#aaaaa decisions and I have to choose Soon

[doruumon]

Trying to decide between two fic ideas for Big Bang and I’m just staring at them hard

[dogbearinggifts]

Elegy, Part Thirteen

A/N: This is an AU, based on an idea by @daughterofthemoon99, where Imelda, rather than Miguel, visits the Land of the Dead within her lifetime. Previous chapters can be found here: 

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four   Part Five   Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight   Part Nine   Part Ten   Part Eleven   Part Twelve

The whole fic is also available on AO3.

******** 

Antonia Rivera had met Héctor, but Héctor had never made her acquaintance.

She’d seen him on a bare handful of occasions, each Día de los Muertos he’d remained with the family. A letter had explained his presence in 1918, where he and Imelda alternated holding a daughter born seven months after their wedding. The dates of both wedding and birth had been presented in that letter, without comment or elaboration, but said plenty on their own.

He hadn’t dreaded his turn holding little Coco. That had always stuck in Antonia’s mind. When Imelda placed their daughter in his arms, he’d smiled as though offered an armful of gold; and when Imelda held her, he’d hovered close, smiling and cooing and laughing in triumph every time he coaxed a grin. Antonia remembered looking down at the dates, at that seven-month gap, and back to the man responsible, gazing at his wife and daughter as though they were the world, thinking perhaps it would work. He was a músico who hadn’t left Santa Cecilia yet, not for any extended length of time, and he apparently had no plans to do so. Perhaps it would work. Perhaps it would last.

Officer Peralta—of course they paired her with the one who tried to sway the whole department to follow a useless lead, of course they did—had asked her once and only once if she had any ideas as to where Héctor might have gone. Having heard her response, he walked in mostly silence, only speaking to tell her which way he planned to go or where he planned to search more carefully.

“There isn’t time to look through every doorway.”

“Sí, Señora. I know. I doubt she would have gone into a stranger’s home.”

Antonia wanted to argue, if only to feel she was contributing something of value, but she couldn’t disagree. She could only push feebly against the cold fear nipping at her heels, and the memories tugging at her sleeve.

“Do you honestly think she went after a man who left her?”

“We have to investigate every lead.”

A professional non-answer, not an opinion. It said nothing about what he thought, offered no hints as to how deeply he held to the theory he’d put forward. It was simply a fact, and not one Antonia particularly liked. Peralta, and the rest of the department by extension, had an obligation to find her granddaughter; and when fulfilling that obligation meant pursuing two opposing theories, that was what they would do. Peralta’s opinion had little to do with it. Had he been sent toward that pretentious tower, he would have gone without argument.

There should have been comfort in that. Instead, Antonia thought of the myriad roads and alleys between the station and that músico’s mansion, and how much less ground those sent toward it would cover without the six sent toward Shantytown.

Unless, of course, Imelda had gone in the opposite direction.

******

It happened before Ernesto could finish his thought.

One moment, he stood over Imelda, cloth at the ready, deciding it’d be best to tie her hands first. Then Imelda moved and his head spun on his neck, the room becoming a blur of dim color and a whistle of air.

Another shock of pain caught him in the neck before the blow to his jaw had time to register. By pure instinct he raised arms to protect himself, but the next one hit his hands; sharp pain preceded a hollow clatter some meters away.

The spinning slowed, and only the ache in his neck stifled a yelp. Two of his fingers were gone.

Ernesto tried to call for Raúl, but the pain in his neck reduced his Ay��dame to a breathless aaaaa. He stepped back—his fingers, where on earth were his fingers?—and Imelda brushed past him.

The pain in his neck eased, and a second clatter preceded the rejoining of fingers to hand.

He didn’t know why. Dimly, he recalled some acrobats tossing their heads about; but he didn’t pause to wonder or question or even to laugh at the mutual reversal of fortune. Imelda made for the door, and he bounded after.

*******

Héctor’s joy hadn’t dimmed in his second year of fatherhood. It was less exuberant, perhaps, but that warmth was still present, shining through each smile he turned on his daughter, each word he spoke to his wife. And Imelda returned it. She could be smiling when he looked at her and her smile would soften further. If she frowned, the difference was even more pronounced. Sometimes her smile took a bit of coaxing, but it nearly always surfaced.  

For all appearances, he had loved her.

And then came Día de Muertos, 1922. The worried looks she had worn when her living family was absent had given way to something deeper, something darker. Anger lurked behind her eyes, smoldering like coals. She smiled, but it rarely reached her eyes; genuine smiles seemed reserved for Coco. But she wasn’t dead inside, not in the slightest. She moved. She spoke. She did. But that anger was always there, waiting to be called upon to warm her.

You’re absolutely certain he died the year he left?

The question was at the front of Antonia’s mind, but asking would only waste time. The Department of Family Reunions was quite meticulous about its paperwork, as any government office ought to be. If they said Héctor Rivera, husband to Imelda and father to Socorro, died in 1921, then 1921 was the year he died and no amount of questioning would prove it false.

She simply couldn’t reconcile it with what she’d known.

“Do…” Antonia nearly rescinded the question, decided she needed to know, and plunged ahead. “Do many people choose not to contact a spouse’s family after death?”

“You’d have to ask the Department of Family Reunions how often it happens, but it happens.”

“Why?”

Peralta hesitated. Perhaps she’d asked for information he wasn’t allowed to share. “If neither side knew the other well, I suppose that could affect the final decision.”

He sounded more thoughtful than uncertain. Further answers would be forthcoming. Antonia nearly told him they wouldn’t be needed, but held her silence.

“If a death is very sudden,” Peralta continued, “they might not think to alert in-laws right away.” 

Food poisoning. Not a pleasant cause of death, but not a speedy one, either. Héctor could have spent days in bed as his stomach tried in vain to rid itself of whatever contaminant he’d been fool enough to ingest. In either case, he would have had time to write his wife, to warn her that he might not return home. When death arrived, it would have been an expected visitor—not welcome, but expected. Even if he hadn’t recalled his wife’s family while gathering his thoughts, he ought to have remembered them hours or days or weeks later.

Peralta led her down a narrower street bearing fewer lights, fewer people. Up ahead, the lights disappeared altogether, forming a wide plain that later gave way to a deeper darkness. Shantytown wasn’t far.

********

There were rocks in the trunk.

Not too many. Not enough that Héctor didn’t fit. But a sizable stone occupied the first corner his hand wandered to upon closing the lid; another sat adjacent and he felt two more at his feet. The chest bore enough metal reinforcement to at least make floating difficult, but the rocks would eliminate that possibility. In all likelihood, more would be tied to the bottom or sides.

“If I hear those bells again, you’ll hear her scream.”

Despite the rocks, despite the trunk and the both of them together, that alone had prevented Héctor from testing the lid and the claim. The soft click of an automatic lock had not followed him inside, and the bells likely would have masked such a noise, but Imelda had been led away with a knife to her throat.

There was no way to tell how much time passed, but Héctor only knew it passed in silence. Everything within him screamed to try standing, to try throwing open the lid, but he remained still. He couldn’t move. Not now. Not when Imelda still had blood to be spilled, a heart to be stopped.

He wasn’t certain if he heard them at first, but soon he could not deny it: Footsteps approached him. They were soft, and muffled by the trunk, but they were approaching.

Imelda’s attacker.

If I hear those bells again. Perhaps the mere act of pushing at the locked lid would have been enough to disturb the bells, but then again, if he’d felt the need to say it, that should have meant he feared escape. It was more likely he’d make threats against an escape that stood a chance of success than against the mere thought of it.

The footsteps halted.

Moments. Seconds. That was what he had. Stay in the trunk, learn whether or not it was locked too late to do anything but wait to be dropped in the lake—or try something else and risk more than his own safety.

Imelda.

He didn’t know where she was. He didn’t know how much longer she had. He only knew that escape might be a costly gamble, but she stood a better chance of survival with someone else at her side—and if he were to try, he had to try now, when she had perhaps one assailant to face rather than two.

A muffled half-footstep approached the trunk. Héctor’s wrapped his hand around a rock.  

*******

Raúl knew better than to approach Héctor Rivera with anything close to his guard down. This wasn’t a man who had fooled the border agents, or a man whose loco schemes had gotten him anywhere near the bridge. No, he was something more dangerous than either of those: a man willing to try anything, no matter how ludicrous or ill-advised, that might take him the tiniest step closer to his goal.

So when he reached the trunk, he paused. A knife wouldn’t do him much good against a dead man, so he’d sheathed it and taken up a crowbar brought from the mansion. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate, but it would do the job. And once there were no witnesses to interview, the police stood little chance of tracing the tool to the most visible and well-known construction site in the Land of the Dead.

Not a stir came from the trunk. Either the threats to his wife had made him unusually compliant, or he had found an alternate use for the rocks. Raúl took one step forward, then another half-step.

No noise came from the trunk, none he could hear. There had been no bells then, and there were no bells now.

Come on, he thought. Get it over with.

Raúl took the key from his pocket, let it clink against another.

The lid burst open, and Raúl barely jumped back in time to save his head from that rock. He didn’t swing with the crowbar—not yet.

Héctor, by contrast, leaped out of the trunk, lunging forward and taking a swipe that went wide and caused him to stumble forward when Raúl jumped to the side, using the opportunity to swing with the crowbar.

Dios, he was fast.

A strong blow to the head would incapacitate him—likely not for long, as the memories tying him to life would heal injuries in a matter of minutes—but Héctor seemed prepared for that, and willing to cause the same.

There was more than one solution. There always was, but Héctor gave him little time to think of them. So, when he lunged again, Raúl dodged, spun, and struck.

The first blow knocked him to the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet, but Raúl brought the crowbar crashing onto his leg.

******

Scant meters from the door, Ernesto seized her by the arm.

Imelda swung her shoe at his hand, trying to break his grip or break his arm off, but he held firm through the first blow and only loosened his hold at the second. She brought her shoe up for another blow, but Ernesto tightened his hold and, without taking his eyes from her for one moment, called out.

“¡Raúl! ¡Ayúdame!”  

She’d thought her boot had robbed him of speech, for a few minutes if nothing else, but the sound of his voice made her grit her teeth.

He had Héctor in a trunk.

He had her all but trapped in a derelict structure with a knife and another trunk.

And here he was, calling for help.

Imelda drove her boot into his hand again and again, putting as much force as she could muster into each blow. He yelped, reaching for her with his free hand; she swatted it away with another blow, taking the chance to aim for his head.

Héctor’s scream of pain cut through.

******

Imelda’s hesitation lasted only seconds, only long enough for the rage and hatred twisting her features to bleed into fear. Only long enough for the strength to leave her arm dangling before striking the next blow. And in that moment, as in all those prior to it, Ernesto had a choice.

They needed her unconscious. If that part of the plan had been in question, her success in knocking two fingers off his hand proved it. But where the plan allowed her lack of awareness to be an effect of her death, a necessary delay to mend broken bones and make the transition from life as painless as possible, reality demanded she lose consciousness while she still breathed. Raúl could spill her blood and lock her in the trunk and perform any other task needed to ensure she remained there, but she had nearly made it to the door once. Had it not been for that cry of pain, she likely would have done it twice.

Héctor was taken care of. Raúl would arrive any moment—but it would be a moment too late if Imelda escaped and made her way back into the city. If she was to lose consciousness, it would be Ernesto’s doing.

And the most readily available method was the least pleasant by far.

He had a moment, only a moment, to make a decision. A fraction of the time he’d had before Héctor’s death. 

The decision was easier now. 

******

Antonia didn’t realize how noisy the city was until the silence between it and Shantytown engulfed her.

She heard her own footsteps as she walked along. Not unusual when she was inside, but they were never quite this loud, the sound never quite this intrusive. The crunch of gravel and dirt, the slap of shoes on stone, seemed close to deafening. Little light made it this far from the city, and what light was present was faint, abandoned homes and other structures casting long shadows within it.

Imelda wasn’t here. She couldn’t be here, and she most certainly could not have followed her former husband to this place. And if Héctor lived here….

Well, after what he’d done, it wasn’t undeserved.

She tried to think of something to say, anything that might fill that silence and push her thoughts back. All of the questions she could ask had answers she wasn’t certain she wanted to hear, and all the comments she had would lead to questions she didn’t want to answer. She followed him past the edge of the city, toward a set of steps bordering the edge of the water.

A scream split the night.

Antonia nearly lost her balance, but Peralta snapped to attention, clasping her shoulder for just a second.

“Wait here, Señora.”

She still hadn’t identified the owner of that cry. She hadn’t determined if it were stranger or family or something else entirely. But when your granddaughter was missing and someone was screaming in pain and a police officer told you to stay where you were, there was only one thing to do.

Antonia hurried after Peralta, as fast as she could manage.

*******

A/N: Enjoying this fic? Read on to Part Fourteen.

[queenelleee]

Omg my sweet Elle so sorry it took me forever to respond--i am as hectic as ever hahaha omg YES!!!! our boy looks so good :') I can't wait to cry about the new hq movies w/ you!!! AND OMG HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! (Or belated birthday now!!) No way, I'm a Leo too--August babies unite <33 HOW WAS IT?? And aaaaa thank you so much for reading and leaving the sweetest tags ilysm, it really means everything to me--it makes my whole week when you leave tags!!! xoxo P.S. I have no idea! I have Sakusa fic that I want to release soon and a vv long Oikawa one...any suggestions?? Much love as always!! Ate Dee <3

Oh please, ate Dee. I really don't mind hehehe. I understand that life happens XD.

I also can't wait to talk about the movies with you! I feel like when August 2023 arrives, my whole dash would be about Haikyu! Final (I want it to come fast but at the same time I'm not ready TT___TT). But what if our beloved Oikawa appears in 0.1 seconds? Shkshskhsksh srsly I feel like I'm gonna cry inside the theater even after the credits scene.

Thank you!! 😘😘😘 It was a fun and peaceful celebration. The scenery and the gentle breeze of the wind made me want to spend a day with nature (living in the modern city is not really my cup of tea). The walled city is vast so we really had to walk for minutes. And even if there are street pedicabs, we don't want to ride them because most of the drivers take advantage by increasing the fares because tourists flock to the city. After that, we went to eat unlimited samgyupsal - the meats are delicious and my sister and I had fun with just the two of us heh.

When we got home, my feet were aching, and it didn't take long for me to fall asleep. And when I woke up the next day, my whole body is aching hdaksjhdaskjhda but it was worth it hihihihi.

How about you ate? Have you tried eating in a Korean grill restaurant? If you haven't, you should try it. And omggggg??? You're an August baby too!? That's so cool! In my fam, most of us were born in August and now, I learned that two of my mutuals here are also born in August >.<

p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ATE DEE OR BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOW!!!! I hope you had fun

p.s. You and your fics deserve all the recognition and love <33 and please remember that I will always support and look forward to your fics.

p.s. omggggg Sakusa fic and Oikawa fic?????????? I'm so excited but guuuurrrrl, I cannot choose between my two faves 😭. But, if you feel satisfied and excited with your fics then any of them will do. You can post them one by one, or at the same time. Both decisions work for me hehehehehe

Love lots ate Dee! Mwah!

From,

Elle

[wtvrtheo]

DAN HOWELL - THEO DONOVAN currently is on APPLAUSE on Bridge Broadcasting! I swear, they’re TWENTY TWO and they’ve already done so much within the business. They’re often described as the FACADE by the paparazzi who follows them around, because they’re apparently +OUTGOING and -FACETIOUS. Though, that’s just paparazzi talk. Who knows if it’s true? All I know is that they go by HE/HIM and they’re on my favorite show.

hello pals, ‘tis i, pris once again but this time with this little shit theo. he’s one of my oldest muses and i hate him – but somehow here he is lmao. he’s def a more developed charrie than my others, so honestly bless u if u manage to read everything under the cut. as per usual, give this a cheeky like if u wanna plot as well and i’ll bother the heck out of you (trigger warning for mentions of suicide attempt, depression, & anxiety)

If Louis C.K. and Bo Burnham breached the laws of biology and birthed a second-rate, screaming son in the town of Reading, Berkshire, that son would be Theo Donovan. In terms of his actual birth, it wasn’t an all too different comparison. As a child, Theo was constantly energized and never seemed to know how to keep quiet or still. While most would coo and find entertainment from this little boy who loved to entertain, it never did sit right with his parents. They were always rigid in behavior and expectation, therefore finding it a great problem when Theo refused to conform to their standards about what a respectable, polite son should be. Now that’s not to say he was ill-mannered; he did most of the things they asked of him and the only times he really did act out was when they butted heads about anything from the tiniest petty fights to large scale arguments that had Theo leaving his house for days to sleep at a friend’s house. Okay, so it was safe to say home life was rocky and maybe that shaky territory eventually led to resent. He had his little sister and that’s really all that mattered.

With the attention unappreciated at home, he surely channeled that energy into time spent at school. Like most people who crave attention, it started with the stage. At a young age, he closely aligned himself with the theatre kids and was able to garner a sizable amount of friends and close peers through that. As time went on however, the stage didn’t feel like enough. Don’t get him wrong, he adored performing and putting on an act for large audiences, but it didn’t turn out to be what he wanted in the long run. Like a miracle, Year 10 brought a revelation he never really considered until he heard an offhanded comment from a friend. Humor was always at Theo’s side. It was his coping mechanism, his best friend, a solid weapon against any adversary he faced. He always figured: if he can joke about it, everything is okay. Paired with his complex of needing to please and entertain, it came as no surprise that Theo was soon known throughout his school years as the class clown, the funny guy. Gone were the days of the crowd laughing at him to jeer and poke fun, now they were laughing at him because he wanted them to. “This bloke, I’m telling ya. He could be a comedian,” they said. And that he became.  

No one was more surprised than Theo to discover that he quickly found success in Berkshire. Yet as his popularity in the U.K. grew, his parents’ distaste for what he was choosing to do with his life grew alongside it. The tension and resentment truly hit its peak when he was 17 - and his ‘career choice’ wasn’t received well because of how traditional and old school his parents were. And as much as he tried to make it seem like he could care less about what they thought, the barrage of doubtful comments that Theo won’t fully make it out of a sea of performers and comedians like him, that fame is fickle and will fade (with the belief that he was inherently wasting his time instead of pursuing something more “practical” - whatever the hell that meant) sooner got to him, and it hit hard. He always seemed to dance with depression and anxiety throughout his adolescence, but the insecurity and the doubt accumulated and had him spiraling in the worst attack that had him waking up in the A&E the next day and admitted for failed suicide attempt. Since that incident, he really tried to get better and vowed to never sink so low again if he could help it. Months later he decided it was time to get out of the UK, so he got dual citizenship and headed to California to build a larger American audience. This later proved to be a smart decision when he noticed his following increased exponentially. Because of the attention, he landed a spot on Applause and couldn’t be happier because it was the perfect fit. He was a theatre kid after all, so being able to step into those shoes once again through improv is exactly where he’s always wanted to be. It’ll be his second season on the show.

and some quick bullet points sorry again bc it’s getting hella long aaaaa

despite getting substantially better than he was at 17, he still has a rather macabre sense of humor

like i said he does use humor as a coping mechanism

and it’s even worse because sometimes you can’t tell if it’s him just messing around and never taking anything too seriously or if he’s 100% serious and it’s a cry for help

but really he’s only serious about 12% of the time because he’s fluent in sarcasm and irony

u should also know that he can get pretty overdramatic and Extra as fuck

there are two people in the world: ppl who hate him and ppl who are entertained by his antics; there is nothing in between

he is a meme boi through and through,,, fidget spinners,, getting in on the latest trends,, some1 stop him it’s disgusting

it ain’t no lie baby he’s bi bi bi

nerdy, too

have i mentioned that he has a doggo tho?? a siberian husky named ralph

come to think of it he doesn’t rly have a filter,, he’s wild af

oh- and LOUD. HE SCREAM

beyond that he can get into some deep conversations w u especially when high

speaking of his highdeas are somethin else (we don’t talk about those)

and yeah he’s pretty chaotic but in the rare moments where he’s chilled out and needs to be serious, he can do that

isn’t an asshole. asshat? mayb

i think????? that’s it?? i’m seriously so sorry if u managed to read all of this who r u, u deserve a medal. ANYWHO. he has a connections page right here if you want to fill any of them. otherwise, we can totally brainstorm and see what we come up with just lmk! ok see u on the flip side~

[platinum-happy]

Graduation Letters for Thea

Heya Thea,

  You’re a great singer and mixer who I really look up to, and that’ll never change. You were also a very supportive and soothing presence in Purappi, and I’ll miss you a lot!! Of course, it’s not like you’re dying, so I hope we can be friends outside of Platinum Happy!

(or at least friendly acquaintances?? no pressure ;;A;;)

  You seem to have some big things on the horizon, so I wish you the best of luck and I hope that for every sad or stressful moment you encounter, two happy ones await you!!

  Sincerely,

–Alice–

Dear Thea,

  Our wonderful, talented, doting Thenyan! Of course, I’m so sad to see you go from Purappi, but I wanted to take this chance to say thank you for everything. You’ve always been so sweet, kind, and understanding, and you’ve taught me a lot, personally. Having you around in the group has really helped us to grow and aspire to achieve more, and I really can’t thank you enough for that.

  I know you’ll achieve whatever you set your mind to, and I truly wish you the best in everything that you have planned for the future!

  Love,

Bonnie

Dear Thea,

  When you joined the group, I immediately looked up to you and loved having you around. You had such a strong presence both in releases and just in the chat. It’s honestly really sad to know that won’t be around anymore. But I wish you all the best with your future endeavours and hope that we’ll see each other soon!!

You’re such a strong and capable person that I know you’ll accomplish whatever you put your mind to! So good luck and know you always have a place with Purappi! (And a marriage proposal from me lol)

  [[Calla]]

Dear Thea,

  We’ve known each other over ten years now, and we’ve been through a lot together. You’ve always been such a talented and creative person, and also such a big-hearted and loving person to all of your friends. When you first auditioned for Gen 2, I remember being super excited — I knew you would bring a lot to Platinum Happy. I’m glad you got in, and that we were able to work together. It was really fun working with you again, especially in the net idol scene. Thank you for being so wonderful, so helpful, and just an all around amazing person.

  I really love you so much!

  – Cora

Dear Thea, Congratulations on your graduation. It is always sad when someone decides to graduate, and even though we didn’t talk much because of how shy I am, I will miss you greatly. I wish I could’ve talked to you more, you are so nice and kind and smart. Your voice is amazing, it was magical to be able to sing in an unit with you! I’m really grateful of all the advices you gave me and I’m sad I can’t really give you anything in return. I admire you a lot and wish you all the best. love, Eve.

Hey Thea!

  There are a lot of things that I admire about you. One of which is your ability to sing so well, and another is your mixing skills (which are F I R E!! AAAAA!). One more thing that I admire about you is your ability to prioritize. Although I’m a bit sad that you won’t be here to be a powerhouse of our music, I’m glad, at least, that you will be able to do more things with your life and with more pizzazz!! In my opinion, Purappi is a stepping stone of… anything(!) so I hope it will get you to be an even better you in the future. I’m glad we were able to meet at AX this year! Maybe, perhaps, we will meet again next year!

  Au revoir until next time, Thea!

  ~Maple  ৲( ᵒ ૩ᵕ )৴♡*৹

Dearest Thea,

  You’re taking off and flying off to a new adventure! During your time in Purappi, you have done so many things to make the group better, in a way that noone else could! Wherever you end up landing next, I know your presence will change the landscape for the better. I’ve always admired your ambition and the 100% passion you put into everything. I’ll be cheering for you wherever you go. From the deep, dark depths of my watery heart, thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and Purappi. Love you!!

  ~Marin

To Thea,

  I’ve looked up to you since the day I met you. You’re amazing at everything you do and your voice is nothing short of incredible, and you’ve always been there for all of us with smooches and snuggles like Purappi’s beloved big sister. I feel incredibly lucky to have been in the same generation as you and to have been able to sing with you. I’ll always support you in everything you do, and I wish you the best of luck for the future!

Lots of love,

Mia ☆

Hey Thea, As sad as I am that you’re leaving, I respect your decision and I hope you the best! <3 I’m so incredibly happy that I got to meet you and be a fellow Gen 2 member alongside you! You’re seriously someone I think every single one of us looked up to whether it be for your amazing singing or your equally as amazing mixing skills you were someone that added so much to our group and worked so hard to make us the platinum happy that we are today! So I know for a fact that whatever you do in life you’re gonna rock at it! Good luck Thenyan <3 I’ll always be rooting for you! <3 -Sadie

Dear Thea,

  I have always looked up to you both as a talented musician and as a wonderful friend ever since we first met. I’m so glad to have had the chance to reunite with you in Platinum Happy and spend the time working together that we had. I’m certain you will achieve many fantastic and shiny things in whatever your choose to do in the future, and I’ll always be there to support you!!

Much love,

Tabibi

Dear Thea,

  I’m really glad we both decided to audition for Purappi- we’ve known each other for a long time now, but I feel like it gave us a chance to talk more and I’m grateful we had this opportunity to be closer friends. I’ll definitely miss being able to work together so often, but I know for sure this won’t be the last time <3

  I’m looking forward to what wonderful things you’ll continue to create beyond Purappi!

  Love, Willow

[tumblunni]

More minor thoughts and things for the Dragon Mom Game! Its not super developed yet, but I’m thinking more on what sort of gameplay it should have. And can i just say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the positive reponse on this idea!! I’ve never got 8 notes on one of my dumb idea posts before!! Usually at best I just get 2 likes by my close friends, lol

* I’m still having trouble settling on a design for the main character species, I’m even not sure anymore if I want it to be an insectile dragon or just a complete dragon or just a complete insect or a dragon or insect mixed with something entirely else AAAAA And even just amoung the different cool caterpillars i was inspired by, I can’t decide!! * So i definately think I’m gonna go with the idea of a magically evolving species with a big ol skill tree of player choices. Even if it makes no sense! But i mean, dragons can do anything! XD So maybe your various skills and stuff could also give you appearance traits of all different cute and cool insects! BUNNI NEVER HAS TO CHOOSE EVER AGAIN

(post is getting long so more under the cut)

* Relatedly, I’m wondering whether I should give the player a ‘respec’ option? Cos.. I mean.. it would be even more immersion breaking if you could de-evolve at will, I think. it at least could make some internal sense in-universe if we say that evolving is a natural part of this creature’s life cycle. And it would seem a bit overpowered if they could freely discard and re-evolve whenever they felt like it. You could just defeat any problem you encountered, and not even have to worry about making a skillset that functions well at everything necessary to survive. BUT on the other hand, permenant choices in a skill tree with a lot of options can be a big problem depending on how much the player gets to know about each option beforehand, yknow? It sucks when you play a game and you find out you have to start all over when you;’re six hours into it, cos you somehow screwed yourself over with one bad choice and had NO WARNING. I’ve been recently playing the (very fun!) remake of Sonny for steam, and in that game every boss is so wildly different that you often have to respec your entire build to find a way to beat them. Which works well with how its basically a giant boss rush game where grinding is optional and respeccing is available whenever you want for a small amount of ingame currency. The no-respecs achievement is possibly the most difficult one! So yeah, I’m kinda worried I’d accidentally create a game like that, even though this genre doesn’t work as well with that level of difficulty. But also infinate respecs don’t work for this genre either... So I’m thinking maybe respeccing WOULD be possible, but it would be in a very limited quantity and you’d have to go through some hidden sidequest to get it. Maybe there’s one special plant that causes these dragons to reset to their basic state? And maybe it could have a cost, like it makes them very sick so you sleep through like a week or something. Or your stats are lowered for a few days, or your overall lifespan is decreased? I’ll have to think more about balancing it well!

* I’ve been thinking more and the cache-based gameplay could really be really cool as the primary form of challenge in the early stages. Your biggest obstacle is knowing that food and materials can expire, and that your ability to carry things is limited, and that you only have a certain amount of time each day to go around and then find your way back to a safe shelter to sleep. At first you might be quite desperate, eating everything you find as soon as you find it, and only being able to venture out a little way away from your nest. But then you start building cache locations and temporary shelters around the world, allowing you to move further and even be able to slowly carry some rare distant item back all the way to your main nest. The epic three week quest to move a single log! Being dragonmom is suffering! XD But it could be really rewarding to see that early difficulty be flushed down the toilet as you develop your skills, opening up the world and presenting new challenges to replace it! * And there could even maybe be multiple ways to solve the problem! This could be the first opportunity to make the choice between being a herbivore or carnivore, carnivore would be adapting more towards the ‘eat it now, constantly be searching for new food’ play style. You’d be stuck living within that limitation forever, escaping it just through becoming way better at dealing with it. You get a food source that’s basically everywhere, and gives you more nutrition, you turn the terrifying enemy predators into nosh and get to feel the ultimate catharsis of dooooom~! And you can become powerful enough to carry more stuff, and to affect the environment more and create shortcuts, and you need to worry less about finding a perfect shelter cos you have less enemies and you’re more hardy against the weather.

* Thoughts about the basic animal language system! I’m wondering about what sort of symbols it could use? Like, maybe it could just be intuitive pics of items and lil stick figure dragons and stuff. Here’s a few examples of default rpgmaker MV icons:

(tho these were some of the only ones useful for a dragon game so I’ll have to make my own) Alternatively, they could be like actual runes or heiroglyphs or made up fantasy letters. I tried googling around for something similar from a game, and all I could find was this thing thats apparantly from Spyro Skylanders? The disadvantage of that system is that it’d be less instantly intuitive what symbol means what. But that might even work to its advantage, cos it encourages the player to get started memorizing all the symbols instead of being complacent that everything will always be obvious. I wanna ease them into the puzzles, but I still do want there to be puzzles, yknow? i just think it would be a very cool concept! Oh, and of course having it look like a real language makes it feel like a real language. Woo! But maybe it could put more emphasis on the unusual nature of the language if its more pictoral? I DUNNO!! I’m bad at choices!! I’ll just have to work hard to make some endearing lil dragon doodles of what everything looks like to them. Thats the best compromise!

* oh!! A cool and unusual idea for one of the evolution skill branches!! Maybe you could take deliberate penalty devolutions? Maybe picking one of them gives you extra skill points to spend on others, or maybe its like.. sacrificing the ability to learn a new skill in favour of some additional stat boosts instead. And maybe even certain penalty evolutions could lead off into a longer tree of penalties with an unexpected bonus at the end! i was thinking a good one of these could be the ability to lose your sight. It could lead to boosters to all your other senses, and even the ability to eventually gain some sort of complicated telepathy sense that’s even better than eyes! Gotta put up with a while of waiting though. oh, and cos you’’re like a buggy dragon thing, maybe eye evolution would be Lots! Evolved eye! evolved eye! evolved eye! evolved eye! next evolution: eye!! achievement unlocked: spider. Oh, and actually the placement and type of eyes could adjust depending on what other evolution route you’re on! Thats be a cute bit of aesthetic. or maybe you could just choose the eyes regardless of what bug you are, and make the google eyed moth of your dreams~! It could be more tricky to make a fully customizeable character model though, rather than just a bunch of regular bugs. I mean, this is gonna be a pixelart game, its not like Spore with its big ol animation engine for all kinds of crazy leg combinations.. RANDOM THOUGHT! a dragon with eyes all down the sides of its body would be mega scary. maybe that could be part of the herbivore side evolutions? Realistically, scary appearances are more common for non-scary animals that evolve them to frighten off predators. Lots of caterpillars are actually kinda body horror disturbing looking, I cant stop being scared by the one with the huge swollen head with an optical illusion to look like a snake. It even manages to scare the predators of the predators of its predators! O_O Also actually having eyes all over your body instead of just markings would probably be really useful for spotting all those enemies. Spooky baby is the biggest fraidy cat ever!

* If I go with the idea of you gathering more children as the game goes on, then it could be cool to have all sorts of different sidequests to find the different eggs. Like maybe you can’t adopt the egg of a snow dragon unless you relocate your nest to a colder area where it could grow up healthy. Tho it’d suck if the game was forever limited that way and you had to leave your kids alone in various areas around the world or else they Die. So maybe its just for while the kid is a newborn, or maybe its that you have to nurse the egg in a certain environment in order to hatch it. i’m gonna say for the sake of gameplay conveinience that these magical dragons can just go into stasis in their eggs and survive forever, only hatching when they get their daily dose of mom hugs. Cos it would kinda suck if you had to make the decision IMMEDIATELY when you find an egg, especially if the eggs required certain things in order to be hatched. It would be super tragic to find this baby struggling to live and then you have to watch the egg go cold and die just cos you didn’t progress your stats fast enough. Magic eternal eggs is the best solution! Actually, maybe that could even be a good plot for a super rare egg you could unlock! You could find an ancient dragon species that was thought long extinct, and then get to raise a cute lil fossil son. Could be funny if they’re like an ancient megafauna version of your species! ‘My son iz larj but i luv heem’ He could carry the rest of his siblings around :3 Oh and maybe one of then could actually be an older child that you adopted after you found it cold and shivering next to its dead mother. It could be after you defeat some big boss, and find out that you were too late to save this poor fellow dragomom :( So then maybe that kid would start off more distrusting and disobedient at first, but to make up for it they’re already a fairly high level with some skills already. And maybe your choice of name for them would be limited at first, and then you can rename them properly once you finally win them over. You only get to choose one symbol at first, the kid is automatically named like.. Other [name]. Otherleaf, my smol untrusting beb!

* A SUPER SAD POSSIBLE IDEA Maybe there’s a small chance of finding the ghost of your kids when they die? There could be some sort of super mysterious and spiritual part of the forest that you can explore later on in the game, and there’s a random event to find a little baby shade in the fog that seems to remember you. And you can bring them home and its just like they never died, except they look a little spooky and they can only appear when the sun goes down. So you might wanna evolve the nocturnal skill so you can be with them. oh, and maybe when you get them back their name would change? Adds or replaces part of the symbols. they become Empty-[name]. And they can never grow up :( But still, imagine this lil ghost puff all happily curled up in a big hug pile with all their siblings, after so long wandering lost and alone!

[tumblunni]

OH MAN Why Am I Dead At Sea is SO FUCKIN GOOD

god I’m full of FEEEELS and THEORIES and GAHHHH I cant talk about ANYTHING about this game without spoiling stuff!! So I’m gonna make a spoilery ramble post woo! I havent actually finished it yet so this is spoils for like... up to the very last bit before the start of the final chapter. And I’ll try and talk about stuff in order so like, if you dont mind seeing a few spoils then you can read halfway thru i guess?? I just really wanna be able to reccommend this game and gush about characters without having to talk spoils!! GAHHH!!

ANYWAY U CAN BUY IT HERE Its really cheap and really worth it! Its even on sale right now so its £1.50 instead of £3! DOUBLE CHEAP!! But absolutely remember to backup your savefiles frequently, there’s a pathfinding glitch that can make the game unwinnable. And its a damn shame cos that nearly made me stop playing before I got to any of the good bits! Its easy to avoid once you know about it, at least.

Man, I’m so sad the gameplay has that one big glitch cos its really cool aside from that?? Its super basic and probably not everyone’s cup of tea though, this is a game that you’d only enjoy if you’re the sort of people who like when a game has like.. a codex of extra info you can collect.  There’s not as much ‘control people to affect the world’ as you’d expect, its 99% controlling people to unlock different dialogue options. All word puzzles and stuff! And the easiest way to get out of being stuck is just to methodically possess everyone you havent possessed yet, and talk to everyone and click on everything using them. I can imagine that’d be frustrating for people who like.. weren’t already doing that anyway. I Wanted to do that instantly cos I wanna find all the optional insights into everyone’s character! And some funny moments and sweetheart moments and AAAA I care about these people too much already... Oh, and its even more reason to love Paulo cos he gives you tips if you chat to him, and can even outright tell you the solution if you get really stuck. So for players who dont like being all completionist on the dialogue, he’s a very useful helper! I just wish that the ‘outright give you the solution’ option was better labelled so you dont click it by accident. Its just ‘tell me more’, I didnt know itd ruin the current puzzle for me :P

And MAAAAAN this game gets really trancey and atmospheric and I cant even really explain why?? You spend the whole game within this one small area but stuff gets opened up over time and things are revealed about seemingly innocent areas when you gain the new abilities of different people you possess. And how the player character is just this ethereal floaty flame, and how you get used to all the rules of how it works, and how neat the lil animations are. And how you start memorizing the place and all the details about everyone and getting REALLY DETERMINED to protect them GAHHH And the soundtrack is REALLY GOOD

PAULO IS MY SMALL SON PLEASE TELL ME I CAN PROTECT HIM FOREVER tiny necromancer boy aaaaaa he’s so lonely aaaaa he’s on this ship cos he has to ride it all the time on his own to get back from boarding school, his parents cant be bothered to pick him up and he’s just SO YOUNGGGG aaaa he’s like a child prodigy, he’s going to this big scary boarding school several grades above him and his parents are so distant and everyone thinks he can just handle everything because he’s smart and on top of all that he has to keep the secret that he can see ghosts, and theyre like his ONLY FRIENDS even though he only gets to talk to them for a little while before they pass on. YET HE STILL KEEPS HELPING THEM! He says all ‘oh im only summoning you for selfish reasons, I want you to save everyone else on the ship’ but he still helps you resolve your own death even when he knows it means he’ll never see you again. He has to mourn his best friend every damn time he makes one! Aside from that all he has is his teddy bear, showing just how young he really is and how much he FUCKING NEEDS GOOD PARENTS no matter how damn smart the poor kid is and AAAAA... And when you start getting clues about who you maybe are, it gets even sadder cos he’s like... “I didnt know her well but... I liked her. She helped me with my geometry homework.” God he had just ONE MOMENT of incredibly ordinary minimal friendship with this lady and then as soon as he’d got his hopes up THIS SHIT HAD TO HAPPEN! No wonder he locked his door for the entire cruise and refused to be near anyone except his new ghost friend. And gahhh he must have had his suspicions from the start about who it was that died, as soon as she didn’t come back to help with his homework. From his perspective this was just like an inevitable conclusion and he was begging you to find any other answer...

MORE SPOILERY SPOILER I was so fucking terrified when his door finally opened, and all you see inside is empty space. I mean it was a punch to the gut indeed that someone else died that we only really just met, but I’m WAY more terrified that the main sidekick for the whole game is potentially gonna die! He’s just vanished though, so I’m hoping that whether you save him or not is what determines the bad endings? So it IS possible to save him right?? SPOILER ENDDDDDDD

I’m still really confused how to feel about Xu though. I mean she’s such a huge jerk but I still cant help but feel sympathy for her?? And I feel like.. if I am supposed to hate her then its kinda annoying that the game brings up all these sympathetic concepts just to sorta discard them, they only exist to be her failed excuses for her actions. I dunno, its just sorta messed up. But it also means that if I AM supposed to agree with her actions then its messed up too?? And either way its frustrating cos she’s the only chinese character in the cast and her plot is so... gah. She’s this jerkass to everybody and she steals from the customers and then her excuse is ‘but I’m so poor and I’m a minority, how dare you yell at me for stealing’ and then she NEVER GIVES THE STUFF BACK and you never have any option to tell anyone?? And its so messed up cos like.. Anton actually IS a privilaged guy and I can see why she’d be mad that he’s in this job because he ‘wants to travel’ whereas she has to take it because she’s literally homeless. I mean if they actually discussed that then it’d be a good plot. And its a shame you cant bring up the secrets you find about Anton even when you get full possession of him, you find out he also had a meltdown and flunked out of college cos he just couldnt handle it, they could have been able to bond over that and realise they were both having misconceptions about each other’s motives for things. Like, she saw him as some guy who just chose to drop out of the education she wishes she could go back to, because he’s soooo rich and he can do whatever he wants. And he’d never considered how good he’s got it, and how other people are denied the same opportunities, and how he can use his privilage to help make the world fairer for these other people! Its just.. like.. you dont even find out that Anton IS rich until AFTER the conversation about Xu stealing his stuff, so it comes out of nowhere and feels like the game is saying privilage is a stupid concept thats not real and its being used as an excuse for her to be horrid. Either that or its on Xu’s side and its saying shoplifting is fine as long as you steal from white people?? And like.. Anton didnt do ANYTHING to make it seem like he deserved it, as far as we see. He’s never even rude to her?? He doesnt seem to do anything racist or classist. Its just like she assumes he;s that way because he’s a rich white guy but the game shows him to be Super Innocent so is it saying that everyone who ever accuses anyone of racism is always lying or.. gahhh?? It just feels like its trying to make a statement but I have no clue what it is! And this is the only time racism is ever discussed so it kinda stands out?? Also.. like.. NOBODY ever discusses the name issue?? Its really confusing, cos even her steam trading card calls her ‘Xu/Sue’. Ingame EVERYONE calls her Sue except herself and the interface. But its never drawn attention to, or explained?? So like, am I actually meant to assume that everyone is mispronouncing her name? But there’s no option to not do it! Or to bring up the subject! Anyway I just CANNOT stop feeling sympathy for her every time I see the damn wrong name in all these text boxes. Even if she’s an abrasive asshole half the time she feels like she has some sense of morality deep down, and that she’s been pushed to this extent by a terrible life rather than just choosing to become this sort of person. She’s just kinda like the ‘token evil good guy’ on the team. Even though she’s committing petty crimes it pales in comparison to the bigger horror that’s going on here :P

MAN it felt so damn good to finally get the reveal on Donavan and play as him for the first time! I mean whoa what a good climactic moment! What an uplifting! And what a downlifting when it gets cut short by tragedy, lol I TOTALLY KNEW IT that he was a cop! I mean seriously he was such a clear red herring, he was being pushed so heavily as the killer and we never got to know anything actually about him. And when you read his mind the ‘I WILL FIND YOU. I WILL EXTERMINATE YOU.’ struck me as something that could easily have a double meaning if he was a detective looking for the real killer! It was just SO BADASS when you finally get to control him and you have the power to enter every room and find clues that were locked off for ages! And it feels like you’re finally making progress so it was such a great story decision that the killer gets him immediately afterwards. And how their last taunt to him is that he was NO WHERE NEAR solving the mystery! Its just a taste of power and then its all thrown away and it makes you SO FUCKING DETERMINED to finish what donovan started with your weak lil protagonist hands NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES GAHHHHH

And then finally regaining a humanoid ghost form and being able to unlock the last two people’s tragic backstories by visiting their dreams!! And gahhh it was so interesting and sad that you have to lie and pretend to be the ghost of someone else they care about, in order to get through to them and say what that person would have said if they had got the chance to be the protagonist instead of you. It was actually a genuine huge surprise to learn that Gwen wasnt remotely involved with the murder! Like, she spent the whole game being paranoid that someone is coming after her, and everyone was saying she’s JUST paranoid, and then it turns out she WAS just paranoid! But I love that the game is actually sympathetic to her paranoia and shows how it’s a legitimate mental illness. Its left more mysterious than a lot of the other backstories, but it seems that her father or uncle or someone abused her and her sister when she was a child, and her sister was killed while she escaped. And even though its over she’s been haunted by the belief he’ll find her any second now, causing her to destroy her own life through reckless decisions, jumping up and running away every time things start getting good in her life. She doesnt even know where she’s running to! And GOD I really liked how you resolve it, you dont just cure people’s mental illnesses by giving them a  motivational speech. But you help them feel like they’re able to endure it, that they’ll get better someday and that they should accept help from therapists. And NOT BLAME THEMSELVES for being sick! I just really liked the line “yes, this is a living nightmare, but if you’re awake you can change things”.

And when you do the similar dream sequence for Darryl there’s an even better climactic line! Its like, after a whole game of him blaming himself for his wife’s suicide, going over a bazillion different scenarios of how he could have prevented it, you just say... “I was sick, there was nothing you could do.” There isnt some magical REASON why she became depressed, her life with him was as happy as he could have given her. It wouldnt have just stopped if her life was perfect, she had to get treatment, its an illness. It wasnt anyone’s fault, it was just a bad stroke of chance that she never told anyone about it and never got a chance to be treated, or even to talk it through with her husband at all. Her diary is just full of her feeling guilty that she must be making it up because she loves her husband so much and it’d be like insulting him to admit she isnt happy within her own skin, when he does everything to be the best husband he can. Goddd.... its so sad that its BECAUSE THEY WERE HAPPY that she was in this position where she never sought help! Where she just shouldered it herself and hoped it would go away on its own! And god, you get to see that Darryl does indeed have antidepressants in his room, unlike her he did seek therapy and its just because of his guilt that he isnt fully accessing that help. And he’s taking these drugs instead of his proper medication, and he’s planning his own suicide at the end of the trip. And god, you get to talk him down from it and say what his wife wanted to say, and save him from meeting the same fate as her! You’re just sick, Darryl. She was sick too. Its not anyone’s fault that someone stays depressed, nothing can magically make depression go away, you have to see a doctor like with any other illness. You cant just talk it away by telling yourself that you ‘should’ be happy and youre somehow choosing to feel this way...

GODDDD I hope poor mr stubble grandpa is okay after the end of the game And I hope him and Quella stay in touch as friends! Her backstory made me cry too, goddddd She’s been diagnosed with cancer and has anywhere between three and seven months to live, because she was too poor to afford treatment until it was already too late. And she’s just so positive and okay with it?? Everyone else are the only ones crying for her.. She just wants to finish her final novel before she runs out of time, she’s crying more about not having enough inspiration for this. She just wants to be remembered, she knows she cant change her own death and this is the only thing she CAN change... I want Darryl to be her friend and help beta read her novel aaaa And dear god can everyone please be okay and stick together and GOD why can’t protagonist stay T_T I want you all to be safe when I’m gone, my friends. God I get to know them so closely yet never be able to really even talk to them, they’ll just remember me as someone they talked to only once before I died... And DEAR GOD let me rescue Paulo please!!!! everyone be safe please I don’t want to be able to hug Paulo and stay with him forever There is no way this can happen unless the worst possible thing happened I have to say goodbye okay i HAVE TO SAVE EVERYONE if all goes well I’ll never see any of you in person, okay? just let me be a shadow on this boat and pass away with no regrets knowing all of you will live a lot longer than me THIS GAME GETS ME SO EMOTIONALLLLL