#director's cut game

[bluecatwriter]

Hmmm, Director's Cut on Butcher-work?

Thanks so much for the ask! I have a lot of Feelings about this one. :)

(The fic in question.)

CW for description of blood/injury below:

-This fic was directly inspired by Re: Dracula, because the scene with Van Helsing staking the Weird Sisters was just. so horrifying. I loved the way that Alan Burgon voiced the part, as well as the sound design that emphasized just how gruesome it was. This is no triumphant killing; we believe Van Helsing when he says, "Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher-work." I listened to it, and had to take a break afterward, and my first thought was, "Oh man, he is gonna have some trauma about this," and this fic was born.

-As long as I was having Van Helsing deal with trauma, I figured that he should also have some deep lingering regrets about how he handled Lucy's situation. Although he doesn't admit to doing wrong, I think it's noteworthy that he treats Mina very differently than he does Lucy— there is no yeeting Jonathan away from Mina's side, for instance— which indicates to me that his attitude toward vampires changed as he gained more knowledge, and it just made sense that he would second-guess how he acted when he was first trying to aggregate all his fragments of knowledge about vampires.

-A dream sequence seemed the best way to explore his doubts and trauma in a vivid way, so I settled on the most dramatic setting possible. I was a bit inspired by fairerforafleck's excellent fic "There is Some Fascination," although their setting is even cooler than mine!

-The image of Lucy looking up at him innocently while he brushes aside her hair to place the stake over her heart was one of the earliest moments I thought of when brainstorming. I made myself very sad thinking about it. :(

-"She screamed. Blood hit him like the slap of an ocean wave, salty and bright, and in an instant blood welled up from the floor and rose, knocking him off his feet. He fell into the rising tide, drowning as he felt his own body flying apart, limbs rent from their sockets, chest cracking open, entrails spilling out. Blood in his throat, his guts, his eyes, blood dissolving the cells of his body like acid, blood so thick it was impossible to tell where sensation ended and the scream began." I figure that if you're gonna go with the nightmare imagery, you might as well go hard. When I write a paragraph like this, I draft it with the weirdest, most intense imagery I can think of, throwing together associations even if they don't make sense, and in a later draft I sort through them and pick out the ones that I like the most. Oftentimes phrases that seem nonsensical at first glance end up being the most evocative. (I am very much a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" writer.)

-Even though Jack/Van Helsing isn't the point of the fic, I knew that I wanted someone to be there for him when he woke up; I think there's nothing worse than waking up alone from a nightmare. So I put Jack in there; he can't fix anything or bring any closure, but he's still there, and that still counts for something.

-"Art gets these dreams too, John told him once. Perhaps it is just the price to pay for rescuing a soul in such a manner." Someday I am gonna write a Van Helsing & Arthur fic where they either bond or clash (not sure which) over the shared experience of staking a vampire. Meanwhile Jack is holding fast to his conviction that Van Helsing made the right decision, because he can't emotionally handle it if VH is wrong.

-In the end, Jack asks if there is not any peace for Van Helsing to find, and he answers, "There is not." I wanted to capture the feeling of being caught in a trauma that feels like it will never end; there is no way to find peace in the foreseeable future, and the trauma can only be borne in the meantime. Usually when I write hurt I write comfort to go along with it, but I left the ending a bit raw and unfinished.

-The last two lines are, "Moonlight bathing them in silver. His chest aching with tears he could not shed." I liked the play of visual and tactile detail and the unfinished feeling of it all, emphasized by the sentence fragments.

Thanks again for the ask, I really enjoyed picking this apart!

(Ask game here)

[eilinelsghost]

I am loving Atandil, as you know. Can you say more about your inspiration for the very moving funeral rites in A Shuddering In The Air?

Thank you so much for this question! I really enjoyed working on that section. I'm not sure what all would be interesting to unpack, but here are a few things that went into it.

I initially decided to include a scene with those when I realized that Finrod would need some context to know what to do with Bëor's body when he dies. Granted there is some more conversation that I'll include around that later too, but I really wanted him to have a frame of reference for what it looked like to see one of the Edain buried. It was really important to me that he felt the defiance and sting of that firsthand before having the full weight of it crash down when it was Balan whose body was being set into the ground.

As to the rites themselves, I knew I wanted seeds to play a role in that because of an aspect of how Finrod buries Balan and later visits the grave (I won't say more about that here because I'd like to leave that until it shows up in the narrative), but then I wanted that to connect through to the overarching tradition. And seeds as part of the burial ritual worked really well for that.

Another reason for those and for the surrounding benedictions was a bit more rooted in our own world. I've always found the inclusion of the "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" reading in the Book of Common Prayer's liturgy for the Burial of the Dead to be very poignant and compelling. When contemplating the Atani and their own burial customs, I kept thinking what it would look like to include that same kind of sentiment, but as a cry of defiance rather than a theological statement. Death defied and mocked, even as his sting is very much present, his victory very much before them. And so the burial with seeds: life from death, even in our rotting, and the song at the end. It felt a very Atani sentiment to have a burial ritual that spat in the face of their own fate: death might take each of them, but it was not a true victory if they laughed in his face or turned his destruction back to beauty. A bitter beauty, of course, but one of their own making.

One last aspect of those that I am very attached to is the benediction Balan gives to each body: “Honor be upon you, my mother/father. Valor rest within you, my sister/brother. Peace take you within her arms, my daughter/son.” I loved how this connected their whole clan together in a society of mutual dependence - each is mother, sister, daughter or father, brother, son to all others. A loss of any is a loss of that communal family. They are not just co-citizens or the same traveling group, they are a community bound together with a much more encompassing understanding of what "family" entails. This is also seen in Estreth's "small stubbornness" of holding apart from joining Balan's people in order to remain, as she sees it, unbroken from her own communal family.

I feel like there are more things I had to say about this, but I just got back from a road trip this evening and my brain is pretty shot. If I did not cover an aspect you hoped I'd mention, let me know and I can keep going!

Thank you so much for this question - I really loved working on this part of A Shuddering in the Air and getting to talk more about it has been a blast!

[syaolaurant]

So I finally finished The House Cup quest yesterday, and it really pissed me off.

Almost 4 minutes cutscene to finally end the whole journey and they didn't even border adding Sebastian in one frame. I mean, c'mon, I didn't turn Sebastian in. He just disappeared to thin air like the dev canon he was expelled. Ok maybe he was sobbing somewhere maybe in the Undercroft and not attending the ceremony but, BUT, how about adding a scene when MC interact with Sebastian, to let us know that he is still there?

And look at the sadness in Ominis eyes, while everyone in other house was cheering the Slytherin table was just silenced.

Maybe Avalanche was out of time, maybe in the future they will put another better version of The House Cup quest. Until then this still sadden me =[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

[sonichedgeblog]

'Rolling Ball Game DX: Director's Cut' (Original Demo) by Rolling Ball Team Traverse through obstacles and avoid the capsule-bots trying to knock you off the stage. https://sonicfangameshq.com/forums/showcase/rolling-ball-game-dx-directors-cut.2339/ Support us on Patreon

[nickolashx]

Scratches (2006)

Scratches is a horror point & click adventure game by Nucleosys. Scratches is the first commercial adventure game ever to be made in Argentina.

Dark Legends surround the old abandoned Blackwood house, secluded far away in the northern wastelands. For writer Michael Arthate, this cold, solitary atmosphere is fodder for his restless imagination. But Michael soon becomes distracted by the mysteries offered up, as he follows a trail exploring and delving into the secrets of the past.

[darius20020]

I'm trying to force myself to draw. Feel bad

[eveanderland34]

I FUCKING KNEW IT. HE'S DEAD. HE'S DEAD AND NOW I'VE LOST HIM. NOOOO ;-;

PURPLE SPOILERS...

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REST IN PEACE POOKIE AUUUGHHH

HE'S DEAD... :(

[not-freyja]

For the director's cut, I would love to hear more about Legend's thought process and motivations once he met Hyrule in Adjuration! 🥰

Thank you for an actual scene selection everyone else had me pulling out a random number generator. Fucks sake. Love you guys. Also sorry this took like… a month, writing is hard.

This is going to be long. And though it might be analysis for chapter two, it will contain spoilers for the whole story.

Key: [quoted text in brackets] my analysis out if brackets.

[Time to deal with the strange Hylian. The same strange Hylian who came out of a now-vanished portal that also spat out a monster.

Link did not get this far in life by being the trusting sort.] Okay this sets the tone. Legend is immediately suspicious. He knows something fucky just happened, and that this person is involved.

[“So…” he says to the figure now sitting up on the ground. “Who the hell are you?”

There’s a faint mumble from the Hylain shaped pile of dirt at his feet.

Link sighs. “You need to speak up a bit.”

“I’m…” the kid's voice is raspy, as if he hasn’t used it in a while. He coughs, trying again. It’s a bit better this time.] Crying in Rulie-loving sorrow. This boy has such a hard life. I wanted to make sure the readers understood that without rubbing it in. I also wanted to make it clear that Legend was noticing these things. [“I’m no one. Just a traveler.”] Nick name establishment. Also secret world-building. I have so many thoughts about the world-building of each of their eras. And I was holding myself back chomping at the bit not to pull a Tolkien and overshare.

[“Bullshit.”

The kid’s eyes go wide. “No, really!” There’s an almost raw edge of panic to his voice now, and Link almost feels bad. “I’m not anybody important, I’m just passing through. I’ll be on my way now, thank you for the help.] They have known each other for about two minutes and Legend is already aware of a few things. This kid is involved with some kind of Dark Magic, he’s on the run, and he does not want to reveal his identity. This is ringing some trauma bells for Leggy. He is seeing himself, and he is getting sympathetic.

[And before Link can so much as laugh at such a pathetic attempt at a lie (and it is a lie, he’s been on enough quests to be able to tell a nobody from a somebody) the traveler scrambles to his feet.] Little meta joke here. We the player, we the reader can tell an NPC from a main character. Legend, who thinks in meta terms, can too.

[The thing is, Link is retired. He’s put in the work, done his time. He’s spilled enough blood and lost enough of his life to goddesses and princesses and lost wayward souls that this is the point in the story where he wants to take the guy at his word.] So… Link. Not Legend. Link. He is so tired, and so done. Its been four lifetimes of misery and he is done, thank you. [Link wants to shrug, turn around, and continue on his way home. He wants to turn and run through the woods, back to his house and slide the bolt in the door and have Ravio tell anyone who comes calling that the hero] This is the only time that Legend thinks of “hero” in the general lowercase noun and not “Hero” as a proper noun. Why? Well because a hero would do such a thing as to hide from a quest. A Hero would not. [is not home because he is not going to be answering any more calls to greatness. There will not be one more quest.] oh buddy. *sobs* Rulie’s “got one more in me” later down the road as the direct foil to this thought. Rulie’s death is the catalyst for the rest of Legend’s character arc, like his entrance into Legend’s life is the catalyst for the plot.

[He’s retired, by the Three.] Yeah man keep telling yourself that.

[But right before he can do just what it is he wants, the stranger goes to leave first. And the poor thing takes one step, yelps like a kicked dog, and crumples back to the forest floor.

“Fuck.” Link can’t help the curse] The sympathy is now at a boiling point. Legend cannot help but care. Cannot help but try to help. [and he strides forward, towards the kid, away from home.] OKAY so the “away from home” bit is both directionally in the scene and narratively in the plot. [It’s only a few steps, but it’s the wrong way, and Link has done this enough times by now to know that it really is those first few steps that count.

Those are the ones that you can’t take back. The ones that all the rest come after.

Link takes them anyway.] I can’t even start with this part. The repeated theme of Legend “going the wrong way” of him doing the dangerothing anyway, despite his well-earned survival instincts. I… listen, Legend was suicidal. From day one. He knows he can’t undo this. He knows that another quest will probably get him killed. He does it anyway.

[“Hey, easy there,” he all but whispers, dropping to his knees next to the filthy kid. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay, Traveler?”

Big eyes stare up at him. They are full of fear and distrust, and a painful glint of hope. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Link sighs, takes another deep breath. “Is it your leg?”

That gets a weird combination of a nod and a shrug. “Ankle, actually.” The kid smiles at him. And it really is a nice smile, soft, and a bit shy. “I got my foot twisted under a tree root.”

He can’t help but wince because, yeah, been there. “Well that’s not too bad then.” Link grins. “A brace, a red potion, and a few days rest, and you’ll be good as new.”

The traveler nods, some of the stress seeming to bleed out of his shoulders. “That’s what I thought too. Thanks.” He pauses, gulps before continuing. “Thank you for handling the moblin for me. I… I’m not at my best right now.”] This whole section is about deepening the sympathy. He is looking at Rulie amd seeing his younger self (I have Rulie at 16 and Legend at 20) and he just wants to help. (Time: “Let me help.”)

[“No need to thank me.” Link’s smile, previously genuine, turns bitter. “That’s what heroes do.”

Just as he was starting to loosen up, the stranger tenses again, every muscle going taut as a bowstring.] So they have different reasons for the same action (getting tense). Legend is a ball of angst. Hyrule is afraid if being recognized.

[“You alright?”

“...What do you mean ‘hero?’”

And that tone of voice right there? Suspicious and untrusting? Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Link knows that tone of voice. He uses that tone of voice on the daily. He loves that tone of voice. But only when it’s coming from him. Out of another mouth, it just sounds sad.] Here Legend is an inch away from self awareness. So close. But more importantly, his recognition if the self in Rulie is getting even stronger. Every moment is another moment that they are more alike in Legend’s eyes.

[But hey, in for a green rupee, in for a gold.] LOL.

[“That would be me,” he says with his most winning smile. “Link, Hero of Legend, savior of Hyrule, chosen by the Goddess… you get the gist.”] Here I have Legend give the titles of three out of five Heroes that Link will be. Chosen, Legend, and Hyrule. This was foreshadowing no one noticed because why the fuck would you? What I did to this boy was unhinged no one saw that coming.

[And the kid just stares.

And stares.

And stares some more.] Me too buddy. Legend is so pretty.

[This is getting ridiculous. Link shakes his head. “Listen, I’m not really in the market for any missions, or quests, divine or otherwise. Firmly out of the whole kingdom-saving business. And the princess-saving gig as well. So why don’t you just tell me where you’re heading, and I’ll make sure you get to the nearest town in the right direction in one piece and we’ll call it even?”] Last attempt to avoid the situation, and he is still trying to help. What a dumb bitch.

[Those deep green eyes staring up at him suddenly roll back, and the boy goes limp.] Baby boy! Also the green here. Yes it is Rulie’s eye color. But it os also Ravio’s eye color, and every single detail Legend notices about this kid gets him more attached.

[“Well, shit.” Link grumbles, running a hand through his hair. What could have been an hour-long detour on his day is now a problem with a capital P. Because as much as he might want to, Link isn’t actually capable of abandoning some poor homeless-looking teenager in the middle of the woods. Especially not one who fainted at the sound of Link’s name.

That thought makes Link pause. Did he faint? A monster was chasing him, it could be blood loss. It could be more than just his ankle.] Standard worrying here. He feels responsible for this kid now.

[He reaches out tentatively with a small brush of magic and almost sighs in relief.] OKAY BIG MISTAKE. Rulie is the Triforce. Legend loves the Triforce. And the Triforce loves Legend. They magically harmonized here. Imprinted. Zinged. From this moment on they were both attached. [The issue is clear now. There’s an empty well where the kid’s natural magic should be, almost drained but nowhere near dangerously so. The fainting wasn’t about Link at all, it was the adrenaline fading off and the strain the poor kid’s body was under finally catching him.

The memory of that strange portal flares in his mind. That incident coupled with this guy being certifiably drained of magic after falling through makes Link realize a couple of things real quick.] Smart Leggy. Good Leggy.

[First, this kid probably made that portal. Second, he came through it as a last-ditch resort. He was running from something, or someone. Third, this poor Hylian has a lot of magic at his disposal (not only did he make a stable portal but he and a moblin went through it before it collapsed), magic that still pushes out in a wave, nauseatingly strong despite its low levels.] Bitch that’s the fucking Triforce.

[Link is almost afraid to learn how much the kid will have after he recharges.] Again, the Triforce.

Now to fast forward about three paragraphs, because while I like those paragraphs very much they can be entirely summarized as: Legend is so suicidal. How did none of you notice?

[One arm slides under bony knees, the other behind the prone Hylian’s back. Nayru’s tears, he won’t even need a power bracelet for this, he’s so thin.] So… I’m not crying, you’re crying. Their first moment together perfectly mirrors their last, and that is fine, that is so fine. Nothing is wrong here, I am okay.

[The Hero rises, an unconscious stranger held delicately in his arms.] Here we go. The pivot to Hero as a proper noun. The acceptance of the call. The attachment is personal and magical, and our journey begins with Legend carrying Rulie to safety, when he knows it will kill him. (And kind of hoping that it does.)

…this is a loop. The beginning is the end.

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

hello! I’m here to humbly ask for director’s commentary on Impure Thoughts: Some

(only if you want to!)

I'd love to! Thank you for sending in this ask 😊 Here's the ask game for anyone else who's interested!

I remember exactly what made me want to write Impure Thoughts: Some. It was this gif and the tags I saw someone leave on the original post.

I did a few writing warm-ups that were just Ed thinking about Stede with this vibe in mind. I was really struggling with finishing another fic (Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise, still unfinished but I got some weirdly accurate s2 vibes in there so that's neat) at the time so I was just trying to get myself to write anything.

It turned out to be really fun, just letting myself write something lighthearted and self-indulgent, and all those writing warm-ups fit together pretty well, so I decided to write a final chapter with the duel as the end. The goal was to have it pretty much follow canon, with another scene of Ed realizing the depth of his feelings for Stede.

And then I saw this gif:

And I figured Ed just had to kiss Stede at the end because LOOK at him he wants to kiss Stede so bad holy shit.

[delicateangelz]

BRAZILIAN RANDALL PURPURA AAAAAAAAA

randall belongs to @mortis-fox !!

[bluecatwriter]

How Good And Thoughtful

Ah, thank you for requesting this one, anon! I'm very fond of it.

"How Good and Thoughtful": "Earlier today, Jack Seward had to help kill Lucy's vampire, and now he's in the company of Mina Harker, working together to transcribe and assemble their diaries. He never expected to feel this close to someone he just met, and he's not quite sure how to handle his strong affection for his new friend."

-I put the quote from the book that inspired me at the beginning of the fic, with Mina narrating how Jack helped her get a typewriter set up so she could transcribe his diary. "How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men— even if there are monsters in it."

-Also I wanted to write this because Mina and Jack have, like, the best meeting of the whole book. They're in a romance novel except Mina's already in love with someone else. They meet at the train station, make extremely awkward small talk, Jack starts blushing furiously, he determines that he needs to keep information from her but five minutes later hands over his entire wax cylinder collection and then they read each other's diaries. I am obsessed with them!

-I'm also always gnawing away on the whole set-up of Jack and Mina spending the evening together alone in his study: Jonathan is halfway across the country tracking down boxes, and meanwhile Mina is having a sleepover with a handsome, well-bred young man whom Lucy thought she might be into— and no one, either in the story or in the way the narrative is presented, bats an eye! As someone who was raised in a very conservative environment where we were taught, explicitly or implicitly, "It is morally wrong for a woman to be alone with a man unless they're married— and this is the way it's always been!", this makes me unreasonably happy. 

-The first part of the fic is mostly logistics, putting dialogue to the summarized part of the book. I wanted to show that Jack is mostly in business mode here, trying to be helpful in any way he can.

-The canon image of Jack sitting with a book while she transcribed so she wouldn't be alone is very sweet to me, so I put it in the fic, too. Meanwhile, Jack, who is bone-tired under the best circumstances but also has been getting even less sleep (and more Horrors) than usual, begins to fantasize a bit about having Mina as a wife. As with Jack's attraction to Lucy, I think you can read his obvious rapport with Mina as being any sort of attraction— sexual, romantic, platonic— although in this fic, them getting along gets mentally slotted into the literally only category he has for a close female relationship, which is "wife."

-I wanted to make it clear that Jack is not being a creeper here, but is channeling his longing for companionship into the want for a wife (and trying very hard not to think too much about it).

-Of course Jack knows Mina is already married, and he's very excited to meet her (surely hunky) husband! I had fun imagining what kind of "strong young manhood" Jack might construct after reading Jonathan's diary. Anyone with such an iron nerve must be the kind of guy who could throw him against a wall, right…?

-Mina having to stop and stretch her hands after typing is my concern for her ligaments during all this typing she does during the novel (and shows up in some other fics, too). My girl is gonna get carpal tunnel if she doesn't stretch!

-I knew I wanted to have them touch in this scene, and figured that him rushing to help with a medical need (proper stretching technique for her hands) would be a good way to do that. I come from a family where we often give each other backrubs or foot-rubs or hand-rubs, so I have familial associations with it, but I liked that it could also be a little charged here just because massaging someone else's hands can feel pretty intimate.

-I diverged a bit from canon by having them stay up together reading through the newspapers; if I remember correctly, Mina does it by herself in the book. I liked how domestic the image was of them poring over newspapers together and reading each other snippets (sort of like how my spouse and I will scroll through our phones side by side, pausing only to show each other memes).

-Since the book has a theme of people falling asleep, I decided to have Mina doze off here (couldn't be me— I cannot sleep in a chair), which of course makes Jack feel a whole lot of other things. He's doing his best not to pine, but man.

-When he wakes Mina up and she says she's going to bed, I was very seriously tempted to veer from my original idea and let them just make out. But I decided to keep my original plan for a couple reasons: even if Mina said it was okay with Jonathan, it didn't feel believable to me for Mina and Jonathan to have discussed polyamory at this point so early in their marriage; it would've made the thing feel more like an AU rather than my vaguely-canon writings that I've compiled. Plus, I wanted the focus to be on their connection, not have the scene just be a jumping-off point for a romance (even though I might write something like the latter at some point). So I reined Jack in and kept going from there.

-I like the little conversation that Mina and Jack have here— it's so earnest and open. I was trying to convey the feeling when you meet someone and you just click and it feels like you've been friends all your life.

-I settled on Jack giving her a cheek kiss, which is still a very bold move for him but more restrained than a dubious makeout session. And then of course he feels terrible for it… but Mina understands and gives him a kiss back. One kiss is enough to make Jack crumple like a cheap paper napkin, so it's probably good I was restrained, anyway. ;) His immediate desire to "fall at her feet and sob into the folds of her skirt" was inspired by Jonathan doing just that later on in the story.

-I figured after all that, Jack needed Floor Time; I just see him as a guy who lies down a lot when he's trying to process things. (In the play I'm working on, his first entry is narrating while he's lying on his back on the floor.)

-A huge number of my fics end with the viewpoint character getting a good night's sleep. This is because 1) sleep is a big running theme in Dracula, and, more importantly, 2) I love sleeping and I want everyone else to get a good night's sleep, too. ;)

Thanks again for the ask!

(Ask game here)

[videogamepolls]

Requested by @skinsavant42

[mothpurple25]

– Moths! (≡^∇^≡)

[sanctaignorantia]

I'm so crazy, I replayed the fight with Higgs and it looked like his hair was already white even before the last part. It's really strange, because when he's wearing a hood, his hair should be darker, not lighter, I don't know…

Also, does anyone have any idea what that white, illuminated arch on Amelie's beach might be? I've seen it before, but never really stopped to look at it. It reminds me a lot of the lighting on the BB pod support…

[jessicas-pi]

is it possible for the ask game, if you could do either starbirds and wolves or a guide to the mythical and mysterious (the sabezra mythical creatures au) with directors commentary?

OOOOOH MYTHICAL & MYSTERIOUS DIRECTOR'S CUT ok buckle up I think you've unleashed a ramble monster because this AU has SO MUCH WORLDBUILDING that I haven't got to yet, and I might go off on some tangents. I'll try to restrain myself but I make no promises.

Soooo, I'm just gonna kinda read through it and talk about things as I come to them!

Okay, right off the bat, there's the framing of the fic. It's basically one long scene of Sabine & Ezra hanging out and reading each other's diaries for fun, with a ton of flashbacks. But in the first draft, the framing of the story was completely different! Instead of Sabine & Ezra reading the diaries, it was Rune (their adopted daughter) and Jacen who stole the diaries and were reading them! It had a lot of funny lines, so when I changed it, I saved all the old scenes to be reworked/rewritten into a companion fic.

Oh, another thing! So, Hera is a siren in this AU. Something I learned while researching mythical creatures is that there's basically two types of siren in mythology: the ones that are the same as mermaids, and then there's bird-women with singing powers. She's the bird-woman kind of siren because she flies! (Also, I made her a siren because the first thing Kanan noticed about her was her voice. In the very first draft, she was a selkie, and she and kanan had a meet cute where he very innocently picked up her coat that she'd dropped to return it to her and she thought he was stealing it and tackled him.)

And on the topic of selkies, Zeb's a selkie! He's purple because of a prank gone wrong. (Sabine thought the dye would wash right out of his coat! Honest!)

OOH, so, I just got to the part where Sabine's diary entry is about Ezra joining the crew, and that reminded me! One flashback scene that I wrote and ended up cutting was how Sabine and Ezra met. It was very little-mermaid-esque, but with a lot more confused screaming.

Hmmm, not much I can think of in the next few sections...

AH WAIT OK SO THERE'S THIS BIT!!

It had been rough at the beginning, but ever since he got rid of that red crystal pendant he brought up from the trenches of Malachor, he’d been much easier to get along with.

So, in case context doesn't give it away, the crystal he took from the trenches of Malachor is basically the Sith holocron. Dark side planets/places in general (Malachor, Dathomir, etc.) are various trenches and such in this---the deeper in the sea, the Darker the place. And Malachor itself...

Well, lets just say, I may have been slightly (incredibly) obsessed by the deep sea as a kid, so Malachor is my JAM.

Instead of a Sith temple, that giant pyramidal structure is replaced by an underwater volcano. The various pillars and columns scattered across the surface of Malachor are now hydrothermal vents (my beloveds). There's also a lot of bleached bones---whale falls, and (more creepily) merfolk skeletons.

OHH AND THAT BRINGS ME TO VARIOUS DARKSIDERS.

So, Force-sensitives are all merfolk in this AU (but not all merfolk are force-sensitive). But Dark-side merfolk look much different than regular mer. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from creepy deep sea animals (also my beloveds). All merfolk have bioluminescent patterns that shift colors, but Dark-siders have theirs permanently turned red. partly because of the red lightsaber thing, but also because no red light reaches the deep sea, so a lot of animals are red because they're essentially invisible, UNLESS they're seen by an animal that emits red light and can therefore see/hunt/kill the red animals, so emitting red light symbolizes how the Dark mer have become exclusively predatory and destructive.

uhhh I got kinda distracted there. ANYWAY,

Oh, there's that line about how Ezra has a habit of curling his tailfin around people's legs so he doesn't float away mid-conversation! So, there's lore to that. Basically, it's a mer-child thing. Little Mer don't have enough control of their body in the water to stay in one place. Kanan doesn't do it, because he grew up with the merfolk and in this AU he was an adult by the time they were wiped out, so he learned to adjust himself in the water with little movements. Ezra was a child when the merfolk were killed, so he never learned that and the habit of holding onto people with his tail has carried over, which is why he still does it as an older teenager.

Pff oh yeah also. that "this is... detailed" thing. I know the details. I know all the details. I will not be elaborating. Some things must remain unknown.

Oh! And the scene where they're talking up in the crow's nest of the ship and it's mentioned that Sabine spends time up there! That was a reference to Krownest! Get it? Crow's nest? Krownest? hehehe i'm so funny

OH OH OH SABINE'S BACKSTORY!! This wasn't elaborated much in the first draft but with the rewrite it got more attention. Although the circumstances are different than in canon, I tried to keep a lot of it the same---Sabine goes into a situation willingly trusting someone who doesn't have her best interests at heart and gets blindsided by their betrayal. ALSO ANOTHER FUN FACT!! In the original version she was an Amazon and not a Valkyrie!! But then I changed it up so she only joined the Amazons for a time after leaving her old life behind. She was determined to join their ranks and fit in, despite all the culture clashes, but when her Amazonian battle-sister left her for dead after she was injured in a skirmish, Sabine cut all her ties with them and left.

Ahh yeah this bit never fails to make me giggle.

“All right, all right,” she laughed. “Maybe I was a little slow in admitting my feelings for you.” “Aha! So you do have feelings for me!” He pointed a victorious finger at her.

At first glance, it's cute banter that hints that their friendship has started developing into a romance. Gains a new level of comedy when you reread it knowing that by this point, they're married.

Heheh the boat ride to krownest scene. Kanan's blind and he still knows they're silently flirting with each other.

OOH! JET! K I'm gonna probably go on a ramble now, anyway: Jet was Sabine's pegasus since she was a child. She left Jet behind when she ran away. During this AU's version of "Imperial Supercommandoes," they're confronted by Gar Saxon and his cronies on pegasi. He tells Sabine that after her mother became the leader of the Valkyries, she "generously gave us access to her stables." In reality, Ursa's hand was forced and the pegasi were taken from her. Sabine recognizes one of the horses there as Jet, and he recognized her. During the fight that followed, Jet's rider was shot, and Sabine grabbed his reins and she and Ezra made their getaway with him.

(In Heroes of Mandalore, instead of being bad at flying a jetpack, Ezra got stuck with a pegasus who hated him and kept trying to buck him off in midair lol)

Hmmm going on...

Oh! Ezra is an ocean Merfolk, and like saltwater (ocean) fish, he can't survive (shapeshifted into his mer-form) in freshwater. That's why it was so dangerous for him to jump in after Sabine fell through the ice---it was a freshwater lake.

Also, the scene where he deliriously asks her to take him to Valhalla if he dies, because "merfolk don't have anywhere to go," is a reference to the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, where mermaids turn to seafoam when they die.

Ahhhh yes, the necklace! I think I said this before in the tags of one of my merfolk art posts, but, so, for merfolk, giving handmade shell-jewelry is usually a marriage proposal, but it's not, like, automatically legally binding or anything. So basically, when 15-year-old Ezra gave Sabine her shell necklace, it was the equivalent of if you jokingly got down on one knee and offered your unrequited crush a cheap plastic ring from a cereal box or something, expecting her to roll her eyes, but instead she's like "Aw thanks! A ring!" and she starts unironically wearing the cheap plastic ring all the time and now you realize that she doesn't know it was a joke proposal because apparently rings don't go with proposals in her culture and you can't explain the joke now, it's way too late, and you want to die of embarrassment.

Oh yeah also Ezra found a pair of elaborate jewel-encrusted daggers in a shipwreck and gave them to Sabine. This is a reverse necklace situation--to reuse the metaphor, it's like if your best friend got down on one knee, pulled out a gorgeous diamond ring, and said "I found this in a gravel pit! It's for you cause I know you like cool rings bestiegirl!! :D" and you're like "...uh... thanks!" and you take the ring because it is a cool ring and you do love cool rings and you don't tell him that he basically proposed because apparently rings don't go with proposals in his culture.

mmmm yeah the love's lights scene. ahhh so much I could say. I guess, it was really fun in this part (and throughout the whole fic) to explore how Ezra wasn't entirely human, and how his merfolk instincts would affect him, especially regarding the way merfolk fall in love and the once-a-year merfolk festival. I actually have an outlined idea for a fic in the series that's about weird merfolk quirks and different traditions they have, so I might explore things more in that one.

ah man I am never gonna get tired of writing Sabine deciding to do random impromptu flirting and Ezra bluescreening over it.

oh yeah shoutout to Robert Louis Stevenson by the way, I stole a plot device from him (character hides in an apple barrel and overhears Important Things)

And then Rune and Jacen come in at the end! This was an adaptation of one of the original scenes of the fic that I mentioned at the beginning of this.

One other thing, I guess--the character named Koti is an orphaned mermaid girl that Kanan and Hera took in, so she's Jacen's little sister. the "guppies," as Rune calls them, are her three merfolk siblings--two of them are adopted and one is a sabezra kid. (said adopted children may or may not be rey and finn.) (Oh, and the guy Rune has a crush on? Poe Dameron. Obviously.)

Hmmm I think that's about it for this director's cut! Which is probably good considering I just dumped slightly under 2k words of ramble on ya

Thank you for the ask!! :D

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

I know he means this literally but imagine just telling some guy you've known for ten mins, "Anyway I need you to shower for my research".