#i don’t think I’ll tag for book 3 reveals past the one year mark though. like that feels reasonable to me

[lady-harrowhark]

Clarification here: I will still tag for the series in general! That tag will stay regardless of anything else. My tagging system is like a daughter to me and I would not abandon her. I am only referring here to the additional tag meant to hide discussion of what happens in the third book :)

sorry, the weird wording is intentional in an attempt to get around filters since that's who this would be most relevant for anyway!

i'll still tag on original posts, but i've caught myself slipping a few times on reblogs recently and figured the six month anniversary was a good time for a check in, especially since we have this handy dandy new feature :)

[alexseanchai]

Fanfic 2020 in Review

I got tagged by @kasienda @noirshitsuji and @marvelousmsmol and I am tagging whoever wants to play!

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

*filters own works to complete and updated in 2020*

1 - 20 of 57 Works by AlexSeanchai

nope. *adds filter to include only works of at least 1000 words*

unless otherwise indicated, these are all Miraculous Ladybug:

“don’t bake it lying down”, post-reveal Marichat vs Felix Graham de Vanily

“veracity”, canon divergence from “Ladybug” featuring Mister Bug and Verity Queen (so also Marichat, I guess)

“(no request is too extreme, if) your heart is in your dream”, in which Hawkmoth wins, for the thirty seconds or so before Emilie saves Ladybug and Chat Noir’s lives

“tell me you love me and make me believe it”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire ropes Ladybug into helping plan her civilian self’s escape slash social transition

“kingmaker, oathbreaker”, in which Hawkmoth wins and Emilie watches her son remove himself from the family

“stay and let me watch you break it down” (Twelve Dancing Princesses), a modern setting

“set a course for winds of fortune”, in which trans girl Chatonne Noire has already escaped and Gabriel and Nathalie are trying to bring Gabriel’s son home

“we ground love in a hopeless place”, in which post-reveal Marinette’s attempt to remain resolutely not in love with her partner dissolves like sugar in coffee when they start a pun war

“ring the bells that still can ring”, in which Alya is deeply confused about why Adrien and Marinette are planning a wedding when last night both were single

“burning wishes at both ends (the cold wind and long loud wail remix)”, in which Gabriel made a monkey’s paw wish and Emilie makes another

“words cannot espresso”, in which Marinette’s OC roommate is justifiably worried for Marinette’s safety, and meanwhile Adrien takes care of Marinette

“the compromise of truth” (the chronologically second-earliest part posted to date of nine lives, snake’s eyes), in which Adrien tells his friends how he won some freedom and respect from his father

“At The Present Time”, the Ladrien/Ladynoir marriage proposal follow-up to @art-deco-shrimp‘s  “Your Presents Required”

“j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”, in which the events of canon must just have been a series of dream sequences, Marinette and Adrien both think, until they both arrive at Chloe’s Halloween masquerade dressed as themselves from the dreams

2) Number of words written:

ahahaha no. I am not counting all my scattered fic drafts and trying to figure out what I did and didn’t write in 2020. I refuse.

AO3 says I posted 162K in 2020. it is counting all of keeps you guessing (like any real love), which (a) I started posting in 2019 (b) is co-written by @galahadwilder​; it is counting all of my meta snippets collection, much of which was written in 2019; it is counting the Vimeo passwords for my vids. but I probably cleared 150K by a safe margin.

3) Your most popular fic:

“veracity” has a four-digit kudos count, wow, when’d that happen? this is also the 2020 work with the most hits and the most bookmarks, but “tell me you love me” has four-thirds as many comments as its nearest competitor.

4) Your personal fav:

“cannot break us, not with a thousand swords”, no question about it. this is the one in which Ladybug proposes marriage to Chat Noir via Princess Bride meme on Tumblr. (if you intend to download the work or otherwise to consume it with creator style off, you want the accessible version instead of the primary version.)

5) Your fav scene:

aaaaaaaaa

—okay so this is cheating and I know it, since Uncertain Humors (the one where Marinette/Adrien is both Orpheus/Eurydice and Theseus/Ariadne) is nowhere near finished, never mind posted (maybe I'll get “Sanguine” done to post on my birthday?)

but it is still my favorite of the year. as you might guess from that description of the story, this scene has content notes for character death:

Hell is a maze. Marinette walks.

This acrid passage has little to see but damp stone, seeming blood-stained in the dim carmine light. At about the height of her heart, the faintly glowing thread cuts through the not-clammy air; it ought to be pulsing at the same rate as the heart it's bound to. She might be able to see her own reflection if she looked down at the open sewage pipe, or at one of the puddles that now and again she splashes through, dampening the canvas of her shoes. She might see reflected what's behind her.

She remembers Mme. Mendeleiev lecturing on human physiology. In healthy humans old enough to have learned how, urination is a voluntary action: one may not know which muscles one tenses and relaxes in order to do so, and probably isn't paying attention to those details when one is doing, but one has conscious control over whether one does. Usually. Stress and anxiety mean some people are unable to relax the relevant sphincter muscle and others are unable to stop themselves. It's voluntary for cats, too: it's one way they mark their territories. Cat-boys have other ways.

There is a moment in every human life when all one's muscles relax at once. Some Parisians have had several such moments.

The thread is braided with itself around her left fourth finger, rows of tiny red half-hitch knots, and falls loosely over the back of her hand to loop twice around her wrist. She holds it wrapped between the fingers of her right hand to keep it at a constant tension, as though knitting with this insubstantial thread, so fragile for something two (two dozen, two million) lives hang from—too thin to sew with, no thicker than one strand of his hair. As she walks, she winds it around and around and around her wrist.

Between her ring finger and her right hand, it loops twice.

Marinette's shoe lands in a puddle she didn't see. The rainwater splashes soundlessly onto her bare ankle and on the stone.

(With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal— It's a very loud song.)

She walks on.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

where the firelight fades, no contest. this is the second story I’ve ever been able to stick with more than a couple hundred words past the 20K mark, but it’s easily the twentieth novel-length I’ve begun. (though also, you know that kedreeva post? well, 90K later, I’m less than 15K from completing this 10K fic! I think.) and I have been learning so much about long-form fiction.

there has also been a lot of weeping and tearing my hair. case in point: I just trashed the chapter 15 draft because I figured out the reason it wasn’t going anywhere! I can probably keep the first few hundred words of that draft without any editing, and another few hundred with some revision...

7) A line of writing you’re proud of:

from “j'ai rêvé (so I don't have to dream alone)”:

Everything about their partnership is fragments of sentences in the dream diary Adrien writes in ultraviolet pen. Disjointed flickers of thought even when examined under the black light he hides in the snack cabinet under packets of Super Yoyo sandwich cookies and bags of cheesy Monster Munch potato chips and boxes of petit écolier butter cookies (chocolat noir)—none of which explains the gym-socks smell. All fleeting incoherent flashes, invisible between the mundane lines of La Modification shelved at his bedside between Leroux and Dumas. None of it is solid. Adrien has more proof his room's haunted.

okay let me break this down for you!

* Adrien started a dream diary to make sense of the memories

* in invisible ink, in a book that (according to Wikipedia) is thematically appropriate and won’t (if Gabriel sees it) look like anything other than Adrien developing an interest in French literature

* shelved between Phantom of the Opera and The Three Musketeers

* look I didn’t come up with the name “black light”

* or “chocolat noir” for what English speakers call “dark chocolate”, or “petit écolier” (that is, “little schoolboy”) for that sort of butter cookie

* also not my fault that “chocolat noir” sounds remarkably like “Chat Noir”, which, attentive readers may have noticed, is not a name that appears in the story after the header and before Miraculous Cure

* I found the website of a store in Boston, Massachusetts that caters to French expats, and the yo-yo cookies and the monster chips were right there in the photos, y’all

* the snack stash and the black light live in the cabinet where, in canon, the Camembert lives; yes, that cheese smells in the real world like gym socks

* this story’s akuma was not able to affect anything but squishy human memory: nobody affected remembers anything about Ladybug or Chat Noir or Hawkmoth, not in any solid way, not even when they read news articles about the subject, and this includes Marinette and Adrien not being able to see or hear or remember their own kwamis—but you know what Adrien’s Insta post about his poltergeist and Adrien’s Insta post with the floating sock don’t show and don’t explicitly refer to?

* I love this paragraph so much (my housemates may have been lovingly mocking me over it)

8) A comment that touched you:

there are people (y’all know who you are) who said y’all are studying my style. I ded of blush.

9) Something that inspired your writing:

by volume of fic drafts that can be blamed on any particular person, the winner is probably @norakwami​

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

so that longest-story-ever-written record I set in 2007 with the 89.5K story that, till where the firelight fades, was the only story I’d gotten much past 20K?

I broke that fucking record!

and then I deleted the draft of firelight chapter 15 😭

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

I’m starting work on a fantasy novel, a Sleeping Beauty retelling in which I explore (among other things) the economic consequences of the king’s ordering all the spinning wheels burned, and I want to make significant progress on that. and I want to not make my hands any worse; I kind of need those!

(breaking news alert: bodies fucking suck. so does giving yourself repetitive stress injuries in doing one and a half to two people’s worth of work for an organization that was never ever going to pay you more than one person’s worth of pay.)

[suckitsurveys]

Ready to answer 151 Questions? No.

1. When was the last time you swam in a pool? Last week. I am extremely grateful to have access to a pool this summer. It’s at my sister’s mother in law’s. She lets my sister and her daughters use it while she’s at work and I tag along too.  2. Do you like to party? I love throwing parties. Not like, huge drunk ragers, but bday parties are my specialty.  3. If your ex suddenly kissed you right now, what would you do? I’ve been social distancing myself from them for almost 10 years, so. 4. Are you a virgin? Nope. 5. What are your parents views on your relationships? My dad likes Mark.

6. If you ran into your current boyfriend/crush in 10 years, would you marry them? I am married to my crush.  7. Is your best friend dating anyone? One is. 8. Describe the shirt you’re wearing? It’s an olive green shirt with the Route 66 logo on it. 9. Do people who wear Hollister and Abrerbrombie every day bother you? I really don’t care. 10. Could you go out in public without wearing make-up? I do that 99.99% of the time. 11. What is one feature that you don’t like? On myself? My stomach. 12. Would people describe you as happy? Not currently.  13. Are you single? Nope. 14. Does it bother you that pretty much every survey you take asks if you’re single? Nah. 15. Do you have Tumblr? I really only use it for this, which I also haven’t done in a while either.

16. What about Xanga? Aww, RIP Xanga. 17. Have you ever babysat before? Yes. 18. Is there a teacher who you absolutely hate? Most of my college professors.  19. Ever shopped at Sephora? I think I’ve been in one before? 20. If your current boyfriend/crush suddenly moved away, what would you do? I mean, I’d be pretty shocked and hurt. 21. Do you have any university plans? Lol. 22. If your best friend revealed she was a homosexual, what would you do? Support her?  23. What are your views on sex? Be safe! Always get consent! 24. Do sexual questions bother you? No. 25. Would you rather have sex with your boyfriend or break up? Uh, what? 26. Have you ever dreamed about your wedding? Yeah. 27. Does it bother you when people TYpe 1yk dis’? Yeah, I don’t see too much of it anymore. 28. Do you delete pictures of you and your exes off of Facebook? Yes. 29. Would you ever date a friends Ex? I did that once oops. 30. What’s the last book you read? I’m still working on a couple. 31. Ready for 10 simple questions? Sure. 32. What is your last name? No. 33. What grade are you in? No. 34. What school do you go to? No. 35. Summer, Fall, Winter or Spring? Summer and early fall.  36. Favorite Color? Purples and blues. 37. Are your parents together? My father is widowed.  38. Any siblings? I have an older sister. 39. Favorite subject? Eh.

40. Least favorite subject? Eh. 41. Favorite song? I could never just choose one. 42. Okay. Simple questions are over. Happy? I don’t care. 43. How many friends do you have on Facebook? 200 something. 44. Ever been requested by some old guy from another country? Probably. 45. Have you ever googled yourself? Yeah. 46. Have a Formspring? No. 47. You’re offered free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. What do you do? Take them and sell them :P 48. Would you rather spend the day at an amusement park or a water park? Waterpark. Ughhhhhhhhh I miss waterparks so much. It’s so weird to not be going this summer. 49. Been to Disney world? Nope. 50. If someone posts their status “9 Inches :(” do you know what they mean? Sounds like one of those things where people post a random status from a list of things that will likely get people’s attention and whoever comments on it is privately sent said list of thing and they then choose something to post as their status and so on. That was a popular game thing on Facebook years ago. <---Yeah, that. 51. Ever had a boyfriend? Yes.

52. Ever had a huge crush on someone who still doesn’t know? I doubt Will Arnett knows I’m in love with him. 53. Have you done something in the last week that you regret? No. 54. Ever drank alcohol? Yes. 55. Know anyone who’s currently doing drugs? Yeah. 56. Ever watched The Hills? No. 57. What about Jersey Shore? Yes. 58. Ever called someone a slut? I’ve said that jokingly to friends. 59. What do you think of short shorts? You do you. 60. Does it bother you if people swear around you? Nope. 61. Have you ever gotten an A in a subject? Yes. 62. What about a B? Yes. 63. And a C? Yes. 64. How about a D? Yeah. 65. Ever skived? What’s that? 66. Would you consider yourself popular and outcast or somewhere in the middle? I’d say somewhere in the middle. I had friends, but I wasn’t “popular” by any means. 67. Are most of your friends older or younger than you? Most are older.  68. Ever been stabbed in the back by a close friend? Yes. 69. Do you think it’s immature when people laugh at the number 69? Oops. 70. Ever watched porn? Yes. 71. How many laws do you think you’ve broken in the past month? I drove with out a seat belt (for a few blocks) and jay walked oops.  72. Do you wake up with an alarm clock? On work days, yes. 73. Do you prefer Wednesdays or Thursdays? Wednesdays.  74. If your school had a Glee Club would you join? No. 75. Ever performed in a talent show? No. 76. Have you ever cried in public? Yeah. 77. Do you have a favorite between your Mom and your Dad? I’ve always had a special bond with my dad. I love my mom, but we butt heads a lot when I was a teenager. I feel like our bond was getting stronger just before she died and I’m really sad we don’t get to know each other as we got older.  78. Would you audition for a reality talent competition? Nooo. I have zero talent. 79. How many celebrity crushes have you had? A lot. 80. How many non-celebrity crushes have you had? A lot. 81. Name 5 male celebrities who you think are attractive. Will Arnett, Paul Rudd, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Ezra Koenig 82. Name 5 female celebrities who you think are attractive. Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, Lana Del Rey, Alia Shawkat, Kat Dennings 83. Ever been compared to a celebrity? Ha, no. 84. Have any embarrassing pictures on Facebook? No. 85. Do you think spending £20 on Lip Gloss is a waste of money? Idk what that is in US dollars but I don’t usually buy lip gloss, so. 86. Are you opinionated? I can be. 87. Do you have a favorite store? Sure. 88. Would you ever wear Flare Jeans? I used to in grade school. 89. Do you own jeans that aren’t skinny? I have one pair of “boyfriend” jeans that I don’t really like.  90. Have you ever worn the same outfit twice in one week? Hello, pandemic? 91. What’s the longest period of time you’ve been away from school? I don’t know. 92. Do you google abbreviations you don’t understand? Yeah. 93. Does it bother you when people have cats as their profile picture? I don’t care? 94. Own a pair of converse? Yes. 95. Is there a teacher at your school who has obvious favorites? There was. 96. If yes, are you one of them? Never. 97. Do you text in class? I have. 98. What brand of jeans do you wear the most? Target. 99. At what point do you think sizes are “Plus Sized?” Fuck that shit. “Plus” implies that there is a standard size. 100. Do you want to lose weight? I’d like to be healthier.  101. Ever seen a therapist? No, but I should. 102. Ever watched porn? You asked me this.  103. Ever purposely ignored a text? Yes. 104. A facebook message? Yes. 105. A poke? I always ignored those. That was a dumb feature Facebook had. 106. A friend request? Yeah. I don’t accept a request from anyone I don’t know, but I have it set up where you can’t add me unless you are friends with someone I am friends with.  107. Would you say you read into things too much? Yepppp. 108. Is your best friend more likely to be the one suggesting something stupid or refusing to do something stupid? I don’t know. 109. Do you have a “fun friend?” (A friend who you have tons of fun with but you never really have deep conversations?) Eh. 110. Ever been called a bully? No. 111. Ever purposely hurt yourself? Yes. 112. Ever gone to church? I went to a Lutheran high school and we used to have “chapel” every first full school day of the week (usually mondays). That was kind of a church service. And one time I spent the night at a friends house on a Saturday and was blindsided the next morning when her parents were like “okay time for church!” 113. Would you call either of your parents screw ups? Absolutely not! 114. If you turned out exactly like your mom would you be pleased? Yes and no. 115. What do you want to do with your life? Lol.

116. Let me guess… You have brown hair? My roots right now are basically a really dirty blonde. And my tips were black but they are pretty brown right now. And hair inbetween is mint green lol. Pandemic hair ftw. 117. Already know what you’re being for Halloween? I’ll probably be Princess Carolyn again. Or just a bat, since I have both of those costumes.  118. Do you still go Trick or Treating? With my nieces, but we probably won’t be able to go this year :(  119. Ever liked someone WAY older than you? Celebrities. 120. Does it bother you when people have really loud conversations on the bus? Yes. 121. When you have sunglasses on, do you stare at people? I have. 122. Ever had a credit card denied? Yeah. 123. What’s the last movie you watched? Oh god, it’s been a while. I Love You Man, I think? 124. Last TV Show? Property Brothers, lol.  125. You see your Ex making out with one of your friends. What do you do? They wouldn’t.  126. Ever been called a whore? Jokingly. 127. Are you american? Yes. 128. Ever made yourself throw up? Yeah. 129. Have you ever kissed someone who wasn’t your boyfriend? Uh huh. 130. Are you Cute or Gross? Yes. 131. Does it bother you when people say “LOOK HOW MUCH YOU’VE GROWN!”? No one has said that to me in a very long time. I don’t recall being bothered by it, though. 132. Can you say intelligent things around the guy you like? Um, yes? Why couldn’t I? 133. Ever had the lead in a play? Not the lead, no. 134. What about a solo in a concert? Nope. 135. What kind of a student are you? I did okay in grade and high school. 136. Worst subject? All of college. 137. Best subject? Not college. 138. Ever had a crush on a teacher? Yeah. 139. Would it bother you if you found out that your mother was pregnant? Seeing as she’s dead, yeah, a little. 140. How late do you sleep in? On work days I sleep until the absolutely last minute, right before we are supposed to check in for a daily meeting at 7:10am, lol. And on weekends or days off I normally don’t sleep past 10.   141. Do you edit your profile pictures before posting them? A little. I brighten up my face and smooth it out. Sue me.  142. Be 100% honest. Do you have any friends who are uglier than you? All my friends are beautiful in their own ways.  143. Do you believe in love? Yes.  144. Would you consider yourself a good student? Didn’t you ask this? 145. Does it bother you when Surveys ask “Did you like this survey?” It just seems kinda pointless cause they likely won’t see it. 146. Salty, Sweet, Sour or Spicy? Yes.  147. Are you going into High School this year? Nooooo. Thank goodness. I did my time and graduated over 10 years ago. 148. What about Junior High? Omg, no. I’m old. 149. What is one thing someone could say to you right now that would make you cry? Ugh, anything.  150. Where did you find this note? @lovemesomesurveys 151. Last question. How many unread messages are in your phone? None. 

[bring-forth-your-justice]

Chapter 1: Troubled Mind (Reader x Akira Kurusu)

So um, I wrote a fic. I already have 3 chapters complete for this long fic. When I say long, I mean very long *cough* 15,293 words *cough*. So a bit of context to the story, it ties in with persona 3 because of the reader’s past. As well a major change to the story (won’t reveal it because I’m not so sure on whether to add it in or leave it out.) Hope you enjoy reading this piece of trash.

You couldn’t be late to school, not today.

You ran past people in a panic to reach the subway. The forecast said it was gonna rain today, but your wonderful and brilliant brain forgot that. Not that it mattered anyway, you had no idea where your umbrella went.

Thankfully it wouldn’t rain for another hour or so, that was your saving grace for the day. You only wished it could’ve been used for something else though.

You reached the subway just in time and pushed your way into the cramped train, managing to grab the last seat. You held your bag tight, so tight that you could’ve sworn that your papers were gonna be in crumples by the time you left. “Maybe today won't be as hectic as I predicted”. You thought to yourself, as you tried to doze off for the duration of the ride for Shujin Academy.

Normally you were never late, not once did you ever miss school, and you wouldn’t dare over sleep. After all, you were the student council vice president! You were a straight A student for goodness sakes! You were the person every student would look to for help and advice, a role model. Only second to Makoto, but even then you both were identical in terms of efficiency and marks.

So why were you late?

Well, you weren’t late, not really. It’s just your student council meetings start before school does and that's what you couldn’t be late for. You had many things flooding your mind last night and you ended up over sleeping.

Luckily your 3rd alarm woke you up. If not for that, Makoto would’ve freaked and sent enough messages for the constant dinging to wake you up.

The train had stopped and you made your way past the other passengers. You put your headphones on and started making your way to school.

As you made your way towards the school, you spotted the alleyway that Ryuji and you would walk through together. You flinched at the thought of just hanging around Ryuji again. As badly as you wanted to again, as badly as you wanted to say sorry and make him smile, you couldn’t. There was just something standing in your way, why lie to yourself? There was someone in your way.

The gloomy clouds plagued the skies above you but it didn't matter now, you’d finally reached school. Walking through the empty halls seemed to take more effort than usual. It seemed the feeling of the desolate halls had caused you to forget about your surroundings, as you had tuned out someone shouting your name.

“Y/N! Y/N! CAN YOU EVEN HEAR ME!? Oh GoD!” She hollered, as she tried to close the gap between the two of you.

You lept back as the girl caught up to you and grabbed your shoulder. She then continued to slump forward, crouching, in an attempt at catching her breath. “Arine? What’s wrong?! You look exhausted.” You say in confusion as you take out the headphones from your ears. 

Arine suddenly shot up at what you had said, with only frustration to be dissected from her expression and beads of sweat showering down from her hair.

You jumped back at the sudden action, still dazed with her conduct.

“Are YOU REALLY asking ME if there’s something WRONG with ME!?” She retorted back, still huffing, slightly slouched. Just as you slightly parted your mouth to respond to her, she cut you off. “Never mind that, c’mon the meetings gonna start. I was looking to see if you had came or not. But, like always, your right here.” She sent you a quick loving smile and grabbed your left hand, and dragged you to the council room.

“ Sooo..er..Arine, why exactly were you so upset?” You spoke shyly, you were now walking beside her, retaining your elegant stature. Arine was a first year, and the treasurer of the student council. Although a very small and timid girl, she proved to be very enthusiastic around those she knows well.

“Well, besides the fact that you made me run after you around the school, and made me look like a fool for yelling and screaming your name about 4 billion times..” She spoke sarcastically as she turned to face you. “ The..” You noticed the sudden shift in her expression, from one with glee to one with dread and unease. Your face didn’t falter from its blank expression, but you felt concern ebbing away your lifeless expression.

“It’s j-just the..um...the t-transfer s-student”.

The transfer student? Wha-oH WAIT! “OH, yes of course! It seems as if I had forgotten about him. I just had a lot on my mind the other night, and I forgot he was coming today.” You spoke with more confidence.

“But why exactly are you mortified by just talking about him?” You slyly inferred. Arine shot her head down, being both shocked and embarrassed by you noticing her dismay. “Oh, um. Well, err you see..uhh.” She choked on her words, making it hard for you to understand why this student brought out her inner demons just at the mention of him.

‘GOOD LORD! Was this boy the new coming of Voldemort!?’ You thought, with concern now evident on your face.

“A-apparently he’s currently on probation for ASSAULT! A-and I overheard some of the teachers that he’s really d-dangerous, they said that if he had a knife that day...he wouldn’t be convicted of assault but ..m-murder.” Arine started to tremble. You slid your hand into hers in an attempt to rid of her quivering. “I’m not one to judge on rumors….but if he’s as menacing as you say he is..” You took a pause in between your thoughts, slowly biting your lip with the situation at hand.

“I’ll be careful, and hey! Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt anyone. Including you, so quit your worrying!” You said blissfully.

Haha..how would that even work? You couldn’t even save your brother, father, or even yourself! Pathetic, you want to save your friend and the school while you can't even escape the people who hurt, torment, and abuse you. You lie to yourself and now you lie, to her.

Arine’s face slowly lit up with more of your false assurance. The two of you reached the council room, and were greeted by Makoto and the others. Makoto rushed to your side to give you a small but strong hug. She asked what had taken you both so long. You sheepishly explained that you overslept and were in a world of your own thoughts before Arine came along. Makoto was shocked at the fact that you overslept, and continued to say that she would personally enter your house and wake you up. After that, the meeting had finally begun.

“Y/N wait!” Makoto said just as you was about to leave the modest, dimly sun-lit room. “Hmm? Something wrong Mako?” You and Makoto have been childhood best friends since middle school, always by each other's side.

Things were rough after your mom, dad, and big bro died. After all, you were only 4 and Taro was 12. Your oldest brother, Taro, was left to take care of you but at the time, you had your grandma. When she passed, Taro was 17 and was on his way to becoming a prosecutor. That’s where he met Sae-san. Their friendship lead to you meeting Makoto. You both had so many things in common, your love for knowledge, books, kawaii things and of course, the need to be like your older siblings and bring forth justice! But besides your interest, you both shared the pain of losing your parents and loved ones. You depended on each other when the world around you seemed to collapse, when the pain and grief resurfaced. When the occasional sibling fight happened, the other would always spend the night at the others house.

When the other didn’t have an interest in one particular area, the other would force them to do it with them. Makoto doesn’t know how to play piano or skate so you drag her with you. Cooking and aikido comes as a challenge for you so you’d tag along with her and learn a thing or two.

You told each other almost everything. Feelings, opinions, secrets, hopes and dreams. Including a secret only she believes when Taro can’t except it..

You know in your heart that, that secret is no secret, but the truth. The truth that won’t ever be told until you find the killer. . .

“No, nothings wrong but um, Miss. Kawakami had asked if you would show the transfer around the school?” Makoto asked shyly, fiddling nervously with the pencil in her hand. You were in shock. Usually the homeroom teacher would be the one to show the student around. Though you wouldn’t argue with a teacher about showing a student around, it was just this student. After what Arine said, you weren’t so sure about this.

“I certainly don’t mind, but why? The teachers usually show them around, am I wrong?” You asked.

“Yes, it is the teachers duty but, you and the transfer are in the same class. So Miss. Kawakami thought it would be good if he got to know someone in his class. She also mentioned that it would be wonderful if he had such a marvelous and outstanding influence as his first ‘friend’ at this school.” Makoto clarified.

“Alright, I guess you already know what I’m doing this morning. Honestly though, I’m honored that she’d think so highly of me.” You let out an embarrassed chuckle.

“Obviously, you’re an amazing student. Not to mention an even better best friend. Speaking of which, you told me Taro is not coming home tonight, you watnt to spend the night at my house?” There was no way you wouldn’t take up the chance of staying over at Makoto’s just talking and goofing off.

“Why would I say no? I mean, my dance class was canceled today, and I could always reschedule my shift. As long as Sae is ok with it, I’ll come over right as I get something~ from my house!” You said winking. “Oh please tell me it’s ‘that’ thing! Also Sae’s always ok with you coming over, so don’t worry about that.” The two of you exited the room and headed towards your classes, laughing at the random jokes that each of you would insert into the conversation. You said bye to Makoto as she walked down to the third-year floor.

You walked into the classroom, with all the students in groups and talking about the latest gossip, trends and so on. As you went to take your seat, you would get the casual stares from some of your admirers. You stood out from the other students, partially because of your very different uniform ( a black waistcoat with white accents, the Shujin skirt, black thigh high boots, A white button up collar shirt, and black tights. Along with a headband in your hair.), but it was mostly due to your brandeis blue highlights.

They weren’t highlights they were part of the aftermath of what happened one year ago. You tell others that they’re highlights to hide the truth.

You sat besides Takamaki-san, she looked agitated, and distressed. The girl was looking down at her desk while fiddling with her blonde, curly hair. You didn’t really know the girl, you’ve never really had the chance to talk with her. You’ve wanted to but... you don’t know what you’d say to her. All you actually knew about the girl was she and Suzui-san are best friends, and that she's half american, a kind girl whose parents are always overseas due to work. Then there were the rumors with her and Kamoshida, the volleyball coach, an award winning athlete.

Ah~ There it was, you already figured out the reason behind her melancholic expression.

You knew how scary and menacing Kamoshida could be, from first-hand experience. You did whatever you could to be far away from him and his counterpart, Kaito-kun. No one knows that Kamoshida has harassed you too. After all on the outside it doesn’t look as if you’ve been hurt by him, but on the inside your dying, a soul pleading for any form of help. You’ve tried, you’ve tried saving others plus yourself from him. Sometimes it worked but all your efforts puts you into a dangerous zone with him instead. To save others you’ve put yourself in vain.

If you knew about a volleyball player that he was gonna ‘call out’, you’d jump to their aid by using the little authority you have, to ask the volleyball player to help you with a student council duty. That way, they wouldn’t have to see Kamoshida. But your efforts to help others backfires on you when he catches you.

“SHE’S HERE! Everyone get to your seats!” One student hollered.

“OMG Kiyoshi! SHE’S COMING! MOVE!” Another student yelled as she pushed a girl out of the way, presumably Kiyoshi.

“MIYAKO!!” Kiyoshi squealed just as she tripped and hit the ground face first.

‘Ouch!’ You thought.

Miss. Kawakami walked in through the sliding doors and all the students scrambled to get to their seats. Miss. Kawakami let out an annoyed sigh, she looked deflated and exhausted. “Okay, everyone settle down. Settle down! Uh, Yuki-san can I talk to you outside?” She spoke sounding incredibly tired. You nodded and walked outside the classroom; outside to the empty hallway.

“I’m glad you said yes to giving the transfer a tour.” She said with a faint smile on her face. Was she always this burned out? You felt as if she would fall over any second now, so much so that you mentally prepared yourself to catch her fatigued body.

“Frustrating as it is, the boy hasn’t arrived at school yet! So I suppose for now just relax but if he does show up, then I’ll come find you. Alright?” She asked.

‘Wow, late on the first day! It’s really becoming harder not judge this guy! No, you promised yourself you would never make assumptions and judge others without knowing them!’ You thought to yourself, mentally scolding yourself in the mix.

You told Miss. Kawakami that she could rely on you and not to worry. She let out a tired but grateful sigh. “It’s great to have such a dependable student, unlike that Sakamoto. Looks like he’s not coming to school again..”

Your eyes widened. ‘Ryuji, why would you miss school? I get it, this place is hell! But you hafta stop getting yourself in serious trouble!’

“Oh...I see. Well that’s unfortunate.” Your voice was laced with sorrow.  

“If he had only stayed on the right path, he could’ve made a great student. After all he was once a star athlete.” Miss. Kawakami unknowingly had added insult to your already aching injury.

‘Bullshit, It was all Kamoshida’s fault! He stole his future, THAT PERVERTED BASTARD SHOULD BE THE ONE THAT GETS HIS REPUTATION TAKEN FROM HIM! He HAS to pay!’  Your thoughts fueled your anger.

‘But how can I put an end to the pain, and him..’

[tsainami]

wip prep tag #2

tagged by: @isherwrites​ tysm!! sorry it took this long to get to.

rules: answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

last time i did this it was for cheat (which you can find here), this time i’ll do grave mercy.

FIRST LOOK

1. describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch).

a girl against a theocracy (but for its religion) and a boy against its religion (but for the theocracy) who have very ? confusing ? backgrounds ? (and are vampires) somehow end up meeting while investigating a cannibalistic angel. they end up doing something ridiculous together: unraveling ‘god.’

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

as far as i can see where the plot’s going, probably a trilogy.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

vampires. religious ones! in priestly/nun-ly (not a word) clothing! which comes in mostly white or bright colors because they’re not fans of black vestments. black armor yes, black clothes no. and since there’s vampires, there’s blood. but also gore. and also cults. and devils, angels, monsters, conspiracy! plus a lot of french gothic architecture.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

book of the ancestor trilogy by mark lawrence. if you’ve read it, it’s probably obvious.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel.

i haven’t done any edits for this a whole either rip. it’s not much right now, but here’s its pinterest board.

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

my main protagonist is a girl called ines nenci. she’s a novice at a convent known (or, unknown) to reform young girls whose faith are tainted.

7. Who is their closest ally?

her closest friend is this younger novice named dafne who she constantly worries about and is very protective of. she views dafne as her closest ally, and throughout the story she retains that sentiment. objectively speaking though, it’s probably reuven. after they meet and her fight or flight response when it comes to him calms down lol.

8. Who is their enemy?

the theocracy. namely the ava santi who sits at its head. and also herself.

9. What do they want more than anything?

this is going to sound anticlimactic maybe, but emotional comfort and security. ines really just wants to stop having to be scared all the time. stop having to hold on to anger and allow herself to finally express her hurt and pain after all the years she’s spent oppressing it. she wants to depend on someone and be able to trust them instead of just being the one depended on while in truth she’s just being manipulated. she honestly just. wants. inner peace (lol).

10. Why can’t they have it?

there are many reasons. let’s start with a few minor obstacles in the shape of people who keep her alive solely for the purpose of using her to further their ambitions: 1. the abbess of the convent. this chick keeps ines in her house only to serve as a tool in her plot of overthrowing the theocracy. the convent’s pretty much a facade for this group of heretics to eventually hold some sort of rebellion. but they’re being really dirty about it. 2. the ava santi (aka ye olde pope). he killed her dad. he was also supposed to kill her, but this amazing idea popped up in his brain and he decided “nay, send her to the convent dear men o’mine.” reasons for this is because a) he hates that fucking place and has wanted it dead for years and b) he can’t touch that fucking place because politics and also One Deep and Dark Secret that would cost his position and probs life should it be exposed. 3. the so-called cannibalistic angel she meets, whose reasons for using her are too spoilery to share at the moment. but it’s got something to do with the one ‘god’ of their faith.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

that she’s cursed. it’s repeated a lot in the first chapter, actually. her dad’s death and some of his last words really drilled it in her. and it makes sense, because her existence is scorned by the faith and she learns more and more about this (with the misfortune of having to witness her papa burn ffs as lesson 1 of all things) as she grows up.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

she’s got thick, wavy black hair. pretty long (goes up to mid-back i think) and it’s always braided and then tied up into a low bun. she’s always wearing her habit (which is white) and even if she isn’t she tries to wear something close (usually white too) because it makes her feel secure. she has a black cloak she wears when she goes walking around the capital or the woods (that she really and i mean really knows how to work, especially when she’s killing something so not too much of nasty stuff stains her clothes). usually armed to the teeth. hidden blades everywhere. though you can’t really see that i guess. 

sometimes, she carries a sword.

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

ines is moroi, which is a race that is treated little better than rabid dogs are in montevena. there aren’t many moroi in existence any more because of wars that involved genocide long ago + the fact that as moroi all you have to do to get sentenced to death sometimes is to accidentally bump into someone. anyway, her internal conflict mostly revolves around her struggle between hating what she is and yet having to depend so heavily on it. she wants to separate herself from being moroi, but that’s impossible since she has to face it everyday. even if people weren’t there to remind her, her body can’t lie. she really, really hates it but there’s no other choice but to live with it.

14. What is the external conflict?

everyone is against the theocracy for their own reasons and the theocracy is against everyone. the teams switch up sometimes though and things get wild when a cannibalistic angel appears and the OG residents of the world, the devil-gods, get weaved into the mayhem (did i mention this takes place in an au hell? because it does).

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

if ines is put through what she went through as a child, having her world break like that (it wasn’t only her dad’s death, it was all the things about the world she was totally clueless about because up until then her dad had limited her knowledge of it, so her whole life was a big fat lie), it would be B A D. the people currently capable of hurting her that way is an older nun from the abbey named sister aura and dafne.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

huge spoilers so i’ll be vague. something monumentally of relevance to not just ines or reuven, but the whole world is a total sham. also if you can believe it or not, aliens are involved (but it totally isn’t what it sounds like lmao).

17. Do you know how it ends?

a little, but not too well right now.

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?  

there’s an absolute truth to everything. but a lot of the times it gets corrupted by people with ill-bred intentions. that doesn’t mean the truth itself is horrible, though. so it’s always good to discriminate and keep in mind that, just like that guy who yells about global warming but clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about while he goes ‘round the world in private jets that secrete shit tons of shit, sometimes we don’t know everything either.

19. What is a recurring symbol?  

i have no idea. (yet)

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

a city-state called montevena which is loosely based off of vatican city but much more french gothic and kinda creepy. later the story moves through parts of canza, one of the three sanctified states that reuven is from.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

yes. predominantly one that occurs in a cave.

22. What excited you about this story?  

the development of the characters. particularly ines, reuven, gabriele, dafne, hazael, mirta and other supporting characters (including the abbess and the ava). it’s just... so interesting. i low-key had a mindfuck about it.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

a copy paste from my previous post on this:

my method is freak out! write a sentence. think about useless things (why would a pigeon be at the city square at night? that doesn't make sense? is it a normal pigeon? what is the purpose of its life?). try not to get distracted (i always do though) and write another sentence. 

the day i’m 92 is the day i finally have two fully written novels with my name plastered all over them in my arms.

TAGGING: @brekkerings @pilipalea @apollchiles (if you guys haven’t done this yet) and anyone else who wants to.

[stanford-da-dragon]

“Week 3: Forgiveness

Abit late on posting! Been a hectic week. Between working doubles at work and car shopping. Progress on art (And Story) is kinda slow... But I am finally finished with this! 

Week 4 will be late. But I will have it done!

As aslways. Story under Cut~

Coffee a Day keeps Bill away~ Ko-Fi Link Here!

A Better World.

The past 48 hours as been hectic. Coming into another Dimension that is actually an parallel of Earth. One he come to find out and dubbed as “A Better World” Where in this world. His twin took Journal 1 and left with it. He himself wasn’t pushed into the Portal. And here he was seen as an Celebrity Star of Science!

He was excited to see this world. To meet his Parallel Self. But was stopped by an Parallel Version of Fiddleford. His old friend. Taken down by the security guards. Of course his instinct was gonna kick in. He was being captured. Held down. His body told him to fight. And fight he did.

He fought all the way to the glass cells where he was tossed into one of them. Not caring or noticing how the cell next to him was dark. He stood up quickly and banged on the glass growling, snarling to be let out demanding for answers. 

The security guards left to let him fume. Ford growled as he looked around. They stripped him of his cloak. His weapons. He was only left to wear his sweater and pants. Pacing. Ford grumbled as his mind ran wild from him. Again not realizing the cell next to him seemed to be mimicking his pacing. 

The soft “clacking” sound of his boots was his only company. As he paced. He was mostly jealous now. Angry. His thoughts wondered back to home. His home. He growled thinking of his brother. Thinking how if he just listened he could have this all. If only...

Head snapping up. There was an loud “THUD” sound coming from the darken cell next to his. Frowning Ford as stopped and looked to the darken cell. When suddenly another loud “THUD” came. Rattling the whole glass wall. He didn’t see much other then a grey blurred thing hitting the glass and quickly disappeared into the darkness. 

Walking slowly to the other cell. The loud THUDs keep getting louder and hitting harder on the glass. I saw something black pace by this time. As he got closer he peered inside. Only to be greeted with glowing yellow slittled eyes. 

Ford screamed in surprised, “BILL!?”

But no reply came. Only the still quiet of those eyes watching. They floated to the air it seemed. Being about 6 feet above ground. A deep rumbling growl came from the other cell. Ford had backed away from the cell as it started to illuminate itself revealing the creature that lay inside. Glaring at Ford. 

Ford looked to the creature. It’s fur was black. Grey undertones with darker black markings. The once beautiful feathers been clipped away keeping this creature grounded. Two friller like feathers grew out from the clipped wings with a single eye on them. Blood red on these feathers plus on the 3 on his hind legs. Ford gulped as he looked to the once pawerful tail seeing 3 spikes protruding out sharply. Ford winced when seeing the tip of the tail. It was missing quite alot of fur on the tip. Along of being scared up. It seemed this creature had taken up the habit of chewing his tail pulling out the fur. 

Looking back to the face. It was very horse like in shape. Along with the body. If not being only skin and bones. The eyes creep him out though.. Black as darkness. Only letting that of the yellow slitted pupils to pop out more. Maroon colored horns came out of it’s head. Two ears folded back. One ear having an tag with: Experiment 69 on it.. Grey main. A scar over the nose like a ring..

But those eyes... Ford stared at those eyes. They were Bill’s! But this dragon before him was his friend! Despite the huge change. Ford still recognized him. He gulp as fear took hold. He stared at those eyes. Guilt started to build up as nothing registered in those yellow eyes. Only thing he saw in them was Hate. Hatred, Pain, Sorrow... Sadness.. But mostly hate as the Dragon continued to glare at Ford.

“Stanford?”

Flinching the dragon backed up and started head butting the glass. Using everything in his might to break through. Ford watched as the Dragon continued to headbutt the glass wall. Blood started to show from each hit. A black substance starting to form around the floor. Ford cringed at the sight. He winced when the glass cracked. Another hit. More blood. Ford watched in horror as his former friend continued to ram himself into the glass. 

“Stanford stop!!” Ford felt tears prickly at the corner of his eyes. He looked to his friend. The dragon swayed blood and black goop coming from his head eyes and mouth. The dragon huffed as he reared back and slammed into the glass again and again. Cracks growing wider. 

Ford closed his eyes once more. What did his Parallel Self did to this dragon?! Why was he caged up!? Why?! Afterall this dragon done for him. This Ford betrayed his friendship and bond to this Dragon by locking him up!? Ford’s eyes snapped open as glass shards flew by his face. Looking forward and pressing his back against the glass wall behind him. He watched..

The dragon stalked out of the cell. Watching Ford closely. He growled. Stalking his cornered prey. Ford watched on in horror. He didn’t have his weapons.. BUt he didn’t want to hurt his friend.. Even if this is just a Parallel version. The dragon lunged and everything went dark....

A gasp! Shooting up out of bed a cry escaped his throat as he sat up panting sweat glistened on his forehead. His glasses askew on his face. He huffed trying to calm himself his heart racing as his hand rested on his chest. But not where his heart is. Clenching at the red sweater tightly at his shoulder. Abit of skin was shown and under that cloth of his clothing bared to the world to see was a 6 long gashes going from his shoulder down to his chest. 

Ford gasping still looked around alert. Seeing that he is back in his own room. And not a cell eased his mind alittle. Sighing finally calmed down. He looked over seeing the time.. 4:40...

Welp... He’s gonna be awake now.. Sighing Ford got up putting on his boot and looked around.. Fixing his sweater he got up rubbing his head as he left. He thought back to his nightmare and frowned. He made his way to the kitchen and brewed him some coffee. As he leaned against the counter waiting. 

His thoughts ran wild from him. He couldn’t chase the image of his friend as an Abyssal Dragon. A Dutch Angel Dragon tainted and touched by pure darkness. Caused by Despair, Pain, Sorrow, any negative emotion and energy. He crossed his arms frowning. His shoulder ached. The wound as far healed into a scar. But a reminder nonetheless as what could’ve been. 

Thinking then. He was jealous and angry at his twin. But now... He’s glad for it. Cause if that’s how that world turned out.. How would he... No.. Shaking his head. Ford chased those thoughts away. Stanford was his friend. They’re bonded. He would never do that to him.. Or so he thought. Growling. Ford stood as his coffee finished brewing. He made his cup and made himself outside to clear his mind. He don’t need these thoughts. Don’t need to be thinking them.

Getting outside. Ford sat on the couch where he sipped at his coffee.. Staring at the liquid. Once again. His mind ran wild without him. He sat there remembering the times Stanford had saved him. And where he in return had saved him. The dragon was always there for him when he needed him. And he was there for the dragon as well. Wasn’t he?

Thinking back Ford frowned and an old memory played in his head. At that time. Stanford saved him from getting lost in the woods. But instead of thanking him... He treated him as apart of his research.. When the bunker was made.. He even had the dragon down with some tests and had for a short time deemed him as an experiment. But quickly erased that title as Stanford gave a warning growl.. And the time when Ford himself turned his back on Stanford in his paranoia state of mind...

Ford frown deepened at the memories. Maybe he was destined to betray his friend’s Trust?  

Ford looked down to the hot beverage in his hands of which was shaking at the realization of his thoughts.

Stanford may have bonded with Stanley first. But Stan had insisted that the Dragon protect Ford. Stanford still watched over Stan during the 30 years... But also came in search for him.

Ford closed his eyes. Stanford still came for him. Even after turning his back on him.. Still trusted him. Still loved him.  Another Realization hit  him. Stanley.. Ford blinked, he done the same to Stan  and when he needed him most. He came for him. Sighing. Maybe he was too harsh with Stan. He should try and talk to him.

Ford took another sip of his drink and then leaned back on the couch. As he did.. Another memory hit him.

Memory.

In the mindscape Ford ran up on the path of books and journals to reach the high pitch of laughter. As he got to the top he glared out to the yellow triangle in front of him.

"BILL! You lied to me?! Where does that portal really lead too!?"

The yellow Triangle, Bill turned to him and laughed, “Oh oh! Looks like Mr. Brainiac finally got smart! Let’s just say when that Portal finishes charging up. Your dimension gonna learn how to Party! Right guys!” 

Laughter and giggling was heard from the rip rift Bill had to his friends. Bill turned to him with glee. 

“NO! I’ll stop you! I’LL SHUT IT DOWN!!” Ford yelled.

Bill just glared at him, “A deal is a deal Sixer! You can’t stop the bridge between our worlds. But it’ll be fun to watch you try! Cute even!”

Ford growled, “I won’t let you Bill..” 

“Oh? But what if I already did? After all your little Dragon friend seemed to never told you of his ability~” 

“Dragon..? Stanford?” Ford looked to Bill shocked eyes wide. He couldn’t mean that Stanford has been working along with Bill this whole entire time? “No! You’re lying!”  “Am I? Have you ever wondered where he disappears to? Besides the realms he reigns in? That bright light you sometimes see.. Think about it Fordsy! Your ANGEL Dragon already done what you cannot!” Bill laughed.

Ford frown. Being betrayed by Bill was one thing.. But by his companion? He felt hurt. More then ever. Ford took a step back. “No... I won’t believe you Bill!”

“Try as you might Sixer. But Stanford is a Dimension Hopper. Not only that. Well... I’ll show ya!” Bill clapped his hands as Ford’s surroundings changed. Gravity Falls was in utter chaos. But in the middle was Stanford! Or... So he thought.. The dragon had the same shape and look to Stanford. Same markings. Only.. This Stanford was Greys and Blacks three spikes on his tail torn tattered wings two frillers with an uncanny eye on them. But his eyes... Were not emerald green... But a sickess yellow with slits in them.

The dragon turned to Ford and hissed at him before the Abyss Realm swallowed him up. Black tendrils spreading about the land...

Ford blinked his eyes. It was at that moment in the memory where he had woken up from the nightmare.. And then proceeded to lose his sanity and trust in the dragon. He remembered when he saw Stanford again. He appeared papping him like always. But it had spooked him to the point that he turned and shot his crossbow at the dragon. 

Hearing the yowl of pain still haunts him as well. But the look will never leave... Ford was half gone screaming at the Dragon. Calling him Bill and to leave! Turning his back on the dragon that day. Little did he know. The Dragon disappeared for 6 months after that. Never to be seen again... Unknowingly that Stanford had Dimension Hopped and was fighting Bill for those 6 months..

Looking to the tree line staring blankly at the deep dark woods. Stanford has been gone for a few days... Where could he have be- “CHIRP!” 

“Argh!” Jumping up dropping his coffee Ford reached for his blaster as he stood alert and turned towards the sound. He was greeted with worried emerald green eyes that belonged to Stanford.. Ford eased seeing that it was his dragon friend. But guilt kicked in.. He almost done it again. 

Stanford.. Sensing his friends stress climbed on the porch making it creak loudly. Ford looked to him and smiled slightly at the Dragon. He stepped off the porch and Stanford followed him. Head butting his shoulder. Ford chuckled and patted his neck. He smiled as the dragon chirped again. But as quickly the smile came it went. Frowning. 

Ford stopped and turned to Stanford. Who looked to him confused. Ford looked to the dragon. At his missing ear. All the scars. And the brand that Bill had left on him. Frowning remembering the times that Ford wasn’t a friend towards Stanford when he was. Ford looked down and moved forward suddenly hugging the Dragon’s neck. 

“Stanford... Buddy.. I’m so sorry..! I just realized... I wasn’t a good friend.. Or the best caretaker. You’e done alot for me. You protected me.. More then once! You were always there when I need a ear to vent to. A shoulder to lean on. And not once have I returned the favor!” Ford buried his face into the dragon’s fur. “I promise.. I’ll make it up to you.. I’ll be better... I’ll...” 

Confused by the notion of his friend. Stanford sat there confused ears lowering hearing his friend whispering “Sorry” against him. Frowning.. The dragon rested his head on top of Ford’s and placed his paw on his friend’s back as he hugged Ford back. 

Ford hiccuped and chuckled, “I guess this means you Forgive me? 

A chirp. 

“Thank you buddy..”

[bucklebombreviews]

Bruised and Barbed 1: ECW Hardcore TV episode 1

Hello everybody and welcome to this the first entry in the bruised and barbed series.  Today we will be starting our journey and look at the very first episode of ECW Hardcore TV, that’s ECW as in Eastern Championship Wrestling.  This takes place on April 6th, 1993 from the ECW bingo hall.  I watched the WWE Network version of this so any music or video that has been changed I am unaware of on this one.  Anyway let’s start this journey through the Saved By The Bell era nineties and get into the show.  

Our show starts out with the most knackered early 90s music as we get a super low quality video that looks like it was filtered through and edited by a teenager taking a break from PornHub and first discovering Windows Movie Maker.  Oh boi what have I started.  It gets better though as we are sent over to part of the commentary team of Stevie Wonderful and Jay Sullie, and holy shit look at the fucking ramen mullet on Wonderful.  It’s Joe Dirtyful and gives me the weirdest feelings in my pants.  Aside from that I can already tell that Sullie is as boring and bland as wall paper paste, oh well still better than most of the commentary team on modern WWE.  Soon after the commentary team introduces itself they bring out the owner of ECW Tod Gordon.  Gordon looks like every Jewish big businessman from every movie and TV show in the 80s.  Anyway Tod announces that on this week's episode and upcoming episodes they will be holding a tournament for the tv title, awesome I’ll mark my calendar.  After this the commentary team announces that there will be a third man with them and out comes Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert.  Gilbert tries to get himself over as the first heel on screen by trying to get into the commentary team and yelling when it is revealed that the third is Terry Funk.  Funk comes out and is just wonderful, corny but wonderful.  Funk is an obvious and predictable face here as it is pretty apparent that he is going to be more than a commentator soon.  During all this Terry is called a living legend, holy shit this is 93 and he is called a living legend that was over 25 years ago.  Man’s fucking old and been through some serious wars.  

First Match: Super Destroyers © V Hell Riders

Our First match on ECW Hardcore TV is that of the Tag Team Champions Super Destroyers versus the Hell Riders.  Before The match even starts our ears are assaulted by the Super Destroyers manger and mouth piece who is horrid, and I’m sorry guy if these big lads can produce poetry in motion I’ll put my wiener in a vice.  The match starts with the Hell Riders rushing the Super Destroyers followed by a shit brawl, riveting.  Throughout the match the commentary team cannot decide which Super Destroyer is which, honestly at this point I don’t care because it is obvious that this is a glorified squash match for the champions and not even a good one.  The match drags on and on with some tame spots here and there and ends with a standing splash thing from one of the super destroyers to end the match, fucking yawn.  

The whole match the crowd is dead silent, not a good sign for the champions especially on the first televised episode.  Even more so since it was a squash match where they could get all there shit in to try and get the crowd to pop even a little bit, even if they are heels they should have been able to get some sort of heat reaction but nothing at all.  After the match the Funker goes out to get an interview with the Super Destroyers manager, who at this time we learn is named Hunter Q Robins the Third as if it fucking matters at all.  An this guy would not quit screaming for the life of him.  Terry manages to quip something at the sad man and gets the biggest pop of the match.  This is beyond sad and signifies to me that it would not be surprising to me if these guys lost the tag belts within the next 3 or so episodes.  

Segment: Sandman

Let me first explain how I remember the Sandman.  Now remember that I have very limited exposure to ECW but I remember him as a cane swinging, beer chugging, ruffian.  Holy shit where the early nineties a different time for the Sandman.  

The Sandman is a surfer gimmick, in retrospect that makes sense but holy shit did he make a big jump not too long from 93.  In the veneit he wears a shoot wet suit, giving me weird flashbacks to Kaval.  The surfboard he brings to the ring puts this whole thing over the top for me, sunglasses sure fine whatever, but a surfboard?  This guy is an obvious face what the fuck is he going to do with a surfboard in the ring besides have the heels hit him with it.  I think we can all agree that if this guy isn’t using the fisherman's buster/suplex for his finish or at the very least the surfboard stretch then they were missing out in the creative department.  

    I’m not sure if the music here on the network is the original or not but it sounds like the worst Beach Boys knock off ever, and the editing looks like that same teenager from the beginning found the fade out tools in Movie Maker and made it take an uncomfortably long time.  At the end it tops it all off by saying that this guy is the current Heavyweight Champion, on a show that just started.  This guy, everybody praise Saved By The Bell.  

    Match 2: TV Title tournament Sal Bolomo V Tommy Cairo

    Before the match starts we go to Terry Funk who gets a small interview with Tommy Cairo who is at this time undefeated.  Cairo tries to get over ECW as a whole, I’m sure to try and get some more money out of his appearance, as well as saying when the iron man comes to town everyone else goes down.  OH MY!  Terry gets really animated and excited for this guy and the crowd pops a little bit, holy shit the crowd isn’t silent.  I think this guy is the first likeable character to come on the screen besides the Funker.  

    The announcer starts by introducing Sal’s manager the Cosmic Commander, who is the second likeable figure to be on the screen just for the fact that I am wondering what type of drugs they had to consume to come up with not only that name but the gimmick as well.  Let's combine businessman attire with a red coat and space turban, holy shit this is the next great cosplay move over Max Moon.  We also find out that it is Sal “Wildman” Bolomo, makes sense a wildman in roman soldier garb, fuck yes makes so much sense.  

    The match starts off about as fast as a snail in a tar pit with a collar and elbow into an armdrag, and we repeat that spot because it was so exciting.  Then Cairo shows his strength by pretty much shaking off a hammer lock.  This is followed by some boring corner brawling and a submission attempt by the Wildman.  Then some tape degradation, wonderful.  Cairo gets rolling again and it becomes pretty obvious that the Wildman has no gas in his tank and goes from rest hold to rest hold.  So far there has been a mediocre amount of selling and very little attempts to target any sort of limb to even make all these rest holds and dead submissions even make a little bit of sense, it's super disappointing.  At one point Cairo no sells a headbutt to do a standing splash.  This is followed by the Cosmic Commander distracting the ref just for his guy to get hit by an interfering Johnny Hotbody.  This is super confusing because the distraction led to his own guy suffering and ultimately getting counted out.  

This leads to even more immediate confusion because I presumed that Cairo was the face, he did break a few rules during the match such as getting up on the middle rope, the most dangerous rope, to do some punches to Bolomo but nothing so serious I would consider him a heel.  This is soon washed away though when Hotbody goes to the ring to attack Cairo, only to end up brawling to the back.  A disappointing end to a disappointing match.  

Match 3: Tony “Hitman” Stetson V Rockin’ Rebel

During the introduction and very early in the match it is revealed that Rebel is the number 1 contender for the heavyweight belt and Stetson is a part of the number 1 contenders for the tag belts.  I love this and think that it is something lost on modern wrestling today,  just because you are at the top or near the top of your division does not mean that you should not have interesting matches with people at or near the top of other divisions.  I think this is especially so for tag team wrestlers.  Just because you are a tag team specialist should not mean that you forgot how to work a singles match, and through singles matches maybe some tag guys could get over parts of their character that may not get to be showcased in a tag match against a really good singles opponent.  This type of match also shows that the whole locker room is aware of the rest of the card instead of being delegated to there own little bubble.  Over all I think booking like this could lead to some very interesting interactions.  Go early ECW.

I’d like to start off this match by pointing out some obvious gimmick infringement, by this time Bret Hart had already been at the top of the card in the Fed.  Stetson needed to change at least his moniker to avoid obvious comparisons that I will jump off a limb and predict that he couldn’t live up to.  

Hey do you remember how the last match started because that’s how this one starts, arm drags for everyone.  This is horrid on the part of these guys because it means that they did not watch the last match nor care to ask the guys in the match before what some of their spots were going to be .  This shows laziness and is something that could’ve been easily avoided.  I am at least happy to say that in the early parts of this match Stetson starts working the left arm of Rebel, good on him.  The only problem is that Rebel doesn’t sell this at all, boo.  This confuses me because at this time we are in the NWA associated Eastern Championship Wrestling which is supposed to be built on some old school principals, the fact that there has been a lack of selling and limb targeting confuses and upsets me.  Anyway these two have a pretty good back and forth game some drop kicks some splashes what have you, pretty much the same shit we’ve been seeing all night.  This culminates in Stetson getting a near fall on Rebel being stopped by a rope break.  This is followed by Rebel doing almost a lazy pin in the corner winning by putting his legs on the ropes.  This gets him a little heat, not much though.  

This is followed by a ringside interview where I can see where Rebel’s talents really lie.  He’s obviously not the best talker ever and he has some very annoying things that he does, such as continuously pointing at the camera.  He gets over how it’s a privilege to get an interview with him and how he is going after Sandman.  At the end he does gimmick infringe a bit on Ric Flair and he does yell a bit much for his style of talking but overall it was far from the worst thing on this show.  

Match 4: TV Tournament Jimmy Snuka V Larry Winters

Holy shit Jimmy has obviously been banging the roids, if the camera was better I’m sure he would have backne everywhere.  He’s fucking huge.  

Jimmy Snuka also cannot talk, this is made evident almost immediately.  He reveals that he has a new manager Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert.  Gilbert comes out and tries to get over his managerial firm (?) of Hot Stuff International.  

  The match starts with Snuka dominating Winters with strikes and putting him on the ropes.  Gilbert is cheating often by choking Winters.  Snuka does an atrocious botch on a back body drop, ends up falling with Winters, way to go roidy magoo.  The match rolls on with Winters getting squashed and Gilbert continuing to get involved.  Winters did get momentum for about 2 seconds before Snuka continues beating him down.  Winters did get another head of steam with some nicely times whips and tackles, even doing a correct back body drop.  Gilbert gets involved and causes Snuka to take momentum again.  Snuka ends up winning with a top rope splash.  After the match ends Snuka throws Winters out cementing himself as a top heel.  Oh my what have we done to deserve this.  

Match 5: Sal Bellomo V Ernesto Benefico

This Match sucks.  This big slow boring fuck in Sal Bellomo who we seen earlier inserts himself into this match and squashes Benefico in a matter of seconds.  This did nothing for him at all considering the lazy show he put on earlier.  This was short, boring, and all it did was hurt Beneficos character.  

Ending Segment

The show ends with Tod Gordon and Terry Funk getting over the continuation of the TV tournament and that sandman would be there next week.  Terry tries to get over that this show is new different and fresh,  now I don't think it is but in the future it could be.  

Closing Remarks

This show was obviously done on a shoestring budget,  the cameras were crap with the second camera especially having its color balance off drastically in a few matches mainly the Rebel match, the sound was hardly there in a lot of spots, and the venue was obviously a community center.  I admire that they did everything they could with what they had but man does that make this a hard watch at times.  

The Wrestling was very underwhelming even for what I thought it was going to be.  I knew that the amount of high spots would be nonexistent but I was at least expecting some good ring psychology and limb working.  I didn’t even get that, what you end up with is 5 matches that all feel mostly the same with everybody pretty much working the same moveset.  I can’t even say that many of them got there characters over that well in this episode besides the big heels in Rebel, Gilbert, and Snuka.  And even then what exactly are there characters and motivations.  I can't tell you much more than Rebel wants the Sandman's title, Gilbert is full of himself and doesn't like Terry Funk, and Snuka might want to be the tv champion but that isn't even exactly clear.  

As far as the commentary team goes I can tell that they were still finding what they were supposed to be.  Wonderful was the heel but didn't exactly get a whole lot of heel dialog in.  Jay Sullie is boring and bland but gets out some information.  Terry Funk does the most in trying to get himself over as a top face and try to slowly build to a match with gilbert.  

Over all this episode was tough to get through but had some fun moments.  I know that the first year of ECW will be a hard one to get through because it is before it really finds its feet but i'm excited to get through it.

Show rating: 2 out of 5 yams

[clan-fuildarach]

musical chairs (part 1)

in this important lore update (so important that i’m even daring to use the title field omg), fallon and emiliano’s situation predictably blows up in their faces. 

(part 2) (part 3)

~

Sometimes Fallon wondered what life was like in most normal dragon clans. If he'd been born into just an average clan living on the edge of the Starwood, he'd have been happier. Just himself, Emiliano, and their daughter, without any external pressures or forces to speak of.

Maybe such desires were cowardly. Fallon was used to wading into the mire of court politics with a polite smile on his face; it had been his entire life for a long time. What made it so unbearable now?

Thea tested her claws on the wooden chest in the corner of his bedroom, the paper tags on her back crinkling with each movement.

“Hey,” he said, pausing in the act of winding his cravat around his neck, “hey, you stop that. Be nice.”

She watched him with wide purple eyes and babbled something incomprehensible; the only language she knew was some kind of Shadow-speak, but over the past few days she'd begun to pick up a few words from Fallon's language; her parents' names, the words for yes and no.

Abandoning the box, she pounced on one of the stuffed animals Iriangi had brought over for her; a pink pony that had been almost the same size as Thea herself at first. Now, though, the toy – and the room in general – was starting to look alarmingly small beside the growing guardian. She crushed the fleece pony against her chest frill and spoke to it in a shrill, adoring tone.

She should have been able to shapeshift, but the wound on her back made it impossible. Emiliano had promised to find a better place to hide her, but that wasn't what either of them really wanted.

Fallon glanced back at his wardrobe mirror and tied off his cravat. He gathered back his hair with a ribbon and tied it neatly at the nape of his neck. Leaning closer to the mirror he neatened up the few stray curls that insisted on sticking up at the top of his head. Usually he enjoyed the pageantry of a royal ball, the opportunity to exist in the same room as Emiliano for once, without drawing suspicion, but tonight was different. He didn't want to leave Thea behind.

“Dad!” she said, tugging at the hem of his coat. He turned quickly, before she tore it. She held up her beloved stuffed pony, eyes wide. One of its legs had parted company with the rest of its body and hung by a thread, the stuffing leaking out.

“Oh no,” he said, taking it from her. “Oh, dear.” There was no point in admonishing her for playing too rough, given her size and strength it would have been hard for her not to damage the toy. “Don't worry – oh, don't worry, sweetheart, I'll have it sent off for repairs. It's easily fixed, we'll just get someone to sew the leg back on.”

There was a knock on the door. Fallon went to answer it, indicating for Thea to move aside, so that she would not be visible to anybody at the door. She knew the drill by now, but it was getting increasingly difficult for her to do so without at least some of her body sticking out.

But their visitors were Emiliano and Iriangi, so there was no need for alarm.

“Thank you so much for this,” Fallon said to Iriangi in undertone, as Emiliano immediately went to greet Thea.

“It's nothing,” Iriangi said, her expression softening as she glanced over at Thea. “I'll look after her for tonight while you two are at the ball.” Her eyes fell on the broken toy in Fallon's hand. “And I'll sew that up for you, too.”

“Oh, would you?” Fallon said, with a sigh of relief.

“Of course.” Iriangi now turned and observed the rest of the bedroom, her eyebrows rising. “My gods, the state of this place!”

“I know, I know.” Fallon glanced back at the room with a rueful grin. It looked like... well, it looked like someone had been hiding a very lively baby guardian there for a week. The curtains and bedspread had been shredded, and even some of the flagstones bore claw-marks.

“She can't stay here,” Iriangi said quietly. “It's not fair on either of you.”

This wasn't news to anyone, so all Fallon could do was nod in fervent agreement.

“What was that?” Emiliano said, as Thea said something to him in a loud, petulant tone. “He did what? Fallon, how could you?” He pressed a hand to his mouth in mock surprise, returning to stand by Fallon and Iriangi. “Thea says you broke her pony.”

“It sounds like Thea's telling tall tales,” Fallon said. It was hard not to smile.

Emiliano laughed, his hands moving down to clasp Fallon's waist. He stretched up as much as he could and pressed a quick kiss to Fallon's cheek.

Then just as quickly Emiliano broke away, grabbing the door handle. “Okay, I have to go – Corin's probably waiting – I'll see you later, Thea, okay? Be good.” He blew her a kiss, which she clumsily reciprocated.

This was the part Fallon hated. The brief, shining glimpse into his ideal life that ended all too soon.

“And,” Emiliano said, already halfway out of the room, “I'll see you at the ball.” He flashed Fallon a dashing smile. And with that Emiliano was gone, racing away to attend to his job with a final yelled “Thanks, mum!” over his shoulder.

Fallon remained standing on the spot, vaguely overwhelmed.

Iriangi laughed. “I haven't seen that boy so happy in years.” Shaking her head in apparent amusement, she waved Fallon over to the door. “You'd better not be late, either. The sooner you get there, the sooner you can come home.”

“True, I guess.” He opened the door. “You two have fun, okay? And if anyone comes knocking, remember what to do. Iriangi, I can't thank you enough-”

“Just go!” she said. “And don't be silly, you know I love spending time with Thea. Of the two of us, I think you have it the worst off tonight.” And with a final smile, she pushed the door shut after him.

He gathered himself in the corridor outside, trying to plant an impassive look on his face. Taking a deep breath, he turned and started to walk away, but a muffled cough made him pause. He scanned the corridor – there at one end was a uniformed guard leaning against the wall, reading a book, chewing absently on the end of a pen.

That was strange. This wasn't a normal guard outpost. The guard glanced briefly over at Fallon, nodded, and turned her attention back to her book.

Fallon couldn't tell exactly why, but this struck him as wrong. His instincts were telling him something but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

Calm down, he told himself, it's just a guard sneaking off for some leisure time.

But the wariness of years of living in secret at the court, the threat of execution hanging over his head, had never abandoned him. He trusted his instincts over his common sense.

So he walked towards the guard and raised a hand in greeting. “Hello!” he said.

She glanced back over at him. “Can I help you?”

Oh. His heart started to pound, but his expression remained perfectly at ease. “I was wondering why you've been posted here? Is there some kind of threat I should be aware of?”

She shook her head. “No, I just wanted a quiet corner to read.” She held up her leather-bound book.

“Oh, that's a relief. Well, I'll be going – enjoy the book.”

He put his back to her and very quickly strode away. As he passed his own front door again he scanned the lock and, yes, there were gouges in the metal that suggested the use of several lock-picks rather than a single key, like the one he used.

As he walked towards the ballroom, he turned over everything he knew for sure in his mind. First of all, the guard. Normal palace guards did not act like that around nobility. If that guard had been as disrespectful to another noble, she could have lost her job. She should have bowed and addressed him by his full title. But she hadn't.

And there was the book. What guard could afford a book? Bound in leather with golden lettering on the front. And why the pen? What did she have to write about?

Distant music wound through the air. Nobles in garishly-coloured clothes gathered just outside the ballroom doors, waiting for them to be thrown open. As several dragons instantly descended on Fallon and called out greetings, he regretted not going back to warn Iriangi that she was being spied on.

Just act normal. At least this came naturally to him. He chatted idly with the court nobility. They demanded he show them some of his card tricks and he obliged, producing an ace of spades from a nobleman's front pocket, all the while hoping – desperately wishing – that Iriangi and Thea were safe.

The doors swung open, revealing a hall bedecked in pink and purple, which were the latest fashionable colours of the court. Enchanted rose petals fell from the ceiling. It was all very nice, but Fallon hardly noticed it.

Queen Rosa and Lord Alejandro led the first dance, to wild applause. Fallon scanned the hall for Corin and spotted him near one of the long buffet tables, chatting to another boy his own age. Emiliano was nearby, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes on Corin, ever the straight-laced bodyguard.

A servant brushed past with a tray of wine glasses. Fallon took a glass, but didn't drink any. He needed to keep his wits about him.

He moved through the crowd, carefully avoiding the dance-floor as more of the nobles moved in to take their place with their partners. At the buffet table he set down his glass and wandered along the table until Corin and the other boy were in earshot.

“But if they're dead, how can they still walk around?” Corin was saying.

Angelo, the other boy, nodded eagerly. “Well that's why I came to Dragonhome! There's something about the land here that makes dying different – did you know there's a whole village of ghosts in the east? We should go there some day!”

“G-ghosts?” Corin said. “They're real?”

“Just as real as the walking corpses,” Angelo said excitedly. He was the first to notice Fallon's approach. Quickly dropping this rather morbid topic of conversation, Angelo quickly bowed.

Emiliano frowned questioningly at Fallon over Corin's head.

“Good evening, Your Highnesses,” Fallon said, raising his voice over the music. “I hope you're both well. It's – it's a beautiful celebration, isn't it?” As he spoke he met Emiliano's eyes and tried his utmost to non-verbally communicate the danger. The boys were too young to really notice, which was a blessing.

Emiliano's skin went pale under his crackle. He tapped Corin's shoulder. “Please excuse me, Your Highness. I have to go and... check the food for poison.”

“Poison?” Corin's voice was almost comically alarmed. “Oh my gods – yes, please do. Thank you, Emiliano.”

Emiliano turned and vanished into one of the concealed serving doors that led between the hall and the kitchens. Angelo's bodyguard – a gruff, silent pearlcatcher who probably did not think much of Emiliano just then – moved to stand between the two boys, watching over them both.

Fallon waited as long as he dared, then, when most of the nobles were distracted by the dancing, left the hall by the main doors and made a beeline for the kitchens.

He did not notice the armoured guard that peeled away from the crowd and followed him out.

The kitchens were chaotic, every chef and server struggling to meet the demands of the ball. Fallon would be noticed for sure if he went in, so he backtracked a few paces and found one of the hidden doors in the corridor outside. During his time living under Xandra's reign, constantly forced to hide and travel in secret, he had learned the layout of the hidden passages by heart.

He backtracked through the narrow, dim passageway, occasionally ducking out of the way of passing servants, until he bumped into Emiliano.

There was no time for greetings. Emiliano grabbed his hand and clung on. “What's wrong?” he said hoarsely. Thin bars of light from the adjacent ballroom shone through the wall, falling in a striped pattern over Emiliano's face.

“I – I think someone's spying on me,” Fallon said. Breathless, he ran through the events of the evening. “Iriangi doesn't know, someone needs to get a message to her in secret – can you do that? Do you know anyone who could?”

Emiliano bit his lip. “I don't – I... I suppose I could bribe one of the guards...”

“Good. Take anything from my vault, I don't care,” Fallon said.

The distant music faded away, replaced by a far livelier tune. Suddenly, Emiliano growled under his breath and struck the wall with a shaking fist. Dust rained down from the dim rafters.

“He did this,” he snapped.

There was no question as to whom Emiliano was referring. “I know,” Fallon said. “But we can't act reckless, we have to be smart-”

“He's in there right now,” Emiliano said, indicating the ballroom. “And I have a sword. He doesn't.”

“You'd be executed,” Fallon said, grabbing Emiliano's other hand, to hold him back. “Think about Thea.”

Emiliano nodded rapidly, screwing his eyes shut. “Yes – you're right. I'll go and see if I can find a guard with no morals, you get back in there and keep an eye on Atropa.”

He leant forwards and kissed Fallon again, this time with a desperate urgency and a whispered plea to be safe. Then he was gone, racing away down the dark passage.

Fallon counted along with the music, waiting until at least three minutes had passed before he dared follow Emiliano out. As he walked he scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe away any trace of Emiliano – a rogue crackle stain could be their undoing – and under his breath he whispered plausible excuses for his absence to himself. He couldn't shake his doubt – maybe he'd been wrong to include Emiliano at all, maybe that was suspicious...

Raised voices sounded from the ballroom. The nobles were cheering again; presumably the queen was leading another dance. Rosa was a rare sight at events like this and she always drew awe and adulation from the crowds.

Someone shouted nearby. Fallon paused with his hand on one of the exit doors, frowning, but the person didn't shout again. Maybe one of the servants had dropped a tray in the kitchens. Things tended to get heated there.

He pushed the door open, cautiously.

It was wrenched instantly out of his grip as someone seized it and threw it open. He caught a very brief glimpse of a crowd of guards and nobles alike before hands reached out and grabbed at him – tangling in his clothes and hair and antlers, dragging him out into the open. He yelled on instinct and hit out, and was rewarded by a solid punch to the gut. Winded instantly, he lost the strength to resist, and now he was being pulled through a crowd of hostile jeering, surrounded on all sides by dizzyingly bright splashes of colour and rose petals and hard metal armour.

Then he was through and the guards were throwing him to the marble floor of the ballroom. He lay there for a moment, stunned, his hair falling loose around his face. Pain radiated from all over his body and he could hardly breathe and when he looked up at the wide ring of Dorchadas nobility all around him, nobody made a move to help him.

Another yell, muffled but close. He scrambled to his feet, leaving a smear of blood on the floor behind him. A pair of very large guards off to the left held a limp figure between them. Emiliano was not struggling, but he was still trying to shout past the restraining hand clamped over his mouth. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the other wide and fixed on Fallon.

And then, finally, Fallon caught sight of Atropa. The Lord of Court Dorchadas stood by the crowd, not quite a part of it, a pleasant, relaxed smile on his face.

“Prince Fallon,” he said in a businesslike tone, “what is your relationship with this man?” And he indicated Emiliano with a dismissive gesture.

Lie. Fallon could hardly think, he couldn't make sense of the situation, it was a nightmare come to life – he almost answered truthfully, but a scrap of his parents' training filtered through. Lie to get out of trouble. Make something up. Anything was better than being caught.

Fallon's voice was hoarse, as if he'd been choked. Maybe he had. “I... do you mean the Prince's bodyguard, my Lord? I don't understand – what relationship?” He glanced over at Emiliano, who had a look of acceptance in his uninjured eye – it was better for one of them to make it out of this ordeal than none of them. Thea needed a father.

Atropa beckoned to a nearby guard, who stepped out of the crowd. Fallon's heart sank – it was the guard he'd seen outside his room. She still held her book, and now she began to read from it.

“Roughly an hour ago, the royal bodyguard was seen exiting Prince Fallon's personal quarters.”

Oh, no.

She continued – “This morning, shortly after breakfast, the royal bodyguard was again seen outside Prince Fallon's quarters. And again yesterday evening, and yesterday morning, and the evening before-”

“Okay, yes,” Fallon said sharply, his mind racing. “I know the bodyguard from Queen Xandra's reign, my Lord, and I was using him as a way to get to your son, the heir to the throne. I represent the Sky Spire empire and I was hoping that our next king would deepen the alliance between our two empires, and regard us favourably.”

“But you did not come to me with these concerns,” Atropa said. “My son is not old enough to have any influence.”

“Well, er,” Fallon said, “it's better to start early, is it not?” He reached up and fastened the coat buttons that had come undone, neatening up his outfit. “But I have to reiterate – I don't care about the bodyguard at all.”

“I see,” Atropa said. He watched Fallon for a long moment, his eyes utterly dead and cold. The nobles were talking in low, guilty voices amongst themselves, concerned, wondering if perhaps they'd been a little too hasty in judging Fallon.

It was working. Fallon could hardly believe it.

Then Atropa signalled to one of the guards restraining Emiliano. The guard released Emiliano's arm, drew a dragger, and plunged the blade into Emiliano's side.

The guards dropped Emiliano and stepped back. He crumpled without a sound. A puddle of blood spread across the pristine marble floor, mingling with the fallen rose petals. Emiliano did not move.

Fallon was running before he'd even formed a coherent thought, before his brain woke up and told him that it wasn't a fatal wound and that Atropa was just trying to get a rise out of him. He fell to his knees beside Emiliano and checked for a pulse – it was there, thank all the gods. But it was weak. Emiliano was still in danger and Fallon would never ever let him bleed out alone in a room full of hostile dragons.

Medical training had never been Fallon's strong suit. He found the wound, pressed a hand to the deceptively small gash and leant on it with as much force as he dared. With his other hand he tapped Emiliano's face, checking for signs of consciousness. Emiliano made a weak noise of complaint, which was enough.

“You idiot,” Emiliano mumbled, his slitted eye fixed on Fallon's face. “Now we're both fucked.”

The guards were closing in again. Someone grabbed Fallon's shoulder and tried to shove him aside, but now that the game was up Fallon had no reason to pretend to be accommodating. With a snarl he lashed out, taking advantage of his size to knock the guard back. While everyone was still reacting in shock to this, Fallon dived for the scabbard at Emiliano's side. It was empty, of course. Instead, Fallon wrenched the scabbard out of its flimsy, decorative housings, hoping to maybe used it as a club.

The flat of a blade clashed down on his hand and he recoiled, dropping his improvised weapon. And then the guards were on the two of them again, and Atropa's voice in the distance was ordering the two of them to be arrested and put on trial. Pinned to the ground, it was all Fallon could do to keep Emiliano in his sights, even as someone shoved a spell tag onto him that pushed him effortlessly into unconsciousness.

[lostlevelsclub]

Mike’s Eliza Notes

Since there was more to the game than we could cover in the episode, below are the full notes that I made while playing Eliza.

Chapter 1

It starts with Evelyn talking about a dream. When’s the last time you had a dream?

She writes herself an email titled “You will do it” saying “I believe in you” ?!

The music is very Zachtronics

I like the chat History - probably will be useful…

What is the game going to be? Will I have to choose whether to stick to the script that Eliza gives? Is it mostly going to be just thought provoking about what therapy is and the machine vs. the human touch?

The sentiment analyzer tagging things as positive or negative - is it meant to show that the way Eliza works is actually pretty simplistic? E.g. “expensive” tagged as negative, but it’s used here in a positive sense (the office is in an expensive area)

Eliza totally lies to him and pretends that you’re talking not it! Scandal

It tells you to tell him your name!

Anexophin? Is that real?

Surely this wouldn’t be sufficient even if you had a super smart AI - there’s so much variance in how you can read the script and deliver it.

Haha, even as the proxy therapist you get achievements, a score and can level up?!

They added the “speak to a real human” script. Is that how AI works? I suppose it might work any number of ways. Hey, is this the AI game Ting said they should make??

Rae: Sometimes you don’t have any choices and you just have to follow directions, Most jobs are like that, honestly.

Eliza - named after the 1960’s computer program (early chat bot?)

Eliza is just making people feel better, but it isn’t actually making things better. Is Darren right that the world is a mess and counselling just helps people ignore it?

Zachtronics loves solitaire minigames…

It must be weird going to Eliza and speaking to a different person every time that talks as though they know you. Maybe it’s like speaking to a hive mind? Many bodies, one set of thoughts.

Lytosinol-2? Is that real?

Your friend Nora asks if the people at the counselling office “know” - know what?! 

Something traumatic clearly happened 3 years ago

Nora - formerly a coder but now a musician and artist. Old self might have worried about not making as much money, but happier now. Is this me?! Sometimes takes a little contract coding work, but makes most what she needs for rent from her art

Did you used to work on Eliza as a coder or something? Your former boss was a psychologist and “creepo” (Soren)

Nora has some whack eastern european accent.

Soren is currently at (and leaving) Skandha, so sounds like you did work on Eliza

Snake Person = VSs, “biz dev”

Evelyn’s comment about the coffee shop - “it’s nice to know this is an option, the tea and coffee at the counselling center didn’t look so inspiring. Am I… am I being a snob?”

Immediately after coffee, you get an email that confirms you were one of the principal devs on Eliza.

Komorebi (the name of the coffee shop)

Language: Japanese

Meaning: The interplay between light and leaves when sunlight shines through trees.

Evelyn has some pictures propped up against the wall “that have been sitting there like that for a long time”. I also have a picture that is just propped against the wall instead of hung up (though I like it on the floor, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself?!)

Chapter 2

Email (from your mum?) with news story about mandatory fortnightly Eliza conversations at school for middle and high school students

You used to work at Magus books. Email from a customer there that is sad you left

Induced dreams by direct neural stimulation… interesting and creepy idea. Rather than invoking a feeling or improvement by talking, directly cause the required feeling.

Aponia - ancient greek, it means “the absence of pain”. Is it meant to sound like “a pony”? That’s what everyone really wants :P

Yao-Ren “Rainer” Tsai. Chairman and CEO of Skandha Corporation

Eliza is always talking about the rain - I guess that’s Seattle?

Gabriel stressed about having no time for himself after becoming a father

15 mins of VR - starry skies. Would that really help anything?

Anexophin - is that a real thing?

He gave 2 stars, but still a $5 tip?? He didn’t seem to find it helpful… he’ll be back

Maya 

Has some serious social anxiety.

No one cares about her art (like no one cares about our podcast :P)

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day. Is this to illustrate that Eliza’s treatments are bad?

Holiday Durant

Would smoke dope more often but it’s expensive :shrug:

Unmarked white busses, secret transport system “just for them” - it probably is! i.e. employee transport for tech firms

She asks Eliza about past life regression and Eliza breaks XD

Eliza doesn’t know what to do, since there’s nothing particularly wrong?? She just wants someone to talk to.

Fortipran hydrochloride - is that a real thing? Is it for shoulder pain, since that’s what she asked for? Apparently it sounds like an anti-anxiety drug (it’s not real). She forgets the name and thinks it’s forzapram. (you later discover it IS for shoulder pain!)

Dinner with Soren

Move on - “want to do his memory right, don’t you”. So the trauma was related to a guy?

I say “whose” and am told “Damien of course. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Rainer and Soren. Soren bitter that Rainer is CEO and never wanted for anything. Had all the right names - Harvard, Goldman Sachs

He needs a chief engineer, wants you (or maybe he wanted Nora but she said no :P)

Nora is DJing at an S&M club… or not - Soren is just wrong, and then goes to hit on a bunch of random women.

Email - Car will pick you up for meeting with Rainer at 9:20am from Queen Anne office. So Rainer must know you are working as a proxy

Nora tells you a load of electronic music stuff. The names sound real, and I know the other Zachtronics founder is into electronic music, so maybe it’s all real facts

Roland-TB303 (devil fish mod?)

Moog (pronounced Moag)

Li’l Sappho - greek poet..?

The music is… lewd? Sounds good, wild and untamed.

Chapter 3

Talking with Rainer. He found out you were back because your proxy scores were unusually good and he looked.

Being a proxy - more than an order of magnitude drop in pay vs. old job

Damien Seabrook - brilliant career cut short. He died? Suicide?

“Burnout isn’t uncommon in our line of work, still three years is...”

“You know what outstanding engineers have that mediocre ones don’t? It’s curiosity”

I guess you get to choose everything except the therapy? Are there branching paths?

Erlend, Chief Engineer - “he looks like a baby”, “he must be fresh out of university”

3rd chief engineer in 3 years since Evelyn left

Ratings are normalized per proxy. I don’t think you’ve really done enough sessions to really be an outlier though, unless you’ve done some off camera

Teams in Romania, Munich and Hyderabad.

Rae totally fangirling over Rainer

Erlend - “If I understand the programmer, then I understand the program”

It really is interesting to see other people’s code. It gives insight into how their brain solves problems, decomposes complex tasks.

So Eliza is just a small facet of Skandha, and Rainer really is a bigshot. Genuinely surprising that he knows who Evelyn is, or maybe at a tech firm the CEO does know star tech talent.

Eliza v10.3.3, Firmware version v110 c3115

Boot ROM 114.0.0.0.0

Chipset 18210B0

Mark Foras

“Well i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but young people are really pissy and entitled these days.” “Why would we want these conceited, overcelebrated whelps on our team? I’ll never understand the logic there”

Neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg…

SwiftMail, InfoVault - more traditional enterprise software

He’s very dismissive of Eliza! Supposedly Rainer “liked a chick on the team”, which would be Nora or Evelyn I guess.

“Mark, I’m going to suggest you try a program called “Lakeside Fishing”“ LOL

“I didn’t recognise his face or name”

“Glad I never had to work with him”

Hariman Gunawan

British accent, so since this is an American game does that make him a villain? He sounds very posh.

Grad student, English Literature

He sounds a lot like the British Malaysian comic that is on Friday Night Comedy podcast sometimes. Phil Wang..? OMG - it IS him!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10741934/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Evelyn’s reading of the lines seems slightly more wooden after seeing Eliza (the server room). Is that intended? It’s very subtle. Or maybe it’s not wooden, maybe it’s some personal opinion creeping in? The goodbye for Hariman and Mark were both not neutral

Lytosinol 2 - in universe it’s a beta blocker

2 stars!? Rude! A tip though?

Rae’s brother struggles with substance abuse. She mentions it in the article about her and she’s on the phone to him when you visit.

Being a proxy gives Evelyn perspective - seeing how everyone else is messed up…

“Were we all just talking past each other?”

Rae - But you could also help even more people by working on Eliza itself, right? Not to mention make way more money.

Rae tells you not to downplay yourself

Rainer messages you and reveals that most of the Eliza cluster isn’t used for therapy, it’s trying to build a general purpose AI! :O

Rainer: This may sound off to you, but I’ll know I’ve successfully created a general artificial intelligence when I see it write a poem.

Evelyn: A poem

Rainer: Yes, It would have to be a good one, of course.

AI to humans as powered transport is to pack animals. Interesting way to look at it.

Rae describes a Skanda tech recruitment event. Is tech talent REALLY that in demand? Is it really that hard to get good engineers?

Evelyn - “And before that I just never had the time. It was just, research and science and work and then I woke up one day and I was in my thirties” OMG

“Even if I wanted to date, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how it’s supposed to work

“I wouldn’t even know how to tell if someone were interested in me…”

Though is this game THAT kind of visual novel? haha. 

Rae is asexual? Will this game be a fully representative spectrum of everything?

Chapter 4

Soren: Say there was a medical procedure that could remove your suffering. No side effects, no cost. Just an operation that would make you permanently happy.

I’d say being permanently happy was a bad side effect.. Sometimes you need to feel sad (cue melancholy playlist…)

The Glencadam - scotch whisky. Is that a real thing? (yes)

Direct stimulation / induced dreaming vs talking things over. I’ve actually thought about this - there are changes that you might want to make to your mind or body, but you can’t because you don’t have the right levers.You have to take an indirect route and use the tools / levers that exist. Is it possible to build levers from what you have? Like hacking a machine and getting a foothold, then building an editor to enter more exploit code until you control the whole machine. Could you do that to your mind, or even your body?

Soren: Anger, depression, emptoness, anxiety, jealousy, every kind of unhappiness you can think of… obsolete.

I’ve thought about this too - these things serve a purpose, even if it’s not one that’s necessarily beneficial for you as an individual. Like when you’re depressed, is that your body telling you to die so you’re not a drain on the group? Not a nice thought - could it just be an error to be fixed?

Soren thinks Rainer was against direct stimulation “fixes” so that people would be unhappy and reliant on mental health services from Skandha

Damien worked himself to death. All nighters, multiple times. Pulmonary embolism. At least it wasn’t suicide…

Soren:

It’s late and I’ve had quite a bit to drink, so I’ll tell you a secret, Evelyn.

I said I want to end human suffering, which makes me sound very altruistic.

But I’m not doing it for humankind. I’m doing it for myself.

I have nothing. I’ve ruined every relationship I was ever in.

I hardly ever see my kids, and, well, they hate me anyway.

…

I want to end my own suffering, but I can’t bring myself to do it the… traditional way. That’s why I’ve pursued this technology. That’s why I want it to exist.

The idea that everyone else could use it too… it’s just a bonus.

Mark Foras mass emails the whole of Skandha with his farewell message! He signs off “Excelsior!” who does that?!

Hariman again

Evelyn has mirth in her voice as she says hello

He slept with Sylvia

Is he comic relief? He’s more worried now than before!

“How do I tell Liz?” Wtf

“Did I mention this last time? I have a sort of, girlfriend”

“I can’t believe this. I got what I wanted and it ruined my life.”

Irony - he hated self-pitying novels by men who were messed up by a relationship and couldn’t get over it, but how he’s one of them

Eliza’s questioning really is reminiscent of the Eliza program

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day - Hariman thinks this is a good idea?!

3 stars?? I guess it’s better than two. Still got a $5 tip

Maya Leeds

Jealousy at the success of younger people - mid-thirties.

This is clearly the age at which everything starts to go wrong. It’s easy to be positive when you’re younger, but when you get to mid-thirties, you feel that time is running out, it’s half way for most people…

Maya:

Well there’s - there’s one woman in particular everyone loves.

And her work is… I don’t get it. I just - I don’t understand. She gets so much money and support for this basic, basic shit.

And somehow everyone’s predisposed to like her.

I mean, maybe I do get it…

I feel like people pay attention to her work not because it’s good on its own, but because supporting her feels like the right thing to do.

The way she’s aligned herself it’s like… if you support her, it means you’re cool, You’re in with the cool kids.

And if I’m not publicly supportive of her and generally tolerant of her mediocre work, then I’m the bad one, I’m the competitive bitch, I’m the… the bitter failure.

Transparency mode! Eliza reads all of your emails and chats

5 stars, $5. The tip seems to always be $5 if there is one

Is there anything that secret in my electronic messages? I don’t think there’s anything that salacious. Maybe I’m just boring… or maybe I just keep it off the record most of the time. I guess there are a few mad conversations.

Eliza Transparency Mode 0.8.2

Maya’s text conversation with Garrett - super grim. She’s just venting and being sad and he doesn’t know what to do.

$186.11 rideshare bill! $150 cleaning and $10 tip.

Erlend is disturbed by the idea of copying Eliza and sending the data to other teams, including external ones.

You don’t really tell him anything, you just listen and he feels better.

Capitol Hill - is that a real place in Seattle?

I have a jacket like Nora’s

Chat with Erlend - what does it mean to be conscious, to be sentient? Would you even know? What if you just gave the correct responses, but weren’t? Chinese Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

In Evelyn’s three lost years. She tried to get up in the morning like she meant to go to work, tried to do personal projects… it didn’t last long.

Stayed in bed, even though she was awake. Cared less and less about projects

A blankness would come over her and it seemed fine to do nothing (depression?)

Evelyn:

I was by myself and I thought that was alright. I thought - that’s how it is, really. Everyone’s along. I’m just being honest about it.

…

I was...thirty-one when I left Soren’s group. Now I’m thirty-four.

I just slept into my mid-thirties.

(I just podcasted…)

Chose to get super high and watch cyber-goth music vids

Chapter 5

Nora is a public critic of Eliza. Rae is sad about it

Everyone is very understanding - trying not to push you one way or the other! Presumably you’ll get a choice how the story goes - whether to work on Eliza or not.

Holiday Durant!

She is so random and all over the place. She tried to buy “forpanza” but it was $162 and she didn’t have that kind of money. Asked for a generic, didn’t have one, there’s a similar one but she didn’t have a prescription. The off to a story about meeting someone with wires in their brain.

Concerned that bus operators don’t care as much since there was a guy playing the guitar on the bus, and also that you don’t hear as much music any more???

A lot of “forced reflow during execution”

Recommended she tries a program “Dolphin Smiles”. Her phone is broken XD

Holiday seems to be the most challenging client for Eliza to understand, since she doesn’t really have any problems other than wanting someone to talk to.

Nora forwards the Eliza critical article to me - it mentions that the proxies are humans that have been reduced to machines as all they do is follow the prompts. The guy who wrote it emailed you earlier about an interview (which you ignored)

Transparency mode for Holiday!? Seems surprising

Fortipran HCl IS for joint and muscle pain, so Eliza’s prescription was on point!

Holiday is clearly NOT in a good place financially.

She never mentioned her real problems to Eliza

I just noticed that one of the early emails you get is “The Damien Seabrook Memorial Fund”, year 3. Who are K & G that sign off the mail?

Transparency mode from SOREN?!?!? Is this hax??

Soren says to Nora that she knows she fancies Evelyn. So it is one of those games :P

Why is your chat with Soren not in here?

He was messaging Sarah, Rainer’s assistant

He was emailing what sounds like a bondage tutorial???

Rainer says that Soren is focussing on dreams to defend his territory, Jung-ian tradition.

Soren believes the mind is indivisible after a certain point - some undefinable, ineffable soul inside every person.

Rainer: One day, algorithms will write better poems than humans ever have.

I’m not sure it’s an easy thing to judge - art is so much about the intent and the journey as much as the result. Look at modern art, like Rothko - it’s very simple, but it’s considered important because of what it means rather than the execution. If a machine just generated it without struggle, would people treat it the same way?

Rainer: The pleasures of the senses are just small bubbles on top of a vast sea of… forms. Sensations, perceptions. Thought. Awareness.

It might be fun to take a break and just debate philosophy for a while.

Rainer: What comes after having the power to experience the dream of anything you could possibly want?

You’re still just as trapped as you’ve always been - imprisoned by your own desires

(this is Maya’s problem)

He calls you Eliza, haha

Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey

You have to answer 7 questions about how you feel - I’m not sure how I should have answered them for Evelyn, I wonder if it makes a difference.

The Eliza interface is projected onto glasses it seems.

Evelyn is middle class or richer, seeing Holiday’s situation was a shock for her.

The proxies were Soren’s idea.

“<NAME>, imagine that you could have something that you wanted. What would you want?”

Does it matter what you pick? You get a huge list, but then it says “or maybe I just wish I could feel connected to someone”. Probably because it’s built on a dating sim :P

Evelyn:

I think maybe that’s the real problem.

I can’t have a connection to anyone…

(is that my problem too?)

“I was alone a lot, and I got used to being alone, and I got used to the idea of being alone, and now I can’t… I can’t break away”

Evelyn is prescribed “Virtual Amphitheatre”, 20 minutes 2-3 times a week

So you CAN tip more than $5, haha

Chapter 6

Erlend talks about dogfooding the apps, which is a term well known in tech circles, but maybe not outside.

Maya Leeds

YOU GET A CHOICE :O

I stuck with Eliza…

Eliza suggests Dolphin Smiles, Maya says she can’t imagine anything she wants less

Hariman Gunawan

Still obsessed with Sylvia. Liz found out and dumped him, Sylvia lost interest.

Eliza suggests breathing exercises, Anexophin

Gabriel Navarro

I super want to know what he’s hiding, but the Eliza questions aren’t that probing. Is the game really really trying to make you break from Eliza?

Gay?

Gabriel: “I’m a man and that’s what men do. I made a promise and now I have a responsibility”

Eliza prescribes stress management exercises, Lytosinol-4 (4 not 2)

Gabriel asks if that’s in addition to or instead of the previous medication (which he didn’t follow up on). Eliza says that she can’t comment further on medication and to discuss the specifics with his doctor or psychiatrist

Receive a thank you email from Allison Zulfiya for inspiring her during a visit to her class

Chose to hang out with Rae

Rae: You have a decision to make about what you’ll be doing in the next chapter of your life and all…

(a bit on the nose there! That’s borderline 4th wall breaking)

Chapter 7

Working on Eliza Ending

Skandha benefits - Activalet. Use the app to summon a personal assistant to book things for you, stand in line for you, receive deliveries for you.

Invitation to be the keynote speaker at the International Mental Wellness Symposium in Malmo, Sweden

Evelyn: We’ll generate a three-year roadmap document by the end of the week, and then a more granular development plan for the next six months or so by the week after.

“Eliza is the real boss. The manager of its own project”

“Through us, it’s realizing itself”

Rainer is a singularity believer

Written by: Matthew Seiji Burns (Zach’s collaborator that likes electronic music)

The Solitaire Game - Maya mentions it if you break the script. It is hard at first, until you learn to think several moves ahead (I think you need to think 3 moves ahead to be able to solve it, since at the end you only have 2 slots free at best).

After winning the first time, I played another game and immediately won that too.

Maya realises that you’re not following the script if you don’t prescribe dolphin smiles

Maya:

“Um. Thanks for listening to me. I’m sure it’s been annoying to hear me complain about how I’m not successful yet, every single week”

“Oh my God, will this bitch ever shut up… you ever think that?”

I’m sure that’s what my therapist was thinking too… :P

Gabriel: If everyone just did what they wanted to all the time, the world would collapse. It would be a disaster.

We all want things we shouldn’t actually have.

Nora Ending

Nora: I don’t feel this weird oppressive hierarchy where people try to figure out where they are relative to you on a ladder when they first meet you…

(this is literally how things work at my real job)

Who is “therationalmind20” Soren? Eldren? Rainer? Someone else?bI feel like I’ve seen the name before somewhere...

“you think you’re so smart but you’re not. women like you have nothing better to do that to criticize because you can’t create on your own.

enjoy your life being a shrill harpy nobody wants to listen to”

(this is from the Nora ending)

There’s no histogram, but the information to create one is collected

https://steamcommunity.com/app/716500/discussions/0/1640919737478105344/

Soren Ending

Soren:

“You know they used to criticize anesthesia. It’s true.”

“They said it was important to feel pain, even during surgery”

Trans cranial current thing - is that what Aponia is? Or at least the real world equivalent is that

Sodality? What does that mean? I learned something new:

a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.

One of the benefits touted by Aponia is “increased sodality, transients eliminated”

Counsellor With Rae Ending

Darren comes back to thank you (you Evelyn not Eliza), though really, what are the chances of him getting you as his proxy again?

Also, $100 tip! 

Leave It All Behind Ending

Throws away the narrative. Go to Japan, try to find father.