#anyway the idea is he's very into his whole magic man gambler persona

[viveela]

I am finally done with my redesign line up

[vaguely-concerned]

Twisted Fate/Graves thoughts 2 Electric Boogaloo because none of you can stop me

and I just have a lot of feelings okay

- t.f. taking an entire paragraph mid-fall during a harrowing life or death chase to give you the context for how much the imminent destruction of his boots is a  tragedy is the funniest and most endearing character detail and also irrefutable proof that despite appearances he, too, really does only have that half a brain cell, it simply pingpongs around in there much more than graves’ half (which instead finds one idea and GOES HARD for it no matter what lol bless him)   

also his pov is basically just a flippant ‘well this is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation’ until graves literally forces him to have an honest emotion at gunpoint, and y’know... that be what love feels like sometimes when you’re like that as a person, extremely relatable, I feel for him so much

- I’m still just quietly astounded by the hmmm... implied intimacy? I guess? in the argument they’re having once they’re actually talking in burning tides. let’s look at what they’re actually saying to each other:     

T.F.: “Are you ever gonna learn? . . . Every time I try to help you, I-” and “ I tried to get us out. The rest of us saw the job was going south . . . But you wouldn’t back down. You never do.”

vs.

Graves: “You’ll run again. That’s all you’ve ever done.” and “You made out alright, though . . . You know why? It’s because you’re a coward. And nothing you’ll ever say can change that.” 

like them’s the sort of fraught fighting words you have with a spouse right towards the end of an ugly divorce, the full fruitless ‘why do you always have to --’ and ‘but you never listen to me!!!’ deal, especially from graves’ side lol. it’s the sort of hurtful you can really only be with someone you’ve been very, very close to, someone you know incredibly well. considering the whole backstory what graves is essentially saying here is ‘It’s your own fault people have left you; you deserve to be alone’.

(interestingly, in twisted fate’s pov it seems that what’s really messing with him is the part of not being listened to. he tried to plead with his family and they refused to listen, he tried to convince graves to run away with the rest of them and he didn’t listen, and here they are again and graves isn’t listening  a g a i n  and at that point t.f. clearly just sort of. gives up on actually being heard, in a slightly heartbreaking way. and from how graves reacts to seeing that I really think he’s not naturally cruel like that at all, he’s just in too much pain to think until this startles him out of it and then he does actually listen)

- through both stories graves is so desperately, enduringly horny for t.f. to be emotionally present and engaged with him without slipping away into his ~*cool magic gambler*~ persona and I find it weirdly sweet 

- graves immediately getting fond of this leaky battered old rowboat... hfsadkjfhasd he’s sort of adorable in a way? it’s also really cute how he’s got this really tight focus on tf and his mannerisms and how genuine he’s being at any given moment. it’s such a neat way to show what he’s feeling and thinking about, which must be hard with a character who’s so massively oblivious to the finer points of his own inner life lol  

ALSO can we talk about how tf literally winks at him at one point, right after they’ve sort of had a little moment of regained trust... like my good sir that is so deeply unnecessarily saucy of you, please control yourself (though in his defense graves somehow still isn’t picking up what he’s putting down so y’know maybe subtle isn’t the way to go here anyway haha)

- I wonder if t.f. used to go by his initials even before he changed his name -- graves calls him by it straight off the bat in burning tides and t.f. seems to consider his real name mildly embarrassing lol. (also intriguing that he does appear to think of it as his ‘real name’, and not ‘old name’ or something like that. it’s why I feel like we’ve got more of a dual identity going on here than a deadname situation, it feels more like two distinct levels of emotional vulnerability/availability to me. and so ‘tobias’ stops being relevant when there’s no one left to know him as that. ow.)    

- from reading his bio it seems like twisted fate has had to figure out a lot of the magic stuff on his own (except for the mention of his grandpa teaching him the fortune telling part of it -- seems like they had a bit of a special connection, really, if him leaving his old cards with the kid before they left is anything to go by). what I’m saying is that I would read thousands upon thousands of words of him experimenting with it when they were younger and graves hurriedly having to topple a table over and pull them both behind it for cover before they both explode lol 

(and then t.f. popping his head up afterwards like ‘hAH see I TOLD you I could do it!’ and graves disconsolately lighting a cigar from the burning rubble b/c the things one does for love partnerships huh)

- I’ve been looking over burning tides with a writing eye a few times to figure out what makes it work so well for me, and one of the things I really like is that there are a lot of small comments/details that are there or are framed in a certain way specifically to emphasize the familiarity and history between the characters. Just small details like He moves fast for a big man. I’d forgotten that and graves mentioning he’s never liked standing too close when t.f. does the teleporting thing -- not to mention t.f.’s name reveal, which if I understand this correctly was actually new information to the readers when burning tides was going on. (and yes it is still very funny to me that his actual name is tobias. the duality of man)   

(I also feel like there are HUGE differences in writing quality between the different POV sections -- I guess different people wrote for the different characters? Well, both of the first person sections are gold and that’s what matters to me in this story so I don’t really mind. Sadly the Miss Fortune parts read the weirdest and stiffest to me, which is unfortunate b/c I love her lore concept a lot and she’s so cool in double double-cross. WHO the fuck let an unironic ‘the crimson-haired siren’ slip through the edit, is what I really want to know. please, narrator, tell me about her cerulean orbs while you’re at it) 

- The man I used to know seems lost under years of hatred.

I don’t try to say anything else. I can see it in his eyes, now. Something’s broken inside of him.

still makes me SO SAD and I’m incredibly happy it turns out not to be true in the end thank GOD

- this might just be me reading into stuff too much, but I really like this sense that in moments of high emotion/genuine vulnerability, graves tends to sound older and more tired while t.f. sounds younger than he actually is, more frightened and hurt

- if his mind hadn’t been completely focused on partner-rescuing and open murder were in any way his style, t.f. totally could have killed gangplank right there and then before miss fortune even got to blow the fucker up haha. then again if that were the sort of guy he were he’d be dead along with all the rest of them

- it’s so good that graves tries to save miss fortune’s guy before they leave the cave but also isn’t broken up about it when it turns out he can’t, that feels like such a correct encapsulation of his moral character haha

- I really do enjoy graves’ POV so much not just because there’s something immensely comforting about how he refuses to be scared even in the face of death because he’s too damn grouchy and won’t give the world the satisfaction, but also because the language/cadence is so satisfying. he does have a way with words, in a gruff non-flashy sort of way.

It smells like the end of everything – sulfur and ash and death; cooked hair and melting skin -- the rhythm of that is so gooood and that whole section conveys the horror and destruction but also the awe of the scene so well. (I’m telling you graves isn’t actually dumb at all, just astoundingly unbendingly single minded once he’s got an idea in his head lol) 

- I keep thinking about the fact that the last two things twisted fate thinks about before he passes out from drowning is if graves is scared and ‘What would Malcolm do?’ and I’m feeling real 😭😭😭 about it

- I’m still so disproportionately intrigued by graves mentioning his mom in burning tides. considering how early and seemingly easily he left home (...not to mention that he brings her up in connection with someone punching him in the face) it might be a safe bet that they weren’t that close but like. she also seems to be one of the very very few non-revengy things he’s checked up on after getting out of prison. did he send money home sometimes? would he visit whenever they came back to bilgewater? did she ever meet t.f. and if so did she approve or was this a bit of a uncharmable mother in law from hell situation? I um. I want to know these things pls riot it’s for science

.

(First post is over here btw, if anyone’s interested!)