#these characters are not real! there are no limits to what you can do with them!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Fantasy Worldbuilding

Fantasy worldbuilding - the process of creating a fictional world replete with core characters, overlapping storylines, detailed settings, and fantastical elements that set the world apart from our own.

A clear, detailed fantasy world will help readers invest in the characters that inhabit it.

Essential Elements of a Fantasy World

The fantasy genre often contains elements of science fiction, magic, or imaginative creatures—but it’s more than just writing every fictional element you can think up. The world of your fantasy novel, video game, television show, or film has to make sense in order for the rest of its parts to work in harmony.

Magic: Decide if there is a magic system in place, then set the rules of it. What powers it? Is it a secret? Can anyone use it?

Geography: It may be helpful to create a fantasy map. Identify major landmasses and historic sites. How does the landscape impact the plot or the characters? What is the climate like? You can get as specific as identifying the indigenous flora and fauna, even if you don’t use those details. As a world-builder, you can include as much or as little in your process and final version as you like—as long as your story comes together in a way that makes sense for the audience.

Society: Figure out the inhabitants of your fantasy world. What language do they speak? What do they look like? Are they humanlike? Are they creaturelike? What sort of culture do they have? How have previous historical events impacted the way they live now?

History: While you don’t have to outline the beginning of your world’s history to the end, it’s useful to know of any key events like wars, plagues, political strife, extraterrestrial invasions, or anything else that had an effect on the way your world operates now.

Time: How does it flow in your world? Is there a calendar? Are there seasons? What affects the light and the darkness?

How to Create a Fantasy World

There are many avenues for writing fantasy worlds, and you can start with whichever aspect you like first:

Use real life as inspiration. That doesn’t mean taking people from existing ethnic groups and putting costumes on them—but observe how other cultures live, how they interact with their environments and each other. By incorporating real-life into your fantasy book, you can avoid falling into tropes and clichés, and create a richer template for your characters and plot to thrive in.

Define the setting. A good starting point when creating a fantasy story is the universe itself. Is this an imaginary world existing within our own world, like Black Panther’s Wakanda? Or is it its own entirely new world, like Narnia in C.S. Lewis’s fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia? Describe what the landscape looks like, what colors it contains, or how many suns and moons it has. Any details that can help make your fantasy world feel more like real-life in order to help ground it in something believable will make a difference in how your audience feels and experiences it.

Create inhabitants. A fantasy world has more than one type of inhabitant. They can be vastly different from one another, or only have subtle contrasts between them. For example, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the magical world setting of middle-earth has both Dwarves and Hobbits, which, despite both being the smaller races, contain many differences between them. They each have their own origins and backstories, temperaments, key aesthetics, daily life routines, and various other aspects that enrich and define the separate races. Inhabitants include the antagonists as well. Make them more than one-dimensional bad guys—give them a motivation that’s relevant to the world they live in.

Make magic. Implement your magic system, if there is one. Write its limits, along with its capabilities. For instance, in George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, the magic in the world seemingly gets stronger when the main character Daenerys Targaryen brings about the birth of her dragons. Magic needs rules in order to function properly in your fantasy world, and while you don’t need to include a list of laws in your writing, the use of it must make them apparent.

Source ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[poppetsisters]

There's this really cool horror trope I've noticed lately of a villain being introduced in a simplified, unscary form, but later evolving into something so detailed and terrifying, it takes your breath away.

This is not the same as a traditional metamorphosis like in body horror cinema because the trope relies on the medium it uses to sell the scare.

Minor spoilers for Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Major spoilers for Inscryption and I Saw The TV Glow

To introduce you to the concept, I'm just gonna show you the Care Hound from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.

It's the Carehound alright, or rather a pictorial representation of the Carehound. But how do they look in real life?

Ah.

Like the rest of the show, this is both terrifying and hilarious. You think because it's a 2D representation of the dog that the eyes on the side of the head are just artistic license, but then he turns toward you and you realise no actually, he literally has two eyes on each side! Genius. 10/10 joke.

But you see what I mean right? You're given a disarming image of the antagonist so that later, they can pull the rug out from under you with the truth. And there's an element of adaptation limitation that is then broken through. Suddenly the artifice doesn't feel so fake, and you're pulled in.

Now let's talk about Inscryption. Ironically, the game does this in reverse. Though Leshy is hidden in shadow during most of Act 1, we see his evolved form first.

and when Act 2 starts, we see what he was like before.

I believe this was done to de-fang our feral card master after having been our antagonist the whole game. Where once he was powerful polygons, he is now pitiful pixels.

But while all this has been happening, the real threat has been hidden in our deck this whole time.

P03 was introduced to us as nothing more than one card in our deck. He wasn't even a good card. But now it's Act 2 and we realise he, along with the other three Scrybes were trapped in lesser forms by Leshy when he took control of the game. For a whole act, we see something close to a status quo with these guys, who bicker and fight over control of the disc.

We see P03's true form in all it's 16-bit glory, as well as the environment he inhabits. While atmospheric, you can tell the graphics hold him back. He seems so small and pitiful. Simple and limited.

and then he takes control.

The first time I played this section, there was something so visceral about the leap. I stopped seeing P03 as an NPC inside a 90s TDC and was forced to see him as an entity haunting a cursed floppy disc. Once again, the artifice made me too comfortable, and now anything that felt more real than that became hyper real.

and no movie pulled this off quite has effectively as I Saw The TV Glow.

I am once again flashing a spoiler warning. If you haven't seen I Saw The TV Glow, do not continue reading until you have.

We are introduced to Mr Melancholy as the antagonist of a young adult fantasy series called The Pink Opaque.

Not as the antagonist of the movie we're watching, but the villain of the TV show within the movie.

Right off the bat, Mr Melancholy isn't even on our radar. Even worse, the special effects they use to portray him are laughable.

We see him once again as our lead characters stare dreamily up into the sky, further re-enforcing how silly this guys looks. I mean come on, he looks like an uncooked pancake!!

That all changes when Owen sits down to watch the final episode of The Pink Opaque, which was mysteriously cancelled after a cliffhanger ending.

The build up and climax to what happens next is one of the most harrowing cinema experiences I've had in my entire life. This is your final spoiler warning.

Isabel and Tara, the two leads in the Pink Opaque, are kidnapped by Mr Melancholy's henchmen and brought face to face with the moon man himself.

He looks... good. No, good isn't the right word... he looks convincing. The visual effects between the last time we saw him to now jumped a literal century, and combined with the crt filter hide any possible cg imperfections. In short, it make him look like he's really in the scene.

Or rather... that he's really in the room.

He gets closer, explaining his plan to trap the girls in a realm without magic or memory, where they will suffocate in the nightmare. Where they don't remember the powers they have, or the people they are. where you don't even notice the aspect ratio switched.

Where you don't even remember that you're dying.

and just like that, Mr Melancholy becomes the most real thing in the entire world. He becomes YOUR villain, he's trying to kill YOU! He's already succeeded in killing YOU. YOU are SUFFOCATING right now and you don't even KNOW!

and that's when you remember to breathe.

[bloodywankers]

tw; yandere, domestic abuse, child abuse, drugging, alcoholism, slight nsfw, bodily harm, unedited

Hate is a strong word but even it is not nearly strong enough to describe what Alexei felt for his father, the one who snatched his mothers budding career as a ballerina right from her. Not when–if not for him, perhaps he would’ve grown up loved and cared for by a mother instead of a changing rotation of nannies and tutors. The few memories he has of her usually include crying and screaming, cursing the boy for looking like ‘that monster’--what she called his father. Now that he’s an adult, he can’t help but agree, but most normal children at that age don’t tend to understand why mommy always screams and sobs when she and daddy are alone at night.

He hates to admit it but when desperate he’d even turn to his father for a morsel of affection, not unlike his brother but both were met with his cold gaze and treatment worse than that which you expect from strangers. Because, as his brother who was equally as young best described it, “Daddy only has eyes for mommy”. Every chance he got, their father got gifts for their mother. Jewellery, dresses and any other thing money could buy, well, anything except the freedom to leave. Alexei and his brother always had gifts on birthdays and holidays too, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out they were from the nannies who took pity on them rather than their parents.

But it wasn’t always bad! Sometimes daddy, sitting in the living room, would massage mommies feet— which always seemed to hurt and need treatment— and mommy would be too tired to cry or curse at the boys. On those occasions they would be allowed to play in the living room, but only if they didn’t make any noise. On those occasions Alexei felt like a real family, just like the one in the movies, if you ignored the half-drunken cup on the table near mommy with a substance too cloudy to be called water.

No one turns out normal after a childhood like his, that’s what his last therapist said at least. So no one should blame him for finding refuge in alcohol, his brother inheriting the family business allows Alexei to run nightclubs that bleed money quite easily. A privilege he’s willing to admit most don’t have, but most don’t have a family life like his either. Nowadays he doesn’t know what his parents are up to and usually, he’s too drunk to care.

Of course, it’s not all bad, he has a nice house where he can do as he pleases. It’s nothing like a typical rich bachelors house but instead one he saw in a movie once, he’d always been jealous of the family the character had so he purchased a house that looked eerily similar to the movie set. Hoping that the association would make it feel less empty and cold, he even got the same dog the main character had. A big golden retriever that he would take on walks in the mornings after a hangover, he even feeds it on time despite his drunken habits!

But a dog and suburban house don’t fill the void left by crippling loneliness, not when humans are inherently social creatures and Alexei actively denies himself this. The comfort of alcohol is limited, you can only consume so much before it stops working so occasionally he seeks the warmth of a person, usually it’s short-lived, most people have normal lives, and normal jobs they have to get to. So he usually goes straight back to sleep after he does whatever mundane routine he’s set to follow, waking up only after the last rays of the sun are gone, but occasionally he makes exceptions. This time, due to his brother demanding he attend an event with him, some sort of charity event that involved a ballet performance.

Alexei doesn’t remember much after he saw you dance in your little dress and stage makeup. For a moment in time it felt as if you two were the only people in the world, an unfamiliar warmth in his chest as you stared right into his eyes. He’s never been one to believe in these sorts of things but it almost felt like fate as your gazes met and his heart felt truly alive for the first time in so long, a sensation he was sure was not a side effect of alcohol poisoning this time.

He could faintly remember inviting you to one of his nightclubs and you begrudgingly accepting, looking back on it, being the brother of a major backer for the event might have been part of the reason you accepted but Alexei liked to think it was because you were as charmed by him as he was you. It all felt like a blur until he found himself in a hotel room with you, sitting on a sofa with you on top of him. By that point he had too much alcohol in his system to do much more than to beg you to keep going. Letting you guide him until he was on the floor and you in his place on the sofa.

“I’ve been a good boy, haven't I? You love me, right?” He’d mutter between, his words slurred and barely audible as he took one of your feet in his hand and kissed it.

“Tell me you love me.” This time he spoke in a clarity that made all his past drunkenness seem like an act, his eyes wide opened and focused solely on yours.

“Hmm?” His grip on your foot seemed to tighten as he eagerly waited for your reply, eyes staring right into yours and a blank expression waiting to contort based on your reply. He looked almost pathetic, especially when compared to how high and mighty he seemed to act when sober.

You were quick to respond with confessions of love, lest he cut off the circulation to your foot entirely and, to your pleasure, the reply seemed satisfactory enough as he continued, shifting his focus to your breasts instead. Continuing on until the sun started to peek through the window and neither of you had any more energy to continue, although you were sure he kept going long after you passed out. However, thankfully, you were able to get up before him, carefully dressing yourself so as to not wake him.

It’s almost routine for Alexei to wake up alone after spending the night with someone but he admits to feeling a little disappointed this time, hoping he could see you at least for a last time but he tries not to linger on it for too long, it’s always been like this and this time should be no different. Even if the walk home feels especially lonely when he sees parents walk their children to school and young couples bask in each other's company. He doesn't like to admit it but that doesn't make it any less unbearable.

He’s never lingered so much after spending the night with someone, never bothered to figure out their name or the place they work at, nor as he ever bothered to add any events they could likely attend to his calendar. It’s out of character, he acknowledges as he scrolls through your social media, careful not to like any of your posts to tip you off, at least not until the time is right. It gets to the point where even people around him start to notice.

“You’ve been going around asking for information on her, how would I not know when you called the event organisers?” His brother, Viktor, said. At this point, any normal person might’ve reprimanded Alexei for acting like a lowly stalker. But it’s so difficult to tell him off when this is the longest anyone has seen him sober. Especially when he wakes up at normal hours every day and indulges in hobbies he knows you like in the hope of impressing you. This is still despite not having met you since that day. It’s hard to tell him to go back to isolating himself and indulging in little more than slowly destroying his health. And so what if knowing how his brother is, it comes at the cost of a stranger? It was a worthy sacrifice, in Viktor's eyes, if his brother could feel a sense of normalcy for the first time in his life.

According to his original plan, Alexei was going to ‘coincidentally’ meet you again and formally introduce himself. He was going to court you and go on dates with you like normal couples do, he would propose after a year with him. He didn’t mean to have you wake up with a chain to your ankle but he couldn’t help himself when he saw your attention shifting from him to someone else. He got anxious thinking all his plans had been for nothing, as he pictured you with another man while he could do nothing but offer you bitter congratulations.

As you nervously sat in front of him in the dim office, Alexei couldn’t help but smile, taking in the sight before he continued. “Despite your skill, you still haven’t gotten a main role yet, have you, [name]?”

You knew how this went, so many of the company's favourite ballet dancers had used similar means after all, but it didn’t make you feel any less dirty as you replied. “No, sir.” He looked different from that day, his hair better kept and face not as sunken in as that night. Had you met under different circumstances you would have no qualms against admitting he was a truly handsome man.

“Well, I don’t think that fair, especially for someone as talented as yourself, so, I’d like to offer to sponsor you. Of course, that is, only if you would agree to it.” You almost laughed at this. Alexei was just as aware of this as you, if you dared to deny his offer it would mark the end of your career. You would never dance again. “Sponsor…?” You couldn’t help but feel a shiver run through you as you looked up to find him smiling, it was an unfamiliar expression. Even that accursed night his expressions had been nothing short of pitiful but now he felt like a completely different person.

You couldn’t find it within you to say yes immediately, not when you still remembered the events that took place after you left that hotel room, the way your skin burned as you scrubbed it to try to get rid of that dirty sensation you felt, the way everyone stared at you when you returned to practice at the studio. They had seen you leave with him last night and could clearly see the marks peeking through. It felt unbearable to even think about it.

While you were lost in thought, you failed to notice Alexei now standing behind you as his hands placed on your shoulders.

“You’re a smart girl, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Everything after that felt like a repeat of that night, the only difference being that this time he was sober throughout, which felt arguably worse. At least he was somewhat consolable that time, a childish pitifulness present in his expression even as he clawed through your skin and took from you with not a shred of remorse. At least then you could console yourself thinking it was a drunken mistake but this time his eyes were clear as day as they bore right into your own. His words were perfectly coherent as he proclaimed his undying love and his movements deliberate and controlled as he twisted your ankle in ways it shouldn't.

Masterlist

[princess-of-the-corner]

ML AU - Public Divorce

So, before Origins, sometime over … whatever break/vacation Paris kids have between school years, André finds out about Audrey’s “Other Family” (Zoé & Mr. Lee) in just about the worst way possible. What follows is a very loud, ugly, chaotic mess of a VERY PUBLIC divorce, as Audrey and André use their various platforms to slander the other. It is brutal, and not particularly dignified. They attack each other’s character, their appearances, their hobbies, even diets. Anything they appear in suddenly turns into being stuck at your friends house while their parents argue. At some point, in a “stick it to my ex” kind of move, André starts “dating(??)” other woman, trying to prove … something? That he doesn’t need Audrey? That she’s replaceable?? Anyway, Audrey decides fair’s fair, and starts publicly toting around her array of “side pieces” that she’s had for years.

Of course, none of this is actually GOOD for either of their popularities - Audrey opinions as the “Style Queen” starts to tarnish, André starts losing in the polls. But then. Then, after several MONTHS of this nonsense, André finally gets reminded, “oh yeah! We have a kid!” and starts using Chloé to slander Audrey. How she SUCKED as a mother, was never there, how he basically was raising Chloé as a single parent. And Audrey starts going on about how she never WANTED kids, how André was so DEMANDING, how trapped she felt in their marriage, How it isn’t HER fault she barely knows anything about Claudine, André never wanted her around!

Anyway, Chloé starts the school year, not as the returning Queen Bitch, but an exhausted girl who would appreciate it if everyone just knocked it off and let her sleep, please and thank you. She’s spent most of the break camping out at either Sabrina’s or Adrien’s, whenever Daddy wasn’t dragging her out to show how much he was still a “family man” or whatever bullshit he’s trying to do now. This Chloé has officially reached her limit. She’s watched her parents devolve into literal toddlers, gone through an emotional death coaster, and landed on a very bitter, resigned acceptance. As far as she’s concerned, nothing she can do will make any difference, so fuck it! Let’s wear hoodies all day! Let’s swim in the Seine! How about I burn all my clothes! Who gives a shit!? She’ll spend almost a week doing nothing but sleeping, then go on a shopping spree for knives. She’s giving into whatever random impulses strike her, and otherwise just not giving a single fuck. Sabrina and Adrien have been taking turns as her impulse control, preventing her from doing anything TRULY nuts, but they fear it’s only a matter of time.

Other assorted notes:

- there’s no prank on the first day, Chloé is too tired for this shit. She’s camping outside to make SURE Adrien doesn’t get derailed, and then she is taking a nap.

- Alya, being an aspiring reporter, has been following the Bourgeois Breakdown on the news. She gets a little too excited on realizing that Chloé is in her class, and asks several blunt, too personal Questions about how Chloé feels about the divorce. Chloé, who has been dealing with this shit for months from “real” reporters she isn’t allowed to “snap” at lest it affect her mom or dad negatively, punches Alya in the face. Alya at least admits later she probably deserved it.

- honestly, Chloé’s just more ready to throw hands in general. She’s swinging between total exhaustion and “Tired of Being, Time to go Apeshit”.

- she is, at all times, two (2) seconds from either kicking the shit out of someone, or taking a nap.

- Everyone, bar Sabrina and Adrien, is a little awkward around Chloé now, cause how do they handle “girl who was kind of a bitch to all of us since kindergarten, but now all her family’s shit has been airing on live TV for three months?”

- Marinette and Chloé kind of have a shaky truce, since Chloé ran into the Dupain-Cheng Bakery to escape a hoard of reporters, and Marinette hid her behind the counter and got said reporters to leave. They’re not really friends, but they aren’t enemies, nor are they “I leave you alone, you leave me alone”. It’s weirdly tense, but both girls are refusing to break the awkward stalemate.

- Bustier keeps trying to recommend Chloé to see the school guidance Counsellor, Chloé keeps saying no cause, “He didn’t do shit about me picking on Dupain-Cheng for literal years, this is DEFINITELY above his paygrade”.

- Chloé is refusing to take any blame for the divorce. Oh, she’s definitely had the thoughts of “are they splitting because of me?”, but how the pair of them are HANDLING the divorce? All the public mudslinging and arguments, and screaming at each other on the nightly news? That, Chloé is refusing to acknowledge as in any way relating to herself. It’s mostly spite, but also the healthiest part of her mindset regarding the whole thing

- André gets Akumatized about 6 different times as “Homewrecker”, before Chloé grabs a butterfly on purpose to go “Hawk Moth, if you turn my dad into a divorce Akuma one more fucking time, I am going to track you down with the express purpose of ripping out your spine, beating you with it, and then putting it back by feeding you each individual vertebrae”. When Homewrecker 7 turns up, someone posts a video of Chloé just screaming obscenities at the sky.

- André does lose the next mayoral election, at least partially as a result of this nonsense. D'argencourt also loses, so instead we have the dark horse of the mayoral race, Onyx Beauty, who was honestly not expecting to win. She’s kind of in shock the first week.

- Zoé and Mr. Lee find out about all this by accident, on the nightly news. How exactly do you handle finding out you are part of an affair destabilizing Parisian politics?

- the Miracuclass starts getting dragged in, cause André and Audrey start an extremely petty “funding race”, trying to boost their popularities by supporting “up and coming youth talent”. Chloé starts giving out cards that say “Sorry you got stuck in the middle with me”.

- both André and Audrey are rich enough they can drag other celebrities into their nonsense. Jagged Stone is, so far, the only one who managed to escape. Clara Nightengale called him for a week straight with horror stories.

- We find out that, after the Akuma shit started, lots of people took their business out of Paris, so yes, Bob Roth IS, in fact, one of the only people in Paris funding stuff. He keeps egging Audrey and André on, cause all their shit is making him lots of money. A tabloid calls the three of them “Paris’ Most Toxic Throuple!”. Chloé posts a video that is nothing but an adorable parakeet screaming bloody murder for two minutes.

- Lila comes in all prepared with extravagant lies that will make her new class swoon over her, but everyone is so burnt out on any kind of celebrity related drama that it isn’t nearly as effective as she wants it to be. She has more success supplying cool random facts, Italian cultural knowledge, acting trivia, and cute fox videos. Her entire plot gets derailed because she isn’t lying much, if at all, and everyone loves her as herself. 

- Gabriel is actually getting kind of uncomfortable Akumatizing André and Audrey over the divorce, so he starts giving them really lame powers. Or at least, powers he THINKS are lame. After the third glitter related disaster, he starts running ideas by Nathalie, and keeps a specific list of “useless” powers he can give to Audrey and André.

Thoughts? Feelings? Opinions? How you’d write something like this?

-

I am loving this tbh!

[haguenauisforlovers]

♡ TO ALL WEBGOTT WRITERS ♡

First of all, you are loved. Second of all, as announced, this event will in fact be hosting a fic collection on AO3: Haguenau is for Lovers 2025 and it is now OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS.

FIC SUBMISSION DATES TO REMEMBER Fic collection reveal: Feb 12, 2024 Fic collection close: Feb. 20, 2024

It’s highly encouraged that you post your HifL Webgott fics in the collection so that in 20 years, when we all look back at this year's Valentine’s Week, we can all collectively say, wow, it really was terminal. Please read this event's fic rules, submission guidelines, and FAQs by clicking on ‘Keep Reading’!

How do I post a fic to a collection?

1. Head on over to the collection profile page (just click the link, babes): Haguenau is for Lovers 2025. 2. Click the “Post to Collection” button, as seen in the screencap below. You will be led out to the usual Publishing screen area.

3. Input your fic elements as per usual by adding your fic title, tags, relationships, characters, body of text, etc. Note: You can, in fact, save your work as a draft and the collection will still be saved in your drafted fic settings. If you find any stray typos or sentences that you want to rearrange after publishing the work to the collection, you’re free to edit away as you would a fic that’s published outside a collection. 4. Hit publish, and ta-da, you have imprinted Webgott into your soul and shared your work with like-minded sickos. Congratulations and thank you for your service. *At any point between Feb. 12-20, Webgott fics are welcome to be posted and published into the collection. 5. All fics (regardless of prompts followed) will be revealed and published by the moderators starting Feb. 12, 2025 (Webgott Wednesday). So if you submit early, and you don’t see your work appear on the collection, don’t worry! It will be appear on the date mentioned.

*For early fic submissions:

If you publish or draft your work before Feb. 12, 2025, we encourage you to change the date of your work once the collection is opened to the latest date. That way, your work will be bumped up to the latest works in the fandom/ship tag. 

E.g. You drafted/published your work into the collection on Feb. 10, 2025. Follow these steps to edit the date:

1. Go to your fic and click the “Edit” button. 2. Scroll down to the “Associations” area. There you will see a toggle button that says “Set a different publication date” (See screencap below). Click the check box to allow the date change.

3. Change it to the current date. 4. Scroll down and click “Post” to save your changes.

Can I submit more than one fic to the collection?

Yes, you can! Write out your Webgott heart’s desires. There is no limit to the number of fic submissions per person. The more the crazier. ♡

Is there a minimum/maximum word count limit?

There is none. Drabbles, poems, long fic, multi-chap if you have them are all welcome.

Can we include other ships?

This is a Webgott event so they must be The Main Relationship. Joe Liebgott/David Webster, that’s what it’s all about, baby. Ships apart from Webgott are welcome as background/implied.

Can we do AUs? 

AUs can be incorporated in, but fics should be set primarily in Haguenau.  e.g. Post-war is allowed but they have to be reminiscing about Haguenau. Modern AU but they’re thrown into a time machine and land right smack behind enemy lines. You get what we mean.

Are AI-generated fics allowed? 

Aww hell no. All Webgott works found here will be organic and free-range. RPF is honest work for real, beautiful, flesh-and-blood sickos. AI generated fics will be excluded from the collection.

Do you have any prompts?

Yes we do, friend. You can find them here!

Will you reblog my fic post on Tumblr?

Of course! Mention @haguenauisforlovers in your caption and/or tag your post with either #haguenauisforlovers or #webgottvday and we’ll be sure to reblog it on to our page.

Any more questions? Feel free to send over any inquiries you might have. This event’s inbox is open! Soooo excited to read everyone’s fics! Yayyyy. ♡

[esamastation]

Gamer girl gets transmigrated into a farm boy Chapter 4 [<<Prologue | <Chapter 3 || Chapter 5>>] Ao3 link

-

So, gambling turned out to be a bit of a bust. It's not a complete loss, though, Van did multiply his starting bid of five silver to seventy four silver pieces in total. Compared to using exploits it's nothing - Katie could've made that in her sleep, if the NPCs still worked like they do in the game. But seeing that it's still in the very early tutorial section… it could be worse.

And then there's the level up. Van's very first this time around. Cue the confetti…

[Farmboy] [Van] [Lvl. 2 Commoner]

It feels pretty good. And what's waiting below in the stats screen is even better.

[You have 2 unused Stat Points.] [You have 1 unused Skill Point]

The first ones always feel a bit special.

In Age of Tales you get two status points and one skill point each time you level up and can then allocate those points as you wish on your character screen. It's not the only way to get points - there are quests, special items and a couple of accessories that affect how you accrue points - but until you're making real money in the game, you're stuck with what level ups dish out. Which is fine - early levels until about lvl. 20 are pretty cheap.

Of course, Van doesn't have a class yet, and so no skill tree to assign his shiny new skill point to - but he can assign his stat points, if he wants to. Which brings up the question. 

What is he going to specialise in this time? 

Van's got the base stats for an easy start as a Paladin, obviously - but Katie just did a Paladin run, and while it was fun, she wouldn't say it was so great that she's eager to repeat the experience. Especially if this really is a transmigration isekai situation - which she's still not thinking about, thank you very much, that's an existential crisis that can wait until nightfall.

At any rate, getting stuck forever as a Paladin would be… well, it would probably be fine. It was alright, playing the goody two shoes lawful good himbo with a heart of gold. It went great with the whole cliché secret chosen one and the lost heir to a great house thing at least… not that there were more than, like, three characters in the whole game who even acknowledged the player character's class. Van got pretty much the same reaction from everyone regardless of whether he was a Rogue or a Wizard or Paladin - it was just the big black and white moral choices that affected those sorts of things.

Age of Tales is Age of Tales-ing, what can you do?

Anyway, going at it as a Paladin again would be easy… but boring. Katie would have to think about it carefully before committing to anything. Though she hasn't quite ruled out the use of cheats yet and is still hoping that Van might be able to use exploits to his benefit later, the gambler showed her that things are different here. Never mind the fact that some features of Age of Tales are just missing, like the passive Wisdom buff. What if she chose a class with features that just don't work anymore?

Yeah, Van's next class would take some careful consideration, and she wouldn't be assigning his status points until she knew, either. Class selection wouldn't be until Urgol's Camp in Chapter 2, anyway, so there's no point fretting about it now.

For now Van has some silver to spend and shopping to do.

He considers visiting the fortune teller first, just in case the duplication glitch is still possible… but he doesn't have a gold bar, and the glitch never worked with anything else, and beyond that the fortune teller doesn't really do much. Also, he has The Incident to prepare for, too, and a limited amount of money.

So, with a full coin purse in hand, Van turns his attention to the market instead. First things first - weapon and armour.

The smithy stands on the other end of the market square, with smoke chugging out of its chimney at steady puffs. There are some shields on display in the front and a big wooden sword on top of the building, advertising "Blakeley's Blades - in business for more than three generations!"

"Hello," Van calls, entering the place.

Inside the air is hot and thick, with the smell of smoke and metal hanging heavy in the room. In the background there's the steady clink-clink-clink of a hammer on an anvil - an apprentice, hammering out some nails in the back. 

"Welcome," an older teenager, eighteen at most, comes forward. "How can we help you?"

[Blacksmith's Apprentice] [Jaro Amagris] [Lvl. 15 Commoner]

"I'd like to see what you have for sale, please," Van says.

"Well, what we have ready is over there," the older apprentice says, pointing towards a table loaded with a number of wooden boxes and buckets full of different metal crafts - nails, candle holders, hinges… "But if you want something specific, you will have to wait until the master gets back - he's out on business."

"Thanks, I'll just take a look," Van says and moves to the table. 

Much to his delight, an Age of Tales shop menu pops up.

[Blakeley's Blades Blacksmith]

[Small Iron Nail - 10 copper pieces] [Small Iron Hook - 13 copper pieces] [Small Iron Clasp - 15 copper pieces] …

And so on, in a surprisingly long list from cheapest to the most expensive. It's a lot of small iron stuff, different types of nails, cloak pins, buckles and buttons, eating utensils, heads of farming tools, and so on and so on, ending with the most expensive items.

… [Cast Iron Skillet - 35 silver pieces] [Cast Iron Cooking Pot - 40 silver pieces] [Short Sword - 50 silver pieces] 

It's a lot more items than Van had been expecting - and yet, fewer weapons. There are plenty of knives - Cooking Knife, Lvl. 1, goes for a nice round 20 silver pieces while Whittling knife, Lvl. 1 goes for 25 - but there's no daggers or throwing knives or anything like that. There isn't even metal ammunition for a sling. There's just one short sword on sale.

And no armour whatsoever. 

"Do you not sell any armour?" Van asks, confused. 

"Er, no?" Jaro Amagris says, giving him a strange look. "We don't make armour, really, though I suppose we can give it a try, if you want to order some. Or you could try at the Madam Arbury's, they might have something."

Van blinks, confused. "Madam Arbury's?"

"The tailor," Jaro clarifies.

There's a tailor? "Oh, okay. Uh. Where is it?"

"It's just across from the church - big windows with dresses, you can't miss it," the apprentice says with a shrug. "I think they have some padded coats and stuff."

Huh. That's interesting. You could get some gambesons and the like in the game too, but all armour and weaponry was bought from blacksmiths. This is… different.

"What d'you need armour for?" the younger apprentice, a boy of maybe ten or eleven, asks from between his hammering. His eyes shine eagerly on his sweaty, soot-stained face. Van glances at the air above him.

[Blacksmith's Apprentice] [Denny Rivercross] [Lvl. 3 Commoner]

The kid squints at Van.  "Are you going to join the army or something?" he asks.

Yeah, eventually, unfortunately, if things follow game plot. "No, no, I just got a bit of money, and I always wanted to try it," Van says quickly and motions at himself. "I mean… I think I'd make a good warrior. What do you think?" He flexes an arm, just because he can. And because Van's biceps are massive.

The younger blacksmith's apprentice bounces a little, clearly full of barely contained kid energy. "Oh yeah! You could be a knight!"

The older apprentice snorts. "Yeah, I don't think size alone is enough to become a knight, Denny," he says, looking Van up and down. "Though it probably helps…"

Denny bounces again. "Jaro, can we make armour for him?" the kid asks eagerly. "I'm so tired of making nails!"

"Well, like I said, we could give it a try," Jaro answers dubiously, still eyeing Van. "If he can pay for it."

Van shrugs. "I might, I might not. How long would it take to make it?"

"Depends on what you want," Jaro answers, taking a hammer lying on a table nearby and swinging it thoughtfully. "Some things take longer to make. And whether you're fine with us trying our hand at it, or if you want a master to make it matters too. He'll be faster - but it will cost you more."

"Hmm… say I wanted a chest plate, a cuirass, and you made it - how long would it take you?" Van asks, rubbing his chin on thought.

Jaro shrugs. "I've never made one and we're pretty busy, so… maybe a week or two?"

… by which time, Van would be at Ulgor's Camp and Valthor's minions would've already torched Westbrook to the ground.

Assuming, of course, that events followed game plot.

"Hmm," Van hums, wondering. In the game there's nothing you can do to prevent the destruction of Westbrook and the Gylcross farm - no matter what choices the player made, a scripted event was a scripted event. But maybe here and now… maybe there is something he can do.

He'd know once the Rift was opened.

In either case, a week is too long - he needs the armour for the battle in town, and that's in three days - and after that, even if the town survived, he might not see Westbrook again in months, if not years. There's no point in ordering anything made here.

"Well, it was a nice dream," Van sighs, a bit disappointed. "I guess I'll try my luck at the tailor's."

"Uh-huh," Jaro the senior apprentice agrees, clearly unimpressed, and drops the hammer on the table. "Alright. Anything else we can do for you?"

With no weapon-worthy knives and the only sword on sale being prohibitively expensive with Van's meagre budget… "Any chance you might have any spears or something lying around in here?"

Jaro snorts at him, arching his brows. "Spears?"

"I just want something to practice being a warrior with!" Van says defensively. "Spears are cheap, right?"

The elder blacksmith's apprentice shakes his head, looking amused, and then thinks about it. "Actually," Jaro says slowly. "I might have something. If you're alright with the shoddy quality, I think we have some practice pieces left?"

He goes to rummage in the back of the smithy and comes back with three very rough looking spearheads made of pretty low quality iron, going by the little holes and pockmarks in them.

[Dull Spearhead, Lvl. 1] [Attack: 3] [Defence: 0] [Crafting material. Attach to a Wooden Pole for a Dull Spear Lvl. 1.]

Van studies the spearheads with interest. Huh. There was crafting in Age of Tales, of course - but the only weapons you could craft were different types of arrows, and those only if you played a Ranger. He'd never seen spearheads. Maybe with some crafting material, his crafting menu will unlock?

In the meanwhile, the younger apprentice has abandoned his nail and is coming to join them. "Jaro, did you make these?" Denny asks, poking at the spearheads interestedly.

"Yes - master was hoping to get commission from the Baron, so he had me learn how to make them," Jaro shrugs. "We didn't get the job, though, it went to a blacksmith in Elysia. Someone's relative." He rolls his eyes.

Denny bounces eagerly, looking up at him. "I want to learn how to make spearheads!"

"Figure out how to make straight nails first," Jaro snorts, pushing the kid back towards the anvil he'd abandoned. Then the elder apprentice turns to look at Van. "Anyway, you can have these for five silver apiece."

Van hums. They are pretty rough, but… they'll probably still be better than the tools back at the farm. "Throw in a sharpening stone and you got yourself a deal."

-

Things go a little better at the tailor. Emphasis on the little.

"Oh, dear me," huffs the very fashionable lady tailor holding the gambeson against Van's chest and tutting fretfully. "No, it won't do, this won't fit at all! I'm afraid it will never fit you."

[Tailor] [Alma Arbury] [lvl. 7 Commoner]

She's somewhere between her thirties and forties and quite pretty, as most female NPCs in this game are. She's dressed up like the NPCs in the crown city, in a multilayered, vaguely Victorian looking dress with many shiny buttons running in a neat line from her neck down to the very hem. She looks very much like someone who's well fit to catering for the rich and affluent.

It's pretty fascinating, since she wasn't in the game at all.

"Well?" Alma asks, squinting a little through her golden framed glasses.

Van looks down. Though the gambeson looks pretty legit, with thick quilting and metal clasps and everything… it also kind of looks like she's holding something made for a child, when compared to his torso. "Could you maybe… expand it?" he asks hopefully. 

"Oh, well," Alma frowns, leaning back a little to consider the issue. "I suppose I could add panels to the side… and the arms… and the shoulder…" she trails away and then tsks, folding the gambeson over her arm. "No, no, it won't do, it won't do at all, it would be a complete mess. No, the proper thing to do is to make a new coat from scratch. Yes, it will fit you perfectly and will be far less work for me!"

Van hums, watching her take the gambeson away. "Well, you're the tailor, I guess. How long would that take, though?" he asks worriedly.

Alma hums and waves a dismissive hand. "Oh, a day or two - it's not a terribly complicated piece of clothing to make, and I have some nice quilt ready."

Van sighs with disappointment. Yet another unexpected turn for realism, but at least it's better than a week or two. "I see," he says and mentally pokes at the System, in hopes that it might offer him a handy-dandy instant goods store.

It shows him the tailor's shop instead. 

[Madam Arbury's Boutique.]

[Handkerchief - 80 copper pieces] [Foot Wrap - 90 copper pieces] [Underwear - 1 silver pieces] …

And so on and so forth, all the way down to…

… [Men's Fancy Winter Coat - 67 copper pieces] [Fancy Evening Dress - 80 silver pieces] [Elaborate Wedding Dress - 1 gold and 10 silver pieces] 

Van mentally flicks through the store page with a sigh and then stops. What's this? Near the middle of the list there is, oh, is that A Leather Vest, lvl. 4? For meagre 20 silver pieces? Well-well-well…

He looks slyly towards the tailor. "You wouldn't happen to have anything else - like, say, a vest?" he asks and adds, leadingly. "Something that might offer a little bit of protection?"

"Oh, well," Alma huffs, adjusting her glasses, her lips pursing up in thought. "I suppose we can have a look at what I have in store, but I really don't think… no, maybe…"

She heads off, muttering to herself and leaving Van examining the boutique and the System's store window. 

It's interesting, and yet another proof of how much more… real things are here. While the building for this shop was in the game - and it had something like five identical clones in other towns and cities - it hadn't been something the player could interact with. Just window dressing, making towns feel more lived in.

Maybe it was in the cut content, and there'd been plans for a clothing shop NPC that hadn't been implemented. It wouldn't be the first time it happened, and there certainly were enough clothing items that there should've been a tailor NPC.

"Ah, here we go!" Alma calls. She's holding a brown leather vest up triumphantly. "Now, this, this is a tough piece of clothing, if I do say so myself! Nice and supple cowhide. Come here, let's see how it fits."

It doesn't, no matter how Alma tries to stretch it, the vest doesn't get anywhere near to closing properly. Van's chest is simply too big.

"Well, that's what you get for growing so big!" the tailor says, a little defensive, her face flushed with effort. 

"I didn't say anything?" Van mutters and then shakes his head, giving in to the inevitable and taking the vest off. Everything was so much easier in the game - because everything always fit the character perfectly. "I guess it was a bit much expect clothing to be ready made. Let's talk about the gambeson - how much would it cost to make it?"

Pretty much all the silver he has left, it turns it, and he wouldn't get the gambeson until the next time he was in town, but that's fine. He wouldn't need it until after the Rift, anyway. With haggling done - and belated introductions made - Alma moves to take his measurements

It's a bit of a new experience for Katie, who's never had anything tailored in her life. It's also somewhat eye-opening, because Madam Arbury's Boutique has something he's not encountered yet. 

A mirror.

"I'll get to work right away," Alma promises, pushing her glasses up again while Van stares at his reflection. "It will be ready by tomorrow evening, mark my words. Please extend your arm straight to the side."

"I'm sure it will be," Van says, tilting his head this way and that while holding his arm to the side. Katie spent something like two hours designing this face, but seeing it like this, in the mirror, moving when he moves, emoting when he does…

"May I ask what you need a gambeson for, anyway?" Alma asks. "I assume you work on a farm?"

"Yeah, the Gylcross farm - but I'm not planning to stay there forever," Van admits, making faces at his reflection. His teeth are so straight. And so white. Kind of weird.

"Ah, I see," Alma hums, thoughtful, writing something down in a little notebook. "Are you looking to join any military group in particular? Should I add heraldries?"

"No," Van says, shaking his head. "I just want some armour, no insignia or heraldry or anything."

"Very well. You can put your hand down now."

Van lowers his arm and tilts his head the other way. Damn, his jaw is… impressive. He's got comic book superhero levels of jaw going for himself. Which kind of makes sense - a certain farmboy superhero might've been an inspiration there, maybe. His hair is so much messier than he realised, though. Guess that's an effect of it not being just a thing made of polygons anymore.

Also, is that… a bit of stubble? A hint of a five o'clock shadow? 

Does he have to shave?

Alma finishes taking his measurements with professional finesse. Van pays for his order, signs the receipt,  weighs his now empty coin purse and then sighs. "Thank you very much, Ma'am."

"And thank you for your business, Mr. Van," Alma says, sniffing, and with a last slightly flustered glance at him, awkwardly waves him off. "Have a very good day now."

Shaking his head, Van heads out of the store.

So, instead of the usual armament of Long Sword, Reinforced Wooden Buckler, Studded Leather Armour, dozens of Draughts of Memory and bunch of healing potions on top of it, his shopping haul is… three shoddy spear points, sharpening stone and a receipt for an order from Madam Arbury's Boutique.

Yeah, Katie's usual approach to Age of Tales is not working here, at all, and reality is throwing some spanners in the works. Katie isn't sure how she likes it. Which is probably kinda ironic, after all the times she went on and on about how dumb and unrealistic Age of Tales was. 

She'd get used to it. 

-

"Ah, there you are, my boy," Mr. Gylcross says, spotting Van loitering about the marketplace, waiting for him. "Have you been enjoying your time in town?"

"It's been… interesting," Van admits, which it has. "All done with business, sir?"

"Yes, quite. I found a couple of buyers for our spring crops," Mr. Gylcross says, seeming satisfied. He's got a flushed look of a man who's had at least a couple of drinks and his moustache has somehow gotten bushier. Looks like he's had a good day. "And the doctor will come take a look at Geruth tomorrow," the landowner continues. "Now, go and fetch the cart, if you please - I've made some purchases, and it will be far easier to load them directly into the cart."

[Homeward bound, Lvl. 2.]

[Mr. Gylcross' shopping trip is drawing to a close and it's time to head back to the farm. Fetch Bell and the cart, and load Mr. Gylcross' purchases for the trip home.] [Quest reward:  20 exp, 3 Meat buns, 1 Bottle of Mead.]

"Right away," Van agrees and gets to it.

Together with Mr. Gylcross Van loads up the various sacks and barrels and other things the man had bought onto the cart, tying them down for a secure trip home. Then Mr. Gylcross takes a seat in the back again, now leaning against some flour sacks.

"Have you eaten anything, Van?" the man asks, rifling through his purchases.

"Ah, no, sir, I got… distracted," Van admits - and the moment it's mentioned, he realises that he's actually pretty hungry and thirsty. He hadn't even been thinking of food as something he needs, because, well… Age of Tales didn't have a hunger bar.

"Here," Mr. Gylcross says and hands him a clay bottle and a paper bag that doesn't quite fit the setting. "Eat up, my boy, it's a long way home."

"Thanks, Mr. Gylcross," Van says and peers into the bag - sure enough, meat buns. The bottle must be mead then. "I appreciate it."

"Got to keep my men fed, don't I, else you might run off to work for the likes of Drakner, and I can't have that " Mr. Gylcross chortles and settles down for the journey back.

Van hums, taking a bite of the meat bun and answering the System's prompt for [Start journey?] with [yes].

-

[<<Prologue | <Chapter 3 || Chapter 5>>]

Proofread by @nimadge

-

Reality is against Van but at least there's meat buns and mead

[drownedinapond]

I've been seeing mutuals or people I follow get hate for liking Regulus, and in an effort to not hijack anyone's post, I'll barf my thoughts out here to get them out of my head. Stuff gets stuck circling around there for weeks if I don't. Will get a bit political cause I'm me.

I don't want to rehash the points other people have made because they put it very well. I will include a summary though, for anyone who hasn't seen this stuff on their dash:

Death eaters are the magical version of members of Nazi or fascist parties, obviously. Pure blood supremacists are Nazi and fascist supporters, even though they're not directly members of the party. Why wouldn't they be if they agree with their views? It's a big undertaking, people view politics as a waste of time on any side of the political spectrum, it's risky to attach your name to anything official etc.

Walburga and Orion are clearly pure blood supremacists in the canon and if you don't think so, please work on your reading comprehension.

Real people are immensely influenced by their environment, especially as children; characters are supposed to be representations of real people; Regulus' unique mix of nature + nurture made it so that he is too afraid to disobey what he has been taught until he reaches his limit, and didn't have any support to spur him in the right direction, unlike Sirius.

I want to add on to that by talking about headcanons and their impact.

Firstly, headcanons, specifically in the Marauders fandom, are mostly treated as canon since we have so little to work with, and many of us disrespect the canon on purpose because fuck jkr. There are a bunch of headcanons that the majority of us agree on, such as Dorcas being in Slytherin, Regulus' animagus being a black cat etc. People that like Regulus, don't agree with or are ignorant of Canon Regulus, the very little that there is of him at that! They either like Headcanon/Fanon Regulus who makes a sincere effort to right his wrongs OR they are fascinated by Canon Regulus as an interesting character, which doesn't mean they endorse his actions (can't believe that needs to be said). Same thing applies for Evan and Barty.

The Fanon version has the amazing ability to show what circumstances might lead to someone having violently bigoted beliefs, and in some cases, what it takes for them to shed those beliefs and take accountability for their actions. In my opinion, it's incredibly important to show that narrative, especially as written by people with no financial stake in what they convey, because of the times we're living in. The USA is a good example.

The circumstances that majority of the citizens in the United States were raised in implanted bigoted beliefs in them, some more subtle than others. Those circumstances persist and even get worse. That does not mean Americans deserve punishment, isolation, belittlement or ridiculisation. Those things make bigotry worse. They need new thought models and to be shown that unity and diversity make life better and safer for everyone. It takes people of the global south and marginalised groups in their own country to liberate the average citizens from themselves and then their government. Punishment for the sake of punishment doesn't resolve anything, though some people might interpret responsibility and necessary violence as punishment.

That being said, Regulus might not be compared to an average citizen, since he was so rich, but I think many people that grew up in bigoted environments can see themselves in him, even if they don't fit his story beat by beat. If you reduce Regulus to his worst parts, what does that imply about their hope that they can make a difference? If you wish Regulus' character and those similar would be collectively hated by everyone in the fandom, what does that say about them? Still, in a way, people that reduce Regulus to his worst parts add to the poetry: you can choose to do good in spite of the fact that you will always be viewed as evil, and that good still counts more than everyone else's opinions of you. (Hello Wei Wuxian)

I know people's hurt feelings aren't our focus in the cause of global liberation and I agree, victims should definitely come first, but hurt feelings lead to action. We could use all the manpower we can get, therefore it's better to make allies rather than enemies. And allies are made with understanding and patience. Not everyone has the strength of character to go against everything they've ever known on their own, as exemplified by Regulus.

So I do think that people bashing others for liking him are getting on a moral high horse and losing the bigger picture. If you categorise characters as good and bad, it's a sign that you have the tendency to do that with real people too, which is dehumanising. You can change though, like Regulus did 👍

*you can be part of a marginalized group and still hold bigoted beliefs, obviously...

**I'm not speaking out of my ass on real world comparisons, I've been reading books on political and social issues for years.

***I've been debating if I should tag you as a show of support, @messingwithmoony, for literal hours at this point, so I will choose to do it in hopes that it's a nice gesture, BUT if you are uncomfortable with it in any way, please dm me and I will remove this part! There are absolutely no hard feelings whatsoever!

[lunastryinc]

Helloooo darlings! We hope you've all had a lovely week. We just wanted to make a real quick reminder post regarding selfies.

Because we have so many characters within the group, we do want to remind everyone that you are only allowed to post a selfie once a week, which does mean once every 7 days and does include intros. This is mainly to ensure that the dash isn't crowded with selfies all the time- we love giving love to people's photos, but we don't want these posts to drown out everything else on the dash.

Vaguely related, we just want to ensure that people are tagging their selfies correctly. The "nsfw" and "nsfw image" tags are to ensure that everyone feels comfortable checking the dash regardless of where they are. We are not limiting the kinds of selfies you can post, we just want everyone to be mindful of what they are posting and to tag accordingly. We don't think we have to spell it out for you- we all know what poses and clothing (or lack thereof) would not be acceptable in public or for someone to see on a phone if they are at their work place. When in doubt, use the tags just in case because we would all rather be safe than sorry.

We will be hanging around tonight, so let us know if you need anything <3

[silusvesuius]

nnnnnnnnnnnnno maa'am

[hotvintagepoll]

Oh no I missed coffee night!!!!

I wanted to ask you about Hitchcock 😔 If you're willing to answer, which movies of his do you think are overrated and which do you think are actually good? He's my most watched director (because film school) but I only genuinely like a few of his films and always disagreed with my classmates about which ones were the best

I feel like I'm holding up a Daffy Duck style sign that says "shoot me" because Hitchcock is so well thought of by cinephiles versus me, the basic horny mod who watches movies with hot people in them. With that said, I remember Rope, Dial M for Murder, North by Northwest, and To Catch a Thief all left me a bit flat, because I felt like he was prioritizing pushing technical limits or creating extravagant images over deeper characters and relationships. I love a good technical limit-pushing, but it needs to serve the story! And sometimes I feel like he has an idea he wants to try or an image he wants to show and puts so much focus on developing it that characters' reality and interest kind of falls by the wayside—they become pawns navigating his situations, instead of interesting characters in their own right.

To be fair, this is more a characteristic of his later work than his early work—The Lady Vanishes is one of my favorite movies, and I remember Notorious and Spellbound both being enjoyable when I watched them a few years ago. Again, basic film watcher here. Don't show this post to the Criterion collection.

[eneslobby]

I don’t understand why saying hypothetically if Caitlyn was a man people would be more mad at her is an argument you make. I do agree that she would be more hated, but that doesn’t apply to what actually happened in the show and the writing. If Caitlyn was a man it wouldn’t be the same story so I don’t understand this point.

Caitlyn tried to pull away at first, but vi grabbed her arm and stopped her. Caitlyn snapped and hit her. It was a human reaction from a person in deep distress and emotional turmoil. doesn’t make it okay and justified but calling Caitlyn an abuser for this is a reach (I don’t call you out on it, I call out caitlyn haters that are adamant on making her the worst person alive).

I don’t care about the class differences here, it doesn’t matter where they came from. In my opinion, the only thing stood in the way between caitvi’s relationship is jinx. Jinx is the *reason* why cait and vi broke up, and in my opinion it has nothing to do with the class differences. Caitlyn has never treated vi as a lower class citizen, and she was mad at vi and hit her in the tunnels because she’s jinx’s sister, not because vi’s a zaunite. Can you give me an example of a scene where Caitlyn purposefully treated vi as lesser than her (not out on nativity)?

I just don’t really think the class differences was ever a real issue between Cait and vi. For example, the oil and water comparison that vi made of their relationship was a cover up of the real reason why vi really broke up with Cait in season 1- vi didn’t want to put Caitlyn in danger as she decided to go after silco with Jayce and get her sister back. You can disagree with me on that tho, that’s just how interpreted vi’s thoughts and actions.

I just don’t see season 2 the same way you do. I agree that the story was a little bit rushed and needed more time, but in my opinion, it doesn’t affect the writing. Even if the season had a few extra episodes, it wouldn’t change the writing decisions and the characters arcs, it would just add to it. And the themes of season 1 and 2 are the same, it season 2 it was just amplified (the cycle of violence is the main theme, not classism).

Anyway I’m just rambling but I just don’t see caitvi’s relationship as rushed or toxic or anything and you wouldn’t be able to change my mind. I think their relationship was handled beautifully and their story arcs are my favourite parts of the show. I wouldn’t really change anything between them, maybe add some scenes but I understand that there was a screen time limit so I accepted that this is how their relationship was handled and I’m not complaining about it.

MY TAKE ON THE CAITVI DISCOURSE

total wordcount: 1591

I will say that I've briefly commented on their dynamic in the past, but it was worded really badly so I feel like I need to defend my writing skills a little bit as well with this, but that's just a sidenote. 💀

I think what a lot of people are missing when people do criticise CaitVi is that they aren't necessarily hating on the ship, it's what writing choices have done to it.

I'm not even going to even say I'm a CaitVi hater, I'm not (S1 CaitVi my beloved, you deserved better), but I do think the choices that writers made this season heavily effected how audiences portrayed the ship, even including myself.

Idk I hope this insight might give some people more perspective on why CaitVi became so hated in this season, people rlly need to start looking at both sides and not taking criticism as a personal attack. It really could've been avoided too if the writers had added more time or extended the series onto a third season, but that's another issue on its own.

1. Caitlyn hits Vi

I really don't get why people are so quick to defend Caitlyn on this one, especially considering the amount of hate Vi got when she hit Powder. Are both inexcusable? Yes. But I do think that the situation is a little different when it's a fifteen year old child who had just witnessed the death of her entire family and a twenty something year old woman who took out her anger and grief on the woman she loved because she blocked her shot.

I do think that people also do ignore the immense amount of trauma that Caitlyn suffered at the hand of Jinx, but unlike when Vi 'abandoned' Powder, (again, that's a whole other conversation, we know she was not abandoned), Vi was not that direct source of anguish to Caitlyn the way Powder was to Vi. (Pls lmk if you want me to expand further on this)

Again, not excusing Vi hitting Powder, I'm pointing out the differences.

It's then also incredibly tone deaf when Caitlyn hits her on two more occasions with the same gun, the third time being played off as a joke. It really doesn't come off well, especially when Vi had been a victim of police-brutality even before the abuse she faced at the hands of the enforcers in Stillwater.

And then, even after all this, it's never addressed. It's brushed over, like Vi's entire trauma in the show, the most we get is Caitlyn brushing her hand over Vi's abdomen in the cell scene. Again, can be taken as an apology, but I think that for some very specific things (like hitting your romantic partner), verbal apologies do need to be made in order to communicate healthily and somewhat build a healthier relationship.

I don't really want to talk about the abusive implications of this, because I don't think I'm someone who can talk about it with a full understanding because that's something I've fortunately never been through, but the blatant disregard and shunning of abuse survivors when they pull up the red flags raised because of this is disgusting. In real life, or if it had even been someone else in the show, if the ship had been a heterosexual relationship, people would call Caitlyn an abuser and would be outraged that Vi had been paired with her in the end. But I digress.

1. The cell sex scene

Initially I hadn't been too bothered about this when I had first watched the episode, but when you really think about it, it shouldn't have happened. Hell, they could've had sex in Caitlyn's office and half of the criticism wouldn't have happened, the ship wouldn't be so hated and the fandom wouldn't be half as divided as it is now (from what I've seen).

First and foremost, the cell.

All I can say is wtf. It was such a poor choice it's actually unfathomable to me now. I don't know why the writers thought that it'd be a good idea for Caitlyn and Vi to have their first time in a jail cell, not only the one Jinx had been locked in, but the one Vi had herself been locked in for what we can assume to be hours. The place of her abuse should not be somewhere where the writers could possibly think would be a suitable for a victim to have such an intimate moment with her partner.

Then there's the fact that Vi had looked to have had some sort of breakdown, we see she's sh and there are literal crates in the wall from where she punched it as well as her knuckles bleeding. As soon as she sees Caitlyn, there's a parallel to when they first met, to when Vi is quite literally caged. She's clearly not in the right state of mind, and so when the scene eventually happens it inevitably comes off as wrong because Vi is incredibly emotionally vulnerable in that moment.

"But Vi initiated it!" That still doesn't make it okay. I do think that this also came with an issue of timing, but then again, as I mentioned earlier, it literally could've been in the office as they argued and it would've been recieved so much better then the cell scene was. Vi wasn't breaking down, she wasn't locked in a reminder of the abuse she faced and her sister hadn't just ran off to do goodness knows what (in Vi's POV, us as the audience know exactly what she's about to do). They could've even have it fade to black and cut to the next scene tangled in bed doing whatever they would've been doing in the cell, Vi would assumably have had time to calm down, would be having sex in a warm and safe environment, and guess what? The audience would've been even happier.

Sure there would've been criticism, but Vi could literally save a thousand babies and adopt them all and still face hate, because a lot of the hate is being directed to Vi too because of the situation with Jinx. That, again, is a whole other situation.

3. "Dirt Under Your Nails"

Again, for the love of god, there can be so many takeaways from this sentence but do not be surprised that people didn't like it. I didn't, it made me cringe horribly.

And before people throw 'media literacy is dead', this whole post (practically essay), is analysing a piece of media that I love. To be literate, you can draw different interpretations and conclusions and that's exactly what I'm doing. It's like saying literacy is dead if two people were to disagree on what the meaning of Macbeth's quote 'I am in blood' meant.

I digress.

I think the main issue here is the class difference between Vi and Cait. Caitlyn is from the aristocracy, a direct heir to a position of power in Piltover, while Vi is lower class, effected indefinitely by growing up in poverty. Even though she grew up as Vander's kid, they were still 'scraping for scraps'. The wealth margin between the two is almost immeasurable, and with the difference in money comes a difference in experiences, as we - the audiences - know.

It especially comes off wrong considering the class tensions and political themes heavily focussed on within the first season. The conflict between Piltover and Zaun, the abuse of power and exploitation of Zaunites by both topside and the chembarons, the prevalence of police brutality on the streets of the Undercity. Again, Vi is someone who is directly effected by this, while Caitlyn came into this blissfully naïve. She did learn yes, and in s1 she was so determined to help, but when then this progress reverts into her calling zaunites 'animals' and using the grey as a weapon, it again makes Vi's words feel uncomfortable.

Again, I think this was a massive timing issue, I would've love to see Caitlyn succumb fully to a villain arc. It would've been so interesting to delve into.

I think Vi has always had the image of herself that she'll always be viewed as less by Piltover, that she herself views herself as less. She says it herself to Vander in s1 ep2 while they're on the bridge, "I grew up knowing I'm less than them." So when she then says as her final words in the show, "I'm the dirt under your nails" obviously, that's going to come across as tacky.

People are free to think of romantic connotations for this, I won't stop you, but when you think about how the show was so focussed on class tensions, police brutality, oppression and exploitation, it doesn't come off right. Idk, that's what got me so interested with the show in the first place, the way these themes were explored so deeply but subtly in a way that didn't feel forced, so Vi's words really rubbed me the wrong way.

Conclusion

So I hope everyone that read somewhat gets where I'm coming from, this was my attempt to try and explain what I think needed to be, badly. Again, you can like the ship, I'm not saying I don't, but it also needs to be acknowledged that there is so many things that could've been worked on properly, done properly or addressed properly, and ignoring criticism won't help these issues to be fixed in the future.

Feel free to ask any questions and thanks for reading this long ass rant :)

[theokusgallery]

Hiiii I saw you say you have Notes on your Remus and Janus designs 👀👀?

Could we see/hear some tidbits?

FOR SURE !! Here's what the original doodles for their designs look like, first off, (I know you didn't ask for Virgil but I did these three at the same time)

When I drew this I had just finished an exam and had to wait another hour until I could leave the classroom, so I wrote down enough notes that I had to flip the page instead:

Virgil:

- Virgil has light brown hair that he dyes black (badly). It is essential that the dye job look like shit. It looks artificial, his roots are showing, there's patches where the color didn't take, etc etc.

- He also has blue eyes, which I decided on mostly because it makes it even more clear that his hair isn't naturally black.

- He wears earrings, but his ears aren't actually pierced — they're fake little little clip-on things.

- He wears black nail polish at all times, but it's always chipped because he gets the cheapest stuff he can get his hands on.

- His hair (especially his bangs) get very long at times because he gets too socially anxious to go to the hairdresser. Back in middle school, he used to have Janus cut them for him (Remus could have done a better job but trusting him with scissors would have been a mistake). Now he mostly cuts it off by himself — it looks about as good as his dye job.

- Virgil's purple hoodie is a leftover from Remus' fashion design endeavors that Remus thought didn't look weird enough.

Janus:

- He has naturally strawberry blonde hair. The length is very important to him — he started growing it towards the end of middle school. (He allows Remus to experiment with hairdos sometimes as long as he doesn't cut anything off. I need to draw that sometime)

- I'm not entirely settled on his eye color. I know at least one of his eyes is a very pretty brown, but I have half a mind to give him a yellow glass eye for his left side — I'm not sure it'd make any logistic sense for his situation, though

- He got his ears actually pierced when he was 16.

- He also may or may not have a forked tongue. Not sure how I'd ever be able to show that off — but if he does have one, then Remus definitely was the one to encourage him to do it.

- His fashion style was definitely influenced by being around Remus (who may have used him as a mannequin/dummy because he's small.) so much. Remus also attempted to make clothes for him, but Janus is very fancy and picky, so he doesn't wear those clothes very often (though he might accessorize with stuff Remus made for him occasionally).

Remus:

- He has naturally very dark hair. He uses temporary/surface level dyes a lot, but if he's using permanent or semi-permanent dyes, he's usually limiting himself to the grey streak — it's kind of a sample strand, since it's already bleached. He 100% copied his hairstyle from Roman's.

- He (and Roman, of course) has greenish blue eyes.

- Janus paid for him to get his ears (and eyebrows) professionally pierced because otherwise he was just going to do it himself with a sewing needle.

- He has a lot of very shitty stick-and-poke tattoos he made/makes on himself. They're almost always hidden by his outfits.

- Speaking of which, Remus makes most of his outfits costumes himself. The quality of the work may vary, but they are always way too over-the-top for casual wear, because he stands out anyway, so... in for a penny, right. (As I said in the tags of a post: he is very creative and has no shame or social anxiety at all, so he had his whole aesthetic ("overdramatic green") figured out by the time he was 13)

- He also has SH scars, but, again — they're hidden by his outfits 99% of the time. He's a slut who never shows an inch of skin

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[kingarmorking]

[esamastation]

Gamer girl gets transmigrated into a farm boy Chapter 5 [<<Prologue | <Chapter 4 || Chapter 6>>] Ao3 link

-

The rest of the day goes by much the same way it did in the game. They make their way back to the farm, where Van helps Mr. Gylcross unload his purchases and carry some of them to the barn and the rest into the house. Janelle welcomes them with a warm meal and freshly made batch of apple juice, made from, "Apples I picked myself just this afternoon!" as she says. It's delicious.

"What did you buy in town?" Josel asks as they eat.

"Nothing much," Van answers, and ain't that the truth. "Mostly I just looked around, took in the sights."

Josel hums. "Yeah, you haven't been to the town a lot, have you?"

"I guess not," Van agrees, thinking back to the player character's messy background as a hand on the Gylcross farm, and how it might be revealed here - if it even was.

"How did you like it? Did you see anything interesting in town?" Janelle asks curiously.

"It was fine. It was all pretty interesting," Van admits and takes a bite of bread, wondering if she made it herself.

The System journal had updated while he'd been in town, and going by its writing, it was the most amazing thing ever to happen to Katie. Most of the journal entry was her detailing every event that happened, but there were some interesting titbits in between, which Van had noticed but not really thought about at the time.

… Oh my god, the town looks exactly like it did in the game! Only now I'm seeing it all in first person! It's so wild. There's so much more people here than there were in the game, too - probably since the limits of rendering capacity have been thrown out of the window. Real world isn't held back by RAM. Hah.

Also? Kids. There are children here - and not just one-age-fits-all like in some games, no, there's older teenagers and younger teenagers, and I also saw a toddler in the marketplace - and I think one woman had a baby in a sling? A baby! Definitely didn't have any of those in the base game - not a single kid to be had in all of Age of Tales, except in pre-rendered cutscenes. I wonder if it's just for humans, or will we get to see dwarf or elf babies - I've never seen a dwarf baby, ever, in anything I've ever seen or played. Probably not elf either, unless it was like a half-human-half-elf situation brought forth by an illicit cross-species love story.

I wonder if Van can have babies - like, conceive them? I mean, there's romance in Age of Tales, such as it is. There's sex scenes and stuff. Can those now have, like, consequences? Does this world have contraceptives? Is that something that I have to now think about?

Van with a baby would be pretty cute, though. I wonder if I can somehow get him to hold a baby…

And that's where Van had to stop reading in order to preserve the delicate equilibrium of his mental stability.

"There were a lot of people in town," he concludes with a cough to clear his throat, and takes another sip of the apple juice.

Janelle gives him a sympathetic look. "Yeah, it's a bit different from how it's around here, huh?" she says and pats him on the shoulder. "I'm glad you had fun."

"Yeah," Van agrees.

By now he's kind of starting to feel the limits of Katie's social meter, though. She'd never been a particularly extroverted person, and while it's different inside a videogame… this isn't a game, not really. It's been a whole day of interacting with people and trying to figure things out, and Van is feeling mentally kind of worn down.

Plus, he's got an existential crisis scheduled up, and it's starting to feel kind of urgent.

"You mind if I turn in for the day, sir?" Van asks once he's done eating, turning to Mr. Gylcross. "I'm kind of tired."

"Of course, my boy. Just get Bell settled in for the night and get the cart in the barn," Mr. Gylcross says.

Thankfully, Josel has apparently done all other farm-related duties off screen. All Van has left to do is get the cart inside and Bell brushed up, fed, and settled in a stall, all of which happens by automation. Josel, who's got a more permanent berth in a little hutch next to the farmhouse, bids Van good night, and with some relief Van heads up to the hayloft.

There he lays down in the hay, mentally preparing to Think About Things and Handle Them… only to find his mind full of static. He needs to deal with the Realisation and he needs to come up with a plan for tomorrow, because there's a lot coming his way tomorrow.

And yet, even though he lies there for a while, staring at the ceiling, not a single coherent plan comes to mind.

Finally, Van gets up again and goes back down to get a bucket of water. It's not quite as good as a real mirror, but in a pinch…

His reflection is very faint on the water's surface, but he can just about see himself and make out his features. The caramel ice-cream hair is really not looking its best. It's curly in the game, kind of fabulous in a way that doesn't fit Van's body type at all - here it sticks every which way, unkempt and not exactly flattering.

No permanent magical hairstyling in real life, huh.

Combing his fingers through his hair to push it away from his face, Van turns his head this way and that, taking in his features again. The jaw, the cheekbones, the forehead - he really looks like he was drawn by a comic book artist. Except made real. 

He's really - Katie is really in Van's body. This is Van, made flesh and blood. Well, he doesn't actually know if the body can bleed, but it probably does. It gets hungry and thirsty. And, judging by the feel of things right now, it also needs to relieve itself. Which is… another thing he hadn't been thinking about.

Sitting on his knees for a moment, Van weighs the oncoming mental health crisis against probably mortifying body function weirdness and chooses the latter, standing up. Time for a true fantasy adventure - figuring out how men piss.

Delightful.

Though as a man he should be able to go wherever - so long as he wasn't flashing someone, anyway - seeing as this is the first time and Katie only sort of knows what she's doing… yeah, some privacy is called for. There's a wooden outhouse behind the farmhouse, which Van slinks his way to like he's doing something wrong and illicit. The outhouse is pretty small and forces him to bend over, and it's overall very awkward. It stinks. The seat is tiny and looks kind of uncomfortable to actually sit on.

Katie has a feeling she's going to miss Earth's modern day plumbing before long.

Right now she has other concerns, though.

Van takes a deep breath - and then regrets it, because of the outhouse smell - before looking down. The trousers are easy enough to figure out, they're basically normal trousers except fastened with a string instead of zipper. The underwear, not so much. While Katie has seen it before and actually spent quite a bit of time trying to figure it out, seeing it on Van now…

It's a kind of cloth wrap thing, like the whole thing is one long stretch of fabric wrapped around the waist and down. The final effect is not unlike briefs, and it's actually kind of comfortable and it definitely keeps everything contained… but if Van takes it off, he will definitely not be able to put it back on again.

Hm, maybe he can, sort of… move it aside…?

Touching it is a bit weird. Katie does a little gibbering flailing thing in the back of his mind while Van tugs at the fabric, feeling all the stuff beneath shift - feeling all the stuff feel the movement. It's weird - having sensations in bits Katie never had before. 

Kind of cool though, too. In a sort of unreal way.

Van gets his fingers beneath to pull his penis out and then… there it is, sticking out past the cloth, with its two buddies still nestled in the wrapping.

It would probably be inappropriate to call it a tool. It kind of fits, though. It's very… proportional. 

And Katie is suddenly very aware of her long stint as a single woman, because damn. Like, she's never been that into the look or size of a guy's dick - a penis is a penis, they're all kind of the same in the end - but damn. Van has one hell of a dick. Like, Katie probably wouldn't want to have sex with Van, because ouch… but damn.

"Okay, don't play with it, just do your business," Van mutters, thinking back to Katie's stint in the kindergarten and wincing at the memory of potty training. As extremely unsexy thought as there ever was, he thinks with a grimace and then attempts to… manoeuvre himself into position. "Just point and aim."

It's weird, and very… fleshy. But at least the rest of the operation is roughly the same for a man as it is for a woman - bladder is a bladder, apparently. It's still weird - as is not needing to wipe afterwards. It doesn't feel like it's enough, to just shake it. Not that there's anything to wipe with in the outhouse.

"Weird, weird, this is so weird," Van mutters, shaking himself and then quickly tucking the weapon away.

There's nowhere to wash his hands afterwards.

"Great," he mutters and then slinks back to the barn where he sleeps at night. His mirror water turns into hand washing water, and he still feels a bit dirty afterwards. He's hyperaware of what's going down below the belt, all of a sudden. Also, maybe getting a bit hard? Is it really that damn easy to get riled up as a man? Van's not even thinking of anything sexy, and apparently it's going up on its own. What the hell?

Climbing up to the hayloft, Van lies down and tries to not think about his dick. He's got an existential crisis on his hands. Woman stuck in a man's body here. This is no time for any kind of self-inflicted fun times. He needs to experience the horrors of being not in a body of his own. Her own. Whatever. Body dysmorphia, here we go!

Yeah, no, apparently not. His mind keeps slipping downwards along with the blood pooling there, as though the damn thing has a gravity of its own. He can feel his penis straining his underwear - taking it out, putting his hand around it, it would feel… probably pretty good right now. And it's not like Katie doesn't want to - like she hasn't been curious what it was like, how it would work. Porn and smut painted a pretty vivid image, of course, but nothing beats hands on experience.

Mmm, hands on…

Van stares at the ceiling for a long moment, biting his lip. There's no one in this end of the barn but him. The Gylcrosses are in their house, Josel is off in his little hutch… there's no one here. No one but him.

… Right, okay. Fine.

With a grunt Van gets up to find a rag or something.

It would clear his head too, probably, if all the post nut clarity memes are to be believed. He would have his existential crisis with a clear mind afterwards.

-

Katie wakes up the next morning to the cock crowing somewhere outside and has a moment of flailing confusion at the feel of all the hay around her and sight of the wooden ceiling and beams above her head… before everything comes back.

Right. She's still here. She's transmigrated into Van and to the very start of Age of Tales. And it's now day two.

"Shit," Van murmurs, running a hand down his face. His chin feels bristly - apparently that's a yes on the needing to shave going forward, if he wants to keep Van's chiselled chin in view. Which is probably not all that important, considering that, well…

Tonight, the plot would finally kick off in earnest.

Breathing in and out for a moment, Van lets his arm drop to his side. He hadn't even thought of what he would do, beyond the usual. Even with all the dramatic consequences, the Rift opening was still part of the tutorial, and so all the enemies were pretty low level. The character was meant to run, of course - at this point there was not much they were supposed to be able to do against them.

Emphasis on the supposed. This is, however, Age of Tales.

The whole tutorial section is a bit… Well, overall, Katie gets it - the whole point of the tutorial section is to paint the illusion of peaceful normalcy and introduce the player to the base mechanics and the NPC shops before the plot can kick off and burn the whole idyllic place to the ground for shock value. The first time Katie went through it, it was pretty epic, overall.

But giving the players the chance to shop before the fight was kind of dumb.

Because, while the game didn't get that popular, it had some players, and just about everyone who did play it went about the tutorial the same way. They gambled for cash and kitted themselves out as best they could as soon as they could… and in so doing, turned the whole Rift thing into a bit of a joke by actually standing up against the invasion, something they plot-wise weren't supposed to be able to do. And most of them didn't even realise it, breaking the game completely by accident.

And when you went about it perfectly intentionally, well… the Rift stopped being a threat at all and became the perfect spawn kill camp.

That was what Van had been planning to do - until reality nerfed Katie's money-making tricks.

"System, open inventory," Van calls.

[Inventory] [Simple Knife, lvl. 1] [Shepherd's Slingshot, lvl. 1] [14 x Basic Stone Ammunition ] [3 x Spearhead] [1 x Apple] [Empty Jug] [Dirty Rag]

Yeah, not exactly winning starter gear, especially considering that he still doesn't have a single shred of proper armour. He hasn't been this poorly prepared for the Rift since the very first playthrough - and even then he at least had some armour and a sword! Reality is really kicking his ass this time.

He can't figure out if it's frustrating or exciting. Probably the first one.

"Guess I'm making some spears," Van muses and then sits up with a grunt. Finger-combing the hay out of his hair, Van eyes the dirty rag and then winces. He would need to get rid of it, and maybe he could wash up somewhere before getting started. Unfortunately, he doesn't think there's a washroom or anything around here…

[Farm Chores, Lvl. 1.] [It's a new day on Gylcross farm, and it's time to get to work!]

[Farm Chores 1, Lvl. 1.] [Let the chickens out.] [Let the goats out.] [Let the cows out.] [Let Bell out.] [Quest reward:  10 exp, 3 Apples.] [Farm Chores 2, Lvl. 1.] [Muck the pens and stalls.] [Quest reward:  10 exp, 5 Fresh Eggs.] [Farm Chores 3, Lvl. 1.] [Take a look at the garden and weed Ms. Janelle's vegetable beds.] [Quest reward:  10 exp, 4 x Mixed Herbs] [Farm Chores 4, Lvl. 1.] [Milk the goats and the cows.] [Quest reward:  2 exp, 1 Bottle of Milk.] [Accept?] [Yes.] [No.]

Van winces a little at the sudden bombardment of pop-ups. Looks like he has some work to do. How much it all will matter when this time tomorrow the farm will be in ruins aside… exp is exp. And if he could squeeze in another level up before the Rift, it definitely wouldn't hurt.

Standing up - and bending over to duck below the ceiling beams - Van shuffles to the ladder to start the day with a quick rinse in a bucket of cold water.

By the time he heads out of the barn, Janelle has breakfast ready and set in front of the farmhouse. "Good morning, Van!" she calls, waving. "Come have some eggs and pancakes!"

Josel is already there and already stuffing his face with eggs. "Good morning," Van greets them both and then asks, interestedly, "Pancakes?"

"Yeah - Daddy bought flour and sugar yesterday!" Janelle says excitedly. "We've got some honey too - come here and try it."

Van does, sitting down beside Josel, accepting his share with a, "Thank you, miss." It looks great, and it smells even better.

"It's Janelle," the farmer's daughter says firmly and sits down across from him.

The breakfast is great, as are the pancakes. Mr. Gylcross doesn't make an appearance, but no one comments on it, and so Van doesn't either - maybe the man sleeps in when it's not a market day, or something. After they're done eating, Josel helps Janelle clear out the table, while Van considers his quests.

"Are you going to let the animals out?" Janelle asks, wiping her hands in her apron. "I'll come with you - I'll collect the eggs while I'm at it."

"Sure," Van agrees and offers Josel an apologetic nod before following Janelle towards the chicken coops.

It's a perfectly pleasant day, with only a few fluffy clouds in the sky and just the barest hint of a breeze in the air. The sort of day when nothing bad is supposed to happen, of course. Perfectly normal day.

"Daddy says you visited the tailor yesterday," Janelle comments. "That you ordered some kind of armour."

Van blinks and looks at her. "Uh, I didn't realise he knew about that," he says. The man hadn't mentioned it. How did he find out, anyway? "I did, yeah."

"Why?"

Well, there's going to be a battle in Westbrook the day after tomorrow, and then the place is going to be set on fire, and Valthor's most annoying minion is going to make a grand appearance. Van is really hoping to curbstomp that guy's smug little face to the ground, and armour would make that much, much easier. "Well," he says, because clearly he can't say any of that. "I don't know. Just felt like it, I guess?"

Janelle looks at him carefully, and asks, "Have you… remembered something?" she asks. "About your past?"

Van hesitates, because in the game the player character never remembers time before the farm - but he does learn about it from others. "No, not really," he says finally. "I just… have a feeling I'm going to need something. Actually," he adds and takes a spearhead out of the satchel. "I also got a few of these."

Janelle accepts the dull spearhead, tilting her head with confusion. "Is that a weapon?"

"Head of a spear - I'm going to find some pole to stick it on," Van says and shrugs. "And then I'll have a spear."

Janelle shakes her head, looking a little upset. "But what do you need a spear for?" she asks.

Van shrugs again. "I don't know. It just feels like something I should have."

Janelle hums unhappily, turning the spearhead in her hand. "So, I was right," she murmurs and looks at him sadly. "You are a soldier."

In the game you learn the main character's background in flashbacks and  hints from the designated Mentor character at Ulgor's Camp, but it's a pretty cliché dealio overall. The player character has amnesia - of course - and was left at the Gylcross farm by a Mysterious Hooded Person - of course - while the Mysterious Hooded Person ran away all suspicious-like. Janelle Gylcross eventually found the player character hiding in the barn hayloft, all confused and out of it and bleeding from the head. Through some interrogation and arguing with her father, Janelle got him settled in as a new farm hand.

It's all shown to the player in this grainy sepia cut scene, a collage of moments as the player character learns how to swing a hoe and milk the cows and stuff. It's pretty wholesome. And the fact that it's shown to you only after the farm has been burned down and everyone there was killed, well… Katie has some issues with the arrangement of narrative there, but it was kind of a punch to the gut, the first time she played the game.

Also absolutely hilarious, watching this brick shithouse of a man do these cute farm chores, like carrying baby lambs around, delicately harvesting berries from the bushes and weeding garden beds.

"I'm not a soldier," Van says and accepts the spearhead back. "I just feel like it'll be better to be prepared than not."

"Right," Janelle says and hugs herself, looking uncomfortable. "Are you going to leave the farm? I know Daddy only contracted you until the harvest, but… I thought you liked it here."

"Well… it is nice," Van says. And it really is. He looks at the farmstead around them and hums thoughtfully. It's very peaceful and idyllic and wholesome. In the game it's often implied how much the player character wishes he could've stayed there, wishes none of the terrible things that followed wouldn't have happened, and the world could've stayed as it was.

More than another day of it and Katie would be climbing the walls, bored out of his mind.

"I guess we'll see," Van says and smiles at Janelle. "You never know what will happen."

-

[<<Prologue | <Chapter 4 || Chapter 6>>] Proofread by @nimadge, many thanks

-

I call this the Tool Inspection Chapter. And I hope it made at least one person laugh as much as it made me to write it.

[mintedwitcher]

Im being so entirely deadset serious when I say this: do yall really think monoshipping is the Only Way? Have you not experienced the sheer joy of taking your blorbo and putting them with literally anyone, like a kid mashing their barbie dolls together? Hello? I'm calling into the void here can anyone hear me?