"I confessed, to the wrong priest" is my favorite line in Wake Up Dead Man, because it's so subtle and yet so kind. Martha has been so dismissive of Jud the whole movie. Not outright mean, of course, but she clearly saw him as a tenant who sometimes gave her a hand rather than a priest, and put him down when he seemed to overstep by acting like one. The line is an admission that not only Jud is a priest, he's a priest who does share the beliefs she's built herself over for decades. Even disillusioned by Wicks's self-serving hypocrisy, he still allows her to see her faith as a moral pillar. It's saying "I should have trusted you, and if I had, maybe none of this would have happened".
It's the "because you are a good nurse" of the movie.
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Happy holidays @fleechin! I was your secret santa!
I found myself inspired by your headcanon that Caroline was the one who developed the concept of the test chambers, and thought designing something like a promotional poster highlighting that would be fun. I hope you like it!
Hello there, this is your Portal Secret Santa! Your gift is on the way, but will be a little late. You can expect it a day or two after new years. Just letting you know this so you won't think you were forgotten. Thank you so much for your patience, and have a happy new year!
This is my 2025 @portal-secret-santa for @mewtwofan1, she said she'd love something Caveline, and that's my favorite kind of content too! She also requested something with cozy winter vibes, and also mentioned stargazing as a fun prompt idea, and so I just had to throw all those together into a cabin-fever northern lights type of thing. It's loosely based on some backstory that's expanded upon in Entropy Zero 2 (actually the cabin I have them staying in comes directly from it), but you don't need to know that game to enjoy this! I absolutely loved writing this, and I hope you enjoy it too. Happy 2025 holidays!
(Text Below)
Ahhhh.
Caroline sighed as she took another sip of the instant decaf coffee made by her boss. The first day or so she'd been drinking it, she'd been what she could only describe as testing the fortitude of her taste buds - though she wouldn’t have dared say it out loud..
Lately, however, either due to her acclimating or Cave Johnson's skills improving, she found herself not just tolerating the concoction, but almost outright appreciating it.
Maybe cabin fever was real after all.
Thank goodness Cave Johnson knew how to pull out all the stops. She heard familiar footsteps. There he was.
“Will ya look at that!” Her boss exclaimed, sitting on the couch they’d just spent the better part of an hour moving up an unsettlingly creaky flight of stairs. Right next to her, halfway covered by the blanket Caroline had coccooned herself into.
Cave Johnson’s gaze, normally no stranger to his assistant, was this time focused in the same direction as hers. She remembered an old quote about that – before dismissing it as quaint advice for old married couples. She was neither of those two, and that was how she liked it.
Besides, who could’ve possibly wanted to miss the view of the Aurora Borealis through the skylight of their not-so-little cabin. “It’s been getting brighter and brighter, sir. Look how green it is.”
Cave Johnson took a sip of his own coffee – with zero difficulty tolerating the taste – and sighed. “There’s nothing that’ll ever replace Michigan, but damn, if only we could get this kinda view over there.”
Caroline made a mental note on it – they’d actually considered the technology of recreating the aurorae anywhere on the planet, and it did actually seem within the realm of possibility, though it never seemed quite interesting (or lucrative) enough to put every other project of theirs on hold. Maybe one day they’d get around to it.
“All the more reason to come back here from time to time, sir.”
“Ah, right you are. This was a smart move, acquiring the comms company.” Caroline took another sip. “Far enough to test the long range technology, just the right place where nobody’ll be asking questions. And just you look at the–”
“Shhh” Caroline pulled him closer, moving the blanket around so as to cover them both. For all the times she’d had to keep his focus on the task at hand, it should’ve been a blessing to see him so focused on work that it was near impossible to snap him out of it.
She knew her boss well enough to know he only acted like this when he was unusually excited. And she knew it was well earned.
Finding a company that was willing to participate. Getting Dr. Herschel on board. Actually travelling all the way to the middle of nowhere. Signing deals to build the equipment. Secrecy clauses. Caroline caught herself before her mind spiraled too much.
“You’ve done a real good job sir.” Caroline whispered, leaning into him.
Cave Johnson chuckled. “Ah hell, I couldn’ta done it alone. Certainly not without you there.”
Caroline smiled. “Santa’s little helper, hm?”
“Santa Clave Johnson, coming to town.”
Caroline let out a suppressed giggle that only she could’ve made without getting fired. “Riding on his teleporting sleigh?”
“Bringing the gift of science to all the good kids!” Cave Johnson had no shame in his sense of humor. Caroline began to smirk.
“Do I get the gift of science?”
“Well my dear, I guess that all depends on if you’ve been good or not.” This man was playing with fire right now, and he knew it.
Putting on her best doe-eye face, Caroline pondered, “Oh golly, if only there was something I could do to get in Santa’s good graces.”
“Oh, he’s making a list. And as it just so happens, top of that list is sitting right here, watching the lights.”
Caroline grinned. She was going to make him pay for that. Maybe later though. For now, this was more than enough. She raised her mug, “I’ll drink to that.”
After clinking their mugs and finishing off their coffee, the two sat together in silence, admiring the stream of charged and ionized particles in the atmosphere, straight through their skylight, before drifting off, only to wake up the next morning in the same place they were the night before.
I love trying to look up the lyrics for a song and instead having the Genius website make my phone hot while it loads five ads and autoplays a video of Oop Slurp explaining the meaning behind his song She Fuck Me Like I’m Dr Phil
I was thinking about a simple observation and had a thought that punched me right in the feels and lead me to making an incredibly vague theory about what happened to Ava.
Clone Cop and Bad Cop are the same person. Yet Clone Cop, in the presence of Wilson, immediately starts insulting him. (And Wilson has an apprehensive reaction. Did something happen between them?) what's most interesting to me is he straight up lies about him. He claims he never got any use out of Wilson yet in a recording he admits to keeping Wilson around because he can open doors. Clone Cop also apparently left Wilson behind for Bad Cop. Yet he later mocks Bad Cop for carrying Wilson around.
Aiden says he simply says he used to hang out with 28/Bec. But I think they were a lot closer than he makes it sound. Because I learned from a vid that Bec and Aiden say "here they come" the exact same way. That is peak bestie behavior. These two spent enough time together that they speak the same sentences in the same exact tone even when they haven't spoken to each other in years. But Aiden says they just "hung out at work" which is probably not a lie but it sounds like it significantly downplays their relationship. Its like Breen saying one has "been chosen to be relocated" technically true buuut.
Meanwhile Bec and Bloody talk about Bad Cop like he's a common conversation topic. But it takes a bit of prodding from Wilson to make Aiden talk about Bec.
So it seems like Bad Cop doesn't like talking about the people he's close to. Perhaps to keep himself from being blackmailed or used in some way?
But he's pretty open about Ava. Yea she's not in his life anymore but the wrong person can (and has) used knowledge of her against him.
Clone Cop didn't mention Ava ro Wilson. And he had realized he'd been betrayed by the Combine.
My point is: what if there's a reason behind possible caginess about people he likes?
I don't remember exactly what it said, but a couple lines from the advisor bossfight, while obviously false, had strange details. I think one thing it said was "you let them take her." And a couple other lines made me think Aiden actually has some idea of who took Ava but not enough of a picture/evidence.
Like, what if he was betrayed by someone who wasn't who they said they were? A false identity. Something like that. Where he knew who it was but not actually. Would explain the mental asylum thing, too, if said person or maybe even a group, managed to make it look like they straight up never existed. To others, it'd look like Aiden couldn't handle the guilt so he conjured up some imaginary people to blame it on.
Dan and I bought a thing called “long ziti” from the local Weird Bargain Store, largely as a joke, but…. I have never had a more unsettling pasta experience in my life. They wouldn’t bend enough to cook from top to bottom simultaneously, and while they were cooking boiling water kept spouting out from the tops of them out of the pot, like a boiling pipe organ. Then they were so long and floppy and hoselike that we couldn’t pick them up with anything other than tongs, and then they were so long and unwieldy that it was basically impossible to sauce them without them all slithering out of the bowl like wet snakes. They then proceeded to cool down almost completely within the the seconds it took to walk to the living room. Eating them was like eating a bowl full half melted drinking straws.
👹 yo bro 👋 come over here 👋 come over here check out my new shoes they’re the 👹 BRAND NEW ☺️ oooone twoo~ buckle my shoooooe~ 🤗 threee four~ buckle some mooooore~ 😇 fiiiive six, nike kicks! 👹 OOHOOHOOHOO that is so FIRE! 🧍🏼♂️ ahahahaha
I was wondering whether the constellations would look any different on Mars, so I looked it up, and apparently not; galactically speaking Mars is so close to us that the difference is imperceptible. However, I did find this neat additional bit:
fun thing about herding and/or generally neurotic breeds: they are really good at following rules you have instituted, but they will also make their own Dog Rules they will follow stringently whether or not you like it
despite never being reprimanded for getting sick if my dog throws up she will ‘tattle’ on herself and run over to me, show me the throw up, then hide and start shaking uncontrollably. nobody taught her to do this. she has decided that throwing up is a punishable offense until the end of time
my dog has decided that it’s solely on her shoulders to ensure there is peace in my house…if the cats fight she stands between them to ‘break it up’ and/or herds them away, if my rats have an argument she goes to the cage door and barks until they stop. not sure why she has decided she must carry the weight of the world but she has
please enjoy this "vintage movie poster" I saw in a dream which was so funny to my subconscious that I immediately woke myself up to write it down for later
