casino lights, carry me home

alternate muses | @pearlsparable​

william turner jr. | pirates of the caribbean

Ten years at sea, for one day on land. It’s a heavy price for what’s been done, his father had said, mere moments after destiny had played itself out. A decade after, and the statement still doesn’t ring true to Will, especially not when land grows closer with every stroke of the oars. No — It’s not so heavy, not in comparison to the way Will can feel the empty space in his chest begin to soar, when he can feel something beginning to patter in his chest, quick with something like anticipation. Not for the first time, he finds himself wondering how it felt when Davy Jones strayed close to the location of his chest. Did he feel the heartbreak every time? The loneliness? It would be like him, Will thinks, to have only felt the suffering. Davy Jones had given up on all the buoyant emotions, all the ones that make life truly worth living.

Will had promised himself, the night he sailed the Dutchman away from Elizabeth, that he would never allow himself to do the same.

Seeing her again is — indescribable. Will doesn’t think he could begin to put words to it. Laying eyes on her still takes his breath away. (The emotions are well and truly overwhelming by the time his foot first sinks into the soft beach sand.) Seeing the boy standing with her — Their son — His son —

No. There are no words to describe this joy. There could never be any words to describe what it’s like to see everything you had never allowed yourself to even begin to dream of play out before your very eyes. His father meeting his son, his and Elizabeth’s child. The look in his father’s eyes when the boy introduces himself as Willie. How could there be any words, in any language between heaven and earth, for this?

His family (his family) aren’t the only ones waiting for the return of the eldest Turner men. As they leave the beach and head inland (the trees, the birds, the flowers), towards the homestead Elizabeth has fostered for the past many years, Will is surprised to see the number of familiar faces milling about the property. Maybe he shouldn’t have been, but he finds new, powerful stirrings in his chest when he spots Gibbs among the crowd, and Marty, Pintel, and Ragetti, and even Mr. Cotton’s parrot. He doesn’t doubt for a second that quite a number of these men (in particular, the ones he doesn’t recognize) are simply here for the sake of the apparently inevitable festivities, but… all the same. This is a gathering for his sake. Well, I suppose I ought to finally stop forgetting I’m not a blacksmith’s apprentice now, Will tells himself with no small drip of irony.

In the midst of mingling, Will happens to glance up at the opportune moment and catches sight of a familiar silhouette, lurking closer to the house — conveniently, closer to the rum. Will’s expression stalls briefly without his realizing it. There had been a part of him that held his breath each time they retrieved souls from shipwrecks. And while there had been, on occasion, people he knew, and even knew well now and then… He still was able to let go of that breath. Now, he finds himself holding it again, and, again, finding himself facing the dilemma of words.

But… It passes, and surprisingly quickly. He makes up his mind, and returns to the conversation he’d been having with his son.

It isn’t until later, when Gibbs has drawn quite a large amount of attention for a tale he’s telling, that Will falls back to where Jack has been hiding from him this entire time. He doesn’t say anything at first, merely refills his tankard of rum in silence. He glances up, his expression schooled into something largely neutral, having decided against trying to feign any surprise. (He knows Jack knows he knows he’s been here.) His eyes betray him, however; there are too many emotions too close to the surface, too difficult to hold entirely back after a decade of lack of practice.

“Nice hat,” he offers, and he’s rather proud of himself for not even cracking a grin.

alternate muses meme | @forbroadside

Vegas. The little courier sang such praises that Dean couldn’t help but hold his expectations high. High enough that he can feel them dropping like an over-dramatic glissando the first five feet he walks down Fremont Street. Really? All this is what she found so captivating? It’s just as filthy and crumbling as everything else he’s seen since leaving the Madre. So much for her “barely touched by the bombs” city.

But… He does find himself settling in. Disturbingly well, he’d call it. But his partner greeted him with the kind of smile that piques his interest, the type that tells him that she’s willing to dance in his palm if he so much as hints at he wants her to, and then took his hand and handed him not only a cushy room in one of the casinos, but a headlining act. The Tops is ecstatic to have him, and he finds himself going from scrounging Old World scraps off the villa streets to living a life that’s downright comfortable. He has fame again, fans tripping over themselves to stand in line for his show. He has safety in the form of so many walls — Freeside, the Strip, the casino and its guards, his private suite accessible only by the right key in the right lock in the right elevator. He has money — what passes for money nowadays, anyway, and, really, who decided on coke bottle caps? He has food, clean water, clothes, and, most importantly of all, he has connections, a direct line straight to the heart of one of the most influential political figures of the region. What more could he possibly want?

What a loaded question. Despite all appearances, Dean finds himself chafing against this… this mockery of what his life used to be like, and it’s as though he can’t manage to shake the Cloud dust from his shoes, no matter his efforts to try. He keeps a pistol tucked up against his lower back, hidden under his suit jacket, even on stage. He finds himself gathering supplies and stashing them throughout the city, despite himself. He watches every adoring smile with skeptical scrutiny from behind his glasses, counting down until the right moment to give them the slip and leave them to the Ghost People. The noise of the casino crowds still sits under his skin like adrenaline as he waits for the tourists to draw the wrong kind of attention and get them all killed.

It feels rather like putting on an old suit, one you left in the back of your closet for too many years, and now it fits poorly in all the places that matter, but aren’t obvious. A little too tight in the shoulders, a little too loose in the sleeves, the fabric stiff and scratchy from lack of use, and it smells funny. Except your favorite tailor went out of business years ago, and you can’t find anyone else who can do it right. But you’ve an event that you must dress up to attend, and the ex took you for all you had, and the only option you have is to grin and bear it. 

Dean is a master at grinning and bearing it and bitching about it later under his breath when alone with his whiskey and no one but the radio to listen in, don’t get him wrong. But, Christ is it getting old, and fast. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll stay here. Will it matter where he goes? Unlikely. It’s all going to be the same, wherever he turns. The dirt, and the decay, and the unwashed masses pretending to be more civilized than they really are and failing utterly. At least, here, he —

(Has someone he can almost admit to himself he trusts? Who comes around when the Cloud hangs too thick in her dreams, and shares a smoke with him in his suite after they’ve hidden all the radios from view, and offers to take him out into the anonymous desert sands when he can feel his neck tie sitting too close to his throat?)

you know that drawing i said i needed accountability for? yeah

click for embiggens

but I think the single most fucked up thing is how they take a really cool angle and piss it away.

like, your character is from the pre-apocalypse USA, which has been explicitly established as a borderline fascist dystopia run by a shadow government. there’s no engagement with this whatsoever. the male Sole Survivor is a soldier, but never past the opening cutscene even alludes to what he actually did in war, and one can only imagine it was horrifying. the female sole survivor, a lawyer, never alludes to what sort of laws were in place – laws restricting free speech in order to save it, laws involving shipping Chinese-Americans to internment camps.

there’s a brief allusion to a catastrophic vision of capitalism in the opening cutscene. in game, the closest you get is Danse saying elevators are lazy. there’s no real commiseration with Nick about being people out of time, no celebration or regret or longing or anger; there’s no chance to really TALK to Codsworth about what’s changed, what hasn’t, what 200+ years alone actually MEANS to a seemingly sapient robot. at no point does your character get the chance to analyze the Silver Shroud or that weird story about the squirrels and say “holy shit, did I really not realize how fucked up this was?”

it’s an incredible hook with the potential to add a lot of social commentary, and a lot of depth to the main character, and a lot of lore to the history of the Fallout universe

from this

i do what i must as you do what you oughta i am the wanderer’s wandering daughter take all my pain and mix it with water i am the wanderer’s wandering daughter [ ♫ ]

———♣ independent fallout role-play ♣ semi-selective [ mutuals priority ]

———♣ crossover friendly ♣ multi-verse [ fallout: new vegas | fallout 3 | fallout 4 | AU ]

Aesthetic for Albion from Fable 2.

Potc + tumblr text posts

Part 2/?