#I love how the fbc does like nothing to get him out of the dark place

[thesaart]

His in game model looks so sad in that flannel

I just wanna hug this man

[miswaken]

@sixsixfive asked: 🌙🔮🧪 in character development questions || accepting

🌙 CRESCENT MOON — what would you say is your current biggest dream and/or career aspiration and why?

There tend to be certain assumptions made of an artist's aspirations. Fame. Accolades. Money. Alice has witnessed firsthand what that kind of spotlight does to people, and if she'd craved it before her life with Alan, that certainly would have been enough to curtail her appetite. But that had never really been Alice's goal. She'd be lying if she said she never wanted an audience -- to create is to ask to be seen, even if it's just by one person. She meant what she said in that final, fateful video though.

"All I've ever wanted was for people to see the world like I do. For them to look at my photos and understand, for a moment, my perspective. My vision."

There were so many layers to that final exhibit, the one she never got to see come to fruition. There was the pragmatic angle, the knowledge from her last stint in the Dark Place that her work needed some level of finality for it to bleed through to the other side. If she wanted to take those images with her, they needed to be real. But more than that, some deeply exhausted and wearily triumphant part of Alice needed the world to understand what she'd lived through.

She needed people to believe her at last.

"The Dark Place -- the exhibit, not..." she gestures vaguely to the whole of creation that simmers around her. "I wish I could've been there, just for the opening night. I'll always wonder if it meant as much to people as I hoped it would. But then, if I was there, maybe it wouldn't have had the same impact."

Alice looks at the photos that litter every flat surface of the apartment -- and half the vertical ones, for that matter. Her own personal gallery. "I'd love to make something out of all of this, when everything is over. A Dark Place follow-up. The things I've seen here..." It's hard not to be impressed, sometimes. To not get excited about the unlimited artistic potential of a place that can be anything and everything and nothing all at once. It's as beautiful as it is terrifying. "I want others to see it, too. But somehow I don't think the FBC would take too kindly to that."

🔮 CRYSTAL BALL — what is a core memory from your childhood that you think defines you today?

"I didn't really date much, before Alan. I went on a few one-off dates in college, but before I met him my longest relationship was with this boy I dated for a whole three weeks before senior prom. Eric Powell. Ugh." She makes a scrunch-nosed face of obvious distaste at her juvenile life choices.

"We broke up the day before prom. He kept pushing me to sneak out so we could meet up with his friends the night before and get drunk on the football field -- and probably have sex under the bleachers. He spent days pestering me, and it was playful until he said I was being a lame prude about it. I wasn't scared of the drinking -- the sex thing, maybe -- but the thought of being out there at night, when all the lights were off... I just couldn't do it. A lot of kids already knew about my nyctophobia. It was hard to hide growing up, and rumors always get around. But people didn't always believe me, or they figured it wasn't actually that serious. I thought with him it might be different, so I told him the truth. I held his hand and told him more sincerely than I'd ever told anyone anything about how afraid I was of the dark. And he laughed at me."

It's an eye-roll worthy tale now, but at the time it broke Alice's heart. She can still remember dropping his hand and that pang in her chest when he just kept laughing. C'mon, Alice, you're not five anymore. Just admit you're too much of a princess to come.

"At least I told him not to bother picking me up for prom and made it halfway down the hall before I started crying. I promised myself right then and there that I'd never settle for anyone who made me feel lesser because of my fear. For all Alan's faults, he always took that part of me seriously." Except for that last night, in the cabin -- but then they both made their mistakes.

🧪 TEST TUBE — if you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what is one thing you absolutely have to resolve and/or do before then?

A question that has her eyes casting downward. Alice knows now that she had no other choice. The world had to think she took her own life to ensure the cleanest break from reality possible, and then Alan had to believe it so he could hit rock bottom before coming out the other side. Her preparation had been methodical, almost clinical as she tied up as many loose ends as she could without appearing suspicious. She couldn't risk anyone trying to stop her.

"When I made up my mind, when I knew that I was going to jump, I--" It's hard to talk about. Hard to even think about. Not all of it had been for show. The desperation was so real, so raw. It almost didn't matter if diving back into the lake returned her to the Dark Place. If she was right, then she was putting herself in the best position to help Alan. If she was wrong, then either way the guilt and the torment would finally be over.

"There was so much that I couldn't tell people. People I loved. Love. If I was going to die tomorrow -- really die, not just... stage it -- I'd tell the people I care about the truth. All of it. I'd tell them everything that happened to me in Bright Falls and after, about the hauntings and the years I spent losing my mind over this insane, impossible reality. I'd want them to know the real reason why I did it -- that Alan was here, that I wasn't crazy, I was out of options."

She has to blink back tears and chew the inside of her cheek for a moment to re-gather herself.

"I'd want to tell them that I tried."