Come gather 'round, people, wherever you roam ♫

[derry]

Hiii new followers! ♥ I participated in snickfic's Multifandom Friending Meme and I'm really excited to have some new mutuals. Welcome! I hope you enjoy your stay--there isn't much here yet, but I hope to get back into the habit of blogging and posting about writing and fandom.

I've spent pretty much all weekend playing Prey. I'm not surprised by how much I'm enjoying it because it's by Arkane Studios, who also made Dishonored, which may be my favorite video game of all time. But seriously, it is so fucking fantastic. I love almost everything about it!

• After thinking about my options for a while, I decided to play Morgan Yu as a man. I'm pretty happy with that decision even though it's a bit out of the ordinary for me--given the option, I usually choose female characters to play (with the notable exception of Garrett Hawke from Dragon Age 2 but that was mainly because I started shipping him with Fenris before I even played the game, so Hawke was already a man in my mind). I'm pretty happy with my choice though. I do want to do a second run with female Morgan (and Typhon powers, which I'm avoiding this time around).



• There is SO MUCH going on in this game! I have a whole boatload of unanswered questions. The most important one is probably--exactly how much of the simulations was Morgan aware of? I think maybe I missed something that should've explained that. (Or it will be explained before the end.)



• The way I understand it, the tests were initially his & Alex' idea. At first, the Typhon Neuromods were getting removed & reinstalled every few weeks/months. Hence the October protocol on Morgan's personal computer that he recorded to bring his amnesiac self back up to speed. The Earthside simulations were only supposed to run for a few days at a time: an agreement that Alex then broke. When the Typhon took over the station, Morgan had been in the simulations for three weeks. Which prompted January to get him out.



• I'm still not sure who December is, or when past-Morgan (?) created him, or to what purpose. /o\ I think I get why January killed him--he didn't want present-Morgan to get distracted from his mission--but ugh, I wish he hadn't, I would've loved to learn more about him.



• Some of the emails I found on the station talk about Morgan's "personality drift" due to the constant reinstallation of experimental Neuromods. Apparently Morgan himself wasn't aware that he was acting strangely and out-of-character. What exactly does that mean, though? Mikhaila Ilyushin mentions how he completely ignored her the other day, and felt understandably pissed, but that could've been just the memory loss. Maybe he was acting aggressively, or otherwise showing erratic behavior.



• There's that session log with Dr. Kohl that gives me pause, too. Morgan told him that there are "months" that are just missing from his memory, and that he's been "playing catch-up". Which, yes, that's to be expected with all this Neuromod-juggling. Present-Morgan doesn't seem so calm and collected about it, though. Apparently past-Morgan left a message for his future self, but present-Morgan says quite vehemently, "That's not me!"



• I think my working theory is: Past-Morgan agreed to the experiments and thought it would be cool to have his memory wiped every few weeks, because he could just leave himself messages to explain what had happened in the meantime right?! Right. But then amnesiac-Morgan wasn't so cool with it anymore. His amnesia bothered him, plus his personality changed, so maybe he was also under a lot of psychological stress. He was worried about the Typhon breaking containment. I'm guessing he probably talked to Alex about that, or tried to, but I can totally see Alex handwaving away his concerns in favor of Science. Amnesiac-Morgan then started to feel paranoid that Alex would betray him (which happened) and started creating January (and December?) in secret, as a backup plan to break present-Morgan out of the simulations if Alex ever trapped him in a loop.



• SO MANY MORGANS.



• Speaking of Alex though: I have such a problem with his voice actor, Benedict Wong. And by problem I mean he sounds so hot and trustworthy to me. He's just got the kind of voice and manner of speech that I'd instantly trust in a man, haha. It's hard to stay wary of him, though I'm trying. It's just that as soon as Morgan's TranScribe rings with an incoming call, I'm like "ALEX?!" and then get disappointed when it's not him. "Oh, January. It's just you. Well, that's fine." xD



• I can't decide whether I like Alex or not. I feel positively towards him because he seems genuinely concerned for his sibling, and wants to help (??) and see Morgan safe. But then there's the whole epic gaslighting part, if you can call it that. Plus Morgan describes him as very proud--too proud to admit that the whole Typhon thing is getting out of hand. But at times he seems so wistful and sad about who Morgan has become, which tugs at my heartstrings. Ahh.



• I definitely need to finish this game soon! I hope that some of these questions will be answered. I plan to replay it at least once more, so I'll have lots of time to immerse myself in the story and look for subtleties that I might've missed this first time around. I'm currently going for a no-Typhon-Neuromods playthrough, which is a bit hard, haha. I've just rebooted the reactor & Alex told me to meet him in his office, but I'm gonna try to wrap up some sidequests first because talking to Alex seems awfully... final.



• First order of business will be murdering the cook. That asshole killed half of the canon lesbian couple. ;_; I'm coming for you, buddy. *Dishonored voice* When I find you, it's going to be bad.

The main reason why I'm so excited about Prey is that I acquired a ship along the way: I ship Morgan with his assistant, Jason Chang. :3 We know almost nothing about Jason, except for the fact that he thought Morgan was hot regardless of gender (agreed), that they were on first-name basis--a big deal tbh, considering that Morgan is TranStar's Director of Research--and that Jason was an attentive and reliable assistant.

Just, oh my God, I am so ready to write an OFFICE ROMANCE with unexpected SINISTER UNDERTONES as Morgan changes, with Jason being very confused but trying to be supportive. And like--late night work shenanigans! Jason running into Morgan in the fitness center! Sitting down for a round of chess in the rec room! Inadvisable office sex! Christmas on Talos I! AHHH.

I just love them a lot. I've started writing a thing, but I also have 800 other WIPs to tend to first. :D