#but in the rough draft /the narrative also changed their names/ and like

[aparticularbandit]

ah, this is the beginning of bandit changes all of the name changes that were made in the rough draft.

[orinthered]

Finally got around to finishing the post game and gotta say, if DD1 was 50% of what they wanted to do, DD2 felt like 70% but the other 30% was the story and Battahl. I loved the game, but it really suffers from the lack of a narrative.

the game's story really does feel like a rough draft that was somehow polished up into a full game. sometimes not even that: more of like a pitch that got tossed around like "ohh yeah i guess we could do that"

the most egregious part for me is now that i'm in ng+ i can really think about just how fucking weird it is that after act 1, where lord phaesus gets the big "i'm the bad guy looking disdainfully out my carriage window, onto you, the arisen, whom the camera states i see as lesser" cutscene the rest of the game just pivots to us working with him and his assistant, i guess.

a lot of stuff in dd2 also feels like it exists out of necessity because "well, we had it in dragon's dogma 1, so it has to be in this game!" largely the beloved system. we don't have a character like duke dragonsbane who really just exists to justify the idea of having a character you're willing to give up for ultimate power and seeing what that effect might have on someone, because in dd2 you just see the dragon (who isn't named! what!) clutching your beloved, 99% some random fuck npc if you didn't manage to get the ring off the sphinx, and you just have to laugh because like there's a good chance the player has no emotional attachment to this character bc they're just pretty faces with stock personalities and the game doesn't treat the arisen as a person so what reason does the player have to do the same?

i also like briefly talked about this on twitter but when i was looking through the design documents for dragon's dogma 1 and you see how much concepting went into cassardis, the starting area... it makes it really hard for me to buy the conceit of the arisen in dragon's dogma 2. games that just drop you into the action without any backstory work really good if roleplaying was a major aspect of the gameplay, but for dragon's dogma 2 it's not. the point of being chosen to be arisen is that you have the ability to show courage in the face of futility — in dragon's dogma 1, the arisen throws away their life in order to save the village that they love.

in dragon's dogma 2... what, you push some pretty girl out of the way? you're maybe like a village guard? ulrika has like so much more motivation to be chosen as arisen it's kind of mind-boggling. dd2's arisen is a cipher but they need to be an actual character for the conceit of the arisen's will changes the world to make any sense.

this screenshot actually made me laugh out loud but in the way that one might laugh in the face of oncoming traffic. what do you even mean man. the only characters with any story relevance for the entirety of the game's plot are brant, sven, and phaesus lmfao you could get rid of everyone else and it wouldn't matter whatsoever

i mean i love this game. it's easily an 8/10 for me but it's so much harder for me to ignore a good game's bad story than it is for me to ignore a good story's bad gameplay. and if dd2's story is markedly worse than dd1's in every single possible facet...

[andro-dino]

Fuck it we ball here’s a very long, unfinished shogun steel ramble I’ve had sitting in my drafts for like a year and a half (probably more tbh but idk I have no perception of time). I hadn’t reread this in ages before the other day but yk what this banged I love loving shogun steel so I’m gonna share this 🔥

I’ve got a big ol rant abt my ideas of the shogun steel characters and their comparisons to the original cast and how their specifically different and how that feeds my headcanons for them oooohohoooohoh

The way I interpret it, I like to think that the characters in shogun steel are a little younger than where the main cast started and juuuuust before where they were in fusion skill-wise. Like, most of the characters in fusion are introduced right off the bat as already being incredibly skilled bladers and they only get more and more insanely strong as the series progresses. When it comes to shogun steel, I like to think that they even though they are strong, they’re not quite where the original cast started yet. That’s something that I find very charming about them. It’s clear that they’re still young and a little rough around the edges, but they’re all so deeply impassioned to surpass those who came before them that that fire inside them burns tenfold and they work even harder to refine themselves and hone their skills and grow and change even more and I really like that. A lot of shogun steel characters very obviously parallel earlier characters (i.e. Zyro and Gingka, Sakyo and Ryuga) but what I like about them is that even though they play similar narrative roles and have those connections drawn, they make a point to make them distinctly different. I like that the shogun steel cast really feel like they’re learning and growing and not just that they’re the replacements for the og characters but that they’re learning to be better than they were. They’re not quite the legends they’re looking to surpass yet, but they really make you feel like they’re gonna get there.

Now, I like looking at this not only from a skill angle, but also from how they are as people. I’ve joked about it before but I really do quite enjoy that my silly little self-indulgent hc for these guys is just “they’re communicative and they work to support each other and talk through their issues and they love each other and show that in healthy ways.” Obviously, the shortness of shogun steel doesn’t give the characters a lot of time to go through extremely fleshed out character arcs, but those arcs exist nonetheless. I know it’s just a pacing issue but I like how these kids are able to pinpoint their issues and work on solving them and figuring it out. A whole bunch of them (Shinobu, Kite, and Sakyo mostly, just to name a few) go through their own little “edgy angsty teenager who doesn’t need anyone or any help” moments, but they are SO quickly ripped out of them by their friends just being like “NO. WE LOVE YOU AND WE’RE HERE FOR YOU AND YOU DESERVE SUPPORT” and they’re like “oh fuck fr? I mean yeah ok makes sense sorry for being an ass” AND ITS THE GREATEST. THEY ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR ISSUES AND THEY WORK THROUGH THEM AND GROW STRONGER AND CLOSER BECAUSE OF IT. They’re angsty kids and they’re messy and rough but work to become kinder and more supportive people and it’s so nice to think abt. I KNOW THIS CAN BE APPLIED TO EARLIER CHARACTERS BUT LISTEN. IT JUST FEELS DIFFERENT TO ME.

Outside of canon, it just brings me a lot of comfort to think about them finding different coping mechanisms and communicating their struggles and boundaries with each other and striving to support one another and just being human. It’s nice to think about these fucking kids just living and learning and doing it all together and coming out closer and stronger because of it.

I love thinking about them being affectionate with each other too. They always so openly voice their support for each other and feel such protectiveness and pride over each other. They have healthy banter but so clearly love and care for each other. I like to think of them all as each other’s hype men. They feel like the type of friend group where if one of them wanted to show something off, all of the others would be totally hyping

-

And that’s where the draft ended. I’m not gonna continue it but you can kinda figure where my train of thought was going for the most part at the end there. In conclusion I love shogun steel amen and happy new year

[martyrbat]

Newbie hockey anon here. Definitely enjoying the games so far! Finally convinced my family that I wasn't hallucinating about the on-ice logos changing (and figured out they were digitally added).

Honestly I like all the teams. I'm Canadian so the Oilers would be an obvious pick, but they beat the Canucks (local) so... Otherwise, I do really like the Stars (I'm a space kid and I dig their vibes). And I was uniquely impressed by the Panthers, especially in first period last game.

I don't know anything about the narratives about any of them tho 👀 what's going on?

since the stars just lost its a great time to talk about wasted narrative potential! hopefully this makes sense but okie:

tyler seguin—alternate captain, 32, whore

tyler was drafted to boston in 2010 and won a cup in his rookie year—2011!!! he was traded to dallas in 2013 (which that alone is a big deal since he was like a top two pick in his ability, was the first teenager to score 4 points in the playoffs since the 1980s, had a cup, and finished 2011-12 as the bruins score leader. there's rumors its because of his partying, there's rumors its because he slept with someone daughter, it doesn't really matter UDOFJF)

jamie benn—captain, 34 (drafted to the dallas stars in 2007)

jamie is underappreciated in general because the hockey market in dallas is, as expected, not as big for a canadian team—especially for how big the football team dallas cowboys are and how it dominates the sport scene. he was nominated for an art ross trophy (trophy for league point leader) in 2015ish but i think he doesn't get as much credit is because again, he plays for dallas, and because his 'prime run' wasnt as prolonged as many 'super stars'

but also jamie does play rough and can go a little too far in his hits. and he publicly announced he doesn't eat pussy so hes not my favorite and that's probably why the stars havent won a cup in 25 years HFUFH

but okay, with them briefly introduced!! tyler and jamie met and immediately had a gay thing going on. worked great, hit their stride together, are close—we love to see it. they have had many close runs for the cup but ultimately havent been able to win.

what's fascinating is right now theres A LOT of young players for the stars. most players hit their prime in mid 20s and by mid to late 30s a lot of players retire because of the strain, physical demands especially as the game continues to grow, and how fucking glorified playing through injuries is which (shockingly.) does catch up to your body and health. so the fact that the stars roster is filled with these younger guys that were drafted when T & J were more in their prime and as theyre approaching the more 'veteran' age for players is sooo....

if the stars would of won, it would been so narratively interesting to me because it would of been with these new guys leading it and being a striving force instead of them. dont get me wrong, they're still the captain and the A, but theyre no longer the team's score leaders. they're actual leaders to the players but not to the league. so the idea of not being able to win when YOU were that young player in their prime with the expected potential of being able to win a cup, the idea of not winning when it would of been your moment but instead as the backbone to this force. winning with these guys that are inevitably going to replace you and take your spot because that's the nature of the game but you finally get your moment in the sun, you finally fucking lift that cup above your head after all you've sacrificed and how hard you fought for it

fighting and fighting and fighting for this since your young 20s and finally getting your name engraved on the cup and having permanent proof of your work that can't be erased or taken away despite how the game will continue to grow and move on without you. it ultimately doesn't matter when you win, the goal is to just win whenever you can. you (usually) get your name on the cup regardless of your impact (rightfully so. if you're on the team, you did something to impact and get your team to this point, you deserve this too) but only having it NOW, when your role and what that impact is and how its so different than what it would have been over ten years ago, when your dreams and expectations for your career have changed and been influenced by a decade of attempts. chasing it for so long to finally get it NOW would have been sooo delicious and have so many conflicting and intense emotions but alas. oilers ruined my narratively significant cup run..

(also while tyler DID have a cup in his rookie year, its a matter of involvement. this isnt to take away the signifance of his cup involvement in any means but usually younger players arent contributing to it as much as players that are more in their stride since playing professional hockey is extremely different than junior hockey so to get it now, more towards the backend of his career when he literally started it with one, would have also be sooooo fulfilling to me)

[morgana96]

Rewriting the Lancer Quests

(Warning: Spoilers for Lancer Quests, but with heavy canon divergence)

A while back, I wrote a critique of FFXIV’s Lancer Quests, where I talked about how they’re tragically bad compared to other job/class quests. I’ve thought a lot about how I would write the story differently given the chance. And while it took forever to put it all together, I'm finally satisfied with this rough outline I came up with for a potential Lancer Quests rework!

This rewrite is what I’ve adopted for my Warrior of Light’s canon, and while the main characters are mostly the same, I’ve also included some who weren’t in the original storyline - including original characters created specifically for this new narrative.

It’s nowhere close to a fully polished script/draft, and anything here could change if I come up with something better. But I'd love to write this out as a full story someday, as well as other stories featuring my WoL!

Lancer Quest Rewrite Outline

Level 1

The quest remains mostly the same up until WoL returns from the canon first trial (killing 3 ladybugs, 3 squirrels, and 3 funguars out in the Black Shroud).

When reporting back to Ywain, a Wildwood Elezen in Wood Wailer uniform interrupts. This individual, named Gauvain, insists that pest control is hardly a difficult task, even for a two-bit adventurer. He goes on a rant about how the guild shouldn’t be reduced to recruiting unqualified outsiders to their ranks.

Ywain is quick to denounce this behavior, harshly reminding Gauvain that the Guild’s founder, Mistalle, developed their current techniques by learning from other nations and groups. He advises the disrespectful Wailer that if he’s so against “outsiders”, perhaps he should find a fighting class more aligned with his ignorance.

Humiliated by this reprimand, Gauvain angrily skulks off, muttering complaints and swears under his breath.

Ywain apologizes to WoL, promising to report Gauvain’s behavior to his superiors. He explains that a lancer learns best from experience, and that in time, WoL will steadily hone their abilities with strategy, technique, and understanding of courage.

He encourages WoL to continue practicing, and that he is looking forward to their promising future as a lancer.

Level 5

The quest is the same as canon until WoL returns from the collapsed pillars outside of Spirithold.

WoL’s conversation with Jillian (the guild’s receptionist) is cut short when another guild member enters in a panic. When asked what’s wrong, the frightened man reveals that there’s a corpse floating in the water right near Westshore Pier. A horrified Jillian rushes to inform Ywain, while WoL quickly heads outside to the scene.

When WoL arrives at the pier, the body has already been pulled from the water. It doesn’t take long to recognize the deceased as Gauvain, the Wood Wailer who had previously belittled them.

Ywain, along with Wood Wailer Captain Swethyna Brookstone, arrive at the pier not long after. The corpse’s extensive injuries make it clear to Swethyna that this was likely not an accident. Ywain also notes that there are several deep wounds likely made by a lance, and that the assailant is likely far from a novice.

Ywain apologizes to the WoL, claiming that the seriousness of the situation might end up delaying their training. However, WoL offers to help in piecing together what happened. While Ywain is initially reluctant to put such pressure on a recruit, he can quickly tell that the WoL is determined, and agrees to their offer of assistance.

Swethyna states that she will take care of the body’s removal and autopsy - she suggests that the others return to the guild and stay vigilant, as there’s now an assumed killer on the loose. Unbeknownst to any of them, a figure is watching the pier from a distance. He says nothing, but seems amused by the sight before him, and sneaks off as the shaken crowd of onlookers starts to disperse.

Back inside the guild, Ywain congratulates WoL for their success at Spirithold, and also thanks them for their willingness to balance their training with the impending investigation.

He admits that he and the deceased weren’t exactly on good terms; Gauvain had previously vied to become guildmaster and felt “cheated” out of it when Swethyna offered the role to Ywain instead. He was regularly belligerent towards not only him, but other lancer recruits he deemed “unfit” for the lance.

Regardless of his personal issues with Gauvain, Ywain insists it’s his duty to find his murderer, especially when the motive remains a complete mystery. He prioritizes focusing on WoL's training for now, and promises to update them as soon as there are any developments.

Level 10

Ywain greets WoL, saying he can tell they’ve been working hard at their training. He also reports that they’ve already begun investigating the murder of Gauvain.

Based on current findings, Gauvain was likely tortured and killed elsewhere before being thrown into Whispering Gorge. He was a first class sergeant in the Third Spears - a branch of the Wailers deployed in the Central Shroud - which makes it especially strange that he was found in water connecting to the East Shroud. Ywain theorizes that this could be an indicator of malicious intent; the killer could’ve wanted the corpse to be found by the lancer’s guild, perhaps due to some sort of grudge.

Ywain insists that they’ll need to piece together Gauvain’s final hours in order to get the answers they seek, so he asks WoL to meet him at Bentbranch Meadows in the Central Shroud, where he will provide them with further instructions.

Once at Bentbranch, Ywain explains that he intends to find potential persons of interest - those who may have known Gauvain or simply seen him before the murder. He asks WoL to cover the Bentbranch area while he surveys the Jadeite Flood, and recommends they meet up at the Bannock when they’re finished.

WoL questions three different individuals, and quickly learns that Gauvain has an extremely infamous reputation.

One woman at Bentbranch Meadows - a Duskwight Elezen - hardly knew the deceased. But she does recall an instance where he spoke derogatorily to her due to her race. She claims it doesn’t surprise her that someone finally grew tired of the man’s ego and prejudice.

At Galvanth’s Spire, a Miqo’te Wailer who served under Gauvain claims that the man was rude, condescending, and hypocritical. Many under his command greatly disliked him, with the only exception being a man named Thibault, an equally condescending second class sergeant who would regularly join Gauvain on patrols.

A fisher at the Mirror Planks admits that while out in the woods gathering grubs to use as bait, he’d witnessed Gauvain taking bribes from poachers. He wasn’t noticed but didn’t report the incident out of fear of retaliation. He also reveals that there was another Wailer present with Gauvain at that time; he didn’t recognize the other man, but notes that he was another Wildwood Elezen with slicked back brown hair.

At the Bannock, WoL approaches Ywain as he talks with the Third Spear Chief Sergeant. After informing him of what they’ve learned, Ywain reports that he’s heard much the same through his inquiries, and he is disgusted that Gauvain would abuse his power in such a way.

The Chief Sergeant, based on WoL’s description, theorizes that the other Elezen the fisher described was Thibault, adding that complaints about him and Gauvain were becoming more frequent in recent months. She had started filing a report to have the two suspended for their behavior, but is even more unsettled to hear these new bribery allegations.

Ywain theorizes that these misdeeds could be connected to Gauvain's murder. He also states that Thibault is definitely a potential suspect; if he was involved in the bribery scheme, he might have killed Gauvain in order to increase his own ill-gotten profits.

The Chief Sergeant informs them that Thibault left for a patrol near the Naked Rock in Greentear bells ago, and assures that the Third Spears will give their full cooperation in the ongoing investigation. Ywain asks WoL to locate Thibault and have him report back to the Bannock, adding that it’s best they not reveal the details of why to him just yet. The guild master also advises them to stay vigilant, as the area is a known raptor nesting ground.

When WoL arrives at Naked Rock, they discover a deceased Thibault, and must fight off a pack of anole raptors looking to make a meal out of the corpse.

It doesn’t take WoL long to realize that Thibault wasn’t the victim of a raptor attack; his injuries are nearly identical to those suffered by Gauvain. But as they process this turn of events, they are suddenly interrupted by the voice of a stranger, who callously mocks Thibault’s fate.

WoL comes face to face with another lancer - a Duskwight man with white hair, dark skin, and vibrant pink eyes. With little reluctance, the man reveals he is the one who slaughtered Thibault, acting disappointed because he’d hoped to watch the raptors chew on Thibault for a while longer. But now that WoL has caught him in the act, he insists they’ll just have to be the raptors’ next course.

The man charges, seeming intent to attack. WoL does not flinch, taking a defensive stance and maintaining eye contact. However, the tip of the lance stops just short of WoL’s face, and the assailant retreats with an amused smirk.

The impressed stranger - Foulques - claims WoL seems different from the Lancer Guild’s usual whelps. He suggests that they should forsake the Guild and allow him to become their personal mentor instead, arguing that their skills would be fully realized under him.

When WoL refuses, Foulques calls it a waste, claiming they will inevitably find only disappointment and betrayal with the guild. He decides he will simply have to show them - and all other lancers - the consequences of crossing him, and quickly vanishes.

When WoL returns to the Bannock, Ywain is shocked as they tell him what they encountered. He apologizes for unknowingly sending them into imminent danger, but is proud of how they maintained their composure in the face of such a dangerous adversary.

Since he’ll need to inform the Third Spears of the murder and the body’s location, Ywain advises WoL to return to Gridania ahead of him, where they can discuss these new developments.

Back at the guild, Ywain says that Thibault’s body has been recovered, though he’s frustrated that any answers the man held have now died with him. He states that while this Foulques seems to be their culprit, his statements to WoL indicate that his spree is unfortunately far from over. Furthermore, he remains convinced that Gauvain and Thibault were not random victims, as the vitriol, disdain, and violence towards the deceased are hallmarks of a personal vendetta.

For now, Ywain decides he will try to find any information on their suspect that he can. Until then, he encourages WoL to continue honing their skills, especially since Foulques is still out there and his future plans/targets remain unknown.

Level 15

Ywain informs WoL of several updates regarding their investigation.

After gaining more testimony from Central Shroud residents, the Third Spears have confirmed the legitimacy of the accusations against Gauvain and Thibault. Along with accepting bribes from poachers and bandits, the two were also extorting money from vulnerable civilians. The news has become the talk of Gridania, and the Wailers are now working overtime to investigate similar corruption within their ranks.

Ywain also reveals that he’s discovered some surprising information on Foulques. According to guild records, the murderous lancer was actually once a member, but was convicted and imprisoned for stealing money from the guild’s personal coffers. He was previously thought to have been killed during the Seventh Umbral Calamity, as the chaos and destruction resulted in several casualties at the prison where he was being held.

While Foulques motives remain a mystery, Ywain remains convinced that Gauvain and Thibault must be connected to a bigger picture. He insists that their best option currently is to locate and question more of the pair’s associates; these individuals are not only potential partners in their crimes, but also potential targets on Foulques’ hit list.

Since the Third Spears are already underway with their internal investigation, Ywain says he’s been asked to begin the same process with the East Shroud’s Fourth Spears. He asks WoL to assist him and sets their meeting place at Josselin’s Spire.

Upon their arrival, Ywain advises WoL to be discreet with their questioning. Direct accusations of wrongdoing might cause their targets to panic, shut down, or retaliate, so they should start with the more casual topic of familiarity with the victims. He also suggests that WoL look for any unusual reactions and responses, as this could be a sign of someone trying to hide information.

Two of the Wailers WoL speaks to are calm and forthcoming. The first barely knew the victims’ names until news of the corruption came to light, while the second was familiar with them many years ago, but was extremely put off by their conceited personalities even back then.

However, a third wailer that WoL approaches - a Hyuran man - quickly raises several red flags. He becomes strangely nervous and defensive when simply asked if he ever knew Gauvain and Thibault, berates WoL for “harassing” him, and gives the unprompted opinion that the ongoing internal investigations are a waste of time and resources. This Wailer ends up leaving in a huff, stating he has a training exercise to lead.

When WoL tells Ywain of this strange behavior, he agrees that this man might be someone to keep an eye on. Since the man stormed off without identifying himself, they seek out a superior officer - the Fourth Spear Chief Sergeant - to help with identification.

Based on WoL’s account, the Lieutenant deduces that the suspicious individual is likely a third class Sergeant named Ashton. According to the Lieutenant, he was close friends with the victims during their guild training days.

When news of the murders broke, many of the Fourth Spears had expected Ashton would need time to grieve. But instead, the Sergeant seemed agitated by anyone offering their condolences, and he’d become unusually anxious and jumpy in the field, as though he thought something - or someone - was watching him.

Just as Ywain and WoL plan to question Ashton further when he returns, panicked pleas for help suddenly ring out from the forest. WoL, along with Ywain and the Lieutenant rush in the direction of the cries, only to find three Wailer privates, heavily injured but alive.

One of the recruits explains that while they were conducting their training exercise, a lancer they didn't know emerged from the woods and attacked them. She recalls that they were easily beaten despite their best efforts, and that Ashton, instead of defending them, was terrified and ran away screaming for his life, after which their assailant abandoned them to pursue the sergeant.

WoL and Ywain quickly realize this assailant must be Foulques. The Lieutenant states that he'll get medical help for the injured privates, encouraging Ywain and WoL to give chase before Ashton ends up like his former friends.

Using the private’s story and footprints left behind, WoL and Ywain track their targets back to the Central Shroud. They eventually find the two at Lifemend Stump behind the East Vein waterfall, where Foulques stands menacingly over an injured and frightened Ashton.

Ashton addresses Foulques by name, begging the rogue lancer for his life. He insists that “what happened” wasn’t his idea and that he was pressured to go along with it. But Foulques isn’t swayed in the slightest by this, claiming that his cowardice only makes him even more pathetic in his eyes.

Upon noticing their uninvited guests, Foulques shows great disdain for Ywain, despite Ywain having never met him before. He claims he’s not surprised that the guild master would waste time rescuing a “sniveling coward” and claims it's a disgrace that he would have WoL’s talent dedicated to such a task.

Foulques discloses that a pack of man-eating wolves have recently been using Lifemend Stump as their den, hence why he chased a wounded Ashton to this spot. The sergeant’s blood has drawn their attention, and both WoL and Ywain proceed to fight off the wolves in order to keep him from being killed (this would be a modified version of the canon level 15 instance).

Foulques, while annoyed that Ashton still lives, admits that he’s impressed by the display. He once again laments how WoL’s talents are wasted by the “Coward’s Guild”, and even offers them a place at his side if they finish off Ashton for him. Ywain, frustrated by Foulques’ reckless violence and insults towards the guild, demands that he surrender and explain himself.

Foulques shocks Ywain and WoL by revealing that he, Gauvain, Thibault, and Ashton were all co-conspirators in the guild robbery. Eventually, Foulques felt guilty for what they’d done and tried to convince the others to confess with him. But the others turned on him, successfully taking advantage of prejudice against Duskwights to pin the entire crime on him.

The rogue lancer concludes with a declaration that he won’t stop until his former “friends” and the rest of the Lancer’s Guild are destroyed, before swiftly fleeing the scene of the attempted murder.

Despite being clearly disturbed by what they’ve just learned, Ywain maintains his composure, expressing his gratitude for WoL’s help. He plans to bring Ashton in and turn him over to the proper authorities, and asks WoL to wait for him at the guild so that they can debrief these recent events.

Back at the Lancer’s Guild, Ywain confirms that Ashton has been arrested and is currently being interrogated. While it might take some time to confirm the legitimacy of Foulques’ story, his gut feeling is that it’s the truth, especially considering Ashton’s earlier pleas for mercy.

Ywain assures WoL that he will let them know of any updates, intending to show them a new technique (Piercing Talon) in the meantime.

Level 20

A solemn Ywain takes longer than usual to notice WoL’s presence. He states that he’s glad they’ve arrived, as Swethyna was looking to speak to them. He goes to fetch her, though he's clearly still distracted by his own thoughts.

Swethyna personally thanks WoL for helping to bring the recent crimes to light. She admits that it infuriates her that this corruption occurred under her watch, but that as captain of the Wailers, she must accept full responsibility for these failures, and vows to make amends to those affected.

She announces that Ashton has not only confessed to his involvement in the guild robbery, but also identified the true mastermind behind the plot - a high-ranking Wailer Lieutenant named Nicodeme. The imprisoned sergeant also admitted to helping Gauvain and Thibault in more recent crimes, which were also masterminded by Nicodeme.

She’s already contacted Nicodeme for a “strategy meeting" at the Guild/Wailing Barracks with the intention to confront him. As the two driving forces behind the investigation, she would greatly appreciate if WoL and Ywain would join her for it.

Ywain initially fails to respond, but eventually snaps out of it, apologizing and excusing himself to get some fresh air. A concerned Swethyna asks WoL to go after Ywain, stating that since the last time they were in the guild, the guild master has become increasingly depressed and distracted.

WoL finds Ywain at the dock of Westshore Pier, and he asks for their forgiveness for his current state. He admits to them that Foulques’ story has left him feeling an immense sense of shame and guilt, despite the fact that the situation occurred prior to him having any authority in the guild.

Ywain tells WoL that before becoming guildmaster, he was a highly accomplished Wood Wailer along with Landenel Peaumasquier, his dear friend. Landenel was regularly judged unfairly because his father was a known criminal, and one day, that pressure and ridicule led his friend to make a crucial mistake in the field. Not wanting to see his friend unfairly penalized for a momentary lapse of judgement, Ywain took the blame for the entire incident, and was dishonorably discharged from the Wailers as a result. It was Swethyna who learned of his innocence and promptly righted the situation, offering him an apology on the Wailers' behalf and the position of guild master.

While the decision nearly cost him everything, Ywain insists he never regretted standing up for his friend, and that he can’t imagine the intense pain and hurt Foulques must have felt when his “friends” betrayed him.

When Ywain asks WoL their opinion, they agree that while Foulques’ actions are reckless and dangerous, his anger and resentment are understandable. Ywain agrees with this sentiment; while he can’t condone the murders and Foulques’ endangerment of innocents, the guild was also at fault for all this; their desire for an easy and swift resolution failed not only Foulques, but the co-conspirators’ future victims as well. Regaining his conviction, the guild master is determined to not only stop Foulques’ spree, but also hold those who set the man down his destructive path accountable.

WoL and Ywain head back inside soon after, and both agree to Swethyna's request to join the confrontation. Swethyna, glad to see Ywain’s self-assurance restored, thanks them as the time for the meeting draws near.

Nicodeme arrives at the Barracks, finding Swethyna, Ywain, WoL, and several Wailers waiting for him. The lieutenant questions why someone like WoL is present, insisting that confidential Wailer intel should not be shared in the presence of "civilians".

Swethyna shocks him by quickly revealing the true reason behind the meeting, listing out the serious crimes he's been accused of and demanding an explanation from him.

Nicodeme adamantly denies any involvement in the robbery or any other crime, claiming that Ashton is falsely naming him in an effort to save himself from harsher consequences. However, in his haste to dismiss the accusations, he accidentally mentions the exact amount of gil stolen in the Guild robbery - a fact that was never publicly disclosed.

A frantic Nicodeme starts to show his true nature. He takes out his lance, throwing insults and threatening violence in a desperate effort to escape his collapsing house of cards. The other present Wailers initially reach for their weapons in response. But Swethyna requests that they back down, instead asking WoL to handle the situation. Ywain encourages WoL to take up the challenge, which they do.

At first, Nicodeme scoffs at this, mocking Swethyna and Ywain for being so overconfident in "an amateur". However, WoL successfully bests him in battle. (This would be an instanced conflict, replacing the two canon instances that occur at level 20).

A flabbergasted Nicodeme can't comprehend how he could lose to a novice. Swethyna, however, claims this outcome was inevitable; she insists that WoL embodies the true values that Mistalle founded the Lancer's Guild on - courage, adaptability, and open-mindedness - and calls Nicodeme out as a fraud, a coward, and a common criminal.

The disgraced lieutenant is arrested for plotting, committing, and covering up the past robbery, as well as for his more recent crimes. Ywain expresses how proud he is of WoL's victory and takes some solace in the fact that the co-conspirators can now do no more harm.

However, this victory is short lived, as an injured young lancer recruit rushes in, terrified and bringing bad news. The recruit claims that she'd been with Jillian - the receptionist - on an errand at the Adder's Nest. But on their way back, they were suddenly attacked by none other than Foulques, who abducted Jillian by threatening to kill the recruit if she didn't come quietly.

Ywain is clearly distressed by this turn of events, but rationalizes that panicking will do no one any good. He notes that Jillian was likely taken as collateral, meaning that there’s a good chance she’s still alive. He plans to organize a search effort, imploring WoL to keep their eyes and ears open for any sign of the two.

Level 25

Ywain informs WoL that the search for Jillian has unfortunately seen little success. However, a written missive - supposedly from Foulques - was found outside the guild just under a bell ago. Swethyna will join them shortly to share its contents.

Upon her arrival, Swethyna confirms that the missive lists Foulques demands. Unless they meet him out in the North Shroud's Alder Springs the following day and hand Nicodeme over to him, the vengeful lancer threatens to take Jillian's life. He also swears to subsequently continue to slaughter more lancers at random until those demands are met.

While she holds no sympathy for Nicodeme, Swethyna insists that allowing Foulques to be his judge, jury, and executioner would violate the former lieutenant's right to due process, something she can’t set a precedent for breaking. She also adds that even if they give Foulques what he wants, the man���s own words indicate that his hatred for the guild will not be so easily quelled, and he might kill Jillian and others out of hatred for the guild regardless.

Ywain previously suspected this would be Foulques’ next move, and reveals he’s come up with a plan to deal with this exact situation. He asks WoL to bring him several items from across various parts of the Black Shroud: black bat wings from the East Shroud, kedtrap leaves from the South Shroud, and balloon bomb ash from the North Shroud. He claims these items are integral to his plan, and that gathering them will also be a test of WoL’s progress with their lance work.

WoL must defeat several black bats, kedtraps, and balloons in order to progress (all are spawned at the locations marked by Ywain on WoL’s map). Upon their return, Ywain praises them for their swift work.

Ywain reveals that the items WoL retrieved are ingredients to concoct an alchemical potion - one which will allow him to temporarily take on the appearance of someone else. He then announces his plan to impersonate Nicodeme and trade himself in the exchange for Jillian.

Swethyna, shocked by this dangerous plan, adamantly expresses her disapproval; she warns that Foulques may lash out in retaliation, and that it’s far too risky for Ywain to confront him alone. But Ywain insists that as current guild master, he must take responsibility for what Foulques has become and save Jillian, even if it puts him at risk.

WoL proposes a compromise by offering to “deliver” the disguised Ywain to Foulques; this way, if the situation escalates, they will at least have numbers in their favor.

Swethyna backs WoL’s suggestion, insisting that she can also have a backup team waiting at Fallground Float. Though initially reluctant to put anyone else in danger, Ywain accepts these terms.

Ywain plans to have an alchemist concoct the potion within the day. He thanks them for being willing to risk their own safety to help Jillian, before telling WoL they'd both best prepare for the upcoming battle.

Level 30

With the hostage exchange swiftly approaching, Ywain states the transformative potion is ready and that they will rendezvous with Swethyna at Fallground Float before putting their plan into action. Before departing, he compliments WoL as one of the best lancers he’s ever trained, and that no matter what awaits them, he will follow their example and face Foulques and the guild’s past mistakes with courage.

Just as she promised, Swethyna has assembled a back-up team, and encourages Ywain and WoL to contact her by linkpearl should the exchange morph into a physical confrontation. As Ywain prepares to take the transforming potion, he tells WoL to let him know when they are ready to head out.

As WoL reaches the exchange spot with “Nicodeme”, Foulques arrives soon after with a restrained Jillian. She attempts to apologize to WoL for getting them into this situation, but is cut short by Foulques, who orders her to remain quiet.

Foulques seems rather satisfied that WoL is the one to bring him “Nicodeme”. Once again, he tries to encourage them join him instead,

However, Foulques becomes suspicious of “Nicodeme”; the rogue lancer claims that the disgraced lieutenant's prideful and arrogant nature would never allow him to be quiet in the face of his doom. He raises his weapon, fully suspecting that he's been set up.

With their plan compromised, Ywain has no choice but to reveal himself the potion antidote he brought along, much to Jillian’s shock and Foulques’ fury.

Ywain attempts to talk Foulques down from his anger, reminding him Jillian has nothing to do with what happened. He informs the rogue lancer that all those involved in the robbery and coverup have been identified and arrested, and that they all will be stripped of their titles and imprisoned for their numerous crimes.

Foulques claims this isn’t good enough, and that he wants to personally watch the life leave their eyes for what they did. He insists that if they won’t give them what he wants, he will simply take out the three of them a a final message to the guild to stay out of the way of his revenge.

An final instance similar to the original takes place, except Ywain is present and assists in subduing Foulques. (At one point, Ywain continues to fight Foulques 1v1, while WoL must free Jillian from her restraints before a fatal attack on her can be completed, after which she will run off to get help. WoL will then rejoin Ywain against Foulques until the fight’s conclusion).

As the instance ends and Foulques seems to be reaching his limit, Jillian returns, having managed to reach Fallground Float to get help. She is joined by Swethyna and her backup team.

Foulques insists WoL and Ywain finish him off, but Ywain refuses, insisting that more death won’t solve this problem.

Ywain proceeds to apologize to Foulques for the injustice and mistreatment he faced years ago. He claims that the guild failed not only him, but all of Gridania and the other victims of the co-conspirators, and that the prejudice he was subjected to betrayed the very ideals the guild was founded on.

Ywain also states that while he can’t change what happened, he - as current guild master - takes full responsibility to right the wrongs of his predecessors. He insists that Foulques, as one of the victims of those wrongs, deserves to see that justice come to fruition.

Foulques seems genuinely taken aback by Ywain’s declaration, but his only response is a curt (yet also sad) laugh. He claims to regret nothing, and that he has no intention of returning to a dank cell. But he does admits that perhaps WoL and Ywain are perhaps not the cowards he’d assumed they were.

Foulques intentionally steps backwards over the cliff (unlike the canon original, where he falls in panic/by accident). WoL and Ywain rush to try and stop him, but by the time they reach the edge, he’s already disappeared into the misty chasm below.

As the Wailers secure the scene, Jillian thanks WoL for saving her life. Ywain also thanks them, insisting they’ve clearly mastered the art of lance work. But while he’s glad that Jillian is safe, he regrets that he was unable to get through to Foulques in the end.

However, Swethyna notes that while she can’t be sure, it’s possible that Foulques might have survived the fall. Her team have yet to locate a body, and while she must hold him accountable for the murders, she hopes that Foulques - wherever he is - will take Ywain’s words to heart and let go of his hatred for his own sake.

Ywain informs WoL that he will accompany Jillian to the healers to have her checked over for injuries. He encourages WoL to take their time in meeting with him back at the guild, as they are doubtlessly tired from the fight and shouldn’t overexert themselves.

Back at the guild, Ywain once again expresses his gratitude to WoL, and admits that he’s not sure he can teach them much more. He claims that while WoL was technically his student, he learned just as much from them, including how courage to admit to past failures is just as important as courage in battle.

Ywain insists he will not allow the guild to return to disregarding its shortcomings, as doing so will only delay the necessary steps to make amends. He concludes with his hopes to create a guild that even Foulques could be proud of. Lastly, he agrees to teach WoL one more technique (Lance Charge) and encourages WoL to remember to visit once they move on.

~~~

And that's a wrap! Thanks so much for reading!

If you enjoyed my writing, please consider sharing and leaving feedback!

[tridentqueen]

https://www.tumblr.com/emilykaldwen/746022370680176640/ask-game-for-fanfic-writers?source=share

The answer to every single question would interest me, but i've picked some out if you are ready to answer them :)): question 2, 11, 17, 29, 49, 51, 52, 55, 62, 69, 70, 71, 73, 91

Still a lot but at least not 100!

Hi! Thank you for this ❤️ I’ve combined 2 & 29 at the end since the answer to 2 contains a spoiler.

I reblogged the linked post if anyone else wants to send in a number.

11. what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

I watched a few videos on how to ride a horse for research so I could (hopefully) describe it accurately in the fic, so that was pretty cool! In the process of doing that, I learned about the necessary equipment and their names (bridle, bit, tack, etc.). I wouldn’t say I worry about doing research, but I do like to include things from the universe to give it a more realistic feel, if that makes sense.

The rest under the cut 😊

17. what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

This is more than one line, sorry. But they go together.

It was horrible. It was wonderful. It made her feel wicked. It made her feel alive.

49. do you want to be published some day?

Maybe one day! I think that would be really cool.

51. share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet

This is a rough synopsis based on an anon request I got that I’m slowly but surely making progress on (anon, I promise I’ll finish it one day!)

At ten, Aegon develops a small crush on the daughter of one of the castle maids. As they grow older, the crush morphs into a friendship. But maybe it could be something more.

52. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

I tend to bounce around 2-3, but mentally I work on every single one of them every day

55. do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

I don’t (at least not yet)

62. what’s the weirdest reason you’ve ever shipped something?

This isn't weird, but I am not immune to being persuaded based on content I see on the dash

69. how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

I try my best to put myself in the place of that character – what would they think in this moment, how would they feel, what would they do? Things like that. I haven’t felt it like it was happening to me, but I do carry the emotion with me while I’m writing.

70. are you very critical of your own writing? how much do you find yourself editing (either during the writing or after the fact)?

Yes. I edit a little bit while I’m writing, but I primarily do that after the chapter is drafted. My main goal when writing is to just get everything on the page and then go back and fix it.

71. how do you balance writing and life? do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of writing you have to do?

I don’t push myself too hard to write on weeknights if I’ve had a long day and just want to lay on the couch, but sometimes I use writing to unwind. I also tend to write more on the weekends since I have more time. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but I remind myself to just take it one word at a time.

73. how do you visualize scenes? do you see it like a movie in your head, or do the words just flow?

I do see it like a movie! Which is great, but then in editing I have to go back and add more detail because sometimes when I’m writing I’ll put something like “x does this, then this.”

91. how has your writing style changed over the years?

I’m still a pretty new writer, but I would say that in the course of the past year I have gotten more confident in my own style

2. talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.” AND 29. give us a spoiler for one of your stories.

When Aly and Aegon got together! The ballooning word count is what made me first begin to rethink it, but I also think that it just seemed to make sense for it to happen when it did. Originally they didn’t get together until after Helaena was pregnant with Maelor (who will exist in this story).

[skaruresonic]

Heh, I just remembered: Metroid fans have been waiting for Prime 4 literally for as long as HL fans have for HL3: since 2007

You guys got Alyx which teases HL3 while we got an announcement trailer in 2017 followed by a notice in 2018 that development was starting over from scratch with a new team and we haven't heard anything since.

To be fair, we did get a thinly-veiled "update" in the form of Marc Laidlaw publishing his written treatment for a possible Episode 3 with various character names changed, called Epistle 3, in 2017. Until Half-Life: Alyx, we got radio silence, and all we had to go off of was Epistle 3.

And it was, uh. Weird. And OOC. ...no shade to Laidlaw, he's an excellent prose writer. It's just... his ideas and characterization tend to be exaggerated to the point of near-cartoonishness. That is to say, his treatments are definitely rough drafts. You'll find that even with previous written treatments of his, Valve winds up heavily editing his work to the point where they come off as different pieces of fiction entirely. The rest of the team polish the general ideas to suit the game and world they're trying to craft. Evaluating the series finale by judging what was essentially a quick sketch may have been unfair, but it was also like, Valve, you'd had years to work on this thing: why was a written treatment the most you had to show for it?

Then again, if '06 taught us anything, it's that it's better to have a late and excellent product than a forever-rushed one. I'd rather not have an HL3 at all if Valve simply developed it just to get people off their backs. In addition, I have my issues with HLA in regard to how it relates to the series as a whole. As excellent as the game is, I really do think it should have been a standalone prequel rather than a bridge between Episodes 2 and 3. I feel like that does it a disservice. The ending feels tacked-on. Like previous HL games, it uses yet another cliffhanger to postpone the next chapter: a narrative device that, at this point, 25 years on, has overstayed its welcome. (I'm starting to think Valve simply doesn't know how the series will end.) The first twenty minutes of Episode 3 could have just as easily reversed Eli's death if it wanted to - I feel it simply detracts from HLA's otherwise solid narrative to retcon the previous game.

[uniquejellyfishqueen]

CHAPTER 1:

I want to tell you a story, it’s a story I have been writing for 14 years and it has never been finished, or good enough to tell to other people. Well as I have taken a step away from the world and placed my focus solely on myself for once I have found that a work in progress is exactly where I need to be. If I were a finished work then it would be over, and there is still more chapters to come. It is long, morally fucked up with morbid humor, but it is truly unapologetically me. I no longer feel bad for any of the “explorative” decisions I made during this long period of my life. What is it going to change, nothing, nothing at all. So I am done letting the comments that were made to me in the past affect my future self any longer. The one thing I might apologize for is the exact dates, but those are irrelevant to the story itself.

So for now I give you a part of the rough draft that is my life. Also this draft of this whole story is also very very rough, but I was on the point of exploding if it did not get out of my head. More to come I’m sure.

*there are name changes FYI

Once upon a time, I peaked at 17. Not in the way fictional characters are portrayed, I literally hit the peak of womanhood at 17. And started the climb at 14, or at least that is when I slowly started the ascension into becoming a tortured poet/imprisoned writer. When I got to high school I remember immediately hitting it off with guy friends too, but I have always been that way, its a shame that we now live in a world where you don’t want a woman to be friendly with men, almost like you would prefer them to live in fear, huh? Anyways, with that being said guys and girls can just be friends. In my case it’s a little different, so when you’re 14-16 ish years old and a girl it fucking blows, don’t let people lie to you. Yes it is the time of your life, but there are so many lessons you do not see hidden there in plain sight. This is the time when a girl listens to what people say around her even if it isn’t friendly advice, or when they rebel against their family’s decisions (don’t lie you all snuck out at one point or another.) with that being said I had feelings for more than one boy at one time when I was a freshman. One boy, *Bryan was the football stud, and the other *Mark was the hockey player who was also a drummer. As I write this I see that my type was as vast as my genres of music I listen to on the regular. Believe me when I tell you this, I was a curious young woman that I knew well enough that I was sticking my hand in too many cookie jars because I singled out two boys out of the list of more than two names, which is something I saw a lot of in the way that I was raised. I saw my mom go through men like they were new underwear (to each their own, but not a good example to set.) This is no excuse for my actions freshman year but it’s honestly not my fault at all that I have a heart big enough to hold feelings for so many people, I had a lot of love to give away because all I wanted in return was to feel loved in return.

This stems from daddy issues honestly. I’ve started telling my daughter that her grandpa is out fighting bad guys and thats why mommy doesn’t know where he is, its helped me heal a bit to create a narrative where he did want me and it wasn’t true when my mom told me that he left when she wouldn’t abort me.

Freshman year homecoming was kinda fair game, so not the right choice of words at all, but it makes sense. Yes I went with the Bryan & got back together with him right at the end of the dance, half kissed Mark- we both missed, and then snuck out to a party with neither of them and met someone else. The only good decision I made that day was the color of my dress, my goodness. I would love to actually clarify for once that I did not have sex with Little Red in the tent at the party I snuck out to with *Laura. This is also a good time to give everyone a reminder on the dangers of drinking and driving because Laura’s boyfriend was smashed that night. The shituation that happened in that tent was that I was a 110# girl and tipsy on beer, on my period wearing a pad, and Little Red got handsy down there without permission and out came a bloody hand. By the next morning before I even woke up I had messages (was it still MySpace, or was FB here yet… who knows.) the important thing is that I hurt the two boys who I did have feelings for because I gave into peer pressure because I thought I needed to to be cool. You know what I bet Mark and Bryan were doing after homecoming? They were probably playing video games or something that probably seemed lame but would have actually been the better choice. Like I said being a young teenage girl with no sense of direction is a terrible time to be alive. I was grounded for sneaking out of Lauras house, how did our parents find out? Because they hacked into my social media to read my messages to see what I was doing and who I was with. I would like to think that it was only hacked that one time, but I should know better than to assume. This is where things take a turn. My mom told me that I should write letters of apology to the boys I hurt. Based solely off of memory from writing those letters I think the spicy booktok writers might have been proud of me for writing nearly identical letters to those guys. But I remember it was received that way, it was taken as the opposite of a compliment. Looking back on my younger self I see a young girl who had feelings for two boys and was honest in the best way she knew how to be. Aside from cards and little notes here and there I have since stayed away from letter writing, it burns.

Prior to starting freshman year of high school I went to a local Catholic school. I was given a talk the summer before 9th grade started my grandpa was very firm when he told me “if you get pregnant no more sports, you’ll get a job and you’ll graduate and you’ll be a mom.” That seems very normal, or at least I thought it was. Now at this point I had not tapped into my hormonal urges yet. But when I did it was at 14, and well it was memorable in itself because it was my first time. But I will also never be able to forget his grandma offering me a cookie right after we just did the deed for the first time.

After that “first” time my privacy was violated. Not by the boy but by my mom. We were on the way home from a basketball game she was driving, she did the normal mom routine “anything you want to tell me?” She didn’t give me much time to respond as she pulled out a note from a friend of mine where we discussed me losing my virginity. My mom stopped the car in the middle of a back road in our town near the local pizza joint and told me to get out of it so she could hit me, when I laughed she was serious and told that she meant it.

My privacy was violated bad enough from that one time that I stopped keeping a journal, I stopped writing things that could be used against me. But in doing so I became my worst enemy because I took away my only weapon. The even more odd part of this is that when we got home that night she took my phone away for having sex. This still makes no sense to me.. but the worst part was when they tried to limit the music I listened to because they felt that it was influencing me to be a horny teenager. No that is just the way bodies work.

But with all of those punishments no actual lessons were taught. I was not taught how to track my cycle, I was not taught about missed periods, or that for some women you do get pregnancy symptoms right away. I was given birth control pills and denied the HPV vaccine because “I chose to be sexually active.” Yet again not sure that is the way the world of Medicine is supposed to go but here we are.

The whole birth control industry as a whole needs reevaluated or just removed entirely, it is harming young girls too early, not to mention parents see the new laws and think, “Ok she’s 15 we should put her on birth control because if not she would be forced to have a baby.” This is the world we are living in today, by creating fear you are risking lives of women. By putting laws into place forcing GIRLS to become WOMEN before their bodies are ready for that decision is actually cruel and unusual punishment, from laws that were governed long before us. And we are not like them, we are not like that time.

By the time I turned 16 I had learned to flirt in the way a girl does in 2009, surprisingly I would be 10x more awkward now if I attempted to flirt. But this is where it all gets juicy. Going to a small school is one thing, but dating a guy from the equally small rival high school was gonna have its drawbacks. We met beginning of junior year, and it was one of those up and down relationships for the year. Junior year, well that was just a time to be alive. Bittersweet 17 and suddenly me and *Melvin started dating during football season, but he didn’t take me to Homecoming which was such an issue, but btw Melvin didn’t take me to his Homecoming either, someone else did. I told you this year was a cluster mess. Anyways it was up and down between Melvin and I, with all the cheating rumors and he was one of those ones that never fully trusted me when I wasn’t with him, always needing to know what I was doing this and that. Well I thought this was sweet and cute and that it meant he loved me. I drank the koolaid, and the aftertaste lingered for years.

During this loving treatment I allowed myself to go through, even though I recall friends of mine flat out saying he was a punk ass loser. Don’t worry, I can fix him… as Melvin and I are back and forth there was another boy that was brought into the mix. I don’t remember when my crush developed on *Gabe or if it was just the exciting thing to do because he was hot and I was petty? I truly don’t know how we happened but we did, more than once, but who’s counting? Pretty sure I will always make a mental connection to him every time I hear the song Paradice playing. After we had our 7 minutes in heaven I did get back together with Melvin and this is when he wrote me a loving note and it basically was a proposal in itself asking me to let him get me pregnant. And my dumb ass said yes. I had to pause so I could vomit because if you’re 17 and this happens to you, don’t hide it like I did. Buckle up this is where it gets fun. After we sealed that deal, he changed his mind. You see he took it back what he said he wanted, he said he was too young and that he regretted it, so I took Plan B for the first time. Imagine everyone’s surprise when we found out I was pregnant, don’t forget I was on Birth Control, and I took Plan B. The universe was not on my side.

When I saw 2 pink lines in my friend’s bathroom the morning of a softball double header, I mentally checked out for the day. I was still with Melvin and told him and he said we were gonna figure it all out. When I got home that day I did the normal thing a girl would do (that I would not do today) I went to my mom, who freaked out and took me to my aunts house because my mom must have missed that course in parenting because she literally had no clue what to do with me. After peeing on so many more sticks we got the same answer, I’m shocked, can you tell? The days following had me in the doctor once again getting a really helpful talk, “I can’t believe you did this, I’m so disappointed.” There truly is nothing like bedside manner to a scared teen, 10/10 Dr Murphy. That same day is when I stood in the entry way to the kitchen as my grandma told my grandpa who said he was disgusted and told me to go to my room, yes you’re right I will not be pregnant there.

I was alone

There were no hugs

There were no “it will be ok”

Those hugs that came were very rare because the few friends that knew what was going on weren’t allowed to know anymore once the decision was made for me. It’s honestly like I grew up in Vegas.

Then Melvin’s mom called my house and my mom put the call on speaker so I got the warm pleasure of hearing her call me a whore as I fell to our kitchen floor sobbing my eyes out. This was the first time I really got that insult thrown my way, so that added to this situation makes it all unforgettable.

Melvin’s mom was literally flipping through a calendar and I was expected to answer her accordingly and my mom did nothing. Melvin wasn’t really helpful either because he didn’t know who to believe, with the guilt that Melvin made me feel up until the end it really does not matter to me who he believes.

Now remember what I told you about the speech that was given to me on what would happen if I did get pregnant. Well that was apparently all bullshit, because my grandpa made me an appointment for an abortion which I did not want to have. Due to me being 17 and essentially alienated because I didn’t know what to do he forced this decision upon me. The car ride there and back I was reminded of two things, that I was disappointing, and that no one could know. Unfortunately for me that was only the first appointment. You have the initial consultation, and then you have to have a waiting period to see if you change your mind, and then you go back for the procedure for a second appointment. At the first appointment I got to have my very first ultrasound, alone. My grandpa said I could do it alone and didn’t need him back there with me.

*If you want to know where my father is at this point in my story, well the night my grandpa decided i was having an abortion I was once again sent to my aunt and uncles house where I stayed for the evening (see I was bounced around a lot..) I remember calling my dad to tell him everything and his response was that he was against abortion and hung up on me. Now for reference to the story this is super important because my grandpa had only gotten in touch with my bio dad the year prior so technically this man was only in my life for a year and took me out with one sentence. Yet again I felt alone.

After the first appointment came the few days “in between” the time that female patients are given to basically think over their choice to make sure it is the right decision for them. Did I fight my family, yes I did. I was fed every excuse under the sun of why having that baby would have been the worst decision for me. They basically would have made me choose being a part of the family if I were to have it, they had told me they wouldn’t have supported the decision. This is once again where I would like to remind you all that I had no guidance, I wasn’t given the talk at the doctors about my options, and because I was a minor what my grandpa said was the only answer, there was no fighting with someone who can only see one way. Back to the clinic I went for the second appointment. This included taking the antibiotic pill there and then doing the insertable pill where you do it at home and let it bleed out. Did you know how much blood you lose during this process? Did you know there were clots the size of lemons? Did you know you can sweat from pain that bad? Or maybe it was a fever. I am very hazy at this point but that is probably because of the amount of Vicodin that I was given, the clinic even told my grandpa they couldn’t write for more. And my mom kept giving me iced tea with extra vitamin C which can help speed up the “miscarrying” process.

Melvin was at my house each night to be with me, what was actually happening was that he made me feel guilty enough for what I went through that he made me feel like I needed to comply and have sex with him while I was actively bleeding out an abortion. That is not the action of a man that loves you. Because even if I was hornier than I could have ever been that was never the time to have sex with me. If you can’t tell by this point I was raised to please the man, and go to work. And I’m just now realizing it, this is literally an ah ha moment. My cousin did make a joke that I had conformed, guess she wasn’t wrong.

I had just gone back to school when I passed out in the bathroom and I had to go back to the clinic, where I was told that it didn’t properly take the first time so I would have to do it again. Yes that is right I had inserted 2 more pills that day when i got home and the process began again. I once again question healthcare in regard to women, because when I called the clinic recently they said they wouldn’t have had me just do it again, she told me to keep looking into this.

When that part was over and I finally resumed my life is where the next curveball came. During class one random day I went to the bathroom and found the Bitch List. These were posted by “the Senior girls” and well seeing your name and use a condom next to it was eye opening to know that no one believed the lie my parents concocted that I had Mono. For funsies February 14th is not only Valentine’s Day but it is also Condom Awareness Day… hallmark you are missing an excellent time for punny cards. The thing that irked me the most about this experience is that I was singled out for that group apology but I still didn’t give my story. It was almost kinda assumed, or it was the if you know you know. And that is where there is so much wrong with the world. So it’s been too long for me to hold it all in, and if you’re one of the ones that say they know my story, no you don’t. But you will.

Now remember how I told you that I was not properly educated on all things sex ed, so when Gabe came up to my locker after all of it went down and asked me why I didn’t tell him my response was “what could you have done?” Now I stick by this because he was a high school boy and my grandpa still scares the shit out of me, so what was gonna happen? Melvin made this experience worse on me. After the abortion happened he said something I’ll never forget, he told me I had the loosest vagina he had ever had. But this isn’t about him, and it never should have been. He never should have been part of my story and it is disappointing that he were a significant enough chapter that I am still affected by his actions 14 years later, but his chapters are over and we won’t read them again.

If I could go back now I would change everything by calling Gabe first, because it was his baby too. Who knows how the story could have changed, with my grandpa and his beliefs I don’t think much would have changed but it’s nice to imagine that it could have. The last few days I have said that sentence out loud over and over again. By me saying that he was the father of the baby I aborted is lifting a weight placed on my shoulders all because my family wanted me to keep a secret, they told me no one could know. “What would people think of you?” I hear that in my head a lot now. (I should mention that friends of mine have learned the true story, but not everyone.) But that is not fair on a young girl to grow up with that secret and have to be judged everywhere she goes because the guy that truly had no right to my body or unborn kid was the one running my name through the dirt. And the crazier part is that what happened with him Gabe and I was by chance, or fate, or something it was like the universe was telling me that my ex was not the one to do that with. So thank you universe for looking out for me on that detail of the scenario.

I don’t know the guidelines now, I would hope they are similar. But it was mandatory for me to attend therapy after the abortion. My therapist was a young blonde beautiful woman, but the important thing is that she made me feel safe enough to talk to her. I went for a few sessions and got used to this being part of my routine. I told her that after everything, I didn’t want to do sports anymore and I would have rather been writing and reading, but that was of course not an option in my house. As I was getting ready to go the one day my mom informed me that my therapist moved away and had said that I didn’t need it anymore because I was all better. Off to basketball camp I went with a wad of cash, no water, but the newest smart phone on the market because I was such a good girl and did what they wanted. They didn’t attempt to put me in therapy again or anything like that, and I remember they never asked how I was doing after it all happened. After this happened to me I made it known that my family took away the “want to be a mom” part of me as a woman, and they laughed it off and told me when I’m older and meet the right person I will change my mind.

I had my daughter in 2022. That pregnancy is a tale for another day, but because I was shamed in my own house for what I went through I was not given the proper means to grieve what happened to me. I know I had PPD but I believe it was magnified due to the ptsd of the abortion. This taboo talk has got to go, because once again there was no proper chat at the first appointment about the history of the abortion 2x in 2010. And it wasn’t important to watch out for the signs of a depressed mom. I just realized that she is my rainbow baby in a sense, she is the one I had after I had a loss. Maybe thats why her smile is so bright.

Life is not fair usually, and you have to find that out the hard way. It wasn’t until this year that I really saw how much of the past I carry everyday, it has been such a heavy load and I am finally ready to put it all away. There is more to say about my story, but not all of it needs to be told at once. As I said at the beginning I am no longer allowing the remarks and comments of others from years past hurt me now, because if other people looked in the mirror they too might see things they do not want thrown back at them. There is way more to my story as the chapters continue to unfold and a lot stems from what was written here today, in the steps to healing the written word can give so much clarity and it has been opening the door to my soul. So to the people that want to sit there and tell me they are disappointed in any decision I have made, please try on my size 7 shoe and take a walk. Because it was not a smooth little stroll. It was rough and I am not gonna sit here and feel regretful because you don’t like my life. The door is ever revolving, I’m used to people heading out, it no longer bothers me. I’m not interested in playing the game or holding the grudges anymore, I hit rock bottom lower than I ever thought possible, because I felt like I was not pleasing others the way that I should have been. The perpetual people pleaser. So in my opinion unless you are my grandpa or Melvin, in my book we are starting with a clean slate on my end.

[short-circuit-the-great]

You Didn't Ask And I Answered: A Long Ass Post, Part 1

Questions are from this post. It is an ask game. I answered every single one unprompted. If anyone actually reads this post I will be impressed.

do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road? It depends on the story. For all of my fics, I know the ending. For a lot of my books, I know the ending. For one particular project I am thinking of right now, I'm making that shit up as I go.

talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.” SPIDERSILK SAMURAI. FUCKING SPIDERSILK SAMURAI. Pulled out so much hair over that fic. I'm proud of it but none of the characters stuck to the outline I had.

on a scale of 1-10 how much do you enjoy incorporating romance into the average story? 10, but it's a very specific kind of romance. They need lots of time, they have to have lots of banter going on, and some other stuff I can't put a name to. Read my shit, there's a very specific way I write romance.

what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread? I don't know what a "plot bunny" is.

have you ever made a playlist about something you were writing as an elaborate means to procrastinate when you could have been actually writing and if yes drop a link, son Crossfire's playlist

do you have any kind of consistent writing schedule or just hoping for the best? I write every day.

tell us about the plot of the first fanfic you ever wrote Immortal being reflects on life and death.

what’s your relationship with constructive criticism and feedback like? do you seek it out? how well do you take it? Don't like it.

in an ideal world where you’re already super successful and published, would you want to see a tv or movie adaptation of your work? why or why not? TV show. Animated.

at what point in the process do you come up with titles, and how easy or hard is that for you? Early. Fairly easy.

what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general? I look things up as needed.

do you ever have trouble focusing on writing? how do you get around that?  No.

talk about a writing experience that has pleasantly surprised you. No idea what this question means.

what’s your worst writing habit?  Can't proofread.

where do you share your writing? AO3.

where is your favorite place to write? Library.

what is your favorite line you’ve ever written? "It won’t be the same, but I’ll keep you close forever, and we can run along the river in our memories, hearts and souls entwined."

what is your most and least favorite part of writing? Like writing fights. Hate proofreading.

what are some books or authors that influenced your style the most? Masashi Kishimoto, Akira Toriyama, Hideaki Sorachi, Hirohiko Araki, Chris Bradford, Chris d'Lacey, Jeff Kinney, others I am forgetting.

what is your favorite trope to write? Found family.

pick a writer to co-write a book with and tell us what you’d write about. @mecha-milkers and I would write about unspeakable cosmic horrors.

describe your writing process from scratch to finish. Hallucinate, fight god, black out, stare at the finished product, hit post.

how do you deal with writers block? Change the last sentence and move on.

on average, how much writing do you get done in a day? Several pages if not many. Not counting.

what’s your revision or rewriting process like? You guys revise? The first draft is the only draft. I have been reworking some of my older stuff (books) but don't have a process for it.

do you like to write one-shots or series, and why? Series, more time to develop stuff.

do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished? 28. And who do you share them with? I share them with friends.

handwritten notes or typed notes? Keep notes in brain.

give us a spoiler for one of your stories. Bad guy helps good guy.

most inspirational quote you’ve ever read or heard that’s still important to you. "Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are--it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can GET hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done."

tell us about one of your characters who’s an absolute joy to write Kusunoki Masashi from Our Samurai Souls--he's been through it all but still keeps his head up.

do characters influence your writing style? Yeah they running the whole thing.

do you start with the characters or the plot when writing? They come together, they tell me what to write. Half the time they're the ones writing it.

how do you name characters and places? They tell me their names, they tell me their world.

tell us about a character who’s very different than you who you love a whole lot Yuki from Our Samurai Souls. Despite what he's been through it's very peaceful in his head.

do you base your characters of real people or not? If so, tell us about one. I have a character in one of my old books (not a fanfic) that is based on someone I've heard a lot about but never met. I drew a lot of inspiration from the descriptions and stories I've heard to create this guy.

when creating characters, what comes first: appearance, backstory, motivation, personality, something else? They come in as whole people, I don't know how to explain it. Aside from a few cases (see above) I've never sat down and thought about making a character. They come to me.

how many stories do you work on at one time? Five to ten.

are you an avid reader? I try, it is hard for me.

best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten. See earlier about "I don't like feedback."

[a-blip-of-billdip]

prisoner to instinct update

first off im gonna be changing the name to something that ISNT cringe. idk what im gonna choose but it cant stay the way it is

second off ive noticed people have been asking if the fic is dead (which is honestly sad because it's only been like 5 months. there are fics that are updated after a decade of hiatus. chill fr) and i want to clarify that i am continuing to write the rough draft, but im HORRIBLE at writing action and horror so the second chapter is taking a long time.

Im also planning on writing at least 5 chapters and FINISH them before i start updating again. this is so i keep some level of continuity. gonna be going through and editing the first chapter to give it the same narrative voice. it wouldnt hurt to make it less hard to read, too.

[clocks-are-round]

yeah so idk when i’ll get around to writing this into a whole fic so here are more snippets. the naming for o’malley ai is extremely inconsistent in these rough bits. for the final version it will be more consistent. i also will rewatch south scenes to make sure she’s accurately written. for now she’s kind of written in a way that feels right for the narrative, but that doesn’t mean i wrote her accurately. these scenes are rough drafts.

i guess spoiler warning but i have no idea when i’ll get around to composing all my ideas into a cohesive fic so… eh.

i’ve shared part of this next scene before

—

“He was literally fucking shaking. The hell did you do to him?”

“gave him brain damage and tortured him a little bit,” Omega mumbled.

“You WHAT?”

He made a shrugging noise.

“You can do that? What the fuck?? Like what happened to Wash? Are you going to fuck with my brain too??”

“Of course not.”

“Why would you do that? I know you’re a parasite or whatever, but holy shit. Get the fuck out.”

“Calm down. And yes, I know it is ironic that I—“

“Get the fuck out of my brain.”

“South–”

“You heard me. The revenge job is off anyways. Get out.”

South felt a familiar prickly sensation.

“Are you out?”

“I’m in your suit now.”

South tried to steady her breathing. “What was I thinking.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“But you still did it.” South clenched her fist. “Didn’t you.”

“Yes.”

“What the hell, Meg?”

“What do you want me to say? Nothing I say will change what happened. I’m not going to make excuses for pain that I’ve caused.” Omega sneered, “Unlike you.”

“You take that back right now.”

“Take what back? I’m sure you’re relieved to have found an objectively worse person than you. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re in denial of your part in your brother’s death.”

“You fucking–”

“You can admit it. You were angry at him, felt hurt by him, jealous–”

“Shut the fuck up, Omega.”

“Oh, I see. Judgment is only a one-way street? You’re allowed to condemn me but if the roles are reversed, I’M the bad guy. Of course I am. I’m always the villain. That’s an absolute constant of my life.” He laughed.

“I made a mistake. You tortured somebody, and scarred them for life.”

“More than one somebody actually.”

“What the fuck are you even doing here? Why not hop into somebody else. Finish your revenge quest that way.”

“I’m tired, South.”

“What?”

“I’m so tired of every revenge scheme falling through. I fuck up everything I touch, so it’s no wonder. I can destroy so easily, but it’s never the things that deserve destruction the most.”

“Then just stop destroying shit.”

“South, what’s the purpose of life?”

“WHAT?”

“Why do you keep living? Why does Caboose push on despite every bad thing that ever happened? How does Doc ignore failure and never stop trying? Why doesn’t the guilt and hatred consume you? Is it because you’re all human? Because you aren’t confined to any sort of programming?”

“You tell me. You’ve seen our brains up close.”

“Doesn’t mean I understand them.”

“But you want to?”

“I don’t want to die. But I don’t know how to live either.”

“Do I need to like… take you to therapy? Or something?”

“You had a life before Freelancer. I didn’t.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Who else would I tell?”

—

“You could at least apologize.”

“Fine. Caboose, I– errgh…” He stopped, not wanting to continue.

“Mal.” South warned. “Do it, coward.”

“Fine.” Mal huffed. “I didn’t realize human brains were so fragile. I never intended to cause permanent damage. My threats of erasing your memories on purpose were hollow. Except for when I left, I did try to cause damage then. But you were just collateral. I was trying to harm Tex and Church. You were just… in the way.”

Caboose chewed on his lip. Finally he looked up at them. “I don’t forgive you.”

“Good. You shouldn’t.”

“I talked to Doc about you once.”

“Oh goody. Shittalking from my exes– exhosts.”

“You were nicer to him. And you’re nice to South. I’m glad that that is what happened. That you changed.”

“Changed? I tried to kill you fools.”

“Ah, don’t worry about that. We do that all the time on Blue Team. So you are already doing very good at that! Congratulations on teamwork and almost teamkill. But don’t actually teamkill because that is against the rules. Dumb rules.”

“Well you haven’t changed a bit. Making bold and ludicrous assertions. Why would you invite me to Blue Team?”

“Because you are black and purple colors and South is purple and green colors and none of those are red!”

“So DuFresne is blue team then?”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Not a surprise. Imbecile.”

Caboose quieted. He was very still. “If you go in my head again, I’ll kill you. If you hurt anyone else’s head, I’ll kill you. I don’t care that you’re Church’s brother. You tried to kill him too.”

“He just said teamkilling was against the rules, and that he considers us part of the team now. Kind of hypocritical.” South waited for an equally snarky comment. Or even a laugh.

Omega’s silence said too much. South sighed. They both needed to move forward. Regret was a fucking black hole. “Hate to break up this moment, but what the fuck is that?” She pointed at the small green robot near Caboose. It was a miniature Mantis. It’s like it was staring at them.

“Ah, that’s Freckles!” He turned to the tiny droid, “You’ll help me kill O’Malley if he is bad again, right?”

“Affirmative,” a small voice echoed from the bot.

“Good boy! Who’s a good boy!”

—

“wait! wait, please! this was omega’s idea! it made me do this!”

omega took the mouth, but was wordless for a few moments. “South, you little bi—“

Pain to the back of the head. Darkness.

Omega survived and escaped the Meta and now that the Director is dead (his initial goal being to kill him himself but now he CAN’T) is seeking vengeance on the Reds n Blues for the demise of the Meta. holyshitholyshit and he’s in South??? (South also escaped in this one, though not with Delta bc I don’t want to diverge from canon storyline too much) aaahhh i’m screaming. internally. the good kind. aahhhHHH

(in case this isn’t clear this is an au idea. alternate timeline whatever you wanna call it. wrote a whole ass conversation below)

Keep reading

[autumnalwalker]

Empty Names Masterpost

I'll be updating this post with links as I post chapters. The intent is that everything I write for this project will be posted here to read in its entirety.

Also mirrored on Scribble Hub: (Main Story, Side Stories)

Cast list is below the "Keep reading" line.

Pitch:

A trans woman accidentally summons a demon while trying to DIY her transition with magic and computers...

A young wizard returns to Earth after his adventure in a magical otherworld only to realize you can never truly go home again once you've changed too much...

A teenage girl gets stood up for prom, kills a lake monster, and spends the next decade hunting down things that go bump in the night...

An assassin marries an immortal sorceress and allows the rumors that he murdered her to flourish once she disappears...

A world-hopping adventurer sees the potential in all of them and asks if they're interested in helping make the world a better place.

"Empty Names" is an episodic urban fantasy series about a group of misfits fighting monsters and grappling with existential questions regarding the interplay of reality, perception, and identity.

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Summary: Road, an adventurer with a penchant for jumping between different worlds tries to set up the sort of adventurers' guild so common in sword & sorcery setting in a modern day urban fantasy world where "adventurer" isn't considered a legitimate profession and magic and the supernatural are kept behind the scenes and out of public knowledge. The story is told from the points of view of the people that get roped into being the initial test run adventuring party but never Road's.

Update Schedule: Once or twice a month, depending on chapter length. New chapters get posted on Saturdays, when they're ready.

Overall Content Warnings: Genre-typical violence, gender dysphoria, anxiety, occasional mild body horror, death. I'll update this list as more is written and if anyone points something out to me that I should have included a warning for and missed. In general though, I aim to try to keep this approximately PG-13-ish, but we'll see where this all goes over time. Individual chapters have more specific content warnings at the top of the post with anything likely to be distressing below the "Keep reading" line.

Current Status: Rough Draft (just throwing things up as I write them with minimal review or editing)

I'm primarily viewing this project as practice for moving out of my comfort zone and doing more traditional prose with proper dialogue and action scenes and such rather than the journal format that I've been doing with @thearchivistsjournal. The original plan was to write a few sort of prologue/character introduction chapters and then mostly do a series of one-shots with the same setting and cast based on whatever random idea or writing prompt strikes my fancy that week, but as time goes on it's starting to verge more toward "continuous narrative". Time will tell how it eventually winds up I suppose.

Chapter List:

Hello World

Back From The Looking Glass

Dance Partners

Prince In Gold

Rite of First Refusal

Background Checks

Compilation

En Route

Test Run

Cleanup

Afterparty

Houseguests

Open Office

Down Low

Matters of Technique

Mall Rats

Embedded Media

Mom Energy

Shire

Changeling Child

Old Flame

Leads

Compression

Nostalgia

Euphoria (coming sometime in May 2024)

Love

Attention

Concern

Side Stories:

Scenes that don't fit well into the main story. They might come before it, focus on side characters, or just be conversations between the main cast during downtime.

There Are No Dogs At The Dog Park: Every full moon Eris does some volunteer work. Set a couple years before the main plot, shortly after Eris and Lacuna met and started hanging out.

Once Upon A Time...: A bedtime story by Sullivan Bridgewood.

Pop Quiz: A younger Ashan not-yet-Glassheart gets a refresher on terminology.

The Sphinx And The Spider: Two first-time interdimensional tourists run into trouble on vacation. (Coming when I get the motivation back to return to this one)

A Shining Shallow Sea: They say the Sorceress Bridgewood never gave a gift which she didn’t benefit from the giving. (More of a loose idea at the moment than an in-progress story)

Non-Canon AU:

I suppose at this point you could call it writing shipping fan fiction of my own work.

2023 Pride Month Drabble Challenge: A series of dialogue snippets from an alternate universe/timeline where Eris and Lacuna avoided ever learning about the existence of the supernatural, wound up meeting anyway, and became a couple instead of (or perhaps in addition to) best friends.

Core Cast:

Road:

The experienced adventurer and idealist who started this whole venture.

Very much the iconic "hero" archetype. Brave, strong, kind, strict "no killing" policy, etc.

The kind of person that you quickly feel like you're best friends with and can count on and share anything with, but then several months or even years down the line it occurs to you that you don't actually know anything about their personal life.

Humor/Color Scheme: Balanced

Sullivan Bridgewood:

Road's best friend since childhood and the only one who knows that under their heroic persona they're about one really bad day from an emotional breakdown at any given time.

Married for power and money and is using that money to bankroll this adventurers' guild startup operation. May or may not have killed his wife.

Kind of an asshole, but reins it in when Road's around for their sake.

Humor/Color Scheme: Choleric

Lacuna:

A trans woman whose introduction to the existence of the supernatural was a failed attempt to magically get a new body that resulted in a demon trying to eat her, and then being rescued by Road.

Now works with an unholy combination of applying AI-generated art algorithms and principles to create custom magic glyphs.

A walking embodiment of imposter syndrome, who vacillates between "I am a mad genius!" and "I have no idea what I'm doing and really am not qualified for any of this."

Humor/Color Scheme: Melancholic

Eris:

The team's physical powerhouse and heavy hitter. A veritable brick wall of supernaturally-reinforced muscle.

Survived a scenario out of a C-list monster movie as a teenager, enjoyed the experience more than she reasonably should have, and has spent the past decade since then as a semi-professional monster hunter.

Has sort of taken Lacuna under her wing as the younger sister she never had but always wanted. In spite of Lacuna being the older of the two.

Humor/Color Scheme: Sanguine

Ashan Glassheart:

Already went through the whole "little kid from Earth goes on an adventure in a magic otherworld and becomes a wizard" hero's journey/bildungsroman routine before this story even started. Except he was gone long enough that once he finally returned home there wasn't anything to come back to. Does a convincing job of pretending it doesn't bother him.

Mostly focuses on barriers, wards, bindings, and other such defensive techniques with his magic.

Actually doesn't mind all that much when strangers mistake him for a woman. Minds a little bit though when people call his wizard robes a dress. Minds a lot when people mistake his outfit for cosplay.

Humor/Color Scheme: Phlegmatic

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

WIP WIP WIP WIP!

Early Concept

Some doodles/mockups

Current progress and some details.

My major plan for the moment is to find my brown markers (seriously, how do those things keep disappearing) and figure out what my background for the teeth/grin is gonna look like.

Ngl, I'm really proud of this one! kinda annoyed that the 1 in 2013 is a little too close to the 0, but I think I did some nice work on the nectars and blood splatters. (More details/breakdown below cut).

Escape From Furnace was one of the first books that I was super-passionate about, even though I wasn't online for the first while. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff I loved and wanted to do bigger deep-dives into, but it was a kinda interesting perspective for me since I'm Jewish and the main villain is, y'know, a fucking Nazi.

It's kind of a weird feeling where on the one hand, watching the fandom was what actually shoved me online and on to Tumblr. Otoh, the obsession w/Warden Cross was kinda creepy to me, and it felt like almost everyone conveniently pushed to the side that he wasn't just a Nazi in the past, but kept up the ideals, modeled a prison on them, and constantly talks about "superior races" and "wiping out the inferior scum" and such.

Seeing the rest of the fandom, especially the headcanon that Zee is Jewish, resonated a lot more, and kept my head on this vague idea of breaking down how much that would change the narrative of the story (consider that Zee is the only person we know for sure is immune to the nectar, add that the version of nectar used in the Furnace is Cross's variation, multiply by how both Cross and nectarized Alex talk about Zee in Death Sentence and Fugitives. There's also the whole 'blondes w/blue eyes who keep responding esp well to the nectar' shtick with Alex and Gary).

So this idea's been rattling around in my head for a while, obviously! I initially wanted to do two triangles with the three circles, superimposing an upside version of the Furnace's logo over itself to create the Star of David, but it looked kind of weird so I might come back to it later. For now, each triangle has it's own mini-scene or element starring. breakdown, top to bottom, left to right:

I initially wanted to draw the dog's face/jaws but it just wouldn't look right no matter what I did. It was switched out for the three different nectar strains we see in canon: The silver syringe full of Cross's blend, the berserker blood with specs of red, and the mostly black that's running through the tubes connecting Alfred Furnace to the machine.

Teeth: I'm honestly not quite sure where I'm going with this in the final draft, but teeth stick out to me throughout the book as one of those details we get to see characters more clearly. Donovan's smile, Kevin missing two front teeth, the berserkers, Bodie's grin, Cross's teeth like crooked tombstones, y'all get my point. But yeah, teeth.

Hands: Donovan's hand (bathed in gold, currently yellow because I don't have any gold markers rn), and Alex's reaching out to Donovan. The big scene, but also all of the smaller ones that came earlier, like in Lockdown.

Prison bars: There's something that sticks in my head about the bars and all of the numbers used, for the inmates and the cells and the three chipping rooms and the blacksuits and how I imagine at some point, you only remember yourself as a number. I'd hope that with his memories back, Alex wouldn't forget his name, but I'd argue that 2013834 (inmate number) still holds better memories than 208 (blacksuit number).

Eye: Another big motif. So many blue eyes, so many silver ones. I've kinda been sticking to only 4 colors for all of these except the panel with the hands, we're doing something with emotions and colors and the way the Furnace saps all hope here. Again, can't quite decide on a background yet.

Gas mask: A rough redraw of the one in Lockdown, the very first book of the series and, again, that little connection of Zee with the idea of him being Jewish and the canon detail that he would have been made into a wheezer if not for Cross.

The center: Their motto is nine words, two phrases. It looks somewhat awkward, but I think it works.

So yeah. I'm planning on finishing the colors and then seeing if I can figure out how to turn this into a patch on fabric or embroidery or something, but this is one of my favorite concepts and I'm glad I can finally bring it to life!

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[bardic-inspo]

do you like transformers too or are you just embracing the megatron vibes? 2. your writing has been stellar lately ahhh 3. do you have a best practices mental rundown of how you go from daydreaming to forcing yourself to sit down and put words on the page? bc I would love to gain insight bc I'm wanting to start writing again myself :0 godspeed w the next BtG chapter!! P.S. when he said he will bring the gasoline... I said WHOAAAA he said the line!!!! very exciting times :)

Hi friend! :D

No. 1 - Good/fair question! It's actually an old nickname I got in high school that's stuck with me a bit. My name was very badly spelled on a certificate and people started calling me Megatron. I ran cross-country and people would shout it at me to cheer me on during races. It died down for a few years and then I had a co-worker who thought it was the funniest thing and started calling me nothing but. I incorporated the 'h' from my actual name as a differentiator. I know basically nothing about Transformers, haha. No. 2 - THANK YOU OMG. You are so so kind <3 🥺 I really appreciate that. Encouragement is always a huge motivator <3 Number three is under the cut for length!

No. 3 - Disclaimer that of course different things work for different people, so grain of salt for all of this. I'll just speak to my own experience as a way to frame this. This ramble boils down to three things: keep track of your daydreams, set a specific output goal (preferably with a group that will help keep you accountable), and the original draft is only for you. Before I really started writing again, I started keeping an excel sheet with basically a list of scenes I thought up/about. This works with a bullet list, too. At first, there were giant gaps between them all, but gradually, my daydreams started to fill in those gaps. This can eventually serve as an outline. But I think it's really important to never stop doing this; if you're at the beginning and you have fresh ideas for the middle or the end, write them down. You'll thank yourself later. Prior to BtG, I basically hadn't written anything for years despite many vivid daydreams and I was really really struggling with breaking back into it. Then I did NaNoWriMo. Going zero to sixty like that doesn't work for everyone, but it jump-started me. The only goal became getting the words down. Not making them good or anything my inner editor wanted to do. I experimented, I changed tenses and points of view without starting the whole story over, and found what did/didn't work for me. I kept forward motion even when I'd decided that, later, I'll go back and fix certain things. I proceeded with it as if they were already fixed for the sake of continuing. I kept up with smaller word-count goals for several months after that, at which point I realized getting words down was no longer my main obstacle and I transitioned away from tracking word count at all. It absolutely doesn't need to be NaNo, and I'm personally of the opinion that NaNo is best for creating "roughest drafts" or breaking a writing drought and don't personally see myself doing it again unless I'm doing more rough-drafting. But having a known, established goal kept me from moving my goal posts, and gave me access to a community to help cheer me on or commiserate. Setting goals with a group of writer friends or doing a set-your-own-goal sort of thing like Get Your Words Out (which I'm doing presently with a habit/# writing days goal) or Camp NaNo are also great options. The other thing that helped me immeasurably was the promise I made to myself: no one but me will see the original draft. I only ended up using very, very small pieces of it in the posted versions of BtG (and I'm almost out of it entirely now!), but I have viewed it as a sort of narrative outline, and an invaluable experience not only for helping my build my writing skills, but also for showing me what not to do with certain plot points. I wouldn't have known if I hadn't gone down those routes. Bonus bit: fanfiction is just a fantastic place to start with writing. You have less pressure in terms of world/character-building and can just focus on building yourself as writer, bit by bit. 10/10 would recommend. I'm seriously flattered that you'd ask me this and please know I am cheering you on so hard in your writing endeavors <3 <3 And I swear I can't say thank you enough for the support. It means the world :) (I'm so so happy you got giddy with the title line finally cropping up!)

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived. 

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human. 

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time. 

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.) 

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know. 

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson. 

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either. 

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories. 

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault. 

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval. 

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him. 

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him. 

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.