#i just choose not to specifically for this game bc it confronts you about it. it's not completely passive (or acts like it)

[blood-choke]

Oh my God wait I have more to say on that. If you need the full scene I'm quoting: https://youtu.be/63708PykTcg?si=Bws3wyRs_TkyxPaH prepare for a lot of yapping

Hear me out. It's the "I don't like to share." Val has made it v clear she doesn't like the thought of sharing mc with Hana and clear bc of her own fears and anxiety surrounding her relationship with mc who remembers nothing about their life together.

and the "what about antionette?" "It's different I don't have feelings for her." Hana feels like the antionette to val bc, and these are just my thoughts from reading, we can see that val does care for Hana to some degree but never to the degree that she does with mc. Or maybe she does and just hides it to keep from getting attached like she was with mc and keeping Hana safe from being another one of the councils victims 🤔

And lastly the "that's bc you TOOK my life" is really getting my brain going. Especially since we see mc begin to question whether or not she wanted this life. Like, the potential behind it is putting me through the wall rn

Anyways you don't have to respond to any of this I just wanted to yap and share these thoughts bc BOY does blood choke get me thinking

hehehe yes i do think Valentina can be quite similar to Lestat in some aspects, particularly with her relationship with mc.

and you're right, she does care about Hana... in her own fucked up way. she keeps her more at a distance than she ever did mc because of that loss, which she is still mourning (even now with the mc back. she's not the mc she remembers) and she just was never able to open herself up completely to Hana. Valentina has treated both Hana and the mc terribly in the past (and the mc, at least, treated her just as bad, too, while Hana more or less just took it silently). she does care about Hana, but with the mc-shaped hole in her chest, she isn't sure how to express it, and now that the mc is back, she feels conflicted about her feelings & wants to show her devotion solely to the mc. and obviously she will get jealous of Hana (or Clear) because unless the mc brings it up, she won't share. exactly because of her anxieties (the loss of memories and how that may lead to mc choosing someone else completely) and she's actually fearful that the mc may judge her or be angry herself about Valentina's relationship with Hana (the mc was a jealous person in her past life). obviously their relationship was never Perfect, but Valentina is definitely being crueler to Hana than she ever has been before, almost like she's "showing off" for the mc, and even trying to drive Hana away. (you can potentially call her out on this in the next chapter)

and because of this Hana is realizing that even though she took the abuse and was always there for Valentina, it doesn't matter; mc is back and that's all Valentina cares about. (even if it's not necessarily 100% true-- to Hana, all she feels is that she's being discarded). that's what prompts her confrontation/conversation with the mc in ch3.

going forward there's a chance for this to change, depending on how the mc approaches the two. even if you're not romancing Hana in the poly there are still opportunities to include her (or exclude her, if you want. you can explore that route, too) and with the mc back, Valentina can potentially open herself up more to Hana than she was able to before, platonically or romantically, with mc's urging.

honestly i feel that Hana was more directly inspired by aspects of Claudia's character than Valentina with Lestat (they just happen to be similarly obsessed with mc/Louis respectively). and while i don't necessarily like to say one choice is "bad" i will say being cruel to Hana does have consequences. but i'm still writing it because i want that to be an option to explore specifically with Hana's character, and i don't necessarily want it to feel like a punishment to the player, but this game isn't exactly a feel-good game, and i do plan to make it hurt. lol

and as for your last point... yes it IS interesting. we'll probably never know if the mc was really consenting at that time (can any human really consent when eternal life is beyond their scope of understanding?) and it just adds another fuzzy layer to the messy onion that is her relationship with Valentina.

[seasy33]

Twinyards Timeline

A long time ago, I had the idea that I was going to write a pre-canon, Nicky-centric fic so I combed through the books to create a (mostly) comprehensive Twinyard/Nicky timeline. The fic didn't work out, but I thought I would share the timeline bc I think it's cool to see it all written out (if somebody else already did this... welp, guess I wasted an afternoon lmao)

I did this to the best of my knowledge of the books, but there's a very real possibility that I got some things wrong (so don't judge me too harshly)

Aaron and Andrew were born in San Jose, California (November 4th, 1986)

Tilda immediately gives them up for adoption

One week later, she takes one of them back —Aaron (whether she choose him on purpose or not is debatable)

According to Nicky, from Aaron, Tilda was neglectful but not specifically violent (up until Andrew came into the picture and they moved to SC, but that comes later)

Meanwhile, Andrew goes through 12 foster houses in 11 years

At age 11, he gets picked up by Cass Spear

He stays with the Spears for two years (in Oakland, I think?) up until Aaron comes into the picture

A couple of days after Aaron turns 13 (November 4th, 1999), Tilda takes him along on a date to a game in Oakland where he accidentally meets Higgins (who knows *Andrew* through the PAL program and mistakes Aaron for him)

Higgins figures something's up, gets Tilda's number, gives it to Andrew’s foster mom (Cass) hoping to reunite the twins/ Cass calls next day/ Tilda refuses any meet-up

Aaron listened in on the call, fights with Tilda, calls Higgins/the PAL coordinators behind her back to pass his info to Andrew

Two weeks later, Andrew sends a letter (“fuck you, go away”)

Cass sends Aaron another letter saying try again in spring (“holidays are rough, lots of changes at the house”)

In March, before Aaron can try again, Andrew goes to juvie

Two months later (it's May, 2000, the twins are 13 and Nicky is just turning 17 (May 23rd, 1983)), Tilda and Aaron move to South Carolina

(It’s at this point that Tilda got angry and got into drinking more (and drugs too))

Nicky goes to Germany for his senior year (2000-2001) and is only around Aaron for a couple months/weeks? before he's gone

Aaron gets into a lot of trouble during this time, fights in school, drugs, general asshole, starts playing Exy (to get out of the house) (Nicky's mother sends Nicky letters about Aaron's "traumatized rebellion" while he's in Germany)

Nicky comes back to SC very briefly for graduation, turns 18, presumably comes back out of the closet to his parents and they 'disown' him, (“Dad hasn’t let me set foot in it since I came back out the closet”), so he moves back to Germany to live with Erik

(just to clarify, we're at the point now where it's five years ago from TRK, when Nicky is telling the story of how the twins first met; two years after the original letter, so the twins are now 15)

Luther finds out about Andrew, goes to Cali, interviews Cass and sees Andrew in juvie

A month later, Luther flies Aaron to Andrew in juvie (Andrew sees bruises, gets motivated to get out)

A year later (16 now), Andrew makes early parole and gets out, Tilda is forced by Luther to take him in, (“A years-long campaign”), and they all now live together in SC

Five months after being in South Carolina with their mother, Tilda dies in a car accident

The night Tilda dies, Aaron and Tilda get into a fight (it's actually Andrew, Aaron was at a study session for Andrew)

Andrew (as Aaron) shows up to Hemmicks’ house, they see the bruises and shit, call Tilda over to confront her, she storms off with Andrew in tow, he kills her ("she went over the median into oncoming traffic and wasn't wearing her seatbelt")

Nicky comes back to SC when he hears the news (depending on what time of the year this all happens, which is never specified, Nicky is either 19 years old or 20, and the twins 16 or 17), he moves in with the twins the day after the funeral

Andrew forces Aaron through withdrawal (in the old house they lived in with Tilda (?))

Nicky buys the Columbia house (Luther cosigned, Erik helps, too) and they all move in

Nicky starts as a host at Sweetie’s

Hears about Eden's Twilight, bothers the workers until he gets a gig as a bar-back, then gets Aaron and Andrew part-time gigs as dishwashers and food-prep

At 17, Andrew saves Nicky when four men jump him outside Eden’s Twilight, he gets put on the mandatory drugs

Okay that's as far as I'll go hahaha I spent way too much time on this as it is. I think I might have messed up some of the ages because it's hard to tell when in the books all it says is 'two years ago' or 'three years ago' so i might be wrong on some of that. but yeah. a mostly comprehensive timeline (i hope)!

[roserocksrapidly]

Not to complain about tri stamp on main, genuinely NOT trying to bash it, but I really don't like how they handled Vash and Knives relationship :/ . And it's not just bc it's different from the source material. Specifically rn thinking about the arm situation.

Rambling thoughts on why below:

On the surface, it's the same- there's a confrontation between the brothers and it ends with Knives cutting off Vash's arm. But like the implications are so different 😭. In stamp, they argue bc Knives just "protected" Vash by killing some humans, Vash's powers start to go haywire in a fit of protective rage, and Knives takes Vash's arm to keep him from black holing everything. But the manga situation frames it in a much more interesting way to me. They're arguing bc Knives just killed humans to "save" Vash again, BUT

1) these humans did actually hurt Vash. It's not all that unreasonable to retaliate when the evidence of their cruelty is right there in a young Vash chained to a pole in the town square. But Vash would never retaliate bc of his pacifism and the fact that he understands why they have done something cruel. He would get pissed at Knives killing any humans of course, but the pre-established relationship Vash has with these people in particular gives the reader a different picture of WHY Vash chooses pacifism. He's not just "uwu all humans are good", he knows intimately that they can be cruel but he believes strongly in their ability to change-- they're cruel bc they were backed into a corner, that means there's another path forward for them, the cruelty is not inevitable, they all have blank tickets. Meanwhile in stamp, those random scientists were not cruel to Vash. Yeah, scientists as a whole shunned him and spoke bad about him at first, but Vash has a well-established, friendly working relationship by that point. Taking away the immediacy of the cruelty frames Knives as the more mature one who sees past the humans' front to see how they're taking advantage of Vash and it frames Vash as the naive one who must learn why he should protect people instead of turning a blind eye to their cruelty. And like I get why Orange probably did this-- it's a more conventional story beat and gives room to show Vash's development from a naive kid to the wiser hero. But idk I just think this is boring compared to trimax's approach where our expectations for Vash to be the naive hero (like wolfwood's expectations) are slowly chipped away as we learn that Vash is actually a deeply thoughtful, mature person. Much more mature compared to Knives, whose philosophy of killing everything that can hurt you is shown to be deeply childish and naive.

Which leads me to 2) Knives in trimax did not cut off Vash's arm to save or protect him. Even if you can argue stamp Knives did it more to save himself than save Vash, there's still external benefits to keeping Vash from black holing everything uncontrollably lol. But there is NO hiding why manga Knives did it. It was a pure, petty, childish fit of rage. Vash tries to shoot him and Knives is pissed that Vash isn't doing what he wants, that he's standing up to Knives. Vash isn't playing the game how Knives insists it must be played and Knives is a kid who can't regulate his emotions so he lashes out when he doesn't get his way. This is one of the most transparent moments for who Knives is as a person. And I think it's one of the most crucial scenes in the series for showing the main point: that cruelty is childish and cannot bring about a better world and kindness and mercy are the harder road that take real maturity to truly believe in.

Anways, all that being said I don't hate stamp. I can tell that Orange does genuinely have a lot of love for trimax and trigun as a whole and they had to make a lot of simplifying adaptational choices to even conceivably fit the charm of a story as deceptively introspective as trigun into 12 episodes. But still, the places they chose to simplify just don't work for me. I think they make the story much more bland, unfortunately. If I were to watch stamp completely blind, I don't think I would be all that interested in the Vash Knives conflict bc it's a narrative I've seen a hundred times before. And I just think that's a shame, because I could write paragraphs and paragraphs more on how interesting their relationship in the manga is and I wish more people could be exposed to that story.

[splatcat64]

i had a really long convo with my friends about this but it really seriously feels like ppl get rhys and fionas characterization switched up HARD. this is bc of the u choose the path thing but also a heavy hand in the misogyny and racism (and general way ppl tend to approach pandorans due to being effected by how jack talked about them . LOL) fiona is such a sweetheart whos working her hardest to protect the people she loves + imo shes the one who helped vaughn grow into someone who adores pandora as well. it makes me blow up. i have a few songs that have been making me go nuts about her . hai i got excited sorry

NOOO DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR GETTING EXCITED I totally get it my god,,, this blog is becoming so tales centric I’m sorry not sorry here we go. If you haven’t seen tales and want to be mindful of light spoilers. ⚠️

This has been talked about on my side a bit but I tooootally agree, Both of their characterization gets switched up BAD and it’s absolutely insane, both Fiona and Rhys are good people, but flawed. Flawed, but good people, and it gets constantly jumbled around in the fandom. I feel like a lot of people have a really hard time grasping that “choose ur own adventure” protags still have a core personality set, especially telltale. I always use Lee TWGD as an example, because sure you can portray him as either very very confrontational, or more soft spoken and sweet, but in the end of th edgy he still killed someone. In the end of the day he still ALWAYS cares about Clem. It’s not any different for those two idiots, they still have their respective arcs and the such.

I feel like Fiona gets a lot of shit specifically BECAUSE she’s snarky and she. speaks her mind. And god forbid a POC/Black coded woman do ANYTHING. Jack really messed up ppls views on Pandorans but the look into Sasha and Fi’s life is literally just more, HEY, they’re people!! Maybe don’t listen to the GENOCIDAAAAL [big arrows pointing to the word] MANIAC. It’s thrown right at your face. People take wtv the fuck Jack says way to seriously when he lies. So much. All the time. And I don’t get why no one takes it with a pile of salt constantly. When really she does just have a heart of gold, most of her being mean is literally just playful banter like hello. Sasha’s meaner than her by a mile but Fi still gets slaaandered for it. And even tho Sasha does have her really mean moments I will defend her to the grave with strangers bcus “hating her” without a valid reason gets veeerry racy really quick and as a black person it really does rub me the wrong way sometimes. So much mischaracterization everywhere. It’s a weird mix of a patriarchal, misogynistic, racist deal with EVERY character in The Group and I’m just… how do you manage to mischaracterize everybody from a game that’s all story.

And the point I made in a post somewhere about how Rhys is written differently than a LOT of men in borderlands and ppl have ran with it and decided hey this guy actually sucks. Or hey haha this guy can’t do anything. He’s completely out of his element on Pandora, of course he’s stumbling somewhat but bro is brave as hell for that shit. He’s a completely capable dude, yes he cares about Fiona and Sasha and Vaughn. Yes they care about him. I feel like people also get it twisted because of Fiona and Rhys in the intros, but people gotta remember that they’re acting like that because the game was episodic and we weren’t rlly allowed to know that they’re super buddy buddy. That’s one gripe I have w the game is that they made Fiona seem like she HATED his ass in some of the future settings in the beginning of episodes and people took it way too literally. Please I beg they’re besties,,, you’ve never boxed with a bestie before??? Either way it’s obvious that it’s blown out of proportion especially after Rhys’ whole arc concludes. You’re supposed to be like oooh he’s like that cause we couldn’t know. You look at Fi and you’re supposed to like daaamn she really cares about him/them they were all just split apart after extremely traumatic events. [I’m gonna stop here with this point cause it’s starting to be a run on but people do not talk enough about how traumatic both Helios’ crash, the wreck, and Gortys’ first fight was for all of them.]

I’ve talked extensively with a friend about this too but Tales had a looot of budget issues during its making cause of Telltale nuking itself, and the game was meant to have more time. ALL of them were!!! I always think about maybe if they all got more time they’d be treated this way less. But yknow,, whatever I guess.

AND THE VAUGHN THING UR SO CORRECT GOD. I think she really help him crawl out of his shell for a lack of a better term, both the sisters tbh I feel like they’re a very rare and cute friendship pairing and I need to see more of Sasha daring him to do shit like in the Chimera dome. They all care sooo deeply for each other and people even manage to miss that like god. One of Rhys’ core traits if you don’t make him abysmally evil is loyalty. LOYALTY. Fiona hasn’t had many, hell if any friends since tales started, She is SUCH a caring person of course she’s gonna ride or die for her friends. Like that one scene on Helios where Rhys can ask her not to leave, And she’s like “If I wanted to leave, I would’ve done it a looong time ago.” There’s so many points in the game I could,d bring up that show how great all of them are, Fiona, after knowing him for not too long at all, tries to convince Vaughn to be brave, and that he can survive Bossanova’s race. Yes, she had to do that so they wouldn’t die, but she went out of her way to say it in a way that was reassuring enough. That’s sweet. If she didn’t care about them she wouldn’t have played cards on the roof with Rhys, or play bunkers and badasses with the boys, or I don’t know, let them LIVE IN WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY HER HOUSE FOR A YEAR. /ref ep.3 of tales. I’m being dramatic, of course there are factors that didn’t let her kick them out. But, my point stands.

That wasn’t meaaan that was playful reassurance, she’s telling him she’s THERE FOR HIM. They all care sooosososo much. If none of the, cared about each other, any “betrayal” wouldn’t mean that much. People get hurt like that because of their bonds and yes, YES I’m being opinionated but they’re like the found family ever, god. Fiona is fucking amazing and she wouldn’t put up with anyone if she didn’t either have to, or care, and after a certain point it’s very obvious that it’s not the first one.

TLDR; Tales is great, stan Fiona, stan Rhys, Stan Sasha and Vaughn,,, my glorious queens and kings. Forgive any typos or grammar I wrote this on a passionate whim,

[sugarschnaps]

Julie HCs because her official page is as long as my attention span

Her official page is literally barely even there. It's just her game bio and THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE. More TCM lore or WE RIOT !!! Anyway I love Julie and she can be summarised in one sentence as my anxious baby sunflower ─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

It's canon that Julie is a very physically active person. However we don't know what sports exactly she does, but I'd like to HC that she plays football (soccer to the rest of the world, I'm British besties) and does distance running, dabbling in swimming a fair amount too. She goes surfing during the summer as well, she's literally always working on some kind of a physical thing. She doesn't go to the gym, sis doesn't need to.

She's the one that everybody goes to when it comes to style choices and the like. She does makeup on her friends for fun, the boys are not at all exempt from that, she especially loves to do makeup on them actually. You wouldn't be safe from her if she had a makeup brush in hand. Her whole desk at home is literally COVERED in makeup products divided based on whether they're hers or someone else's, takes special care of hygiene things too.

Julie might have a lot of energy, but that energy does NOT translate into how she acts with her friends. She's actually surprisingly quiet, tending to take to action more than with her words. She's a ball of anxiety usually, insecure on just about everything there is to be worried about. She's a brilliant listener because she doesn't know how to start conversations. She was absolutely "adopted" into the group by one of the more outgoing characters.

She'd cry if she got someone's coffee order wrong. Like she'd accidentally put a bit too much sugar in and when it's brought up she'd feel so guilty she'd just sit there trying not to cry- Of course, people would reassure her that it's okay and it's not the end of the world, but the poor girl is just so upset. She feels like a terrible friend whenever she makes the tiniest mistake or causes a minor inconvenience to her friends.

Girl does not know how to be mean to someone. Like she'd be stuck between "are you okay" and "im sorry" and say "are you sorry" then start crying

Literally always uses the softest tone of voice possible when she talks to people, she's actually rlly quiet. Like everyone thinks "oh she does a lot of sports she's totally a tomboy" but she's just there enjoying her friends being themselves and just thinking about how much she loves all of them

The rest of the time, though, she's the calmest presence literally ever. She's the secret keeper and the comforter. She is literally so good at reassuring people, like she's better than a licensed therapist (tbh tho in the uk the standard for them is LOW) when it comes to helping people cool off emotionally. She gives the best advice. Probably gives cuddles to her friends when they're stressed out, gives them little kisses on the top of their head and tells them they're going to be alright in fifty different ways until they calm down. She knows the love languages of everyone around her and makes sure to appeal to those in a platonic sense.

She's a good friend because she tries to be, not because she's absolutely capable in everything like the others might be. She's not intellectual in the same way Sonny or Ana might be, she's much more people smart than book smart- Can read you like an open book but will say absolutely nothing bc her fear of confrontation is real af

Julie volunteers in community gardens and at animal shelters when she isn't especially busy. It's just a habit of hers to try her best to give where she can. She's not the type that can really protect her friends, too scared of arguments and too weak to physically do much other than flee. Her heart is pure gold, and that's why her friends instead choose to protect her.

She uses every single cute nickname there is for her friends. Has some special ones set aside for specific people, but always ends up calling people "babe" (canon), "sugarcube", "hun", and the like. She also jokingly calls Leland "tough guy", change my mind (you cannot)

She's talented in a lot of things, but she doesn't quite see it. She's pretty decent with arts as well as sports, maybe not the best with literature things, but where it comes to energy and expression she absolutely excels. She was definitely that one nice popular girl. Like she'd always try her best to at the very least make up for people who were bullying other people and all that, y'know what I mean?

Her dream for the future is literally just to have two dogs. Golden retrievers specifically, but she's more than happy with the idea of more dogs. She wouldn't mind the whole romantic partner, picket-fence ideal, but she's more there for the furry babies (the dogs, which she can't decide on a name for) than she is for the romantic ideal.

She cannot, and I genuinely mean CANNOT cook anything without being worried she's undercooked it. She gets really anxious about the kitchen in general. Tends to stick to sandwiches and pre-cooked foods because she's always nervous about burning the house down. The only reason it doesn't affect her body because she's super active, honestly.

SCENTED CANDLES IN HER ROOM I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH SHE HAS PINE SCENTS, CINNAMON SCENTS, AND ALSO WOODSMOKE Taking no criticisms this is CANON.

Closest to Sonny out of everyone. They have the kind of friendship where they're remarkably similar in key traits people notice about them (examples being that they're both anxious people and they would do literally anything they possibly could to help their friends despite maybe not being suited to it) and they feel like they make up for each others' shortcomings. They have friend dates on fridays and she does his makeup for him, probably tells him orange brings out his eyes and sakfkahfkhhfuhr they're literally just friends and I love that for them

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

I love Julie so much I literally just want to make her flower crowns and give her cuddles I SWEAR

[yukisdomain]

Random ask, if you sort your top fav characters from JJK to Hogwarts houses, which houses will they be (in your opinion)? Why?

Hi!

I was a huge Harry Potter nerd when I was a kid, so don't mind me ranting here a little bit.

What a lot of people don't get about the houses, especially if they only watched the movies, is that you get sorted mainly based on your values. You can have certain personality traits and they play part in the sorting, but the values will always prevail.

That's why Hermione is in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw; in Philosopher's stone after she solves Snape riddle as one of the tasks to get to the Philosopher's stone (or if you only watched the movies, after they win McGonagall's chess game) she says that bravery and friendship are more important than books and knowledge.

That's why Peter Pettigrew ended up in Gryffindor inspite of being a coward; he admired bravery (and power) and always stuck around such people. During his school days it were James, Sirius and Remus.

That's also why Harry ended up in Gryffindor. He wanted nothing to do with Slytherin and admired the Gryffindor house traits.

I suppose it makes sense, because if you surround yourself with people who share the same values as you do, you can grow into the person you want to be. That's why timid Neville transformed into the person who was able to pull Godric's sword out of the hat and kill Nagini.

What people don't get as well is that Hufflepuff isn't for meak people - it's for the people that don't share any of the other values.

The sorting hat comes up with a new song every year, and during Harry's fifth year it revealed in the song (books) that Helga Hufflepuff was kind enough to take all the other students the other founders weren't interested in. So yes, Hufflepuffs value friendship and hard work, but you can't really say that any of the other houses don't value the same things. So here's the list of traits/values each founder looks for:

Godric Gryffindor: bravery/courage, nerve to defy and confront

Rowena Ravenclaw: thirst for knowledge, itelligence, creativity, individuality

Salazar Slytherin: resourcefulness, ambition, "the goal justifies the means" mentality (which is why Slytherins can appear ruthless)

Helga Hufflepuff: doesn't look for a specific trait and is ready to accept everyone, so I guess her kindness translates into one of the Hufflepuff's values

Based on that:

Yuuji - Hufflepuff. Not to say Yuuji doesn't have Gryffindor qualities, but he doesn't strike me as someone who keeps those qualities in high regard, simply because he doesn't think of them that much. Sure, there's his goal but that goal plays more into his kindness than anything else. That combined with his adaptability to other people and being able to play the roles they need him to play just screams Hufflepuff to me.

Nobara - on the other hand, she's someone who is a true Gryffindor

Kenjaku - Slytherin. Enough said

Yuki - Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. I guess her choice would play into this as well. She's not a Slytherin for sure bc unlike Geto, she wouldn't do anything to reach her goal, no matter how quickly that would lead her to where she wants to be. My girl has standards. Also, I think she'd choose Ravenclaw to find like minded people.

Hakari - Gryffindor or Slytherin. He didn't have enough chapter time for me to decide where to put him. I think he's more of a Gryffindor tho.

Have a nice day :)

[wetcatspellcaster]

ooh for the Baldur's Gate Companion Tav ask list I'd love to know the answers to all of them, but in particular General #3 and #5

Hey anon!!! Thank you for saying you'd be interested in all of the answers, maybe if I have time I'll do a full sheet lmao. For now:

3. Does your Tav have any comments or advice when you recruit other companions?

Lmao, the way that I think every single one is just a low-key unfiltered 'oh, they're pretty, we should keep them For Reasons' bc this would be girlie's first day without any anxiety in her literal life and so she'd just be a bull in a literal china shop. But specific ones:

Upon recruiting Gale: umm... he does realise we already have a wizard, yes? I'm literally stood... right here.

Upon recruiting Karlach: Yes. Good. Yes. Wonderful. You're very tall.

Upon recruiting Wyll: Wyll is just so nice! He held my hand when I needed help jumping over a puddle. *sigh* He truly is like a hero from a storybook.

Upon recruiting Astarion: So um... if we're taking bets. What do we think that hair is compensating for, exactly?

5. Are there any instances where your Tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player character actions?

I actually thought about this. I feel like, although she's good-aligned, Rosalie would stay with the party regardless of the alignment of the playthrough. In an evil-aligned game, she would gradually be persuaded to choose logic and rationality over emotion, and this would result in her volunteering to become the mindflayer in the final confrontation with Orpheus (if you're not siding with the Emperor). That being said, I think if the PC was directly responsible for killing a companion at any point, e.g. Minthara, or Gale, or whoever Orin kidnaps, that would trigger a dialogue with a high persuasion DC to get her to stay bc she's got so sad that 'the power of friendship' wasn't enough. So if either the Persuasion DC for logic over emotion, or for that dialogue were failed, then she would leave!

Companion!Tav ask list

[mchiti]

So im still fairly new to the Hakim fan club, when he decided to join the Morocco national team, did he face a lot of backlash from the dutch? I saw a video of people throwing things at him at a game???

oh friend :( I wish people could really understand what it means to choose an African national team. When Hakim joined in 2015 we were still at the beginning of a new process you know? The choice he made was truly phenomenal back then and set an example and that's why Moroccans truly love him.

When he did choose Morocco, lots of dutch were unhappy bc he was already big in the eredivisie. Didn't help that Van Basten literally said "how stupid can you be to choose Morocco if you are in contention for the dutch national team?" in 2016 when he was asked about it. I remember many dutch commenting on facebook/youtube that they found the decision ungrateful towards the country. "this is ungrateful towards the country that made you a footballer" - you would read that a lot in comments sections and such, the racist remarks were ALL THERE.

Fans definitely were very harsh on him, though they ultimately warmed up to him cause he was just THAT good lol. The bus incident was one, they assaulted the ajax bus once and confronted him VERY harshly. He did delete anything that had to do with dutch football from ig and only left pics of him with Morocco then...(x) if that was not explicative enough - but I think a big role was also played by dutch media being overly provocative.

There was a beautiful case-study that I had saved up on Dutch-Moroccan players, where someone did analyse dutch media content in relation to Hakim (also Amrabat!) specifically. I can't seem to find it online anymore to give credits (will edit if I find it again!!!) but it did enlighten that:

"the othering issue" -> after choosing Morocco, instead of being "a dutch sensational" it started to be called "the moroccan" much more. The media would always emphasise he did receive international youth trainings in Holland and his origins enlightened way more than before.

the "transnationality issue" -> not accepting a choice made by heart, thinking he was paid (x), a lot of focus on the fact he had contacts with the netherlands senior team before ultimately making his choice which was considered "treason"...

The Netherlands are known to be heavily racist towards Moroccans, so...

[linawritestwst]

hiiii congrats on 1k! i'd like to request a matchup please~

i go by she/they pronouns. aside from playing games and watching anime, i like reading books, specifically YA romance novels since im basic XD one of my main hobbies include experimenting w coffee beans too. (i've been obsessed with them since the pandemic started that i can probably make a 2 hr presentation on the history of coffee lmao jk) ANYWAY, i dont really know much abt my personality outside of personality types: i'm an infp, type 9w1 enneagram which is like being the peacemaker in a friend group bc i dont like confrontation lol. with that, i usually look assertiveness and decisiveness for a partner bc i cant have someone whos passive and agreeable as me HSHDHDHSJ but ofc, them being selfish is a whole diff thing. im usually the listener since im not good at making conversations and ppl find it easy to open up to me (prob bc i dont talk in the first place AHDHSHDHHS). but it would be good if my partner can hold up a conversation for us or at least let me feel comfortable to them that i can actually ramble and talk a lot :) my love language is giving gifts bc i think its nice to see something and immediately think of ur loved one like thats so cute!!

also, im okay with anyone from any dorm aside from the first years since theyre still a bit young~ i hope this is not too vague and too long. thank you so much and i hope more readers can find your writings!

hi, thank you so much for your kind words and i hope you like your matchup!!

also i'm so sorry for being so slow with matchups, i have exams coming up and i have to study a lot 😔😔

the character that i think would be a good partner for you is..

rook hunt!

i'll explain why i chose him:

this guy wouldn't think you're basic at all! everything about you is special to him and even if most people think your interests are "boring", he says that there's something beautiful about you liking popular things. come on, you like romance novels, that's so cute! he would be very curious to hear about your experiments with coffee beans as well and you can tell him everything you know about them, he will listen and he will genuinely find it extremely interesting. and your passion about this topic makes it even more beautiful for him.

rook would admire you being the peacemaker, because it means that you're a kind and caring person and it makes you even more beautiful in his eyes. you're already perfect to him, but if you want to become more confident, he would be glad to help! though he can also just be there in case you need someone to make a decision for you or someone who's not as passive.. but this man also can easily go "all of these look/sound nice <3" when you have to choose something, so.. good luck with that.

rook doesn't mind doing all the talking, since.. you know. he talks a lot. however, he would love to hear your thoughts and opinions more often, so in case you need to talk to him about something, he's all ears! he will react to everything you say and he will express his own thoughts about these topics as well, but he will try his best not to interrupt you and if he does, please forgive him, he gets very excited when he's able to spend time with you like this and get to know you better. he would love the gifts you give him too, the fact that you saw something and it reminded you of him warms his heart and makes him so happy!

[chasing-daydreams]

People talk about a twst otome game but like, should it be a straight forward visual novel?

Because if it were to be a something like tokimeki memorial- oh you wont see me for MONTHS

HEAR ME OUT (discussing specific mechanic under the cut)

I just wanna preface that I've only played the girl's side games and thats what Im basing my ramblings off of.

I don't think the bomb mechanic of the games will work for a cast of 22 characters. Maybe if you hang out with them to a certain amount, they'll start getting crabby if you stop hanging out with them all of a sudden and they bombs affect the characters within their dorm. Maybe some overlap with clubs. For example you dont hangout with Kalim as much, making Lilia and Cater go :/ but Jamil would be so peeved now Kalim's moping to him about it, how dare you prefect >:[[

Maybe the stats instead of the usual style, intelligence, etc. are based off the traits of each of the dorms like strictness, perseverance, benevolence, mindfulness, tenacity, diligence, and nobility. And they correspond to each dorm ie. Riddle's route would need more strictness.

To raise certain stats, there's the usual classes of history, alchemy, and PE. History raises strictness, mindfulness, and nobility. Alchemy raises tenacity and diligence. PE raises perseverance and maybe diligence too. There'll also be other actions and events like help out in the kitchen based off of the master chef course (Crowley gived them a school given job i guess) that raises mindful and benevolence. And so on.

Money and Stress is still a stat bc we gotta keep it real, the amount of times the Ramshackle Duo is mentioned to be at the mercy of Crowley's stinginess.... how could it not. Stress is self explanatory.

I don't think the dress up mechanic could work but I think an alternative that's so much better would be items used to boost stats like textbooks (you cant buy multiple but one type and it raises that stat permanently). Maybe when you'll get to a point that you can purchase gifts for the cast as well.

Grim will hate this but... taking care of Grim mechanic. He'll function just fine on his own but taking care of him by like making sure he studies, goes to class, etc. It'll raise stats and will even net you attention from others.

Getting this type of game would also be a good way to get a timeline of events in between overblots. I know there are alt versions like the fairy gala if but maybe you choose which version you play through at the beginning for the game since fairy gala if is only really possible after chapter 6 but the original can take place whenever so it'll be a smooth.

I don't think it has to have a romantic end goal, you can stay friends with characters even if you hit that romance threshold. With the amount of characters too, if you do choose to romance multiple people... I'd like to think word 'round a place like NRC travels fast and a confrontation will happen soon.

thats kind of it for concepts I can think of. Maybe at the end of the year is the end card of how your life progresses in Twisted Wonderland, ie. you have high strictness and benevolence you stay at NRC and become staff etc. Think of the ending system of Princess Maker. The default is that you don't make it back home, but there are certain events you trigger to get the option to go back home. For all the yumes out there, there'll also be maybe a cg of your chosen love interest and a snippet of your life with them (LET ME BE DELUSIONAL)

[lorata]

So exciting to see you answering prompts!!! I was reading you answer to what was in centre files and I couldn’t get Petra out of my mind, did she ever question the fairness of going up against other children with no training who were years younger or was the centre training good enough that she never questioned it? I love her as a character because she’s so obsessed with fairness within the structures she knows but, as far as I can tell from your live journal and a03 fics, never questions it outside these structures

In canon she only lives for 3 years after her victory and she is very intentionally kept away from the more brutal post-Arena aspects (mentoring, sponsors) because the others want to maintain her relationship with Snow as long as possible. Most of those 3 years are getting over her own trauma while being re-traumatized every time she has to go back for PR nonsense. There’s not a lot of time to think about the specific aspects of untrained outer district kids vs Careers.

Petra is lawful neutral to the extreme, so it’s not like …. natural order fairness, it’s an obsession with THE RULES. if Selene breaks the rules but gets away with it because she’s good, Petra is going to throw a tantrum. If Selene beats her in a fight using an unorthodox move and they remind her there’s no such thing as cheating in the Arena, she’s going to get VERY frustrated (but next time she will sneak a knife into her sleeve and stab Selene in the ribs).

HOWEVER.

the rules of the Hunger Games are very, very clear, and she has been brainwashed by them for years. the Centre staff know she’s obsessed with rules, so they make very sure to explain why D2 deserves to train like this (the kids watch history videos about the dark days and their district earning its loyalty over time) and why other districts don’t have that privilege. they explain that in the other districts, anyone could train for the games and volunteer on their own, but they don’t, they choose to let children die (not true, obviously, but part of the propaganda). they also explain how Arenas favour different districts every year to level the playing field, how story is just as important, how an outsider with sponsor appeal can be just as dangerous.

by the time Petra volunteers she understands the rules, she understands why they exist, she understands that without the games the country will fall. she wasn’t looking for strings.

but I would argue the idea that she never questions in the stuff I posted. if only by the way a big part of her arc is confronting how sheltered she’s been, even if a lot of it is centred on her own positionality. I didn’t need to write “Petra realizes the Games are bad” as the central narrative bc (to me) that’s a bit boring and obvious, what was more interesting to me was her relationship with Snow and the other Victors (like the Ones). though really, once she realizes the president is a liar the whole house of cards falls down, she doesn’t need to examine every piece in its own on the way down.

[13eyond13]

1: i've always seen near and mello as an extension of L's fight with light, not as 'oh, two new unrelated smart people are after kira now,' bc the manga opens with something like 'two chosen people' or sth, the people being i assume L and light, although no one actually chose them so i never understood that part. so if light hadn't been in L's radar, there wouldn't have been the avalanche of events that led to near. and light acts like he's haunted by L, despite two new flesh and blood enemies.

I agree with you about all of that. And I think that for Kira!Light a lot of his opinions about, and emotional engagement with, his rivals is heavily influenced by his own ego. I think he liked L the most because it was exciting and ego-boosting for him to see L as this exceptional person who specifically chose him as the only person who could possibly be Kira, and as such a legitimate threat to his own position that he had to come down and confront him personally instead of just ignore him or battle him from afar. L was good at both keeping him on his toes with his constant suspicion and making him feel important with his rapt attention, and was also seemingly down to play a lot of the sly little mind games and speak in similar types of innuendo around the others with Light. All of which made it feel like a secret personal competition between the two of them which I think they both enjoyed.

I think that initially Light is expecting Near and Mello to treat him similarly to L in these ways, so is excited at the prospect of that, but then quickly disappointed once he realizes that they aren't actually interested in treating him as a special nemesis. They are either more concerned with each other or with just having Kira wiped out once and for all. I think this leads to Light quickly deciding that he's going to treat them in basically exactly the same less flattering way; he becomes much more disparaging of them and dismissive of them in his own mind, and increasingly idealizing of L in order to protect his own ego and further widen the gap between them in his imagination.

I think Light did lose to Near and Mello, though what I liked about Near was that he always seemed to be considering a bigger picture than just "winning," like the lives and feelings and autonomy of everyone else involved who were being affected by the power plays over the notebooks. So in that way I feel Near was the least egotistical and most emotionally mature of the bunch, at least according to how he was written in the manga. L definitely got things in motion, and Near and Mello wouldn't have been the ones in battle with Light if it hadn't been for L deciding to take on the Kira case. But I don't think of it as L being "the winner" either, because he was mostly concerned with his own ego and with proving himself right and maintaining his own superiority most of the time too. And I think the story was also actually supposed to be about a little more than just a tug-of-war between two competitive guys. Which is a beef I have with the anime in general, because I think the anime sort of missed the point with how it framed the entire story overall. The dramatic irony of the entire series sort of lies in the egotistical way most of the geniuses involved are thinking about things, when in reality Ryuk just dropped the notebook randomly for his own entertainment, everybody involved is going to Mu in the end no matter what they do, and the actual gods in this universe don't see humans as anything but insignificant food. And so the way the anime cut out a lot of the important conversations with Light and Near and Ryuk and Mikami and just went harder on emphasizing L as the winner made it come off a little more nonsensical and confusing to me overall.

I agree that it's a bit odd to frame the story as "an all-out battle between two chosen people" in light of the series also heavily emphasizing that there was no actual "choosing" or special fates involved. I suppose you could say that L and Light sort of chose each other in a way, but otherwise I would say that it was supposed to be about basically the opposite idea. That the only "fates" and meanings and moral codes the human characters really had in this world were the ones they were creating for themselves.

[rabbitcrimes]

I love so many things about the moral ambiguities of the bitches in the untamed but one of my favorite little nuances is that wwx has absolutely no problem with lying if he thinks it’s what he needs to do to accomplish something, even (and especially!) if that means hiding something from or str8 up lying to the people who love him the most. I just think that’s such an interesting characterization for a character that wants desperately to be on the side of justice. That he’s a liar! That he’s a liar and that he lies specifically to keep himself at a safe emotional distance from the people who love him and to try to stay in control of his relationships and doesn't think twice about it.

This strategy works honestly very well for him ESPECIALLY with Jiang Cheng, who usually knows something is up but is baited so easily that he can’t see the smoke and mirrors for what they are. And then you have Jiang Yanli who knows he’s lying to her BUT who he allows to be as close to him as anyone because she lets him lie and pretends she doesn’t know he's doing it, actively choosing loving him over the truth. And then you have Wen Qing, who I think has a pretty real idea of what he’s capable of both in terms of heroism and horrors and is absolutely playing her own game of lies and love and distance with him. She lets him play his little games but there’s this sense with her that she's letting him think he's winning, which I LOVE for them. Like a sort of third path, where she's like 'ok, we can lie to each other, but I'll gut you like a fish if you make me, be apprised' and he's like 'cool cool cool noted, very fair.'

But Lan Wangji...... sweet Lan Wangji :((( Like okay the worst part is that lying is obviously forbidden in cloud recesses and lwj has all of his moral codes but Lan Wangji of ALL people sees the value of a well placed lie and the VALUE of keeping people at a safe emotional distance. Like that's his Whole Thing but he doesn't want to do that with Wei Wuxian, he wants them to be each others' exceptions and he’s waiting for wwx to just fucking ASK him to risk it all and wwx WON'T and it’s HORRIBLE!! Like for me it all comes back to that confrontation where Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng first see wwx play the flute. It's the first time that wwx puts lwj at a distance and lwj pushes back on that distance because he thinks he's wwx's exception. But wwx doesn't know he feels that way!! He sees lwj pushing him to open up to him as a threat and a betrayal!! And Lwj is so shocked by wwx pushing him away that he panics and pushes back harder and in the span of like five minutes wwx has shut him out completely!!!! That’s!!!!!!!!!! Lwj realizing in hellfire slow motion that wwx has given him an ultimatum and that ultimatum is 'let me lie to you or leave me alone,' and lwj has no idea how to argue with that in a way that doesn’t push wwx further away.

And what rlly hits me abt all of this is that at some point I do think lwj realizes that wwx has his reasons for not trusting lwj and that half of them are that wwx cares about lwj too much to feel safe in honesty. Like I think he knows that, particularly after wwx comes back from the dead. He knows that wwx will lie to the people whose judgement actually matters to him specifically bc it matters to him. But there’s no way lwj can articulate that to him! And not only does wwx lie, but he throws his entire heart into the smoke and mirrors of the lie. And how that must break lwj's heart, to have him back after so many years and still wonder when and how wwx is lying to him and know that there's no small chance that he wouldn't know and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it and it’s horrible !!!! Lwj is practically skywriting 'YOU CAN TELL ME ANYTHING I DON'T CARE HOW MANY MURDERS YOU DO WE'RE WELL PAST THAT' and wwx is like 'hmmmm we will see.' And all lwj wants is to be wwx's exception!!! Extremely ‘you will do the thing you always do /and I’ll watch/‘ like WHAT a nuance!! Ahh!!!!!

And OKAY the place that it all really turns for me is that scene where Lan Wangji is like asking Wei Wuxian where he was for sixteen years and wwx is like "If I say I don't know, would you believe me" and lwj is like "I believe you." As a contrast to when lwj asks where he was when he was missing for three months and pushes and pushes until wwx shuts him out. And I love this moment because it's ostensibly the truth but maybe it's not, you know? Wei Wuxian doesn't say 'I don't know' he says '/if/ I said I didn't know, would you believe me?' And it doesn't seem to matter if it's the truth to either of them. It's Wei Wuxian saying 'do you trust me to do what I need to do and tell you what I need to tell you' and Lan Wangji saying 'of course I do.' Like it's not that they grow to a place where wwx always tells the truth or that lwj just has to accept that wwx lies its like they've moved to a place where something like that is secondary. Bc they've moved past the smoke and mirrors. Pretty sexy of them honestly

[klapollo]

I think the reason why they’re putting off the sibling reveal is bc they aren’t sure how to handle Thalassa integrating herself in Apollo and Trucy’s life as their mom? Cause like Trucy knew her at a very young age and has Phoenix and Apollo barely knew her and is an adult, they also only had a few interactions and it just sounds awkward and difficult knowing someone is your mom and you should have a close connection with her but don’t know. or I might be wrong idk, but I feel like thats the more likely reason why it hasn’t happened yet, and perhaps the reason why Thalassa didn’t tell them immediately. Sorry for the rant I’m just thinking about this again and don’t know where else to tell

I've said something to this effect before but I think Capcom kinda shot themselves in the foot on this one and effectively made their job harder re: justifying why Thalassa kept it in for TWO YEAYAHS and lost out on key parts of her kids' youth. My personal theory is that it's rooted in her trauma, but I highly doubt this is the case in actuality.

In choosing to integrate another protagonist, they've put themselves in a box where they're forced to simultaneously nurture three characters (to what end they are carrying on with Phoenix as a protagonist I don't know, as I've said before I feel like his story is done and he'd function best as a Mia-like mentor character). DD HAD to focus on Athena, it was her debut game, but they also shoehorned in sloppy Apollo lore (again, to serve what purpose, I don't know, I’m almost CERTAIN they could have raised the stakes on clay without all that stuff).

SOJ is where the problem REALLY comes to a head though. In the Magical Turnabout, they had the perfect vehicle to make all this stuff happen. A case specifically focused on the troupe, confronting Trucy's past, with a slimy, powerful villain who threatens Apollo and Trucy with their own secrets? The stage was SET. And they cashed in on absolutely none of it. It was very surface level acknowledgement of Trucy that did her character no favors and actively ignored everything we've learned about her and her family so far. Then, on top of this, MORE sloppy Apollo lore. Now, at this point, if you choose to focus on him even more in the next game (should there be one), the average aa fan is just gonna be like "fuck, God, MORE apollo?????" while the players who actually love him are gonna be burnt out should the resulting lore be more on-the-fly nonsense.

The original trilogy played its hand with Phoenix lore very smartly. Every major plot-integral thing about his past (see: not minor details that can be easily peppered in like Apollo owning a bunny or Phoenix biking to work) serves to build the overall narrative. His childhood with Edgeworth and Larry, dating Dahlia/Iris, and meeting Mia are all major puzzle pieces that help lay the foundation for the game's conclusion. With Apollo, we get the opposite. The plot's needs do not inform the development, the plot is informed by what direction they want him to go in. This goes hand in hand with their choice to abandon multi-game stories in favor of standalone titles. There is no "end goal" here to which the plot developments must serve and it makes everything very, very messy.

And, as a result, the Thalassa crap becomes muddled and ridiculous. It makes her look like a bad mom, and it leaves Apollo and Trucy in a weird place. Not to mention everything YOU mentioned, where she must now integrate herself into the lives of two adult children.

This was REALLY fucking long even for me lol. Forgive me.

[eskelent]

OKAY so this idea has been chewing on my stupid little lambden-loving brain since the last time I did Following the Thread and the getting-drunk-in-kaer-moron quest in tw3 and I need to throw it into the void so it will give me some damn peace.

The first time Lambert mentions Aiden to Geralt—when Geralt is asking for a little background on why he just helped Lambert murder a dude, bc when your little brother fellow witcher says ‘help me kill a man’ you say sure sounds legit and you get the details later—Lambert leads with the fact that Aiden was, explicitly, in no uncertain terms, his friend. This scene is memorable to me for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the odd way Lambert phrases his introduction of Aiden (with stilted, uneven syntax which indicates how monumentily difficult it is for Lambert to even just get the words out) and the fact that the syntax is inverted a bit so that the concepts of friend and Aiden are as closelt linked as possible. But also I am fairly sure Lambert’s pitch is lower in this part of this scene than in others, to convey how heartbroken serious he is (but like I didn’t break out Praat to check so, idek). Basically, it’s abundantly obvious that this seemingly simple concept—that Aiden was his friend—is enormously important to Lambert, enough so that it’s something of a struggle for him to talk about.

Geralt, class act that he is, promptly mocks Lambert after he starts talking about Aiden, specifically by implying it’s surprising that Lambert had even a singular friend. Lambert pauses, snarks a bit (but doesn’t contradict him), and gets on with telling Geralt about Aiden and about why he tracked down and mordled some seemingly random flunky and why he needs help doing it roughly four more times. Lambert’s usually pretty snappy with his comebacks, so that interestingly placed pause after Geralt’s (entirely uncalled for) cheekiness definitely sticks out as meaningful and really emphasizes just how important it was for Lambert to call Aiden his friend.

Flash forward to Geralt meeting up with Lambert and Eskel in Kaer Morhen for a boys night of getting soused and playing an adorable game of witcher-flavored never-have-I-ever. We learn that Lambert has never slept with a succubus and that Eskel has never woken up naked after a bar crawl, and then the player gets to choose what Geralt has never done. The choice is between drugs and having jumped out of a lover’s window. If you pick the latter, Lambert drinks and you get an exchange in which Eskel says something along the lines of Lambert must have been sleeping with the wife of a pretty intimidating man. Lambert has been fairly upbeat in this scene so far, but his reply to Eskel is definitely subdued in contrast—slow, hurt intonation and possibly lower pitch, quite similar to his earlier conversation with Geralt where he introduced Aiden. He says that what Eskel suggested wasn’t the situation at all and that he jumped out his lover’s window rather than face the confrontation because the other guy was a friend who Lambert didn’t want to hurt. And the way the exchange is worded, it’s entirely possible to parse the he that Lambert mentions as the lover rather than the husband of the lover.

From what I can remember, Lambert mentions precisely one friend other than Aiden in tw3, and the other one was a fellow witcher trainee who didn’t survive childhood, so is ineligible to be the friend Lambert’s referring to during the drinking game. Lambert’s whole personal quest is about getting revenge for the murder of his friend, which as Geralt so delicately pointed out in the Following the Thread scene, Lambert doesn’t have many of. So to bring up a friend again in this scene is, to me, a little bit suggestive and my shippy little heart tells me they are definitely linked.

Which I guess, now that I’ve gone on way too long, is to say... I’m not saying Lambert definitely slept with Aiden and then jumped out his window... but also what if Lambert slept with Aiden and then jumped out his window rather than talk about it?

What if it was the last time Lambert saw Aiden?

[batricide]

i’ll drop this on my blog here too actually bc it’s Important to how i play damian and also let me yell about the fact that ij’s bruce is not a good person and the reason why so many people hate damian is because they somehow miss that.

so! here’s a warning for: tyrannical totalitarian regimes, child abuse, abusive fathers, emotional manipulation, evil superman, character death & also random he-man. please note that this is about injustice and its characters, which are not a reflection on their mainstream counterparts or how i view them.

there’s tension between damian and bruce from the get-go in injustice, and we’re never really told why. if we take cues from the game (though that entire scene doesn’t make sense) then it’s because bruce didn’t save jason, which fits in with my reordered robin theory in which tim and jason were switched, and jason has only recently died.

now, we don’t know whether jason is running around as red hood right now or not. but i’m inclined to say he isn’t, as his injustice 2 ending makes a big deal of him becoming red hood. and damian is close with jason in injustice 2, close enough that jason listens when damian tells him that he’s a lot more than bruce thinks he is and drops the shitty batman costume. close enough that during the (extremely weird, extremely out of alignment with the comic) scene in injustice 2 where damian betrays bruce for clark, jason is the name damian throws at him with the most vehemence. regardless of the robin ordeer, bruce’s failure to save jason is seems to be an incredibly sore point between them.

so it’s interesting that bruce is already counting damian out before injustice even starts. he’s comparing damian to jason - someone who he apparently no longer considers part of his legacy. 

the kicker is: damian in injustice is actually probably the most morally centered version of himself. he shows open compassion and care for other people more often than he does in most of the mainstream runs. damian’s sense of right and wrong is solid, but what he wants is to break the cycle that gotham is trapped in. which from his perspective, is something bruce doesn’t seem to want to do.

injustice’s version of bruce is someone who truly believes that the ends justify the means - which means he’s apt to do some heinous things to people until they see his side of things. he seems to view people questioning as an act of betrayal, so instead of ever explaining himself he resorts to things like installing viruses in cyborg, kidnapping hawkgirl and replacing her, beating allies within an inch of their life - all of it is fine to him so long as they’re not dead. 

but it’s not fine to damian.  damian is constantly horrified at the lengths bruce will go to.

damian is afraid of his father. 

so, this is about a specific scene.  let’s get to that scene. its just important to note the difference between them, and emphasize that he’s not going with any intent to fight. if he was going to do that, he wouldn’t be doing this:

or respond like this:

or this:

he’s there to make amends, or at least try to. he still loves his father and he wants to be forgiven, and this is something that will carry on ten years later in injustice 2. damian made the choice to oppose bruce’s controlling nature but damian didn’t choose to abandon him and the bat family permanently. that choice was made for him. damian wants to come home. 

and he’s terrified of his father. i cannot stress that enough. bruce at this point has already shown that he knows how to hurt his closest friends if they oppose him.

damian is a highly trained fighter, but he’s also a  thirteen year old boy who knows he can’t overpower a man twice his size and weight.

and bruce?

bruce’s entire argument really hinges on ‘you, my thirteen year old son, didn’t take my side in this argument’. because, i have to put this in bold, the league was not executing the criminals they were removing from arkham. they were just transferring them to a more secure facility. something which is actually sorely needed, especially given what has just happened to metropolis. arkham isn’t fit to house them. and as far as damian sees it, bruce doesn’t like it because it’s removing an element of his control.

now, bruce isn’t wrong about how things will escalate. 

but damian’s not wrong about his motivation here.  i think there’s a conversation to be had about how bruce’s methods in trying to stop the regime actually drove it to further and further extremes. bruce never tries to talk to clark - or anyone, really. he just starts playing mind games to make them do what he wants.

it harkens back to the conversation bruce and dick have in the batplane. that bruce doesn’t talk to people, he doesn’t explain himself. he’s either right or you’re wrong and he won’t explain his stance. there is never room for debate. he’ll just stop talking and leave until you agree.  there is no option where he sits and listens to an open and honest dialogue, no scenario where he entertains that he might be in the wrong or maybe things aren’t black and white.

and that’s why injustice bruce is not a good guy. 

even on prime earth, damian had to bend over backwards to prove to bruce that he wasn’t a monster. it was damian who spent months digging through the sewers for martha’s pearls. damian who had to prove he was capable of loving titus. damian who constantly had to show that he was capable of empathy and thinking of others - bruce did none of the heavy lifting in that father-son relationship, he made damian climb the entire hill and still continues to put little effort into it.

and injustice bruce is even less empathetic and expressive than prime bruce.  

which is why you get a confrontation like this:

this goes beyond dick’s accident and ties back into what clark said about bruce not tending to his son’s who are grieving because they lost friends in metropolis.  damian’s fed up with never meeting bruce’s expectations. but more than that, he’s fed up with his feelings coming second to bruce’s. 

bruce has already made a judgement on who and what damian is. damian has the potential to be dangerous and requires work to fix, and so he’s not interested in getting to know him beyond that. he tells dick that he’s “worried about  damian being seduced by darkness” but never talks to damian himself with him about it.

but clark has looked at damian and and decided that damian is good. damian has problems, clark can admit that and does, but damian is good. like bruce himself.

and ultimately why when dick dies, clark is the one that reaches out to him because he sees damian for what he is: grieving child who just made a terrible mistake. it was an accident. damian didn’t mean for this to happen. meanwhile, bruce feels as though he was proven right. damian was dangerous and now his real son is dead. bruce will later admit, once he stops trying to manipulate damian, that damian was dead to him the moment dick died.

going back to year zero for a minute, they subtly show that damian is doing his best to be like bruce. baby damian idolizes his father. so i imagine a lot of bruce’s own feelings towards damian stem from self-hatred. from bruce seeing himself in his son and not liking the reflection it forces him to confront. injustice bruce projects a great deal of his own insecurities and shortcomings onto his youngest. damian is his worst what-if.

even though damian doesn’t deal with his grief the way bruce does. there are similarities, he puts his feelings into his fists and hits. just like bruce. but unlike bruce, and most likely because of dick, he does try to communicate. come injustice 2 he even talks about his feelings.

that doesn’t justify any of the violent outbursts. and he has a lot of them. he has significant issues with controlling his anger and struggles with lashing out, verbally and physically. it both worsens and improves as he gets older.

damian knows that he’s more than his grief, his loss, his anger. he’s also compassionate and capable of incredible feats of kindness. we see that in the flashback chapter in injustice 2. people aren’t pawns for damian, they aren’t a means to assuage his own guilt and validate himself as a good person. he wants to be good for those people.

damian’s relationship with heroism isn’t built on an intrinsic need for control or power, nor is it a means of validating his self worth.

people just need him. they’re suffering.  and he wants to be there for them.

but again, we’re not there yet.

so, alfred reaches out to touch damian. damian asks him repeatedly to let go. when alfred doesn’t, damian tries throwing him off, not realizing how much strength he now possesses.

damian  has a thing about being touched when he’s wound up tightly. it almost always ends with him lashing out at someone. which, tying back into why he felt comfortable coming back here, probably goes into his expectation that he’s going to get the lights knocked out of him. because again, damian did not go to the cave to fight or hurt anyone. the pill is entirely for his own defense.

from what we know of damian’s childhood in both prime and injustice, violence is the expected retaliation for misbehavior. toeing out of line is grounds for getting the shit beaten out of you, and while things should be different here....

from how bruce reacts he’s not wrong to expect it.  note that bruce dodesn’t run to alfred to see if he’s okay, he goes after damian for hurting him. it’s damian who runs to alfred after he’s thrown bruce away from him.  

( granted, yes, he threw bruce into the penny and it almost crushes alfred )

damian apologizes and he means it.  alfred’s first question is to ask for bruce.  

“”hawkgirl”” intervenes to try to end this fight before it can escalate further.

damian deduces that this isn’t hawkgirl and blows some stuff up.  bruce calls after him probably - not to have a serious heart to heart with him about what just happened, or what happened in arkham, but to try to manipulate him into taking bruce’s side or in the very least stop his ruse from being uncovered.

this is a theme moving forward. bruce will dangle forgiveness in front of damian, but only when it benefits him and can be used to control him. eventually he’ll stop and will use the guilt he knows damian feels to wound him.

and here’s the second theme it introduces: damian is scared shitless of his father. he’s not afraid of bruce’s violence, as after this he charges straight for him time and time again, but he is utterly terrified of the lengths bruce will go to get his way.

this is also where he takes dick’s suit. i think this was his way of telling bruce that he didn’t deserve to use dick’s memory the way he uses his parent’s death - as justification for what he does.  this comes up in injustice 2 later down the road, damian will bring up that bruce uses his pain to justify how he brutalizes the people around him. damian does the same thing -- but we also see damian grappling with his conscience about it. he wants to be better. he doesn’t want to be all his violence and loss.

back to the topic at hand, damian doesn’t do anything with dick’s suit. unlike bruce, damian doesn’t wear his grief and guilt in plain sight. he puts it in a box and doesn’t look at it, he covers the wounds with anger and as he gets older, develops a death wish and basically begins seeking a noble death in order to make up for what he’s done. it isn’t until dick passes the mantle to him in an attempt to steer him back on the right path that he even looks at it again.

damian isn’t the one that ended his relationship with bruce. bruce did. damian is very willing to reconcile if bruce genuinely wants it, but bruce doesn’t bother with damian outside of combat or when he needs something. damian actually keeps up visits with alfred, he gets him birthday presents, they meet up often and despite their opposing viewpoints, they get along just fine. damian even listens to what alfred says. he still loves his family.

damian himself is a mess. this line resonates because damian, too, is afraid. afraid of bruce, afraid of being what bruce thinks he is. there’s only so far he can bury it under the anger.

by the next issue of year one, after the confrontation at the manor, damian’s discarded any notion that bruce is a good person or justified in anything he does. everything he says on this page is true.

he’s not wrong. he’s more than bruce has even given him credit for being. injustice bruce sorts people into boxes impossible to climb out.  damian made his attempt at reconciliation and instead, found out that bruce has kidnapped and replaced one of his friends to spy on all the rest. in that split second when bruce came at at him, he saw the disgust and anger in his eyes. he’s seen how bruce sees him and wholeheartedly rejects it. 

he doesn’t want to be bruce. he will not be bruce.

batman was supposed to be better than the league. it was supposed to be a new way. instead he just found a new, different means to brutalize and control, and a new way someone justifies causing harm. and he doesn’t want it.

this isn’t to say that damian is a saint. he’s a very flawed, very broken person. he went from one abusive parental situation, to another, to another, and has the damage to show for it. he’s got bad habits from all of them, many of which he isn’t aware of or doesn’t think are a problem. 

but unlike his two dads, damian doesn’t close himself off to what he’s feeling completely, nor does he decide to rush towards external solutions for his pain. he’s, again, very aware that something is wrong. he doesn’t hold to his convictions the same way bruce or clark do, he questions.  he’s deeply unhappy with who he is and what he’s doing. 

but damian is seeking answers using a very limited toolset, and there’s a very limited pool of people he can ask that won’t give him a biased answer or try to manipulate him for their own means. one of the people he confides in does just that.

the other gives him the honest truth.

his relationship with selina is fraught and she’s often one of the very nastiest people towards him, but it’s because of that  he ends up opening up to her. she isn’t going to bullshit him and just say what he wants to hear.

and this is what makes damian different from them. both of them.

because he stops, because he questions, he’s still connected to reality. to his own humanity.

injustice’s bruce is a bruce that has quietly let his humanity die. he’s completely given over to the cold logic of batman and the idea that whatever he does to the people around him, no matter how morally dubious, is justified so long as it means protecting lives. he might not kill, but he really stops just short of that. he just doubles down on his beliefs and takes anyone who doesn’t agree with him as a traitor. he will go out of his way to rationalize how a largely guilty person is innocent (harleen) and how a largely innocent person is guilty (damian). and so he uses damian’s “betrayal” - ie, damian standing with clark instead of him - as justification for icing him out. that way he can ignore all the people who have reminded him time and time again that it was an accident.  

bruce also can’t stand that damian won’t do what he says. bruce will ignore damian unless it benefits him. bruce will go on to frequently weaponize how badly damian wants forgiveness against him. there are multiple instances where he says “just do as i say and i’ll forgive you, son.”

and then in the next breath, he’ll tell damian that he “can’t forgive the deaths”, all the while he has harleen as his new sidekick.   it’s fine that harleen helped with the scheme to blow up metropolis, killed jimmy olsen, and countless others. it’s not fine that damian did something he did all the time to dick - something dick himself shrugged off, because the expectation for this behavior was that dick would catch the baton - and it ended in tragedy.

because harleen listens to him and damian doesn’t. bruce cuts damian neatly out of his life and only really cares about him again when he’s a corpse.

damian, meanwhile, never stops trying to earn bruce’s forgiveness. in the canonical bad end (or well a comic offshoot of the canon ending) damian essentially dies begging bruce to forgive him, admitting that he always cared. he launches an absolutely insane rescue mission to save his father from clark’s torture and it costs him his life.

( but it’s worth mentioning - it takes damian showing bruce an image of kara for bruce to acknowledge him. )

even before this, damian was looking out for bruce in other ways. he was the reason selina got involved with the regime. because he offered her the chance to join and save bruce. damian’s anger towards bruce is less that he wants him dead, and more that bruce won’t stop unless he’s killed.

and damian is willing to kill him if bruce poses a threat to his ‘new’ family. he’s not going to watch bruce hurt the people he loves.

but his new father sucks just as much as his old one.

talia and bruce were more obviously abusive parents. they were controlling and sometimes asserted that control and obedience using physical violence and intimidation. in obvious ways you can point to and see abuse. 

damian doesn’t recognize clark is using him until he sees clark discard kara, who should be everything to clark and is someone important to damian. before that, he has inklings that they’ve gone too far, but clark has been such a paragon of good that when he tells damian not to worry about it, he doesn’t. he hides all his darkness behind that  smile and tells damian he’s good and worthy of people loving him, that they’re saving people and they won’t let another metropolis happen. clark talks to him and still (seems to) accept him even when they disagree.

damian misses clark’s equally as abusive tendencies because they hidden under the guise of a fatherly concern. 

clark is manipulating him into divulging more than he wants to. a boundary damian set is being broken without damian even realizing it.  damian’s uneasy. his body language goes from very easy and relaxed to overtly uncomfortable and almost submissive. it’s also very subtle but clark actually rises higher off the ground to intimidate and loom over him.

damian, who has only known bruce’s stormy silences in moments of disagreement, doesn’t recognize this for what it is.  clark doesn’t take the slight out on him. clark doesn’t stop talking to him because he dared to question.

instead, he loops an arm around damian and praises him, rewards him for being honest and makes it seem like this is an open dialogue and not an interrogation. which it is. i wouldn’t call it gaslighting, but i would call it lovebombing. damian doesn’t realize that there was anything off about the encounter, or if he does, he’ll tell himself he’s just being paranoid.

after all. this ended amicably, not with him standing alone wondering what he did wrong, or being thrown across the room. clark basically stops just shy of ruffling his hair and calling him sport. 

he was rewarded for honesty. and so any discomfort he felt was imagined.

 i think a thing that a lot of fans miss is that injustice’s damian is a forthright person. he doesn’t lie or deceive much, and later on it will bother him that he’s keeping secrets from kara for ‘the greater good’. he loathes that bruce does it and works hard to not fall into that trap. he wants to be honest. he’s glad when he’s rewarded for that honesty. 

because injustice’s damian doesn’t want to be batman. he wants to be superman. he wants to be good.

but injustice’s superman is not a good man. 

clark keep secrets, many terrible secrets, and often hurts people and justifies it to himself. he just hides it far better than bruce does.  clark is even more controlling and cruel, but he leans harder into his humanity and emotions to hide it. it’s easier to see bruce being cold and calculating and miss the way clark subtly uses what you want to get what he wants out of you. and you never really see it coming when he lashes out. he’ll apologize for it, of course, and if you’re not dead you’ll forgive him, because it’s clark. he didn’t mean it. right?

bruce manipulates overtly and grandly using intimidation, clark manipulates subtly using emotion. damian only recognizes one of these things when they happen.

so clark gives damian what he wants - a parent who loves him, someone he can talk to and even show a little vulnerability with - and then uses that against him. 

the worst thing -  the very worst thing - is that bruce and clark love damian. he knows this. both seem to genuinely consider him their son. and he knows this.

in injustice vs motu, bruce snaps fully into awareness just as diana snaps damian’s neck. he’s awake just in time to watch his son die.    and when clark is brought onto the scene, clark falls to his knees and mourns damian and laments his role in driving him to this.

but they weaponize this parent-child bond he wants against him and each other. frankly, neither of them were very interested in him for who he was. nor for helping him be better and master his anger. damian’s body isn’t even cold before bruce uses it against clark, failing to acknowledge his own part in damian’s all too early demise.

he’s another chess piece on their board. one clark can use to wound bruce. one bruce can use to wound clark.

the person damian is when away from both of their influence is a more complete damian. he’s the very best of both of them.

the damian here is still curt and sometimes rude, but he laughs and bonds with the people around him. he values people’s freedom and seems to strive for honesty and communication. meaning no one is in his war to reclaim the world doesn’t want to be, and he makes no move without everyone knowing.

when he recruits adam,  he tells them their story and what they’ve gone through and gives adam the choice to join them or stay in eternia.

anyway, all of this is to say that even all these years later, i continue to be so sad about injustice damian wayne. 

edit:

now, there’s actually one other thing i want to bring up because i totally forgot about it.

so. issue 8 of injustice 2.  

if we’re going with the idea of the reordered robin theory, which is what makes the most sense to me considering jason’s age and the friction between bruce and damian, this before jason dies. and if i’m wrong and the robins don’t have a different order, then this is before some enormous event that broke the slowly building trust.

there’s none of the undercurrent of hostility and distrust that shows up in year 0, which is immediately before year 1. we’re not given a timeframe for when this occurs, either, it’s just happier times.

but what’s really hard to ignore is that the dynamic between bruce and damian is completely different here. maybe tom taylor’s just settled more into writing the two of them, but i don’t think so. year zero comes after this. 

he even acknowledges damian’s anger earlier in the chapter. but it’s less of a condemnation of his character and more a concern that he might not be ready to be on his own. alfred is the one advocating for caution, asking if he’s ready, bruce is the one saying yes, he is.

it’s a complete reversal.

and his trust is rewarded with a night of damian abandoning the “”mission”” he was given (get home from the furthest point of gotham in three hours) to help everyone along the way. which was the real goal all along, it was a test to see if damian’s compassion would win out over his want to win. and it does. bruce is proud of him.

so... what happened between them? what caused that shift? 

i’m kind of worried we’re never going to know. like, i’m so glad that tom taylor is dc’s new golden boy and they’re just letting him build a million different aus. i buy every book he writes. 

but also i’m dying because IJ2 was clearly planned to go on a lot longer than it did and i have questions that i know netherrealm doesn’t care about answering.