Still, apparently Portal 2 is on the way!
Mar. 6th, 2010 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nano_mooseIt's been raining for the past week. Like, non-stop. Dog is displeased with this state of affairs. Towns up north are being flooded out. I never thought I would miss the searing light of the sun, but oh god humidity.
So let's have ourselves some meme answers and then go find a blanket.
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rionaleonhart
What sort of fanfiction would River Tam write? What would The Prince's (2008) opinion of it be?
River writes fanfiction full of layers, references and stylistic tricks, like House of Leaves in miniature. Probably for something ancient and literary in the original language, feeling that in those days they really got fanfiction – it didn’t matter whose idea it was so long as you told the story well. It is beautiful and poetic, sometimes impenetrably so, but some parts are disturbing and the contrast between them and the language is jarring. It may also be written on the walls, to Simon’s confusion and dismay.
The Scruffy Prince can’t make head or tail of it and feels there aren’t enough sword-fights.
Viktoria walks in on Alex Mercer and Yuna kissing. Exactly how awkward is it?
That’s an impressive amount of crack for one question, even if it does involve two of my jerk-in-hood fandoms. Oh dear.
Alex is trying to fend Yuna off and doesn’t even notice the company. He had no idea that taking the shape of a certain Blackwatch agent who by staggering coincidence resembles Tidus exactly (I’m so sorry, Tidus just doesn’t deserve to be eaten) would lead to being kissed by oddly-dressed girls he has never seen before in his life or anyone else’s, and all his viral instincts are telling him to rip her to pieces because they think she’s attacking him. (In my headcanon he has no interest in sex because his variant doesn’t reproduce and he’s got issues with non-violent physical contact. Yep.) But he doesn’t really want to actually kill Yuna, who is compassionate and brave and non-threatening in every conceivable way. She reminds him of Dana, sort of. Except polite. And, well, kissing him.
Poor Yuna is very flustered and embarrassed when Viktoria walks in! Alex takes the opportunity to run off, shift shapes and sprint up a wall to brood and do some cathartic zombie-dismemberment somewhere, so he’s no help. Still, I can’t picture Viktoria being too fazed. Walking in on that sort of thing is perfectly normal when you’re in service of a Pagan deity; she’s been walked in on herself in her time, though there were usually more participants involved. She does wonder why the plaguewalker didn’t attack the human girl, since in her experience such creatures think only of feeding and spreading sickness. Maybe she raises an intrigued eyebrow and goes to make some enquiries.
Between Yuna’s shyness and Alex’s horrible…Alex’s horrible, it’s pretty darned awkward.
Lirael, Garrett and The Prince (Sands of Time) live in a house together. Do they get along? Do fights break out? Do awkward love triangles develop?
I’m afraid Garrett would be one of those roommates for whom other people’s personal property and privacy are amusing fiction. Any unattended jewellery, cash, valuable objects or small pets vanish within a few days. Also, he keeps really weird hours, tracks mud on the floor and eats everyone else’s food. So no, there are no love triangles.
Garrett and the Prince don’t even talk for five minutes before they hate each other with a hate as vast and deep as the infinite depths of space. The Prince because Garrett is obviously a criminal with no respect for royalty (and doesn’t see it as a reason to take the Prince seriously in any way at all whatsoever), Garrett because he firmly believes the Prince is a prissy over-bred bastard with a stick up his ass. While he never actually sees the man anywhere after that, the Prince keeps waking up to find everything he owns has been sold for grocery money. It happens even when he stays awake to catch the intruder, to his bafflement. Once he gets most of it back, he puts up a little passive-aggressive ‘Keep Out’ sign, which Garrett would ignore even if it wasn’t in Arabic.
Garrett, sneaking into Lirael’s room to steal her books, encounters the Disreputable Dog. He still steals her books, but they’re always the ones she’s done reading and he puts them back neatly. The two almost never encounter each other except once when he is sort of very nearly gruffly polite to her (because the Dog’s there). Oddly enough, the Prince and Lirael get along fairly well once she convinces him she’s not some sort of evil sorcerer, although he does get bitten by the Dog for expressing very old-fashioned opinions on women and their roles in society.
It isn’t long before their combined presence brings down a magical catastrophe that completely destroys the house. Zombies are involved.
You open your door to find Alistair standing there. What is your reaction?
"Uh, hi, are you here oh my god what the fuck? What the fuck?"
While I wish I could say I’d be calm and mature in the event of video game characters coming to life and appearing at my door, I think I’d spend quite a while hyperventilating and saying “oh god what oh god what”. After I’d done that, of course, I’d apologise and try to help Alistair out as best I could while carefully trying not to mention that he’s fictional, since he’d be very confused and lost and maybe a little weirded out by all this modern stuff. Probably I’d give him cookies.
…I might have trouble explaining the large armoured man with a sword to my family. And the authorities. At least he’d be pleasant company; he can play with my figurines and I can make fun of his beard.
Both Shaun Hastings/China Sorrows and Shaun Hastings/Buffy Summers are hugely popular pairings. What points do both sides make in the inevitable enormous 'shipwars?
China Sorrows/Shaun Hastings, or "Chastings" shippers love it for the literary references, the sexy verbal sparring, the reversal of typical gender dynamics (since I can’t seen China submitting to anyone, can you?) and the moral ambiguity. Buffy Summers/Shaun Hastings shippers, "Bastings," love it for the banter, the opposites attract vibe, the reversal of typical gender dynamics (as Buffy could break Shaun in two over her knee) and Shaun’s moments of unexpected badassery in between hiding behind gravestones and mocking things.
The Bastings sneer that Shaun can’t help falling in love with China, and how boring is that? The Chastings counter that Buffy dating a sarcastic British academic who wears glasses has Elektra overtones. The Bastings say that China is a manipulative bitch. The Chastings say that Buffy is a whiny ditz. (No one says that Shaun is often a most epic prick.) Meanwhile, a tiny faction of Tanith Low/Buffy Summers shippers are saddened by all this rage and wonder why everyone can’t simply embrace the joy of blonde ladies who punch vampires in the teeth and then make out. Shaun and Giles can be their Watchers and snark Britishly at each other about modern technology.
(I have never made up pairing smush names before, and god willing, I'll never have to do so again. I think I felt part of my soul die.)
Would you rather be stuck in a lift with Elika or Hester Shaw?
Sorry, Hester, while you’re a very interesting character and I love you to pieces, you’re also insane and I’d be afraid you’d murder me. Elika can at least teleport and is nice and has experience dealing with people who persist in making weird jokes at her.
What would Ezio Auditore da Firenze experience in Silent Hill?
It resembles Firenze, a Firenze swept by fire and ruin where the winds blow ash and the buildings are black with char. There is no sign of anyone or anything; Ezio is alone. No…not wholly alone. Crows lines the eaves and gutters in their dozens, in their hundreds; he is watched by a galaxy of glittering black eyes. He calls for Leonardo and his uncle, but there’s no answer, and he calls for his father, and then he stops, because he knows there’s no answer, why there’ll never be one again.
Firenze is a living city. He has known this since he made his first scrambling, clumsy ascent to its rooftops and saw an ever-changing tapestry spread out before him. He knows equally that this is a place of death.
(Eventually he’ll come across facsimiles of his family, who will be killed by various monsters that keep dodging and disappearing when he tries to fight them, and there will be nooses everywhere. Everywhere. Poor Ezio.)
squeemu
Viktoria and Yuna have a baby. Alistair sometimes babysits. What is the kid's childhood like? If it survives, what does it grow up to be?
That would be one violent hippy. Also, if you want me to explain how in the name of hell that pairing or pregnancy happened, it is in times like this a humble writer can only point over your shoulder and shout, “HEY LOOK AT THAT DISTRACTION!”
While Alistair is fairly certain that, as a former Templar, he shouldn’t be taking care of a child who talks to animals, eats raw meat and often turns green, he’s very certain the Chantry can, in this case, stick their dogma somewhere uncomfortable because Yuna’s the least demonic person he has ever met in his entire life. She’s like the anti-Morrigan. Surely her child won’t be any different.
The kid grows up okay, I think. S/he might have to deal with some mistrust and prejudice, though, and learns to hide hir more overtly Pagan aspects. S/he ends up a kind, polite flower seller/gardener who also happens to head a huge information exchange that has sources in most of the country. How nice!
Ezio Auditore, Lirael, Hester Shaw and China Sorrows are meeting at a diner. What is ordered and what happens? Who is the first todie leave?
Ezio’s very pleased to be in the company of three lovely ladies, even if one of them is rather gruff and persists in hiding behind her veil. (He’s in for a surprise if he charms her into taking it off.) Of course, he’s actually supposed to be looking for information on this conspiracy reaching to the very highest levels of Italy’s leadership, but no harm ever came of a little flattery. He orders chicken because it’s the only thing on the menu he recognizes and is irritated by the lack of wine. Lirael does the same and surreptitiously feeds the Dog pieces of chicken under the table. Hester orders nothing and glares at everything but eventually accepts some food from Lirael and Ezio. She’s still the first to leave; all the socializing gets to her after a while. I imagine Lirael excuses herself soon after as well to sort out some horrible catastrophe.
China kind of quietly radiates disapproval of the diner and the food, but she just adores Ezio. (Ezio loves her too. They flirt outrageously in Italian. No good can possibly come of this.)
Lirael ate Elika. What does Shaun Hastings think?
Ten seconds earlier, Lirael was a shy, bookish woman who was good with a bow. Now she’s just eaten that strange glowing woman who kept saying she was a princess and talking in Persi. Shaun is very startled and confused and begins to wonder if Desmond’s crazy is catching.
River Tam is in Psychonauts. What does her brainspace look like?
(Oh glee, I love making up Psychonauts brainspaces. There should totally be a meme for that.)
It is a forest. A forest in autumn. The floor is carpeted in leaves the colour of fire and the branches of the trees are still covered in enough vegetation to block the sun (though the shafts of light that peek through suggest it is either early morning or late evening). Looking closely enough at the leaves (closer and closer and closer) and you’ll find that their veins are full of words, equations, formulas, poetry; each one a holding a little information.
It’s a noisy place, full of rustlings and chatterings and distant voices. If you wander far enough, you’ll find a grassy clearing, big enough to dance in.
If you wander further than that, into the part of the forest that’s shadowy and cold, you’ll eventually find River’s nightmares. This is not a good idea.
Write a drabble in which Alex Mercer and Shaun Hastings decide to get married and Garrett jumps up to object.
(STOP GETTING ALEX INTO HIDEOUSLY UNLIKELY PAIRINGS, I’M ONE OF THE FEW IN THE FANDOM WHO DOESN’T SHIP THE BASTARD WITH ANYONE. …Still, shapeshifting covers a multitude of sins. Uh. Um. Hmm. Okay, I…think I can do this. Oh god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Er, vague spoilers for Assassin’s Creed II? Also, it’s more than a hundred words because I’m incapable of shutting my goddamn mouth.)
In hindsight, Shaun knew that it was too soon to consider marriage. In hindsight, he still knew so little about her, and she about him, and there were rules in their organisation about divulging too much to loved ones; their secrets were handed down through families for that very reason.
And to be perfectly honest, in hindsight it was terribly rude to answer a text message during a conversation, especially a coded one that required several moments puzzling before he read:
TRCIA ENMY SNDING SQAD
In hindsight, he should probably not have cursed quite that loudly.
She must have been expecting it; when he swore she seemed to divine the message’s meaning from his expression. Before Shaun could even begin to explain, or even open his mouth, impossibly strong hands had closed around his throat and he was being lifted into the air, gasping, choking. Though red clouds began to billow across his vision, he still saw the gleam of teeth and a pair of eyes as blue as ice, shining from Patricia’s familiar face.
Through the roaring blood in his ears he heard the door crash open behind him, and could only think And how am I supposed to pay for that? when a gunshot rang out, and another.
Her head snapped backwards, blood-slick tendrils of hair curling dark fingers around her face, and he felt the horrible pressure leave his neck, his feet making contact with the ground again before his hands followed them and he wheezed, trying to draw air through his bruised throat. More gunshots and an inhuman snarl and the crack of breaking glass, and the clouds faded from his vision in time to see she was gone.
The squad leader turned away from rapping orders at his men and held out his hand – his gloved hand – in fact, all of them were dressed head-to-foot in enough armour and weapons to outfit a decent sized militia, and that did absolutely nothing to help Shaun recover his composure. Still, he allowed the leader to help him stand.
“We got a tip,” the leader said to Shaun’s impassive stare.
“You know,” he rasped back in a tone of distant awe, because if he thought about what had just happened he would probably fall to his knees and gibber, “I do not think you could have possibly chosen a worse time.”
-
When Shaun had finished his story, Desmond seemed to think it over. Shaun didn’t know why, he had made it as simple as possible in deference to his audience. Maybe he should have used pictures or made monkey noises.
“So…your girlfriend turned out to be a shapeshifting government super-weapon,” the other man eventually said.
“A male one,” Shaun said miserably. “I felt that was an important detail. Not that, you know, it was a huge problem, I mean, not that I’m…the point is he could have told me. We could work it out. You just think you know a person, and then it turns out…” he trailed off into a sigh. “Apparently he went rogue years ago and rebelled against his creators, usual story, except at some point he’d got into his head that we were the creators. You know, the Assassins. Nonsense, of course. We don’t do biological weaponry.”
Desmond gave him the look of complete incomprehension he wore any time anyone spoke to him in words above two syllables. Really, it ought to start charging overtime. Then his face broke into a huge, obnoxious grin.
“I thought I‘d be the first one to go nuts, but here I have spoken proof of crazy from Shaun Too-Smart-For-The-Saviour-Of-Humankind Hastings. That is awesome. You’re never going to live this down, you realise that?”
“I’m touched by your sensitivity,” said Shaun.
(BONUS NOTES:
MY GOD WHAT DID I JUST WRITE
Alex chose the alias Patricia because there is a Web of Intrigue target named Patricia. With each passing day he becomes more like Sylar in my mind. I would bet you money he had no idea Shaun thought of ‘Patricia’ as his girlfriend.
Why did Garrett send an anonymous tip to the Assassins? My personal theory is he wanted a diversion while he made off with their treasure.)
The Prince (2008) and The Prince (Sands of Time) team up to FIGHT CRIME. Why is Buffy Summers their nemesis?
Because, seriously, the identical names thing? Tacky. Plus apparently when creatures are displaced from their dimensions like those two are, that’s a sign of some Big Bad Evil coming to wreak wackiness on the living ‘cause they got nothing better to do, and when Big Bad Evil’s a-coming, Buffy’s got to be out there a-thwartin’. Watcher’s orders.
(I can’t imagine the two Princes teaming up for long, anyway. They have rather contrasting personalities.)
More answers to come!
So let's have ourselves some meme answers and then go find a blanket.
rionaleonhart What sort of fanfiction would River Tam write? What would The Prince's (2008) opinion of it be?
River writes fanfiction full of layers, references and stylistic tricks, like House of Leaves in miniature. Probably for something ancient and literary in the original language, feeling that in those days they really got fanfiction – it didn’t matter whose idea it was so long as you told the story well. It is beautiful and poetic, sometimes impenetrably so, but some parts are disturbing and the contrast between them and the language is jarring. It may also be written on the walls, to Simon’s confusion and dismay.
The Scruffy Prince can’t make head or tail of it and feels there aren’t enough sword-fights.
Viktoria walks in on Alex Mercer and Yuna kissing. Exactly how awkward is it?
That’s an impressive amount of crack for one question, even if it does involve two of my jerk-in-hood fandoms. Oh dear.
Alex is trying to fend Yuna off and doesn’t even notice the company. He had no idea that taking the shape of a certain Blackwatch agent who by staggering coincidence resembles Tidus exactly (I’m so sorry, Tidus just doesn’t deserve to be eaten) would lead to being kissed by oddly-dressed girls he has never seen before in his life or anyone else’s, and all his viral instincts are telling him to rip her to pieces because they think she’s attacking him. (In my headcanon he has no interest in sex because his variant doesn’t reproduce and he’s got issues with non-violent physical contact. Yep.) But he doesn’t really want to actually kill Yuna, who is compassionate and brave and non-threatening in every conceivable way. She reminds him of Dana, sort of. Except polite. And, well, kissing him.
Poor Yuna is very flustered and embarrassed when Viktoria walks in! Alex takes the opportunity to run off, shift shapes and sprint up a wall to brood and do some cathartic zombie-dismemberment somewhere, so he’s no help. Still, I can’t picture Viktoria being too fazed. Walking in on that sort of thing is perfectly normal when you’re in service of a Pagan deity; she’s been walked in on herself in her time, though there were usually more participants involved. She does wonder why the plaguewalker didn’t attack the human girl, since in her experience such creatures think only of feeding and spreading sickness. Maybe she raises an intrigued eyebrow and goes to make some enquiries.
Between Yuna’s shyness and Alex’s horrible…Alex’s horrible, it’s pretty darned awkward.
Lirael, Garrett and The Prince (Sands of Time) live in a house together. Do they get along? Do fights break out? Do awkward love triangles develop?
I’m afraid Garrett would be one of those roommates for whom other people’s personal property and privacy are amusing fiction. Any unattended jewellery, cash, valuable objects or small pets vanish within a few days. Also, he keeps really weird hours, tracks mud on the floor and eats everyone else’s food. So no, there are no love triangles.
Garrett and the Prince don’t even talk for five minutes before they hate each other with a hate as vast and deep as the infinite depths of space. The Prince because Garrett is obviously a criminal with no respect for royalty (and doesn’t see it as a reason to take the Prince seriously in any way at all whatsoever), Garrett because he firmly believes the Prince is a prissy over-bred bastard with a stick up his ass. While he never actually sees the man anywhere after that, the Prince keeps waking up to find everything he owns has been sold for grocery money. It happens even when he stays awake to catch the intruder, to his bafflement. Once he gets most of it back, he puts up a little passive-aggressive ‘Keep Out’ sign, which Garrett would ignore even if it wasn’t in Arabic.
Garrett, sneaking into Lirael’s room to steal her books, encounters the Disreputable Dog. He still steals her books, but they’re always the ones she’s done reading and he puts them back neatly. The two almost never encounter each other except once when he is sort of very nearly gruffly polite to her (because the Dog’s there). Oddly enough, the Prince and Lirael get along fairly well once she convinces him she’s not some sort of evil sorcerer, although he does get bitten by the Dog for expressing very old-fashioned opinions on women and their roles in society.
It isn’t long before their combined presence brings down a magical catastrophe that completely destroys the house. Zombies are involved.
You open your door to find Alistair standing there. What is your reaction?
"Uh, hi, are you here oh my god what the fuck? What the fuck?"
While I wish I could say I’d be calm and mature in the event of video game characters coming to life and appearing at my door, I think I’d spend quite a while hyperventilating and saying “oh god what oh god what”. After I’d done that, of course, I’d apologise and try to help Alistair out as best I could while carefully trying not to mention that he’s fictional, since he’d be very confused and lost and maybe a little weirded out by all this modern stuff. Probably I’d give him cookies.
…I might have trouble explaining the large armoured man with a sword to my family. And the authorities. At least he’d be pleasant company; he can play with my figurines and I can make fun of his beard.
Both Shaun Hastings/China Sorrows and Shaun Hastings/Buffy Summers are hugely popular pairings. What points do both sides make in the inevitable enormous 'shipwars?
China Sorrows/Shaun Hastings, or "Chastings" shippers love it for the literary references, the sexy verbal sparring, the reversal of typical gender dynamics (since I can’t seen China submitting to anyone, can you?) and the moral ambiguity. Buffy Summers/Shaun Hastings shippers, "Bastings," love it for the banter, the opposites attract vibe, the reversal of typical gender dynamics (as Buffy could break Shaun in two over her knee) and Shaun’s moments of unexpected badassery in between hiding behind gravestones and mocking things.
The Bastings sneer that Shaun can’t help falling in love with China, and how boring is that? The Chastings counter that Buffy dating a sarcastic British academic who wears glasses has Elektra overtones. The Bastings say that China is a manipulative bitch. The Chastings say that Buffy is a whiny ditz. (No one says that Shaun is often a most epic prick.) Meanwhile, a tiny faction of Tanith Low/Buffy Summers shippers are saddened by all this rage and wonder why everyone can’t simply embrace the joy of blonde ladies who punch vampires in the teeth and then make out. Shaun and Giles can be their Watchers and snark Britishly at each other about modern technology.
(I have never made up pairing smush names before, and god willing, I'll never have to do so again. I think I felt part of my soul die.)
Would you rather be stuck in a lift with Elika or Hester Shaw?
Sorry, Hester, while you’re a very interesting character and I love you to pieces, you’re also insane and I’d be afraid you’d murder me. Elika can at least teleport and is nice and has experience dealing with people who persist in making weird jokes at her.
What would Ezio Auditore da Firenze experience in Silent Hill?
It resembles Firenze, a Firenze swept by fire and ruin where the winds blow ash and the buildings are black with char. There is no sign of anyone or anything; Ezio is alone. No…not wholly alone. Crows lines the eaves and gutters in their dozens, in their hundreds; he is watched by a galaxy of glittering black eyes. He calls for Leonardo and his uncle, but there’s no answer, and he calls for his father, and then he stops, because he knows there’s no answer, why there’ll never be one again.
Firenze is a living city. He has known this since he made his first scrambling, clumsy ascent to its rooftops and saw an ever-changing tapestry spread out before him. He knows equally that this is a place of death.
(Eventually he’ll come across facsimiles of his family, who will be killed by various monsters that keep dodging and disappearing when he tries to fight them, and there will be nooses everywhere. Everywhere. Poor Ezio.)
squeemu Viktoria and Yuna have a baby. Alistair sometimes babysits. What is the kid's childhood like? If it survives, what does it grow up to be?
That would be one violent hippy. Also, if you want me to explain how in the name of hell that pairing or pregnancy happened, it is in times like this a humble writer can only point over your shoulder and shout, “HEY LOOK AT THAT DISTRACTION!”
While Alistair is fairly certain that, as a former Templar, he shouldn’t be taking care of a child who talks to animals, eats raw meat and often turns green, he’s very certain the Chantry can, in this case, stick their dogma somewhere uncomfortable because Yuna’s the least demonic person he has ever met in his entire life. She’s like the anti-Morrigan. Surely her child won’t be any different.
The kid grows up okay, I think. S/he might have to deal with some mistrust and prejudice, though, and learns to hide hir more overtly Pagan aspects. S/he ends up a kind, polite flower seller/gardener who also happens to head a huge information exchange that has sources in most of the country. How nice!
Ezio Auditore, Lirael, Hester Shaw and China Sorrows are meeting at a diner. What is ordered and what happens? Who is the first to
Ezio’s very pleased to be in the company of three lovely ladies, even if one of them is rather gruff and persists in hiding behind her veil. (He’s in for a surprise if he charms her into taking it off.) Of course, he’s actually supposed to be looking for information on this conspiracy reaching to the very highest levels of Italy’s leadership, but no harm ever came of a little flattery. He orders chicken because it’s the only thing on the menu he recognizes and is irritated by the lack of wine. Lirael does the same and surreptitiously feeds the Dog pieces of chicken under the table. Hester orders nothing and glares at everything but eventually accepts some food from Lirael and Ezio. She’s still the first to leave; all the socializing gets to her after a while. I imagine Lirael excuses herself soon after as well to sort out some horrible catastrophe.
China kind of quietly radiates disapproval of the diner and the food, but she just adores Ezio. (Ezio loves her too. They flirt outrageously in Italian. No good can possibly come of this.)
Lirael ate Elika. What does Shaun Hastings think?
Ten seconds earlier, Lirael was a shy, bookish woman who was good with a bow. Now she’s just eaten that strange glowing woman who kept saying she was a princess and talking in Persi. Shaun is very startled and confused and begins to wonder if Desmond’s crazy is catching.
River Tam is in Psychonauts. What does her brainspace look like?
(Oh glee, I love making up Psychonauts brainspaces. There should totally be a meme for that.)
It is a forest. A forest in autumn. The floor is carpeted in leaves the colour of fire and the branches of the trees are still covered in enough vegetation to block the sun (though the shafts of light that peek through suggest it is either early morning or late evening). Looking closely enough at the leaves (closer and closer and closer) and you’ll find that their veins are full of words, equations, formulas, poetry; each one a holding a little information.
It’s a noisy place, full of rustlings and chatterings and distant voices. If you wander far enough, you’ll find a grassy clearing, big enough to dance in.
If you wander further than that, into the part of the forest that’s shadowy and cold, you’ll eventually find River’s nightmares. This is not a good idea.
Write a drabble in which Alex Mercer and Shaun Hastings decide to get married and Garrett jumps up to object.
(STOP GETTING ALEX INTO HIDEOUSLY UNLIKELY PAIRINGS, I’M ONE OF THE FEW IN THE FANDOM WHO DOESN’T SHIP THE BASTARD WITH ANYONE. …Still, shapeshifting covers a multitude of sins. Uh. Um. Hmm. Okay, I…think I can do this. Oh god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Er, vague spoilers for Assassin’s Creed II? Also, it’s more than a hundred words because I’m incapable of shutting my goddamn mouth.)
In hindsight, Shaun knew that it was too soon to consider marriage. In hindsight, he still knew so little about her, and she about him, and there were rules in their organisation about divulging too much to loved ones; their secrets were handed down through families for that very reason.
And to be perfectly honest, in hindsight it was terribly rude to answer a text message during a conversation, especially a coded one that required several moments puzzling before he read:
TRCIA ENMY SNDING SQAD
In hindsight, he should probably not have cursed quite that loudly.
She must have been expecting it; when he swore she seemed to divine the message’s meaning from his expression. Before Shaun could even begin to explain, or even open his mouth, impossibly strong hands had closed around his throat and he was being lifted into the air, gasping, choking. Though red clouds began to billow across his vision, he still saw the gleam of teeth and a pair of eyes as blue as ice, shining from Patricia’s familiar face.
Through the roaring blood in his ears he heard the door crash open behind him, and could only think And how am I supposed to pay for that? when a gunshot rang out, and another.
Her head snapped backwards, blood-slick tendrils of hair curling dark fingers around her face, and he felt the horrible pressure leave his neck, his feet making contact with the ground again before his hands followed them and he wheezed, trying to draw air through his bruised throat. More gunshots and an inhuman snarl and the crack of breaking glass, and the clouds faded from his vision in time to see she was gone.
The squad leader turned away from rapping orders at his men and held out his hand – his gloved hand – in fact, all of them were dressed head-to-foot in enough armour and weapons to outfit a decent sized militia, and that did absolutely nothing to help Shaun recover his composure. Still, he allowed the leader to help him stand.
“We got a tip,” the leader said to Shaun’s impassive stare.
“You know,” he rasped back in a tone of distant awe, because if he thought about what had just happened he would probably fall to his knees and gibber, “I do not think you could have possibly chosen a worse time.”
-
When Shaun had finished his story, Desmond seemed to think it over. Shaun didn’t know why, he had made it as simple as possible in deference to his audience. Maybe he should have used pictures or made monkey noises.
“So…your girlfriend turned out to be a shapeshifting government super-weapon,” the other man eventually said.
“A male one,” Shaun said miserably. “I felt that was an important detail. Not that, you know, it was a huge problem, I mean, not that I’m…the point is he could have told me. We could work it out. You just think you know a person, and then it turns out…” he trailed off into a sigh. “Apparently he went rogue years ago and rebelled against his creators, usual story, except at some point he’d got into his head that we were the creators. You know, the Assassins. Nonsense, of course. We don’t do biological weaponry.”
Desmond gave him the look of complete incomprehension he wore any time anyone spoke to him in words above two syllables. Really, it ought to start charging overtime. Then his face broke into a huge, obnoxious grin.
“I thought I‘d be the first one to go nuts, but here I have spoken proof of crazy from Shaun Too-Smart-For-The-Saviour-Of-Humankind Hastings. That is awesome. You’re never going to live this down, you realise that?”
“I’m touched by your sensitivity,” said Shaun.
(BONUS NOTES:
MY GOD WHAT DID I JUST WRITE
Alex chose the alias Patricia because there is a Web of Intrigue target named Patricia. With each passing day he becomes more like Sylar in my mind. I would bet you money he had no idea Shaun thought of ‘Patricia’ as his girlfriend.
Why did Garrett send an anonymous tip to the Assassins? My personal theory is he wanted a diversion while he made off with their treasure.)
The Prince (2008) and The Prince (Sands of Time) team up to FIGHT CRIME. Why is Buffy Summers their nemesis?
Because, seriously, the identical names thing? Tacky. Plus apparently when creatures are displaced from their dimensions like those two are, that’s a sign of some Big Bad Evil coming to wreak wackiness on the living ‘cause they got nothing better to do, and when Big Bad Evil’s a-coming, Buffy’s got to be out there a-thwartin’. Watcher’s orders.
(I can’t imagine the two Princes teaming up for long, anyway. They have rather contrasting personalities.)
More answers to come!
