#< tagging it as qsmp because i like to imagine this happening after it ends smile

[pompadorbz]

I'm going to give back everything they took from you.

(Phil never should've said that one-off comment about techno gifting him the red and gold wings it did irreversible shit to my brain)

[bonesandthebees]

It's very funny to see my dash filled with QSMP stuff yet not being into it myself. I think now I understand how all those people felt when they were exposed to DSMP content/discourse, because the stuff I see now sounds absolutely insane sometimes (I dropped off after Juanaflippa died and haven't been up to date ever since).

Anyway, the Halloween story! I really liked what you did with leading us to believe that Wilbur was the guilty one (the conversation in the bar really sold that idea) and then slowly letting us realise that maybe things aren't the way we think they are. Small towns hold so many secrets..

Burning down the corn somehow felt like the last punch they could pull and in a way it was very poetic. A nice sense of closure.

I also wonder what was Phil's reaction when the boys told him the story. Could you tell us more about it? (or redirect me to a post if this was already answered)

-🌹

LMAO I'm so sorry for filling your dash with qsmp I'm sure that's gotta be wild to experience. qsmp is insane enough when you know what's going on, the outside POVs have gotta feel so wild

I don't blame you for dropping off after juanaflippa died I definitely considered dipping but then the wilbur soot tallulah week happened and I was revitalized and became extremely invested in that beanie wearing egg with hair. then I got highkey attached to everyone else and now I rotate q!phil in my mind constantly he's soooooo :)

(general reminder to my followers: if something I post a lot of and don't tag is annoying you feel free to ask me to tag it so you can block the posts! I stopped tagging my qsmp posts a while ago but I can go back to doing that or create a new tag for them if you don't wanna see them)

anyway moving on

aw thank you I'm so glad you enjoyed!! I had a lot of fun playing around with the misdirection in the foreshadowing. that conversation in the bar was especially fun to write because quackity holds the same assumption as the readers: that wilbur killed their father. wilbur knows this is what quackity thinks and doesn't do a whole lot to dissuade that notion, thus further cementing the idea to the readers as well. it was a lot of fun wordplay for me

ngl I've just always wanted to write a midwestern gothic type thing that ended with a cornfield burning down the mental image is just too cool. also like you pointed out I thought it gave the story a nice sense of closure :)

okay so this ask doesn't get too long (and so people can keep things vague if they want) i'll put the 'what happens when phil finds out' bit under the cut

so I wanted to leave things with phil vague so the readers could make their own interpretations, but I'd like to think that phil actually suspected that wilbur and tommy had something to do with their father's disappearance from the start. he never put too much stock into it though because he always thought they would've told him if they did actually have a hand in it. so instead he just kind of purposefully turned a blind eye to all the signs and imagined their father probably went and pissed the wrong person off at the wrong time while drunk and got a bullet between the eyes as a result. it wasn't exactly wrong.

anyway, finding out that his original gut feeling was right and they were the ones to kill him hurts phil a lot. not because his brothers murdered their father, but because they didn't tell him about it for ten years. when more details get revealed and he learns that tommy was the one to shoot him and not wilbur, he understands a little more why wilbur was so reluctant to tell him but still, the hurt is there. at the very least, he understands why wilbur left now, and that's been an open wound for him for years at this point. so that bit of closure, combined with knowing for sure that their father is never coming back, makes up for the pain of knowing how long his little brothers lied to him.

basically the conversation ends with phil reassuring tommy a lot while scolding wilbur for leaving for eight years instead of telling him the truth. hours later though, probably once the sun has risen and tommy has passed out in his room, phil sees wilbur sitting at the dining table staring blankly into his coffee mug. he thinks about what wilbur told him before about how he learned to run away from him, and that phil wasn't there when they needed him. he thinks about the guilt in wilbur's eyes when he told phil that tommy had to shoot their dad because he just couldn't pull the trigger himself.

and phil goes and hugs his younger brother, and tells him that it wasn't his fault. that he did the best he could. that it's okay that he couldn't pull the trigger. and wilbur hugs him back, feeling like a little kid again wrapped up in his big brother's arms.

it's not okay yet. it might not ever be fully okay. but they're dealing with it. as a family this time.