he’s kind of a jerk to her (when she’s concerned about the murder she’s already investigating, he gives her the terse “It’s not a negotiation”). He lets her down again in the next episode (“After the Show,” 04x08), when he lets Catherine take over Sara and Nick’s case just because the suspect thinks Catherine is “the pretty one.” Sara doesn’t know it until much later, but she suffers another (metaphorical) blow at his hands in “Eleven Angry Jurors” (04x11), when he recommends Nick for the ultimately-cancelled promotion to Lead CSI (whatever the heck that is) over Sara. Of course, at the same time, Sara and Grissom get some ridiculous cuteness in that episode, as seen here, when Grissom makes a corny pun over a bee (of course a 🐝) corpse and checks to make sure Sara thinks he’s adorable. (Newsflash: she does!)

(As an aside, on which I will possibly ramble more at a later date, I tend to see Grissom up to this point as a wounded animal—occasionally accidentally lashing out at his would-be rescuer, Sara—who is simply unequipped and unprepared for the situation in which he has found himself, so I think he is trying his best but does not really realize how deeply wounded he is.)

Then we continue on the GSR roller coaster with the beloved and angsty “Butterflied.” CSI being a show about forensics, this really could have been the kind of relationship that always simmered under the surface but never came to much of anything for the presumably star-crossed lovers. We know the writers planned to let the whole thing disappear after Sara’s failed dinner invitation. But WP and JF liked playing the relationship! (JF has, repeatedly I am sure, said it was her favourite part of the show!) They didn’t want it to go away! So instead in the first half of season 04 we get first “Pin me down” and then the David Rambo-penned “Butterflied,” which finally confirms (as we all knew all along!) that Sara does not just have some unrequited schoolgirl crush on her boss and mentor. This is the real deal, and Dr. Grissom has been suppressing some deep feelings for the young and beautiful Ms. Sidle—really deep feelings, as seen in the original script for Grissom’s “Butterflied” monologue.

I don’t actually remember watching “Butterflied” for the first time. At the time most of my attention was focused on my first year of [professional] school. I was definitely a more casual fan and not down the rabbit hole (although I am the kind of person who manages to ship couples on shows she’s never even watched). The first episode of CSI for which I have a clear memory of having an emotional reaction was “Bloodlines” (04x23), because I felt pretty upset by Sara’s almost-DUI.

On the other hand, I have a very clear memory of first watching “One to Go” (09x10), which originally aired fifteen years ago today (yesterday now), although I did not first watch it on that day. I was in Pakse exactly fifteen years ago, or so my photo evidence tells me; so I assume I would not have managed to watch the episode live in Laos (I didn’t even have a laptop with me), but I must have watched it soon after I got home at the end of the month, and I was wholly unspoiled for the experience.

I don’t know whether anyone at the time had hints of whether JF was showing up at all for WP’s last episode. (Fi? Anyone?) But as far as I am aware they all pulled an ER/George Clooney and didn’t let anyone in on the last scene. (GSR has echoed Doug on the docks on more than one epic relationship occasion. And yeah that song is so perfect that it’s on my GSR fic playlist for the first post-“Immortality” reunion chapter.) They held JF’s name from the initial credits so as not to give her appearance away. So there we were in the last scene, with Gil Grissom walking through the “Costa Rican” rainforest, and Sara Sidle still nowhere to be seen, and I vividly remember thinking, “Please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to Sara, please just tell us he goes to… Sara!!!” I’m in tears just thinking about it—I kid you not.

Anyway, I am sure that scene in Costa Rica is ingrained in the hearts and minds of GSR fans everywhere, but—just in case you needed to see another version—I made a two-part GIF set for it, which you can find here and here. I think “Wild Heart” by Bleachers is a perfect song for Grissom going into the rainforest in search of his beloved, so it makes me pretty emotional (and of course “Unbound” by Robbie Robertson is a GSR classic).

On another note, this weekend I also made a season 04/CSIV GIF-set (not linked because it’s currently sitting in my drafts, uncertain as to its fate), and I have to say I find it really pretty remarkable that we got to see our two lovely science nerds go from a cute-turned-angsty under the surface maybe-relationship to a real relationship, to our awkward bugman going on a heroic journey (“from the isolated figure we first meet him as to the one who, when he leaves us, believes, above everything, in love”) and following his beloved into the rainforest, to places we don’t talk about (okay, I could have skipped that part), to sailing off into the sunset together, to being the world’s cutest old marrieds. It really was a roller coaster ride, but I think it’s pretty special (and I feel pretty privileged) that we got to experience it all.

I’ll stop rambling now. Usually I proofread everything I write about twenty times to make sure I haven’t missed any typos or accidentally written anything that could offend anyone, but tonight I’m posting this immediately before going to bed. So, if you’ve actually read this far, please be polite in pointing out my typos, and please know that I really didn’t mean any offence (to anyone, on anything).

Those are my (very rough) thoughts; obviously your perspective may differ! 💛 Happy tumbling!

#gsr #otp: gsr #sara sidle #gil grissom #sara x grissom #grissom x sara #💛: survivors in the night #my thoughts and feelings on the two lovely science nerds

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chemicalbrew · 4 months

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2023 game list, part 2: more like one game six+ times 🥉

I'll be honest: I separated this year's list into two parts mostly for ease of editing (the first part had ten lengthy entries I got tired of scrolling past long ago), but also... I thought it would be nice to have a clear divide between games I was not quite happy with and the few games that managed to impress me this year. If for some reason you want to see me being salty first, you can click here, but other than that... we're good to get this show on the road!

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PC, 2019; 2021 port) [♪ New Life]

This one will be more of a rapid-fire ramble, because, even though I enjoyed the game and am willing to defend certain aspects of it, there's little doubt that it's one of this series' weaker outings. Really, it making it onto the second half of the list is mostly due to bias and the fact that this series' core systems (most of which any Ys fan is painfully familiar with) are consistently good, mindless fun. Anyway, here's my more scattered thoughts I can't be bothered to stitch together:

The soundtrack is mostly an obvious downgrade and largely forgettable - literally the only tracks that stayed with me even a little are the one linked and, surprisingly, Marionette, Marionette, but that's to be expected of nu-Falcom :(

The amount of references to past games Monstrum Nox has shows good self-awareness and is something I was absolutely not expecting. I'm just familiar enough with Ys to pick up on most of them, so I wonder how subtle they are for those without the knowledge.

I actually loved being confined inside Balduq and forced to explore every nook and cranny of it, even more so because of how it contrasts with the openness of Ys 8. They pulled no stops when it came to committing to the aesthetic, and I was caught off guard with how much I liked it all. A highlight to me is the graffiti you can find all over the streets!

The new gift abilities greatly expand traversal options, even if implementation of them is not exactly free-form. A bold idea and one I enjoyed greatly. Otherwise, there isn't much major change in how exploration and battling works from 8, but there really doesn't need to be, I think. They fixed the fucking raid mechanic, and that's all that matters - even if the equivalent of it feels horribly tacked on.

Most people would say the Monstrum designs are over the top, but I personally don't care. They all slap, especially Doll and Adol himself, of course (I was ogling that long hair even before the game came out, hell yeah). As for their personal arcs, nothing really stands out the way Dana did in 8, despite each character getting their own time to shine, but I can forgive an Ys game for not bothering with complex characters. In particular, the development surrounding Jules and the conundrum with his disabilities, while somewhat barebones, didn't feel disrespectful at all and was a super pleasant surprise.

(screenshot that doesn't have much to do with anything, I just liked it)

The homunculus twist at the end of the game came out of nowhere and ruined my final impression of the story greatly. That's all, really.

Chained Echoes (PC, 2022) [♪ Standing Tall]

One of my clearest memories of Chained Echoes is the amount of people I'd seen among circles of RPG fans crying out last December that this is the game that was going to snatch the title of GOTY right from everyone's noses. Admittedly, this is one of those silly cases where I recall being intrigued by the name of the game alone (how often does that even happen these days?), and the rest was just a bonus - yes, even the impressive pixel art and soundtrack.

This makes me think I'd had healthier expectations of this game than most people, but even then… The truth of the matter is that Chained Echoes will never leave the shadows of the classics from the 90s it proudly claims to be inspired by. In trying to make itself stand out and match its own ambitions, it forgets itself and fails to leave a lasting impression - I can certainly say I enjoyed the time I spent, but when I remember more about fighting sentient vegetables than how the game actually ended, something is obviously wrong.

Now, I loved smacking the hell out of those vegetables - the battle system is decently refined for the most part, and values your time greatly. To me, the most notable features of the process are those shamelessly taken from Chrono Cross, and for good reason: if there's anything that game nailed, it's the on-field enemy encounters, automatic resource restoration between battles, and what's probably one of its more well-known ideas - lack of EXP in a conventional sense. Chained Echoes wholeheartedly embraces those conveniences, almost as if to ask 'Why isn't all this standard yet? It's the 2020s!', and I find myself agreeing. The unique systems this game presents on top of everything are hit or miss (particularly the mech combat, the part that remains grindy through the dumb proficiency system), and combat may not be perfectly balanced (if you weren't shredding through mobs with Sierra, what were you even doing?), but… Everything surrounding combat just felt so full of fresh potential, and took so little time besides, with the already quick animations whooshing by at the press of a button, that it was extremely easy to forgive any faults.

There are many creative changes made out of battle as well - the most interesting of them being the reward board. It's simple to explain - very early into the game, you unlock a list of objectives spanning the entire world map, laid out on a grid. The tasks themselves range from 'enter the area' and 'beat this specific monster type' to 'beat a miniboss without taking damage' and 'open every single chest you can find'. The cool part is that, while each square provides a reward on its own, there are bigger fish to fry, as there's a separate list of items you get by filling out squares adjacent to each other! It's genuinely impressive how effective this elegant system is at getting you to engage with the world you explore… at least until you realize how ridiculous the late-game tasks can get. And even here, there are misguided ideas that threaten to ruin the gameplay flow - for example, the gem system, that was likely inspired by its simple and functional counterpart in Xenoblade 1, is exceedingly convoluted and involves lots of boring fishing for item drops for somewhat negligible advantages.

It's when the game stops copying the greats that bigger cracks begin to show, though. As a whole, Echoes' writing is a weak point - both because it seems to favor shock value and piles of barely logical twists over anything coherent towards the finish line, and because this game's sole creator took great pains to write the script entirely by himself, in a language that's not his own (guy's from Germany, if I remember correctly). Being bilingual myself, I'd like to say I can imagine how much of a struggle that must have been, and you seriously have to respect the hustle, but it doesn't mean that the end result of all those efforts isn't faulty and should be safe from criticism.

This is a game that very clearly would have benefited from just one more person looking over the script and flow of the plot - if practically every main party member winds up traumadumping to keep the player's attention as tropes they'd probably seen in Chrono Trigger before play out… once again, something has gone terribly wrong, especially since most of said characters weren't too appealing in the first place. This makes Chained Echoes one of the RPGs where the G part is stronger than the RP part, for better or for worse. But it's fun while it lasts, and not the worst way to spend 40 or so hours!

Pokemon Black (DS, 2011) [♪ Relic Castle]

Everything went precisely as I predicted, with the exact problems I imagined I would have, but I finally managed to find the mystery of what makes the series tick for people, both on a general and personal level. Pokemon has spat on some of my detrimental gaming tendencies (as in, the urge to explore everywhere that exists and obtain everything that moves) and in the same breath provided an experience that, in all its flaws, either objective ones or stemming from my own misunderstandings, proved to be surprising at every turn. It's, uh, really cool.

Now here is a funny thing: I cheated. In the literal sense. And I did that a lot. Here's what I used in Black, just cause I can put it out there:

full exp share without needing to swap your whole team in (they should just make this a toggle in the settings, the fact that they never have, not even in newer entries, is baffling.)

forcing any Pokemon within the regional dex to spawn. I probably wouldn't do it ever again, cause now that I understand what Pokemon wants to be, I also see there's really no point to forcing Pokemon to appear just to box them - it's harder to get any sort of bond with your creatures going that way. In addition, a lot of the alternate Pokemon at least get shown off in mandatory fights, so there was no point fretting over not getting to see them (you have no clue how happy I was to see N with Reuniclus, it just felt so right). The series is lying to you - the real joys are NOT in catching them all.

Season switcher (since I played 90% of the game in December, and it took less than a month to beat, it kinda sucked seeing the dreary winter variants all the time. I don't really blame the feature itself, it's just that I don't like real-time-sensitive things in games - especially when they're linked to unique rewards. I loved Deerling and the concept behind it, but just because it was December, I'd have been robbed of its illegally adorable spring variant without cheats! Boo.)

Spawning phenomena and random encounters at the press of a button. Probably the key improvement to the experience! Call me spoiled by modern RPGs, but I have grown from disliking pure random encounters to disdaining them, and this allowed me to segregate area exploration (which was enjoyable in its simplicity and layering through the dowsing machine) and making sure my catching and leveling is up to par while I chill out listening to different pieces from this game on loop or catching up with a stream - two goals that, to me, kinda don't mesh that well on their own. Especially with the normally horrible phenomena appearance rate.

Suffice it to say, my experience with this game was not quite the intended one, but I am still glad for it - it allowed me to get over my preconceptions and expectations of this storied series and, at least to some extent, prepared me for whatever entry I will choose to engage with next (likely Black 2). Next time, I won't be bending the game to my whims quite as much, but I feel like my frustrations with this series heavily relying on missable content will always remain.

With this silly kind of disclaimer out of the way, let's try to talk about Pokemon Black itself. The first thing I remember is just how linear it was - you walk through route after route and claim one badge after another until you find yourself facing the champion, which is where the game finally pulls its rug from under your feet. By now, it should be obvious that I enjoy not having to fuss over what to do next, so I found this to be a boon, but I could absolutely understand longtime fans being irritated by how little choice you have in matters.

Speaking of which, Unova robs you of choices in another infamous way - for the duration of the main story, you're forced to use the new additions to the Pokedex. Once again, this is something that bothered me less than it would most people, doubly so because a lot of the seemingly commonly hated new (for their time) designs actually appealed to me a fair bit. If there's only one Trubbish and Vanilluxe fan on this earth, it's me, or however that meme went - I would give my limb and soul for object Pokemon, I think that's one of the best ideas of the series ever.

The graphics certainly aren't much to write home about and didn't truly age gracefully, but nonetheless, they likely stand the test of time better than the entries following would, and are more than serviceable. With sweeping camera angles, detailed Pokemon sprites and larger-than-life vistas greeting you as you bike from town to town, it's clear this game wanted nothing more than to impress players, and I'd argue that it succeeded, given the timeframe of release, and especially the region Unova was inspired by.

The music, however, is where the game really shines - with town themes ranging from sweet and cozy to ones that end up never quite leaving your mind (remember how Driftveil City became a huge meme? Oddly, I feel like that's enough proof of how awesome the soundtrack is), character themes that feel tailor-made and convey more about them than their own dialogue sometimes, and sufficiently catchy battle music (with the standouts, of course, being reserved for the more… legendary encounters).

When it comes to the story, I... appreciate it existing. It was what I came to this game for, but I ended up staying more so for the team that I lovingly chose for myself and that carried me from dungeon to dungeon. It's not bad by any means, and I can see why people want the series to even try something like this again, but what's bold for this series is overdone for many others.

That said, they really nailed basically everything about N, dear god. I love him so much. And while I might not be familiar with how the series usually handles rival characters, I enjoyed getting to compare and contrast between Cheren and Bianca's personal struggles. Cheren's theme is a banger, to boot.

PS. I hope whoever decided Volcarona should evolve at level 59 explodes somewhere, that was NOT worth it.

Shin Megami Tensei IV (3DS, 2013) [♪ Aboveground Urban Area C]

BEHOLD, MY DEMONS! (pictured: not demons)

Holy shit, an actually fun dungeon crawler from the company behind the ever so boring Etrian Odyssey that I decided to play only thanks to Tumblr memeing on the glorious Black Market theme? Who woulda thunk.

If you say you play this game for the plot, I will not believe you. I'm here for the character design (equal parts silly and god-tier, which, going by my opinion on Xenoblade 2, is just what the doctor ordered), the surprisingly exhilarating kill-or-be-killed battle system designed around finding and capitalizing on weaknesses, coupled with the distinct gameplay loop of fighting, coercing and fusing demons, the incredible atmosphere every grossly pixelated texture seems to ooze, and most of all, what might be one of the greatest soundtracks in all of gaming, to me.

The music is what single-handedly turns what would otherwise be a forgettable, convoluted and at times almost offensive experience into something outstanding. Combined with the broad strokes with which SMT4 sets up and gradually expands its setting, it's jaw-dropping just how big of an impression the game can leave you with while utilizing what feels like the bare minimum in terms of visuals (I mean this in the best way possible! I love when games make the most of their limited resources). It's a shame, then, that these two qualities practically carry the game on their back, riddled with flaws as it otherwise is.

Seriously though, the storylines manage to be simultaneously straightforward and messy somehow, to the point where even the self-proposed 'golden' route is easily questioned by a player who's willing to give it a minute of thought. There's enough to latch onto here for impressionable people, but the truth is, SMT4 loves to oversimplify complex matters in favor of haphazardly committing to extremes, which in turn ruins its leading characters - each in their own way, as they refuse to grow and develop most predictably, even if you go out of your way to give them a chance.

(how the fuck are you supposed to take a game that has this textbox in it seriously? This is divinity talking, you know)

The worst part about it all is that while it's you, your player character, influencing the world, you're not really given an explanation of how your actions change things until it's already too late and you're left on your own to gape at how you trying to be nice to people actually led to what's functionally an elitist genocide. That is, if you weren't like me and didn't end the game prematurely with the ending that wipes out everyone instead of most people that are baselessly declared filthy and unclean. And if you want to see a path that pretends to be more reasonable, you have to use a guide and jump through hoops and fetch quests beforehand. Yeah, sure, that's fine.

I'm sure there are many more things people more familiar with SMT could critique when it comes to this entry (especially since I mentioned nothing about the Chaos route, which I frankly don't remember), but the fact that even me, a complete newcomer to the series, ended up less than impressed with SMT4's overall message... has to say something, no?

And yet, the experience remains unique and, in the most literal sense of the word, addictive. Maybe it's just my monkey brain willing to give games a pass if their mechanics click with me hard enough, but... It's fun to explore a kingdom and city in turn, to uncover bits and bobs on your map as you hunt for relics, to overwhelm your enemy in a single Press Turn, and even to get lost in the horribly designed Domains, all the while the literal coolest music you've heard in your life keeps playing. And soon enough, you come to feel that strange familiarity and comfort as go through the motions and backtrack to Mikado for the 100th time.

I'll be honest, this shit is why I yearn for more dungeon crawlers to love (that aren't just Brandish...) all the time. Hopefully I'll eventually man up and play another entry in this series, so I can better understand what the core fanbase appreciates and wants from Shin Megami Tensei as a whole.

Octopath Traveler II (PC, 2023) [♪ Cait's Theme]

(Someone tell me who had to sell their soul to make such gorgeous boss sprites...)

I missed my chance to engage with OT1 back in the day (mostly because I was put off by middling reviews), so to see the series spring back to relevance this year was actually a lovely surprise, especially with me gaining appreciation for HD-2D after playing Live A Live. It really felt like everything had aligned for me to get the most out of Octopath 2! Even more so because this game is a shining example of how to iterate on a sequel.

Most fans say there's barely any reason to return to 1 after playing 2, and they're frankly right. It would be harder to say what 2 did not improve on than to list all the positive changes! But here I am, trying to explain just how many elements had to combine to create my actual favorite RPG of the year. Here we go!

First off, this is the prettiest HD-2D game yet, pulling all the stops when it comes to polishing the style. There are more refined details in the scenery, every sprite looks buttery smooth, and with the new day and night cycle, OT2 is extremely eager to show off just what its lighting engine is capable of. This game is simply a treat to look at no matter what you're doing, and the soundtrack matches the ambition it exhibits.

There are more voiced cutscenes than before and you can let them autoplay - a small but vital quality of life change. The main stories have a decently varied structure compared to the previous game's rigid formulas, and the sidequests generally value quality over quantity (though they're still not much to write home about, and they're a pain in the ass to actually find and keep track of - this game has the most useless journal of any RPG).

One of the core elements of the battle system - the jobs your characters can use - are rebalanced and made easier to understand, and there's more of them to discover for yourself. As a whole, the tools you get to use in battle are greatly expanded, but more on that in a bit.

Lastly, it's easier to witness the cast interact, because they fixed the travel banter system! (Can't believe they made so much of what makes these characters likeable so easy to miss before...) There's more of these interactions to see, too - Crossed Paths, quests tailored to specific character pairings, are a genius addition to the game, if somewhat underutilized. They actually bothered to try and tie the eight stories together, as well, compared to the pathetic whimper the first game ends with! Though whether the attempt was successful is debatable, what's there is not half bad.

While I do believe I would have laid my eyes on this game eventually no matter what, due to the praise it's been getting in circles of RPG fans (I wish OT was more recognized than it already is, even if it is decently popular. The potential the series has is off the charts), what really pushed me was Hikari's very existence. One look at him, and you just know he's gonna be involved in an epic struggle and have to fight for his friends - and that's exactly what he does. It's glorious, and fits the overall message\vibe of the series - that is to say, getting to go on a journey and find new friends for your cause and new experiences - exceptionally well. This is why I, and most people, would probably recommend you start with him, though of course, you're free to do what you want.

Being relatively free to explore instead of roped along to go places like a traditional RPG would is a double-edged sword, especially because Octopath locks in your first chosen character, so they usually get overleveled, but at the same time the game expects you to have a functional (evenly geared and leveled) party of eight by endgame, which you might not be aware of and only have four peeps prepared. This could be solved with a simple toggle to give benched party members the same amount of EXP, or - and they literally do this in the endgame, so why not before?! - let us freely swap any time instead of only getting to do it in towns.

On the other hand, getting to watch eight (seemingly) disjointed stories unfold makes for a refreshing experience where you never know what (or who, at first) you will find. The travelers are divided half and half between two continents, but on my run I screwed it up - I got really curious about what's up north, which led to me finding Osvald early (and his chapter 1 warning scared the crap out of me for no reason, lol), so three characters were from the west and one was from the east. It's not nearly as big of a deal as I make it sound, especially later on with more options available, but before you discover such things and adjust yourself to what the game wants from you, it can feel quite challenging.

Speaking of challenging, I loved how the battle system in this game works - even if it's your typical turn-based bells and whistles with a job system attached, at least at first glance. The jobs themselves, while probably not groundbreaking or anything, still succeed in giving the party members their own ways to shine and even diversifying their movesets, thanks to the mechanic that lets you freely mix and match jobs! You can optimize to your heart's content, or mess around and go with the prettiest outfits.

(look at them!! just look!!)

The bread and butter of this series, however, the Thing it does to distinguish itself from myriads of other turn-based games, is the Break and Boost systems.

Break is simple enough to explain - each enemy you face boasts a certain number of shields, and before you figure out their weaknesses and break through, you're unlikely to deal any significant damage. Finding weak points can be cumbersome at times, especially if you don't have a Scholar to reveal them for you (I admit to looking them up occasionally instead of wasting SP\BP with Analyze), but it still doesn't take too much time, even less if you know the one trick to it. And your reward for doing so is getting a free turn to dish out damage (or set up buff combos)!

Boosting is an entirely different matter, though. In addition to the usual health and skill points, your party members gain a boost point each turn (provided they didn't use them on the last turn). You can have up to five points in reserve, and you can use up to three in a single turn to augment your chosen move - from simple damage increases to attacking multiple times in a turn (to break shields faster) to making buffs and debuffs last longer… basically everything gets much better if you boost. There are even special moves called Divine Skills that require 3 BP to use in the first place, and funnily enough, they range from game-breaking to actually kind of pathetic.

What's more, each character has special actions in and out of battle that are mostly unique to them - for example, Castti, the apothecary, can concoct powerful brews to aid you or damage the enemy, and in towns, she can chat up NPCs to get information by day or put them to sleep with specialized herbs by night. Meanwhile Hikari, the warrior, can learn skills no one else can by fighting NPCs one-on-one, which can be extraordinarily useful or... something like this:

The NPCs themselves don't seem too impressive at first, but as you make use of your characters' Path Actions, you realize that most of them have a small story to tell almost entirely through game mechanics, reminding you how vital worldbuilding is to an open-ended game like this. Robbing children of candy with Throne or getting to uncover short, but ridiculously dark backstories with Osvald never got old.

OT2 adds a cherry on top of all these layers by giving each party member another unique move in Latent Powers, which, too, can be either ridiculously overpowered (hello, free concocting?! why yes, I want to give my entire party 2000 HP, 200 SP and 1 BP at literally zero cost!) or incredibly niche (Osvald really got the short end of the stick here - you're better off boosting his actual spells than using his latent, which at best is only useful when Mugging and feels like an afterthought.).

And before all of that even starts, you have to pay attention to how you kit out your party. It's not just about what equipment has the bigger numbers - you need to consider its secondary effects, too, but more importantly, you need to pick the right secondary jobs to have a party that's truly well-rounded. If you explore the world thoroughly enough to unlock lots of job licenses, the sky's your limit, really - but the idea is to have a healthy balance between weapon types and skills while playing into each character's natural strengths.

You'd think having to make so many choices would feel overwhelming, but there's plenty of opportunities for the player to acclimate to the system and make it work for them. And they better learn the ropes quickly, because in boss battles, Octopath expects them to use every one of the tools they have. The game doesn't really go out of its way to explain how your skills can synergize to wreak havoc upon anything that stands in your way (sometimes before the enemy even gets a chance to act!), lending a sort of simple and pure joy to the moment when it all just clicks, when you begin to try out one bonkers combination after the other (does Critical Scope work on magic spells? Just how powerful is poison in Challenge fights? If I make Osvald a thief, will he still hit the damage cap with Aeber's Reckoning?), and they all just… work. Before that point, the game isn't afraid to kick your confused ass to the game over screen, but if you experiment, it won't be too long before you emerge victorious every time. To be rewarded like this for taking in your every option is immensely satisfying.

I also have to give a shout-out to the voice work done for all these battles specifically - every character gets a unique line for every move in every class, and they react to fellow party members breaking enemies or getting low on health. Really, the amount of detail in this one specific regard is just insane. Add to this the fact that you can fight at double speed with a press of a button (sure, this is nothing compared to how 6x turbo mode in Trails spoils you, but it's better than nothing, and for a game like this, it's enough), and battles in OT2 flow like a spring breeze, especially since, due to gear mattering more than level, you're not really encouraged to grind throughout the main story… or stories, as it were.

You'll have to forgive me for spending so long rambling about gameplay intricacies before getting to the game's actual draw - the eight different plots it offers you and the open-ended structure that comes from it. The truth is, most of these stories start out with a bang, but few of them have really enjoyable resolutions, and even less will manage to impress seasoned players.

Not to mention that, aside from the skit-like travel banter, they're completely isolated from one another, further lending to the feeling that your party members are less characters and more movesets. This is likely the most common complaint the series gets, and I have to say, it felt odd at first to me as well, but by now I'm a little tired of seeing people rag on the lack of connection between the stories. Having smaller vignette-like stories instead of an overarching plot is something you never see other RPGs do nowadays, it's one of Octopath's selling points, it's practically its beating heart, and it's something done with purpose. An artistic choice not being something you're used to is no reason to completely disregard it, even if there's room to grow and improve.

And plenty of room there is - while the stories have enough meat to them to enjoy what's happening in the moment, the boss fights in them are as cool as always, and the voice work accompanying all of the scenes is just lovely (though it can be poorly mixed on occasion - looking at you, Ori!), the core of the individual tales is usually somewhat basic and a little underdeveloped, if not downright nonsensical. Ochette's story could probably be put in a Pokemon game with very little changes, and, sorry to say, I don't mean that as a compliment. Having the plot revolve around catching legendary creatures to save the world had me mostly snoozing, controller in hand.

Or take, for example, Partitio and his charming, resourceful butt. It's hard not to love him, but if you think about what he's doing for more than a moment, it doesn't quite make sense - how do you go about squashing capitalism on the entire continent on your own, much less by ushering the world into the industrial era? Isn't that having too much faith in people?

Even Hikari, who started as my favorite and ended just the same (Howard Wang killed it as his voice actor, let's be real), doesn't have a particularly compelling plot going on. His story of having to take off to reclaim his kingdom is, I'd wager, one with more wasted potential than others, given how the whole cursed bloodline subplot just went nowhere. And don't get me started with Throne - I got spoiled on what happened at the end of her story and refused to believe it until the farce was staring me right in the face.

The exception to this would probably be Castti, whose tale of self-discovery and determination, while still playing out by the books, ended up genuinely touching all the same, with a natural escalation of the stakes in it and a wonderful conclusion that integrates gameplay mechanics particularly well, having you personally concoct the remedy to save a whole region and give them peace.

The one thing that elevates every one of these plots, every failure and success of this game, is its soundtrack. I'm not sure if I wholeheartedly prefer this OST to the first game, but they're both just outstanding. While it was easy for me to pick a single favorite to show off, it's hard to overstate just how awesome Yasunori Nishiki's work is as a whole, and we'd be here all day were I to keep pointing out the majority of the music as the masterpiece it is. The themes for various locations are lovingly crafted to suit the mood, with an awesome choice to add ethereal vocals for some of the night themes to make it more atmospheric (my favorites are Roque Island, Tropu'hopu, and, of course, the kingdom of Ku), and the character themes are particularly well thought out, expanding on their personalities in ways the text never quite could. Shout-out to both Agnea's theme and her Song of Hope, and the ways they tie her whole plotline together!

Octopath Traveler II turned out to be my sleeper hit of 2023, and has done so much more for me than I expected it to. Now there's nothing left for me but to yearn for an even more polished and expansive continuation to the series!

A Hat in Time (PC, 2017) [♪ Heating Up Mafia Town]

I feel like I owe much of my enjoyment of this game to my inexperience. 3D platforming is one of those genres that is practically integral to gaming itself (and collectathons, more specifically, are niche only in the most technical sense), yet before playing A Hat in Time I'd refused to engage with anything of the sort out of sheer principle. "What fun is there in getting perpetually lost while trying to hunt for pointless thingamajigs scattered all over?", I'd think to myself. I'd see people online wax poetic about the old classics like Banjo and Spyro and such and find it all completely incomprehensible.

In comes Hat Kid, and from the word go it's obvious that the name of her game is… silliness. After all, the question isn't 'why should you sow fear in mafia goons and crash onto filming sets', it's 'why shouldn't you do that?'. And as you get roped in by the absurdity of these subplots thrown at you, with so many NPCs having a goofy one-liner or three to say, you realize that behind these layers of charm are solidly crafted sandboxes for you to just enjoy yourself in, coupled with delightful sections that are, for all intents and purposes, obstacle courses.

I enjoyed the latter much more, as I tend to do, but they're two different sides of the same great coin, so to speak. And aside from a couple specific levels that gave me a headache (like the long-ass parade level, the infamous Alpine Skyline hub with how long traversal takes in it, and ESPECIALLY The Twilight Bell. Holy shit, that one just wasn't fun for me after a while), exploration was rewarding, and pretty smooth sailing - with good variation in level structure and near endless attention to detail (be ready to sit there like 'they made a unique animation just for that?!').

A part of what made it so easy to enjoy was how simple the movement in this game is - what you have at your disposal is, essentially, a double jump and a dive, which can be canceled out of. That makes it great for someone like me, who still fears being forced to get acquainted with a complex control scheme in a game with movement as the focus (the 'why press three buttons when one would do' approach), but at the same time… it means that there's only one optimal way to move through the world quickly, so dozens of hours in, I felt as if I could repeat the button combination endlessly in my sleep.

Sure, there's badges that can change your experience substantially - making you dash faster, or turn into an ice statue in lieu of a ground pound, or use a goddamn hookshot, or a bunch of other things, but… having only three slots for them, and knowing one of them will probably be always taken by something like the No Bonk badge (which feels like an essential quality of life feature) is severely limiting. I would love it if there were more slots to prevent constantly having to compromise and switch badges around… or a slightly expanded base moveset for Hat Kid.

On a more positive note, I loved the more tightly directed and difficult experiences that the optional Time Rifts offered. Finding them might not have been half as fun as clearing them, but the reward was more than worth it almost every time. And that's to say nothing of the game's presentation, which is sublime in how stylish it is. I could see people being set off by how the art style feels purposely crude at times, but personally, I couldn't care about that less - it only adds to the charm, in fact.

The music, meanwhile, is peppy and upbeat every step of the way, and fits the mood of the game perfectly. Even though you find yourself revisiting the same levels numerous times, there are always new versions of the tracks you've come to like, and neat twists to the traversal process - it's obvious how much A Hat in Time wants you to relax, be entertained, and enjoy the ride. That might come at the cost of it not telling a particularly gripping story, but it's hard to hold that against the game. Sometimes you just want to bonk mafia goons on the head for a while, you know?

Tower of Heaven (PC - Flash, 2009) [♪ Indignant Divinity]

There is no prize as precious as that which you have lost.

Tower of Heaven, to me, is about going back to the roots - in the literal sense, as your character gets cast down and smitten by lightning over and over, and in a sense that's more meta, as there's definitely a sort of through-line puncturing the developer's offerings; one that presents itself in subtle ways, but is plain to see regardless with every game you boot up, and every death that makes you chuckle at your own subpar execution. So, in essence, me playing this platformer (on my birthday, no less! good to know there's something you can rely on even on otherwise middling days) became this experience about paying respects to foundations laid in the past so I could better appreciate the legacy they leave in the future.

It's kind of a tall ask for a game this small and niche (and Flash having been murdered in cold blood absolutely does not help! Everyone say thanks to that one post about Flashpoint that was making rounds back in the day, it made my mission to experience this game that much easier!!!), and I do admit to over-exaggerating the feeling, but still, it's hard not to feel affected in any way, as insignificant as it may be, while playing Tower of Heaven. The presentation is subdued and few words, and hours, are spared to explain your situation. It's just you, the blocks and doors that comprise simple levels in front of you... and a godly force seeking to work you hard as you try to go ever higher.

But as you walk through the first door on your way, the soulful music kicks in and begins to swell (if I were any more nerdy, this game would have probably become my favorite example of leitmotif usage at the drop of a hat. People who complain about this soundtrack are cowards), and your journey starts to grow more complex, little by little. As the levels slowly expand, so do the rules the mysterious force encumbers you with - combining to demand you make a singular, perfect path forward for yourself. This feeling of honesty and straightforwardness between designer and player is one of the key things this developer simply never fails at, and a part of what made me fall in love with it all in the first place.

The twists along the way may be small, but none of them feel like a waste, and as the game comes to an end, a familiar theme of standing up for yourself and facing a world unknown comes to the surface, and you can't help but feel... accomplished, if only a little. It was you who started this journey and you who brought it to its inevitable end, after all! But when you see the credits, plainly stating your basic stats, you might gawk a little. Secret rooms? What secret rooms?

With that simple move, you're encouraged to spend just a little while more - looking around, polishing your movement, paying more attention. It's not like the secrets are hard to find (or are, indeed, worth anything - it's incredibly fitting that the rooms contain treasure that is of no tangible worth to the player), but it's the fact that they were there all along that elevates the experience.

Tower of Heaven might not have much to say, but it says what it has to gracefully and concisely, in ways that many other games simply do not. And even as you inevitably fall, it makes you remember - there's always somewhere to go. Always a place to make for yourself. No matter who might be saying otherwise.

Pause Ahead (PC - Flash, 2013) [♪ Hiatus]

In many ways, this game is treading familiar grounds, but it manages to expand upon them gracefully. There's a greater sense of mystery to this one, and a lovely meta-narrative that never feels overbearing - not to mention the obvious difference in presentation and the gameplay change Pause Ahead is named after.

With a light tap of the Shift button, you can ground the level to a halt... while retaining momentum yourself. Knowing when to stop and go is key to making your way forward, as you're, once again, at times belittled and at other times besought by a mysterious voice. And, of course, you're free to simply abuse and spam this feature just to see the small easter eggs and jokes it hides. As should be by now expected, the little things like this make it feel like no time or space is wasted executing a small, but powerful concept, and iterating on it over time.

As you clear a stage, you are treated to a quick playback of all attempts you've suffered through to get this far, reminding you of your persistence and the power you wield in this strange, somehow lonely world. This may be little more than an escape attempt, but it's uniquely yours, and you're free to take your time with it as you please. This, coupled with small, but consistent details like the messages in the fake pause menu I mentioned, leads to a pleasant feeling that you're getting as much out of this game as you put in, and it's relishing your time spent with it as much as you do.

Just like I said before, there's something about the tight design of these compact experiences that is hard to find elsewhere - a sort of wordless understanding that gradually forms as you experiment with the small pool of options given, and manages to stick in your memory long after you put the game down. And that's to say nothing of the tiny, yet meaningful and insanely catchy soundtrack this game boasts, and the return of secrets to haunt you, this time even more expansive.

In just about every way, Pause Ahead is a solid hidden gem that doesn't ask much of you - at least, not outright - but gives you plenty in return: a challenge to overcome, a moody setting to enjoy, a feeling you'll be seeking and failing to find elsewhere for all time. ...or maybe it's just me?

OverPowered (PC, 2014) [♪ A True Hero and More]

I honestly think you should close this page right now and go beat this thing - I left you a link right there. I promise it won't take long, and I'm sure you'll come back with a smile on your face.

Obviously, the one thing that makes OverPowered really impressive is the time constraints it was made under - without them, it's probably just a blip on most people's radar, not even worth looking over.

Fortunately or not, I'm not most people, and I simply came into this little game looking for more of what I'd come to expect from the dev - enjoyable platforming, music that sounds like a balm to my ears (I still remember when I was doing research and I audibly went 'THAT flashygoodness?'), and witty humor that aims to subvert expectations - and succeeds every time. I got all of these things and a hearty chuckle or two, so I have no complaints.

Katana ZERO {again 💿💙} (PC, 2019) [♪ Silhouette]

Killing is the only time we're able to touch that thing we were never able to have.

What can I say? Katana ZERO is significant to me on a personal level, to an extent very few games, if any, ever have been at this point. A lot of this comes from the fact that I… knew it would be so, but at the same time had no clue. It's hard to explain - call it a gut feeling, but even in 2021 I knew there was something outstanding here, something I was tapping into, and even resonating with, but not quite as deeply as I could have been. That knowledge lingered, buzzed in the back of my mind like white noise - even as my hands would begin to ache from how much I'd been playing, how hard I'd been trying to open myself up to the game, even when the memories began to fade a little.

While I was playing, however, I was constantly aware I'd been ignoring the fine details, afraid to rise to the mechanical challenges the game offered, sometimes afraid to admit to myself how much I enjoyed KZ at all - as if it'd been a crime to recognize how it left me yearning in a haze few things can hope to match. When I tried to look back at it, I almost felt desperate to find some flaw, some excuse to lie to myself and mask the passion this game had awakened in me, for a time; and even then, I could only point to how the game's plot fizzles near the end in an attempt to set things up for the future that still hasn't come yet, eager to leave you with a feeling of uncertainty that stings all the more with how pointedly efficient KZ is about nearly everything else.

(see also: images that get funnier with time)

And even now, putting it to words, I just feel silly and dramatic - probably because, despite everything, a small part of me still feels inexplicable shame, thinks I ought not to be obsessed with something like this, something small and unfinished. An experience that some people (who are very wrong) would say is trying too hard.

It's not silly, though, and I have to remind myself of this often. Every time I come back to this game (and I've come back many times over the year - so many I lost count, including the refresher run I did last week, before writing this. It's amazing how much a passing, almost laughable thought can end up haunting you, but that's neither here nor there), I remember how much there is to love about it - how hard it is not to love it, when you realize just what it is you're dealing with, when everything slots into place and the world before you whirs to life in an almost literal fashion - and live it does, no matter what.

This is a story about finding choice where there is none. It's about discovering the truth, staring it in the face just as it has been watching over you, and resolving to do something about it - with whatever little means you have. Because what matters is trying. Without that, what can you do but remain trapped, objective unfulfilled?

But here's the thing: to most people, it's probably not quite like that. It's hard to describe something that hasn't finished telling itself, after all - but these days, that bothers me far less, if at all. If nothing else, it's hard not to appreciate the irony of it - not knowing the future when once you'd thought you'd all but had it. Even if this story's ending never sees the light of day, I feel like I've come to understand it far better, in its current state.

The unquantifiable, almost mythical extent to which KZ goes to immerse you in its world (or, at the very least, in Zero's shoes), if you let it, is one of its most important qualities. Everything this game does, from the more obvious mechanics like slightly branching dialogue options (with the lovely twist of being able to interrupt people) to the subtle touches like the way KZ uses vibration (one of the very few games to do it right, and I'll die on this hill), hides its (surprisingly plentiful, given its length) secrets in almost plain sight, or takes great care in the details of its entire user interface or goddamn dialogue formatting... it's all in the service of immersion, and that goal is masterfully achieved.

Even after spending more hours than most people would with this game, I keep discovering minute dialogue changes, tiny graphical touches, or new options to try that I can't help but smile at. Yes, some of it stems from the strange sort of fear I had that just... kinda prevented me from exploring, but not all - you'd be surprised at just what you can see if you pay attention to your choices.

And that's to say nothing of how pretty KZ manages to make everything look (and sound - you know you have a problem when you get attached to sound effects), how it perfectly walks the tightrope of letting every happening on screen breathe and speak for itself while still allowing it to remain a spectacle (look, I might not be an expert, but I love how this game frames its cutscenes and uses lighting to enhance things further). It tells you that every moment is precious - simply by wasting nothing itself.

Of course, there are more obvious ways the game respects you and your time: interrupting dialogue doesn't just lead to interesting results, but can also save a bit of time; there are a few clever skips (tied to secrets, as well) built into the levels themselves, and you have an option to respawn instantly when you restart a room (or at literally any time, if you bother to assign a quick restart button). This last thing I want to bring special attention to, because I think it spoiled me beyond belief (just look at me complaining about Celeste earlier!).

On top of this, something awesome that makes a return to Katana ZERO from its predecessors is a dedicated speedrun mode, allowing you to engage with the gameplay and practice on your own terms. And like in the other games, using it is in no way a requirement - while there is an achievement tied to speedrunning the game, nothing in the interface itself urges you to push yourself if you don't want to. The ranking system is as important as you allow it to be, and for my part, I'm mostly content with the meager results I got (bet you were wondering why I put that emoji in the title... hopefully it's clear now. If I get a silver ranking one day, I'll be beyond content.). More action games should aim to be as instantaneous and responsive in all aspects as KZ is, and I'm completely serious about this.

The last (but absolutely never the least) thing I want to bring up is the soundtrack. It's the piece in this elegant puzzle that makes everything come together, it makes every moment shine on its own merits and stay in your heart. It's easy to point to the more obviously appealing tracks that accompany you as you actually play, and the way they perfect tension and release (i.e. Delusive Bunker or the ever-so-awesome Overdose), but there's something to be said about the subtler pieces too. End of the Road never fails to tug at my heartstrings. Hell, hearing Come and See at the end of every run still makes me want to explode. And beyond that, well...

Have you listened to Chemical Brew yet? - Tumblr user chemicalbrew

To conclude, Katana ZERO may lack the universal appeal that true classics have, but I believe that at some point it will have carved out enough of a niche of itself to become a cult classic. I would love nothing more than to have a reason to feature this game on my list a third time (we'll have it one day. I'll keep waiting, this much I know), that's how much my love for it has grown. And, really… I hope it never diminishes.

PS. Believe in yourself! 👹 Also, if you're one of the people who has supported me this year as KZ made me descend into insanity, if you're one of the (surprisingly many) people who I managed to convince to give it a chance with my passion, thank you ever so much. And have a nice 2024!

#okay google how not to feel cringe when you get super passionate about a game. i could probably keep going btw #i avoided talking about katana hero on purpose; i wanted to be cheeky & iykyk but. that was the loudest i've laughed all year. that's all #ys #pokemon #smt #ot #kz #zero.txt #yearly game list #flashing gif #.gif

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vampkaashis-wife · 2 years

Text

Hello I adapted this from a 1st person POV I wrote ages ago for a different thing so sorry if I missed anything in editing it

“Stop looking at me like that. I might do something we both regret,” Keiji says, splashing pool water in your general direction.

You smirk from the poolside, content to soak your feet and watch him swim. “Like what?” It’s surprising he can tell you’re looking at him very intensely at all. His glasses are on the table behind you along with his shirt and various electronic devices. Yours are there too, locking the pair of into this world for just yourselves.

Well. It’s the neighborhood pool, and you’re not the only ones there, but you might as well be. Keiji’s blind ass hasn’t been looking at anyone else since you got here.

“Like dragging you in here with me.”

“Try it. I’ll kill you.” After a moment, you relent. “Maybe we should’ve watched a movie at home. It’s too humid for this”

“I propose a compromise,” Keiji says, pushing through the water to lean up and rest his wet arms on your lap. You kick at him before he can, not wanting to get wet any more than you already have. “Just get in the pool, and I’ll romance you with a movie later.”

“Absolutely not,” you retort.

He pouts, making a snarky comment about how he’s trying his best but you still hate him. “Can you please try to act like you enjoy spending time with me?”

“I do. Immensely. I enjoy being salty about everything you do.” Without thinking, you reach out to pat his head. After a few seconds, you shake the water off your hands and back into the pool.

Keiji sighs, dragging himself out of the water. Keeping his head at a peculiar angle, he tries to get you to do it again. When you don’t, he shakes his hair out, making sure to splash you generously as if to ward off your wandering eyes that have spent maybe a moment too long on his bare torso.

“Like what you’re seeing?”

Quickly turning away, you pull your feet out of the pool. Walking past him to pick up the towel folded neatly on the table, you take a few breaths to gather your composure. That done, you turn on your heels and smile professionally at him. You throw the towel in his direction. “Do you like what you’re seeing?”

He catches it easily. Without skipping a beat, he squints at you and says, “I do.”

You blink, then busy yourself collecting your few collective belongings scattered on the table - phones, a shirt, watches - and hold Keiji’s glasses out for him.

“There’s nothing to see. I’m literally wearing a potato sack.” You gesture at the coverup dress that hides both your swimsuit and the shape of your frame.

Having reached you after just a few steps, he puts the glasses on, using the towel draped over his shoulders to ruffle his hair to dry it. Almost absently, he glances down at you. “Oh. This is an even better view. Not blurry anymore.” Flicking your ponytail, he plucks his belongings from your hands with a stupid grin. “Be thankful,” he says over his shoulder while gathering your belongings and starting to walk to the gate, “Not many girls get to gawk at me shirtless.”

“I’m going to murder you where you stand.”

“You won’t. It’ll make you lonely.”

Keiji has gotten cheekier over the years. Blunter, less afraid of driving you off by any words that tumble out of his mouth on purpose or otherwise. He used to be so unsure of himself, so unfailingly polite, almost to the point of being boring.

It’s quite nice that he’s like this now.

“Do you have a lot of work to finish tonight?”

“Sort of. Just have to send a few emails.” He elbows you as you walk down the sidewalk back to the house. You almost crash into a hedge. “Why are you always asking me about work? That’s the most boring part of my day.”

“What else am I supposed to ask you? At this point, I know everything else there is to know about you.”

Keiji nods at a few of your neighbors walking past, none of them seeming surprised to find you two walking around, hand in hand like teenage lovers despite your years of marriage. “I don’t know. What I want for dinner?”

“You don’t even answer that question when I ask it, so I really don’t think I will.”

Keiji gives you that look that you’ve come to interpret as You’re weird but my favorite. He opens the door with his right hand, since you still have hold of the other one. “Be back in a sec,” he smiles childishly, dropping your hand and the bag of pool supplies as soon as his feet pass the threshold. He slips in and out of your room to grab some dry clothes, shutting himself in the bathroom at an astonishing rate. “Gonna put clothes back on.”

When he comes back with a shirt on and the smallest of droplets still dripping from his hair, you pout jokingly and gesture at him with a disappointed flair. You’ve changed into tshirts and some shorts too, but nonetheless.

“What?” He laughs, sitting down at the kitchen table and packing away all the things spread across it - papers, pens, highlighters, sticky notes, bills to be paid. “Are you that upset I put on a shirt?”

“Will you think I’m a bad person if I say yes?” Though you don’t say it, you’re more concerned about the fact that his bottoms are a bright yellow color. They’re almost neon. They’re almost Itachiyama-esque. His shirt is Itachiyama green.

Keiji stands to deliver a quick peck on your lips before opening his laptop. “There’s a lot you can do before I’d think you’re a bad person. Sit tight for a moment; I’m going to send those emails.”

You gasp exaggeratedly. “You? Ignoring me?”

He hurls something from the floor at you.

You fall into silence after that, surrounded only by the clatter of Akaashi’s keyboard and your humming as you tap at your phone. Now and then, you look at him like you have something to say. He looks so lovely like this, though, that it steals the words right out of your mouth.

His spine is straight, as straight as it can be without being uncomfortable. Somehow, he looks professional in… a frankly horribly color coordinated outfit.

“Twenty dollars,” he says suddenly, slamming the enter key before folding his arms to smirk at you.

“What?”

“You’ve been looking at me for a very long time, so I’ll let you take a picture for twenty dollars, and you can look at it every day for the rest of your life.” As you sputter, he shuts his laptop and puts a sticky note on a folder, putting some papers gently inside. “Special discount. Normally it’d be fifty.” The stupid jerk smirks at you while he says it.

Standing up sharply, you suck in a breath. “I need a new threat. Murder is getting boring.” At that point, you make your way to his office, straight for his cluttered bookcase. “Maybe one of these has some inspiration.”

Running your fingers across the spines of the books, you stop wistfully on the spine of a particularly dusty one. Squinting, you bend down to study it a little more closely. “Keiji.”

“Yes, darling?” His voice is so close that you jump, dropping the book in the process. Keiji neatly scoops it up and puts it back on the shelf. With that same hand, he corners you against the shelves. “Did you want to make out against the bookshelf?”

While Keiji attempts to work his charms on you, you scowl and sidestep him, pushing his face away. “Absolutely not.”

You start to ramble about anything else, anything to cover up your fluster. Funny how he can still do this to you after being with you for so many years. After you’ve already seen him as uncool as he could possibly be.

Still standing by the bookshelf, he stays quiet for so long that you start to repeat yourself. Turning to look at him, you find him posing for a magazine cover, like he decided to play professional volleyball after all, or is trying to channel his inner Haiba Lev. His long legs are crossed slightly as he leans against the bookshelf lightly, his hair in a perfect state of disarray. He crosses his arms in a way that makes you think this would be hot if he was wearing a suit.

Instead, he’s wearing bright yellow shorts and a shirt that’s hardly any better. There is no reason he should look that good like that, and yet…

You gulp to hold in your laughter. Keiji turns slightly. Somehow, he maintains a straight face and dignified air, even in that outfit. “You’re sure you wouldn’t like a little kiss?”

“Yes.” You try to play his game, but your lips wobble too close to a full smile. The day you learn to hide my emotions, the world will burn. Beaming instead, you wait for his next move.

Pretending to think, Keiji ruffles his still damp hair. “I do still need payment for the free show I put on for your earlier. It’ll cost you, you know?”

“I know you said I was expensive.” Crossing your arms, you do your best to resist the magnetic pull of him. “But aren’t you charging me a lot of fees today?”

Keiji’s voice drops, velvety and smooth, soft like a Sherpa coat. In a voice like that, he says, “I just wanted you to take me seriously. You know. Every once in a while.”

Clearing your throat, you try to work the next few words out without sounding embarrassing. “In that outfit?”

Keiji shakes his limbs out and readjusts the way the T-shirt sits on his body. “Darling,” He drags out the last syllable, then stops.

You know the look on his face. It’s like the one you wear when you have nothing planned, but needed something to say. When speaking would force you to breathe properly again. When it feels like there’s a rock in your throat, but you’d rather speak around it than survive the awkward silence enveloping the room now.

He’s adopted some behaviors from you, you suppose.

“What, Keiji?”

In the middle of reaching out to touch you, he drops his hands back to his sides.

“You don’t want a kiss.” He murmurs, shooting you those damn puppy dog eyes. “So why should I give you one?”

Your inner fangirl squeals. Before you can think yourself out of it, you barrel into him for a hug. “Can you do me a favor?” you say into his chest.

His arms come up to wrap around you slowly, hesitantly. He holds you gently with something bordering uncertainty. It might not be that, but there’s no telling what else it may be either.

“Anything,” he tells the ceiling with feeling.

You pause a moment. I’m really gonna do this, huh. Then, “Can we make out against the bookshelf, after all?”

After a startled pause, he hesitantly offers, “I would not be opposed to making out, in general. Sit on my desk?”

God, his voice. One of these days, it’s going to shatter you. Who gave him the right-?

“Your desk is not that tall; you’re going to hurt your back.”

“And us standing against the bookshelf is different?”

“You’re insufferable.” In a motion you didn’t think you had the capacity to make, you somehow knock him to the ground and straddle his lap. “How about this?”

Beneath you, your husband once again looks to the ceiling as some kind of prayer. He looks wholly undone and it makes you feel some kind of powerful. Some words escape his lips just before your own lips brush his, but you don’t care to find out what they are.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh. My. Ahhhh! Is the only thing in your mind. He’s slow to react, but once he does? Fucking hell.

It never gets old.

You’re the one that pulls away first. He protests, a tiny whine that barely rumbles through his chest. Maybe it’s rude, but you can’t help it. You laugh. “Don’t be a baby.”

“Don’t be a bully,” he retorts petulantly, sliding his hands under your shirt, just enough to hook his fingers into the belt loops of your shorts beneath them. You shiver at the near touch and yelp at the gentle tug.

#haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #akaashi x reader #akaashi fluff #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi scenario #akaashi keiji fanfiction #haikyuu fanfiction

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mlobsters · 5 months

Text

supernatural s11e17 red meat (w. robert berens, andrew dabb)

have a vague idea this episode is gonna be difficult to watch, didn't have the emotional fortitude to watch it last night

well, sam getting shot in the cold open sure would do it.

DEAN All right, well, we make a call and we put somebody on it. SAM Yeah, but... [He sighs, closes his laptop and looks at Dean]. We'll get him back. DEAN How? SAM I... I don't know. But we'll figure it out.

i feel like an asshole but i'm like, are we talking about cas? dunno what other dude he'd be distraught over. maybe it's my total lack of emotional connection with the character but i'm just very ???? literally whatever i'm expecting they're feeling about him, i'm always wrong. broken record on that.

s11e17 / s8e23

reminded of that little smile dean gave sam when he was wrapping his hand in the church. and it reminds me of being with my mom when she was dying in the hospital. we're gonna smile and be so positive and softer than we normally would, but also try to keep it light. (i'm not sure i have the emotional fortitude for this tonight either)

not quite sure i'll ever have it to watch sam die like this. this is awful. trying to talk myself into just finishing so i don't end up crying for an extended period of time today and another day.

BILLIE It's cute, though. You pretending you're trying to save Sam for the greater good, when we both know you're doing it for you. You can't lose him.

just saw this line in an edit recently and thought it was attributed to Death, no wonder i didn't remember it.

DEAN I'm asking you... I'm begging you, please. Bring him back. Bring him back and take me instead. BILLIE I'm not here to bargain with you, kid. I'm here to reap you. And the kicker is... Sam's not dead.

here's where i'm never happy with anything. despite the unhinged love and commitment of it all, this all is really veering into emotional torture porn for me. how can we make it the worst. and then a little worse on top of that. except instead of making me irritated, i'm just more sad and want it to be over. maybe this is one i won't be able to appreciate until i have some distance.

DEAN Michelle, this is gonna be very hard. But you will be okay. And, eventually... eventually you'll get back to normal. MICHELLE No, I won't. They said I could leave an hour ago. But... where am I even supposed to go? After everything we survived together... I watched the man I love die. There's no normal after that.

not sure what this pointed zoom into dean making the sad puppy face is about. we know he can't be normal when sam dies, he knows it too?? does he remember that year with lisa and ben? and now he has the threat of not only losing sam, that sam won't be waiting for him in heaven or anywhere else if he does die.

well, fortunately we have the production draft of the script linked in the wiki for this one so actually can get answer

so i mean.. ok. both watched their husbands die is what we're saying

DEAN So, that's it, huh? Two quarts O-neg, and you're good to go.

i thought we were treating abdominal gunshot wounds like the serious emergency they are but i guess not

SAM Hey, so, what did you do? When you thought I was dead? What did you do? DEAN Thought about redecorating your room [Sam chuckles], you know, putting in a Jacuzzi, a nice disco ball... really class up the joint. SAM Right, seriously. DEAN What, I, uh... I knew you weren't dead. SAM Right. DEAN I knew.

so i mean. sam not buying that, clearly. wonder if dean ever tells him

should remember to check for a script next time i have wonderings about what they're trying to convey with their faces (went to check if they had 11x11 because i was curious about that whole pining line, but wiki doesn't have one linked)

tonal shift after the like.. heavy focus on sam (mostly) dying very... graphic in swimming around in the pain and slow death and almost-murder of it all and then we're having dean kill himself (briefly) to try to take sam's place with no consideration of repercussions, to hey dude we saved (and tried to kill sam) is a werewolf and he changed and he's gonna punch through this cop's chest cavity in a pretty silly manner. so no moral quandary killing him either, look at that. weird. anyway, the woman who played michelle was really good in those emotional scenes

i'm wiped out.

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 11x17 #robert berens #andrew dabb

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dawdlecentric · 4 months

Text

Damn what a way to end a year

Ofc how else could it end than to give me some shit to get pissed about for the last time...

*sigh* so here I am deciding to pick up a video project I've edited months ago to put some finishing touches on it and deciding to upload it eventually ffs

And when I'm finally partially satisfied with it and decided to export it, it keeps giving me shit like saying I don't have enough space??? Like ?!?!?

I'm well aware my remaining computer space is not that big but SURELY it can handle to export a measly less than a minute, fewer than 100MB video!!! But NO! It simply CAN'T! I've searched on how to fix this issue and try to do anything to make it work but it still cannot export it. It didn't have this issue before I updated it (which in hindsight makes me kinda regret updating it now). I also found out on reddit that apparently some ppl also experience this issue and despite also trying out their tips to fix it, it never worked at the end

I'M SO FUCKING DISAPPOINTED! Ever since updating this stupid editing program, it's gone to shit. More of its features are being locked into a Pro version, it suggests AI editing crap now, and THIS the fuckin exporting issue! It's already a bother that I can only used this when there's wifi to load its resources and not to mention the huge space it takes to store its cache! But this just brings me to the edge. If they never resolve this in an update or two, or them not answering my feedback about this issue, this program is basically useless to me now and I may have to go back to the previous editing program I first used (it may crashes a lot and has not so exciting features but it is usable offline and does its job at least :/)

It's such a shame really, that editing program was really fun to use at first and has really cool features but its recent updates has made it so annoying now. I've only made like 2 AMVS and a few short edits on that program, and I do want to edit more planned edits in the future but seeing how it is now just makes me think it'll be just a waste to use it (⁠ب⁠_⁠ب⁠)

#vent #I just need to rant about this. I'm just so upset

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hide-in-imagination · 11 months

Note

Yall. I'm here again. I may or may not have finished all your fanfics in less than a week whilst my Six of Crows book is collecting dust... You cannot judge me for this. It's a damn good fanfic that I have not been able to stop thinking about. You're really doing gods work. I don't know what my life would be like if Roads that cross didn't exist. It is so cute and my everything. You're a great writer at everything. I usually struggle with fics that have smut in them. Not because I don't like reading about it (The very opposite 😏😏) but because I find it so hard to find something that speaks to me. When I do (like now) it is my everything. I think a big part of the problem is I feel a lot of authors just copy and paste the same smut scenes across however many chapters. Roads that cross, how do I say this kept everything delightfully fun, fresh and interesting 😌😌😌. Chefs kiss. Also I doubt I would ever get bored of these two.

I am so excited for the next chapter already. Keep doing what you're doing. This fic is so much more than just one thing, it has everything. Simon and Ambar are literally made for each other and you really have me believing in them, despite having still not seen the show yet.

Also I hope you're having a good day/night/evening/timezone appropriate period. If you ever need anything like prompt or romantic situation ideas, let me know because I have so so many. But respect if not because it's your fic after all!!

Lots of love, Jellie xx

Oh my Jellie Jellie bean, you are so sweet!! I wanna print this and hang it on my bedroom wall <3

(sorry for the nickname, I just think it's cute ksjdnf)

"I may or may not have finished all your fanfics in less than a week whilst my Six of Crows book is collecting dust... You cannot judge me for this." And I do not! I have all the Harry Potter books my parents gifted to me 3 years ago and the whole collection of Sherlock Holmes book that I bought myself because the box was pretty, and you think I've read any of that?? No 😂😂 I totally get you, don't worry.

"You're really doing gods work. I don't know what my life would be like if Roads that cross didn't exist." Oh my god, thank you!! kjsdnfls. That's is- wow. So heartwarming. So gratifying. It's the kind of words that keep me going. To be honest, I don't know what my life would be like without RTC either. It's been 5 years and it feels like a lifetime. I can't wait to finish the story so that I can focus on other wips, but I guess Roads will really be THE one even after I'm done with it. (I mean, with that word count? I might as well print it and bind it 😂)

"a lot of authors just copy and paste the same smut scenes across however many chapters." oh my god, who does that?? You've been reading the wrong fics, what is up with those people?? I always try to make each scene mean something different, explore something different, especially since in Roads they're just starting a relationship which means they're learning each other's bodies, what makes the other tick, they're trying different things just for the fun of it or because as their bond gets deeper they find new ways to express it. I'm so happy you think it's "delightfully fun, fresh and interesting"-- That's all I ever wanted.

(Btw, that sounds like a New York Times review on the backcover of a book and I love that 😂💕)

I gotta admit, I'm not very confident on the quality of this story since I started writing it many years ago and I feel like the first 15 chapters or so don't reflect everything that I've learned since then. I've been working on editing those past chapters when I have the time, but there's still a long way to go, so I'm relieved that you managed to consider it good and engaging even with the... sometimes deplorable narrative choices I made back then sdkjfsn. (I gotta learn to be kinder to myself, I know; tell my perfectionism that.)

"Simon and Ambar are literally made for each other and you really have me believing in them, despite having still not seen the show yet." Oh my god, they really sound made for each other?? That's so sweet. I don't know if I ever thought that about them while watching the show. I mean, of course I believe in their love and I think they could be great together, but made for each other? Wow. It's so interesting that my writing conveyed that, it's very flattering. I'm so happy you've fallen in love with them through my writing 💕 Now I'm scared you'll watch the show and go "Wait, this is how they act around each other?" 😂😂 Maybe it'll be very different or maybe they'll give you the same vibe, who knows, only time will tell 😂

I've read this in the morning but now it's afternoon! 😂 It's taken me a while to type this. Thank you for offering your help 💕 I think I have enough ideas for now (sometimes I fear I have too many as my wips folder gets longer and longer) but if the opportunity ever presents itself I'll let you know!

Eternally grateful, - C

#jellie06 #answered #fic related #appreciation #jellie jellie beaaannnnn<3 you made my day thank you

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n7punk · 2 years

Note

I literally rush to Ao3 to see what was the name of the college AU where drunk kissing happens so I could ask if that's the one. Low and behold you've already made the TOHT series page to stop us from guessing.

i thought it might be obvious what i was working on with the tagline after the series title, but i also knew it was super random to be returning to a fic from two years ago.

the anniversary of toht starting is on the 29th, so I'm probably going to post the first chapter of 'silenced words & daydreams' then. i think its going to be like 3-4 chapters (since im already on chapter 3 and haven't hit everything yet, but im also not that far in).

toht is probably my fic i've returned to the second most, after ditm (and, incidentally, those are the ones ive done edits of, though the toht edit was a lot more minor than the ditm one, not adding anything and preserving the phrasing & styling that i now wouldn't use because its confusing at times but... thats part of the fic, and that fic is seared in my brain, so i don't want to change it). i did a reread while i was sick last month and it got me thinking about all the Thots i had for the verse that i never wrote so... here we are.

i've been working on novels lately (wrote one, revised an old one, and started a third one in the last three months) but i've been working on catradora fic a little here and there. i had the OotW fics i posted recently, i have three au addition fic wips, and ive... ahem... 'gathered research' for another (not to mention i still have like 4 new au ideas and a whole list of OotW ones). don't know when any of these wips will be done/ready (one dates back to last summer.....), but catradora definitely never left my mind, i've just had other projects on the forefront.

oh god please no XD for the past few months, ive been turning anon on for like, the week i post a fic and then turning it off to not get random ones. i also just turn it off whenever i'm fatigued because it greatly reduces the number of messages i get (not that i mind messages, they just take energy and i dont always answer). though i am fatigued right now, i turned it on to give people options to guess because i wanted to see how long it would take :P

i will say, one thing that has changed is i haven't really had interest in writing smut in... a long time. so its not likely to show up much for the time being. that's been seen in a lot of my fics this year, though. ive had more interest in writing stuff that is rated T or M rather than outright E, so the hornies are just gonna have to wait more. sometimes its part of a plot so it still shows up, but i just haven't been interested. that's also why i haven't returned to the Do It For Me series despite having a whole list of ideas for it, because most of them would definitely be rated e.

#ask #anon #ficmeta #fic rambling

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belphegor1982 · 1 year

Note

Can I have a director's cut on "Loopy," please?

You didn’t specify a part so I went with ALL OF IT. Prepare yourself :P

(Sorry it’s so late, I’ve been working on it for the past couple of weeks - you’d think I could’ve got this out for the actual Groundhog Day, but nope, had to finish it the day after 😅

Loopy

Plop… plop.

Okay, so this story came into being because of the 2014 Short Story Speed-Writing Challenge, which is a thing that happens (or at least did happen in the 2000s-2010s, I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been paying this fandom the attention it deserves lately) in the Hogan’s Heroes fandom, especially on a little FFnet forum called Forum XIIIC. Basically, you have two weeks within set dates to write a story 1k to 4k words long, which has to start with (or have) one of the prompts from a list that could go from “first lines of a novel” to “random lines from existing HH fics”. I think that particular year was the “existing fic” line. (EDIT: it was − namely ML Miller Breedlove’s Gone Fishing.) for some reason I latched onto it and it collided with the “Carter experiences a Groundhog Day Loop” idea I’d been jotting down notes about a while ago. That’s why I love these fandom events − you never know what they’re going to inspire from you!

I’m assuming that anyone reading below the cut has already read the fic, so heads up, I’m just gonna drop spoilers for plot twists here and there :D

The night breeze shook a couple of drops from recent rain into the river from overhanging branches. Aside from that and the rustling of trees, the woods were absolutely quiet. The sort of quiet heroes complained of in adventure books.

Carter never saw the point in complaining when things got quiet. But then I’m not a hero, am I.

Of course he is, but since he’s also Andrew J. Carter, he won’t believe it in a hundred years.

“Wake up, Carter!”

Carter turned back from the bridge in the near distance and frowned. “I wasn’t sleeping, Newkirk.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell with you.”

It’s weirdly difficult for me sometimes to write Newkirk & Carter banter, because unlike with LeBeau, insults and digs roll off Carter like water off a duck’s back, but that doesn’t mean Carter is stupid, either. He’s oblivious, sure, and cheerful and easy-going, but sometimes Newkirk’s barbs do get to him and he’s like “Hey!” (and sometimes − though rarely − he’ll dish right back, leaving Newkirk with his mouth open like a big dog who’s just been karate-flipped on his back by a mouse :D)

“Cut the wisecracks,” Colonel Hogan said in a loud whisper. “Kinch, do you see anything?”

“All clear, Colonel.”

“Then let’s go. And keep your eyes and ears open, fellas.”

I had to be careful with the dialogue, since it would’ve been really easy for the repetition to make it annoying. It starts pretty generic, and it’s the repetition and differences that keep the reader’s interest (hopefully). But also I had a lot of fun with parallels and contrasts, like for example Newkirk’s “Wake up, Carter!”

Retrieving a downed flyer was never a walk in the park, but at least they wouldn’t have to search in every bush or under ever fern to find him. An Underground agent had called on the radio with crucial information, as well as the fact that he was currently hiding an English Lieutenant recently escaped from Stalag V. Sandman (said agent) checked out, and Hogan had agreed to meet in order to retrieve the pilot.

Carter followed Kinch, Newkirk and Hogan across the bridge to the rendezvous point nearby, with LeBeau bringing up the rear. Below them, the waters ran pitch-black despite the half-moon light.

Sandman emerged from a bush half a dozen yards from the river bank and signalled them.

“There are seven stories,” he said.

“As there are seven days of the week,” Hogan replied evenly. That made just about as much sense as the first part as far as Carter was concerned. Sometimes he wondered where the guys who thought up those codes got them.

From fairy tales in canon, pretty consistently! Which makes it a challenge for fic writers to find fairy tales to allude to that haven’t been used in the show or in other fics. Here, “There are seven stories, as they are seven days of the week” is from Ole Lukøje, Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the Sandman. It’s about the Sandman telling stories to a little boy to take him to sleep; if he’s good, he’s getting good dreams, and if he’s bad, he gets nightmares. I pulled that thread throughout the story in little nods, like the seven stories/days of the week that almost became seven loops. In the end, I ran out of room and inspiration, so there’s six of them, but if you squint and include the first part there are seven :D

Sandman smiled.

“Hello, Papa Bear. Good to finally see you in person.”

“I’m told you might have something of mine?” said Hogan, shaking his hand. As if on cue, a broad-shouldered guy in a RAF uniform stepped out from behind a tree and saluted.

“Flight Lieutenant Charles Hickman, sir. May I say, I was warned that this might happen, but it’s a mite peculiar all the same.”

Usually I try to flesh out OCs better than this, but Sandman and Flight Lieutenant Hickman didn’t really need more than they got. (I really laid on the Britishness thick with Hickman, too.) At least you gradually find out more about Sandman as the story goes on?

Hogan raised an eyebrow. “‘This’ meaning your capture, or our little Travellers Aid Society meeting?”

“Truthfully, sir, both.”

“Here,” chimed in Sandman, handing Hogan an envelope. “Every troop movement between Hammelburg and Düsseldorf for the past three weeks.” His face grew sombre. “People died for this information. I hope you will make good use of it.”

This is particularly cynical in the light of the later reveal, huh? People died, yeah − because he must have seen personally to some of them.

“We will,” said Hogan solemnly. “In the meantime, you –”

“Wait,” LeBeau interrupted. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“I don’t know… something in the bushes. Maybe just an animal or –”

“Halt! Keine Bewegung!”

All hell broke loose.

“Halt! Keine Bewegung!” means “Stop! Freeze/Don’t move!”

Amidst the gunfire, the shouting and the muzzle flashes that made his eyes water, Carter counted a dozen Gestapo. They had shouted their warning, and now they were firing at anything that moved – and at, he saw with a mounting horror that made his hands shake and his bile rise in his throat, at least two bodies that didn’t move. Before he had time to find out who it was, he stumbled, shuddered, and fell to his knees; pain that hadn’t been there (or maybe he hadn’t paid attention to it) a second ago flared through his chest, leaving him limp and light-headed, barely aware that the blood running down his front was not a good sign.

As he fell headfirst into the cold earth and the shredded leaves, the terror vanished, and he was numb, indifferent to what was happening to him – the pain was fading, too – his only thoughts for Hogan, Newkirk, LeBeau, Kinch, hoping they could make it through.

Look, you can’t exactly say that Carter is self-effacing, but he’s definitely not as in-your-face a character as Hogan, LeBeau or Newkirk, or even Kinch, for all that he’s quiet. When explosives are off the table he doesn’t seem to be as self-confident as the others, and it just felt right to go that extra little step and have him be self-sacrificing as well. Like, the guys were okay before I got here, they’d be okay without me. (except NO THEY BLOODY WOULDN’T BE!)

Something fell against him with the weight and finality of death.

Carter didn’t live long enough to know whose corpse it was.

Yeah, I deliberately kept the first ending as vague and brutal as possible. At this point the reader should be confused and horrified, maybe more the former than the latter. And then...)

⁂

Plop… plop.

“Wake up, Carter!”

“W—what?”

I’m alive!?

And there you are – back to the beginning! That’s why the repetition of “plop... plop” and “Wake up, Carter” was essential. Only these two sentences, mind you – Carter reacts differently every time.

Carter ran a shaking hand across his chest, looking for the bullet wound, his heart thumping wildly. The blasts from the German machine guns were still echoing in his ears, along with the chilling moans of men about to die – including his own, he realised with a jolt – and the smell of blood-soaked earth overpowered everything else.

Nothing like some small but visceral details to pull you into a story!

But everything was quiet, normal. No Gestapo, no machine guns, just the busy silence of nightlife going about their business, the wind in the branches, and the “plop” of raindrops falling into the river.

In case the reader’s forgotten where the “plop plop” came from :o)

The bridge stretched before them. Kinch was scanning their surroundings for anything suspicious, apparently finding nothing of the sort.

Maybe Carter had been day-dreaming.

But it had felt so real…

The first snap back has Carter doubt it actually happened. Because honestly, by Occam’s Razor rules you’re not gonna jump straight to a Groundhog Day loop situation − you’re going to think you had a very vivid hallucination.

“Carter, are you all right? You’re so pale you’re practically glowing in the dark.”

Aww, Newkirk cares behind the snark 💖

“Cut the wisecracks,” Colonel Hogan said in a loud whisper. Wait. What? “Everyone okay? Right. Kinch, do you see anything?”

“All clear, Colonel.”

“Then let’s go. And keep your eyes and ears open, fellas.”

See? Even with slight differences (Carter being shaken and Newkirk sort of noticing it), the dialogue stays on track... and so does the rest of it.

This felt oddly familiar to Carter, like a song he didn’t remember hearing but that he knew anyway. An uncomfortable feeling crept over him, intensifying when Sandman popped out of his bush and Hogan strode towards him.

“LeBeau,” he muttered, “what’s the French word for when you think you’ve already seen what you’re seeing right now?”

“What, déjà vu?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a 90% chance Carter wouldn’t know this particular phenomenon, since I’m not sure just how much it popped up in fiction at the time, but the occasion was too good to pass, come on.

Newkirk shot him an odd look, but Carter ignored him, still profoundly uneasy. Ahead of them, Hogan and Sandman exchanged passwords, something about seven stories and seven days of the week – and boy but the absurdity of it rang a bell in Carter’s head.

“I’m told you might have something of mine?” said Hogan. Before he had finished speaking, Carter knew which tree the pilot was hiding behind.

Flight Lieutenant Charles Hickman.

How do I know that? I can’t know that! Unless…

“Flight Lieutenant Charles Hickman, sir.” Carter’s heart leaped in his throat. “May I say, I was warned that this might happen, but it’s a mite peculiar all the sa—”

“Sir?” The bell in Carter’s head had become a giant flashing light. He stepped in and looked at Hogan straight in the eye, trying to ignore the mounting panic. “Something’s wrong.”

For the moment Carter’s just reacting to the weird déjà vu sensation – he’s not quite ahead of the plot yet.

His CO went from a bantering mood to deadly serious in the space of a second. “How?”

Yes, Carter often has his head in the clouds, but when it comes down to it he’s also a competent spy and Hogan trusts him implicitly.

Well, there wasn’t two ways around it. “I… I think Gestapo’s coming. Right now.”

Sandman’s eyes went round and he looked around him. “What?”

Sandman’s going both “how can this guy know that” and “crap, are they there already??”

Hogan shushed him and turned to Kinch and Newkirk, who were keeping lookout to the bridge and the nearby woods. “Anything suspicious, guys?”

“Don’t think so, Colonel,” said Newkirk slowly.

“Well, let’s not stay and find out. Hickman, with us. Sandman, we owe you big time.”

“Wait!” They had started back, but Sandman ran after them. “You forgot the troop movements!”

“Wait! You can’t leave this early, the Gestapo’s not there yet! I have to stall!”

“Halt! Keine Bewegung!”

Oh, no…

The Gestapo patrol ran towards them, and suddenly Carter saw with absolute clarity that yes, it had happened before, and he was probably not going crazy. It wasn’t much of a comfort to be right in those circumstances.

“Run, guys, r—!”

In the ear-splitting chaos he never saw the black-uniformed man raise a gun to his head.

This time he died instantly.

Small mercies :’(

⁂

Plop… plop.

“Wake up, Cart—”

“RUN!”

He basically just finished his last thought here.

Only when the four of them stared at him in a mixture of alarm and incredulity did Carter realise he had shouted at the top of his lungs. Still shaking all over, he sucked in a breath and tried to calm down his pounding heart.

They were back at the bridge. Again.

They were all alive. For now.

“What’s wrong, Carter?” asked Kinch, frowning, but his voice gentle.

Kinch will always give a friend the benefit of the doubt 💜

“Gestapo—patrol,” Carter panted, taking off his cap and wiping his forehead. It was cold enough that he could see his breath hanging in the air, but he was drenched in sweat. “V—very close.”

The woods were completely silent, but nobody questioned him and everyone dove for the bushes.

In their line of work, they can’t afford not to take something like this seriously. (but they will snark afterwards if nothing happened - and even if something did happen, to grasp at something familiar.)

However, after it became obvious that wherever that patrol was, it was nowhere near them, they emerged to scan the bridge and both banks of the river. Then turned looks on Carter that ranged between sceptical and angry.

“Thanks for the false alarm, Carter,” said LeBeau, brushing wet leaves from his jacket.

“Ever heard of the boy who cried ‘wolf’?” Newkirk said in his most sardonic tone.

Carter took a deep breath. “Look… If we cross that bridge, a patrol will turn up and kill us all.”

Everyone stared at him – he felt a complete fool – but he held his ground. This was too important.

As he lied to convince them not to meet Sandman, he tried to push down the disgust at the idea of abandoning the Underground agent and the British pilot to their fate. Maybe the Gestapo would not consider two men the same threat as seven, and not shoot first and ask questions later? Maybe they could spring them later from the Gestapo HQ? Sandman had dealt with Papa Bear once or twice, but never face-to-face. He had no idea they were POWs.

It was all for the greater good.

(since Hot Fuzz (2006) I canNOT hear/read this phrase without hearing an echo in my head (the greater good) XD)

A little voice whispered, Keep telling yourself that, Andrew.

He felt sick.

Carter doesn’t do well with guilt :(

When they finally crossed the bridge – Hogan reluctantly giving Carter the benefit of the doubt and deciding to remain hidden until they were sure it was safe – they were too late. The Gestapo patrol held a gun on Hickman, the pilot, and one of them was gripping Sandman by the arm.

Oh no, they caught the flyer and the Underground agent! (right?)

Hogan shot Carter a strange look and silently ordered his men back to camp.

Only the wild hope that they would all make it to camp alive kept Carter from taking his CO aside and telling him everything. He still wasn’t quite sure he would be able to meet his own eyes in the mirror when they got back.

Carter had always been a little accident-prone, and it always got worse when he was distracted.

Which is why he didn’t see the root before he tripped on it and fell into the ferns.

He does do that in canon sometimes :D Also I toyed with the idea of having whether or not he actually survived ambiguous, but in the end I preferred this ending, since it’s a change from the violence and it makes it obvious that just Our Heroes surviving ain’t gonna cut it.

⁂

Plop… plop.

“Wake up, Carter!”

Hey, I didn’t die this time! was his first thought, closely followed by a fervent I’m not letting these guys get captured again. No way.

“Oi! Are you—”

“The coast is clear. What are we waiting for?”

And he ran to the bridge without waiting to see the others’ reactions.

“Maybe if I speed-run through the whole thing the Gestapo won’t have time to catch up!”

Unfortunately, neither Sandman nor Hickman had reached the rendezvous point just yet.

“Carter!” hissed Hogan as he crouched down near him, white with fury. “What the hell were you thinking? You could have gotten killed – you could have gotten us all killed!”

In any other circumstances, this dressing-down from one of the men Carter respected most would have made him wish the ground would open up and swallow him; now, however, the memories of the previous fiascos were so vivid and he was so focused on getting everything right this time that he brushed it off.

Sandman appeared taken aback at finding them already there when he arrived.

“There are seven stor—”

“As there are seven days of the week,” Carter interrupted. Then, raising his voice a little, “It’s okay, Lieutenant, come on out!”

Hogan grabbed him by the arm. “What are you playing at?”

Of course Hogan trusts his men, but this is WTF, even for them.

His voice was low and dangerous, and it sent a chill down Carter’s spine. Carter’s resolve weakened significantly, but he didn’t back down. Instead he threw a pleading look at his friends and his CO.

“Could you guys just trust me on this? I swear it’s important, and we’re kinda on a clock here.”

Then, as Hickman hesitatingly stepped out from behind his tree, Carter turned to Sandman and held out a hand.

“Troop movements, please?”

Sandman’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? Nobody but me knows.”

“You said it was crucial information,” Kinch pointed out. “Is that it?”

“Yes it is, but your man is not supposed to know! What else do you know?” He turned on Carter with surprising venom. “Who are you spying for?”

That’s rich, coming from a double agent. But also, stalling again!

“Now wait a minute, mate,” Newkirk cut in. “You’re way off!”

“He’s no spy!” said LeBeau hotly. “Enfin, si, mais… he’s not a traitor!”

In this context, “Enfin, si, mais” means “I mean/Well, yes/he is, but”. si here is the specific “yes” that contradicts a previous negative statement.

Also, no matter how weird Carter is being at the moment (or generally speaking), nobody else gets to insult him in Newkirk’s and LeBeau’s hearing, or worse, threaten him. Nobody, period 💜

Carter almost smiled, but between the ticking clock and the oncoming Gestapo, nervousness was giving way to sheer dread. “Could we do this somewhere else? I—I mean go elsewhere? Right now?”

Hogan squinted at him. Carter stared right back.

Please, please, Colonel, he thought as hard as he could, as if Hogan could read actually minds – sometimes he could make a fellow believe he could. I know I’m a goof and I mess things up sometimes, but right now I’m dead serious and I need you to believe me!

Hogan’s appraisal seemed to turn out in his favour, and he nodded slightly. Carter sagged with relief.

“Okay. Sandman, the information, please. Come with us, Flight Lieutenant; we’ll sort out the rest later.”

“Nobody goes anywhere.” To Carter’s dismay, Sandman pulled a gun and pointed it straight at him. “Not until I’m sure he’s not a traitor.”

Isn’t it ironic that the loop where Carter is intent to hurry things up as much as he can is also the loop where they spend the most time in this particular place? Also, hello, Chekhov’s gun! Yep, Sandman has a gun, and now Carter – and the reader – knows it.

“Oh, for the love of…”

Carter found himself flanked with Newkirk on one side and LeBeau on the other, both glaring at the agent in surprisingly similar ways. Kinch didn’t glare, but his calm, steady stare made where he stood perfectly clear.

Standing their ground for their friend 💖

Sandman glanced behind him, perhaps weighing the odds. Then he pulled the envelope from his jacket and handed it to Hogan.

“All right, all right. Here.”

Hogan tucked the precious information inside his own jacket, nodded at Sandman, and signalled his team to make for the bridge. Carter sighed inwardly. Maybe this time would…

“Halt! Keine Bewegung!”

“RUN!” he screamed.

But they were too close.

It was slaughter. And this time, he saw everything.

This next part was perhaps the hardest to write of the whole story. I mean, look, I wrote 800 words where I killed LeBeau once and my hands were shaking the whole time – so killing all five, like this? Yeah :S

Flight Lieutenant Hickman went down first when a bullet went straight through his head. The next second, Carter felt a blaze of pain explode in his knee and collapsed, breathless. When he could lift his head, he spotted LeBeau on the ground propped up against a tree, blood all over his left thigh, staring into the distance. Wait, thought Carter through the red haze in his head, that’s not right… he faints when he sees blood, his eyes should be closed… A few feet further, Newkirk, his face ashen, was curled up on himself so tightly Carter couldn’t see exactly where he was hurt; then he shuddered, relaxed, and lay very still, and Carter screwed his eyes shut. Only then did he realise that he was sobbing.

So I might have mentioned it before, but I like to write like I’d point a camera if I knew how to film, and this scene only needs a few quick, chaotic shots to give the reader a sense of what they’re going through. I don’t need to linger on what’s happening (to LeBeau, to Newkirk, even to Carter); what the scene needs is something quick and vivid, not drawn-out (not that I had the room, anyway - even with a minimal author’s note the story clocked out at 4,990 words for FFnet - and 4886 on AO3 - so I really toed the limit with this one!). Anyway. This whole scene needed to punch the reader in the stomach, and for that I had to go all out and be very, very precise and concise. Hopefully I succeeded.

Kinch was nowhere to be seen, and Carter caught himself hoping someone would be left alive when this loop came to an end.

Sorry, bud, this one is the “no mercy” run :(

Please let it start all over again. Please.

The thought that this might be it, combined with the sight of LeBeau’s and Newkirk’s bodies, made Carter grab a nearby root and violently throw up. When he looked up again, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Colonel Hogan was on his knees with his hands behind his head, staring defiantly at the Gestapo men who held him at gunpoint.

Right, who thought I had forgotten our dear colonel? Raise your hands!

A few yards away, Sandman was apparently attempting to talk himself out of this situation; Carter vaguely saw him handing a paper to a soldier. But he only had eyes for Hogan.

Psst - Sandman is not “attempting” to talk himself out of this mess, he’s showing the soldiers an Ausweis. This will come up again later, because even though Carter isn’t really paying it attention right now, he has noticed!

Hogan, whose eyes found him lying in the ferns, and who mouthed “Run!”

Colonel Robert E. Hogan, ladies and gentlemen. The mission comes first, but his men come second, and he third.

After a heated debate with himself, Carter started to crawl away, almost passing out with pain at every movement. Everything was spinning, so he kept close to the ground, not stopping even when a single gunshot behind him left him shaking madly and almost whimpering…

Hope everyone understood that this means Hogan didn’t make it. (and boy, talk about sentences I never thought I’d type...)

Until he reached the river bank, and saw two Gestapo come back to the group, dragging Kinch’s limp body between them.

Kinch’s death means the death of hope. It’s as simple as that.

Everything was lost.

Carter let go and fell down… and down…

He was unconscious before he hit the water.

And either drowned in the river or died of shock/blood loss. God this loop is grim...

⁂

Plop… plop.

“Wake up, Carter!”

Oh thank God.

Poor Carter. The weariness is starting to creep in.

They were all there, alive, unscathed – no bullet wounds, no bruises, no sightless eyes. The absolute nightmare of the last “loop” came crashing down on Carter, who had to suppress a wild urge to wrap Kinch, Newkirk and LeBeau in one bear hug, and shake the Colonel’s hand like mad. As it was, he wiped his eyes as discreetly as he could and answered Newkirk with a vague “I’m fine.”

Which of course made Newkirk watch him more closely. But that was all right.

Newkirk snarks, Newkirk smirks, but Newkirk worries (because he cares) 💜 And he’s fiercely perceptive. He doesn’t understand what’s got his mate to look like that, but he thinks that either he’ll figure it out or Carter will tell him eventually.

Carter was so relieved to see them walking, breathing, living, that the afterthought didn’t hit him till after they crossed the bridge.

What was that paper Sandman showed the Gestapo?

And why had he glanced behind him, almost toward the exact spot they had burst from later?

It’s all about the little details, folks! And it’s a credit to Carter’s perceptiveness that he still remembers things like the paper and Sandman’s suspicious glance after the nightmare that happened after. Much as I love writing the guy as clueless about certain things, if he really was completely no thoughts, head empty he wouldn’t have lasted two days in the spy business.

The more he thought about it, the more his suspicion grew. What if Sandman had actually been stalling when he accused him of being a mole? What if…

Well. One way to find out.

When Sandman emerged from his bush, Carter pounced on him and clamped a hand on his mouth. The guy twitched and jerked so viciously it made his teeth rattle.

And the thing with Carter is that he’s straightforward. Not sneaky and cunning like Newkirk, not calm and prudent like Kinch, not even in-your-face like LeBeau, but once he’s decided to do something he will do it.

“Sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “Colonel, I know it sounds kinda crazy, but I think this guy’s not on the level.”

“Mffrmmfm…!”

“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

This little gag is so easy but it’s still one of my favourites XD

“Wait a minute, Carter,” said Hogan. “This is serious stuff. What makes you say that?”

“Fmvvhf.”

“Well, that’s rude.” Carter jerked his chin toward Sandman’s jacket. “He’s got a paper in his pocket in case we meet a German patrol.”

Sandman looked apoplectic. At Carter’s last words, though, he went quite still. He didn’t even flinch when Hogan slowly reached for the inside of his jacket and pulled an envelope.

“No, not that one – that’s the troop movements between Hammelburg and, uh, Düsseldorf. Or it’s supposed to be, anyway.”

Sandman glared up at him, still purple in the face, with eyes that would probably pop out if they bulged any further.

Hogan ripped open the envelope and skimmed through the contents. And frowned.

“Funny. Says here that the 5th Panzer Army passed two miles north of Hammelburg two weeks ago.”

“Didn’t they capitulate in North Africa last week?” Kinch asked quietly with an odd look at Sandman. Newkirk and LeBeau stared open-mouthed at Carter.

Which places the story around the third week of May 1943, as the 5th Panzer Army surrendered in Tunis on the 13th. The more you know! I always try to have my HH stories fall on at least some pretence of historical timeline.

“They did. Now let’s see the paper Carter was talking about.”

Said paper turned out to be an Ausweis signed by Major Hochstetter, stipulating that its owner was Gestapo, and, if possible, that his cover should not be blown.

Not sure it actually worked like that, but I needed a smoking gun, so to speak.

“Could be a fake, Colonel,” Kinch pointed out.

“Yeah. This looks pretty damn close to Hochstetter’s signature, though.

Of course he’d know what Hochstetter’s signature looks like - I don’t remember if we see them forge it in canon, but let’s be honest, they probably did a fair few times :D

Let’s haul him back to camp, we’ll sort this out there.”

“Wait!” Carter had almost forgotten Flight Lieutenant Hickman. “Didn’t Sandman say he had a flyer with him?”

Fortunately, Hickman came out from hiding and saluted sheepishly. “Is it a, er, bad time?”

“Not at all, Flight Lieutenant. We’re open all hours,” quipped Hogan.

One little thing I like when writing HH fic is getting to write these fun little jokes, even if it kinda drives me crazy to have to think them up!

“Now let’s go while the woods are Kraut-free.”

Carter shivered. If they knew…

When the Gestapo patrol did barge in, this time they only found dirt and moss. Carter, Hogan, Hickman and the others watched them from bushes and under ferns. Carter still had a tight hold on Sandman, who had been blindfolded and looked much calmer. While it was nice not to feel like he was gripping a six-foot-tall wiggling pike, Carter had a feeling it was too good to last.

He was right.

Not three minutes after the Gestapo had passed them, Sandman tripped on something, pulling Carter down with him; the next thing Carter knew, the moonlight glinted on something metallic.

Sandman has a gun. Oh boy, I should have remembered that from last time!

Not “last time”, actually, but the time before that. But who can blame him for getting his loops mixed up...

No time for self-reproach. Carter jumped on the guy to try to wrest the gun from him.

He was so focused on wrenching the gun from Sandman’s hands that the shot took him completely by surprise. They were both practically nose-to-nose, so he could plainly see the stunned look on his opponent’s face – followed by a small, incredulous smile.

Ah, Shrödinger’s shot. For a second your characters are both alive and dead, both teetering on the edge of the precipice. And then one of them notices they’ve been hit, and the penny drops - and you’d better hope it’s not the character you were hoping would make it. (unless it’s for whump and hurt/comfort purposes, which I love a lot ^^)

The agony hit him about one second later. He had the small satisfaction of seeing Kinch knock out Sandman with a brutal-looking blow before staggering and collapsing against Newkirk, who barely caught him in time.

For some reason I love reminders that Kinch is a boxer. Who knows exactly the amount of force he needs to put in a punch to not do real damage - but also, in a situation like this, restraint might not be a priority.

“Carter! Andrew, what… oh n—”

“Andrew, look at me,” Hogan said, and it was so very hard but Carter made an effort – it was the Colonel. He never gave an order unless he thought they could do it. “Look at me. You’re going to be all right.”

No, he isn’t, and they all know that. But just in case it ends up working...

“T—trying,” Carter managed to utter, but his world was going white at the edges and he was pretty sure the tang in his mouth was blood. Not a good sign.

“Hold on, Andrew,” said Kinch quietly. His voice was thin, unsure, all wrong. “We’ll get back to camp in a minute. Wilson’ll patch you up.”

LeBeau said nothing; his mouth was trembling too much. Carter couldn’t see Newkirk behind him, but he could feel him shaking as he tried to put pressure on the wound – vaguely, as though it was someone else Newkirk was gripping. Not a good sign, either.

It’s okay, he wanted to say, but the hole in his chest seemed to burn up all the air in his lungs. You’re all fine, Sandman can’t hurt any of you now, the Gestapo’s gone… It’s not even hurting so bad now… It’s okay, really…

Look, is it a coincidence that I’m drawn to characters with such shitty self-confidence that they automatically assume their loved ones would be okay without them, or write them that way? I don’t think so! *finger guns* But just in case you might think that Carter being the only one not to survive this whole nightmare is remotely okay -

At least he would get something right this time…

“Halt! Keine Bewegung!”

No! No! They couldn’t –

Carter breathed in, suddenly terrified. He didn’t breathe out.

- I had to make it explicit that no, Carter basically sacrificing himself is NOT okay in a million years. You all have to get through this one, my guy. Find a solution. (no pressure :P)

⁂

Plop… plop.

“Wake up, Carter!”

Oh, boy…

I am not above gratuitous Quantum Leap references ^^ Sometimes Dr Beckett’s life feels like a Groundhog Day loop, poor man. (I don’t think they used that trope in the show, did they?)

Carter never thought that repeatedly dying could be so exhausting. He felt sick, drained, and utterly fed up with the whole thing. How many times had he died already? How many times had the others? How could they return to normal time when he appeared the only one who noticed the loop? How could he end the cycle when there were so many ways for the situation to go horribly wrong?

Until now, he hadn’t really wondered about the whys and hows. He had this chance of correcting something that ended in disaster, and he was grateful for that. But nothing he did ever worked.

I did debate with myself as to whether to explain why time kept snapping back, and to that particular point. Does it have something to do with Sandman? The river? Some kind of trickster god having fun with Carter? (or the author being a jerk, lol?) In the end, though, it didn’t matter. What’s important is not the why, what’s important is the lengths Carter will go for his friends and the resourcefulness that comes from being backed up against a wall.

One thing was certain, though: he had to stop Sandman, one way or another.

Carter considered himself a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, who rarely, if ever, got angry. It took a lot for fury to build up to a point where he was no longer content with just snapping at people. But once he reached boiling point…

That traitor got my friends killed. All of them. Several times.

Not again.

“Er, Carter? You all right, mate?”

He must look odd, all dark frown and set shoulders, and Newkirk must have noticed it. But he was past caring.

When Sandman turned up, Carter punched him. Hard.

One of my absolute favourite tropes is the easy-going sunshine character getting pushed hard enough that they either break or go all out. Carter being Carter, it’s still fairly mild, comparatively, but it’s so completely out-of-character that Hogan and the guys are taken by surprise and absolutely baffled.

There was a lot of things behind that punch; grief, guilt, righteous fury, the memory of blood on familiar uniforms and eyes staring sightlessly at the sky, every second of the nauseating panic he had felt each time he died…

The force of the blow lifted Sandman from the ground and he landed heavily on his back, unconscious.

Carter cradled his throbbing hand against his stomach, whimpering soundlessly. Why did it always look so darn easy in the movies?

Nothing wrong with having a character throw a mighty punch, but I like the occasional reminder that it hurts like hell when your knuckles aren’t prepared!

“Carter!” said Hogan, visibly hovering between alarm and sheer befuddlement. “What the hell –?”

“Sorry, Colonel. But that guy’s a Gestapo spy. Look.”

He fished the Ausweis from Sandman’s pocket and handed it to Hogan, who perused it, frowning, and handed it over to Kinch.

“Sure looks damning. But it could be a fake to get past patrols.”

“Yeah, but – wait – there ya go.” The false information followed, and Hogan’s frown deepened.

“Okay, the 5th Panzer Army was nowhere near Hammelburg last week – and what’s that about Colonel Fleisher being executed? He defected to the Allies last month, we put him on the plane to London!”

This time it’s the other way around: the document that comes up first is the Ausweis, while the second is the so-called “troop movements” - with the extra detail of something only the Heroes would know (the German officer’s defection), just to hammer the point home.

“If Sandman is a Gestapo spy, it makes sense that he’d try to feed us false information, right?” Carter asked, trying not to show how anxious he was. He had to get this one right. He had to.

He tucked Sandman’s gun inside his bomber jacket and made a show of being at least a little surprised when he came face to face with Hickman behind his tree.

“Hi.”

Hickman blinked. “Um, hello there.”

Hogan pinched the bridge of his nose.

This time Carter remembered the gun! And he pretended to be surprised to see Hickman behind “his” tree :D

Introductions were made quickly, and everyone agreed to sort out everything back at Stalag XIII. They were almost at the bridge when the Gestapo patrol Carter kept expecting turned up, far enough to avoid detection; nevertheless, he insisted on waiting a little longer still.

When they were absolutely sure the patrol was far enough not to hear even a gunshot, they made for the bridge, Hickman half-carrying, half-dragging Sandman, who barely stirred.

I had to make sure the patrol wouldn’t hear them later.

Carter’s hopes kept growing at each step he made. Maybe this was it. Maybe this time the timeline would stop starting again. No more screw-ups, no more mistakes, no –

Now that’s just tempting fate, is it?

There was a sharp thud and a grunt behind him. He whirled around in time to see Hickman doubled up in pain… and wheezed when Sandman plowed into him as though this was the World Series.

Look at me, pretending I know the first thing about American sports XD I originally wanted a reference to American football (since I couldn’t have rugby - c’est la vie ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and the Superbowl, but the first Superbowl was in 1966 and what preceded it was complicated and not half as iconic. So I figured I could use baseball - players dive on a base in baseball, right? So they can hit other players more or less accidentally? I’m not sure ice hockey was a big thing in 1940s Muncie, Indiana anyway, so :-|

Carter flailed, trying to regain both balance and breath, felt the bridge guardrail against his back, gripped Sandman’s jacket –

And they both fell over into the river.

I should keep track of how many fics I’ve written where a character ends up falling into a body of water and/or rained on and soaked to the bone. That should be fun.

The murky waters swallowed him whole. Unable to tell which way was up, Sandman still clutching at him like a leech and dragging him down, Carter panicked. He kept trying to kick the bottom, like Newkirk and LeBeau had recommended when he had admitted he really couldn’t swim, but couldn’t find it.

Writing fanfiction for Hogan’s Heroes is standing at a buffet with many varied things that don’t necessarily go well together, and cherry-picking the ones that agree with you while merrily ignoring a bunch of others. In “The Well” Carter has no problem swimming, whereas in “Will the Blue Baron Strike Again” he almost drowns into four feet of water because he couldn’t swim and panicked. (Also, infamously, LeBeau’s throwaway line at getting volunteered to do something dangerous: “That’s also how I got married” while absolutely nothing in the rest of the show suggests he’s married.) I decided early on that Carter couldn’t swim at all for Reasons (mainly whump-related ones) and it’s one of the half canonical details I like sticking to.

The need to open his mouth and get some air was becoming overwhelming. Naturally, this was when Sandman elbowed him in the throat.

For some reason this is one of the little details I’m proudest of in this fic. Sandman doesn’t kick Carter in the stomach or punch him in the head - he elbows him in the throat. It feels both more random (like Sandman is thrashing about in the water) and grounded in reality.

Carter made a keening noise only he heard and swallowed a great gulp of muddy water.

Bells rang in his ears, stars exploded before his eyes. Dimly he wondered how often one could see stars at the bottom of dark German rivers.

Then he sank into nothingness.

⁂

Squish… squish.

“Andrew! Wake up!”

And finally, a difference! A double difference, though not necessarily obvious enough that the reader immediately notices. Incidentally, once you realise Newkirk isn’t saying quite the same words in quite the same order, you also realise he’s calling Carter by his first name, which he sometimes but rarely does. Because the “you called me [X], it must be serious” trope is one of my very favourites 🥰

Carter retched and spouted out about a gallon of water. It didn’t feel enough, so he curled up on his side and tried to expel some more liquid. Then the voice broke past the rushing sound in his ears.

His first barely conscious thought was, We’re still stuck.

His second was, No… wait.

Carter almost didn’t want to wake up. He was in the floating, uncertain state between oblivion and consciousness, and as he slowly grew more aware, he knew which had his preference. His lungs burned, his ribs hurt like they had no right to, and he was shivering with cold.

He was also soaked through and through. That’s a dumb thing to be when it’s cold.

But the voice was insistent, urgent, and too familiar to ignore. Presently it was joined by other voices, tinged with the same quiver of… fear?

You bet they’re afraid, young man!!

“Take it easy, Andrew. Slow breaths.”

“Blimey, you weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t swim!”

That’s Kinch and Newkirk, respectively :o) Hopefully it’s obvious enough that it didn’t need to be pointed out. Not that it was that important.

There was a hand on his back, rubbing gently, the soothing rhythm gradually easing his ragged gasps into more regular breathing. He managed to crack his eyes open and was treated to a sliver of dark sky and four anxious faces, as well as a collective sigh of relief. Both Newkirk and LeBeau were drenched, and Hogan and Kinch were covered in mud.

You know LeBeau and Newkirk jumped in after Carter while Hogan and Kinch rushed to the bank to drag them out (and potentially take out the threat of Sandman).

Hogan shook his head with a small smile. “You guys are gonna turn me grey before the war is over.”

They do! Season 6 Hogan is noticeably greyer than season 1 Hogan :D

“Ça va, André?” LeBeau stared at him as though not quite sure Carter was really there. His voice wasn’t too steady, and neither was Newkirk’s when he cut across.

“Well, of course he’s not all right. Probably swallowed his weight in water.”

Kinch didn’t say anything, and continued to rub Carter’s back. It worked wonders, and Carter soon could breathe well enough to rasp, “S—Sandman?”

“Right there,” Hogan said, pointing to a motionless form on the ground. “Hickman tried to revive him, but he was dead before we pulled him out.”

Maybe Sandman’s death triggered the end of the loops. And maybe it had nothing to do with it. We’ll never know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Cracked his head on a rock when he fell, probably,” Newkirk added, not a twinge of sympathy in his voice. “He had a nasty wound on his head. Bled like sin. LeBeau almost fainted.”

The English I hear or read sometimes stay with me for a loooong time - because it’s an idiosyncrasy, because of a particular intonation, who knows. I remember reading the brief but striking description of a head wound that “bled like sin” in one of Gravelgirty/Aragonite’s Sherlock Holmes’ Scotland Yard stories, and it felt right from Newkirk.

LeBeau rolled his eyes, but didn’t comment.

Carter went cold all over. Did I kill that guy? How do I know I didn’t?

Hogan seemed to read this in his face, and said calmly, “You fell, he fell – you got lucky, he didn’t. It happens. Believe me, we’re all very glad it’s not the other way around.”

It didn’t make it all right, but it made it easier to face. At least right now.

It’s hard for us writers sometimes to reconcile the comedic aspect of the show with the grim realities of war in general and WW2 in particular. Carter is shown throughout the series as being proficient in explosives, in making and launching bombs, while being one of the genuinely sweetest characters on the show.

So - Doylist explanation: it’s just funny to have the enthusiastic funny guy also be potentially one of the most dangerous of the team. Watsonian explanation: Carter loves explosives, loves his job and takes it seriously, but that doesn’t mean he has to like killing a fellow human being one-on-one (which he hates, but will do if given no other choice).

Carter breathed out and allowed his tense, aching muscles to relax. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong with the timeline, whether someone or something had been responsible, or whether it would ever happen again.

All he knew was that his friends were all alive and well, and that he had somehow managed to survive, too.

Maybe that was the whole point.

It’s always tempting to want to justify everything that happens in the story. But while it’s important that there is internal cohesion (the plot is convincing, the characters’ behaviours make sense, etc.) sometimes you can afford to go the Mary Poppins route and say “Nope, I don’t have to explain anything” :P

“Something that bugs me, Carter,” said Newkirk thoughtfully on the way back to camp. “How did you know Sandman was a Gestapo spy in the first place?”

Trust Newkirk to ask the important questions :D

The question made everybody look back at him. Carter gulped.

Oh boy. Where do I start…?

Carter (and probably the reader, too) was so caught up in getting everyone safely out of the loop/stopping both the Gestapo and Sandman from hurting anyone that (added with the feeling of “no consequences, everything just snaps right back so I can do anything” inherent with time loop stories) he just didn’t think about how his actions would look like afterwards. So naturally that “oh crap” moment was the perfect place to end this story!

Thank you for indulging me! And I’m sorry it took so much time :S

#fic commentary #sometimes I write

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