#the whole game is about her recovering her agency

[kradogsrats]

I'd Do Anything (... But I Won't Do That)

This started out kind of weird and petty but then turned into an actual thing about the relationship of Viren's character arc(s) to the Arc 2 "I'll do anything for you" theme, because that's actually pretty important for the context of how both Callum and Claudia will have to confront the same conflict.

Pictured: Do NOT take a shot every time we get a callback to this line, you will die.

Basically, the petty part is that I think evaluating Viren's Arc 1 decisions through the "I will do anything for my family" lens is... disingenuous is too strong a word, but maybe simplistic? The "Viren doesn't reveal/offer the egg to save Harrow's life because he's too preoccupied with hanging on to his own power" take has never sat right with me because the real core problem of Viren is a lot more complex than just "he's lying (to himself)," it's a whole pattern of denying his own agency in doubling down on his mistakes. He'll make one bad/selfish decision, and it becomes a cascade of subsequent actions that he sees as being unavoidable, but that aren't necessarily even informed by the same reasoning or values as the initial decision. Like everything else in Viren's dream, Kpp'Ar's take that his choices are all oriented toward power is both accurate and not necessarily as literal as it seems.

Because, like... Viren's not actually a manipulator or even much of a planner—he's a very skilled opportunist. That's why all his choices wind up being based entirely on the context of past choices, and frequently make no sense when you look at them from a "hey buddy, where exactly do you think you're going with this" angle. It also contributes to why he's so desperate for control all the time, in that he acts primarily in a reactive way rather than proactively, which is always an inherently less secure position.

Pictured: The kind of statement that definitely always leads to things going super well.

Even taking the egg in the first place is a reactive decision—not that he doesn't make a choice there, or that he doesn't choose power over the threat he believes the egg poses, but he did actually walk all the way up the Storm Spire, fight five or six Dragonguard, and get kicked down a flight of stairs with the intent of destroying it. He didn't argue with Harrow about destroying it while secretly planning to take it for himself. He only even thinks of it as a weapon because Tiadrin planted the idea in his mind—as an opportunist, the temptation to leave an avenue to power open rather than close it off is what he can't resist. He sat on Sarai's last breath for ten years waiting for a chance to weaponize it to maximum effect, he can sit (figuratively... or literally, I'm not gonna stop him) on the egg for as long as it takes for an appropriate use it to appear. Tiadrin even specifically encourages that he not "waste" it, both specifically by destroying it now, and implicitly by using it too quickly and foolishly.

Pictured: Smart mom, dumb ass.

Tiadrin's angle, of course, is that the longer Viren hangs on to the egg without actually using it, the higher the chance it can be recovered. She doesn't know that Viren will leave things in a state where the assumption is that the egg was destroyed, meaning no one will think to try recovering it, but that's not really her fault and it still pays off.

The gamble Viren makes, on the other hand, is that the opportunities the egg affords will be worth the risk of it somehow falling back into Xadian hands. If the egg returns to Xadia alive, he's back to square "his name will be vengeance" in the game of We Killed the Dragon King. So yeah, you could say Viren values keeping the egg over Harrow's life, but in doing that he's actually operating largely on the exact same values and beliefs that made him argue for destroying it in the first place. It's just that his prior choice of risking humanity's security for the sake of potentially world-altering power has backfired in the context of an immediate and direct threat to Harrow's life. Really, the entire rest of s1 and s2 are him doubling down specifically on keeping the egg from returning to Xadia while also milking the opportunities coming from that course—e.g. the egg cannot go back to Xadia, therefore Callum and Ezran cannot return to Katolis either with or without it (knowing their goal is to return it to Xadia, which it will be difficult to stop them from doing once Ezran is king), and that means someone has to take the throne. If the egg can't be recovered, their only hope is a decisive first strike against Xadia, so someone has to mobilize the Pentarchy immediately. None of them are things he planned in the sense of "well, if Harrow dies then I can get his sons out of the way and make myself king, and then conquer Xadia." It's all reactive to the situation with the egg. You could argue that he'd do the same things if the egg wasn't a factor, like it's possible he's always been kind of lying in wait to push Harrow's sons aside and seize the throne... but if that was the case, he'd really do much better to make a bid for regent like any normal evil advisor would.

Anyway, all of that does still undermine the statement that he'd do "anything" for his family (which includes Harrow), and it is ultimately because of that initial choice he made to take the opportunity of power over the certainty of securing humanity's future. It's just not as simple as, "Viren says he would do anything for his family, but he won't sacrifice his own power and ambition." In the wake of his critical failure to prioritize humanity in destroying the egg, he's making choices that do prioritize humanity (from within his worldview that Xadia is an existential threat barely held at bay)... but they're still bad choices because they're all reactive to that original bad choice. It's not that he's working at cross-purposes to what he says his goals are, it's that he genuinely thinks digging his hole deeper will somehow work out positively, or at least better than the alternative would.

Pictured: Another statement that for sure indicates you're doing totally great.

Really though, I don't think you can (or are supposed to) look at the trifecta of self-individuals-world and point to one that Viren—or really any character outside of Callum, Rayla, and Claudia—puts at the top. Part of the whole point here is that elevating one of those at the expense of the others is never going to be the right choice all of the time. Obviously always putting yourself first is shitty, but we get multiple examples of over-prioritizing one of the other two as being self-destructive and dangerous. Consistency isn't supposed to be positive, here—a core part of this arc is likely to be Callum grappling with that, and that's without even looking at what's going on with Claudia.

The other thing is that "I will do anything for my family"-Viren is actually on some level a different character than Arc 1 Viren, such that evaluating one based on the context of the other doesn't actually make sense. We don't get even a hint of the "I would do anything for my family" in the series until s4, after Viren has died and been revived. Yeah, we had it earlier in the novels, but in there it's really about Claudia and her relationship with Viren, not Viren's values or actions. Arc 1 Viren and Arc 2 Viren inform each other as characters, but most of the point is the ways they aren't the same. And while Arc 2 Viren is understandably preoccupied with the concept of sacrificing for family—given that he's been stripped of everything that was in his life except Claudia, who went to terrible lengths on his behalf—Arc 1 Viren is actually quite consistent with how he's laid out in his Tales of Xadia character sheet:

Like, check out those Liberty and Glory statements—not even close to the same ballpark as Callum's "I value those close to me more than anyone or anything" Devotion and "I'm beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom" Liberty, but quite accurate as the through-line on his s1-s3 actions. There's nothing in there about family, because Arc 1 Viren isn't actually meant to be associated with "I will do anything for my family," and he's not lying to himself by not acting consistently with it in Arc 1.

Arc 2 Viren is then a kind of emotional reboot back to a particular point earlier in his life—not necessarily the point before he first did any dark magic at all, but before he did his ill-defined "anything" to save Soren, which is implied in multiple places to be the point where he started in on a spiral that had tangible and fairly rapid effects on his personality and outlook. That's further emphasized by the contents of his dream in s5—seeing him behave in a genuinely loving and joyful way with Soren is shocking, and immediately raises the question of what the fuck happened and why.

Pictured: Healthy coping mechanisms.

Part of what still distinguishes Viren's "I will do anything for my family; however dangerous, however vile" from Callum's developing "I would do anything for you" is that Viren is always deliberately addressing the "things that are so unforgivable, you will never forgive yourself" facet while Callum leaves it implicit because he doesn't really understand and/or want to acknowledge that yet (and also Rayla would probably twist his nose again, which fucking hurts). In how Viren describes it to Terry, he is using that up-front acknowledgement to then essentially abdicate any emotional responsibility for... well, anything at all. The entire "however dangerous, however vile" mantra is another way of denying his own agency, because if he'll do anything, then he doesn't actually have to go through the difficult emotional process of making those decisions and dealing with the aftermath.

Pictured: H-healthy coping mechanisms?

Terry correctly pegs this questionable excuse for philosophy as "not having feelings," and generally not the best approach, because it will do things like lead to a default state of emotional unavailability to your children—oh, wait. I think it's not unlikely that Viren's emotional distancing from what "I will do anything for my family" meant contributed a lot to the degradation of it as his core value and his ensuing Arc 1 state. A lot of what's going on in his s5 dream is that he's being confronted with the consequences of "I will do anything for my family," specifically. He's being forced through an emotional speedrun of what it has cost him and everyone around him, and what has he got to show for it? Claudia, corrupted beyond recognition, proudly repeating his own words back to him.

Pictured: Whatever the opposite of daddy issues is.

Because the whole point of Viren's "I will do anything for my family" in Arc 2 is the challenge of whether he would/will do it all again. If he holds to that value the same way he did before, he'll do whatever it takes to save Claudia—however dangerous, however vile. Most of Viren's moral and emotional stuff has been based on his self-serving resignation to having "no choice." He's so tragically trapped in a chain of spiraling consequences he can never break... except oh wait, he totally can. S5 is all about Viren recognizing the dark magic feedback loop and that he has the agency to break it, and his best and only chance to avoid doing further harm to Claudia is to not be willing to destroy himself that way again, even it it means his death will cause her terrible emotional pain.

We'll see how that works out. Because let's be real: Claudia's gonna Claudia, regardless. However it goes, there's an important narrative precedent being set for both breaking free from dark magic/Aaravos and evaluating the "I will do anything for you" impulse in a more nuanced way.

[ohforficsakelibrary]

The Margay: Chapter 6

If You're Both Lying to Me, I Swear

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Summary: Santiago recruits Frankie to contract for a covert agency that pairs them with danger in more ways than one. A series of one-shot snippets taking place during and around missions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Sniper!OFC

Word Count: ~3.9K

Rating: Explicit 18+ / mirror sex, oral (m receiving), dirty talk, unprotected piv, biting, creampie, creampie eating, come swapping / tw for brief description of a sniper shot / Minors DNI

A/N: Audrey earns her call sign. Frankie takes advantage of the bathroom mirror.

Y'all this started as a cheeky little idea that dissolved into filth. These two have a mind of their own they just do this I am so sorry.

Their fifth job out is easy enough. 

But their fifth job out comes with the most ridiculous story.

Recover a hard drive from a small compound in Belize. Drive contains sensitive information including the identities of covert American and Canadian operatives in the country, including a young recruit from Davis’ organization.

The mark is an avid hunter, shipped off to Kenya this morning, passport check, flight manifest, and an operative at the gate confirmed he’s gone.

The mark is also not particularly smart. Intel says he only left one guy guarding the house while he’s away—drive is in the basement.

And so Frankie and Santiago move in light at dusk, covering the mile on foot from where Audrey’s holding the high ground.

Breaching the compound is as easy as hopping over a wall. Santi attaches a small device to the nearest security camera while staying out of its line of sight and waits for Audrey's confirmation that she has control over the system.

Frankie picks the lock once they have the all-clear and the boys run one silent sweep through the house, guard noticeably absent, before they meet again in the office.

“Audrey, you’re not gonna believe this,” Santi’s voice finally crackles over comms.

“Try me, Pope.”

“Dude’s got a fuckin moose in here.”

“Bullshit.”

“Uhh, no,” Frankie chimes in, “theres’s a taxidermy moose in his office. The whole thing.”

“It’s fuckin’ huge,” Santiago whispers.

“If you’re both lying to me, I swear…”

Her phone buzzes and it’s a picture of Santi with his arm hiked up around the moose’s neck, preserved exotic game littering the wall and bookcase in the background.

She briefly considers having a serious conversation with Davis about having a souvenir shipped out.

“Pet his nose for me,” she tells them both.

Frankie sends a selfie, his massive hand dwarfed by the animal’s snout.

“Alright boys, you’ve made me sufficiently jealous. Keep moving.”

She tracks them through the windows with her rifle scope, occasionally switching to the FLIR heat sensor to check the perimeter.

They both fan out in opposite directions, searching for basement access before meeting in the office again.

“If there’s a basement, we haven’t found it yet.” Santi says over coms while Fish tests the bookshelves for a hidden door. “No part of the layout that doesn’t make sense, no weird airflow issues. We may have to call it and reassess.”

“Alright well hurry up and wrap, I don’t have the clearest view in there.” She can see them from the chest up but they’re constantly disappearing and reappearing. 

Ironically, she suspects it’s because of the moose.

She quickly checks the pictures Frankie sent to figure out exactly what she’s staring at. Santi's picture has bookshelves to the left and the office windows behind him, but she’s looking through the windows in the living room, perpendicular to those.

She checks Frankie’s and there’s enough to see the kitchen lights just over the curve of the animal’s head.

She re-orients herself with that understanding through her scope before checking the FLIR again. She can see their heat signatures clearly, but there’s the slightest anomaly in what should be the kitchen. Not unusual, save for the fact that it wasn’t there before. She watches for a fraction of a second longer before flipping back to the scope. 

Movement.

“Boys, hit the deck.”

They both drop to the floor and there’s glass breaking followed by a heavy thud. Immediately the men are both on their feet, rifles raised.

There’s a body in the kitchen with a hole between the eyes. 

Santi kicks the semi-automatic the man was holding out of reach before they both proceed in opposite directions around the house again, deeming it clear when they meet back in the kitchen.

“Anything on FLIR, Aud?” Frankie asks.

“Nothing. But the basement entrance is in there. Don’t rip it up, he came through easy without either of you hearing, meaning it’s not behind anything that would make noise.”

Frankie and Santiago sweep the kitchen again, opening cabinets that are too squeaky. A pantry that’s too packed. 

Too packed until Frankie spots a can that looks far older than the ones around it.

“Got it,” Fish calls back as he presses the can lid and the back of the pantry swings open. Santi’s hand on his shoulder is his cue to proceed.

“I’ll hold up here, but remember, I can’t see or hear you down there. I’ll monitor the traffic but watch for alarms.” She glances down at the tablet that registers electronic chatter coming from the house.

It’s ten minutes of torture before they resurface.

“Aud?” Crackles over coms in Frankie’s voice. “We got it.”

“Beautiful. No spikes in the chatter so you should still be clear, but try not to stick around.”

“One second,” Santi replies and it grates on her. She checks the heat scope again before flipping back to her rifle. “Frankie, this guy’s about your height?” She hears Pope ask.

“Yeah.”

She sees Santiago’s back briefly against the living room window that now sports a hole high on the pane above him.

“Alright, we’re heading to you.” Santi finally complies. 

She watches until they’re half a mile from the house before packing her gear up and slipping behind the driver’s seat, still tracking them through FLIR. 

When they’re 20 meters out she starts the engine. 

As soon as both doors slam, she hits the gas.

“Thanks for that,” Santi starts.

“That’s why I’m here. Sure it’s the right drive?”

“Yeah,” Frankie pats his backpack in the backseat.

“When we get back I’ve got something to show you.” Santiago’s got a grin on his face. Audrey meets Frankie’s eyes in the mirror. 

She dares to say the look on his face is one of pride but she doesn’t have time for that now. 

She pulls the Land Rover into town and Santiago hands the drive off to her contact as Frankie watches their six. Audrey calls headquarters to confirm the drop and authorize cleanup. 

_____

She pours herself gin on the rocks when they’re back in her room.

They all have their own rooms spread out across the hotel and yet somehow they always end up in hers.

“You’re not gonna fucking believe this,” Santiago pulls out his phone and stands at her side, opening his camera roll. Frankie comes to join them, watching over her shoulder and stealing a sip from her glass.

Santiago holds up the screen so the three of them can see. 

“That was your shot.”

It’s taken from up high, camera angled down to match the bullet’s trajectory.

She’s staring at Frankie through the brow tines of moose antlers.

“You nailed that shot through the biggest fuckin’ rack of antlers I’ve ever seen.”

“From a mile away,” Frankie adds.

“Through night vision,” Santi claps her on the back. “Well done, Moose.”

“This is a joke.” Is all she can bring herself to say.

“‘S not.” Santiago steals a sip from her glass now.

“No, you both clearly wanted me to have a call sign and when you saw the opportunity you took it.”

“Then get a copy of the cleanup report when it’s in. See for yourself.” Santi sets her glass on the desk.

She holds Santi’s phone, mouth open in incredulity until Frankie mashes his nose into her cheek. She can feel the smile on his lips.

“Well done, Moose,” Frankie echoes, giving her a kiss and handing back her gin before taking a seat at the foot of her bed.

“Get cleaned up, we’re taking you out dancing tonight. It’s tradition.” Santi says from the bathroom as he starts the shower, “I’ll send you that picture.”

“Well, shit.” She whispers to herself as she hands back Santiago’s phone.

“You gonna let me see the moose now?” Pope needles, arms crossed against his chest as he flops down next to Fish.

“No, I’ll just have Frankie send you a picture the next time he hits it from behind,” she quips as she disappears into the bathroom. Frankie’s eyes fly wide and he holds his hands up in surrender because whatever this is has nothing to do with him.

“That’s fine,” he smacks Frankie on the arm with the back of his hand, “just don’t get your dick in the picture, it ruins the illusion.”

“Jesus Christ, Pope.”

_____

Five hours later, a tequila-warm Frankie sidles up behind where Audrey is removing her eye makeup in the bathroom mirror. His chest molds to her back as he palms her hips, pulling her back against him. 

Frankie buries his nose in her hair and meets her eyes in the mirror.

“You’re an amazing dancer, Aud.” He holds her hips, swaying her gently. Pressing the bulge in his trousers against the curve of her ass.

“You’ve got good hips yourself, Morales,” she drops the black-smudged cotton pad into the trash as one of Frankie’s hands skates up over her collarbone, gently cupping her jaw to angle her face back towards his.

She meets his lips with her eyes closed, but Frankie keeps his locked on the mirror, watching tendons in her neck work in the low, golden light.

“Help me out of this?” She whispers against his lips.

He kisses her again. “Happy to,” murmured against her mouth.

Frankie brushes her curls from the back of her neck, sliding the zipper of her dress down the line of her vertebrae, slipping his hands between fabric and skin and letting it fall.

He trails his fingertips up her sides, featherlight, before reaching to knead her breasts in his palms. 

“You ever seen a moose, Aud?” He murmurs against the tattoo on her shoulder as he snaps open the clasp of her bra and slips it down her arms. Warm hands replace it before Frankie teases one nipple between his index and middle fingers.

“Two,” her voice is breathy from his touch. “On a road trip through Vermont. Take your shirt off. I want to feel you.”

“I’ve never seen one before today,” he says as he complies, pressing his heated chest flush against her back. 

“They’re beautiful things, I’ll give you that,” he continues, nuzzling her neck, hands rubbing her lower stomach, holding her body against him. “Their noses are so soft,” lips ghosting over her neck, palms slipping under the waistband of her underwear to fit warm over her hip bones. “I think I’ve only ever felt one thing softer in my entire life,” he murmurs.

He cups her whole mound with one palm and she gasps, hips bucking back against him.

“Yeahhh,” he sighs, nibbling on her ear with a smile. “This pretty pussy is the softest thing I’ve ever felt.”

And Audrey grins, head falling back into the curve of his shoulder as Frankie’s fingers rub soft circles against her clit. He parts her lips with two fingers, urging her open, thumb catching on her clit as he strokes over her slit where she’s wet for him already.

“Are you particularly attached to these?” He snaps the waistband of her thong against her hip with his left hand.

“Never been particularly attached to clothes,” she gasps, gripping the basin of the sink. 

His fingers have picked up speed over her clit. 

“‘Kay,” he murmurs, teeth sinking into the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Gonna fuck you in front of this mirror as soon as I’m done here.”

She moans.

“Gonna pump you so full of me,” he trails his nose up her neck to nip at her ear, “gonna watch it drip out.”

And he says it so matter-of-factly that she breaks with a gasp and a soft, fluttery orgasm that knows he’s only just getting started. Frankie’s fingers continue to roll slowly over the sensitive bud of her clit, milking every last pulse of pleasure from her.

When she finally melts back into him Frankie grins and pulls his hand from her underwear, giving her mound a light spank that makes her jump with sensitivity before he sucks his fingers clean. He goes to kneel and she stops him.

“Frankie, wait,” she rakes her hand through her hair, reaching for him as she tries to turn around, “you…let me just…”

“Baby, tonight’s your night, and I’m not do—“

“—oh fuck.”

She’s managed to spin in his arms, palming his cock through his slacks. She works him for a moment, eyes tracking his face as his eyelids flutter shut and his mouth falls open, pink tongue darting out to lick over his plush bottom lip. 

“What were you saying, baby,” she murmurs against his mouth.

“Nothing,” he whispers with a smirk and a kiss.

Frankie braces his hands on the counter on either side of her, tipping his hips into her palm. She undoes his zipper and kneels with fabric as she pulls his trousers and boxer briefs down in one go.

Audrey locks eyes with him as she strokes his cock a moment before she licks an eager stripe up the underside of him. 

He tastes of musk and salt and Francisco in a way that makes her head spin.

“Ohh shittt,” Frankie hisses as she slips his foreskin back and teases the underside of his head with the tip of her tongue.

She takes him between her lips, attending to the swollen tip until she tastes the salt of his precome before letting her jaw fall open enough for him to slide across her tongue. 

Green eyes still locked on his face.

Her hands work the base of his dick as she continues, noting what makes his breath catch.

What draws low moans from his throat.

“Baby—“ Frankie whimpers when the tip of his cock hits the back of her throat, hand flying to cup her skull.

But he knows she might actually kill him if he moves her head even an inch, and so he grips the countertop with both fists instead as she continues.

Audrey pulls back a fraction and hums at the taste of him, the vibration of it causing his hips to jerk forward of their own accord, cock once again grazing the back of her throat.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he moans and her mouth leaves him completely, a lewd string of spit connecting his tip to her flushed lips.

“‘S fine, Francisco.” Audrey works him with one hand, pressing a kiss to the base of his dick, “kinda like it,” she murmurs offhandedly before sucking on one of his balls.

“Fuuuuckk okay, okay, nope,” Frankie jumps, manhandling her up by the arms and flipping her around again as he steps out of where his pants are pooled at his ankles.

She catches the flash in his eyes when she meets them in the mirror.

The look he gets when the most base parts of his brain take over.

“You think you can just say that?” He growls into her ear as he kicks her legs apart with a socked foot. “You think you can just say you kinda like getting your face fucked…” He grabs at the waistband of her underwear and twists as he yanks it, lace tearing before it’s discarded over his shoulder, “and then suck on my balls with that dirty fuckin’ mouth of yours…”

Frankie suddenly thrusts his cock inside of her and she cries out at the stretch where he’s sheathed so deep.

One hand curls under her jaw to tip her face back towards him.

“…when I already told you I was going to fuck you in front of this mirror?” He slips his tongue into her mouth and she moans. 

Frankie’s voice is low and measured, almost soft when he continues.

“You think you can do all that like it’s not going to immediately make me come all over this face?”

And Audrey grins and files that away.

“I already told you, gatita,” he pulls out and slams his cock back inside of her, making her writhe with pleasure where he has her trapped, “I’m going to come inside this pussy.”

And Frankie grips her hips and pounds away at the softest, most desperate parts of her.  

She watches as Frankie pulls her apart. The way his gaze is locked on where his cock stretches her. The one errant curl made damp with exertion that falls into his eyes. The way his top lip curls with a particularly harsh snap of his hips. The set of his jaw and the grit of his teeth as he hisses air through the gaps, Adam’s apple bobbing with each grunt.

He purses his lips and scrunches his nose when he exhales. 

Audrey shifts her hips and Frankie lets out a breathy “shit” when he bottoms out.

And Frankie reads her like a weather pattern from 30,000 feet. 

Her mouth drops open and her head falls forward and he grins. He knows it's a game of pressure, not speed when he’s seated this deep, and he adjusts his stance to give her exactly what she needs until she’s screaming, one hand braced on the countertop, the other flattened against the mirror. 

Calves burning from holding herself on tiptoes to help put Frankie at just the right angle.

He knows what it looks like just before lightning splits the sky.

“Look at me, baby,” he growls through clenched teeth, “look at me.”

And it’s a struggle with him hammering against her cervix, holding her on the brink of breaking.

The moment she meets his eyes from under a tangle of hair, Frankie presses two fingers against her clit and her walls clamp down around his cock and she lets out a scream that trails off into trembling sobs where he’s working her through it, pace still punching the air from her lungs. 

He's grunting now, one hand gripped over her shoulder, the other splayed across her stomach, hips snapping against her ass.

"Fuck yeah, baby. C'mon," he grits out, "fuck, you look so beautiful,” he pants, eyes locked on her face in the mirror where her mouth has fallen open with pleasure. “Never get to see your face when I fuck you like this. You know that, hermosa? You know how beautiful you are?"

And he feels her abs go tight under his palm as he whispers in her ear before he tips her over.

"So fucking beautiful falling apart on this fat fucking cock.”

"FRANKIE," she wails as another wave of pleasure crashes into her, sending her walls clamping down hard around his dick before her strength fails her.

Frankie wraps her waist in one muscled arm when he feels her legs go shaky as she throbs around him, bracing his free palm against the mirror next to hers, frantically chasing his own release.

She finds herself enough to lace her fingers with the hand that’s holding her up and runs the other over his outstretched forearm.

“Go on, Frankie,” she tips her face to bury her nose into his bicep. “Mmmm let me feel it,” she purrs in a haze, licking at the salt of his skin. “Give it to me. Please. Please, baby. Oh god, I wanna feel you come, Frankie.”

“Oh FUCK—" he barks, feeling his cock respond to her words, swelling and twitching inside of her before she sinks her teeth into his arm.

Frankie shouts as his hips snap hard, smashing her painfully between him and the countertop as pleasure explodes, searing white-hot through his blood.

He snarls into her ear with every pulse of his cock as he empties himself deep inside of her for what feels like an eternity.

Audrey practically growls at the feeling of wet warmth that's already starting to drip down her thigh.

Frankie shudders with the last of it and her mouth falls open, tongue laving over the indentations her teeth stamped into his skin.

She slants her eyes over to meet his in the mirror and he whispers, “don’t you dare move.”

And she’s so pliant here pressed against his heaving chest that the thought of having to move hadn’t even yet crossed her mind.

Frankie pulls out with a moan and sinks to his knees, holding her first by the hips and then by her ass as she supports her weight with hands on the countertop because she still can't trust her legs.

He spreads her open with his thumbs, moaning with satisfaction at the sight of the thick white of his release slipping from her.

On impulse he latches his mouth to her pussy and she jumps with a whine at the scratch of his beard against delicate, overstimulated skin. Frankie’s tongue slips inside and Audrey’s head falls back on her shoulders as sanity briefly abandons her.

His chest finds her back again as his hand fits gently around her throat, fingers dipping into the hinge of her jaw, craning her head up and back.

Frankie lets his lips fall open against her mouth.

And lets his come slip onto her tongue.

And the hand around her throat waits for her swallow before his lips crash against hers, tongue slipping inside of her again. Tasting himself there.

“Oh my god,” she whispers against his mouth when they part. Both desperate for air.

“I told you,” he fights for breath against her back, “I was gonna watch it drip out.” Frankie mashes his nose to her temple, filling his burning lungs with the scent of her hair.

She brings one hand up to cup his scruffy cheek, humming in satisfaction.

“C'mere,” he whispers and sits on the floor, back braced against the jacuzzi tub, reaching up for her.

Audrey settles between his legs, head resting on his thigh, Frankie’s fingers soothing across whatever skin he can reach.

“Think I went deaf for a second,” she murmurs, tipping her face to suck a kiss into his inner thigh. 

“Sorry, I know I was right in your ear.”

“No,” she hums, “before that.”

“That good?” Frankie strokes her hair.

“That good.” Audrey nuzzles his skin. “Is that tradition too when one earns their callsign?” She asks, angling big eyes up at him. “To come so hard you briefly go deaf?”

A coil of pride winds itself around his heart.

“It definitely wasn’t for Pope,” Frankie’s head thumps back against the tub with a grin and she laughs, curling in tighter to his leg.

“You cold, baby? Here,” he gently urges her up and starts the shower, wrapping her in his arms to offer his heat, sucking lazy kisses into her lips as they wait for the water to warm.

_____

And thus, the story of their fifth job and how Audrey earned her call sign is ridiculous. 

So there was this taxidermy moose in an office in Belize…

But Audrey does in fact ask for a copy of the cleanup report.

It arrives at her apartment via courier early one Saturday morning. Over coffee she skims the details of a replaced window pane and the trajectory of blood splatter. 

It all lines up with their account but she still can’t bring herself to believe. Until one line on the second to last page catches her eye.

Three broken shafts of hollow animal hair found at feet of deceased. Presumed from preserved Alces americanus in office, dislodged due to bullet trajectory. Cannot confirm without analysis. No visible damage to specimen. No further investigation warranted.

And she files it away with a grin.

next

Taglist: @harriedandharassed @missladym1981

Old chapters are hosted on the OFFS Library page. New chapters will be posted to Ohforficsake - follow me over there for future updates.

Shoot me a message @ohforficsake or comment under this post if you would like to be added to the taglist for updates! Thanks so much for reading.

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

On the topic of Nagito resenting Izuru, I actually think it could go beyond that. Something that I'm not totally convinced about is none of Class 77 having any hard feelings towards Hajime. While them loving him inside the simulation makes perfect sense, would that really carry over smoothly once they were back out? Because his actions led to both them being brainwashed and for their deprogramming session being sabotaged in the first place. And to add insult to injury, he can take some solace in feeling less "tainted" than they are. Izuru had more autonomy and self-control during the Tragedy, while they were reduced to vicious idiots acting on whatever violent impulse came to them. Like with Sonia, she has to live with being known to the world as the tyrant queen who brought her homeland to ruin (though I personally like to headcanon that Novoselic is recovering). Meanwhile for the few people who are aware of a 15th Remnant, Hajime is "that one other dude with the long hair that we're not even sure killed that many people". I mean if I came out of the NWP with all that mental (and possibly physical) baggage, and the dude in our group who was most responsible for the rest of us becoming so fucked up was conversely the least guilty of us AND got handed a thousand super-talents...well I think I'd be a wee bit resentful and jealous. And going back to Nagito, it also seems a bit unrealistic to me that in most fanfics there doesn't seem to be any resistance from him to accepting medical aid from Hajime. Or dismay at discovering it was done while he was in a coma. Because on top of him probably not feeling like he'd want to prolong his life, accepting that kind of aid from the former Izuru would probably feel kind of infantilizing to be honest. Dude gets handed everything you ever wanted including a better version of your luck, he betrays Hope's Peak because he's bored, does absolutely nothing while someone dear to you is murdered and you and your classmates get brainwashed, sets things up so that your attempted suicide will actually result in you getting possessed by your nemesis...and now you're just meant to let him assert the power of a doctor over you and welcome him as your savior? I just think there'd probably need to be a moment where Nagito is convinced to accept treatment, rather than it being done to him without his consent. Make him feel assured that he has agency and control over his own body, and that continuing to live was his own choice. Because otherwise I think it could get really nasty. " I don't care that you're the most talented man alive. Even if I'd wanted to live, you, of all people on this planet, YOU are the last human being on Earth that I would want help from."

Ooo this be a spicy take! But some very good points! First off, sorry for taking so long to reply to this question it just this got me back into my Dangan theorist mode, and I wanted to replay all of Chapter 0/6 as well as read a summary of Zero in order to re-examine how the game and novel present Izuru Kamukura.

I’ll try my best not to derail this because Izuru’s whole existence and backstory is just…..such a brain worm for me that I can speculate on for hours. There’s just so much we don’t truly know if we’re basing this solely on the games (which I usually prefer to do seeing as the anime is filled with contradictions). But, doing so would mean having to excuse his involvement (or lack of) in preventing Chiaki’s murder and class 77’s brainwashing since there’s nothing within the games that indicates such things happening since even within game it flat out states Junko manipulated her high power connections (ie: the Ultimates), one by one and not in a batch.

She really only used video footage of explicit killing to manipulate the Reserve Course into rioting (Dr0), the rest of the world into more despair (Dr1) and as a way to taunt the Future Foundation (SDR2). Hell, technically, there is no proof that Chiaki actually existed in real life if we’re going only by the games too. That was something canonized by the anime.

Well okay. There may be ONE thing in the second game that can potentially confirm Chiaki’s existence in the real world and that’s her presence being listed in the book Nagito got with everyone's info. However, this was given to him by Monokuma and Nagito did destroy any of the information regarding his classmates time in and out of  school that could have very well revealed that Chiaki wasn’t ever there—but I digress and this aint about Chiaki rn this is about Izuru.

What we do know of him through the game is that he sees himself as being used by Junko and thus brought in a flash drive with her AI to insert into the Neo World Program as a virus so he could use her instead. This feels contradictory though, if the end result would be Junko taking over all their bodies. You can’t even argue that he did it so Hajime could override his present self and come back because that would have happened regardless (that was literally what was SUPPOSED to happen). So then why bring Junko back? How was he using her in that regard? Well, the only thing I can think of is that he pretty much already knew how it was all going to end, and that creating a killing game was the only way to ensure everyone stayed alive whilst retaining their old memories thus decreasing the chance of them falling back into Ultimate Despair when re-awakened and in a way saying “fuck you” to Junko’s despair and destroying the last remnants of her both in name and digitally.

Cool beans. He still lied to them all though. Junko states that each of them willingly went into the program knowing well that her virus was going to force them into a killing game to cause despair. Izuru, though, didn’t tell them his whole plan or how it was truly going to end, otherwise no one would have joined. And that’s not necessarily bad–he was doing it for their own good! Except, well, there’s not conclusive proof that he did so for their sake (and since we don’t know if Chiaki existed irl we don’t know if he did this for her). Also given how indifferent he is in-game, the fact that his surgery left him emotionally distant, and his lack of connection with class 77, well it’d be easier to believe that Izuru did this all purely out of self interest in a way to get “revenge” at Junko and perhaps alleviate his boredom.

Now, present Hajime WOULD have an emotional investment in class 77 and it’s that reason he sticks around to help them recover. But, honestly, I agree that the ex-remnants would take some time to come around to fully trusting him again because remember: they ARE still recovering from despair. It would not be surprising if their residual remnant emotions feel betrayed by him for lying to them and essentially killing off Junko for good. Add in their in-game memories conflicting with their past memories every time they see Hajime and he’s not quite the same Hajime they befriended thus reminding them that he’s also  that guy who just randomly showed up one day then manipulated them into a scheme for seemingly his own self interest, yeeeah it might take them a while before being buddy buddy with him.

Though they will eventually, but let’s focus on Nagito for a bit because he’d be the absolute last person to come around in fully trusting Hajime/Izuru. Because you see, while it was stated that the remnants agreed to be part of the killing game, we know for a fact that not ALL of them did so. And we know this because of chapter 0. In it, we see Nagito meeting Izuru for the first time (as Nagito literally says he’s never seen Izuru before), thus Izuru has not been in contact with Nagito to inform him of the plan (which actually brings into question WHY Nagito is even there/agreed to re-programming but that’s a theory for another day). We also see Nagito being very confused about Izuru’s talking about his flash drive with Junko’s AI in it. And, although he doesn’t fully understand what Izuru is planning, what he takes from it is that he’ll be able to see Junko again and get the chance of killing her himself. Izuru does not correct him or inform him of anything else. Meaning, Nagito knows absolutely nothing of the killing game he unknowingly signed up for nor of the possibility of his body being taken over by Junko.

In other words: NAGITO DID NOT CONSENT TO THIS AT ALL.

Unlike his classmates who can forgive Hajime’s actions as Izuru because yeah technically they DID agree to it, Nagito was not even informed much less had the option to say yes. You can argue that Izuru did so intentionally knowing that Nagito’s strange half-remnant state and intense resentment towards despair and Junko would have made him too much of a risk to the plan that is was better to leave him in the dark, but it still doesn’t change the fact that Nagito didn’t get a choice. Add in our previous discussion of why Nagito would be resentful towards Izuru because of all his gifted talents along with this and I’d say yeah, Nagito wouldn’t be all that welcoming toward accepting Hajime’s help post game.

This doesn’t even add in your note on pro-longing his life without his input or anything from the anime, so if Chiaki’s death was actually used as a trigger for class 77 and Izuru could have done something about it–YEAH that’s going to make the resentment exponentially worse.

So your last tidbit of Nagito getting a chance to decide something for himself just hits so strongly given he never got the chance to do so before. It’s the least he deserves now.

[laurarolla]

All That Matters: some thoughts on Destiny 2, player narrative agency, and what should happen next.

Spoilers under the break for Season of Defiance’s Mission:Jailbreak and thoughts on what I feel should happen next.

So, back at the launch of Lightfall, Amanda Holliday’s aircraft was shot down attempting to stop the Witness from meeting the Traveler.  After we rescue her from the Shadow Legion, she decides to remain on the front lines with Devrim, Crow, and Misraaks, working as one of the newly knighted Queensguard.  With her previous vendor duties inherited by Rahool, a lore book and cutscene dedicated to her past and her motives, and a trailer that practically screamed “this season, someone dies,”  the writing was definitely on the wall for Amanda to die this season.  Today, upon hearing her mention Cayde in the initial story briefing, I knew her time was up.  Filled with dread at what I knew was coming, I started the Mission: Jailbreak and hoped against everything that there would be a surprise at the end.  There wasn’t much of one, excluding yet more proof that Eramis isn’t irredeemable, but also setting up the dominos for her to possibly face the business end of Crow’s Golden Gun before the next season is up. First of all, damn Bungie could not have been unluckier with this timing.  The scene of Zavala grieving over a covered body literally 3 days after the passing of Lance Reddick has been unavoidably bound to that real world loss, and caused both a pain many players weren’t expecting to feel today, and cutting off the players from the emotional weight that the sequence was supposed to carry.  I do not envy Bungie’s writing team, and I have to assume they are feeling really rough right now themselves, so I certainly hope this doesn’t turn into a whole thing with the worst impulses of the community right now. Second, the funeral scene is really heavily reflecting the same scene regarding the death of Cayde-6, with Crow taking on Ikora’s role, and Mara echoing Zavala’s grieving voice of reason.  Crow calling on us to take vengeance with him, knowing what we did to Uldren, hits hard, and Mara’s grief afterwards hits harder.  Thing is... I don’t want revenge.  I’ve grown tired of vengeance.  I wanted to be able to stop it from happening in the first place.  I knew it was coming, and I knew I was powerless to prevent it.  

We are actors in the world of Destiny, and no matter how loose our script, we cannot change the path of the scene.  We can do little but point and shoot, with the world changing around us more than us changing the world.  This is a basic reality of video game narratives and also our own lives, as our agency is always limited by some outside factor, but I’ve found myself thinking again and again about how the Young Wolf can do so little to truly change the path that the story will follow.

Now, as for Amanda, should she return as a lightbearer?  I’m very much on the side of “NO” in this case.  I feel her story would be undercut by bringing her back.  However, I have an idea for how to use the concept to tell another story about letting go.  The original Chaperone is buried somewhere along the road to the Last City, as we learn from the lore books this season.  Crow, unsatisfied by vengeance and wishing to use the power of Deepsight to restore the newly raised Amanda, works with us to find the original, and offers to use the artifact on Mars to try and restore Amanda’s memory.  However, Amanda, risen as a Titan (I won’t explain why a Titan but it does make the most sense), rejects the idea of having her memories restored, believing it’s important to let the Amanda she once was rest, a metaphorical reunion with her beloved parents and her dear friend Cayde.  And thus, the original Chaperone, along with her own personal one, recovered and repaired, are placed in the tower as a monument for those who have given everything for the sake of others, a monument to Legends without the Light.

[griffincastle]

Hello, I hope you’re having a great day.

I haven’t played any zombies maps later than bo4 (I’m sorry). Can you explain what happens afterwards with Samantha and “the Director” and also possibly recommend some maps? Thank you 😊😊😊

One of the many improvements cw brought to zombies was that they made the storyline WAYYY more accessible. Meaning, now you could collect intel and radios in-game, then check them out in your game menu anytime you wanted. So the summary below has a radio/intel/cutscene you can find online! If you wanted to catch up on the story as a whole, all you need is some headphones and free time.

So, Sam and Eddie go into the light at the end of [REDACTED] in bo4…

Sam doesn’t remember her childhood starting the new story, and only remembers the orphanage in West Berlin. There's another gap in her past again, until she goes to Heidelberg (the same college Primis Ed went to!!) and graduates in math/language. She's then recruited to the western intelligence agency to keep an eye on what the communists are up to.

Eddie has zero personal history revealed. We only have small bits like: he was a fighter pilot (a callback to the "red baron" Manfred Von Richtofen haha. His plane was literally called the “blue baron”), he experimented on college students once by purposefully drugging them, and he has/*had a woman and child in his life. Also, he has an American accent like child-at-the-house Ed.

*whether they are alive is not confirmed, but the current evidence suggests they are not. Though, that has more to do with Weaver than Samantha. I could address this in a post not about Sam and Eddie's relationship.

He joins the CIA under the office of extra-regular activities, but when Sam learns of the soviets opening the dark aether portal, the CIA finds out as well. Ed proposes to create requiem to contain the threat, which is approved. 

So, now we may assume that we're at the beginning of Cold War.

Sam and Eddie officially first cross paths after Samantha was hospitalized. A different character, Dr. Peck, pushed her into the portal to the dark aether… BUT Eddie told Dr. Peck, explicitly, to banish sam. It's also important to note that dark aether time progresses differently, where 10 earth years = 100 dark aether years. So, sam was physically and psychologically damaged after 2 earth days/several dark aether months spent surviving. 

One can suspect that, unlike sam, Eddie can remember the aether storyline. He wanted her to be exposed to the dark aether, and for her to weild her former powers. We find that other people trapped in the dark aether never ended up developing powers. Instead, they go insane, die, or mutate.

(and I say Eddie can remember, because only Sam was able to control zombies at any point of the aether story. After moon, Ult Richtofen's zombie control powers were immediately severed when maxis exploded the earth. In the comics, his control of zombies was because /he/ was also a zombie. Or rather, using a zombie body. So he knows it had to be /sam/ that goes through the portal because she'd get powers.)

Now back to the hospital. As she recovers, she reveals visions and dreams she doesn't understand- as the player, we know she is recalling the aether story. For example, she mentions the great war and familiar faces…

When Sam starts showing signs that she can do special things, Ed forces her to go to a facility to "train" her newfound powers. However, he uses supreme abuse and manipulation to force the powers to surface. (I.e. forcing sam to teleport her dog away from gunfire, straight up exploding a random guy so Eddie won't get her girlfriend assassinated on camera…) 

Eddie is deliberately using torture to surface and control her powers, too. During the hospital stay, Sam was able to levitate a book after getting really excited over seeing her gf (gf is canonical by the way). Eddie could use any strong emotion, but is probably his cruelest iteration here. 

Eddie eventually manipulates Sam that she needs to give herself up so the forsaken (the antagonist of cw) doesn't destroy the world. She does so by entering the forsaken, which is in-turn able to be captured by the husk of robo-sophia.

As of now in the story, Sam is MIA, and Eddie closed down Requiem to pursue "project Janus," which has not been revealed . We know likely has to do with sam's sacrafice and the capture of the forsaken.

So that’s Eddie and Sam’s relationship! Very tense, but they also share many similarities with each other as characters.

AS FOR MAP RECOMMENDATIONS.. Firebase Z is king. It’s literally so fun and I never get bored with it. It has elements similar to origins, mob of the dead, DE, and the story is fullest here. Outbreak is a great map to get acquainted with the new play-style and is completely unique and exciting. If you’re looking for tighter gameplay and some comedy, Maur Der Toten. There’s a robot character named Klaus that’s just Primis Ed without a filter.

[motheatenscarf]

I beat the base-game story for FF14! Yaaay! \o/

I have... SO many thoughts, I just kinda powered through the last bit after the Scions got got, most of my thoughts are relatively positive, but also I have some very mean, very stupid opinions about some of the writing choices happening here.

I'll probably make a few posts in greater detail later, but for now my strongest opinions can be summed up as follows;

Holy fuck, I hate Minfilia, the literal child was a better leader than her. She's weak and indecisive and written as a terrible leader without the narrative addressing that fact at all. So it's not just irresponsible misogynistic writing, it's just lazy and laughably incompetent writing.

I wound up liking the villain quartet more than I thought I would, namely the big dude you have to kill first. His devotion to his men and belief in the empire due to his ability to rise to his station really stood out. That was probably the most nuanced this game has been so far, I was impressed, I genuinely felt bad I had to kill him. He was written from a perspective of empathy with the full breadth of emotion, like a real human being.

I had not come to expect that from this game!

Namely because all of our villains until this point were cartoons who wanted to blow up the moon and all of our heroes were made of unflappable cardboard. That's not to say they don't have their charms, I love a good "Mua ha ha!" as much as the next person, but y'know, largely forgettable. The worst example of this comes from Cid and Thancred. Like. Hey, Cid, these are your childhood friends we're slaughtering. You really gonna no thoughts, head empty your way through this?

Yeah?

Okay... cool...

god forbid someone have an interesting reaction.

The WORST example of that, however, is Thancred. I really thought we'd get something out of Thancred being possessed by Lahabrea. Like, even if he didn't make a choice or a deal to get possessed and had no agency in that, he would at least have a reaction to knowing he'd gotten his people killed or tortured. That's going to at the very least cause reflection in a character and an interesting change in his perspective if not outright trauma he's going to have to work through, and that's a good emotional hook to have someone your character needs to look out for. Real vulnerability, maybe, if we're lucky.

Haha,

NOPE!

Like. I've played Kingdom Hearts. I'm getting big Organization XIII vibes from the Ascians, and I'm looking at Thancred like, oh, okay, you're just... older Riku. Sure. I can work with that, that's a good source of angst, at least someone's feeling SOMETHING in the narrative at that point.

But fucking lol, no, he's just like "Thanks for saving me, I've been a real inconvenience, I should take some time off to recover so nobody has to help me again."

ANd like...

Buddy, that is the reaction you have when you're hangry and you get kinda snippy before somebody hands you a candybar and tells you to calm down. You're REALLY not gonna talk about this?! I have a whole subsequent sidequest to help Minfilia find her MOMMY so she can grow the moral fortitude to refuse bribes, but Thancred spends months being possessed by THE bad guy and gets the Scions nearly wiped out and he's FINE and we're MOVING ON!

REALLY?!

I know I JUST compared it to Kingdom Hearts, but it's not even that! Kingdom Hearts, for being TERRIBLE, at least understood that the way to get people invested in a narrative was to give them characters who CARE about things and react accordingly! Oh my god, Kingdom Hearts was more competent than this! OH MY GOD, it's so bad, I'm so ANGRY! It was starting to show promise, how did it turn around and do itself this dirty, who was responsible for this?!

GOD.

That said, the things I like are, like, everything else about this game so far. My god was I frustrated the entire time I was sitting through some of this shit storywise, but the gameplay was very fun. The game is otherwise the single most functional, deep, and FUN mmo I've ever played gamewise. I'm ASSURED the story gets better, and like, frankly, it wouldn't take much effort for that to be true, but if they can also make the story GOOD, I will be pleasantly surprised because right now we're in "so incompetent I burst out laughing" territory.

And then after all that they called it the 7th Astral Era like, job's done, go home team, ignore the multiple other looming threats! We're admitting Lahabrea isn't dead even in-text among the Scions and there's still countless Primals being summoned and I'm pretty sure somebody needs to talk about these giant talking crystals, but NOPE, 7th Astral Era here we go!

I give it ten months.

Anyway, I'm gonna go read up on how to kill the Moogle King so I can progress this narrative, but I'm in like, humorously SHOCKED disbelief at how bad this was. Like, the FUNNY kind of angry, not legit angry, the "Oh, here's a new rant I could go on about for ten minutes EASY" kind of angry, it was so bad.

[queenoftheboard]

I think your take on Eirene is whole. There's the element of fragile invulnerability, and I read your thoughts on it to which - honestly - it was one of the few things I thought about when it came to Eirene. More so since her appearance in Serpent's event... so thank you for writing Eirene the way you do.

♕ how's my portrayal? . accepting

Chou, thank you so much for sending this in - I won't lie, your description of my portrayal as being one with an element of 'fragile invulnerability' made me take a double look at your ask because it was so precious to read! I giggled like a small girl on this side of the screen, honestly!

I love Eirene a lot and unlocking her profile and going through her canon sources has been a lot of fun, and I believe the game is setting her up to be some sort of evil mastermind villain (or at least antagonist) given how much she understands about Black Rings, how strong and stable her mental state is, how powerful Quinn has shown to be and how essentially she sounds like a figure able to trump the MBCC/the 9th Agency and everything else.

But I don't want to write a character that is basically a goddess with no weaknesses, so working on cracks on that armor, giving her issues and deficiencies that she might not even realize to have and giving others the chance to knock her off a pedestal is very satisfying. :)

Thank you so much for your kind works & splendid work on Anarkia, too! You have made me someone incredibly fond of a character I previously did not pay a lot of attention to (particularly because I started playing after her event) and now I just must recover the cutscenes from YT and learn more!

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

It Should Have Been Jonathan: Why Swapping Jonathan and Mina's Roles for the Blood Ceremony Makes Dracula a Better Story Both Thematically and Plotwise

Bram Stoker did not write it this way, so swapping Jonathan in is not a headcanon, but rather an adaptational choice that adaptations like Murray Mysteries or fic writers (like me!) choose to make over and over again. Here's why you should engage with this premise.

(No spoilers for those caught up to October 3rd of Dracula Daily)

(non-graphic mention of rape, sexual assault, etc)

The Story As It Is: The Good Points

Jonathan um. Goes Through it this novel. If you hadn't noticed. Mina takes care of him a lot, and after the blood ceremony, Jonathan gets to take care of her. This is very sweet, and I do enjoy that both Mina and Jonathan take turns rather than Jonathan always needing help.

It's not like it's unrealistic. Dracula would totally retaliate against the men fighting against him by targeting Mina. He super would see this as very apt revenge, and he's definitely that brand of sexist that sees women as a prize.

This plot point goes out of its way to frame the actions of the men in excluding Mina as utterly disastrous, which is cool.

Mina as the Victim: What is it Accomplishing + How Did She Get There

Mina spends most of the novel taking care of the people Dracula's victimized. She is a force to be reckoned with, but as Stoker wrote her she is a very good sort of English woman, pious, obedient to the men, respectable, etc. etc. Although she and Lucy have very different characters, when Dracula targets them they serve the same role as good English women who are coming under attack by Dracula, an evil Eastern European man. In Lucy's case he literally kills her and in her place is a hot sexually impure corruption of the original person. Victorian nightmare fuel. In addition, there are all kinds of sexual non-con rape vibes to what he does to both Lucy and Mina. Hot forceful foreign men are invading England and targeting good women. That's the whole fear that Dracula represents.

This manifestation of xenophobia doesn't hold up at all. For me, it's always been the worst element of the novel. I don't find it compelling.

Something else you might have picked up from this update: martyr talk martyr talk martyr talk. While (trust me) Mina is still smart and still given a lot of agency by Stoker to break her own curse, after the blood ceremony, she suffers Very Piously. Like a hair's breadth away from publishing a video entitled "How To Suffer A Tormentor From Hell in A God Honoring Way" on her Youtube Channel.

I personally don't find this interesting. I don't think it holds up. I don't want to see Mina suffer like a Perfect Little Christian. I want to see her kick ass and take names.

In conclusion: the driving forces behind Mina's attack and trauma are at best uninspired and outdated, and there is a very nasty undercurrent of xenophobia and sexism there as well.

I don't love it. I'm either bored or actively turned off by what Stoker is trying to say.

Jonathan as the Victim: What Could It Accomplish?

Dracula choosing to attack Jonathan again would shift the narrative so that it becomes a story about an abuser who will Not Let Go. An abuser who follows across a continent. An abuser who waits until you've just started to recover from the first round of trauma and started to feel safe again to start an onslaught even more vicious and concerted than the last.

I think Stoker laid the groundwork for this twist to be more terrifying and compelling than for Mina to be targeted 2/3rds of the way through. Obviously Dracula is an abuser no matter what, but it so much more terrifying to me to think of him playing a long-term game of cat and mouse over like 6 months with one man, than it is to see him target Mina over the span of three days.

This is also in character for Dracula. I agree with the common interpretation that Dracula continued to target Lucy even when it got ridiculously difficult and dangerous to continue because he can't stand to lose a test of dominance.

If we carry that over to Jonathan there is absolutely no way that Dracula would be ok with learning Jonathan escaped and is recovering. He would Hate that. He would absolutely want to target Jonathan again.

So you remember "I too can love" "tonight is mine" the gaps in the journal? All that abuse that is hinted at and never explored? The same sort of sexual assault motifs that are so present in Lucy and Mina's attacks? The implication that Jonathan was fed on by Dracula? All these hints that Stoker doesn't do anything with or develop further? Well Making Jonathan the one who undergoes the blood ceremony gives us a very natural chance to discuss them again.

In conclusion: Jonathan's history with the Count makes him being the victim (again) a more compelling story. We've watched the Count slowly escalate aggression with him over the course of a novel, and this final attempt to literally claim Jonathan's soul and make him a thrall is the natural conclusion of that. To me those are some compelling stakes

Jonathan being Targeting Makes for Less Plotholes (and less Infuriatingly Sexist Plotpoints)

Not that Mina being excluded is unrealistic or unworthy of engaging with in the original novel but I find it to be such a drag

And actually to a certain point it is unrealistic to me because I think the decision to completely cut her off and stop talking to her about anything comes completely out of left field. Everyone was acting like she'd work with them in some capacity right up until Van Helsing says differently. I find that jarring.

Switching the target to Jonathan eliminates that plotpoint entirely, which I think is cool. Maybe Stoker never would have written Mina as one of the boys, but it's not the 19th century anymore and we can write Mina however we want. I think having a Mina that sticks up for herself and refuses to be excluded is neat.

But on what grounds would they choose to exclude Jonathan? Well I actually think that some obvious solutions present themselves.

Murray Mysteries goes the "Jonathan you have PTSD you shouldn't retraumatize yourself route" which works for them, since it's a 21st century retelling

But I actually think it could potentially make sense for Van Helsing to want to exclude Jonathan, and to need to be secretive about it.

So you know how in the canon Dracula gives Mina his blood partially because his intention was to make himself a spy? The plan was to use an unwitting Mina to his advantage but the polycule bursting in killed that idea.

Well if I were Van Helsing, I would immediately suspect that the Count had fucked with Jonathan at the castle. I mean it would make so much sense wouldn't it? Jonathan was there for two months, he could be compromised in so many different ways.

If Van Helsing had these suspicions, then it would be the natural next step to try and exclude Jonathan from the business as completely and utterly as possible under whatever flimsy excuses he can make up (and this man has been making up flimsy excuses for the whole novel so it's in character).

This adaptational change would lead into Jonathan getting attacked again very smoothly, except in this version, Van Helsing's reasoning has more grounds to it than just Sexism, so he would be not only a smarter character, but also one I'd want to punch less.

I think that makes for a stronger plot

Also it seems very natural to me that Jonathan wouldn't realize he'd been attacked again by Dracula. More natural than Mina not realizing. This man has been having PTSD nightmares and flashbacks about Count Dracula attacking him for the entire summer and early fall. Canonically his trauma made it difficult for him to separate dreams from reality in the past. He would just assume they were particularly nasty dreams.

This would also apply to Mina not noticing Jonathan was being fed on as well. She's used to him not looking well and having bad nights. It would not immediately be apparent to her that this was different that the usual.

In conclusion: Jonathan being the one who is attacked opens the door to other obvious plot changes that create a better story structurally.

Okay You've Convinced Me, I Want to Explore This

Listen to Murray Mysteries! Listen to Murray Mysteries if I haven't convinced you, it's really good and it's the only adaptation I know of that actually adapts the Polycule in a good way.

Read my series! I don't mean to self-promote but if you couldn't tell I feel incredibly strongly about this premise and I don't see people tapping into the potential so I've had to do it myself. Strange Wonders is a series of short stories that explore the plot of Dracula if this change had happened. The goal was to create something that mimicked Bram Stoker's tone and style as much as possible, while being the story I liked better in my head. The first in the series, Uncommon Horrors and Unnatural Hurts is Dracula Daily friendly, and the next in the series The Resilience of the Dawn will be Dracula Daily friendly by October 4th. I'm still updating as well although the story is technically complete and has a climax.

here some would stand between you and death by princ3ssf33t is a great little one-shot fic I've found that deals with the role reversal and features some stellar Jonmina

There is a Pleasure in the Pathless Woods by calliopes_pen is another epic reimagining where both the Harkers are targeted by Dracula

Your fic/art/content here!! Endless potential.

TL;DR

Having Jonathan undergo the blood ceremony instead of Mina makes for richer horror, stronger character arcs, less teethgrinding sexism, and less plotholes. The Dracula fandom should be exploring it more.

[vethbrenatto]

Okay, so I have Thoughts about last night’s fight and I’m on my lunch break so I’m gonna try to get them out. I’m not exactly sure where to start so I’m just going to pick a point and start word-vomiting, a pre-apology if this gets long.

So, I’ve seen some complaining or at least commenting about predetermined outcomes, plot, and railroading and that’s just not the vibe that I got?

I mean, in some sense, sure. Is this plot-related? HEAVILY. But to say that this was only going to go the way Matt wanted with the outcome Matt wanted (Imogen turning) feels... off to me. I could be wrong, this is something I’m not entirely confident in as a theory, but genuinely, that fight did not feel unwinnable to me. It felt stacked, yes, but not impossible. If I had to guess odds, I’d say somewhere between 70-30 and 90-10 in favor of Imogen embracing the storm (Matt’s desired outcome). 

Otohan clearly outmatched the Hells, that isn’t debatable. The legendary actions and resistances made it clear. As Matt said during the fight though, luck was in play. Otohan got the jump on initiative, which immediately took Ashton out of commission and the party never recovered from there. They spent the whole time pretty much after the first couple rounds either attempting to run or healing allies. Imogen, Chet, and Little Mister still did damage, but they were about the only ones- and even with that, Matt said Otohan was kind of rough, which I’m guessing was less than half HP, maybe about a third? If so much of the fight hadn’t been various running around (which again, is the way the Hells had to play it because of unlucky rolls and downings), I think Otohan could’ve been taken down. But she was a great damage-dealer, she rolled well, so I’m not sure the fight was ever completely winnable.

That said, I do think it was runnable. I think they could’ve gotten away and they attempted to- but again, luck came in. Too many people went down and when they got up, others took their place down and no one could run without leaving other party members behind. Heartbreaking? Sure, but also situational. It didn’t have to be this way and I don’t think it felt railroaded. It felt like a fight to me, an interesting one, a captivating one, one where the Hells never stopped fighting, but to me... it never felt like a foregone conclusion.

In this weird, deterministic mindset I’m also seeing a lot of requests for a fix-it from Matt. Imogen’s weird storm magic will bring the dead party members back. Personally, I’m kind of against this notion. I mean, we’ll see how it plays out, but viewing the whole fight from a lens that Matt made the party lose and they never could’ve won or run just to ram forward the Imogen plot and then give a fix-it (because he made an unwinnable fight) feels... weird? Like lacking player agency? Explaining it and looking at it from that light almost feels like the DM playing with a bunch of dolls instead of an interactive, collaborative game. And that’s not the vibe I’ve ever gotten from Matt, in last night’s fight or other fights. As has been stated by many people, the players can fix this themselves- it will be very dependent for things going right for them but if they have the diamonds, FCG can bring up Fearne and Fearne can bring up Orym, and one of the healers or a potion can heal Laudna. It may not be easy but I want a chance to see the player’s take on this challenge themselves, not a magic fix-it.

Additionally, I don’t see why Matt would “force” the plot forward. It’s very not his style, and it’s also unnecessary at this point. In the circumstance the Hells had rolled well enough to run away, Otohan could’ve come back later and tried again. There was nothing that said this had to happen now. VM & M9 ran away from plenty of fights, had plenty of rematches. Unlike the Yasha situation in C2E69 (? ep # may be off), there was no outside force that meant this had to happen to Imogen. Ashley had to leave to film, so Yasha needed to be turned in her fight. Imogen could’ve resisted and had a rematch in a couple of episodes, if circumstances had gone well for Hells. It just so happened they didn’t. 

All of this not even to say that I think it was likely the Hells ran away or won the fight- like I said at the start, I think the odds were heavily in Otohan’s favor. But BH put up a hell of a fight, and I think the concept that they never could’ve beaten her is off to me. It’s just not the way I interpreted it.

On top of all that, and this is completely personal preference, last night was my favorite fight of the campaign so far. In fact, I think it’s the only fight I’ve been mentally entirely present for. The fighting this campaign for me has been kind of a drag for me, I can never seem to zone fully in. Maybe it’s the watching week to week thing versus how I binged the fighting for early campaign M9 and VM and could watch on my own time. But I just have been having trouble connecting. Last night’s fight, though, kept me enthralled, I felt there was never a dull moment and on top of all of that, no one ever seemed truly defeated to me on the player side, which is something that can be a downer for me in high-stakes combat. Sure, we got a ton of stressed, “There’s nothing I can do!” moments from various players, but it never felt like they really lost their spirits, they were still all highly hooked by the end of the episode, which allowed me to truly enjoy the intense, life-or-death combat without feeling put off by it. Again, that’s for sure a personal preference, but my god, did I love that fight.

[deusvervewrites]

Ahem. I have just woken up from a weird dream. But anyway, ask game ideas! Hmm... How about, Izuku still gets OFA, but goes to an American Hero School! Am I thinking about this as CathInko? Perhaps. But am I also considering Cathy smack Nighteye for showing up to try and start crap? Yes.

All Might tells Midoriya about All For One to begin with, as well as the fact that the body was never recovered. Midoriya decides it would be safer to go to an American school so he can master One For All. All Might agrees. Inko doesn't have a whole lot of friends in Japan anyway.

All For One is ready to begin his plans... when All Might announces he's going back to America where he first debuted. All For One is furious. Years of planning wasted. He can't even use the Aoyamas anymore!

Cathleen Bate hears her mentor is coming and starts planning a party. All Might is touched. Cathleen and Inko see each other and their hearts race.

It's astonishing how many regulations Nighteye breaks to approach Midoriya. Cathleen shows him the door. To his own agency. He's still not sure how she got him back to Japan.

Midoriya returns to Japan after graduation with full control of One For All, and All For One is finally ready to make his move. Or, he thinks he is. He underestimated the power of Izuku and his new mom.

[uncleasriel]

Ah, how I wished to get to Krezk! My game fell apart once they got to Vallaki, and it never recovered.

Krezk should be so cool. But like so much of Curse of Strahd, it's overstuffed - and needs some delicate care to not be complete clownshoes. Spoilers below

The Something Blue plot feels like a shoutout to the I6 Ravenloft finale, but infinitely stupider and Deus Ex Machina bullshit. Nuilding up Ireena to be a person with agency constantly being undermined by the world, and then having the Choo-Choo Train of Plot come along and assure that this is TOTALLY a good ending, bro, is pants-on-head idiotic. I was prepared to ignore this SO hard, or - at most - have it be a place of respite where Strahd cannot see Ireena, and the PCs can set up camp here as a safe spot.

For me, Krezk should have been a climax - the Abbot was obviously going to be an angel of Lathander, and everything about this place was going to lead to a duel with fallen angel of the God. The inevitable conflict would be a worthy melodrama, complete with moralizing and fallen heroes made to realize their hubris as they go - a truely bittersweet redemptive moment that I would personally reward with an Angel's Feather as a plot device consumable plot device to get one free spell from the Abbot's spell-list as a final act of penance from the poor deluded fool

The mongelfolk and the Birde though....oh gods, this mess.

The Vasilka as The Bride was a fine shoutout to Bride of Frankenstein, but as-written just feels criminally underdeveloped.The idea of the Wedding Dress for the Abbot's Young Charge seems like a fine plot, and I do have a soft spot for a tragic, innocent monster slowly realizing things her raison d'etre is a cruel lie, but you'd think that such a prominent character in the Abbot's schemes would get at least a bit of a write-up in the Appendix D. Plus the Abbot's "what if I graft on ACTUAL Ireena parts onto the Flesh Golem - maybe Strahd will lvoe her THEN!" seems ridiculous. Give Vasilka some characterization! She seems like a prime candidate for the Player Characters to do good in these benighted lands- rescue her from her exploitative guardian, develop the artificial being into a fully fledged person, wrangle with the cruelties of life in Barovia with a being whose purpose for existence is a cruel joke... it feels like such a waste.

Seriously, who gives a fuck about the Mongrelfolk? They're grotesques and gribblies, thematically speaking, that is to say, horrible creatures created by the Abbot that reflect on just how fallenthis once pure agent of the Morninglord has become. Why dedicate so many pages to the page-count of these horrid little guys to show how Doctor Moreau The Abbot has become? I get the whole 'get the Abbot a sidekick to do his bidding' thing... but why not use the Bride instead? Hell, have the Abbot be dedicated to training her on Wifely Duties (tm) to reinforce the oppressive, sexist Gothic oppression the Abbot manifests?

My own preference is to just make the Bride Vasilka be a kind of parody of the Disney Princess, who's innocence and purity make a stark contrast to the grotesquery of the mongrlfolk. I think it feels fun to have them almost be partial to their strange and morbid princess, whose whipstitched nature they see in themselves, and whose gentle disposition even the weird little guys can love and respect. Plus, once Vasilka is able to communicate with the party, it leads to a funny bit of play - she find everyone with symmetrical faces ugly, since they look so unlike what she thinks 'proper people' like 'her little friends' should. (I also like how, in a happy ending, she 'with enough of her 'sdown to have learned enough that can run the Abbey without the Abbot, letting the PCs create another bastion of hope as they try - however fleetingly - to fix Barovia.

okay so I'm still figuring out some stuff for my mostly-safe-for-work CoS game and I just finished reading the Krezk chapter, and

it's like

it's like a clown car

except all of the clowns are horror tropes

and they're all fighting over each other to get your attention and prove that they're the nastiest boy, but you can barely see into the metaphorical car to begin with because it's absolutely packed

and then you read the "Something Blue" section and the metaphorical car is suddenly hit by a semi that ran off the road

GANG

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GONNA DO WITH THIS CHAPTER

[atrodonna]

Another question game that I actually love. Anyone can find it on ig under the account @bsd.4.life, so knock yourselves out.

1. How did you find out about BSD?

Aha… so as a child I used to watch some MEP videos on youtube and Chuuya appeared in one of them. He instantly gave off the mafioso vibe and as a fan of The Godfather and Goodfellas, I was interested.

Indeed, this was nothing like The Godfather or Goodfellas. Additionally, Chuuya is not a character I’m fully interested in.

2. What is one character you love that is underrated?

Louisa. The smartest most sweetest most hardworking character in this whole anime and I don’t see her getting the recognition she deserves. Though I will admit, her only using her skill when someone orders her to (Mr. Cash Money) is kind of irritating.

3. What is one character that you dislike from the ADA, PM, Guild, Hunting Dogs and Decay of Angels.

ADA: Naomi. People, I rarely wish death upon someone, but when Higuchi turned her into Swiss cheese on that third episode, I was hoping so very much that she was dead.

PM: Kouyou. I don’t care who worships this woman, I find her close minded, controlling, cruel, selfish, and absolutely irritating. Other than that I will give kudos to her for being the only one during the Cannibalism arc to say “Hm… maybe we shouldn’t attack the ADA since it is CLEARLY what the mastermind wants and will most likely seal all our fates. Not to mention we’ve never even won once against them.”

Guild: Hawthorne. Um, yeah, he’s boring. And I laughed when Margaret saved him from Akutagawa.

Hunting dogs: Jouno. Sorry, sorry, Ik all the simps are going to want to see me hanged, but it is as Tecchou said: underneath all that evil is his soft heart. Well I count the evil too, and personally, tormenting poor Aya did not sit well with me. And if he had dared speak so ghastly to the coolest man alive, the Agency’s barista, I would’ve laid his ass out, idc idc.

Decay of angels: Fukuchi. Oh, boohoo you had to kill people in war, like mf what did you think was going to happen? Fukuzawa literally told him but hey, that’s his life ig. Now he’s taking it out on the world; that’s between him and God, honestly.

4. What is your favorite quote from BSD?

“People can be so simple… They truly believe they are thinking for themselves.” - as told by my dearest

5. If you could make any fanon ship canon, which ship would it be?

Gin and Tachihara. Please! I love them. Simply.

6. Who is smarter, Dazai, Fyodor or Ranpo?

There is literally no debate here: Dazai. Now I am basing this off the 8 intelligences, and frankly, Dazai and Fyodor are equal in nearly all of them, except intrapersonal. Even though Dazai is not fully self-actualized yet, he is far more open into exploring himself and knowing himself while Fyodor will claim that there is no need for that because he knows all there is to know: he has surpassed humanity and is now “the chosen”. And that is exactly why Dazai is going to roll him like dough.

As for Dazai and Ranpo… well, Ranpo couldn’t really use the sufficient amount of “cunning” to handle Fyodor. I’d like to say he is led off more evidence based than Dazai and Fyodor, and using only that, he will try to piece together what makes sense to himself, not the other person. Even so he is a genius and I adore him.

7. How do you think you would react if your favorite BSD character appeared in front of you?

I would be so confused. Just like a “Heyyy… Do you need something?” Of course, all of this would be after recovering from the major shock of seeing my beloved Russki.

8. What would you tell your favorite BSD character?

“…Isn’t sacrificing yourself for nothing the greatest sin of all?”

9. Create your own ability. Give it a name, explain how it works and explain a negative aspect of it as well.

I will just use Irving’s skill in this scenario: Rip Van Winkle. The ability to manipulate matter itself, rearranging atoms and molecules, shifting from one state to another, in all, almost godlike (wink wink). Besides the insane amount of physics, biology and chemistry this ability requires to work, it takes up a whole lot of energy from the user, usually only giving a limit of nine minutes. However, this is the best scientific explanation from what can be observed from this ability; there may be something more to it because, as we all know, if matter cannot be created or destroyed, how are these creatures bred from the water?

[sepublic]

Marcy’s Condition

           I’m scared for Marcy. Seeing her so wounded, I just-

           I really am afraid. Afraid that she’s going to need not just emotional and mental therapy, but physical therapy as well… Which, we don’t know how successful Andrias’ procedure is going to be, but still. It really sucks and haunts me how Sasha has that scar on her face, as a permanent reminder of what happened in Amphibia, of Reunion…

           But not to compare pain, but Marcy is somehow even worse- Because she might just have that ENTIRE gaping scar on her chest and back, and… Remembering how she almost died, how she THOUGHT she died. The pain, the unimaginable horror and agony at being impaled. The reminder of everything that happened in True Colors, the pain and desperation, the betrayal… I can legit seeing it become an actual, medical trigger for Marcy. Sasha at least managed to cope with the scar on her face, good for her…!

           But Marcy… I can easily see this breaking her. And it just leads to her always trying to cover up that scar and not look at it, which, is easy because she can accomplish that with any regular shirt, but still… It’s just the entire concept of bodily autonomy being violated, of being marked like that, and it worsens with the idea of Andrias turning Marcy into a cyborg, and/or his master possessing her. To already have her body so grievously hurt and wounded, to then be operated on like a test subject, to be controlled and puppeted with this entity inside her… It genuinely sickens me.

           This girl suffered, and there’s always that permanent, visual reminder of it. At least with Sasha, you can argue how she brought it on herself, as a reminder of how she tried to kill Anne’s surrogate father and why this mistake backfired; It’s a learning experience, although trauma is trauma of course, so that is to be said VERY lightly and carefully. It’s not like Anne MEANT to scar Sasha; But Marcy… Marcy didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve to be impaled by someone she trusted, who took advantage of and manipulated her… 

          She was afraid of confiding her fears in with Anne and Sasha, and she found that in Andrias; And now, she’s likely to be even MORE terrified of opening up because of this! Especially with how Andrias has the AUDACITY to literally gaslight Marcy in her final moments, as she realizes she’s going to die and is dead, by saying “Look what you’ve made me do.” As if he hasn’t emotionally manipulated her enough, to imply Marcy’s violent death is all her fault, and/or that of the friends she loves and didn’t want to lose, was so afraid of being rejected by. Because I guess her soul hadn’t been crushed enough!

           Not to mention… Getting impaled like that, having a burning blade through your spine… I’m just really afraid that when this is all over, IF Marcy gets to recover and heal; She might be paralyzed. She might be plagued with physical health issues for the rest of her life, because she’s missing an entire chunk of her spine; And, hopefully Andrias’ procedure can give Marcy’s body a full recovery… Ideal scenario, no scar, even! 

          But I can’t help but feel like being possessed by Andrias’ master, THAT could leave its own physical toll on Marcy’s poor body, and it just agonizes me to see this girl be violated like that, emotionally and physically. It’s depressing how Marcy briefly treats others more like NPCs in her game than people, because now SHE’s being objectified, losing her agency, in a way that is so much worse and totally undeserved.

           Marcy doesn’t deserve to have to live with physical health issues for the rest of her life, for what happened; She’s a kid. She doesn’t deserve to be plagued with echoes of pain and physical trauma that constantly remind her of what happened, even when she’s not directly looking at the visual mark it left behind. And I’m just scared that when this is all over… I can see Marcy being bedridden, being in ACTUAL medical therapy, because I have a hard time imagining her being able to function without that.

           What if she becomes physically sick and ill, still feeling the repercussions of her wound or possession or being modified against her will? I don’t want to imagine Marcy looking at prosthetics that Andriasgave her, for the rest of her life. There’s nothing wrong with needing physical aid, or medicine, or therapy to get by in life; But for Marcy, it could serve as a reminder of issues that came as a direct, unfair, result of her time in Amphibia; A loss of carefree health she once had… And she doesn’t deserve to be haunted like that.

          I don’t want Marcy to be plagued by health issues, she’s gone through ENOUGH already, having the rest of Marcy’s life be permanently riddled and restrained because of her wound, it just… It genuinely leaves me in anguish. I don’t want to see Marcy in a wheelchair, as a permanent, haunting reminder that is intertwined in every aspect of her life, of what happened… A reminder she literally can’t escape because it’s her own body, and it’ll affect just about every breathing moment for her.

           I don’t want to see Marcy struggle to breathe from damaged lungs. Or have her struggle with meds –I know that feeling- or constantly need a device for physical aid, something to be hooked up to often. I don’t want to imagine Marcy sometimes lying in bed at night, placing her hand over her chest, so she can feel her heart beating, to relieve and reassure herself that she’s still alive. Not after feeling her heart stop beating when she was first impaled… She’s so young, she has her whole life ahead of her, or should, and she had that violently ripped away from her, barely got to live with that kind of normal life before it was gone for good. She deserves to just breathe, carefree, and feel the sunlight on her face and enjoy life.

           As a disclaimer, I don’t want to patronize people with disabilities or injuries. I don’t want to turn physical conditions into some inescapable tragedy that can’t be moved past, can’t be healed from; There are so many people who have managed to adapt and continue living as always. I’m sorry if I did that… But Marcy’s whole condition could be a brutal reminder of what happened to her, of that horrible thing that wracked not just her heart but her entire body. She shouldn’t have to suffer for that, for the rest of her life…

           And I’m terrified for her mental health. Of her suffering from actual PTSD, being triggered by things that remind her of that moment. Of having nightmares and waking up in a cold sweat, heart racing, as she reaches out for Anne or Sasha for comfort. I can’t handle that thought, the idea of a kid in that sort of pain… It’s so unfair and she doesn’t deserve it. I can genuinely, plausibly see Marcy becoming depressed, becoming somber and morose for a long while, before she can finally heal and become happy and excited and curious in things that open way she does; And GOD, I’d be inconsolable if she felt suicidal, because how do you move on from that? Thinking her life wasn’t worth it without Anne or Sasha, that she literally can’t handle it… Combined with the possibility of abuse in more ways than one from her parents, how THEY won’t help, if they’re even allowed near Marcy after all this.

           Does Marcy have anyone to even turn to when it all ends? I hope she does. I can only imagine her being constantly terrified of being alone, and needing company just to get by… She really deserves a therapy pet after all this, maybe Joe Sparrow could help. It just… It just sounds like Marcy’s whole life has been wracked with this kind of pain, and I don’t want to her pain get any worse, to see it get physically chronic. Any kind of physical pain could easily traumatize and push Marcy to her limits… And, there’s the possibility of good representation for physical disabilities, but also, I don’t want to patronize anyone, or speak over their voices, so again I apologize if I did.

           I guess this just stems from me wanting to see Marcy’s pain be acknowledged and addressed so she can properly heal from it, can be validated and told that it was terrible and should’ve never happened no matter what… But maybe I can find relief in the denial that it didn’thurt her this badly, that Marcy is fine and doesn’t have to deal with that to begin with, because wouldn’t that be better for her? I dunno.

           It’s undeniable that Marcy is going to be emotionally crushed after this… But does she have to stay, or become, physicallycrushed as well?

I just…

           SOMEONE GET THIS GIRL SOME LOVE AND CARE AND THERAPY ASAP FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE AND LET HER BE WELL AGAIN!!!!!

           I just want Marcy to be able to recover and heal… I genuinely hope and wish her emotional spirit will at least be able to move on after this, that she can still find joy and excitable fun, and get to be a kidagain, with her best friends like old times; Only better, because she’s at least grown. God, these girls and their trauma, and the inevitability of how it’ll haunt and hurt them… It leaves me inconsolable.

[jonthethinker]

I want to talk about Beau. Because Episode 108 made it very clear to me personally why Marisha is my favorite actor on Critical Role.

One of my favorite things about how Marisha plays is that she is an incredibly selfless role player. She will go out of her way to give other players at the table a chance to unpack and roll out their feelings to both cement in their own heads what those feelings are, and to share those feelings with the other players/actors at the table to give them a better understanding of those characters.

And it’s not just that, but it’s also how she uses these moments, where the focus isn’t even on her, and many times isn’t even split 50/50 between them, to subtlety showcase where Beau’s head is at, and where Beau is comfortable letting others feel her head is at. Because Beau is both full of love and tenderness for the Mighty Nein and also a liar deep in her bones. This is the reason I think even the cast seems to talk about Beau likes she’s still the same shit-kicker we met a 108 episodes ago and not the woman we’ve seen grow and mature over the course of this show; because at the table those moments aren’t about Beau, and so the players don’t focus on her.

To the audience, however, watching intently, the dimensions she adds to those moments are much easier to notice, especially over time. You, the adamant Beau fan, see the patterns where as someone in the moment playing the game couldn’t really pick up on it unless they were looking for it. And as a player, you’re not always going to look for it. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Marisha uses moments almost entirely about other characters to give us the audience a clearer understanding of her own character. Even in the moments where she is vulnerable and reveals something about herself directly, it almost always serves the double-function of both revealing a truth about her and opening up whomever she is speaking to to being vulnerable themselves. The purpose is almost never to solely focus on herself but to crack the other player’s egg. I personally like to think of these moments as Beau going, “What, are you gonna make me be all fucking mushy all by self?”

This attitude of selfless role-play seems to even extend beyond individual scenes into the overall direction of the story and plot itself. Beau and Caleb are the only player characters currently alive not to have some overarching story with them at the center. Jester just had Traveler Con. Fjord had the Pirate Arc and the Star Razor. Caduceus had the healing of the Blooming Grove. Veth/Nott the recovery of her husband and her body. Yasha had Obann. Caleb is looking to start his fight to challenge the Assembly, and even Molly at least currently appears to be linked to the Living City in someway. But Beau is sort of adrift in terms of the plot.

(We did have the trip to Kamordah, but I see this more as a part of the plot to recover Veth’s body; Beau wouldn’t have ever gone there if she didn’t think it would help Nott become a halfling again. I’m specifically talking about moments where the characters themselves center their own narratives in the plot, not just as a function to further someone else’s story.)

But like in her role-playing, Marisha uses these moments to define her character without making it all about her.  For instance, she used Traveler Con to showcase her protectiveness of Jester and her distrust of Artagan. She used her time at sea to throw herself with vigor into being the first mate and developed a love of the sea. She used Veth’s potential return to her body to explore her own feelings about the impermanence of the Mighty Nein and how that scared the holy hell out of her. She tossed and turned listening for storms for Yasha. As Caduceus saves his family, she’s still reeling from the ordeal with the Hag, and is temporarily back to being all sharp edges again. And I’m sure she’ll use Caleb’s arc as an opportunity for more subtle character work as well.

Beauregard Lionett is a brash, abrasive bruiser; she’s an astute, curious researcher with keen eyes and sharp insight; She knows what it’s like to have no agency, and will passionately make sure other people get to keep theirs; she’s a liar, and terribly insecure about her own worth; she’s been lonely her whole life until the Nein came along, and certain she’ll be alone again any day now; She’s desperate for purpose, and looking hard for where she fits, IF she fits anywhere that is; She’s been in love with two wonderful women in recent times, and her refusal to believe either of them could love her as deeply as she does them will surely break someone’s heart long before any of their hearts get made whole again; She feels she’s on a crashing plane, and she’d rather pilot that plane right into the ground and have some control than risk parachuting out to uncertainty.

And we learned the vast majority of these things because of Marisha’s subtle acting and careful, selfless role-play. From reading the spaces as well as the words, listening to the silences as well as the sounds. It’s not just about crashing waves, but about the water slowly being pushed and pulled by the tides.

And for me, it’s the reason Beauregard Lionett is my favorite character ever.

[writingonjorvik]

Jorvegian Myth: Aideen Is Dead

That's a big claim (and kinda an overdone one in fandom) so let's just get into the reasoning. Spoilers for the most recent quests under the cut.

We've known for a while that Aideen hasn't intervened with, anything on Jorvik really, for a really long time. This started me on two theories on why that might be. Generally, I don't believe Aideen is the only entity of her kind. If that was the case, what about the rest of Earth? Aideen is only described as to have saved Jorvik, but what about the rest of the world? Did is not die? Was is just left alone to recover from Jorvik's survival? This gets supported by a comment Ydris made in the most recent quests if the MC chooses to say that they have faith in Aideen. Ydris laughs at the comment, implies Aideen is unreliable, and suggests putting your faith somewhere else. I'll address the fact that she's unreliable to him later, and just point out that this implies there are other entities to put one's faith in in Ydris's mind.

The assumption then was that either a) Aideen is like a Shinto kami or b) she can no longer be corporal because she was wounded/killed. In the instance of situation a, Aideen can't help Jorvik because there isn't enough faith in her and/or the land has become too wounded. In situation b, which I'm finding more likely, she can't intervene because she's dead. In either situation, I think this better sets up narrative agency for the MC but I will get to that in a bit.

We know that Aideen now is in all living things. She's basically the Force and this reveal from the Catherine quests has been widely debated in the community. However, we also know she had to be, at some point, corporeal. If for no other reason than the fact that we have physical depictions of Aideen, Aideen had to, at some point, be physical enough for people to have the legend of a girl coming to the island, riding over its waters, and healing it (likely started by Fripp and the JWHs). This fact is consistent so far with all three versions of the creation myth of Jorvik. So how did Aideen go from a physical form to an incorporeal one?

The answer actually fits into the myth that seems to be the basis of the Soul Riders, a myth I covered forever ago on this blog: a variant on the myth of the Triple Goddess and her fourth form. Most of you probably know the Triple Goddess myth, Maiden, Matron, Crone/Matriarch. It is a highly prominent goddess archetype in Celtic and Norse mythos, which SSO has always drawn from. But the Triple Goddess excludes a fourth Soul Rider, the Lightning Circle in particular, unless you include her fourth form. The Tempest. And the Tempest is the dead version of the Triple Goddess and the wild magic that came out of it.

So to return to the point, both things are true about Aideen. She did come through with Fripp as an incredibly powerful entity on a cosmic scale, likely to deal with Garnok. In healing Jorvik though (and potentially binding it to Pandoria), Jorvik needed more power to restore itself so that one day it could be cut off from Pandoria again. And Aideen's life force was enough to do that. So Aideen, after gifting Jorvik with horses and the Soul Riders and magic, gave herself to become the life force of the island. She died but her power lives on in the island, feeding it so one day it can survive alone once more. And that's Fripp's job to solve on how to separate. But now that she's dead, like Ydris said, she's not exactly a reliable source to call on.

This I feel is more supported by the comic @ellipuukangas just released with SSO. We see Aideen in a corporeal state here. But the text is what interests me. "Seeds of a dead world." Jorvik was dead, it was a dead rock, that's been in the Jorvegian and witches' creation myth. "Life and death at once." The two are inseparable, trading spaces. Jorvik's survival for Aideen's life. One has to die for the other to live. All magic comes with a price. Fripp has been the biggest proponent of that mantra. Aideen, his friend whom he traveled to Jorvik with, gave her life so that Jorvik would live. He knows the real risk of magic more than anyone because he say the greatest price paid. (There's a whole aside to have here that this specific event might be what shattered Fripp's memory because PTSD can do fun stuff to memory, but not the point now.)

As to how this all comes back to the story now, I think it sets up the opportunity for a better version of the "Aideen is in everything, so everyone is special." Because that message is rather mixed in this medium. I've talked about it before, so briefly, the MC has lacked a lot of agency in the story. They don't have any powers that we as players can actively control and they rely rather heavily on coordinating others to get things done. Which is more of a book hero than a video game hero. The one thing the MC had going for them was that they were Aideen reborn/champion/whatever and the Catherine quests took that away. They made everyone special. Which, grand scale, is an ok message and it sets up for more multiplayer focused narratives, but it takes away the importance of agency and choice for the player themself.

Yes, everyone is special and unique, but there are people who choose to be more. Who drive themselves to be better, to do better, to make a difference. Who stand for the fact that all things are special and therefore deserve the right to live. And the choice to go beyond should be what sets the MC apart, not above, but apart, from Catherine. And that's the same thing Aideen would have done. That some have to sacrifice more so all people can live in peace.

I think Aideen, along with her gifts, foresaw her death has being required to save Jorvik. And in doing so she created a challenge, a series of trials. Someone who was incredibly in tune with her magic, like Catherine and the MC, could choose to take up the mantle of Aideen, could take on these challenges, to become her chosen, to become the solution to Fripp's quest to free Jorvik, and the one would who defeat Garnok. And the choice to accept that destiny is what makes the MC different from Catherine. Catherine choose to reject destiny, to reject that mantle. She didn't want to be a chosen one, she didn't even really want to be a Soul Rider. She wanted to be loved and to love, and she finished that with Justin. However, the MC can choose to take up that challenge and both what Catherine said can be true along with allowing the player to maintain that agency.

Aideen may have died, but her power lives on. Her gift wasn't destiny, it was freedom. But sacrifice is required to maintain freedom from pure chaos. That is the choice of the Keepers, of the Soul Riders, and that the MC has to make. Someone has to make that sacrifice for the rest of Jorvik to survive. That was Aideen's choice, now it's the player's.

[meggannn]

shepard/garrus?

oh boy, sorry for the late response! I always end up posting these things and then going to read/take a nap/play a game or something. anyway writing this up took two hours, i hope it is even slightly interesting to read. cut because this is looooooong

What made you ship it?

I think I was interested in this ship before I even played ME. I was just like “I know Shepard is a character and an alien named Garrus is a character, and people draw porn of them together.” because I think it’s reasonable to say it’s one of, if not the most, popular ship in the fandom, or at least in ME’s tumblr fandom? and the way people talked about it, I knew their tropes were #banter, #battle couple, #partnerships, and... and as we’ve learned from royai, I am a bit weak to those tropes (assuming I like both of the characters). the way people talked about them also from a “best friends” angle—which is sort of forced in-game in a way that seems strange to me now—was also a plus in its favor at the time. (if they get together, I do see their friendship/companionship, in whatever form, in some ways integral to their romance—unless you’re playing full far-right renegade who’s like a xenophobe and hate-fucking Garrus, I guess?—but Bioware also kind of shoehorned Garrus into that best-friend role and that’s a topic for another day.)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

(my friend will hit me if I say “partnerships” again) I’m gonna talk about the way I play my Shepard now, because so much is dependent on the unique Shepard. for Lydia’s journey over the series, I see a large part of her journey as basically a study of her (often self-inflicted) loneliness. and she never entirely breaks her habits of self-isolation, but the events of the series force her to be vulnerable in a way she would prefer not to be in front of a crew, or, y’know, ever. Garrus becomes an integral part of that story to help her break her out of these bad habits (all of the crew does, particularly also Ashley for my Shep), but to my eyes, the story of “Shepard and Garrus’s relationship” is also one of mutual respect, burden-sharing, and sanity and morality checks.

I don’t think of their “mentor” relationship in ME1 very often mostly because I don’t think it was done particularly well, but for all its faults, I do like how naturally the jump from “subordinate” in ME1 to “ally” in ME2 felt; once you meet Garrus on Omega you feel more on the same footing as two friends greeting each other because you’ve both recently been through trauma and the sight of a friendly face in a station full of hostiles is so unexpectedly welcome that it lets them both hope things will be okay for a minute. starting from that moment, Garrus becomes one of the few people who can see “under” her mask, I guess: partly because he’s one of the few combatants from the SR-1 who knows Shepard well and sees who she is both on the field and onboard the SR-2, with the ability to compare both to the times of “before you died”; partly because he has trauma response training and recognizes it in others even if he doesn’t in himself; partly because his loyal personality makes him sensitive to wonder how she’s dealing with being resurrected; and also partly because they’ve both gone through similar things. namely, getting your squad killed and blaming yourself for it, and it possibly being your fault (BioWare is inconsistent on what Shepard’s role was on Akuze, but in ME1 she has the chance to reply that she was responsible for getting them out safely, and failed).

necessity forces Shepard to adapt to things like being effectively forced to work for terrorists; being isolated from her support system; being resurrected and feeling like a stranger in her own body; later, getting decommissioned for making an incredibly difficult call to save the galaxy; watching your homeworld burn; being forced into a political role negotiating high stakes you don’t know how to play; being told you’re the spearhead of a galactic war; doing all of this without a full crew complement; the list goes on. those are all, on their own, incredibly isolating, traumatic experiences, and my Shepard’s not emotionally sane at the best of times. (emotionally stable, perhaps, only in the most literal of terms, at least on the surface. she’s like a rock when shit hits the fan. emotionally sane, no, for that reason and more.)

the tables have turned, and Garrus ends up becoming a large part of helping her regain agency in most if not all of those things: in ME2 he was a former crew member she trusted, and he was eager to work for her and be distracted from his failures on Omega. over in the battery, he is himself recovering from a major injury (like Shepard) and going through the aftermath of a bloodbath he feels responsible for (like Shepard), working on a crew that holds him at arm’s length, that he also... arguably... didn’t have much choice in joining (like Shepard—I’m assuming he wasn’t held hostage and joined voluntarily after waking up, but lbr this is unconfirmed). their reasons are different and varied, but they don’t realize until much later that they have found each other at the most opportune time, providing a sense of stability for each other, and also, frankly, sanity and morality checks.

in ME3, he steps into this role more fully because he’s become more disciplined, is doing work firmly in his wheelhouse, and paired up against Shepard struggling with their positions somewhat reversed from ME1: him more confident and her now completely out of her element, floundering with her place on a galactic scale. without Garrus—and Chakwas, and Joker, and Tali, and later the loyalty of the entire SR-2—the story of ME would be a tragedy, and it would end shortly in ME2; it’d be the story of how my Shepard slowly went insane being forced to fight boogeymen under a terrorist banner. Garrus isn’t, like, the keeper of her sanity, but their ability to check each other, and see themselves in the eyes of each other, provides stability and occasionally a bit of a wake-up call to both of them. when they’re both vulnerable, they both feel most seen, and most understood, by an alien that listens.

one angle of this ship that highly interests me at the moment, along with the above, is that while it’s not illegal for them to be together, it’s still... a really bad fucking idea lmao. (I could make the argument that it’s a bad idea for Shepard to be in any relationship with their crew but I think there are a few ships—Garrus, Tali, any Alliance crew at all—that realistically would be huge political clusterfucks.) so overcoming personal insecurity and fear of the unknown to acknowledge interest in each other, and the desire to become an item, getting roadblocked by a reality wake-up call with the fact that 1) she’s his boss, 2) Garrus comes from a society where station matters, like, sort of a lot and it even determines your job and how much legal power you have, 3) the potential political blowback (which would be ENORMOUS because lbr the hierarchy may not care about what turians do in off-hours but they WOULD care about the superior/subordinate thing, the human thing, the fact that they’re doing this while a war is going on. basically one of their best agents is on the Normandy to negotiate their interests and they’re basically at the whims of their relationship the whole time)... it’s a lot! all of that sort of makes it tragic, but I’m curious to see how they’d overcome it.

anyway, all of that is where I’m coming from when I think or write about this ship, but there’s a lot more I’m not mentioning here. there are a lot of juxtapositions that in my head that I’ve either added or extrapolated from canon that also interest me about this pairing. Garrus is a former cop, as is his father; Lydia is a poor kid who used to be in a gang out of necessity. Garrus is a turian with often traditionalist thinking; Shepard is a human who has much less sociopolitical power than him, even if she is his superior on the Normandy. both of them are roughly as old as the First Contact War, when their people were at each other’s throats not thirty years ago. Garrus idolizes Spectrehood while Lydia hates it, feeling it was forced on her. they can’t eat the same food. and yet despite all of that, and the fact that they need translators to communicate, they manage to understand each other when a lot of the world around them doesn’t.

god this is not even the full list of it. anyway I could go on but I’ll stop there lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

oh jesus, so much. I’m a grouchy and picky shipper, be warned.

pining can always make my ships more interesting, and imo it’s a consistent part of any ship of Shepard’s, considering it’s wildly inappropriate and unprofessional for her to be fucking any subordinate, so I think more consideration could be given to shakarian in the “we shouldn’t be having a thing and oh also you’re an alien and I’m kind of scared of both your government and your body” angle! I hope to explore that a bit with a fic I’m writing (if I ever finish it, god).

I hate the flavor of fandom!shakarian where Shepard romanced Kaidan in ME1 then felt “betrayed” when he’s confused and hurt on Horizon, so she gets with Garrus as like... revenge? idk. and then Garrus usually develops this bias against Kaidan as a sort of author mouthpiece (which is inconsistent with his characterization cause Garrus is nothing but pleased to have Kaidan back on the SR-2 in ME3!) and takes up the anti-Kaidan crusade cause K ~questioned the commander~ (since when does Garrus fall over himself defending a superior from criticism?) like, idk. I think Garrus can be sensitive to the fact that that reuniting must’ve been painful for Shepard, but also be aware that it was also really painful for Kaidan because all of Kaidan’s complicated feelings about Shepard’s resurrection were, realistically, things Garrus should’ve felt too! this trope is very popular but just feels like manufactured drama for drama’s sake, idk, I’m also not big on love triangles so. I would much rather people just rescue Ashley on Virmire and avoid the whole thing rather than have previously-romanced Kaidan around in ME3 for the sole purpose of forcing him to watch Shepard/Garrus being happy together tbh.

I think full goody-goody paragon Shepard is too preachy to make a good partner for Garrus and full shoot-anyone-in-my-way renegade Shepard encourages and emboldens his worst tendencies (and Castis Vakarian is right to disapprove of them). most people end up playing some combination of both, or if they do settle in one camp or the other, usually there is some sense of realism where Shepard doesn’t play nice/naive or play mean all the time, so it’s rare I see either of those kinds of extreme Shepards depicted, but in general if there is a Shepard that is so far in one direction it seems illogical to me that they ever stay together.

I think wanting a mShep romance for Garrus is a pretty welcome idea in fandom, but adding onto that, I think Garrus should’ve been romanceable in ME3 for players who changed their minds on other romances or want to play slow-burn romances! we had it for Kaidan—and should’ve had it for Ash—so (pounds fist on desk) Garrus too imo!

I hate the canon get-together because Shepard walking into the battery and asking “do you want to fuck” feels very tailored to the players who want to romance Garrus, not to who Commander Shepard is, imo. it lacked all of the subtlety and depth of some other romances—until the scene of Garrus coming to her cabin with a wine bottle, at least, cause I do like that scene, but anyway, I dislike the actual get-together.

just in general, I’m a stick in the mud, so my favorite iteration of this ship is where Shepard is resolutely professional, and the challenge of it becomes him getting her to open up, not the other way around. like, I think on some level every iteration of Shepard is a bit of a lunatic/eccentric, because you have to be to do the things they do, but I like to see their flirting with less of her calling him “big guy” (not sure where that came from, is that in canon? I must’ve missed it, but personally I don’t like it) and more of Garrus making wisecracks in the canteen while he’s talking to Joker, but he’s looking at her out of the corner of his eyes and he really said his joke with the aim of making her laugh, and as she’s reading her datapad she hears him, and even when she wants to chuckle she stops himself and just smirks cause she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a laugh, but he sees her lips twitch and feels his heart flutter. that. I want more of that.

oh lastly, I hate “Shepard takes Vakarian clan markings” in any iteration. there is no canon relation to turians being poc—in fact I’d argue they have sociopolitical privilege real-world bipoc do not—but the concept of social face markings, face tattoos, etc., is rooted in non-white cultures and with the fact that 1) turians had a literal civil war over the territories those markings represent, 2) we don’t even know if marriage is how markings are shared or if non-turians are ever invited to wear them in the first place, 3) most of the art of this trend, lbr, is of mostly white Shepards in wedding dresses and blue face paint... all that combined just makes me frown and scroll faster every time I see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bipoc Shepard with Vakarian face markings in fic/art, and that to me is very telling (not because they should have them, but because bipoc fans who make bipoc Shepards usually recognize when a racially-coded trope is uhhhhh not so great to appropriate for someone not of that group).