#I'll probably dig up the original post with all the others linked here

[marlynnofmany]

Nothing like reading over notes from something written a couple years back.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about the dryads with the mistletoe afros! How did I forget that? Love those. They're a parasitic thing favored by the rebellious youths. Did I even include them in the story, or just think about it?"

"And when the minotaur turns human, she's probably not used to having front teeth on the top AND bottom, since cows don't. Did I say minotaur teeth were more omnivorous? Guess I'll find out."

[hellspawnmotel]

well you guys really called my bluff on this one, haha. I have a lot to say on the topic so this will probably turn into a long post but the answer really depends on this: what interests you about astro boy, pluto, and the franchise/tezuka's body of work as a whole? what do you want out of this experience?

if you're just looking for places to read/watch these things and that's it, I'll put some links here at the top so you don't have to dig through this whole mess.

you can read astro boy (original manga) here (there are occasionally missing pages on this website, if/when you run into those you can switch to this one which is harder to navigate but complete)

you can watch/download the 2003 anime (english sub) here

you can read naoki urasawa's pluto here

so you're interested in astro boy but aren't sure where to start: my opinion as someone whose point of view you respect for some reason

it didn't occur to me until recently that for a lot of people who follow me, your cultural touchstone for the concept of astro boy is most likely to be the 2009 american movie. I didn't watch that as a kid, I was 14 when it came out and fully into my "anime is superior to western animation" phase, but I've watched it now and well.... if you like it that's great! I did not. I'm not going to dwell on that, but I think it's worth noting that whatever your opinion on it as a movie is I don't really think it's a good representation of astro boy and its themes. moving on.

the manga

if you want the pure, unfiltered astro boy experience, this is as close as you're gonna get. it's gonna be a little haphazard though because the dark horse publication, which is probably the only way you're gonna find to read it in english, does not order the stories chronologically. I don't think that really matters because there's not a lot of continuity so as long as you understand the basic premise you can read in whatever order you want, and this puts a lot of really good stories first anyway so it's nice too. personally as far as all versions of astro boy proper go, the manga is my favorite. it's not always an easy read, for reasons I'll get into in a moment, and it's not always good either. some stories are phenomenal, some are just plain silly, and some are downright terrible. but given how long it ran for and how consistently and without breaks tezuka worked on not just it but all his other manga too I think that's too be expected. but even the bad ones I think are worth a look! this is the history of manga as a medium right here! and I love the manga, it's fun, funny, wonderfully drawn, compelling, shockingly dark at times, and just a fascinating read for those with an interest in classic comics.

all that said, I think it would be irresponsible of me to recommend it without also including a big fat disclaimer, which dark horse was kind enough to put at the front of the book.

if you have an interest or familiarity with classic/vintage manga, anime, comics, and cartoons, you probably saw this coming, but some of this shit gets REAL racist, most often in terms of how people are drawn. some of tezuka's biggest inspirations were the rubberhose american cartoons of the 20s and 30s, and all that implies. for whatever the opinion of a white american is worth, based on his writing I really do believe he had good intentions- he consistently speaks out against racism and bigotry in general, in astro boy especially. you can tell he was very passionate about it. but I'm not gonna defend the guy either, you can't be drawing people like that, even if it was the 40s-80s. a lot of the experience of getting into tezuka is reading a story where the moral is "racism is evil! end discrimination!" accompanied by straight up racial caricatures in the art. it's baffling and infuriating. if I could I would travel back in time and hire the man a sensitivity reader, but I can't, and he's been dead for 35 years so we'll never know what he would've done about it today. all we can do is take it as an opportunity to learn and do better. but, if all that puts you off getting into the manga or the series at large, I don't blame you!

with that out of the way, the size of the manga might intimidate you. there's a lot of it. lucky for you you don't have to read all of it if you don't want to! I've read the entire thing because I'm a completionist at heart, but I've had several friends come to me for a smaller and more manageable reading list, which is as follows:

(stars for my personal favorites, grimaces for "I did enjoy this one and I think it's worth reading but I don't feel good about recommending it". I also think "the artificial sun" and "atlas" are important reads if you're interested in the history of the franchise because they get referenced a lot, but they are VERY racist and I don't think theyre good enough overall to make them worth putting on the list despite that.)

that was long. next up:

the 2003 anime

I am not quite done watching this one but I'm pretty close so I feel confident in saying: on the whole, it's great! it looks absolutely fantastic for a tv anime from that era, the character and world design is top-notch, and overall it does a really good job adapting the best and most important parts of the manga into a continuous story, although it softens the blow of the darker moments quite a bit (which might be a good thing for you, depending on your tastes). it's pretty beloved by western fans, and for good reason.

I do have my issues with it, for one this might not be a popular opinion but I think they majorly screwed up on adapting the "greatest robot on earth" arc (my favorite arc btw, yes I might be salty), for another they really sand the edges off of uran's character compared to the manga and make her a lot more meek and girly. but that's just my opinion and if this show is the only one you've watched you wouldnt know that anyway. so don't let that deter you if you're interested, you'll be missing out on a pretty fantastic kids show.

so, if you're looking to really dive chest-first into astro boy as a franchise and understand all there is to know: maybe don't start with this one. it changes a lot from the source material and kind of does its own thing. but if you're just looking for a good story thats fun to watch and total eye candy, go nuts!

pluto

pluto by naoki urasawa is an adaptation/reimagining of astro boy's most famous and beloved arc, "the greatest robot on earth". it's also what got me into the franchise and one of my favorite manga ever! pluto reinvents the story as a detective thriller set in the aftermath of what is effectively, and obviously, the iraq war. it's brutal and harrowing, and beautiful and cathartic and hopeful. to me it is the gold standard for "dark and gritty reboot of a children's story" because urasawa adores tezuka and respects the original version, which was always a dark tragedy anyway, just presented differently. you might have seen pluto got an anime adaptation last year as well. I've watched it, it's pretty good! it doesn't change all that much (I don't like the few things they DID change but whatever) but I just think urasawa's artwork, paneling, and pacing are completely unmatched so I'd recommend the manga first. I'm not gonna be that asshole who insists you gotta read the manga over the anime though, if anime is easier for you you're better off having experienced pluto that way than not at all.

(if you ARE interested in both astro boy and pluto and are considering which to get into first, it's important to know that reading the arc pluto is based on will spoil a loooooot of things about the story. so weigh the pros and cons of that before making a decision!)

so, that's basically what I have to say. I haven't watched the 60s or 80s anime adaptations so I can't give insight on those, and I'm by no means an expert on any of this. I only started reading the original manga like three months ago and before that my memories of the other stuff was pretty faded, before I revisited it. if you're interested though I hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy yourself if you decide to take the leap! it's kind of a rabbit hole. I did not know what I was getting into when I decided to reread pluto, but I'm sure glad I did.

if you have any other questions about my personal opinions, feel free to shoot me an ask as well!

[ryin-silverfish]

On Erlang's mom, Lotus Lantern, and a neat little discovery

"Erlang's mom is Yaoji, JE's sister."

You can see that statement in literally every JTTW + adjacent fandom, both Chinese and English. Personally, it isn't as annoying as the "Nvwa is JE's daughter" thing, but does get a little tiring when everyone and their mother takes it as actual mythos.

So, in this post, I'll do a bit of digging, and trace the evolutionary trajectory of that claim.

Reading my Lotus Lantern Summaries first will be quite helpful, but if you haven't, I'll be linking to these posts when they become relevant.

The Start of It All

-As far as I know, JTTW novel is the first textual source that said "Erlang is JE's nephew". Specifically, in SWK's pre-battle taunts, he commented that "Hey, I heard JE's sister got chummy with Yang the mortal and gave birth to a son, is that you?" (JTTW Chapter 6)

-The same chapter also mentions that Erlang cleaved open the Peach Mountain to save his mom, implying she was imprisoned as a punishment for her forbidden relationship.

-The other roughly contemporary source, the Precious Scroll of Erlang, expanded on that story: here, Erlang's mom is Lady Yunhua (云花, literally "Cloud-Flower"), part of a trio of three sisters born of "Father Cloud" and "Mother Rain", who embodied the "Three Flowers", a Daoist internal alchemy jargon.

-She is also mentioned to be an immortal maiden of the Dipper-Ox Palace, where Queen Mother of the West resided. Erlang's dad, Yang Tianyou, is the incarnate of a "Golden Boy" acolyte, and they pretty much got insta-married after Yunhua revealed her true identity.

-In the Precious Scroll, Erlang's mom was also put under a mountain by SWK, and he went to QMoW to ask for his mother's whereabouts, pulling off the "carrying the mountains & chasing the suns" stunt on his way to rescue her.

-Pretty different from what you know, right? Here, Erlang was an only child, his mother was never explicitly said to be imprisoned under a mountain by JE's orders, and his father wasn't a run-of-the-mill mortal either.

-So what changed?

Erlang in the Premodern Lotus Lantern stories

-Well, the Lotus Lantern story cycle happened, and Erlang's own mom-saving story got copied over to his nephew Chenxiang.

-However, in all except one iteration of the Lotus Lantern tales, Erlang's parentage was never stated: this iteration is what I called Lotus Lantern 2.0, in which Erlang's own mom-saving story was canon too.

-It did leave out the "SWK put his mom under a mountain" part, though, despite lifting the name Yang Tianyou (and Lady Yunhua too, though her name in this story was Yuntai, "Cloud-Terrace") from the Precious Scroll.

-Similarly, the Lady of Mt. Hua/San Shengmu in all but one iteration of these stories wasn't punished by the Celestial Host, and Erlang putting her under a mountain was entirely his personal decision.

-In the one story that did, it was because she had whipped up a storm and ruined the mortals' crops while she was going after Liu the scholar.

-In fact, in all these pre-modern Lotus Lantern stories, San Shengmu and Liu's relationship was greenlit + Divinely Ordained by the Celestial Host.

The One TV Series to Change it All

-Yep, it's my childhood memory, the 2000s Lotus Lantern + Prequel shows that started the "Erlang's mom was Yaoji" thing!

-Here, she fell in love with the mortal Yang Tianyou after he sacrificed his own heart to save her, Erlang had an older brother named Yang Jiao who was killed together with his father on JE's orders, who also killed Yaoji via exposure to the Ten Suns after her release.

-That last part was probably inspired by the story of Nv Chou in the Books of Mountains and Seas, who was...this random sorceress/witch that got scorched to death by the Ten Suns.

-For a long time, I thought this was it: Erlang's mom being Yaoji was something the show-writers just pulled out of thin air, and entirely their original invention.

-Then I came across this little tidbit in Vol. 3 of the Tang dynasty text, 墉城集仙录...

-Translation: "Lady Yunhua was the 23th daughter of QMoW and the sister of Lady Wang of Taizhen, and her name is Yaoji."

-The last character, 华, is different from the 花 of Yunhua in the Precious Scroll story, but these two characters could often be used interchangeably.

-It must also be noted that the similar name/title is just a coincidence, and mythos-wise, Yaoji's legends never converged with Erlang's mom-saving story at all.

-But yeah, the Lotus Lantern + Prequel show writers probably saw the two names, went "Won't it be neat if we merge them into a single character?", and thus the most influential "urban legend" of Chinese mythos/folklore was born.

(Honestly, with the way myths and folklore evolve, maybe this version of the story would become canonized too after a hundred years or so!)

Edit: Check out the comments——@fate-magical-girls has informed me that the "Erlang's mom being Yaoji" thing had an earlier origin in the 1987 Teochew opera 三姐下凡!

Seems like Lotus Lantern Prequel has taken a lot more inspirations from said opera, aside from that bit: Erlang's three-pronged, double-bladed spear being a three-headed flood dragon he subdued, for example.

[swearingcactus]

Obscure Far Cry Promos and Content

I'm a big far cry fan, which means I have to make my own food in this economy. But sometimes I just want some ACTUAL canon or canon-ish or even just canon-adjacent content, y'know? It has gotten to the point I go into youtube rabbit holes or watch a remarkably below average hallmark movies for 5 minutes of an actor's screentime to hopefully hear Jason or Ajay or whoever talk. And so in these quests, I've found a couple obscure promos. Gonna compile them here for myself mostly :)

Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 - The Voices of Insanity: Doctor Earnhardt //a live action video with Alec Earnhardt's VA

Far Cry 3 - The Voices of Insanity: Vaas //same thing but with Michael Mando

Hoyt Audition Far Cry 3 //the last part of "The Voices of Insanity" videos, couldn't find the one from Ubisoft's own account but someone else had posted it on youtube

Far Cry 3 for PS3: TV Spot

Far Cry 3 -- Island Survival Guide: Psychopaths, Drugs & Other Dangers // video narrated by Willis Huntley

Far Cry 3 -- The Savages: Vaas & Buck // this video shows a rare render of vaas with tataus on his arm!

Far Cry 3 | The Tribe: Citra & Dennis //this video has a deleted scene where Jason hallucinates the tatau snaking up his arm

Far Cry 3 -- The Tyrant: Hoyt

Far Cry 3 - Insane Edition // this is a promo done for a special edition for the game, Michael Mando probably couldn't shoot the promo himself and just voice acted, and so they used another actor and made it so the camera never sees Vaas's face.

^ There is also a survival guide titled Face Your Insanity written by post-Rook events Jason Brody as part of the Insane Edition.

Far Cry 3 | E3 2012 Step Into Insanity Trailer [NORTH AMERICA] // this has a few close-ups of Jason and Vaas switching places with each other

Far Cry 3 Interviews (via @lulu2992)

Far Cry 3 Tweets by Jeffrey Yohalem, the lead writer. (also compiled by @/lulu2992! Thanks again!)

Far Cry 4

Divya Kandala's Blog (archived on the Wayback Machine) // Divya Kandala is a fictional journalist who wrote a blog about her travels to Kyrat, her blog's basically world-building promo for FC4. You could also find the house she stayed at in Kyrat!

Far Cry 4 TV Commercial

Far Cry 4 | Kyrat Tuk Tuk Stories //this is the MOST we see ajay in third person in promo content

Far Cry 4 - CGI Trailer // this isn't exactly RARE but it took forever for me to find that clip of ajay's eyes reflecting from the kukri. plus he looks EXTREMELY caucasian which really doesn't help the rumors I've heard that they originally wanted Jason again as FC4's protag

Comedy Central Far Cry 4 Commercial feat Danny Pudi & Donald Glover

Far Cry 4 and Childish Gambino: The Collaboration | PS4, PS3 // a music video for Crawl by Childish Gambino done as a collab

Old Archive.Org link to the Far Cry 4 webpage that had a choose your own adventure campaign

^ and the youtube video to promote it

Far Cry 4 | Behind the Scene Trailer 1/3 [Europe] // developer vlogs when they visited Nepal and interviewed the ghurka that became base for Golden Path, you can see the village that resembles Banapur a lot!

Far Cry 4 Performance Capture Interview // you can see Janina Gavankar, Amita's actress doing some mocap in this

Janina Gavankar Talks Far Cry 4 - ^ and the interview with her after

World Gameplay Premiere - Walkthrough E3 2014 - Far Cry 4 // this was to showcase gameplay but they eventually took out this entire mission where you have to wingsuit to Ratu Gadhi (Yuma's fortress), which is a shame because it looked very nice.

Far Cry 5

i'll be honest, im not a fc5 girlie, so i dont usually do a lot of digging, and im pretty sure these are actually not obscure at all. but these are trailers i found that really blew it out of the park. the marketing team for 5 really went HAM

Far Cry 5: Teaser Trailer | Ubisoft //this has a peggie banging someone's head to a church bell rhythmically with the gorgeous view of Montana mountains as backdrop and i for one, find it hilarious

Far Cry 5 | The Sermon - Live Action Trailer

Far Cry 5 | The Baptism - Live Action Trailer //somebody once mentioned this one has Joseph looking like Trevor GTA and i have never quite known peace ever since. it really also shows the reality of how Joseph is actually just really Unwell, and lore that Joseph killed Pastor Jerome's daughter that never showed up in-game.

Far Cry 5: Anything Can Happen, Everything Will - Live Action TV Spot | Trailer // mixes live action and game CGI renders, pretty cool actually!

The Making of Far Cry 5 | Behind the Scenes of Ubisoft [Documentary]

Far Cry 6 Comics

not gonna put in FC6 stuff because they're actually very easy to find! lots of trailers and mocaps and interviews on youtube :) Far Cry 6 actually has a more obscure lore in their comics

Far Cry: Esperanza's Tears comic // this is a Juan-centric prequel comic that features a completely new country, lore about Far Cry universe's political landscape, and lots of cameos from 3-6's characters! very interesting read especially if you're a sucker for backstories like me

Far Cry: Rite of Passage comic // this is more popular as it features Anton telling Diego the backstories for 3-5's villains.

There is also a book titled The Official Far Cry Survival Guide written by a fictional character called Hunter Nash, who supposedly grew up with Hope County-level of a doomsday prepper dad and winds up as a journalist who travels to the locations of 3-6 and wrote how to survive each location accordingly. It's adorned with official artwork of the games and plenty of survival tips. Not much lore-wise, but cool nonetheless! it also fuels my co-workers au ideas but that's personal.

i have actually found stuff like a really old MTV show called Undressed with Gianpaolo Venuta where he uses his Jason voice for his character, and how Patrick Kwok-Choon, the new voice actor for Ajay does voice acting in Thomas the Train Engine and Paw Patrol, and an indie movie with Greg Bryk where he wears fun sunglasses like Joseph, but that's neither here nor there to the franchise, so eh. // i'll edit this post if i find more, so maybe check back sometimes!

[vendemiaire-crafts]

8 Formula 1 photocards left!

Namely: Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly, Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo, George Russell, Carlos Sainz, and Zhou Guanyu 🏎️💨 Only one card of each is available, so get your fave before he’s gone!

Original donation drive post, along with the first 20 toploaders, is here 🍉📩

It’s been a year since “Israel” began waging cruel, unjust war on Gaza. We owe so much to Palestinians who’ve lost everything, their homes and livelihoods and essential needs. You’ve probably seen numerous posts asking for and encouraging donations — but I also understand many people don’t have much money to donate. So, that’s why I’m offering you all cute cards and deco toploaders you can get from donating!

Prices/minimum donation amounts are the same — 2 USD per photocard, 3 USD per toploader, and 0.50 USD per stand. You can donate more if you wish, though! ❤️‍🩹🍉

How To Purchase

DM me, either this blog or to my instagram @/vendemiaire_crafts, to begin an offer. Select which photocard(s) and/or toploader(s) you'd like to purchase (examples: toploader #7, Carlos Sainz photocard). Here's the list of which cards and toploaders are still available.

Make your donation to at least one of any of these fundraisers. Though as many Palestinians are trying to evacuate Gaza, I encourage making donations to individuals' and families' fundraisers I have boosted. Donations to multiple fundraisers are fine too, so long as it adds up to the minimum donation amount for your purchase! Then, once you've donated, send me proof via DMs. This can be as simple as a screenshot of your donation's confirmation. Also let me know which fundraiser(s) you've donated to so I can add onto it.

I'll then send you your purchase! Note that after you donate and send proof, I'll ask you for an address to mail to. For those worried about privacy, all private messages on this blog stay private. I will not release, share, or sell your address to anyone else, or use it for anything other than mailing your purchase to you. I live in the USA, but should be able to ship anywhere :-) your purchase will arrive as a letter in an envelope would.

I'll also donate double the amount of money in your donation to the same fundraiser(s) you gave to. For example, if you donated $5 for your purchase, I'll donate $10. If you'd like, I'll send you confirmation of my own donation via DMs.

Questions? Feel free to ask me!

After You Purchase

Keep sharing Palestinians' stories. Amplify their voices. Talk to friends and relatives about the dire situation in Gaza and urge them to help too. I of course can't speak for the people affected by the war and constant uncertainty, life or death, I'm just a fellow in the States hoping to help even in a small way.

If you have the money available to, keep donating to fundraisers and relief efforts. If you don't, share links to these fundraisers with others, especially those who can donate. Our brothers, sisters, and nonbinary kin in Gaza need every bit of support they can get!

Know somebody into Formula 1? Somebody who digs photocards and deco toploaders? Somebody in the kpop scene? Just anyone looking for a fun avenue to contribute to a good cause? Send this post to them and encourage them to buy!

Once your purchase comes in, tag me if you post pictures of it!

Let's make a difference together! 🏁🍉

[drconstellation]

More Half-and-Half-A-Miracle Thoughts

Part 1: Miracle Power Ranking

Part 2: The Dark side of Aziraphale is here. Part 3: The Third Archangel

I was originally going to add some comments as a reblog to @nofomogirl's post on why the 25 Lazurii miracle was so powerful, but the initial thought I had on the matter slipped away from me during that day, and I was left looking at a glimpse at the viridian green back panel of Aziraphale's waistcoat and wondering what had sparked my original thought, and any attempt to try and grasp it again was a futile as Muriel trying to open Gabriel's file in Heaven.

So I wandered off on other tangents, explored other topics I was curious about, and enjoyed reading the new posts that went up, but the ghost of that viridian green panel kept lurking about with a sharp stick to remind me it was there. So I'm here to post some more thoughts in addition to the op's post that I feel might add to the discussion about the little miracle that worked too well.

I also want to say before I get stuck in (and warning - this is going to be a long one!) that I think no matter how much we discuss this or dig at it, ultimately we just don't have enough information to have a definitive answer as to the why at the moment, and, we may never know. But I'm going to speak because I think I there is at least one thing I haven't seen discussed yet in context with this scene, and should be (at least, I haven't seen it yet - if you have, please let me know.)

So if you're in a TL:DR mode and don't want to open links, here is the list of current theories of why two little "half miracles" made one mighty one:

Theory#1: It's love

Theory #2: It's them

Theory#3: It's a fusion

Theory #4: It's Gabriel

Theory #5: It's the portal (that they did it on top of)

To preface my answering ramble the TL:DR again is - its a fusion of "them" i.e. both #2 and #3 together. As in Aziraphale x Gabriel x Crowley. 3x3x3

Hang on, that's 27! Not 25! yeah, yeah, I'm not that bad at math. And I'll admit it doesn't fit - it doesn't "snap" into place. But its either that or 5x5 and I wanted to consider all three elements in this miracle working together for the discussion at the start. And there seems to an emphasis on 3's as well as 7's (Maybe you can cut the middle out at the end, once you can see the bigger picture I'm trying to present, but lets leave it this way for now. Maybe it will give you another idea...)

Firstly, consider the three elements, working in synergy. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As Crowley describes it in S2E6: " Apparently, if we do a miracle together, it all works a bit too well." (I was originally thinking of the word "gestalt" but on reflection its probably not the right one.)

"...if we..."

Let's ask who is "we" at this point, and how much miracle power they are contributing to the miracle. Are they contributing equally? Yes? Or no? I want to take a closer look at miracle power: the knowns, the unknowns and the possibilities to explore that.

We've already been told that most day-to-day miracles are down in the mili-Lazurii level, a mere few thousandth of the power of the hiding miracle. And this makes sense - we don't see our protagonists bringing the dead back to life willy-nilly. Aziraphale mentions getting into trouble for doing "too many frivolous miracles." But if its one thing Good Omens stands out for its the conspicuous lack of displays of stupendous power. And this actually doesn't help our understanding of the problem.

Indulge me in a "ranking of power" exercise, if you will.

At the top we have the big three - no, four - er, lets make that five actually! Five ineffably, unarguably, omnipotent entities that every one respects and no one will mess with. They can essentially do what ever they will.

God, and Her (ex-) bestie, Satan.

Azrael, the angel of Death.

Adam Young, the Antichrist, who has retained his powers and is still protecting Tadfield.

And lastly the yet-to be revealed second coming of Jesus Christ.

Lets put them all aside and out of the equation.

Next, we have the Metatron, whom we haven't seen lift a finger, only his voice, yet the mere sight of his face evokes fear. How much miracle power can he wield? That's a big unknown, unfortunately. But being the current right-hand being of the Almighty must give him some serious grunt.

The top brass of the respective bureaucracies starts to raise questions. We have our senior Archangels (the seraphim) and the Dukes of Hell. I have no doubt that Gabriel, as Supreme Archangel of all Heaven, should be capable of performing at least a 1 Lazurii miracle on his own if required, and he could even have the potential to stretch to 25 Lazurii...if he could be bothered.

We know that they can be promoted in an out of those positions, and that raises questions about what happens to their powers when they get promoted or demoted. To gain power when promoted? Or lose it when demoted? Or is it a simply a matter of belief? In which case it might rely on the individual's personality.

When looking for examples of expressed power, in both the book and tv series, it is easier to come up with examples of demonic miracles than angelic miracles, and it makes things look a bit biased, imo. I mean, Crowley aside for the moment (I'll get back to him shortly) you have to be impressed with Hastur's escape from the ansaphone into the call center and manifesting into the mass of maggots, for all he was a bit old fashioned and smelled like poo. Shax playing games with Crowley just outside the shop in S2, manifesting as different characters in rapid succession has to be up there with another good demo of demon power (which it certainly worked to needle Crowley into losing his temper with them.)

What do we see the Archangels do in comparison? Hmm. Bitch and snitch. Gossip with Hell on the back stairs. Pretend to be buying pornography from Aziraphale. Then physically punch our angel in guts for fraternizing with a demon before disappearing back to Heaven . Not much.

OK, so Gabriel arrives on a lightning bolt at Tadfield airbase

and there is that intriguing discussion with Sandalphon regarding Sodom and Gomorrah (just read above the cut, that's the important bit for this meta later on) where he was doing quite a bit of smiting, but its all off screen and in the distant past, we don't actually see them in action.

Which brings us back to Crowley and Aziraphale. And then more Aziraphale manipulating Crowley into performing miracles for him so he doesn't have to (the little minx.) The list of miracles I can think of that we have seen Crowley do is far longer and seems more impressive than what Aziraphale has done. Oh, but there is the Eldritch Ball, you say? Controlling multiple people at once? (Hold that thought.) He also sent the soldier at the entry gate of the Tadfield airbase all the way back to his home in the USA in an instant (according to the book) and he flew the moped with both Madame Tracey and Shadwell over the top of the Odegra ring of demon fire to get to Tadfield (again, as mentioned in the book.) And as the op back here says, why didn't they just manifest themselves out? Idiots...

On to Part 2: The Dark Side of Aziraphale.

[sunshinemoonrx]

but uh yeah we watched (rewatched for me) KR First/Next. Y'know what I like them more this time around. Still don't love them! But they're, y'know, they're whatever. Fundamentally they are extremely good at making me go "wow! I love it when kamen rider does a big kick" which is the main thing

The First definitely feels more like The Big-Screen Kamen Rider Reboot Movie, it presents itself more theatrically, it's got flourishes like the Miyauchi cameo, a snippet of the original OP and the Dr. Shinigami footage. Unfortunately, it also hews too close to the US superhero movie "everything revolves around how much the hero loves and wants to save the pretty girl [who will not even be mentioned in the sequel]" for me to find it much fun, and also it keeps cutting away to a completely different romance movie, which also isn't...bad, I guess, but doesn't link up at all until the very end.

The Next, meanwhile, feels more like a "let's do whatever the fuck" outing to stick on late-night TV and the DVD release...instead of a bombastic title card it just dives right into the ghost-slasher-movie subplot which...I also didn't feel super-engaged watching but that might just be because I'm a little baby (for as much as I dig the Rider body-fuckery and lonely-cyborg stuff, which for the record The First especially did really well!), but at least was actually part of the story this time. The tone does proceed like that, and I find the Inoue-isms the more entertaining kind here; instead of having a Hollywood Love Interest to fight over now Hongo is gay and pining and Ichimonji is homophobic and trying to have as much sex as possible before he dies. There's shots of Kazami Shiro showering moodily, bare Shocker Rider ass, and a lady kaijin topless with her helmet on. Also, Scissors-Jaguar is there.

But yeah they both have what are still probably the best Rider 1/2 suits (although I'll give Shin the coat-over-suit look as the best design, maybe), I love how textured and bolted-together they are. And there's truly incredible action going all-in on wires and somersaults, and frankly maybe Next didn't have less budget but just blew it all on that big sequence at the end where they have a big chase on trucks and cars and motorbikes flying-kicking each other off the road, then crash into a restaurant, then proceed to knock each other through every wall, floor and bar in the place until it's completely destroyed. So that's pretty good. Shame about the muddy brown filter over everything in Next. 2007!

Anyway no wonder Hongo lost his university post after First with a thesis like "water is alive". That's not correct man

[renaerys]

This is just for fun, but how do you compare Sakura and Ino characteristics and personalities in your writing? Do you ever found them to be overlapping or do you consider them to be opposite or both?

I think they're very different but complementary characters. These are my personal takes under the cut, since it's a bit long.

To preface, I base everything on the original Naruto manga. I don't read Boruto, don't care about it, don't want to know anything more about it beyond what I've been forced to absorb through cultural osmosis. My takes on Ino's and Sakura's characters are probably going to be different from others who do subscribe to Boruto.

Ino

Ino would have followed in Inoichi's footsteps to become the prime Yamanaka mind reader for Torture and Interrogation post-war. She'd be a top Sensor type, would have worked closely with people like Ibiki and Anko and Shikamaru, and become a high ranking member of Konoha's tactical division. Those interactions would influence and augment certain aspects of her personality and proclivities quite a lot, and they inform how I see her in a post-war world.

I talked a lot about Ino's personality in this post. Ino is someone who I see as the better "people person" between Sakura and her. Meaning, she's above average good at reading people and anticipating what they will do or how they'll react in certain situations. Crucially, she's the type of person who will also act on that information if the situation calls for it, such as to benefit herself, her social standing/reputation, her goals, etc. And in that same vein, whether it's these personality traits or straight up shinobi abilities, she's the type to set a goal and get it the fuck done no matter what (remember her badass moment in the 4th war when she telepathically connected to everyone? Queen shit.). The other post I linked goes into this a bit more, so I won't repeat it here.

I see her as someone who isn't afraid to use tactics like lying and manipulation and charms if they will benefit her endgame. She's cunning and crafty and suave, but she's not a malicious person. Rather, she's demonstrated a high capacity for empathy and compassion (the basis of her friendship with Sakura, to name the earliest example of that). But I think she is also the type who is willing and able to get her hands dirty, keep secrets, and condone tactics that other personality types (like Sakura) would deem going too far or would find reprehensible. Two things can be true at the same time, and they make her a really interesting and contradictory person. She's your bitchy BFF. She's the person who will dig too deep into something because she is a dog with a bone, and this makes her capable of hurting people, however unintentionally.

Which is why she really benefits from having a friend like Sakura who will check her on that.

Sakura

Sakura is very much what you see is what you get. She's not cunning or crafty or manipulative the way Ino is (she can be those things insomuch as any person can be those things, but I wouldn't call them defining or key traits like I would for a character like Ino). Sakura wears her emotions on her sleeve, is straightforward and to the point, and highly determined. Like Ino, her personality is complemented by and reflected in her abilities and fighting style. She is front line, in your face, honest and unsubtle and no bullshit. The opposite of Ino in many ways. I think Kishi made those choices purposefully (although, I always hesitate to give him too much credit considering his track record with women).

Sakura has protagonist-chan vibes, which makes sense considering that is who she is in the manga. She gets the underdog story, the smurfette "I can keep up with the boys and I'll prove it to you" story, and that makes her relatable to literally anyone who grew up with insecurities and worked to overcome them. (Crucially, Ino doesn't have that arc because she never had those same insecurities or competition with her boys.)

All of this makes Sakura a lot less complicated and more vanilla than Ino. I don't mean that in a bad way at all, I just mean that given her standing in the manga as a deuteragonist, she is THE female character and therefore much easier for people to project themselves on to. That's why there are so many more fics and fanworks centering her than Ino. Sakura is hashtag relatable to so many people, and that's her main appeal and why she's so successful as a female character. But, unlike a lot of cardboard female protagonists in other media, she's able to be those things and have a distinct personality and unique traits, and I really like that about her! Ino is a harder pill to swallow because her personality is messier, rougher, more jagged than Sakura's. Again, none of this is bad! It's just the way a lot of archetypes go. Think about any of your favorite media. The relatable "everyman" protagonist female character usually has a "sassy best friend" type who doesn't share her insecurities and, instead, acts as a cheerleader to help her move past them. That's how Sakura and Ino are set up in the manga. It's a very traditional and oft-used archetype, which doesn't make it bad. It just is.

That archetype dynamic makes them great together, which is kind of the whole point of characterizing them in that way. Ino is often the sassy BFF in fics about Sakura, but I really love to see Sakura has her very important BFF in Ino fics too. I think it's an underutilized dynamic (just purely from a statistical standpoint since there are exponentially more Sakura fics than Ino fics). But if we consider that they are best friends, it stands to reason that they have a lot in common too. You can't tell me Sakura is best friends with someone like Ino and is just vanilla protagonist-chan a la Hallmark rom coms. Nah, that girl is some bless-this-mess chaos. Her bull in a china shop tendencies make her such a great complement to Ino. Sakura can be hilarious, chaotic, and weird and keep up with Ino's sharp wit and unapologetic judgment. They're like a comedic duo where one of them is the "straight man" and the other is clown shoes, but the fun twist is those roles are seamlessly interchangeable between them. I write them this way in my fic The Heiress and the Hierophant.

Sakura and Ino both are fantastic characters with plenty of room to build upon their canon foundations if you put in some work. I do wish more people would give Ino a fair shake as main and let Sakura live that fun BFF life. She's excellent as the BFF. And I haven't even touched on the excellent InoSaku romantic dynamics that exist! There's so much there between them, and all of it is good.

[safyresky]

Crystal Springs Chapter 21: Jacqueline's Cat

aka, Two Weeks Later, is up and at em, right here! Give it a read, give it a review, have a blast and a half!

For those who've recently joined the tag, hi! Allow me to introduce to you my The Santa Clause 3-specific fic, Crystal Springs! If you're in the mood for some funky gen fic, featuring our beloved icy blorbo Jack Frost and a redemption arc of sorts, with a cast of absolutely unhinged OCs, I'd highly recommend giving Crystal Springs a chance! Here's a summary for you all to eat up:

"It's been nearly a year since Jack's thaw and things...could be better, admittedly. It seems, that as the year has gone on and he's improved his relationship with Santa and the whole of Elfsburg, his powers have taken a hit. December's just around the corner, and his powers are just short of being gone.

This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that Jack's powers are the only reason that Elfsburg, the Workshop, and the North Pole are able to exist safely, tucked away under the Dome. With his powers gone, the winter magic that keeps the Dome sturdy and dishing out proper quantities of Christmas magic, is running hot and out of control. It's melting, and the North Pole is getting warm.

Unable to hide his power loss any longer, an intervention is held by the Council and Jack admits that he lacks the Frost. But thankfully, there is a solution: enacting the Legate Law, summoning the sprite next-in-line for the title of Jack Frost.

There's just one problem: Jack's Legate is his younger sister, Jacqueline, who he has not seen or talked to since he nearly killed her dead almost fourteen hundred years ago. Out of options, with no other possible solution in their sights, they do it, bringing Jack and the sister he hurt so many years ago back together once more, in the hopes that together, they can get Jack's powers back and stop the Deliquesce.

Unfortunately, the Frosts have never been very lucky. Soon after her arrival, Jacqueline starts experiencing some unexpected blackouts, with unintended consequences. With Jack's powers hanging in the balance, and Jacqueline on the fritz, the pair decide to head back home to Crystal Springs, bringing Jack face to face with the rest of his family...and an ancient threat waiting for their moment to strike, their carefully laid plans finally coming full circle. Seems like saving Christmas may be a little bit...complicated this year.

This fic is my baby. Originally posted in 2012/13, it was finished in 2014/15, rewritten in 2017, and then again starting in 2020. We're still working through the 2020 version NOW, hence why you see these random updates in the tags, but not on ff.net. (CS is not posted to ao3 as of yet, but I'll get to it one of these days! )

Piqued your interest? SCHWEET! Have some links.

PROLOGUE (skipable tbh, will be better once Frostmas is finished) CHAPTER 1 (good starting point, would recommend)

Not vibing it? Cool cool cool, go ahead and click that J key and head on down your dash to something you do vibe!

All caught up on CS 202X? Then onto the main event!

What's 🆕 In Chapter 21?

AXED the ENTIRE lost journals/here's what we learnt at the Dream Spire bit with the cold front, given that I took those events and spread them about the previous two chapters, Chapter 19: The Man with a Plan, and Chapter 20: Freedom, both of which were updated December 4th! (icymi) :)

Probably should've updated this one along with the other two, but I neglected to read ahead/totally forgot about the cold front preamble while Fino is fighting for his life under the bed lol, so here we are! Hopefully it didn't uh. Cause confusion for readers not on tumblr lmao

PREAMBLE ASIDE, WHAT'S GOING ON THIS CHAPTER?

🆕 Sibling fluff!

🆕 Blinter fluff!

🆕 CS lore!

🆕 Fiera's doing hot girl soot! (literally)

BETTER focus on the fam helping the cold front figure shit out re: blackouts and power shortages!

NEW Scott/Carol banter because Carol deserves to get a few digs at Scott!

WORD COUNT F A C T S: 2014 -> 4,440k 2017 -> 7,866k 2022-> 15,431k :O

I think last week's angst really spurred me on to finish this chapter. Please accept my humble offering of the main timeline where all the frosts are alive and thawed and nobody is dead, I swear. And as usual, if you find yourself enjoying it, do drop me a line! Send a review my way! Throw a reblog out there! I like to hear what people think! I will talk about these blorbos for DAYS.

[anonymousad]

crowdfund review: Arden Season 3

I was sent an anonymous ask telling me I should look at the crowdfunding campaign for Arden season 3. and so I did. and I definitely have some thoughts, though I'm sorry it took me this long to get them down because things have changed a bit since then (I've already had to adjust wording and update images twice because I'm slow).

here is the link to their campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/arden-s3-midsummer-in-new-york-city#/

as well as their prior campaign to fund season 2, as I will be referring to it at several point: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/arden-season-2-a-town-called-elsinore#/

let's get started then.

First Glance, Let's Talk About Goals

so. that's a big number. $26,000 USD.

if you read my other crowdfunding review for Among the Stacks, I talked in-depth about how what you are asking for defines the expectations people have as well as what you need to make sure you provide. this is something to keep in mind as we look through this campaign, particularly because this is a big ask from a production that is established and wanting to appear very professional to justify this high of a goal.

let's compare this with their season 2 campaign. while you can't see the goal on old successful campaigns, it IS mentioned in that campaign video as being $6,000. that campaign wound up raising $17,167 from 461 backers, but the initial ask was VERY low in comparison to the current.

NOTE: there is a notably different set of numbers beneath these saying it hit $15,676 from 409 backers on Feb 19, 2020. I am not familiar enough with the intricacies of Indiegogo as a platform to be able to identify what this means exactly, but my guess is that that was the originally achieved goal when the campaign ended and maybe it has/had a feature where for a short time after the campaign you could still contribute? genuinely unsure, but we'll go with the number that the page highlights rather than this one.

I think it's also worth noting that this date of February 19th, 2020 was RIGHT before the pandemic hit, so people may have had more spare income such that this project could get $10k+ over its goal. I don't know if the overwhelming success of that campaign impacted the current one's goal being so high, but if it did that was probably a mistake because people just don't have that kind of money to spare anymore.

this campaign goal is set as "Flexible", as in they will get whatever is pledged no matter what, and I don't really have a problem with that usually, BUT. I will touch on why it feels a little bit different here towards the end of this post.

but let's hold off on digging too deep into those numbers just yet, we've got some stuff between us and the budget. there will be some.... thoughts in that section though, don't you worry.

The Video

2 minutes and 10 seconds is a length I can get onboard with. in comparison to their prior campaign video (4 minutes) it looks much cleaner and less amateur than the home-video style live action they used for the season 2 one, which I think is necessary for a campaign that asks this much. granted, it still feels very budget with just still graphics and stock images so I'm not particularly impressed by it visually.

the whole thing largely focuses on broadly covering the mysteries of seasons 1 and 2, interspersed with accolades and recognition, before giving the elevator pitch for the mystery of season 3.

as an aside, they tout their first season "being nominated at the Audio Verse Awards" on equal footing with Forbes calling them one of the 10 best fiction podcasts of 2018. all of us know the AVAs are just a "pay to get a nomination" thing, probably the least impressive thing they could be bragging about for anyone in the know. I have thoughts on that whole AVA thing as well, I'll probably put them together into a small post here soon.

but back to the video content. apart from addressing "people of Indiegogo" at the very start, it takes until the 1:38 mark for the video to even get to the point that it is telling you about a crowdfund and ask for support. if you were potentially unfamiliar with the show but stumbled across this campaign, it does a good job at selling you on the mysteries of the previous two seasons without giving away too much about what happens besides a romance between the leads.

the video ends with a call to action to donate, even if it's only a small amount, and then shows on screen as well as reads and spells the url to go to. good stuff, worth including for sure.

however, it feels like there's a disconnect in what the video is expecting from you as a viewer.

if I am finding this for the first time and know nothing about the show, it's a really great elevator pitch for me to add it to my podcast backlog.

if I am already a fan of the show, it just tells me about the existence of a campaign.

there's no mention of the campaign dates so there is no sense of urgency for me to check out the show immediately or go right to the campaign. there's no mention of the goal for me to get a sense of how much my contribution could positively impact it (I do think that with a goal this high there is less opportunity for people to really feel like their contribution is making a difference compared to a 3-5k goal, but still).

the video is not about the campaign at all, and that is kind of an obvious problem.

while the video for their season 2 campaign was 4 minutes with poor production quality and really iffy audio for trying to sell me on an audio medium, it does so much more for what it was trying to achieve. just about half of the runtime is dedicated to talking about the campaign goal, what it will go towards, the exclusive rewards, and why your support matters and makes an impact. based on just these videos, I would have been way more likely to check out and support Arden season 2 than I am to do the same for season 3.

I wish they had found a happy medium between the original low quality, but very charming live action and the new joke-corporate, but not particularly endearing, tone of the current. maybe they'll get it right for season 4.

NOTE - The Update:

right now there is a pretty significant update at the top of the campaign, I am jumping over it for the moment and we will touch on the contents in the "Budget" section where it makes more sense to.

They're Baaaaaack....

it was their joke, not mine.

this first section is pretty light overall, not getting into their sales pitch right off the bat, but informing or reminding the reader that the series is well-regarded by both critics and normal listeners and has already delivered on a successful campaign in the past.

this is very good to focus on upfront here, ESPECIALLY because people will go right from seeing the huge $26k goal to reading this and you have to justify that price tag immediately to not lose them. it highlights the stretch goals and extra content that they were able to produce before going on to say that they want to be even more ambitious for this next season, so that if you were to know or look up that the previous campaign raised about $17k you could maybe extrapolate and justify the nearly $10k increase from that amount being asked for here. it does direct us to the budget breakdown section lower on the page at the mention of wanting to provide proper compensation, which is good.

it ends with another call to action, inviting you to keep reading. this also recognizes that people will be looking at this first section to decide whether they want to continue reading.

overall, good section, but I don't know why I have to keep telling people to include links in here! you should want to direct me to your website, podcast feed, social media, etc. so I can find more information if I'm curious.

Season 3 Rundown

honestly I don't really have anything to say about this section. it's very similar to the plot tease from the campaign video with a little bit more details on the mystery. it's written to get existing fans excited and it probably does that just fine.

so let's move on to more of the meat.

Perks and Rewards

luckily for me, this section is literally just a text version of the different reward tiers with more detail. I am personally very grateful since this means I can skip covering the options on their own altogether because to anyone looking to back this section is very clearly highlighted covering all the details. thank you for giving me less work <3

to that point, I think for any kind of campaign that mostly focuses on digital goods it is really good to have this kind of text breakdown. for physical product focused crowdfunding you will have a lot more tangible images to show off to get people excited. in digital goods we are working with hypotheticals a lot of the time, especially in a story-based medium where you can't take a screenshot of your script to show off that it exists without giving out spoilers to the story you want to tell.

I will briefly say that I like the consistency of the tier images. the fake corporate employee badge is a fun format (though it means nothing to me as an outsider why it is relevant to the fake-true-crime angle of this series). it's also very easily customized to each tier without being a bunch of work to have unique images, which is less exciting, but also much less work.

I do also think it's worth mentioning that NONE of the tiers have a limit to the number of backers that can sign up for them, including the really high up ones that could cause trouble if too many people picked them (like the wrap party invite and some of the more involved physical goods). I think having restrictions on some of them is good for convincing people to go for them early because they're afraid of missing their chance, but also it can mean less work in terms of eventually needing to mail physical goods or coordinate personalized benefits.

but anyway, let's look at these tiers:

NOTE: every tier includes everything from the prior tiers, which I won't point out for all of them.

$1 FRIEND OF THE POD - aka the tip jar. honestly there's nothing offensive about this kind of tier existing, though I sometimes wonder if there's a point to it. but it does have 2 backers at writing so clearly some people appreciate it being an option.

$5 THE GOOD PEOPLE - honestly this tier has a lot of bang for your buck, like seriously for just $5 these are good rewards, but let's go over them individually:

early episodes - this is great, but what exactly does "Be the first on the block to hear S3 of Arden!" mean? I brought this up before for the ATS campaign, but if you just say "early" and don't quantify that you could be talking a week or a day or just an hour and I would have no clue. depending on what "early" means here I would be more or less excited by this reward. granted, this is the first tier with a real benefit which means that everyone above this point will also get this, so it isn't as though you are trying to use it to sell your $25 and up levels. however, the mention of a Patreon in a few sentences does make me wonder whether this is also a benefit patrons will have who don't back the campaign. potentially something worth clarifying.

special thanks in the credits - boy howdy that is gonna be a lot of names you have to figure out how to read and where to put with this also included in every tier from here up. as of right now that is 102 backers and it hasn't even hit 20% funded.

exclusive backer/Patreon minisodes - this is the tier that made me wonder if early episodes would also be a Patreon included perk, which I think its fine either way but worth making clear. I do think that the minimum quantity of minisodes should be specified, if only because "and MORE" is extremely vague. I think at this low of a tier it wouldn't be a big deal if it was only one more than the 2 explicitly listed ones, but specificity is nice even here.

$10 WHEYFACE INDUSTRIES EMPLOYEE - everything from the $5 plus a few small extras:

personalized digital employee badge - honestly a very cute digital reward that seems to go with the whole "Wheyface Industries" thing. this is an example of really good branding tbh, everyone should try to have something like this. we also have a good idea of how these will look because of the tier header images.

exclusive audio commentaries - so this both gives access to season 1 and 2 commentaries as well as the new ones for season 3. I am once again curious if this is something Patreon supporters also receive?

exclusive discord access - I feel like a broken record, but again is this a discord just for crowdfunding backers or is it also for Patreon subs? to be honest for this one I think having both is to the benefit because it means a larger more active community. some discords feel like they just exist because they're supposed to and have barely any activity, which would feel like a letdown if that was part of your incentive for doubling your $5 tier pledge.

customizable digital icons - these are explicitly donor exclusive and honestly another neat idea for digital content. they seem to have a good designer and a distinct style of these things, though seeing a few examples would be nice here.

$25 WHEYFACE ADVENTURER - here's our first physical rewards added onto everything prior:

buttons and stickers - would really love to see some mock-ups or designs here. I would also like to know with more specifics how many buttons and stickers are we talking about?

digital copy of "Escape from Wheyface Radio" TTRPG - we actually do get to see the cover of this in the video/image carousel at the top of the campaign, which I think sets the tone for it pretty well as comedic action (I'm assuming). honestly a good reward, though I'm curious if this has ever been offered anywhere else (i.e. in their merch store or to Patreon supporters).

$50 WHEYCON BADGE HOLDER - more physical and digital goods:

digital dossier of in-universe season 3 prep materials - a very fitting perk for a true-crime inspired show, probably adds some genuinely cool depth to excitement for and using along with the season as it airs.

linocut print - I think the mystery here of "an important location" is fine in terms of being vague. I think you could talk about the colors and size though just to have something a little more tangible for people to get excited about

digital soundtrack across all seasons - if you have a show with original music you should absolutely be making your soundtrack available in some aspect. good reward that is easy to distribute and deliver and will likely have the added bonus of some custom cover art for each of the 3 volumes.

$100 WHEYCON ARTS PATRON - more physical and more exclusive story content:

physical Wheyface Industries ID badge - very logical step up from the digital reward from earlier. I will point out that it does not say whether this is also customized, which considering the added cost of every single badge needing to be unique is probably not the case. but to some there might be an assumption that it is based on the earlier reward and that should be clarified sooner to avoid disappointment.

in-universe article from new character - this feels on the level of the digital dossier in terms of being content that the mystery solving fans would get a lot of value from. good addition, though I would be curious how much of the information will feel unique against the digital dossier.

Andy Wheyface diary - honestly I'm a little confused by what this entails. I'm assuming it's digital, though it doesn't specify. but in terms of format is it going to have a scrapbook journal kind of feel or feel more like someone opened a google doc and started recounting their day? doesn't appeal to me but I'm also not their target here.

$250 WHEYCON VIP - the big physical tier:

professionally printed dossier - the only specifics here about this printed version of the digital good is that it will be "gorgeous", but I think it would be nice to have a little more detail and maybe even a teasing pic of how it will look.

excluive t-shirt - broken record, but show me a mock-up! please! I don't wear a lot of t-shirts, would I even like the design???

behind-the-scenes discussion with Arden composers etc. - very cool if you love the show's music, and probably pretty interesting even if it isn't something you notice that much.

$500 WHEYFACE INDUSTRIES ADVERTISER - the big bucks personal:

full-sized poster collection - 2 examples are given, but if I'm thinking about reserving wall space for something or wanting to buy frames I need to know exactly how many to be expecting and what they classify as "full-size". I've bought so many posters that are just mildly different dimensions and that really matters if you want to frame them, which I assume many people who are spending this much would to best preserve and show them off.

write and produce your own custom advertisement with the Arden team - honestly this is an extremely cool idea that again seems to fit well into the Arden universe. sound like good bang for the buck just based on this alone.

$1000 WHEYFACE INDUSTRIES BOARD - exclusive event and autographed scripts:

season 3 digital wrap party invitation - these things always sound like they'd be awkward to me since everyone else has a relationship with each other, but I also totally understand why this would be an enticing reward for people. definitely worth the price to a lot of people I'm sure.

complete printed collection of autographed season 3 scripts - I know printed scripts (especially autographed) is something a lot of people enjoy having for their favorite shows, no complaints about this reward. tho it might be nice to specify whether it'll be bound specially in any way or if they'll arrive as loose sheets held together with a binder clip.

I think overall these tiers are really good, though I would like to see mock-ups or visuals for some of the promised rewards (particularly the physical ones like a t-shirt or poster examples). I would also like to commend Arden for not selling an "Executive Producer" credit as part of the rewards, I will continue to point out how bullshit those are until people stop doing it.

but let's move onto a big one.

The Budget

IMPORTANT NOTE: so as I was putting this post together (was pulled away from it several times for real world non-anon responsibilities etc.) the campaign posted an update. on March 30th, they added the following section at the top:

Hey, folks! We have some awesome news. Thanks to some additional funding which has come in, WE NOW ONLY NEED TO RAISE $6000 TO GREENLIGHT A SIX-EPISODE SEASON 3. And as of 3/30, we are very close to hitting that goal! [I foolishly deleted the image, but it was basically the same as the one below. The only differences were no "GREENLIGHT ACHIEVED" text, the blue label saying "MARCH 2023", and the progress bar showing that it had made it to $4125 of the $6000 target. Beneath is smaller white text that reads "Help us make Arden Season 3! $6000 raised on IndieGoGo will guarantee a six-episode season, with more episodes the more we raise!" and then beneath that the shortened url to the campaign.] WE ARE ONLY $1875 AWAY FROM GREENLIGHTING SEASON 3. Every $2000 past $6000 will add an additional episode. HELP US GET THERE TODAY!

on April 2nd, it had been updated to the following:

Thanks to some additional funding and your donations, we have now raised enough to produce at least six episodes of Arden Season 3! Every $2000 raised from now until the end of the campaign will add an additional episode to the season. All rewards will be fulfilled. And look forward to Arden Season 3: Midsummer in New York City - coming to your earballs this fall/winter.

I am not going to touch on this just yet, because I think we need to go over the budget breakdown first before we can assess it with this new information.

Budget Breakdown Breakdown

fun fact: the Arden team definitely saw my original response to the anonymous ask telling me about the campaign (or a similar critique elsewhere) calling out their lack of numbers in their budget section. I know this because it has since been rectified to include actual percentages on the chart itself as well as details of the number and approx length of episodes, two things that were definitely missing before. I don't have a screenshot of that section from before, I wasn't ready to dive into another one of these at the time, but it wouldn't be fair of me to show those anyway now as a "gotcha" when clearly they are open to feedback. I don't know if they read my prior post because there are still issues here that I think need addressing, but honestly it's a huge improvement from what there was. they did not however update anything but the image with specific numbers, which isn't ideal.

someone needed to put a little more time into this graphic because the labels are not super readable and for "studio recording" the number is almost completely obscured by the label beneath. we will be referring to these numbers for the rest of the section as this is the only place they are specified.

let's start at the end because it provides some very valuable context:

"Total, we have budgeted a cast and crew of 35 people to produce thirteen episodes with runtimes of 45 min to an hour, in addition to the additional expenses listed in operating expenses."

so that means we are talking about $26k to cover 9.75 hrs to 13 hrs of content, 35 people (26 of whom are cast according to this section), and an unnamed amount of contracted work potentially for commissioned additional art and music. this also doesn't include how much additional time and effort would be devoted to minisodes, digital content, and fulfilling backer rewards, so we can't really factor that in obviously except to just assume that funds for each of those would likely be equally distributed across the average cost. because of this, I'm going to just have to ignore them entirely as a separate thing, especially since those costs will be a bit more fluid until it's clear exactly how many backers will require physical goods fulfillment.

to break that big number down on a per-episode basis, we are looking at $2,000-$2,667 per produced hour of content, or a more round average of $2k per episode. obviously not every person will be directly involved with the creation of an episode, either because music is used in multiple places, a character doesn't appear in every one, and some expenses are one-offs.

but let's take that $2k average in mind as we hit the descriptors for each of the segments in this chart. I'll be using the provided %s to calculate the amount of overall budget and per episode budgets allocated to each.

CAST - 44% - $880/ep, $11,440 total

we know this is 26 actors total, only the main two characters are specifically named. it is likely that some of these roles are extremely minor and only appear a few times at most, so we can't really break this $880/episode number down any further. if it were meant to accommodate all 26 performers being in every episode that would be $33.84 on average, but I don't think that accurately reflects the breakdown in any way.

DIRECTORS - 9% - $180/ep, $2340 total

here we actually have more to work with in terms of figuring out the pay. I will be upfront that I am less sure of what a fair wage is for directing work, numbers on that are much harder to find than for sound designers or actors.

this section says "We are currently budgeted for three directors each working five days of recording." which could mean one of a few things. either there are 5 days of recording TOTAL and all three directors are present for all of that time, there are 15 days total and each director is in charge of a third of them, or a mix of some day with multiple and some days without. it doesn't really matter that much to the budget aspect to know which it is, unless there is a "head"/"assistant" kind of dynamic for days with multiple that might impact their rates. but let's just assume that it will be equal pay and the number of days doesn't really matter. that's leaves us with $780 total for each of the three directors across the full season (though keeping in mind the full number of episodes is 13 and not perfectly divisible by 3).

SOUND DESIGNERS - 17% - $340/ep, $4420 total

this section is also budgeted for 3 sound designers, though it's unclear if that is broken down for each episode with one doing the vocal cut while another does soundscaping and effects with one in charge of mastering or something. that is I think more likely than having the episodes fully split between the three because that could result in it sounding less consistent between episodes. I'm not sure exactly how good this compensation is when split like that, but if it were a single designer doing an episode I do think $340 is decent enough.

COMPOSER - 8% - $160/ep, $2080 total

I give a per ep estimate not because I think it actually provides value here, but just as a comparison point to the other roles.

however, I do think it's worth noting that we do have information about the amount of music from prior seasons to compare to, thanks to the digital soundtrack reward from the prior section. that boasted "60 tracks of music from Seasons 1 and 2 alone", meaning we can assume around 30 tracks will be made for season 3. this is probably not entirely accurate, there's some give and take for reusing music from previous seasons. that comes out to about $69/track (nice). I don't know what the standard rate is for musicians in this kind of work to be honest, but I would assume this is at least comparable to what the composer has been paid in the past or else they probably wouldn't be returning for the third season.

GRAPHIC DESIGN - 1% - $20/ep, $260 total

again, I don't think the per episode estimate is necessarily valuable here, unless there is unique cover art for each episode which I don't think is the case because $20 for that plus any additional graphic design work doesn't seem to be a fair wage.

STUDIO RECORDING - 4% - $80/ep, $1040 total

I think this speaks for itself honestly. the price will be the price that the studio space sets. in the section about the directors it was revealed that there are 5 days of recording, which as I noted could actually be 5-15 days total. however, here it only states "a few days of in-person recording with our core ensemble", so it probably only covers a portion of that total time. whatever the case, not much can be done to lower this and I'm sure they feel the benefit of spending this money for that kind of recording space is worth it.

OPERATING EXPENSES - 17% - $340/ep, $4420 total

to be honest, $4420 feels pretty low for everything they say is in this bucket. some of these things we can't really put a price tag on like rewards fulfillment without knowing how many people are going to be receiving those. especially when considering some of the higher cost and higher effort rewards like the personalized commercials. things like shipping costs also need to be considered (unless they have it setup to charge shipping separately, I do know that IndieGoGo offers this option) and just generally compensating people for the time and materials putting the packages together.

we can probably assume that the mention of SAG (something i covered quite a bit in my last crowdfund review) is for the annual base fee of $227.42 (not counting the additional 1.575% of earnings that have to be paid). it's unlikely this is something that all the actors have, but I would assume at least the two leads do, which alone accounts for about $500 of this total amount.

and that's not counting the misc stuff like the business taxes and licensing fees for any software being used.

there's also a very weird omission here, like seriously weird. where is the funding for the writing? my best guess is that it has been wrapped into "operating expenses", but to be honest that doesn't feel like an actual explanation, so I'm a bit suspicious that writing is not being compensated at all.

I did talk about this on the ATS crowdfunding post, but even if it's your passion project to write and make this thing, you should still be compensated for the time you put in. the fact it isn't mentioned at all is very strange.

I also think we should have larger conversations about how much more we are paying cast than crew. in this budget they have set aside 44% for the cast, with only 26% for the directors and sound designers (not to mention the missing writers I pointed out). this is a BIG disparity when you consider that directors are going to be present every time actors are (with the exception of small role that might be asynchronously recorded) and sound designers will be spending at least twice as much time as that when you factor in the dialogue cut, fitting in soundscapes, music, and effects, and general mastering of the episode.

[the stretch goals should be here, at the end of the budget section, but they are instead in the FAQ so we'll touch on them there]

a note on Patreon: I do also think that for shows that also have an active Patreon/Ko-fi/other monetary support avenue, that is valuable information to provide here. if that's only bringing in $250 per month, it might not feel worth it to address it in your budget section, but I think people can get suspicious about where money you "already have" is going when you start asking for more. I did not look up their accounts to see what they are currently making, I don't think it's relevant to my judgement of what this campaign is looking to provide, BUT if you were to tell me that that was how the writers had been getting compensated for the work they already put in that would ease my concerns on that front. stuff like that is good to know and again, when you ask for this much money people are going to be weird about it, and not unreasonably so.

Let's Talk About These 3/30 and 4/1 Funding Updates

now these both answered and raised some more questions.

needless to say, that portion of it is no longer entirely necessary, but I do think that there are some valuable points pertaining to stretch goals (and the absence of them) which can provide some value to shows looking to crowdfund.

so I have kept that section in below and done a small bit of editing, but mostly unchanged from my initial thoughts on the matter.

let's start with the March update:

Hey, folks! We have some awesome news. Thanks to some additional funding which has come in, WE NOW ONLY NEED TO RAISE $6000 TO GREENLIGHT A SIX-EPISODE SEASON 3. And as of 3/30, we are very close to hitting that goal! [I accidentally deleted the image, but it was basically the same as the April updated one. The only differences were no "GREENLIGHT ACHIEVED" text, the blue label saying "MARCH 2023", and the progress bar showing that it had made it to $4125 of the $6000 target. Beneath is smaller white text that reads "Help us make Arden Season 3! $6000 raised on IndieGoGo will guarantee a six-episode season, with more episodes the more we raise!" and then beneath that the shortened url to the campaign.] WE ARE ONLY $1875 AWAY FROM GREENLIGHTING SEASON 3. Every $2000 past $6000 will add an additional episode. HELP US GET THERE TODAY!

so there is some VERY important information revealed here.

first is that they've received additional funding outside of the campaign, which honestly is great for them and somewhat needed for a goal this large.

I touched on it fairly in-depth in a now-deleted section I wrote about the lack of stretch goals, before discovering they did exist but are hidden away in the FAQ. I talked about how the high campaign goal and lack of stretch goals was likely indicative of them having been wrapped up into that $26k number, which I still think is true to an extent. I think this announcement confirms that theory, and is actually in-line with the suggestion I made in that original section to pursue that kind of financial support in addition to a lowered goal.

however, I think the lack of detail here is really not great. for one, I'm making an assumption of some kind of external support, which is not necessarily what happened in the most direct sense. there could be caveats and stipulations attached to this money that might impact whether someone would support the campaign. maybe it's a grant from an arts supporting organization, maybe they've sold the TV rights to Arden in exchange, or maybe someone has just come into a lot of money from the day job. whatever the case, more details can be provided without revealing too much, i.e. "we've partnered with a network" or "received a grant to help fund season 3 should we meet this $6k goal" or something akin to that.

transparency is a good thing, especially when it comes to mystery money and me questioning why despite that you did not lower your $26,000 goal.

further, we have no idea how much extra funding was secured, so at this point it becomes unclear what amount of the goal is "extra" and what is required for the entire season. some math can help us extrapolate based on the $2k for each additional episode number we are given.

$6,000 (6 episodes) + $2,000 x 7 episodes (based on 13 episode number from budget section) = $20,000 total

so did they secure $6,000 in funding? at this point who knows.

the second thing that this reveals is that apparently there is a version of season 3 that could work with only 6 episodes total, which is not even half of the marketed 13 episode season length they claimed to be aiming for in the actual budget section! this is a pretty massive discrepancy with no kinds of qualifiers about "we'll be able to do the story, but it will be paired down and abridged in some parts" vs "the other 7 episodes are basically filler that could be cut". I feel like I don't need to explain the difference between these two sentences and why the first is superior in every way in terms of how people view your production as a whole.

okay, third thing. the goal arguably could have been for six episodes from the start with plenty of stretch goals for adding episodes and more. now, with the additional context of our budget calculations, this brings up some significant questions.

if we are to go with the average episode cost of $2,000 that we estimated, this means that $6k on it's own is not enough to actually make 6 full episodes. however, from our earlier calculation, we estimated that they maybe received $6,000 in funding, which actually solves the potential issue of underpaying themselves for the creation of those now guaranteed 6 episodes, which is a good thing. costs are costs and don't go down just because you have less money (unfortunately for all of us living in capitalism).

without this outside funding, this brings the actual (assumed) minimum goal to $12,000. this is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the current goal (though still higher than a lot of other AD campaigns).

so yeah, quite a bit of important information here.

what this update doesn't answer at all: are minisodes still going to be made? this already feels like barely enough for the core content based on their own operating costs, so that gets called into question for me and isn't addressed.

another thing that occurs to me: are there going to be some roles that are still getting full or near full compensation? I'm mostly thinking about the graphic designer and the composer, since the extent of their episode-by-episode contributions vs the overall season isn't as clear cut as it is for actors or sound designers or even studio space costs. I'm also curious how this impacts the fact there are 3 directors involved, that's a lot of voices for as little as 6 episodes total.

and now let's look at what else was revealed by the April one, which arguably has the most off-putting and concerning sentence in the whole campaign:

Thanks to some additional funding and your donations, we have now raised enough to produce at least six episodes of Arden Season 3! Every $2000 raised from now until the end of the campaign will add an additional episode to the season. All rewards will be fulfilled. And look forward to Arden Season 3: Midsummer in New York City - coming to your earballs this fall/winter.

so. what is concerning to me is the sentence "All rewards will be fulfilled", because there is a BIG implication to how that is stated.

what this tells me is that up until this point, the backers had absolutely no guarantee of actually getting the rewards of the tier they may have chosen, despite this being a flexible campaign meaning that they would still have been giving the money in part for those rewards.

so, there are three interpretations of what this means:

if they hadn't hit $6k, season 3 wouldn't be made to any extent

honestly there's nothing to imply that this would have been the case in the campaign's wording, so I don't think this was the reality of the situation.

2. if they hadn't hit $6k, season 3 would still be made to some extent but some rewards just wouldn't be delivered

I have read through this campaign several times, and there was NEVER any implication that backers wouldn't receive the promised rewards, not at any point before this April update. and that is a big fucking problem if that was up in the air. I know we'd like to think that if someone was willing to shell out money to support a thing they will still want to without obvious rewards, but for some people we're talking about hundreds of dollars that maybe they could only justify spending for the promise of physical or otherwise unique rewards. if all it took was wanting to give support with nothing in return, people would just select to donate without a tier.

the rewards are not the point, but that doesn't mean they aren't really important to the campaign.

3. if they hadn't hit $6k, there would be refunds to some extent for backers whose rewards wouldn't be delivered

this feels unlikely considering they wouldn't have made much to begin with if we're at this point, but it is the more charitable version of the prior option.

but none of these are ideal and as far as I knew 2 days ago, none of them were even on the table! what kind of trust does that foster with your community to not have been upfront with the realities of the campaign? if they hadn't hit this point and one of these, or some unknown 4th option in which rewards wouldn't have been fulfilled as implied happened, why would I ever want to give this team money again? crowdfunding for season 4 would be basically off the table based on this.

this is what we're talking about when people say they want transparency, all of these questions brought up by these updates ARE important! it is on the Arden team to provide those answers as best they can because this is not some faceless megacorp doing behind the scenes decision-making that might trickle down to individual consumers. this is a small team that is seemingly passionate about their project and cares about fostering their community. and these are exactly the kinds of things that hurt that.

adjacent to stretch goals, a campaign having milestones is also a great way to drive engagement. and Arden does have these. on their twitter only it seems. I've heard from a lot of people (and seen it myself) that twitter is not really a great way to connect to listeners. it's a good networking tool among creators, but especially as more people leave twitter it isn't getting the reach that some people think it does. I can tell by looking at their statistics that even when a post is getting a lot of "views" (how twitter is tracking that and whether it's accurate are up for debate) it is only getting a couple of likes or retweets, or a single comment if they're lucky. I've actually seen this for a lot of AD accounts, I don't think this is an Arden problem.

BUT, that means they need to be promoting these milestones outside of this little sphere of twitter! I didn't go searching other social media, I only looked at the twitter because it came up very early in the google results, but these things should be captured ON the campaign! at time of writing, the next benchmark is at $3900, something they are only $59 away from. if I came to the campaign and saw that we were close to getting some extra content or information I would be much more inclined as a fan to immediately pledge rather than putting it off. this stuff can seal the deal and turn a scroller into a donator.

Other Ways To Help

nothing wrong with this section except that once again you should be providing links to stuff like your website and podcast feed. at least there are links to the Twitter and Tumblr accounts, with the carrot of winning prizes for paying attention to those.

FAQ

only two small sections here, but I don't think this section was utilized well generally to be honest.

all of this feels like information that should have been in the main body of the campaign. a lot of people don't even look at the FAQ because to be honest you should be using this section as a TLDR for the campaign rather than giving unique information.

When Will Season 3 Launch?

here is the reveal of a planned late summer/early fall 2023 release, information that I think would be better suited a part of the actual body of the campaign.

additionally there is mention of something known as "WheyCon" which was alluded to earlier in the campaign, but still unclear what exactly it is for the uninitiated. I assume it is a little studio event where they'll make announcements and maybe have some special stuff like a livestream. either way it is unclear and doesn't even provide a clue of where to watch for information about it.

Do you have stretch goals?

so I'm gonna be honest, I wrote this whole thing before checking the FAQ, including an entire section about why you should have stretch goals and my theory that the stretch goals were actually just rolled into the funding goal because they were fully committed to making them.

the existence of this proves me wrong.

I've salvaged what I can of it, but let's look at what is actually said here:

$27,500 - recorded version of DAY IN THE LIFE OF ANDY WHEYFACE, exclusive to donors

this $1500 above the goal is probably enough to cover this, since they probably wouldn't need as many actors or as in-depth of sound design based on the diary format.

$30,000 - special recorded Art Gallery tour with Bea and Brenda

the way that "Art Gallery" is non-specific and capitalized makes me think this is a fictional gallery within the world of Arden, but either way this is a clever use of the setting and theme of this season for something unique. I don't know how interesting it would be, but still.

at $2,500 above the prior stretch goal that probably covers the costs for something about the length of an episode, if not longer since a lot of guided art gallery tours are over an hour in length.

$35,000 - series of minisodes set behind the scenes of the Julie Capsom film

curious how many is considered a "series", but it's a logical follow-up to the prior campaign's minisode stretch goals and it's clear they enjoy making them. I think the "film" is a bit of in-universe content they've already made and is apparently popular enough for them to be interested in expanding on it.

this only being $5k more than the previous tier implies it'll be a short series (3+ episodes, much shorter length) which is probably fine enough.

$100,000 - purchase the audio drama rights to Stephen King's Under the Dome so they can say the show takes place in that universe

ngl this means nothing to me, I'm unfamiliar with that story or the potential significance of it here. but it certainly is a goal I guess, though I'm not sure this is quite how that kind of copyright stuff works.

all well and fine, but these shouldn't be here. they should be in the main section with more details. stretch goals exist as a tool to get people excited to exceed the goal, and can have an impact on how much they are willing to give extra to achieve that goal. they should be proudly advertised as part of the campaign, the same way that the donation tiers are. this is where you want people to go "wait, what might they do???", something I think the final stretch goal does actually do because of how impressive it sounds. you gotta use that temptation or it may as well not exist formally.

Closing Thoughts

Use the "Updates" Section

this is a small general note, but I found it weird that instead of using the built-in "Updates" functionality to post about the funding updates they instead just put it in the body of the campaign.

there's a couple reasons I think this is probably a mistake, the most obvious being that your supporters will get emails when you add an official update like this, but not if you just edit the campaign text. these updates could be driving your supporters back to up their pledges to help you reach your milestones. plus it keeps you on their minds so they keep posting to support you and maybe helping you gain new backers.

Funding Transparency Please

being vague about your "additional funding" just feels kinda sus, like there's a reason you don't want to share the details...

Milestones

these are a great way to drive engagement. and Arden does have these. on their twitter only it seems. I've heard from a lot of people (and seen it myself) that twitter is not really a great way to connect to listeners. it's a good networking tool among creators, but especially as more people leave twitter it isn't getting the reach that some people think it does. I can tell by looking at their statistics that even when a post is getting a lot of "views" (how twitter is tracking that and whether it's accurate are up for debate) it is only getting a couple of likes or retweets, or a single comment if they're lucky. I've actually seen this for a lot of AD accounts, I don't think this is an Arden problem.

BUT, that means they need to be promoting these milestones outside of this little sphere of twitter! I didn't go searching other social media, I only looked at the twitter because it came up very early in the google results, but these things should be captured ON the campaign! at time of writing, the next benchmark is at $3900, something they are only $59 away from. if I came to the campaign and saw that we were close to getting some extra content or information I would be much more inclined as a fan to immediately pledge rather than putting it off. this stuff can seal the deal and turn a scroller into a donator.

overall I have questions and concerns but not a horrible campaign.

it was, however, unable to convince me as a prospective donor that all this money is necessary, especially in light of the updates. I think the overall lack of transparency is concerning as a whole though.

okay that's it, I'm tired of having to look through and revise this.

best of luck to Arden on however many episodes they get to make <3

[cherokeegal1975]

Article below is what I wrote on my post on DeviantART for this game idea that I very much know isn't going to happen. I thought it might if I could find the right game developer that would be willing to work with me, but I quickly discovered that game developers do not like outside ideas, especially unsolicited ones. I can't do it myself partly because I can't afford the classes or the resources needed to get it done...and I'd probably need a team, which I'll never get. Also, I look at myself and realize that even though I'd enjoy games and probably do well in them, I write stories okay, but I don't have it in me to create challenges, different outcomes or puzzles. I'm not talented that way. Even so, it was a fun idea to think about. I look forward to putting this artwork into my art journal when I can afford to get it made.

    I created a fake game play screen shot.  I can take credit for the horse and the dragon, both the full characters and the heads, but nothing else.  The rest I found online and made use of them like stickers.  I did add the text though.  Call me lazy if you will, but I just wanted to focus on drawing my characters and sharing my concept.  The game itself will never be made, I don't even know how to do such a thing, much less have the funds to buy the programs to make them.   The closest I can come is do a kind of writing game where I say "This thing is happening, if you choose to go left, click the #1 link, if you choose to go right choose the #2 link and keep reading."  I don't see myself doing that anytime soon...if at all.  It's an idea though.     Both the horse and the dragon are based on small plastic toys that I had as a child.  The drawings look a lot better than the original toys I lost so long ago.  Anyway, the basic game idea is that it's a story based, open world, lots of side quests, puzzles, useful collectibles, possibly a bit of a sandbox thing going on in it, with more than one possible ending.  Both animals can talk, both have abilities that compliment the other.  The main focus will be on content and though it doesn't have to be G-rated, it should not be focused mainly on violence or sexual themes.     So what do you think?  I know this isn't the most action packed scene in a game I've ever seen, but use your imagination, this is only one set in a huge world map.  I haven't thought too much on the story plot or anything, only the basic concepts of what I've learned from watching game playthroughs on YouTube.  I gradually learned what kinds of games I like and this one has everything I find fun and appealing in a video game...or so I imagine.     So, tell me what you think of my idea.  I really want to know.

    Update:   (This a journal entry from a few weeks ago, I've already figured out their names and I only added this on to help fill in some detail just in case someone actually wants to take my idea seriously...which I still know is about zero.) I know why a game developer wouldn't want to take my ideas and collaborate with me, they got too many of their own already and want nothing to do with outside help.  It's a shame too, I've got some good ones and just occurred to me that my pink dragon (I can't figure out a name and Rosie won't do because I've got a cat named Rosie here and I don't like to have more than one animal named the same thing even though my dragon isn't real.  Anyone have any suggestions?  Her name was Pink-yellow-blue, but that's a stupid name my child self came up with and I've long since out grown it.) might make a great avatar for a roll playing game in an open world kind of game.   Her abilities are human speech and intelligence, omnivorous, fire breathing, excellent senses of sight, smell and hearing. Very good at digging, powerful jumps, her tail is as prehensile as a monkey's so she can carry objects with it or help her to hang on to things like tree branches.  Her scales make her tough and fire resistant, excellent climbing capabilities, a really good swimmer and her fore feet work like hands.  She can also stand up and walk for short distances on her hind legs so she can use those hands.  She's the size of a large dog, so that means she can go into smaller places the bigger species of dragons can't.  Her only disadvantage is her lack of wings since her kind never had them in the first place.  Also, males have two small horns on their noses and her kind comes in all colors and patterns, so if they show up in the game, no two would look alike.  Her best friend is a black horse with four white socks, a white mark that starts on her forehead and runs all the way down her nose, a white mane and a white tail and silver eyes, who is just a sweet an intelligent horse in spite of her unusual coloring.  (Haven't drawn the horse yet, but I will.  I had almost forgotten that horse.  It's gone too, lost it long before I lost the dragon).  My character's home environment is a enchanted forest full of giant sentient trees that can change themselves to make hollows in their bases the dragons can use as homes.  The trees can also create mischief for the unwary traveler who disrespects them by shifting positions in such a way that the movement is never seen.  This movement can create false paths and get people hopelessly lost if they aren't careful.  This tendency can also aid my character in finding places if she asks them nicely to help her and most likely they will because their relationship with the tree dragons is a friendly one.   Maybe one of the game goals is to have my dragon go on an adventure to rescue her horse friend?  The game could have puzzles included as well as helpful companions that could come along as the game progresses.  I would like the game to have the best graphics.  I did down play the details on my dragon a bit because I wanted to hurry up and finish her.  I've been doing a lot of dragons lately and I've gotten tired of drawing more scales than I can count.  So I just did contours instead and only suggested that she's a scaled dragon.  She's got little lizard like scales except for the ones on her underside and I would love it if that would show up in the game when ever the camera got close enough to see them.   Well, anyway, I am aware that my chances of collaborating a gamer are slim to none, I'm still willing to try to put the suggestion out there just in case someone would take me up on my idea.  This dragon would do great as an avatar.  Not sure of the full plot, but those details could be worked out later by the developer. Also, I think the game controls should have the option to be made to work with a mouse so people on a tight budget don't have to buy a game controller so they can play the game on a laptop.

[traegorn]

I vague posted because I didn't want it to seem like a callout, and I didn't feel like getting into a random argument with a stranger I don't follow. Like, it was the post right after my reblog. It's that normal Tumblr thing where you make a post right after your reblog to express the rest of your feelings on a topic without linking it to the original post.

This is a normal, non-hostile thing to do. Because if that post circulates, literally no one will connect it to the original subject. And it doesn't drag shit up that's already settled.

Also - I deliberately didn't respond to your follow up two days ago (that - again - you made after this post) because based on your response I felt like we were just going to get into a semantic argument about what constituted an "abandoned" project that "hasn't been updated." It seemed needlessly nitpicky, I could see where you were coming from, and I had other stuff to do.

So I let you have the last word there. And I thought we were done.

But you're here. Again. In my notes. Having hunted down a post I made prior to your response to me. Digging up an argument I'd literally dropped. Like I know I don't post a lot over the weekends, but you still had to go looking for this post.

So now we're here.

I guess apparently now we get to have the conversation where I disagree with you over the definition of a fucking word.

What we consider an abandoned project and what we don't is complicated. For spectators watching - the original OOo is fully abandoned, and both AOO and LibreOffice are forks of the original project. While it's true that AOO has lost most community support in favor of LibreOffice (and AOO lost almost all of its funding almost a decade ago), there are developers contributing to AOO (even if you could probably count them on one hand). Have I gone through the code myself? No. I'll admit that. But to describe a piece of software that literally just put out a release as fully abandoned seems inaccurate to me. Is it severely under supported for what a project like that needs? Yes. Does that constitute the project being "abandoned?" I personally don't think so.

As long as one person is plugging away, someone's keeping the lights on.

Is LibreOffice better and are you right in recommending it over AOO? Absolutely. And it is what I'd recommend people use too. It has much better support for Microsoft's current file formats, and it's what I have installed on my Macs and Linux machines.

That's it. That's where we disagree. That's what you've decided to dig up.

Also, and I want this to be clear, your choosing to respond to this post after you already got the last word on your post is fuckin' wild my dude. Like you deliberately went out of your way to re-start a fight you had publicly already won.

Great job.

I hate it when people write authoritative posts on this site without checking to make sure they're right first.

And then a big account reblogs it.

And now dumb misinformation is everywhere.

[cappymightwrite]

Jon Snow, Manfred & The Byronic Hero: Part 2

Previous Posts: PART 1

Hopefully Part 1 served as a good introduction on the topic and characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as how Jon Snow in particular is likely an iteration of this figure. But now we come to the real meat of this meta series — a closer look at Byron's dramatic poem Manfred (1816–1817), and more importantly, its titular character in comparison to Jon Snow. I was originally going to do an analysis and comparison of two key episodes in Manfred and A Storm of Swords, Jon VI, but have since decided to give that its own post... that's right kids, there will be a part 3!

(Detail from Lord Byron, Thomas Phillips, 1813)

So... why Manfred? Why not Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, or The Corsair, or Don Juan, or any other work by Lord Byron? Well, I'll tell you why, my sweet summer children. It's because of THIS:

Manfred/Manfryds and Byrons in ASOIAF, by order of first appearance and publication:

Ser Manfred Swann (ASOS, Jaime VIII)

Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Manfred Lothston (The Sworn Sword)

Manfryd o' the Black Hood (AFFC, Brienne I)

Manfryd Yew (AFFC, Jaime V)

Ser Byron the Beautiful (AFFC, Alayne II, TWOW, Alayne I)

Ser Byron Swann (ADWD, Tyrion III)

Manfryd Merlyn of Kite (ADWD, Victarion I)

Manfryd Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool (The Princess and the Queen, TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (Fire and Blood)

Like... what the hell, George?

I find this very interesting, very interesting indeed! *cough* intentional, very intentional *cough* And I have to thank @agentrouka-blog for reminding me of the existence of these Manfreds/Manfryds, and thus pointing me in this particular direction. This evidence is, for me, my smoking gun, it's why I feel justified in exploring this specific work. In my opinion, it really strongly confirms that GRRM is aware of Manfred, he is aware of its author — as a literary name, it is pretty much exclusively connected to Byron, it's like Hamlet to Shakespeare, or Heathcliff to Emily Brontë. In fact, GRRM likes it enough to use this name several times in fact, its frequency of use aided by a slight variation on its spelling.

So, as we can see, there are a striking number of Manfred/Manfryds (9!!) featured in the ASOIAF universe, whereas Byron (2) is used a bit more sparingly — perhaps because the latter, if more liberally used, would become far more recognisable as an overt literary reference? Interestingly, though, we can see a direct link between the two names as both bear the surname Swann: Ser Manfred Swann and Ser Byron Swann (note the exact spelling of Manfred here, as opposed to Manfryd). Ser Byron was alive during the Dance of Dragons and died trying to kill the dragon Syrax, whereas Ser Manfred was alive during Aegon V's reign and had a young Ser Barristan as his squire. So, in terms of ancestry, Byron came before Manfred, which makes sense since Lord Byron created the character of Manfred; he is his authorial/literary progenitor, if you will.

But why Swann, though? Is there any significance to that surname? Well, I did a little bit of digging and turned up something very interesting, at least in my opinion. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818), in its sixth stanza, the poet addresses the city of Venice... the “tempest-cleaving Swan” in the eighth line is clearly meant to be his friend and contemporary, Lord Byron, that city’s most famous expatriate:

That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee;

(st. 6, l. 8-12)

Ah ha! But let's not forget that the Swanns are also a house from the stormlands — stormlander Swanns vs. "tempest-cleaving Swan." It seems a nice little homage, doesn't it? You could also argue that the battling swans of House Swann's sigil are a possible reference to Byron's fondness for boxing (he apparently received "pugilistic tuition" at a club in Bond Street, London). But to make the references to Byron too overt would ruin the subtly, so it isn't necessary, in my opinion, for the Swanns to be completely steeped in Byronisms.

All in all, it would be very neat of GRRM if the reasoning behind Byron and Manfred Swann is because of this reference to Lord Byron by Shelley. How these names and the characters that bear them might further reference Byron and Manfred is a possible discussion for another day! It's all just very interesting, very noteworthy, and highlights how careful GRRM is at choosing the names of his characters, even very minor, seemingly insignificant ones.

(Illustration of Villa Diodati from Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron, Edward Finden, 1833)

Now onto the actual poem, and the ways in which Jon Snow could being referencing/paralleling Manfred. First things first, a bit of biographical context. Take my hand, and let's travel back in time, way back when, to 1816, the year in which Lord Byron left England forever, his reputation in tatters due to the collapse of his marriage and the rumours of an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh (plus he was hugely in debt). No doubt, most of us are familiar with the story, but in 1816 Byron travelled to Switzerland, to a villa on Lake Geneva, where he met the Shelleys and suggested that they all pass the time by writing ghost stories.

The most famous story produced by them was, of course, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) — which may have served as the partial inspiration behind Qyburn and Robert Strong! Byron himself did begin a story but soon gave it up (yesss, we love an unproductive king); it was completed, however, by his personal physician, John William Polidori, and eventually published, under Byron's name, as The Vampyre (1819). But Byron didn't completely abandon the ghost story project, as later that summer, after a visit by the Gothic novelist M. G. Lewis, he wrote his "supernatural" tragedy, Manfred (1817).*

*I've seen it dated as 1816-17, but the crucial thing to rememeber, in terms of Byron's own biography, is that unlike The Bride of Abydos, he wrote it after his departure from England... this theme of exile will come up later.

Manfred is what is called a "closet drama", so is structured much like a play, with acts and scenes, though it wouldn't have actually been intended to be performed on stage. Indeed, Lord Byron first described Manfred to his publisher as "a kind of poem in dialogue... but of a very wild—metaphysical—and inexplicable kind": "Almost all the persons—but two or three—are Spirits... the hero [is] a kind of magician who is tormented by a species of remorse—the cause of which is left half unexplained—he wanders about invoking these spirits—which appear to him—& are of no use—he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil principle in propria persona [i.e. in person]—to evocate a ghost—which appears—& gives him an ambiguous & disagreeable answer..."*

*As in Part 1, more academic references will be listed in a bibliography at the end of this post.

To sum up the narrative for you, Manfred is a nobleman living in the Bernese Alps, "tormented by a species of remorse", which is never fully explained, but is clearly connected to the death of his beloved Astarte. Through his mastery of poetic language and spell-casting, he is able to summon seven "spirits", from whom he seeks the gift of forgetfulness, but this plea cannot be granted — he cannot escape from his past. He is also prevented from escaping his mysterious guilt by taking his own life, but in the end, Manfred does die, thus defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. He therefore stands outside of societal expectations, a Romantic rebel who succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative powers he faces, ultimately choosing death over submission to the powerful spirits.

According to Lara Assaad, the character of Manfred is the "Byronic hero par excellence", as he shares its typical characteristics found in Byron's other work (as discussed in Part 1), "yet pushed to the extreme." As noted above, there is a defiance to Manfred's character, which is arguable also found in Jon. Certainly though, in all of Byron's works, the Byronic Hero appears as "a negative Romantic protagonist" to a certain extent, a being who is "filled with guilt, despair, and cosmic and social alienation," observes James B. Twitchell. I'll come back to those characteristics presently.

As noted by Assaad, "Byron scholars seem to agree on this definition of the Byronic Hero, however they focus mainly, if not exclusively, on the dynamics of guilt and remorse." Indeed, it is only in more recent years that the incest motif, as well as the influence of Byron's own biography, have been more widely discussed. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the Byronic Hero is his complex psychology. Although trauma theory only really started to flourish during the 1990s, thus providing deeper insight into the symptoms that follow a traumatic experience, it nevertheless seems, at least to Assaad, that "Byron was familiar with it well before it was first discussed by professionals and diagnosed." As we know, GRRM began writing his series, A Song of Ice and Fire, during the 1990s, and character trauma and its effects feature heavily in his work, most notably in the case of Theon Greyjoy, but also in the memory editing of Sansa Stark in terms of the infamous "Unkiss".*

*The editing, or supressing, of memories is not exclusive to Sansa, however. E.g @agentrouka-blog has theorised a possible memory edit with regards to Tyrion and his first wife Tysha.

But if we return back to that original quote, in which GRRM makes the comparison between Jon and the Byronic Hero, his following statement is also very interesting:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

As noted by @princess-in-a-tower, there is a close correspondence between Jon and Theon, with each acting as the other's foil in many respects. In fact, Theon does sort of tick off a few of the Byronic qualities I discussed last time, most notably standing apart from society, that "society" being the Starks in Winterfell, due to him essentially being a hostage. Later on, we see him develop a sense of deep misery as well due to his horrific treatment at the hands of Ramsey Snow. Like Theon, his narrative foil, Jon is also a character deeply informed by trauma (being raised a bastard), but the way they ultimately process and express that specific displacement trauma differs profoundly — Theon expresses it outwardly through his sacking of Winterfell, whereas Jon turns his trauma notably inwards.*

*Obviously, I'm not a medical professional — I'm more looking at this from a literary angle, but the articles I've read for this post do include reference to real medical definitions etc.

Previously, I observed how being "deeply jaded" and having "misery in his heart" were key characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as Jon Snow — this trauma theory is a continuation of that. Indeed, to bring it back to Manfred, Assaad goes as far as stating that the poem's titular hero "suffers from what is now widely recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)." I am purposely holding off on discussing what the origin of that trauma is, in relation to Manfred specifically, because, well... it needs a bit of forewarning before I get into it fully. Instead, let's look at the emotions it exacerabates or gives rise to, as detailed by Twitchell, and how they might be evident in Jon and his feelings regarding his bastard status.

(Jonny Lee Miller as Byron in the two part BBC series Byron, 2003)

Guilt

Does Jon suffer guilt due to him being a bastard and secretly wanting to "steal" his siblings' birthright? I'd say a strong yes:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. – ASOS, Jon XII

But I think Jon's sense of guilt also extends to the high expectations he sets for himself, his "moral superiority" in the face of his bastard status, as discussed in Part 1. He feels guilt pulling him in two different directions, in regards to Ygritte: guilt for loving her, for breaking his vows, and potentially risking a bastard, but also guilt for leaving her, for abandoning her, and potentially leaving her unprotected:

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good? – ASOS, Jon III Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the smell of her hair, the warmth of her body... and the look on her face as she slit the old man's throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when he'd left Jon's mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night's Watch. – ASOS, Jon VI "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but..." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her..."I wasn't strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with them, watch, I must not balk, I..." His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool. – ASOS, Jon VI

This guilt surrounding leaving the women/girls he cares about unprotected also extends to Arya. Yet it was his need to prove himself as something more than just a bastard, by joining the Watch, which initially prevents him from acting, and which also makes him feel guilt for being a hyprocrite:

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. – ADWD, Jon VI

I think there is a lack of reconciliation between Jon and his bastard status, between what being a bastard implies in their society: lustful, deceitful, treacherous, more "worldly" etc. Deep down, subconsciously, Jon really rebels against it. You can see that rebellion more clearly in his memories as a younger child, less inhibited:

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken. – ASOS, Jon XII

But Jon knows this truth about himself, he knows that he has "always wanted it", and that causes him so much guilt because he can't allow himself to be selfish in that regard, because to do so would confirm for him his worst fears... that he truly is a bastard in nature as well as birth — treacherous, covetous, dishonourable.

Despair

As he grows up, learning to curb his emotional outbursts from AGOT, Jon appears more and more stoic upon the surface. But beneath that, buried in his subconscious in the form of dreams, you have this undyling feeling of despair, this trauma connected to his bastard status, his partially unknown heritage:

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. – AGOT, Jon III

These recurring dreams, sometimes explicitly involving his unknown mother, sometimes not, represent a clear gap, a gaping blank in Jon's personal history and his perception of his identity:

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." [...]

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. – AGOT, Jon IV

"That always scares me", he says quite tellingly. From this key passage, in particular, we can see that Jon feels a deep rooted despair at essentially being unclaimed, unwanted... being without a solid (Stark) identity around which to draw strength and mould himself. He's afraid of being a lone wolf, because as we all know, "the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," (AGOT, Arya II).

This dream points him in the direction of the crypts — "somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to" — which actually does have the answers he seeks because that is where Lyanna Stark is buried. Yet Jon is "afraid of what might be waiting for [him]", and wants to "scream" with dispair because of the darkness. So, this need for a confirmed identity is a double edged sword, which will no doubt be further complicated when his true parentage is revealed.

Elsewhere, Jon's dreams continue to have this despairing quality to them, often involving Winterfell, the Starks, and especially Ned, which is very interesting on a psychological level:

The grey walls of Winterfell might still haunt his dreams, but Castle Black was his life now, and his brothers were Sam and Grenn and Halder and Pyp and the other cast-outs who wore the black of the Night's Watch. – AGOT, Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy. – AGOT, Jon VII

But it is never "only a dream", is it?

And when at last he did sleep, he dreamt, and that was even worse. In the dream, the corpse he fought had blue eyes, black hands, and his father's face, but he dared not tell Mormont that. – AGOT, Jon VIII

Even Jon's conscious daydreams in AGOT revolve around his dispairing search for a solid identity:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII

A lot of these early dreams occur in A Game of Thrones, probably in response to his removal from Winterfell... his self exile. But later on in the series Jon continues to have dreams that tie him to the Starks and to Winterfell, ominous and sometimes despairing too. There's honestly too many instances to list, but if you want to understand the root of Jon's existential despair... it's in his dreams.

Cosmic Alienation

Cosmic alienation, now that's an interesting one in regards to Jon, since he definitely hasn't reached this state... yet. Life and his belief in the divine (the old gods) still hold meaning for him, but then he gets murdered by his black brothers. In the show, the writers hint at some cosmic alienation through Jon stating that he saw "nothing" whilst dead, but then they take it no further and generally do a piss poor job of post-res Jon. This characteristic of Manfred coming to the fore in Jon depends on what happens in The Winds of Winter, but I don't think it is at all that far fetched to assume that Jon will return to his body with a darker, altered perception of things.

Social Alienation

In Part 1, I discussed how Jon, like Byron's heroes, could be read as a "a rebel who stands apart from society and societal expectations." On a more psychological level, we can see how this Otherness, stemming from his bastard status, deeply affects Jon and his perception of himself and the world:

Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look. "Don't you usually eat at table with your brothers?"

"Most times," Jon answered in a flat voice. "But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the royal family to seat a bastard among them." – AGOT, Jon I

In his very first chapter, we see him quite literally alienated from the rest of his siblings, made to sit apart from them, an apparent necessity he seems fairly resigned to. Also in Part 1, I gave examples of instances in which Jon is mockingly called "Lord Snow," as well as a "rebel", "turncloak", "half-wildling", all of which serve to alienate him from the rest of the brothers of the Night's Watch.

Stannis gave a curt nod. "Your father was a man of honor. He was no friend to me, but I saw his worth. Your brother was a rebel and a traitor who meant to steal half my kingdom, but no man can question his courage. What of you?" – ASOS, Jon XI

The above interaction may seem on the surface to be about one thing — whether or not Jon will be of help to Stannis, offer him loyalty etc. — but tagged onto the end we have quite a poignant question: "what of you?" What are you, essentially. Who are you? The truth of his parentage may, in part, solve these questions... but it may also serve to alienate Jon from his perception of himself further. Ultimately, who exactly he is — what he believes in, who and what he fights for, etc. — will be solely his decision to make going forward.

So, the Byronic Hero, certainly in Manfred's case, but also in later iterations, is arguably traumatised by his own past. But regardless as to whether his trauma is related to a mysterious past, a secret sin, an unnamed crime, or incest, aka "secret knowledge", what is clear in Assaad's interpretation, is that the Byronic Hero is "living with the traumatic consequences of his own past and so suffers from PTSD." But why is Manfred traumatised, what is the specific cause of this trauma, or how might it reveal something deeper about Jon's own trauma? Now, here we come to the unavoidable... I'm going to start talking about Byronic incest and the pre-canon crush/kiss theory, and how it potentially parallels certain aspects of Manfred.

I should preface this by stating that I don't think Jon is suppressing trauma because he committed intentional incest with Sansa, but I do think (or at least somewhat theorise that) Byronic incest does come into play regarding his intense feelings of guilt and existential despair.

But still, stop reading now if are opposed to discussions of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory and the literary incest motif as a whole!

(Detail from The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Édouard Fournier, 1889)

Hey there to the depraved! If you aren't already familiar with the theory, here are some previous discussions/metas on the subject:

Full Blown Meta:

A Hidden and Forbidden Love by @princess-in-a-tower

Ask Answers (Long):

Jonsa as a more positive mirror to Jaime and Cersei? by @princess-in-a-tower, with additional comment by @jonsameta

Discussing the theory by @jonsameta

Evidence for pre-canon Jonsa? by @agentrouka-blog

Kissing in the godswood? by @agentrouka-blog

Why don't we read about Jon's reaction to Sansa and Tyrion? by @agentrouka-blog

More on Jon's supposed non-reaction by @agentrouka-blog, with additional comment made by @sherlokiness

A Jonsa "Unkiss"? by @fedonciadale

A hidden memory? by @fedonciadale

Sansa's misremembering by @fedonciadale

Descriptive parallels between A Song for Lya and Jonsa by @butterflies-dragons

Ask Answers (Short) & Briefer Mentions:

Jealous Jon by @princess-in-a-tower

Your new boyfriend looks like a girl by @butterflies-dragons

Like in Part 1, I've tried to cite as much as I could find, but as always, if anyone feels like I've missed someone important or that they should be included in the above list, please just drop me a line!

Now, it's a controversial theory, and not everyone's cup of tea — I think that's worth acknowledging! I myself am not wholly married to it, I'd be fine if it wasn't the case, but that being said, I can't in good faith ignore it when considering Lord Byron and the Byronic Hero. The incest is, unfortunately, very hard to ignore, both in his work and in his personal life. It's pretty hard to ignore in Manfred, for that matter, which is why I've held off talking about it... until now!

All aboard the Manfred incest train *choo choo* !!

First stop, Act II, scene one. Oh, wait, an annoucement from your conductor... apologies everyone, I purposely neglected to mention quite a key detail. Remember "Astarte! [Manfred's] beloved!", (II, iv, 136)? Yeah... it's heavily implied that Astarte is in fact Manfred's half-sister. *shoots finger guns* Classic Byron! *facepalms*

Oh, and that's not all! Let's consider the context surrounding the writing of this work for a moment, shall we? Unlike The Bride of Abydos (1813),* Manfred was written notably after the fallout of his incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, composed whilst in a self-imposed exile. *spits out drink* Woah, woah there cowboy... what in tarnation?! EXILE?!

*As referenced in Part 1, @rose-of-red-lake has written an excellent meta on the influence of Lord Byron's work (and personal life) on Jonsa, paying special attention to the half-siblings turned cousins in The Bride of Abydos.

Although, as noted by rose-of-red-lake, The Bride of Abydos bears strong parallels to the potential romance of Jon and Sansa, as well as Byron’s own angst regarding his relationship with Augusta Leigh, the context surrounding Manfred seems... dare I say it, even more autobiographical. Because like Byron himself, Manfred wanders around the Bernese Alps, solitary and guilt ridden, in a state of exile heavily evocative of Byron's own — as I mentioned earlier, the beginnings of Manfred occured whilst Byron was staying at a villa on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland... the Bernese Alps are located in western Switzerland. In light of this, I think it's very understandable that some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. But what has that got to do with Jon?

Look, I don't know how else to put this:

Byron self-exiles in 1816, first to Switzerland, to Lake Geneva, where it is unseasonably cold and stormy — his departure from England is due to the collaspe of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, unquestionably as a result of the rumours surrounding his incestuous affair with his half-sister.

Displaced nobleman Manfred wanders the Bernese Alps, in a kind of moral exile, where "the wind / Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows / Began to glitter with the climbing moon" (III, iii, 46-48), traversing "on snows, where never human foot / Of common mortal trod" (II, iii, 4-5), surrounded by a "glassy ocean of the mountain ice" (II, iii, 7). He feels extreme, but unexplained guilt surrounding the death of his "beloved" Astarte, who is heavily implied to also be his half-sister.

In A Game of Thrones, Jon Snow chooses to join the Night's Watch, with the reminder that "once you have taken the black, there is no turning back" (AGOT, Jon VI). By taking the black, Jon arguably exiles himself from the rest of the Starks, from Winterfell, to a place that "looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice" (AGOT, Jon III). But we aren't given any indication that he does this due to incestuous feelings regarding a "radiant" half-sister, akin to Byron/Manfred, are we? And it's not like we have several Manfreds/Manfryds AND Byrons namedropped within the text, is it? Oh wait... we do. *grabs GRRM in a chokehold*

What the hell, George?!

(Lord Byron on His Deathbed, Joseph Denis Odevaere, c. 1826)

But lets get back on track here and take a closer look at that section of Manfred I mentioned at the beginning — Act II, scene one, aka the part where all the incest and supressed trauma really JUMPS out.

So, early in Act II, in the chamois hunter's abode (a chamois is a type of goat?), according Assaad's analysis, Manfred is "hyper-aroused by a cup of wine." The wine is offered in an attempt to calm Manfred; however, to the chamois hunter's great dismay, it instead agitates him and makes him utter words which are "strange" (II, i, 35). Rather than wine, Manfred sees "blood on the brim" (II, i, 25). His sudden agitation and erratic behaviour confound the chamois hunter, who observes that Manfred is losing his mind: "thy senses wander from thee" (II, i, 27). Assaad's analysis of this scene, which she believes "is the most revelatory in the entire play" discloses "a bitter truth: Manfred's traumatic past informs his present life."

We might compare this with Jon, in particular, how his dreams reveal certain bitter truths to do with his past, now subconsciously informing his present. I've already looked a bit at his crypt dream from AGOT, Jon IV, but we see a sort of recurrence of this dream again in ASOS, Jon VIII. The imagery of being in a crypt, somewhere underground, buried, in the dark, a place of ghosts and spirits, is extremely evocative. Indeed, to go back to Byron's own description of Manfred, the setting of a crypt is extremely suggestive of certain bitter truths "left half unexplained", of secrets buried... and we know that's true because the secret of Jon's parentage is hidden down there, in the form of Lyanna Stark.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark... – ASOS, Jon VIII

I don't think it's outlandish to state that, unquestionably, Jon's bastard identity is a source of ongoing pain for him. I talked about the theme of despair in Jon's characterisation and it is very evident in the above, and it stems from this "bitter truth" of not being a trueborn Stark, of not being "welcome", or having a true place. The emotions/mindset this trauma, concerning his birth and identity, evokes in Jon is arguably what brings him, on first glance, so closely in line with the Byronic Hero:

Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed / The crypts were growing darker = A mysterious past / secret sin(s)

You are no Stark / I am no Stark = Deeply jaded

There is no place for you here / I am not welcome there / This is not my place = standing apart from society and societal expectations / social alienation

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell / He walked deeper into the darkness = Moody / misery in his heart

He fell to his knees / Forgive me = Guilt

He walked deeper into the darkness / Please, Father, help me / He fell to his knees = Despair

These aren't all the Byronic characteristics I've addressed in relation to Jon, but it is a substantial percentage of them, all encapsulated, in one way or another, within this singular dream passage. As far as what is fairly explicit in the text, being a bastard is Jon's "bitter truth", it is the "traumatic past inform[ing] his present life." But what is Manfred's "bitter truth", what past trauma is informing his present? And can it reveal a bit more about another layer to Jon's trauma? Because there is a key distinction — Manfred's trauma, his PTSD, stems from a specific event, notably triggered by the (imagined) "blood on the brim" of his wine, whereas for Jon, we have no singular event, we have no momentus experience, we just have this "truth."

As mentioned previously, Assaad has recognised the character of Manfred as displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Assaad's article, she remarks that "an experience is denoted as traumatic if it completely overwhelms the individual, rendering him or her helpless," and this is quite evident in the interaction between Manfred and the chamois hunter. Sharon Stanley, an educator and clinical psychotherapist, writes that "the word trauma has been used to describe a variety of aversive, overwhelming experiences with long-term, destructive effects on individuals and communities."

So, if trauma is related to an experience, or experiences, is it still accurate to say that Jon experiences trauma, connected to being a bastard? Because there is seemingly no singular or defining root experience, or event that it stems from, it just is… it is a compellation of several moments, revealed to the reader through Jon’s memories and/or dreams. What is being "left half unexplained” here?

Assaad makes reference to the American Psychiatric Association's definition of PTSD, in which it observes that for an individual to be diagnosed with PTSD, they have to suffer from one or more intrustion symptoms, one or more avoidance symptoms, two or more negative alterations, and two or more hyperarousal symptoms. The dreams Jon has certainly suggest something, but it seems like a stretch to say that, like Manfred, he is suffering from PTSD, right? We and Jon are very much aware that he is "no Stark", at least not in the sense that he is Ned's trueborn son, this isn’t something Jon is actively suppressing. By comparison, it is incontrovertible that Manfred committed something in the past, which he deeply wishes to forget and disassociate from:

Man. I say ’tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love, And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be. C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half—maddening sin

(II, i, 28-35)

However, we cannot be sure what this traumatic point of origin is, though we know that it is related to something he has done to his beloved Astarte, which subsequently led to her death. Many critics have suggested that his sin is that of incest, and as I noted earlier, that Manfred as a whole is more than just a bit autobiographical and/or confessional in nature. Manfred's incestuous sin therefore re-enacts Byron's incest with his half-sister Augusta. But regardless of the true cause, Manfred is traumatised by his past and cannot overcome it. Is there something in Jon’s past, that may have subconsciously, or consciously, influenced his departure to the Wall — his self exile — which he cannot overcome, and which is closely tied to the issue of and pain he feels due to being a bastard, not just the illegitimacy, but also the negative characteristics it assigns? Is there an event, or experience, we can pinpoint as the origin of Jon’s trauma and potential PTSD?

To circle back to Jonsa, there is some, not unfounded, debate amongst us concerning the validity of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory. I've always found it an interesting theory, but until now, I haven't really given it too much thought. In light of the Byron connection, however, as well as the textual analysis I have for Part 3, I think this scenario, as detailed by agentrouka-blog, seems more and more likely. And I don't say that lightly, I really don't. It is a somewhat uncomfortable speculation to make, even if the interaction was more innocent rather than explicit (this is the side I firmly fall down on), however, it’s ambiguity does potentially parallel Byron’s Manfred and Astarte. This post would be even longer if I included my side-by-side text comparisons, so you may have to trust me for the moment that there are some very striking similarities between Act II, scene I of Manfred, and Jon's milk of the poppy induced dream in ASOS, Jon VI, as well as the actual buildup to that vision.

But, that sounds frankly terrible doesn't it? And it doesn't bode well for his future relationship with Sansa, does it? And what does it mean if Jon is suffering from PTSD due to an incestuous encounter with Sansa? What does that mean for Sansa, Sansa who is doggedly abused and mistreated by men within the present narrative? This is awful, why would GRRM root their romance in something traumatic? Oh I hear you, and these are questions I needed to ask myself whilst compiling this. But you see... now bear with me here... it isn't the actual encounter itself that was traumatic, for either Jon or Sansa, and that is reflected in both their POVs, because, though they think about each other sparingly (explicitly at least), it is never done so negatively. No, the potential PTSD Jon suffers from this experience isn't connected to Sansa, to whatever occured between them. Rather, I believe, it's connected to either the fear, or the reality, that Ned, his assumed father, saw and/or caught him (either Sansa had left at this point, or didn't fully grasp the issue), and this fear, this guilt, this sense of despair, is made evident in this passage:

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red. – ASOS, Jon VI

That's the traumatic experience, I believe, not the kiss — yep, I strongly suspect there was a kiss. Moreover, Jon's recurring assertion, throughout the series, that he "will not father a bastard" is tied to this in some way, it’s tied to Ned, it’s tied to some sense of guilt and shame. It’s not tied to Sansa. But we'll look at this passage, what it means, what it parallels, and what directly precedes it, in comparison to Manfred, a lot more closely next time.

I'll leave you with a slight teaser though — the parallel that made me really sit up and take notice:

C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly. Man. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?

(II, i, 21-26)

Note this imagery!!!

Maester Aemon poured it full. "Drink this."

Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not to retch it back up. – ASOS, Jon VI

In both instances, a drink is offered, with "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled". In Manfred's case, this is an explicit trigger for him, whereas for Jon? Well, it bit more hidden, a bit more buried, but this moment is, to my mind, the catalyst, because its imagery strongly evokes the colours of the weirwood tree — "blood" red and "chalky" white — you know, the "huge white weirwood" he later on envisions.

*spits out drink*

Maybe the magnitude of this parallel isn't completely evident as of yet, but it will be... or at least I hope it will be, so stay tuned for Part 3!

(Starting to run out of Byron pics so... I dunno, here's Rupert Everret, from The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron, 2009)

In Conclusion

To summarise, why is the Manfred connection so monumental to me? Why do I find the pre-canon kiss theory, specifically the scenario detailed by agentrouka-blog, now very hard to dismiss? Because:

The nine (!) Manfreds/Manfryds included within the text, as well as the two Byrons, one of which, the first mentioned in fact, first appears in Sansa's POV. But crucicially the direct link made by GRRM between Byron Swann and Manfred Swann.

The strength of the similarities that can be observed between Jon and the Byronic Hero, but also notably to Byron's Manfred, the "Byronic hero par excellence", according to Assaad. Especially the recurring emotions of guilt and despair, the latter exemplified perhaps most clearly in Jon's dreams.

The prominent theme of self-exile to escape something, something that perhaps cannot be openly stated, present in Manfred, Byron's own life, and Jon's narrative.

Those pesky half-sisters: Augusta, Astarte, and Sansa.

The PTSD symptoms clearly present in Manfred, but left "half unexplained", and seemingly not explained at all in Jon's POV — I'll dig more into this in Part 3.

The "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled" — more on that in Part 3, I hope you guys like in depth imagery analysis!

Obviously, this is all still just speculation on my part, and it's speculation in connection to a theory that is understandably controversial. I'd be happy to dismiss it... if it weren't for the above. So, I suppose I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, however you look at it, it's more trauma in an already traumatic series... which is *sighs* not what you want for the characters you care strongly about. But on the other hand, that literary connection to Manfred (and by extension to actual Lord Byron), the way it's lining up, plus that comparison GRRM himself made between Jon and the Byronic Hero... that's all very compelling and interesting to me as a reader, as a former English literature student. So, I don't want it to be true because... incest hell. But then, I also want it to be true because then it makes me feel smart for guessing correctly.

But anyway, we're going to be descending into incest hell in Part 3, so... we'll just have to grapple with that when we come to it. I hope, if you stuck with it till the incesty end, that you enjoyed this post!

Stay tuned ;)

Bibliography of Academic Sources:

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edn (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013); online edition at www.dsm5.org

Assaad, Lara, "'My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep': The Byronic Hero’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", The Byron Journal 47, no. 2 (2019): 153–163.

Byron, George Gordon Noel, Byron’s Letters and Journals. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 12 vols. London: Murray, 1973–82.

Holland, Tom, "Undead Byron", in Byromania: Portraits of the Artist in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Culture, ed. by Frances Wilson (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).

MacDonald, D. L. "Narcissism and Demonality in Byron’s 'Manfred'", Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 25, no. 2 (1992): 25–38.

Stanley, Sharon, Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma: Lifting the Burdens of the Past (London: Routledge, 2016)

Twitchell, James B., The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981).

[silverxcristal]

Saw another blog get this question so I felt like asking you the same : what fuels you to keep using Tumblr ?

I like this question

I love how raw and unhinged the website is, it is truly a hellsite (affectionated)

I joined Tumblr when I was 15, when you have that impulse to share stuff and comment about it even if it has nothing to do with what is show, say and do a lot of cringe things without noticing, when you are on that "I am 15 I have peaked in life, my whole life is determinate by this events at high-school this is who I am this is not a phase" phase

Being on Tumblr is like keep being in that phase, on that space, but now you're old enough to enjoy it

I think Is charming to reblog and scream on the tags, I like how you have to make your own dashboard by following people and you won't see anything but that and some ads and recommendations of your likes (if you have that on). I like to check the trending tags because is always fun.

This is also one of the few websites I know where I see other adults. And probably the only website where I see other adults WITHOUT being centered about nsfw. Seriously I would love for a place for adults only, without that meaning is gonna have sexual themes

I love how there is no fear to post stupid stuff, how random texts or comics will get the 10k notes, how big tumblr is fandoms don't clash, how you can find the right people to follow, and I ADORE how hard is for people to dig things up against you: likes? You can hide them, who you follow? You can hide it!, vent? You can post and make them HIDDEN so nobody without the link sees them!

I like how many users have the same mindset when it comes to OUR website, like updates or other social media bashing us, and the collective jokes and pieces of story we have. I see people edit the "fuck this post and happy birthday sonic" and put other names there, the Cursed knowledge of "three should be a show about a pansexual and an asexual living together", the vibes some users give that you just KNOW they were (are) into homestuck, the mention of children hospitals in posts that resemble blood, the fear or see a reblog that is the same picture of the original one and you KNOW HE IS SOMEWHERE

Cancel culture here also got super chill after the 2018 nsfw ban, like... all the constant bigotry and attempts to dig somebody who just got popular's past so they don't get that recognition, alongside the anonhate is gone or heavily dismissed

Also tumblr has Asks and no other website can do them right

I would ramble more but I'm at work and my arm hurts for do much typing and work

I know tumblr is very unfriendly with artist or at least me, shadowbannjng and hidding my high effort art from the tags. I'll never peak or grow here the way I know I can (or what to believe I can)

But I like it here

[purplellamanator]

Sorry for the delay! This is the first part of my contribution for @shinranweek The above link is to read the story on AO3 or if you prefer to read off of fanfic, just click here! Of course since this is a tumblr event, the chapter will be posted below the cut. I originally wanted this posted for day 1 for first meetings but unfortunately life got in the way. Just a little insight though, this is heavily inspired by movie 20 The Darkest Nightmare. This is not completed though and I'll post the next part later. Sorry if it seems rushed and thanks to @shinranweek for hosting the event! Loved all the shinran content this week!

Amnesia Part I

Her head. . . . It was pounding so hard she thought it'd implode in on itself.

She clutched at the source with one hand and continued walking forward blindly. Everything she did was blindly. Where she was going, where she came from, why her head hurt. . . who she was; it was all lost to her. And she kept moving forward.

Where was she anyways? Glancing around cautiously, her hand still pressed to her head and now as a slight shield from the blistering sun, she tried to discern her surroundings. It was hard though. Her head was pounding and she could barely think. There was so much noise going on around her to add to that and- she was going to pass out.

Eyes landing on a bench, the woman stumbled hurriedly to the wooden chair before collapsing on it. She felt slightly better now that she was off her feet but not by much. It did allow her to actually see through the fog that was clouding her already injured mind and she lost the need to hold herself together.

Laughing and talking; there was a lot of that. There were families milling about, smiling and chattering excitedly. Obviously she was in a family park of sorts . . . but what had brought her here? Was she here with her family? If so, where were they?

Eyes moving around slowly before seeing a massive ferris wheel in the distance, she felt a semblance of knowledge itch at the corners of her mind. Something was familiar. . Something was familiar about that wheel. .

Had that been why-?

She jerked suddenly when she realized she wasn't sitting alone anymore. Looking beside her, it was a man, not that old at all and maybe in his younger twenties. The surprise wasn't what made her jump though. He was- had he been smelling her?

Even after she jumped away and stared at him as if he lost his mind, the man continued to sniff at her as if he were some sort of dog.

Finally, she cleared her throat. "Um . . . " She wanted to cringe at how awkward the one sound had been. What do you say when one human being sniffs . . another. . ?

And if possible, the man leaned back against the bench completely nonchalant. As if he hadn't just been smelling her . . .

"Gasoline."

His voice had come so abruptly and her eyes blinked in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Gasoline," the man repeated, a satisfied look in his blue eyes. "You smell very strongly of it."

Did she really? The woman raised her arm to her face and sniffed, brows furrowing when she discovered that he was right. The odd stranger was correct and she did smell very strongly of gasoline.

"Are you okay?" He asks when she was still trying to figure why she would smelled like she took a bath in a gas station.

Her eyes flit to his. "I- I think so."

The stranger's brows lifted curiously. She didn't blame him for looking so confused. How could she not know if she were alright? He didn't question her response though and instead said, "You don't look okay. You look and smell like you've been in an explosion." She was sure that was meant to sound like a joke but the possibility that that very well could be true reflected in his gaze; a hint of seriousness.

But for the first time, and only because this stranger pointed it out to her, she was actually taking in her appearance. Clothes disheveled and dirtied, hair tangled and a welt on her head; safe to say she looked and felt like she'd been through an explosion or two.

"Forgive me for cornering you like this but you appeared distressed," he apologized but somehow he didn't sound very sorry at all. "I just saw you stumbling around in those heels and I thought you'd pass out until you collapsed on this bench. Were you coming from work?"

"Work?" The woman mumbled to herself and again took notice of the gray pencil skirt and the white button-up blouse she wore. Where did she work? Did she even work? She could feel the headache coming back again. Or maybe it had never gone away and she had been able to forget about it momentarily. "I don't know," she finally said in a slow realization and his eyes widened even more.

"Do you know your name?"

Do you know your name?

The voice that resounded after his wasn't hers and she heard it only in her mind. A memory- but from what she didn't know. She had been asked that before but she couldn't remember when or why. For some reason, it made her head throb from trying to remember. "My name. . . ?" She was staring hard at the concrete before her on the ground as she continuously ran that question through her head.

"Can you remember?"

She could hear him right beside her- practically feel him leaning towards her when she didn't respond right away. But for some reason it felt like he was muffled and suddenly the man was miles away and she was stuck in her head. "What's my name. .?" So many thoughts rushed at her in that moment and she raised a hand to her welt to try to soothe the pain radiating from it. But it wasn't soothing it; it wasn't making it better and soon both hands were clutching her head as she attempted to recall something that should've been so simple. "My name?" she repeated again and now her breaths were coming out panicked.

Why couldn't she remember her name? It was hers and she couldn't say it?

"Hey!" She could barely feel a firm hand splay across her back as if to comfort her. "Breathe. I'll call an ambulance and we'll-"

"No!" She jerked away from him roughly and attempted to come to a stand. Her legs wobbled and she could barely make a decision between holding her head together or balancing on her own two feet. Something about his statement had her body reacting automatically though and she just knew she couldn't go to a hospital. Why? She didn't understand that yet but her instincts were telling her no and as of now, her instincts were all she had.

The man rose too and moved slowly towards her as if approaching a scared animal. "We'll get you help. We'll find where you came from," he tried again and went to help her stand.

Where I came from. . to take me back. . . ? Back to-

Nails digging into her head as the pain became intense, she stumbled away each time he moved closer. "No," she shook her head and it became apparent to her that tears were streaming down her cheeks from the pain. "I- I can't-!"

Couldn't what? Go to the hospital? Go back to some unknown place that her body was rejecting? It was all too much.

And suddenly startling them both and everybody in the vicinity, she began screaming from the pain as something tried to force its way to the forefront of her mind. It couldn't though and it was just so much pain and she couldn't stop yelling and before she knew it she was falling and falling.

Heavy lids blinking open a few times to adjust to the brightness, she felt weird. Her head was sore but that was a given. But she didn't feel herself as if she were a mind in someone else's body. That's what she really was in that moment considering she couldn't recall something so simple as her own name.

Her mouth felt dry and her eyes tight as she took in her surroundings. She was in a bed- a hospital room and hooked up to some IV that was probably full of saline. Something else she became apparent to was the fact she was all alone. No one else was in the room with her.

So why was the first thought to strike her was to sneak out that far window? It was like an unconscious reaction that she shouldn't be there in that room; that she had somewhere else she needed to be and that she knew deep down she was never to be in a hospital.

But why?

Thankfully, the woman didn't get the chance to act out her idea because in the next second the door was creaking open slowly and a head was peeking in. It was the stranger- the man from before. And when he saw that she was awake and sitting up in her bed, a grin cracked across his face.

"I'm glad you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Honestly, she felt terrible. "Better," she said instead. At least she could actually remember what happened before she landed herself here.

"Remember anything?"

She gave him a curious glance. "I remember my head hurting and passing out while we were talking." That was it and he understood fully what she meant. She still couldn't remember her name or anything else before they met.

He must've saw the way her eyes slowly slid around the room uneasily. "I took you to a friend. We're not in a hospital."

Those words really did bring a certain amount of relief for her. Though she still had this mild feeling of wanting to jump out the window, it felt like a weight had lifted off her.

Stepping further into the room, he took the seat beside her bed and she wondered if he had really been here the entire time waiting for her to wake up. "We'll figure it out soon enough. A detective is waiting to speak with you when you're ready."

Detective? Her insides clenched and that again was another red flag. She didn't want to speak with a detective. Swallowing away her body's natural panic, she attempted to pay it off. "Y-you called the police?" She wasn't fooling this man though and she briefly wondered how he could read her emotions so easily.

"Let's just say they're my friends as well," he gave a small but relaxed grin.

Other than for the heaviness of her head, she really felt better now. If he was telling the truth then he had saved her from having to worry about any legal consequences or actions. "Who are you?" He hadn't told her after all. He had been too busy . . smelling her and asking for her name. But he had helped her as well it would seem. Such an unusual person. . .

His blue eyes widened as if he just realized he never told her that. It seemed unlike him but his cheeks actually tinted a slight pink. "I can't believe I didn't even tell you my name," he scratched the back of his brown hair awkwardly and she could hear the unspoken apology in his tone. "I'm Kudou Shinichi." He said it so proudly and matter of fact that the woman was taking back her earlier accusation. He wasn't awkward because he had forgot to mention his name. He was just used to people already knowing it and since she didn't she hoped that didn't take him down a notch. After all, she couldn't even recall her own so why would she remember his?

Kudou Shinichi.

But then again, maybe she did. There was some sort of recognition that came with the name.

Again, that awakened a voice within her but this time she didn't push the fact. Last time she had given herself a migraine and she thought her brain would explode.

"Thank you then, Kudou-san," she said sincerely. "I'm sorry for any trouble this has caused you."

"Not at all," he waved her off. "I'm a de-."

A firm knock resounded around the room before the door creaked open slightly again. Only this time it was someone the woman did not recognize. Based off their clothes though, she was able to determine it was one of her nurses.

She was proven correct when the woman clad in her scrubs turned to another and said, "She's awake but the doctor doesn't want you questioning her long. We're still examining the severity of her brain damage and she doesn't need any stress." And then the door was held open farther so a couple could enter; one man and one woman.

She determined these were the detectives Kudou-san had warned her about. Instantly, she was on guard but she couldn't tell what was to blame. Her body seemed to do it unconsciously and she knew she couldn't speak freely with them. Why would it matter though? She couldn't remember anything not to speak freely with them. And Kudou-san had also said that they were there as his 'friends'.

As they stepped closer and she tensed even more, Kudou-san stood up in what seemed respect to greet the other two. Soon he was moving aside granting them full access to her bedside and she felt her chest cinch up nervously.

Her gaze instantly appraised the woman. She held a certain air of authority that demanded it. She seemed to be in her thirties maybe, the injured girl couldn't tell. But through her stern features she seemed kind enough so far. The man appeared much more at ease than her. She didn't want to mistake it for timidness but she could tell who was the boss in this partnership. Or better yet, who bad cop good cop was.

The woman was the first one to address her proving her theory even more. "I'm Detective Sato and this is my partner Detective Takagi." She paused to give her a chance to speak but all she could do was nod her head respectfully. It wasn't like she could respond with her own name.

"Kudou-kun suspects you've been in an accident of some kind. Not only would we like to find and hold whoever is accountable, our goal is also to identify whom you are."

"I don't think I'll be much help," she admitted apologetically. "I don't remember anything before meeting this stranger." Her eyes flit to the brown haired man that stood to the side.

The woman nodded her head as if she already knew this. "After what Kudou-kun described earlier today and what the doctor explained, I don't expect you to remember anything. So I'll ask you a few basic questions and if you can't answer them, that's okay."

She wasn't too sure that was a good idea. After the pain from last time. . .

The two detectives must've noticed the uneasiness on her features and Detective Takagi actually spoke up. "We don't want to further your condition. Don't push yourself."

Detective Sato nodded before clearing her throat. "It is to my understanding that you don't remember your name so I won't bother asking you about that. Instead, I'd like to know the first thing you do remember."

She swallowed uneasily as she watched the detectives before her. The woman couldn't really understand why but their presence bothered her a great deal. To forget about that, she tried focusing on the question. The very first thing she could remember . . .

"I-I was in an alleyway," she revealed. "My head hurt badly and I didn't know what was going. I could barely stand."

"Can you recall where this alleyway was?"

She shook her head slowly. "I hadn't stuck around for long." Her tone seemed curious about her actions; or maybe perturbed as to why she hadn't. It was something deep down inside of her that told her she had to keep moving.

"Why did you go to that park specifically? Why not the police?"

The ferris wheel.

The answer surfaced swiftly and assuredly through her thoughts. She didn't know why she went there just for the ferris wheel but the fact she knew even that much was something. Yet. . she didn't tell them.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "It felt safer and just calm. I wasn't thinking to go to the police." Of course she left out that she couldn't go to a police department. But she could just use the excuse of confusion until she knew what was going on with her. To be fair, she really was confused.

Detective Sato nodded before pulling a card from her pocket. "I didn't expect you to know much and you are on bed rest so I'll end this here." Handing the card to her, the injured girl looked at it curiously. "That's my number. If you remember anything about yourself or the accident, call me."

She nodded again and her cheeks tinted a slight pink. That's all she's done for the past few hours. How embarrassing it was that she couldn't even think to hold a conversation. "T-thank you," she choked out but it sounded completely forced and her grin appeared as a grimace. And either they didn't notice or they just didn't feel like making her even more uncomfortable because the detectives bowed their heads respectfully before exiting.

Not giving her a chance to relax, the door opened again and now what she assumed was her doctor entered. She watched the man even more uneasily. For some reason the doctor bothered her more than the detectives. The man didn't seem too bad. A normal middle aged man dressed in his medical coat and carrying a clip board; there was nothing particularly daunting about him but something . . frightened her.

She started sweating. Her heart beating furiously could be heard on the monitor and she felt her cheeks enflame even more.

"Looks like someone's afraid of the doctor's office," he joked with a warm smile and a wink. "I'm Doctor Araide. I've been looking after you since Kudou-san brought you in."

That didn't put her at ease at all and she swallowed through her dry throat. Forcing herself to breathe evenly, the beeps from the monitor slowly went back to normal. She was thankful the doctor hadn't made too much of a big deal over it but Kudou-san was actually looking at her with a calculating frown. All she could do was try to convince her brain that it was alright. They weren't really in a hospital and that she needed to calm down.

"Well," he went to sit on the chair beside her and she tensed up some more. He didn't point it out this time thankfully and continued with," I have some bad news and some good news."

"What's the bad?" she took the initiative to ask. She'd rather get that out of the way first.

Doctor Araide sighed before shaking his head. "We ran prints and DNA through our systems and through the police department's records as well to see if we could pin you with a name. You're not in any of the systems and no one has reported a missing persons case." Seeing the disheartened look on his features he said, "Don't worry. That could mean many things. You just might not be around from this part of Japan and thankfully you don't have a record to warrant the police's attention."

She nodded slowly, trying to focus on the positive side. It was hard though when she was so confused. She literally had nothing. Not even memories.

"Now for the slightly better news. . . " And for this he actually looked at his clipboard and flipped back a few pages. "I'd still like to do a few more brain scans just to make sure your condition hasn't worsened but it appears to be psychogenic amnesia."

"P-psychogenic. . . ?"

"Retrograde amnesia," he corrected for her in simpler terms. "It's a form of memory loss that can follow a physically or emotionally traumatic event. Luckily, I believe yours isn't too severe."

"So. . . I won't keep passing out?" she asked hopefully from her bed. It hadn't been a very nice feeling from what she could remember and waking up hadn't been any easier either.

Doctor Araide sighed as if he didn't want to make her any promises. He probably couldn't and instead said, "I think that was your body reacting to a memory that . . . psychologically," he finally settled on that word, "you wanted to avoid."

"Basically. . . I don't want to remember." The injured woman nodded but could feeling the beginnings of a headache; only this time it was different. Instead of just straight and abrupt pain this one seemed to stem from stress and disappointment. What had happened to her so bad in her life that she didn't want to remember any of it?

"Not necessarily," the doctor said anxiously. He must've saw what her own statement meant for her. "It was only a theory. What's more important is there was no physical damage to the brain. Cases like these- I don't want to give false hope, but typically my patients that have experienced something similar, all regained some form of memory to their life before their accident."

Though he basically told her not to get too excited, her heart grew brighter. Maybe she wouldn't be a nobody forever and like he said, at least there was no serious damage. "Is there anything I can do that will hasten the process?" The woman didn't want to lose her calm façade in front of the doctor but it was hard to hide it in her voice.

And like a doctor would, he detected it easily. "You're still on bed rest," he warned. "Besides the amnesia, you suffered some major bruising to your ribs and abrasions to your face."

Her eyes widened. She hadn't even noticed. Had she been walking around with bruised ribs all this time? It was hard to believe but maybe whatever accident she had been in numbed her.

"I-" She cut herself off nervously. She didn't want to stay here. Doctors were meant to help people; she knew that deep down. But a certain fear deep inside of her chest- she couldn't deal with that here and surrounded by it. "I don't want to stay here."

And just like that, both the doctor's and Kudou-san's eyes were flitting towards her incredulously.

"I don't think you understand the severity of your condition," Doctor Araide started. "Your wounds are ones fitting of a car accident. You are in no state to be living on your own. And legally, I cannot let you leave on your own."

She wasn't legally a patient here. She was sure of it from Kudou-san's words and she wasn't about to stay here longer than she had to. She didn't want to be here and as far as she was concerned, she didn't have to be. She tried to be nice and let them have their questioning and their tests. Now she wanted to leave. She was fine just on her own until that stranger started smelling her. She wished she jumped out that window when she had the chance.

"Any more stress could damage your chances of gaining anything from your past."

That had her pausing her retort, biting her lip in contemplation. She didn't want to stay here. This wasn't comfortable for her. In fact, it frightened her quite a bit and what was even worse- she didn't know why.

Seeing that she wasn't too fond of this place but also realizing she understood her condition, the stranger from before spoke up again only this time addressing the doctor. "She can stay with me."

The doctor was staring at her now, a frown on his face before turning that disapproving stare on Kudou-san. "It was already wrong of me not to send this woman to a hospital let alone to not call the police. How can you ask me to let her leave?"

"She'll stay at my house. I have more than enough room and I'll watch over her," he replied easily while giving her wary sideways glances. It looked like he was worried she was going to just jump and leave herself without listening to what they had to say.

It was tempting.

"I'll let you leave tomorrow morning if you stay the night," was the doctor's final offer. Either that or he would more than likely inform the law enforcement. She didn't want to risk getting any of them in trouble for hiding this for her.

Lips pursed uncomfortably, she nodded her head once. "And then I can leave?"

"Like I said earlier, I want to run a few more brain scans and make sure there's no lasting damage through the night. After that, I am letting you leave with Kudou-san to be in his care." Doctor Araide put extra emphasis so she knew she would not be leaving alone.

True to his word though, the next morning she and Kudou-san were filling out documents. The entire time Doctor Araide was standing over her- prattling her to stay. After the restless night she had however, that wouldn't be happening. It was like she was about to crawl out of her skin. She didn't feel safe.

"Ma'am," the doctor turned to face her. "I really do not recommend this." It was a last ditch effort really. The hours long process was finally over and Kudou-san was pulling his car around as she waited.

"I know. Thank you for all you've done," she bowed. If it hadn't been for the fact that this was his practice and they had in fact taken her to a hospital, she knew this wouldn't have gone done as smoothly as it did.

Doctor Araide sighed disappointedly. "Please come back if you experience any pain or illness. You have a head injury and that could make appearances as nausea, soreness- anything." And he too was handing her a card and she couldn't believe she was receiving a second one. "This is my work number. It's always on and do not hesitate to call. Kudou-kun has my number as well."

After a few more departing words on the doctor's part on how she needed to be careful, she was waiting in the passenger seat as Kudou-san talked privately with him. She didn't pay it any mind and figured the man had finally given up on trying to convince her to stay there. Instead, he must be giving Kudou-san explicit instructions as he had done prior with her.

She jumped when the door opened and he slid into the driver's seat. Not realizing he was done talking, the girl noticed the doctor was long gone and not even standing on the porch any longer.

"So," he began as he buckled his seatbelt. "Is there anything you'd like me to call you?"

His question actually threw her. She just assumed she'd be left a no-name until she either remembered or those two detectives identified her- whichever came first. The woman thought about it though before shaking her head. Thinking about it gave her a headache and she honestly didn't know what she'd like to be called. Her real name definitely but at the moment that wasn't a possibility. Then to make it even harder, she knew nothing about herself to conjure up some nickname.

Kudou-san waved her off. "We'll figure something out," he said reassuringly. "Let's get you settled in first."

"Where are we?" she piqued curiously. Somehow her brain had retained the information that she was indeed Japanese and still in Japan. Why it didn't know anything else she'd never figure out.

"I live in Beika."

All she could do was nod again. Nothing seemed familiar about the area or name. A little bit of her hope diminished with that but she wouldn't get too discouraged yet. The doctor had hinted that this loss was more than likely temporarily until her mind could come to grips with what happened.

For some reason, when she was informed that she'd be staying with this Kudou Shinichi, she had pictured an apartment. Maybe a two bedroom flat in the city. What their car pulled up to however, she was practically pressed to the window in amazement.

It was a mansion- and no, she was not exaggerating. The house was huge and gated in and everything. Again she had to ask, "Who are you?" Not just anybody could afford a place like this. He had to be somebody important.

He looked at her surprised as he walked up to the gate and pulled it open. It was already unlocked apparently. "I already told you." When he saw she was still looking up in awe at the place that would be her home for at least the next few days, he sighed. "My mother is an actress and my father is an author. They left me the place to live in the States."

Glancing at him, she had a brief moment to wonder if that's why she recognized his name. The fact he had famous parents was more than explanation enough. She was curious to just who his parents were now but he seemed uncomfortable on the topic so she respectfully didn't push it. Instead she said, "Is it just you here?" She was curious. He looked to be in his early twenties and he wasn't bad looking at all. Maybe he had a wife or girlfriend.

"Well now there's you," he pointed out.

Blinking, she was a little flabbergasted that he owned this mansion all to himself. "You live here alone?" Still staring at the hard iron gates blocking the entry way, she felt a sort of cold sensation overcome her. How could someone live in such a big building all by themselves? She knew already that she wouldn't want to and she didn't even know who she was.

Kudou-san took a moment to pause and look at her as if she needed to pay attention. "No. Now, you live here too."

She actually took a moment to glare at his retreating back. The woman wasn't able to tell he was joking until he turned and gave her a small smirk. It was hard to stay irritated when someone smiled at you like that. And the fact he kept this entire thing a secret also helped but she didn't really want to bring that up anymore. Instead, she wanted to focus on getting to know the new place she'd be staying at for however long he chose to deal with her.

After he shut the gate behind them and resumed strolling down the pathway, her gaze raked across the front entrance and the surrounding yard. There was grass and it was green and there was indeed paint on the shutters and front door, but something disturbed her about the scene. She couldn't explain it well but it all just seemed so . . . dead. The front area near the front windows was completely bare where it appeared a garden may of been there quite some time ago. Actually entering the house and into the foyer, the shoe cubby was empty except for one pair. And eyes scanning the barren walls and the way their voices echoed around the spacious house- it was empty.

And there she had the answers to her own curious questions. There was no wife. There was no girlfriend. And based off the shoe rack, there wasn't even any guests. Did he really live here. . ? A hollow feeling ironically filled her heart. She couldn't explain it but she had the weird urge to open the shades and start cleaning. Not that it was messy or anything. It was clean- too clean if possible.

Kudou-san didn't notice the way she scrutinized the building as she followed him up the stairs. If he did, he didn't say anything about it and she walked quietly in his slippers. She assumed they were his considering they were the only pair by the door and he was forced to walk around in his socks. He must not receive many visitors.

"You can stay in here," he said as he opened one of the many doors in the upstairs hallway. "Since I only really had the night to prepare, it's not much. We can go out and buy you some clothes and stuff tomorrow though if you're up to it." It came out unsurely and when she glanced back at him he was scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

The woman shook her head with a small grin. "This is fine. Thank you for allowing me to stay." She was still curious as to why he did it. He had no clue who she was and neither did she. She had absolutely no memory of her prior life and some possible health issues. If she was asked, she'd say she was more trouble than it was worth.

"I have a neighbor that is about your size. She lent me some clothes for you to use- if you don't mind them of course," he corrected quickly.

Eyes a bit wide from the fact he actually thought she'd care about having to borrow clothes, she shook her head again. "I am very thankful for her offer and would be more than happy to get out of these." She had been wearing the same clothes she woke up in the first day with Doctor Araide. He had given her a pair of hospital pants and a white t-shirt.

"I have your original clothes in the wash." He had a thumb pointing behind him in the direction she assumed was the laundry room.

All she could do was bob her head in acknowledgement. In a way, she was thankful. Those clothes were her only grasp on where she had come from. On the other hand, they sort of felt detached. She couldn't remember anything about them so they almost held no meaning to her. She just wished she could remember something.

"Is your head hurting?"

She almost wondered why he would be asking her that but then she took notice to the frown she had on her features. The girl hadn't even realized she'd been doing it. Straightening her features, she fixed her lips upward into a small grin. "Not at all."

Kudou-san had been in the process of saying something when the grand doorbell resounded around the massive home. A confused scrunch of his brows showed he wasn't expecting any visitors today. "Excuse me," he nodded his head at her before turning to go. "Go ahead and settle in."

Back facing her, the man wasn't able to see the puzzled and incredulous look she bore. Settle? Settle what. Turn down her sheets to go to bed? She had nothing. There was nothing to settle. Not saying anything though, she decided to just follow him. It might be those two detectives with a lead.

"I told you not on the first day," he came Kudou-san's disapproving tone. He didn't sound angry but there was hint of scolding in his tone and she wondered who was on the receiving end. "She just got back from the doctor's and she needs to rest today." He was glancing down, almost bent over at the waist to talk down. Now she was curious.

"I just wanted to give her these!" came a cheerful voice if she'd ever heard one.

Making her way further down the steps, she noticed the way Kudou-san gripped the door open enough for him to speak. Hoping it wasn't too forward of her, she pried the door open further. It was obvious they were talking about her anyway and she didn't feel like resting much.

Shocked at first, it was enough to catch him off guard and the door opened further. Eyes looking forward, her eyes had to flit down when she realized once again, it was a small child; a little girl. Her hair was dark and cut short, a headband with a bow on her head. All in all, she looked adorable and the woman felt a wide smile tug at her features.

Practically shoving the man out of the way- or even forgetting he was there, she came to a kneeling position. "What did you want to give me?" she asked softly at the child's wide eyes. She wasn't sure but she hoped her sudden appearance hadn't frightened the girl. She really was tiny and she had to wonder how old she was. Maybe seven, if she had to guess?

The small girl's cheeks turned a flustered pink as she hid her hands behind her, an embarrassed look as she glanced at her feet. "I can come back tomorrow. Shinichi-oniisan says you need to rest."

Unlike with Kudou-san, she was being shy. It was no surprise considering she had no clue who she was.

The woman made to appear as if she were thinking. "Well, we can tell Shinichi-oniisan that the sun's still up," she replied with a sideways glance in his direction and she almost laughed. That got the little girl looking up at her again she felt her heart warm as a small giggle escaped her.

"What's your name?"

Now a bit more at ease she excitedly said, "Yoshida Ayumi!"

"That's really pretty," she complimented and if possible, the pink on the small child's cheeks got pinker.

"My parents named me after my grandmother. It means to step or. . to walk your. . " She kept stuttering and cutting herself off as she thought really hard to remember.

The woman wasn't really sure where the burst of knowledge came from but she paused the struggling verbal thoughts of the girl. "To walk your own way," she corrected.

Ayumi gasped happily. "Yes! That's it!" She giggled herself when the girl bobbed her head excitedly.

"Here you go, Onee-chan!"

The woman had to blink at the sudden appearance of flowers in her face. When she realized this must've been what the girl was hiding behind her back, she smiled before grabbing the stem from the child's hand. They were orchids and they were almost a violet color. Where had she pulled this from?

Eyes moving back to Ayumi-chan's, she smiled wider. "Thank you. It's really pretty."

Ayumi-chan pointed at the woman's face. She had to blink again from the sudden closeness. "Just like your eyes!"

Her eyes? The woman hadn't really paid that any mind. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't even looked in a mirror yet. Surprisingly she hadn't thought to do so. Most of her time had spent in a doctor's office. It would be like staring at a stranger anyway.

"My eyes?" She still repeated as she stared into space. How could she not know the color of her own two eyes? She felt her head start to ache.

Ayumi-chan nodded surely. "Say. . . what's your name?" It must've just hit her that she wasn't aware who she was talking to. Truthfully, the woman had forgot herself too. So used to being a noname for the past two days, she didn't think to introduce herself.

"Um. . . "

Kudou-san saw her unease and appeared ready to turn this conversation around. Ayumi was way ahead of him however.

"I'll bet your name is Ran- like the orchid!" she chirped excitedly as she pointed at the flower that she still held in her hand.

Ran? Was that her name? There was nothing there; nothing familiar about the title. But as she twisted the violet orchid in her grasp, and turned the name over and over in her thoughts, she felt a slow smile return to her face. It did have a pretty ring to it.

Kudou-san looked fully prepared to scold her. He didn't want the woman to have another meltdown from trying to force a memory. "Ayumi-chan-!"

But she interrupted him. "How did you know?"

And the man had to take a second to wonder if she really remembered and that was indeed her name. But based off the humorous twist to her lips, he could tell it was mostly to amuse the small girl. If it really was her name, she didn't know but she didn't appear to be about to argue it.

"I knew it," Ayumi-chan gasped happily. "It's because of your pretty eyes!"

"Ayumi!"

All three heads shot up to glance just before the Kudou manor gates. There were two boys that appeared to be the same age as the small girl and she figured they must be classmates.

"Oh! That's Genta-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun. I'm supposed to be working on school work with them." With that she practically skipped down the front entrance steps towards the two boys. "Bye Shinichi-onii-san! Bye Ran-nee-chan!"

Little girl long gone and now back Kudou-san glanced at her. "That was nice of you."

The woman was still sitting on the couch, violet orchid in her hand as she twirled the stem. "It's not like I had a name to begin with," she shrugged. She couldn't hide the warm feeling she felt though. For once, that she could remember, someone had given meaning to something in her life. Even if it was because of chance that her eyes happened to be the same color of that particular orchid. She had a name with a meaning. She had a meaning.

Her eyes slid over to Kudou-san whom hovered in the doorway. His own gaze shot to the floor and she couldn't really tell but it seemed like his cheeks gained a tint of color. Had he been watching her?

He cleared his throat. "I could get a small vase for that," he suggested looking up at her finally. "Did you want one, Ra-?"

He cut himself off abruptly and this time she was positive he turned red.

She wasn't at all offended by his forwardness. In fact, she felt better knowing that he now had a name for her. She wasn't nameless. He probably felt uncomfortable or rude calling her some child's nickname. "I have something else in mind . . and," glancing briefly at the flower again and back to him, a small grin twisted her lips. "You can call me Ran."

[bringingglory]

@eerna oh my god acshdgagaahhdvsahsv I never expected you to see my post, so I won't lie, I feel like super embarrassed acsgsga

anyway! not gonna lie, this wip has been sitting in my drafts for months now because I wanted to see if I could plan stuff but then I got stuck because Details are hard to figure out BUT I did write out a few scenes, so I'll put them below the cut because they're kind of long. the first one is the "opening" of the fic and the second one is a sort of reimagining of the Silent Princess memory. i have a few other scenes sort of scribbled out, but these are the most "polished" of the stuff i've written alsdkfjasdfk

the opening lol

Link wakes to a faint buzzing in his ear that sends little darts of pain shooting through his skull. He waits for it to end, and when it doesn’t he groans and rolls over, smacking the space around him to find whatever was making that noise and make it shut up. He can’t fathom why his brain is rolling through his skull like that and why there’s an intense pressure behind his eyes, but when he rolls onto his side, he has to press a hand to his abdomen to settle whatever was sloshing around inside his stomach.

Ah. He’s hungover.

Link peels open his eyes and the light sends a fresh wave of pain ricocheting through his skull. He blinks once, twice, and then forces his eyes open to find a phone the size vibrating against the ground a few inches away from his hand.

Link groans and pushes himself up to a sitting position before grabbing the phone and dismissing the alarm. When the phone falls silent in his hands, he finally looks around and tries to assess the situation.

He’s sitting in a bathtub, the porcelain slightly damp from what he hopes is just water. His shirt smells vaguely of cheap vodka and he still can barely look at the sunlight streaming through the window without wincing.

A moment later, he realizes the phone in his hands isn’t his.

Link holds the phone up to his face and rubs the grogginess from his eyes. He swipes up on the screen, surprised that it isn’t protected by a password.

The phone is open on note in the notes app, and it reads:

link, if you’re reading this right now, im so sorry for leaving you in the tub like that!!! my dad’s supposed to come home from the office today and the document case i was telling you about is missing and he cant know i lost it. i know we just started getting along, and im so sorry to ask you this, but could you find the document case? impa’s in my contacts and she can help you. also you have permission to dig through my phone, just dont judge me if i have anything embarrassing on there. can you find the file by midnight? his flight leaves at 3 and i can stall him until then.

it’s 6:11 right now so i have to run before he gets back, but please hurry! i’ll be waiting for you

-zelda

Link blinks and turns the phone off.

Last night? What happened last night? Why can’t he remember anything?

Well, if his raging headache tells him anything, it’s that he had probably blacked out last night.

Link isn’t usually a drinker or a partier. He isn’t really one to go to big social events. So he’s really confused as to why he woke up passed out in a tub with zero memories.

And also, why Zelda left her phone with him.

a version of the Silent Princess memory but they're at a party and its modern

Zelda laughs. “I think I got a little too sober from the Yiga incident to enjoy the party now.”

Link isn’t sure if he’s supposed to laugh with her, but nods anyway. “Do you want to get some air?”

Zelda gives him an odd look, then sighs. “Yeah. Yes. That would be a good idea.”

Surprisingly, she grabs his forearm and leads him through all the bodies pressed against each other. He can feel the heat of her hand wrapping entirely around his arm like a hot glove, even above the heat of the late summer air and the heat from other people in close proximity.

Somehow, they make it to the other side of the house. Zelda pushes the back door open and pulls him past the other stragglers outside before they find a nice tree with a patch of grass that seems generally clear of alcohol and vomit.

Zelda releases his arm as soon as she finds the tree and she sits down, dropping her head against the trunk.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

Zelda waves her hand vaguely.

Link pauses. “Do you need water?”

“If you get me any more water, I’m probably gonna piss myself,” says Zelda. “Sit down.”

He sits down.

The crickets hum vaguely around them, mingling with the distant buzzing and thumping bass of the music from the party. But without people pressing in from all sides and an open field in front of them, it finally feels like he can take a full breath.

The silence settles over them like a blanket. It feels comfortable to him, but he isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be.

“Oh, Link, look.”

Link cranes his head to see Zelda twist around and point out a blue flower glowing vaguely in the dark. It was beautiful with blue petals so light they looked almost white, and a sky blue bleeding out from the center before fading out.

He wants to give her a questioning look, but she’s transfixed on the flower. He can see the smallest of smiles creeping up onto the corners of her mouth.

“It’s a Silent Princess,” she says. “It was my mom’s favorite flower.”

He can tell something important is happening, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“She said that we can’t grow them domestically yet, despite our best efforts.” Zelda breaks into a full smile and it’s radiant. “The Princess can only thrive out here. In the wild.”

They both turn to look back at the house as another loud WHOOP cuts through the air, followed by the sound of a can being crushed against a head.

“Nature is beautiful,” says Link.

Zelda swats him and he has to bite back a laugh.

She turns and runs a gentle finger along one of the petals before sighing and leaning back against the tree.

“Thank you,” she says suddenly. “For being there with the Yiga. And for being there the whole party.” He can hear her swallow. “I’m sorry for being a bitch.”

“You weren’t being a bitch,” says Link.

“I was, though.” Zelda inhales beside him. “I mean, just because I’m under a lot of stress from my dad doesn’t mean I’m allowed to take it out on other people. I was acting like a kid.”

“To be fair, your dad sounds like an asshole sometimes.”

Zelda snorts. “Yeah. He can be.” He turns his head to see her lean forward to fiddle with the grass. “But he’s got a lot on his plate. And it probably doesn’t help that his daughter doesn’t want anything to do with his ‘legacy.’”

“Just because your dad’s under a lot of pressure doesn’t mean he’s allowed to be an asshole,” Link points out.

Zelda finally looks up at him and offers him a small grin. “Fair enough.”

“And besides, you’re your own person. You don’t need to follow in his footsteps.”

“That’s what I said,” huffs Zelda. “But of course it’s, ‘blah blah you have a responsibility. I didn’t raise you like this so you could waste your time researching pointless things.’” She sighs. “It’s fine. It’s whatever. I came to this stupid party to blow off steam, I guess. But Goddess, I did not eat enough today to drink that many cans of shitty beer.”

Link sits upright, alert. “Do you need to get food or—”

“No, no, that’s fine.” And that smile returns and Link wonders what else he can say to make it stay. “You’re sweet. But I’ve probably gotten drunk enough tonight.” Her eyes slide up to him and the mischief in them stops his heart for a moment. “You still have to try the Hot Frog.”

Link blinked. “...what is that?”

--

the endings are abrupt on both of them just bc i wasn't entirely sure how to end them akldjfasd. also the "Hot Frog" is gonna be some kind of mixed drink that gets link really drunk -- me trying to allude more to the original memory from the game haha

anyway, thank you so much for the ask! and thank u for coming up with the shitpost because it made me laugh the first time i read it hasdklfj hopefully i'll continue this one day and do ur shitpost au justice!