#it's a start at leat I can now build out further

[chevvy-yates]

Hi, I want to know:

19. Weapon of choice for all 3 of your boys.

Vijay is mainly a netrunner, but he makes use of pistols as well.

Weapon of choice: Malorian Arms 3516 (Power Pistol)

Cyberdeck Operating System: Raven Microcyber Mk.IV with 10 Base RAM, 8 Buffer Size and 6 mod slots Quickhacks: 1. Overheat (non-lethal) 2. Short-Circuit (non-lethal) 3. Cyberware Malfunction 4. System Reset (non-lethal)* 5. Synapse Burnout (lethal) 6. Suicide (lethal) *Installed in the first place for resetting Ryder's system when he can't get out of berserk mode.

Ryder is a berserker with the focus of using assault rifles if he can't fight with his mantis blades.

Weapon of choice: Nokota D5 Copperhead (Power Assault Rifle)

Mantis Blades: Physical damage type with a fast rotor for increasing attack speed Berserk Operating System: Zetatech Berserk Mk.5 with Beast Mode mod installed

Thyjs is a former Militech soldier, trained for front to mid range combat, using Sandevistan and a Projectile Launch System, and capable to use almost any firearm but prefers a shotgun.

Weapon of choice: 'The Headsman' Constitutional Arms M2038 Tactician (Power Pump-Action Shotgun)

Projectile Launch System: with mosty electrical rounds electrical cyberware hand (left)

Sandevistan Operating System: Militech "Falcon" Sandevistan Mk.5

[theteaisaddictive]

Could you do the director's commentary for Belle and Eve's coming out to each other in Ever Just the Same, please?

thanks!! (this is so long oh my god)

ok, so the scene really begins at the start of the chapter, with belle realising that by spying into the garden, she’s (inadvertently, this time) crossed another of the beast’s boundaries. she’s buffeted by the winter wind, which carries over nicely to the ‘cut’ when we resume a direct narration of events, with belle in her bed and the gust of wind transformed into a full-on storm. belle wants to find an area of the castle where she can find comfort in the midst of the storm -- a safe space, if you will -- and chooses the library. this location is done for obvious reasons; it and the grounds are the two settings where belle and the beast have spent the most time together, and the grounds are out of bounds if it’s midnight during a snowstorm. so library it is -- a warm, inviting area where the two have developed their relationship to find common ground, but also an area of exploration and discovery of the wider world through the literature they read. 

(cont. under the cut)

the beast’s narration opens with further exploration of her physical dissonance; she hates being cursed, but she has a physical need to fly and stretch her wings. two conflicting ideals at the same time, which metaphorically link to her internalised homophobia; she’s intrigued by belle, and getting close to maybe falling in love with her, but at the same time she wants to be ‘normal’. there’s some more world building about how things work when she isn’t injured (the staff keep the curtains drawn at all times for ease of access, and it hasn’t been long enough for them to get out that habit yet/eve is very familiar with the patterns of movement in the castle, and the servants are familiar with hers as well). 

and then, the first big plot twist of the story -- cogsworth and lumiere are, like, gay. 

the beast at this moment hasn’t even started her journey to self acceptance. but she’s so wound up in her identity as the protector of the staff that she’s already side-stepped the ‘this is wrong and my staff should be punished’ response and has leapt straight to ‘oh god oh god what if i’m about to see two men i’ve known since childhood threatened and assaulted, or worse, in front of my very eyes and there’s nothing i can do to stop it?!?’ of course this doesn't happen, as cogs and lumi are in a very happy throuple, and this gives the beast a real paradigm shift in the way she views the world. when writing, i wanted it to be clear what kind of homophobia the beast had grown up with (and what she might semi-realistically have been exposed to), but i also didn't want to make it torture-porn (or anachronistic in wording), if that makes sense -- so she refers to herself as vulgarity, as a perversion, whereas if this was set in today's times she might be repeating conservative talking points and various slurs she may have learned. 

we also learn that the beast, being in the body of a bird, can't gain the emotional catharsis of crying. this isn’t especially relevant at this moment, but it gets revisited at several other times of high emotional stress in later chapters, and there will be a payoff once she finally turns human again.

so, with all this going around in her mind, the beast enters the library and finds who else but belle, in a state of undress she has never seen a woman in. there are two lines from this passage which i feel really show the beast’s dilemma here -- how in the (unspecified) number of years since she realised she was attracted to women, she had become ‘as chaste as a nun’ (be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. get thee to a nunnery, go.) -- and then when belle is sitting on the couch, about to get off, and her nightdress rucks up slightly -- ‘uncovering her legs up to her knees, and [she] hated herself for noticing their elegant shape’. 

there’s a reiteration that belle should feel at home with the beast, and then shit gets real as they discuss the woman in white. now as far as i know there isn’t any queer theory about the woman in white, but it was written by wilkie collins specifically as a response to the piss-poor lot married women got in england, so not exactly irrelevant to these women. it naturally leads to discussion of marriage, belle sharing about gaston and then the beast, for the first time, sharing what happened with the enchanter. 

the hand-touching is at that moment the best way belle can try and provide comfort to the beast. greensearcher’s ‘Mirrors’ articulates this straight-up in the text beautifully, but the beast is alone in a sea of people who can’t touch her. we also get the first of my favourite images -- belle as a cat, chasing after the beast, a bird. 

and only then, after having a paradigm shift in her worldview and being assured through their discussion of marriage that belle understands at leats part of where she’s coming from, does the beast admit that she is ‘a perversion’. (contrast, if you like, with the affirmation and euphoria in chapter 16 when she re-identifies as ‘lesbian’ instead of monster)

we don’t see belle’s pov in this scene, but she chooses to come out in part because of the beast’s bravery, partly because this is the first other queer person she’s met, and partly because for the first time the beast is lowering her barriers and letting her in. (lowering barriers and letting people in is a recurring theme, in case you hadn’t guessed by now)

the final line in the chapter is also interesting: ‘outside their small oasis of golden light, the snowstorm raged on’. gold as a colour is associated with the beast and belle in the original film, and that’s continued in my fic. with the semi-cinematic ‘zoom out’, we also get the image of these two women huddled together in the warmth, while the cold world rages around them, and if that’s not a metaphor for safe spaces i don’t know what is.