#girl cynthia is SOOOOOOOO cool but like

[goldensunset]

wow that person from my last reblog was right! completely insane takes in the volo tag lol

[diamond-dangeresque]

Solid reads on these characters. I just wanted to add my own 2 cents if that's cool:

Alan // Alice: Alice is definitely obsessed if only because one kind of has to be in order to return to a place that is both deeply traumatizing (re: the manuscript pages from AW1 about how Alice was basically losing her marbles and screaming herself hoarse while being held in the Dark Place) and into the belly of a beast who wants nothing more than to hurt/maim/kill/etc. you simply because your husband is trapped there. She could have 100% taken the widow route, build her photography career up, use the earnings from her husband's IP and estate to just Do Literally Anything Else. But this? Nah, this cements her as 100% Ride Or Die for Alan, and I can respect the fuck out of that.

(With that said...my feelings for her have always been a little conflicted as her trying to get Alan help was through...well, I'm saying maybe Alan would have been more receptive to it if she didn't use deceit/omission of truth to get to that point, and said actions start the game's story proper.🤷‍♀️ Also Hartman would have 500% made the situation worse, but neither of them would have known that going into this, so... Again, though, AW2 is the start of her glow-up story for sure and no matter what she's always had her hubby's best interests in mind. God, what an icon.)

Alan // Rose: I'm so so so soooooooo invested in Rose (and not because "she just like me fr fr", no SIR) and her story. Cynthia and Rose were meant to be parallels from pretty much the get-go, and while she is...definitely handling her obsession with her preferred artist in a cleaner and less-problematic way than Cynthia, I don't think she'll be walking the same path per se. One of the biggest reasons why I think this is a very simple difference between the two: while Rose is envious of the position Alice was in, she never disliked her. On the other hand, Cynthia only had contempt for Barbara Jagger and she makes this clear both verbally and visually between AW1 and 2. All that said, yeah, both their obsessions got them manipulated by the Dark Presence... I'm still rooting for my girl and I hope she gets out of this OK. I also want her, ultimately, to not let her obsession consume her and poison what could in fact be a good friendship with Alan and/or Alice after all this is over.

Alan // Scratch: Lord have mercy, these two. I haven't played American Nightmare and so my information on it (and Scratch by extension) is coming from a combination of a longplay on YT plus wiki-reading, fair warning. Of what I do know, plus having played through AW2, I can say this much: Scratch is a part of Alan that the latter is denying, and desperately so. While he may have been initially formed as a coagulation of bad-faith stories, malicious rumors, and other nasty tales about the man...well, all rumors and such have a kernel of truth to them, no? He is narcissistic to a degree, and he does have a short temper, and he is mean to those he's supposed to be closest to. When Scratch died in AWAN, what I think actually happened is that the façade of Scratch died (being a murdery creep, being a sleazeball) but the core of him remained (the belligerence, the moodiness, the willingness to lash out at loved ones for his own creative frustrations). This is the essence of Scratch in AW2, and it's why he haunts Alan the way he does in that game. It's also why he's practically pleading/bragging to Alan that "you are home!" and "we are the heart!" during that Eternal Deerfest.

Scratch knows and understands he's incomplete, he just needs Alan to know and understand this too and to stop running from him all the damn time. "Balance Slays The Demon" actually spells out exactly what I'm trying to say here:

In the end, it's never just the light you need, When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace, In the end, it's never just the dark you seek, When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace

thanks tor and odin, you pair o' peaches, you!!

If Alan wants to put down the Dark Presence once and for all, he can't simply be The Champion of Light, nor is succumbing to (be) The Herald of Darkness an option either. He needs both. He needs to be both. Alan Wake needs to pull his head out of his ass once and for all, look Mr. Scratch in the eye, and take him back. Accept him in totality. Real "I am thou and thou art I" bullshit. Then, and only then (imho), will Alan be able to deal with The Dark Presence for good. Whether that will also let him leave Cauldron Lake alive, I'm not so sure. No one's ever left the Lake alive without there being consequences for it. We'll see.

An analysis of Alice, Rose, and Scratch’s relationship with Alan as it relates to obsession. Well, my interpretation of their relationships with him.

I love how in the game, there are characters, well three in total, who have an obsession (well, not in Alice’s case but I’ll get to that) with Alan Wake (the man himself) and how interesting those dynamics are in relation to how Alan views the person.

With Alice, it’s not an obsession but she does do everything she can to help her husband, even willing to throw herself back into the Dark Place to help him and is helping him every step of the way. Alice has always wanted to help Alan, which is what led her to bringing him to Bright Falls to get help, and I can imagine that Alice is happy to finally be able to help Alan, even if it’s from a distance.

With Alan, he cares so much for Alice. He cares to the point of doing anything to ensure her safety, even if it ends up being detrimental to himself, such as sacrificing himself so that Alice could emerge out of the lake, and Alan is constantly worry about Alice, with his goal often being about how to help her, to save her even. Alan’s view of Alice is almost like he doesn’t believe she can handle herself, which is the exact opposite, and when Alan falls for Alice’s rise in believing that she is dead, he gets furious, then guilt ridden when he learns that it was him haunting her, causing him to almost have a disregard to himself, thinking of saving everyone and even ending the story with him dead, taking Scratch with him and Alice refusing to let that happen as she helps him ascend by leading him to where he needs to be, slowly inching him towards ascension as Alan probably has something he hasn’t felt in a while, hope. Hope of escaping and to be with Alice (and I do hope they will be together in the end and the story not end in tragedy)

Alan’s relationship with Alice is one on how romantic relationships are, on how it’s about love but also about conflict in the relationship. Alan’s refusal to get any sort of help and to sulk when he was experiencing Writers Block began to strain his and Alice’s relationship and how as much as Alice tried to help, Alan had to be willing to put in the work. It’s about how mutual their relationship should be, instead of Alice constantly worrying about him as Alan, quite frankly, treated her and others around him like shit. It’s about how strong their love is, with Alan being shocked how Alice was still with him, even after everything he did, and their relationship isn’t abusive, it is heavily flawed, just like all types of relationships are. Their relationship to each other is about care and so, so much love for one another, and how that even if relationships grow sour, there is always a chance to change it and to possibly have their relationships become stronger because of it, and that through all their hardships and being separated for so long, their love for each other remains just as strong as it did thirteen years ago.

It’s not exactly obsession, but I feel like Alice’s relationship with Alan is important to keep in mind as I continue to discuss about other two people who have more intense feelings for the writer, but in more unhealthy ways.

With Rose, almost everything she does revolves around Alan. She worships him, wants to be his muse, wants to be with him, and writes fanfic about him (which is not a bad thing but I love that she writes fanfic, you go girl) and she basically has a shrine of him, but is able to show self restraint when she meets up with Alan, which surprises me, because she was very professional when she met with Alan, but with Saga she was basically gushing about him, being happy to help him in whatever ways she can, doing anything to help him, and I mean anything.

Alan’s relationship with Rose is one akin to a parasocial relationship. Rose is head over heels for Alan, calling herself his ‘muse all along’ and writing fanfic and drawing sketches about him while Alan remembers her ‘as Rose from the Diner’. Since Alan said that he wasn’t leaving Rose any messages, it was most likely Scratch, and it shows how easily Rose is to be manipulated by others if they just use that ‘Alan needs her’ (Saga even said the phrase that Rose had been waiting for and got excited even though Saga didn’t believe that she was a character in his story) and, believe me I understand liking an famous people or obsessing over a fictional character, but Rose took it to the next level, having her whole life dedicated to helping Alan and, being stated to ‘read The Sudden Stop before she goes to bed’, and while it’s okay to like authors or fictional characters and actors, it’s not when it becomes to unhealthy standards, like how Rose started to basically dedicate her life to him and never outgrowing that obsession for him.

Rose’s obsession with Alan was used by her to Scratch’s advantage, using her obsession of Alan to his own gain, and with Rose’s parallel to Cynthia Weaver, who was obsessed with Zane and how that ruined her life and led to her demise, it is very possible that Rose’s obsession with Alan may lead to her demise. (I love Rose and while it’s fine to like Alan’s work, considering her parallel to Cynthia, I hope that her obsession with Alan doesn’t consume her to the point that she doesn’t have a life outside of a singular goal to help her crush, just like Cynthia, and I hope that Scratch leaves my girl alone!)

Now speaking of Scratch, let’s get to him.

Scratch is OBSESSED with Alan. Scratch is basically after Alan in Alan’s section of the game. Scratch is way different than his American Nightmare self, being more reclusive in his appearances rather than his more boisterous self in American Nightmare (and also that he was drenched in blood a majority of the time) He then hitches a ride in Alan’s body, laying dormant until Saga got the Clicker, then he comes out and WANTS the Clicker, so much that he even takes over Saga’s Mind Palace before Saga regained control. Then Scratch takes over Casey, takes the Clicker, and turns Bright Falls into a never ending DEERFEST in which they talk only about one thing: Alan. It’s all about Alan, about his book, Return, and how is a fantastic writer.

Now we get to the chase scene in the Wellness Center. Scratch says many stuff that alludes to his obsession of Alan (and himself by extension) saying lines such as ‘welcome be back home’ and ‘everything revolves around us’ and ‘you are home’ a bunch of other lines. It’s such specific dialogue that Scratch says, mostly referring to him and Alan as one, especially since he had disdain for Alan in American Nightmare, often remarking that he is better than Alan and doesn’t even want to be put in the same league as him. Now, we have to remember that Scratch is now an aspect of Alan in AW2, so Scratch’s obsession over him could be the fact that they are both linked together, with Scratch being Alan’s dark self manifested.

Now, Alan’s relationship with Scratch is purely antagonistic. Alan holds immense disdain for Scratch, to the point of writing a note that Scratch is bad. Since Scratch wrote Return and Alan modified it, Alan has even more disdain for Scratch, and then he learned that, apparently, Scratch was haunting Alice, which resulted in her ‘death’, and then Alan went and shot who he thought was Scratch, only to learn that it was him, that he was the one haunting Alice.

Alan then, as a result of Saga being thrown into the Dark Place and Alice’s ‘death’ and Casey being taken over, blames himself for everything that happened, and while he still has animosity for Scratch, he acknowledges that he also had a role in what happened and that he had to fix it, with him writing him dying, taking Scratch with him, beckoning him home, most likely a symbolism of Alan accepting his dark sides, as Saga shoots him with the Bullet of Light, resulted in him dying, then coming back as he utters “It’s not a Loop, it’s a Spiral.”, leaving Scratch’s fate ambiguous.

Scratch and Alan’s relationship is one of repression, of trying not ignore your worst qualities, and instead of trying to resolve them, you ignore them as you let them fester, and since Alan is in the Dark Place, a place that can alter reality, Alan’s dark self was manifested as Scratch, at first a murderous, suave being who had no regards for anything and dislikes Alan, to an animalistic egotistical being that wants to take over Alan’s body (and if you want you can also interpret Scratch wanting to be Alan so that he can take his place, just like how Mr Scratch in AWAN wanted, but instead of being separate he wants to be the only one, which may be why he wants to be in Alan’s body, since technically Alan would be out of the picture) in which Mr Scratch represented people’s interpretation of Alan while Scratch represents Alan’s repressed emotions.

I wonder how Scratch will be in NG+ or in a hypothetical Alan Wake 3 if NG+ doesn’t wrap up the ending. I wonder if he will even play a part since Alan technically took him ‘back home’ or if Scratch is still out there. Since this is a spiral, is Scratch still inside Alan? I guess we will have to wait and see until NG+

Can’t wait to see what else is in store for this amazing game and, if NG+ really does change a lot, how these relationships change (or not change) in NG+ (and to see more of Alice)

To anyone who has read all of this (my ramblings) uh… thanks. Feel free to correct me if I got anything incorrect and wow this was a longer post than expected.