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thecatprince · 4 years ago

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Fighting Feelings

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Summary: After the whole callback fiasco, Roman decides he needs to prove himself in the only way he knows how - fighting for his honour. When he gets injured, Virgil is there to pick him up and comfort him.

Pairings: Prinxiety

Warnings: Graphic description of injuries, heavy Roman angst and implied suicidal ideation.

Word Count: 4219

Authors Notes: Post POF angst? in 2021? More likely than you think! This was inspired by two prompts that I received (thank you very much for sending them and sorry it took me ages to do them) which I combined. First prompt was “No, not again. Please!” from @underestimatemethatwillbefun and the second prompt was “Is it that hard to believe I love you?” from @autisticjuliaargent. I hope you like it!!

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The first time Roman disappeared, Virgil didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t particularly unusual for Roman to disappear, as he was prone to heat of the moment ideas and impulsive decisions, which often involved long trips into the Imagination or hours spent holed up in his room. Sure, recent events had had an extremely negative impact on Roman, and sure, Virgil could tell that something had been off with him ever since, but he took Roman’s temporary disappearance as a positive thing, a sign that Roman was finally starting to get back on his feet, that he was starting to feel better mentally. Looking back, Virgil could’ve kicked himself.

The second time Roman disappeared, Virgil was a bit more alert. After Roman’s return from wherever he had been (the Imagination, presumably), he had seemed more off than normal, almost constantly becoming lost in thought and preoccupied. Granted, it was quite common for Roman to be distracted by his own mind, he was a ‘space cadet’ as Patton would often say, a ‘head in the clouds’ kind of person, but this… this was different.

Roman looked more worried, more concentrated and serious. His eyes, once bright and shining and full of light, now looked dull and bleak, as if all the life had been sucked right out of them. Roman’s face, normally quite happy and animated, now wore an expression of sadness and he had an almost permanent line on his forehead from the constant look of anxiety he had.

Of course, this shift in behaviour wasn’t exactly unexpected. After the turmoil of having Janus’ harsh, stinging words thrown at him and Patton’s good hearted, albeit incredibly misguided and confusing, attempt to prove how good of a person Thomas was, Virgil had found Roman sobbing in his room, his normal princely outfit thrown on the ground and his skin blue with bruises. Virgil had stayed with him that night, holding Roman close to his chest and letting him cry as much as he needed. He had eventually fallen asleep in Virgil’s arms, exhausted and broken, and Virgil had stayed there, torn between the overwhelming amount of concern and anxiety for Roman and the red-hot fury towards Janus and Patton that threatened to consume him. After much internal debate, he had decided that anger would just worsen the situation, and Roman needed him more than anything, so he stayed.

A week after his breakdown, Roman disappeared for the first time, returning a couple of hours later, looking physically unharmed, although he had a heavy expression on his face. A couple of days after that he disappeared again, this time for longer, almost a day, and when he returned he looked exhausted and his white prince shirt had a huge rip in the side. Virgil had asked about it, but Roman had just smiled and brushed it off. Virgil noticed the smile, like all the other smiles of late, didn’t reach his eyes.

The third time Roman disappeared, Virgil grew actively concerned. Roman had been gone for a day and a half, leaving in the early morning and returning at noon. Virgil couldn’t sleep that night, lying awake with worry as he waited for Roman to return. When he finally did come back, he seemed incredibly preoccupied, barely noticing his surroundings. Whenever Virgil talked to him, he seemed to immediately snap out of thought and the anxious expression he seemed to constantly have would be quickly replaced by a beaming smile, and just for a moment, Roman would seem like his normal self, his voice bright and dramatic, and his gestures wide and enthusiastic. But then Virgil would notice how his eyes stayed dull and empty, how his smile seemed that bit too bright, how his voice felt a little forced, and Virgil’s heart would sink, because he knew under the mask of theatrics and smiles, Roman was hurting.

The fourth time Roman disappeared, Virgil waited almost obsessively for him to come back. He sat outside the door to the Imagination for hours, staring intently at the clock on the wall, watching as the second hand made it way around the face as the minutes passed by. Virgil stayed there for hours, sitting crossed legged on the floor of the hall, fiddling with his hoodie and scrolling through his phone to try and distract himself from the overwhelming anxiety he was feeling. He must’ve fallen asleep at some point because he was suddenly awoken by the sound of the door opening. His muscles felt stiff from the awkward position he had fallen asleep in, and his brain was still quite foggy, but none of that mattered when he saw Roman walking through the door. Well, limping to be more exact.

Virgil stood up as fast as he could, ignoring how tired and sore his body was, and made his way over to Roman, just in time to catch him as he fainted. Virgil shifted his arms, trying to adjust the unconscious side as gently as possible so as to not to hurt Roman’s already obviously hurt body, trying to get him into a position that allowed Virgil to carry him. After a bit of a struggle (Roman had quite a solid build and was quite muscular from all the fighting he did in the Imagination (often in the name of defending his honour and other dramatic reasons) but Virgil was also quite strong (after all he was fight or flight) so while Roman was far from light, Virgil was still able to lift him) Virgil managed to carry Roman into the creative side’s room, which was opposite the entrance to the Imagination. Virgil gently lowered Roman onto his bed, lying him down in a way that meant that if Roman threw up, he wouldn’t choke and die.

Virgil stepped back to examine Roman’s body, assessing the damage. Roman’s clothes were torn and stained with blood and dirt, and through the rips in the material Virgil could see cuts and gashes littering the skin underneath. There was a large gash across Roman’s calf, where the pantleg was torn and covered in blood. Roman’s face was pale, except for the large bruise across his right cheek, which was an ugly bluish-blackish colour, and his forehead was shiny with sweat. Virgil gently lifted his hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Roman’s ear.

Roman’s eyes fluttered open and he looked around, slightly disorientated. Virgil kept watching him, studying Roman’s reaction. His eyes met Roman’s and for a brief moment Roman’s face seemed to relax a little, the corners of his lips tugging upwards ever so slightly, before his face quickly clouded over, as if remembering something alarming. He tried to sit up but immediately fell back down with a gasp of pain. Virgil, who had moved quickly to try and stop Roman from getting up, moved slowly back, arms still raised slightly as if on alert.

Roman looked back at Virgil, his face looking rather panicked. “Virgil,” he said, his voice almost inaudible. “Virgil, please, I… I have to go back. I have to defeat it.”

Virgil just stared at him in disbelief, part of him astounded by the pure idiocy of Roman, who just mere minutes before had been unconscious and was gravely injured, wanting to go back to the place where he had gotten those injuries, and the other part of him shattering because that was how little Roman cared about himself. Roman wanted to go back, most likely get himself killed in the state he was in, and for what? To defeat this thing (whatever ‘it’ was)? For a little victory?

“Roman, you can’t be serious! You literally fainted the moment you walked through that door and you want to go back? Have you seen the state you are in? You are going to get yourself killed!”

“You don’t get it,” Roman exclaimed, voice still hoarse and weak. “I need to.”

“No!”

“Virgil, please.”

“No, not again. Please!” Virgil was almost begging, his eyes starting to fill with tears. He couldn’t lose Roman, not now, not again. He’d spent hours, days, waiting and worrying and hoping with all his might that every time that Roman returned he would be okay. And this time Roman wasn’t. Virgil wasn’t going to risk losing him again.

Roman must’ve seen the look on Virgil’s face, because he didn’t attempt to move again. Virgil took a deep breath and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. He turned and walked into the ensuite bathroom, returning a few minutes later with a glass of water and a first aid kit. Virgil gently moved the pillows around to help elevate Roman’s body into a sitting position and handed him the glass and a painkiller. Roman took a small sip and swallowed the medicine, feeling rather nauseous from the pain, and set it down on the bedside table. Virgil looked pointedly at him but said nothing as he began unbuttoning Roman’s shirt.

“Hey, wait – what are you doing?” Roman said hoarsely.

“I am unbuttoning your shirt,” Virgil explained, as though it was obvious (to be fair, it was obvious).

“Why?”

“So I can fix up your injuries. I didn’t bring a first aid kit for no reason.”

“I don’t need fixing up. I am perfectly fine!”

“Roman, you were unconscious less than 10 minutes ago, you are bleeding badly and you can barely move. I am going to fix up your injuries so you can stay alive. Let me do it.” Virgil’s tone was firm and strong, and he hoped Roman couldn’t hear the silent plea in his voice.

Roman sighed and settled further down onto the pillows, knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument. He did want the pain to stop, as it was almost unbearable, but some smally stubborn part of him hated this weakness he was feeling. Still, he began to relax slightly as Virgil deftly unbuttoned his shirt and slowly peeled it off.

Virgil surveyed the bare chest in front of him, trying his best to focus on the injuries as opposed to the well-defined muscles. He knew logically that Roman worked out, and he had seen the outlines of those muscles underneath well fitted clothing, but this was completely different. Virgil dragged his attention from the muscles and tried to make a list of the various wounds that covered Roman’s torso. There were a plethora of small scratches covering his skin, especially around the hands and neck, as those were to most uncovered. His skin was varying shades of blue, black, purple and yellow, caused by the multitude of bruises in varying stages of healing. There was a deep cut along his left bicep, looking as though it had been caused by a claw of some sort, which was arguably the worst wound on his torso, although a close second would be the gash across his stomach, which was small and clean but had bled a lot. Virgil grabbed the wet wash clothe he had brought from the bathroom and gently started to wipe down Roman’s torso to remove any dirt and excess blood that was covering it. He tried to ignore Roman’s flinches as he went over his wounds, knowing that it was necessary for him to know what he was working with. Once that was done he dabbed the antiseptic cream onto any open cuts. This one evidently stung like hell, as Roman let out a sharp yell and grabbed Virgil’s shoulder tightly.

“Sorry,” Virgil murmured. Roman just shook his head gently and closed his eyes, indicating that it was okay. Virgil continued, putting bandages on any wounds that needed them.

“Where do you keep your t-shirts?” Virgil asked. Roman pointed to the top drawer of a chest in the corner of the room. Virgil made his way over, got one out and threw it at Roman, who picked it up and gingerly put it on.

Virgil made his way back to Roman, knowing he would have to deal with his legs next. “Is it ok if I cut off your pant leg?” he asked, not wanting to strip Roman of his pants (Roman’s bare chest was fine but this felt a little too intimate) but also wanting to be able of help clean up the large wound that was on Roman’s calf. Roman looked slightly horrified, but slowly nodded. Virgil got a pair of scissors from the pen holder on Roman’s desk and cut off the pant leg at the knee. He gently peeled the fabric off the leg, which was rather difficult given that the blood had caused it to stick to the skin. Eventually he had freed the leg, which left him in full view of the large wound that was on Roman’s leg. It was a rather jagged wound, evidently caused by something like a stick or rock (or claw, Virgil thought, remembering the cut on Roman’s shoulder) and Roman’s entire calf was covered in drying blood from it. Virgil once again wiped down the skin surrounding the cut to clean it, careful not to irritate the wound as much as he could, and he gently dabbed some antiseptic cream on it.

“What caused this?” Virgil asked apprehensively. He almost didn’t want to know the answer, but he felt like he needed to, and it would be good to at least know the reason why Roman had been disappearing so much.

Roman mumbled something inaudible, a look of guilt and slight fear returning to his face.

“What was that?”

“A…. manticore-chimera,” Roman murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Is that why you were going into the Imagination all those times? To fight a manticore-chimera?”

Roman nodded sheepishly, wincing sharply, although Virgil couldn’t tell whether that was due to the antiseptic cream that Virgil was now applying to the wound or in response to Virgil’s expression, which Virgil hoped masked how angry he was feeling.

How could Roman be so stupid, putting his life in danger like that to fight a bloody manticore-chimera? Was he trying to kill himself? Virgil had spent hours, days, making himself sick with worry over Roman’s disappearances, and all because he was fighting a bloody manticore-chimera! Did Roman even know how much he meant to him?

“Why would you do that?” Virgil tried to remain calm, but his anger must’ve shown because he noticed a couple of tears rolled down Roman’s cheeks, leaving tracks in the thin layer of dirt on his face. Roman took a deep breath.

“I just…. I thought…. I thought maybe if I could just prove myself, prove that I can be a hero and defeat the villain, then maybe…. maybe Thomas would consider me one again…..” Roman voice wavered and broke as he spoke, and tears continued to fall from his eyes, and he just looked so broken.

Virgil’s heart sank and his anger dissipated as he looked down at Roman. Virgil knew that the events that had happened had had a huge affect on Roman. He had spent many nights holding him as he cried, comforting him the best he could, trying to be there for him. He had tried day in a day out to prove to Roman that he was enough, more than enough, that he loved him, cared for him, more than anyone. Maybe he had failed. Maybe the damage had already been done. God, he was going to kill that snake!

Virgil drew his attention back to the wound on Roman’s leg, which he had been cleaning up while he talked, and began wrapping bandages around it, careful to put enough pressure where the padding was to stop any excess bleeding. Once this was done, he returned his attention to Roman, who was still crying, tears leaving tracks along his cheeks.

Virgil gently cupped Roman’s cheek, kneeling down next to the bed so he was more at eye level with him. “Roman, you don’t have to prove yourself. Trust me.”

Roman looked away, turning his head into Virgil’s palm in an attempt to move his face away from Virgil’s. Virgil’s heart almost snapped as Roman moved, knowing that Roman didn’t believe him.

“You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone Roman. You are enough as you are, and anyone who doesn’t see that is a complete idiot.”

Roman still didn’t turn to face Virgil.

“Roman, you know you’re my hero, right?” Virgil said, his voice gentle and quiet. Roman did turn his head at that, looking at Virgil with such broken hope, as if he desperately wanted this to be true, but couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Virgil tried to soften his expression as much as he could, trying his best to convey how genuine what he was saying was. He wanted Roman to believe it so badly it hurt.

“Roman, you’re the fire in Thomas eyes, the passion he has when he is doing something he loves, the drive he has to do it. You are the reason he gets up every day, the reason he made what he loves doing his job, because you pushed Thomas too. You are the spark that starts the fire, the wind in the sails, pushing us forward when I hold us back. You are that warmth and happiness you feel when performing or creating, the exhilaration of a new idea, the joy when people compliment creative work. You are the one who makes Thomas follow his dreams and achieve them, the one who always comes up with those clever nicknames and wordplay that make me smile, the one who allows Thomas to fall in love. You are the thrill of a new crush, the warmth of romantic love and the contentment of relationships. You love and care more deeply and truly than anyone I have ever, and while that may hurt sometimes, it is a beautiful thing to love like you do. Sure, you sometimes maybe go a little overboard with your passion and sometimes you mess up but when you make a mistake you apologise almost immediately, which is something I struggle with and really admire about you. You are the most brave, honourable, creative, loving person I know. Roman, you make us better - you make me better.”

Virgil’s voice was strong and gentle, conveying a level of emotion and genuineness that Roman was unprepared for. He wanted to believe what Virgil said was true, and on some levels he did, for it would take a very talented actor to lie so convincingly (Roman should know, he had had experience with ‘talented actors’), but some stupid little part of his brain was yelling at him that this was all a trick, that Virgil was just going to use him the same was Deceit had. Build him up only to tear him down.

Roman started crying, fully sobbing at this point. Virgil’s thumb gently rubbed his cheek, wiping away the falling tears. Virgil removed his hand for a moment and moved over to the other side of the bed, climbing on next to Roman. He wrapped his arm around Roman’s shoulders and pulled him as close as he could (being mindful of Roman’s various injuries). Roman curled up against Virgil, letting him hold him close, and sobbed into Virgil’s chest, soaking his shirt. Virgil didn’t mind though, as he simply moved his hand up and down Roman’s arm in a calming motion, allowing Roman to cry as long as he wanted. After several minutes, Roman finally calmed down and his tears stopped.

He looked up at Virgil almost guiltily. “You really mean what you said?”

Virgil nodded gently, heart breaking with the knowledge that Roman needed to double check. “Is it that hard to believe that I love you?”

Roman looked down and nodded almost imperceptibly, his head still pressed against Virgil’s chest. Virgil tightened his grip around Roman and his face into Roman’s hair. Roman took a deep, shaky breath.

“It’s just… ever since the events, ever since him… it is so much harder to believe good things about myself… or that people see good in me. I know logically that people love me, I mean they must, I’m me!” Roman said jokingly, a little bit of his normal self shining through. “But I have these insecurities, I’ve always had them, that just make it harder to truly believe it sometimes. And… ever since him, it seems almost impossible to believe that I am good, that I am worthy. He used me, flattered me, manipulated me, to get his way, and it hurt. It broke me. And I want to believe you so badly, I do, but my brain doesn’t, because believing and wanting hurt me so much last time…” Roman’s voice wavered and trailed off.

“I just thought…. that maybe if I fought something, if I acted like a hero should…. then maybe I could prove to Thomas, prove to him… prove to myself that I was a hero, that maybe I didn’t deserve everything that had happened, that maybe I was loveable. I feel like I have to prove that I really am what I am meant to be, this princely persona that I have built up, the hero I was always meant to be, because if I’m not a hero… if I’m not a prince… who am I?” Roman seemed to be talking to himself more than Virgil now, his voice becoming slightly quieter and breaking slightly as a couple of tears fell from his eyes.

“And I am just so sick of this endless game of torture I play with myself, so tired of this constant need to prove myself, so done with the stupid voices in my head picking me apart and pulling me down. I never feel like I am good enough for anything. My ideas aren’t original enough, my best isn’t good enough, I am wrong, I am broken and I just mess everything up… and I am so sick of being so fucking insecure…” Roman was openly crying now, his words punctuated by small sniffles and sobs. “Every offhand comment feels like a dagger to my heart, every single wrong look my way is magnified in my mind, everything is so personal, because being creativity you put your life and soul into your work, and when it is rejected, even the slightest bit, it feels like someone took your heart and smashed it into a thousand pieces. And I wanted it… so badly…”

Roman didn’t even need to say what ‘it’ was, Virgil already knew. The callback. The event. The thing Roman had been hoping and dreaming and wanting for as long as Virgil could remember.

“And he came along… and I wanted to do what was right, something I had messed up with you. I learnt from my mistake, I did the right thing, I was friendly and nice, and I tried so hard to not villainise him, I really did… but as always I made a mistake. I was wrong. I don’t know why I was even surprised…”

Virgil tightened his arm around Roman but didn’t say anything. He had heard snippets of this before, in the quiet nights where he had stayed with Roman while he sobbed the pain away, but this was the most he had heard Roman say about it in the longest time and he didn’t want to mess it up.

“I was so blind… I genuinely thought he liked me, that all those comments he made were genuine, until I realised… that everything he had said, every compliment, every nice word my way, was just another lie, that he never really thought those things… and to tell you that hurt was an understatement. It crushed me… crushed the life out of me… I tried so hard to do the right thing, I really did. I really tried…”

“All I ever wanted was to be a hero… all I ever did was want…”

Virgil gently stroked Roman’s arm as he cried the last of his tears. “It’s okay,” he murmured into Roman’s hair. “It’s okay.”

“Do you really love me, Virgil?” Roman mumbled, almost inaudibly.

“Roman, I love you more than I have loved anyone else. I care for you, so much. And if you don’t believe me now, that’s okay, because I am more than happy to spend the rest of my life doing whatever it takes to convince you that I care and that you are worthy of love.”

Roman moved his arms so that they were wrapped around Virgil’s torso and squeezed gently. “I love you too Virgil… so much… thank you.” The words were almost inaudible given that Roman had mumbled them into Virgil’s hoodie, but he still heard them and planted a small kiss on Roman’s forehead in response. Virgil was about to say something else when he heard small snores coming from Roman. He smiled gently, knowing that Roman was probably exhausted (he did faint earlier) and that he needed the sleep. Virgil adjusted his position so that he was lying down more, once again careful not to apply any pressure to Roman’s injuries, and wrapped his arms gently around the sleeping prince. He planted a kiss on Roman’s forehead and let himself drift off to sleep, safe in the knowledge that Roman was protected in his arms.

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Thanks for reading!! Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated!

Tag List (send an ask to be added or removed)

@mistythegenderqueermess @manyfandomsonelog @creweemmaeec11 @blissbiscuit

#cat writes #prinxiety #roman angst #post pof roman angst #tw injuries #tw suicidal thoughts #angst #hurt/comfort

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givemeureyes · 4 years ago

Note

If you’re still doing the prompts, then maybe 62 and 43 with any Janus ship?

The prompts are pretty much always open!

43.) “I really want to kiss you right now.”

62.) “Would you like to dance?”

I decided on Roceit, because this ship owns my heart. This takes place Post-POF

Roman laid down in the field, an arm slung over his face. His eyes were closed, and he had very clear dried tear tracks down his face.

In this field of flowers of any and every kind, one would assume that that would be a place of contentment. Where the sun shined down in just the right way where it wasn't too hot or too bright, it was just warm. A warmth that felt like a hug, and honestly you could pretend it was one if you had a good enough imagination. And it was.

But Roman only went there when he was upset. Not even to cheer himself up, but just a place where he could feel. Where he could cry and scream and no one would hear him.

And so that's what he had done. He had sobbed, and yelled. At anything and everything really. At the wind, at the sky, at the grass.

And it really tired him out on most days. Today was one of those days... but it was different. He didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to go back to his bed. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

So he just laid there, gazing at the stars above him. They were accurate constellations. That was something he prided himself on.

Was that necessary? Should he be proud of that? He wasn't quite so sure, but he thought that way about every project. Maybe none of them were good, maybe that was the thing.

He heard someone walk up next to him, but didn't bother looking over to them.

"They're very pretty." a quiet voice said after a moment of silence between the two

Roman looked over to see Janus before looking back at the sky. He should've been angry, or upset, or something, but he was just so tired. He didn't wanna fight anymore, that hadn't gotten him anywhere. He just wanted a break. He wanted someone to hold him.

"You think so?" he asked, sitting up and pulling his knees to his chest

Janus nodded, "Yeah, they're very nice."

"Well thank you."

It was quiet for a few moments. A moment of peace, surprisingly. No tension. No anger or sadness. Just the stars above them and the cool breeze

"I'm so sorry-" Janus started to say

Roman shook his head, "I know. I am too. You're forgiven. I was the one who started it. I shouldn't have said those things or laughed."

Janus sighed, "Apology accepted, but that wasn't entirely your fault."

Roman let out a what sounded like a bitter laugh, "Just... shush."

Janus frowned but did so.

Roman picked at the grass, still gazing up at the sky.

"You still seem upset." Janus said

Roman huffed out a laugh despite himself, "I'm not quite sure what I am."

And truly, he wasn't sure if he was referring to his emotions or himself in general.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

Roman shook his head

Janus contemplated what to do for a moment before standing and offering his hand to help Roman up

"Would you like to dance?" he asked, tilting his head

Roman grinned, softly and barely there

"You know me too well." he said quietly, accepting the help up

Janus snapped his fingers, playing some music. He wrapped an arm around Roman's waist, and used his free hand to intertwined their fingers.

Roman draped his free arm around Janus' neck, letting Janus lead the dance.

"You know, I usually don't even hold hands with someone until the first date, so you're lucky." Janus weakly joked

"Is that so? Are you implying that you'd like me to take you on a date?"

Janus sputtered, "Th- That's not what I meant."

Roman chuckled, "That's too bad. I wouldn't mind."

Janus blushed, "Just... hush."

Roman smiled, "Whatever you say."

When the dance had finished, Janus dipped Roman and let go of his hand to rest that hand on his upper back. Roman used his now free hand to trace the scales on Janus' face.

"Y'know, this view isn't half bad." Roman said

Janus leaned into the touch, his face turning red

"You're a lot prettier up close, which is saying something considering you were already very pretty from afar."

"I- god, I really wanna kiss you right now." Janus said, his face a ridiculously dark shade of red

This time Roman was the one blushing, "Then do it."

And he did. It was soft, and slow, and sweet. They still had a lot to work on, but for tonight they were content to stay in each other's arms. Tommorow... well they could worry about that tommorow

#summer writes #roceit #roman sanders #roman angst #roman sanders angst #janus sanders #sanders sides

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ivi-gw2 · 3 years ago

Text

Horizontal progression in GW2 and little bit of it that wasn’t done well

(long post ahead)

Guild Wars 2 prides itself on being an MMO where you can take a break, come back, and still have all the relevant equipment needed for newest content. No steep vertical progression - where your once gilded, steel shining sword that killed dragons now feels like being made of tin because it can’t kill most low level rats in a new map. An MMO where you don’t have to grind day and night to access most of the content, where you can stop and smell the flowers and feel welcome wherever you go. But is everything about horizontal progression in GW2 done well?

After getting the biggest muscles possible on level 80, you can get special abilities - survive jumping off a cliff or have a big pet that makes you travel at the speed of light. Colin Johanson, in an interview at HoT release (when they decided to focus on horizontal progression) said that very well: “We noted that this took a lot of progression from other franchises. In fact, the traversal systems like gliding are like Metroid and Zelda slammed together. Some day you’ll be able to come back and do other things, like bounce up on a certain mushroom and go up into certain treetop areas.”. And I like how it turned out to be. Unlocking gliding or a new mount ability made me feel great - like there really is a reward for my work and how much stronger and resourceful I am. I have to praise ArenaNet for it. There are some recent masteries that missed a point a bit, but I want to write about something else now.

After HoT and even more when PoF came, somehow I felt… much more powerful. The rest of the game felt… much easier. But I haven’t killed enemies with gliding nor dungeon bosses with mounts. Every time when I took a break and came back to the game after a few months it was nice to feel relevant - but I was always too relevant. I felt like I did a vertical progression jump without doing anything - the game did that for me. “Horizontal progression” gave some kind of promise that all of the content (especially top level one) will always stay fun as it was (of the same difficulty) but it didn’t.

What happened were 2 things: I and many other players had become more skilled, and ArenaNet did some combat changes and balance updates that made everything stronger, bit by bit. New specializations had to be a little bit OP so they would sell and stick to players better. Skill creep and power creep.

Skill creep is inevitable and a very healthy thing to have in a MMO. But it mustn’t be overlooked. Rest of the content that needs to stay relevant has to be updated and gradually made a bit harder or skills have to gradually be a bit weaker for a player to feel consistent engagement. And along with the skill creep, power creep is even worse.

Let’s read another very good quote from the same interview: “We want people to go back to everywhere in the game. We want strong core areas with lots of fun things to do. Inherently, there will be more people to play with in those areas, which is what MMOs are all about. So we want to make less areas and create more focused experiences.” So will a random Harathi centaur be able to outrun yet another power creep? It won’t - not without some divine intervention, aka regular balance updates where classes get nerfed again and again to keep top dps (proportionally to the player skill) at a consistent number. And I’m all for that - regular skill balance updates and nerfs. I think that is one of the things most needed for an MMO that focuses on horizontal progression and tries to keep all of the top level content always relevant.

Another option would be buffing everything. Every mob on every map, in all instances.

But, for a new player, an encounter with some super buffed and super quick boar in the starting map would be a bad experience. Too difficult because that player lacks skill (understandably). Even nerfing all skills into oblivion would be bad for this player because he would be doing even less damage to any mob as he has the same skills to use as the top player.

It’s all about balance - having good experience for both starting players and experienced veterans.

In my humble opinion, the three things which ArenaNet missed about horizontal progression and that could be worked upon are:

more regular skill balance updates (always having a certain top dps in mind)

buffing some bosses/mobs that became trivial with power creep updates (some that shouldn’t be)

a better dynamic level adjustment for high-level players is needed. Make it much harsher, scale it much lower. Make me, while in top gear, have just 15% better stats than a noob in some low-level map, but let me be better and more able to help them with my skill creep.

I would say this bad side-effect is just a very small bit, but it keeps me and many more players feeling indifferent about anything from before HoT, and a lot of world bosses, some of them more recent.

Lastly, now I won’t write about “why would some veteran go to a low level map”, those are a carrot on a stick, skill progression and repeatable content discussions that will come in some later posts.

(Also I won’t talk much more about power creep and balance issues - there are many more knowledgeable people that discussed it over and over - my recommendation is the “Teatime” podcast by MightyTeapot.)

Source: “ArenaNet: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns ‘is like Metroid and Zelda slammed together’”, from Destructoid(com)

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #power creep

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kerra-and-company · 4 years ago

Note

A prompt for Kerra and DW member of your choice! This strikes me as a very Rytlock line though lmao “Every time I think I’m close to finally figuring you out you end up surprising me.”

Thank you so much for the prompt! That is indeed a very Rytlock line, and this got longer than I expected, dear lord. But here you go! Set after “The Sacrifice” in PoF, so spoilers for that for anyone who needs to know. Under a cut because it’s a bit longer than my last one.

“That spirit…was Balthazar.”

Kerra’s heart stopped.

Rytlock kept talking, but she couldn’t hear him over the ringing in her ears. She thought he was saying something about not knowing, but she wasn’t processing any of it, not really.

“You…?” It was hardly more than a whisper. “You let him out.”

“Commander?”

Under normal circumstances, she’d have seen the look on Rytlock’s face. Under normal circumstances, she’d feel his emotions, and his pain, and his regret, and she’d put them all first. Like she did with everyone, all her friends, always, always, always.

This was definitely not “normal circumstances.”

“You did this.” A little louder.

“Commander…I—”

“By the Pale Mother!” Kerra said, almost laughing. It was too high-pitched. “Every time. Every time I think I’m close to figuring you out, you manage to surprise me.”

“Kerra—” Rytlock was pleading, but Kerra was past caring.

“I helped pull your guild back together. We were friends. And then you jumped into a portal, into the Mists, after a sword, because you value yourself and your friends less than an enchanted piece of metal.” Kerra moved toward him, jabbing a finger into his chest, hitting his armor.

“And when you came back, you’d clearly gone through something that you refused to talk about, and you accused me and my siblings and my partners and every other sylvari in Maguuma of belonging to the jungle dragon.”

“That—”

“And then, after we defeated Mordremoth, you apologized, and I forgave you, because you were scared and trying your best and you’d just come back from the Mists. But you wouldn’t tell anyone what you went through! For years! And you were hiding this?!” She was screaming by now. Somewhere behind her, Canach and Kasmeer were calling her name. She felt hands on her shoulders. She shook them off.

“We could have gotten out in front of this somehow! Even if you didn’t know it was Balthazar, we could have had a little warning at least! We could have prevented damage! Saved so many lives!” Kerra shoved Rytlock with all her strength, and he stumbled back. “Do you have any idea how many people we lost?” Villages burning to the ground. Forged outposts all over the Crystal Desert. “How many families are in pieces now?” The refugees outside Amnoon. Kormir’s priests and priestesses, and the wounded. So many more, countless more, countless others. “Do you—”

Her voice abruptly choked off, and she coughed to clear her throat, her eyes glistening with tears and anger. “Aurene could have met her brother,” she said, voice broken, collapsing to the ground amidst thousands of yellow crystal shards. Canach and Kas sank down with her, supporting both sides. “I can feel her pain, did you know that? I can’t shut it out.”

She sobbed. Rytlock was still in front of her, frozen dead still. “She is grieving, and she is one of thousands,” Kerra spit out. “And I can’t go to her—I can’t even help her. I need to be here. So she has to grieve alone.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Lin,” Canach murmured, right by her ear, and she let out another sob. “Lin, I’ll call Nisha; xe can go to her. And she has Taimi, and the Exalted, and Caithe—” Kerra scoffed quietly at Caithe’s name. “She has people,” he said, a finger drawing patterns on her shoulder that she could just barely feel through her armor. “She will not be alone.”

“Make…make sure,” Kerra whispered, feeling the breath leave her lungs. She squeezed his hand twice, a silent thank you.“Call Nish. Please. Go.”

He squeezed back, stood up, and moved away. She heard the crackle of the communicator, and the noise jolted her body into action. She shuddered and stood as well, with Kasmeer’s help. As her reason slowly returned, Kas’s pain and confusion flooded her mind, along with something Kerra was learning to recognize as the feeling of broken faith. She was still too dazed to puzzle it out fully, but she tucked it away in the back of her mind.

Rytlock’s eyes were brighter than usual when she looked up again, and yet another part of her fractured when she saw the wet fur on his face. She belatedly tried to control her expression. She wasn’t sure why she bothered. Her emotions seethed and rolled like the Jade Sea in a storm, merging into one incomprehensible mess.

“I’m gonna fix this, Commander,” he said, wobblier than she had ever heard him, but still certain. “You have my word.”

“You can’t fix this, Tribune,” Kerra said, suddenly more exhausted than anything else. “Hundreds of deaths are not fixable. You can’t bring Vlast back.” She stepped forward. He flinched slightly as she put her hands on his shoulders. “But, by thorns and brambles, you can and will help me kill this god.”

He backed up just enough so that he had space to salute. A reflex, soldier through and through.

At some point, Kas had drifted off, checking in on Canach, giving the two of them whatever privacy was possible. Kerra could feel their concern shining out, calming the waters.

��Rytlock.” He met her eyes. “You will not keep a secret like this ever again. Promise me.”

“Yes, Commander. I promise.” He shuffled his feet. “And for whatever it’s worth, Kerra—I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t need to hear that, though. I need to see you do better. I do believe you can, you know.”

Rytlock grunted out a dry laugh. “You’re the first in a while, kid.”

“Deal with it,” Kerra said, her voice solid, but not cold.

“I guess I have to, don’t I?”

“Yes. You do.”

#gw2 #my fics #kerralind #rytlock #i-mybrunettelady #for some reason my brain saw this prompt and was like: yes! this specific bit of angst! have fun!#featuring canach and kas #and mentions of vlast and aurene #not featured: kerra absolutely breaking down listening to vlast's crystal messages later #kerra tries to save everyone and can't #so when she learns that she's lost an opportunity to save this many #innocents and on TOP of that #has lost an opportunity to spare her daughter pain #she. is. INCREDIBLY upset.

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ascalonianpicnic · 5 years ago

Note

HI I want all the emojis for my fave Io (my phone kept correcting it to zoom and I just alakdkalshc)

“OK I ALSO REALIZE that’s a lot Of writing LMAO so u don’t have to do all, just whatever u feel fits io!!!” NO you get all of them! Because I said so! I love you jen lol

mobile users I’m so sorry in advance if the read more doesn’t work

💙 What would your OCs last words be (or if they’ve died what were their last words)? What were their final moments like? How did they die?

Well, if we count the battle against Balthazar in PoF, which I’m gonna because I have that power, then her last words were “I’ll make you fucking REGRET THAT!” shouted at old Balth after he hit Lace and hurt them badly. Her final moments there were pretty frantic as she tried to keep Lace safe and not die herself, but she was new being being a holosmith and her forge got overheated in the fight so she was down that and left with just her very old vigil pistol. She was fighting until Balthazar landed a hard kick to her chest, and then she was just dead.

Not counting that fight, her last words will be “I’m heading out for a walk! I’ll be back soon!” called out either to a partner or a dog, whatever she ends up with. She goes out jogging like always, starting to get up there in years and very much retired. She’s had issues breathing since Balthazar, and on her jog, her lungs will just give out on her. She panics until she loses consciousness and dies there, unable to breathe. Aaaand I made myself sad ;n;

💧 What’s the worst pain your OC has ever been in? Mental or physical? What was the cause of this?

Io is lucky that she doesn’t remember the actual worst pain she’s ever been in, which is when, in an emergency, Imekaari had to try and pull as much bloodstone out of her system as possible following the battle with Cadecus. She had a shard embedded next to her heart as a teen, the other contender for worst pain that she also doesn’t remember, and it had spread fully up her right arm by this point, so that was excruciating. The worst pain she does remember happened in the Maguuma Jungle, at the end of HoT for her, when she used the bloodstone in her body to pull and manipulate the dragon corruption in Trahearne. She never shared how badly that hurt, physically or emotionally, but it was bad on both parts. It was worth it, though, since it saved his life and allowed her to destroy the corruption.

🔷 Has your OC ever had to leave something behind or abandon something they didn’t want to? Have they ever had this happen to them? How has this effected them over the years?

At the age of 17, Io was kidnapped from her home in her sleep. At the age of 18, she woke up in the streets with a year of missing memories, and realized she could never go home again. If her father wasn’t the one to do this to her, then it was because of the people who knew, and home wasn’t safe. She had to abandon her entire life prior to that point, and her younger brother, for her own safety. It hit her pretty hard at first, but she met Lace around that time, and they stepped in and helped her adjust and come to terms with it. She’s slow to trust still after that whole situation, but has since learned the exact cause of that whole situation (her kidnapping was a punishment for her father from his employers, she still doesn’t know how she escaped) and fully come to terms with it. She’s even reconnecting with her brother now, though slowly.

🔵 Has your OC lived through any particularly traumatic events? Does this event (or events) still effect them or have they tried to bury it? Is there a reason why this event is so traumatic for them?

As the commander, Io has lived through a lot of traumatic events. Like, so many. Someone help the commander. The worst ones were definitely: being kidnapped on her 17th birthday and all the events of the missing year, losing Forgal at Claw Island on her 20th birthday, and the trials for joining the Shining Blade. The only one she hasn’t tried to bury at all was the first. She hasn’t confronted the affects of Forgal’s death yet, though she will admit there are some, and she refuses to admit there was any issue left behind by joining the Shining Blade. She’s clearly strong enough and mature enough to deal with what happened there. She isn’t a child. She doesn’t tense up at her reflection or start panicking when having to face her own doppelganger. Not at all, she’s fine.

❄️ What is (one of) their biggest regrets or biggest mistake they’ve made? Is there anything they can do to fix this or is it so far gone there’s no point anymore? Is this something they dwell on a lot?

Between the end of PoF and the start of lws4, Io’s best friend and partner in this whole commander thing, Lace, went missing. They were gone for over a year before an almost complete stranger brought them back, alive but badly injured. She spared as much time as she could around the issues Joko was raising to look for them, but she wishes she had done more and found them sooner. There were ways she could have gained access to vital information and found them if she had just taken more time to.

And she still, to this day, has not forgiven herself for letting the Pact fly off to face Mordremoth without doing way more research first. Time should have been taken to learn more, even if she would have had to make that time herself.

💦 Does your OC have any self destructive habits? Addictions? Urges? What is the cause of these or the reason for them?

She picks at her lips, as well as at scabs. And when her hair is long enough, she chews on it. She also tends to chew on pens and occasionally her tools. That’s the worst of it, and the reason is easy stimming honestly. She takes pretty good care of herself despite everything.

🌊 What is your OC like at their most depressive? In the middle of a breakdown? Having a panic attack? What are they like with dealing with anxiety and stress?

For both severe depressive episodes and panic attacks, Io gets really angry and defensive. During breakdowns, or when extremely stressed or anxious, she acts incredibly childish and insists she isn’t mature enough for her role and no one should have trusted her in the first place, but maybe now they’ll all realize that and replace her with someone more fitting.

☄️ Does your OC struggle with their emotions and trauma? Do they find it easier to open up to strangers or those close to them if at all? Do they tend to hide their pain from everyone?

Io struggles a bit with her trauma, but she’s got a fairly good handle on it most of the time, honestly. She knows when to take a step back and take care of herself. She knows when to ask for help or just leave something that she can’t fix alone. She’s great at taking time off to do things she loves with people she loves. She finds it easier to open up to her friends, even if some parts are hard to open up about in general. The only pain she hides is pain from the situations she isn’t willing to admit hurt her. And she can only hide so much from Trahearne by now.

📘 Write a sad journal entry, an unsent letter or short sad drabble. + bonus, give a theme!

“The will was read today. I was... surprised I was even mentioned in it. Considering Dad thought I was dead for years. But I was. And he didn’t leave me much, but he left me something. A dog, a key, and access to a storage unit. The dog is massive. Like, genuinely massive. Dad trained him already, got him set up for a ranger. Which I was, last he saw me. Can’t believe he remembered. The dog’s name is Brouhaha, Bruce for short, but I’ve also been calling him Buster Brown just for fun. Like Dad used to call me when I was in trouble but not really in trouble. I’ll check the unit tomorrow. I didn’t have the energy for it left after today. The key probably unlocks something there. Guess we’ll see...” The journal entry is dated at the bottom, almost as an afterthought.

🔹 Does your OC have any scars? What are the stories behind them? Do they have any mental scars? Talk about the effects of their trauma in general on their day to day life.

Io’s right arm is pretty badly fucked, with long, red scars that trace mostly over her veins but then branch out some more. These go from her palm all the way up to her heart. Her left leg is gone from just below the knee, with burn scars above the cut off point. There are several small burn and shrapnel scars up both of her arms, though it’s more visible on the left. There’s also a clear bite mark from a dog on her left arm, and there’s a long, thin scar along her hairline curving back behind her left ear from a bad fall as a kid.

#aaaaa jen i love you thank youuuuu #here's the zoom deets~#the sad deets #long post #commander io #miragecounseling

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guild-guardian · 6 years ago

Text

Spoiler Free review of “All or Nothing”

After a cut because long post, many words, skritt math.

The Story (No details)

Overall it's probably one of the best executed episodes worth of story that they’ve released in the last couple of Seasons.

The Final Battle is more akin to the kind of scale you see in the Zorah Magdaros battle in Monster Hunter World than you’d expect to find in GW2, and that was a huge improvement compared to previous Elder Dragon battles. Having an active role in the battle, along with the NPCs not just “swinging their sword Oh look they swung it again” at trash mobs, and actually being useful- firing siege weapons, fighting mobs, picking you up if you get downed

So many call backs to minor named NPCs- some personal early personal story, and others from pact/priory/vigil etc It lead to a feeling of being surrounded by familiar faces as you lead the charge. The short piece after the battle was also a well designed experience- the lack of UI and the “damage” lines that you felt when Balthazar killed you in PoF, further push the “oh fuck we’re pretty badly wounded”, along with the forced walk/limp and fall to our knees when we try to hop down along the uneven floor. The main character’s animation here was excellent and slow pace allowed Anet to sculpt a tightly designed experience that is as shocking as it is memorable. I won’t forget that last visual.

Brandon Bales and Debi Derryberry probably did the best voice work in this episode (imo- I haven't played it through on a non-sylvari male). It was extremely immersive and I totally bought what was happening as they expressed it. I appreciated that the Zephyrites’ song/choir got further development, and how its relevant to the story just made it a really nice touch overall.

I did think it felt very short- only 3 instances. It may be that they pushed the pacing to emphasise the commander rushing headlong and gambling dangerously on the first ideas that come to them, and they do love a cliffhanger at the end. It ends on a flat note though, you can’t even interact with story NPCs after you finish it- nothing in the shiverpeaks map changes, no dialogue no “I’m just checking in” updates, nothing. Final Note: WHERE ARE KASMEER AND MARJORY

The Map

Huge! Ruins! Subterranean structures! Exploring! Absolutely nailed the Guild Wars 1 Shiverpeak atmosphere.but uh...not much to do past that.

The Thunderhead Keep meta is fun- I love defense events that allow us to set traps, build barricades and ballistae. The Boss is TOO BRIGHT. It is impossible to see even with effects turned down and post processing off. Anet needs to reassess their priorities with visual telegraphing because right now you can’t see a thing, never mind reacting to the thing.

Minor Quibble. UH WHERE DID THAT CLIFF AND PIT COME FROM? I’m pretty sure that the mountains just...continued north of the keep in GW1, and a little further north you’d come to the Mursaat teleporter to Hell’s Precipice.

The dredge meta is...hard to get people to defend the 2nd and 3rd drills- I’ve yet to be successful on this one.

The delay between meta active times feels a bit long, and perhaps its just the layout of this one, but there isn’t much notification if North or south meta is happening/how long until X etc.

I don’t like that Map Completion can’t be soloed- Both metas are required. Unless you find a friendly mesmer or buy the Light of Deldrimor from the TP.

Past the Metas, I’ve seen maybe 5 or 6 events tops on this huge environment. That is pretty woeful. I get that this was probably a high budget episode with two cutscenes, unique character animations and PvE environments built to scale with the GW1 counterparts (why did dwarves build so big anyway?), but the overall quiet map is a bit of a let down- considering the variety of content available in Jahai.

I adore the skritt/priory interactions, and an above ground village of Dredge being shown in in a positive light. Even if literally every member of the survivors has had to kill their friends and family with their own hands.

The Mastery

Heavily Situational and will take some getting used to. It doesn’t have that immediate “Good Feel” as mounting your griffon midair or while gliding. Being “animation locked” for most of the launch prevents you from gliding or re-mounting, so you just plummet for the most part and lose out on any air you might have hoped to gain from using it.

At least we can be thankful it wasn’t required to complete the story or meta.

The Fractal

Dreams: Crushed Hopes: Sundered Orr: Ignored. Instead of picking an interesting pirate/corsair character that could use a bit of story development, they go with the boisterous ghost from the Lion’s Arch Jumping Puzzle.

This fractal is short (at T1- it’ll likely have more complexity as you go up) and very sparse on story. The music is good, and the environment is good. Dessa continues to be the shining star of most fractals with her responses to the situations she gets to observe. Probably won't be the new Challenge mode fractal that people were hoping for, but the fight mechanics are fun and different.

I’d appreciate it if Anet could relinquish their choke grip they’ve had on talk like a pirate day 2012 that seems to permeate all of their pirate related content- it always feels kind of like even the characters themselves don’t take themselves seriously. There's just something pretty wack with them. (and I’m not talking about all the landlocked core game pirates just living in lakes barely big enough for their bases) That’s Enough.

The Legendary

Probably one of the nicest they’ve done in a while. Initially I was put off by it- the official preview of it in the reveal trailer didn’t really show it off very well- not the steps, aura or on-draw effect. However on this video from someone who got it before release, they point out a few things about it that really sell it for me.

I love the scorch mark on draw, with the dubstep twangs the most. A little disappointed that Range LB 5 is unaffected- it could have been very pretty (ie spirit bow active visuals). It's a very refined weapon that will certainly suit a lot more characters than Kudzu, and I’ll probably make it after I finish Ipos. In like a year.

The Music

Knocks itself out of the park in a home run touchdown or however sports works. The choral piece for Aurene is very beautiful, and I especially appreciate the tarir motif used towards to the end of the track. Re-used GW1 themes in the map give a very nostalgic feel, and the fractal has a unique Shanty theme, along with what was used for this year’s Festival of the Four winds.

OVERALL SCORE 7.5/10

The story is moving and immersive, the encounters well designed and well executed, however sparse event placement on the map kinda gets :/ from me.

Fractals continuing a trend of “we can do anything in the history of tyria- but lets focus on the boring parts” is also disappointing.

PS. The .5 comes from the Skritt writing and voice acting. So pure and wholesome.

#Guild Wars 2 #GW2 #Living World Season 4 #No spoiler review #my two coppers

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annalynnaeus · 6 years ago

Text

Lymond playlist

Because this is my life now

Link here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX1j0sgNhs4&list=PLTcxkqgFNIFFfR0CQnR2woOkTM0TKdBd5

Index and annotations below the cut

So this is organized with roughly 3 songs per book.

Game of Kings:

Garbage, Cherry Lips (about Lymond, obviously)

She gave you everything she had But she was young and dumb She'd just turned twenty-one She didn't care to hang around So when the shit came down Why she was nowhere to be found

You hold a candle in your heart You shine the light on hidden parts You make the whole world want to dance You bought yourself a second chance

Johnny Cash, God's gonna cut you down (justice comes for a few people in book one...)

You can run on for a long time Run on for a long time Run on for a long time Sooner or later God'll cut you down Sooner or later God'll cut you down Well, you may throw your rock and hide your hand Workin' in the dark against your fellow man But as sure as God made black and white What's down in the dark will be brought to the light

Celtic Woman, The Voice (IDEK...I just like this song, and wanted to find a place for it. The fixation on national spirit and history might actually fit better with Oonagh. But I think GoK does have kind of a theme of history following cycles, and wheels of luck, sacrifice for a nation, and so on)

I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain I am the voice of your hunger and pain I am the voice that always is calling you I am the voice, I will remain... I am the voice of the past that will always be Filled with my sorrow and blood in my fields I am the voice of the future Bring me your peace Bring me your peace and my wounds, they will heal

Queens Play

Gaelic Storm, Johnny Tarr -- (This is totally about Thady Boy-- a fictional narrative about a fictional Irish stereotype)

Lemme tell you a little story about a man named Johnny Tarr He was a hard drinking son of a preacher, always at the bar Lager from the tap or shots of Paddy from the shelf He could open his throttle and throw back a bottle as quick as the devil himself ... Johnny Tarr! ... Even if you say it yourself, you wouldn't believe, And I wouldn't trust a person like me, if I were you I wasn't there, I swear I have an alibi I heard it from a man who knows a fella who says it's true!

Dua Lipa, New Rules-- (Poor Robin Stewart. Though this could also work for Jerrott, and many other characters in Lymond’s orbit).

One, don't pick up the phone You know he's only calling 'cause he's drunk and alone Two, don't let him in You'll have to kick him out again Three, don't be his friend You know you're gonna wake up in his bed in the morning And if you're under him You ain't getting over him

Ladytron, Destroy Everything you Touch (Lymond, obviously. You know the quote I’m thinking of.)

You only have to look behind you At who's underlined you Destroy everything you touch today Destroy me this way Everything you touch you don't feel Do not know what you steal

The Disorderly Knights

Broken Bells, The Ghost Inside (Oonagh. Watch the music video...the lyrics aren’t super literal, but I think this song is very appropriate for her)

Just like a whiskey bottle drained on the floor She got no future, just a life to endure This good samaritan is shaking her hand Too late to leave here now, the songs in the can

Nickelback, How You Remind Me (So this is down as my Gabriel song. On paper, really sweet and catchy, but then you start to wonder if something so straightforward might be a little...fake)

This is how you remind me Of what I really am It's not like you to say sorry I was waiting on a different story This time I'm mistaken For handing you A heart worth breaking

Lorde, Loveless (JOLETA. This is normally part two of a two part song, but THIS PART IS JOLETA

Bet you wanna rip my heart out Bet you wanna skip my calls now Well guess what? I like that ‘Cause I’m gonna mess your life up Gonna wanna tape my mouth shut Look out, lovers

Pawn in Frankincense

Moby, Lift Me Up (I don’t have much justification for this song, other than that I like it, and wanted more male artists, and it kind of felt right here)

Plain talking (plain talking) Making us bold (making us bold) So strung out and cold (strung out and cold) Feeling so old (feeling so old)

Halsey, Gasoline (This song is for both Lymond AND Marthe. Favorite song in this playlist. The entire playlist could really just be this song, over and over again. I could write a whole essay connecting this song to the plot of PoF)

Are you insane like me? Been in pain like me? Bought a hundred dollar bottle of champagne like me? Just to pour that motherfucker down the drain like me?... Do the people whisper 'bout you on the train like me? Saying that you shouldn't waste your pretty face like me?... Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline I think there's a flaw in my code These voices won't leave me alone Well my heart is gold and my hands are cold

Beats Antique, Rising Tide (Philippa, to some extent. I was a little tempted to use this song in GoK for Christian Stewart, instead, swapping it with the Johnny Cash, but the beginning of the playlist was already dominated by female vocalists. And I think it kind of does work for Philippa at the end of PoF, going back home to her old life, leaving behind these bizarre and horrible experiences, she’s changed and Flaws Valley is still the same.)

You're an ocean of a girl Surrounding a world with a blackening tide You know that the coming storm is going to be a crazy ride With your alters made of bones The aftermath of disposable wings... I would write you a song that sounds like A faded photograph of your favorite night Just a little something to remember me by

The Ringed Castle

Alice Merton, No Roots (This doesn’t need much explanation)

I like digging holes and hiding things inside them When I'll grow old, I hope I won't forget to find them 'Cause I've got memories and travel like gypsies in the night I build a home and wait for someone to tear it down Then pack it up in boxes, head for the next town running... And a thousand times I've seen this road A thousand times I've got no roots, but my home was never on the ground

Barns Courtney, Glitter and Gold (again, doesn’t need much explanation...)

Do you walk in the valley of kings? Do you walk in the shadow of men Who sold their lives to a dream? Do you ponder the manner of things In the dark The dark, the dark, the dark

Guster, Fa Fa (Ringed Castle just speaks for itself, doesn’t it)

Go and run through the hallways, and find your way to the door You will end up like always, back where you were before Can you look in the mirror, wish you were somebody else But it's still your reflection, you and no one else You were always saying something, you swear you'd never say again

Checkmate

Elefant, Misfit (Lymond and Philippa, to some extent. Also I like the song.)

Tell me your name, tell me your story Cause I'm into it, runnin' through life like a misfit

Sia, Alive (this whole song...)

I had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go Where the wind don't change And nothing in the ground can ever grow No hope, just lies And you're taught to cry into your pillow But I survived

Garbage, When I grow up (could have also fit in the GoK section)

When I grow up I'll be stable When I grow up I'll turn the tables... Don't take offense Better make amends Rip it all to shreds and let it go

Additional songs I thought of, but scrapped:

Game of Kings Bad Reputation, Joan Jett I don't give a damn 'Bout my reputation I've never been afraid of any deviation An' I don't really care If ya think I'm strange I ain't gonna change

Joanna Newsom, The Things I Say If I have the space of half a day I'm ashamed of half the things I say I'm ashamed to have turned out this way And I desire to make amends But it don't make no difference, now And no one's listening, anyhow And lists of sins and solemn vows Don't make you any friends There's an old trick played When the light and the wine conspire To make me think I'm fine I'm not, but I have got half a mind To maybe get there, yet

America, Sandman (for Jerrott, or Richard) Ain't it foggy outside All the planes have been grounded Ain't the fire inside? Let's all go stand around it Funny, I've been there And you've been here And we ain't had no time to drink that beer 'Cause I understand you've been running from the man... Ain't the years gone by fast I suppose you have missed them Oh, I almost forgot to ask Did you hear of my enlistment? Funny, I've been there And you've been here And we ain't had no time to drink that beer

Queens play Blink 182 What's my age again "And that's about the time she walked away from me, no one likes you when you're twenty-three..."

Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas, Picture me with you (the bisexual anthem, lol) "I've been sleeping with your girlfriend. I' ve been sleeping in her bed. Don't picture me dead Picture me with you... I've been sleeping with your boyfriend. I' ve been sleeping in his bed. Don't picture me dead Picture me with you..."

Ringed Castle Joanna Newsom, Good Intentions Paving Company "Twenty miles left to the show Hello, my old country, Hello Stars are just beginning to appear And I have never, in my life Before been here"

Checkmate Metric, Satellite Mind "Hold it I'm about to drop off Let me tell you my last thought Drift into a deep fog Lost where I forgot to hold it I can feel you most when I'm alone"

Joanna Newsom, Leaving the City "I believe in you Do you believe in me? What do you want to do? Are we leaving the city? On the black road Through the gold fields While the fiends are plowed Towards what we are allowed"

#Lymond #the lymond chronicles #dorothy dunnett #I'm going to regret posting this because I'll think of fifty more songs that belong here #Do any of you have any recommendations for songs that would fit with one or more of the books or characters?#or lyrics or poetry #talk lymond chronicles to me!

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littledragonsinmyhead-blog · 7 years ago

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Crazy GW2 ff-ideaton for self (I’ll forget it all anyway): - Action/adventure - OC investigates Pact fleet destruction/Trahearne’s death years after. - Revenant abilities and HoT PTSR. - The world is bad, worse then in-game. - Being Commander is shit. - Commader is “the hero Gotham deserves”. - Being everyone else is shit. - Dysfunctional trammander. - Being “a part of a junge dragon” is shit.

An ongoing detective/action/adventore story that takes place 10y+ from now. - OC, for instance a young promising Shining blade exemplar (Who are they? What would they do? First thought - a headstrong tomboy, similar to Korra’s Kuvira). - SBs are preparing for something dramatic (The “enter-the-plane-of-torment-dramatic, but what exactly?). - OC has their own team. - As they look for the support, they try to reach the remaining members of Dragon’s Watch, who refuse to take part in a suicidal mission for “I wanna get a life” reason. They never refuse to help with advice or intel, but will not accompany the OC. - Anise believes Kerida/Lidia will be a good place to start. That’s how the idea of recruiting the legendary Commander/Dragonslayer comes to life. - Commander is my own Shiro/Dragon/Renegade sylvari revenant because I can. - Kerida thinks low of the Commander “thinking capabilities”. Recruiting him is spoken of as -a very bad idea- as he is universally considered an unpredictable living doomsday weapon nobody can effectively control. But the situation calls for drastic measures and only few people in Tyria are intense enough. The OC is worried, but also excited. - Commander is found in Cantha, which has opened its borders by then, and he eerily reminds Shiro Tagachi in both appearance and abilities. Maybe not. - OC views PC’s revenant skills - tearing thought the Mists - as wounds in the world and is initially frozen with terror. They overcome this feeling with time, but they also realize why nobody wants to deploy the Commander unless they absolutely have to. - Legends have VUI (like Suicide Squad’s ”Enchantress”. Probable code phrases: Shiro - “Murderer”, Glint - “Here be dragon”, Kalla - “Renegade”, Mallyx - “Unyielding”. No Ventari or Jalis, PC is negative/offensive combatant). OC notices how the commander mutters something in combat, but never hears the exact words. - With time, OC begins to notice small shifts in the PC’s behavior due to legend invocation and can’t help wondering what exactly is left of the dragonslayer’s own persona and why he allowed himself to become what he is - literally an unthinking doomsday weapon. - Back to DR, the SBs proceed with their preparation. Everyone is obliged to reiterate SB’s vows in the presence of a mesmer - to face their fears/desires, reveal their hidden interests and strengthen their minds. OC believes it is a good idea and everything goes well until - PC kills the inquisiting mesmer in front of witnesses and refuses to explain why. - Lady Meade oversees the process as an extra measure of safety. It seems she may have a clue - but she will never reveal it. - Commander is to be released because of the mission, being the Commander and being universally accepted “bad enough”. OC tries to confront him, but PC’s comments are cryptic - ”I didn’t kill the mesmer” and “we all understood the risks, no exceptions”. - OC investigates. Something (WHAT WHAT WHAT???) tips them off to find out what “really” happened in Maguuma jungle about 12 years ago. - The official version of the Pact’s First Marshal death is “slightly” different from the truth. The fact that the PC killed him was concealed from the public to save what little remained from the Pact’s positive image. This was PC’s idea, supported by the rest of the high command and the few witnesses. Ridhais, who actually recovered the body, was gently persuaded to keep quiet with a lifelong pension and the Pact’s full support and protection. PC also found the way to make the Pale Tree hide the whole picture. - During the later confrontation with the PC, OC learns he had his own reasons for the many detours during Maguuma campaign and Rata Novus recovery. With the rest of the high command MIA/absent, PC’s priorities were with successful reestablishment of the Pact. In the end it costed him his sanity, earned him the impression of a mindless living weapon but worked well enough. OC is deeply disturbed and disgusted with the knowledge that the Pact was not transparent. - In Maguuma, OC recovers some letters Trahearne and Commander exchanged during the Zhaitan campaign, as well as Trahearne’s later diary/album of letters that were never sent. OC reads it though and thinks it’s a fake, because it looks like a very unrealistic romance novel. OC tries to investigate who would benefit from compromising the high command, with no success. At some point, OC thinks the discovery has to be published or at least safekept with Priory, truth or not, but decides it can wait. - OC is enrolled in a SB’s mission for “previous effort’. The mission includes: mists, ghosts, sacred vows, runes, rituals, tons of magic. - Blah blah blah - OC and PC meet Trahearne. Each has a very painful discussion with him. - OC learns the second opinion about the Maguuma campain and thinks it looks ugly enough to be glad First Marshal died when he did. If not for the Big Statue and the Big Sacrifice talk, he would be charged with high treason for the fleet destruction, the Commander would be charged with high treason for the desertion (Eir was right!), Pact’s reputation would be ruined, Almorra would never be able to regain control during the White Mantle/Lazarus crisis, DW would be dead or scattered (probably for the best), Aurene would be a weak and sickly hatchling and probably wouldn’t survive. The world would be very different. - Add some personal background here: OC thinks about small events changing the big picture and realises their own life would be total shit in this different world. Maybe a slave to the White Mantle/bloodstone ghoul? idk, ideas? - OC overhears some of PC and Trahearne’s talk, which is very personal. T describes what it was like to be a part of a jungle dragon. Neither expected the experience would cause PC’s revenant abilities to manifest. OC realises the “wound in the world” description is accurate. - “Commander, the Pact” was T’s message to himself to preserve self-awareness: something that existed and was important regardless the connection to Dream and Mordremoth. T is partially responsible for Modrem attacks on the Pact camps. T believes he was powerful enough to contain the jungle dragon, but the perspective of living like this was terrifying, so he is grateful for going down as his own man (more or less). T is super-sorry this caused the Commander turning himself into a living weapon. Both say they would wish a different, happier fate for another. - PC admits Caladbold has its own happy memory about T and he wouldn’t want to end with his mind’s eye image. OC realises a) PC doesn’t believe this conversation is happening, b) why PC could kill the mesmer. They don’t want to check the last part. - Blah blah blah - Back to DR/Cantha, OC hands the recovered letters and notes to PC. Shorter version: start with PC killing the mesmer. Skip the first part. I don’t have PoF yet so I don’t know how far madness goes there. Now the big question: what would the OC be doing outside reading someone else’s correspondence?!! What is the original mission? What team would they assemble?!! Mind, focus on the important stuff next time plz

#dysfunctional trammander #rationalizing gw2 shit #gw2 au #gw2 fanfiction ideas #heart of thorns was creepy and i like it #nlp in gw2 #evil enchanted tree

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snickerl · 8 years ago

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Elixir Vitae

AU fanfic set around the time of IWTB.

A/N: This chapter got a bit out of hand. I cut the previous chapter in two because I didn’t want it to exceed 4000 words. Now this chapter alone exceeds more than 5000 words because I just couldn’t stop writing.

Find previous chapters here: Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter III / Chapter IV / Chapter V / Chapter VI

Chapter VII

“Tell me about our son, Fox!”

No! Please, no!

It’s Sunday morning and we’re sitting at the breakfast table. I’m buried in the paper and she’s been leafing through a magazine until now. I noticed her mind was elsewhere, but I had no idea where it was. She’s brutally yanked out of my current state of Sunday morning bliss with her question.

She must feel my reluctance to answer her because she insists, “you once promised me you’d tell me the whole story.” As if she senses my agony, or maybe the fact that my face has turned to stone betrays me.

“I know I promised, but I wished you wouldn’t ask me to keep my promise.”

Look outside, Scully! It’s Sunday morning, the sun is shining, a wonderful day is ahead of us.

I thought I could take her to the little flea market downtown. She loves strolling past the various sales counters searching for a little something to decorate our house with. We could have one of those wonderful homemade ice cream cones from that infamous Italian parlor on Main Street; strawberry cheesecake for her, double chocolate chip for me. We could walk hand in hand through the park. We don’t have to talk, just enjoy each other’s presence.

Please, have mercy on me, Scully! Don’t make me tell you the saddest story of your life. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Next week? … Ever?

“You said he lived. Why doesn’t he live with us?”

Oh, how I wished he was sitting with us right now, stuffing pancakes into his mouth, babbling about his latest Lego construction or pleading with us for the umpteenth time to get a dog. I wished there was a bike carelessly thrown somewhere in the front yard, neglected by a seven-year-old. I wished the upstairs spare bedroom was furnished for a boy to live in, stuffed with books and toys, all messy, with a bunk bed for his best buddy to sleep over. I wished we had appointments to make with teachers to discuss his scholar merits and with pediatricians to give him flu shots.

To be consciously missing all this hurts so damn badly, she’s got no idea how lucky she is to have no remembrance of what it’s like to have lost a son. I know I’m being unfair. She must feel the hole in her heart, the void William left behind. She just can’t quite explain it, and her scientist’s mind longs for answers. I understand she can’t go on forever without knowing, but does it really have to be today?

“It’s a long story,” I hear myself say.

“I don’t need the whole story, I just want to know more about my son than his name. How old is he?”

I knew my hope that I’d be allowed to leave it at that had been futile. I take a deep breath before I finally answer, each word feeling like a stab in my heart.

“He turned seven not long ago.”

“Why isn’t he living with us? Is it because of me? Because of the amnesia? Do the authorities think I can’t take care of a child because of it?”

“No. Your amnesia has nothing to do with it.”

“Did they take him from us because we were FBI agents, because our jobs were too dangerous for us to be caring for a child?”

“No. He wasn’t taken from us.”

“He wasn’t taken from us? You mean…you mean we gave him up?”

The total disbelief in her voice almost kills me.

Don’t do this to me, Scully, please! Don’t make me tell you what happened to William!

I look into her big, questioning eyes and I see how she longs for answers, but sometimes it’s better not to know the answer to every question.

“Fox! Talk to me! I have a right to know!”

My tongue feels thick and heavy and my mouth is so dry it sticks to my palate. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a single word out, although she’s absolutely right. She has every right to know, and I’d have to tell her sooner or later anyway, so why not get it over and done with?

My stomach churns because the story has the potential to devastate her. I’m trying desperately to think of a way to break it gently to her, but my brain is not cooperating. I’m coming to the conclusion that the best I can do is to be straightforward and clear, to save her from any misunderstanding. Therefore I supply before my courage deserts me, “you gave him up for adoption before he turned one.”

As was expected, the information knocks her off balance. I can literally see the color disappearing from her face and the air leaving her lungs. Her mouth falls open and her eyes widen in shock.

“What…did I do?” she whispers, although I’m quite sure she understood me very well.

“You had no other choice, Scully,” I’m trying to explain but the words don’t reach her.

“I gave my son up for adoption? I? You didn’t say ‘we’, you said 'you’! What kind of a mother was I to give my child away?”

I have to intervene before she talks herself into something that has nothing to do with the truth. This woman knows nothing about what led her to that terrible moment in her life, of course, she’s jumping to conclusions.

“Scully, listen! Things were very complicated back then. There’s so much I have to explain to you about the circumstances.”

“What’s there to explain? Mothers give their children up for adoption when they can’t…or when they don’t want to care for them. Or when they hadn’t wanted to have them in the first place, when they want to get rid of them.”

“Stop it! Now! None of this applied in William’s case, now shut up and let me explain, will ya?”

But she’s not listening. My harsh words don’t even make her flinch. She buries her face in her hands and starts crying violently. Her shoulders are shaking with every sob that escapes her chest.

This went so awfully wrong! I can’t believe I haven’t thought about how to do this properly, how to spare her those wrong conclusions.

I get up from my chair, kneel beside her and peel her hands off her face before I appeal, “Scully, please listen to me! Listen carefully! I’m going to need some time to explain everything to you, but there’s one thing I want you to understand right away: you weren’t a bad mother. The complete opposite is true. You were the best mother William could have, and you’re not to blame whatsoever for what happened to him. Would you please take that fact for granted? Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“Then let me explain. Let me explain how much you loved that child, what he meant to you, and that giving him up was a selfless sacrifice on your behalf and not a sign of you lacking motherly love.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she sobs, her voice shockingly thin.

“No, I don’t. William was a miracle. God, where am I to begin?”

She looks down at me, and I’m dumbfounded for a moment because I have to look up to meet her eyes. Usually, it’s the other way around. It’s not easy for me to keep my own emotions under control and I curse myself once again for not having made a plan about how to explain this to her. At least, I managed to pull her out of her self-loathing mode. She seems willing to listen to me. She wipes the tears off her face with her hands, straightens her back, tucks some loose strands of hair behind her ear, and looks at me expectantly.

I have to stand up because my knees are aching; I’m not in my twenties anymore. I motion for her to join me on the couch. I don’t want to sit opposite her as if in an interrogation. I want to put my arm around her shoulder and hold her when I tell her. I’m glad she follows me willingly. But when we’re seated, she pulls her knees to her chest and embraces them, like to shield herself from what she’s going to hear. I let her, although I’d prefer more physical closeness. She’s not ready for it, apparently.

She picks up my last line, saying somewhat defiantly, “every new life is a miracle of nature.”

“In our case, it was so much more than that.” I brace myself for her reaction before telling her, “you had been diagnosed with POF.”

The doctor in her instantly understands. “Premature Ovarian Failure? At the age of…uh, how old am I?”

“You’re 43 now.”

“So I was 36 when he was born. When was I diagnosed with POF?”

“A few years earlier.”

“Well, that was definitely premature. I take it we resorted to reproductive medicine.”

She’s fully in doctor’s mode now, and somehow I’m glad because it leaves her detached and less emotional. But we’ll get back to the emotional part, I’m quite sure of it.

I nod. “In vitro. But it didn’t take it.”

I’m not going to tell her that we weren’t together at the time, that she’d asked me as a friend to be her sperm donor and not as her spouse to father her child.

“What did we try then? Gestational surrogacy? Which would mean I didn’t give birth to him, but I found some faint stretch marks on my body. I must have been pregnant at least once in my life.”

“We did not try any kind of surrogacy. And two times yes, you carried him and you gave birth to him. He’s our child. We eventually made him the old-fashioned way.”

“The old-fashioned way? How?”

“You’re a doctor, you know how babies are made.”

Stupid, Mulder! You’re so stupid!

This is not the time for a light banter, and sure enough, she narrows her eyes and shoots warning looks at me.

“You aren’t taking this to a joking level, are you?”

“No! No, I’m sorry.”

“I do know how babies are made, and I can imagine we had intercourse as a married couple, but how come I conceived? If I had POF, I was barren. Without a donated and artificially inseminated egg, there was no chance for a pregnancy.”

'No lies,’ I hear Dr. Pratt whisper into my ear. 'Never bend the truth to cover up something, never let her draw conclusions that are at odds with the truth. You have to be absolutely honest when you talk to her about her past. What seems to be a comfortable loophole at a certain moment will come back to you as a wrecking ball to your relationship when she finds out you were untrue. She’ll find it hard to trust you again. She might never be able to. So, no matter how difficult it is for you, no matter how painful it is for her, tell her the truth. Always.’

“We weren’t married.”

I inhale deeply and hold my breath.

“O-kay. That surprises me a bit, but hey, a lot of couples nowadays choose not to marry.”

“We weren’t even a couple. Not in the proper sense of the term.”

“Not in the proper sense of the term? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Goddamnit, Scully, it was so complicated! We…were so complicated. Nothing was ever easy for us. I don’t know how to explain this to you.”

“For heaven’s sake, Fox, try!”

Okay, I guess now is the time to stop beating around the bush. I need to be very clear on this. “I loved you. And you loved me. But we weren’t involved. Physically involved, I mean. We were like…like…platonic lovers.”

“Well, not so platonic after all if I got pregnant the old-fashioned way.” She draws invisible quotation marks in the air and sounds a little annoyed. She grimaces at her own lame joke, her expression freezes the very next second, though. “Are you not the father? Have I-”

“No,” I interrupt her, “you haven’t! Absolutely not! Jesus, why do you get it all wrong?”

“Because you’re only giving me bits and pieces here! Incoherent, contradicting information that doesn’t make a reasonable whole!”

She jolts up from the couch, taking one of the cushions with her and holding it in front of her chest now, subconsciously shielding her heart. Only that a cushion can’t save the heart from emotional pain.

“I’ve had enough of this!” She’s almost yelling at me. “This is so confusing! I don’t know what to make of all of this. I need some time to sort this out.”

“No!” I grab her sleeve to keep her from leaving. “Please, Scully! You’d be making up countless theories in your head and none of it would be even close to the truth because our lives back then were so out of the ordinary. Give me ten minutes to explain. Please. Just ten minutes.”

She’s standing still for a moment, her back turned toward me. I can tell she’s struggling with herself about what to do.

“Ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking for, and I promise you’ll be wiser afterward.”

She turns around slowly and meets my eyes, hers watery. I’m not sure whether because she’s anxious or sad, or maybe just because she’s angry with me for having been so cryptical so far.

“Promise to tell me the truth,” she demands.

“I promise!” I let go of her sleeve and motion for her to sit next to me again.

She inhales deeply, then places herself on the couch, further away from me this time. Her knees are up again, offering her chin a place to rest on. I don’t know why she needs that distance between us, why she can’t look at me as I speak.

I take a deep, calming inhale of breath myself and start telling her about what led her to the point of giving William up for adoption. Of course, it had to be a short version, otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking for ten minutes but ten hours straight, or maybe ten days even.

She shows no reaction, simply takes all the information in, as if she was listening to a lecture at college. She lets me talk, she’s not interrupting me with questions or demanding I clarify things. I’m not even sure she’s really listening. I pause for a moment to incite some kind of reaction; a movement, a sigh, a word. Nothing. So I conclude my narration.

“We’d unmasked a government conspiracy leading directly to the Bureau with some of our direct superiors being involved. We’d exposed ourselves, Scully. We were abducted, misled, threatened, harmed in many ways, but we never gave up. We couldn’t let those sons of bitches get through with their vile intentions. What used to be my quest had become yours too, and you chose not to leave my side although you had the chance. But when William was born, the stakes were too high. You’d become a mother, Scully, and you had to protect your son. The decision you’d once made for yourself, to put your life on the line for me, couldn’t apply to him. For you, there was no way out anymore, but there was one for William. That’s why you gave him up. The adoption was his one-way ticket away from the omnipresent danger our lives would’ve held for him. That’s it.”

That’s it.

I swallow.

She’s still not moving, isn’t saying anything. She just closes her eyes and a tear rolls down her cheek. I’d like to brush it away but I fear to wake her from her trance-like state and startle her. I have no idea what’s going on in her mind. Does it make any sense to her? Does she think this is all too crazy to be true? Does she remember any of it?

She’s still staring straight ahead, avoiding my eyes, when she speaks eventually. “I couldn’t protect my son.”

Although she heard a lot of reasons why she had to do what she did, that her motives had been beyond all blame, she narrows it down to a point where she’s accusing herself. I know that regardless of what I tell her, she’ll feel guilty. I try anyway.

“Nobody could. Not without denying him a normal life, and that’s what you wanted him to have.”

“You never blamed me for what I’d done?”

“Never.”

“Not even a tiny bit? Secretly?”

“No.”

“You promised to tell me the truth,” she reminds me.

“I am telling you the truth.”

She looks at me with her clear blue eyes, her face unreadable. To my complete surprise, she folds her knees away, leans in and places a gentle peck on my cheek, breathing a soft 'thank you’ in my ear.

“You don’t have to thank me. I owed you the truth.”

“I meant for not casting a stone at me.”

“I was in no position to do that. I would’ve wanted to do the same for him, I only doubt I would’ve had the courage and the strength.”

“That’s why I felt my heart was heavy when you first mentioned his name. I sensed there was a sad story behind it although I couldn’t remember it.”

“It was a shattering, life-altering experience for you, Scully. It’s been branded into your soul, even if you don’t have any access to it at the moment.”

“Probably.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good. I need some time to let it all sink in, though.”

“Take as much time as you need. I’ll be right here whenever you have more questions.”

“Do we some pictures of him? Anything that reminds us of him?”

“Yes. Would you like to see them?”

She nods.

I rise from the couch and cast her a smile.

“Why don’t you make us a pot of tea and I go and fetch what we have.”

There’s a box in the attic. It’s shoved into the rearmost corner, so that we don’t stumble over it every time we pick up something from up there, like the deck chairs in the spring or the Christmas decoration in the winter.

It doesn’t take long for me to find it, although it’s just a usual cardboard box like many others up here, unlabeled and hidden behind a pile of spare tires. I know exactly where it is because unlike Scully I’ve had a look at it from time to time. When she was in the hospital on a double shift, for example, or away for the weekend with her mother. At moments like those, when I felt lonely and my mind wasn’t distracted enough, hence it kept wandering around until it made its way up to where that box was located.

When I return to the living room, the teapot sits on a warmer. Instead of mugs, she put two teacups on the table, along with honey and some milk.

I place the box in the middle of the coffee table.

“It’s small,” she notices.

“Yeah, well, I guess keeping more things wouldn’t have made it any easier.”

We sit for a moment side by side staring at the box like deer caught in the headlights, then she pulls it on her lap and opens it.

I don’t have to look in there to know what’s inside. The only things that remain from our son are the blanket he was wrapped in after he was born, a onesie with a baby giraffe on it, a pacifier, a baby rattle, a piece of paper with imprints of his tiny hands and feet in blue ink, a few pictures, eight, to be precise, and a copy of his birth certificate.

It took me a long time to figure out why she made a copy of it. I guess she wasn’t supposed to because of the adoption being a closed one, but she did anyway. She needed proof that all of it had really happened. The span of this baby’s presence in our lives was so short. In mine, it was just for as long as the blink of an eye. One moment, he made a miraculous entrance into my existence, the very next he was gone. Scully, being prone to relying on hard data as a scientist, kept the written document as a piece of evidence. Not so much for the outside world, but for herself. Although I’m not sure she’s ever looked at it after she handed off the original to the social worker at the adoption agency.

I know I’m not mentioned as the father. The space on the certificate where the father’s name is usually put is blank. Scully and I agreed that it was better this way. Safer. Little did we know that this particular safety measure along with all the others wouldn’t protect him enough. Now I wished my name was on that birth certificate, for the same reasons Scully kept the copy.

The first thing she pulls out of William’s commemorative cardboard box is his onesie. It’s the one I sent her through tortuous paths when he was half a year old and I was separated from my family, having to hide to keep them safe. She puts the garment to her cheek.

“It doesn’t smell like him anymore,” I say. I can almost feel the sensation on my own skin for all the times I’d done that, too, hoping to connect with him somehow. But other than the softness of the fabric there is nothing there.

“Has it been washed?” she asks.

“Probably not. I guess the smell has just faded. It’s been more than six years, Scully.”

“Sure,” she sighs.

One after the other, she takes the other items out of the box. She smiles at the hand and footprints, unfolds the baby blanket, and furrows her brows at the birth certificate. She looks at the pacifier and the rattle, maybe trying to picture herself calming a baby boy with them. She sets all the things on the coffee table next to the teapot without a word. She then retrieves the envelope containing the pictures we have of our son, all eight of them.

I don’t know why there are only so few. Maybe she didn’t take so many, maybe she threw them away in agony after he was gone, but most likely she deliberately chose the few she kept, each one marking a special moment.

There’s the one of us three, the only one of us three, a few days after he was born. Frohike took it in Scully’s apartment. William had just been nursed and fallen asleep in his mother’s arms. I’m sitting next to Scully in that picture, my arm around her shoulder. She’s beaming into the camera and I’m flashing a somewhat goofy grin. There’s an inscription on the back in Scully’s hand. It says, 'We’re parents!’

Without looking at the back, she holds the picture out to me. “We look happy.”

“We were happy, Scully. Very happy,” I answer and my voice almost deserts me.

There’s a photograph of William in his crib, the crib Scully and her siblings had spent their first months in, showing a toothless smile. On the back she’d written, 'our baby in the family crib’.

There’s one she took of me while I was sleeping on the couch with William resting on my chest, looking at Scully as if he wanted to say, 'look, mommy, daddy passed out’. When I’d first read what’s on the back, 'my two men’, my heart bled even more than when I was looking at the picture itself. The words still have that effect on me.

There’s a picture with just the word 'grandma’ on the back. It shows a smiling Margaret with William on her lap, feeding him a bottle.

“How did my mother take it?”

“She needed some time to get over it,” I tell her. Scully had never told me about the many discussions she had with her mother, arguments even, but Maggie had. “You should talk to her about it one day. When you’re ready. She can tell you much more about him than I can. She babysat him quite a lot.”

The remaining four pictures are only of him.

William sitting on a blanket on the floor with the rattle in his mouth. The back reads, 'bothered by his first tooth’. William in his high chair, carrot mash smeared all over his face. The back reads, 'having fun with the first solid food’. William on all fours, crawling towards the photographer, his face beaming. The back reads, 'getting ready to conquer the world’.

And then there’s the last one. It shows William in a jacket and a funny hat, buckled up in his car seat. It’s slightly out of focus as if taken in a rush. It’s the only one without anything written on the back. Even without any explanation, I have an idea of what I see in this picture.

Scully’s eyes are glued to it now. Then she looks at the others again, one by one. It must strike her how different that one is. Eventually, she speaks out loud what I never dared to ask her about.

“This is the last picture we have of him.”

I only nod.

“We don’t know what he looks like today, where he lives, who his parents are.”

These are no questions, just findings from her assessing everything she’s heard about William’s adoption from me today.

“Is there any chance for us to get in touch with him?”

I shake my head no.

“To find out his whereabouts or how he’s doing?”

Again, I have to shake my head.

“Can he get in touch with us? If he wants to, maybe when he’s a teenager? In puberty, adoptive children often develop a longing to learn everything about their biological roots.”

“No,” I answer, “it’s been a closed adoption. All information is sealed. It had to be done this way to keep him safe.”

I’m not telling her that there is a person who knows. Skinner. He knows the name of the couple who adopted William and he knows where they live. Our former boss keeps an eye on our son, just to make sure the forces Scully tried to protect him from haven’t tracked him down after all. It’s calming for me to know Skinner’s looking out for him, but it’s also a constant temptation to pry the secret information out of him. I wonder if I will ever hold him at gunpoint, yelling at him to tell me where William is.

“So we will never see our son again.” Scully sighs heavily. “We know nothing about him and never will.”

There’s nothing further for me to say.

We sit in silence for a long time and sip our tea. She looks okay, a bit exhausted maybe, but not devastated or broken.

“Thank you for telling me everything.”

“I promised.”

“Yes, you promised, but still, it must have been difficult for you. He’s your son, too, and you lost him. I understand now why you wanted to keep it from me when I first asked you about him. I hadn’t been stable enough at the time to deal with it. Thank you for taking such good care of me, Fox.”

Despite her frequent use of my first name in the past months, I’m simply not getting used to it. It has, and it will continue doing so, a weird ring.

Scully, it’s me, Mulder!

“You’ve always been my favorite patient, Scully,” I say and make her laugh.

She places the box on her lap and puts the William memorabilia back in, piece by piece, very carefully and gently. She sets the box on the coffee table and puts the lid back on.

“What do you say we keep it down here from now on instead of hiding it in the attic? Maybe not here in the living room, but how about our bedroom closet?”

“I like the idea.”

I really like the idea. I love it actually. Maybe we’ve just taken a huge step toward dealing together with the loss of William. Maybe it’s going to be one good thing this damn amnesia brings along in its wake. If we stop trying to cope with it separately, if we start sharing our grief and our guilt feeling, maybe then we’ll be able to halt the downward spiral we’d definitely been on before Scully was taken. We’d been drifting away from each other, slowly but gradually, each of us alone in trying to come to terms with the emptiness our son left behind. I felt it but I couldn’t do anything against it. If this is meant to be the onset of a new way for us, then I swear to God I’ll never curse that fucking amnesia again.

“You know what?” she says and rises from the sofa, “I’d like us to go for a walk. Do you know that Italian ice cream parlor on Main Street? Francesco’s Gelato? Their ice cream is heavenly. Have your ever tried Bacio? It means 'kiss’ in Italian. It��s a delicious mixture of hazelnut and chocolate. I’m in the mood for one of their cones. What about you?”

I’m definitely in the mood for a kiss!

“My treat,” I say.

to be continued

#xf fanfiction #msr #William #eight pictures #Bacio

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ivi-gw2 · 3 years ago

Text

Recycling old content and why must some easy things stay easy

(long post)

In the last post I explained why I think that Guild Wars 2 is in desperate need of “medium” difficulty content. In this post I’ll talk about some ideas that come to my mind.

What would I say is needed? More hard and much, much more medium content to balance things out with large amounts of easy content? More updates? Sure! But let’s go green: I would like to see older content that once was medium or that wilted, revisited and refreshed. There is already enough variety of stuff to do in GW2 - we don’t need so much new stuff, it will just make older stuff more abandoned and maybe the player base too fragmented. Also, not touching old and boring content will make it “bad” and more and more abandoned by players” - the game would benefit a lot if they’d find a way to make it new and interesting.

Also - the best solution would be to make the most change with the least possible work done - to make it economically rational. While - importantly - focusing on making what already exists in the game better. With Colin Johanson as a new (old) leader and more focus shifted at GW2, I once again have hopes that ArenaNet will stop abandoning good content shortly after shipping it. Yes, Colin means experimentation - but the focus part will, I believe, make them think about it for a bit.

So first of all - what change would make a lot of now trivial and too-easy content better and a bit harder? Buffing all mobs and encounters and nerfing all player abilities? Yes, but… it wouldn’t make the game better. Let’s say we have a low-skill player - one that is new to the game or simply hasn’t yet learned some of the game mechanics. And a high-skill player. For the high-skill player most of the game (as it is in the easy category) is braindead. But for the low skill one it is not braindead. It is a probem even ArenaNet is trying to fix; in an interview when Icebrood Saga was coming, Mike Zadorojny said that “The challenge is that the skill disparity between average players and hardcore players is extreme. We’re talking about ten times damage output. You can’t necessarily put a DPS check that the average player is going to be able to overcome without making the fight entirely trivialized for the hardcore.” Just buffing everything and nerfing all player abilities wouldn’t do much because many new players and lower skill players suddenly won’t be able to play content that was intended for everyone. Some guy who just created their first character in Queensdale, running around, would come up to the bandit who would kill him in 3 hits. For many people that would be a good learning lesson, but GW2 is a fundamentally different game (and differently marketed) from MMOs that focus mostly on hard endgame content (FFXIV or WoW, for example) and so it attracts everyone, not just people that want to be super skillful players. Just making the absolute whole of the game much harder because that would make average players’ skill closer to the raids or quality PvP experience would succeed in what it wants. But it would also deter a lot of people and, more importantly, lose a lot of players who found friends and communities, peace or happiness in simple things GW2 offered. Harder content is needed, many of the existing stuff in GW2 has to be notched up just a bit, but a lot of it has to stay in “easy” difficulty.

Most of core’s open world mobs and events are definitely one of those things - most of them being in lower level maps. Leaving them in the easy difficulty category won’t take anything from raids - yes, ArenaNet hasn’t focused on the raids because a small number of players play them and it would be cool to have more players that play them so we could then have more raids… but harsh up in difficulty for this kind of content isn’t the solution. Making low-skill players better and bringing them closer to playing raids is best done with small step ups in difficulty - something having enough content in all difficulties does - making easy and medium important. Only thing I would add to the open world core mobs is better telegraphs for attacks - red aoe dots on ground, arrows for charges, etc. As for LS, PoF and HoT open world mobs and events - those can stay the same, they are an appropriate level of challenge for many players.

Next up is content I believe was and still is the most played content in the game: world bosses. Huge dragon coming from the sky and hundred brave warriors rush to defeat him, epic music playing… And the dragon is dead in 2 minutes. I’ll say this right away: I love world bosses, even them being this easy. I still play them. Because I love MMO experience and I love to see a lot of other players. World bosses are Guild Wars’ 2 trademark and the defining game characteristic, and something they did the best way possible out of all the other MMOs. And while they are in no way falling in popularity, I believe they should be a bit refreshed so they move into the “medium content”. In my opinion, focus for their rework should be: small changes to make them a bit harder (most of them just a bit, few of them a lot) and teaching players some of the more difficult game mechanics. Making them harder is needed so players would organise more and make the bosses feel as an actual threat. New and low skill players aren't the issue here because most other players can carry them. A good example of teaching some difficult mechanics with a harder boss was adding the Vale Guardian event in Bloodstone Fen.

But no changes to the world bosses means no engaging (or “better”) content for experienced players. Well, then some changes that would affect only the experienced players are needed:

Much harsher dynamic level adjusting for high-level characters in lower level maps.. I already wrote in one of my previous posts: “Make me, while in top gear, have just 15% better stats than a noob in some low-level map, but let me be stronger and more able to help them with my skill creep.” I would say that it would require less work for ArenaNet, than revisiting every mob, event and skill. But I can only guess.

Harsher event scaling for larger amounts of players - currently events are scaled well mostly for single players and small groups, but big metas get too easy. Boss doing more damage and having much more HP than how it scales now could help a bit.

Keeping power-creep in check - constant skill balance changes to keep every top damage number under a certain threshold.

More work needed to get participation, scaled by players level. Low level characters could do less and have more participation while lvl 80 characters should do more to get the same. This would work even for expansion/living story/lvl 80 maps - in those cases, everyone should do just a bit more. And in my opinion that is okay because a lvl 80 player will by default do much, much more than a low-level one. Unless… they are not doing their part.

Add timers to big meta events - as they work in strikes - with more work done, you get a better reward. And make gold really hard to get. Not all world bosses should be absolutely lethal and only killable for players with super skills, but all of them should be a kind of a challenge.

Another thing that should be revisited is the personal story - the story of how we killed Zhaithan. It is the content that can’t be just pushed under a rug like dungeons were. Everybody plays it and all the new players will play it - it will define their first hours of GW2 experience. The focus of its rework should be to make it a big tutorial for many game mechanics and something that should slowly, step by step, up the player’s skill. The pacing, events in it and boss encounters are something I don’t need to say anything about because of how old and easy they feel today. New story stuff is great and shiny and made in a way that’ll take much more time to lose it’s shine. While we’re at the shiny new story - while all of GW2's story should be little by little harder, it should never get too hard. It should stay pretty low in difficulty - maybe just lower-medium difficulty tier. Because it is a showcase for new players what new stuff ArenaNet just added to the game. They shouldn’t need to play hundreds of hours of all the rest of the story before they can try out and be happy playing the new toys that they just got. Adding special achievements, making memorable encounters, special fractals or strikes with CMs is a very good solution ArenaNet made. It makes the story a bit more of a challenge for more experienced players. I would also like to see some core story’s memorable moments be turned into fractals or strikes - killing the Eye and The Claw Island come to my mind. Even HoT, PoF and LS story events could be made repeatable somehow - Mordremoth, Balthazar and Joko fights are some of my favourite ones.

Then there are dungeons, somehow tied with the personal story. With them, a lot of rework is needed. I believe they are the type of old content that can be redone from bottom up and people won’t be mad about it. Some of the stuff I don’t miss is running down iced scaffolding to light a fire or luring skelks away from orbs to get to Mossman. FotM update was a very good decision - boring or needlessly irritating parts were removed and replaced with more meaningful encounters. An art of the deal. If it gets removed and replaced with something better in the same vein - some of the stuff I won’t miss that comes to mind: underwater boss in HotW, many simply irritating mobs in Arah or the fiery tunnel in CoF. Dungeons have an immense potential to span difficulty steps from easy (story path), over medium, up to hard difficulty.

But why should we, the veteran players, go back to this, already played content - even after “the refresh” relatively easy content? More about that in upcoming posts!

Source: Balancing Guild Wars 2 difficulty is tough when top players do “ten times” more damage | PCGamesN https://www.pcgamesn.com/guild-wars-2/difficulty

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