#this is my first time in a while writing a charismatic character so I’m like >:3

[hawnks]

new boy toy on the brain…………..

[eand47]

Chapter II | Compass

Summary: You moved to one of the biggest cities in the world - Grand Line to pursue filmmaking career. Soon enough your path will cross with the vocalist of upcoming band called “The Neighbourhood”. At first you decided to be just friends - because it would be easier, but sadly as everything in life sometimes by taking the easy path we regret a lot of things.

Main characters: Portgas D Ace x Reader (female)

Supporting characters: Nami, Usopp, Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, Law, Deuce, Shanks, Buggy, Sabo, Eustass Kid, Koala (more to be add)

Description: Modern AU | Musician Ace

WARNINGS: sexual harassment, mention of alcohol and drinking, explicit language, self doubt

Word Count: 10.1K

<- previous chapter

NOTE: I really hope you guys like this chapter as I was surprised by myself and the fact that I was able to write 16 pages of material for it. I promise you soon there will be a lot of Ace x Reader moments, as of right now I want to establish a steady tempo of how things will go between them for the future, and also introduce you a little bit of the Reader’s already established relationships with certain characters. I recommend you listening to the song “Compass” by The Neighbourhood (the real ones hehe) when you get to the moment where they will sing it. Please feel free to leave a feed back as it’s important to me. I re-read it like six times now, and I hope that I have fixed all the spelling and grammatical mistakes, but again English is not my first language so I’m sorry if some things are unclear, let me know so I can fix it. Also if you haven’t seen “Fantastic Mr. Fox” I recommend the movie as bot only you will understand the references better, but because it’s an amazing movie. Enjoy <3333

PS: this is what the gesture from the movie looks like for those of you who haven’t seen it, as I’m afraid that I might not describe it good enough.

I’ve reached the street where “The Red Pirates” was located. I was taken aback for a moment when I saw how big of a queue was in front of the entrance. The bar was not very big, but it was quite spacious, and the vibe overall was a mix of underground place with a hint of an old rock and roll bar. One thing Shanks knew how to do best was making the most out of things. His cheerful and charismatic persona knew how to lure people around him, so it was no surprise to anyone when he made this place quite popular in this aera of the Grand Line city. At the end of every month, he invites well-known local bands to perform and usually it gets sold out, but I have never seen such a queue in front of it like the one tonight.

As I got closer, I noticed most of the people in the queue were around my age. The place was more known among people around their middle age, but I guessed from what Nami and Usopp told me I shouldn’t be surprised that there were so many young people here tonight. By the entrance were standing Beckman and Lucky Roux – a big smile appeared on my face when I saw them.

“Beckman, Lucky!” I shouted as I ran and hug them.

“Here is the real star of the night” Lucky lifted me off the ground as he squeezed me in a tight hug.

“Shanks is putting you to work tonight, huh?” Beckman patted me on the shoulder as he laughed at the face I made when he mentioned it.

“Please don’t mention it!” I whined. “On top of it my friends are going to be here, as apparently one of their friends is a brother of two of the guys in the band, so they all be having fun while I just watch behind the bar.”

“Oh, cheer up, beautiful.” Lucky chuckled at me. “At least we are here – if someone gives you trouble at the bar just let us know.” He cracked his knuckles with a grin on his face.

“(Y/N)” I heard someone shouting out my name behind me. Beckman, Lucky and I turned our heads to see who it was.

“Nami, Usopp” I called them as I gestured them to come. “I thought you are already in.”

“Well, someone here took too much time to get ready.” Usopp nodded his head at Nami, and she rolled her eyes at him. She was dressed stylish as per usual – with a dotted colourful bodysuit imitating bathing suit, a long denim skirt with some sparkling belts on top. Her long ginger hair let down nicely. Usopp was wearing a knitted light grey coloured sleeveless top – showing off his biceps, with some dark greyish baggy jeans. Two silver necklaces – one thicker than the other on his neck, his head was cover in one of his many durags that he owned – his look slaying as well.

“Anyway.” She looked at me. “Can you get us in, as we don’t want to wait on the queue, plus Luffy and the rest are waiting for us.” She grabbed my hand, squeezing it in hers.

“Yeah, of course.” I turned back to Beckman and Lucky. “Please, please, please these are my friends I told you about, please, please, let them skip the queue.” I childishly begged them, as Beckman shook his head at me with a smile and Lucky chuckled.

“We don’t need this whole performance to just let them in, you know?” Beckman said as he removed the rope that was stopping people to go in, letting Nami, Usopp. Some people in the queue complained how this wasn’t fare, but no one really paid attention to them.

“I know, but I have to be dramatic.” I stuck my tongue at them, we were about to go in when both Beckman and Lucky stopped Usopp and held him on the spot. Nami and I looked at each other confused of why they would stop him.

“You fella look oddly familiar.” Lucky said, as he eyed Usopp from the head to toes. “Any chance being related to Yassop?”

“Y-yes...” Usopp stuttered as he heard his dad’s name being mentioned. Even as absent father he has always found a way to cause his son problems.

“How so?” Beckman asked, intimidating Usopp even more.

“H-he is my f-father.” Usopp was ready to take whatever punches Beckman and Lucky were going to throw at him, as it won’t be the first time this would happen.

“Ha, I’ve heard his son is like a copy of him, but damn Yassop was working overtime when he was making you.” Lucky snorted out loudly as they let go of Usopp and patted him on the back. “Say ‘hello’ to your dad from us.”

“S-sure I will.” Usopp muttered as he glanced at them when they let him pass, the look of irritation visible on his face.

“Are you, okay Usopp?” I knew his relationship with his dad was very complicated and he hated to be reminded how much he looked like him. I knew that Beckman and Lucky didn’t mean to offend him, but they hit a nerve. I glanced back at them as they were back to stopping and letting people in.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Maybe I will be better if I don’t look so much like my dad.” He shook his head trying to forget what just happened. “Let’s go find Luffy, plus I really need a drink right now.” He said as he started to walk ahead of us. Nami and I just looked at each other without saying anything, knowing that he would need a minute to cool down.

“You haven’t forgotten about the free drinks, right?” Nami nudged me.

“Even if I did, I was sure you were going to remind me.” I nudged her back. “Anyway, I need to go and change – see you in a bit. Just find me somewhere by the bar and only order to me so you don’t have to pay.” We hugged each other and then I headed to the back of the bar where the staff entrance was. I was struggling to reach it, as there were so many people inside. I couldn’t remember to have seen this place so full before and knowing how many more people were waiting outside was stressing me out already. I reached the staff door, and as I was about to open it, when someone literally kicked it in my face and if I didn’t react fast, I was probably going to end up with a broken nose. I looked at the person in disbelief.

“You can say sorry at least, asshole.” I got even more pissed when I saw who it was.

“Watch where you stand spoiled brat.” He replied with the same annoyance.

Perfect, not only it was going to be a long and a busy night, but on top of it I must work with the biggest jerk I have ever met - Eustass Kid. Till this day I couldn’t get why Shanks kept him around, when they didn’t even get along; yet every time I’ve asked Shanks why, his reply was the same ‘He is the best bartender I have.’

I was going down the stairs towards where the ‘changing’ room was – if I could even call it that. It was the space downstairs where they store everything – from the drinks to the staff lockers. I started to take off my hoodie as I was still pissed from my encounter with Kid. I didn’t even pay attention that there were three guys sitting on the sofas, where the lockers were, until one of them didn’t clear his throat. I slowly turned around, the shocked look on my face from the embarrassment clearly visible on my face. They were trying their best not to look at me while I was standing in front of them with my bra on.

“I guess no one told you that we will be down here.” The blond guy that cleared his throat said awkwardly as he was trying to avoid looking at me. The other two – a black short-haired guy who was wearing a simple black tank top and a silver neckless, with tattoos covering his entire body and dark jeans; and the other one on his left side – with the light blue coloured hair, who was wearing glasses with a thick black frames dressed, in a dark blue t-shirt with some dark blue oversized jeans, were both looking away.

“Yeah, this little detail was clearly missed.” I covered my front with my hoodie. “D-do you mind turning around so I can quickly put m-my work shirt on?” I was trying not to die from embarrassment, avoiding looking at them.

“Of course, don’t worry we won’t be looking.” The blonde quickly said, as they all just turned their heads to the side not looking my way. I quickly changed and excused myself as I ran upstairs embarrassed of what has just happened.

*******

They all looked at each other and laughed.

“Poor girl I actually feel bad for her.” Deuce said.

“Yeah, I bet she wasn’t expecting to see anyone here.” Law agreed with him. They all laughed again as Ace came back from upstairs, caring with himself some bottles of cold water.

“Did I miss something?” He looked at the guys confused.

“Yeah, they got us a stripper, but she ran off after she saw Law’s ugly face.” Sabo burst out laughing as Law pushed him from the edge of the sofa.

“The only ugly face here is yours, you morron.” Law and Sabo started to wrestle and mess around, and Ace looked even more confused, as he threw a bottle of water to Deuce to caught.

“Are they for real? They really got us a stripper?” Ace sat next to Deuce as he opened his bottle to drink some water, watching his brother messing with Law. Deuce only shook his head and chuckled.

“One of the girls working here came, and she didn’t notice us as she was clearly pissed about something, she started to change in front of us without realising and when she realised it became quite award for everyone.” Deuce quickly explained to him.

“Was she hot?” Ace playfully raised his eyebrow.

“Your type for sure.” Sabo said as he sat back on the sofa looking at his brother with a smirk. “If you haven’t smashed recently ...” Sabo didn’t get to finish his sentence as Law slapped him with behind the neck. “Ouch what was this for?” he winced looking at Law.

“Have some manners man.” Law scolded him.

“Come on, it was just a joke.” Sabo tried to defend himself. Ace and Deuce were just observing them not saying anything, as this was Law and Sabo’s usual dynamic.

“Don’t worry bro, if I want to smash, I don’t need a wingman” Ace chuckled at Sabo.

“You sure? You are quite grumpy lately; I can always ask Koala to hock you up with one of her girlfriends.” Sabo continued to tease Ace, as Ace just rolled his eyes at him.

“Again, I don’t need you or your girlfriend as a wingman.”

“Law what about you? You are even grumpier than Ace.” Sabo turned to Law with a teasing grin, as Law glared at him without saying anything.

“What’s with you and playing a wingman tonight?” Deuce asked Sabo, as Sabo was clearly in the mood to annoy his bandmates.

“I just care about your well beings’ guys. You know if I can help for your happiness I would gladly do it.” He tried to play innocent, but the guys knew him too way, he just wanted to mess with them.

“Where is Koala, by the way? Is she not coming tonight?” Ace asked his brother, his girlfriend Koala never missed their performances and usually hung up with them before they start playing.

“Ohh she is coming a little bit later tonight as one of her girlfriends has a birthday today, and they are out celebrating.” Sabo and Koala have been together for five years now. They had met in high school, and from the start Koala had massive crush on Sabo, which later grew to having stronger feelings for him. Koala tried to keep all these feelings bottled up, until the night when Ace had thrown a ‘goodbye’ party for his brother, who was going away to college. She drank so much alcohol that night to gain courage to confess to him, only to end up in the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet while Sabo was there by her side running gentle circles on her back, as all the alcohol was coming back. While he was in there with her, making sure that she will be alright, she looked at him in the eyes and ‘I love you’ slipped from her lips before her mind could even procced it. Sabo didn’t have much time to react as she threw up again. The next morning Koala just woke up in Sabo’s room, not really remembering anything, but from that night on their relationship started as Sabo decided to not go to college in another city but stay in Grand Line so he can be close to Koala. And till this day Sabo haven’t regrated the decision he took – not only he was with the girl that he has been in love with since they met, but he also got the chance to do music, something he has always loved, with his brother and friends by his side.

“Oh, that is why you are playing a wingman.” Deuce chuckled at Sabo. “I’m also single, why don’t you play my wingman?” Deuce clenched his fist up to his heart pretending to be hurt by Sabo’s decision to ask only Ace and Law. Ace snorted at Deuce and his little “act”.

“Sorry man, but you don’t match the birthday girl’s type.” Sabo put his arms in the air as he was helpless to help his friend.

“What’s her type then?” Ace mocked his brother and his pathetic attempts to play Cupidon.

“Guys, don’t mock the messenger.” Sabo tried to defend himself. “Koala told me loud and clearly – ask Ace, if Ace plays hard, ask Law.” He mimicked his girlfriend voice and gestures. “I guess her friend type is grumpy dark-haired dudes.” He mocked his brother and Law.

“Well Ace, you were the first choice not me - so good luck with the ‘birthday’ girl.” Law winked at Ace, his eyes full of mockery.

“Shut up man, last thing I want to do is going on a double date with Sabo.” Hearing this Sabo threw his empty bottle as Ace’s head, but he dodged before it hit him.

“Again, I’m up for it – if you show me at least how she looks like.” Deuce made Sabo pull out his phone to show him the girl.

“Deuce you can’t be that desperate.” Turning his head in disbelieve Law exclaimed at him.

“I’m not, but also it’s been a while, so I don’t mind being the third option of the night.” Sabo handed his phone to Deuce as he had opened the girl’s Instagram. Both Ace and Law looked over Deuce’s shoulders, taking look at the girl.

“Not bad, but I’ve had seen better.” Ace commented, not really impressed by the looks of the girl.

“Nah man she is cute.” Deuce protested and Law agreed with him.

“But same as Ace I don’t want to be stuck on a double date with you.” Law nagged at Sabo. Ace shook his head, as these two started to mess with each other again. He sat back on the sofa and pulled his phone out from the back pocket of his pants. Scrolling through social media, he checked the band’s Instagram profile, something he hasn’t done in a while, as he wasn’t a big social media user, noticing that they got some new followers, but one piqued his interest.

“@idkthisfoxy “ He murmured to himself. The profile was private and there was no bio, but he clicked on the profile picture making it bigger. On the picture was this girl with a sock covering her face and only her eyes were visible, the same way the animated fox Ash from Fantastic Mr. Fox was portraited at the end of the movie. He snorted out with a smirk. “Could you be...?” He thought to himself.

“What’s with this smug smirk on your face?” Sabo interrupted his thoughts, looking at his brother with a raised eyebrow.

“Nothing” Ace brushed him off, getting up from the sofa, and putting his phone back in his back pocket. “Okay guys, I think it’s time to go upstairs and get ready to play.” He clapped his hands, making the guys stand up, agreeing with him.

“Let’s go break some hearts gentlemen.” Sabo loudly exclaimed, clapping his hands in the air, as the guys were going upstairs.

*******

I left the ‘changing’ room that was used for everything – from changing your clothes to storage all the alcohol and beverages Shanks has to offer, with a quick run up the stairs. Last thing I expected was someone to be there, let alone three men standing on the sofa there, which was something new Shanks have had add as last time I worked here, there was no sofa downstair. And speaking of the devil he was right in front of me.

“Shanks!” I shouted out, catching his attention as he was busy flirting with some woman. He turned at me with a big smile.

“There is my beloved niece.” He pulled me in a suffocating hug. I tried to fight him, but he only tightened his embrace. “Why is my Foxy mad? Did someone step on your tail?” He started to poke me on my sides only fuelling my annoyance with him.

“I’m telling you – run while you can. This man is insufferable.” I told the woman who he was hitting on, as she was looking at us while we were messing with each other.

“Oh Foxy, I can’t wait for the day you gonna bring a man over, the number of comebacks I have collected for you is unlimited at this point.” He ruffled my hair, as he turned to his fling for the night, telling her to give him a second, as he nodded at me to follow him.

“Are they unlimited, or you just can’t count after ten?” I tease him with mockery in my voice as he only shot me a glance.

“Someone doesn’t want to get paid double tonight, I see.” He nagged me with a smug smile.

“Dare.” I challenged him, and he laugh at me.

“Okay now seriously.” He stopped in front of the computer making me clock in. “You and Kid will be working together at the bar. No need to check ID’s as tonight everyone must be 20+ to enter, so if they are inside that means they are legal to drink. If it gets to much I might jump in and help, but I have three runners tonight so it should be all good. And most importantly if someone is bothering you let me know immediately, okay?” I mentally prepared for the long shift, off all the people I could of work with tonight, I would have to work with Kid. Shanks patted me on the shoulder and went back to his fling of the night. I huffed and turned around to look at the bar. The queue was already quite big, and Kid needed help at this point.

I got behind the bar, and Kid glared at me with annoyance. He was wearing one of the work t-shirts with the “Red Pirates” logo on it, his muscular body defined by it. His whole left hand was covered in a tattoo sleave – a realistic robotic hand, something coming out straight from the Cyberpunk universe. The tattoo itself was amazing, the person having the tattoo – was not so much.

“Move Kid, I will work on the bar station closer to the stage.” He rolled his eyes at me but still moved so I can go to the right side of the bar. “You can come and order here as well.” I shouted and people started to come my way. Nami soon came to me with a big grin.

“Hey there, I heard there is this cute bartender working here, so I made sure to come and check if the rumours are true.” She teased me.

“Stop it, I might get all flushed.” I waved mt hands in front of my face as we both laughed. “What do you want to drink?”

“A strong vodka and orange juice – less juice more vodka.” I started to make her drink, as I filled the glass with a lot of ice, as I knew that she loved her drinks very cold.

“Where are the rest of the group?” I asked her as I didn’t expect to see her alone.

“They are standing by one of the round bar tables close to the stage.”

“Less vodka – more juice, as requested.” I joked with her, handing her the drink.

“Ha-ha.” She mocked me as she took a sip of her drink. “Oh yeah that is strong.” Her eyes widen as she tased the drink. “Damn you really made sure there is no alcohol in it.” She sarcastically said, taking another sip. “By the way my friend Luffy knows your uncle Shanks.” Nami took a sit on the last tall chair left at the bar.

“What are you for real? How?” I was taking other customers orders as we were talking.

“I don’t know, you have to ask him.” She shrugged, taking another sip. “Oh God, please put some more juice in this thing, it is too much even for me.” I burst out laughing as she handed me back her glass to pour more juice in it.

“Nami, who is this beautiful lady, and why I haven’t been introduced to her?” A tall blonde guy wrapped his arms arounds Nami’s shoulders. She rolled her eyes and huffed.

“(Y/N) – Sanji, Sanji – (Y/N). Don’t mind his flirting – everything that has two legs and boobs is beautiful in his eyes.” She pushed his hands off from her.

“Nami that hurt, I only flirt with beautiful women, no matter the size of their breast.” He advocated for himself. “Nice to meet you (Y/N), I have been hearing a lot about you from Nami and Usopp.” He flashed me with a seductive smile. “Only good things of course.”

“Nice to hear this.” I smiled at him. “Would you like something to drink?”

“I would love to but sadly, I’m the one driving everyone home tonight, so I will have to deny your offer.” He chuckled sadly. I took a quick look at him and his outfit suited his smooth persona; he was wearing off-white shirt, two buttons unbuttoned around his chest, with a dark grey chinos style pants and belt. His wavy blonde hair was let down nicely as half of it was covering his right side of the face. I was told by Nami, that Sanji was handsome and super stylish, and now I understand what she meant by it.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Sanji.” I did feel bad for him, knowing how Nami and Usopp behaved when they are drunk, I couldn’t imagine what dealing with their whole friend group would feel like.

“I’m sorry that you must be behind the bar.” He was smooth, but this was not working on me.

“Hey, enough with the chitchats, those asses playing tonight are starting soon, so focus!” Kid came next to me and hissed in my ear angrily as I was talking to Nami and Sanji.

“You are right, sorry.” I apologised to him, knowing that I really got distracted by Nami and Sanji. “Sorry guys but I have to focus on work now, but if I manage, I will sneak to your table.” They both understood and wish me good luck, as they went back to their table.

“Of course, on the busiest night I have to put up with you.” Kid continued to whine. I just rolled my eyes at his whining. His bright spiky red hair matching his personality perfectly. “Hand me two more bottles of rom.” He spat at me.

“Kid are you ever in a good mood?” I asked him, handing the bottles.

“Yeah, when I get my dick sucked.” He smirked at me.

“Oh, you are disgusting.” I was left in shock from his answer.

“You asked, you got you answer.” He had pleasant look on his face knowing well that his comment irritated me. “Don’t worry, brat. You will never get this lucky.” His cocky smirk not leaving his face.

Before I moved to Grand Line, the last two summer since I was working for Shanks, while staying with him in his apartment, as my dad usually toured during the summertime. The first summer I worked here, Kid had already been working for a while. He hasn’t changed much since then. That first summer for a little bit – I did in fact, had a little crush on him. It was something in his edgy persona and style that made my nineteen old self attracted to him. But with time this attitude became more unattractive than attractive, and my little crush turned into pure disgust.

Of course, he had his good moments as well. One night two months ago, just before I stared university, it was just him and I working on a Tuesday night. It was a very slow night, so Shanks left early and left us to close the place. As we were going for last orders, Kid was behind the bar cleaning it, while I was picking glasses from empty tables, as we still had some customers left. On one of the tables where three guys, around the age of forty-something, were sitting I tried to reach for the empty glasses, smiling politely at them. I felt a hand on the back of my thigh going up to my butt and squeezing it hard. I jumped back in shock and dropped all the glasses I had in my hand. The broken glasses shattered on the floor. The men burst out laughing at my frozen expression, but their laugher was quickly cut, as the guy who touched me got his head smashed on the table hard. The bang of the impacted of his head hitting the table echoed through the whole place. Kid had seen everything that had happened, and he was seeing red. He dared the guy and his friends to think about doing it again. They all locked at him with fear in their eyes. The man’s face, who harassed me, was all covered in blood, one of his teeth has fallen and probably his nose was broken. I was just standing there still frozen from shock. Kid kicked them out, the rest of the customers, as well. He came close to me, trying to shake me out of the shock. I still remember the way he gently placed his hand on my face, cupping my cheek, his fingers feeling rough on my skin. He tried to keep his tone calm as he called my name. It took me some seconds to come back to reality. Kid was standing very close to me, in a way that we have never been this close physically. He looked into my eyes, and I could see how mad he was but at the same time there was this hint of worry in them. We stayed like this for a moment until he took a step back and removed his hand from my face. He cleared his throat and told me that he has already called Shanks, and he will be here soon. I just nodded at him as I was still speechless. He told me to go and change my clothes.

When I came back Shanks was already here, and he was like a fuming bull, swearing that he would find these men and make them pay. When Shanks saw me, he came to me and hug me tight, I started to cry in his embrace, as he gently patted my head. He then proceeded to tell Kid to walk me to Shanks’ place, as he was not letting me stay alone tonight, and that he would be dealing with the police and the bar on his own. I was about to say that this was not needed but none of them let me have the word. Kid and I were walking toward Shanks’ apartment, but didn’t speak at all. I broke the silence, thanking him for what he did, and that he shouldn’t have done it as might of now he could be in trouble. He shushed me quick, saying that he didn’t want to hear any thanks or apologies from me, and that he did whatever everyone else in his place would do. We reached Shanks’ place shortly after. I pulled my keys out to open the door, but Kid stopped me as he came close to me again, as when we were in the bar. I gave him a questioning look. He was looking at me like he wanted to say something, his scared eye twitching a little. We stayed like this for a moment then he shook his head, more to himself than me, and told me to take care of myself, as he quickly left. The next time we worked together he was back to his arrogant self, so I guess it was something from the adrenaline rush that he got that night that made him act, so strange. But we never really spoke about what happened; neither had Shanks told me what happened after with the police and ect., both of them act like this never happened and every time I’ve tried to speak about it with Shanks, he cut me off almost immediately.

“What you got all dreamy about sucking me off?” Kid smirked with me as I got zoomed out.

“Yeah, you wish.” I snorted. He glanced at me but didn’t say anything.

******

The place was full. I looked at my phone and it was a little after 10PM so the band should come out and start playing any moment now. The image of the three guys seeing me earlier in my bra came up in my mind and a chill of embarrassment ran down on my spine. Someone got on podium, but it wasn’t who the crowd was waiting for.

“Hello there beautiful people.” Shanks announced on the microphone. “When my precious, like a son, friend came to me two weeks ago and told me, that I should give this month gig to his brothers’ band I was very critical at first. Then he played me some of their songs and I was impressed. I was even more impressed that the thickets sold out in one day. One day – can you imagine.” The crowd cheered loudly – some screamed the band’s name, some whistled, and others applauded. “So a big shout out to my friend Luffy.” A loud screaming and cheering that I could recognise from miles away echoed around, but from where I stand, I couldn’t see my friends. “I’m not going to keep you guys waiting anymore – big and loud applause for ‘The Neighbourhood’.”

I stopped what I was doing to watch them coming up the stage. The first one to step on stage was the guy with the light blue hair and the thick black framed glasses, he went and took his position next to the bass guitar and picked it up. I hear some girls yelling his name ‘Deuce’ loudly. Next was the blacked haired, covered in tattoos guy, he took the guitar that was on the right side of the stage. A girl standing next to the bar screamed to her friend something along the lines ‘get me pregnant Law’ and I looked at her shocked. Then the blond guy came up on stage and started to raise his hands up in the air making everyone going louder and louder. Before he sat behind the drums, he sent a kiss to someone in the crowd and a big grin appeared on his face. My heart was beating fast in my chest as I was expecting the last guy to come up on the podium. There was this small voice in my head telling me that it will be him – the guy from the coffee shop today. But then this wasn’t some Disney movie, so probably them having the same name was just a pure coincidence. The three guys started to play some chords, and their vocalist join. I recognised him immediately. There he was – no beanie on, his raven black hair messy and freely falling around his face. I didn’t notice back in the coffee shop, but he was quite tall. It was something in his aura that made him stand out from the others. Now dressed in a loose fit black pants and leather belt, with his silk black shirt tucked in them, sleeves up till his elbows, buttons unbutton revealing his muscular chest – he was breathtaking to look at. The red beam neckless around his neck adding a nice touch to his outfit. The other three guys stared humming the back vocals.

Ooh, I know once you come to California

You won't ever look back

Ooh, just a little bit can make you wonder

You got it in

Ace took his guitar on with a smug look on his face. I was watching him carefully from the bar, far away yet not that far, as I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Then he stared to sing.

Hands up, it's a stick up

Nobody's leaving this room for a minute

He sounded even better live, than in their records. I was mesmerised by his voice. It was so melodic, yet a little rough only adding to his appearance. I was just enjoying their performance as they were super good – all four of them.

“I swear to God you are gonna make a puddle her.” I heard yelling in my ear as I turned around and saw Kid standing behind me. “Stop staring – start working, damn it.” I quickly came back from the trance that Ace put me in and got back to work. They were on their fourth song when I saw Usopp on the queue for the drinks.

“Usopp!” I shout out his name, hoping that he would hear me, over all the noise. He did look in my direction without realising at first. He looked again and saw me clearly this time and he made his way to the side where I was working.

“They are good, right?” Was the first thing he asked me when we got close enough so I could hear him. I eagerly nodded my head.

“Are you kidding me. They are amazing.” They were already on their fourth song and so far, everything was great from what they’ve played.

“You shall meet them; they are all great guys. If you have time when they are done performing come by our table and we can introduce you to them.”

“Yeah about that... I kinda already met them...” Three out of four already has seen me embarrassing myself, and I thank to whatever power was out there – God, universe – whatever, that Ace wasn’t in the ‘basement’ when I waked on the guys half-naked.

“What do you mean?” Usopp got confused look on his face by what I’ve just told him.

“Story for another time.” I brushed it off quickly. “What do you want to drink?”

“Rum and coke, please. Make it four.” I started to make the drinks as I was taking quick glances at the stage. They knew how to entertain the crowd. Their stage confidence was noticeable. “Will you be able to carry all four at once?” I asked Usopp handing him the drinks. He confidently nodded.

“The moment you are out of the bar, come to us.” He shouted behind his back as he was leaving with the drinks, too focused not to drop them or someone to push him.

******

The band finished with the fourth song and the blonde guy took over the microphone:

“A very big thank you to everyone coming here tonight.” He was a little out of breath, as I can only imagine what was it like playing the drums for half an hour without stopping for even a second. My eyes moved to Ace who was taking a sip of his water. He turned his head at my direction and our eyes met. Ace raised his eyebrows in disbelief and squeezed his eyes to make sure that he saw right – that he really saw the girl from the coffee shop. I panicked and squatted down to the ground hiding behind the bar. “Big shout out to Shanks for letting us play here tonight – please a round of applauses him.” He raised his hands to applaud Shanks, and the crowd followed. “Big shout out to all off you who came to support us here tonight, I see some faces in the crowd who were there for us from day one till today.” Another round of applauses followed. “And- and the biggest applause and thank you goes to my amazing girl – Koala.” He paused taking a breath in and out. “Koala, baby I love you. This new song that I wrote is for you, and you only. Sadly, I wasn’t blessed with the voice that my brother has, but I will be in the back pouring my heart out on the drums, enjoy everyone.” Everyone started to cheer and applause.

I got back on my feet again as I heart the last thing the blonde guy said. Ace just patted him on the shoulder and laughed as he took over the microphone again. He looked around as he was still laughing.

“I’ve had always imagined that the first time I would have to sing a song dedicated to a girl, will be for a girl I’m in love with, you know?” He joked with the audience. “I still haven’t met the one, but my brother did. I’m telling you the first time I sang his songs to his girl – it was awkward.” Everyone laughed, so did I but something more interesting caught my attention from what he said. “I told to myself you know, with time it will get easier, less awkward.” He made a dramatic pause. “I swear to God this never get easier. Bro just learn how to sing.” He turned to his brother in dramatic disbelief, as Sabo only shout at him to start singing. “And you see what I get as a ‘thank you’.” The crowd laughed again. “Anyway – the song is called ‘Compass’, hope you guys like it as much as our other songs. It’s coming out next week so stay tuned.” He announced before they start playing, looking again at the bar but I quickly turned my head around.

“Go pick around some glasses. You are not helping behind the bar anyway.” Kid told me, pissed at my behaviour tonight.

“Now?” I asked surprised. He just glared at me with a killer look, I huffed and got out of the bar.

They started to play, and Ace voiced filled all my sentence. I stopped to listen to the song as I was closer to the podium now.

‘If I don't have you with me, I'm alone You know I never know which way to go I think I need you with me for all-time When I need new direction for my mind’

The song sounded so sweet. I didn’t realise that Ace was looking at my direction as I was focused on listening to the lyric.

‘I know that you're not something to lose, now’

Then the way he sang the last line of the first verse swept me off on my feet, as I closed my eyes loving the way how smooth his voice was. Then the chorus stared, and they were so catchy.

‘I've got something to confess I keep you in my pocket to use You're my only compass I might get lost without you’

As he sang the second verse, hearing minutes ago his brother proudly announcing how much he loves his girlfriend, the lyrics were having such a deep love held behind them.

‘Could you tell me where to go? You're always there to help me when I'm down I'm lucky you've been keeping me around You're the star I look for every night When it's dark, you'll stick right by my side’

It was hard to explain, but it was like something magical was happening around me and inside of me right now. I felt like I’m lost in the moment. Ace started to sing the bridge of the song, and I opened my eyes. The most cliche thing in every possible way - for every movie, book, play or song happened - our gazes met. The time felt like it stopped for a second.

‘Like a magnet Hard to imagine ever changing Anything changing my way Baby, like a magnet Can't help that I'm attracted to you, I am Could you keep on guiding me? Please’

He smiled at me as he didn’t move his gaze from mine. When he sang: ‘Can't help that I'm attracted to you, I am’ - he hold his hands up to his head and shock them, a big smile sprad across his face, as I did the same thing back at him. I was in disbelief that he recognised me, yet alone did the whole ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ thingy. The last part of the bridge felt very personal: Could you keep on guiding me? Please’ I couldn’t hide away the grin on my face, as I just gestured with my hands a ‘maybe’, as he was looking at me with a playful questioning expression. Ace chuckled and winked at me. When he moved his gaze away from me, I quickly moved around trying to disappear in the crowd as my face as flaming hot.

The song finished the guys were met with loud and well-deserved applauses.

“You really are kind of a quote-unquote Fantastic Fox.” Ace chuckled on the microphone. I knew this was meant for me, even though he couldn’t see me, he made sure I could hear him. Trying to distract myself right now was quite a challenge. All I could think about was this moment of interaction, we had in front of so many people, yet no one knew what was going on.

**********

Three more songs and they were done with their performance for tonight.

“Thank you, thank you all for coming here tonight.” Ace thanked the crowd, loud applauses echoed through the whole bar. “Six months ago, when the guys and I decided to finally start putting out the music, that we have been doing for the past year now, we never expected that people will find such an interest in us. For everyone streaming our music and coming to all the live gigs we have done so far – thank you from the bottom of my heart.” He bowed with his head before he took off his guitar and left the podium. The rest of the guys bowed and thanked everyone leaving a bit after him.

Ace was already surrounded by group of girls as he stepped down from the podium. As every man on this Earth of course he loved the attention he was getting, especially from young and attractive women, but there was this particular girl in his mind tonight that he wanted to get the chance to speak again with. He was thinking of their short interaction today even after she left the coffee shop. It was something about her that piqued his interest, and this hasn’t had happen in a quite long time. Ace didn’t really remember the last time he seriously got interested in a girl for more than a one-night stand or a short situationship.

His experience with girls was quite big, even though it wasn’t always like this. Girls started to pay attention to him around the age of seventeen, when he decided that he must start going to the gym and change not only his appearance, but behaviour as well. The person who he was now, and who he was almost a decade ago, were totally different people. Ace used to be the grumpiest, meanest and enrage kid you could have known; even now-a-days he would catch himself acting like this little kid again and he hated this. Lost in his thoughts for a moment he didn’t realise he had zoomed out until some waved their hand in his face.

“Sorry I got distracted for a second, what were you saying?” He smiled at one of the girls in front of him.

“I said would you mind giving me your autograph?” She teases him with a playful look in her eyes.

“Sure, you have a pen or something.” He gave her the same look, knowing that she was flirting with him.

“There you go.” She borrowed a pen from one of the girls standing next to her. “My name is Samantha, in case you were wondering.” She turned her back towards Ace, moving her hair on the side so he could sign the top of her shoulder.

“What should I write?” Ace took a look at her, from head to toe – ‘nice body, nice ass’ he thought to himself, stepping a little closer to her.

“How about your number?” She smirked at him, as he chuckled at her flirty tone. He checked her out one more time as he licked his lips with a sly smirk.

“There you go, angle.” He wrote his number on her shoulder. He gave the pen back to her with a wink as he continued his way towards the back exit.

Ace wanted to be at peace for just a second. A few more girls stopped him on his way to the back exit, but they were less flirtatious than the girl he gave his number to. Finally, he made his way outside and the moment the cold wind hit his face he breathed out. He pulled out a package of cigarettes, taking one out and lighting it, taking a long puff from it. Closing his eyes as he leaned on the wall, exhaling the smoke. Having attention was nice, especially from women, but that wasn’t so important for Ace. The goal wasn’t women – the goal was to make great music that people could love and enjoy. After every show Ace catches himself in the ‘imposter’ syndrome – that he was not good enough, that the performance sucked, that he was bringing the band down, that he was not a good singer or a guitar player. All these thoughts were hitting him like a truck every time he got off stage, and no matter what people were telling him, he couldn’t shake this feeling. The feeling of never being good enough. He was lighting up a second cigarette, and he noticed it was the last one.

“Fuck, fuck , FUCK.” He cursed himself, taking a puff after puff from his cigarette. As he was taking his last smoke from the cigarette, throwing it on the ground, he thought of her, the girl from the coffee shop. Ace wasn’t the type to believe in fate or anything from this sort of bullshits, but he chuckled to himself. What were the chances that in one day both happened to be in the same place at the same time – two completely strangers. And she was pretty – no, she was gorgeous. There was something in her that was waking up a little spark of fire in him, and she hasn't even had a proper conversation, yet. When he saw her from the stage it was like the time had stopped and he couldn’t move his eyes from her. She was just standing there, enjoying the moment, living in the song – and then she opened your eyes, oh those beautiful eyes which he didn’t have the chance yet to know the colour of, but he was looking forward to finding out soon. He took a few more minutes outside gathering his thoughts, before he put his poker face back, walking inside confidently like nothing was going on inside of his mind.

******

I wasn’t looking forward to going behind the bar right now, even when I knew I had to, but instead found Nami and the rest of the group.

“There she is!” Usopp saw me first and yelled, waving his hand gesturing me to come faster.

Nami had her head rested on Sanji’s shoulder as she was completely wasted, but Sanji was more than happy to take care of her. On his other side was standing a black-haired guy, a little shorter than Sanji, maybe the same height as Usopp. He was wearing a red oversized t-shirt and baggy light blue jeans. His face was scared under his left eye but still he looked quite boyish with his big grin on his face – I guess this was the infamous Luffy. Next to him was standing Zoro, he nodded at me as he saw me. Zoro was waring bandana on his head, his fit not very different from Luffy’s, the only difference was that his t-shirt was white. Nami tilted her head in my direction and quickly jumped from Sanji’s side, but he quickly grabbed her the shoulders, as she almost tripped and fell.

“Damn Nami, how much you drank, tonight?” I have seen her wasted but never this much.

“Way too much.” Sanji answered me instead of her as she was leaning on him again.

“Luffy, this is (Y/N) – the classmate we have been telling you about.” Usopp interrupted, introducing us as we exchange a handshake.

“Nice to meet you finally (Y/N). I have been hearing a lot about you.” Even thought we were the same age there was something so boyish in Luffy’s voice.

“So did I.” I smiled at him. “By the way, your brothers’ band is great.”

“Oh, I know! I’m so happy that Shanks let them play here tonight.” His smile grew wilder.

“How did you meet my uncle by the way? Nami told me that you two know each other.” I was really curious to know how these two knew each other, especially after Shanks refer to him as a ‘son’.

“Long story short – I was quite a troubled kid until I met Shanks. Then I became even more troubled and reckless.” We all laughed at his joke. “But yeah we met –“he got interrupted by someone shouting his name. We all turned around and the blonde guy from the band was joining to the table, with a girl under his arm, which I guess is his beloved girlfriend. She was wearing a very nice light purple ruffled dress; her shoulder length light brown hair was nicely styled in a blowout effect. Her face was lightened by her big smile and her big dark blue eyes were glowing with love as she was looking at her boyfriend.

“Sabo, Koala – come. This is (Y/N), Nami’s and I best classmate and friend from uni.” Usopp introduced me to them as I awkwardly nodded the moment Sabo’s eyes widen in shock.

“No way, look baby this is the stripper I was telling you about.” He told Koala, as she slapped him on the chest as she turned to me. I was shocked from the comment he just made, so did everyone.

“Stripper? You are a stripper?” Luffy looked at me confused, Zoro slapped him behind the neck, shushing him.

“Don’t listen to him, his humour, is little broken. Nice to meet you, (Y/N).” She smiled at me.

“No don’t listen to me guys. Sorry didn’t mean to offend you, I’m Sabo, nice to meet you officially.” He reached out his hand across the table, and we handshake. The other two guys – the light blue haired and the tattooed one joined as well. As they saw me, they had the same reaction as Sabo, but didn’t make any comments instead they just introduced themself.

“Where is Ace?” Luffy asked Sabo.

“Ah, probably out smoking, I don’t know.” Sabo shrugged. “You know how he is after we finish every set.” Luffy nodded at what Sabo said and continue to talk to Law. Deuce was talking to some girl, who was wearing a ‘birthday girl’ crown, Nami was barely standing, while Sanji was making sure that she was getting enough water.

“I am going back to work; it was nice to see you all.” I tapped Usopp on the shoulder, interrupting his conversation with Zoro.

“No wait a minute, so you can also meet Ace.” Usopp stopped me from going as he hold my wrist. My heart skipped a beat when he mentioned his name.

“Some other time Usopp I promise, I really need to go back, otherwise Kid will kill me at this point tonight.” I pouted at him, and he nodded, understanding my situation and let me go. The universe had other plans whatsoever – turning around I bumped into someone’s muscular chest. He gently held me for a second by the shoulders.

“Easy there, no rush.” I looked up and my eyes met his. Ace was looking at me with a little smirk placed on his face. “Hey (Y/N).” He took a step back giving us some space. He remembered my name.

“Hey.” I smiled at him, tying to hide the fact I was a little nervous.

“You two know each other?” Usopp pointed a finger at us.

“No.” We both said at the same time. “We just met this morning by chance.” I explained to Usopp. “Oh, nice. What a coincidence.” He chuckled as he turned back to Zoro. Little did he know how right he was.

“So, you work here?” Ace broke the silence between us.

“Yes and no.” I laughed awkwardly. “Shanks is my uncle, so sometimes when he really needs help like tonight I just jump in behind the bar.” I explained, looking down at my hands as I was playing with my fingers, a habit I have when I’m nervous.

“Hey.” Ace bent his posture a little trying to catch my gaze, I looked back at him immediately. “I don’t bite – relax.” There was a little hint of teasing in his voice.

“I’m relaxed.” I brushed it off, trying to play it cool. “It’s just strange – from lending me your charger to hearing you perform tonight here was quite a surprise.”

“Yeah, I agree. You- you, um, did you enjoy it?” He ran his hand through his hair, awkwardly scratching his neck.

“I loved it.” I eagerly told him, a little too eagerly for which I cringed at myself. “I didn’t know about you guys until today. Actually, Nami and Usopp invited me to see you performing here, but again funny coincidence.” I started to babble. “Then they played me this song of yours “Cry Baby” and yeah – I can say I’m defiantly a fan now. Especially after I heard you tonight. But I had no idea it was you, until I saw you coming on the podium, so I was quite surprised.” As I continued to babble, he had crossed his arms in front of his chest making, looking at me with half lidded eyes, a little smile playing on his lips. “I think I talk too much.” I awkwardly chuckled. A wild smile spread across Ace’s face, he shook his head, as he laughed.

“What?” I playfully tilted my head at him, wondering what made him react like this.

“I think you need to listen to ‘Cry Baby’ one more time.” He teased me, without giving me any more information.

“Okay, I will.” I teased him back. We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other.

“Wait how do you know Nami and Usopp?” He was the one to break the silence again.

“We are classmates.” He raised his eyebrows in awe.

“Oh, a filmmaker. What are you the most lead to – directing, scriptwriting or...?” He asked me clearly interested in my answer. I was about to answer him when someone grabbed me by the shoulders and squeezed me hard.

“Ouch.” I turned around and I saw Shanks’ smug smile. He reached his fist at Ace, and they bumped it.

“Ace could I politely ask you to not distract my beautiful niece as she is supposed to work not flirt.” Ace nodded at Shanks’ comment, with a little smirk.

“We are not, I – I’m not flirting.” My whole face got flushed. I took a quick look at Ace, but his face was unreadable.

“Flirting or not – go behind the bar or I will make you stay and clean as well.” I knew he was serious, despite the smile on his face. I just nodded at him and left without even looking at Ace as I was quite embarrassed.

******

After some time, people started to leave, and the work started to decrease. I saw Ace and the rest of the guys starting to put their instruments away, getting ready to leave. We locked eyes a few times, but nothing more.

“Stop staring and forget even thinking about Ace.” Shanks interrupted my thoughts, his tone serious.

“Excuse me?” I looked at him confused, why would he even tell me this.

“You heard me.” He leaned his forearms on the bar, having a very serious face, something that I rarely ever see. “You only gonna end up hurt Foxy, so be thankful that I cock-blocked you.” He tapped the bar and went away, not letting me say anything further. I continued to clean the bar, Shanks words still in my mind, wondering what exactly he meant by that and a little surprised of how he worded it. “Hey, we are leaving.” I looked up and saw Usopp and the rest of the group behind him. “Thank you for the drinks by the way.” I waved my hand, brushing it off as there was nothing to thank me for.

“It was nice to finally meet you (Y/N).” Sanji told me with a wink, him carrying sleeping Nami in his arms.

“Yeah (Y/N), we have to properly go out these days.” Luffy cheerfully exclaimed, as he came closer to the bar to high-five me.

“We sure need to Luffy.” I smiled at him, Zoro just waved me ‘goodbye’, he wasn’t usually the most talkative but tonight he was extra quiet. They all stopped to say goodbye to Shanks as well, who was standing by the exit. I was still little affected by Shanks’ words and didn’t want to look at him right now.

“You know I discovered that coffee shop recently.” I turned around to face Ace, as I heard his voice.

“It is a hidden gem, right?” I gushed. He smiled at me and nodded.

“So I guess I will be seeing you there?” he raised an eyebrow at me, a little hint of tease in it.

“Definitely Ace.” I smiled at him. He kept his eyes on mine for a moment.

“(your eyes colour).” He murmured, I tilted my head at him wondering what he just murmured to himself. He saw my reaction and just flashed me a smile. “Till next time then.” He winked at me and then he left.

next chapter ->

[crazerk]

First of all, I LOOVED the demo, living rent-free in my mind rn! I been craving a concubine MC IF for a while. Love the drama. Thank you so much ♡

Also, feel free to ignore if spoilers. You mentioned we can have heirs. Just wanted to know if we would be able to see/raise the children for a good part of the story, or would the optional heirs show up more towards the ending? :)

Hi! I answered this in forum so I’ll just copy and paste. But the TLDR: you will see and can raise (or neglect!) your children and interact with them throughout the story. Some endings are even dependent on the kind of relationship you have with them.

Your heirs if you choose to have them, will be characters in the story, like any other person you encounter.

You can only ever have three children, two boys and a girl. They will all have distinct personalities, your first son will always be outgoing, your second son always be more studious and your daughter will always be loyal to her family, but with a rebellious streak.

Your actions in their childhood can influence them. For example you can play favorites, support one son over the other and cause a dynastic war. Lots of fun side plots and arcs I’m excited to write about.

More details under the cut!

First Son

Looks wise he takes after his father, almost a spitting image of Kaz. He will be a very lively child, spending most of his time outdoors. If there is a thing that can be climbed he’ll climb it. If there is a thing with a sharp edge or a pointy tip, he’ll master it. He has a natural aptitude for all things martial and will be one of the finest warriors in the empire.

He will be popular and charismatic and with many friends and supporters. Everything a good ruler should be on paper. Yet he is eager to please and easily falls under the influence of others. He scoffs at his more serious lessons, only learned how to read because his father forced him too and his tutors find him very lacking in his academics. He has a disturbingly brutal streak as well, and sense of entitlement.

Yet he is the beloved son of the empire. He desperately needs someone to be proud of him at all times and will go out of his way to please you to get that validation. If his lesser virtues are indulged he may become a monster. However with enough persuasion and discipline he’ll grow into a fine man. Right?

Second Son

Almost a complete opposite to his older brother, your second son will take after you more. While he is tall like his dad, he’s painfully slender with elegant, almost delicate features. He will be beautiful, keeping his hair long and his dressing androgynous. When he was a child he caught a chill he never fully seemed to recover from, and is prone to falling sick. He shutters himself indoors, preferring the company of his books to that of anyone else, except maybe you.

There are many cruel whispers about your younger son. (You can decide whether you want to remove tongues and heads over these.) In comparison to his more accomplished older brother, he seems weaker, duller, less of a king, more of a sickly scholar. Your second son doesn’t seem to mind these rumors. He’ll pick afternoon tea with you over practing his swordsmanship or going on hunts. His tutors worship the ground he walks on, calling him the brightest mind they’ve ever seen while his weapons master is less impressed with his performance, claiming he can’t even hold a sword upright.

There are times when he seems content in his place as the younger or the “lesser” brother and that not many expect him to rule over the more impressive, older heir. Yet you can catch a glimpse of ambition in his eyes from time to time. A gleam of ruthless cunning, like a blade hidden behind his haunting beauty and demure countenance. You can of course nurture that gentleness, and remind him that he is strong where his brother is weak. Or you can sharpen that ruthlessness, for who knows when you’ll need a blade?

Only Daughter

Your daughter would be absolutely spoiled from the moment she’s born, and a delight to everyone around her. People will say she’ll be the amongst the greatest beauties the empire has ever produced as she managed to get the best of both you and Kaz. From a young age she’ll be aware of this, and will use it to her advantage.

She’s precarious, exceedingly intelligent and able to pick up on the subtleties of court even as a child. As she grows into a young woman, she can become a powerful player in her own right. Since her father is basically wrapped around her finger, her influence on him is not to be understated. She’d rather watch sword fights than do embroidery and is often sneaking away from the lessons meant to shape her into the perfect, elegant and refined princess to chase more “masculine” pursuits.

Her tutors praise her brilliance but her mistress complain that she’s too hardheaded and petulant to make a good and docile wife and all their lessons are wasted on her. It’s better if she were married off immediately, perhaps having children of her own can temper her wilder impulses. But you know she’ll burn something to the ground if she were forced to do anything of the sort. She can be extremely stubborn, but not cruel or malicious. At least, you don’t think so.

How you treat them will influence their behavior and actions later on in the story! Choosing a favorite, child neglect, or even turning them against each other will all have their consequences!

[beevean]

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/castlevania-nocturne-season-2-release-date

It’s here!

Reply: let’s gooooo or some shit i guess

“And get ready for some more of sassy Alucard.” oh thank god i was so worried he would stop being his usual asshole self

“What I can confidently say is in store for the fans is the biggest, craziest Castlevania fight scene ever,” Kolde tells Tudum.

Alucard vs. Sun Thundercat. I bet everything I have it’s just them.

Season 2 picks up as the French Revolution rages on, and the ruling class of oppressive religious figures and exploitative imperialists have been infiltrated by literal blood-suckers, including the vampire messiah, Erzsebet (Franka Potente).

… this is just S1 again?

“Alucard is going to lead Richter and Annette to Paris to try and find the last element that would allow Erzsebet to achieve the full power of Sekhmet and become even more powerful than she was in Season 1,” says Kolde.  

Of course. Of fucking course. He really is the damn protagonist of the Richter show.

Fans go crazy for Alucard because he’s “mysterious, charismatic, and powerful,”

guys, it’s the tits. don’t lie to yourselves. you know it’s about the tits.

Kolde says Alucard becomes something of a reluctant mentor to Richter and Annette. “I think Alucard has seen a lot of Belmonts during his time, but he finds a little bit of annoying joy with Richter,” he says.

*sigh* he’s going to call him a demented infant for old time’s sake, isn’t he. And now he’s several centuries older while Richter is fairly young, so he’s going to sound even more paternalistic. god i hate him so much

But wait. He has seen a lot of Belmonts? And then why didn’t Richter know who she is? Did he stalk the family from the shadows? goddamnit what happened in the time skip

Is Alucard’s name really “Dracula” backwards?

You bet! “I think he had a very narcissistic but unimaginative father,” says Bradley.

OH MY FUCKING GOD ALUCARD EXPLAINS WHY HE NAMED HIMSELF ALUCARD IN SEASON 2 YOU ABSOLUTE BUFFOON

HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THE BASICS! THE BASICS OF NOT JUST THE GAMES (because no one gives a shit) BUT THE WHOLE SHOW UNIVERSE!! NO WONDER THE WORLD BUILDING HAS GONE TO WHORES

this only baffles me more regarding the fandom’s insistence on calling him Adrian, but whatever.

Season 2 wanders the French countryside between Machecoul and Paris, but there’s an occasional new location: Egypt. “Alucard’s research into Sekhmet has taken him to an ancient Egyptian temple, and we were flown there a few times,” says Bradley.

We all thought the same thing.

Can we expect more opera in Season 2?

Oui, oui! “There’s going to be more great singing from Sydney James Harcourt playing Edouard,” Bradley says.

At least, new fresh meme material. I am so happy.

The relationship between Richter and Annette is at the heart of the show and continues to evolve in Season 2, according to Kolde. “[Annette’s] being haunted by these images and spirits, and she’s trying to understand what’s going on,” he says. “[If] she can figure out how to communicate with them the right way, to calm herself to listen, [she’ll realize] they’re really trying to communicate with her what she needs to do for her role in stopping Erzsebet.”

:)

Franka Potente (Titans, Run Lola Run, The Bourne Identity) as Erzsebet Báthory. She’s the queen of vampires and, if all goes as planned, of the entire world. (Her character is very loosely based on the various folkloric stories and contested histories surrounding a real-life noblewoman.) 

They cannot even write one word to describe her personality i’m pissing myself eshfjkhsdjkghkjdhgkjsdhkj

spinning. spinning i can’t. too much peak and i haven’t seen one second of it already

… wait a second, they didn’t mention Juste in the list of voice actors????? goddamn you really hate him don’t you

Oh right, here’s the trailer

Ohh Alucard got red eyes like his dad, ohhhhh badass.

“You’re a Belmont, after all.” go fuck yourself you are the first one who made fun of the whole clan

the animation looks just as mediocre as it was in S1. i guess it didn’t get worse. nice.

anyway 7/10 would WHEN I’M LAID again

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Lyra and Will suffered as Protagonists in BBC's His Dark Materials

Despite the cast and crews open love for the novels, and the insistent diligence to stay as faithful to the source material as possible — even trying to fill in many of the gaps in the books, as seen in all three seasons of the show — the BBC adaptation never manages to capture the spirit (the only time I felt like it did was in the third season) because of the fact that every character is altered and changed. Not just adaptationally changed either like making a character dumber, softer or harder. They’re completely different characters, separated from the source material e.g. Mrs Coulter is changed from a seductive, calm character to a feral, suicidal character. I must admit, I did like the expanded self harm element that she causes her daemon. However I felt in the novel, if she were to harm her monkey, it would be ‘to keep her lust for power at bay’ rather than shame for herself.

The atmosphere was off yet the events were similar and the complete opposite at the same time. But you can’t have similar events play out with different characterisations, at least not with ‘His Dark Materials’.

Philip Pullman’s characters in ‘His Dark Materials’ are extremely charismatic, but to put it lightly, are not very palatable to say the least. As stated in @clarabosswald’s analysis, there seemed to be this weird need to make EVERY single character digestible or palatable in some way or another in the BBC adaptation, regardless of it making sense or not. I noticed this upon my re-read of ‘The Northern Lights’ that they even humanised the doctor that sexually assaulted Lyra by grabbing Pantalaimon, which was very troubling.

Now with the opposing ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ film, they changed the characterisations to make them more sympathetic and accessible to a contemporary audience. They even dug deeper with the character Edmund which I thought was a fantastic choice. But the reason why those character changes worked was because C.S.Lewis was not concerned with building character, he was much more concerned with the place of Narnia itself. He almost used his characters to explore the world of Narnia, e.g. some characters would leave one book and come back 5 books later — which is why some of the later adaptations of Narnia didn’t do as well in the box office as the first one.

The character changes in that film enriched the story without effecting it in a way, because ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ and the other books are driven by the plot. Where as ‘His Dark Materials’ is primarily driven by characters.

Philip Pullman in total contrast to C.S.Lewis, built the world (you could say he used the world) around the characters in order for them to get to Point A to Point B. But he was not concerned about exploring the multiverse so you could see the entire picture, like with C.S. Lewis.

I heard once that he described writing as wondering through a forest on a path and the path is your story. Theres a difference between the story world and the storyline. And as an Author, your concern is the storyline. It would be easy to step away and stray from the path and explore the forest and admire all the trees, but for him the most important thing to do was to remain on the path and focus on the story rather than the details along the way.

I’m not apposed to different versions of the characters or different storylines. But with ‘His Dark Materials’, those books are driven by specific character traits. And the fact that they changed them, while still being faithful to the events in the story, the story beats either don’t land or don’t hit as hard or don’t make sense altogether.

More specifically with the main characters Lyra and Will, but mostly Lyra since she’s the heart of the story.

Lyra is first and fourmost a liar, which may seem a small part of her character but its huge. Her ability to lie and get her way out of situations is the cause of many events in the books. She’s feral. She’s wild. She’s manipulative. She’s described as a ‘half wild cat’ and a ‘greedy little savage’. She can’t sit still or behave herself. She’s impulsive. She’s a leader. She gets into fights. She gets dirty. She spends all her nights on the rooftops. She’s an extrovert. She’s street smart. She’s selfish. She’s brave.

She’s an emotional and passionate human being. Thats what makes Lyra a real girl, not just a character on the page. These nuanced character traits of hers is how she pushes everything forward in the story.

All of those negative/positive aspects of her character in the books were watered down so much in the series. To the point where alot of them were removed. Not only is that incredibly dehumanising but makes the plot points where “she lies” not land as well or plot points revolving around her “telling the truth” make no sense at all.

The whole reason why she’s called Lyra Silvertongue is because she tricked the bear king with her lies, a trait which is consistent throughout the entire story — but completely nonexistent throughout the show. Her tricking the bear king in the adaptation came off as a lucky experience rather something that comes naturally to her. Even the ironic plot point of her being given the Alethiometer “a device that tells her the truth” didn’t hit as hard. They tried to establish her as a ‘liar’ in the second episode of season one then gave up completely as the show continued on.

But the weird thing is, those flaws were still mentioned by other characters in the show, when it was not the character they were developing. Characters would mention that she’s a liar, insufferable, selfish or that ‘she doesn’t apologise easily’ — which seemed like an over exaggeration since the show version of her isn’t really any of those things. This applied when characters such as Lee praised her for being ‘brave’ and ‘good’. I heard a HDM podcast recapping season 2 saying that “her character in the show wasn’t hitting the right emotional beats” to be a child of a great destiny that every character seemingly falls over themselves to give their lives for her.

TV Lyra hasn’t completely lost her flaws, but she’s not as nearly as flawed as she was in the books. She felt so contained, rather than passionate. Which felt so odd because yes, Lyra grows out of some bad traits such as her rudeness, due to the influence of Will. But she isn’t naturally like that.

They changed her so much, but also tried to keep her “the same” that her character growth which is huge in the books felt like nothing had moved at all. It kind of got reduced to a simple thing like her innocence being taken away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to have any sort of loud, dislikable reaction in any way. It felt like they were taking away her agency.

And I know one of the biggest reasons why they changed her behaviour in the TV Show is because they aged the character up to 14–16 at the start. I get it. Theres a huge difference between 12 and 14 in terms of maturity . It works for the Will & Lyra romantic scenes as an adaptational choice later in the story (because she’s allegedly 12–13 in the books).

I think Dafne Keen was an inspired choice for the role of Lyra, since I saw some scenes of her in ‘Logan’ and I 100% believe she would of pulled off Book Lyra given the chance, but by the time they started filming she was already 13/14. And in all honesty, Lyra just becomes odd looking older. She’s just not convincing as a misbehaving little girl who can’t sit still, she just comes off as a really strange child thats immature or lacking in social skills. For example, there’s a scene between Mrs Coulter and Lyra in ‘The Idea of North’ where she’s telling a lie, but it doesn’t come off natural because 1. They didn’t establish her as a liar immediately and 2. Part of her ability to lie comes from her spontaneous nature of being a kid telling stories and using her imagination. Dafne Keen didn’t really look that age, for it to look like something she would do.

They also made her relationship with Roger more of a focus in the show, which makes sense as her motivation in the later half of the books comes from wanting to rescue him. However, they made him ‘the only friend that she has’ which I found to be a strange decision because Lyra in the books has tuns of friends. I would say their friendship is more balanced in the series, where as in the book it wasn’t so much.

She forgets him a few times while staying with Mrs Coulter in the book where as she remembers him constantly in the episode ‘The Idea of North’ which felt like a confused choice to me. They were trying to have it both ways; have her be seduced by Mrs Coulter while also actively asking her to look for Roger.

The imbalance in Roger and Lyra’s friendship is important because it adds to the need to set things right with him in The Land of the Dead. It goes to the core of how everyone thinks she is selfish. She needs to save Roger to prove to herself she’s a good person.

In the book, when Lyra dreams of Roger in The Land of the Dead, the two of them have constant talks of how much he’s suffering. In the show, she just has alot of ambiguous flash forward dreams of Roger, with the story not prioritising them as important as the main plot of ‘Asriel’s War’.

When she brings this up to Will in the episode, he dismisses it instead of agreeing to go (like in the book) because of his daddy issues, no I’m sorry, because of Asriel’s War which makes sense as it’s one of the main plots in the season — where it was more of a distracting B plot in the book — but it just kind of adds to the idea that “its unnecessary” or “why are they doing this?”.

The desire to get to Roger and apologise in the show doesn’t hit as hard because there was more of a balance in Lyra and Rogers relationship plus the changes to her character just made it seem like “she just wanted to do it” rather than it being the most important decision she ever makes, to try to better herself.

While they go to the suburbs of the dead, Will and Pan constantly question why she’s doing this (a conflict that was not in the book — Will is steadfastly loyal to her by this point and Pan is too shivery to speak) while Lyra just snaps at them, making her seem mean for no reason. When she has a chat with her death, she doesn’t lie that an angel told her to do it (because they didn’t establish her as a liar properly), she just says that she wants to be good which is not a convincing argument considering what happens next.

When Pan and her have the argument while she leaves him on the doc, which is a great scene on its own (it made me cry), it also adds to the unnecessary nature of it all. It’s a scene that makes sense in the book because of Lyra’s impulsive nature, but because of her seemingly calculative nature in the show, it just looks odd. It’s described in the book that if Lyra had heard Pan speak, she would have folded and never would of got on the boat, but since the show did the complete opposite of that, It makes the scene more harsh and cold.

I think what the writers were trying to do was make it more of a mystery like ‘why is she doing this’ ‘its not too late to turn around’ a mission that appears fruitless at first, but turns out to be the greatest act of humanity — but again, I still don’t think that works because of how much Lyra’s entire character is changed. The act is not just for everyone else. It’s a major step in her character growth, to care about others.

In the Land of the Dead, obviously they had to cut out the whole section where Lyra literally looses her ability to lie while she’s telling lies to the harpies, then learns to tell the truth to the dead. This is the final step for Lyra’s character, finally learning the power of telling the truth instead of lies. They didn’t replace that with anything, only with her telling the dead true stories, which was heartwarming on its own, but obviously those story beats don’t hit as hard in the same way because like I said, its not presented as the final step in her character growth, its presented as a one off scene. This is one of the reasons why her character is pretty static in the adaptation.

In the Land of the Dead, its Lyra for the most part (apart from one instance) that keeps a cool head, while Will looses his — which again, the complete opposite. In the books, its Lyra that goes off the rails and its Will that keeps her centred.

Which brings me onto how the character of Will is changed in the adaptation, and how that effects the story from the second book onwards.

Will was brought in by Philip Pullman in ‘The Subtle Knife’, to represent Lyra’s other half — in another parallel universe literally, and also to help her on her quest to fulfil the prophecy. If it was just her on her own with Pan, it wouldn’t work and would fail.

Though I was taken aback by his entrance in ‘The Subtle Knife’ — as it was such a jarring change coming from the suspenseful cliff hanger where Lyra walks into the new world after her best friend Roger got murdered — he quickly but surely became my favourite male literary character of all time.

I don’t have as a big of a problem with his character changes then I do with Lyra, because there were at least a few times in the show where he was allowed to act like ‘himself’. Amir Wilson was perfect casting as Will. It was like the character had just walked off the page��it was that good. But all together, he’s a completely different character — which I can understand. Out of all the characters, I feel he’s the hardest to pin down and his development is done in a subtle and subconscious way.

Throughout the course of ‘The Subtle Knife’, he’s incredibly off putting as he’s mostly angry and tired and then he’s in pain because of his knife wound. It works in a book format, because your’e in his point of view and you understand that he’s a child thats at the end of his tether. But it would be hard to portray that in a nuanced way on screen, unless your’e clever with it.

They unfortunately took the easy route with his characterisation on screen by making him softer. Not only that, the writing for his character was incredibly inconsistent at times.

Will from the books is fierce. He’s frightening. He’s stoic. He gets angry. He’s a strategist. He does whats best for someone. He likes to stay invisible. He’s sarcastic. He’s an introvert. He likes to stay hidden. He’s practical. He’s a child carer. He’s naturally aggressive e.g. He beat up a bunch of boys at school because they were hurting his mother. He hardly smiles. At times, especially in the second book, he becomes incredibly depressed. He’s pretty much a 35 year old man in a young boy’s body. He’s incredibly soft, but the reader can’t tell until Lyra brings that out in him.

I would say Will is a more contained version of Lyra, yet the complete opposite of her. They’re like yin and yang. They both have something that the other lacks, and that helps them both grow up. Lyra brings out a softness out in him, brings out his impulsive nature where as he helps her strategise and learn not to just rush out and do things.

TV Will suffers from the same problem that TV Lyra does.

Every negative/positive aspect about him is watered down. Revealing a quite mild character. I feel that they didn’t touch on the fact that he was a child carer enough, which is a huge part of his character. It just came off as ‘he loves his mum’ more in the show. Will being a caterer is supposed to contrast Lyra whom didn’t grow up with parents and got to live out a childhood that he was never allowed to experience. This is a theme. Every character trait that contrasts Lyra in the books isn’t present so much. I would even go as far to say that they’re too similar in the TV Show.

I was wondering throughout the second season why the storyline was static and wasn’t going anywhere. Certain plot points such as Will being a murderer, Lyra helping Will find his father, The fight for the subtle knife and Will becoming the bearer of the Subtle Knife felt tacked on or weren’t hitting as hard as they should.

At first, I thought it was because the novel was ‘the weakest in the trilogy’. I often see ‘The Subtle Knife’ as a bridge between both ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

But since re-reading the book, I went ‘Oh my God, its because they changed Will’s character arc’.

TV Will, the more I think about it, does not suit becoming the bearer of the subtle knife. The only times we see him fighting is in the boxing ring. He expresses incredible regret over killing a man instead of brushing it off because he was protecting his mother. Even when he’s under threat, he says ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ He even has to be persuaded to fight. There’s even a moment in the show where he says “Maybe we’re better off not fixing the knife at all.” which kind of dismisses the practical nature of his character in the book. Plus the knife being a part of him, the same way as the Alethiometer is a part of Lyra. Even the remarks that Lyra makes about him being similar to Iorek the armoured Bear don’t make as much sense, because of the fact that he’s softer.

Book Will struggles with his warrior nature, and eventually learns thats not who he wants to be. But he isn’t naturally a soft person. He learns to be through his experiences and his relationship with Lyra. Which is why it was so odd to me that they included the line in the show where Will is saying to his father in the Land of the Dead “You told me that I was a warrior; That I can’t fight my nature. Your’e wrong.” I was just like, what are you talking about? That is so not the character the show had developed. TV Will had hardly been shown to fight anyone of his own free will — it didn’t make sense to me. They were trying to have it both ways. Completely ignoring his basic character traits and flaws, yet still going through the same arc (a somewhat watered down one) one e.g. idolising his dad for his whole life, realising his dad ain’t shit when he meets him, finding Lyra missing, ignoring the task his father set him etc.

Even the task that Lyra has to help Will find his father didn’t land as well because of the fact that the two of them were bonding straight away in the show, instead of it being like ‘oh no we’re stuck with each other’ to this slow process of her and Will learning to trust each other.

I understand that you have to translate Lyra and Will’s relationship alot differently in a Show format, because subconscious development doesn’t really work due to the lack of intimate point of views. Plus it adds to the narrative to flesh out their dynamic alot more on screen. The more something is changed in an adaptation, the more it stays the same.

I have openly praised the shows depiction of their relationship in another analysis I wrote (before i re-read the books) and how I loved how they gave them more soft moments. However, I will admit now that the soft moments that they had in season 2 felt off to me because they weren’t in character. I think, looking back I would of preferred more soft moments if they were in character.

Will’s initial softness towards Lyra in the show is partially to do with TV Lyra being much less feral and less of a threat. As a result their journey is warmer and far less angstier than it was in the books.

And that in turn messes with the tension.

The element of Will being slightly dismissive of her at the start, is important to how certain story beats land. It adds to the ‘OH SHIT’ when Lyra’s been taken and the task that his father set him that he’s been dreaming of his whole life suddenly isn’t important to him anymore. Thats why it’s such a big deal when he spends most of his time through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ looking for her.

But in the season 2 finale, it ends with Will going off into the sunset, presumably to fulfil is fathers wishes. Then in season 3, he finds her missing, goes ‘whoops’ and then there’s a montage of him trying to find her. Then when he does (quite easily) — he goes on about how “since his dad died he’s done none of the things that he asked him to do’ which makes him looking for Lyra within the show feel even more anticlimactic.

Also, this is more of a personal opinion that an analytical one, I did not appreciate when Lyra brought up going to the Land of The Dead, TV Will went “I saved you. I did everything I could to save you. You told me not to but I did it anyway” which felt to me like ‘Wow brilliant, of course you had to save her’

And instead of agreeing to go to the Land of the Dead with her like in the book, they had to insert some tension from ‘The Subtle Knife’ (because they messed with the tension in season 2) and have Will go on a rant about what his dad wanted him to do, Asriel’s war, dismissing Lyra’s wishes and even having him suggest maybe her dad regretted killing her friend.

This is something that Will from the books would never ever say, let alone to the girl that he loves. He’s fully aware how much her dad hurt her and he respects her too much by that point to ever suggest something like that. Even when he does think about ‘what his dad wanted him to do’ he’s still steadfastly loyal to Lyra. They were completely undermining the turning point in their relationship and Will’s character development by adding pointless drama to extend the episodes running time.

As mentioned in a very articulate post by @mamsellechosette24601 ‘the quest to find his father and fulfil his fathers wishes’ isn’t the point at all, its Will letting go of his childhood dreams, of realising what really matters is Lyra all along.

Now I’ve seen in another analysis of the adaptation that their path to falling in love in the show is alot clearer than in the books which I can understand and agree with (to a certain extent) because the books were much more concerned with philosophy than romance. This is true for the romance between Asriel and Marisa in the Book vs the TV Show as well.

The concept behind their relationship remains the same:

“Will and Lyra are very good people who learn to trust each other when they’re at their most vulnerable, they become the only thing they have in a terrifying world of enemies. By the end, when they realise they're in love only to discover they can never be together, they make the mature choice, however hard it may be.”

But their relationship is totally different in the TV Show because of their character changes.

I would say Lyra and Will have more of a enemies to lovers storyline in the books — where as the adaptation version of them doesn’t. The screenwriters clearly tried to iron out alot of the problematic elements, especially in the beginning and focus on them being “friends” more. I’m not apposed to them doing that, but the way they did it ended up muting a few of their scenes together.

I’ve actually made an argument in my other account (against the ‘His Dark Materials’ analysis saying that ‘the adaptation did a much better job at showing when Will and Lyra fell in love’) that their relationship development was a lot subtler in the books because the characters were alot younger and more immature. And that it was more ‘obvious’ in the tv show because they aged the characters up, therefore they could have more mature conversations and scenes together.

This was before I did my re-read.

After re-reading ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’ comparing it with how their relationship is handled in the TV Adaptation. I would actually argue the opposite .

In some ways, the growing romance between the two of them is much more mature (and makes more sense) in the books than in the show, at least to me. Unlike in the TV Show, their relationship never enters into neutral territory, even when they finally learn to trust each other. Theres much less emphasis on their ‘friendship’.

After their brutal first meeting — where they attack eachother — in ‘The Subtle Knife’ Lyra is immediately taken with Will and constantly thinks about him and what he thinks of her. There’s even a moment in ‘The Amber Spyglass’ where she’s trying to hide that she’s in pain while they’re walking (because of all that time she’s been asleep) because she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of him. 

The way Lyra and Will meet in the show, is reminiscent of how children meet for the first time. Though quite skeptical of each other, they instantly bond and make friends after 5 seconds, because why wouldn’t they? They’re kids the same age after all. Even though there’s still an element of mistrust there, there’s hardly any conflict between them. They don’t play off each other as much. There is one moment where he gets angry at her for making him wait, but all that is solved in a minute because of Lyra’s ‘calm nature’

Even when Lyra gives Will away by accident and says that she lost the Alethiometer, he doesn’t shout at her. There are few comments here and there but theres no real tension between the two of them.

When Will and Pan have a conversation, its presented as Pan going up to him to have a chat after he had a bad dream rather than Will finding the courage to speak to him in the book and saying ‘I think Lyra’s the best friend I’ve ever had’. This is presented more as a statement in the show because their friendship has already been established and less of a discovery (as he wasn’t reacting to her that much in the book as he had alot on his mind).

Lyra and Will even have a talk about Pan’s conversation with him afterwards in the show. But in the book, that never happened. It’s mentioned later but never discussed, because of the fact that it was a private conversation between Will and Pan.

You could say this was another problem that the adaptation had. It’s mentioned multiple times ‘YOU CAN’T TOUCH SOMEONES DAEMON’ but not emphasised why thats the case.

In the books, it’s heavily implied that touching someone else’s daemon is the equivalent of touching someone’s genitals. There’s a moment in ‘Northern Lights’ where Lyra and Iorek find Tony in the fish house without a daemon and Pan wants to comfort him but holds back because of the taboo. Thats why it’s such a big deal when Pan comforts Will and starts licking him in the book.

In the show, its quite an underwhelming scene that lasts 5 seconds where Pan strokes Wills fingers and Lyra says in a quiet voice ‘In my world, your’e not supposed to touch someone else’s daemon but you didn’t do something wrong’

And don’t get me started on the 5 second panning away shot where they’re finally touching each others daemons, instead of the moving moment from the book. It didn’t feel like they really understood the gravity of what those scenes meant and what it meant for their connection.

Again, this is more of a personal opinion. Near the end of the final book, when they enter the world of the Mulefa, Lyra and Will trust each other more than they ever have, which shows how much they’ve both grown since ‘The Subtle Knife’. Mary even describes that she never saw ‘more trust on a persons face’. But in the show, there’s this weird forced tension between them for the sake of ‘romance’. They’re suddenly awkward teenagers with each other — which was not a choice that I liked because it didn’t come naturally.

And when they have to be ripped from each other, a whole page worth of them bargaining to be together is turned into ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad.’ and ‘This is all wrong’, plus Mary and Serafina being weirdly insensitive while Will and Lyra are in different locations rather than being with each other.

This is possibly why I didn’t feel anything when they had to be forced apart because, the way it was handled felt rushed and soulless.

Overall, despite there being more ‘soft moments between the two of them’ Show Lyra and Will’s connection feels alot more shallow and simplified.

In the books, I got the vibe that even though they were very young, you couldn’t imagine them being with anyone else but with each other. They were each others other half. They were essentially the only family they had in a world full of enemies. There was never a moment in the books, where they weren’t already in love with each other to some degree. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

In the show, it felt more temporary. This is mostly due to their character changes (they were too similar in my opinion). Like a connection between friends that became romantic at the end of the journey. And it’s something they’ll get over because “It won’t always feel like this” or “Its much more romantic to live for love than to die for it” or “It might not seem like it now but you have a future”

I think that was one of my main problems with the TV Show, it lacked emotion. Not just as an adaptation, but in general.

More than anything, the adaptation felt too confused. It was trying to reimagine the story while also paying homage to the original material. And thats why overall — despite my enjoyment for some of the episodes especially in season 3 — it didn’t work as well as it should have.

[dumbstuffsstuff]

Admit It || Lee!Zhongli || Genshin Impact

Lol I lied guys, I am still hyperfixated on Genshin but I’ve also got new things coming and decided to write a fic just for funsies.

———

Zhongli is a very calm and charismatic man. He never gets overly excited, angry, or annoyed. This bothers Childe. How can Zhongli control his temper so well? One day, something manages to really get under the Geo Archon’s skin, and Childe is determined to make Zhongli admit that he’s angry.

———

Pairing: Zhongli and Childe

Lee!Zhongli

Ler!Childe

———

Zhongli, Rex Lapis, Morax, leader of the Adeptus, the Geo Archon. He goes by many names. Zhongli is a character, that’s for sure. No matter the situation, Zhongli always knows how to stay composed. He never lets anything get to him. He never takes criticism personal.

Most people enjoy this quality in Morax. By most, that means everyone except Zhongli’s (friend? rival? partner?) Childe.

Childe can be the exact opposite compared to Zhongli. While the ginger is normally a playful guy who likes to joke around, he is susceptible to losing his temper quickly. He gets irritated at small things. One of the small things being Zhongli’s ability to avoid annoyance.

It’s especially frustrating at times when Childe finds something to scold Morax about or when they’re arguing, and Zhongli will sip tea and avoid eye contact, all while brushing the redhead off and chuckling at his distress.

That all stands until today.

Childe had decided to stay in the hotel in Liyue for a few days to take some time off. He was stressing lately and needed a break. He lay on the cushioned sofa and tried to read a book to keep himself busy, but he was overall bored. That was until a trio burst through the door.

Childe jumps and whips his head around to see the intruders. It’s Aether and Paimon with a flustered Morax behind them. Aether is spewing affirmations at Zhongli in an attempt to comfort him, but the adeptus finds himself pacing around the hotel room.

“Yeah, just let yourself into my room why don’t you?” Childe teases and recieves a glare from Morax.

“Those fatui harbingers are nothing but rats,” Zhongli scoffs and flops down on the couch next to Childe.

“Whoa, hey now, I’m right here?” Tartaglia places a hand on his chest to look hurt, “what’s gotten into you?”

Aether clears his throat, “Uh we ran into some unfriendly harbingers… They really know how to throw around insults.”

Zhongli groans, “let us not retell the story.” He crosses his arms and taps his foot on the floor.

“No worries, Aether,” Childe waves, “I’ll handle it.”

Aether seems grateful and grimaces before awkwardly leaving the scene. Now it’s just the ginger harbinger and Rex Lapis.

“They had the audacity to make fun of me for not having any mora. I’m not broke, I just didn’t bring any with me!”

“Hold on,” Childe interrupts, “are you… angry?”

“Me?” Zhongli scoffs, “Not at all. I’m just confused!”

“You’re totally angry right now, look at you! You’re like steaming!” Childe laughs, “I’ve never seen you this emotional before.”

“I’m not!” Zhongli growls and glares at Childe again. At first, Childe is somewhat afraid. But a smirk forms on his face instead.

“It’s not healthy to hide your feelings,” Childe wraps an arm around Zhongli, placing his gloved hand on the other’s waist.

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“But you are~” Childe pokes his side, making Zhongli flinch, “just admit that you’re angry.” Childe begins to wiggle all ten fingers gently against Zhongli’s waist.

“N-No- Ajax! W-Wahat are you d-doing?” Morax squirms in his spot, afraid to make any other movements that may enhance the ticklishness of the ginger’s fingers.

“I’m tickling you,” Childe grins at the sight of a blush forming on Zhongli’s nose bridge, “I didn’t think you’re ticklish, Morax. But it appears you are.”

“I-Ihi’m nahat.”

“Then why do you laugh when I stroke your sides?”

“A-Ahaha… I-I’m nohot laughing- hrk!”

“Yeah right,” Childe then scribbles all over the dragon’s ribs, tickling up and down and poking each bone.

“PAHahahaha! C-Chihihilde! Stohop that!” Zhongli’s blush darkens, he tries to sound irritated, but his genuine smile doesn’t allow him to.

“See? You’re smiling now, isn’t it great?”

“NOHOHO! Ihit isn’t!” Childe kisses the back of Zhongli’s neck, brushing his long ponytail to the side to add to the sensations. Morax scrunches his shoulders to avoid the tickles, and squeezes his arms around his waist to stop the attack on his side.

“ChihiHIHILDE! PleheHEase! I-it- Ihit tihihickles!”

“Oh? So you ARE ticklish? You admit it?”

“Y-Yehehes!! Now stohohop!”

“Hmm… But you lied to be the first time. I think that shouldn’t go unpunished,” Childe creeps closer and closer to the dragon’s underarms. In return, Morax squirms and jolts to escape but he’s weakened by the tickling.

“AHA! Nonono! Chihihilde! NOHOT THEHERE! Plehehease!”

“Not here? Well, are you going to admit that you’re angry?”

“IHIHI AM NOHOT ANGRY!”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs. He digs into Zhongli’s underarms and he goes nuts. Zhongli bucks his hips and screeches.

“AHAHAJAX!! PLEHEHEHEHEASE! STAHAHAP! IT REHEHEALLY TIHIHICKLES!”

“Wow! I didn’t expect you to be so ticklish!”

“SHUHUHUT UHUP!”

“Now that’s not nice,” Childe teases. He blows raspberries into his neck while continuing his assault on his armpits.

“BUAHAHAHAHAH! AHAHALRIHIHGHT! YOHOU WIN! YOU GOT MEHEHEE! QUIHIT IHIT!”

“I win? So you admit you were angry?”

“YEHEHEHHES! I ADMIHIHIT IT! STOHOHOHP IT!”

“Oh, alright,” Childe rolls his eyes and stops the attack. Zhongli curls in on himself, gasping for air and then leaning into the ginger.

“Aw look at you. Don’t you feel better?”

“Y-yehes… I-I feehehel much behetter. Thank you, Ajax…” Zhongli places a hand on Childe’s cheek, smiling.

“Ahem,” Childe enjoys the touch until he feels Zhongli begin to wiggle his fingers, “H-Hey!” Childe immediately gets up, letting Zhongli roll over onto the floor.

“Oho? What’s wrong Childe?”

“Zhongli…”

“Cant handle what you dish out, hm?”

“Stay back!” Childe blocks his exposed stomach and sprints out of the room.

“You can run, but i’ll catch you!” Zhongli chuckles and takes his time to catch Childe, since it wont be hard to.

Fin

———

[tezuze]

Hi I’m gonna rant about Ghost Game for a second

Not to meaning to add to the endless “What the hell happened to Ghost Game????” discourse but uh, yeah I guess I am contributing to that

I have quite a bit to say about my theories on what I think went wrong and what they could’ve done better and why I desperately do not want a season 2 (I know the irony of how that looks on me) but if I wrote all that in one space I think it would be so long that even I would start begging for me to shut up

So, I’m going to split these up into more digestible categories that I’ll write whenever I’m procrastinating

In case I never get around to anything else, I’m going to start with the biggest loss to me, how I think the Digimon were supposed to influence their tamer’s personal growth and visa-versa

I’ll put the rest below the cut before I get outta hand

Hiro and Gammamon: Augh. These two frustrate me the most. So much lost potential in my book, but I would feel weird putting the mc anywhere but the top of the list, so I decided to put them in the order they join the cast and therefore you get my most passionate feelings first.

Almost one of the first things we learn about Hiro as a character is how self-sacrificing he is. He’s your stereotypical mc who wants to help everyone, but the narrative points out that he’s willing to be helpful at the expense of his own wellbeing, which paints his conventionally good trait as a flaw. And that’s about all they touch on in the base show, with a lot of reading between the lines. I would’ve loved to see the ramifications of his self-sacrificing nature and have the cast point out how he’s really harming himself and stretching himself thin just to appease others. I don’t think the “being helpful is good, but not at the expense of your health” moral is touched on enough so I always get excited when stories have that as one of their themes.

And then there’s his partner, Gammamon, the exact opposite of Hiro. He’s needy, dependent, wild, and selfish at the start. He doesn’t care about others (or their belongings). He’s demanding. He’s destructive. He proves to be a handful for our polite little Hiro, especially with his dad missing and this responsibility suddenly thrusted upon him.

I would’ve loved to see Gammamon teach Hiro to be a little more selfish (or at least, more self-preserving), while Hiro teaches Gammamon to be more considerate and tame. Of course, we see Gammamon grow in this way but the story doesn’t really make it clear that it was necessarily Hiro’s doing or give much of a catalyst at all for why Gammamon has personal growth other than it would be troublesome to have such a brat as the main creature. Now, I know that Guilmon’s arc was kinda similar in that they didn’t have direct events or anything that would make him mature, but it still felt more… realistic? Tended to? Idk I’m going to force myself to move on.

Ruli and Angoramon: Honestly just kinda disappointed with the lack of attention these two got in general in comparison to the other pairs, but I digress.

We meet Ruli with the impression that she’s brash, headstrong, and charismatic. She does things her way on a whim. Especially in the first few and select episodes, but in my opinion, it seemed like they kinda pushed her to the background and her personality was very passive and mild at times (and I don’t think that was on purpose).

Similarly to Hiro and Gammamon, Angoramon has quite a few contrasting personality traits. He’s softspoken, knowledgeable, and introspective. When Hiro first meets Angoramon, he doesn’t want to reveal himself because he’s nervous and doesn’t want to be a bother.

I think these two were supposed to balance each other out. Ruli would learn to think about things more and not run in half-cocked, maybe start to appreciate the more slow and peaceful things in life like nature and reading (Yeah Ruli, don’t think I forgot about that scene where Angoramon wanted you to read one of his favorite books and you DIDN’T and never DID). Meanwhile, Angoramon would come out of his shell more from sticking around Ruli. Possibly learn not to be so overbearing? Idk, honestly I don’t think Angoramon has as much room for growth because he seems the most level-headed character in the cast.

Lastly,

Kiyoshiro and Jellymon: Now, I know I have some bias toward these two so it might seem I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt but I’m going to try to come at them as objectively as I can.

They kinda half-executed what I think they were going for with these two, so they don’t offend me as much (which I think is part of the reason why I like them so much), but a full written out arc between them would’ve been a dream.

Kiyoshiro at the beginning of the series is, well, a sniveling inconsolable scaredy cat. On top of that, he’s kind of cocky and stuck up, obsessed with order and somewhat an introvert (to a lesser extent and differently than angoramon, in the “can’t relate to other humans” kinda way). Outside of his flaws, he is at least kind and pure of heart (I mean his name more or less means “pure white”) with a strong sense of justice and morals.

Jellymon, the devil creature, is so chaotic her intro episode goes right for the “everyone is going to die and it’s all Jellymon’s fault” thing. She has her moments of scheming and kinda like Gammamon, is pretty selfish and demanding with hints of Ruli’s recklessness as well.

As far as their canonic growth goes, Jellymon’s the only one that sees the bravery in her darling, which helps him nurture that courage and cast aside some of his fears (which, yay they actually kinda do in the series albeit pretty indirectly and kinda inconsistently). Also, the narrative never outright says Kiyo is lonely but he surely doesn’t have any companions, but we can see him grow on his partner and admit that it’s nice to have such a close friendship (pretty sure the whole “I like humans” thing was directed at Jellymon, even though she’s not human shhhhh it makes sense I promise)

Now for what they didn’t really touch on, I think these two were supposed to break each other’s stubbornness. I think Jellymon was supposed to show Kiyo how to relax more and not become so absorbed in studies/research and such. We meet him already knowing he has a love for anime, idols and the like so I’m not sure if he could really learn the lesson to appreciate more of the little things, but maybe she’d show him to love some more like, people-centered type things? (I mean she does love festivals). On the flip side, I think Kiyo was supposed to use not his classroom knowledge, but his personal knowledge to show Jellymon all there is to love about humanity outside of their monetary worth and give her a genuine love for the human world. Oh yeah, and teach her to stop scamming people.

“”””I’m gOinG tO tRy To LiMiT mY BiAs oN KiYoSHiRo aNd jElLyMoN”””””””” *Proceeds to spend half my rant talking about Kiyoshiro and Jellymon even though I think they did them pretty well*

Anyway, would love to hear other’s opinions on this as well as if it seems like I’m reaching and there weren’t supposed to be arcs like this. I just feel like the characters are too inherently flawed and contrast too perfectly with their Digimon for them not to have intended some more character-centered personal growth arcs.

I’m sorry and thank you for reading my dumb thoughts.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

i don't mean to stir up more controversy so feel free to not post this ask, but like. yeah. i don't get it. is harry potter a shitty franchise filled to the brim with subtle bigotry and glorification of various nasty outlooks on humanity? kinda, in my opinion, yeah. is it written by, and profited off of by someone actively using their platform to cause harm to human rights? yeah. would i ever want to engage with the content or fandom? no not really. but does this mean that anyone who even breathes in the direction of Harry Potter content is condoning all this bullshit, or kissing the author's shoes and ideologies, and giving them money to harm the people they want to harm? uh.......... no, not really. what the fuck

like............ yeah. like you said it's a huge franchise. literally a silly little Tumblr poll that will realistically get under 10,000 votes, let alone notes or discussions, is not at all going to compare to the reach she already has. and it feels weird to twist the blame that way— this author is using their writing and manipulation skill to earn lots of money and do awful things with it... and suddenly it's the individual fans' fault that she has that money and reach? and not just the fans, but even people that don't actively go out of their way to excommunicate fans of the media?

sorry to rant in your inbox i just. im pretty sick of all this "inaction against a major celebrity is the same as condoning their abuse of power and influence" stuff that people throw around instead of criticizing why our social power structure is based on popularity and engagement in the first place (which is bound to put the most cultish, manipulative, influential, and charismatic people in power). idk it just feels really skeevy to blame people who enjoy or passively tolerate something that's expertly designed specifically to be appealing by a master manipulator.

you don't have to post this (though i also don't mind if you do) i just wanted to like. bring some of my takes into your inbox cause these anons sounding like they're accusing you of queer blasphemy or some shit over literally just.... letting someone hate their anti-blorbo/love their blorbo that they think everyone else hates.... are just really putting me off. like do they get that this is the "oil companies tell poor people global warming is their fault" argument all over again?

This has been sitting in my askbox for a long time because I wasn’t sure how to address it or whether to even address it or just delete it, as it feels like a topic that’s bigger than I am and I can’t ever properly address all of it. But all I’ll say is, while I agree that not all discussion of Harry Potter or other shitty medias is promotion and we as individuals shouldn’t be held accountable for the actions of a transphobic billionaire, it is still important to approach the subject with nuance and make sure the ways in which we talk about it do not spread harm. I think that’s why so many polls decide to ban it and other medias from their polls, because most of them are designed to find the “best” of something and to insinuate that something from one of those medias can be the best could be harmful. That’s why I’m not gonna post any asks that defend the series as a whole or the franchise as a property, because it’s not right to even humor those who want to downplay transphobia and antisemitism (among others). Aaaanyways all this to say if people discourse about Harry Potter characters in the notes or askbox go for it just remember the real people impacted by the bigotries present in it when considering the way you want to make your discussions

[thomthinks]

Demonata by Darren Shan

✓ I liked it

And I hated it. It was extremely good, and extremely flawed. I wanted it to be over, at the same time, couldn’t put it down. I enjoyed it but it was so hard to get through and yet worth it.

If I haven’t made it obvious by now, I have mixed feelings on this series. And by that, I mean a lot of mixed feelings.

There are ten books in this series: 1.Lord loss 2.Demon thief 3.Slawter 4.Bec 5.Blood beast 6.Demon apocalypse 7.Death’s shadow 8.Wolf island 9.Dark calling 10.Hell’s heroes. Each book is usually less than 300 pages, and pretty easy to read.

It's young adult fantasy horror mostly aimed at younger teenagers. They’re officially listed as “middle grade” however I personally don’t think this amount of gore and horror (very descriptive & graphic) is appropriate for an 8 year old. I remember reading the first 3 books at 14 and loving them.

There are 3 protagonists present by the names of Grubbs, Kernel, and Bec. Each book is told from a different point of view.

Now on to my opinion (minor spoilers):

The first 4 books? Great. Amazing. Perfect even. The ones that come after? Downhill. (Well, mostly downhill. Death’s shadow was still as good as the first ones.)

The first 4 books give the series a very strong start. Each one is about a different protagonist in a different timeline and it sets up the plot and characters quite nicely. But as soon as the timelines crash and the 3 protagonists meet and unite? The story starts becoming stale and dragging on wayyyy too much.

Each of the first 4 books have their own stand alone stories while setting up future plot points, but afterwards it’s just set up after set up, with little pay off and too high stakes, to the point that you don’t even care anymore. It kinda reminds me of MCU actually.

I mean, for example book 9. Dark calling has no actual story of its own. It’s just 186 pages of exposition about information you need to know so that the next book makes sense.

There is a sort of? Inverse? Character? Development?? I’m not sure what it’s called, but instead of unlikable characters becoming likable, the cast of lovable characters becoming completely appalling by the end.

You will start to notic a pattern when it comes to side characters. Most of which aren’t important and get introduced only to be killed later, without any purpose or development.

While I find plot twists to be one of the biggest strength of Darren Shan and I love him for it, I don’t think every single book needed to have one. Now don’t get me wrong, he writes plot twists so well, I’m in shock and awe. I cannot emphasize how good he is with plot twists, but as the story progresses, you start to anticipate them and they lose their intended effect. (Except for book 7, ofc. God that one was so delicious)

All of this complaining might make it sound I didn’t like or enjoy the series, but I assure you that I truly did. My annoyance and fury stems from a place of love. I’m just mourning the lost potential and nitpicking the issues that stopped a good series from becoming a great series. But I would still recommend reading this to anyone between the ages of 12 - 15 I come across.

Lastly, my favorite characters were “Lord Loss” and “Dervish”. (And to a lesser extent Beck. She was pretty great too. Definitely well written and interesting. She's the star of book 7 and she shines.)

I used to like Grubbs and Kernel in the first few books, but like I said, by the end there was nothing likable left about them.

I absolutely loved Dervish. (Even though he was pretty pathetic at times, ngl) he was a good character and a good person, and he stayed that way until the very end. Most importantly he was cool, interesting, sarcastic, and charismatic, lol. His arc and development were good too.

But my all time favorite has to be Lord Loss. Yes the villain. But God, he’s just sooo good at being bad. He makes an amazing antagonist. He’s evil, literally a demon with no redeeming qualities, his presence is dark and chilling and he doesn’t pull back ANY punches. See that people? THAT’S how you right a good villain. If this was a movie he would absolutely steal every single scene he was in. Whenever he showed up I just KNEW things were about to become hella intense and interesting XD

That’s pretty much all I have to say on this book series. It might be worth mentioning that the whole story is rather forgettable. But I guess on the bright side, that means you can read it again and still enjoy it as much as the first time ;)

Farewell for now ~

[garmgeyr]

CHARACTERIZATION UPDATE & THEORIES

Now that Penacony’s story has officially concluded, I’ve combed through the script to compile all of Gallagher’s dialogue in a doc that I can use and continue to add onto as a reference (as of right now, it only has dialogue and my preliminary annotations, but since this is a character who is simultaneously an unreliable narrator and a figure deeply tied to Penacony’s history, I intend to supplement it with links to evidence from other sources as I revisit the Penacony readables and NPCs). In light of the information presented in 2.3, I’m updating my portrayal here in GH as well.

The information below will be full of major spoilers from 2.2, so proceed at your own risk.

First of all, who - or what - is Gallagher?

Gallagher is an emanator of Enigmata, and is himself a work of fiction (within the fiction that is HSR). The philosophy of Enigmata asserts that the singular truth in this world is that nothing can truly be known, and that certainty (i.e. Fate, Destiny, the past repeating itself) stagnates life. As a “virtual character,” Gallagher’s existence is a lie and will end once this is revealed, which we can assume is one of the rules emanators of Enigmata must follow in order to continue enjoying their aeon’s blessings. This is a fascinating concept and part of Gallagher’s appeal to me, and were it not for the fact I’ve chosen to pick him up in a RP group, I’d leave it at that. But RP does demand a certain degree of certainty about a character, so my goal is not to undermine this concept with “truth,” but to establish a foundation for my writing.

To distill his character, I’ve separated canon information provided by the main story into “Verified By Another Source” and “Accepted As True Until Proven False.” Most of the information in the first category has been verified by Micah, Mikhail’s memory, and the Dreamjoy Memoir event, all of which we have to assume are trustworthy sources, while most information in the second category has been provided by Gallagher himself, who has a history of lying to the player characters without them - or the audience - being aware.

Verified By Another Source

Gallagher is a History Fictionologist, an emanator of Enigmata

He’s been branded as a traitor by the Family, along with Mikhail and Micah, and has a deep-seated distrust toward the Family

He’s existed as “Gallagher” in Penacony at least since the Age of Dreaming, which was several Amber Eras ago, and assisted Mikhail in developing the Watchmaker facade to lure visitors from all across the cosmos to the Planet of Festivities

He helped create Dreamflux Reef out of the primordial dreamscape, however, at the moment I only have concrete confirmation that he was responsible for the second time it was lifted. This was after Mikhail’s exile and it was used as a refuge for the other exiles who were fleeing the Family. Dreamflux Reef is the oldest city in the dreamscape and the place where Mikhail’s history as the Father of Penacony began, so it existed at some point prior to their exile

His appearance and parts of his character are copied from other members of the Family. According to Sunday’s suspect list, he: is laidback with a calm demeanor, is a Bloodhound security officer and also a charismatic drinksmith, slacks off on the job, has a habit of messing with his tie, smokes cigarettes, loves soda, likes to have a piece of candy before getting down to work, seems mentally older than he appears, has a stocky stature and distinguishable scars, regularly goes to the bar to drink after work, is generally unkempt and slobbish, and has a subtle sense of humor

He has the tendency to come and go quietly, and show up at just the right time

He created the memetic entity called Dormancy, which took several years of effort

He wrote the Charmony Festival invitations to bring competing factions to the Planet of Festivities and hoped that this would smoke out the true traitor in the Family

Sunday essentially “killed” him when he saw through Gallagher’s persona. If you watch the scene at the end of Act II, the background music quiets and a mournful bell chimes after this revelation, and then Gallagher gets pretty antsy. From outright stating that he's running out of time, to taking a more active role in the story's progression (almost to the point of pushiness), his behavior shifts quite a bit from this moment on

Accepted as True Until Proven False

Gallagher is a child of the Watchmaker, similar to Micah. This tells us that Gallagher is significantly younger than Mikhail and was "raised" by him like the other children orphaned during the War of Independence

Mikhail, Micah, and the others never found out he was a “virtual character” or else he would have had to give up the persona long ago. This lends credence to the idea that he’s been known as “Gallagher” for a very long time

The features he collected from the individuals in the Family to concoct his persona were taken over time, not all at once. He's been refining his persona for years (much like one might refine their own personality in reality, hm?)

He self-identifies as a traitor to Mikhail, stating that he “did nothing” when Mikhail needed him. This seems to have been after the truth about the Family’s use of the Stellaron had been discovered (sometime after the Age of Dreaming), and Mikhail was getting pretty old. At some point, Mikhail gave Gallagher the directive to send invitations for the Charmony Festival, and then left for the frontier again (where he died and was later brought back to be enshrined in Dreamflux’s garden). If what Gallagher says about betraying Mikhail is true, then it may be that he hesitated for too long to send the invitations. Being as skeptical as he is, especially after centuries as a witness to Mikhail’s futile attempts to contact the Astral Express, I don’t think he believed that Mikhail’s idea would work, and so he and Micah (and others) tried to find a different way, to no avail. During this time, Mikhail disappeared and died out of sight

Gallagher was the only other person outside of the passengers of the Express who could see Misha, but having known Mikhail only in adulthood, he didn’t realize that this was the childhood spirit of his old friend until the Crew uncovered the secret of the dream bubble. In his About Misha II voice line, the JP version makes it more explicit that with meeting Misha, Gallagher is now a witness to the entirety of Mikhail’s life

He’s a “Virtual Character” who’s been around for a few Eras - so what does that mean?

When I first brought Gallagher into the group, my working theory was that he was created by some off-screen History Fictionologist and puppeted like one might control an avatar in a game. However, I no longer believe this to be a fitting interpretation. In the main story, Gallagher consistently calls himself the Fictionologist, and that Fictionologists cease to exist once their lie has been discovered. We don’t have any information to prove otherwise, so for now we have to simply believe him. It’s still congruent with his loading screen information and his character stories too: he fabricated this persona, which makes him both the author and the character. Firefly’s About Gallagher line seems to support this idea as well:

Learning about everything he experienced is like reading a brilliant novel. You know that the people are made up, but you still can't help but feel joy and sadness for them. Maybe by the end, we'll have long-lost track of who the author, the reader, and the characters are.

The end of 2.2 and 2.3, as well as the letter Gallagher leaves for the Trailblazer on the Express, all drive home the idea that Gallagher the character is gone now. “Life and death are merely fiction on the road to Enigmata, just like farewells and reunions.” He’s fulfilled his mission and has been uncovered as a fabrication; however, I believe that some part of what made Gallagher is still around. 

The Hound statues associated with Gallagher continue to exist all throughout Penacony, and the one I think is the most interesting is the one you can find in the Scorchsand venue after 2.2. It’s sitting on a table directly across from the mysterious film that begins the Scorchsand Vacation adventure quest, which has tidbits about Gallagher’s and Dormancy’s fates, all captured by a “Mr. Reka” who, from the limited information we have about him, seems to be a Fictionologist as well. My red string theory is that this person, who still exists in the world, is linked to Gallagher.

“Even now, the world is still filled with characters that we’ve played.”

But that’s a post for another day.

Continuity in GH

Personally, I believe that Gallagher disappearing at the end of the story is poignant and stays true to the concept that he was made to convey. In any other situation, I wouldn’t try to figure out how to prove or explain how he still exists after the fact, but Gnostic Hymns requires characters to be up to date with canon, and I can’t write a current iteration of a character who doesn’t exist. As the mun who chose to pick up this tricky character for a group like this, I have to establish some way to keep him around past 2.3 in a recognizable form.

For GH’s purposes, I’m making the following assumptions:

Gallagher is not human. The “truest” part of him is likely the magenta energy that glows beneath his scars and in the eyes of the Hound statues. To keep up his human facade over the centuries though, he’s physically aged at the same rate as Micah (which means that he did indeed stop aging a while ago, since Micah’s physical body is gone now and Micah himself says that the way he appears is probably the way he looked the last time he entered the dream)

It’s through the blessing of Abundance that he has a near-immortal existence

With Enigmata being born from Remembrance, I believe that Emanators of Enigmata have similar rules and abilities as Emanators of Remembrance. In other words, both have the ability to exist as complex memetic entities that can travel wherever they want and assume the appearance of locals, as long as they’re fulfilling their aeon’s desires. Gallagher is therefore not confined to Penacony’s dreamscape

The Hound statues around Penacony are Gallagher’s avatars, through which he can observe areas where they’ve been placed. His existence in this way is more like that of a spirit

He and Dormancy are cut from the same cloth (in JP, Sunday even says this during their confrontation, instead saying that they’re merely “linked”), which is what gives him unique control over it. This seems to imply that he's more like a meme (similar to Black Swan, who can also control Dormancy to an extent) than human

So what now? In true Enigmata fashion, Gallagher simply exists in GH. He doesn’t have an explanation for it. I don’t have an explanation for it. Followers of Enigmata are said to even have trouble understanding themselves, so this still aligns with the lore. For threads that take place after 2.2, Gallagher is once more a drinksmith, although one who is found in Dreamflux more often than in the Family’s dreamscape. As far as anyone else is concerned, including those who knew him before 2.2, he’s just another dreamchaser. He’ll make no allusions to his involvement with the Astral Express or Penacony’s fate, and will be crafting a new backstory from his future interactions in GH, including those that take place in other worlds.

This doesn’t change how he’ll participate in threads outside of Penacony though. In all other instances, he’ll adopt a new persona for the purpose of the environment, although it will look and act similar to the Gallagher we know.

While I don’t believe Gallagher will make a return in future patches, I do think that there will be additional information pertinent to the path of Enigmata and History Fictionologists, so I expect to continuously update my interpretation as the game continues.

My favorite thing about Gallagher, and what I hope to keep at the core of my interpretation, is that ultimately, his presence in the story asks us to think about what we consider to be real. Can something fictional have a tangible effect on others or make a lasting impact on the world? I don’t think I have to guess what the writers of a RP group would say to that.

[asteria7fics]

Could you share some EWILY Cartman headcanons with the class? 👀

HAPPILY!! ( • ̀ω•́ )✧

My usual housekeeping: There WILL be spoilers for EWILY through chapter 11. If you haven’t caught up yet, then go read that first! (It’s a lot I’m so sorry)

Also, I’m going to include a few NSFW headcanons here… because I want to. They will be clearly marked though!

Without further ado, some of my Cartman headcanons!

Alright, first and foremost let’s get some of the basics out of the way. When I set out to write EWILY, I had a really specific image of what I wanted Eric to be like. He was actually the first character design I started drafting… while waiting at the hospital for my niece to be born ahaha.

Like, he had to be a bit of a neckbeard, Discord Mod loser. I’m sorry, I simply cannot imagine teenage dirtbag Eric being any other way.

So obviously I've posted the actual illustrations of all the boys, but Eric's appearance was one I was actually pretty nervous about. I don't see a ton of depictions of him having the longest hair, or being a bit scruffy looking in general. Though I agree that he probably does actually have decent hygiene habits typically, he's... Going through it in EWILY.

I also couldn’t imagine him being popular, because despite him honestly being pretty charismatic he’s still a despicable asshole and everyone in town is so used to his bullshit by this point that they’ve all but given up any hope that he’ll ever improve as a human being. His charms have become obvious manipulation by the time EWILY begins.

There is an actual story behind why the main 5 are no longer cool with him (for the most part), as is briefly referenced in chapter 7 before all hell broke loose, but that’s a story for another day.

Unfortunately, I also felt that Eric had to be smart. Is he taking all the same classes as Kyle just to fucking harass him? A little bit, though he would say it’s to ‘keep an eye on that conniving Jew’, but I think it’s pretty clear that he is actually a pretty smart and creative kid, he just doesn’t typically apply himself. Without friends to get into trouble with though, what else is he supposed to do?

I should also probably address the… antisemitism. I mean, it’s literally canon, as is him being a racist piece of shit, among other things. Look, I think there’s a time and a place to sanitize Eric’s character at least a little bit, but doing too much loses a quintessential piece of what makes him tick. I’m not gonna go into what makes people embrace bigotry, but suffice to say I personally believe a lot of his comes from ignorance and fear, especially the latter as he gets older.

On the flip side of that, I thought it would be super funny to give Eric a major fetish for Asian women! Partially inspired by my own love of k-pop, and partially from some comments Trey has made about his own… preferences, at least ones he had when he was younger. I actually pull a lot of inspiration for all of the boys from Those Bastards, despite my better judgement. It does have the nice effect of making them feel more real, though!

It also gave me the opportunity to make a very funny joke about his favorite member of a particular k-pop girl group, who has been majorly blasted online for wearing a shirt with a swastika on it… look, I saw my opportunity and I took it. The kids who got it, got it lmao.

I suppose this is a good opportunity to transition into some NSFW headcanons. This is your warning! I’ll mark the end of the NSFW stuff so you can skip it if you’d prefer!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite being pretty outwardly homophobic towards his friends, Eric is not straight lmao. He sure wants to THINK he is, but he’s bisexual at LEAST with a slightly stronger leaning towards women.

Initially, Eric is very confident that he needs to be the dominant one in the relationship. He would prefer women that seem submissive (hence the super racist Asian fetish, oof king just cannot be normal) and can be pretty easily manipulated, which is! Objectively gross! Bad Eric!!

Being one of the most sexual kids in the show (yes I do have a mental ranking), my brother is fucking nasty. Definitely was the one that got Stan mildly addicted to porn for a hot minute there (a headcanon I never explore but definitely need to), has a massive and extensive collection of pornography on his computer, on top of frequenting OnlyFans.

Eventually though, when he finally gets to actually feel the touch of another human being he gets over that need to be on top, literally and metaphorically. He relinquishes control VERY slowly, but eventually with a LOT of trust lets his partner have more power in the bedroom.

Also, his gf eventually definitely pegs him. Try and tell me I’m wrong. Do they get even nastier? Absolutely, but I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination. (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ANYWAY! Back to the normal stuff. (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

Speaking of his girlfriend, I know it's not popular but I adore loverboy Eric. The idea of him fighting so hard to be a good person just to maintain an important relationship is *chef's kiss*

Now I won't formally diagnose Eric with anything, but he definitely has some... Antisocial tendencies. We see him visit a therapist a couple of times in canon, and I think he would keep that up until about the time his friends ditch him. Entering his social recluse era oof. He definitely stops seeing the point in improving himself when people are going to abandon him anyway.

So of course, he's still not a very good partner. I would get into his relationship with Yen more but, like with all the relationships in EWILY it's... Complicated.

Alright, I’m gonna do some quick-fire headcanons to get the rest of my thoughts out ahaha

Is the shortest of the main 5 - yes, even shorter than Kenny, but only by a couple of inches. This wasn’t always the case though, and was actually the tallest when they were kids. (TSOB era)

He and Butters have the smallest wieners. RIP sorry loser it’s canon.

Never really got over his little crush on Wendy. Funny how he’s still into girls with dark hair… (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

Desperately wants another cat, but Liane has really only put her foot down about this one thing after what happened to Mr. Kitty. Sorry, I had to remind you.

Definitely still packs heat, but doesn’t get away with bringing it to school.

Hardcore schemer still and does all kinds of questionable shit to make money. You know, instead of just getting a normal job.

Wears those super long cargo shorts year-round. Claims he ‘doesn’t feel cold’ but definitely does.

Met Yen in a random Discord server, one he became pretty popular in. Still has lots of online friends that only really know the persona he puts on for them.

Man, what else is there...

I suppose this is a good place to drop some of the other things I've put together for him! You can look at his Pinterest board here, and his Spotify playlist here!

Okay, I seriously need to stop you guys, but I could talk about Cartman all day. Literally my son oh my god he’s so silly!!! I hope this was a sufficient answer for you, dear anon! I’m always happy to share my thoughts and feelings about these dudes!!

Thank you for the ask!! (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

[oddygaul]

Scavengers Reign

Holy shit, good western animation that’s not comedy and actually has a focus on aesthetics, setting and craft??

Seriously, I still can’t believe something like Scavengers Reign got made. This feels like a student thesis film you’d see on Vimeo, not a full 12-episode series with a healthy production schedule.

I loved this show. The artstyle is a clear rip of Moebius, but that’s… fucking sick? I mean, given how little that style has been successfully adapted for animation, I’m all for it, especially when it’s done with this much care and skill. Seriously, some of the longer environments shots could genuinely pass for later Moebius illustrations. The colors are also gorgeous throughout, managing to make each biome feel distinct (and thus sell how far our characters have traveled) while maintaining a consistent, muted vibe over the course of the story.

The star of the show, obviously, is the ecology and creature design. Even with no added context, the designs are all very cool, from the little rolling polyps we see everywhere to the stampeding ungulates. But the thing that sets this show apart is the clear ecological niche we’re shown for each species. Nearly every creature we see, we learn something about: their source of food, their natural predators, the unique behavior they’ve adapted to thrive in their environment. And the comparison to nature documentaries doesn’t just stop there - they even directly ape the style, editing and content of documentaries, like when the show focuses on territorial disputes between members of the same species, or highlights a predator taking advantage of its prey’s weakest moments to strike.

Some of my particular favorite ideas: 1. All of the various white-coated creatures near Azi’s desert encampment that blend seamlessly into the spires for camouflage 2. The seafaring creatures sucking up their young for protection during the lightning storm, and the parasites that come in to gorge themselves while they’re defenseless 3. The fact that the little Grey-looking gecko-apes (Hollow’s species), given their intelligence and powerful telekinesis, could clearly become apex predators and take on prey many times their size… but instead use their hypnosis to force other species to get food for them, because it takes way less energy expenditure. That’s nature, baby!

The show definitely drags a bit around the halfway point. The start of the story is explosive, as we follow the viewpoints of 3 different groups of survivors and their drastically different situations. The character dynamics are great in the beginning - Ursula and Sam’s early mastery of the wildlife during their expeditions, Azi’s reticence contrasted with Levi’s developing personality, and the slow horror that unfolds as Kamen is taken in by Hollow. For the first few episodes, we have no idea where things will end up, and it’s exciting watching things play out.

By the midpoint, we’ve basically lost Kamen’s point of view, as his arc is put on ice until the end of the show, so we’re just bouncing back and forth between Sam & Ursula’s perspective, and the group Azi finds herself falling in with. Sam & Ursula’s narrative feels like it gets stuck in a rut here, as Sam gets infected with two different parasites back to back; I really feel like they should’ve committed to one (preferably the plot thread about the previous survivor) rather than trying to land the same emotional beat twice in a row. On Azi’s side, while I understand what they were going for with Kris and the other newcomers, their story never really got compelling for me. Scavengers’ strength is the planet and its bizarre alien life. Levi, with their dawning sentience and growing connection to the natural world, really fits into those themes; replacing that with a ‘Humans were the real monsters scavengers all along!’ subplot is a tough sell, especially when the characters driving it are about as charismatic as a puddle and have some of the most awkward acting / writing in the show.

There’s even some form issues in the middle section. In classic anime fashion, the visuals take a bit of a hit; there’s less standout background work in the 2nd act, and the character animation suffers at times. I also found the editing distracting in this section; with only two points of view to go between, the constant cutting between the A and B plot started to feel artificial and distracting. Also, since we more or less have an idea of how the stories are going to come together by this point, there’s a sense of inevitability to the proceedings.

Fortunately, things come back together in the end; Ursula leaving Sam behind is every bit as bittersweet as it should be, Levi’s resurrection by the planet-flowers is fascinating, and the sequence where Hollow is returned to its natural self, courtesy of a Levi-supplied Total Perspective Vortex, is just goddamn gorgeous. Seriously, if anything can become iconic anymore in the constantly shifting hell that is today’s media landscape, it’s this breathtaking animated montage of life germinating and evolving on Vesta. Well, that and the buckwild life-to-death flower pollination sequence in episode 3. Fully expecting to see those posted as captures on random forums one, five, ten years from now.

Here’s hoping for season two, or anything more from this creative team! They can’t leave us hanging with the fuckin Imperium of Man showing up at the end like that, can they?

[red-might-be-dead]

hello.! could you spare some bitb headcanons? i'm planning to start writing some stuff for it in the coming months and you seem like the expert so :3

sorry this took so long to reply to.... jkghksfjhgkjfha

KIAN!! -

i like to think that he was the smartest in the group, he would always do well in tests and classes and shit and he would bunk off most of the time, it would really piss off his teachers because he would fly through school and get As on everything

he left just after finishing highschool, probably before rolan left, his parents didn’t even notice he was gone

he was homeless for a while after music didn’t work out but eventually made money through stocks or whatever the fuck he had going for him lmaoo

his monster is always some kind of tarantula to me, the fur or hair or whatever is the same as the animal pattern on his jacket and he has lots of reds and hot pinks all over :33

ROLAN!! -

he moved to town when he was about 5 or 6 and made friends with rand and kian (they were already friends)

he was the least book smart but he tried really hard in school, unlike the other two, and although he still skipped some classes he was definitely a teachers pet (i feel like he would just seem very trustworthy even if he had just been smoking weed with his friends behind the bleachers)

he left highschool and then stayed with rand after kian left, he didn’t really talk to him he more just stayed in galloway, after rachel died (or went missing) he stayed away from rand but he couldn’t bring himself to leave him behind

when he left he told rand he was going (this was the first proper interaction that they’d had since highschool ended) and rand got so pissed off at him

in college he was quiet but lots of people gravitated towards him, he was a sweet guy with a nice energy so he made lots of friends very fast

he did a lot of sports in highschool, i think he carried on doing some of them until he went back to galloway (probably running)

his bug arm always reminds me of a preying mantis, i think if he had gone full bug-o-mode he would have been some kind of preying mantis creature with whites blacks and blues

RAND!! -

okay so this fucking guy, this guy, this greasy freak is my favourite ever jrwi character and i will NOT be able to get all of the shit down i want to for him because there is SO. MUCH. i’m definitely gonna write this more concisely than i did the shit for the other two

okay, he was smart in highschool, the teachers all hated him so much (he was a less charismatic version of kian) he did well in exams because he actually did study out of class unlike kian BUT he was 10 times more distributive (really he was just doing anything to make his friends laugh)

spent a lot of time IN school writing the d&d campaign and a lot of time OUT of school catching up on the stuff he should’ve been doing IN school

he had a girlfriend for a time, they kissed, he didn’t like it, he realised he liked men, he realised he liked rolan, he repressed all of that and moved on, him and his girlfriend broke up (due to him not spending any time with her, ignoring her in school and spending all the time they did have together talking about rolan or kian, basically him being an overall bad boyfriend), he moves on with life, basically forgets she ever existed

all through all of this time he has also been constantly getting into arguments with his parents and trying to do everything he could to NOT be with his sister (not that he didn’t love her it’s just he didn’t want to spend every waking hour with her)

his parents liked rachel more than him, it wasn’t her fault, rachel was always the most perfect child ever, she admired rand so much she really wanted to be as cool as him (she didn’t understand much about her brother but she loved him anyway)

after rachel was kidnapped rand started to ignore kian and rolan, he started slipping behind in classes and he stopped distracting people in classes, then he stopped coming into school at all, he never graduated

he locked himself in his room during the day and spent all night looking for rachel in the bayou (miracle he didn’t get turned lmao, maybe rach was protecting him in some way) he regretted everything and he would do anything for just another minute with his sister

kian left and didn’t even say goodbye, rand thought he deserved to be ignored for being such a bad friend

it was rolan leaving that broke him, everything was falling apart, he screamed and cried and cursed at rolan as he was driving away, the last thing he said was “i love you” but rolan never heard

he didn’t leave galloway, he couldn’t leave his sister alone again

if he ever went bug-o-mode i think he would be some kind of scorpion creature, or like, idk, a cicada lmao

honestly this is just how i thought the campaign ended canonically but idk anymore: when he talked to his sister he was hallucinating (the same way as when he was talking to dead kian) and he bled out floating in the swamp looking up at the sky

OKAY THATS IT…. BUUUT i do have a shit ton of conflicting headcanons and also smaller character headcanons that i might just drop in your inbox sometimes if that’s okay with you :DD!! sorry this took like one billion years… i didn’t even get everything….

[starsopinions]

Why I'm excited for The Marvels

The first real introduction I had to the MCU was in 2019, my best friend and I decided to go to the cinema. We weren’t sure what movie to watch but we eventually landed on Captain Marvel, I remember being hooked from the first second and being so excited when, at the end, the words “Captain Marvel will return…” appeared on screen. We left the theatre excited for the sequel which we promised to watch it together. I’m not friends with her anymore but I have to say that, less than a month away from the release of The Marvels, I can’t wait to finally see it and I don’t understand why there seems to be so much negativity surrounding the release of this, in my opinion, very promising movie. So here is why I'm excited for The Marvels!

The cast

Watching the trailer, the first thing that jumps out at me is the cast. The main cast consists of actors who have done consistently good jobs in the past. You may not like Brie Larson but there is no denying that she can act, which is further proven by her many awards, including an Oscar for best actress in 2016. Joining her is Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau who, I think we can all agree on, did an amazing job in WandaVision. And completing the trio is Iman Vellani who is playing Ms marvel. I know a lot of people didn’t like Ms Marvel as a show but I think many are disregarding the fact that the target audience was (younger) teens and not middle-aged men (that isn’t to say that Ms Marvel was perfect but I think it was a fun addition which added something new to the MCU). Besides, I think the problem in Ms Marvel definitely wasn’t Iman’s performance and if they fix the writing issues there is nothing wrong with her character. She is very charismatic and funny, and in my opinion, she is a joy to watch. I am so excited to watch the trio’s dynamic and chemistry!

And as if that wasn’t enough, acting alongside them will be Zawe Ashton. You may know her from Fresh Meat or Velvet Buzzsaw. We don’t know a whole lot about her character yet besides that she will be the antagonist. I think Zawe has a lot of talent and I’m excited to see more of her villainous side.

“throw-away villain”

A lot of people seem to think that this will be a boring, one-time/throw-away villain- kind of movie but I honestly think that that is just what the MCU needs right now. There have been so many big cross-over movies recently that deal with very complex issues (time travelling, the multiverse) that something small that focuses on the characters and story would work really well. Especially as it seems that Zawe’s character is going to be building on past villain Ronan (Guardians of the Galaxy), which gives her an already established back story so it doesn’t come out of nowhere which is often an issue with these one-time villains.

Recent MCU movies have been falling into the trap of building up lots of expectations, for them just to have a simple storyline. For example, everyone was expecting Dr. Strange Multiverse of Madness to include loads of crossovers and references to other movies which made the reality so much more disappointing. I think The Marvels has done a really good job of building up realistic expectations while still making an exciting trailer. No one is expecting Wanda or Loki to appear in this movie so no one will be disappointed when it doesn’t happen. 

“The M-She-U”

I have been reading the comments on the promotion for the movie and a lot of comments say things like: “Ain’t no one watching this ms marvel Has become sadly feministic” 

and

 “I am willing to bet money this movie I’ll include nothing but horrible comedy, political takes, and sex takes” 

(yes, these are actual comments)(I’m not sure if I should correct the grammar or just leave it help)

These comments are commented by people who have seen as much of this movie as you and I, and that means they have seen a 2-minute trailer and you just can’t base a full opinion on those snippets of an entire, 2-hour movie, but let's address them anyway. 

“Horrible comedy” – To be completely honest, comedy is always a difficult topic because that is just such a personal preference. But based on what we have seen so far, it seems pretty funny and I hope they’ll be able to balance the serious tones and the comedy. I think to write off a movie as having horrible comedy purely because you think the trailer isn’t funny is shallow and kind of stupid. If one person doesn’t like something that doesn’t mean the whole world agrees with you. 

“sadly feministic”/”political takes” – I think it is weird to call any MCU movie “sadly feministic” because it is something that was lacking so much in earlier Marvel movies and their more recent works have started to include more female representation but that doesn’t mean the problem is suddenly solved. I do agree that some representation has been lacking in depth which makes it feel cheap but that’s all the more reason to be more feminist. But even without that, the trailers don’t feel like they are pushing a feminist agenda. They are just heroes who happen to be women and I, as a young girl, am really excited to see that on the big screen.

At the end of the day, anyone is entitled to their own opinions but the hate and negativity that has been surrounding this movie is absolutely insane. There are a lot of people who have decided that (without seeing the movie) they don’t like it and no one else can either. It is 100% okay to not like something but please don’t ruin it for other people. 

The cast and their chemistry have me really thrilled for this movie, I am very excited to see what Captain Marvel has been up to all this time. 

I will be there opening night with high expectations and a very large bucket of popcorn, I hope to see you there :D

[suprsingr]

Okay! I came up with a theory for what's going to happen in Nevermore and I want to get it down on paper ahead of time so that I can see if I'm right. Because if I am, I will feel so smart, and if I'm wrong, I can feel that much more satisfied with the superior intellect and planning of the authors.

So, as a quick theory on Annabel's death, I'd like to cite these facts:

💀 Annabel's spectre's dirty bare feet and dress

💀 Annabel's dying emotions being loneliness, sadness and (potentially) doubt, with these feelings manifesting in a gaping void where her heart should be and a flood of tears

💀 Annabel's childhood friend who was determined to marry her, despite her disinterest in him

💀 Annabel's repeated sentiment of there being no point without Lenore and freaking out over the idea of losing her

💀 Her spectre being the Lady in White, a woman left at the altar

Now, I think Lenore was killed before her and Annabel's wedding and Annabel was left at the altar. She had no idea that Lenore was dead, only that she had been abandoned, and in response to this, she ran away. Lost her shoes, dirtied her feet, ruined the ends of her dress, and was left feeling loneliness, sadness, and doubt (didn't Lenore love her? why would she disgrace her like this? what was she going to do without her?).

It's here that she meets Lenore's killer, who is her childhood friend, and he tells her that he saved her from marrying a - gasp! - woman. Annabel's heart is shattered and she's shot with Lenore's gun. End of story.

That story, anyway.

Now, a few more facts:

💀 Annabel assumes, repeatedly, that Lenore is as calculated as she is

💀 Annabel vowed to marry the first man who could beat her in a game of chess

💀 Annabel is remembering her life backward from her death, while Lenore is remembering things from the beginning

So, Annabel has memories that inform her of her decision not to marry anyone who couldn't out-maneuver her. Maybe she had some cheeky conversations with Lenore about it, maybe her dad mentions it, who knows. But it was a major defining aspect of her life, so it makes sense that it would come up frequently. And since Lenore and her were going to be married (on top of the fact Lenore was posing as a man, successfully), she logically assumes that Lenore is a master strategist, cunning and manipulative, just like her.

Here is where the conflict pops up, as we all know at this point: Annabel is strategizing and Lenore is just... being Lenore, and they're getting to know each other again for the first time. Lenore sees Annabel as beautiful and kind, while Annabel sees Lenore as charismatic and ingenious. The complexity of their characters, while excellent writing, makes for some very confusing interactions between them. Because they are in love, they can feel that they have a bond, but they don't actually know each other yet.

So, of course, Lenore is disturbed by how cold Annabel is and will want to save her friends, and Annabel is going to keep playing games because it's all she knows how to do. In time, Annabel will be faced with the fact that Lenore is not any match for her in cunning, strategy, or calculation, and she will be equally disturbed by Lenore's recklessness and loyalty to strangers. This will be when they fight.

But! The way that I see this all ending!!!

Annabel will remember the chess match with Lenore. Lenore, who practiced playing chess for days, weeks, months, whatever, who disguised herself as a man for her, who chased her all the way to London, who wrote her a love song, will be sitting in front of her trying so hard to best her and failing spectacularly, and Annabel...

will throw the game.

Manipulative, cunning, duplicitous Annabel will tip her king over on purpose and let Lenore win, because she loves her.

And she will do the same thing in Nevermore.

That's my theory.

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Jack Thorne's 'His Dark Materials' wanted it both ways

Despite the cast and crews open love for the novels, and the insistent diligence to stay as faithful to the source material as possible — even trying to fill in many of the gaps in the books, as seen in all three seasons of the show — the BBC adaptation never manages to capture the spirit (the only time I felt like it did was in the third season) because of the fact that every character is altered and changed. Not just adaptationally changed either like making a character dumber, softer or harder. They’re completely different characters, separated from the source material e.g. Mrs Coulter is changed from a seductive, calm character to a feral, suicidal character. I must admit, I did like the expanded self harm element that she causes her daemon. However I felt in the novel, if she were to harm her monkey, it would be ‘to keep her lust for power at bay’ rather than shame for herself.

The atmosphere was off yet the events were similar and the complete opposite at the same time. But you can’t have similar events play out with different characterisations, at least not with ‘His Dark Materials’.

Philip Pullman’s characters in ‘His Dark Materials’ are extremely charismatic, but to put it lightly, are not very palatable to say the least. As stated in @clarabosswald’s analysis, there seemed to be this weird need to make EVERY single character digestible or palatable in some way or another in the BBC adaptation, regardless of it making sense or not. I noticed this upon my re-read of ‘The Northern Lights’ that they even humanised the doctor that sexually assaulted Lyra by grabbing Pantalaimon, which was very troubling.

Now with the opposing ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ film, they changed the characterisations to make them more sympathetic and accessible to a contemporary audience. They even dug deeper with the character Edmund which I thought was a fantastic choice. But the reason why those character changes worked was because C.S.Lewis was not concerned with building character, he was much more concerned with the place of Narnia itself. He almost used his characters to explore the world of Narnia, e.g. some characters would leave one book and come back 5 books later — which is why some of the later adaptations of Narnia didn’t do as well in the box office as the first one.

The character changes in that film enriched the story without effecting it in a way, because ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ and the other books are driven by the plot. Where as ‘His Dark Materials’ is primarily driven by characters.

Philip Pullman in total contrast to C.S.Lewis, built the world (you could say he used the world) around the characters in order for them to get to Point A to Point B. But he was not concerned about exploring the multiverse so you could see the entire picture, like with C.S. Lewis.

I heard once that he described writing as wondering through a forest on a path and the path is your story. Theres a difference between the story world and the storyline. And as an Author, your concern is the storyline. It would be easy to step away and stray from the path and explore the forest and admire all the trees, but for him the most important thing to do was to remain on the path and focus on the story rather than the details along the way.

I’m not apposed to different versions of the characters or different storylines. But with ‘His Dark Materials’, those books are driven by specific character traits. And the fact that they changed them, while still being faithful to the events in the story, the story beats either don’t land or don’t hit as hard or don’t make sense altogether.

More specifically with the main characters Lyra and Will, but mostly Lyra since she’s the heart of the story.

Lyra is first and fourmost a liar, which may seem a small part of her character but its huge. Her ability to lie and get her way out of situations is the cause of many events in the books. She’s feral. She’s wild. She’s manipulative. She’s described as a ‘half wild cat’ and a ‘greedy little savage’. She can’t sit still or behave herself. She’s impulsive. She’s a leader. She gets into fights. She gets dirty. She spends all her nights on the rooftops. She’s an extrovert. She’s street smart. She’s selfish. She’s brave.

She’s an emotional and passionate human being. Thats what makes Lyra a real girl, not just a character on the page. These nuanced character traits of hers is how she pushes everything forward in the story.

All of those negative/positive aspects of her character in the books were watered down so much in the series. To the point where alot of them were removed. Not only is that incredibly dehumanising but makes the plot points where “she lies” not land as well or plot points revolving around her “telling the truth” make no sense at all.

The whole reason why she’s called Lyra Silvertongue is because she tricked the bear king with her lies, a trait which is consistent throughout the entire story — but completely nonexistent throughout the show. Her tricking the bear king in the adaptation came off as a lucky experience rather something that comes naturally to her. Even the ironic plot point of her being given the Alethiometer “a device that tells her the truth” didn’t hit as hard. They tried to establish her as a ‘liar’ in the second episode of season one then gave up completely as the show continued on.

But the weird thing is, those flaws were still mentioned by other characters in the show, when it was not the character they were developing. Characters would mention that she’s a liar, insufferable, selfish or that ‘she doesn’t apologise easily’ — which seemed like an over exaggeration since the show version of her isn’t really any of those things. This applied when characters such as Lee praised her for being ‘brave’ and ‘good’. I heard a HDM podcast recapping season 2 saying that “her character in the show wasn’t hitting the right emotional beats” to be a child of a great destiny that every character seemingly falls over themselves to give their lives for her.

TV Lyra hasn’t completely lost her flaws, but she’s not as nearly as flawed as she was in the books. She felt so contained, rather than passionate. Which felt so odd because yes, Lyra grows out of some bad traits such as her rudeness, due to the influence of Will. But she isn’t naturally like that.

They changed her so much, but also tried to keep her “the same” that her character growth which is huge in the books felt like nothing had moved at all. It kind of got reduced to a simple thing like her innocence being taken away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to have any sort of loud, dislikable reaction in any way. It felt like they were taking away her agency.

And I know one of the biggest reasons why they changed her behaviour in the TV Show is because they aged the character up to 14–16 at the start. I get it. Theres a huge difference between 12 and 14 in terms of maturity . It works for the Will & Lyra romantic scenes as an adaptational choice later in the story (because she’s allegedly 12–13 in the books).

I think Dafne Keen was an inspired choice for the role of Lyra, since I saw some scenes of her in ‘Logan’ and I 100% believe she would of pulled off Book Lyra given the chance, but by the time they started filming she was already 13/14. And in all honesty, Lyra just becomes odd looking older. She’s just not convincing as a misbehaving little girl who can’t sit still, she just comes off as a really strange child thats immature or lacking in social skills. For example, there’s a scene between Mrs Coulter and Lyra in ‘The Idea of North’ where she’s telling a lie, but it doesn’t come off natural because 1. They didn’t establish her as a liar immediately and 2. Part of her ability to lie comes from her spontaneous nature of being a kid telling stories and using her imagination. Dafne Keen didn’t really look that age, for it to look like something she would do.

They also made her relationship with Roger more of a focus in the show, which makes sense as her motivation in the later half of the books comes from wanting to rescue him. However, they made him ‘the only friend that she has’ which I found to be a strange decision because Lyra in the books has tuns of friends. I would say their friendship is more balanced in the series, where as in the book it wasn’t so much.

She forgets him a few times while staying with Mrs Coulter in the book where as she remembers him constantly in the episode ‘The Idea of North’ which felt like a confused choice to me. They were trying to have it both ways; have her be seduced by Mrs Coulter while also actively asking her to look for Roger.

The imbalance in Roger and Lyra’s friendship is important because it adds to the need to set things right with him in The Land of the Dead. It goes to the core of how everyone thinks she is selfish. She needs to save Roger to prove to herself she’s a good person.

In the dreams she has of him in The Land of the Dead, her and Roger have constant talks of how much he’s suffering. In the show, she just has alot of ambiguous flash forward dreams of Roger, with the story not prioritising them as important as the main plot of ‘Asriel’s War’.

When she brings this up to Will in the episode, he dismisses it instead of agreeing to go (like in the book) because of his daddy issues, no I’m sorry, because of Asriel’s War which makes sense as it’s one of the main plots in the season — where it was more of a distracting B plot in the book — but it just kind of adds to the idea that “its unnecessary” or “why are they doing this?”.

The desire to get to Roger and apologise in the show doesn’t hit as hard because there was more of a balance in Lyra and Rogers relationship plus the changes to her character just made it seem like “she just wanted to do it” rather than it being the most important decision she ever makes, to try to better herself.

While they go to the suburbs of the dead, Will and Pan constantly question why she’s doing this (a conflict that was not in the book — Will is steadfastly loyal to her by this point and Pan is too shivery to speak) while Lyra just snaps at them, making her seem mean for no reason. When she has a chat with her death, she doesn’t lie that an angel told her to do it (because they didn’t establish her as a liar properly), she just says that she wants to be good which is not a convincing argument considering what happens next.

When Pan and her have the argument while she leaves him on the doc, which is a great scene on its own (it made me cry), it also adds to the unnecessary nature of it all. It’s a scene that makes sense in the book because of Lyra’s impulsive nature, but because of her seemingly calculative nature in the show, it just looks odd. It’s described in the book that if Lyra had heard Pan speak, she would have folded and never would of got on the boat, but since the show did the complete opposite of that, It makes the scene more harsh and cold.

I think what the writers were trying to do was make it more of a mystery like ‘why is she doing this’ ‘its not too late to turn around’ a mission that appears fruitless at first, but turns out to be the greatest act of humanity — but again, I still don’t think that works because of how much Lyra’s entire character is changed. The act is not just for everyone else. It’s a major step in her character growth, to care about others.

In the Land of the Dead, obviously they had to cut out the whole section where Lyra literally looses her ability to lie while she’s telling lies to the harpies, then learns to tell the truth to the dead. This is the final step for Lyra’s character, finally learning the power of telling the truth instead of lies. They didn’t replace that with anything, only with her telling the dead true stories, which was heartwarming on its own, but obviously those story beats don’t hit as hard in the same way because like I said, its not presented as the final step in her character growth, its presented as a one off scene. This is one of the reasons why her character is pretty static in the adaptation.

In the Land of the Dead, its Lyra for the most part (apart from one instance) that keeps a cool head, while Will looses his — which again, the complete opposite. In the books, its Lyra that goes off the rails and its Will that keeps her centred.

Which brings me onto how the character of Will is changed in the adaptation, and how that effects the story from the second book onwards.

Will was brought in by Philip Pullman in ‘The Subtle Knife’, to represent Lyra’s other half — in another parallel universe literally, and also to help her on her quest to fulfil the prophecy. If it was just her on her own with Pan, it wouldn’t work and would fail.

Though I was taken aback by his entrance in ‘The Subtle Knife’ — as it was such a jarring change coming from the suspenseful cliff hanger where Lyra walks into the new world after her best friend Roger got murdered — he quickly but surely became my favourite male literary character of all time.

I don’t have as a big of a problem with his character changes then I do with Lyra, because there were at least a few times in the show where he was allowed to act like ‘himself’. Amir Wilson was perfect casting as Will. It was like the character had just walked off the page it was that good. But all together, he’s a completely different character — which I can understand. Out of all the characters, I feel he’s the hardest to pin down and his development is done in a subtle and subconscious way.

Throughout the course of ‘The Subtle Knife’, he’s incredibly off putting as he’s mostly angry and tired and then he’s in pain because of his knife wound. It works in a book format, because your’e in his point of view and you understand that he’s a child thats at the end of his tether. But it would be hard to portray that in a nuanced way on screen, unless your’e clever with it.

They unfortunately took the easy route with his characterisation on screen by making him softer. Not only that, the writing for his character was incredibly inconsistent at times.

Will from the books is fierce. He’s frightening. He’s stoic. He gets angry. He’s a strategist. He does whats best for someone. He likes to stay invisible. He’s sarcastic. He's an introvert. He likes to stay hidden. He’s practical. He’s a child carer. He's naturally aggressive e.g. He beat up a bunch of boys at school because they were hurting his mother. He hardly smiles. At times, especially in the second book, he becomes incredibly depressed. He's pretty much a 35 year old man in a young boy's body. He’s incredibly soft, but the reader can’t tell until Lyra brings that out in him.

I would say Will is a more contained version of Lyra, yet the complete opposite of her. They’re like yin and yang. They both have something that the other lacks, and that helps them both grow up. Lyra brings out a softness out in him, brings out his impulsive nature where as he helps her strategise and learn not to just rush out and do things.

TV Will suffers from the same problem that TV Lyra does.

Every negative/positive aspect about him is watered down. Revealing a quite mild character. I feel that they didn’t touch on the fact that he was a child carer enough, which is a huge part of his character. It just came off as ‘he loves his mum’ more in the show. Will being a caterer is supposed to contrast Lyra whom didn’t grow up with parents and got to live out a childhood that he was never allowed to experience. This is a theme. Every character trait that contrasts Lyra in the books isn’t present so much. I would even go as far to say that they’re too similar in the TV Show.

I was wondering throughout the second season why the storyline was static and wasn’t going anywhere. Certain plot points such as Will being a murderer, Lyra helping Will find his father, The fight for the subtle knife and Will becoming the bearer of the Subtle Knife felt tacked on or weren’t hitting as hard as they should.

At first, I thought it was because the novel was ‘the weakest in the trilogy’. I often see ‘The Subtle Knife’ as a bridge between both ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’.

But since re-reading the book, I went ‘Oh my God, its because they changed Will’s character arc’.

TV Will, the more I think about it, does not suit becoming the bearer of the subtle knife. The only times we see him fighting is in the boxing ring. He expresses incredible regret over killing a man instead of brushing it off because he was protecting his mother. Even when he’s under threat, he says ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ He even has to be persuaded to fight. There’s even a moment in the show where he says “Maybe we’re better off not fixing the knife at all.” which kind of dismisses the practical nature of his character in the book. Plus the knife being a part of him, the same way as the Alethiometer is a part of Lyra. Even the remarks that Lyra makes about him being similar to Iorek the armoured Bear don't make as much sense, because of the fact that he's softer.

Book Will struggles with his warrior nature, and eventually learns thats not who he wants to be. But he isn’t naturally a soft person. He learns to be through his experiences and his relationship with Lyra. Which is why it was so odd to me that they included the line in the show where Will is saying to his father in the Land of the Dead “You told me that I was a warrior; That I can’t fight my nature. Your’e wrong.” I was just like, what are you talking about? That is so not the character the show had developed. TV Will had hardly been shown to fight anyone of his own free will — it didn’t make sense to me. They were trying to have it both ways. Completely ignoring his basic character traits and flaws, yet still going through the same arc (a somewhat watered down one) one e.g. idolising his dad for his whole life, realising his dad ain’t shit when he meets him, finding Lyra missing, ignoring the task his father set him etc.

Even the task that Lyra has to help Will find his father didn’t land as well because of the fact that the two of them were bonding straight away in the show, instead of it being like ‘oh no we’re stuck with each other’ to this slow process of her and Will learning to trust each other.

I understand that you have to translate Lyra and Will’s relationship alot differently in a Show format, because subconscious development doesn’t really work due to the lack of intimate point of views. The more something is changed in an adaptation, the more it stays the same.

I have openly praised the shows depiction of their relationship in another analysis I wrote (before i re-read the books) and how I loved how they gave them more soft moments. However, I will admit now that the soft moments that they had in season 2 felt off to me because they weren’t in character. I think, looking back I would of preferred more soft moments if they were in character.

Will’s initial softness towards Lyra in the show is partially to do with TV Lyra being much less feral and less of a threat. As a result their journey is warmer and far less angstier than it was in the books.

And that in turn messes with the tension.

The element of Will being slightly dismissive of her at the start, is important to how certain story beats land. It adds to the ‘OH SHIT’ when Lyra’s been taken and the task that his father set him that he’s been dreaming of his whole life suddenly isn’t important to him anymore. Thats why it’s such a big deal when he spends most of his time through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ looking for her.

But in the season 2 finale, it ends with Will going off into the sunset, presumably to fulfil is fathers wishes. Then in season 3, he finds her missing, goes ‘whoops’ and then there's a montage of him trying to find her. Then when he does (quite easily) — he goes on about how “since his dad died he’s done none of the things that he asked him to do’ which makes him looking for Lyra within the show feel even more anticlimactic.

Also, this is more of a personal opinion that an analytical one, I did not appreciate when Lyra brought up going to the Land of The Dead, TV Will went “I saved you. I did everything I could to save you. You told me not to but I did it anyway” which felt to me like ‘Wow brilliant, of course you had to save her’

And instead of agreeing to go to the Land of the Dead with her like in the book, they had to insert some tension from 'The Subtle Knife' (because they messed with the tension in season 2) and have Will go on a rant about what his dad wanted him to do, Asriel’s war, dismissing Lyra’s wishes and even having him suggest maybe her dad regretted killing her friend.

This is something that Will from the books would never ever say, let alone to the girl that he loves. He's fully aware how much her dad hurt her and he respects her too much by that point to ever suggest something like that. Even when he does think about ‘what his dad wanted him to do’ he’s still steadfastly loyal to Lyra. They were completely undermining the turning point in their relationship and Will’s character development by adding pointless drama to extend the episodes running time.

As mentioned in a very articulate post by @mamsellechosette24601 ‘the quest to find his father and fulfil his fathers wishes’ isn’t the point at all, its Will letting go of his childhood dreams, of realising what really matters is Lyra all along.

Now I’ve seen in another analysis of the adaptation that their path to falling in love in the show is alot clearer than in the books which I can understand and agree with (to a certain extent) because the books were much more concerned with philosophy than romance. This is true for the romance between Asriel and Marisa in the Book vs the TV Show as well.

The concept behind their relationship remains the same:

“Will and Lyra are very good people who learn to trust each other when they’re at their most vulnerable, they become the only thing they have in a terrifying world of enemies. By the end, when they realise they’re in love only to discover they can never be together, they make the mature choice, however hard it may be.”

But their relationship is totally different in the TV Show because of their character changes.

I would say Lyra and Will have more of a enemies to lovers storyline in the books - where as the adaptation version of them doesn't. The screenwriters clearly tried to iron out alot of the problematic elements, especially in the beginning and focus on them being "friends" more. I'm not apposed to them doing that, but the way they did it ended up muting a few of their scenes together.

I’ve actually made an argument in my other account (against the ‘His Dark Materials’ analysis saying that ‘the adaptation did a much better job at showing when Will and Lyra fell in love’) that their relationship development was a lot subtler in the books because the characters were alot younger and more immature. And that it was more ‘obvious’ in the tv show because they aged the characters up, therefore they could have more mature conversations and scenes together.

This was before I did my re-read.

After re-reading ‘The Subtle Knife’ and ‘The Amber Spyglass’ comparing it with how their relationship is handled in the TV Adaptation. I would actually argue the opposite .

In some ways, the growing romance between the two of them is much more mature (and makes more sense) in the books than in the show, at least to me. Unlike in the TV Show, their relationship never enters into neutral territory, even when they finally learn to trust each other. Theres much less emphasis on their ‘friendship’.

After their brutal first meeting — where they attack eachother — in ‘The Subtle Knife’ Lyra is immediately taken with Will and constantly thinks about him and what he thinks of her. There’s even a moment in ‘The Amber Spyglass’ where she’s trying to hide that she’s in pain while they’re walking (because of all that time she’s been asleep) because she doesn’t want to appear weak in front of him.

The way Lyra and Will meet in the show, is reminiscent of how children meet for the first time. Though quite skeptical of each other, they instantly bond and make friends after 5 seconds, because why wouldn’t they? They’re kids the same age after all. Even though there’s still an element of mistrust there, there’s hardly any conflict between them. They don’t play off each other as much. There is one moment where he gets angry at her for making him wait, but all that is solved in a minute because of Lyra’s ‘calm nature’

Even when Lyra gives Will away by accident and says that she lost the Alethiometer, he doesn’t shout at her. There are few comments here and there but theres no real tension between the two of them.

When Will and Pan have a conversation, its presented as Pan going up to him to have a chat after he had a bad dream rather than Will finding the courage to speak to him in the book and saying ‘I think Lyra’s the best friend I’ve ever had’. This is presented more as a statement in the show because their friendship has already been established and less of a discovery (as he wasn’t reacting to her that much in the book as he had alot on his mind).

Lyra and Will even have a talk about Pan’s conversation with him afterwards in the show. But in the book, that never happened. It’s mentioned later but never discussed, because of the fact that it was a private conversation between Will and Pan.

You could say this was another problem that the adaptation had. It’s mentioned multiple times ‘YOU CAN’T TOUCH SOMEONES DAEMON’ but not emphasised why thats the case.

In the books, it’s heavily implied that touching someone else’s daemon is the equivalent of touching someone’s genitals. There’s a moment in ‘Northern Lights’ where Lyra and Iorek find Tony in the fish house without a daemon and Pan wants to comfort him but holds back because of the taboo. Thats why it’s such a big deal when Pan comforts Will and starts licking him in the book.

In the show, its quite an underwhelming scene that lasts 5 seconds where Pan strokes Wills fingers and Lyra says in a quiet voice ‘In my world, your’e not supposed to touch someone else’s daemon but you didn’t do something wrong’

And don’t get me started on the 5 second panning away shot where they’re finally touching each others daemons, instead of the moving moment from the book. It didn’t feel like they really understood the gravity of what those scenes meant and what it meant for their connection.

Again, this is more of a personal opinion. Near the end of the final book, when they enter the world of the Mulefa, Lyra and Will trust each other more than they ever have, which shows how much they’ve both grown since ‘The Subtle Knife’. Mary even describes that she never saw ‘more trust on a persons face’. But in the show, there’s this weird forced tension between them for the sake of ‘romance’. They’re suddenly awkward teenagers with each other — which was not a choice that I liked because it didn’t come naturally.

And when they have to be ripped from each other, a whole page worth of them bargaining to be together is turned into ‘I didn’t think it was possible to feel this bad.’ and ‘This is all wrong’, plus Mary and Serafina being weirdly insensitive while Will and Lyra are in different locations rather than being with each other.

This is possibly why I didn’t feel anything when they had to be forced apart because, the way it was handled felt rushed and soulless.

Overall, despite there being more ‘soft moments between the two of them’ Show Lyra and Will’s connection feels alot more shallow and simplified.

In the books, I got the vibe that even though they were very young, you couldn’t imagine them being with anyone else but with each other. They were each others other half. They were essentially the only family they had in a world full of enemies. There was never a moment in the books, where they weren’t already in love with each other to some degree. It went beyond the typical romantic duality.

In the show, it felt more temporary. This is mostly due to their character changes (they were too similar in my opinion). Like a connection between friends that became romantic at the end of the journey. And it’s something they’ll get over because “It won’t always feel like this” or “Its much more romantic to live for love than to die for it” or “It might not seem like it now but you have a future”

I think that was one of my main problems with the TV Show, it lacked emotion. Not just as an adaptation, but in general.

More than anything, the adaptation felt too confused. It was trying to reimagine the story while also paying homage to the original material. And thats why overall — despite my enjoyment for some of the episodes especially in season 3 — it didn’t work as well as it should have.