#bc of the golden loop ending

[unlucky-words]

sitting here like

[astral-catastrophe]

Thinking about a LOZ game plot that starts similar to botw2, with Zelda and Link exploring and finding Ganondorf’s remains, but it takes a more interesting turn.

Ganondorf speaks to them, and though his body shows signs of being almost entirely decomposed to the bones falling apart, his voice is young.

Link and Zelda then go and adventure, seeking places and riddles Ganondorf told them. They see through his own eyes his he grew up, too stressed and too worried to fully protect a kingdom. They watch the young king, doing everything he can to help when their predecessors, the ancient Zelda and Link come along.

they watch as their predecessors go and threaten Ganondorf, who had not yet done anything wrong. They watch as their predecessors eventually hunt Ganondorf down and kill him.

Zelda and Link are terrified to return, and once they do, Ganondorf is sad. He understands why they would not want to free him now, but this only urges them on and makes the duo more determined.

After all, this was only a child king around their age.

so they go and find a way to bring the young king back to life, and from there, the trio recovers, then sets out to finish the actual reason for Link needing to draw the master sword.

[acerikus]

I LOOOOOOOVE these tags. So much save the goat stuff COMPLETELY misses that flowey same Asriel are the same, that flowey didn't magically revert to what he was like before he died when he became the god of hyderdeath (nor when he returned to his regular child form afterwards). He's shaped by his experiences - a lot of which are trauma and fear and bitterness and resentment at the world, desperately trying to cling to love and affection he doesn't feel like he can truly hold onto any more. He doesn't just... Lose those experiences that shape who he is just because he temporarily stops being a flower. Hell, I feel like some people forget that god of hyderdeath was laser-focused on killing frisk right up until the end!

god of hyderdeath is a power trip, born of having true godlike power. Reverting to his regular Asriel form is him letting down those walls and being himself, but he's not any less himself when he's a flower, not really, and despite everything he says. I'd even argue that his regular goat form kinda works as a bit of a safety net - for a brief amount of time he can just be seen as who he was before he was flowey, soak up some of that love and allow himself to be comforted in a way he probably doesn't feel like he really deserves. Be selfish for a little bit.

But if he were to regain that form permanently? There's only so far that could take him. At the end of the day he's STILL flowey and he can't pretend to be anyone else forever. It can only work as a mask for so long and I don't think he can ever really escape his trauma, nor who he's become through it. Regressing his character development wouldn't do anyone any favours.

But before this just becomes a full-on intense flowey analysis... Yeah. Outertale.

The way he's handled in it is weird. The weirdest part is that the way Asriel himself is handled in the ending of its LV0 pacifist admittedly... Isn't the worst iteration of save the goat I've seen? At least in terms of maintaining his personality. It's not great, but he DOES have to force himself to hold back on being mean to monster kid in the ending in a way that gets across that it's still pretty instinctual and natural to him, in a way that I feel is pretty refreshing for save the goat.

When I did a lv0 run, I also chose to do it right after a run in which I teamed up with him to kill everyone, and since this doesn't trigger an erase or true reset, he remembered and mentioned this a few times towards the end in a way that was kinda juicy (definitely recommend doing in that order if you do end up playing!) - and the fact that they let him act fucked up on the chaotic route while looking like Asriel was in itself a surprise! It DOES make me sad though that as a result of this he hardly ever gets to actually show his face WITHOUT being in his Asriel form, it really does feel like they treated twinkly as a means to an end rather than an important part of his identity.

It's also just... Very clear his entire existence had no thought put into it. He's there to BE saved, but he has no reason to be created and despite a few spiteful lines in the lab, it feels like it doesn't really touch on his trauma properly either.

G o d. All gekkos' outertale posting makes me wanna talk more in depth about the characterisation and plot issues in this game and why they bother me...

(readmore bc holy fuck this got long, it's probably like 5k words. It's also pretty much all salt, categorised by character)

Toriel

Why. Why is she like this. Kinda feels like the creator of the game hates her and if they don't, they have a weird way of showing it. She's treated as overdramatic and unjustified in her anger at asgore despite the fact that he DID declare war on humanity and he DID willingly let the people believe he was killing human children to harvest their souls. Even if he didn't do it for real in this game, she has every right to be angry and to not trust him, and it CERTAINLY doesn't make her undeserving to be a mother or whatever. Idk about you, but I don't think wanting kids to stay away from a man yelling about wanting to kill every child that crosses him makes you a bad parent, even if it turns out he didn't really hurt anyone y'know?

They also REALLY zoned in on 'mother' with her in a way that doesn't really make sense here. I could maybe see her feeling guilty for making a snap judgement but how would that call her motherhood into question?

Sans saying isolation messed with her makes no sense too!!!! The outerlands or whatever they called the ruins isn't sealed off in this game, other monsters seem way less intimidated by her in this game than in undertale (she has friends! She knows sans by name and goes to napstablook's shows and even has their phone number!), and we outright get told she takes the taxi to get her groceries... Meaning she headed off to the rest of the outpost and probably does that often enough.

All things considered, Toriel seems fairly well adjusted in outertale, at least by outertale standards. Kinda then makes it feel like everyone's just trying to convince her she's hysterical and that... Sucks.

Also the fact that they added an ending where you stay with her and framed it as a bad ending that doomed everyone is... Really mean? It sucked ass I'm sorry :/

Sans

... Why is he like this. This take on Sans is absolutely infuriating tbh. The only positive I really have here is that his puns are kinda good, I've seen fangames that fuck up this element massively and it was kinda fun to see his interactions in starton.

Okay, back to salt. His whole 'i became a sentry to help humans' thing is trash. He didn't care about that in ut! He didn't care about that at all! The only reason he looks out for frisk is because he made a promise to toriel, and he hates breaking promises. He didn't want to let down his friend.

...Huh. realising this is yet another case of Toriel disrespect somehow. Yet another thing they took from her, that they then just... Handed over to sans instead. :/

His lack of backstory. Look, I get wanting something silly, but they took almost everything that makes sans interesting away. Not hyperfocusing on sans like certain aus do is nice, but it feels like in a lot of situations in this game they overcompensated by a long shot.

No mysterious past/origins. We know he worked with alphys I guess but???? Honestly I have a LOT to rant about for that part so I'll leave it for twinkly's section. And yet despite all this, Sans inexplicably bleeds in tpe when not even undertale has that happen? Make up your mind!

His role in non Asriel chaotic also... Sucks ass. I'm in a pretty awesome corner of the fandom in terms of the people I follow and the takes I see as a result, so if I'm honest, when I saw all those posts about 2024 fanon sans being indifferent to his brother's murder, I kinda just figured they were vaguing about this game. You're telling me that sans of all people just shrugs off you killing everyone and complains a little bit before letting you pass?! He should know alphys already ran off. He should know the only person left to stop you is asgore, and that it's obvious he won't. Part of this could be connected to how frisk is written perhaps, and much like the twinkly situation, I'll have much more to say on that further down.

I understand the creator didn't wanna have a sans fight in their game - however, if that's the case... Maybe come up with a reason for him to NOT show up in the last corridor, then? Have him busy helping with evacuations or something, or already dead like in the first chaotic ending... This was just sloppy.

Papyrus

Honestly he wasn't... Terrible. The phonecalls were fun even if most were cheap references (though they can be fun in fangames sometimes so I'm not mad at this lol). Him being extremely talented at making spaghetti is just one symptom of one of this game's biggest flaws, however. I really don't like how nobody's really allowed to be bad at anything or have any real struggles in this game - especially when spaghetti in undertale is used to demonstrate his relationship with undyne and the similar wavelength they're on when humans aren't involved. She's the one who started teaching him to cook it, it's deeply intertwined with his desire to be a royal guard, and it's something they suck at together. Him just inexplicably being good at it is... Weird, and feels really disconnected from their friendship and her reluctance to let him in the guard yknow?

Also: his boss final phase. Having the dog NOT take his special attack away this time was really funny admittedly but... Idk? Not only is the fight really unfair for pacifist/neutral and those who aren't as good at the game (ut never gets this hard outside of geno), it feels way too on the nose in terms of insisting he's strong and has powerful attacks. Undertale didn't need to overcompensate to get across that papyrus is strong and disciplined and the way you have to infer that in undertale is way cooler. I might just be nitpicking with this point tbh but it's whatever. Letting myself be a hater for once.

And don't get me started on him getting together with Mettaton. It seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere, the idea that they were already friends in this was glossed over really quickly and no time was really put into developing the relationship save for papyrus commenting on finding him attractive every few minutes.

Gotta be honest, I've never been a fan of this ship nor understood its popularity. Papyrus very briefly mentions thinking he's attractive in undertale, but it doesn't really go anywhere and I'm not even sure mettaton knows he exists. It feels like it was just kinda added because it's a popular ship and that's it, not sure it really contributes much to either of their arcs. It was a light-hearted celebrity crush in canon and never really tried to be more.

Oh, oops. Had more to say here than I thought.

Undyne

Not much to say here... I think she was okay, there's nothing super bad with her. I do think the way gerson kinda downplays her/lacks faith in her in the chaotic route kinda sucks and I think choosing to make her non-undying chaotic bossfight harder sure was A Choice, but it's whatever. Undying was weirdly easy in a way that didn't do her much justice. Honestly they didn't do enough with her for me to have a wall of complaints and I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. Her relationship with alphys didn't really amount to much and her lack of understanding of human culture doesn't really hit as hard when she's just talking about random sci-fi things that we have no way of knowing are real or not in this game's idea of the 2600s ourselves, y'know? Her love of anime (that she mistakenly thinks is human history) is pretty absent here except to validate her relationship with alphys in a very shallow way.

The Ghost Family

Hoo boy... Was gonna make this the mettaton section, but I wanted to talk about napstablook at the same time, so I'm just gonna lump them all together.

What. What the hell was this plotline.

It feels like they tried to go for 'smalltime farmer chases passion for stardom after feeling unfulfilled at home' and as I've seen someone else say, 'shy business owner struggles to talk to their cousin outside of work'. This would've been fine tbh, but... There's a lot of things in the execution of this that kinda grossed me out if I'm honest. I don't think they were intentional, but I think it could've been thought through a lot better to avoid some unfortunate implications - or even lean into them in a respectful way.

Firstly, the ghost family intervention was pretty long, awkward, and didn't feel like it really added much - especially when most people playing would already know mettaton's backstory anyway (and his house is still accessible like in undertale!!!!! What was the point?)

Mettaton airing out his family issues on live TV feels very ooc - he keeps that stuff very close to his chest and I doubt he'd like it getting out. Him entertaining any of that out in the open seems... Weird.

Speaking of the intervention, his cousins' treatment of him was horrifying! Part of it seems intentional and it's nice that there's at least one part in the game where characters are allowed to have flaws and do bad things but... There's also elements that feel like you're meant to agree with them? Their insistence that mettaton just come home and everything they did in the past with constantly badgering him to come and help out on the farm were rightfully treated as something that hurt mettaton's feelings and that gave napstablook and the others pause. That's (mostly, we'll come back to it later) fine. He called them out for it and they reflected on it, cool. The way his ghost form was utilised makes me extremely uncomfortable, however.

Napstablook talks about hearing 'the real [mettaton]' in the recording, right to his face, 'the real mettaton' in this scenario alluding to his ghost form. Considering mettaton is a trans allegory, this feels... Kinda gross? In a similar vein, when passing mettaton's quiz barriers, one of the questions is 'what is mettaton's true identity' and you have the option to deadname him (using a name papyrus literally just made up in undertale rather than having any kind of creativity ofc) Alphys' reaction is simply to ask how you know that which... Doesn't feel great. The correct answer is 'mettaton' ofc thankfully, but everything around this particular plot point feels weird. Maybe don't do that w the most prevalent trans allegory character..?

And ofc, they keep insisting he just come home, go back to working on the farm, go back to his family... Idk, gives me vibes of someone abandoning their shitty transphobic family and then insisting they want to see 'the real [deadname] again' and for them to abandon their new life and just go back to the way things were before. Not good.

All of this would still be okay for the most part since the ghost family are painted as being unfair to mettaton... But in true pacifist, he goes back to helping out with the farm anyway and talks about how he thinks he was probably just being dramatic after all, and how 'blooky didn't do anything that bad'

... What?

It takes me right back to Toriel's treatment. Napstablook, Maddie and lurksalot gave no real thought to mettaton's feelings, made it all about them and showed pretty much no support for his transition nor his career! Fuck those guys! It's funny - mettaton is pretty consistently a pompous asshole (affectionate) in undertale but here, I think all his feelings towards his family were COMPLETELY valid. Mettaton outertale didn't do anything wrong.

Lurksalot didn't feel like they contributed much to the story either, save to be yet another character treating mettaton like shit with zero consequences nor narrative judgement. They just made every ghost family event even more drawn out.

And then ofc!!!! Mettaton and Alphys' friendship is so bland in this game! They're two people who kinda know each other and she says some nice things about him in a letter in chaotic but that's about it. Their friendship and the subsequent conflict frisk's arrival brings to it in undertale is the heart of hotland and the core, but here it's just replaced with unnecessary, hard to watch, boring family drama. The two of them have no issues to work out. She doesn't ask too much of him. There's no funny quips and barely any chemistry at all. God forbid either of them have any real flaws.

One last thing: I'm glad maddie gets her mew mew body, it's nice. Wish it was an on-screen moment or something alluded to more though. Some of that time dragging out the family drama could've been used on that instead, y'know? Especially with napstablook getting the mew mew doll... Genuinely thought they were gonna show it to her when they first got hold of it, rather than dragging Frisk into their intervention. She should've gotten to be more mad, too. Kinda a big part of her identity.

Oh, and mettaton's no-asriel chaotic fight was bullshit. It was a nice spamton reference and the first phase was cool, but the second was utter bullshit and dragged out the fight way too long. Attacking him after snapping all the wires should've killed him im sorry. It's even more of a shame bc I genuinely really liked this game's mettaton neo fight - it was fun and creative and felt possible.

Holding myself back from adding any more to this bc I could go on and on, ugh.

Alphys

Alphys. For a game that tries to make her the star of it, it's actually kinda impressive how much they managed to take away from her and just how uninteresting she is in this game.

At the surface level she's awesome, powerful, and the star of the show. In my first playthrough I was actually pretty happy to see her thriving like this! The more routes I played and the more I thought about it though they just kinda... Declawed her. Took away all her flaws. Made her 'perfect' in a way that I don't think works at all.

The amalgamates never happened. None of her experiments went wrong. She never hid away from her mistakes, or lied to anyone (save for keeping Asgore's secret, which she has no negative feelings about), nor did she over engineer any situations to make herself seem cooler. She doesn't argue with Mettaton! She's confident and assertive! She's Asgore's right hand woman and next in line for the throne! And ofc, the badass final boss! What's not to love?

...But none of this is Alphys, is it?

Her anxiety isnt just because of the determination experiments, it's pretty clear she's always been a pretty shy and nervous person. In fact, based on her entries they were one of the things she was more confident in before it all went wrong. People are hard, but she knows science, y'know?

She doesn't get to be flawed or interesting - despite her presence, she's just a generic cool scientist who's suave with the ladies, I guess..?

She isn't particularly dorky, shes overly confident, she has zero issues to work through. Her relationship with undyne is perfect (derogatory) and her infodumping about anime just before the archive feels very forced, like they remembered last minute that she does that and thought it should be included somehow.

Depicting what she'd be like in a scenario where the determination experiments never happened is a fun and interesting idea! But deltarune demonstrates how to do that well, and I think they completely missed the mark. The way she talks, her body language, the way she acts around others in general... These things are universal constants and yet in outertale, she's basically a different person entirely.

Outertale alphys isn't allowed to lie (save to cover for asgore Secretly Being A Good Person), she isn't allowed to miscalculate, she isn't allowed to mis-speak or make mistakes or do anything she'd regret. She feels like an alphys written by someone who hates her in canon and thinks all her flaws make her terrible and unlikable. I doubt this is the case since I don't think a person like that would've given her such prevalence, but that's the level of love and attention I feel was given to her writing here. It makes me sad.

And, of course... The DT experiments and her fight.

... Why did she have vials of determination if all the humans are alive? Did she take it from them? If so, was this before or after they went into stasis? We know she's not been the royal scientist for long in relation to how long humans have been falling, so did ROMAN take the determination? How much of this did she even DO?

Why did she and sans even DO anything with determination? It... Doesn't really make sense.

Speaking of determination, why did she melt at the end of her fight? I'd assume she's injected herself with determination as one of the vials in her lab is mentioned to be partially used, but I'm pretty sure it's also like this on pacifist. Was that overlooked? Are we just meant to assume it's MORE depleted? Does she just have natural determination now because She's So Cool And Badass? This isn't even really a complaint about the fight, more just how poorly that part of her lab is handled lmao

But getting into her fight... Idk, it didn't really feel like her. A lot of it was just random bullshit that was hard for the sake of being hard, that didn't really seem to be tied to her identity very well at all. People complain a lot about the Zenith Martlet fight in undertale yellow but that's done far better than this, imo. It clearly reflects martlet's character, personality and canonical bullet patterns (we see Alphys' in ut tpe!), there's a genuine feeling of progression in the fight and the act you're given to help with the fight feels more effective - you can still damage her on her turn, so taking a turn to heal act doesn't feel like a waste. The Asriel acts though... They just don't last long enough to feel that worth it? Sure they're okay, but in general, you get a lot less time to breathe. Martlet's fight lets you retry from phase 2 if you die. Sans' in undertale gives you as many turns as you need to heal while he's sparing you. Alphys' fight just feels like it's made to feel un-fun and painful throughout in a way that just isn't worth it, and doesn't really feel like it fits her personality either, y'know? The fight was just a slog and like many others, I had zero motivation to finish it legit. I don't think it helps that the undyne and mettaton fights in this route are fairly easy and simple in comparison.

Tldr: they took away everything that makes alphys endearing, fun and interesting. This isn't alphys at all.

Asgore

A huge chunk of this essay accidentally got deleted, including my first attempt at writing this section. In it, I mentioned that the Asgore apologism went way too far.

This time though, I don't think I'd even call it that. Reflecting on it, it feels less like an attempt to defend him and more like a way to hate on and spite Toriel.

Seriously. So much of his character basically just feels like someone going 'fuck you toriel. I'm giving EVERYTHING to asgore.'

It's... Really weird?

Asgore having a way out of killing humans is an interesting concept! Outertale takes place 500 years in the future compared to undertale, so the idea that they have the resources and technology to do that is kinda cool and in theory, exploring this idea sounds really fun. In practice though, it feels like it was mostly done to make Toriel out to be an asshole for no reason and to laugh at her for ever assuming he would've really killed anyone (despite... Y'know. Telling everyone that's what he was doing.)

He just. Completely moved on from Toriel without a second thought seemingly, and doesn't even look that affected by seeing her turn up again - meanwhile SHE'S got crumpled up tea recipes in the trash and all the Sad Divorced Energy - it doesn't really fit either of them! Toriel wasn't really given a reason to miss him like that, and I think even if he DID fully move on, he'd be way happier to see her than that.

All his leading statements on how she must feel in LV1 pacifist sucked ass also, especially with the way she kinda just agreed that yeah, she feels like shit for not trusting that he'd suddenly do a 180 and not hurt anyone (AGAIN. AFTER HE CONTINUED TO LET EVERYONE BELIEVE THIS) and that she must feel unworthy of being a mother. She hadn't even said half of this in front of him yet! He put words in her mouth! That in itself would be fine (social blunders are pretty normal for asgore after all) but it... Wasn't treated like that. It was handled as if this was a sweet and compassionate thing for him to say which... Yikes.

And ofc he gets to adopt frisk, and monster kid, and get to have Asriel live with him! His fatherhood is never called to question in undertale, but ofc Toriel's motherhood has to be here. Hell, despite their divorced status, if you talk to gerson in tpe it's highly implied frisk asks if asgore would start aging again if he became their dad! Idk, all of this part just reeked of Toriel hate and nothing more. Asgore is just yet another character to get sanded down and de-clawed and it sucks. So much of what makes him interesting is his mistakes and flaws and how they impact him, y'know?

Twinkly

I wanna start this by saying I don't think his writing is too bad. It's not amazing by any means but by outertale standards, he's one of the better written characters. That being said, Flowey is my favourite character of all time so I'm still gonna be critical.

So they did save the goat. Save the goat aus really aren't my thing nowadays - I feel like so often people act like he's a separate person to Flowey entirely and act like the alarm clock app dialogue doesn't exist. Asriel didn't end the story as a doomed tragedy fated to fade away! Flowey ended the story as someone who finally got closure on the loss of his best friend, and can finally learn to move on, even if it takes him a while to adjust. I don't think he needs to be a goat again for that.

That being said, I know these kinda aus are a big wish fulfilment thing for a lot of the fandom that aren't even necessarily something people want to be canon as much as they just wanna explore the idea and see him truly happy, so I won't judge that element too harshly. People are allowed to have fun, and I think save the goat can be fine if it respects him as flowey rather than separating them.

I really like that they allow Asriel to be fucked up and an asshole rather than him soft rebooting into some Sweet Perfect Little Prince once he returns to his old form, like so many other save the goat takes. Even in lv0's ending he struggles to bite back insults and mean comments aimed at Monster Kid which is... Admittedly kinda refreshing! There's definitely some flowey (or I guess in this case, twinkly) behaviour that still comes through here and I'm glad. This carried over to chaotic, too. While his characterisation wasn't perfect, this at least felt like twinkly obtaining a few form and continuing to play with the world, rather than your standard Asriel take. I also really liked that he remembers and acknowledges chaotic if done before pacifist, that was neat and adds to his character (as far as this game goes) I think.

However, onto the biggest, glaring issue I have with him.

Why. Why does he exist.

No, seriously.

In its attempt to make the world perfect, a world that blatantly only exists so the creator could make a save the goat ending, mind, there's no reason for the goat to need to be saved at all. Nor for him to exist after dying back when Chara lived with the dreemurrs.

Asgore isn't killing humans, so the souls don't need to be absorbed by anyone. Frisk can just enter the archive and lend their power to destroy the forcefield themselves, so there's no ultimatum like there is in undertale - there's no implied tradeoff of Frisk's life for the freedom of monsters without twinkly's intervention. In undertale, flowey's messing around opened up an ending that would've otherwise been impossible, something that worked for everyone.

Without him existing at all here, frisk could've broken the barrier just fine. All it really added to pacifist was a couple extra boss fights and asgore being dead for two minutes. And him being saved I guess but again, there's no real story justification for him being here EXCEPT to pat yourself on the back for saving him.

Why was he created? In undertale it's pretty clear - they wanted a vessel to hold all the souls in for now during the true lab experiments. He exists because Alphys selected the first flower to ever grow in the garden and injected it with determination that she extracted from the human souls.

... But all the humans are... Alive and well in outertale? They don't need a vessel to contain their souls. They don't need to extract any determination from anyone. Again, why do they HAVE vials of determination? And why did she inject one into a flower?

AND THAT'S THE OTHER BIG THING. It's established she and sans injected a starling flower for... Whatever reason. SO WHY THE HELL IS TWINKLY A CARTOON STAR?!

This point makes absolutely no sense at all. He looks absolutely nothing like a starling flower nor does he behave like a flower at all, which is confusing if that's what he started as. Honestly, I think it would've made more sense to just keep him as Flowey if they were gonna include him at all, and just have his appearance reflect a starling flower instead of a golden flower.

This applies to his fight too. Mechanically I think it's AWESOME, but the visuals are... Just very very boring. A huge part of why his fight in the original is so good it's the bizarre and chaotic nature of it, the horror elements, and the way so much of flowey's trauma in terms of how he was created and the things he finds scary was put on blast for all to see. The combination of mechanical and organic elements, all the plants and insects... Idk, just going 'hmm he's a star. Let's have him go through a star life cycle' is boring, there's no visual appeal.

If his creation is so vague and wishy washy, this would've been a great opportunity to flesh it out more. How was he created? What kinds of technology and machinery did alphys use to put all this together? How did she (or roman????? unclear) get the determination? What does twinkly remember?

That leads me onto a tangentially related topic - his trauma. I... Don't think this was shown very well. He talks a bit about BEING traumatised from the lab, but telling isn't the same as showing and canon flowey is terrible at hiding it, whereas I'd just as easily believe outertale Asriel made it up for sympathy points. He never really projects, he doesn't force anyone else to experience anything like he did, nothing like that. He's just a cocky asshole who likes killing, and who eventually decides to start being nice.

This game constantly seemed to be speedrunning ways to get him from being twinkly to being Asriel as quickly as possible in almost every single route which... Huh???? It's weird. Would've been nice to let him be a star more rather than just Asriel...

(final amendment bc I lost a huge chunk of this essay originally and had to rewrite it, and I'm realising I didn't manage to fit this in this time... How does a single monster soul let him get his Asriel form again? Sure he's still treated as if soulless and it doesn't make him a good person, but if he was 'so tired of being a star', why hadn't he tried doing this sooner? It makes no sense...)

For a game that exists to give him a good ending, it's so ironic how little he needs to exist at all in this world. Just goes to show what it looks like when you go too far with 'fixing' things or removing stuff you seem 'too problematic' for the sake of being wholesome or whatever.

Chara

Speaking of which... Look I'm just gonna say it. This version of Chara sucks so bad.

Chara is one of my favourite characters - they're really interesting, morally grey, and a fascinating way for undertale as a game to interface with us as players.

They're a child who likely saw the worst of humanity, then found themselves in a home with family who genuinely loved them once they fell down and met the monsters. Their intense saviour complex made them feel like the best way to help their family was to sacrifice their own life to get enough souls to break them free (and once they realised they had control, get payback against the humans while they were at it). They could be mean-spirited and a prankster. They valued efficiency HIGHLY. Their favourite number was nine because it's the limit, the absolute, a way to stop hurting and to stop others hurting.

And by doing geno, you can push this fixation on stats further. Max out all your stats. Gain power. Get stronger. Become invincible. Nobody can hurt any more if the world is gone. And ofc, they stand as the final arbiter of consequences for the player. Your punishment for killing everyone and for pushing them into believing it needs to be completed. Chara both IS is and is separate from us in a way that can't really be fully disentangled and it's really, really cool.

Anyway, enough gushing about undertale Chara. What's outertale Chara in comparison?

... Nothing.

They're nothing.

Outertale Chara narrates occasionally. They're a ghost that follows frisk around, but aren't confined to that, and have been actively wandering the underground since their death. They also still have a SOUL for some reason? This part doesn't really make sense at all.

Other than sacrificing themself and maybe wanting to take out a few humans after Asriel absorbs them, they don't do anything that could be considered bad ever. The most devious thing they ever do is snatch Asriel's diary to leave a silly comment in there when they first arrive at the outpost (sans does this with Toriel's phone in undertale tpe for comparison lmao). Despite what Asriel seems to believe, Chara is completely absent from the chaotic route - never getting corrupted, never caring about our stats, never wanting to hurt anyone, never even trying to make us face any consequences. They're just... Not here. For a character so prevalent in the murder based route of undertale this is fucking wild.

They all but vanish if you so much as say something slightly mean to someone, too! It's strange, makes no sense, and just like with sans, it feels like they overcompensated waaaaaaay too much for the people who insist they're evil. On top of that, if you do chaotic before lv0, they don't even remember chaotic happening! They'd may as well have just been a member of the ghost family who likes following Frisk around when they're especially nice. Like Asgore and alphys, they've been sanded down and de-clawed to be 'wholesome' and 'perfect', and it just results in a bland, boring character who loses anything that made them interesting, nuanced and fun.

'Chara wasn't the greatest person'... Why, though? They don't have enough substance in this game for that line to really have as much impact.

Frisk

I'm gonna be honest - I actually ADORED their frisk at first, and I think that's because I started with a neutral run and ended up drawing them a lot. They felt silly and mischievous and interesting, and this continued into chaotic. They seem pretty chill with what's going on but then take that even further by being hilariously affectionate with Asriel and still doing silly things like being up for picking up the electrodampening fluid or drinking directly out of the fountain. They felt like a funny little mini-kris (save for being okay with all the murder ofc).

Then uhhhhhhh... That's when I experienced the second chaotic ending, the one without Asriel, as well as lv0. I feel like they definitely DID try to lean on the Kris angle on purpose in terms of their feelings on being controlled and stuff but it???? Just doesn't work very well? There's no ambiguity to this version of frisk once you've seen all the routes. Just like EVERYONE ELSE, they're just a perfect little angel who would never do anything wrong and anything past lv0 is just the eeeeeevil player influence or whatever. Come on, we have deltarune for that kinda approach to control 😭 (though even then, Kris is a layered and interesting character who isn't goodness and innocence personalised, and that's why they're cool)

In undertale, we have no idea what frisk is like as a person. WOULD they spare everyone without our influence? Would they kill? Would they be a scared child lashing out in self defense? Would they run from everything, then give up and let themselves die permanently somewhere? We just don't know! We're not supposed to know! It feels like it went back to the very early fandom interpretation where frisk is Good And Sweet and Innocent while Chara is evil incarnate - except this time they're BOTH the former.

It's a contradiction too! Why in the Asriel chaotic route are they so down to follow him, and pet him, and hug him every chance they get if they don't like all the stuff we're making them so? The player has no influence over Twinkly. Every single thing he did, he chose to do, and yet even if the only time frisk has seen him was him destroying their mercy button and forcing them to kill for him, they seem to love him to pieces and go along with whatever he says happily. What.

I feel like they didn't know what to do with Frisk here at all and it shows.

Other characters

This has been ridiculously long, but to quickly go over non-major characters... They did very few things to make Roman seem interesting, the amount of stuff hes implied to have helped Asgore with just reduces even further any influence or impact alphys had, and (a smaller nitpick)... Why didn't he use times new roman as a font when we DID see him speak in the archive/on the signal stars? It's such a missed opportunity...

Burgerpants was fun... Kinda. Developing him like this feels like something that should've happened DURING the actual game rather than before it though because it made him feel like a whole other person entirely? The poisoned food was very funny though.

Why is Snowy now Stardrake when his dad hasn't changed at all and Crystal looks like any other snowdrake? That was bizarre.

I actually really liked the humans! Establishing them as actual characters was really fun, and I especially like justice. Justice, at least in my opinion, is probably the most interesting character in this whole game tbh - someone who tried to do good but ultimately caused more harm than good, while NOT downplaying it, showing the consequences directly, and showing them work to try to make things better. The way we don't grab their item like the others in the twinkly fight nor go through an area for them in the archive (and just talk to them instead) really adds to their intrigue - what are they like? Who did they know? Is there something they don't want us to see? How are they strong enough to not need us to grab their weapon at all to lend their help? I think it's get funny that the only character I'm fully praising is the clover-adjacent one. Justice outertale they could never make me hate you

(that being said... seeing the way this game is clearly just supposed to be a 'fix' for undertale does sour my thoughts on the humans a little. did they only do this bc they thought them NOT being full characters in ut was bad/a problem with it? ��� This applies to the additional monster kid story focus too).

Speaking of monster kid... Them being an orphan was clearly just a plot device to give asgore more kids and therefore feel like he won more than Toriel. Monster kid in undertale seems like they probably did have real and loving parents, and they have a sister too!!!! Would've been nice if they'd at least done something with their sister :(

This got... Way longer than I expected, so I'll stop here. But outertale definitely gave me an even bigger appreciation for other ut fangames. My gripes with deltatraveler section 3 feel much smaller in comparison now, if tsus misses the mark on Flowey later down the line they've at least already done most characters so much more justice, and it really puts into perspective all the heart and soul that went into kissy cutie, as well as its genuine love got the source material and characters.

Sorry outertale, you weren't for me. That being said, if anyone disagrees with any of this then that's fine! These are all just my opinions and feelings on it after going through all the routes and talking about it with friends. Media is always gonna resonate with different people in different ways and that's a good thing! If your perspective on any of this is different and if you had way more fun with it, I'm glad you did and I genuinely wish I could've felt the same. I feel like at the very least, making it has probably been a great learning experience for the devs and I really hope they carry on making games and improving their skills. Hope y'all are thriving and having fun regardless 💙

[pedrospatch]

call it what it is

Jackson! Joel Miller x Female Reader

summary: A disagreement over patrol duty leads to declarations that have been long overdue.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. established relationship. HEFTY AGE GAP (reader is in her 20’s and joel is 56). ellie and joel are fine bc i said so and they deserve nothing less. reader handles a rifle, joel’s a little too overprotective and almost seems controlling, but i promise he is not. well, maybe just a smidge. arguing, admission of feelings, joel miller says i love you (yes this is ooc, no i do not care bc i need this old man to tell me he loves me). angst, fluff. quite a bit of side character interaction before we get to joel and reader in the second half. the only physical description of reader is that she is shorter than joel. fair warning, i am quite rusty.

word count: 4.2k

a/n: hi hello. i have not shared a wip in over 2 months. i was going back and forth on whether or not i wanted to share a fic with so much going on but decided i wanted to get back to doing what i enjoy. that and ofc that new footage was a boost of inspo. i am sending so, so much love to anyone who happens to see this author note, whether you read this fic or just happen to see this note in passing whilst scrolling. i know things have been tough, but i am here with you. <3

Joel wakes with a gentle start. Yawning, he rolls over from his side onto his back, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as warm, golden sunlight filters into the bedroom through the sheer, white linen curtains drawn over the window. He stares up at the ceiling, his breathing slow, steady, and even. He’s still getting used to it, it seems. Waking this calmly, with a tranquil peace he had been so certain he would never in his life feel again. He knew it couldn’t be a mere coincidence the nightmares had all but stopped tormenting him in his sleep when the two of you stopped doing that awkward little tap dance around one another and began sharing a bed, a home, a life.

No more bolting upright in sheer panic in the middle of the night, heart pounding and drenched head to toe in a cold sweat. No more believing he’s failing in his sleep. No more waking up feeling like he’s lost something.

Even his dreams about Sarah had become so, so much more pleasant. Images of her in that field on that night were replaced by different memories, like watching her teammates dogpile her after she’d scored the winning goal in their soccer tournament, or the big, triumphant grin she’d flashed him over her chocolate milkshake as the pair sat in their usual corner booth at their favorite fifties-themed diner in Austin—much to Joel’s surprise, Sarah had politely declined her teammates’ invitation for pizza once the match ended, choosing to celebrate her victory with him. Just the two of them.

“Y’sure you don’t wanna go with your friends, kiddo?” he’d asked, raising an eyebrow. He had been certain she was approaching the age where she would start spending less and less time with her old man. “I wouldn’t mind, y’know.”

“Positive,” she had reassured him with a smile, looping her arm through his and leading him off the pitch. “I’d much rather be with you, dad.”

Rather than smelling metallic in his slumber, he smells the grass that stained her white and blue striped jersey. Her cheeks are smeared with dirt, not with crimson.

Stifling another loud yawn, Joel stretches his arm out over towards your side of the bed, his calloused fingers seeking the warmth and softness of your naked body—instead, all they find are empty sheets, cold and long abandoned. He turns his head, and as suspected, you are not laying there beside him. That’s hardly out of the ordinary. Out of the two of you, you were the early riser, up before the neighbors’ rooster even had the chance to sound the alarm. Joel knows how much you treasure your quiet mornings lounging on the porch swing he’d built for you as you watched the sunrise with a hot cup of coffee in hand. He often made a genuine effort to get up and join you, but lately, his patrol rotations had been all over the place thanks to a shortage of patrolmen. He found himself sleeping in whenever he had the chance, seeing as he never knew when he might have to work a damn double. Or maybe it was just his age catching up with him.

He checks the time and then rolls out of bed, groaning when his sore knees and his aching lower back protest his movement.

After taking a quick shower using whatever hot water the kid had left for him after her own shower—much to his annoyance, it was not very much—Joel brushes his teeth and gets dressed for the day before pulling on his boots and heading downstairs into the kitchen where he finds the culprit responsible for the cold downpour he’d been forced to wash himself under. Ellie’s sitting at the table, absentmindedly stirring her oatmeal around her bowl with her spoon as she flips through one of her comic books. Just as he’s about to greet her, he spots the clean, empty coffee pot on the kitchen counter and frowns. You hadn’t even made coffee yet?

Now, that—that is out of the ordinary.

“Where is she?” he asks.

“Well, good morning to you too, old man. Oh, I slept great, thanks for asking,” Ellie quips without looking up at him as she flips the page. She mumbles something under her breath he doesn’t quite catch, something like, and you get on my ass about my manners?

Rolling his eyes, Joel snorts in response and pads over to the coffee maker on the counter. He spoons in some of the grounds he’d traded for earlier that week into the reusable filter, pours in water from the tap, and turns it on to brew. He grabs two ceramic mugs from the wire dish rack beside the sink and sets them down on the counter. “She out back?” he questions, yanking the refrigerator door open—he tries to remember the little things, like how you enjoyed your coffee with a bit of milk as well as a dash of cinnamon, if you had the rations, or something to trade for the precious spice. He always made sure that you did.

“Nope.” Ellie shovels a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth and adds thickly, “She went to get some eggs.”

Joel shoots her a look of disgust over his shoulder. “Jesus, Ellie! How many times do I gotta tell you? Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s bad manners,” he scolds her, shaking his head. He turns his attention back to the refrigerator. As he reaches for the glass bottle of milk, he pauses and his eyebrows pull together in confusion when he sees the wicker basket on the top shelf. “Wait a minute.” He feels her stiffen in her chair. “Why the hell would she go get eggs when we’ve got a full basket of ‘em right here in the fridge?”

She clears her throat. “Oh, uh, my bad. I got confused. Think she said she was gonna go get more honey? Uh, I used the last of it to make my breakfast this morning and she, uh—she wanted some for her toast. You know, ‘cause she really likes putting honey on her toast,” she rambles before piling more oatmeal into her mouth.

Closing the refrigerator door, he turns to her, his eyes narrowing with suspicion as uneasiness settles deep in the pit of his stomach. “Ellie?”

There’s a momentary pause. “...yeah?”

This time, Joel doesn’t bother to chastise the teenager for talking with her mouth full. “Where is she?”

Ellie nervously swallows her food and holds up both of her hands. “Hey, I already fucking told you, man.”

“Look, I know you like the back of my own hand, kiddo. And I know damn good and well when you’re lying to me.” Joel crosses his arms over his chest. “Now tell me the truth. What do you know that I don’t?”

Groaning, Ellie sits back in her chair. “Ugh. She made me swear not to tell you! She’ll fucking strangle me if I do—”

“Yeah, well, not if I fuckin’ strangle you first myself,” he threatens her. “M’Serious, Ellie. Tell me what’s going on. Right now.”

“Alright, alright! Jesus,” she huffs. “She’s with Tommy. He’s been taking her out of town to do target practice in the mornings, just the two of them. She usually gets back to the house before you get up,” she admits.

Joel’s arms fall back to his sides, his shoulders tense. “And how long has this been goin’ on?” he asks, rigidly. There’s a sudden tightness inside his chest, a feeling he hasn’t felt it in a while, but is still all too familiar to him.

After Tommy spread the word around town that more people were needed for patrol duties, you’d expressed an interest in the role, but Joel had been all too quick to shut you down, telling you he didn’t want you stepping foot outside the community’s gates.

“No,” he’d said. “Not happenin’. S’too dangerous.”

“But Joel—”

“I said,” he lowered his voice. “No.”

He hadn’t offered you an explanation as to why he was against it, refused to give you one good, solid reason as to why it was acceptable for him to risk his own life to protect Jackson, but it wasn’t acceptable for you to do the same.

Joel hadn’t known how to tell you the truth. How he needed you far, far more than you needed him, how the mere thought of losing you, the best fucking thing that could have possibly happened to him since the world ended, made him feel like his heart was going to stop.

A few weeks had passed since then, and thankfully, you never brought it up to him again. You had lost interest in patrol duty. Or so he’d thought.

“How long has this been going on?” he repeats after a minute.

“C’mon, man! Haven’t I already snitched enough?”

“Ellie,” Joel bites out her name. “Tell me. How long?”

She sighs in defeat. “Two weeks? Maybe three?” When she notices the muscle in his jaw tick, she grimaces. “You do realize why she didn’t fucking tell you, right?”

“Don’t,” he warns her, sharply.

“I’m just saying,” Ellie mutters, peering down into her bowl.

Without another word, Joel angrily storms past her and straight out the front door, snatching up his rifle on the way. He heads straight for the stables, trying to ignore the anxiety flaring inside of his chest.

Focus.

Now, breathe in. And breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe...

You exhale as you slowly squeeze the trigger.

Y’squeeze it like you love it, you had been told by your reluctant instructor.

The round fires off into the distance and you swiftly grab the bolt handle, bringing it up, back, forward, and then down again. You pull the trigger once more, then repeat and continue firing one shot after the other for a total of five rounds.

The rifle’s recoil nearly sends you flying backwards, but a strong hand on your back keeps you nice and steady. That same hand then moves to your shoulder and gives you three firm taps.

“Alright, alright! Christ,” Tommy laughs. He withdraws his arm from around you and shakes his head. “Fuckin’ calm down, Annie Oakley.”

Picking up his binoculars, he rises to his feet and looks through the lens at the makeshift targets that he’d set up for you, three empty soup cans lined up in a row on top of a wooden fence about twenty-five yards away—your longest shooting distance to date.

“Well?” You don’t even bother masking your impatience as you lower the rifle, carefully propping the weapon up against the tree stump you’re perched behind. Rubbing your sore shoulder, you hope the kickback won’t leave a bruise. You wouldn’t know how to explain that to Joel. “How did I do?”

His response comes in the form of a long, low whistle.

There is no telling if that had been good whistle, or if it had been a bad one. You groan. Now was not the time for him to dick around. “Please tell me I got at least one of them?”

“You got ‘em all, actually.” Tommy replies, lowering the binoculars and peering down at you. There’s a glimmer of pride in his eyes. “Good job, kid.”

Kid? Not exactly a nickname one wants to be called by the brother of the much, much older man that they are romantically involved with. It’d taken Tommy months to accept your relationship with Joel, especially when you moved your things out of your unit and into his over the summer. Part of you wonders if him referring to you as a kid is simply his own subtle way of telling you—no, of reminding you, that he’s still not comfortable with it.

And perhaps he never would be.

After all, you had still been a teenager when you first arrived to Jackson a few years ago, stumbling upon the town just a few months shy of the twentieth birthday you weren’t sure you would survive long enough to see.

You were indeed a kid when you’d met Tommy Miller.

Were.

Scowling up at him, you snap, “I told you to stop calling me that. I’m not nineteen anymore, Tommy.”

Having read your mind, he gives you a small smile and acknowledges, “Yeah, you’re right. You definitely ain’t a kid anymore.” He offers you his hand and hoists you up to your feet. Before dropping your hand, he gives it an apologetic squeeze.

You relax a little and smile back at him. “Did I really get all three?”

Tommy nods. “You sure did. You’re a damn good shot. I gotta be honest with you—I didn’t expect you to be this fuckin’ good,” he admits sheepishly.

Chuckling, you scoff, “Thanks. I think.”

“It’s a compliment, sugar.” He winks and flashes you a lopsided grin. “In fact, I’d say my work here is done.”

“Great! So when are you putting me on the roster?”

His grin instantly vanishes. “Uh, listen. About that....”

He trails off, and your heart sinks a little.

Tommy wouldn’t back out of this now—would he?

“Oh, no. Don’t you dare go back on your word, Miller,” you say, lightly poking him in the chest. “We had a deal. You said if I did well enough, you’d think about it.”

He nods in agreement. “Exactly. Said I’d think about it. And I think that puttin’ you on the roster for patrol ain’t a good idea.”

Your mouth falls open. If he never had any intention of holding up his end of the bargain, then what had been the point of teaching you how to shoot?

You didn’t understand.

“You just said it yourself, I’m a great shot! I’m a good on horseback, too. I’m stealthy. I’m diligent. What more do you fucking need from me, Tommy?”

Tommy’s chest heaves with a heavy sigh. “Joel would fuckin’ murder me with his bare hands if I even thought about puttin’ you on patrol duty. Hell, he’d murder me just knowin’ we’re out here and I’m teachin’ you how to shoot. It’s a damn fuckin’ miracle he still hasn’t caught onto this, y’know.”

Shocked, your eyebrows shoot to your hairline. “This is about Joel? Are you serious?”

“‘Course it is.” He pauses. “Listen, now I know the three of us had our—differences—when he first told me ‘bout you two. Still takin’ me a bit of gettin’ used to, but I can see he’s real serious about you. I know my brother, and I know he won’t risk losin’ what’s most important to him. Ain’t no way in hell. He doesn’t want you out here and you know that as well as I do.” Tommy shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shrugging as he shuffles his weight from one cowboy boot to the other. “Unless he’s alright with it, I ain’t gonna put you on the roster.”

For a moment, you’re at a complete loss for words.

Upon seeing the crestfallen expression on your face, he makes a suggestion. “You can try talkin’ to him ‘bout it again if it means that much to you. Ask him—”

“Ask?” You want to laugh. You almost do. “I’m an adult, Tommy. I don’t need his permission to do this. Or to do anything for that matter. Joel doesn’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Tommy smiles wryly. “Well then, if that’s the case, why are we sneakin’ around and doin’ this behind his back?”

Your shoulders slump in defeat.

Because the ramifications could be disastrous.

Joel had made his stance on the matter abundantly clear, and yet here you were, deliberately disobeying him.

“Stumped you real good, didn’t I?”

Before you can even start to think about how you can possibly respond to that, you hear the sound of hooves in the dirt behind you, followed by whinny of a horse.

Tommy’s face pales as he glances over your shoulder.

“Shit.”

There’s no need for you to ask. His grimace says it all.

Somehow, you will yourself to turn around just as Joel’s steed comes to a halt beside the mare you and Tommy had ridden out on together. He jumps out of the saddle, grunting at the forceful impact on his knees when his feet hit the ground. His rifle hangs from a worn, brown leather strap slung across his back.

He approaches the two of you looking absolutely livid, and your throat goes dry.

“The hell is goin’ on here?” He breezes right past you, roughly shoving his brother with both hands. “Why the fuck would you bring her out here, Tommy? What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“Joel, c’mon. Take it easy—”

“Don’t fuckin’ tell me to take it easy!”

“Joel!” You reach for his arm. “Wait, it’s not his fault!”

Joel shoves him again, then takes him by the collar of his shirt and pins him against the ponderosa pine tree behind him. “You’ve been bringin’ her outside the gates behind my fuckin’ back for weeks, asshole?”

The panic begins to set in—he’s taking his anger out on the wrong person, and deep down, he knows this too.

“Joel! Stop! Let him go!” Grabbing fistfuls of his jacket, you try pulling him off of the younger man. “Stop it! It’s not his fault! I asked Tommy to bring me out here!”

He whirls around, his nostrils flared, jaw clenched.

You’ve seen this side of him a handful of times before.

But his anger has never been directed at you.

“What?”

Immediately, you let go of him and take a step back. “I asked Tommy to bring me out here and teach me how to shoot so that I can start working patrol,” you explain, hoping, praying, he doesn’t catch the slight tremble in your voice. “This was all my idea, okay? If you’re going to be mad at someone, then be mad at me. Not at him.”

“So you did this after I fuckin’ told you I didn’t want you out here?” Joel seethes. His neck becomes flushed, his tan skin now a deep shade of red.

“Joel—”

He cuts you off. “I had to find out from Ellie? You tried to get her to fuckin’ lie to me? After all the work it took for me and her to—” Stopping mid sentence, he places his hands on his hips and shakes his head.

“Joel. Please.” Behind the anger in his dark brown eyes, you detect something else. A mingle of hurt, concern—fear?

Tommy awkwardly clears his throat. “Well I’m, uh—I’m gonna head back to town,” he says, touching a hand to the back of his neck. “I’ll let the two of you work things out in private.” As he passes Joel, he lightly claps him on the shoulder. “Girl’s a sharp shooter, big brother. I’d reckon she’s almost better than you.”

His effort to lighten the mood fails. Miserably.

Offering you a subtle nod of encouragement, Tommy hops into the saddle of his mare and takes off towards the commune.

Silence falls over the both of you. It feels suffocating.

Unfamiliar.

Finally, you speak. “Joel, please just hear me out—”

“What the hell were you thinkin’? Or were you just not thinkin’ at all?”

“I was thinking I want to pull my weight in Jackson.”

“You already have a fuckin’ job,” Joel reminds you.

“Making sandwiches and serving whiskey at The Tipsy Bison?” You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest. “I am capable of more than that, Joel. So much more. Don’t you believe I’m capable of doing more?”

“I don’t want you out here,” he grits through his teeth. “Capable or not, I don’t want you outside Jackson’s walls. I don’t want you on patrol and that’s fuckin’ final. You understand me?” Now it’s him who falters, and you wonder if you’re imagining things, or if that’s really a tear you see sliding down the side of his face, disappearing into the salt and pepper scruff of his beard.

“That’s not your decision to make, Joel. It’s mine.”

“M’responsible for you. It’s my job to look after you—to protect you.”

Something about the way he is looking at you, it feels like a punch to the gut, and it’s at that precise moment when you begin to realize that he’s not angry. He’s afraid.

“Joel, I know that all you want to do is protect me,” you sigh, letting your arms fall down to your sides. “I know you do. But you’re doing me no favors by trying to keep me sheltered. By treating me like I’m defenseless. Don’t forget, I’m a survivor too.”

“You already know how fuckin’ dangerous it is out here. Clickers, raiders—”

“I can handle it,” you insist, stubbornly.

“You’d be puttin’ yourself right in harm’s way!”

You shoot back, “You mean, the way you and so many other people put yourselves in harm’s way every single day for the sake of keeping Jackson safe?”

A frustrated growl rumbles through his chest. “Christ, why are you bein’ so fuckin’ foolish? You’re just askin’ to get yourself killed!”

“I can take care of myself!” You realize your hands are shaking and curl them into tight fists at your sides in an effort to hide it. “Just accept it, Joel! Accept that I can take care of myself, alright?”

That is all it takes to tip Joel over the edge he’s been teetering on. “Then what do you fuckin’ need me for?” he shouts, his voice thundering over the quiet plains of Wyoming. “If you can take care of yourself, what’s the point in us bein’ together? Why are you with me?”

“Because I love you!”

As soon as the confession comes tumbling out of your mouth, you take a step back, your wide eyes meeting his own. Until now, neither of you have ever called this what it is, been bold enough to say it’s love.

Loving after so much grief, so much loss, is daunting. It’s something you thought you would never be capable of doing again, not in this lifetime. Not in this world. It’s happened, though.

You love Joel Miller.

And he loves you.

He’s never told you he does, but he’s shown you.

From the way remembers how you take your coffee in the mornings, to the way he laces his fingers with your own, holding your hand when he’s buried inside of you, whispering sweet nothings into your collarbone every single night.

“You—you what?” Joel’s whisper is hardly audible.

You inch your way closer to him, your voice soft. “I love you,” you declare once more. “I’m not with you because of what you can do for me. I’m not with you because you can take care of me.” Closer. “I’m with you because I love you—because I’m in love with you, Joel.” Closer, until your chest brushes against his, and he can smell the subtle scent of your homemade, rosewater soap. “The only thing I need, and have ever needed from you, is your love in return.”

His throat bobs. Before you can utter another word, he lifts his hands and gently takes your face, cradling it in between his large palms, gently. His eyes search yours, immediately finding the sincerity behind your words. Leaning down, he brushes the tip of nose against your own as one of his hands travels down, his long fingers curling around the nape of your neck. His thumb lightly strokes the column of your throat.

“I love you,” Joel says hoarsely. Three words he hadn’t said to anyone in over two decades—it feels foreign to him, they ring strange in his own ears. He tries it again, clearer this time, and with a little more confidence. After all, he’s only saying what he has known from the very start. “I love you.” His other hand moves to your hip, pulling you even closer to him. “M’gonna love you for the rest of my life, baby.”

He leans in further and presses his lips to yours lightly, at first, but he wastes no time in sweeping his tongue across your bottom lip, silently asking for more.

Your mouth parts for him, and he backs you against the ponderosa, kissing you deeply, greedily, like he’s a man starved.

You whimper into him, your hands sliding up his broad chest and past his shoulders until they’re tangled in his soft, graying curls. He breathes you in, like you are the oxygen he needs to stay alive.

It isn’t until you both hear the sound of rustling behind a nearby shrub that you’re forced to pull apart. “Don’t move,” Joel instructs in a hushed voice. He keeps you pinned against the tree, his hand abandoning your hip. He glances around, slowly reaching behind his back for his rifle. His tense shoulders relax when the both of you see a pair of rabbits dart out from one dried bush and straight into another. Exhaling an amused huff, Joel shifts his attention back to you and rests his forehead against yours.

Smiling, you reach up and softly graze his beard with your fingertips. “Guess it’s about time we called this what it is, huh?”

“Guess you’re right, darlin’.” He lifts his chin, brushing a kiss onto your forehead. “M’sorry for raisin’ my voice to you. For talkin’ to you the way I did. S’just, the thought of somethin’ happenin’ to you out here scares shit out of me.” Taking a step back, he pulls the strap of his rifle from around his shoulder. He chews the inside of his cheek and silently stares at the gun in his hands. After a minute, he meets your curious gaze. “Do you really wanna do this, sweet girl?”

You nod. “Yeah. I really do.”

Joel sighs. “Can I put a condition it?”

“Depends on what that condition is.”

“I’m your patrol partner. Every shift. Every rotation.”

You roll your eyes. “Joel.”

“At least for the first few weeks,” he bargains. “Last thing I need is for you to be paired up with some fuckin’ idiot who doesn’t know what the hell they’re doin’.”

Knowing that would be the only way he’d have some peace of mind, you decide to agree. “Fine. We’re patrol partners.”

“Alright then.” Joel nods and hands you the rifle. He flashes you a small grin. “Show me what you got, baby.”

divider credit to @/saradika 💛

for fic notifications please follow @joelsgreysupdates!

[just-jordie-things]

megumi and the reader making out??? idk the context tho. but pls yeah? 🥹🥹

ok this ask is old but i saved it bc it was golden and open ended enough i am happyyyy to provide :3 :3

___

megumi is the kind of boyfriend that gets carried away... which might not be all that out of the norm, if he wasn't such an oblivious hypocrite about it.

he's all "sweetheart, we have to go, they're waiting" while actively hooking his fingers through your belt loops to pull you in closer. your reaction is seized by his lips on yours again.

he'd barely even pulled away to scold you, and yet here he was tugging you closer and closer until you were left no choice but to crawl into his lap, legs prettily sprawled over both of his in that way you both knew he liked.

and then he has the audacity to warn you again while his teeth graze over your lower lip, capturing it without quite biting down-

"you're going to make us late"

- this is ironic because he's all bark and no bite.

you should be used to this by now, as megumi always found a way to wrap you both up in the heat of the moment when you're supposed to be somewhere. this time it's a movie with your friends, who were probably awkwardly stalling in the common room. five minutes ago you were all excited for this movie. but at the present moment it's barely clinging on to the back of your mind.

except when megumi's busy reminding you how now is not the time for a makeout session. only to silence himself by making out with you. you could almost laugh- if you weren't rendered breathless by the hot and heavy kisses he's laying against your lips.

his fingers are stating to push past the hem of your shirt, and you really tried to get yourself to push his hands away so that you could put a stop to this while there was still time... but as soon as your hands land on his he's grabbing you by the wrists and pulling you in closer until you're chest to chest. you huff with a mix of annoyance and desperation, but megumi seems indifferent to the sigh you've muffled against his mouth.

truth was, he didn't have a care in the world how long his friends waited on you both. if he was busy with you- especially when you're being so good and pretty on his lap for him- there was nothing that was going to take him away from this moment until he was damned ready to do so.

he liked the way you pretended to struggle and convince him to get up and go, the quiet whispered whines of "gumiiii" into his lips while you, too, were too wrapped up in him to really care enough to crawl out of his lap. so who was the real hypocrite here?

so he chuckles when he feels you melt a little deeper into him, your arms heavy against his chest as your fingers reach into the hair at the nape of his neck, how heavily you're breathing through your nose, your chest rising and falling against his as you push just a little harder to be closer. if he didn't know any better he'd think you were trying to push him all the way down till his back hit the bed and you'd be victorious in caging him beneath you. (he thinks he'd quite like it if you had your way with him right here and now, even if that movie is starting in less than thirty minutes) but unfortunately, you're too soft pliable under his hands to make a move like that, so megumi gathers that you'll just give in to his every will and kiss until he decides for the both of you that it's time to go.

his hands squeeze the soft flesh at your hips, his lips barely detching from yours as he opens his eyes to get a good look at you. in this moment, he thinks you're the prettiest thing in the world. your brows furrowed in frustration with him, but your lips swollen and pouty as soon as they aren't paired up with his. no movie was more enticing than the image right before his eyes. even the mental picture won't do it justice.

"what 'm i gonna do with you, hm?" he muses, lips grazing yours before you're the one seizing forward to continue what he started.

and you both know exactly what he has in mind.

(yuji and nobara get a text like three minutes later with a horrible excuse standing them up for the movie. neither one of them are surprised but they talk their shit anyways !!)

[theambitiouswoman]

hiya ! you said something so interesting... 'toxic love draws you in with chaos, drama, intensity, tricking you into believing it’s passion'

lately, i was journalling and reflecting on my past relationships as a teenager and noticed that in life, i've only been in 1 good relationship with a guy who actually treated me better than the other crazy, toxic boys i dated. but i self sabotaged. the honeymoon stage had ended, it was peaceful with him i think, which was boring to me. and i wasn't really getting his attention all the time anymore either, so i left him for a boy who was giving me attention but didn't want to commit and make me his girlfriend bc he wasn't 'ready' and just used me. it's just interesting to me that even back then, a love that seemed peaceful wasn't interesting to me, and i sabotaged the relationship, left the good boy for the bad boy. i was young so these relationships were probably never gonna last anyway but since that boy, i still always went for the love that was intense, a rollercoaster and wild bc that's all i've known of love from seeing my parents. even my past relationship from 18-20 was a rollercoaster and intense and passionate and toxic, but in no way peaceful at all. i think i'm still in the cycle. do you have any tips on how to break it? i hope to attract peaceful men now but i don't want to sabotage it. i know i'm not 15 anymore but still, i'm worried.

thank you! ♡

Hi beautiful girl,

I think we normally associate heartbreak with toxic love—the chaos, the betrayal, the drama. But sometimes, even healthy relationships leave behind wounds. Not because they were harmful, but because we weren't ready to receive them

Maybe it was peaceful. Maybe it was safe. Maybe they treated us with care. But we couldn’t see it. Or hold onto it. Or show up the way we wanted to

And when it’s over, it hurts in a different way. Not because of what they did—but because of what we lost in ourselves. The version of us that wanted to do better. The version that still hopes we’ll get another chance, this time with open hands and a healed heart.

Even if we don't recognize it

So what happens is we get stuck in this loop or pattern in dating toxic, unhealthy, but familiar. We confuse intensity for passion. We mistake inconsistency for mystery. We chase people who trigger our wounds because it feels like home—even when that “home” is rooted in pain

And until we heal the part of us that thinks love has to be earned, proved, or suffered for—we’ll keep circling the same storm, wondering why peace feels like a threat instead of a gift. No one wants to hear this, but until we heal those wounds and regulate our nervous system even if we recognize that something is good for us, we will sabotage it

Breaking this pattern means choosing differently Not just in who we date, but in how we show up It means staying when our nervous system wants to run It means calming the part of us that thinks love only counts if we have to fight for it

Because real love doesn’t have to hurt to be real. And once you heal, you will be incredibly unattracted to those types of behaviors. I can write a separate posts of the things that disgust me as an example

It's such a common trap, especially for those who grew up seeing love modeled as something unstable or unpredictable

What you described is a very common feeling.. the comfort and calm of that “good guy” relationship feeling boring, and the intensity of the unavailable one feeling more alive. But what’s so powerful here is that you’re aware of the cycle now—and that’s honestly the biggest and most important first step to breaking it

So a few tips angel would be for your to redefine what "exciting" feels like. Peace doesn’t mean boring. It might just mean emotionally safe. Start rewiring your idea of love by seeking subtle excitement—a shared laugh, a deep conversation, someone remembering your coffee order. These might feel “quiet” at first, but they’re golden

Journal when you feel the urge to sabotage or withdraw. Ask: “What am I afraid of right now? What am I trying to protect myself from?” Usually, it's fear of being unseen, unchosen, or abandoned. Bringing these fears into the light helps disarm them. Little you might still associate love with unpredictability or needing to “earn” attention. Remind her she’s lovable even when things are calm. You don’t have to perform or prove anything anymore

It’s not about dating someone “boring” but someone who brings consistency and clarity without the rollercoaster. Their presence won’t be loud, but it’ll feel steady. That’s a good sign

And girl, you're not 15 anymore and even if you were, we all have made not the best decisions with our love lives at times, it's how we grow. Please forgive yourself for this yesterday so you can let go of that lingering guilt and start rewiring your mind—you’re wiser, more grounded and so much more in tune with your needs. Mistakes don’t define you. Awareness and intention do

[erlkink-heatcliff]

7 . 12 . 13 . for meunivere and buzz if may . - @cruel-heathcliff

OMG YAY YAY HEHEHEHE YIPEE YAHOO

putting the answers under a read more bc they get LONG. you are warned

7) 'Capstone EGO?'

For this ask I'm gonna go with what I think would be their theoretical special 'Season pass' EGO for their respective cantos.

For Buzz, it would be Paradise Lost. Aleph, Wrath affinity and pierce.

For Meunivere, it's The Price of Silence. Waw, sloth affinity and slash.

I have a design for Buzz's Paradise Lost, but I havent drawn out Meuni's Price of Silence..,

12) 'What would their Canto Dungeon be like?'

For Buzz, holy FUCK did I plan it out hardcore. The entire dungeon is an M.C. Esher style distorted version of his childhood home. That childhood house was turned into a church/research facility by Rufus (Buzz's cousin, who is an N. Corp Acolyte and the main Canto villain). The house basically fronted as the new location of Rufus' Vatican, of which he became the lead Researcher after the death of Buzz's father (Simon) and lack of any remaining family.

The dungeon would start in the main area (the upper Church), and slowly go down (with Buzz's Canto name being 'The Spiraling' and his base Zayin being called 'The Downward Spiral'.) While there would be mid-boss Abnormality fights, primarily Midsommar Dream, which I have a design for below;

-Buzz's dungeon, for mid-boss fights leading up to the "final" fight with Rufus, would have a special enemy labelled as Buzz's 'Angels'. Each one represents a person (primarily a Sinner) he had grown very close to, and are manifestations of Buzz's insecurity, traumas, and fears regarding his own interpersonal relationships and what others may think of him. I had planned out Angel concepts for 4 canon Limbus Sinners, 1 of which I designed properly as seen below.

Buzz is a very flexible character, and so is his dungeon! (This means I can draw unique monster/boss designs for other people's oc's if I include him in RP and such, hehe.) The Wire Child is Heathcliff's Angel, funnily enough! Defeating each one grants an EGO gift in the style of a unique cross depicting the designated character. A big gimmick for the Angel fights is that you could only bring 2 Sinners into each one, that being the represented Sinner and Buzz. It was to represent that he didn't have to do it alone.

The other canon sinners that got Angels were:

Ryoshu, whose Angel is called 'Vanity Agape'. It's an endless looping hallway that slowly turned to flesh, and ended in a mouth full of grasping hands. It was a mass-wave of enemies style fight to reach the 'throat' of the mouth and split open its uvula, securing the designated cross.

Ishmael, whose Angel is called 'Thy Hallowed Whispers'. It took place in an almost backrooms-style 'pool' area, of which both Buzz and Ishmael were trapped in a bottomless ocean. The Angel itself was a massive humanoid figure covered in holes, primarily to indulge my love of horrifically giant sea monsters.

Meursault, whose Angel is called 'Bleeding Heart'. It's a figure strapped down by metal piercing it, and flaying its chest open to reveal a malformed heart with its cross lodged inside. It would be a fake boss fight, with Meursault being the only Sinner able to approach it. When other Sinners did, they were pierced with similar metals and flayed. It would end with Meursault ripping out its heart and obtaining the cross.

The main lore reason as to why the facility gets visually distorted and full of these new creatures is because Buzz is resonating with not only a Golden Bough there, but a fucking Monolith that Rufus bought directly from Limbus Company. Buzz is already Distorted, that's like his whole gimmick as a Sinner. A Distortion resonating with a Bough while being hounded by every single trauma he has bites EVERYONE in the ass in the end, with Buzz fully Distorting to his 'true' nature and becoming the real boss fight. I also have that boss planned, but for the sanity of Everyone I'm leaving that out so I don't ramble too hard.

As for Meunivere, I'm honestly so saddened to say he does not have as much atm. That's also because, for the canon he has alongside Buzz/other Sinners I have, he's one of the earlier Cantos. He has to go through a redesign as well. The main idea I had though is that his Canto villain isn't actually one individual person, and that's all I'll say for now. The man has made a lot of enemies in his life, after all. And this isn't even his first life.

13) 'Would they Distort, or manifest EGO?'

Buzz has already Distorted and will Distort again. That is something he also already does canonically. He physically no longer is capable of manifesting EGO, what was left of his human body is literally no longer human. He's actually cooked.

For Meunivere, he would absolutely have the capability to manifest EGO. He's one of the few Sinner/Pmoon OC's I have that theoretically could. This guy would also be too fucking tired to Distort, he has better things to do.

[rescue-ram]

Now I'm curious, how would you adapt a modern version of Mash?

Oh man thank you for giving me pretext to ramble about this. I have too many thoughts about Cursed Hypothetical MASH Reboot.

Genre Change MASH is from the golden age of sitcom and is one of the best examples of the genre. Tragically, really good sitcoms don't get made, and the shorter lengths commissioned mean we wouldn't get space for the sillier or more experimental episodes that make MASH so charming and memorable. This is also why any remake or reimagining could never replace the original. There's also less "suspension of disbelief" with modern audiences, so I think modern MASH would have to have a more grounded setting and consistent time line, so RIP time loop. I think the modern genre that would best fit MASH is dramedy. Classico MASH already had elements of "get 'em laughing so they cry harder" and Hypothetical Remake MASH would play that up. Basically, we're gonna "Better Call Saul" this bitch.

In writing out my ideas below, I realized hitting the main plot beats I imagine makes this sound like. Depressing. Which it kind of would be! But I want to emphasize that in my mind's eye this would still tonally be a comedy right up until It Isn't. Similar to BCS, characters encounter obstacles, handle them in very funny ways, but things Keep Happening and compounding and at the end you realize all those funny things have added up to something horrific and inevitable.

General Thoughts In my beautiful mind, this is five twelve episode seasons, each corresponding to a roughly six month period- the first two seasons are 1951, climaxing with Henry's death, first episode or two of season 3 is Trapper leaving/BJ arriving and then 3/4 is 1952, and the final season is 1953 and the ceasefire. Fortunately, because the characters in MASH are pretty well fleshed out with a lot of traits I think they could be turned into dramedy characters pretty easily, and you can take the Big Things that happen to them and play them straight/expand on them into proper arcs. Also, pulling in more historical details could be really interesting, and an opportunity to unpack how Fully Evil the war in Korea was. In reading more memoirs from doctors who served in MASH units, I was struck by how much contact with international forces they had, and the surprising amount of contact with their Chinese/Korean counter-parts. I think more of both of those things would be fun to incorporate into Hypothetical Remake.

Expanded Roles for Nurses We need more women. And fortunately, we got them! Even though there is Not A Lot of existing canon, I really do think we have enough on the recurring nurses to act as seeds for fuller characters. I would love to see Kellye developed as a supporting character from the start. Struggling to articulate this, but I think a deeper perspective on anti-Asian sentiment could be explored through her, possibly with some connections to the history of colonialism in Korea in particular. The character was described as Chinese and Hawaiian, but given her credited surnames of Yamato and Nakamura getting a little into her Japanese heritage and the resentment of Koreans towards the Japanese could be interesting as well. I also think "Dish" Schneider's conflict, torn between loyalty to her husband/fiancee and her attraction to the handsome funny guy who relentlessly flirts with her, could be a source of drama. I also really like Ginger's recurring "thing" with Trapper in canon, and expanding that into an actual friendship and digging into the racism and taboos against interracial relationships of the period would be interesting. You can take Margie Cutler as a young and inexperienced nurse and give her a little coming of age arc. I would also love for Knocko McCarthy to be a foil for Margaret- as the second most senior nurse, she chafes under Margaret's command and kind of collaborates with the Swampmen to subvert her, culminating in Margaret calling her out that if she didn't side with them against her, they'd hate Knocko too, and them growing closer over the series.

Ho-Jon and Expanded Roles for Korean Characters Many have written about the shitty representation of Koreans in MASH, and Hypothetical Remake could remediate that significantly. I think giving Ho-Jon (or a similar new character) an expanded role would be good, with more ties to his family out of camp and conflict over whether or not supporting the occupying American forces and the south is the right thing to do or the expedient thing. I also think there's some dark comedy to be mined from a slightly subversive Ho-Jon taking advantage of racism and being seen as ignorant or interchangeable to get away with shit. Would love for Black Market Guy to be a recurring character. There's also a great real life story I read where a MASH surgeon formed a bond with a Chinese doctor after accidentally connecting to a PLA radio channel, and I think that could be adapted into a really fun source of comedy (bonding with "the enemy" over shared indignities, surprising similarities, etc) and ultimately drama (Hawkeye finds out about a US or ROK attack that will cripple that doctor's unit or put him in danger- does he say nothing, knowing hundreds will be injured or killed including maybe his new friend, or does he commit treason and risk prison or death to warn him- and how does he live with not knowing what happened when he has to choose inaction?) Any of the Very Special episodes could be adapted and expanded. And of course, Hypothetical Remake would have Korean writers, or consultants, or at the very least a goddamn baby name book so we don't end up with a dozen characters just named Kim, or worse random syllables.

Radar I would love to keep Radar as one of the main POV character throughout the whole series and use his unique position to bridge between different storylines- he's an enlisted man so he has that perspective, he's close with Hawkeye and the surgeons, he's assisting Henry/Potter so he has ties to command, give him a friendship with a nurse and you're set. Given the comedy-to-tragedy arc of dramadys, I would love to take the book detail that he enlisted with dreams of glory and becoming a general and lean fully into that. He starts out season 1 as a sweet naive farm kid flying by the seat of his pants to figure out his job, he gets more and more enmeshed with the military over the course of the series, currying favor with the brass to pull strings to help the unit/his friends/himself, and it ends with Potter giving him a recommendation for officer school- an outcome fully framed as a tragic loss of self to a corrupt institution.

Hawkeye I think Seasons 1 and 2 in particular could be driven by the Hawkeye and Trapper committing outrages and crimes in the name of justice/not giving a shit, and then having to spend the rest of the season engaging in more outrages and crimes to Bugs Bunny their way out of consequences. The central tragedy arcing through the series is the Destruction of Hawkeye Pierce. He starts out determined to stay himself, stick to his principles, and not let the army change him. The glimmer of hope at the end is that he has survived and gets to go home, but At What Cost. I also think making him bipolar makes the most sense- early season Hawkeye hints he's had highs and lows before, but always managed to cope, but under the increasing stress his mental health gets worse. Insomnia due to overwork triggers a manic episode (adapting Dr Pierce and Mr Hyde) about halfway through S1, with a major change in his relationship with Trapper associated with that, and his first on screen depressive episode triggered by Henry's death, which gets him his week of R&R he goes AWOL from. He holds it together through S3 with increasing amounts of self-medication for BJ's sake, and S4's overarching storyline for him is a fully Catch-22 expansion of The Late Captain Pierce with increasing levels of franticness to resolve it, and S5 is a full blown "I'M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE" crisis culminating in the equivalent of GFA, and a brief psychotic episode triggered by his mood dysregulation and moral injury. An expansion of The Late Captain Pierce would be a great source of absurdity and drama, the ultimate consequence of his alienation of Everyone In Bureaucracy or Command (they all dislike/hate him for his antics and disrespect in S1-3 and no one wants to help him in his predicament, with a few spitefully refusing to help outright), and necessary to explain his presence in Korea in 1953 since his enlistment should've ended by then (since key members of the bureaucracy Hate him they refuse to count the months he was "dead" as part of his service, and his father is in too poor of health/financially strained from his cancer scare to advocate for him successfully stateside). I also think "playing straight" all the nurses breaking up with him after Ceasefire could be interesting. Like, S1 Hawkeye is a ladies man who's saying all the right things and juggling multiple relationships, but after they realize he doesn't Capital L Love any of them they start to distance from him- not unfriendly, but less a source of support. That alienation from others, first with the nurses at the end of S1 then others in camp, causing a vicious cycle of increasingly erratic behavior leading to less support etc culminates in his breakdown towards the end of the series.

Trapper My beloved boy ♥️ who has less of an arc and more of a vibe in existing canon, so we get to make some shit up whole cloth. Either keep the book/movie canon they were friendly in college, or make them childhood friends- not close, but some kind of pre-existing relationship. First episode is them stealing a jeep and bonding as they get into Shenanigans and Danger on their way to camp. Some people have the headcanon that Trapper lost a brother in WWII because of Wayne Rogers' acting choices, and I think a backstory like that could be interesting. He starts out a little ambivalent about the war, not wanting to be there and very aware of the human costs, but also feeling he has a duty. As he and Hawkeye get into more and more Situations trying to expose war crimes or fix injustices and even basic supply issues and are met by indifference or incompetence, he gets disillusioned. After Hawkeye's manic episode, he decided the one Actually Good thing he can accomplish is keeping his friend sane until they can get back home, since he starts to increasingly see his medical work as futile and the UN intervention as hopeless/harmful. They get closer and rely on each other more and more in S2, and in my based and gay pilled vision this is explicitly romantic and sexual, albeit with serious ambiguity if they would've had this relationship outside the trauma of war. Towards the end of S2, Trapper starts to get sick, and it turns out stress and increased alcohol & tobacco use contributed to an ulcer- it almost seems like he'll be sent home, but as in Classico MASH he begins treatment at the 4077th- and then Henry dies. Hawkeye spirals and they have to send him away, and then Trapper has to help pick up the increased work load. His symptoms get worse and he tries to cope and hide it, and develops peritonitis. When he realizes he's going to be evacced to Tokyo and then back to the States, he has a bit of a fucking meltdown. Mission Failed, he can't be there for his friend, and he blames himself because it was partly caused by his alcohol abuse. This is not just me being a Trapper simp, he has to go home before his enlistment is up for plot reasons since we no longer get the benefit of fuzzy timeline, and the genre convention of dramedy is you always Reap The Whirlwind at the worst possible moment.

BJ Ironically, I don't need to change anything about BJ to turn him into a dramedy character. He already has a "negative character arc", and you just take the major beats of that, set them in a linear escalation, and tighten them up. He starts out bright eyed and idealistic, determined to keep his head up, do his duty, and get out. Hawkeye meets him at the air field, having missed Trapper. Hawkeye blames himself for Trapper's health problems, and wants to do better by the new guy, offering him support and guidance. BJ bonds with him through the craziness, but as stress increases he starts acting out in small petty stochastic pranks, and then Peg's letters and missing his family build his anger, and he lashes out at Hawkeye because he suspects (in that "he's not right but he isn't wrong either" way) that Hawkeye's friendship isn't really because of BJ himself but because BJ is Trapper's Replacement. He suspects Hawkeye and Trapper were more than friends and he's simultaneously jealous and repulsed- he wants to totally replace Trapper and for Hawkeye to like him best, but he also loves Peg and misses her terribly and resents Hawkeye for "making" him want him. His chaotic unhinged repression is funny until it's briefly terrifying, then sad. As Hawkeye's mental health deteriorates, he tries to be supportive, but is ultimately overwhelmed by the intensity of Hawkeye's crisis and pulls back, though they mend things somewhat at the end.

The Hawkeye/Trapper/BJ Nexus In summary, our core duos are codependent trainwrecks, but while TrapHawk are more of an enabling and felonious "Thelma and Louise" style folie a deux, BJ and Hawkeye are more of an epic highs and lows "if you can't be with the one you love love the one your with" "hand in unlovable hand" mess.

Margaret Don't have nearly as much to say about our girl because I suck and have been writing this for almost 2 hours now because I'm insane but she has one of the best character arcs in MASH and Hypothetical Remake would really just intentionally start laying out her conflicts and growth from episode 1. She would also have more independent story arcs of trying to manage the nurses, and navigating advancing her career in the face of sexism. I would love to see her messy and complicated relationships with powerful men explored more fully. She bonds with Frank first to have a relationship where she's more in control than with her superiors, then as an ally to push back against the TrapHawk Chaos, then as she grows more confident (and TrapHawk get in over their heads) she is able to let go of the cloak of power military pretensions give her and be more herself.

Henry and Potter Henry remains a lovable incompetent. The one headcanon I have I'd like to use in Hypothetical Remake is that he's pretty severely dyslexic- I base that off his mispronunciations and malapropisms and canonical issues with reading (in Classico MASH doing things like holding a paper upside down or not being able to read maps and the words on them). He got through med school by having his wife read his textbooks out loud and type his papers, and brute force memorization. This is part of why he over relies on Radar to manage his paperwork and is easily scammed into signing off on things- he really can't tell what he's signing unless he uses all of his focus to decipher the text, and he's a trusting person so he rarely does. @marley-manson I LOVE your take that your ideal Potter is the exact same character in the show but the narrative treats him as an antagonist, and that is the vibe Hypothetical Remake would have.

Frank and Charles Again not a lot to say here, secondary characters and minor antagonists, but they would remain big sources of commentary but their pathos would be played up more in a dramedy.

Mulcahy Again, not too much different from canon, just more intentional building of a tragic arc. A smart sensitive guy who grew up poor and thought the church would be a path to respect or maybe even greatness got told to be a math teacher by his diocese, enlisted as a chaplain when the war broke out as part of his personal quest for meaning and significance, is confronted by the horrors and damage to innocent lives but still tries to believe in a greater purpose and good to what's happening, struggles with feelings of powerlessness and futility, and when he's finally able to do something heroic loses his hearing, which costs him his vocation- he's permanently disabled and would be unable to return to his old role as a parish priest/school teacher.

Recurring Characters Sidney my beloved ♥️ We bring back Sam Pak as a returning character. Also General Hammond and other members of the brass. I think Oliver could work really well as a recurring character.

Klinger Whole bundle of thoughts on this guy I wanted to save till the end. Because I adore Klinger, he's incredibly funny and one of the kindest and most principled characters on the show, and he's also incredibly 70s and I don't think could work as he was in a 21st century dramedy. I can see three potential paths to adapting him. A) Lean into the young, brash, hustler side of his personality, and he's a straight guy who thinks the craziest thing someone could do is wear a dress. B) An explicitly gay character who refuses to admit to being gay for a discharge because he finds the idea of being judged less than or broken for his sexuality incredibly offensive, but did drag back in Toledo and also refuses to stop being himself just because he got drafted. C) Principled pacifist serving as an orderly because of the draft who refuses to wear the uniform and started wearing dresses as a protest against bullying/abuse- oh, your gonna call me a sissy and steal my clothes because I refuse to use a gun? I will not only wear a dress, I will zhuzh it up into something amazing, because I would rather wear this outfit you intend to humiliate me with than that damn uniform.

[night-dark-woods]

GOTTA hear about horsegirl robot story

ok so some context since you dont destiny. i tried to keep this as brief as possible but. theres a lot happening here and it got kinda long sorry:

destiny world is broadly a pretty standard far-future scifi world, there was a Golden Age, then a Collapse, and the game takes place post-post-apocalypse.

elsie bray is the grandchild of clovis bray, the head of a massive megacorp from the golden age who was obsessed with legacy&immortality, to the point he modified his descendants's genetics and created exos, immortal robots with human consciousnesses uploaded.

(sidenote: theres some very very cool body horror lore pieces about that process i can link you if youre interested, destiny lore has some of the best short scifi/horror writing ive Ever read, but its trapped in an fps looter-shooter mmo)

elsie was deeply complicit in this process and was clovis's "test drive" for the exo project before he was willing to upload his own consciousness, including a custom frame. oh she can also time-travel and got stuck for hundreds-to-thousands of repetitions in a multi-year loop that always ends with everyone she cares about dying including her sister at her own hands, and also the death of all of humanity <3 she feels responsible for all of this.

amanda holliday is was (in my heart shes still alive) the city's shipwright, and was close friends with one of the main exo characters in the game.

oh also they are both trans women. to me.

okay. context out of the way. amanda is the horsegirl and elsie is the flighty and traumatized and stand-offish horse who Only She Can Tame. premise for the fic is elsie needs to do repairs on herself in a hard to reach spot and has to a) ask amanda to use her tools and b) then ask for HELP, which she Does Not Do, due to the aforementioned hundreds of years of betrayal and timeloops. it will feature elsie being deeply touch-starved and weird about it, amanda being appreciative and impressed by her custom frame in a way that elsie isn't sure what to do with bc of how much she hates it as a reminder of her involvement in the exo project, but loves it as its something she got to choose, and the intimacy of trusting someone you barely know to put their hands inside your body and mess around in there bc you dont really have any other choice.

snippet:

She taps her knee with the wrench in her hand, then lays back on the creeper to kick herself back under the Sparrow. "It's set up back at my place, if y' wanna swing by later tonight?" The invitation rolls out of Holliday's mouth as easily as if she's just suggested you come over for coffee; torso under the vehicle, she doesn't notice the way you freeze, not human-still but exo-still, an object for a long, long moment. Long enough for her to notice your silence. The rolling click of the ratchet stops and she slides back out, hands braced on the undercarriage of the Sparrow. She takes in your startled-animal expression, brow furrowed. "...Or not?" "Sorry. I don't usually... do repairs with an audience." The confusion in her eyes warms into something alarmingly soft. "Oh! That's fine. No trouble if you want me to make myself scarce after I show y' the ropes. Ain't nothin' I haven't seen before though, if you do need help. I've helped Cayde plenty over the years." You nod jerkily, eager to escape the weight of whatever she thinks she's understood about you. "Thank you, I'll... see you tonight then." You beat a hasty retreat, barely remembering to bob your head at Niik in farewell, and make it all the way out of the Hanger before you realize you didn't agree on any time more specific than *tonight,* or get her address. The clang of your foot against the wall is lost in the general commotion, and you head off to see what security is like for the personal information of Tower employees.

[swallowtailed]

palisade 37 !!!!!!!!!!!!

THEY WEREN’T LYING THAT DIVINE CAN CYCLE

perennial is the time loop and she is in the time loop!!!!! the wheel turns!!!!!!!!! incredible. i love this. 

no wonder perennial was moved by figure begging for another chance.

from a structural pov i appreciate that this is explicitly the last chance bc it keeps pressure on the players without having to resort to multiverse stuff. also a well-timed reveal for the tension in the back half of the season.

it frankly explains a lot that picking clem was a three-millionth-year-in-the-time-loop decision

also this only raises MORE questions about what’s going on off in that arm of the galaxy. they’ve worked out time travel????

oh re the intro, “according to the world i’m a hypocrite or drowned” BANGER LINE. also “the truth”/“the worst”… poor gur

other things did happen in this episode that i am also excited about. what were they again. oh right

thisbe the new bearer of integrity!! golden horns!! really racking up crew entanglements with divinity. extremely exciting. 

(i do think we are gonna need some new words by the end of the season, or a clear decision against.)

that whole sequence was so compelling—i feel like we rarely see thisbe pursue her desires so directly. her determination to reach out and understand is fascinating. and that integrity chooses people who want to change the world—wondering if this could be a direction for thisbe’s new illusion strats. 

and “my head is somewhat heavier but it doesn’t bother me” heavy is the head that wears the crown huh thisbe. excited to see where this goes !

also on engagements with divines, asepsis’s view of its role changing because brnine saw it as “a divine without a community”—sets this down next to palisade discussing his different relationships with different excerpts, “the etiquette you make with one another” (which is a very loving way of looking at it, i think). divines are socially constructed; divinity is contextual. u know.

dre has been fucking killing it as figure this season. that scene with palisade was really good. saying “this feels like a metaphor” about playing duck (lmao) was exceptionally funny because that is always true about figure all of the time

coriiiii…. i am so glad cori is able to trust her crew and find safety questioning her religious upbringing with them.

i do feel like i understand eclectic better now. we’ve gotten a few more flags: he believes in welcoming people who help him; he feels that divines are too much of a risk; he sees the cause as taking over palisade. (it is also kind of touching that he’s so insistent that they adopt a random lock & cross cop, specifically—i found that scene kind of frustrating, but it’s solid character work.)

we also learned this ep that brnine thinks they are the sexiest crew member (they’re right). however this leaves the question of who thisbe thinks is sexiest. assuming it was someone not already present in the scene but aboard the blue channel, that leaves hunting, midnite, or saffron. does thisbe think saffron is sexy?? i would believe that. she has the most physical forms, leaving aside phrygian (who i think murch said she thought was hottest?? wires??), so logically saffron could be attractive to the widest range of people. or thisbe just thinks she’s hot. i’d ship it.

[neo-shitty]

before the new year begins — tag game

happy new year, everyone! i've been doing a lot of journaling lately and i came across the written version of this tag from @madamescarlette on the dash and thought i'd give it a try just because i've been practicing more reflection these past few days.

tagging: @petrichor-han, @mosviqu, @straykats, and anyone who'd like to look back on 2024 🤍

share your favorite memory of this year.

off the top of my head, my favorite thing to recall was when i confronted this girl who spearheaded making rumors and talking shit about me and my friend group (mind you, we're college seniors). singlehandedly, one of my most empowering moments. other pleasant memories include campfires and hangouts by the sea across various friend groups, leaping together in joy when we passed our integrated subjects, trying our best not to laugh too loud in the office, and of course, graduating.

2. what was the highlight of your year?

finally getting my degree in accountancy. tough course :') would not recommend :') walked out with two mental illnesses, banger degree ender!

3. list the top five books you read this year.

sit down, this will be a long one. right off the bat, read last january, there is no antimemetics division by sam hughes (qntm), which put me in a crazy mental loop that just made me more immersed into the story than i already was. pet sematary by stephen king, my first step into horror and definitely not my last. there's genuinely nothing i like more than cosmic/domestic horror. this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone, which has everything i truly want in a book—good writing, gays, pining, and time travel. hollow city and library of souls by ransom riggs, which are the 2nd and 3rd books of the miss peregrine's home for peculiar children series. truly, the only books that mattered. the whole thing could've been a banger trilogy bc of them idc idc. i wish i read more than i did this year, but i did my best given how busy i was.

4. list the top five movies you watched this year.

i watched chicago because of the trendy 'we both reached for the gun audio' but i ended up enjoying it far more than i anticipated. a uniquely formatted film musical, banger plot (with social commentary undertones) and banger songs. then i headed into wicked blindly and cried my eyes out with a friend at the cinema. beautiful story between two friends, banger cast and banger songs as well, and just the visuals of the movie were just stunning! all quiet on the western front, a devastating depiction of just how brutal war is. almost a 5/5, if it weren't for the shock factor ending. barbie because it wasn't what i expected a barbie live adaptation to be. it got across what a barbie cartoon movie would normally get across to kids to us adults in the real world. banger monologue, cried my eyes out in my room. cruella, though i watched it too early in the year to recall its impact fully. she was fabulous! i support women's rights and women's wrongs!

5. list the top five tv series you binged this year.

none. sorry, my attention span was just nowhere this year.

6. what is the one new thing you discovered this year (could be a place/hobby/song etc)?

hmm, i discovered that, though it shouldn't come as a surprise, i actually do like journaling and it really does help me in ways i thought it didn't before. i was always so pressured by the aesthetic standards around journaling that it just deterred me from utilizing it for what it was originally meant to be. now i just throw up words onto paper and pray for relief afterwards (which normally happens now!)

7. top three albums that you played this year?

preacher's daughter by ethel cain, the tortured poets department: anthology by taylor swift, and golden age by ethel cain. ethel taking 2 of the 3 spots in justified. i never did shut up about her and i just put her albums on loop in the background for hours while i was playing.

8. your spotify wrapped #1 song

it says good luck babe by chappell roan but i beg to differ. it doesn't say so on other sites like receiptify/volt.fm nor do i feel like i played it enough for it to land first this year. good song tho!

9. your spotify wrapped top artist

i think it was taylor swift? on another site, i have ethel cain which is honestly more accurate.

10. your personal song of the year.

a house in nebraska by ethel cain *sad pole dancing*

11. what is an achievement that you are proud of this year?

again, graduating. it's such a huge milestone in my life that i just can't undermine it. it means so much to me and reaching it lifted a lot of weight off my chest.

12. what are your goals for the next year?

to focus on the other aspects in my life that i neglected in the past few years such as family relationships, mental and physical health, self-improvement outside of academics, etc.

13. any three book releases you are excited for next year.

i'm not really one to look forward to releases but maybe the new hunger games book if its coming out this year. haymitch's story?

14. any three upcoming movies/tv series that you are excited for next year.

again, not one to look forward to movies. i literally had to look these up just to recall but: wicked 2, of course, and the minecraft movie for the hell of it. that's about it.

15. if you could change one thing about the past year what would it be?

i wish i took on more opportunities instead of letting them pass me by.

16. did you manage to stick to your new year's resolutions this year?

my life was too much of a whirlwind for me to even have a new year's resolution at the time. i was anxious and probably depressed and i just kept telling myself, "just one more year and it'll all be over".

17. do you have any new year's resolutions for the next year?

my new year's resolution is to just practice putting myself first and alleviating the pressure i've been unknowingly putting on myself since day one very many years ago.

18. favorite meme of the year?

i think i was too out of orbit to pick out a favorite one. i still keep on recycling all the ones i had since high school lol

19. which month was the most fun this year?

was there such a thing? my whole year was characterized by breakdowns and picking academics over the fun things in life. might've been december. i've been unwinding the whole month.

20. what color do you associate the previous year with?

maroon and/or blood red because that was a brutal year.

21. if you could tell yourself something at the beginning of this year based on what you know right now, what would it be?

apply for it. she'll understand when the time comes and she wouldn't live with the same regrets that i do.

22. favorite viral trend of the year?

i honestly have no idea. maybe the korean cheerleaders???

23. list any three new things you learned this year (could be recipes, a new skill, etc.)

memory keeping in the form of scrapbooking, relearning how to cook based on the recipes my parents have, a lot of workplace-related skills lmfao.

24. how would you describe your year in a word?

rollercoaster, every up just had to come with a down and sometimes it made me wish it just flung me off the track.

25. what color do you want to associate the upcoming year with? why?

a dull grey because this might be the year i become a corporate slave in a physically lively but emotionally dead city. tragic.

[potatotrash0]

Wait, you're an ALNST fan too? I followed you ages ago for Danganronpa and then just kinda stuck around checking your blog occasionally, but I had NO idea you like ALNST

What do you like the most about the series?

yeah!! i watched it all in one sitting after round 6 came out, but the new till and mizisua covers popped up recently on my recommended so my interest surged back like a tidal wave lol. i could’ve sworn that i posted at least one thing about it, but oh well

umm my fave thing is the music probably? like the story is great!! piecing together the lore just from binging the MVs was fun, i ended up going frame by frame on some of them lol. but i adore the VAs so much because the emotion you hear on every song is so insane. i had black sorrow and unknown on loop for ages after i heard them. actually i did that with every song, just at different times. currently on my cure phase because akugetsu’s raw sound is actually addictive

i really love comparing the covers with the originals too! seeing the different ways each character sings the same song, how it shows their parallels. mizisua cure made me want to bawl my eyes out but mizi singing black sorrow still breaks my heart too. (side note i also relistened to luka’s sweet dream and realized that it’s?? the same octave?? it sounds so pretty and it’s such whiplash compared to his smug tone in ruler of my heart.)

other than that, i’m really looking forward to round 7. alien stage’s golden boy vs the underdog. also kind of hoping to see hyuna confront luka bc whatever they’ve got going on makes me itch to examine luka under a microscope lol (also wanna see till bc how do you even recover from that. the girl you’re in love with goes missing, your best friend kisses you and then gets shot on the spot. bro is in the trenches)

[irrealisms]

no apple but a heart liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

i had the idea of vitalasubz funerary cannibalism pretty immediately after seeing "cannibalism" on the prompt list. it's a good concept. but i wasn't sure if i could get it to the minimum word count (it ended up juuuuust scraping by) so i decided to write the time loop fic first and then do the cannibalism as a bonus if i felt up for it

and then one of my friends (unrelatedly! without knowing about this!) started talking about eclipse fed cannibalism on discord, and i was like Man....i should write eclipse federation cannibalism....unfortunately i only really have enough ideas for One Scene of it.....and they were like write one scene then! and i went You Know What. youre right. and wrote this in one sitting

for research for this fic i read all of @erstwhilesparrow's mcyt cannibalism fics in a row. check those out if you haven't already: double life desertduo(&/)boat boys, limlife mean gills, 3rd life desertduo, new life owen(&/)scott

i knew basically as soon as i had the idea that i wanted to do stuff with the despawn timer. how much can you eat in 5 minutes, when you're grieving and dissociating and in shock, your action spurred on only by the knowledge that whatever you don't eat will disappear forever? that this is the only way to preserve anything at all of the one you love?

in contrast i did not know until literally the day of writing it that i was gonna do something with hearts-as-hearts. it was a good idea, though.

did you know that after subz dies, vitalasy stands without moving or speaking for 50 seconds, turns slightly, and then continues standing there without doing anything or speaking for another 13 seconds. yeah. fun little canon moment. it's also 63 seconds off the 5-minute despawn timer!

the title is from quattrocento by margaret atwood, which is a great poem. idk how well it actually works for this piece thematically, it works okay i think but i'm not doing a ton with serpent imagery here (even though i could! subz and eclipse are in fact totally doing various mythological snake imageries!) or with garden-of-eden stuff? but the imagery always stuck with me when writing cannibalism stuff and i hadn't gotten to use it for a title yet and figured this was my chance

cannibalism as devotion.... cannibalism as memorial...... mm. good stuff. i should have made a way to make this Eucharistic somehow, cannibalism-as-worship doesn't show up here as much but it would've slapped.

something that didn't make it into the fic but that i did have some thoughts about is vitalasy's feelings wrt zam + subz after this. i think he's glad, on some level, that he got to eat subz and zam didn't, but also he feels kind of guilty for feeling glad, but also he's arguing to himself that he shouldn't have to feel guilty, it's not like he stopped zam from being there, zam wasn't there bc zam isn't/wasn't on their team.

other stuff that is even less fic-relevant but that i've been thinking about is that you could do a lot with "if you kill someone you get their heart" + the various meanings cannibalism can have. cannibalism as domination of an opponent. cannibalism as possession. cannibalism as respecting someone's sacrifice. killing someone and then handing them their own heart to eat, when you kill someone and give them back the heart. yeah. fun possibilities!

shoutout to ihob. nothing much to say here other than i'm glad i somehow included ihob in the vitalasubz cannibalism fic. i love ihob. i love that bacon only eats pork chops even though they're worse than golden carrots! he's on three hearts anyway, what's the added saturation gonna do! i love the dumb fucking three-way contract for its ownership. i love. ihob.

fun fact: the only other fic on ao3 tagged with subz's suicide stream is ALSO a vitalasubz funerary cannibalism fic. i genuinely did not know this until after posting. what can i say, it's a good concept.

[rebuke-me]

im giving you permission to ramble more about the ever after high au

I AM KISSING U ON THE MOUTH /p

okay. okay. im gonna ramble under the cut bc i have so many thoughts.

crash course for new readers: son of cinderella jeremy, charming kids brooke and jake (they're cousins), pied piper kid michael, daughter of the boy who cried wolf jenna, beauty and the beast kid chloe, alice in wonderland daughter christine, and goldilocks kid rich.

chloe and brooke are constantly at odds. they're always together because they're both princesses. they HATE each other but cant ever seem to leave. chloe keeps putting brooke down because chloe has a story, a destiny, and brooke doesn't. she's a princess, she's beauty, she's a big deal. and brooke's just a charming, not even a specific princess. she doesn't have beautiful hair or glass slippers or anything. she's just... a damsel. in distress. but she's kind and caring and wants to help, but she's not beauty, right? and then chloe ends up being the beast. she's the beast and brooke's HER beauty, and brooke puts her foot down and says no. she's not going to be in chloe's shadow anymore. she's not going to bend over backwards for HER story, for HER development. she's not going to be nice and kind just because chloe needs her. and that's how brooke becomes a rebel.

rich has a lot of pressure on him, ever since he was a kid. he's always told to be just right. he's goldilocks, the pretty little girl who takes over a poor family's life and cares so much about perfection. too tomboyish, too awkward, nothing's just right. he doesn't feel right pretending, either. so he cuts off his golden curls. he shears them off and finally, for once in his life, he feels just right. he goes by rich now, and the gold theme finally feels earned.

jenna rolan will never be believed. she knows no one will listen to her, even if she tells the truth. because no one can EVER think she's telling the truth. she never can, anyways. there's always a little white lie that slips in. she can't help it, her mouth runs for her. her friends all keep her around for gossip with a grain of salt inside. she's not even a BIG story. she gets eaten by wolves, and she can't even feel righteously angry about it. no one will ever believe her, and yet she still keeps pouring as much of her truth into her words as fate will let her.

christine's always a little out of the loop. she's from outside this world, but not quite. she should be fine. she's alice, of course, she's just a normal girl who happens to fall into wonderland. but she's too curious, too wild, too eccentric. she's seen as not quite one, not quite the other. too wild for wonderland, too normal for ever after. she lays awake at night, wishing she could hear the narrators, like the other wonderland kids. or wishing that she could know the right words to say, like the ever after kids.

michael loves his music, but keeps most of it to himself, playing it over his headphones instead of out loud. he's not a villain, not technically, but he doesn't like it when people have the idea that he's somehow making them do things. he doesn't play his music out loud, doesn't want to call a plague of rats to him, doesn't want to bring kids away. he was adopted, anyways, maybe these powers will go away. but he knows that it'll happen, and he'll leave, and it'll be fine. but he still takes the first opportunity of rebellion.

jeremy and jake know each other since childhood. they're royals, of course. they don't get along at first. jeremy's a princess kid, and clearly. and then his story's started early, with his stepmother. his only solace is his little sister, the destined ugly stepsister. he doesn't want that for her. doesn't want her to feel ugly, or evil. and jake's the charming, going to be the beast and the prince of chloe. or at least, they think so. but things shift. they talk again, and it's easy now. they get along, they have things in common. they risk their happily ever afters. and then the storybook of legends, and the signing. jake was going to sign anyways, of course. he didn't know not signing was an option. but then he sees what the future holds for him. he's not chloe's prince, he's not the beast they've wanted him to be. he's jeremy's. he whisks him away, he finds his shoe, he... pulls him away from his sister, his family. there's no ending where jeremy has both. but selfishly, he signs. and then rich refuses to sign, refuses to be just right. and jeremy doesn't sign either. and jake doesn't tell him that he signed because he saw them together. because he doesn't want to make jeremy choose between him and his family, between a happily ever after and the right to freedom. and jeremy thinks that jake saw his future with chloe and chose her over him, because of course he would. why would jake ever choose him in the long run? isn't that a tragedy?

[bellshazes]

do it again director's commentary part 3

one evening as the golden hour light begins to creep across his desk it catches the courage crystal sitting there and refracts shattered patterns that waver back and forth along the walls. When Etho stumbles in, gripping a coffee mug with both hands and squinting at the last dregs of daylight, it catches him too and he’s lit up in flames. Bdubs’ heart seizes up as Etho tilts his head down to try and keep the light from his eyes, the deepened burning shadow transforming his face into something menacing and sharp.

this one was for the girlies who appreciate etho always dying in fire <3 and also as close to textually suggesting the courage crystal is a significant source of bdubs' paranoia, bc it does its opposite.

Etho sits up gingerly and tries to wiggle his feet out from underneath Bdubs. “Oh boy, you’re loud. What time is it?” He blearily squints at the clock on Bdubs’ nightstand; he’s not wearing his glasses, or they fell off in the falling over. “What are you doing in my room?”

i really like this part bc the image amuses me so much but also: i was thinking specifically of doumeki shizuka for this. and bdubs plays watanuki. it's just the holic influence, you know how it is with 104.

That acute awareness of absence carries him to a red seance, and when he hears Joel and Grian calling his name he doesn’t even mind the racket they’re causing and scribbles clues into the redstone dust they’ve scattered on the ground. Betrayal doesn’t come to mind at all as he tells them where the others had gone to hide.

nobody talks about the fact that bdubs answering the seance DIRECTLY led to them getting a kill on i think perhaps even cleo??? definitely someone bdubs had cared about. like he really does that. does anybody remember this it makes me sooooo crazy. the post-death influence bdubs had on the actual events of the world is important to the themes of dia, but it's also that i wanted to emphasize that etho never tried to talk to or acknowledge bdubs-as-ghost, even though it was something he could have done. I dont feel strongly about whether, in DIA-verse, he would have known he could do. but it's made relevant in the final chapter when etho says he said something when he was a ghost in case bdubs was still listening.

He’s never been good when left alone, with no one to orbit around and make sense of his place in the world. That’s the problem with putting your heart into one person’s hands: when they’re gone, you’re left heartless. A clock, a life, a question - whatever the promise, he’ll always take it if it means an end to loneliness.

i'm really maybe most proud of this part in the whole fic. i like the prose and i think it explains exactly what i want it to about bdubs being a loyal guy with loose morals and a desperate need for connection. it's not even that directly prevalent in LL but i think his bizarre version of commitment to specific persons is what drives the other recklessness.

It’s the only thing that makes sense; in the dreams that increasingly invade his waking hours as distant overlays, a disorienting kind of deja vu, Etho is overjoyed to torment him with the possibility of his imminent demise at Etho’s hands and sends him on a suicide mission that ends with Bdubs shouting Etho’s name as he dies. 

in the beginning couple chapters i deliberately left bdubs' memory of being killed ambigous so that it was reasonable he might think he was yelling at etho, who directly killed him. now, he remembers more, and his fear develops into less the physical harm and more the emotional betrayal of being thrown away, like he expresses to cleo earlier. but the loop of fearful suspicion kind of shifts without his conscious awareness; he only suspected initially because of the physical threat, and now he's less sure of that, but has invented new reasons to be afraid.

“Little guy!” Bdubs shouts, and then scowls when Jellie disdainfully hops away from them. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, get me distracted so I don’t get my refund. You can’t fool old Bdubs that easy, I tell you what. No - seriously, I mean it. Scar, look at me.”

writing for bdubs' voice is never easier than when he's talking to scar. all his usefully recognizable patterns come up so strongly, so easily. maybe partially because it's easiest for me to hear him cutting himself off to say the same thing in a different way for emphasis, or change the direction of the sentence entirely halfway in when scar is being sneaky and throwing curveballs at him.

“Well,” says Scar, gleeful in a way he instantly pretends to regret, clapping one hand over his heart. “If you can tell me about your dreams I’ll tell you about mine. Grian always gives me such a hard time for caring about dreaming that I used to be a wizard who made the world better with my magic because he doesn’t believe in it in the real world, but you and I know better. “

scar mainly dreams of s7 because of the continuity of his character selling crystals. it's also because he gave and received the most lives, which is the other criteria i used to measure how much a given character might remember with a crystal or after an inciting incident (like falling off the roof, bdubs' questioning of cleo).

“At this point I think Etho’s problem with you is more about not being able to one-up you when you’re going on about whatever thing he’s logically opposed to, way more than whatever it was you did to piss him off way back when.” 

etho doesn't like magic and thinks scar's a terrible influence on bdubs - which is absolutely 1000% true. he does like the mutual manipulation, but only in the light back-and-forth, and it's not really an old grudge or anything.

He had less of a choice than he realized in that moment, but he knows he would have signed anyway, not yet understanding what else Etho would ask him to give up for Etho’s own self-preservation. 

you ever think about how etho asked bdubs to give up something of himself without question twice and twice bdubs barely hesitated before doing it and once it was already over was when he fully grasped the consequences? me neither.

Bdubs thinks about how close he’d come to working for Scar, before he had built up his client list and had regular business after college. How appalled Etho had been, enough to point out that even on their meager incomes they could easily afford a two bedroom apartment on the same block as Skizz and Tango if they moved in together. So he’d taken graveyard shifts where he could find them and told Scar no instead, which was harder than he expected, even before Scar started wheedling. It had felt strangely like giving up something familiar, even though he’d known Etho for longer.

before 90s au there was a DIA offshoot that was set on one side or the other of s7 instead of s8 and paralleled the mayoral arc because bdubs never moves in with etho because he accepts the offer to work for scar instead of needing to split rent and etho is vaguely horrified and not as close but as much of nuisance a la the resistance double-siding stuff. a lot of that got rolled into 90s au though, which i think improves on it by having etho run a shade-e-ees esque side business out of what's basically a DIY container home situation everyone calls the monstrosity. (impulse crashes there frequently too, on account of it also being foreshadowing for the wool castle of 3L).

"That man has a hold on me I guess," bdubs says in LL about scar when questioned why he keeps falling for the BS. you know how it is with mayors

It’s the same shade of red as the dust he’d scrawled his ghostly message in, and he decides he’s had enough of loneliness for several lifetimes.

rage crystal! which, spoilers, chills tango out in another inversion. and like in LL, tango later gives it to etho.

Skizz pauses. “I don’t know what’s up with you and Tango, but I’m glad you’re doing something about it. I miss hanging out with my buddies, we’ve gotta get the band back together. Etho’s been harder to get a hold of too lately and everything is just all weird. I don’t like it.”

it's a shame i needed to keep my character focus really small if i ever wanted to finish the fic, and that i don't feel super confident writing skizz or tango. one day i WILL finish that third-done skizz+scar scene though..... i hope i did him justice

[meganechan05]

Imma be delusional for a second.

Toei could've stuck Rita's cover of "Moffun no Uta" (a song that doesn't represent them at all and is sung in a persona that also isn't Rita at all) into an EP like how they did N'kosopa's secondary theme, "I'm still alive" so Rita could've had an original song that would fit them.

Before you come at me saying "it balances out whatever the ignoratia's about", no. No. Ignoratia is Gokkan's theme written at the beginning of production. Character songs are written about halfway and represents the characters as they are and some of their development. Rita singing in their idol persona made for the sole purpose of tricking the enemy of a song that is the complete opposite of them is not Rita. That's idol fanservice that I listen to on loop bc that shit slaps.

Now Himeno's song "Golden Garden" fits her character perfectly but some of those lyrics are also directed towards someone. You can say her people because she cares about her people, but some of the lyrics were written in a way where she's encouraging someone who also carries a burden much like herself and to walk together. If that doesn't hint at HimeRita, I don't know what the fck does.

Now if Rita's song is the same thing, just imagine what it could be about if they tried to write an original song.

Rita, the ice-cold Supreme Justice who stands firm on Absolute Neutrality while also locking away their chances of forming relationships despite knowing that relationships won't break neutrality. A huge part of their story is opening up to their team and those they consider dear to them but also being able to be themself and maintain neutrality.

A song about being unwavering but knowing they can still be themself.

Now who tf in the giant ensemble cast allowed that?

Himeno and Morfonia.

TOEI CHICKENED OUT BC THEY LEARNED IT'S POSSIBLE THE SONG COULD HINT AT HIMERITAMORF AND IT PLACED RIGHT AFTER A SONG WITH SUBTLE HINTS OF HIMERITA!

TOEI, YOU FUCKING COWARDS!!!

plus, if we're gonna include Moffun bc it's their comfort character, it's during the bridge where they have a small convo with it in order to continue finishing the song.

Or Toei ends up giving Rita "Jagaton no uta" but with Moffun.