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wrongcaitlyn · 6 months

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okay fuck so i got an anon ask for solangelo fic recs and then i made a draft on my phone but then deleted it bc i wanted to type it out on my computer but then that deleted the ask too so!! hopefully this reaches the anon i apologize deeply for losing your ask😭

but anyway. SOLANGELO FIC RECS. ALWAYS. ANYTIME. I HAVE SO MANY

so first of all if you wanna check out my ao3 i have a bunch of recs in my bookmarks (57 solangelo ones im pretty sure)

but here are some of my favs

i'm put in awe (of something so flawed and free) by CordeliaRose (@cordelia---rose)

archaeologist!Nico & trauma surgeon!Will AU. this fic is. ohmgyod. nico's internal dialogue is just absolutely perfect in this fic and i laughed so hard and god it was just so beautifully written?? but also solangelo are literally so cute. like. ahglskdf. i gotta reread this actually but anyway (also anything by this author, absolutely hilarious, such good writing)

dumb, dumb love by thegoldenappleofdiscord

five times nico and will are dumb and in love, and the one time they are totally 100% dead serious. i love a good outsider's pov, and this fic is just gorgeous. it's a bunch of different perspectives into solangelo, and it's pure fluff, and it's got some of my favorite solangelo quotes (like, when i read fanfic i screenshot parts i rlly like and i practically screenshotted this entire fic), and their characterization is just so so accurate they're so so in love

paris by ethannku (@ethannku)

Nico has a travel YouTube channel. And a crush on one Will Solace. i'm such a sucker for socmed au's and this one is done SO so well. my all time favorite. and it's sequel too!! the formatting i am in awe of, but other than that, it's just a really good time and i just love all the little details. i've reread this too many times to count and was SO excited when a sequel was published, and i can only hope that there's more to the au in the future!! (also this author writes incredible solangelo fics and even more valgrace fics which i recently just bingeread and are soo good)

Perfect Places by buoyantsaturn (@buoyantsaturn)

“My name’s Will,” he started - so far so good - but then continued, “and I guess my favorite food to cook would be, um, frozen pizza.” Was Nico only attracted to idiots? this one's fucking hilarious. i can't even put it to words like their dynamic in this fic is so funny and yet so cute and nico is honestly just like. shocked that will is somehow still alive?? will's a safety hazard. but also piper and jason in this fic are so funny too, it's honestly just such a good, fun read (and, once again, this author's incredible. read everything by them)

I Can't Help It If You Look Like an Angel by the_oncoming_stormaggedon (@lordstormageddidnt)

Will Solace is a pre-med student whose friends run a true crime podcast called "Nothing to See Here". Nico di Angelo, despite not realizing he's a missing person, is the subject of one of the episodes. They meet by chance in a random bar, and shenanigans ensue. i mean, if it's got a taylor swift title, i'm already sold. and then it's part of a series called "Hey Stephen is a solangelo song and i will die on that hill" which is the realest thing ever?? but ASIDE from that, i could honestly rec this entire series (+ the other series it's a part of, "Nothing to See Here" which is all part of the same au) and also everything by this author - it's hilarious, i just love the premise, and the writing is so good!! and hey stephen is a solangelo song, thereby reinforcing my "fearless is will's favorite album ever of all time and i will die on this hill" argument

Even When the Music's Gone by the_oncoming_stormaggedon

It's the 74th Annual Hunger Games, and Nico and Will are the last two tributes alive. haha this is pure angst. just gutwrenching angst. love a good hunger games au and some MCD!

can i handle the seasons of my life? by buoyantsaturn

“I think that most people your age finished high school, and whether they knew what they wanted to do with the rest of their life or not, they went to college. That was their version of ditching everything they knew in order to find themselves. Maybe it’s time for you to stop taking advice from other kids who grew up the same way you did, and take it from someone who used to be normal.” FAME AU FAME AU FAME AU FAME AU i mean, not REALLY about the fame aspect of it, but i still love it so so much. will's essentially a nepo baby turned not-nepo-baby turned college student and nico's naomi's driver, and there's even... there's EVEN A VERY BRIEFLY IMPLIED POLLEN. yeah they're relationship is just so cute in this and i love the au and i love how it's written and ugh i need more fame au's in my life

so it turns out teachers don't live at school by RegretfullyRegretful (@marbleheavy)

Nico's TA and students are determined to figure out something, anything about him. Of course, it would all just be a lot easier if they asked. Either way, Professor di Angelo is decidedly a lonely hermit. (Someone should really tell his husband and baby that) this was one of the first solangelo fics i ever read, and it's just. so. funny. another outsider's pov bc i love it, and just... the assumptions abt nico, the fluff of solangelo, and then their story of how they got together is so...ahhsdlkjs this author is just a master at tooth-rotting fluff go read everything they write

my lover's the sunlight by demigodbeautiies

Figure Skater Nico di Angelo has a run in with Ice Hockey Player Will Solace. It doesn't go too smoothly, but then again - when does it ever? OLYMPICS AU. FAME(ISH) AU. IM OBSESSED THIS IS WRITTEN SO WELL and like... the very brief part where it feels a lot like a fame au like i just i'm obsessed can you tell. the writing is just beautiful in this, i love nico's internal dialogue, and... i mean, it's an olympics au. ofc its perfect

The Stolen God by TsarinaTorment (@tsarinatorment)

Python is defeated. The prophecies are restored, and Nero has fallen. Apollo has not been seen since. His trials are over; why isn’t he back on Olympus? okay so. this is a bit of a longer fic. and it's a post-toa, pjoxmcga crossover, and it's not *entirely* focused on solangelo - but when i tell you that this fic, if i weren't reading it on ao3, i would truly and full-heartedly believe was a real life published novel - i am NOT LYING. i rec'd this to my friend right after i read it bc i was just like so so obsessed with it and it's literally just. the plot?? is insane. i'm in awe of the author, bc this isn't even the only novel-length fic that they've written with an insane plot too (their fic Eclipse is also phenomenal, but it's more focused on apollo and hades so i didn't rec it here) there's some fierrochase here, lester being lester, and some very very very cute solangelo! and meg! i think sometimes you read a fic and you're like "oh, shit, that could be a novel, and i would think it's better than some actual novels i've read" and this is one of them

(Please Don't Let Me) Fade Alone by TsarinaTorment

Please. Don't let me. the summary's really short here so it's basically that will gets very very very injured and then apollo saves him (rip, i'm sorry, i suck at summaries) once again this isn't necessarily nico focused... it's much more will & apollo. this author writes the absolute best stuff for the apollo cabin, genuinely, if you love will/cabin 7/apollo PLEASE read everything they've ever written but this is just so angsty and the hurt/comfort is so real and goddd it's so good

he was seen on occasion (pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea) by stargirltv

Nico di Angelo is a completely normal eighteen year old. He attends high school, has a socially acceptable amount of friends for a social outcast and has been in a relationship for the past four years with the guy he’s pretty sure he’s going to marry. He also happens to be the world's biggest bedroom pop artist, ‘Hell’s Angel’, with a fan base that will stop at nothing to uncover his true identity and a Father that continually pushes him to be better. His boyfriend freaking out under every single one of his tweets is making it a bit easier for them to figure it out. so. fame au. y'all already know the premise of this is just absolutely hilarious and the interview?? the posts?? will just being will and i absolutely love his characterization?? and the friend group?? this is one of the funniest things ever but also just written so well anddddd yes yes yes it's a fame au POPSTAR NICO RIGHTS except he's not *really* a popstar in this one but like close enough oh AND it's a taylor swift title??? like this fic was made for me basically

okay that was MUCH longer than intended but i hope you enjoy some of the fics on here!! pls let me know if y'all ever want more recs i read literally so many fics - and if you guys ever want to give me any recs, feel free to do so! as of today, i have read *checks fic tracker bc i'm obsessive and need to keep track of everything* about 7.3 million words of fanfic this year. and that's actually less than normal (for me)

also if anyone reads patrochilles please read this fic it's literally been in my head nonstop for the past few weeks since i've read it and it's one of the best things i've ever read and like holyshit if you read patrochilles read it read it read it

#wrongcaitlyn #fic recs #solangelo #ao3 #will solace #nico di angelo #pjo

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epersonae · 4 months

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Director's cut of "For The Benefit of All the Broken Hearts", please! (p.s. - is it annoying if I send more than one of these? I have Curiosity)

I saw that it was for the whole fic and I just [stares into space] - because not only is it 62,158 words, which is a lot of words, for me anyway, but it also is one of those stories that occupied my entire brain for months on end, and is still kind of a core part of my personality. I could probably do a whole Taika-commentary-track-of-Boy thing with it, and be equally weird and revealing. 😅

But in trying to pick out a single aspect to write commentary, I realized I've never written the post I've been threatening to write for a year (WHAT), which is what I learned about writing an unnamed protagonist. (Or at least I can't find anything in the #carlita coded content tag.) It's now been a year, so it's likely I will miss something important, but it was such a striking learning experience that I think I can do pretty well with it.

This got long, so more under the cut:

Because aside from being obsessed by the subject matter and vibes and all that, writing for the benefit of all the broken hearts was an incredible boost in my writing craft. (the other big boost was around dramatic pacing and narrative tension and foreshadowing, btw.)

She didn't have a name in the original, and deliberately so, and I was committed to that in my work. See also: Rebecca; this post's tags has some thoughts about Rebecca as a narrative influence in addition to the technical aspects. And unlike Rebecca, I was writing in close third person. (One of the reasons that when I'm feeling particularly cocky I will say SUCK IT DAPHNE DU MAURIER.)

And that's not that hard to do when there's only two characters in a scene and they use different pronouns, but so much of the story is her and Mary. (this post made me laugh A LOT) Which means I can't use pronouns to do the lifting, instead I had to think about other ways to handle it structurally.

Using Mary's name probably more than I would normally, to be quite honest. Her name is in many more dialogue tags and starting actions than I think it would be otherwise, because if Mary's doing one action, she's doing the other action; if Mary is saying one bit of dialogue, she's saying the other.

Using line breaks strategically, clearly separating character actions; and I think over time this actually made a difference in distinguishing how they act (and speak) differently from one another, that carried over to her interactions with Ed and Stede as well. And that carries over to how Mary also becomes a more distinct character.

In some cases, this went as far as actually rearranging the physical action. I don't remember the precise details, but there's something about when they first go into the kitchen in Ch 15, when Stede is making drinks, where you have all four characters directly interacting: I reworked who was doing what where to disambiguate which "she" I'm talking about.

There's also a lot of very fiddly sentence rewording, rethinking every individual sentence, and does every clause need to be there, and what is every single sentence doing. Because there's a lot of ways of writing that are "natural" (aka I have been writing fiction off and on since I was probably nine years old, and even with a wholeass English degree and a lot of supplemental reading about craft, I'm still kind of intuitive about my writing) that lead to structures where clearly her name would go here, but I can't do that, so: is the sentence working? Should it get flipped the other direction? Do I need a paragraph break? Is it okay if it's a little ambiguous -- there's a line in one of the coffeeshop scenes where it's kind of unclear which one of them does some gesture or another, and I decided that the ambiguity worked, actually.

And then probably my favorite craft becomes theme trick, particularly where there's sort of a repetition of sentence structure, or where Mary has been doing something and her actions are in reaction to that: sometimes it makes it work to just remove the subject of the sentence. Walks across the room. Picks up her coffee. It both somehow makes things clearer despite offering less detail AND reinforces this thematic thing of her being both absent and present.

Bonus difficulty level, btw: even if epithets had made sense for the tone (which they did occasionally, iirc), I deliberately chose to have very limited physical description of both her and Mary, on account of them both being amalgams not of actor and character (like Ed, Stede, Jim, Roach, etc), but of either two real people and real person and character played by a different real person respectively. They are both entirely secret third thing, and giving them things like hair color/style (beyond a vague reference to length) or eye color takes that away. (Instead they have some details of their overall physicality - age, respective heights - and clothing, both of which also tie into the themes of the thing.)

Honestly, overall it was an interesting creative puzzle, and I learned a ton -- Through the Storm, which is a very very very different story, owes a lot to it, and I've managed to commit to the bit through all the missing scenes fic (altho since a lot of that is alternate POV, there's a lot of "Ed's wife" construction, which is not my favorite) and the alternate bad endings fic.

tagging the beta team in case anybody has anything to add; this was very much a group project, esp in identifying places where it was clear to me but not to other people: @emi--rose @veeagainsttheday @gaypiratebrainrot

also, going to leave this here - when I went to ECCC in 2023 the original artist of this meme was selling versions with a blank word balloon and you could have her write in something, and I got it left blank with the idea that I would write other things on the plastic or if ever get a glass frame, but uh, it's been Carlita? since March of 2023.

there's so many other things I could have written about at this length about this story (both specific details and the thematic stuff), I'm serious.

and to answer your ps: NOT ANNOYING AT ALL. clearly I enjoy talking about my writing. :D

[director's commentary asks]

#ask games #my writing #my fic #carlita coded content #btw I decided to omit her name from this post - for the bit - and had to put a few of my tricks into play #sometimes you write something that changes your own brain chemistry I guess

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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Feel free to answer whenever you feel like, but i just saw an ask you've answered where you said " FCG's attitude towards the Changebringer is Jewish, Imogen's attitude towards the gods is Goyish. "

As Goy myself i really would love to hear you expand on this because i never thought about it like that until now but i can kinda see it (??)

Ok now this is something i realized mid-writting this ask and, if this is something Sam thought of doing on purpose, maybe the lose cables or "hair" on FCG is a convenient way to introduce a more obvious bit of Jewish analogy by introducing an Exandrian Kippah equivalent (??)

So...this requires a lot of context that to be fair I think a lot of people might not have.

The *Lenny Bruce voice* is a reference to a comedy routine by Lenny Bruce, a Jewish comedian from the 1950s and 60s, in which he would just go through like...random things or people and assign them "Jewish" or "Goyish" based on vibes. Like...he sorts different cigarette brands as Jewish and Goyish. He calls Ray Charles (not Jewish irl) "Jewish" and Al Jolson (Jewish irl) "Goyish". It's like when people on Tumblr say "oat milk is a girl to me and almond milk is a boy" or whatever. It's cultural rather than religious, and worth noting that Goyish in this context is often equated more with WASP attitudes than with Christianity on the whole. (For more, see some brief commentary here).

This is actually based on broad philosophy and not specifics, and actually the kippah example you give is kind of specifically the sort of representation I tend to oppose, because it's frequently the representation given. A lot of Jewish representation in fiction takes surface-level elements and is like "cool! Jewish character created! Done," because they threw a kippah on someone or had them leave a small rock on a gravestone. In the Christmas episode, they'll have one character who has never engaged with Jewish culture in any other context be like "don't you mean...Happy Hanukkah?" and then that's the last you've heard of it. You can make a character who smashes a glass at their wedding until you're blue in the face but, as I've said many times, one of my favorite forms of "representation" in media remains the comic version of G. Willow Wilson's run of Ms. Marvel, a Muslim character. Because that actually understood my high school experience! That had the complexities of being in a public high school but needing to miss events due to religious obligations the Christian majority did not have, or not being able to eat the pepperoni pizza my friends ordered! That actually captured my day-to-day lived experience, rather than being like, a weird archaeological dig into "Jewish Ritual Objects And Practices" that are then pinned onto a character like they're Jewish Barbie. A Kippah placed on a character who has an otherwise extremely Christian mentality is just a hat on a guy.

So anyway the reason FCG's coin strikes me as a very Jewish practice is not because it's literally indicative of any specific Jewish rituals. It's because it's very much a dialogue with a higher power that provides a lot of room for interpretation and even disagreement. And it's very focused on the here and now - FCG comes to the conclusion that the details of the Changebringer are not going to be answered and are not technically relevant; what matters is their actions in this time. Like, the decision FCG makes in episode 53, to go into the Grand Disc to see if they can help, is explicitly "if we cannot get a direct answer from a deity, we need to focus on living out their values and helping people." Meanwhile, Imogen's initial attitude towards the gods doesn't really grapple with the idea that people have free will and actions ultimately speak far louder than words, which is antithetical to the Jewish philosophy. Like, Judaism doesn't really have a solid idea of the afterlife (there are multiple vague concepts with no real consensus other than 'really not the most important thing to focus on') and while it does have a concept of souls it's sort of like...the divine within us all. The Ruby Vanguard ideology is remarkably consistent with (for example) Calvinist predestination and presumes a monolithic attitude with little room for questioning or free will that is entirely foreign to my upbringing, and even considering it for a second feels bizarre to me. Which isn't to say it's bizarre for Imogen to do so because, well, she's not Jewish, but it is philosophically incompatible with pretty much any Jewish worldview.

This was a very long way of saying "Jewish representation for me needs to be about ongoing day-to-day lived experience and philosophical outlook and as such most representation fails because it's single moments in time - a specific holiday or custom used as a lazy shorthand for an entire diverse religion and subculture. Within a world that is always going to be incompatible with the basic tenets of Judaism re: ethical monotheism and six thousand years of highly specific historical events, what I find most relatable is attitudes towards the divine that I find compatible. And FCG's attitude towards the divine is compatible, and Imogen's is not."

#answered #tucutucus #cr tag

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goldom · 2 months

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AFoLiS author commentary Part 5-2

And here is all the rest in a way too long post.

You can only shake your head and laugh. “You’re making too much of it. A knight is naked under their armor, too. It doesn’t mean anything.” “I’m pretty sure they’re not, actually,” Stelle says.

I wanted to add in a joke here like, "I'm never looking at Argenti the same way," but couldn't fit it without messing up the pace of the scene.

Probably my biggest writing weakness is finding anything to say when no one is talking. It's always been that way even way back in school – praised for my dialogue, but try to write a few paragraphs of prose and I'm dying. I've managed it a few places, but Chapter 10 here is an example of not doing it well – time seems to jump past the entire afternoon in just a few lines because I don't describe enough stuff happening.

Maybe if you didn’t see how she looks over her shoulder when you walk together, maybe then you’d believe that there isn’t a part of her that’s still terrified you’re going to vanish.

I wanted to hammer this home more, but knew the correct writing choice was to let it just be one little line and trust the readers to understand. But this is commentary, so I can say it outright here: this is calling back to Stelle's behavior all the way back in Part 2, which is itself a callback to the way Dormancy swooped in from behind her when it 'killed' Firefly. She's doing better, but she can't stop looking back... metaphorically and literally.

Firefly blames herself so much for every little mistake she makes, because she's stuck thinking that she's already in Stelle's debt. It's not a healthy way to be in a relationship.

I'm glad literally everybody thinks Firefull Flyshine was the dumbest title ever. But I also enjoyed contrasting her saying that – the most trying-too-hard line – with the next thing she thinks, which is just as Extra, but actually good: "I’ll burn away every shadow in your life."

Then she carries Stelle away, because 2.3 didn't get to happen, and Stelle can't not get to be princess carried. That scene did things to me, folks. I realized how much Stelle in 2.3 is not the protagonist, she's the love interest. Firefly could so easily be the game's star, and Stelle is, after all, her backup dancer. And so I have Stelle say it outright: she's tired of being the hero. She wants to feel what it's like to be the princess, to be protected. I can't say I'm not a little jealous of robot hugs.

And the way Firefly senses that it's wrong, that she shouldn't let Stelle step back from the spotlight, yet she also has the matching urge, to protect her, to be her knight. I love that.

At the arcade, the fighting game they play was described as a reference to Soul Edge, and Firefly is playing as Siegfried, who does in fact have a cheap mash-one-button move. That's who I used back then, because I am no good at fighting games.

The martial arts machine Firefly plays, as I described in the author's note, is a real thing called Makoto, but they've largely gone extinct. They look like this:

A place near me when I was a kid had them, but way bigger than this image. They were a few yards across, so you used a long staff rather than your hands as shown here. I don't know why this memory suddenly came to me, I was just trying to think of anything Firefly could find at an arcade that she would be good at.

Okay, so, murder time. Why did I do that? Well. Back before this part started, I was lamenting having no idea what to have them do now that their main story arc – missing each other and the illness – was dealt with. One random thought I had was, well, we're headed to an island planet, what if they're stuck on an island and get wrapped up in a murder mystery? Problem is, I have not read very many murder mysteries, and did not think I could pull off a satisfying one.

So then I thought... what about an unsatisfying one? What if Stelle becomes obsessed with solving the mystery, because if she's doing that, she's not thinking about death. But there's no mystery. There never was. She has to confront her own feelings.

Even I am not particularly happy with this. I'm sure some readers felt cheated by it. But that is, ultimately, the point. The mystery is a dud, but going through it progresses their relationship. It's a romance novel, not a mystery. Plus, it brings Silver Wolf back into their lives, so really it's a win all around.

I briefly toyed with the idea of revealing, unbeknownst to the girls, that there was a murder and they missed the solution. But there would be no point other than "wow what a twist," so I didn't. I did leave it open-ended though, which I think does serve the character growth: they will never know for certain what actually happened, and they have to accept that. Maybe they did miss something, but it's not their problem.

It’s a good moral to the story, no matter if it’s true or not. She learned that sometimes good people die, and it’s no one’s fault. She learned that she can see it happen and get through it. It’s a fitting end to the script, but it isn’t satisfying.

The ironic thing about Firefly feeling so guilty all the time is that her doing that actually makes things even harder for Stelle. Stelle feels like she can't say how she really feels, because Firefly's only gonna use it to beat herself up even more.

It's interesting to think that, in Chapter 19 when Firefly offers to take the Brumedew Concentrate the first time, Stelle comes across as so strong and in control, turning her down for her own good because it's Firefly's POV. If that chapter had been from Stelle's point of view, I think we all know it would not have sounded nearly so confident.

“And… the second time? You’ve never told me how you broke out of the Order’s dream.” “…I don’t want to.” You know what it took. You don’t want to hear how I did it. Trust me.

It's weird to me I keep hearing people saying "when are we gonna learn about her second death?" because it's always been obvious to me what they implied. She recognized she still wasn't awake and had to die again to wake up, as quickly as possible. She did it to herself. We don't need to see it.

“It’s not you that’s hurting me now,” Stelle says. “Maybe it’s the aeons, or ‘God,’ or the universe itself I can’t forgive for its cruelty.”

This is really Stelle's problem with everything, with life and death itself. The universe is too cruel. Only, she's not quite right. The universe isn't cruel. It's uncaring. That might be even worse.

You’d be her knight – HER emanator – and fight all of humanity in HER name if you had to.

I play with this idea a few times around here, because it's one way I could see the game actually going. My personal pet theory is that Stelle will have the chance to ascend to Aeonhood to fight Nanook, but will instead find the power she needs through all the allies she's brought together on her journey, letting her win and remain human. This isn't something I'll be writing about though, at least not any time soon.

Still can’t stand Blade though, you think, amused.

Neither can I. The rest of SH has grown on me; Blade has not. Wanting to murder Dan is reason enough, but dude is just squandering a goddamn superpower 'cause he's too cranky. Get some therapy and go do something with your life. And like, I know Firefly canonically does like him, so I have to say here she does too, but I cannot see how. Can you even imagine, you're, like, in your early 20s and dying of an incurable disease, fighting to survive every single day, and you have to work with this old man who won't stop moaning "LIFE IS SUFFERING, SOMEONE KILL ME ALREADY." Read the room, man. "Blade needs to get a damn hobby," Stelle said in Part 4, and I say it every time I have to think about him.

I considered actually giving them a shared surname instead of just joking about it, but couldn't think of anything I liked enough to justify flat-out renaming canon characters. I mean, besides Phoenix. That one was good enough.

She didn’t take Stelle’s memory because the Stellaron needed it, not that I know about. Come on, Firefly, think about it.” She did it because of me. It’s my fault you had to die. “She had to,” Silver Wolf says, “because if she didn’t, that lovestruck idiot never would have stayed away long enough to get her job done.” Wait, no… that can’t be right. If it were just about keeping her from me, there’d be no reason to hide her past from her anymore.

This is a corner I've backed myself into. I almost published without that last line, but then I realized the huge plot hole I almost created. Why not tell Stelle everything now if the only reason to wipe it was to keep her from running back to Firefly? Well, I don't know why, because the game hasn't told me! Honestly, Stelle's past has become enough trouble that I'm wishing I'd just made up my own reasons for it several parts ago rather than trying to stick to canon, because canon isn't going to tell me for years (and I'm sure when they do, it's gonna be too depressing for my liking). At this point all I can say is... please don't pay attention to it lol. Maybe I'll figure something out eventually.

“You could run away with us too.” You say it like a joke, and you know it is, but wouldn’t it be nice if she said yes?

Stelle has influenced Firefly so much. Stelle's trying to immortalize everyone she knows, and Firefly's trying to recruit her friends to the AE with her. Neither of them can get everything they want.

Stelle wants to read a romance novel, but

She eventually returns with a shake of her head. “They’ve all got men,” she says, defeated.

Tell me about it. Really, despite what I said about not reading much mystery, I've read even fewer romance novels, but here we are. Though I guess if we count yuri manga...

Stelle shares a bed with Phoenix and everyone loves it. Can you believe, I almost missed this? I'd been counting days the entire story, trying to remember that come Thursday, I need to have Firefly suited up overnight again, after saying it was weekly back in Chapter 1. Then I went and moved onto writing Friday without doing it. Thankfully I remembered before reaching that point in publishing.

Companion mission accepted: Kiss Firefly You look up. “How did you do that?”

This was a silly post on my Tumblr for weeks and weeks before I found a place to make it part of the story :) But the line that got stuck in my head was

“Here? In front of the Thestang tree?”

Sitting on the cliffside, the girls discuss parenthood. Stelle can't see it, but is mainly stuck in the idea that she's not good enough for it. This really came to me because of the frequent fanart showing Caelus/Firefly with a child, and the exactly zero images of Stelle/Firefly with one. I get it, but again, it's one of those things that wears you down little by little. It just feels... unfair. I'm not about to have them start having children in the middle of the Trailblaze mission, but I wanted to at least discuss it.

This theme is not finished. Not by a long shot. Again, not saying they're gonna have children any time soon, but now it's in Stelle's head, and she has not overcome her feelings of inadequacy in that regard.

Yes, I really did ask ChatGPT for those dumb names I said came from an AI, though it had plenty more that were both dumb and not funny I had to prune through. On the other hand, I was surprised how on the nose some of its transformation lines were, given that I didn't offer it any detail about the context. "Eternal flame, awaken!"? I didn't even mention Phoenix in the prompt!

Firefly finally finds a way to accept Stelle's wish for her, but it comes with a heavy cost. Like Dan says later, it really isn't fair of her to put that on Stelle, but she's not wrong: Stelle will take that deal. But she'll never stop hoping that Firefly will change her mind before the time comes for her to uphold her end of the promise. Stelle is, always, a selfish moth.

Everyone knows the fireworks scene in 2.3 was beautiful, but no one points out that if you were really skydiving in the middle of fireworks, you'd go completely deaf. Those things are too loud, man. I can't stand them myself because of it. Thought I'd make a bit of a silly point about that in the fireworks show here.

Then the author I mean Stelle gets sad about the end of the story I mean vacation approaching.

How can you care about whatever crisis you find on the next planet you visit when it feels like the defining event of your life has already passed?

Me worrying that I'll never care about another HSR main story after Penacony. I don't care about any of it anymore. I just want the romance. I'm doomed, because that's not what this game is. So it's what I have to write.

“I do have one regret though,” you realize and say simultaneously. “I never came up with my own name for you.”

I settle on "She is Love," but it's not really an answer, not something she can actually call Firefly (at least without getting embarrassed). I wasn't planning to actually come up with one, but realized I'd teased it so many times that I couldn't just end the story without something here. Problem is, I can't think of a good nickname for her either, and I have tried so hard. I've never even seen any other fanwork use one I liked. Oh well.

“I’ll show you what I can do. And I’ll thank you when you fall before me.”

Given how much I make Stelle cry and demand pampering, I always like when I get a chance to pull out her badass side.

For Firefly’s sake, anyone and anything else is forfeit, and you’re not scared to admit it anymore.

This being specifically a reference to the "I would set fire to the stars for you" journal entry. She still feels that way and is no longer ashamed of it. Yes, people keep calling my Stelle Otto Apocalypse, and no, I still have not played HI3, but I've gleaned the point. Too bad. I'm on Stelle's side. You do whatever it takes for someone you love, even if it means breaking the rules of society and nature alike.

“She’s not… not really my girlfriend. Xianzhou, yeah. Qiangwei.” March’s words can’t fool you. You see what her face does when she says the name. “Just… just a couple dates. Just while we’re here, you know?” You shrug. “No clue. I married the first person I dated.”

I also married the first person I dated, and I have no idea how to comprehend a casual relationship, yet am currently trying to write one for March. That's Part 5.5, coming up in the very near future.

Oh, here's another parallel but it's just a silly. Part 5 Chapter 31, Stelle says about Welt:

You laugh. “Wow. Rude, Dan, he’s not that old.”

Whereas back in Chapter 17, Stelle is the one making fun of his age:

“I could ask Welt. Old people take a lot of medicine.” Stelle’s deadpan face would look serious to anyone else, but you can see she’s kidding. “Wow. Rude.”

I'm fairly certain I missed some other parallels in my skimming, but I think I got the big ones all called out.

“Want to join us?” “She does,” Dan Heng answers for you. “She was just having a Stelle moment.” “Hey,” you grumble, “you don’t have to tell everyone.” “Come here,” Firefly says, extending an arm. You sit next to her on March’s bed, and she hugs you to her side. “We all know you. You’re safe here.”

Every time I read this line, on every single editing pass, it made me tear up. Stelle always, always just wants to feel safe. That's what it's all about. It's why she wants immortality, why she wants it for her friends. Just to feel safe. And here Firefly offers it – not safety from the world, but safety from judgment. "We all know you." It's okay to be yourself around us. It's okay to show your weakness and be sad. You're safe.

It's only a secret for a couple lines, but I enjoyed not labeling the POV of the epilogue, emphasizing how those first lines could apply to either of them. They're parallels of each other. Even Dan thinks it's gonna be Stelle, but no, it wasn't this time.

My voice and memories would travel on the Astral Express forever. Literally forever. Stelle would love that so much… Me too.

I almost didn't have this idea. In the original draft, she was just going to tell Dan and he was gonna type it up. I only thought of the voice recording at the last minute, and I'm so glad I did. Stelle would love it. Even long after they're gone, Firefly's voice can still speak to passengers on the Astral Express. She'll never be forgotten.

And that's the end so far! Now that this is done, I really need to get going on this promised March side story, because I only have a tiny bit of it done. It's not going to be very long though. I actually have a lot more of Part 6 already done, because bits and pieces of that have been coming to me throughout Part 5. Anyway, look for March's story A New Path to start in the next few days. I'll post about it here when it's ready of course. For the very small audience reading all this, thank you for indulging my narcissism, and here's a sneak preview.

“But… butbutbut, what do I do?!” You stare at Dan Heng, waiting for an answer he doesn’t give. “Daaaaaan Heeeenggg, what! Do! I! Do?” “You spend all your time obsessing over being cute, but as soon as someone thinks you are…” He shakes his head. “Do whatever you want.” She thinks I’m cute??? Ohgodddd but she was so pretty! “But we’re only visiting for a couple weeks! I can’t do anything.” Saying it aloud brings you back down to ground. Right. Just a traveler passing through. I can’t get attached. I need to tell her tomorrow. With a sigh, you take out another roll. At least I got free bread.

“Another lovely show today, March,” Qiangwei says with a flawless smile as you enter the bakery. Your will wavers. She looks away for a moment, then adds, “You look adorable in that uniform.” Aeons help me, she really is flirting with me. She said I’m adorable. I’m finished. I’m dead. That’s it. Rest in peace, March 7th’s self-control. “Hehe~ Thanks,” you say, uncontrollably.

#afolis

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darkpoisonouslove · 2 months

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17 and 18 :)

Thanks! :)

17. talk about your writing and editing process

Well, the process is pretty straightforward, actually. I get an idea, usually accompanied with at least a couple dialogue exchanges. I write down everything that I have, which is now the skeleton of my outline. I look at it and try to identify what's missing from it and how much I need to make the story functional aka to have it accomplish what I want from it. Often that means that I realize that I don't know what I want from it so then I have to think about that. This is usually the part where I file ideas away for later and they are added to my ideas doc.

If I do figure out what I want from it, I keep adding to the outline until I'm sure I have everything that I need - that means all scenes in order, complete with actions and dialogue. I may not know a couple details here and there but I try to at least have a direction such as what kind of emotion I want to express in the gap or what concept has to be introduced in order to make the whole thing comprehensible. Then I start writing, which is usually the hardest part. I have been known to spend more than half an hour actively working on a single sentence so... I take my time with the first draft (technically the outline is kind of the first draft). I prefer to edit less later than write quicker and then have to edit more.

I've found that when I get stuck, it's because I don't really know what I want to say. Despite all the outlining and thinking and considering, I often end up realizing that I don't know what I'm trying to say. Once I figure that out, it becomes a matter of how to say it so that it's not just telling stuff that I should be showing. It takes a while but eventually I get what I want. Sometimes I give up and just tell it and decide I'll come back to it later.

For editing I usually go over the text and rework every sentence that is convoluted or doesn't sound right or repeats a sentence structure I've already used 3 times in the last 5 sentences. Generally speaking, I don't have to do structural edits or rewrite entire scenes because I've already done the heavy lifting during the outline stage so most things are in their right places. I have had to move paragraphs and sentences and words around like I'm putting Frankenstein's monster together from various body parts but that's usually the case when I'm possessed by an idea and don't spend enough time outlining and structuring it or I've missed the step of asking myself what I'm trying to say. Otherwise, most of my editing is on a sentence level and then I do another read to watch out for typos and whether or not I need to switch some pronouns to names.

18. if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

I don't usually keep them but I do have a couple paragraphs from Fallen Love that I discarded as they directly contradicted a much more important idea so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use them (for this story at least) and can post them:

With the proximity between them restored, she’d found him eyeing her neck, his thoughts palpable, spilling into the heated air to make it brand the lines into her flesh. There was mad obsession in his pupils that didn’t care if it would turn her into a monster, only that she’d be his again. With his mark on her neck, she would have been a useful asset again and perfectly incapable of another betrayal – enough to keep her alive despite the Ancestral Witches’ unforgiving nature.

He’d been the unforgiving one instead. Every time he’d dismissed the thought as if it hadn’t been the appropriate response to her treachery. He’d refused himself–and her–the brutality he’d craved for the sake of appearances.

She’d forced gratefulness out of herself – that he’d never tried, had granted her the grace of not finding out how much lower she was ready to stoop just for another stolen moment with him.

send me fic writer asks

#ask #anon #personal #my writing #fallen love #griffin x valtor #winx griffin #fanfic snippet

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wisteriasakana · 10 months

Text

Sprite template: Guildmaker7

Pink Pro Update!

The Yuri Game Jam is over, and it still feels strange to me to have submitted well in advance (Then I remembered that the deadline was pushed back by like a week, so I would have submitted just in time, but details-). Deciding to post a demo rather than the whole game turned out to be a good choice for my peace of mind.

Now, I should make a pretty and tidy (One of the two adjectives might be wrong) update, but first I want to present you a flashback from a few days ago:

---Flashback---

*Soe enters *Soe sees real money *Soe implodes *Soe waits a couple of days to see if it was a misclick - Yes, even the confirmation one *Soe realizes *Soe implodes again *Soe's mass is not enough to generate a gravitational collapse, so there's no black hole but just an amazed fish

Person who decided to offer me a hot chocolate, thank you. I still find it hard to believe, but I thank you very much! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

---Flashback End---

So, it was said. Pink Pro. The update, yes.

Changes and additions

Since I have more time and can do things more slowly, I decided to fix a few things that I wasn't sure about.

For example, Sus's house. You can't visit it in the demo, and in a second time I'll show you a "before-after", but trust me when I say that the first version was absolutely plain and uninspiring - It's even more comical when you consider that it's reiterated how rich Sus is and how her house is ridiculously big. Now I am much more satisfied! It's certainly not the most beautiful map I've ever made, but I find it does its honest job much better than the previous one.

Among other differently useful things I decided to add there is the change of NPCs inside the Pink Jewel and the Magnolia Jane after some time.

Given that time is actually passing (I mean, something is likely to happen in the evening, right?), it seemed silly to me for the customers to be walking around the shops for 12 hours.

It doesn't impact the plot at all, but I think it gives the setting a bit more three-dimensionality.

(Yes, I also entertained the idea of changing customers with each finished order, but my imagination for NPC dialogue is very poor, I don't want to suffer).

Characters' expressions

When I made the expressions, I got a bit carried away, so now Chantal has many more than I had planned. However, this means that I didn't do some expressions that I should have done and that I came up with others-

According to my fantastic to-do list, the expressions that are missing are: 4 for Chantal, 2 for Janet (Yes, Janet has more than two expressions!), 1 for Margrit, 3 for Kenicea and Silsdia, 2 for Saster, Byma and Nicopte (Yes, she also has expressions!), 4 for Sus, Zora and Deilela. The last three might have one less, depending on how they look best.

My relationship with doing expressions is: sometimes, I get on and do them all in less than an hour, without any problem. Other times, for reasons unknown, I spend an hour doing one, which also turns out ugly.

In this case, however, it is not a matter of procrastination - I often literally just forget to do them. (๑꒪▿꒪)*

Other ideas

Since I have more time, I was thinking about adding another, simpler CG - Just coloured lineart on a unicolour background.

On the other hand, I decided to scrap a small idea I had planned to do if I had more time / for a possible update: Chantal's sweets designs.

I would like to show off her "eye-catching" style more concretely, but when I tried to draw them, I realized that was definitely not the case (Let's say, like, no one in the world would have realized that the Île flottante was an Île flottante and not an ugly sponge).

The options, then, are three:

One day I'll be able to draw better and I'll put pretty pictures for all the recipes;

One day I'll go begging for people who can draw pretty food;

Imagination is a wonderful gift, imagine these beautiful recipes in your mind ♡♡♡

Cutscenes

As for the cutscenes, however, I am exactly halfway through, at the third order. I therefore have to finish the third order, do the fourth and fifth, the final climax and the epilogue.

To reassure you, as already mentioned, in the midst of all this there are also Important Scenes, and those have all been done.

And that's it for Pink Pro!

Yes, of course, it's because I'm also working on something else - I can't concentrate on the same thing for more than two days in a row if I don't have at least one side project.

I'll talk about that, though, in the next few days - The devlog on Candy Apple has become the devlog on Candy Apple and Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf, just as the projects on Three Yellow Quartzes will need a separate devlog.

Thanks for listening, and see you next time!

#pink pro #rpg maker #yuri game jam #monster girl #yuri visual novel #yuri game jam 2023 #rpgmaker #devlog #devblog

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leam1983 · 2 years

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Disney Dreamlight Valley - Thoughts

It's like staring into a portal into an alternate dimension where Disney and fucking Gameloft are actually design-conscious devs in their own right, and will somehow package the Most Corporate Shit Ever with the single strongest distillation of the Life Sim formula I've seen yet.

I'm shocked, seriously. The premium elements are strictly cosmetic, the required commitment is minimal and none of the Valley's inhabitants adhere to a schedule that hampers your progression. Goofy's downed something like sixteen Adderall and cannot stop pacing up and down the central plaza, when he isn't stuck in a stumbling loop while fishing in one of the meadow's three lakes. The last I spoke with him, his shop was open and fully available by 3 AM.

Everything's accessible. Nothing's gated, except what should be gated in the context of a Life Sim, to induce a sense of progression. You've unlocked pathing tiles for the Village? You're free to cover the entire plateau in cobblestones, if that's what you want.

What the actual fuck. Coming out of Gameloft, devs who consistently paywall parts of their offered content, this feels like a Twilight Zone episode in its most positive form.

I mean - Yes, the quest-givers don't shut up and pester you for a constant downpour of menial shit that supposedly ties into reviving the Valley, but that's only if you do decide to interact with them. If you don't, you're free to spend entire days tweaking the Village's layout.

So, how different is it from Animal Crossing, exactly? Well, first of all, the whole damn thing has a Copyrighted symbol in full-view. If you're one of the staunch anti-Disney posters on here, this is a definitive mark of avoidance for you. Past that, it's basically a name-swapping affair: Tom Nook is split up between Scrooge McDuck (for personal housing needs) and Goofy (for exterior farming resources). Isabelle is more or less handled by The Sword in the Stone's Merlin, and Mickey eventually serves as your Blathers analogue. The one outlying mechanic is an Energy system, which asks you to either keep some food on you at all times to keep topping off, or that simply suggest you return home for a few seconds. Considering how most of the game will take place within walking distance from your personal plot of land, this is an extremely generous implementation of that mechanic.

If I had to dock Dreamlight any points, I'd mention the lack of obviousness of certain quests. I've reached one of the themed Realms in my current save; Realms being tiny instances themed around characters that aren't part of the House of Mouse's main stable. Take, for instance, WALL-E, from the movie of the same name. I've ended in his tiny little pocket world, and was asked to find something to repair one of his treads. I went looking and only found scrap that the game did define as quest items, but never specified what I should do with.

I'd assume this is just a matter of taking five to go check out a walkthrough online, but I really shouldn't have to do this. Even Crossing's most annoying event, like Gulliver's visits, typically include clear cues in the character's dialogue. WALL-E only spews "Directive?" at the player and disengages. Your 'toon somehow immediately grasps what's going on and realizes the robot needs repairs, but the process involved is never made clear. There's a crafting bench nearby, but no amount of fishing around got me close to anything resembling gear or tread blueprints.

Past that, color me pleasantly surprised. The farming mechanic is even more forgiving than Crossing's, the game's client-side currency is generously doled out, and the server-side token is actually not accessible in a Cash Shop!

At this point, it's sort of hard to figure out what the game is doing online. Apart from analytics, the occasional ad served in the Store page - which you can entirely miss - and the gatekeeping of Dreamlight (the currency, not the game itself) to structure player progression and avoid abuse, it behaves entirely like your average PC offering, complete with a flawless response rate on the Steam Deck and a gaggle of easy exploits accessible with a trainer. Can't pay back Scrooge's loan fast enough for your liking? Just pick a trainer producer of your choosing or hex-edit yourself a berjillion coins, and move on right ahead! No online-only bullshit as you would've expected from Disney and Gameloft!

It's a very pleasant surprise, overall. Skip it if you're allergic to remixes of When you Wish upon a Star or if Disney's older stable feels so saccharine to you that you'd rather jam sporks in your eyeballs - but it's actually a very competent Life Sim that's surprisingly lenient and pleasant. It's the most pro-consumer flex I've seen the Mouse pull off in a long time, and a great alternative if you're looking for something to fill in that Tom Nook-shaped divot in your heart, in the absence of a Nintendo Switch or a copy of New Horizons.

#thoughts #not a review #disney dreamlight valley #life sim #animal crossing #disney #gameloft #gaming

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misc-obeyme · 1 year

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Nightbringer: Initial Thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts about Nightbringer, but I don't want to have one massive crazy post, so I'm gonna break it up a bit.

This first post is about the general gameplay, nothing story related. So there aren't any spoilers, just my thoughts on the app and updates.

Ruri☆Tunes

I LOVE IT. Listen, Ruri is adorable. I am right there with Levi. Like if this was a real anime, I would absolutely watch it. She's so cute! Did you guys see the background for Lesson 7 where there's a Ruri themed Miss Em doll? The cuteness nearly killed me.

The rhythm game itself is HARD. At first I didn't realize that you need to tap the actual objects. So by switching the controls to up and down, then turning my phone, and tapping the actual objects as they hit the line, I got WAY BETTER. I reblogged a post about this I think yesterday? It explains it better and thanks to that, the levels are now pretty fun.

I love the songs, of course, though some of the remixes are a little funky. But I loooove all the graphics! The lil donuts! And the lil demon chibis! And Luke's chihuahua! Oh yes and my favorite thing ever is Asmo's little "hai!" when he jumps over one of those green puddles. It's so cute.

Overall, I much prefer this to the dance battles. That being said, the levels are not really any easier than the OG. I was hoping we wouldn’t need to have a bunch of crazy high leveled cards to get through the story, buuuut it’s really looking like that might still be the way of it. I mean to be fair, the whole point of this is to make money so...

I don’t really hold it against them. I mean I do but I also don’t lol. The story is good enough that I can look past the money making motives. However I will say that this is just the case for me personally. I am lucky enough to have a little bit of disposable income to spend on apps, but I know a lot of players don’t.

Moving on before this becomes a rant about the evils of capitalism…

Wanderers Whereabouts

It sure is… something… Aside from the horrors of 3D models, I don't understand why they're playing sports in MC's room. Would it have been that much of an issue to give us an outdoor space as well as an indoor one? At least let them play sports in a field or something, you know?

My favorite ones so far have been when there's multiple demons in there, though. The way they interact with each other is so cute. And even though I find the whole thing a tiny bit weird, I DO like hearing their voices and seeing their interactions. Plus they do some really cute things when you give them an MC plushie.

But I think we all agree that the best part is watching Levi chase Mammon around on the map.

Fab Snap

This is supposed to be like TikTok, right? Once again I'm not a fan of the 3D models, which is probably due to the whole uncanny valley thing. However, I do still enjoy the shenanigans because what the fuck are those guys even doing? I'm sure you've all seen the musical chairs situation. I did like the one with Luke doing the snack test thing and you can hear Simeon who is recording the video. It's definitely cute to see them doing fun little things like that.

Everything else...

... seems to be the same except for some updated graphics and such. The story interface still has the 2D sprites thankfully and as far as I can tell, it works exactly the same as the OG. I've seen some people saying they're worried about the options changing the story, but they don't anymore than they did before. I think that's just their way of saying you get intimacy points with different characters depending on the options you choose. As far as I can tell, nothing seems to be any different on that end?

I love that they have entirely new special guest and home screen dialogue. The special guest dialogue especially seems more lovey and flirty than the OG. Solomon straight up says he loves you if you get the full heart reaction. You can still get annoyed reactions, though. From what I can tell, the reactions are the same as the OG app. If you get an S, it's the same as if you got three stars in the dance battle. I'm not sure about if you get lower than a B... but the three star reactions seemed to work for S, A, and B.

Also, I looooooove Karasu. I hope we get more Karasu beyond the tutorial, but I don't know if that's actually going to happen. I'm sure many of us will now refer to Mammon as Noodle Boy, though, because c'mon, that's excellent.

Okay there’s more I could talk about, but this post is already long lol. I like the mix of familiar stuff and new stuff. So far, I’m enjoying all of this. Stay tuned for posts about the story itself because there are so many thoughts.

I am also happy to receive any asks about your opinions on all of these things or if you have actual questions or anything else, of course.

#obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me shall we date #obey me thoughts #nightbringer thoughts #ruri tunes #wanderers whereabouts #fab snap #karasu #misc rambles

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syneilesis · 1 year

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Things I've learned and realized writing the fics for Inky's one-week challenge:

I'm a very slow writer; I genuinely struggle writing at least 500 words in one sitting. On good days, I can do 200 words. Inspired, maybe more. Ficlets like ekphrasis and others take me an entire day to finish. It's probably because I start writing with only a vague idea of how to go about it, or I only know the mood but not the details. I'm self-aware enough to be cognizant of my strengths and weaknesses, and I tend to stick to what works for me.

I've always wanted to write lengthy fics! But I never was the kind of writer who could hit more than 10k-word one-shots. My style doesn't lend to that kind of length. When I saw Inky's challenge and read that the max word count per entry is 500 words, I thought to myself, Ooh, I think I can do that. Regardless of the prompts -- though they help too; dialogue and AUs lend to a broadness that appeal to my rigid brain. A 500-word fic means in most cases a one-scene fic. Which frees my mind of context necessary to establish a setting. I don't have to come up with an elaborate backstory and/or explanation why this detail is like this, that detail is like that -- AUs as a trope can fill in the missing pieces to make your fic coherent.

My first fic entry was something that I plan on writing in the future, so it's easy to write it, but it still took me longer (but still within the range of my speed). My second, third, and fourth, I tried something a bit different: I used StimuWrite, an app that helps you focus on writing -- it's also known as a writing tool useful for people with ADHD.

It has a simple UI, with a word count goal and emojis that appear whenever you type words. I chose these settings: darker background (it doesn't hurt the eyes) and typewriter sfx for that legit typing feel. I may put in a bgm from youtube or something, but sometimes I just want to listen only to the sounds of typewriter keys.

I tried StimuWrite before, but it didn't work for me. I gave it another chance this time, and oh lord it's very effective???!???!!!!! I finished 3 fics in under a day. So last Sunday I wrote give or take 2,000 words, which truly blew my mind. As an aside, I recommend you try StimuWrite; it might be effective for you too.

Because of that surprising writing streak, I continued using the app for the rest of the fics. And that writing streak persists! I feel relieved, I feel elated, I feel like I can do this. It's as if my brain loosened up enough to let me do what I want. I'll definitely use StimuWrite in my other fics too --

-- with some conditions, of course. All I know right now is that it works for me if I have a target word count in mind (under 600) and that it's only concentrated on a single scene. So I could focus on one scene whenever I open up the app. But that means that I have an outline of my fic, which isn't a problem for me because I like the mental exercise of outlining. I hope that this would help me come November, as I'll participate in Nanowrimo with my original story project.

Another point I've realized is that limiting yourself with a word count improves your editing skills. I do edit and revise my fics -- but they're mostly in the sort of 'i'll delete this passage because it no longer fits' and 'i'll rephrase this because it sounds awkward'. But in the cases of my sixth and seventh event fics, I had to pare them down because I exceeded the word count requirement. Initially I was reluctant to remove passages but I had to. So I did. I removed some bits and details of the story but rephrased others to still fit them in. I have to shorten some scenes -- and this is revelatory to me somewhat -- which is actually effective for fast-paced action scenes that needed fewer words but with the largest possible impact. Sometimes, shorter is better. It made me productive, for one.

Anyway, this got long wtf? I don't even know if I was coherent about it. There are still a lot of things I'd like to improve on -- such as relying less on my crutch words and metaphors. I haven't the opportunity to read a lot lately, so I need to try at least one page a day. The book I'm currently reading has been sitting on my desk for months. Back then, when I said I wouldn't make a list of read books per year to stop pressuring myself, I didn't mean not to read books at all lmao.

I don't know how to end this post so here's a gif of a puppy on a bowl:

#archi posts #personal reflections on writing #incoherent ramblings #long post

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luckyspacerabbit · 2 years

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Can I have 33, 39, 43, and 50 for both Dan Hyun and Jade? 👀

ahh it would mean the world to me ;_; thank you dear steph! A shooting star for you 🌠🌠 hehe

Dan Hyun☄

﹝33. What skills do they have that are a surprise to the people around them?﹞

Her actual combat execution always comes as a surprise to people, despite the fact that she's a soldier. I think because of how she delegates and carries herself, people assume that on the field she'll bring up the rear of the squad and operate at a distance. That's before she comes crashing into them with full-tech armor, yelling like a complete foghorn. Fun related excerpt from her dossier that features one of her related combat formations:

Hammer- Offensive- Dan Hyun takes point, making herself the biggest and loudest target on the field. Companions flank from behind, forming a triangular point that is meant to barrel through enemy lines. Upon tech armor detonation, the entire team swings forward, crumbling enemy defenses.

﹝39. Do they keep around any sentimental items?﹞

Her mom's pearl earring and Kai's dog tags! (I had the earring as a ruby before but I've retconned them for character themeing <3 ). She wore the pearl set to a friend's birthday party (that she wasn't supposed to go to) and lost one in the heat of the disaster. Her mom graciously repurposed it into a simple necklace for her, so sometimes you can spot it around her neck. Her N7 dog tags were originally made for Kai, before he was listed KIA and thus never took his exam. Anderson pulled some strings to save the digits, in hopes of motivating Dan Hyun to later undergo the N7 qualifying exam. It clearly worked. If it's not around her neck, it's resting on her nearby desk.

﹝43. Which version of the Normandy do they like best?﹞

Definitely the SR2. She absolutely hated it when she boarded initially-- All her life, her blood had run Alliance blue. Seeing that dreadful Cerberus orange sickened her. I think of all people, she was the most surprised to realize on the SR3 just how much she missed the SR2. She'd come to associate it with not just her close friends and confidantes, but her squad. Her team, brave enough to splinter from one of the most dangerous terrorists in the galaxy to take down the reapers on their terms. She'd fallen in love on the SR2. Watched the dead come back to life. Formed a community. And experienced one of the biggest betrayals of her life. The SR2 was unforgettable-- and she missed it more than anything.

﹝50. Is your Shepard indoctrinated?﹞

Damn, she might be! I definitely subscribe to reaper tech being a part of Dan Hyun meaning there is some level of indoctrination surrounding her. There's a certain range of difficulty to saying no to her that increases as Me3 goes on, an enamouring dreamlike guidance that brings her back and back to the Reapers. But in the good end, (the end which her loved ones remain alive) her will is strong. It takes dedication, but she can refuse the urges when she's kept close with the people she loves. The silence that comes with the destroy ending is so freeing.

Jade✃

﹝33. What skills do they have that are a surprise to the people around them?﹞

She has near perfect memory. Whether it's an offhand comment from five years ago, or jeopardy facts from the year 2177, Jade has it down pat. Her Aunts from the salon used to reward her with orange hard candies if she could guess trivia answers on the fly, something that went on to catch people off guard when she replied with obscure answers to their questions. Also? Huge movie nerd for oft rerun westerns. She'll pepper in dialogue from country star greats on any occasion. It turns out killing time by watching TV doesn't melt your brain!

﹝39. Do they keep around any sentimental items?﹞

No. The one thing Jade keeps is the necklace she's had since she was a baby: but even that isn't sentimental. It's an endless question to which she swears she doesn't want the answer to: Just who her birth parents were and why they left her on the doorstep of that salon.

﹝43. Which version of the Normandy do they like best?﹞

She's only been on the Normandy SR-3, but it's definitely her favorite edition. The original Normandy would have been too polished and official for her. Normandy SR-2? Well, too chummy, too fast (Not to mention all that drama with Shepard and some of Jade's operatives). The Normandy SR-3 is the perfect mix of scrappily put together, mixed with just enough awkward tension that keeps everyone apart enough to get things done.

﹝50. Is your Shepard indoctrinated?﹞

No, definitely not. Jade loves technology, but there's no way in hell she would get close enough to Reaper tech to become indoctrinated. It's the reason she defects from Cerberus after Me2, and the reason she gets in a large argument (and split) with Kai after he entertains the idea. She refuses to put mind at risk-- it's one of the few things she can count on.

#thank you for the asks my dear friend T)T these were super fun to work on.... a lovely little; break <3 #dan hyun shepard #asks #aphoticfairy #jade

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tarnishedxknight · 9 months

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is ashelia still in love with basch while she's dating carter? because it seems so

{out of dalmasca} So... the short answer is... not for 99% of AUs, no. But there's a few things that maybe I should explain because Midge and I have talked a lot behind the scenes, and maybe what we're writing is a little confusing for our readers. So here we go on straightening all of this out...

In canon, Ashelia never had romantic feelings for Basch, at least not any that were ever definitively confirmed by narration, her dialogue, etc. On her end, there is no evidence of a ship with them being canon, unless you read into the one comment Penelo made in her letter to Basch at the end of the game, something to the effect of, "She (meaning Ashe) would never say it, but... I think she misses him." That's literally the ONLY canon support for Ashe x Basch shippers on Ashe's end, lol. Listen, we squeeze a lot out of that one line, okay? XD

On Basch's end, you can read a lot into his devotion to her, all those long stares throughout the game, their comfortable conversations, or the way he closes his eyes after he reads the above line in Penelo's letter, as if just hearing that is sustaining him, heh... but there wasn't any canon confirmation in the main FFXII game that he had romantic feelings for Ashelia. There was confirmation in the storyboards for Fortress, the FFXII sequel that never happened. In those storyboards, he actually does confess his feelings to Ashe, but they are not reciprocated by her. Now... one could say that at the time they were under duress, based on the plot, so maybe she just didn't want to say at that time. And... one could also say the Fortress storyboards are not canon. But so far, all of these things I've mentioned are the only canon (or sort of canon, heh) evidence for an Ashe x Basch ship.

SO... In all AUs where either Basch or Ashe are shipped with other people, whether it's Wanda, Carter, Thor, Leigh, etc., I go with FFXII canon and say that they are very close but they don't have romantic feelings for each other. Except... for some cases in which Basch does say he used to love Ashelia but then realized it was loving the idea of her, or puppy love, or something not as solid as what he eventually finds in his ships. So in 99% of AUs where Ashelia is dating Carter, she is not also in love with Basch.

My idea of how the Basch x Ashe ship would have worked (or actually never worked) in canon is that Basch developed feelings for her after seeing her married to Rasler, but Ashelia kindof didn't realize that her "love" for Basch was more than just loving a dedicated subject, friend, guardian, or mentor. It wasn't until the end of the game when she was apart from him indefinitely that she realized that he exemplified everything that she would have wanted in a partner personality- and morality-wise. And that he always guided her well, made her feel safe, etc. And by that time, it was too late, because he has to stay in Archadia and she has to stay in Dalmasca. So... in canon the ship I guess could have been confirmed through feelings on either side, but I usually say that Ashe comes to the realization too late that she actually loves him in a romantic sense, so they never actually end up together.

The same is true in the MCU verses. Whenever I would want to ship Basch and Ashe in a thread, Ashe kindof has to come around to the fact that she loves him first and then make the first move, because Basch is never going to say or do anything on that front. He considers her above him and unattainable and would never pursue her. So it's not that she just always was in love with him but then started dating Carter anyway, because it's something that has to develop after the end of the canon game or well after they end up in an MCU verse.

Now... what I think you're talking about is the thread that Midge and I have going where Ashe is dating Carter and then Basch is found later. And Carter is slowly realizing that Ashe may have more feelings for Basch than she realizes, and that Basch has feelings for her as well. That is the ONLY AU in which I do have Ashelia coming to terms with her feelings for Basch while dating Carter, and there's a reason for that. Midge and I have decided to play around with the idea of a polycule type of ship with them in that one AU. So eventually we want for Carter to maybe help Basch and Ashe talk to each other because omg they need some help, haha, and then she will also realize she has feelings for Basch and he'll develop them for Carter as well.

It remains to be seen how it will all play out, but that's why it seems like Ashe is into Basch while dating Carter in that one AU. She just doesn't realize that that's how she feels, she's not thinking along those lines, so she keeps telling herself, no, we're just friends. She's not lying to Carter, she's a combination of oblivious and in denial of her own feelings. It's going to take an third party observer like Carter to notice... hey wait a minute, heh. What you have to remember is that Ashe was raised as royalty, which comes with a lot of etiquette, strict rules, and kindof predetermined ways of relating to or thinking about those "beneath" her, so she almost kindof doesn't realize that she can think of Basch that way? It's not crossing her mind on a conscious level that that can even be a thing, but subconsciously she does love him, if that makes any sense. She needs Carter to basically hit her over the head with it (figuratively, heh) and clue her in. XD

I hope this clears everything up! =)

@starcchild, @illbringthechaosmagic

#{ out of dalmasca } ᵒᵒᶜ #side muse: ashelia #{ royal avenger } ᵐᶜᵘ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

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showyoumyfavoriteobsession · 1 year

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Finished* act 2 a little by surprise today

*by which I mean beat Ketheric. Act 2 is probably my least favorite (not saying much, there's still a lot to like), so I was prioritizing the story stuff, but I didn't really realize/remember that freeing Aylin basically cuts off your chance to explore Moonrise Towers at all. I did a much more thorough job exploring the rest of the map than I had last time and found several areas and enemies I had never seen, but completely missed out on infiltrating Moonrise prior to the Ketheric fight. I think there's some amount of exploring there that I can do before moving on to Baldur's Gate; I also did make a save before actually starting the battle with Ketheric, so if I *really* want to I can roll back to there and do some exploring before redoing the battle. (I probably won't but. nice to have the option.)

Biggest changes from my first run were:

Prioritizing Thaniel/lifting the shadow curse. I was curious if you could actually lift it significantly earlier in the act; it seems like the answer to that is "not really." Ketheric's dead and the curse is still there - seems likely that it only triggers when you're on your way out. I did find and fight Oliver well before waking up Art Cullagh, which changed the progression a little bit, but not significantly (you still have to fight him again to reunite him with Thaniel). The most notable change from that quest was having Halsin join me for good much earlier, and I played a good chunk of act 2 with him in my party (sorry Wyll :( ) - last time he didn't sign on until I was basically in act 3, by which point I wasn't going to switch him into my well-established party. I'm enjoying running with him (he's a good combat healer), but so far he seems to have an odd dearth of general world dialogue. Hard to tell if it's a bug or not, but I wasn't getting a voice line at all when I clicked on his portrait or switched to him in battle.

Found Zevlor! I found the rest of the tieflings last time but never found Zevlor; this time was the opposite way around (since I didn't really get to explore Moonrise). I like Zevlor and think he's a cool character, but saving the rest of the tieflings as well is the main reason I'm considering reloading that save.

Speedran the Gauntlet of Shar as much as I could. I really wanted to free Aylin (she's a powerful ally, plus impossible to pass up the top-tier lesbian love story), but man that quest is long. It's felt a bit clunky both times I've done it now - getting through the Gauntlet is basically required to beat Ketheric as far as I can tell, but there’s not much of a hook to pay attention to it without Shadowheart in your party.

Found the third Thorm sibling (the bartender) and defeated him without fighting him, and helped He Who Was with his whole... thing. Again, wild how I just missed some huge fuckin chunks of the map last time around.

Also had my lovely mushy Astarion romance scene where he admits he's catching feelings and shares a little more about his relationship Issues. It's a little surprising how much more extra depth and content there is to the character you're romancing - I wish you could get a little more of that with characters you're equally close with but not romancing. (Lae'zel's approval rating is almost as high as Astarion's but it feels like she's not opening up at all.)

GOD okay I have to stop it's nearly 1am on a work night this game is Doing things to me

#j rambles #another too-long liveblog-ish post. why am i so unwell about this game #in which j liveblogs #4 #5 #baldur's gate 3

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babymetaldoll · 3 years

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"Victory" (Spencer Reid/ Reader)

Requested: Yes

Summary: Spencer's daughter hates her father's girlfriend. But when he is in prison, life pushes them to finally get along.

Warning: Cursing, a little angst, a mean teenager, and fluff.

Word count: 5,4K

A/N: Hello, pretty people! How are you? I've missed you! Life has been a little messy and filled with angst, so writing hasn't come easy in the lastest weeks. Hope you like this story, and I hope I can bring you a new one soon 😉

Masterlist

»»————-　　————-««

Spencer's daughter hated her dad's new girlfriend. And she wasn't subtle about it. She hated that her father was now dating, 'cos she didn't want to share his love. So now she didn't even want to be around him anymore 'cos he was so happy, it was annoying.

It wasn't that she hated her father, 'cos she loved him. But she was never going to face the fact she was jealous. She didn't want to share Spencer with anyone because he was all the family she knew, and they were a team.

Victoria Reid was twelve years old. She had grown up alone with her dad 'cos her mother had ditched the two of them soon after she was born. Spencer had tried to explain to his daughter her mom had left 'cos she wasn't ready to deal with the responsibility of being a mother, which was true. He, on the other hand, was happy to know he was going to be a father, and he repeated over and over again she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

That was true.

When Spencer and his ex found out they were going to be parents, he was ecstatic. He couldn't wait to hold his baby in his arms and watch them grow. He didn't know his girlfriend had other plans, though, and soon after Victoria was born, she had left the two of them and never looked back.

Spencer wasn't going to lose the chance of being a dad. Even when he knew he was too young, Reid was ready to raise that baby on his own and give her all the love he had.

That's why he and Victoria were so close. Spencer was the only parent she had ever had. He was her world. And though Spencer was only 24 when Tori was born, he had given her his best.

Tori was the BAU's baby girl. Everybody in the team was a part of her life because she had grown up with them. Penelope was her best friend and godmother. Victoria would spend a lot of time with her while her dad was away on a case. Derek was her cool uncle. He helped her train to get into the basketball team and taught her how to dance. JJ was the closest to a mother figure in her life. Tori would spend time with her after school, playing with Henry. Spencer always said JJ was like a sister for him, and that's why they were all like family. Tori actually called Henry and Michel her cousins.

Emily was like her best friend. They could talk about anything, and at least twice a month, they would go out together shopping, just the two of them. Spencer always respected his daughter's relationship with his friend 'cos they were their little extended family. Tori called Rossi "Nono." He had taught her himself, and she loved going to his mansion, 'cos he always had new video games to play with her.

But then came (Y/N). She had joined the team when Victoria was only six years old, and for the first five years, they got along just fine. (Y/N) would come along shopping with her and Emily, sometimes she took Tori out for some pastries, and talked about bands, boys. Victoria loved her.

That until the incident.

She hated (Y/N) after the incident.

Victoria refused to talk to her after THE INCIDENT.

It was a warm spring afternoon, Spencer and (Y/N) had the afternoon off, and they were at his apartment... heavily making out on the couch. That's why they lost track of time.

(Y/N) and Spencer had started dating a few months before. They had been in love with each other for years. Still, neither of them had acted on it until Rossi's birthday party, when they had a little too many drinks and finally confessed their feelings. They wanted to take things slow, but when you make out in front of the whole team, it might be a little harder imagined.

But they had decided to wait for the right time to tell Victoria. But, unfortunately, the right time didn't come soon enough.

- "Dad!! I'm home!!"- Victoria opened the front door and froze in shock at the scene going on in front of her. The twelve-year-old had asked her best friend's mother to drop her home earlier when Penelope told her Spencer had already gone home. In Garcia's defense, she had no idea what was going on in Reid's residence, and if she had known, she would have never let Victoria know her dad was home.

(Y/N) widened her eyes and quickly grabbed a pillow to cover herself. She was shirtless, sitting on Spencer's lap. She still had her bra on (thank god), but anyone could tell that scene was leading to the bedroom in a few seconds.

- "Shit!"- Spencer whispered and closed his eyes as he realized what was going on. (Y/N) held her breath as she stared into the young teen's eyes. Victoria didn't know what to do or what to say, so she simply ran to her room and slammed the door.

- "Ok... so I think Tori knows about us"- (Y/N) tried to ease the mood and smiled at her boyfriend as she put on her shirt. But Spencer sighed and covered his face with both hands- "Oh, come on. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Let me talk to her."

- "No, (Y/N), let me talk to her first."- Spencer stood up and kissed (Y/N) 's nose- "I know she is mad, and I should be the one dealing with her anger."

Reid knew his daughter well enough to anticipate her behavior. People had often told him he could be a little passive-aggressive when he was upset. And his daughter was just like him.

- "Victoria, open the door!"- he said and waited a few seconds after knocking.

- "Go away!"- the teenager yelled, laying on her bed. She felt betrayed and confused. But most of all, she felt angry that her father had decided to have a girlfriend. He had no right to do such a thing. He had to take care of her and her grandma. No one else.

- "Victoria, we need to talk about this!"

- "You seemed too busy with your girlfriend to talk to me, dad. So go away!"

- "Victoria Marie!"- Spencer knocked on the door but got no answer from his daughter. (Y/N) heard it all from the couch and tried to think of a way to fix things with the young girl.

Sadly, it wasn't going to be easy, and in the months that followed, everything was far from being normal again.

- "I hate her!"- Victoria huffed and left her book aside. Spencer was trying to explain to her why (Y/N) would stay with her and Diana while he took a short work trip for the weekend. But the girl didn't want to hear a word about it.

- "You used to get along with her just fine until we started dating."- Spencer tried to dialogue with his daughter. Still, it was honestly getting harder and harder each time they touched the subject.

- "Used to. You just said it. I have the right to change my mind about people. Why can't I stay with auntie Penelope for the weekend?"

- "Because I want you to make an effort and try to get along with (Y/N) again. Victoria, we've been through this before. I love you, and that's not going to change just because I am dating (Y/N)."

- "This is so unfair! I hate you!!"

Spence tried to stay calm, but after over four-month having the same argument almost every day, he was losing it. Victoria stormed out and slammed her bedroom door behind her back. Maybe it was better not to push it, Spencer thought, defeated, and called Penelope to ask her if his daughter could spend the weekend with her, 'cos he had to travel. Maybe Victoria and (Y/N) weren't going to get along if he forced them to spend time together.

Everyone had already tried to talk to her about what was going on: JJ, Emily, Penelope. But Victoria wasn't ready to give in. She wanted to hate (Y/N), and nothing was going to change that. Or so she thought.

The day Penelope showed up in Victoria's school and announced her something had happened to her dad was engraved in the girl's memory forever as the worst day of her life. Her father had been arrested in Mexico, but Garcia had assured her, the whole team was working to bring him home safe. Meanwhile, she would stay with her in her apartment (she was already there anyway), and Diana would stay home with her nurse.

Victoria's heart was broken. She was basically alone in the whole world. Her father was her anchor. Her protector. Her superhero. Her best friend. And now, all of a sudden, he was gone, and though everybody told her it was going to be ok, she knew it wasn't.

- "Hey,"- (Y/N) walked into Penelope's office and found Victoria doing her homework- "Pen told me you were here, and I thought maybe you'd like one of these."

The young SSA said and handed the girl a box of fresh chocolate frosted with sprinkled donuts and a strawberry milkshake. Her favorites.

But Victoria didn't reply. Instead, she looked at (Y/N) right in the eyes, not moving a muscle, and then returned to her homework.

It had been two weeks since Spencer had been accused of murder, and he had been transferred to Virginia. But the team was far from solving the case.

- "Ok, Tori, please stop this. I know you don't like me dating your dad, but this is not the right time to fight. I know..."- (Y/N) made a short pause and took a deep breath before resuming her idea- "I know how you feel."

- "No. You don't."- Victoria Reid's voice was loud and clear, like thunder, hitting earth with anger. So clear, in fact, (Y/N) widened her eyes when she heard her.

- "You have no idea how I feel. Your dad ain't in jail accused of killing some woman in Mexico. You have no right to tell me that!"

- "My boyfriend and best friend in the whole world is in jail right now, and it doesn't matter if I work myself to death 18 hours every single fucking day; I still can't find the way to help him. I feel lost and alone, and most of all, scared, 'cos I've come to realize I have no idea how to live without him anymore. I'm guessing that's very close to what you feel."

(Y/N) poured her heart with complete honesty to her boyfriend's daughter, fighting the tears back, though you could feel the desperation in her voice. She didn't know if it would be of any use, but she had to take that from her chest. She missed Spencer so much she felt she was going insane. She had no idea what to do.

Victoria stared at her, furrowing her eyes and pouting. She didn't want to cry in front of (Y/N) 'cos she didn't want her trying to console her.

- "Just because you are dating him doesn't mean you have to take care of me. I can take care of myself."- Tori said and looked at the donut. She was hungry, they looked delicious, but the teenager didn't want to accept any gift coming from (Y/N).

- "I am not here because you are my boyfriend's daughter. I thought you were a cool kid way before I fell in love with him."- (Y/N) tried to calm herself down and sat across the table from Victoria- "And I am not trying to steal him from you. I just wanna... make him happy."

- "We were happy,"- the teenager's comeback was like a slap on (Y/N) 's face, but she did her best not to take it personally. She knew it was useless fighting with a teenager.

- "I have a visit scheduled for tomorrow. If you'd like, we could go together."

Tori held her breath. She hadn't seen her father since he left for Mexico. Of course, Victoria wanted to see him and hug him. It was all she wanted in the whole world. But... she didn't want to be friendly with (Y/N).

- "If I go... it doesn't mean I like you."- the young girl whispered.

- "I know"- (Y/N) nodded, feeling already triumphant.

- "And it doesn't mean I'm ok with you dating him."

- "I understand. I just know you miss him, Tori. I really know how you feel, and I'm gonna help you whenever I get a chance."- Victoria didn't answer; she just sighed and grabbed a donut. (Y/N) tried not to smile, feeling she had a small victory.

Spencer couldn't believe it when he saw his little girl waiting for him sitting next to (Y/N) instead of his lawyer in the small grey room. Victoria stood up and ran to him the second the door opened and wrapped her arms around her father as tight as possible.

(Y/N) looked at the guards, thankful neither of them had tried to stop the teenager.

Spencer kissed his daughter's cheek a few times and whispered how sorry he was to put her under those circumstances. He didn't know what to do or what to say. He was speechless. A part of him hated the idea of his daughter visiting him in jail, but he also missed her too much to argue with (Y/N) for bringing her over.

- "I'll go fill a few forms. Be right back"- (Y/N) whispered and saw Spencer's warm smile as he mouthed "Thank you," still hugging his daughter. She whispered, "I love you," and walked outside the room. She knew Victoria would appreciate a few minutes alone with her father, and she didn't want to take that away from them. She really wanted to make Spencer and Tori happy, and spending time together was what they needed.

- "I know this is hard, peanut, but we'll get through it. I'll be out in a few weeks. I promise"- Spencer held his daughter's hands as they sat across the table.

- "I miss you"- her voice was a soft whisper, as she kept trying not to cry anymore. She didn't want to make him feel guilty, sad, or anxious.

- "Me too. How are you? How is living with aunt Penelope going?"

- "Ok... we watch a lot of movies."

- "And school?"- Tori shrugged.

- "Ok, I guess."

- "Victoria..."

- "I got a C on my history paper."

- "Baby..."

- "I know, I know, I should have tried harder, but I really didn't want to do it."

Spencer was torn between lecturing his daughter for getting a bad grade and actually telling her it was ok, 'cos they were going through a rough patch. It was obvious she might get bad grades, all things considered.

- "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you"- it was all Spencer managed to whisper.

- "Don't say that, dad. I'm sorry I slacked off."

- "You know, you could ask (Y/N) for help,"- Spencer suggested, but Tori just rolled her eyes, annoyed- "She has a master in the subject..."

- "Dad, please don't force me to talk to her."

- "I'm just saying... you don't have to be her best friend, just ask for help when needed, especially when it comes to school. Besides, it's clear she isn't a bad person if she brought you here today."

- "She just wants to win me over."- Tori mumbled and crossed her arms on her chest. But she knew her dad was right in one thing: (Y/N) had done a pretty good thing taking her to see her dad and letting them spend time together on their own.

Victoria thought she was losing her mind after three months had passed and her father was still in jail. It didn't matter that (Y/N) took her every Saturday morning to visit, played her favorite music, and bought her all the pastries she loved. She needed to live with her father again and do all the small things they loved: making breakfast together, playing scrabble, taking long walks in the park, eating ice cream. Tori even missed her father's annoying habits. She missed his rambling and how he always had an answer for everything, even for the things she didn't want to talk about with him.

Spencer was an amazing father, no questions asked, and Victoria Reid knew she couldn't ask for a better dad than him. She just wanted him back.

But things weren't going to improve soon.

When the team found out Diana Reid had been kidnapped, (Y/N) had to take a minute and lock herself in the bathroom to cry her heart out. She felt bad things were never going to cease, and she didn't want to tell Victoria. The girl had already been through so much, adding the abduction of her grandmother wasn't fair. Tori was just twelve. She shouldn't be going through all that.

- "Victoria?"

Prentiss decided she was going to be the one to tell the girl what was going on, and (Y/N) offered herself to look for her. She was in Rossi's office, reading a book curled on his comfy couch. That poor kid almost lived at the BAU by then.

- "My homework is done."- she replied, not taking her eyes from the page she was reading.

- "That's good. And what are you reading?"- Tori sighed and showed her the cover- "Something Wicked this way comes," I love that book"- (Y/N) smiled and took a look around.

- "Figured my father forced you to read it."

- "Actually, I read it when I was ten, and it's one of my favorite books."- (Y/N) looked at Victoria, but the teenager kept pretending to read, ignoring her- "Emily needs to talk to you."

- "And why are you here? Why didn't aunt Emily come? Are you her secretary?"- there was something about Victoria's attitude that reminded (Y/N) of Reid.

- "I wanted to see you, see how you were doing, and take you to the conference room"- Tori sighed and stood up. She hoped Emily had good news about her father, 'cos she was honestly going insane.

But of course, Prentiss didn't have any good news.

- "I'm sorry, Tori, but... you are going to have to stay here tonight"- the girl frowned, confused, and looked at the whole team around her. Everybody looked like they hadn't slept in days. Which, by the way, was very accurate.

- "Why?"

- "'Cos we are going to have to..."- Emily paused and held her breath, staring at her niece's eyes.- "I'm sorry, Tori, but this is the truth: the woman who framed your father has kidnapped Diana, and I'm scared she might try to get you too. So until we catch her, the safest place to be is here, at the BAU. With us."

Tori gasped and covered her mouth with both hands as tears filled her eyes in a second.

- "Nana? Is she ok?"

- "We don't know yet, but we are working to bring her home safe as soon as possible"- JJ caressed Tori's arm and tried to hold her, but she pushed her away mad frowned.

- "You keep saying that, you keep telling me you are working to bring my family home safe, but so far, you haven't done anything!! I am still alone! Dad is in jail, and everybody knows he is innocent! And now nana is gone too!!"

- "Baby, we know it is hard, but..."- Emily wanted to explain to Victoria everything was more complex than they had expected, but the girl covered her ears and shook her head, yelling as she stormed out of the room

- "I don't wanna hear you!! I want my dad!!"

It was painful to hear those things, 'cos the team was doing the best they could for Reid and his family, but they could understand the frustration and, most of all, the fear that little girl felt.

- "I'll talk to her,"- (Y/N) said and turned to Emily- "You guys continue what you were doing. I'll try to calm her down."

- "Are you sure you wanna go?"- Emily asked and cut (Y/N) a short smile.

- "Yeah, for once, she is mad at all of us, not just me."

The young SSA walked to Garcias's office, where Tori was hidden underneath a desk, crying.

- "Hey."

- "Leave me alone."

- "I know I'm the last person you wanna be with right now, and I am sorry I can't do anything to make you feel better. I can only promise you this: we are doing all we can to bring your dad and your grandmother back home safe." - (Y/N) whispered as she walked slowly towards the girl, who sobbed, whipping off the tears from her eyes.

- "Just leave me alone. I want to be alone,"- Tori mumbled and wrapped her arms around herself, sobbing.

- "I'm not gonna leave you alone, Tori. You are not alone here with us."

- "I am alone!! I want my daddy!! I need my daddy!!"- the girl continued crying her eyes out, hidden underneath the desk. (Y/N) kneeled next to her and sat on the floor.

- "Come here"- it was a bold move, 'cos (Y/N) knew the girl was going to reject her, but she didn't care. She couldn't deal with her sadness, and it scared her to think how bad the child was feeling. So, (Y/N) opened her arms and moved the teen closer to her.

Surprisingly, the girl didn't reject her. Instead, she cried against the fabric of (Y/N) 's sweater and sobbed, shaking, as (Y/N) caressed her hair carefully.

- "I swear, we are not gonna rest until he is free and until Diana is home."

- "I want my family back,"- Victoria mumbled and sighed.

- "You'll get it. I swear, I'll do everything I can to bring them back to you."

That was the first time since (Y/N) started dating Spencer that Victoria let her close. In the middle of the mess they were all lost into, it felt like a little break of peace. Another small victory for the young woman.

(Y/N) didn't mind spending the whole night awake going through an endless pile of files if it meant there was a chance to bring Spencer back home. Tori stayed in Rossi's office, where she made something that looked pretty much like a fort on the couch, with blankets and pillows, to hide from the rest of the world.

It was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, looking at the girl hidden there, trying to read, trying to draw, trying to do anything to take her mind from reality. Penelope brought her something to eat, but she rejected it, saying she wasn't hungry. Emily and JJ had tried to talk to her, but Tori kindly said she wanted to be alone. Even Morgan had called her and announced to her he was taking a plane from Chicago to help the team looking for Diana.

None of that cheered Victoria up.

- "I bought you this,"

Around ten, (Y/N) opened Rossi's door and walked in, holding a box of frosted chocolate donuts with sprinkles.

- "They always cheer your dad up, so I'm counting they will do the trick with you too"- the young woman tried to joke but found Victoria crying quietly insider her fort.

- "Please, just leave me alone,"- she whispered and hid her face with both her hands. (Y/N) didn't pay attention and sat with her inside the fort.

- "Not a chance."

- "I really don't wanna do this now, just leave me alone,"- the girl sighed, defeated, and continued crying.

- "Come here, I told you, you are not alone."

- "I am alone, (Y/N)! My dad is in jail, my grandma is kidnapped, and my mother left me 'cos she didn't love me!"

- "No, baby, don't say that"- (Y/N) wrapped her arms around Tori and kissed the top of her head.

- "I know my mom didn't want to have me, and maybe she was right... maybe I am cursed, and all this is my fault."

- "Victoria Marie Reid, you are talking senseless" (Y/N) held the girl's shoulder and looked into her eyes.

- "You are an adorable young girl who deserves the best in the world. Why did this happen? I don't know, bad shit happens in life, and we must try to learn something from it. That's it. There's no reason or cause. Shit happens, baby, but we must raise stronger than before. You are an incredible young girl, and I know your dad is proud of you. I am proud of you, 'cos you've been so courageous and brave."

- "You are just saying that 'cos you are with my dad."

- "No. I would say that even if I hated your dad. You know why? 'Cos I am not lying, you are awesome, and I love you, get that into your head. And you are not alone, 'cos I am here, see?"- (Y/N) ran her thumb on Tori's cheek, whipping off a few of her tears- "I'm here even when you don't want me to be, so I don't know if you can tell, but you are doomed, you can't get rid of me now. I'm like a disease, but a good one... I don' know if there's a good disease. I'm sure your dad would have the answer for my random comment right now."

Both Victoria and (Y/N) chuckled at the same time, and the girl nodded.

- "He definitely would..."

- "He would also lecture me why I shouldn't give you sugar after dinner, but he is not here, and I am not telling him, so please don't tell him 'cos he is going to be mad at me... and at you."- (Y/N) handed Tori the box of donuts, and the girl smiled.

- "I won't tell him."

- "Great, we have our own little sugary secret. Eat all the donuts you want; I'm going to be with the team in the conference room. Emily has a meeting early morning with the judge."- (Y/N) kissed the top of Vitoria's head and stood up.

- "If you need anything, I'm across the hall."- the SSA said, and the girl nodded, chewing a donut.

- "Thank you, (Y/N)"

By the next day, the miracle had happened. Victoria couldn't stop crying when (Y/N) announced she was taking Spencer back home. Tori stood in front of his father's girlfriend and felt how the tears filled her eyes in less than a minute. Happy tears, for once.

(Y/N) smiled at her, glad to know the young girl was going to have her life back. It surprised her when Tori hugged her, wrapping her arms around her tight. (Y/N) stayed still for an instant, trying to understand what was happening. She hugged Victoria and kissed the top of her head. The child was crying, and suddenly, so was she. The nightmare was over. At least a part of it. They still needed to find Diana. But the fact they were going to have Reid back was already giving everybody the peace of mind they needed to finish the task.

(Y/N) held Spencer's hand tight all the way from the prison to the BAU. He kept his eyes locked on their hands, fingers tangled together. He couldn't believe it was actually happening. He couldn't believe he was a free man.

- "How's Tori?"- he whispered and turned to his girlfriend. Penelope and Luke were in the car with them, but somehow, Spencer could only register the presence of his girlfriend. Not because he didn't care about his friends, but because he could only take just a small amount of information at the time. It was all too much for him at that moment.

- "Good. She has been incredibly strong."

- "Did you tell her about mom?"- Spencer was afraid to ask but needed to know what was going on with his daughter. (Y/N) nodded and sighed.

- "We decided it was better if she knew what was happening, we had to keep her at the BAU, and she was going to get suspicious she couldn't go to Penelope's... sorry."

- "Don't be. You did what was best for her."- Spencer turned to his girlfriend and smiled at her for a second. It was a short, sweet smile. Almost shy. But it was enough to warm her heart and wake the butterflies in her stomach. She was so in love with Spencer Reid, everything he did fluster her.

Victoria thought her heart was about to burst as he waited for her father to arrive. Spencer looked at (Y/N) one last time, and she squeezed his hand kindly, smiling when the elevator door opened, and all he heard was:

- "Daddy!!"- Tori yelled and ran to hug Spencer as soon as she saw him. He couldn't even step out of the elevator when his daughter nearly tackled him, wrapping her arms around him tight.

- "My baby!"- he whispered and spun her in the air a few times- "Are you ok?"- he held her face with both hands and took a good look at her. She was crying but smiling as she nodded.

- "I'm so happy to see you, dad."

- "I missed you so, so much"- Spencer kissed the top of her head and sighed. (Y/N) smiled, and whipped off the tears from her eyes as she stared at the scene. Garcia and Luke stood next to her, enjoying a brief moment of happiness and peace.

- "Me more,"- Victoria whispered and hugged Spencer again- "I swear I'm never going to fight with you again."

- "I'm taking a mental note of that,"- he answered and felt her body shaking as she giggled. Spencer hadn't heard his daughter laugh, giggle, or even watched her smile in the three months he had spent away from her. And that sound was sweet and warm, like a balm to his soul.

- "I'm sorry, Spencer... but, we have to..."- Emily interrupted the moment and smiled at her friend. They all knew they still had to do one more thing before celebrating. They had to take Diana Reid back home safe and sound. Victoria let her father go and smiled at him.

- "I love you, dad."

- "I love you too, princess."

And as the team walked to the conference room to brief Spencer about the case and update him with the latest information, (Y/N) felt someone hold her hand.

- "Thank you,"- Victoria whispered and cut her a smile that warmed her heart.

- "Come here,"- she answered and turned around to wrap her arms around her for a second. Spencer looked at them, and for once, he didn't know what to say. Victoria and (Y/N) just stood in the middle of the hall, hugged for a few minutes, and Reid couldn't believe it. It was so heartwarming and emotional; he really didn't know how to react.

- "Come on, dad!! You are going to miss the movie!"- Victoria yelled and set the popcorn on the coffee table.

- "You can pause it!"- Spencer yelled from his desk, where he was finishing writing a letter for his mother.

- "Or you can hurry!"- Tori answered and sat on the couch.

- "Here's your tea, your highness"- (Y/N) walked to the girl holding a tray filled with cups and more snacks- "Come on, honey! We are not waiting for you!"

Three months after prison and life had never been so good for Spencer, Victoria, and (Y/N).

- "I had never seen you so eager to watch a Marvel movie, since when are you two fans of Thor?"- Spencer walked to the living room, hearing his girlfriend and daughter laugh.

- "Always, huge fan."- (Y/N) smiled and tapped on the couch. Reid sat between his two women and sighed.

- "I can smell the sarcasm in the air."

- "No, honey. We love Thor, right Tori?"

- "Yes! Big fans, huge, the biggest fans"- Spencer looked at his daughter and raised an eyebrow.

- "Ok, I'll buy it. Let's watch the movie."

(Y/N) and Tori giggled at the very same moments like they were sharing a secret joke Spencer couldn't understand, but he didn't really matter. He was happy, his heart was content, and there was nothing more perfect that minute, 'cos his family was all on the same couch, watching a movie, enjoying an afternoon together. Like he had always dreamt of.

----

Spencer taglist

@calm-and-doctor

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@all-tings-diego @spenxerslut @ash19871962 @babebenhardy

#Spencer Reid #Criminal Minds #Matthew gray Gubler #Spencer reid x reader #babymetaldoll writes #criminal minds rewrite #fluff #angst #spencer reid x you #spencer reid smut #spencer reid angst

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stellocchia · 3 years

Text

Since I really enjoyed yesterday's stream I decided to do one of my overly long analysis on it

So, here's my analysis of (DSMP LORE) Healthy Competition

Dialogues will be color-coded as usual, so here's what I used: Phil, Wilbur, Ranboo

As always I am incapable of brevity, so everything's under the cut

The stream starts with a conversation between Phil and Wilbur in which Wilbur admits that he hasn't been to visit Phil in a while, which makes Phil's later threat about throwing him out feel that much more ridiculous since Wilbur clearly doesn't really live with him either way...

"Alright, it's got one for Phil, one for Ranboo, and one for Techno. Is that all that live here? Just you three?" "Yep, just us three, just chilling"

The only reason why I'm singling this out is that it was right after the mention of Techno's birthday and Wilbur was pointing at the seats occupied by the 4 members of the Syndicate so it feels slightly weird that Niki wasn't mentioned at all. But also it's technically not a lie, she doesn't live there and she only comes around for the Syndicate meetings.

Another thing to add is that Wilbur did notice the chest Ranboo left for him and consciously decided to ignore it.

"I must admit I've come to you with a bit of a- a bit of a proposition. You're into propositions Phil? Are you a bit of a 'propositions' kinda guy?" "Oh, depends, depends. You- you've had some pretty... let- let's just say, uh- not- not a great track record on propositions that you've had in the past" "Alright... I mean, I'm trying to move past that"

I wonder what exactly Phil is referring to here. Because, like, Wilbur did bad things, don't get me wrong, but what's his track record with "propositions" in particular? Because he isn't talking about "Tommy, let's be the bad guys" here since he doesn't know about that. Is he talking about Wilbur founding L'Manburg? But then again, I don't think Wilbur interpreted it that way. I think that, from Wilbur's reaction, he clearly interpreted it as a jab at him exploding L'Manburg (which is the one thing he's trying to move past) which would be extremely hypocritical from Phil since he did the exact same thing but worse.

Also, I really do think that Wilbur is trying to move forward. He's lonely and he has the lowest possible opinion of himself so it doesn't feel weird that he'd want to move on. He isn't putting the work in it right now and he hasn't really changed, but he does seem to want to (though I think he may not know how).

"He [Quackity] didn't seem afraid of me, which is cool. Not many people- I mean you don't seem afraid of me. You aren't afraid of me, are you Phil?" (little look into Wilbur's mind and his fear of isolation once again. And this is fear of isolation, he's worried that other people are afraid of him and therefore are only waiting for him to step out of line so that all their fears would be confirmed)

"'Cause I'm not afraid of you [Phil]" (bold words for someone who spent who knows how long lying to his dad because of a crippling fear of disappointment...)

"Technoblade spent his entire time taking down the establishments, what he left is, as predicted, a power vacuum for a new establishment to come in" (in case it wasn't obvious, Wilbur is not the biggest fan of anarchy. And he actually got this one criticism spot on, indeed all taking down L'Manburg did was getting 4 new governmental-like structures to sprout in its place)

"Phil, I want to make a burger van" *Phil sighs and walks away* (I'm more sure now that Phil really meant "creating L'Manburg" as Wilbur's bad track record with propositions)

Wilbur repeating 4 times that he has no ulterior motive with the burger van managed to make me think the exact opposite. That said that ulterior motive may just be to create a safe little home for himself and Tommy for all we know honestly. Also, the whole thing with Phil trying to convince his grown-ass kid to go play with the neighbor kid and Wilbur throwing a tantrum in response was hilarious...

"If he's [Ranboo] shit you gotta come help me okay? If he's shit you've gotta come be burger boy with me, okay?" (he still is mistrustful to an extreme and pretty childish admittedly)

"Why is he [Phil] treating me like a kid?! Why is he treating me like a little baby?" (remembering how Wilbur treated Fundy I think it may be a family problem)

Another interesting thing to point out is that Wilbur was openly scared of the spider attacking him here, and fights it off, but he doesn't move away from the explosion later on and he didn't move away from the exploding creepers last stream. Other people already made this connection, but I do think it may be a sort of way to punish himself. Specifically, it's brought up later on that he thinks he got off easy for what he did, so he's using what he hurt others with (explosions) to hurt himself now as a sort of punishment for that. Which is another indication of just how much his stay in Limbo didn't help with his mental health.

"Am I being- is this [Ranboo having both cows and wheat] a setup?" (the paranoia never left)

"Ranboo I'm gonna go out on a limb here: do- do you wanna be friends?" "Su-sure yeah, I don't see why not" (I think that at this point it was still just Wilbur following along with what his dad told him to do and trying to find out more about Ranboo. That does seem to change later down the line)

"And then we decided that it [the 'cookie' outpost] was too much trouble so we kinda just left it" (So we have confirmation that the cookie outpost was abandoned)

"We're not gonna annoy Quackity" "That's good" "We can't annoy- we can't annoy him because we're simply put- we're simply put gonna be making...- I got the real estate! He's giving me the area and we're gonna be making a competing business"

Wilbur says this as if he wasn't perfectly aware that this would annoy the sh*t out of Quackity. As if the point of it wasn't exactly to annoy Quackity. Or well, annoying him isn't the end goal, it's just the means to an end. We don't know the actual end goal (though I think Wilbur still wants to either be let into Las Nevadas or actually instate a rivalry between them as he said, one of the two).

"We [he and Quackity] were a part of the same cabinet during New L'Manburg or whatever" "Cabinet?" "Yeah a cabinet is like-" "Was this- was this with Tubbo?" "Yeah yeah" (...) "So you were part of the old L'Manburg? I didn't know that actually, I thought you were a bit of an independent"

Once again: Wilbur is missing A LOT of knowledge. He wasn't aware that New L'Manburg had a cabinet and he wasn't aware that Ranboo was ever part of the country either. He has a lot of misconceptions about what happened during the time he was dead so it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that his views on a lot of things are as warped as they are. Wilbur is getting to his conclusions with an incomplete and sometimes wrong set of data.

"Do you dislike anyone Ranboo?" "Not too much I don't think. I mean there are other people I don't, like, agree with what they've done of course, but I think that everyone is just a product of what they've gone through and everything so if you understand that then you understand the person!"

There is nothing inherently wrong with Ranboo's reasoning here. It's true that most people are a result of their environment and, once you understand what they've been through you can understand them better as a person. It's also fine that he personally doesn't want to hold grudges. But that way of thinking isn't applicable to those who have been hurt by others, sure they can reach an understanding, but an understanding of a person doesn't justify shit and doesn't change shit unless that person works towards repairing old broken relationships. It just all sounds like a nice way of thinking about things in theory, but in practice, it just takes away responsibility from those who have wronged others to fix things and moves it to those who have been wronged. (Ranboo isn't advocating for everyone to think that way though, but I know the fandom will).

Either way, they arrive in Las Nevadas and Wilbur talks about how their place doesn't benefit the consumer and puts down 3 signs.

"I've been trying to think of a name for it [his and Tommy's area], I'm thinking about 'Paradise'"

There are two possible reasons for the name that I can think of:

1) It's in reference to Las Nevadas itself and how Las Nevadas is based on Las Vegas, the famous city of sin

2) It could be a reference to Tommy insistently calling Las Nevadas Paradise in the last stream and Wilbur trying to convince him that their place is the true Paradise

Wilbur does decide to make the Burger Van right at the border which really feels like a very obvious provocation. The other thing is that he makes it clear that he wants the van to be red and white which could be a random choice, but really feels like a reference to Tommy (since they are famously his colors) or an imitation of their opposition. Or both considering how much Tommy liked the restaurant of the opposition and the fact that Wilbur is still trying to convince him to stay.

"I'm not very fond of blue" (at this point it's obvious that Wilbur has quite a bit of pent-up animosity against Ghostbur. I wonder if it is because it still feels like people liked the ghost more than him...)

"Like, the Cookie Shop, I don't even know if it was a cookie shop, to begin with, because it was a little... fortified if I'm entirely honest, I realize that now" "Really?" "Yeah did you not see- oh wait- that giant stone structure?" (Ranboo really did fail to realize that the cookie shop was actually a military outpost, huh?)

"See, I like Tubbo. He's strong-headed, he doesn't let people push him around, you know?" (this is both an interesting change in what he thinks of Tubbo if he actually thinks that and further confirmation that Wilbur isn't a fan of people he considers to be 'followers')

"Why do you claim that you're so 'peaceful' and 'neutral' and yet somehow appear in almost every conflict this server's had since I died?" (since I saw people claiming this is manipulation already, just know that it isn't. He's just confused because, admittedly, Ranboo is a confusing guy and Wilbur doesn't really know him at all)

"Ranboo, why did you come to help me?" (...) "And then also I just think, you know... you can, you know- I think- I think you're an alright person, you know? So I wanna- I did kinda wanna get off on a better foot with you then what happened-" "Why?" "Just because I don't really like having the thought that people don't really like me" "Nonononono not the bit about the right foot, the 'why don't you think I'm a bad person'" "Well I mean, I think that you did bad things, but like, I think that you also went through things that made you that way and then I also think that you've changed now (...) but I think that now you've- apparently you've been away long enough that I think that if anyone goes away for that long eventually they'll have a thought about their morality and everything and maybe become a better person because of it"

I know this quote was absurdly long, but it is one of the most interesting conversations of the whole stream and it is really important and it tells us quite a bit as well. For one thing Wilbur was left quite emotional from someone simply admitting that he's an "alright person" and that they think he's capable of changing and this does bring him to open up to Ranboo right after. What Ranboo says to be exact is that anyone would have changed after going through what Wilbur went through and that change could be positive and while I completely disagree with it, it's clearly something that Wilbur needed to hear.

Now as to why I disagree with the notion that 13 years of semi-complete isolation could change anyone for the better should be rather obvious. But if it isn't, well, that's torture to put it simply. Psychological torture. Just like abuse it's one of those things that only cause trauma and a worsening mental health state and we see this with Wilbur because he didn't change, he only became more self-deprecating. Hurting someone doesn't make them become a better person all of a sudden, that's really not how it works. Hurting someone makes them become more traumatized.

"I think I scare people" ( as I said, immediately opening up about his insecurities)

"I think that a lot of people share your idea, but they share your idea in trying to- trying to keep me from hurting them" (for a bit here Wilbur talks about how he feels like everyone else is just waiting for him to step a foot out of line, which does really show that he's still interpreting all his interactions with people through the lens of his paranoia and self-deprecation, because no one is really interacting with him with that objective in mind)

"Dream's had his comeuppance and I've not" (this seems to be the crux of Wilbur's insecurity. This idea that he got off scot-free for his crimes, the idea that the only difference between him and Dream is the punishment that's been bestowed upon them which, of course, is wrong, but he doesn't know this, because he doesn't actually know why Dream's in prison)

"I've been investing into the wrong areas Ranboo, I've been investing into the wrong people" (This is either a reference to Tommy, to Phil, to Quackity, or to all of them)

"We're kindred man, we get each other" (the reason why he thinks that is because he seems to think that Ranboo has a similar type of paranoia to what Wilbur experience himself and he's not entirely wrong. Ranboo is deathly afraid of conflict and of being disliked so much so that he never stands up for anything in fear of angering others)

Little definition of "neuroticism" for you all since Wilbur kept mentioning it: neuroticism, one of the Big 5 personality traits, is typically defined as a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.

I'd say it's quite fitting for both characters...

"I feel like life dealt us the same cards and the difference is that you built your trust by showing people your cards whilst I- I keep them close to my chest and I feel like that may be the big difference" (I felt like this was interesting. Especially knowing how much Ranboo actually doesn't share and how much he actually also keeps close to his chest)

They talk about tubbo in general for a bit and about what's been going on the server in general. Ranboo also that he's part of both Snowchester and the arctic commune (mostly the latter though).

"This has been chill, this has been good, I'm excited to show Tommy. What's your opinion on Tommy?" "Oh, he's- he's great. Tommy's awesome" "I agree I agree" "Definitely gone through a lot but I think that it's made him a good person" "Well you seem to think that everyone going through something at least gives them some merit you said" "I mean, yeah. I mean if- if no one- the only really bad people are the ones who are just evil because- just because and they don't have any reason why"

Included the whole thing here because if I stopped at Ranboo saying that Tommy going through trauma is what made him a good person it would have sounded really bad. As things are I think that that was just poor wording on his part and that this mostly goes back to the mentality he expressed before about how people sometimes do bad things because of the environment they're in pushing them and this idea he seems to have that actual hardships (like 13 years in Limbo or whatever he knows about what Tommy has been through) can encourage people to be better which is... sort of naive honestly. Again, trauma isn't a catalyst for the betterment of a person, and any improvement Tommy has made came from his self-reflection, not what he's been through.

After they're done with the van Wilbur brings Ranboo to their competing establishment and asks him to smash the windows, which Ranboo does with no hesitation whatsoever. After that Wilbur proceeds to place down one single block of TNT in a corner and Ranboo starts being a little more hesitant.

"You trust me right?" (I feel like that was a trick question considering how their common paranoia is the thing that Wilbur praised in Ranboo before)

Wilbur hands Ranboo the flint and steel to detonate the piece of TNT which Ranboo does, albeit with some hesitation.

"You passed the test, good job man, you go back to the van (...) Ranboo- Ranboo... I'm proud of you man. You've taken a side, you've proven that you can choose a side"

Quite a few people have already pointed out how similar this scene was to the time Wilbur tested Tommy in season 1 to decide if he was fit to be his right-hand man. In both situations, Wilbur gave someone a chance to cause some destruction against someone on the opposite side. Tommy passed the test by refusing to do so and showing that he was willing to uphold his morals and what he believed in. Ranboo passed the test by doing the exact opposite, by showing that, as much as he talks about how he chooses people and not sides, he's not willing to prove that even when all he would need to do to do so is doing nothing.

And it's an interesting scene to analyze as a parallel to that, but it's also interesting to note that Wilbur knows about Ranboo and Tommy griefing George together. He knows that Tommy was the only one to face any consequences for it (not that exile was actually the consequence for the griefing, but this is from Wilbur's point of view). Now putting this in the context of Wilbur seeing himself in Ranboo and thinking that he himself got off scot-free explains this next part perfectly in my opinion.

It explains why he made sure to leave this sign:

To me at least. This is only a theory honestly, we don't have an actual full explanation. But I do think that Wilbur may feel like the both of them never got the comeuppance they deserved, which is why he did something that's sure to get a reaction from one of the most powerful people on the server. Though considering that he also left 2 diamonds as retribution + a chest with all the materials he picked up it could have also been Wilbur's idea of a bonding moment and he could actually really be proud of Ranboo.

#long post #dream smp #wilbur soot #philza #ranboo #c!wilbur #c!ranboo #dream smp analysis #character analysis #stream analysis #tw self-harm #tw self-deprecation #tw torture mention #tw abuse mention #I'm sure there are plenty of things I missed #but this was all for now

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