1700: Love of a Spartan – Chapter Twenty-Seven

Title: Love of a Spartan
Author:  AshleyBudrick
Media: Video Game
Topic: HALO
Genre:  Sci-Fi/Romance
URL:  Saved to this Archive
Critiqued by Admiral Sakai, Gul, and the Arbiter

-WARNING-

This chapter contains potential flamebait in the form of discussion of sexual assault and date rape.

Again.

Yippeee……

Hello hello, all you patrons! Welcome back to the giant creepy after-school special that at some point might have been called Love of a Spartan!

“Previously, we observed the resolution to the pointless ‘Kelly claims Edward doesn’t like Renee and Renee believes her’ arc, as she went out to a bar with Troy Fisher and under the malign, corrupting, and sorcerous influence of a few whiskey-sodas proceeded to be happier than she had ever been while bonded with the Chief (including getting rather physical with the Lieutenant for no real adequately explained reason other than that any amount of alcohol apparently causes her to immediately attempt to couple with the first living thing she sees). Obviously Renee enjoying herself and growing closer to a comrade who respects her and has her best interests at heart was unacceptable to a certain Spartan, and Edward immediately showed up at the site to physically remove Troy from her proximity and carry her by-then insensate body back to the military base and Spartan barracks.”

Terrible Troy Counter: 115

Mommy’s Little Marines (And Spartans) Counter: 122

Motherfucking Halight Counter: 56

“And this all brings us to Chapter 27/Twenty-six, Turning Point.”

Ohh, this is going to be a turning point all right…

“Hmm?”

Never mind.

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1694: Love of a Spartan – Chapter Twenty-Six

Title: Love of a Spartan
Author:  AshleyBudrick
Media: Video Game
Topic: HALO
Genre:  Sci-Fi/Romance
URL:  Saved to this Archive
Critiqued by Admiral Sakai, Gul, and the Arbiter

-WARNING-

This chapter contains potential flamebait in the form of discussion of sexual assault and date rape. No military component this time, though, just the regular versions.

Hello hello all you patrons, and welcome to yet another chapter of Love of a Spartan.

Last time, the Hercules stopped over on Reach for a poorly-planned resupply run, where Kelly tried to drive a wedge between Edward and Renee by telling the idiot Marine that the idiot Spartan had ‘dumped’ her with no explanation or preamble. Terrifyingly, this was plan was entirely successful. Renee left with the other Marines and excuses for Marines to have some kind of celebration in the city around the military base (it’s all extremely vague), and Edward asked Amy to give her the message that Kelly lied even though he was five feet away from Renee at the time and could have just fucking told her himself.

“*Sigh….* Remember when this story had something to do with Halo?”

Terrible Troy Counter: 108

Mommy’s Little Marines (And Spartans) Counter: 114

Fucking Halight Counter: 53

We pick right back up with Chaper 26/Twenty-Five, “Repercussions”.

“…

Can’t we just read that instead?”

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1687: Love of a Spartan – Chapter Twenty-Five

Title: Love of a Spartan
Author:  AshleyBudrick
Media: Video Game
Topic: HALO
Genre:  Sci-Fi/Romance
URL:  Saved to this Archive
Critiqued by Admiral Sakai, Gul, and the Arbiter

Hello hello, all you patrons, and welcome back to Love of a Spartan.

Last chapter was thankfully entirely free of moping, as it focused solely on the Spartans in their mission to deny the Covenant Capricornia’s strategic resources through pinpoint sabotage of their mining equipment blowing everything to smithereens with an anachronistic NOVA bomb. Nobody whose name we know died, but other than that the entire mission, on behalf of both the UNSC and Covenant, was pretty much one massive, poorly-planned, poorly-executed, scientifically-dubious clusterfuck.

“So, basically, exactly what you would expect from Master Chief Petty Officer Edward-117 and Fuck-Shit the Ossoona.

And… that was about it.

Terrible Troy Counter: 106

Mommy’s Little Marines (And Spartans) Counter: 109

Fucking Halight Counter: 52

“Chapter 25/Twenty-Four is called ‘Deviant Interventions’. The good news is, it isn’t spoiling the main event for once. The bad news is, that’s because neither of us have any idea what it means.”

We’re only doing the one again today and it’s incredibly short, but the chapter that comes after is very long and really quite bizarre, so I wanted a whole riff dedicated to dissecting it.

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1682: Love of a Spartan – Chapter Twenty-Four

Title: Love of a Spartan
Author:  AshleyBudrick
Media: Video Game
Topic: HALO
Genre:  Sci-Fi/Romance
URL:  Saved to this Archive
Critiqued by Admiral Sakai, Gul, and the Arbiter

Hello hello, all you patrons, and welcome back to Love of a Spartan. Only one chapter today, but there’s a lot of stupid crammed into it and so a detailed analysis is definitely warranted.

“Last section, Dr Halsey introduced the assembled SPARTAN-IIs to a very clever and/or completely unfeasible mission to sabotage Covenant mining operations on recently-glassed human colonies and/or have a few dedicated special forces soldiers kill every last alien. During an insanely-designed live-fire, live-target training run for said mission, Edward-117 managed to blunder into a minefield due to his own stupid daydreaming and got himself pretty seriously injured, only- of course– to refuse proper treatment and attempt to tough it out by bringing heavy painkillers with him into battle. Fortunately, this latest stunt was all it took to get the rest of the Spartans to realize what their comrade had become, and he is now officially recognized as the team being sent to Capricornia’s weakest link.

Oh, and there was moping. Lots and lots of moping.”

Terrible Troy Counter: 106

Mommy’s Little Marines (And Spartans) Counter: 108

Fucking Halight Counter: 52

“We resume with Chapter 24/Twenty-three, which is called ‘Mission NOVA’- Spirits, I wonder what this is going to involve?”

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1674: Love of a Spartan – Chapters Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three

Title: Love of a Spartan
Author:  AshleyBudrick
Media: Video Game
Topic: HALO
Genre:  Sci-Fi/Romance
URL:  Saved to this Archive
Critiqued by Admiral Sakai, Gul, and the Arbiter

Hello hello, all you patrons!

“Last time on Love of a Spartan, Master Chief Edward-117 finally left the Hercules alongside the meritorious Dr. Halsey, en route to Reach and his fellow supersoldiers. There, they were introduced to Admiral Stanforth, and a meeting was planned but not actually accomplished. Oh, and Renee Kilburn moped a lot back on the Hercules and considered going into cryostasis just to pass the time- which, really, given the story’s pacing, seems like a perfectly reasonable response.”

Terrible Troy Counter: 106

Mommy’s Little Marines (And Spartans) Counter: 105

Fucking Halight Counter: 50

Chapter 22/Twenty-One is a tiny one called “A Foolish Mistake”- and, really, no LoaS chapter title has ever been more appropriate.

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