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faceofpoe · 29 days

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My CX-2/CX-Tech contemplation ahead of 3.12 & beyond:

(i.e. fuck it, as others' hopes dwindle as we count down to the finale, Poe is doubling down)

(i.e. enjoy myriad ramblings that are somewhere between 'this is how I'd do it' and the perils of watching with confirmation bias/Winter Soldier-lover glasses on LOL)

the tl;dr is: ignoring things like "domicile" and whatnot - compare CX-2's behavior and attitude and ruthlessness at various stages: 1) upon arrival on Teth 2) after getting knocked into the wall and buried under all the rocks 3) the escalating rage while fighting Crosshair culminating in the nearly drowning him/possibly pausing/getting stunned and falling and 4) getting to and while on Pabu.

I think it's really interesting how the same operative who went "rogue" (twice), who recklessly endangered his target by shooting down her ship and firing chaotically into the group she was with, is so precise and controlled on Pabu.

I think it's really interesting how Scorch tells him to "eliminate" the others if they get in the way and the operative who killed most of Rex's cell on Teth conveniently manages to "neutralize" 2/3 of them without killing them (creative but "technical" interpretation of orders?). Somewhat notably perhaps, his orders upon activation to Teth are to "neutralize" the compromised operative, the intent to kill him before he can talk is not ambiguous. Cannot imagine he's under any delusions that Hunter & Wrecker are definitively dead at the time he reports them "neutralized."

I think it's really interesting how he places the final explosive on the Marauder right on the wing by the ramp where it might be noticed when he surely just needed to blow the engine. I think it's interesting that we've seen what a precise shot can do to ground a ship but the operative chooses instead to loudly announce what's coming.

I think it's really interesting how there were presumably three potential targets when the gunship was compromised - the pilot, the ship itself, and Hunter - and the operative went for what had to be the trickiest shot (through the window!) that took out his own guy and left Hunter alone in the water to make his way back to shore.

I think it's really interesting how he gets tunnel-vision feral on Crosshair in Extraction, that shit got personal, and doesn't react to having him right in his sights in Point of No Return. (I also think it's interesting that he's got some sort of facial recognition thing going on in ep11 but I don't know what to make of that). I think it's interesting that the thing that dooms them to losing Omega - being separated, where no one has any backup - is also the thing that saves the boys from going down in a final desperate stand to protect her and saves Pabu from being caught in the crossfire.

I think it's interesting that aside from the docks, we don't see Pabu meet the fate we all feared and he doesn't give the go-ahead to light it up until he's maneuvered them into a position where surrender is the only choice Omega will see left to her.

(if we find out in 3.12 that the stormtroopers razed Pabu before departing um... ignore this point/possibly this whole manifesto? lol)

I think it's interesting that the operative had no update for Hemlock until Hemlock called with his impatient/Disappointed-in-you voice and then had enough of an update to get him off his back. (also I really wish we had any gauge of the time lapse between any of these episodes) (Am curious about the allusion to Cid and "pulling" intel though that's dark implications lol; but makes for a curious juxtaposition against the careful way he approaches/avoids Phee on screen; which makes for a curious juxtaposition against the gives-no-fucks about collateral damage on Teth).

I think it's interesting that episode 3 is called Shadows of Tantiss and it's the first time (I think?) we see one of, as Rex&co call them, the "shadows" on Tantiss even though it's almost a parallel shot to the two glimpses Omega gets of Crosshair in the corridors during ep1. We're getting a very slow drawn-out reveal on the program, from the glimpses of Crosshair & co in ep1 to the shadow in ep 3 to the ruthlessness of the program in 6&7 to finally getting a glimpse of the lab in 10. What happens to CX-2 after he delivers Omega?

The ep titles this season are clever. The Return - to Pabu, to Barton IV, to the squad. Harbinger - hints of the mystery surrounding Omega, hints to what's coming for Pabu. Identity Crisis - Emerie but also the crisis of being identified as Force-sensitive.

Anyway, I think how you pull off a CX-Tech plot this late in the game is that every episode he's in (or whatever shadow we see in 3.3), the title is also about him. Infiltration makes sense; but Extraction... what is that pause, as Crosshair is about to drown?

What if this below is the extraction? From the river, from the prison his mind has been locked in? (shoutout once more to the (maybe twitter?) post I can not find (sorry!) comparing his slumping over on the river bank to the way Crosshair collapses after ordering the engines turned off on Bracca/probably the beginnings of the end for the chip)

The way he works with the reinforcements on Pabu vs the way he did not on Teth, at all - I think something started going haywire after the quick succession of 1) the explosion 2) getting thrown against the wall and 3) getting buried under the rocks. He then gets a tiny bit blown up again by Crosshair in the stairway, and then tumbles off a smaller waterfall before we see the absolute feral rage at Crosshair and "you had your chance/chose the wrong side."

All of this to say -

The way you pull off CX-Tech this late in the game is that he doesn't need freed from his conditioning anymore, he's already broken all or mostly free after all the getting blown up and being stunned and tumbling down a giant waterfall and almost drowning his brother; he just needs freed from Hemlock and his bio trackers and surveillance and whatever the hell else is keeping him trapped.

The way you pull off CX-Tech this late in the game is that he's now playing a game against himself, both working for Hemlock and figuring out how to take down Tantiss. (Tragic consideration here: operative can't bring a tracker back in Omega's pocket, but knowing/anticipating Crosshair, potentially was expecting/counting on a tracker making it onto the ship) (Though this hypothetical setback also sets up the crucial role we might now expect Emerie to fill in somehow enabling a rescue effort)

The way you pull off CX-Tech this late in the game is by building towards what's actually a sort of mirror of the buildup to Return to Kamino - you follow orders and capture the piece that will bring the cavalry to the rescue - of the clones and the children, not just Omega.

And then you make an epic trick shot and take off the mask and fuck up Hemlock's whole day. (Poor dude just wanted to be made Science Minister)

"Why have I been activated" remains such a curious introduction of this guy. Made all the more curious by Hemlock lamenting that he's got no other operatives ready to deploy. Maybe... this one wasn't quite fully cooked yet either.

(Side conspiracy theory: Crosshair knows it's him but thinks he's past saving.)

#anyway that's my absurd 'but I WANT IT dammit' conspiracy theory/AU fic premise LOL #tbb #the bad batch #tbb spoilers #the bad batch spoilers #CX-Tech #Poe's brain being left unattended with TBB #look I wouldn't be so fixated on this had the season itself not brought me to the dark side #I was perfectly content to let him be dead until eps 5-7 #and look I still cannot possibly fathom how he'd have survived in the first place #that is just straight up being handwaved at this point I don't even care

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rotzaprachim · 6 months

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I think people getting their politics from animated movies for children is so annoying. That being said I think Nimona was Unironically one of the most ideologically complex and serious treatments of modern antisemitism I’ve ever seen.

#I have a longer post #I’d be sooo curious to pick riz Ahmed’s brain on this lolllll #Things that make you remember the fact that he has a ppe degree from 0xf*rd #You’re historical you’re dead you’re still a round you’re the monster at the gate you’re not real #Could you just stop being different?#I think there’s very serious discussion post 9/11 prevent police/Islamophobia in this movie too #Like I’m not even joking.#I think what makes Nimona different is it doesn’t stop at hatred is bad!!!!#It unpacks the ways that that hatred is created in society and is useful to the preservation of social orders #Like. The kids aren’t *born* hating monsters #They play monster hunting games and eat cereal advertised via monster hunting #This supports the legitimizing conspiracy of gloreth’s state #So too is it not Nimona’s fault for not /just loving herself/ when the world hates her #Oppressed people can internalize their own oppression and it’s Not their fault #It’s just like. Actually interested in all this

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oknovember · 1 year

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I gotta say I did not expect this volume to be so heavy on the Nuts and Dolts angst. Ruby holding Penny’s sword and basically giving a eulogy? Her heart tells her there’s something about the doll and it turns out to be the last (?) tangible thing that she has of Penny? CRWBY is really gonna fuck around and convince us all that there’s something going on there because Ruby is straight up acting like she lost the love of her life

#rwby #rwby v9 spoilers #nuts and dolts #if you can’t tell I am fully locked in on the conspiracy theories #no brain left only brain worms #when the show ends and Penny is just perma-dead I will feel like such a clown

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daddysroyalwhore · 19 days

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Let’s talk conspiracy theories in a graveyard before and after we fuck ☠️🖤💋

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kruinka · 1 year

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young master! isagi and escort guard! kurona but the setting is chinese historical drama

#i might expand on this idk #Idk if im obsessed with this genre enough to make a whole au #but i want to see bllk boys fly around on swords and jump on tree branches #and merchants guild leader kaiser #assassin ness #idk i want there to be a conspiracy between isagis dead dad and itoshis parents #young master isagi BUT hes from a fallen noble family AND hes out for revenge #krn bs ╰（‵□′）╯#i tried really hard to make this kiis centered #but noooooo krn was diligently running laps in my brain #chanting planet hotline #and i rlly want young master isagi in this #if not this then im gonna change krns role in romfan #bc palace attendant is kinda boring i need SPICE #maid kurona?#hes giving “im not paid enough for this shit”#and also “i'll stand with u until death bbg”#so like.. the loyal maid trope rlly fits #idek what this post is about anymore

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flatstarcarcosa · 11 months

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hhhhhhhhhhh something something “doctor” church being the one on the lower level w charon, who we go looking for at the facility when isaac dies, finding out ‘oh i’m sorry doctor church passed away last year. his replacement was mr. hargrove’

isaac kills hargrove when he realizes hargrove’s the one that’s been herding us into the zombies. we have to piece some of it together from the camera feeds after, the bits that backed up before everything went to ass, sam finds out about hargrove and loses it because hargrove is a name that kept coming up throughout the course of our ‘work’.

price dies later and sam kills him when he realizes price was using subterfuge to play us, charon, and the cdc against each other. ‘playing both sides so i always come out on top’ type shit except, rifp bitch.

it’s not until he kills price that he finally has all of the pieces and then we find out about the larger shit w the cdc.

#txt.txt #reelix au: the good the bad & the dead #me: [zones out while taking a piss]#my brain: I CONNECTED THE PLOT THREADS #me: DAMN DUDE YOU SURE DID-#og church has nothing to do w the conspiracy he was also a pawn by hargrove and the rest #isaac finds it odd the dude died and we're just now finding out bc of the company being fairly public #sam finds out after that he died under ~*~*mysterious circumstances~*~*~#price being a higher level Big Bad kinda overstates his use in the rvb canon but also it fits #since he was good at worming his way out of trouble for a while #and he still dies like a bitch anyway so

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cowboycunt · 2 years

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i’ve listened to three seasons of this podcast in two days.,,.,, my brain has rotted i’m so incredibly unwell

#16.25 hours out of the last 48…….#my brain is all dead people and conspiracy theories #fish.txt

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corin-tuckers-left-one · 8 months

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What in the actual fuck makes you think I would want to have anything to do with that arsehole

#russel brand #literally he was bad enough without also being a rapist #because he's a complete raving brain-dead idiot conspiracy theorist

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ariaste · 9 months

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The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2

(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)

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Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off.

Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse?

Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended

In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB--

Proem

A dark theater. The rustling of the audience: clothes, breathing, whispers of anticipation. The lights come up. A man enters, stage left. He is a magician—a master magician—and he performs for you a magic trick so good and so subtle... that you don’t even notice you’ve seen it.

You know there must have been a trick—after all, you came to the theater to see a trick performed, didn’t you? And he claims to be a magician. So there had to be a trick somewhere. There had to be.

But maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there was just a man on a stage, talking to you, telling you a story with a strangely unsatisfying ending you didn’t quite understand.

I know. This is a weird beginning to an analysis essay. But hear me out, because I have to explain the mechanisms of the stage before I can show you what the trick was, where the trapdoor was hidden, and how Neil Gaiman pulled the whole thing off so gently and elegantly that you didn’t notice a thing. Ready? Here we go.

The Facts As We Know Them

Let us begin by establishing a baseline—some fundamental, logical assumptions that underpin the magic trick. These will seem obvious as soon as I say them, which is precisely the point: They are self-evident, loadbearing foundations for my entire argument, and if I don’t point them out, I’m going to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist. (Which! To be fair, I might be. I could easily be wrong about all this—but I don’t think I am.)

Our baseline, loadbearing assumptions that preface my Grand Unified Theory of Season 2:

1. Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job.

2. Neil Gaiman loves these characters and wants with all his heart to do them justice; likewise, he has a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for Terry Pratchett and is striving VERY HARD to write the show the way Terry would have been happy with.

3. The devil, as they say, is in the details: Neil Gaiman and the entire Good Omens cast/crew are fully capable of doing extremely subtle detail work, as conclusively proven in Season 1 Ep 6, specifically the whole sequence of the body-swap scenes.

With me so far? Great.

The Elephant In The Room

Season 2 was... odd. It was odd, wasn’t it. This isn’t a matter of whether you loved it or hated it—there was just something odd going on.

I spent the entirety of my first viewing very much enjoying myself and being very happy to be back with these characters and this world, but I was also liveblogging to my groupchat as I went, and a theme soon began emerging:

“Neil, what are you doing? Where are you going with this?” “What in god’s name is going on here? I’m so lost lmao.” “What is going on with the music situation?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NEIL” “zombies, ok, I trust u to pull this all together in the end, Neil, but I still don't know what you're up to” “What is going on LOL” “Incredibly what is going on here” “NEIL! WHAT IS HAPPENING!” “Literally what is happening” “Neil Gaiman why have you constructed a regency au for mystery VIBES reasons” “just????????? lesbians????????? dancing what's HAPPENING. just all the background characters are gay here ok sure sure sure NEIL GAIMAN WHAT IS HAPPENING--” “mmmmmmm neil what u doin”

All these are copied verbatim from my liveblogging, and apparently I am not the only one to have this reaction. And to be clear, I was having a good time! I came out to this theater to see a magic trick, and this Neil Gaiman guy on stage is a master magician—but I didn’t see the trick, even though there must have been a trick.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the season. I wanted to like it! Indeed, there were many things that I liked about it! But I felt a bit muddled and jumbled up and confused—I felt like there was something I didn’t understand about it, and so I couldn’t yet understand how I felt about it either.

I started chewing on this question in a friend’s DMs: Why is season 2 so fucking odd? What is going on here, Neil? What are you up to? The matter of whether he was up to something was never in question. I knew that he had to be up to something. Writers are always up to something, and as I watched season 2, it was as if I was watching Neil scamper around the room with a mischievous expression as he messed with things here and there and made little tweaks and adjustments to the arrangement of all the Chekov’s guns he’s stockpiling on the mantelpiece.

You see, Season 2 has some very bad writing in it. HANG ON, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME YET! THIS IS NOT A JUDGMENT CALL!! This is the rug that the trick’s secret mechanism is hidden under!!! This is the hidden mirror that makes the trick work!!!!! This is the trapdoor in the stage!

Yes, of course I will explain myself.

Neil Gaiman is a master magician, but I am a pretty damn good magician myself—I’m a professional fantasy author who has published nine books, and I teach workshops for apprentice writers online and at universities—and if there is one thing I have learned about the process of achieving mastery of your craft, it is this:

Regardless of what medium they’re working in, the apprentice artist is concerned primarily with achieving realism via an expansion of their control—control of their brush strokes as they paint a photorealistic eye; control of their deck of cards, the mechanisms of their magic tricks, and where the audience’s attention is being directed; control of all the little factors of voice, plot, character, setting, suspense and surprise that go into writing a good story. However, the master artist has achieved that control—so much so that it often looks effortless to an untrained eye—and sometimes the master artist returns to a messy, amateurish style simply because they have control even over this too.

As an example, consider Picasso and his entire body of work. He begins as an apprentice focused on achieving control, doing portraits of people that look like people—like what we expect a portrait of a person to look like. Then, as he grows in skill and gradually achieves mastery, he pulls away from realism. He develops a style, he experiments with faces that don’t look like any human alive colored in ways that do not appear in nature. He expands his control. His work becomes abstract. Towards the end of his life, he starts experimenting with what’s called “Naive art”, something that a 5 year old could theoretically draw... but you have to achieve mastery before you can do it on purpose and have it look good.

On one hand, Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job. On the other hand, Season 2 has bad writing in it.

What does that tell us?

Well, we know from our Baseline Assumptions that Neil Gaiman is simply too good of a writer to fuck up through garden-variety clumsiness and lack-of-control the way an apprentice writer would. Additionally, he cannot fuck up by accident in this case because I am positive that the man is scrutinizing his work on Good Omens far too closely to let anything slide—for Crowley and Aziraphale’s sakes, for David and Michael’s sakes, and especially for Terry’s sake. The stakes are sky-high, and he cares too much to write a weird, kind of “bad” season by accident.

Which leaves only one option: He did it on purpose.

(Am I sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist? Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m gonna get SO MUCH MORE CRACKPOT.)

If he did it on purpose, then the natural question to ask is: WHY!?!?!??

It’s a great question. Not “Why?” in terms of why he as an individual person with emotions would decide to do that, mind you. More like, “What purpose does this serve for the structure of the narrative?” There is a story he is intending to tell, and out of all the choices he could have possibly made, for some reason this one was necessary and correct in order to achieve that end goal—so what was that reason?

See? Intentionality. He knows exactly what details he left in, and he did it on purpose. (Editing! It’s important!)

So there has to be a reason. It’s like when a master magician “casually” rubs an itch on his nose—why did he do that? What is he sneakily slipping into his mouth by hiding it under the excuse of this little gesture that does not even register to you as meaningful? (If you haven’t watched enough stage magic to know what I mean, watch this.)

This question is, of course, impossible to simply answer out of thin air without any further evidence. It is a dead end—so we must adjust the question and come at it from a different angle.

The one I settled on when I was chewing on this was: Well, okay, what do I mean when I say “bad writing”? What is it about S2 that makes it feel so goddamn odd?

The Pledge, The Turn, and... The Conspicuous, Expectant Silence

There are three parts to a magic trick: Pledge, Turn, Prestige.

First, the Pledge: You show the audience something ordinary. Second, the Turn: You make that ordinary thing do something extraordinary, like vanish. Third, the Prestige: You bring the ordinary thing back.

To quote the 2006 film The Prestige just after its explanation of the first two parts: “You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”

You have to bring it back.

When I teach apprentice writers, I call this a “setup-payoff cycle”. Achieving control and dexterity with this tool is crucial, because the setup-payoff cycle is the engine of the story—it’s what makes the story run. You can have a setup-payoff cycle at any scale—I have read ones that were a single sentence long; I’ve read ones that were two books long. Additionally, all jokes, no matter how long they are, are structured on a setup/payoff cycle. These cycles work precisely the same way a magic trick does:

You set up the audience’s expectations. (Optional but generally considered stylish and elegant: You give those expectations a firm jolt to throw the audience off-balance.) You pay off the audience’s expectations in a way they weren’t expecting, while saying “TA DA!!!!” really loud with your arms flung wide.

Audiences really like this. A setup-payoff cycle executed just right makes the audience’s brains light up like Times Square and hammers on their mental “reward” buttons like nothing else. It’s like you’ve personally handed them a cookie and a gold star. They go wild for this.

Here’s an example of a setup-payoff cycle, though it’s not a perfect one—and you’ve probably heard it before, so you’re not going to be throwing chairs and tearing down the theater from sheer glee:

The Setup: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? The Jolt: (the joke starts over and repeats several times without reaching the payoff (aka the prestige) while the audience grows more and more annoyed and frustrated about the unfulfilled expectations, until finally...) Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? The Payoff: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?

Good Omens Season 2 feels so fucking odd because the setup-payoff cycles are incomplete—nearly all of them are, and the ones that do close the loop do so in really weird ways which, as a professional author, make me feel kind of, “Bwuh?????? But where’s my cookie? Excuse me??? Sir???? Neil????? My cookie, tho???”

When I realized this, when I finally put my finger on why the whole season was giving me some uncanny valley heebie-jeebies, a chill ran down my spine. (The rest is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ I’M GOING TO GO STARE INTO THE ABYSS NOW BYE)

#good omens #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman

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cemeterything · 3 months

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the thing i hate most about being a survivor of medical abuse as a result of being raised by conspiracy brained alternative health obsessed parents is that i know exactly why they did it. they genuinely thought that they were saving my life. people will ask me "how could anyone do that to their child?" but as far as they were concerned refusing to let me be vaccinated or take antibiotics and throwing out post-surgery prescription drugs (including the ones meant to prevent life threatening infections) was better than being responsible for my death, which their stupid little conspiracy posts and pamphlets assured them would be drawn out and terrible. obviously they wouldn't have been responsible for anything but a happier, healthier child and i suffered a lot of unnecessary pain, but in the reality they lived in the alternative was a dead kid. unfortunately that means i have to live with some of the most horrifying experiences of my life being points of personal pride and evidence of the protective power of familial love and good parenting for them, but that's what they say about the road to hell and good intentions innit.

#🐉#sorry mommy i cant trust you to fetch me a drink without spiking it with some snake oil tincture #but i appreciate the offer :)

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bodydoublegame · 9 months

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hello! it's amy! if you follow my personal account, you'd already know what this is. body double is a side project that i do for fun inbetween infamous, just for when i need to refresh my brain! i decided to make a blog for it so i don't flood my personal account with this game lol.

This game is a side project that I do when I need inspiration for Infamous. That means development on it will be sloooow. Infamous is my main priority right now!

Body Double is a an interactive story that takes place in a cyberpunk inspired world where top secret operatives of an elusive Cypress Industries have the unique ability to jump bodies.

Agent Sawyer is the best Agent in the business, tasked with protecting Cypress Industries and all of its assets.

Until three weeks ago.

Framed for the president's murder and in a last-ditch effort to save their ass, they switch bodies with our regular, ordinary IT-tech MC...who is now walking in the body of a suspect the entire city is looking for. Stuck in a citywide manhunt, MC is now on the run with a pesky Agent who refuses to tell them where their body is. To make matters worse, Agent Sawyer's subconcious is stuck in their head, speaking to them like a pest MC can't shake off.

Wonderful.

With a help of a host of characters from Sawyer's past and MC's present, MC will have to throw themself in a conspiracy to clear Sawyer's name and get back to normal. Relatively. No pressure.

The usual IF stuff: customize your mc from personality to appearance. Unsurprisingly from me, BODY DOUBLE is a character driven story with a focus on relationship dynamics, angst and drama...but this time with action.

Mold Sawyer in the prologue and be stuck with them in your head for the rest of the story. Are they humorous? Stoic? Vulgar? Emotional? Arrogant? You decide.

Romance characters like Sawyer's ex (messy) or the human-mech hybrid trying to kill you (messy) or your measly IT tech friend who has no idea what the hell is going on but they're a trooper. Or an AI. Your call.

Try to uncover a conspiracy and solve a murder in a cyberpunk setting.

Don't die?

SAWYER [RO][customizable]: the agent accused of murder. The wires get crossed when they switch bodies with you, and somehow you have their subconcious in your head. They refuse to switch back until you help clear their name even though you're in their body, which means people are after you now. Asshole move, really.

ROACH: Sawyer's twin brother and perpetual hermit. As a hacker, he has eyes all over the city. He also misses his sibling, so he's determined to see it through.

AGENT BECK [f or m] [RO]: A cool and intimidating fellow Agent of Cypress Industries...and Sawyer's ex partner. Sawyer dumped them, broke their heart, and since then, ghosted them (as one does.) With that said, Beck is determined to help you. And them. Just make sure to try to ignore the longing looks they send your way. It's not towards you, of course.

CAI [RO] [f, m or nb models] : Cypress AI or CAI is Sawyer's former field partner. Honest, cold and emotionless, you can't believe CAI is actually helping you. It must be going against their every makeup to go against Cypress, but having someone like them on your side is beneficial, at least.

HAWKE [m][RO]: the mech-human hybrid tasked with hunting you down. Well, hunting Sawyer down. Their one mission is to see you (Sawyer) dead, which poses a problem so as long as you're in this body. So there's that.

SOLANA [f][RO]: the elusive club owner...and the last person to see the president alive. You can't tell if Solana is an ally or an enemy, but you do know the one thing that drives her is power. Good to keep an eye on her, anyway.

AXL [nb] [RO]: the wealthy child of the now dead president and new heir of Cypress Industries. They hate your (Sawyer's) guts. They have hired all the best operatives and assassins to take you (Sawyer) down, and will stop and nothing to get their justice. If only you could convince them otherwise...

MAV [f or m] [RO]: your best friend and fellow IT employee. A trooper, who decides to be your sidekick on this weird...journey. No biggie. Make sure they don't die.

As usual, BD is 18+ for adult themes, explicit language, suggestive situations, violence and more! <3

#interactive fiction #interactive game #interactive novel #cog #cog wip #dashing don #choice of games #Keyboard still broken ignore the typos !! lol

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krirebr · 6 months

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Relax

Pairing: Jake Jensen x f!Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: ~500 words

A/N: I watched The Losers this afternoon for the first time in years to try to combat the Migraine Sads™ and I immediately wanted to grab Jensen's hand and tell him, "Oh no, baby, just stop." So here that is. 😂

It was the middle of a Tuesday afternoon and the bar was predictably dead. A couple was finishing up an appetizer sampler in the corner booth and a man and a woman sat a few seats apart at the bar. That was it. You were working alone, busying yourself rolling silverware.

As you worked through your stack, you saw the man at the bar leave his seat and move down towards the woman. He was cute with spiky blonde hair and a goatee that was kind of dorky but worked on him. Most importantly, he was fucking built. That fact forgave a lot of follicular sins. The woman was pretty. Brunette with a soft round face. But she'd been nursing an Old Fashioned for the last hour and was giving real fuck-off vibes as she compulsively checked her phone. This wasn't going to go well, but you were bored and kind of wanted to watch the train wreck, so you moved down to their end of the bar as subtly as you could.

"So, uh, you come here often?" he asked her, then grimaced. You resumed your rolling, trying to act like you weren't paying attention. "Yeah, no," he continued when she didn't respond. "I've been here a few times." He nodded to her drink. "I also like drinking. It's fun." He scowled but didn't seem able to stop himself. "And good." He shifted his eyes to the corner of the ceiling, looking like he wanted to die. This poor baby. She shot him a glare and moved to one of the high tops on the far side of the room to finish her drink. He just nodded in response.

You filled a shot glass with top-shelf whiskey and placed it in front of him. "On the house," you said.

He took and drank it without looking up then put his face in his hands. "I'm so fucking embarrassing," he mumbled. "Why is it so hard to talk to chicks?"

"Well, my first piece of advice would be to not use the word 'chicks' so much."

He chuckled, still looking down at the bar. "Any other advice?" he asked.

"Yeah," you said. "You gotta relax, dude."

He huffed. "Yeah, easy for you to sa-" he looked up at your face and stopped mid-sentence. His mouth just hung open for a moment then he took a breath to say something you were sure would be horribly awkward.

"Relax," you said again and poured him another shot. "Can I let you in on a little secret?"

"Uh, sure," he said, taking the shot seemingly unconsciously.

"You're really hot," you said with a grin. "You don't need to try so hard."

You could see his brain short-circuit. "Uh, what?"

"You heard me," you smirked.

"Why does it feel like you're flirting with me?" he asked, adorably confused.

"Because that's exactly what I'm doing," you said. "I guess I like the awkward ones."

He blushed and ducked his head bashfully. "I'm Jake," he said, extending his hand to you. You took it and gave him your name.

You checked your watch. "Well, Jake, I'm done here in about two hours," you said with a significant look.

He gave you another cute, little confused look and then, "Oh! You mean-?" You just smiled at him and he matched it with a grin of his own that lit up his whole face. "Ok, two hours then."

Masterlist

Tag lists are open

@stargazingfangirl18 @drabblewithfrannybarnes @thezombieprostitute @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory

#jake jensen x reader #jake jensen x you #jake jensen #drabble #the losers (2010)#reader insert #jake jensen x female reader #chris evans fanfiction #kris wrote something

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flamingkorybante · 4 months

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I need my american anti-zionist comrades who aren’t Jewish to be very, VERY careful right now.

Jewish anti-zionists are seeing the rhetoric around us escalating. Language like “wiping israel off the face of the map” and “every dead zionist is a victory” coming from leftists who are fighting with their whole heart – as we are – for a liberated Palestine and a liberated world.

If you haven’t been navigating the landscape of how nationalism, white supremacy, anti-semitism, and conspiracy theories are entangled in the US and have been getting increasingly meme-ified in the last few years, you might not know that that is the same rhetoric that american white nationalists have been using this whole time to say that the global cabal of (((elites))) need to be violently overthrown, which is to say that all Jews across the world must be killed.

I need you to know this because when the stuff you as a leftist are saying looks a lot like the stuff that white nationalists are saying, it’s going to make it look like they agree with you, which is going to make it seem like maybe the other stuff they’re saying isn’t so out there. This is how people get radicalized and I’ve already seen people transform with frightening speed from anarchist to Marxist-leninist to tankie to nationalist without realizing that’s what’s happening. Your anti-state and anti-violence anti-zionism and their anti-Jew “anti-zionism” are absolutely crucial to distinguish as you are constantly consuming traumatic propaganda that is designed to turn off the critical analysis functions of your brain.

Please be careful. Please read up on how anti-semitic conspiracy theories have historically functioned and how they’re functioning on the american right wing today so that you can spot when right-wing grifters are trying to craft false equivalencies to lure you in. Please carefully evaluate the information you’re consuming, not just for how it makes you feel but for who might benefit from you believing it and acting accordingly. Please do what you need to do to keep your nervous system regulated and boundaried so that you can’t be manipulated. The creation of a liberated world is going to take all of us and we can’t afford to lose people to this. I don’t want to lose any more people to this. Please, please, please keep your eyes open and your hand in mine.

#anti semitism tw #anti zionist jews #antifascist #propaganda

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klm-zoflorr · 2 months

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Okay, okay, so listen up:

Season 1 Jon listens to the tape Gertrude left for her remplacement

BUT that by itself is no fun. So since I cannot take anything seriously ever, lets introduce a complication where he is and will remain a skeptic for the next 4 seasons. Along with the OG archives crew. They see clear proof of the supernatural and shrug it off as "well, I don't have my glasses on/kind of foggy out there/i'm high/didn't take my meds/whatever those weird explanations s1 jon kept coming up with.

Nobody ever dies, Sasha escapes the not-them on virtue of being the coolest person around and doesn't stop a moment to think too hard on it

They see their boss holding a bloody pipe next to a corpse and go oh gee elias watch out theres a dead body behind you. He almost wants them to try and get him arrested.

When the time for the Unknowing comes Jon's just like, welp, time to go set up some C4 in a random wax museum as some form of domestic terrorism team building activity. He just thinks his WEIRD but not-supernatural-at-all job consists of standing around and go all the weird places Elias tells him to for no discernable reason.

Melanie is the only one who seems to be immune to this terminal brain rotting disease (well, except for all the other monsters). She keeps trying to convince them it's all real, stab Elias and save the world. They just treat her as another crackpot conspiracy theorist. It drives her up the absolute WALL and tbh it's starting to make Elias question his grasp on reality too because HOW ARE THEY THAT OBLIVIOUS IS THIS A PLAY WHAT IS THE TRICK

#please PLEASEEEE ASK ME ABOUT THIS I WILL LITERALLY KISS YOU #jonathan sims #tma #the magnus archives #magpod #sasha james #melanie king #elias bouchard #au #klm-zoflorr #writing #gertrude robinson #tim stoker #granny's secret stash

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another-goblin · 1 month

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2.1 Spoilers

I have two versions of how Aventurine and Ratio planned that "betrayal." As always, I might be missing something, so please feel free to comment.

1. They planned everything, including the "betrayal", beforehand. They probably didn't expect Sunday to mess with Aventurine's head, though. And Ratio was so convincing that Aventurine, in his confused state of mind, started to doubt whether or not the betrayal was actually real. Ratio anticipated it, so he had that note prepared.

2. The second version: I don't think it's the intended interpretation, but it's much more interesting in my opinion. They didn't expect Aventurine's stuff to get confiscated. He managed to crush his stone and hide it among the common gems before that. But from now on, they weren't able to discuss their plans openly because their every word was being monitored. They were able to devise that entire "betrayal" thing with just hints and implicit understanding.

It's something akin to a conspiracy theory on my side. But I think it's fun to try and reinterpret all their dialogs with that idea in mind. Them trying to secretly communicate their new plans and, at the same time, reassure each other of their mutual trust. While portraying the picture of a disfunctioning crubmling team.

From their scene in 2.0, it's "We still trust each other, right? Do you have a plan? no? I know how crucially important these stones are for you, so I'll go and try to do something" on Ratio's side.

And in 2.1, his joke about "Maybe I do intend to betray you, haha," meaning "I will "betray" you, be prepared," and later "I'm still a manager of this mission," meaning "I know what I'm doing, we are still a team, I'm on your side, carry on."

(I don't remember their dialogs that well, though. I don't have time to rewatch the whole mission to listen to their dialogs again. Is there an option to just read dialogs later, like in Genshin?)

It feels like Ratio took the lead as always, while Aventurine was running around planning his own demise. And it shows Ratio's respect for Aventurine's intelligence. "I trust you are smart enough to understand what I mean without me explaining it explicitly."

But imagine what was going on in poor Aven's boiling brain. "Everything went wrong *panic mode* Ratio is trying to tell me something. I think we have a new plan. Or is he just manipulating me? Are we still together on one side? Or is it just my wishful thinking?"

3. Not the third version, I'm just curious what their overall plan was.

Topaz and Jade said something like "The stones are in place, so let's begin." So it feels like Aven's task from IPC was to just deliver the stones to Penacony (and maybe gather some intel).

So him crushing and later retrieving his stone, and all that happened next was his personal affair. Why would Ratio help him with that?

He probably recognized that spiraling into the depths of despair and self-destruction and going through this dark cathartic experience was the only way for Aven to (hopefully) appear on the other side, a happier and freer man.

Also, I've got the idea that crushing his stone is irreversible. You can't glue it back together. I think Topaz or Jade said in the end something like "We can't detect the aventurine stone anymore, you know what it means" (what exactly does it mean though? that he's dead? Is he free from IPC now?)

#honkai star rail #my stuff #dr ratio #aventurine #hsr spoilers #hsr 2.1 spoilers #hsr 2.1

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