#but there are plenty of other things i want to talk about with caleb and jester as friends. aro jester is just one of them

[astrid-beck]

The audience for caleb&(aromantic)jester genfic is like. 1 person and I know him by name. But that might not stop me

[sepublic]

            I wanna analyze part of the exchange between Luz and the Titan, because I’m seeing some people misunderstand it by claiming the show is saying that Luz doesn’t need to self-reflect because she always means well, unlike THOSE guys (Nevermind everything she and others have gone through up until this point). Maybe I’m repeating the obvious, but;

         “I’m not so kind. When I saw the Collector fly up to Belos, I hoped with all my heart I would see them blast him away, and-”

         Here we have Luz insinuating that she’s not kind, simply on account of wanting Belos dead; Nevermind the fact that she has plenty of justified reason to want gone someone who has maliciously caused her and her loved ones so much pain, trauma, and agony across so much time.

         “Hey, I can relate. I was willing to do anything to keep my kid safe. But I attacked the wrong person, dragged the Collector down here for nothing.”

         The Titan does relate to feeling shame over ugly emotions like hatred and anger, which can make people lash out; Bringing up how those feelings brought him to make a terrible mistake that would have a lasting ripple effect on the Boiling Isles up until now.

         “Does that make us as bad as Belos?”

         At which point, Luz drops the question, the false equivalency that it’s fair for her to nevertheless entertain for the sake of self-reflection; Does her and the Titan feeling anger and even hurting people over it, or planning to, make them as bad as Belos?

         “What? Have you been drinking Eda’s homemade apple blood?”

         The Titan’s skepticism over this false comparison is self-explanatory.

         “Well, Belos says he’s trying to save humanity, and we’re saying we want to save our families, so isn’t that the same thing? Don’t- Don’t these feelings come from the same place?”

         When Luz says ‘feelings’, she’s very much talking about anger, even hatred; The kind that drives people to fight and even hurt others. Belos is angry, but Luz notes that so is she, as was the Titan, and all of them claim to do this over loved ones they’re worried about, right? That’s the ‘same place’ she’s referring to.

         “Well, you assume Belos’ goal comes from a genuine place. But, that man doesn’t care about anything but his need to be the hero in his own delusion. And because of that, he fears what he can’t control.”

         That’s when the Titan clarifies the difference; The anger of the victim is not the same as the anger of the abuser. The anger of the oppressed is not comparable to the anger of the oppressor. Anger doesn’t necessarily make you the bad guy, especially when it moves people to do the right thing. Both Luz and the Titan are angry, yes; But they’re angry because they legitimately have loved ones, and themselves, who have been hurt, and are genuinely at stake here. They're still allowed to feel this way. They only want Belos dead because they can’t get him to stop hurting people, so this is the only option left to make him stop endangering others.

         Whereas Belos’ hatred is that of the colonizer; He never really had anyone at stake here. Humanity was never in any real danger, especially not Caleb, whom Philip consciously disrespects by going against everything Caleb stood for, despite Caleb having made it clear with an open-armed welcome that this would never have to exclude his love for his brother. Philip made the decision to choose a world over his brother, NOT Caleb who understood he should theoretically have both, as a parallel/foil to Luz who wants both, but is still struggling to accept she can have that.

         Dana confirmed at Pixelatl –and it’s fairly obvious even without said confirmation- that she based Belos off of televangelists, cult leaders, the conservative relative, etc. The first two especially are hardcore bigots, the kind who really double down on their prejudice, and actively make it happen on a larger scale; These are the kind of people who go past that reasonable point of being well-intentioned but misinformed about their biases.

         Yes, Luz and Belos are both angry, but Belos’ anger is that of the reactionary conservative, hence “fearing what he can’t control.” He claims to feel threatened, but unlike people like Luz who really are endangered and fighting for their lives, the only thing being threatened is Belos’ worldview of supremacy and self-righteousness, so like a lot of right-wing “morality police” and the like.

         In the end, TOH is calling out how bigotry did not start from a place of good intentions, which is fitting given Belos represents the type of OG bigot, the Puritans who were among many who made contact with the Native Americans and vice-versa; Prejudice was born as a way to justify narratives of power and control, by dehumanizing others and thus justifying their suffering and exploitation for the sake of those who ‘really’ matter. These narratives, when perpetuated, create self-fulfilling prophecies and issues that the misguided but well-meaning are concerned about, which leads them down flawed attempts to address these problems.

         This is to say people who genuinely mean well, who have been hurt and do have others at stake, can make mistakes; This very exchange reminds us that the Titan hurt the Collector, something she does nothing to justify, and something the viewers know was objectively wrong, and has deep consequences as we’re currently seeing. Luz and the Titan both contributed to the Collector falling into Belos’ hands, but while Luz was genuinely manipulated and didn’t realize what was going on, the Titan chose to lash out at a bystander because she couldn’t channel her anger successfully towards the Archivists.

         But the Titan has learned, and she’s recognized what she’s done as wrong, and she’s made efforts to undo and make up for that. And it’s important to remember how all of this was prompted by the genocide of the Archivists, who claim to be preserving life, yet destroy it when it does not heed their plans. People are still responsible on an individual level, but it’s also worth noting how the system can influence them, just as it did for Amity and Lilith. And the system was started by people who didn’t really have a system over their heads, or were rebelling against a different kind.

         It’s not as if TOH is saying you can’t mean well and make mistakes; So much of the show is about people meaning well and making mistakes, especially parents towards their children. And this is fitting since a well-meaning parent nevertheless hurting her child is the inciting incident of the series, and it’s something that is brought up and resolved in the previous episode between Luz and Camila. Hell, Luz herself understands that meaning well can hurt others, like when she kept secrets from Amity, under the guise of not wanting to burden her girlfriend.

         TOH still has plenty of examples of genuine intent leading to bad things; So it’s entirely reasonable, in this case, to bring up the original people who codified bigotry and prejudice, because being a freak and a weirdo does not happen in a vacuum, it is in relation to a society. At some point you have to discuss WHY someone is considered strange; Who designated the guidelines for the deviant, and by extension, what are the guidelines for what is ‘normal’, who decided this would be normal, and why? And that’s why the story brings these back to the settlers who made contact with the Native Americans and vice-versa, and established a precedent for prejudice towards these people.

         The point is that the show is refuting the centrist idea of Both Sides, that if you’re violent and/or angry then you’re just as bad as the oppressor, if not worse; Victims are allowed to be angry, they have a right to be upset, as Eda herself says. You can’t expect them to appeal solely by peace when that’s clearly not working out, hence Raine and Darius’ rebellions, which do necessitate violence at times, even if they’d love to minimize it and try; Which is why the finale shows the initially-cautious CATTs accepting covenscouts who are willing to change, why Kikimora is shown doing community service (and that's assuming it's not just a job given her lack of uniform; She may have been allowed to reintegrate into society as a regular citizen).

         Between the juxtaposition of the Collector hearing about how Amity and Lilith were successfully appealed to, and applying that to Belos, only for that to fail as Luz explains this individual situation is a bit more complicated… Basically, what the show is saying is that you should choose to be kind and give chances and grace, anyone can change; But people also have a right to prioritize themselves in self-defense, and just in general health, when people continue to refuse to reciprocate, and leave no other choice. Because there’s still responsibility on the other party to respond to these offers of kindness, and make the same choice to improve the world; They have free will, everyone does, and you can’t force people to be better, anymore than the Collector can force people to be their friends.

         Not to mention how victims have a right to be upset and don’t owe forgiveness, but at the same time, the concept of Restorative VS Retributive Justice argues that it’s better for the world if everyone improved; That doesn’t mean victims have to forgive or even necessarily help, because improving oneself does not rely on your victims doing you favors. It’s ultimately about harm reduction; Ideally, harm is reduced by helping people open their minds and change, but if that isn’t working and the person keeps hurting and even killing others, then yes, harm must be reduced by imprisoning, or even killing them in self-defense.

         Hence the difference in that Luz’s anger comes from ultimately wanting to reduce harm and being frustrated by those who continue to perpetuate it; Versus Belos whose anger isn’t really meant to prevent harm, but pointlessly cause more of it, because of his immature disgust towards those different, as well as the supremacy and selfishness that actively puts down others for Belos’ own sake (because Caleb isn’t allowed to have more than one person in his life, apparently).

         And note that Belos is already at the end of his life (because people only have so much time to change before it's cut short by death), because extending it requires sacrificing palismen, which goes against harm-reduction; So they can’t just imprison Belos without killing him. And in the end, the protagonists don’t prolong Belos’ misery by letting the boiling rain finish him off, they get it over with by stomping on him; Not only does this allow them to vent much-deserved anger towards an oppressor, but it cuts away any chance of Belos coming up with something last-second by just ending him right there. That reduces harm from Belos, and harm TO Belos, because his death isn’t any longer than it needs to be.

         And on Luz’s side, her not doing anything to Belos is justified because it’s about her refusing to help him, thus standing for herself and what she believes, and not letting this traumatic, gaslighting presence have any more power over her. Luz still allows her loved ones to finish off Belos; Her not responding to Belos is about reducing harm to herself.

         It’s a lot of stuff. It’s about balancing a lot of seemingly conflicting, opposite ideas, like Luz balancing two worlds; As she herself explains to the Collector, it can be “complicated.” It’s about nuance, and a case-by-case basis; Because note that the Titan doesn’t tell Luz that she will always be right because SHE always means well. Just that in this specific case, in regards to this specific guy, things are not equivalent. Hence why the Titan focuses on deconstructing Belos and not Luz. 

This moment specifically is breaking down colonial rhetoric by calling it out for what it actually is, because Belos is 100% a colonizer and this is one of the most important aspects of his character, and his contributions, to the narrative. And whatever mistakes Luz and the Titan made, at least they care enough to make up for it, because they really are trying to do this for others, instead of prioritizing an ego trip; That kind of mentality is doomed to being static. I'd argue the Titan isn't necessarily saying that Belos never cared about anyone (AKA Caleb) period, just that in the context of his 'protecting humanity' claim, he wasn't doing it for anyone because there was nobody in any actual danger, and he knows it. Philip wasn't actually concerned for Caleb's sake when he killed him.

[kanerallels]

Like A Flash Of Bright Light In The Middle Of The Night

For day three of @kaneraweek, we have a little prequel of sorts to day one! Hope y'all enjoy it, and definitely check out this art by @singswan-springswan that helped inspire it!

Read on AO3!

Taglist: @day-to-day-thots @auroramagpie @accidental-spice @opalknight @cassie-fanfics @ana-cantskywalker @lothalnyx (DM me or send me an ask if you want to be added or removed!)

Kanan hadn’t always believed in magic. Even in a world that had seen the effect of magical beings had recently as 10 years ago, there were many in the galaxy who believed beings like the fae were simply a hoax. At the very least, most who believed were certain that the last of the fae had died out years ago.

He hadn’t been raised in a family who believed that, though. The Windu family took the existence of magic as fact, though this earned them plenty of ridicule. Kanan remembered, when he was only ten years old, coming home from school after picking a fight with kids who mocked him for believing in something as childish as magic.

His mother had still been at work. But his grandfather—Grandpa Mace to him. It was only later in life that he realized what an intimidating, indomitable figure Mace Windu was in most settings, academic or otherwise—had been there. He’d brought Kanan into his office, given him a cold pack for his bruised hand, and frowned at him severely.

“You know better than to hit people for not believing the same thing you do, Caleb,” he told him. Mace always used his first name, even years later when Kanan had started going by his middle name. “Violence very rarely convinces anyone you’re right. Just that you’re willing to hurt someone to make them believe what you do.”

“I know,” Kanan—still Caleb then—mumbled, staring at the ground. “But they were calling you and Mom names.”

Mace smiled a little then, softening his hard features. “That means they don’t understand, Caleb. And that they’ve been taught to revile and fear what they don’t understand.”

Caleb wasn’t quite sure he knew what revile meant, but Mace continued anyway. “Hate can’t stop hate. Defending your mother’s honor is well intentioned. But you’re going to have to learn to work that out with words, not fists. Now, let’s see your hand, make sure you didn’t break anything.”

“I didn’t,” Caleb said, offering Mace his hand anyway. “I hit him just the way Styles taught me.”

Mace snorted as he examined Caleb’s knuckles. “We need to stop letting you hang out with Depa’s army friends.”

Personally, Caleb disagreed. He thought Styles and Gray and the others were cool. Besides, Styles’ brother was a few years older than him, but they still got along. But that wasn’t the most pressing of the questions in Caleb’s mind at the moment. “Grandpa Mace?” he said. “Why do you believe in magic?”

“Because it would be silly not to believe in something that’s real, no matter how foolish it seems to others,” Mace said. Handing Caleb back the cold pack for his hand, he added, “And because it’s good for the human heart to believe in something beautiful, Caleb. It gives us a longing for something better than the mundanity of the world around us. Sometimes, that means something magical. Sometimes, that magic is something as simple as the people you love.”

As Caleb turned that over in his head, Mace rose from his desk, resting a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “Now, come. Let’s get you a snack, and we can talk about some better ways to handle disagreements at school.”

Despite Mace’s best efforts, he’d still gotten into quite a few scrapes at school. His grandfather always scolded him for them, while his mother gently reprimanded—but generally, she also asked him if he’d won. As a former Army Ranger, Depa knew a thing or two about getting in fights, but she’d encouraged him to sort things out peacefully from the day he’d been adopted, when he was much, much younger.

His family was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Caleb had known that much, in a lighthearted sense. But he hadn’t realized just how much he needed them until one cold, slick night, when he and Depa had been driving home from a college visit.

There’d been something in the middle of the road—a large animal, probably a deer. Caleb could have sworn at the time it was a wolf. But he’d swerved to avoid it, and the icy pavement had sent them spinning out.

The car had been soundly totaled. Caleb had woken up with quite a few scars, and Depa? His mother hadn’t woken up at all.

Caleb barely remembered a time without his mother. He knew there’d been a time before he was her son—though she’d argued that he’d always been her son. “We just didn’t know each other yet,” she said with the wry, enigmatic smile she used whenever she was acting like the scholar her father had tried to raise her as.

But he’d never thought he’d lose her. Not now, not so soon.

And yet, she was gone. Mindlessly, numbly, he moved through the funeral, the wake, but even after the ceremony was over and his mother had been reduced to an urn of ashes, Caleb couldn’t put the pieces back together.

It was his fault. His fault that his mother was dead, that his grandfather only had a shaken teenager left to lean on. He could have handled it being his fault if it was anything, anyone else, but his mother? The one person in life he’d always known he could depend on, who would always protect him and guide him down the right paths?

The distraction of college was something he’d seized eagerly. They’d picked out a school in Lothal, a small town almost three hours away from his home. From Mace, and the memory of his mother.

Once there, he’d found plenty of other things to occupy his time, and not just studying. Partying and drinking seemed to push away the pain well enough. He started going by Kanan—every time he heard the name “Caleb”, it was like he could hear it in Depa’s voice—and firmly ignored his grandfather’s calls. When summer came, he found a job in town and stayed at a friend’s apartment, barely scraping by until school started again. All he knew was that he couldn’t go home, back to where her ghost was waiting for him.

And then. One day, in his junior year. Things changed again.

It was after a party, late enough that it was early. Kanan stumbled his way out of the abandoned house the party had been at, head spinning and stomach churning. The cool air of the spring night eased the ache a little, and he took a quick breath, letting it steady him.

Okay, I’m fine. Just need to get back to the dorm without passing out. Shouldn’t be a problem. All things considered, he’d had more to drink in one night before.

The abandoned house was tucked away from the rest of the town, along an out of the way road, deep in the woods. There were stories in Lothal, about things that prowled in those woods late at night. About people who’d gone missing in those places.

At the moment, Kanan didn’t really care about stories. All he cared about was finding his way back to his room and his bed soon enough that he would be semi-functional for class in the morning.

So he plunged into the woods, keeping his wits as about him as he could. The trees seemed to blur in front of his eyes, but he kept moving. Kept breathing. It wasn’t like he really had another choice.

However, his sense of direction wasn’t really the best under normal circumstances. This drunk, they were even worse, and soon Kanan paused, hand resting on a tree trunk. Am I…lost?

He squinted at the woods around him. Nothing but trees and shrubbery. No real paths, no signs of life or streetlights. Kark. This was not good.

For a moment longer, he wavered, trying to figure out if he should try and go back the way he came, or go forward—and then he heard it.

A voice. No, not just a voice. To call this voice beautiful would be to do it a disservice. It was ethereal, yet warm, like a moonlit night next to a fire. Unwavering and rich, it was…singing?

“Little bird, where are you going?

Would you mind if I came too?

I thought I had it all together

But then I saw your lovely colors,

And it’s almost too much for me to bear.”

Not much had made sense to Kanan in the past year. But one thing he was absolutely, 100 percent sure of? He needed to find out who that voice belonged to. Carefully, stumblingly, he moved toward it.

It was a woman, he was sure of that much. She kept singing as he moved.

“Little bird, tell me a story,

One you’ve never told before.

I wanna know what keeps you singing,

I wanna know what keeps you dreaming.”

He nearly tripped over a tree root, ducked past a few more trees. There was a dim light up ahead, but it didn’t look quite like a streetlight, or even a fire. It was purer, almost like a star.

“Little bird, wait a moment,

I only just found out your name.

I wonder what else lies behind those verdant eyes

A mine of mystery.

Little bird, stay a while…”

The trees thinned into a clearing ahead. As Kanan approached, he saw a ring of stones in the center of it, and something in the back of his mind pinged, whispering a warning. What is that? What do I remember about this?

Then he saw the source of the voice standing near the ring, and everything else dropped away.

She wasn’t human. That much, he knew. Rich green skin, horns that curved down from her head elegantly with gold markings etched on them. She wore a white  dress, shimmering with silver light. A cloak hung from her shoulders and he knew, just knew, that it concealed wings.

Her beauty was heartstopping, a punch to the chest. It was the kind of beauty that couldn’t exist in his reality, the kind that wasn’t human.

Faerie.

He didn’t say it out loud. But her head turned towards him, and glowing green eyes met his gaze. For a moment, Kanan could read every emotion on her face. The shock, the fear—but winding throughout it, the curiosity.

Wow, Kanan thought, wishing he could speak, knowing there was no way he could get a word out.

And then she took one step forward, into the ring of stones, and vanished into thin air, leaving him in darkness.

Kanan’s jaw dropped. He took a few wavering steps forward, then stopped. He might have forgotten a lot of the fae folklore he’d been taught, but there was something about that ring of stones that triggered alarm bells. If she disappeared when she stepped into it…what would happen to me?

Nothing good, he decided. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave without a souvenir. So, stepping towards the ring, he located a small pebble of stone, barely visible by the moonlight through the trees, that had fallen a few inches away from the ring. Tucking it in his pocket, he took one last look, and left.

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. He was still hopelessly lost—however, he figured the fae would try and stay as far away from humans as possible. So he turned, put the ring of stones at his back and faced the way he’d come, and started walking.

The rest of the night was very, very blurry. He remembered stumbling over roots and fallen branches, unsure of which way he was going. There was a moment—a brief one—where Kanan seemed to sense a massive shape near him, nudging him gently in a specific direction.

And then, the next thing he knew, he was waking up to police sirens, and was blearily sitting up from where he’d been laying on the grass next to the road. He was soaking wet and had a blistering headache, but he wasn’t dead.

The cop who approached him, Officer Kallus, gave him an exasperated look as he approached. “Someone called in a dead body. I was hoping it wouldn’t be an irresponsible college kid who hopefully hasn’t been drinking.”

“Who, me?” Kanan said. Usually, this statement would be paired with a winning, innocent smile that made Kallus scowl. But this time…his head spun as he remembered the encounter of the night before. “I…think I need to call my grandfather.”

Kallus did not look displeased by this comment. In fact, he actually gave Kanan a ride back to his dorm and a stern lecture that was only half as long as usual before returning to work.

Kanan’s roommate wasn’t there when he made it in. Dropping onto his bed, Kanan fished his cellphone—somehow barely alive—out of his pocket, plugged it in, and called his grandfather’s number.

The first ring had barely finished when Mace picked up. “Caleb?”

Kriff, he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to hear his name again. “Hey, Gramps,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “So, uh, I’m not sure if you’re busy today, but…there’s some stuff I want to talk to you about. Do you mind if—”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Mace’s voice was steady and calm. “Is there anything you need me to bring you?”

“Uh…some of your weird books about the fae.”

There was a very long pause on the other end. “I have a feeling you’re going to have a very interesting story for me when I arrive.”

Kanan snorted. “You have no idea.”

Despite the three hour drive, Mace somehow managed to narrow it down to two and a half, and arrived in time for lunch. The first thing his grandfather did when Kanan met him at the restaurant they’d found was hug him tightly. Kanan swallowed hard against the prickle of tears and hugged him back.

After a few seconds, Mace pulled back and studied him. “Sweet Force, are you hungover?”

Should have known he’d guess that. “Calm down, Gramps,” Kanan said, waving him towards a booth. “I’ll explain it all.”

Over burgers and fries and plenty of coffee, he recapped the events of that night, describing what he’d seen. “I know I had a lot to drink,” he said. “But it wasn’t that much, you know? And I couldn’t have come up with all that if I tried. So…was it? A fae?”

Only Mace Windu could look like a serious, dignified scholar while eating fries. “It certainly sounds like one,” he mused. “I’d always heard the rumors that Lothal was close to an area where the faerie had lived. It’s far away from most of the modern world, the perfect place for the fae to show themselves. Of course, there haven’t been any reported sightings since you were very, very young.” Rubbing his chin, he said, “And you say you took something from the ring of stones?”

“From next to it,” Kanan emphasized, digging the rock out of his pocket. “I’m not dumb enough to mess with something like that.”

“Good,” Mace said. “Otherwise I would have gotten a very different call this morning. That was a portal, directly into their realm.”

“Kriff,” Kanan muttered, setting the rock on the table. It wasn’t much more than a fragment of stone, crystalline and dark blue. In the fluorescent light of the restaurant, it seemed to shimmer.

Mace’s eyes widened. “That. Is not part of the portal.” Carefully reaching out, he picked it up, examining it intently. “You found this on the ground?”

Picking up his coffee cup, Kanan said, “Yeah. Why? What is it?”

“I’m not totally sure,” Mace admitted. “But it’s not from this world.”

Kanan choked on his coffee. “What?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. You saw a faerie last night. Magical rocks aren’t that big of a change.” Studying it for another moment, Mace slid it back across the table to Kanan. “I doubt it’s dangerous. But it’s definitely not from around here, and it’s probably magical. Keep it safe.”

“Got it,” Kanan said, slipping it back into his pocket. Pausing, he said, “Thanks for coming. I know it’s been a while—”

“And why would that stop me? Love isn’t a subscription you have to renew every so often, Caleb,” Mace told him, gaze serious. “We’re family. I’ll always be here.”

It took a minute for Kanan to work past the knot in his throat as Mace continued eating. “I missed you,” he managed eventually.

“I missed you, too. Now eat. You need something for that hangover.”

Snorting, Kanan said, “You’re not gonna let that go, are you?”

“Of course not.”

Something about that night, that moment, was like a breaking point for him. It still hurt, thinking back about his mother. But finding the faerie in the woods had pushed him to see his grandfather again, knocking him out of the fugue state he’d lived in for far too long. And, if Kanan was being honest, there was still a part of him that hoped he’d see her again.

Mace had warned him about going to look again. “Most people don’t survive seeing a fae without a glamour these days. Either the sheer magical exposure kills them, or the fae does. So don’t tempt fate.”

Kanan had agreed, reluctantly. But there was the tiniest part of him that, whenever he walked near or in the woods, was keeping an eye out.

Maybe that was why, when he graduated and got his first job as a teacher at Lothal City High, he bought the abandoned house that party had been at. Sure, he’d been up to his eyebrows in debt for a while, but it could be worth it in the end. 

If he glimpsed her one more time, or heard her voice again, it would be worth all of it.

~~~

(7 years later)

“Hey, Kanan? You home?”

“In the kitchen!” Kanan called, a smile crossing his face at the sound of Ezra’s voice. It was good to hear the kid calling this place home. It had taken them long enough to build trust when they’d first met—partially because Ezra had broken into his house, and partially because he’d been on his own for far, far too long—but two years later, things were a lot better.

The kid appeared in the kitchen a second later, a frown twisting his face. “Are you making cookies? Do you ever work?”

“In two weeks, you’ll see that not only do I work, I’m excellent at it,” Kanan said, sliding a baking sheet into the oven. “That’s the one upside of you becoming a high schooler. Besides, your text said you were having friends over, so—”

“Wha—Kanan, I told you to stop doing that,” Ezra groaned. “We can just have chips or something.”

“No can do,” Kanan said, closing the oven. “My rivalry with Zev’s mom doesn’t disappear just because Zev’s not who you invited. Who is here, by the way?”

He glanced up just in time to see Ezra’s hesitation. “Uh. Promise me you’ll be normal about this?”

Before Kanan could even begin to ask what that meant, a voice came from the kitchen door. A voice belonged to a teenage girl, with brightly dyed hair and a leather jacket.

“Okay, where are the snacks you promised me?” she asked, glancing at Kanan with an air of suspicion. “Who’s this?”

“Kanan,” Ezra said, giving him a look that very clearly said, Be cool. “This is Sabine. We met while I was, uh, out…doing stuff.”

“That’s reassuring,” Kanan said drily. “Just tell me this much—when Detective Kallus shows up at the door, how much trouble are you in?”

“...not that much?” Ezra offered. “I was looking at that old abandoned storefront you were talking about the other day, and Sabine was putting up some art—ow!” he let out a yelp as Sabine kicked him in the shin. “What?”

“I told you not to tell him that,” she said, glaring.

Waving a dismissive hand, Ezra said, “It’s fine, Kanan’s cool. He only yells at me if I do something really bad. Graffiti is barely even a real crime. Anyway, Kallus rolled up, so we took off on our bikes, and I offered to let Sabine come hide here and also there would be snacks.”

“I can leave,” Sabine said, not looking at Kanan. But he could see her tense a little, as if she was waiting for the inevitable reprimand, and…kriff it.

“Hey,” he said, and waited until she looked up at him. “You can stay. After all, I didn’t bake these cookies for nothing. You’re welcome any time.”

“Thanks,” she said, a little of the tension leaving her expression. “It’s…Kanan, right?”

“That’s me,” Kanan said. “You guys want to sit down in here, or in the living room? Cookies will be out in about 10 minutes, and I can rustle up some other stuff while you wait.”

“In here’s good,” Ezra said, pulling out a chair at the table and dropping down. Sabine did the same, and as Kanan turned to start stacking dirty dishes next to the sink, he felt her studying him.

“Kanan,” she said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the name of that crazy teacher at the high school who believes in faeries?”

Ezra let out a snort. “Yeah, that’s cause that is him. Don’t worry, we both know he’s crazy.”

“Is it crazy if I believe in something that’s in most history books?” Kanan countered, and Ezra groaned. Glancing over his shoulder, Kanan saw the kid drop his forehead onto the table with a thunk as Sabine eyed Kanan skeptically.

“So…you think the fae are real? Or alive right now, I guess?”

“There’s no reason to suspect they’re not,” Kanan said with a shrug. “After all, just because we can’t see something doesn’t make it not real.”

“Except that it is,” Sabine said, and Ezra snorted.

“Oh, this is gonna go well,” he said, getting up and heading for the fridge. “Also that argument doesn’t work on him. He says he’s seen one.”

“You WHAT?” Sabine stared at him. “No way.”

Kanan felt a smile crossing his face. “It was a long time ago. But yeah, I saw a fae.” 

“He was also super drunk at the time,” Ezra said helpfully, rummaging through the fridge. “Do we have any juice?”

“Try the left hand side, and I wasn’t that drunk,” Kanan countered. “I’ve been way more drunk than that.”

Leaning back in her chair, Sabine accepted the small bottle of juice Ezra handed her. “I can’t believe I accidentally befriended two crazy people.”

Looking smug, Ezra said, “So we’re friends now?”

“As long as you don’t secretly believe in Bigfoot, too.”

“We won’t go into that now,” Kanan said, holding back a grin as Ezra rolled his eyes.

Dropping back into his chair, he said, “You haven’t even heard the best part. He thinks there are faeries actually living in Lothal.”

“I’m starting to think you just like mocking him for his conspiracy theories,” Sabine said thoughtfully.

“Not conspiracies,” Kanan said, turning to switch on the faucet. “And she’s right, find another subject.”

Ezra accepted this without complaint, and as Kanan started working on washing the dishes, he thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t mentioned to Ezra exactly who he thought the faeries in Lothal were.

It wasn’t that crazy of a theory. The fae could glamor themselves, disguise their true forms in any way that they wanted. Why not as humans? True, they’d have to avoid anything iron at all cost, and that could be difficult. But Kanan was completely sure there were faeries in Lothal.

One faerie in specific, in fact.

It wasn’t obvious. Hera Syndulla acted fairly normal, all things considered. But he knew those green eyes, remembered them with startling clarity from a night where not much else had been clear. Of course, there was one other very clear thing. Her voice was still the most gorgeous thing he’d ever heard, warm and melodic.

It wasn’t something he could forget, or mistake for someone else. Kanan knew that she was the fae he’d met that night. His only question was why she was here. Was it for some other mysterious reason, or did it have to do with him?

Out of habit, he reached up, touching the blue crystal he wore on a cord around his neck. Maybe it had something to do with that. He’d found it left behind, and while he and Mace had never been able to figure out what it did, Kanan was sure it belonged to the fae he’d met. To Hera.

Maybe I should return it, he mused. But then…would she leave? Selfishly, he’d rather hang onto it if that was the case. And she probably wouldn’t appreciate him revealing that he knew who she was, anyway.

No, for now things would stay the way they were—Hera running her slightly strange coffee shop/bookstore across town, and Kanan showing up to hassle her every so often. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t enjoy it, even if it had technically started out as him investigating whether or not she was actually the fae he’d met.

Now, he went to visit her because he wanted to see her. Because he liked exchanging snarky banter and drinking her coffee which was somehow far better than anything else he’d ever drunk. He liked watching her laugh and teasing her and just listening to her talk, about anything and everything. Even a few minutes in her presence left him refreshed, happy.

Ezra’s claims that Kanan didn’t think she was a fae, he was just in love with her might not have been that far from the truth.

But that was a problem for another time, if it could really be called that. Right now, he had dishes to wash.

[queeniecook]

January 10

The New Year had started much like the last year had ended for Asa Blake. Being experimented by James. It's been months now and Asa is fast losing any belief he had in the past that the cure to vampirism will happen.

He feels worse after every "session" despite his ex-wife, Annalise, doing her best to help him manage his..illness? He feels like he did when he was human and had a bad case of influenza but maybe it's progress? That he feels something that isn't normal for one of his kind.

He mind is thankfully distracted from his existence when he catches James approach Liberty through the window. Normally he would stay and listen but he rather go lay down in his coffin and rest.

"I know something is going on, you've been avoiding me for months. I rarely see you." James confronts his wife. Granted he finds plenty to keep himself busy with.

"I have a job now." is all Liberty offers. 

James has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "I know that and I know you spend time with your sister but something else is going on."

Before Liberty realises it, James is in front of her. She really is distracted, she's the vampire not him.

"Tell me what it is, darling." James demands softly. "I'll find out anyway."

"I had a conversation with Caleb." Liberty admits, glaring at her husband. She wants to rip his handsome face off his head. 

"Let me guess, he apologized to you?" James asks. He's not really surprised the two ex-lovers ended up speaking to each other though he's not really pleased about it. 

Liberty nods her head. "I don't totally forgive him but it gave me some answers I needed." She knew her spouse wouldn't be happy about her talking to Caleb, that's why she had been avoiding him so she could sort through the conversation for herself without any outside opinions. 

"Did he happen to mention how he killed Ciara?" James asks firmly, grasping his wife's chin gently and making her look at him. 

"What?" Liberty asks him, her voice a whisper. She could feel her heart break at the idea of Ciara being killed. She had known that Ciara had been gone for a few years but didn't know what had happened to her. 

James sighes, his features and his voice softening a bit. Despite what some may think, he doesn't enjoy seeing his wife sad but he had to tell her. It's the truth after all and the truth was going to keep Liberty from forgiving Caleb and staying on his side. Twice now the truth of all things has gotten Caleb in trouble. "It's true. She kidnapped Vera. Caleb, Lilith and Dakota went in to rescue Vera, Ciara was killed during all of it."

Liberty backed away from James "I...need to think."

"Ciara." Liberty whispers, trying not to cry. She understands many hated her God-daughter but all Liberty could think of was holding her for the first time when Summer and Travis brought her home from the hospital.

[revvethasmythh]

i finally cracked and spent like half an hour tracking down that post you keep referencing because i had NO IDEA what you were talking about and i found it and........ my analysis is that its written by someone who really wanted their relationship to Be A Certain Way and projected that onto them and the depth and reveal of veth shattered that and created that very simplistic analysis. its coming from a place where nott and caleb were their one and only's, no question who each other's #1 Person was, but like OBVIOUSLY a husband and son interrupt that. and caleb was A priority for veth rather than The priority for nott.

which completely ignores her struggle to balance her radically different lives and caleb's constant compassion and struggle to protect her AND her family...... because he loves her so he loves them and became an integral part of their lives too...... idk it just struck me as coming from a very particular place

Oh anon, you should have spared yourself and just not looked it up. I don't want to harangue about the post too much because I did plenty of that last year (sorry I can't direct you to those posts, they're old and none of them were searchably tagged so it'd be a bitch and a half to find them), but like yeah I do think the take came from A Particular Place and that there's a lot of projection happening there, I agree with that. It's just that the post is basically only projection, and the place it comes from overlaps with the land of delusion where we never watched the show past episode 47, but yeah, that is A Place and apparently 1.5k other people have also visited this Place, which is one of my least favorite things I am burdened with knowing about.

Like, it's the gall to say that Caleb was looking at Veth and thinking "maybe she's as weird as I am" and things like that that get me because it's such a staggeringly ahistorical take, particularly considering Veth's backstory hinges on the fact that she was bullied her whole life for being WEIRD. And I recently happened upon a clip from the Talks for episode 50 where Liam was answering a question about how Caleb was taking the Veth reveal and his answer essentially boiled down to [paraphrased], "Caleb already loved Nott and thought they were similar--but now he knows they're even more alike than he could have guessed. And he loves her. He just loves her."

The idea that the Veth reveal shattered all of Caleb's visions and dreams of what their relationship was now that he knows who Nott "really" is (a "Happily Married Straight Woman" as OP so helpfully describes, in contrast to Caleb's newly listless and unmoored "Queer Neurodivergent Friend") is so ahistorical I need to go to a rage room about it. That did not happen. I have to believe the only way someone could agree with this is if they never watched past ep. 47, but considering how many people interacted positively with that post, I somewhat doubt that's the case, which makes it, like, the prime example of how Veth (a relatively unpopular character) seems to be thought of--and misinterpreted--by the wider fandom. And, in the words of Liam O'Brien himself: "That's a big matzo ball."

[jackienautism]

The most horrifying thing in the Quarry to me, aside from the Hackett family ignoring Kaylee and Caleb’s trauma, is the fact that a child of unspecified age was forced to survive in the woods for six whole years after getting displaced + having his once safe haven destroyed by strangers who wanted to “save” him then having to not get caught by said strangers’ family who want him dead for something he has no control over only to be killed while in a state of dissociation/deep sleep. Like, it’s not even mentioned explicitly but just…fuck. I’d the hell out of a book like that

you always realize the most fucked up things about this godforsaken game dfgkjdg still reeling over your most recent post btw i just want them all to be happy is that too much to ask

before i add anything on i just want to say even though ive said it plenty of times before: fuck the hacketts. like for real. kaylee and caleb deserved better

but GOSH i never realized just how fucked that is actually... if only they specified his age, i think that definitely would've made it hit harder yk? bc no matter how "young" it turns out silas is, it's still gonna be way too young to be thrust into his situation. having that like be solidified would've made it that much more. i dont know. real? bc the chances of him being like my age or yours is so.. likely

assuming silas also considered the rest of the harum scarum crew his family, he really like. lost everyone he cared about in one night and that's so so sad. all while he couldnt do ANYTHING consciously about it either. imagine you wake up just to see that everyone you've ever loved is dead and the place you call home is also gone? and, if silas even came to find out what exactly happened that night (which is doubtful? due to his lack of contact with literally anyone), imagine having to come to terms that you're technically the reason all that destruction took place?

long story short. fucking hell jkdfnjs i cant even imagine living on my own in good conditions so how the hell was silas able to do it in the middle of the woods! all while being hunted by these strange people! not only does he have to worry about food and shelter but now also the HACKETTS????? it's so. its not fair man

and the hacketts ARE able to accomplish their goal aftger killing several strangers and getting 9 unsuspecting kids involved and possibly killed. alongside their other family members potentially. what the fuck. if you couldnt tell i hate thisf amily

its nice they talk more about silas and harum scarum in the podcast but like... it being in game / not being extra would've been nice. would've been nicER. actually. since th whole game pretty much revolves around silas so. surprised they didnt talk more about him. actually no im not

[utilitycaster]

While we're revisiting the Mighty Nein, actually, I want to talk about the positioning of the hiatus. I think a lot of the "they came back and it was entirely changed" attitudes do spring from people retreating into fanon and various echo chambers; there's also plenty to be said, as there always is, about cognitive dissonance. But actually, by complete chance, the point where the hiatus started happened to be at or immediately after an inflection point for nearly all the characters.

The hiatus took place due to the Covid-19 lockdown, between episode 99 and episode 100. Episode 99 aired on March 12, 2020; Episode 100 aired on July 2, 2020.

Yasha returned to the party in episode 86 (November 21, 2019; 13 Thunsheer in-game), and the cathedral fight was not truly completed until episode 87. At the end of that episode, the Mighty Nein were tasked with brokering peace between the Empire and Dynasty, and Caleb encountered Trent. Everyone met with Ludinus went to the Vergesson Sanatorium in 88. They all spent some downtime in Rexxentrum in 89-90, including Caleb's reunion with Astrid and Yasha's incident in the pit fight. They also contact the Bright Queen in episode 90, and attempt to turn Veth back to her halfling form in 91.

They quickly leave for Beau's home, and Beau is reunited with her abusive father in 92. Nearly all of them make conversations with Isharnai, who deals in misery, in 93, and have a serious discussion about how this affected some of them (notably Beau and Veth) in 94. In 95, they head towards where Caduceus's family may be, despite his own anxiety, and the Traveler reveals his anxieties to Jester in that episode as well. They free the the Clays in 96.

Veth is turned back to her halfling form in 97; Essek's true nature is also revealed at that time. The party leaves for the peace talks, and Fjord is assassinated by agents of Uk'otoa in episode 98. Peace is brokered in episode 99, on 11 Unndilar, or roughly a month since Yasha rejoined the party. They are sailing towards Rumblecusp for Travelercon.

In other words, within the space of a month, Yasha, Caduceus, and Veth's primary goals have just been completed, leaving them wondering what to do next. The general party goal of stopping the War of Ash and Light has also been achieved. Beau, Caleb, and Fjord all get brutal reminders of their pasts - Beau nearly gives up her life, Fjord loses his, and Caleb sees the sites of his trauma for the first time in years - and Jester's god has just told her that he doesn't know what he's doing. Someone they had been confiding in extensively just revealed himself to be a precipitating factor in said war, and to have been working with the Assembly.

I deliberately did not include information about the budding romantic relationships, but of note are, in fact, Yasha's return and what that means to Beau; Fjord and Jester's interactions in Nicodranas in 97-98 and Fjord's death and resurrection shortly after; and what the Essek reveal means to Caleb and how he reacts in turn.

It's not incorrect to say the characters seem to change rapidly when they are on Rumblecusp. It is incorrect to say that this comes from nowhere or that they are unrecognizeable; they are, all things considered, remarkably restrained in their pursuits given the intensity and events of the previous in-game month, but entirely in character (even if you decline to provide any sort of leniency to the cast regarding the intensity of the previous four real months.)

I wonder, if things had been a little bit different, if we'd been a few episodes further along when lockdown hit - or perhaps a few episodes earlier - if the fandom response would have been the same.

[essayofthoughts]

interesting! without spoiling anything, are you thinking of the possibility of restoring tiefling!percy to his original form?

I've been talking with @blorbologist about that a lot! Because the thing is, I don't think Percy would ever be anything but horribly dysphoric about a body he was forcibly changed to and that he does not identify with. A body which inherently and permanently marks one of the worst mistakes he believes he ever made and which he cannot escape. I think he has days that are easier to bear than others, but I don't think he ever really thinks of his horns or tail or claws or fangs as his - they're always the horns or the tail or the claws or the fangs, always held at a remove.

And that kind of means his entire life sucks if he isn't able to change back!

Now, until Caleb comes up with the spell to help Nott/Veth I don't think there really is anything that'd do that permanently aside from Wish and given Percy's distrust of magic at the best of times, let alone something that phenomenally powerful being cast by Scanlan... I am inclined to say he is hesitant to say the least.

Not to mention the fact that, as a member of Vox Machina and a member of the leading council of Whitestone he is a well-known and prominent tiefling. He is an example against bigotry towards tieflings and likely a source of hope for some! And Percy is noble; as he says after Scanlan leaves, none of them are solely their own people - they are inherently tied to those around them and expectations. The presence of the public eye has a hugely limiting effect on what is acceptable for him to do.

He could change himself back once the spell is available - but what would that mean for and imply to those tieflings who've looked up to him as a prominent, positive role model? If he'd turn himself human again? The implicit suggestion that he has always been ashamed of himself and that, if he was, they should be too. That question he has to weigh - is his comfort worth the negative effect it'd have on uncounted people? And Percy doesn't think highly of himself as an individual. He thinks plenty of himself as a de Rolo, as a member of Vox Machina, but he also kind of hates himself a lot, and likely even more in this AU? Why would he believe he deserves something kind and good when as he is he can help so many others?

So I think if he does change himself back to human it is at the urging of Vex and his children - especially his tiefling children - and not so much himself. I think he dabbles in the idea a little, using Alter Self coins from Tary (which would likely startle the hell out of Vex the first time) - but again, I think he'd be very hesitant to do that once he and Vex have children, because what kind of message is he sending to any tiefling children of his if he chooses to take human form sometimes? If he rejects being a tiefling like that? I think that's a conversation he has to have with each of them at some point (and maybe I've been noodling with a lil fic chunk for that maybe).

But yeah. I'm not decided yet on if he does turn back to human but I'm very sure that he wants to and has complicated feelings about whether he's 'allowed' to.

[legolasghosty]

Hii! Could you do canon magical!Julie Juke angst with a happy ending? Please?

Hello!!! Sorry for the delay! I shall do my best!

Julie's magic was getting stronger.

Sure, Luke figured he was a bit more sensitive to the magnetic force that was Julie Molina than most, but he wasn't the only one to notice. Julie seeing ghosts wasn't new, though no one had realized that until just over a year ago, when Luke and his bandmates crashed into her life. But apparently she'd been seeing them for her whole life and simply never realized they were dead.

It made sense, at least the way Alex put it. Ghosts looked like they had when they were alive. There were plenty of strangely dressed people who hung out around Los Angeles, dead or alive. So unless she'd seen a ghost actively passing through a lifer or something, it wasn't surprising that she hadn't realized there were spirits of the dead lurking the streets. Luke still didn't fully get it, but it made sense.

Julie was magical, Luke had known that since the first day he'd known her. He couldn't seem to stay away from her, as if he were a moth and she was the last candle on earth. No matter what he did, he couldn't resist her. Not that he wanted to of course. Reggie and Alex had different ways of describing how Julie's magnetism felt to them, but it was equally strong. The four of them were connected by some unseen force that stemmed from the core of Julie Molina.

But it seemed that this attraction wasn't just for them anymore.

With Caleb gone, there were a lot more ghosts out wandering the streets of Hollywood these days. And many of them seemed to sense Julie, eyes finding her in crowds of lifers when the four of them, sometimes with Flynn or Willie as well, went downtown for a show or shopping. They'd all noticed it, Julie and Alex before the rest of them, but originally chalked it up to their defeat of the ghost magician who had trapped so many souls for decades.

But it continued, even as time distanced them from those horrible memories. Willie commented that some of the ghosts watching Julie weren't ones he'd ever seen at the HGC. And while most of the time the spirits didn't approach, weird things started happening.

A pair of ghosts passed Julie and Luke on the street, and a group of lifers walking past laughed at an overheard snatch of the spirits' conversation. An old friend of Willie's from the HGC had a much easier time lifting a pile of records when Julie entered the music shop behind the rest of her friends, his hands staying solid beneath them. Ray captured more orbs than usual during an outdoor photo shoot when Julie came to give him his lunch.

Julie's magic was getting stronger. It was giving other ghosts around her a stronger connection to the living world. Like she'd done from the beginning with Luke, Reggie, and Alex. And they were all getting used to it, but Luke... Okay, he wasn't too proud to say it.

Luke was jealous.

Because what he and Julie had, their connection, onstage and off, was special. What the band had was special. Julie brought them together, gave them a second and then a third chance at life. The music they made was awesome, and greatness was only a breath away, just waiting for Julie to finish school so they could start talking properly with managers.

But if other ghosts suddenly were feeling this connection with Julie... would they try to take her away from him? Would she want to go?

So yeah, Luke was jealous of the other spirits and the energy they received from Julie Molina, whether it was intentional or not.

But it was a secret.

"What'cha working on?" the angel in question asked, startling him out of his thoughts as she hopped over the couch to plop down next to him.

"Nothing," Luke said quickly, slamming his journal shut over the lyrics that had been forming under his pen.

Lines about losing a lover, a dream sucked away by others.

"Oh now I'm interested," Julie teased, grinning and shifting closer. "Tell me!"

"It's nothing," Luke insisted, holding the book away from her. "Just some random stuff, it's not anything good."

"Well let's see if we can't make something of it," Julie retorted, reaching for it, still with that smile on her face that made Luke's heart beat a little faster.

Luke leaned a bit too far, laughing, falling onto his side on the couch. Julie clambered on top of him, grabbing at the journal in his hands. Luke couldn't help but let her have it, not when she was giggling like that and her hair was falling loose in his face and her fingers were brushing over his arms in her attempts to get it.

"Hah, now was that so hard?" she joked, clambering off of him and flipping the journal open.

"Yeah," Luke responded, sitting up and giving the book a worried glance. He didn't want to freak her out.

Julie just hummed in response, her eyes flicking back and forth over the lines scrawled out in his terrible handwriting. She didn't speak for a full minute. Luke wanted to take it back, so she didn't see his jealousy, his fear of losing her. But there was no going back now.

Finally, Julie spoke. "Is this about me?"

Luke nodded. "Yeah, it is."

"Why?" she asked softly. "Why like this?"

"Because it's the truth," Luke sighed. "I know, it's dumb. I just..." He paused, finally looking up to meet her eyes. "You're a star, Julie. And for a while, it was just us, and you were our star, my star. But now..."

"Now I still am," Julie murmured, reaching out to rest her hand on his leg. "I'm not going anywhere, you know that."

"Why not?" Luke cried, suddenly unable to hold back. "You could work with any ghost, anywhere, you know you could! Why us? Why me?"

"Because you're you, Luke!" Julie exclaimed, grabbing his hand. "I don't want to make music with anyone else. No music is worth making, if we're not making it with you, that's what you said to me."

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts, Luke," Julie cut him off. "I know this whole ghost thing is weird, believe me, it scares me too, but I want to make music with you."

Luke pulled her into a hug as tears started to escape from her eyes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding on tight.

"And what if I don't just want to make music with you?" Luke questioned softly.

Julie chuckled, the sound coming out muffled by Luke's shoulder. "I think I'd want that too."

Luke couldn't help the giddy smile that spread over his face, even despite the confusion that was their lives. Afterlives. Whatever. "So, this whole other ghosts thing has been bothering you too?" he asked after a minute.

"Yeah," she admitted. "I don't know what's going on."

"We'll figure it out," Luke promised, daring to press a feather-light kiss to the top of her curls. "Together."

Julie pulled back just enough to smile up at him. "I'm going to hold you to that," she murmured, just before she leaned up to brush her lips against his.

And maybe they didn't talk much about other ghosts that afternoon. Luke was pretty sure they were both okay with that.

[rockinracket]

Get Ready to Revise and Reorganize

My experiences so far of writing for an actual video game and not just a fake one

By Caleb Dougherty - Lead Writer/Narrative Designer/Producer of Rockin’ Racket 

What they don’t tell you about coming onto a project and taking over the existing story, is how much work you are going to be doing to get in line with the original idea. And even when you do, there’s always something you ended up missing, meaning you need to go back and fix what you’ve already done. Revision is a constant factor when it comes to writing, and writers know that. And it’s not fun.

By now, I’ve adapted to the story of our game when I came onto the team, and now I’ve expanded on it and made it more of my own work. I mean, we’re pretty much less than 2 months away from launching so it’d be really bad if I didn’t know what I was writing about.

Now since I’m primarily working on the writing of the story and dialogue, I’ve been working with one of our teams’ programmers to get my work into the game, Ken. To do this nicely, I’ve been using a nice little writing program called Ink from Inkle Studios. I can write dialogue, dialogue options, variables, tags, etc… all in there and then send it to him so he can use a Unity plugin to process the Ink files and use them within Unity. There are plenty of other steps in that process, but that’s the gist of it.

Now here’s where the revising comes into play. As the game progresses, so do parts of the story, meaning that I have to go back into all of the dialogue files and make sure they reflect that change if they need to. So if a character dies, then I don’t want a bit of dialogue after their death to be mentioning the dead character walking the streets. Now our game doesn’t have anything like that going on, but that’s the general idea. The revision process is also used a lot to go back through and correct spelling and grammar mistakes, things that I do often enough for me to need to triple check my writing from now on. 

And most recently in my revision process are tags! They basically track who is speaking within Ink using a certain name so that whenever Unity sees those tags, it can update art assets to match it. That way, when Harvey speaks to Ace, Harvey’s sprite looks like it’s talking while Ace looks like he’s listening. Before, we just had neutral art assets so I was using some generic tags for all the characters. But now we have emotions portrayed by the characters, which means that I get to go back into all of my dialogue files soon to update the tags to have those emotions.

Reorganization of dialogue files also comes into play with the revision process. For us, basically every conversation needed to be in an Ink file all on its own instead of all of them being in a single file. This was pretty annoying early on because I had all of my writing in one file. So I spent a good amount of time separating it all out into different files. It’s all good now, but boy was that a mess to deal with.

So for those of you who aren’t writers, just know that this is the kind of stuff your writer friends have to deal with. It’s not fun (most of the time), but it’s part of the job. So better to get used to it as early as possible to help in future endeavors.  Anyways, check out our game Rockin’ Racket on Twitter (X), Instagram, and YouTube to follow the state of our game and the progress of the band on their journey to fame!

[destinyc1020]

I will agree with that last anon about how we sometimes don’t even support our own and can do so much more. And we as audiences members are sometimes the root of the issue because we don’t put our support where our mouth is. There’s a weird thing where I’ve seen POC give a lot of grace and leeway to white mediocrity and hold impossible standards sometimes for our own. It’s disheartening when we’re the ones perpetuating the work twice as hard and get half as much motif ourselves. When it comes to both actors and even directors. Shows and films. We say we want one thing and then don’t even support it when it comes out. Shows like Saturdays and Swagger could’ve used the support. So many great films that no one is supporting but everyone is always talking about the same five film twitter films. Where’s the talk about Thousand and One, Rye Lane, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, They Cloned Tyrone, Rustin, Earth Mama to name a few. Last year we had Nanny, Master, Till, Honk for Jesus to also name a few. American Fiction came out this weekend. There’s been plenty of Black women directors making great films this year and last but no one talks about them the way they rave about Greta, Sofia or Emerald as if they’re the only women directors ever. Even the way we’re constantly talking about male actors like Timothee, JE or Austin and leaving out people like Jerome, Kelvin, Caleb to name a few. We can always do self checks on how we’re feeding into the vicious cycle and seek out works from Black actors and directors ourselves if we want more of it.

Yes, you've brought up some very good points Anon. 👏🏾👏🏾

This is so true!

Part of it is obviously of course because films with a predominant black cast are just seen as a "black movie" (unless, it's the MCU's "Black Panther" of course lol 😵‍💫).... We live in a very Eurocentric world unfortunately. So it's sad how we as poc always have to see ourselves in white-dominated films and are able to do so, but others can't do the same when it comes to black films. 😕

Another thing is just the fact that some films are smaller, and some people just don't watch indie/smaller films just in general.... black OR white. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Idk about others, but I know for me too that I have to be in a certain mindset and frame of mind in order to watch certain films.... especially if it deals with slavery, racial inequality, or the mistreatment of black people. 😔 It just hits so close to home sometimes, and it hurts my spirit, so I have to mentally prepare myself for those films to watch.

Sometimes, you just want to watch smthg lighthearted, you know? I already deal with racial injustice in my real life....I like movies to escape lol. So sometimes, it's just nice to watch smthg a little more lighthearted. Or, if it's going to address racial injustice, sometimes it's nice to see it presented in a way like "The Other Black Girl" (which I'm currently watching on Hulu 😊).

I like black filmmakers who can make films that aren't JUST about struggle in Black America... ykwim? Like, sometimes it's just nice to see a Sci-fi film with a predominantly black cast, or a horror film with a predominantly black cast, or a lighthearted comedy or adventure film, ykwim?

Anyway, very good points Anon 👍🏾

[sepublic]

Say what you will about Hunter fans’ white favoritism and double standards, but at least they seem to like the show. Wittebane fans are on a whole different level of white favoritism and fandom misogyny compared to them, because they’re genuinely obsessed with the idea of an all-white cast, centered around two guys, in their racist colony; Eda’s there too, but without any of the depth, she’s only there to be a Girlboss, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl to the cardboard cutout. And it’s to the point where for many of them, it’s all they’ll talk about, instead of the actual source material, its colorful cast and worldbuilding, or onscreen stories.

I know misogyny and racism is in this fandom because people find it easier and more fun to make shit up for a cardboard cutout who makes about as much noise as one over like, Willow Park. It’s fun to speculate on parallels, but when canon contrasts Camila’s heartbreak over creating a hostile environment for her child, versus Philip’s racist hatred and murder of Caleb for having a mixed child? It’s obvious that people would rather rewrite Belos until he’s OOC and the exact opposite of everything he stands for, so they don’t have to talk about Camila Noceda. Because the only way they can truly enjoy this moment is under the veneer of that white guy and him alone.

Like jeez if you want two family members trying to survive after moving to Gravesfield, one repressing themselves and afraid they’re pushing away the other who can’t do that? If you want two siblings with a tragic fallout, where one of them stays with the status quo while missing the other, despite hurting them so badly? Or a child who cares so deeply, but that isn’t enough and that love can be cruel? Just enjoy the Nocedas, the Clawthorne sisters, the Collector.

Cavelyn? That's just Raeda, which even has a tragic element and is actually fleshed out. Raine has an actual personality unlike Blandest White Boy Caleb, and I've already compared Eda to Evelyn. If you want it tragic, there’s Bad End AUs, and I’ve seen Wittebane fans make plenty of Good End AUs so obviously there’s a double standard there. If you want an old hag to thirst over, oh hey look it’s Eda! If you want someone conventionally attractive, what about Darius?

Anything you want those white boys to be, some other characters with way more focus and screen time do it, and much better. The only thing Belos does better than everyone else is represent colonialism, racism, genocide, and evangelical delusions… But y’all don’t want to talk about that now do you? Maybe instead of making OTGW crossovers just talk about OTGW, y’all have plenty of media centered on white guys so why do you need to change TOH to be like that? It’s not suspect that y’all find Wittebanes compelling, it’s suspect that you find them more compelling over characters who actually display these traits as their focus.

Praising Belos’ character for traits that others actually display is just like Philip taking credit for others’ work, it’s funny how Belos fans say you can enjoy him critically but they don’t actually do that. They just go with this very basic Genocide Bad take but still subscribe to the same core sentiment as him; That colonial white guys are just naturally better and more interesting, and they deserve to take the spotlight away from women and/or PoC.

Belos talks hot shit about how Caleb betrayed him and while some don’t believe that’s the case, they still roll with the claim that the heartbroken feeling of being betrayed is primarily why Belos did all this, when really he did it because he was selfish and wanted to be a monster slaying hero, and his games prior to Evelyn’s arrival support this.

He was gonna do it with or without Caleb’s support, there’s just no winning for Caleb because either he would’ve continued being a witch hunter and it’s his fault for setting that example, or he abandoned poor Philip and Philip had no choice but to feel that way… As if racism isn’t the reason why he insists he can’t follow where Caleb is going, ergo Caleb is leaving him. Poor guy is simultaneously overrated and demonized by the same people for being a child who can’t override his racist brother’s free will.

I think it boils down to this: Despite already having Hunter, it’s not enough because Hunter’s relationships are all PoC or at least a white girl. But those Wittebanes, they’re white guys whose most important dynamic is another white guy, each other! And they’re adults so you can sexualize and ship yourself with them. And don’t even get me started on the Grimwalker OCs, the literally copy-pasted white guys!

[alecsnotalex]

In the distant hall stretching by my side, I hear skateboards rattling and speeding by, footsteps taken by strangers, humming and swishing of wet umbrellas and clothing go unnoticed. Above me, the sky weeps, and I hear puddles splashing and forming. Right now, I am grateful for Mckay, for the shade, and for this bench I sit on.

Behind me, there's a "No Smoking" sign, you'd think would be a given for a university such as this one. But I guess there is no harm in extra precaution.

Last night, I was out with Caleb and some of his friends. They were all so nice, and funny. As if without troubles, they are such great people. I sat there people-watching. Pla ying games, trying to swallow really bad-tasting mixed-mango liquor. In its defense, it is liquor, it isn't supposed to taste good, but also, it was also the best-tasting liquor in Kahuku Beer Garden.

A few weeks ago, I got my nipples pierced. Those fuckers hurt so much, the thought of the much more plentiful pain of childbirth scared me. Thinking about it, it really is scary: not something I haven't figured out before. But having experienced such great physical pain somehow just makes it more real, as somehow, being a woman, it is inevitable to happen in the foreseeable future.

Fast forward to last night, Caleb and I were playing around, him buzzed, and me not so much, although it's evident that I do not take liquor well. We were play fighting and hugging and squeezing each other by the moonlight outside the parking lot, when he lifted me up and my piercing caught on his jumper. It hurt a lot. Looking back now, I don't know what got me so angry, but it scared me so much because his teasing got me mad, and he said I just "Switched."

I have not been most kind to most people i have loved throughout my life, but for him, I believe it to be different. Everything fits, and life is bliss. The last thing I want to do is ruin this good thing we have, the last thing I want to do is be mean to this man I love. It scares me a lot I once vowed never to have children because of my complicated relationship with my mother. Nature is just a lot to combat. Predispositions and genetics. I do not want to be like her.

And so, in all the ways I can, I try not to.

But right now, I am in university. I try not to think about things too much. Earlier, I went to the C-store earlier to buy Caleb nutella, as promised. I was debating whether i should grab lunch in there but $12 for a plate luncheon campus just seemed too ridiculous to me, so I headed to the cafeteria instead. Everybody hates it. The food is just not at all good. And caf people are just like RA's they're pure evil. But if there is something I hate more than bad food, and the shrewd people in there, it is the ghosts that you see floating around. People I've once shared fond memories with, now I only feel resentment for. I think about the past lovers I have had, and how coming out of them also meant cutting them off. Is this a cycle? A pattern? I envy how Caleb talks highly about people he's once loved, and how he is able to maintain a sense of admiration for them despite all that's happened.

Was I too unlucky to have had assholes before that I cannot hold them in the same regard, or am I the problem?

Either way, it is just too small a campus to keep avoiding, and some halls you have to walk in and share with them, especially in moments you do not want to.

This place is filled with ghosts, and I am deathly afraid of them. And so again, I do what I can.

I'll try not to think about it.

[callunasims]

Courtlandt Legacy | Part 4 - New Construction

It was a dark and stormy day… and not just as a common literary device. Daphne woke up late and hurried to get work as a thunderstorm RAGED overhead. She was so speedy, I couldn’t even get a photo of the event! Though somehow she did have time to extend her roof to keep her plants undercover so they’d actually grow… hmm

One of her work tasks is to harvest harvestables, so it makes sense that she took time to do this. Still, I am a little bit salty. Caleb came by again while Daphne was gone (she really needs to tell him her work schedule) and JUST missed being struck by lightnint! Man, would THAT have been awkward.

He didn’t stick around for too long, though, and who could blame him? It’s raining cats and dogs and with that wind, I doubt Daphne’s hut is feeling all that dry. The reason for his visit became clear after Daphne got home! She got an exciting text.

Nice job, joining the tech guru career, Caleb! To celebrate, Daphne decided to take Caleb out on a date! But instead of being able to call on the phone, Daphne had to invite him over and ask him in person because The Sims 4 is apparently messed up and won’t give the option. Thanks for that, guys.

“Hey Caleb!” she pecked his cheek. “Thanks for coming. Sorry about that, my phone is being strange,” Daphne said. “Do you want to go out to celebrate your new job at The Diving Pelican?”

“Yeah, that sounds great!” Caleb beamed.

Daphne and Caleb ran inside immediately to get out of the pouring rain, and Daphne made sure to snag them a table. There’s a restaurant critic visiting at the same time, so hopefully that means better quality food, even if the service is slower.

Everyone in the restaurant seemed TERRIFIED of something. Daphne thought it was the storm until…

An enraged WEREWOLF? Yikes! Thankfully Daphne and Caleb were seated outside, far away from the angry werewolf. Though, Daphne thought he seemed rather nice and dignified as he sat there looking at the menu. Perhaps everyone else was overreacting. The outdoor table was nice and private though, as no other sims were seated out there, and it was under cover. A nice spot!

Daphne ordered for the table – coffee for both of them to stay warm in the cool rainy weather, and Caleb got herb-crusted salmon, while Daphne preferred the pan-fried tilapia. While they waited for their meals, they had a nice chat, interspersed with a bit of flirting, of course.

Caleb seemed to be enjoying himself, and the privacy allowed the two of them to get a little flirty without disrupting anyone around them. However, Daphne got an INTERESTING call from Agatha Crumplebottom about one of her family members passing away and leaving her a large fortune. Daphne asked about the conditions and Agatha said…

She got $2500 simoleons! Now she can afford some walls in her shack! How wonderful! She is quite excited to build that up some more after her date. Meanwhile, their food arrived and they got ready to dig in. Everything was normal quality but hey, it’s a casual restaurant and normal quality is edible enough!

The restaurant critic was seated at the table next to theirs, but there was still plenty of distance between them and the critic had her own things to focus on, anyway.

“So congratulations, again! I hope this job is more fulfilling than being a mixologist was for you,” she said.

"So far, it’s been pretty nice. I’ve always wanted to get into the technology field, but I never thought I was good enough.”

“Clearly they disagreed!” Daphne cheered. “So… have you ever wanted to be a Dad?” Very smooth, Daphne. Caleb, though, was not perturbed by such a strange question. I suppose you would have plenty of time to think about something like that as an ancient vampire—I mean, what?

He did seem good at dodging such a question though, by telling Daphne he’d talk to Daphne and then get back to her… Daphne. Caleb, you sneaky man. He smoothly changed the topic to discuss their meals, the thought avoided… for now.

They both agreed the recipes were quite tasty… but perhaps could be improved upon 😉 Things got a little hot and heavy after that. Daphne flirted with Caleb and offered him a massage, which he was happy to accept. Maybe a little too happy…

Daphne ended their meal shortly after, and thanked Caleb for a wonderful date.

She invited him back to her place… but he couldn’t stay over after their date. He did have a new job to get to in the morning, so it was understandable. Besides, Daphne really wanted to add some walls to her home!

Also her aspiration seems to be glitched out, so I’m going to be calculating how much she’s actually spent on kid’s items and may have to cheat that aspiration level to get it to work. Not sure why sims is so bugged out right now but… we can work around this one!

The bed is $210 simoleons (the game did count this as a kid’s item), bigfoot was $90, and she just bought a potty for $75. Grand total of $375/1000. She’s getting there!

Here’s her newly decorated home! Daphne is very proud of it.

It’s still a shack, and the furniture isn’t the best, BUT she has a separate bathroom now which is a big step up! It’s more like a studio apartment now than a big, random piece of flooring plopped down in the middle of a field. And the yellow is so cheery and cute! Thanks, recently passed distant relative! This is a wonderful gift.

Daphne did need some fun, so instead of a romp in the sheets with her beau, as he couldn’t stay over, she decided to play some phone games, play in the rain, and then research her garden!

Apparently the garden research was a LOT of fun for Daphne – it filled her need bar right up! But with a successful date AND a new home, Daphne fell into bed for a good night’s rest, her dreams full of… babies. Watch out, Caleb!

[revvethasmythh]

Me? doing WIP Wednesday? It's more likely than you think (I'm waiting for things to bake and I'm bored but also maybe I'll start doing this more consistently).

“Luc,” she started hesitantly. “Are you sure you want to do this? I’ve lived this life before and it’s…it’s pretty dangerous.”

“What’s the worst that can happen? I die?” Luc scoffed and bumped her shoulder with his. “Been there, done that, Mom. What’s left to be afraid of, really?”

Veth sighed heavily. “Oh, baby, a whole world of things.”

He was quiet for a long moment, staring out over the wharf, watching the waves roil and glisten in the setting sun. She watched him as he watched it, seeing the way he sighed in contentment as he looked out over the endless waters. There was an adventurer in him, no doubt about it. “I do know that, Mom,” he said softly. “I’m not stupid. I’m not…completely naive. I’ve seen Aunt Yasha and Aunt Beau’s scars. I’ve talked—I mean, I talk to Caleb a lot. Still. I know it’s not all fun and games. But I just—I’ve got to. I want to. Even knowing the risks.”

“That makes you pretty brave, kiddo,” Veth managed, throat suddenly tight. 

“Not braver than you,” he said with more assurance than was warranted. 

Veth laughed. “Oh yes, it makes you much braver than me. You think I would have chosen the life of an adventurer under other circumstances? If I’d had any other choice?”

Luc’s brow furrowed. “Come on, Mom. Don’t pretend you didn’t like at least some of it. I know you did, otherwise you never would have taught me any of the things you did.”

She had to give him that. “No, you’re right. I did. Unexpectedly, of course. But I did it because I had nothing—and I mean nothing—left to lose at the time. I didn’t have family. I was pretty alone. And, well, there was a whole slew of other reasons. But I didn’t start out knowingly. And I was scared all the time, for a very long time. I was, uh, not the bravest, you know. At least, not at first.” She rubbed his shoulder and then pressed a little kiss there. “I like that you think highly of me. But you’re grown now, Luc. You should know that I shouldn’t be idolized. I wasn’t as much of a hero as you think I was.”

Luc scoffed again, this time louder. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Not a hero? You saved the world, Mom! How many people have a parent who does something like that?”

“Okay, yes, I mean you’re not wrong. But besides all the heroics, what I mean to say is that I was just a person,” she said. “I’m still just a person. I’m your mother and yes, I saved the world more than once—not to humblebrag—but I have made plenty of mistakes, Luc.”

“What really happened?” He asked, blurting the words out so quickly it took her a moment to register what he’d said. 

She blinked. “What? What really happened when?”

He hesitated. It was never a good sign when he hesitated. Usually he just said whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. “That time,” he said, nervously plucking at his pant leg, “when you were gone. What really happened? Dad never told me. And I…I guess I never had the nerve to ask you before. Because you were gone, Mom. For, like, a while. And I remember being with Edith? I think? Because Dad was gone, too, and-and, yeah. That sucked. But you guys have never…you’ve never told me what was actually going on. And Caleb always speaks in these long-winded Zemnian riddles. I think he does it to throw me off so I won’t ask him about it any more.”

“You’ve asked Caleb about this?” Veth asked with a jolt.

“Well, yeah,” Luc said, like this was an obvious conclusion. “At least he says more than Caduceus does. All Cad’s ever said was ‘It was a lot.’”

[soletlunasims]

A slice of life between the chaos.

Gunnar has a part time job as a fisherman. He sank all of his inherited money into the cabin, give or take a few thousand simoeons to pay bills and feed himself and now Bowie. Chip visits often and always offers to babysit if need be. Caleb also visits occasionally but he doesn't get to as often because he still has a job he is dedicated to. The perks of being immortal, I suppose.

"Hey Buddy! How was your day with Grandpa?" Gunnar shifted his gaze to Chip, who was sitting on the couch. "Sorry I came he so late today. The fish just kept biting! It was crazy!"

Chip laughed. "You could be out all night for all I care. This little guy keeps me plenty entertained."

Gunnar came over to sit by Chip. Bowie parked himself in between them. "Gampy give me canny!"

Gunnar shot Chip a look with a smirk on his face. "Oh, yeah?"

Chip blushes. "C'mon. It was just one small piece. I gotta spoil him somewhat."

They both laugh which rubs off on Bowie who started squealing.

They spend the next few hours chit-chatting. Gunnar brings up Ares' random call to him about her possible engagement. "Can you believe she called me for that?! Of all the things she could have said to me. We haven't talked in over a year other than when she asked me to take money to help with Bowie. I know it's only because she has a guilty conscience."

Chip shook his head. "Should any of us be that surprised by now? Really. She's become a piece of work." Chip didn't want to feel that way about his own daughter but he was still very angry. He sighed.

Gunnar looked at Bowie, who was laying his head on Chips lap sound asleep. "I hate that I still care so much about her."

Chip huffed and leaned his head on the back of the couch. He rested his eyes. "Yeah... But she's wasted effort. Don't forget that."

Gunnar tilted his head slightly. "I know...."

Chip kept his eyes closed. He yawned. "You will find someone who treats you with the love and respect you deserve. No rush."

A second later, Gunnar heard snoring. He looked over at Chip who was fast asleep cuddled up with Bowie. He laughed and got up to put a blanket on both of them. Then he texted Caleb.

I guess we are having a sleep over tonight.

Caleb replied back.

Lol. Sounds fun. Tell Chip and Bowie I love them!

Gunnar smiled.

Will do 🙂