#without reference at work VERSUS with reference after work. fight!

[ggenggar-draws]

the ignorerrrrrr

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard info compilation Post 4

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [another post]

Post is under a cut due to length.

There is a lot of information coming out right now about DA:TV from many different sources. This post is just an effort to compile as much as I can in one place, in case that helps anyone. Sources for where the information came from have been included. Where I am linking to a social media user’s post, the person is either a dev, a Dragon Age community council member or other person who has had a sneak peek at and played the game. nb, this post is more of a ‘info that came out in snippets from articles and social media posts’ collection rather than a ‘regurgitating the information on the official website or writing out what happened in the trailer/gameplay reveal’ post. The post is broken down into headings on various topics. A few points are repeated under multiple headings where relevant. Where I am speculating without a source, I have clearly demarcated this. if you notice any mistakes in this post, please tell me.

Character Creation

BioWare confirmed that even if you make your Rook a short king, the team has done work to ensure animations fit any character build [source]

"Dragon Age's character creator has seen a massive glow-up" [source]. "The volume of choices you get here are frankly insane. As Epler noted, “you could spend forever here,” and he’s not kidding." [source] The art and graphics teams spent a lot of time trying to make hair look amazing [source: the Discord]

In CC we can customise our "bulge size" [source]

Some more detail on the new lighting options to see how Rook looks like in CC when you make them: you can view them in "blazing forest sunshine versus the glare of an underground temple" [source]

"newly mobile, extra-hairy hair" [source]

Faction choice has statistical boons. For example, Shadow Dragon Rook deals extra damage to Venatori blood cultists [source]

Faction choice basically determines why Rook has been called to help in the fight against Solas [source]

All pre-determined character models in CC can be adjusted [source]

You can make a really tall dwarf if you want [source]

"Setting your previous world state is fully integrated into the character creator for Veilguard" [source: the Discord]

Inquisitor appearance will be re-created, there is no way to carry their appearance from DA:I into the game [source: the Discord]

Classes for Rook are not restricted in the sense that you can play any almost class, lineage and faction combination that you want. For example, a mage Rook can be a Crow [source: the Discord] (Fel note: it sounded like Rook cannot be a magic-wielding dwarf, even though the exception of Harding now exists) (Fel note: there is a mage Crow in one of the books)

Story and lore

Here is another article which refers to Rook as "the Rook" [source]

The story is set "9-10 years from DA:I and about 8 years from Trespasser" [source: the Discord]

They have been tracking Solas for "a while. Something else you’re gonna learn about…" [source]

The game does not use the Keep [source]

Shadow Dragon is the faction background with the most in-game reactivity (e.g. from other characters' dialogue) during the prologue section of the game, due to the fact that the prologue is in Minrathous and the Shadow Dragons are a Tevinter-based faction [source]

"I also saw a big moment after the gameplay trailer ends that I can't talk about" [source]

During the more narrative-heavy dialogue choices, "the game will also give a bit of context on what you're about to choose, but doesn't go as far as explaining the exact consequences or precisely what will happen thereafter" [source] "the game shows you how you’ll go about the choice, but it doesn’t tell you the consequence of that choice". [source]

"The game is bringing back Dragon Age 2s dialogue system, which was tone-based and resulted in its protagonist Hawke falling into one of three different personality states. You have three general tones in a conversation: kind, humorous, or aggressive, with slight variations depending on the situation" [source]

"Venatori blood cultists" [source]

"The whole game has the makings of another Suicide Mission [ME2], given that you are up against a god with the ability to collapse dimensions" [source]

"Choices and consequences". "Now, it seems you can see the effects of your choices like never before, and this time, they marry that choice with incredible visuals" [source]

In the bar when you're trying to get information in the opening, if you choose to fight it out and the barbrawl ensues, you then have to run from the pursuers in the bar [source]

A key concern of the developers when creating the environments was to make “a world worth saving" [source]

The prologue is quite linear but there are additional paths you can follow to find additional loot [source]

In the opening section of the game there is a dock which has been attacked and the soldiers that were there have been killed, "but rather than seeing this passively, we walked through the aftermath and had to interact with the scene to piece it all together" [source]

The tone of the gameplay video is a good indicator of the tone of the rest of the game [source]. On the tone: "dark fantasy" [source]. horror & gore is back along with DA's classic dark elements [source]

Tevinter Nights is a better tone indicator for the game than the original reveal/character trailer. Ghil Dirthalen: "Tevinter Nights has felt the most 'DAV' to me" [source]. The gameplay reveal video is the best indicator for the tone of the game (vs the character one) [source]. there is still messy dark shit in the game [source]

Tonally the game is closest to Tevinter Nights and DA:O [source]

Ghil Dirthalen: "[as] one of those unfortunate souls who has latched onto a media world so hard: This game is for me. For the hardcore DA lore nerds, I've been secretly screaming about things I saw for MONTHS now" [source]

The game is true to the DA stories we know and love [source]

Characters, companions, romance

You can choose to engage in companions' own storylines as you progress or ignore them entirely [source]

You will often have to make dialogue choices that will affect how your various companions treat you [source]

Neve is quick-witted [source], measured and elegant [source]

In the opening, you interact with the companions as you move through Minrathous. "your choices during these interactions will determine who goes on portions of the mission with you, along with how “pleased” they are with the answers." [source]

On Varric and Harding: "Instantly the two felt like they’d never been away and avoided the trap of being parodies or fanfiction versions of themselves" [source]

Solas' eyes were always purple hh [source] (yes!)

Gameplay, presentation, performance etc

Some enemies have additional shields that are weak to ranged attacks [source]

When asked about if the war table from DA:I returned, John Epler said "There is a table. Now, whether it works the same way as the table in the previous game..." [source]

Once you get passed a certain point in the game, it opens up dramatically, however it is not an openworld game and they wanted to make sure that all the content mattered and was a more structured, sculpted experience for the player. There is some exploration, some opportunities to get off the beaten path, and some spaces that are fairly wide [source]

The button to press to bring up the skill wheel is RB or R1 (depending on what controller you're using) [source]

"You'll also have access to two skills or spells for each of your two companions that you can command. For a more seamless, uninterrupted combat experience, you can also assign these skills to shortcuts (such as holding the left trigger and hitting the X button) to quickly use them" [source]

"The game is bringing back Dragon Age 2s dialogue system, which was tone-based and resulted in its protagonist Hawke falling into one of three different personality states. You have three general tones in a conversation: kind, humorous, or aggressive, with slight variations depending on the situation" [source]

"booting Fade demons into pits" [source]

"BioWare have revised Dragon Age's art direction to make character models a little more consistent with the series' lovely Tarot-inspired menu art. Flesh is ruddy to the point of painterly; facial features and bodily proportions are thicker and more striking, as though the characters had been cut from clay" [source]

The 3 specs for Warrior are Reaper (has lifesteal/stealing health from enemies, and other freaky powers, does big damage), Slayer (can wield the biggest blade, big swords, big damage) or Champion, which is tanky, shield-using and Paladin like [source] [source]

There are quick-recover prompts [source]

You can roll through puddles of incoming AOE [source]

There are ziplines between some levels levels [source] (Fel note: just like in As We Fly... )

There are also slidey hills to slide down between some sections [source]

There are still some Hinterland-type areas designed for exploration [source]

We can do some home base management to our home base [source] (Fel note: this refers to The Lighthouse, detail in a previous post)

Camera placement is quite zoomed out [source]

Where Rogues have 'momentum', Warriors have 'rage' and Mages 'mana'. When a warrior spends rage in the ability wheel it triggers more powerful attacks. this has been referred to as a build-and-spend mechanic. this system resource gates your use of more powerful skills and is built by getting stuck in [source]. Momentum for Rogues is built by landing hits without taking any [source]

There are big glowing environmental cues for picking up loot or replenishing health potions [source]

"Epler noted that The Veilguard will not be an open-world experience like Inquisition, and instead will have large spaces to explore with quests littered throughout. This allayed my early concerns that they would course correct too hard from the oft-maligned open areas of Inquisition" [source]

Melee and ranged attacks can be charged up [source]

It sounds like there is an option to have greater guidance on when enemies are attacking [source]

The community council gave a lot of notes on the game's art direction to BioWare (gave feedback to the devs) that they were told and shown were changed from the first reveal/character trailer, these made it into the gameplay trailer [source]

The community council asked about having an arachnophobia mode, though they can't guarantee this was implemented [source]

"You’re encouraged to explore and grind for stronger weapons and gear, so your stats and cosmetics improve the further you get into the game" (in the sense that you’ll be rewarded for hard work) [source, two]

Follower information such as cooldowns and health will be visible on the HUD [source: the Discord]

There is a "quick cast" option if you prefer not to use the wheel, should be a chorded action using a controller [source: the Discord]

On PC you can play with keyboard and mouse or controller [source: the Discord]

An accessibility option is the ability to make auto-targeting stronger or weaker depending on your preference [source: the Discord]

The game will have DLSS support at launch [source: the Discord]

Re: hard drives, the game can be played using an HDD, they would recommend an SSD though for the optimal experience [source: the Discord]

There are lots of different interface options you can play with, e.g. combat text size, opacity, when to display health bars [source: the Discord]

Other

The leak from last year or whenever it was (the one that leaked screenshots and a gif from the game) was mainly a lot of outdated stuff and didn't really represent even the early version some community council members had played [source, two]. It was not leaked by a member of the community council, but by a member of another focus group [source]

The community council were given the chance to play the game twice, once in Fall 2022 and a year later in 2023 [source]

There is no information as yet regarding when pre-orders will be open [source: the Discord]

BioWare are hoping to at the very least have the very "best of" the Discord dev Q&A featured on social media and potentially in a blog [source: the Discord]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[whatsnewalycat]

Designated Person | 10

Pairing: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x F!Reader

Chapter 10: Flat Tire

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Word Count: 6.9k+ (nice)

Tags / Warnings: reader pov, infidelity, past romantic & sexual relationship, angst, food & eating, blackout, movie references, car problems, alcohol & alcoholism, 12-step programs, lying, conflict avoidance, crying crying crying sorry, internal conflict, monologue, toxic relationships but listen we're tryna get better, journal entries, nightmares, ptsd, flashback

Notes: WHAT UP PARTY PEOPLE?? MAKE SOME NOIIIISE (insert dallas buyers club matthew mcconaughey scream crying in his car). Sorry for being a bummer lol sometimes growth hurts but we're gonna get thru this I swear. Ok thank u let me know what you think!!!

[ Previous Chapter ][ Series Masterlist ][ My Masterlist ]

-----

Blackouts work like magic. 

One second you’re perched on a barstool, trying not to sway or slur your words while ordering another drink, and the next you’re jolted awake by the thud of a door closing. 

Heart pounding in your chest, you sit up and look around, breathing a sigh of relief to see you somehow made it to your bedroom last night. 

You grab your phone off the side table, swiping away the missed calls from Frankie and Leah, then discover that you apparently re-downloaded a dating app in your alcohol-induced fugue state. Judging by the number of reply messages in your inbox, you must have hit up every man in the tri-county area who was “looking for a good time.”

Perfect. Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? Bad decisions and dick has never ever steered you wrong. 

You read one typo-filled exchange between yourself and Russ K, 34, before deactivating the account and uninstalling the app. 

When you set your phone back on the nightstand, you notice a mason jar filled with ice water and frown. Beside it sits a small plastic container holding four neon orange tablets and two white tablets. A sticky note on the table reads ‘Went to a meeting, be back this afternoon’ in Frankie’s handwriting. 

Alarm trickles through your veins and inspires a wave of nausea you can’t ignore. Clasping your hand over your mouth to hold down the rising bile, you jump out of bed and beeline to the bathroom. 

After emptying the sparse contents of your stomach into the toilet, you lean back against the cool tile wall and search the ceiling for answers. How did you get home last night? Did you say anything to Frankie? 

You think about the ice water and over-the-counter pills left on your nightstand, then think about the note Frankie left. However you got home, he must know you were hammered. Which means you definitely interacted with him while blacked out. Do you even want to know what you said to him? 

Mortification twists your stomach when you imagine the possibilities. You could have tried to fuck him or murder him or anything in between. Given how you feel about him right now, it’s impossible to predict. That fact alone makes your mouth start to sweat again. 

So… no, you don’t want to know what you said to him when you were drunk. You don’t want to know how you got home or why the fuck your hair is damp. All you want is to get through this fucking day without hurling again. Maybe greasy food and a NASCAR nap, too. 

With this new clear goal in mind, you pick yourself up off the bathroom floor and set about making your low-stakes dream a reality. 

—

You wake on the couch to the soothing lull of commentators giving a play-by-play of the Rays versus Yankees game. A thick web of fatigue clings to you, fighting against your efforts to open your eyes and sit upright. 

“Hey.” 

Instinctively, you look towards the noise at the other end of the couch, locking eyes with Frankie. His face droops with this wounded expression that gets under your skin. Diverting your gaze to the TV, you cross your arms and try to keep your demeanor aloof despite the deep ache in your chest. 

“How are you feeling?” 

You choke out a humorless laugh and shake your head, keeping your eyes trained on the screen. A few tense seconds go by before he accepts that you will not be answering his ludicrous question, so he takes an alternative approach. 

“I brought home cubanos from that place you like. For, um… for family dinner. If you still wanted to do that.” 

Home, he says, as if the word meant something to him. As if he didn’t match every brick you laid in the foundation of this relationship with paper mache blocks. As if he didn’t take a wrecking ball to whole fucking thing regardless. 

Maybe to him home is just a place he rests his head at night, not where he anchors his heart. A matter of physical location rather than a feeling. You, on the other hand… never felt quite at home in this house until he started living here. 

Are you crazy for having felt like that? Like home was a space you held with him and him alone? 

Your parents were right. You make too much of things. You’re overdramatic. 

Why would he love you? Why would he choose you over his wife? You knew what you were getting into when this started. 

Stupid girl. 

“I understand if you don’t want to, though.” 

His voice brings you back to yourself. You blink hot tears from your eyes, then wipe them from your cheeks, trying to hold yourself together despite the whisper of ‘stupid girl stupid girl stupid girl’ at the back of your head. 

“Can we… can we at least talk about it?” 

You wince as a fresh batch of tears surges up your throat. Rising to your feet, you shake your head and manage to choke out, “Just forget it,” before fleeing to your bedroom. 

—

I slept most of the day yesterday so it took me forever to fall asleep. Also Frankie was walking around the house all night. At 11ish, I heard him talking on the phone, then I think someone picked him up. I texted him to see where he went because I’m unfortunately still his designated person. He said he was with someone from AA and he’d be back soon, just needed to talk. I couldn’t fall asleep until I heard him come in at 1. He wasn’t stumbling around so I’m guessing he was sober??? Hopefully he was. I don’t want this to get in the way of his recovery. Which I sort of hate. I wish I could delete the feelings I have for him. I wish I didn’t care. But I guess I do, so… I don’t know. This fucking sucks. Leah said I should kick him out, but I don’t want to fuck up his program. Maybe I’ll talk to Ralph today and see what he thinks. The thing is… the more people I talk to, the more I just want to talk to Frankie. Nobody makes me feel like he does. More than the lies, this is what bothers me the most. The fact that I can feel this way and he just doesn’t. I don’t understand how he can’t feel it, too. I thought this was real. But I guess I always do. I guess he’s just a really good liar and I am just a stupid girl. 

Tossing the notebook aside, you sit up to grab your mug off the side table. Wisps of steam rise from the coffee and dissolve into the air. The image blurs as a thick, wretched sensation twists up your throat. 

God fucking damnit. 

Every time you think you have no more tears left to cry, you prove yourself wrong. They just keep coming. Yesterday you waded in and out of these sudden fits where crying was all you could do. It reminds you of all the other times he broke your heart, but especially the last time. 

After Angie caught the two of you fucking, part of you hoped that maybe she would leave him. From what you understand, though, he convinced her to stay. Called you a mistake. An ‘isolated incident’ or whatever. Fucking asshole. 

Anyway. 

Seeing each other became logistically and emotionally difficult. Participating in an affair is much easier when it’s still a secret, for obvious reasons. He tried to see you when he could, which wasn’t nearly as frequent as you wanted. When you did see him, he was drunk. You’d pick him up from the bar, or he’d come over after Angie went to bed, but he was always at least five drinks in and counting. 

You bailed him out of jail twice in those six months. Once for drinking and driving, once for getting in a fight over a fucking pool game, of all things. 

He seemed so walled-off from you, too. Like he detached from his emotions when he saw you. Maybe it was because of the liquor, but a million other reasons are just as likely. After sex, he would leave. The sex was… well, it was still good, but… different. Rougher, impersonal. It felt less like making love and more like fucking. 

You still loved him, though. You still had fantasies of having a real, normal relationship with him. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, you still wanted to believe that he was meant to be with you. 

Stupid girl stupid girl stupid girl

And then, well… 

Your phone starts to ring. It’s Ralph. 

You take a few quick sips of your coffee, then set the mug aside to answer. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, kiddo. Do you have a minute?” 

His tone, less jovial than normal, gives you a small burst of anxious energy.

“Sure, what’s up?” 

“I just got off the phone Mr. Morales and he briefed me on the, ahhh… situation over there.” 

Unsure what to say, you fold an arm over your belly and stare down at your lap. 

“I understand that things are a bit tense due to an incident that occurred on Saturday, is that correct?” 

“Yeah,” you nod, voice wavering, “Yeah, I, um… I overheard him talking to Angie, and… well, basically I found out he’s been lying to me.” 

It sounds so pathetic when you say it out loud. 

“Uh-huh. He lied about the nature of his relationship with Mrs. Morales.” 

“Correct.” 

You prepare for Ralph to tell you it’s not a big deal. Brace yourself for the inevitable scoff, or for him to accuse you of overreacting. 

So he lied to you, so what? You knew who he was. You knew he had a family to keep together. You should have known better than to get involved with him. Stupid girl, why would you put yourself in that position in the first place? 

“And this isn’t the first time he lied to you about this particular matter, am I understanding correctly?” 

“Well…” you frown and shake your head, “No, not really. When we were together before, he was pretty explicit that he wouldn’t leave her. I just… I just thought… I don’t know. It’s dumb. I’m fucking dumb.” 

Ralph doesn’t respond right away, so you add, “Sorry. I’m still in my feelings.” 

“Don’t sweat it, I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” he pauses here to clear his throat, then recounts, “Before, he told you leaving her wasn’t a possibility. And despite my warning going into this, the two of you re-established your romantic relationship, he told you that kind of relationship was effectively over with his wife. Which wasn’t true.” 

“Correct.” 

“Ok. Got it. Has Mr. Morales exhibited any unusual or suspicious behavior since the incident on Saturday?”

After thinking about it, you tell him, “I wouldn’t call this suspicious exactly, but yesterday he left a note saying he was going to an AA meeting, which isn’t normal. And late last night someone picked him up. I texted him to check in and he said he was with someone from AA, talking.” 

“Do you believe he was being truthful?” 

“Yeah, I do,” you shrug, “I mean, I’m obviously not the best at detecting his bullshit, but I’ve seen him under the influence more times than I can count and he didn’t seem… like that.” 

“Well, that’s good. And it’s good you checked in with him, I take that as a positive. You are still responsible for him while he’s on parole.” He sighs, “Which brings me to my next question. Are you thinking you want to continue serving as his designated person, or should we start looking for alternatives?” 

A lump rises in your throat. You swallow it down, wincing at the tears that burn behind your eyes, “I, um… I’m not sure yet. Can I have a few days to think it over?” 

“Sure. How about this. Why don’t you take some time, maybe go to one of those Al-Anon meetings I told you about, and I can stop by Saturday to have a sit down with you and Mr. Morales. Does that sound agreeable?” 

“Ok,” you nod, “Yeah, that sounds good. We can do that.”

“Alrighty then. I’ll shoot you an email with some details sometime today and we’ll go from there.” 

“Thanks, Ralph.” 

“Call me if anything comes up, ok kiddo?” 

“Will do.” 

After hanging up, you put in a load of laundry and wander around the house, stopping by the fridge to stare at the cubano Frankie brought home for you yesterday. You roll your eyes with annoyance as you grab it, then you return to the couch and put on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

—

By the time Frankie comes home, you’re four feature films deep in your angsty post-breakup movie marathon and feeling indignant enough not to surrender the common space to him. 

His eyebrows do this little surprised jump when your eyes meet his, and he glances at the TV, “Reality Bites?” 

You don’t respond, just curl deeper into the couch and return your attention to Ethan Hawke’s spiteful cover of Add It Up.

He kicks off his work boots and walks into the kitchen, coming back a minute later to ask, “If I make something for dinner, will you eat it?” 

Your stomach rumbles at the thought of food. Without looking at him, you shrug. 

Accepting the non-verbal answer, Frankie returns to the kitchen and starts bumbling around, cussing and grumbling under his breath. Eventually, though, he seems to get the hang of it. 

Just as the end credits of Reality Bites start rolling, he enters the living room holding two plates and sets one on the coffee table for you, then takes a seat at the opposite end of the couch. 

You sit up, crossing your legs as you pull the offering into your lap, and toss the remote control to his side of the dividing cushion. He wordlessly searches for something else to watch while you study the avocado-filled hot dog buns. 

“What is this?” you ask. 

“Completo. Hot dog topped with good shit, basically. Avocado, tomato, onion, condiments.” He selects play on Moulin Rouge, then looks at you and shrugs, “Ma would make it for me when I had a bad day.” 

You stare at him for a moment, then roll your eyes and shake your head as you turn to the TV, “I see what you’re doing.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Kissing my ass.” 

He chuckles, shifting a little, “Yeah, well… yeah.” 

The movie starts to play. You don’t mention that this will be the second time you’ve seen it today because he probably knows that. After taking a bite of the completo, you hum at the mix of flavors and textures as you chew. 

“Good, right?” Frankie says through a mouthful. 

“Mmm,” you nod in agreement. 

He swallows, glancing between you and his food before asking, “Can I ask why you haven’t kicked me out yet?”

When you contemplate how to answer, the reasons all snarl into a tight knot of which you can’t quite make heads or tails. 

“No.” 

“Fair enough,” he murmurs, letting his gaze linger on you, “Do you want me to give you some privacy, or…? Because I can go—” 

“It doesn’t matter, Francisco, just stop talking.” 

“Ok, but—” 

You hold your hand up to him, “Shhhhhh.”

He sighs, but accepts the silence. Tension resides in the air at first, but slowly dissipates as you clear your plates, then settle into the couch. And although your eyes stay trained on the screen, you can’t make yourself pay attention. 

You keep wondering why he lied about being with Angie. He’s never had a problem making that clear in the past, even if it meant breaking your heart. Is it because he lives with you? It’s possible he didn’t want to risk getting kicked out, so he kept it a secret. 

Then why get involved with you again? Did he think this was the best way to stay in your good graces? Has he been manipulating you this whole time? 

It’s possible. It’s also possible you’re another one of his bad habits he can’t kick. A coping mechanism. Disposable, like always. 

You remember the night you asked him to come over so you could talk to him about something important. He promised to be there at eight o’clock, which is when you planted yourself on the front porch swing to wait for him. At nine o’clock, his truck came rumbling down the street and parked in front of the house. 

“What’re you doing out here?” he smirked as he climbed the porch steps. 

“Waiting for you,” you glared at him, observing his fluid movements when he plopped down beside you.

“I went and got a drink, lost track of time.” 

He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and drew your stiff body closer to kiss your cheek.

Something hot flared in your chest, and you distinctly remember wishing he would show up sober for once. This wasn’t the scab you wanted to pick, though. 

He tilted your chin up, pressing his lips to yours, breath heavy with whiskey, then pulled back to frown at your lackluster response. His body swayed a little as he studied you, “What?” 

“I need to talk to you.” 

“Ok,” he leaned away from you with a scoff, “Well, I’m here. Talk to me. Tell me how I fucked up this time.” 

You winced, “Don’t do that.” 

Crossing his arms, he stared at you, all fucking wobbly and drunk, irritation folding his facial features. He shrugged, “Do what?” 

“That! You’re being an asshole.” 

“Oh, I’m being an asshole?” he mocked, “How’s that?” 

Rage simmered beneath your skin. You let out a chuckle of disbelief, shaking your head as tears pooled in your eyes. After taking a moment to gather yourself, you spit out, “Do you love me?” 

“Do I—?” he furrowed his brow like he didn’t understand, shifting in his seat, “Do I love you?” 

“Yes, Frankie. Do you fucking love me or not?” 

His indignation melted. Shoulders slumping, gaze going soft. He swallowed hard and looked out at the street as if searching for an escape hatch. Emergency brake. Make it stop. 

“Because I love you. I’ve been in love with you for so long… and-and I still don’t know what the fuck I am to you.” 

He seemed frozen, staring at something a million miles away without sparing a reaction. 

Nine months later, you can still feel the frantic vibration of your bones when you moved closer and cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. When his eyes met yours, they were so cold and vacant that you barely recognized him. You tried to get through anyway. 

“I need you right now, Frankie. But I need all of you. I can’t be on the back burner anymore. I need you to be with me or I need to let you go.” 

“You know I can’t do that. I can’t be with you, not like that.” 

“But you could, though. You could. We could do this, we could make it work, start a life together—”

“I won’t leave her,” he shook his head, “I have a family—goddamnit, you knew what this was when it started.”

You sobbed, letting your hands fall away from his face, and his eyelids fluttered with the ghost of an emotion that you didn’t understand. 

He started, “I don’t—” then paused, tapping his clamped lips. His bloodshot eyes flicked around the porch and settled a million miles away again, “I don’t love you.” 

With this declaration, he took his chisel to you, lined it up in just the right spot, and gave it one firm tap. You crumbled at his feet. Shattered into dust. 

He got up and drove off while you were still bawling on the front porch swing. 

Onscreen, Toulouse-Lautrec shouts, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return!” 

It hits you square in the chest. 

With tears brimming your eyelids, you jump up and flee to your bedroom before he can see them. 

—

Terrible nights sleep. Every time I drifted off, I was in the bedroom at my parents house but it wasn’t in my parents house. He was there but he wasn’t there. I don’t know how to explain it. I felt his presence but knew it wasn't him. I kept my eyes closed because I was scared to see, but I could hear him getting closer and closer. When I opened my eyes I woke up. The feeling stuck to me. It took me forever to fall back asleep and when I did it started over. 

Frankie didn’t go to work this morning. I don’t think he slept well either. Heard him walking around all night again. Idk if I should ask him what his deal is. I don’t want to talk to him about it yet and he’ll probably try to do that. Which is weird for him. A year ago I’d give anything for him to open up like he’s been trying to. But it hurts too much right now. It’s so messy. I’m all tangled. I need to straighten myself out before talking about it. 

I think I’m going to an al-anon meeting today and I’m nervous. Not sure what to expect. Keep worrying they’ll tell me I don’t belong there or make me talk about him. I don’t know if I belong there. I don’t know if I belong anywhere. 

Pulling back from your notebook, you stare at the last sentence for a while before closing the cover and setting it on the end table. 

Frankie walks out from his bedroom and rounds the corner to the living room, looking suspiciously formal, wearing slacks and a white dress shirt. His dark curls have been combed into a neat side part. It even looks like he trimmed his facial hair. 

As he peeks through the front window curtains, you blurt, “Are you wearing a fucking tie?” 

He looks surprised to hear you speak, raising his eyebrows as he glances down at himself, then up at you, “Yeah. I have a uhhh… a deposition today.” 

“Is that good or bad?” 

“Not really either. It’s normal, I guess. They’re just asking me questions on the record.” 

Nodding, you study his nervous demeanor, watching him reflexively go to lift his hat, faltering a little before running his fingers through his hair anyway. 

A desire to comfort him trickles through you, extinguishing the glowing embers of contempt inside your chest. 

“How is the case going, do you know?” 

The corner of his mouth pulls back into a kind of grimace. He takes another peek out the window, then steps back and shrugs as he approaches the couch, “The lawyer says they’ll probably offer a plea deal once this is over. We’ll see what that looks like.” He sits down at the other end of the couch, pulling out his phone to keep an eye on the little car on his rideshare app, “He thinks maybe they could agree to a reduced sentence.” 

You pick at your frayed cuticles, holding your tongue for as long as you can before asking, “How are you doing with… everything?” 

When you glance at him, his face is crooked with contemplation. He shifts in his seat and crosses his arms, lips parting with an answer. A notification dings on his phone. 

“My ride’s here,” he murmurs and meets your eyes with an apologetic expression, “We can talk about it later?” 

You give him a non-committal smile, “Good luck at your thing.” 

—

The woman who gave you your new member packet, apparently the leader of the meeting, looks around the room and announces,

“This afternoon, our fearless speaker will be Taylor. Everybody please welcome Taylor.”

From the back row, you sink down in your metal folding chair and glance around at the attendees, joining in when they start to clap for a woman approaching the podium. 

“Hi everyone, my name is Taylor. I’m a member of Al-Anon.” 

The room responds in unison, “Hi Taylor.” 

Taylor smiles and shakes her head, looking down at a small stack of trembling notecards. Her round shoulders raise with a deep breath. She closes her eyes for a moment, exhales, then looks up at the room. 

“If you would’ve told me a year ago I’d be the speaker at an Al-Anon group, there’s no way I’d believe you. But here I am,” she chuckles, “Wow. Thank you everyone for coming in today. I see so many familiar faces and some not so familiar faces and I’m grateful to see all of you. I’m proud of you for coming to this meeting today. 

“One of the biggest preconceived notions I had when I started attending Al-Anon meetings nine months ago is that they would help me support my alcoholic husband. At the time, he was about a month into sobriety and had just started going to AA meetings. He was struggling like hell and a friend of his asked if he wanted to go to an AA meeting with him. So he did. 

“I’ll be honest, when he suggested I go to Al-Anon, I was annoyed. I really was. At that point, we’d been married for five years. He tried quitting, oh, I don’t know… six times in that five years? Three 90-day inpatient rehab stays, two arrests, more sleepless nights than I can count.” 

Taylor pauses and looks down at her notes, then back up at the room as an amused smile spreads across her face. 

“What it always reminded me of was this story my husband told me. Every so often, he goes through these phases where he gets very very interested in a particular subject. It completely takes him over. All he wants to do is read about it and talk about it and… well, you get it. 

“When he was in his Greek mythology era, he told me about Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra. Sisyphus killed people who visited his palace, which angered the gods because they considered it impolite, which is the understatement of the millennium, but that’s neither here nor there. When Sisyphus died, Hades punished him to an eternity rolling a boulder uphill. He would fight his way up this steep hill, pushing the boulder with all his might. The boulder was enchanted, though, and every time the it got near the top, the boulder would roll back down the hill, then he’d have to try again. So he does this over and over and over for eternity. Infinite frustration and exhaustion. 

“Sometimes it felt like that with him. With my alcoholic. Like I was stuck in this loop, fighting like hell to push his dead weight to the top of the hill. Just when I got a scrap of hope, it went tumbling back down. Over and over and over again. I structured my whole life around his relationship to alcohol. Checking in with him constantly, making sure I didn’t say or do anything that might trigger another relapse, putting myself on the back burner to accommodate his needs. So when he suggested I try going to Al-Anon meetings, I expected it to be another chore catering to his sobriety. I thought I would come here and learn all the ways people support the alcoholic in their life the right way. Because I obviously wasn’t doing it the right way. If I was, he would have years of sobriety under his belt. 

“Regardless, I agreed to go, and quickly discovered my preconceived notions about Al-Anon were wrong. Al-Anon doesn’t exist for us to better service the alcoholic or alcoholics in our lives. Sure, we’re all here because of the alcoholic in our lives, but the point is to better service ourselves. I think that distinction is important. 

“When I came home from my first meeting, I went through the new member packet Mario gave me, and found a handout that said: Detachment is neither kind nor unkind,” Taylor nods at the memory and looks around the room, “That struck a chord with me, that phrase. Detachment is neither kind nor unkind. It didn’t make sense to me at first. I thought, how is detachment neither kind nor unkind? It went against my instincts completely. How was I supposed to help my husband if I detached from him? Isn’t love about being attached to someone, sticking together through thick and thin? 

“Attending meetings and working the steps helped me get a better grasp on the concept. I came to understand that, in Al-Anon, detachment can mean two different things. The first is separating the person you love from their alcoholic behaviors. The second is a little harder to define, but it centers around the idea that you are separate from other people, and their actions do not control yours. Let me show you what I mean, though.

“In my relationship with my husband, we were entangled,” Taylor laces her hands together and holds them up for everyone to see. “Wherever he went, I went, too.” She moves her clasped hands back and forth. Spreading her hands apart, she says, “I didn’t want to be apart from him. But what I found with detachment is,” she flattens her hands palm-to-palm, “We can be close without being entangled. That way, if he goes to a dark place,” she moves one hand away from the other and shakes her head, “I don’t have to go with him if I don’t want to.” 

Taylor looks around the room, allowing her words to sink in, then returns her attention to the stack of notecards and flips to the next. 

“When we detach in this way, it both relieves us of our perceived responsibility for their actions and emotions, and grants them autonomy to make their own choices. They deserve dignity and freedom, which is difficult to obtain if we try to manage their lives. 

“So often in our marriage, I thought that loving my alcoholic meant rescuing him from himself. I thought that if I exerted myself hard enough, pushed him up that steep hill long enough, we would get to the top together. But the effort was Sisyphean. It didn’t matter how much time or effort I put into controlling the direction of the boulder. It would always roll downhill, because the boulder was enchanted. Even if I spent an eternity trying, even if I begged and screamed and pleaded with the boulder, it would still be enchanted. And, you know… maybe that’s ok. Maybe he’s not meant to sit at the top of the hill. It’s not his fault, either, and I came to realize that instead of getting frustrated at him for being enchanted, I can meet him where he is and love him anyway. If I don’t like that place, I don’t have to stay there. When I detach with love, I grant myself autonomy as well as him. 

“Putting the metaphor aside, I’ve used this in practice by no longer lying for him. If he’s at an AA meeting and our daughter asks why he’s not home, I tell her the truth. When my family or friends ask how everything is going, I don’t try to make it seem easier than it is so he can save face. I confide in them with sincerity because that is what I need. I’ve stopped giving him advice unless he asks for it, because I’ve learned here that most times people don’t need advice, they just need someone to listen and be present. I’ve stopped trying to take the reins when I think he’s making poor decisions, because he doesn’t need someone to do it for him. He needs to learn to do it himself. Part of learning is making mistakes and growing out from beneath the consequences. 

“Detachment is neither kind nor unkind, it’s a tool we utilize to free ourselves and the alcoholic in our lives. Al-Anon doesn’t exist to teach us how to help the alcoholic in our lives, although the tools it gives us can aid in their recovery as well as ours. This fellowship exists to help us, the families of the alcoholic, so that we may lead more joyful and serene lives. Thank you.” 

Applause erupts from the crowd, and you join in, watching Taylor glow with pride as she steps away from the podium. 

—

Damp, hot air pours in through the rolled-down windows, carrying with it the earthy scent of algae-bloom off East Lake Tohopekaliga. Driving along the slow, steady curve, you pass by sprawling oak trees, their eaves all draped in spanish moss. 

Your hope was that taking the scenic route home would clear your head, but it’s not doing the trick. Something shifted inside you during the meeting. You can’t quite put your finger on exactly what shifted or why it happened, although your circular thoughts give you the sense you’re on the precipice of understanding. 

You keep thinking about the speaker, Taylor, and the lesson she relayed from her podium. Her situation is different from yours, but you know it all the same. You know how it feels to dig your heels into the dirt, struggling like hell to push someone in the direction you think is best. You know how it feels to see him tumble to the bottom time and time again. And for what? It’s not like he’s any better off because of your efforts. It’s not like you are, either. 

How many times have you betrayed yourself for the sake of his favor? How many times have you put your needs aside to tend to his? 

Calm blue-gray water flickers behind the trees you drive past. It looks peaceful. Further up the road, you spot a public access point to the lake and turn into the lot, hitting a bump. When you do, a loud BANG reverberates through the car. The steering wheel shakes as you slow to a jerky, lopsided stop.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” you fume, shifting the car into park. Folding forward onto the steering wheel, you pinch your eyes shut and take a deep breath, then exit the vehicle to look at the damage. 

The front driver’s side tire sits flat against the pavement. You stare at it and shake your head, muttering, “God fucking damnit,” before walking to the trunk. 

You open it and pull up the mat to the spare tire well. It’s empty. 

“Fucking of course. Jesus fucking—” 

Cutting yourself off with a furious groan, you pull out your phone and go through your contact list, pointedly scrolling past the F’s to pause at Leah, who’s over an hour away, then Marla, who’s busy enough as it is. You even briefly consider Rory, but the idea makes your stomach lurch. 

You could just do it all yourself. Order a car on one of those rideshare apps. It would take forever, though, and you’ve never changed a tire before. 

Frankie is the logical choice. The first person who came to mind, if you’re being honest. Something hard and stubborn inside your chest throbs when you hover over his name. 

It’s pride, you realize. Maybe a little fear. You don’t want to ask for his help. You don’t want to burden him. You don’t want to be disappointed if he says no. 

All the same, you dial his number. He picks up on the second ring. 

“H—”

“Are you at the house?”  

“I am.” 

“Are you busy?” 

“Nothing I can’t put off ‘til later. Why?” 

“My fucking tire blew out, and my spare is in the garage,” you sigh and throw your head back, propping a hand on your hip, “Is there any way you can bring it out to me?” 

“I, umm… yeah, of course. Where are you?” 

“East Lake Toho.”

He snorts, “Christ, what’re you doing all the way out there?” In the background, you hear the floorboards creaking, mapping his way through the house. Before you can respond, he asks, “Spare tire in the garage, need me to grab anything else?” 

“Uhhhh…” you wrinkle your nose at the trunk, “I don’t know, I have a jack and the tire iron thing.” 

“That should do it. Wanna drop me a pin? I’ll have to get a ride out there.” 

“Yeah. I can pay you back if you need to order a Lyft or whatever.” 

“Just take it off my tab,” he jokes, the back door squeaking open behind his voice, “Hang tight, I’ll be there in a bit.”

You turn around to lean back on the bumper, “Ok, I’ll be here.” 

After hanging up, you share your location with him, then wander down to the dock. It rattles around as you teeter to the end and sit down, letting your feet dangle over the edge. 

Cattails and lily pads have been cleared from the shoreline near the boat landing, giving you a clear view across the lake, broken up here and there by thick swaths of aquatic vegetation. The glassy surface of the water reflects the hazy blue sky, and stagnant air sticks humid to your skin. Insects buzz and birds sing and somewhere far away you hear a boat motor chugging across the lake. 

When you think of serenity, this is what you picture. Stillness and calm. Peace. You inhale the scene, allowing it to stretch out inside you and unfurl your tensed muscles. 

As soon as the unease evaporates from your body, fatigue takes over.  

Lying back on the dock, you stare up at tall, fluffy clouds littering the sky. Your eyelids grow heavy as you watch the slow-moving parade of shifting giants, the warm air lulling you into comfort until you let your eyes drift closed. 

Your awareness fades in and out while you sleep. At one point, a car door shuts, then the car drives off. Vaguely, you know it’s Frankie but can’t lift your limbs, syrupy thick with lethargy. You hear grunts and metallic clattering. Some time later, your trunk slams shut. 

When the dock starts wobbling around beneath you, you blink your eyes open and sit up, scrubbing your hands over your face as a yawn overtakes you. 

“Hey sleepyhead.” 

You glance over your shoulder at Frankie, who comes to sit down beside you with a groan. He’s back to his usual attire, jeans and a t-shirt, baseball cap firmly in place atop his head. 

Still groggy, you yawn, “I couldn’t make myself wake up.” 

“Not sleeping well?” 

“Fucking awful, honestly.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

You frown at him, searching his face until he gives you a little shrug, at which point you mumble, “Oh. I forgot that I, umm… yeah. Sorry.” 

“No need to apologize,” he tells you, squinting up at the sky before dropping his eyes to his hands as he fiddles with his wedding band, “Same here. The—the sleep part, not the nightmares.” 

“Yeah, I know. I hear you pacing around at night.” 

“Oh… sorry, I didn’t realize—”

You push yourself up straighter to watch his legs dangle next to yours, “It’s fine.” 

Quiet settles comfortably between you. Near the dock, you see a cluster of bubbles rise to the surface of the lake and burst. The ripples flatten out and calm returns. 

A question swells in your ribcage. Just a small pocket of air at first, maybe the size of a pebble. The longer you sit and stare at the water, though, it expands. It works its way up your throat, taking up more and more space with each passing second until you can’t contain it any more. 

“So you were lying to me, right? About not being with her?” 

He meets your gaze, dark eyes all remorseful and gooey, then he nods, “Yeah. I was lying. To both of you.” 

Folding your legs up onto the dock, you look away in the hope that he won’t notice the tears starting to come. When he speaks, his voice comes out hoarse and quiet. 

“How much do you want me to tell you?” 

The question replaces the air in your lungs with a vibrating sensation. Another cluster of bubbles dissolve on the surface of the lake. You manage to croak, “I don’t know.” 

He doesn’t respond. You sense that he’s waiting for you to make the next move. 

Your mind wanders to the front porch swing that night you forced him to choose. He felt so far away. Until he told you differently, you were so certain he was in love with you. 

“I don’t know how to trust your words as truth, Frankie. All the way back to the start, I don’t know what was real and what was bullshit and I am fucking—” your voice cracks from the emotion burning up your throat. 

He goes to comfort you, but pulls back before making contact. 

Every cell inside you aches for him to bridge the gap. You follow the instinct, grabbing his shirt to curl into his shoulder. As soon as you do, he wraps his arms tight around you, bringing you in closer. 

A wave of moth-eaten hurt wells up your chest. 

“Why?” you sob, “Why did you do this to me? I don’t understand—”

He starts to rock you in a slow, soothing motion, burying his face in your hair as you cry into the collar of his shirt. In the background, behind your racing thoughts and shattered breaths, you hear him whisper on repeat: I’m sorry, baby… I’m so sorry.

[illuminatedquill]

Sabine x Ezra/Anakin x Padme:

It's Like Poetry, It Rhymes

I'm already falling I couldn't help it, didn't think of the risk I got a problem, problem when I look in your eyes You're mine and you know it I'd still do it even if we were cursed Won't you be my problem? It's okay with me if it hurts - BANKS, Under the Table

George Lucas has a phrase that I always come back to regarding his work: "It's like poetry, it rhymes."

He said this in reference to Luke's battle with Vader in the Emperor's Throne Room aboard the second Death Star. During the climax of the duel, Luke faces the same choice his father did so many years ago.

And Luke chooses differently. Instead of killing Vader, he tosses aside his weapon and chooses to stop fighting. He wins the battle without violence and claims the mantle of Jedi Knight, which helps Anakin return to himself fully and turn on the Emperor.

For this post, I'm using this phrase to another interesting similarity within Star Wars: the relationship between Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger having echoes of the doomed romance of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.

There's no way that Filoni is not aware how he's setting these two up.

Sabine, clearly, has resemblances to Ahsoka's former master; it doesn't surprise me that Ahsoka immediately cut Sabine's training short after the Purge of Mandalore.

Sabine is messy, angry, reckless, impulsive, and obviously depressed after experiencing so much trauma in her life. Despite her efforts to keep up appearances that everything's fine with her, we can tell in the Ahoska premiere that she still keenly feels the loss of Ezra and her family.

Anakin was the same way. We know his story; I won't re-hash it here.

Because of Sabine's inability to reflect on her problems - much like Anakin - they tend to influence her decisions. She can't focus on what needs to be done, versus what she wants to be done.

Love versus duty. The age old conundrum.

She should have destroyed the map to Thrawn. She didn't. She could not face returning to a galaxy without Ezra Bridger in it.

Anakin prevented Jedi Master Mace Windu from finishing Palpatine because he wanted the knowledge to save Padme from death.

Anakin's decision, I also want to remind, led to Padme's death being realized. In doing what he did to prevent it, he ended up causing it to come true.

Sabine's decision to save Ezra . . . well, we've yet to see how Filoni plays this out. But I think there might be a similar outcome here; some sort of consequence for Ezra due to Sabine's actions.

The galaxy - both times - shifted on its axis and began to spiral towards darkness. The Empire rose. Thrawn returned.

The seeds of darkness have already been planted in Sabine. Her decision to hand over the map to Baylon was a failure of temptation. And once you go down the path of the dark side, it's incredibly hard to turn away. Yoda told this to Luke and he failed to heed his advice until it was almost too late.

Lucas, with Luke and Vader, had them face the same dilemma in their respective journeys to show how different their choices would be and how their characters, despite being so much alike, were ultimately different.

So Filoni, with Sabine and Ezra, is - at least in my point of view - doing the same. He's going to have these two reckon with what Sabine did only for them to choose differently than what happened with Anakin and Padme.

We never really saw Anakin and Padme reconcile after his fall. That's the tragedy of their relationship.

But with Sabine and Ezra, there's still hope. They can choose better and not end up cursed like their predecessors.

For one, Ahsoka is literally right there. I'm uncertain as to how much she knows about the reason for Anakin's downfall but if she does know (or Anakin's Force ghost reveals it to her) then she's perfectly armed with the knowledge to make sure Sabine doesn't follow the same path.

Sabine and Ezra also have much more of a personal history with each other. Their foundation is built on stronger material than Anakin and Padme's. There's a lot of trust and respect and love already built into it.

But, admittedly, Sabine's actions threaten to unmake that relationship. I've talked about it before in a previous post; that she could end up losing Ezra due to her selfishness.

And that's not even mentioning the reactions from Hera. Hera, thinking of her son, Jacen, and her desire to raise him in a galaxy not at war. Now it's being threatened by Thrawn's return.

All because of Sabine's need to save Ezra.

I really don't know how, but I'm excited to see Sabine and Ezra work it out. Because we've never seen a proper redemption arc in Star Wars. Anakin was redeemed, yes, but he died shortly afterwards.

Sabine has to put in the work to make up for what she did. She's already started on the path by staying behind with Ahsoka instead of going home with Ezra, but being open to the Force now means that there's only more trials and temptations ahead.

I can't overstate how worried we should be for Sabine. She messed up so badly before being able to tap into the Force. And now she has it.

I know she's on the path to set things right but that temptation will never go away. It will only be amplified, going forward, and I'm sure that there will be more opportunities for abuse considering the inevitable conflict between Thrawn and the New Republic.

And then there's Ezra, of course. Her desire to keep him safe.

Because he wouldn't sit on the sidelines, even if he wanted to. Sabine's actions, like it or not, have involved him in ways that he cannot understand. He'll be at the center of this fight.

I expect Sabine is going to experience some troubling visions soon. I'm thinking similar to what Luke faced in the cave on Dagobah, or even what Anakin saw during his encounter with the Mortis gods.

There's nowhere to hide anymore now that she's stuck on Peridea.

The Force, I'm sure, is going to have a lot to show Sabine about herself that's been hidden away. I hope she's ready.

Much as I want to see these two together and living happily, it can't happen until Sabine and Ezra work through these issues together.

Because if they can't, well . . . we've seen how that story ends.

[crime-soncloud]

I was recently introduced to, and downloaded, Limbus company, and I've decided to detail my current thoughts on the story and some of the gameplay per Canto. I had decided this in the middle of Canto 2, so I didn't do this for the first Canto, but I'll probably give my thoughts on it at some point in the future. This should go without saying but NO SPOILERS

Now first, I've got a pretty good team (2 star and 3 star identities) and so obviously I didn't struggle at all, and totally did not have two of them die on a single fight, after taking a big risk, and so couldn't fully engage with what I was probably supposed to do (/sarcasm) and also I was so close to winning the roulette event thingy, dammit don quixote you couldn't win just one last round

Firstly, this entire crew is so dysfunctional in yhe best way, I love how quickly the plan went out the window because half of them fucked it up. Between Don Quixote, Ryoshu, Heathcliff, Dante themself, and also Hong Lu and Rodion to a lesser extent, I am amazed they even managed to get the golden branch

Speaking of, I actually thought that the group would fail again, but based on what we saw I expect we'll get both the Sinners and rival(?) group swapping victories.

Now into the actual story. Firstly, I am really engaged with Sonya and the Yurodiviye, I think seeing a group actually trying to improve the standard of living, and essentially being communist revolutionaries is so cool! The theme of Action via words and policies Versus Action via... Well action, violence in this case, is done so well. The fact that both sides are shown as having advantages and disadvantages is really well done, and I think it's interesting seeing how Sonya and Rodion will go from here, especially since it appears the Yurodiviye are working with Hermann and the others. I assume the next Canto is about Sinclair since there seemingly was some ✨ foreshadowing ✨ for what is about to come.

This made Rodya very interesting to me, I was previously fairly neutral but now I'm interested in this. Her singing voice slaps, I think it was the same song that Gregor sung, and from a cursory Wikipedia glance I think I can see the parallels between her and her namesake

Overall really fun, loved getting to see some more stuff, and as for theories I'm not really sure. Dante is clearly important in some way, the characters at the beginning haven't showed up again, and I'm getting curious about Ishmael, i know she's the focus character in a future canto, and we saw Her make several references to spending half her life on a boat, if her backstory is as tragic as Rodion then I will be READY.

(@flextapeyeehaw and @zebrashork If you want to see my thoughts I'll post them here, thanks for the help in understanding this)

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

By resistance I was referring to When everyone was taking on nine in the final battle in the series.

Ah so that's what you meant. My bad, anon😅

So for anyone reading this, the ask anon is referring to can be found here.

I'll answer your previous question with this bit of clarification in mind (and under the cut cause I kind of went off😂)

ㅤ

I think just like with the very first ask my question is "how/when does this come about", of which there are a few options in my eyes.

Nine cloned himself before meeting Sonic

Nine cloned himself after meeting Sonic and before being captured by the Chaos council

Nine cloned himself after the S2 finale

With that being said, though, I find these options to be most to least plausible in the order presented. While Nine pre-Sonic did not think he needed anyone (and while I maintain that he's more likely to build a robot for help during this time than clone himself), this point of time is before he really deals with the identity crisis of possibly just being a copy of someone else. So I think this is an era where as long as the conditions are right, he can clone himself without first worrying about what it means to not be the only "you" out there.

And for option 2, I can largely see him resorting to doing this so he can have more of him doing what he needs. Though it's only a choice I can see him making as long as he's under the assumption that he's the original and has command over the others before cloning himself, I think having multiple versions of himself with the same vision would allow him to multitask (in this case, work on building the Grim into this perfect home for himself and Sonic while being able to go get Sonic, for instance). I can see him starting out believing that it's just a tactic he's using to have more hands on deck (+ assistance with the same cares and intelligence level as himself).

For option 3, though, I really only see this as plausible or a good choice narratively as long as he has the time to go about making a whole machine to clone himself, already has a method to clone himself (one that creates a permanent being like the alpha grim robots rather than a temporary one like the grim troopers), and/or still has the time and energy to make robots anyways. This is because the gap between Nine leaving Ghost Hill and Sonic and Shadow arriving in The Grim is presumably not a very long span of time. And while this could easily be handled by making time slower in The Grim compared to Ghost Hill, I still...I don't know. Unless the time it takes is ungodly slow (like we're talking a few weeks for The Grim versus like less than a day in Ghost Hill), I personally feel like cloning himself and building the robots is too many things to happen in the same short span of time (no matter how the clones are created).

Of course, you're probably wondering why he has to build the robots at all in this hypothetical au. This is largely because even if I rewrote S3 and stretched it out some (which I probably would if I was going to make an au like this), Nine can't do so much as protect The Grim without them, much less win an all out war. Having other versions of himself is very helpful for diagnostics, coming up with ideas, getting a lot of detail work done at once, etc. But although Nine can fight, he's at least a decent strategist. And if (during the s3 period) he needs to send someone out for scouting or gathering things, then he needs something most suited to the job. If he needs cannon fodder or fighters during the war or in case someone attacks him, better to have some resilient robots he can just resurrect with prism energy than send out a clone of himself, and to have multiple different kinds of fighters to cover a range of possible attacks and employ different strategies. If he has to fight a war with just himself and some clones, he'll likely be overwhelmed pretty fast (even if they're all in full health) because of the types of fighters and manpower the resistance has on their side. Even if they're just clones, I don't think he'd want to deal with seeing them die, and it's also unlikely that they'd agree to go out there just to die/be captured (because since they *are* Nine, they'd share his sense of self preservation). Final reason he'd build the robots, though, is that at very baseline I think (due to Nine's character) he'd either build Alpha Grim Sonic or revive Chaos Sonic, because even if he's "no longer alone" because of his clones, I don't think his attachment to Sonic and how "the betrayal" at the end of S2 affected Nine about it can be overstated. I kind of always see him turning to creating a robotic version of Sonic as a response to this, given how he still feels that attachment (and the hurt from the s2 finale), despite trying to act like he's over Sonic or doesn't care about him.

But I digress. All in all, I think a good middleground (and a prospect I like the most) is option 2, where Nine creates the clones after Sonic disappears at the end of S1 E3.

ㅤ

Okay, with the the how and when out of the way, let's move onto the effectiveness in taking out the resistance and camaraderie.

And honestly, I agree! If we go with option 2, and the clones have been around since after Sonic left New Yoke for the first time, there's a lot of time there for Nine and his clones to get used to each other and come to a sort of understanding. While I'd probably have to write a fic to figure out exactly how they all naturally are to each other (in my personal opinion) and how they all eact around each other by season 3, I can really only see them being more close knit after the season 2 finale.

After all, Sonic "betrayed" all of them by proxy, and if any of them are attached to Sonic half as much as Nine is, well...

Honestly even if most of the clones or all of them don't have any attachment to Sonic, it's probably enough that the original Nine is driven to make it so their group is without anyone else in a home of their making now.

With this, I think if we keep S3 as is (with the addition of the clones of course), I can see them talking over certain decisions they can afford to take even a minute of time over or at least trying to relegate roles of focus. With all of them and the robots, they theoretically have the potential to clean house and mitigate some of S3 Nine's exhaustion by either sharing or trading the strain/duty of drawing power from the paradox prism around. However, I think this is best case senario. This assumes they have different ideas but come to conclusions quickly, are confident enough to not be as bothered by the time limit of the universe breaking down as s3 Nine was, that they work together well in tandem without much infighting or friction, that they don't all (or most) end up working themselves to exhaustion, and that Nine shares his burden rather than taking it upon himself to handle the prism.

This is all to say that depending on the interpersonal relationships within the group and Nine's feeling of trust with the clones, with factoring in some slack for mistakes, quick decisions, or some friction, things can go...largely the same as s3. While they have the potential to be their own people, the clones are still all Nine. And we're assuming that they all wish to have "home", just as Nine does. And a lot of Nine's actions or impulsiveness plus his getting worse as the episodes go on are a combination of his working himself to the bone, trying to keep up a specific act despite exhaustion, feeling the increasing urgency as everything (and his potential "home") is breaking down, and becoming more and more cornered, with the threat of being killed or losing his home should he lose to the resistance immenent. Essentially, the conditions at the end of the season put him at his worst, at his most impulsive, and at his least sound of mind. I don't think the clones would be immune to this cycle either. Even IF only the original Nine handles the prism and we, say, have enough Nine clones to each command a subset of Grim Robots, I can very well see this group starting off fairly confident (or trying to seem to be) while working together to get Sonic, and end up working themselves without rest as the stakes ramp up and doom is immenent.

Now, anon, you mentioned that perhaps the only way they can be stopped would be to point out their camradere. While I suppose that's not impossible for an au such as this one, personally I think there are two outcomes under my framework if S3 has largely the same structure (just with the Nine clones added in) and Nine and the clones are winning at the end.

Nine and the clones successfully detain Sonic and drive the resistance to exhaustion or near death. They drain Sonic's energy.

Close to the S3 ending, Sonic personally comes for Nine and ends up falling into his lab with him. Sonic manages to wind things down and the fighting comes to a stop, as Sonic refuses to let either side die.

If Nine and the clones are cleaning house, I arrive to the same impression I'm sure drove anon's earlier ask. In this case, that Nine and the clones would not be prepared to stop or consider the damage if they do clean house and come close to winning. Sonic is the only one they need alive, and once you get someone desperate and cornered enough reason flies out the window. It's also important that once the resistance was winning the war at the end of the season, they weren't prepared to just stop fighting either. In other words, the conditions are right and tensions are high enough (and both sides, minus the inclusion of Sonic, hardly like each other or believe the other would spare their lives and homes) that without intervention (Sonic), they're each prepared to drive the other side to "punishment" (whatever that would mean).

So in all honesty these two options represent two outcomes. The first is the outcome where the clones get ahold of Sonic and quickly work to drain him and fix the Grim, not planning on stopping until all threats to home and safety are neutralized, and until they've finished lashing out. The second is the outcome where whether they get ahold of Sonic or not, Sonic plays mediator at the end, hammering in his (Sonic's) personal wish to see that all the people he cares about are allowed the right to live and have a home.

Does this sound like I'm saying that only Sonic can stop Nine and the clones under this framework? Yes. That is what I'm saying.

Sonic the Hedgehog by the end of S3 is the only one who cares about the well-being of both sides, and is the only one with any positive attachment to Nine. Plus, under S3's framework, he's the only one who really puts his anger and self destructive tendencies aside during the battle and tries to stay true to his ideals as well as a bit more sound of mind. Nine and the clones have been interacting with and dealing with each other for a while now, and they'd already be prepared for the idea of living in the Grim alone together. So pointing out their camradere or that they could be like a family to each other would be like...praising someone's teamwork.

No, once reason flies out the window and everyone is exhausted, acting on their negative emotions, and lashing out as they feel cornered and threatened by death.

Only reason can calm things down.

The very first outcome would be reason through revelation, as Nine and the clones have to deal with the reality of the consequences of draining Sonic of prism energy. However, the only reason I can see this bringing is to redirect Nine's attention from the losing of his home (since restoring the paradox prism allows him to fix that) to Sonic's life instead. With his home intact, it *could* be a situation of focusing on what's important. However, while this option can bring some reason, it would do nothing to actually stop the fighting altogether or defuse tensions, especially if Sonic doesn’t manage to successfully convince everyone to stop in this outcome. Even if Nine and the clones succeed and then have to deal with the fallout of draining Sonic emotionally, they're also going to have to deal with a resurgence in anger and pushback from the resistance for doing so.

And the second outcome well. This would lead it largely the same as the end of S3. Sonic would be able to make his intentions clear, wind things down, get everyone to agree to leave each other alone in their homes in peace, and get Nine to use the prism to restore everyone's homes. Under this outcome, while someone pointing out their camradere may not do anything to stop the war, I think that the clones and Nine being a group or family for each other would help *after* S3's war. While things would naturally end bittersweetly as before, Sonic (and us, the viewer/reader) would at least be able to hold onto the fact that even if everyone is separated, Nine won't be left in the Grim alone.

ㅤ

Or, tl;dr

While I don't think pointing out their camraderie would stop them, I agree with anon that they have the potential to clean house and be even more overwhelming to the resistance during the war.

[maizethecorn]

Godzilla/Kong Fanfics and spoilers from 2021 movie

After watching the Godzilla versus King Kong movie that came out in 2021, I became a huge fan of Godzilla/Kong as a ship. The honest trailers commentary that I watched from this link further cemented me loving this ship:

Godzilla and Kong stare at each other, breathe heavily and roar during their second fight. The tension between them screamed get a room! This pairing is more interesting to me than pairing Godzilla with any of the other monsters. Mothra is referred to as Queen of the monsters and sometimes she is shipped with Godzilla. I don't think Godzilla/Mothra would work since she's a giant bug and Godzilla could smush her if he's not careful. There's also Godzilla/Ghidorah who is the three headed monster and then there's Godzilla/Rodan who is the flying monster and there's probably other Godzilla pairings out there. So why Kong and Godzilla?

Godzilla and Kong are both different species with different autonomy but that possibly wouldn't stop them from getting together. There are no more females left that we know of either of their species unless future movies decide to reveal a female for them. There was an old Godzilla movie where Godzilla was able to lay eggs without finding a mate but I think the Godzilla of these new monsterverse movies is an animal that would reproduce through mating with a female. Both of these males have a desire to hunt, fight and potentially still mate. Godzilla would most likely want to choose the strongest monster for a mate and the second strongest monster after him is Kong. Kong and Godzilla would be perfect for each other since they both like to fight and spar.

Here are some links to Godzilla/Kong fanfics:

The fic link above is a two chapter complete fic of Kong dominating Godzilla by KailovRuje.

The fic link above is a complete one chapter fic about Godzilla dominating Kong by KailovRuje.

The link above is to a complete one chapter fic by monsterversefan 101 about Godzilla choosing Kong as his mate after the ending of the 2021 movie.

The link above is to a complete one chapter fic of Godzilla and Kong bonding by monsterversefan 101.

The link above is to a complete one chapter fic by monsterverse fan 101 of Godzilla and Kong realizing they want each other more than they previously thought.

This fic by West_Way is part of a two chapter series where Godzilla who is mated to Ghidorah has sex with Kong in a bathhouse. In this two chapter fic series, the monsters all have jobs and talk like humans despite being monsters.

This fic link is the second part of the bathhouse series and completes the story by West_Way. The second part of the story involves Kong and Godzilla realizing they have lingering feelings for each other beyond their bathhouse encounter.

This complete one chapter fic by Solarcat is an alternate ending of Godzilla and Kong cuddling each other at the end of the 2021 Godzilla versus Kong movie. All the human characters discuss what the monster cuddling means.

Here's a link to a webcomic of Godzilla/Kong crushing on each other:

Lastly, the link above is a webcomic on how the Godzilla/Kong fight in the 2021 could have ended. I'm excited for the 2024 Godzilla Kong The New Empire movie coming out!

[prof-president]

obviously, i have much more to say.

this was mostly inspired after i saw cool art featuring marisa dressed in a potential viktor alternate costume, and she looked so cool i wanted to throw my hat in designing others :]

kimberly as bb hood mostly just comes from the fact that kimberly is my favorite in sf6 and bb hood is my favorite darkstalker. plus, i think bb hood’s whole arsenal type fighting style matches best with kimberly’s spray paint grenades better than other characters, and i just wanted to draw her looking devious asf because she deserves it :>

hopefully i shouldn’t have to explain jamie as donovan—he’s just the character who looks the best like him, and hey, if capcom does decide to make an actual donovan costume for jamie, jamie-likers get to finally see him without pants. i didn’t even know donovan didn’t wear pants until designing this, but either way, it’s kind of a perfect fit

i just wanted to draw lily here fr, and i couldn’t figure out how to make her like huitzel because i am not that creative. huitzel really does fit her better, being based on the aztec god of war of the mexica tribe (fitting with her spirit shit), but he’s also a big bulky clay warrior and lily is a baby.

i considered making her that kid that follows huitzel around, but he’s boring, and i think anita works fine. anita’s donovan’s little buddy, and she has vague but extremely powerful psychic abilities that can destroy an entire dimension if she reaches her full potential. and lily is implied to have the satsui no hado, so i figured it’s close enough. plus, i thought it’d be cool to replace her usual clubs with donovan’s sword-thing.

i also debated putting her in the older-anita versus the younger-anita outfit, but i went with younger because i wanted lily to have bangs.

i already knew i wanted to make a felicia design, and i was thinking cammy but i already wanted cammy to be q-bee instead. so, since felicia’s a big actress and movie star celebrity, i figured manon fit a sort of theme the best.

then came the problem of adapting a half-naked cat-woman into a street fighter teen-rating design. i was watching a darkstalkers series retrospective when i was reminded of demitri’s midnight bliss, and particularly of felicia’s transformation in that attack. and shit, it’s perfect! it’s an older hollywood, glamor diva look that still fits within manon’s high-end chic outfits, and i could fully see manon modeling in something like that.

i definitely need to put more detail into her hair, but i did try to reference the marilyn monroe, 40s/50s style of curls mixed with felicia’s mane. i’m pretty happy with how it looks :]

yeah i already talked about why i chose terry over luke, but also, terry’s longer hair also fits better with jon talbain’s mane and tail. sorry luke, you will once again not be drawn/shown to the masses today.

i don’t usually like to post WIPS, but i love darkstalkers and i love sf6 so here are my costume ideas, as well as some potential others under the cut

i mostly drew costume ideas for characters parallels i hadn’t seen with the new color variants or for ones i disagreed with (like manon). i’ll still touch on the ones i do like here

originally, i had luke as jon talbain because he needed a counterpart and white men love wolves but jon talbain just fits terry waaaay better (kung fu werewolf vs vaguely chinese martial art wolf associated guy)

luke could be fucking sasquatch idk, maybe he’d just be demitri, but ed was already demitri in sfv. consequently, ed’s build is different now, so maybe he’s okay handing the costume to luke now. otherwise, luke is sasquatch idfk

chun li as morrigan and juri as lilith is fine there’s nothing wrong w that so yeah

aki as hsein-ko is perfect no notes 10/10

marisa for victor is also great

i like JP as jedah good job

lord raptor as dee jay may be cool

i much prefer cammy as q-bee (cammy’s old codename was literally “killer bee”) but i understand why manon gets the alternate color, since she already has a q-bee-like outfit

[alectology-archive]

TPoD chapters 7, 8, 9, 10:

I’m done! and this was the worst fucking experience of my life! I’m never rereading any of Perrin’s plotlines, sorry. It was far worser than I remember it being.

consensus is still out on whether or not perrin is interested in berelain. I understand his noticing her perfume - he can’t help that. I don’t vibe with him saying she needs to dress a certain way or deliberately trying to pick out hints of flirtation when she’s literally just discussing their next course of action. 

- It is so weird to see perrin talking about how he only gets along with and trusts grady and neald and doesn’t trust any of the women in his group. partly because they have differing opinions about how to go about accomplishing certain tasks. it’s also really weird that this happens on the heels of dumai’s wells where the asha’man brutally slaughtered the shaido, too. the gender essentialism in this series really brings down its overall quality. Another point to note is the fact that perrin gets along with the the two guys who’ve been taught (by rand) to cultivate no personality apart from being soldiers + he avoids any actual interaction with people who have strong opinions. 

- I think I don’t like reading about faile when she’s around perrin sadfjkdhf - it’s like perrin’s default mode is managing to push some trigger that manages to piss her off. I like her and think she could’ve been a great character if she’d never interacted with perrin though. And although I complain about the shaido plot a lot faile’s POVs in it were fantastic - partly because she’s divorced from Perrin’s presence - and were such a treat to read.

- honestly this section of his POV is kind of pointless. I don’t think there’s any need for faile, seonid + wise ones and berelain to fight for the right to approach alliandre - rand specifically chose berelain to approach her with annoura! But narratively it does do a very good job of establishing the fact that there are many power dynamics at play here, which I think that was what RJ might have been trying to establish.

seonid is so gay

He’s fully making shit up at this point. Just let her exist, oh my god. Why is he looking for a flirtation in every gesture??? Literally it’s hard to not believe that Perrin fully encourages Berelain to keep hitting on him.

evidence not found. this is a telling more than a showing so far.

- Morgase is another female character who gets caught up in this useless plot ugh. It’s just trauma sequences after trauma sequence for Morgase and I pity her so much.

This is with reference to morgase just because she was very mildly rude to him despite his insisting that aram not call him a lord moments before - also I don’t like the way perrin talks about women yeuch

- I think RJ being a “discover as I write” sort of writer does affect how he writes a lot - there are some clarifications for plot that don’t necessarily always make sense later on. there are also introductions to things characters struggle with without any real basis for it and sometimes manages to be all over the place - mostly perrin and his relationship with violence and responsibility was done very badly (the show does better on the front but it obviously had a whole established canon to work with already which is always an easier task).

- masema & the cult plotline is integral to exploring the various facets of how the dragon reborn affects the cultural and religious landscape in the continent, just like how the seanchan are important narratively to explore how a flipped power dynamic between channelers and non channelers would look. rand is not a saviour - RJ hammers that point in constantly - but he plays a role that’s very closely associated with saviourism since a) it’s so tied up with the struggle versus good and evil b) has a history of false dragons fashioning themselves as saviours, so cults are naturally a very interesting angle to explore. but also like every other plotline perrin touches, it fails to be dealt with in any interesting way. I genuinely enjoyed what we saw of it in TFoH and I hate that it eventually deteriorates into a mess.

where is the struggle against violence. I just don’t get it. why is killing with a hammer better than killing with an axe? I still don’t get it.

perrin: killing? violence? I don’t care. I’ll do it all for faile. 

ugh. I guess that is the point of the whole shaido arc but I still can’t bring myself to care about it.

and yet.jpg. why is it that perrin is obsessing over his followers not following his orders to the T while he’s disregarding all of rand’s instructions? I hate him so much. 

Well! my earlier point stands! why the fuck does perrin get along with them better than with the women. lol.

- I hate SO much that the mantheren plotline was passed on to perrin. I hate it!! on principle I can’t stand the thought of a dead nation being resurrected in that fashion because it falls back on uncomfortable ideas of (mostly) autocratic rulers using history to justify their rule and manipulate people into accepting it. I also hate that it gets rid of the semi-democratic rule the two rivers had. but there were ways in which it could’ve been executed well - I really liked how the band of the red hand was sort of resurrected in the same fashion (although that was mostly a symbolism thing, obviously). in conclusion: give the plotline back to mat!!

- Arrela! hi! she’s described as “tall and dark” and masculine. one of THE canonical lesbians. 

I mean at least Faile looks out for the people who follow her. Perrin has exactly ONE guy who’s super attached to him and he manages to let even him down.

- TBH a plot mostly focussed on convincing Alliandre to join them and seeing the women do politics in Ghealdan - and also potentially dealing with a more whitecloack/amadicia focused plot - would have been a far more interesting plotline than Perrin wandering around the countryside trying to save his kidnapped wife.

- ohhh now that perrin mentioned them I’m sad we didn’t see more of the algai’d’siswai! they were just as fascinating as the prophet plotline still was back in book 5 but RJ just kind of forgot about it. 

- Faile convinces perrin not to inform rand about news of seanchan in amador because ‘maighdin’ tells her that messengers and pigeons were carrying the news anywhere. Hand Of The Author, I see you. Rand needed that news! How long would it take an asha’man to inform him and hop back to ghealdan? why is travelling never used to the extent it should be in the books?

here’s a suggestion! stop smelling her all the time! A person’s thoughts on a matter will never necessarily reflect what they’re feeling because emotional responses are at the very best knee-jerk reactions and can’t be controlled or modulated the way logic can be!

- I can’t emphasise this enough but their ‘romance’ is non-existent. They make terrible partners! They’re too different to make things work. (This is not to say people who’re unalike can’t get along - but Perrin and Faile are no Elayne and Aviendha).

- I do like Lini as a character but I think my fondness for her dropped significantly after she tried to have morgase and tallanvor forcibly married. I hate it so much, and I don’t really like that she’s so rude and forceful with morgase after everything she endured in amador - I do get that she’s concerned that their cover will be blown, but... I refuse lol. I don’t like this plotline. morgase should’ve gone back to caemlyn - faile would’ve still shone in her shaido plotline even if morgase hadn’t been a part of it. I hate powerful women suddenly being shoved into servant-master dynamics!!! it happened with siuan once already! why aren’t the men forced to do such things?

- I do genuinely believe RJ enjoyed writing his women a lot but I don’t like his choice to make women inflict shame on themselves as a form of punishment in order to repent their actions. It goes hand in hand with a lot of (evil) female characters ending up enslaved & the female forsaken being abused to be taught a lesson. 

- ‘Tallanvor was too young’ sir, you literally paired moiraine and thom & gareth and siuan & morgase and thom 😭

(with reference to seonid and masuri being apprentices)

I think. I think brandon sanderson came up with the idea that an apprentice should just Know when they’re fit to be a wise one. I definitely got that feeling while I was reading the books because it was such a Brandon Sanderson thing and kind of nonsensical, honestly. It was just a ploy to keep aviendha away from rand in the gathering storm. ugh, I’m going to blame him for min and aviendha not bonding too. 

- If a man uses the word ‘wench’ he goes down on my shit list! so elyas is on my shit list! if he wasn’t already, for being the source which delivers the news that saldaean women like their husbands to take a firm hand with them or whatever.

- was I always predisposed to disliking perrin because I hate werewolves? possibly.

- alliandre!!!!

WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY TO SECURE THE ALLIANCE, BASICALLY??? What else would berelain tell alliandre -

- honestly shout out to alliandre for making the best of so many terrible situations. she had to deal with the prophet, the threat of the seanchan, the threat of rand once he conquered illian, and then perrin trying to ‘raise manetheren’ and the shaido.

and yet he gets mad when faile is less subtle when she’d trying to guide/influence him.

- worldbuilding notes: perrin can apparently smell desperation but not guilt, lol.

lmaoooo I actually did enjoy this faile POV a lot since perrin wasn’t in it! even if she and berelain sort of bickered! but it wasn’t annoying at all, and was kind of fun, actually.

- Berelain supports faile when she’s discussing politics with alliandre even if faile just technically insulted her! I love her.

faile, that’s gay.

- Berelain is very pleased with one of faile’s manipulations of alliandre!

[Total count for the number of times berelain tried pursuing perring romantically in the path of daggers: 0]

Yeah, I think I’m going to stick with the line that perrin never gives berelain a firm no. Would this have stopped her from pursuing him? It’s hard to say because she’s angling for political advantage, but faile mentions that perrin conducts himself as if he believes he’s a prize that berelain and faile have to struggle over. And he’s constantly using his enhanced senses to predict what faile is feeling instead of asking her what she’s thinking which are two very different things! I just. I honestly don’t know how RJ could have enjoyed writing any of his POVs, lol, they’re so boring and full of contrived conflicts. He should’ve killed perrin off in the middle of the series because it would’ve done a good job of building tension (although he probably would have never done that even if he’d considered it since he’d established that perrin and mat would play integral roles to secure rand’s success in the last battle).

[reanimatedcourier]

How to Write Indigenous Characters Without Looking like a Jackass:

Update as of December 26th, 2020: I have added a couple new sections about naming and legal terms, as well as a bit of reading on the Cherokee Princess phenomenon.

Boozhoo (hello) Fallout fandom! I'm a card-carrying Anishinaabe delivering this rough guide about writing Indigenous characters because wow, do I see a lot of shit.

Let's get something out of the way first: Fallout's portrayal of Indigenous people is racist. From a vague definition of "tribal" to the claims of them being "savage" and "uncivilized" mirror real-world stereotypes used to dehumanize us. Fallout New Vegas' narrated intro has Ron Perlman saying Mr. House "rehabilitated" tribals to create New Vegas' Three Families. You know. Rehabilitate. As if we are animals. Top it off with an erasure of Indigenous people in the American Southwest and no real tribe names, and you've got some pretty shitty representation. The absence of Native American as a race option in the GECK isn't too great, given that two Native characters are marked "Caucasian" despite being brown. Butch Deloria is a pretty well-known example of this effect. (Addendum: Indigenous people can have any mix of dominant and recessive traits, as well as present different phenotypes. What bothers me is it doesn't accommodate us or mixed people, which is another post entirely.)

As a precautionary warning: this post and the sources linked will discuss racism and genocide. There will also be discussion of multiple kinds of abuse.

Now, your best approach will be to pick a nation or tribe and research them. However, what follows will be general references.

Terms that may come up in your research include Aboriginal/Native Canadian, American Indian/Native American, Inuit, Métis, and Mestizo. The latter two refer to cultural groups created after the discovery of the so-called New World. (Addendum made September 5th, 2020: Mestizo has negative connotations and originally meant "half breed" so stick with referring to your mixed Latine and Indigenous characters as mixed Indigenous or simply by the name of their people [Maya, Nahua].)

As a note, not every mixed person is Métis or Mestizo. If you are, say, Serbian and Anishinaabe, you would be mixed, but not Métis (the big M is important here, as it refers to a specific culture). Even the most liberal definition caps off at French and British ancestry alongside Indigenous (some say Scottish and English). Mestizo works the same, since it refers to descendants of Spanish conquistadors/settlers and Indigenous people.

Trouble figuring out whose land is where? No problem, check out this map.

Drawing

Don't draw us with red skin. It's offensive and stereotypical.

Tutorial for Native Skintones

Tutorial for Mixed Native Skintones

Why Many Natives Have Long Hair (this would technically fit better under another category, but give your Native men long hair!)

If You're Including Traditional Wear, Research! It's Out There

Languages

Remember, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indigenous people today. No two tribes will speak the same language, though there are some that are close and may have loan words from each other (Cree and Anishinaabemowin come to mind). Make sure your Diné (you may know them as Navajo) character doesn't start dropping Cree words.

Here's a Site With a Map and Voice Clips

Here's an Extensive List of Amerindian Languages

Keep in mind there are some sounds that have no direct English equivalents. But while we're at it, remember a lot of us speak English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. The languages of the countries that colonized us.

Words in Amerindian languages tend to be longer than English ones and are in the format of prefix + verb + suffix to get concepts across. Gaawiin miskwaasinoon is a complete sentence in Anishinaabemowin, for example (it is not red).

Names

Surprisingly, we don't have names like Passing Dawn or Two-Bears-High-Fiving in real life. A lot of us have, for lack of better phrasing, white people names. We may have family traditions of passing a name down from generation to generation (I am the fourth person in my maternal line to have my middle name), but not everyone is going to do that. If you do opt for a name from a specific tribe, make sure you haven't chosen a last name from another tribe.

Baby name sites aren't reliable, because most of the names on there will be made up by people who aren't Indigenous. That site does list some notable exceptions and debunks misconceptions.

Here's a list of last names from the American census.

Indian Names

You may also hear "spirit names" because that's what they are for. You know the sort of mystical nature-related name getting slapped on an Indigenous character? Let's dive into that for a moment.

The concept of a spirit name seems to have gotten mistranslated at some point in time. It is the name Creator calls you throughout all your time both here and in the spirit world. These names are given (note the word usage) to you in a ceremony performed by an elder. This is not done lightly.

A lot of imitations of this end up sounding strange because they don't follow traditional guidelines. (I realize this has spread out of the original circle, but Fallout fans may recall other characters in Honest Hearts and mods that do this. They have really weird and racist results.)

If you're not Indigenous: don't try this. You will be wrong.

Legal Terms

Now, sometimes the legal term (or terms) for a tribe may not be what they refer to themselves as. A really great example of this would be the Oceti Sakowin and "Sioux". How did that happen, you might be wondering. Smoky Mountain News has an article about this word and others, including the history of these terms.

For the most accurate information, you are best off having your character refer to themselves by the name their nation uses outside of legislation. A band name would be pretty good for this (Oglala Lakota, for example). I personally refer to myself by my band.

Cowboys

And something the Fallout New Vegas fans might be interested in, cowboys! Here's a link to a post with several books about Black and Indigenous cowboys in the Wild West.

Representation: Stereotypes and Critical Thought

Now, you'll need to think critically about why you want to write your Indigenous character a certain way. Here is a comprehensive post about stereotypes versus nuance.

Familiarize yourself with tropes. The Magical Indian is a pretty prominent one, with lots of shaman-type characters in movies and television shows. This post touches on its sister tropes (The Magical Asian and The Magical Negro), but is primarily about the latter.

Say you want to write an Indigenous woman. Awesome! Characters I love to see. Just make sure you're aware of the stereotypes surrounding her and other Women of Color.

Word to the wise: do not make your Indigenous character an alcoholic. "What, so they can't even drink?" You might be asking. That is not what I'm saying. There is a pervasive stereotype about Drunk Indians, painting a reaction to trauma as an inherent genetic failing, as stated in this piece about Indigenous social worker Jessica Elm's research. The same goes for drugs. Ellen Deloria is an example of this stereotype.

Familiarize yourself with and avoid the Noble Savage trope. This was used to dehumanize us and paint us as "childlike" for the sake of a plot device. It unfortunately persists today.

Casinos are one of the few ways for tribes to make money so they can build homes and maintain roads. However, some are planning on diversifying into other business ventures.

There's a stereotype where we all live off government handouts. Buddy, some of these long-term boil water advisories have been in place for over twenty years. The funding allocated to us as a percentage is 0.39%: less than half a percent to fight the coronavirus. They don't give us money.

"But what about people claiming to be descended from a Cherokee princess?" Cherokee don't and never had anything resembling princesses. White southerners made that up prior to the Civil War. As the article mentions, they fancied themselves "defending their lands as the Indians did".

Also, don't make your Indigenous character a cannibal. Cannibalism is a serious taboo in a lot of our cultures, particularly northern ones.

Our lands are not cursed. We don't have a litany of curses to cast on white people in found footage films. Seriously. We have better things to be doing. Why on earth would our ancestors be haunting you when they could be with their families? Very egotistical assumption.

Indigenous Ties and Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is a colonial system that was initially designed to "breed out the Indian" in people. To dilute our bloodlines until we assimilated properly into white society. NPR has an article on it here.

However, this isn't how a vast majority of us define our identities. What makes us Indigenous is our connections (or reconnection) to our families, tribes, bands, clans, and communities.

Blood quantum has also historically been used to exclude Black Natives from tribal enrollment, given that it was first based on appearance. So, if you looked Black and not the image of "Indian" the white census taker had in his brain, you were excluded and so were your descendants.

Here are two tumblrs that talk about Black Indigenous issues and their perspectives. They also talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

However, if you aren't Indigenous, don't bring up blood quantum. Don't. This is an issue you should not be speaking about.

Cherokee Princess Myth

"Princess" was not a real position in any tribe. The European idea of monarchy did not suddenly manifest somewhere else. The closest probable approximation may have been the daughter of a chief or other politically prominent person. But princess? No.

Here is an article talking about possible origins of this myth. Several things are of note here: women from other tribes may have bee shoved under this label and the idea of a "Cherokee Princess" had been brought up to explain the sudden appearance of a brown-skinned (read: half Black) family member.

For a somewhat more in depth discussion of why, specifically, this myth gets touted around so often, Timeline has this piece.

Religion

Our religions are closed. We are not going to tell you how we worship. Mostly because every little bit we choose to share gets appropriated. Smudging is the most recent example. If you aren't Indigenous, that's smoke cleansing. Smudging is done in a specific way with ceremonies and prayers.

Now, a lot of us were forcibly converted. Every residential school was run by Christians. So plenty of us are Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. Catholicism in Latin America also has influence from the Indigenous religions in that region.

Having your Indigenous character pray or carry rosaries wouldn't be a bad thing, if that religion was important to them. Even if they are atheist, if they lived outside of a reserve or other Indigenous communities, they might have Christian influences due to its domination of the Western world.

Settler Colonialism and the White Savior Trope

Now we've come to our most painful section yet. Fallout unintentionally has an excellent agent of settler-colonialism, in particular the Western Christian European variety, in Caesar's Legion and Joshua Graham.

(Addendum: Honest Hearts is extremely offensive in its portrayal of Indigenous people, and egregiously shows a white man needing to "civilize" tribals and having to teach them basic skills. These skills include cooking, finding safe water, and defending themselves from other tribes.)

Before we dive in, here is a post explaining the concept of cultural Christianity, if you are unfamiliar with it.

We also need to familiarize ourselves with The White Man's Burden. While the poem was written regarding the American-Philippine war, it still captures the attitudes toward Indigenous folks all over the world at the time.

As this article in Teen Vogue points out, white people like to believe they need to save People of Color. You don't need to. People of Color can save themselves.

Now, cultural Christianity isn't alone on this side of the pond. Writer Teju Cole authored a piece on the White Savior Industrial Complex to describe mission trips undertaken by white missionaries to Africa to feed their egos.

Colonialism has always been about the acquisition of wealth. To share a quote from this paper about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples: "Negatively, [settler colonialism] strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principal of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence. The positive outcomes of the logic of elimination can include officially encouraged miscegenation, the breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations. All these strategies, including frontier homicide, are characteristic of settler colonialism. Some of them are more controversial in genocide studies than others." (Positive, here, is referring to "benefits" for the colonizers. Indigenous people don't consider colonization beneficial.)

An example of a non-benefit, the Church Rock disaster had Diné children playing in radioactive water so the company involved could avoid bad publicity.

Moving on, don't sterilize your Indigenous people. Sterilization, particularly when it is done without consent, has long been used as a tool by the white system to prevent "undesirables" (read, People of Color and disabled people) from having children. Somehow, as of 2018, it wasn't officially considered a crime.

The goal of colonization was to eliminate us entirely. Millions died because of exposure to European diseases. Settlers used to and still do separate our children from us for reasons so small as having a dirty dish in the sink. You read that right, a single dirty dish in your kitchen sink was enough to get your children taken and adopted out to white families. This information was told to me by an Indigenous social work student whose name I will keep anonymous.

It wasn't until recently they made amendments to the Indian Act that wouldn't automatically render Indigenous women non-status if they married someone not Indigenous. It also took much too long for Indigenous families to take priority in child placement over white ones. Canada used to adopt Indigenous out to white American families. The source for that statement is further down, but adoption has been used as a tool to destroy cultures.

I am also begging you to cast aside whatever colonialist systems have told you about us. We are alive. People with a past, not people of the past, which was wonderfully said here by Frank Waln.

Topics to Avoid if You Aren't Indigenous

Child Separation. Just don't. We deserve to remain with our families and our communities. Let us stay together and be happy that way.

Assimilation schools. Do not bring up a tool for cultural genocide that has left lasting trauma in our communities.

W/ndigos. I don't care that they're in Fallout 76. They shouldn't be. Besides, you never get them right anyway.

Sk/nwalkers. Absolutely do not. Diné stories are not your playthings either.

I've already talked about drugs and alcohol. Do your research with compassion and empathy in mind. Indigenous people have a lot of pain and generational trauma. You will need to be extremely careful having your Indigenous characters use drugs and alcohol. If your character can be reduced to their (possible) substance abuse issues, you need to step back and rework it. As mentioned in Jessica Elm's research, remember that it isn't inherent to us.

For our final note: remember that we're complex, autonomous human beings. Don't use our deaths to further the stories of your white characters. Don't reduce us to some childlike thing that needs to be raised and civilized by white characters. We interact with society a little differently than you do, but we interact nonetheless.

Meegwetch (thank you) for reading! Remember to do your research and portray us well, but also back off when you are told by an Indigenous person.

This may be updated in the future, it depends on what information I come across or, if other Indigenous people are so inclined, what is added to this post.

[myfancastings-blog]

The MCU still has a villain problem.

Are any of these villains going to come back stronger than ever, challenging the heroes into a bigger evolution of their character? No.

Either they’re never gonna come back ever or if they do they’re going to be somewhat antiheroes. Every rendition of a superhero franchise in Hollywood does not know how to write long-term villain characters.

Let’s look at dr. doom in the comics. Why do people like him? is it just because he’s a cool villain or a villain with misunderstood motives? That’s the surface level reason. It’s because every time he comes back and featured in a big way in the comics, The scheme or plot that he’s devising can very well be accomplished. Basically there’s a possibility that he’s going to win. No matter whether or not you agree with him, The fantastic four or whoever in the Marvel universe has a lot on their hands. He’s a villain that started out from ” I want to control the world“ to “I want to control the universe”.

He’s a villain that evolves that forces the hero to evolve. That’s good writing. Hollywood writers don’t know how to do that. Either they’ll kill them off after the first movie and will never see them again or we’ll never hear from them ever again unless some other writer decides to pick up where they left off. Turning them soft, into a somewhat misunderstood character. Look at what they did to the Abomination in she hulk. I mean look at Agatha, she’s coming back as an antihero in her own series. And Namor, most likely he’s gonna come back as a hero in the next installment of something. For example there’s going to be some type of next level avenger threat that’s going to happen. The heroes are going to need some extra help. Shuri it’s going to be like, I know a guy who could help us and then we’re going to have the Talocan people in the background fighting kang forces during the last epic fight scene.

Hollywood does not know how to write pure straight up villains. I mean look at Lucifer. They tried to make the fucking devil into an antihero.

I’m not saying the MCU villains are lame. They had their purpose and they were portrayed excellently by the actors. I’m just saying that we live in a world where we’re never going to get another Chris Evans Captain America movie where he fights the red skull again. Or Heath Ledger like joker returning to Challenge Batman again. I mean you at sabertooth in the comics versus him in any of the wolverine movies. Do you think the new MCU version is going to do half the stuff that Victor Creed did to Logan in the comics?

Loki was featured in 9 different projects, but he was only kind of a villain in two. Thanos was just a cameo until he became the big bad in two films.

Let’s look at Lex Luther, Wouldn’t it be interesting if we got a Superman trilogy, where he becomes more in hinged and a bigger threat to Superman with each installment. A type of trilogy where the hero becomes a better person with each movie meanwhile the villain becomes worse at the same time.

In film school, one of my screen writing teachers told us to never write a villain as a villain, but as a character that you want the audience to understand. That’s why we always refer to them as antagonist and not villains. They are somewhat an extension of the main characters story, And that works. But what if you need that antagonist for the next story. They did their job already in the previous story so what else can you do with them for the next. This is what every screenwriter in Hollywood is taught. Villains or antagonist are not being looked at as returning returning characters as antagonist to the story.

Namor and Talocan we’re definitely a major threat towards Wakanda. But are we ever going to get another story where Namor decides to wage war on the rest of the world anyway, without Wakanda help. A movie where Talocan decides to invade America. Where Sam Wilson’s Captain America teams up with Bucky and the rest of the thunderbolts to defend the United States? That sounds pretty cool but that’s never gonna happen, because Namor when featured again is going to be a hero.

A resolution is necessary. The audience wants to feel complete, Otherwise what’s the point. That’s why we always criticize Batman for throwing joker in prison. He’s gonna break out and do it again and again. But then what’s the point of the next Batman story. If Batman kills the joker then the joker has won. Every principle that Batman has for not killing his villains is thrown out the window.

You could still tell a finalize story and tell another one using the same characters. These are superheroes from comic books, ongoing stories similar to novela and soap operas. If the studios and the fans want franchises then it can’t just be one and done stories. It doesn’t work that way.

Even in real life, if all our problems are resolved in one day then what’s the point of getting up the next day. There’s always going to be threats caused by The same thing. 10 years ago America and Russia weren’t on good terms. Now guess what’s happening again. Back then Idiotic groups who called themselves superior are trying to harm and degrade people of color. Now we got other idiotic groups to call themselves white nationalist Who are trying to do the same within social media. The fight never ends, it’s how our heroes tackles each battle one by one that matters.

Ultimately what I’m trying to say in terms of MCU villains, they have a problem writing them for a long-term purpose. That doesn’t mean they’re written or acted badly. It Just that there are no longer viable characters after their first encounter as The main villain. They are used as extensions of the main character. Not as extensions of the shared universe that they’re trying to showcase.

That’s the problem that the MCU has with their villains.

[ragnell]

All right, so this got linked in the comments and I do have a serious take in response. It's very interesting but also quite long so after the you watch the video check it out under the ReadMore. Spoilers for Control, Control AWE, Alan Wake and American Nightmare and references to the promo info for Alan Wake 2 below.

The video starts off with Free Will versus Characterization -- One of Wake's rules requires that the characters are lively and natural, three-dimensional. He cannot write them making a choice that they PLAUSIBLY would not. I don't think he can change a person's nature. This rule would explain the Taken. When the Dark Presence uses someone writing to make characters act out of character, they must be established as no longer acting of their own free will. We go back to the point at 13:00, where Alan has an expanded clairvoyance due to his location in the Dark Place (or possibly an amplification the Dark Place causes for his natural abilities?). This lets him know what people are like, and what he needs to do with the setting and the scene to get them to act in certain ways.

It also tells us that not EVERYTHING in the narrative is Alan's choice. He knows events are happening, he knows backstory, he knows people. In Control AWE, Jesse can sense Alan reaching out to her and CHANGING things as she hears him narrate it on the hotline. There is no indication she has felt that before, but it establishes she can sense the changes when they happen. What Alan changed was he added a button to the elevator, doing something only Ahti can do otherwise: Change the House. He wrote what Jesse did and thought, but that doesn't seem to be the change. That was how she behaves. Most importantly, there is nothing that says she recognizes this sensation from ANY other event in the Hiss Invasion, suggesting that the events of Control are actually story that Alan records without changing them once Jesse arrived and got going.

Which is not to say that Alan doesn't pretty much make every event in his OWN games happen. I'm in agreement with Alan being under manipulation during Departure, and it's worth noting that there is a point during the game where you stop seeing character deaths. You see Taken, but you don't see the characters who became the Taken and they presumably come from earlier. I'd argue this is the point where while writing, Alan realized what was happening. This is when he took conscious control of the narrative and wrote his own choices. Prior to that he had been fighting the Dark Presence's influence, and it was winning even as he was sneaking his own story in subconsciously. But the revelation at the Valhalla Farm, that's when it happened. It's a flashback that explains how Alan is planning to outwit the Dark Presence. The only onpage "death" that we see after that is Nightingale's, and it looks from the AWII promos that that wasn't an actual death.

American Nightmare gives us a good view of how Alan works when not being controlled, and what his actual priorities are. In the game you go through a timeloop that Mr. Scratch has established, because he tries to prevent daytime from ever taking place again. The first two times Alan runs through the loop, 3 characters die at the end of each scene. In order to win against Scratch, Alan only has to stop the loop. But he has another goal, and that is to prevent the 3 deaths. He works towards that and stopping the loop.

Honestly, much as I joke in the original post, Alan is not really the kind of asshole that wants to hurt people. He's shown throughout both games to be pretty worried about the people around him, and especially protective of his close friends. He's got a mean streak with people he dislikes--not only does he WRITE Hartman a bad end, he closes the door on the guy, but really the most notable description of Alan of being an asshole comes from writer Sam Lake, who put a lot of himself into Alan. I think it might be a case of self-criticism on his part. What's really interesting here, though, is that during the original game Alan describes how much he doesn't like spending time in Alex Casey's head, how gloomy and unpleasant he is. Wake is a cranky introvert who drinks too much and has an assault on his record, which is a kind of asshole, and I think the Sam Lake-Alan Wake-Alex Casey criticism line indicates that Alan does not like himself very much.

Selflessness is in Alan's nature. That's proven when he writes the last page but indicated elsewhere. He does not take any help after he gets the clicker, and spends most of the journey to get the Clicker worrying about Barry and Sara, even though if he was trying to get Alice back for selfish reasons he could just power through and leave them as casualties. He spents American Nightmare trying to come up with a way to prevent deaths. And of course, in the end he consigns himself to the Dark Place.

This characterization must be rectified with that of the Control AWE. The argument that Jesse was being built up to rescue Alan is dispelled, though, by the Alan Wake gameplay preview. SAGA and ALEX are the heroes being brought in to help Wake at Bright Falls. Jesse may have a part in this, but it's not to go in and save Alan. It would be a TERRIBLE story if they focused on Alan traveling through the Dark Place, Saga and Alex working in Bright Falls, and then brought in a Director Ex Machina. Alan knows better than this. But he very clearly wanted her in charge of the FBC. I'd argue that Alan might've opened the doors to the Oldest House during lockdown for her to get in, except Jesse didn't notice his influence then.

Yeah, from the end of Mott and the end of Hartman, Wake can be a mean sonuvabitch, can't he? But I strongly disagreee with the video that he twisted two normal people into villains. As I said above, I don't think Alan can get someone to do something out of character, to make a choice they wouldn't make. He has to set them up to make the choices they make. We don't know exactly WHAT in Departure was present beforehand and what was changed, but it's pretty naive to think that a town with this kind of power in the lake was NORMAL before Alan showed up. We really can't discount all of the backstory Alan uses because a) he does have access to knowledge he never had before, b) Jagger and the Andersons existed in the scene prior to getting to the lake--Jagger CHOOSES the Bird Leg Cabin venue as the trap. There was some existing history, and Hartman is tied to it. Mott may be an add-on, but not necessarily. Elements in the story were already present, and we can assume that the sequence in Episode 1 before Alice disappears shows what was there before Wake began writing. Tor and Odin didn't seem to think too highly of Hartman, or feel like they were well-cared for, in that original diner scene. Hartman has links to Zane, who is a gray area but definitely existed pre-Wake because we see Tom's books in the cabin before the blackout. The Andersons were present during a previous event.

Nightingale is a weird spot, because honestly? Alan had no interaction with him before Departure and he seems to serve just to make things more difficult for Alan, but he's the only one who gets a harmful end after the night at Valhalla. He is also oddly two-dimensional. He appears during the week Alan's missing and has manuscript pages. But he's going to be addressed further in the next game.

There is, arguably, a character change prior to Control AWE, but I think about how invested Remedy is in this character. He's one Sam Lake based on himself, and the sequel is a dream project. There will be characterization changes, but I am doubting we'll see Alan himself made less moral than in the original game.

I think the mitigation will be the clairvoyance, honestly. He knows they've got ShadowHartman in the Investigations Sector and that any connection between the Thing That Was Hartman and the shadow stuff that the FBC is ACTIVELY collecting and studying will result in a disaster. He knows that the FBC is screwing around in another universe and are going to bring a sound that drives out all thought through the portal. My personal thought is he's waiting for when the disasters will already be happening, and jumping in to change the timing, circumstances and set up things for his best option.

I mean, we can view Control AWE as a setup for Return, but if he wants Jesse running the FBC he could just write Trench's death at the beginning of Return and not do a whole invasion. If he just wanted to WARN the FBC he could have just set off that warning at the beginning of Return. But he put his hands in a whole other story that doesn't features the two key heroes he wants for Return.

He has been sitting in the Dark Place honing his skill at altering reality for 13 years. If he didn't give a fuck about anyone but himself, he'd have written himself out already. But he wants to get out without destroying a town, without killing a whole ton of people and without allowing anything else to escape the Dark Place. Every minute he's there he gets more desperate. He also risks being used by the Dark Presence again, we saw him in the cut scenes during Control AWE freaking out about the idea he might be writing.

I'd argue that with Informed Consent, Alan is clearly an extremely moral character from what we've seen and what we can conclude, but if you get on his bad side like Hartman or Nightingale he can still be a massive asshole when writing your end. And even though it appears he doesn't want to kill people, he's not inclined to make anything easier for anyone.

I think one of the funniest things about Alan Wake being characterized as an asshole is that it's always about avoiding fans, or being sarcastic or punching a bad guy in a social situation and never about the fact that he wrote all the horrible events in the game you're playing.

Like, in the Control AWE DLC, Langston remarks that he's heard Alan Wake was kind of an asshole when talking to Jesse, who has just found a page that Alan wrote where she gets attacked by a massive darkness monster.

Now, The Sudden Stop is premiering the first night of the lockdown in Control, which means that ALL of Wake's Alex Casey books got adapted. So in the Remedyverse there is this noir crime writer who is a household name that disappeared in 2010, and everybody know he's kind of an asshole from anecdotes but very few people know why he's ACTUALLY kind of an asshole.

And I am absolutely certain this reputation is because he punched a paparazzo and not because he's actually that much of an asshole in interpersonal interactions. Because when you look at him and people, he's not outwardly that much of an asshole. But then when you look at what he's written KNOWING it will come true... yeah, he's kind of an asshole sometimes.

[kirisaki-daichi-scenarios]

a discussion of jabberwock with team interaction hcs + deeper nash analysis

for anon who asked "Can we get some headcanons for jabberwock members or like headcanons when they're together? (its okay if it was jason or nash only)" and made me realise it's about time i get these guys' personalities down

note before we start: cause i didn't know their names until i wrote this

zack is the bald one, allen is the one with a headband, nick is the other white guy apart from nash.

team hcs

nick gets bullied for being under 6ft, but not by jason

nah good old jason teases all of them for being short fucks, emphasising that they’re all 5ft tall in comparison to him

he 100% lifts things out of the others' reach and then laughs for ages after when they try get them

unfortunately though, they’re all used to this and now just ignore him. either that or nash stares at him so intensely jason actually repents and hands it back

zack’s another one with a very good glare, but he’s used it too often on jason and it’s since stopped working.

also jason gives me ‘straightens his back as much as possible when getting measured so he’ll measure in as 7ft’ vibes

oh and he thinks he could wrestle a gator and win. i’ve got no explanation for that except for the fact you can't tell me it's ooc.

allen’s very protective over his white headband - it’s his lucky item - but he’d never let anyone know that

he’s confident in his abilities like the rest of them, but there’s nothing wrong with wearing a headband just in case

(nash knows anyway)

they watch nba matches together and do not shut up once throughout the entire match - lots of jeering, booing each other if someone criticises a player they like, lots of “i could do that”, lots of “get your fucking hand out of my popcorn do you want me to punch you in the face” etc

they used to all live together, but nash has since moved out. he was sick and tired of trying to make people do chores, as the only one who kept their room clean.

yeah the others’ house looks like a heap of trash but also very much “where’s my toothbrush?” “it’s in the third coke can by the orange peel behind the sink” *silence* “yeah thanks” *a minute later* “who the fuck has been using my toothbrush”

they’re all “bro your dribbling sucks why are you on this team loser” to one another, but also very protective (aka arrogant for one another) if anyone else Dared to criticise one of their teammates

then again, what kind of person would criticise jabberwock

half of the time he spends with jabberwock, nash is a Single Mother TM trying to get a bunch of man children to behave; the other half of the time, he's just as bad as the rest of them

i talk about this a lot but i get the feeling nash is an exceptionally hard worker, but at least he gets to let his hair down around his teammates sometimes

nash is also the only person jason thought was truly ‘strong’ at first sight

and nash is also the only person who can beat jason in a fight, and also the only person who can get nash to train, and also the only person who can.. [etc. you see my point].

(n.b jason calls himself the ‘almighty me’, nash says that ‘even god can’t beat me’. point made.)

you know how jason silver’s motto is “I have never thought”

imagine him proudly stating that, before zack adds with a straight face, “yeah cause nash does it for you.”

in short, the team would fall apart without nash.

although the team’s communication and coordination is very fine tuned, nash is the guy who keeps everything in order off the court to prevent what is essentially a team of aces ('main characters', if you will) from falling apart

they hang out together a lot, but do all have other friend groups that do not overlap

team bbqs

unofficial rule not to criticise anchovies on pizza because the one time nick did, nash snapped

however pineapple on pizza is fair game, even though zack quite likes it

more than once, jason has brought a girl home and nick has stolen her attention away with effortless trick shots, funky ball manoeuvring etc

more than once nick has had to trek to nash’s place (with a black eye) at midnight to have somewhere to sleep

do you see a correlation?

oh and everyone in the team has been walked in on by nash when they were naked with some girl

nash has absolutely no shame

he apologises to the girl with a charming albeit insincere tone, and then remains standing in front of the bed/couch until his teammate does what he expected of them

usually it involves not having come to practice

allen learnt a few (emphasis on ‘few’) words of japanese before they travelled to japan and was disappointed that he never got to use them

that said, one of those words was hentai

and now a quick analysis of some panels

a) so there's at least one player who wasn't underestimating vorpal swords. if i were to overanalyse, i'd add that nick's wearing a hoodie (possibly athletic wear) whilst nash has a 'fancy' shirt on; perhaps nick wasn't expecting them to be going to host clubs instead of chilling/training?

b) i know what you're thinking: "how can you say nash is a hard worker when he didn't want to practice for the match". i reckon he was still pretty high on the complete and utter success of their previous match, that plus being around girls, encouraged him to have a more 'jason-y' personality. (either that or fujimaki didn't want to add too much depth/realism into nash's character bc he's unequivocally the villain, right? and obviously this helps with the plot and the jabberwock bad geniuses gom good geniuses rhetoric.)

earlier, i mentioned how nash is the only one that could keep the team together, and is thus the undeniable head of the team; here's a clear example. you can see both jason and zack have no interest in continuing - if anything, there's disgust in their faces, kinda just saying "we spat on all of japan, now we can go home". whereas nash won't allow for the slightest of possibilities that there might exist a team stronger than them, and hence agrees to the match. the key thing here is that the others do as he says without too much fuss.

another thing to note is nash's reference to harakiri. now what can we make of that, alongside his proficiency in japanese, in relation to his character? the way i see it, he's either a weeb or possibly has some japanese lineage. (you could spin that even further and say his mother was japanese, taught him the language, then abandoned him, and hence his almost excessive hatred/mockery of the japanese people.) (is that why he wanted to do another match in japan..?)

just a quick point. "thanks to him" - jason isn't so superior as to think that he could win this match effortlessly without nash's support. links pretty nicely with my earlier idea about how nash is the only person jason has always considered 100% strong.

yet another point about how nash is the strongest of the team in pretty much every way you can think of. you know how scary/powerful you have to be to shut jason up (after he's getting real pissed from being prevented from scoring?)

i personally think this is a pretty important panel, though i've never seen anyone mention it before. did nash grow up training in a professional basketball training situation, as opposed to growing up playing streetball like i suspect the others did? well, to answer that question, imma bring in another panel.

here we see visible rage on nick, zack and jason's faces - they can't accept their loss, which is fair enough. but i'd argue that nash's face seems to depict sadness more than it does anger like to rest of them, look at how downturned his mouth is - and he's looking away from the 'camera', as if hiding his shame.

when you combine that with what he says here, i have no doubt that this is someone who has experienced some proper lows in basketball - as would be expected from someone who's played 'properly'. he's possibly not even a prodigy like the rest of them - compare jason's motto with his. "i have never thought" versus "do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door".

there's various lines of thinking you could design with this - he might have been trained by alex (hence, himuro having heard of jabberwock, though he should have known of a team as popular of jabberwock regardless), he might have grown up with professional basketballer parents etc. but here's my own little theory:

nash received serious basketball training from early on - maybe because his parents were living vicariously through him, or maybe he always loved the sport and wanted to be no1. so there he was training away, but, as he grew older, it started getting all a bit too much.

he didn't want to dedicate his entire life to basketball. after all, his hobby is water sports and his speciality is boxing; that's a lot of different things to be keeping up with, whereas the pipeline for promising athletes demands people focus solely on basketball. as a result, nash become bitter: stopped attending practice regularly, got in trouble for trash talk of increasing severity, etc.

result was he was kicked out of the program.

only when he was no longer playing basketball again, did he realise how much he missed it. and hence he got into streetball, where he was tremendously successful as someone with so much training, 'elite skills', and the overly confident attitude to boot.

then, one fateful day, he met jason and the rest is history.

[ruki--mukami]

How would Ruki be as a ruler/king/leader of a country. Let's say 10 is history referring to him as Ruki the Great,and 0 is so bad his haircut becomes the most universal sign of evil ever known to the world.

🧩 Short answer: Probably a 4 lmao. In short, he has the personality for it, but his sadistic tendencies and willingness to be the evil to end all evils might turn him into a tyrant. 

Way to spoil one of the plot twists of my fan-made route for Ruki, which takes place after the events of Lost Eden, ahaha. Kidding. Though I suppose “Umbral Crown” is a huge hint already. 

Ruki as a sovereign rules with an iron fist for sure, although he genuinely cares for his people and nation. Even so, his intentions don’t make him a just ruler by any means. After the events of his childhood, he would most likely abolish the idea of nobility, but he’d still be a sovereign who requires the citizens to work arduously in order to be rewarded in that society. Similar to the upper and lower classes in modern life, I suppose. Anyone who challenges him in an extreme way (i.e., attempted assassinations, revolts, etc.) would most likely be made an example of through public execution, like a precursor of the punishment that would come your way should you decide to repeat their mistakes. 

While he wouldn’t go as far as setting whole villages aflame just for the hell of it, Ruki is anything but a saintly king. He would be the type of ruler to govern his people ruthlessly the same way a strict father raises his children, or much like how he punishes his S/O despite his love for them—it’s all so that they won’t leave him one day. 

Above all else, Ruki wants his people to be educated enough to think for themselves, strong enough to fend for themselves, and cultivate a bountiful land that eventually develops into an autonomous one without the presence of a monarch but rather a more modern system since he would prefer not to relive the fall of his family. If his people cannot think or fend for themselves, then they will easily be killed off if war becomes reality, which would truly devastate him even if he doesn’t show it easily. 

Diplomatically, Ruki would not instigate conflict to feed his own self-interest and ambitions unless an opposing nation challenged him first for whatever reason. Then you can bet he would prepare for a full-on war, and if the way he operates with his brother is any indication, he tends to take the role of someone who doesn’t attack from the frontlines but rather commands everyone from the vanguard in the shadows. However, it’s not because he can’t fight for himself—if anything, we can see in Chaos Lineage he is skilled at sword combat, being able to hold his own versus demons who should be stronger than him. Rather than rashly going all out on the offense, Ruki is cunning enough to also forge strategic bonds with influential figures or factions that would turn the tide in his favor and more importantly, deter other territories from crossing him. Lying, deceit, and other morally questionable deeds are not beyond him. 

Since Ruki is a “the ends justify the means” type of ruler, and person in general, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume he would sacrifice a select few to save the vast majority. If sending off thousands of his own people to die will promise generations of conflict-free prosperity in the centuries to come, then he will commit those atrocities as a ruler even if it contradicts his previous actions. 

It should also be known that, if he has a partner at his side, then he would also prioritize their safety. However, if he’s ruling alone, then he will not hold back in his sadism whatsoever. That extends to the battlefield, the kingdom, and his people. 🧩

[solcheeky]

Hii I absolutely loved that one sided love angst with hyuck and was wondering if you’d be willing to write it from the other side with Jeno dating the friend without having feelings for them? I feel like he’d be the type to feel too bad to reject someone he’s close with

summary: all jeno wants to do is keep you happy. so when you ask him to be your boyfriend, he says yes because what else could make you happier? if that’s what you wanted, that’s what he’ll give. even if that means pretending he loves you the way you love him. (3k)

genre: college au!, angst, gn!reader warnings: mentions of drinking alcohol, mentions of sex (but none of it) a/n: thank you for reading the hyuck one! though I can’t lie, it’s sort of difficult to write an exact plot I’ve already written before, sorry!! so I’ve changed things up a bit! but it’s still angst though, and under the same premises :)

“Don’t you think Jeno is a little… Hard to read, sometimes?”

Donghyuck swallows his drink hard, before placing his bottle back onto the picnic table and sending you a weird look.

“Isn’t he your boyfriend?” He scratches behind his ear then pushes up his sunglasses. “Wait, not even. You guys have been friends since… Before we even met. If anyone can read him, that’s you.”

Logically speaking, he was right.

But why didn’t it feel that way at all?

As you try to think of the right words to say, you fiddle with a leaf that had fallen from a branch of the tree hanging above your table.

“Are you guys in a fight or something?” Donghyuck steals back your attention. He had a weirdly calm look on his face for someone who was apparently concerned.

You sigh. Not exactly, “no.”

You weren’t fighting. Or at least, if it was a fight, you couldn’t say exactly when or how it even started.

Things were normal, like how they always were (you think), but there was something off about Jeno you just couldn’t put your finger on.

Except, whether things had only been like this recently, or whether it had been like this ever since you started dating but you’d only noticed now, you couldn’t tell.

It wasn’t that Jeno was directing any anger at you, he hadn’t done anything abrupt or out right mean at all.

If anything, he was doing exactly everything you ask for.

Yet somehow, you felt a sort of… distant from him, like there was a weird shift between your relationship you hadn’t been aware of until it felt too late—like you’d done all the buttons up wrong.

And how were you supposed to even begin to explain all that to Donghyuck if you couldn’t even pinpoint it?

“It’s not a fight,” you opt to say, but it comes out almost like a question. “It’s just-”

“Hey!”

Instinctively, both of you turn to face the direction in which the voice came from.

A few paces away, Mark Lee and your boyfriend were cutting through the grass and heading towards your table, it looked like they had just finished class.

You turn back to Donghyuck before they get within hearing range and mutter, “doesn’t matter.”

Except Donghyuck doesn’t even have time to reply because Mark pushes his shoulder with a strong hand, the other on the strap of his backpack, as he shoves him further down the bench to make space for him to sit.

“Move over!” The familiar, cheerful smile on his face makes you feel like things are back to normal, even just for a brief moment.

“Argh, Mark, seriously.” Donghyuck groans as he pushes his bottle and leather gym satchel across the table with him.

“What?” Mark’s laughing as he shuffles into the bench too, “I can’t sit on that side, can I?” He raises a playful brow at Jeno who was standing on your left.

You look over your shoulder and he smiles down at you.

“Hey,” he reaches down to pat you, palm warmly stroking the curve of your head before leaning down to place a brief kiss into your temple.

“Hi.” You say with a quiet smile as he slips into your side of the bench.

By now, Mark had already taken his attention off Jeno. “Why are you wearing sunglasses? It’s not that sunny.”

Donghyuck scoffs at the elder’s audacity. “The sun is clearly in the sky though, isn’t it? Use that big head of yours.”

But their bickering easily becomes background noise when Jeno gently takes the small leaf you were playing with from between your fingers and spins it between his finger and thumb.

He cutely looks at you in question and you just shrug.

So he flicks it away and slips his hand into yours instead and squeezes.

You squeeze back. “We still on for tonight?” Your voice low lest you interrupt Mark and Donghyuck’s ‘loving’ conversation.

You were planning to sleepover at his—weird to think that it was something you had gone out of your way to schedule but, it was nearing exam season and both your slots for free time had fit together like a box full of the wrong puzzle pieces.

It doesn’t take more than a second for Jeno to reply with a happy, “yes, of course.”

But a lump forms in the back of your throat at the urge to tell him you know he’s forced that answer out.

Later, when it’s already deep into the day, Jeno texts you to let you know he’ll be a little late

Although you kind of wished he’d told you sooner; you were already standing outside of his door.

Your first thought is not to tell him—knowing Jeno, the guilt would drive him crazy—and you probably would have done so that way if you were still friends. But things were different now; you were dating.

You should be comfortable enough to be completely transparent with him, even if about things as small as this.

Plus, he’d probably feel even guiltier if you didn’t tell him.

Except when Jeno does get the text, he feels even worse.

Not just because he’s left you hanging around wasting the rare time you could’ve spent together, but because it was entirely his fault that he was late.

He had managed to get off his lecture earlier than usual which gave him an extra hour to spare before your scheduled arrival time.

Usually that would mean he’d tell you right away so you could push that time earlier to have even longer to spend together.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Jeno wanted something else to occupy his mind other than you.

Was that bad of him? Probably… Maybe—He didn’t want to convince himself anything. As long as you didn’t find out why, everything would stay the same. At least that was what he was convincing himself to think.

So, Jeno was quick to chuck his bag full of study notes by his doorway, pick up some gear and his bike and immediately head out.

Just a few miles, he told himself. Nothing better to clear his mind than a quick workout, right?

Wrong.

You wouldn’t slip from his mind no matter what he tried to do.

All Jeno could think about was how he promised himself he would make this relationship work regardless of whether that meant he had to cross an ocean just to make the you that was in love with him, feel loved.

Inevitably, those thoughts eventually watered down to how bad of a job he’s been doing of it all.

It was probably bad enough he’d just referred to your relationship as a job.

Yeah, alright, this was worse than bad.

It’s just that you were so happy—the face you made when he said yes to being your boyfriend was all he ever wanted for you.

Logically, he thought that keeping things in tandem with what you expressed happiness for, would be enough to see that same smile again.

Jeno held your hand when you wanted it. He kissed you how you liked it. He let you sleep in his bed and sleep with him because that’s what you needed from him.

That’s all he ever wanted for you. So why did it feel like it wasn’t enough?

He was your boyfriend now. Wasn’t that supposed to make it easier?

Not to say that it was hard when you were labelled as friends—just that certain boundaries couldn’t be crossed and there was no way to stop eventualities of you finding someone else that would make you happy.

Jeno didn’t want that; he didn’t want to see you with another person. But the label ‘boyfriend’ on his own forehead almost felt like a burden, even though he knew he loved you. It was all really confusing.

Breaking it down, Jeno knew that you meant a lot to him. Really, he just wanted to give you the love you deserved. So being your boyfriend felt like the right choice, like it was the right thing to do if that’s what it meant to give you all his love.

But somehow becoming the ‘boyfriend’ felt even further away from you than when he was just a ‘friend’.

And at this point, Jeno was too far into this. Spending time with you was great, but it confused him. He had lost what defined the boundaries of how a boyfriend makes one happy, versus a friend.

Sometimes he even thought, what was so good about the label ‘boyfriend’? Was it worth all the things he’s done for you?

He had thought too hard and too much he didn’t even realize how far out he’d cycled; it was so far there was no way he could cycle back the same route in time to meet you.

Dangerously, a small, small, small part of him was glad.

But, no.

Jeno shakes his fringe out of his eyes and pedals faster. Just get home first, he tells himself, he can deal with that thought another time.

When Jeno finally arrives, he’s lugging his bike towards you, sweat dripping down his temples and breath still a few paces behind.

“Sorry,” he manages to breathe out, wiping the sweat across his brow with the back of his wrist before he leans past your frame to unlock his door.

You bite back a bit of a laugh, “you look crazy.”

He lets out a relieved smile and you tip on your toes to press a quick kiss into it.

A surprised sound muffles into your lips when you do, like he was about to say something but you had got to his lips first.

You pull away with a scrunched up face. “Salty.”

That makes him laugh. “Come on then.” He pushes the door open and guides you in first.

After putting away his bike, he shuts the door behind him and chucks his gear away while you place your things onto his desk chair.

“I’m gonna shower first.” He pulls off his gloves and watches as you spin to face him with a small smile.

From anyone else's point of view, you looked fine. You stood tall, a sweet smile across your lips and eyes full of affection for your boyfriend.

But Jeno knew better than that.

He throws his gloves into the hamper and pauses with his hands on the hem of his top. “Want to join?”

Your eyes light up and the heavy guilt on his chest suffocates him a little less.

“Only if you want me to.” You tilt your head to the side. If he was going to be quick, there was no harm in you waiting an extra 10 minutes, sure, you can handle that much.

But Jeno only wanted it because he knew you did. He knew every minute together meant way more to you now that you rarely saw each other.

So he nods his head towards the bathroom door to gesture for you to come, then proceeds to pull his top over his torso.

With Jeno’s shoulders under the showerhead, you keep your arms resting on the dip of his hip bones for warmth.

His own hands are in your hair, fingers gently massaging your scalp and temples, with a cute concentrated look across his face.

“Turn around for me.” He slowly presses a kiss into your forehead and you hum in compliance.

“I can do you instead, you know?” Now that you’re facing the other way you can’t read his face.

His thumbs press into the nape of your neck, following the direction of your spine into your scalp and your shoulders completely lose tension.

Jeno presses his lips into a straight line and hums a comfortable ‘no, it’s okay’. He was fine like this.

“Let me do this for you.” His low voice vibrates a lot closer to your ears than before.

It almost distracts you from your previous thoughts, but his words echo in your mind once more.

‘Let me do this for you.’ You know… That seemed to be all he was doing lately...

Now that you really think about it, you can’t recall Jeno ever doing anything for himself; it was always you before him.

He was always looking out for you—maybe never directly verbal—but he never failed to show how much cared by how much he noticed about you, whether that meant lending you his shoulder on stressful days of work, or for things even just as small as giving you his pen for the day because you forgot yours.

“Jeno?”

“Mhm? Ah!—Too strong?” His fingers come to a stop at the assumption he’s massaging you too hard.

“No,” you take his hand from behind your head and turn around to look at him in the eyes.

Jeno blinks at you in confusion.

Your eyes drop away from his face. “You’d tell me if there was something bothering you, right?”

At first, his brows crease together.

But then he’s laughing, eyes smiling as he calls you cute under his breath whilst releasing the grip of your hand on his wrist and affectionately brushing the bubbles away from the top of your eyebrow with his thumb.

“What are you talking about?” Jeno presses his forehead into yours so you can look at him and see that smile of his you love so much, “Is there something wrong?”

“No…” Not with you. But if there was with him you’d listen.

He presses his lips against yours. “I’m okay if you’re okay.”

Those words were a little tricky.

On the surface, they seemed like a sweet thing to say. Yet you knew it subconsciously meant something deeper.

But, you let it slide just this once.

The next time you’re in his room, it’s a week later and a day earlier than you had previously scheduled.

But instead of cute showers together, you have his heavy arm slung around your shoulder and alcohol breath against your cheek.

“Sorry.” Jeno’s half slurring as he nuzzles into your jaw.

You kick his door closed from behind you and heave his weight against your hip more. “Don’t worry about it.” At least he was sober enough to apologize now.

You had just come back from the bar nearest your campus where Donghyuck was stupidly holding an ‘end of the first exam’ event (A.K.A. any excuse for endless food and rowdy drinking games on a friday night).

Jeno releases his arm from off your shoulder and places a hand on the wall.

“Can you get me some water?” He presses his eyes closed and manages to take a step forward.

You think the cold night walk from the bar had kicked some sense of reality into him. “Yeah, can you manage?” You reach a hand out behind his waist just in case.

But he just hums and slowly continues his way forward with his fingers pinching between his brows.

It was okay if he closed his eyes, he knew his room like the back of his hand anyway.

As you rip open the pack of water by his door and pull a bottle out, Jeno drops his jacket off his arms and onto the floor before he slumps into his bed with a sigh.

By the time you approach his bedside, he’s sprawled out over his duvet with his eyes closed.

You open the bottle for him and he blindly takes it. “You don’t usually drink this much.”

He doesn’t reply.

“Is everything okay?”

Ever since you asked Jeno that question in the shower, he seemed as if he was extra cautious about the things he said. And maybe that was just your own imagination. Or maybe you somewhat wanted him to have a secret. Maybe you subconsciously wanted a reason to justify why he acts the way he does.

Jeno nods as he gingerly lifts his head just to drink some water.

“If there’s something on your mind, you can tell me.” You want to ask for more, but you don’t want to force anything out of him.

Sure, sometimes you might find it hard to discern what exactly goes on inside Jeno’s head. But just because you couldn’t read anything off him, didn’t mean he didn’t have any thoughts.

You at least know him well enough to understand how much goes on inside that selfless head of his, despite his generous puppy smiles and lack of verbalisation.

You know he worries a lot—Less about himself and more so about everyone else around him. So you can’t help but think he’s hiding something. Jeno’s more observant than others think.

With a frown, he reaches up to put the bottle onto his side table with a nod.

Then it clicks.

“Did.. Did I say something?” He leans up on one elbow, voice unintentionally baring a touch of mortification.

“What?—No.” You press a hand into his shoulder to get him to lie down again. “No.” Really, he didn’t. That was the problem.

You push his hair away from his forehead and he sighs sleepily.

Thank god, Jeno thinks. To him, he wasn’t exactly hiding anything from you. He thinks purposely ‘hiding’ something was different to just ‘not saying’ something.

Not that he was trying to get off from this with a technicality. Jeno loved you. He really did.

But somehow this ‘love’ just wasn’t turning out the way he thought it would.

And that was something he needed to figure out for himself.

“You.. You don’t have to know...” Is the last thing he says before he falls asleep.

Did you really mean that little to him?

You thought you could be as reliable to him as he was to you.

Were you just ...not enough?

to be continued...

reply below on this post if you want me to tag you when I post part 2 :)

a/n: I think this could’ve easily been a full prose fic, but,,, I’m lazy,, also I feel like I don’t know jeno’s character well enough to convincingly write about what he’d say, think or do ;/ but anyways! thank you for this request, just the perfect thing to give my brain a break from writing my endless hyuck and mark content

also! disclaimer(?) guys! please don’t do what ‘jeno’ is doing in this fic hahahaha this is setting a bad example of what a relationship and labels could mean! in short, what I wrote about was Damage -100hp and Dumb 500hp lmfao so don’t do it (or more so wish for it👁👁)

but yeah, I’m open to discourse in my ask box as much as I was for the hyuck version of this fic if anyone needs/wants to talk about anything! (I’ll also tag it as #os if anyone wants to filter it out)

scroll through these if you'd like the read the hyuck angst discourse

or read the hyuck version of this fic here!

[iamthenightcolormeblack]

My Experience with Jane Austen Part 2: Reading the Books

In part one I laid out which books I read, which ones were my favorites and least favorites, and the adaptations I've seen. Now I'd like to talk about my reading experience.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert, just a casual reader sharing some observations, feel free to correct me if I get some details wrong. Out of the books I’ve read I’m most familiar with Pride and Prejudice.

Let's face it. Reading Austen can be challenging and I understand why some people dislike Austen.

It's easy to perceive her novels as "boring" because on a surface level, not much happens. The characters are well-off people (in the upper half of society) who spend their time at home or traveling between social calls and it's easy to dismiss their conflicts as "first world issues." Settings are often indoors, reflecting how "confined and unvarying" the lives of the rich (especially women) were. The plots often move forward through dialogue or conversations rather than big dramatic events. The focus on marriage can also make the stories feel like antiquated relics of the past and can be hard to relate to.

The writing style is also different. There isn't much dialogue at times because Austen slips in lots of very subtle commentary or prefers to describe a character's external appearance or characteristics. Often big events like proposals are described briefly after they happen rather than during, which can make the story feel rather "dry." The books are narrated in third person and sometimes there is unreliable narration (Pride and Prejudice) where we get characters' multiple points of view, but all narrated in the third person as to give each one credibility and prove that it's hard to trust others. Austen's writing style means that readers have to fill in the blanks with their imagination. For example, she doesn't give exact physical descriptions of her characters, often relying on general characteristics like "tall," "handsome," or "amiable." In my previous reviews of Pride and Prejudice adaptations, I explored that intentional ambiguity as a big reason why the character of Mr. Darcy is alluring--because the reader forms a personal connection with the character by sketching his portrait alongside Elizabeth. The characters (their physical appearance and some of their motivations) are purposely mysterious and while it gives the reader lots of opportunities for engaging with the text, without historical/literary context for "filling in the blanks" it's easy to see the characters as stiff mannequins in strange clothing rather than human beings.

Austen as a romance writer: Her romances don't always match up with our perception of what a romance should be. Some people start Austen expecting intense emotions and outbursts of passion but become disappointed when presented with formal courting and stately dances instead. Emotions are often veiled behind dialogue and for a first-time reader it can be challenging to see a romance developing. Most of the time readers have to rely on the clues given by Austen (descriptions of characters "blushing," looking "pale," or losing their composure) to detect the stirrings of love, but on a first reading it's difficult to do so when one's trying to figure out the plot and the characters. Finally, the dialogue can't always be taken literally; lots of people, including me, were disturbed when Mr. Knightley said he loved Emma since she was 13, but it was actually a joke made in response to something she said.

Her books are products of their time, and I sure am not an expert in Regency era economics or social norms. Sometimes the implications of certain actions can be lost on a reader if they don't know about the social norms of the time (I had no idea that Darcy following Elizabeth around, alone, on her favorite walk at Rosings was a sign of his love for her). Differences in social class are also very subtle and while one can generalize the characters as all "well-off" people, they are separated by many levels of hierarchy and their ideas about social position and status affect how they interact with others outside of their station. Darcy looks down upon those whom he perceives to be below him, and while Emma wants to make an advantageous match for Harriet, Harriet's lower social position means that Emma's schemes are not likely to work.

Because of the unique quirks within the novels, the reader is required to go beyond the surface level of plot and appearance and read between the lines to understand character motivations and actions. Without historical context (Regency era society having little social mobility, women having few legal rights and needing to make good marriages to secure material comfort) or literary context (the Enlightenment, 18th century Gothic novels referred to in Northanger Abbey, the birth of the novel, early Romantic writers just to name a bit) reading between the lines is nearly impossible.

So why do we read Austen? Below are my personal reasons.

The novels feature female heroines that have dignity and self-respect. It's significant that the stories focus on women who are trying to live according to their own values and speaking their own minds rather than acquiescing to societal dictates. Elizabeth Bennet is revolutionary in part because she wants a marriage based on mutual admiration and respect between two partners who know each other well, rather than an economic arrangement for a home. One could go on forever about how Austen is a feminist, but, the characters don't act like modern day feminists--they are still people of their time. However, it's easy to assume "feminist" heroines have to have "aggressive" characteristics (rebelling, fighting, defiance) in order to be labeled as "feminist." Importantly, Austen's women are allowed to be vulnerable (they cry or struggle with their emotions) without that being a shameful thing. We also see different types of personalities celebrated: Jane Bennet, who is kind to everyone, is seen in a positive light rather than shamed for seeing good in everyone. Anne Elliot, who is regarded as "old," becomes more beautiful as she gets older and has a second chance of love. Emma Woodhouse is spoiled yet confident and assertive and "not likely to be well-loved" (paraphrase of Austen's commentary on Emma). Fanny Price is a shy person but still achieves her happy ending. Her heroines are real people who have flaws and get opportunities to learn and grow so that they can make their aspirations reality.

A unique take on the universal conflict of humans versus society: Austen's characters are bound by social norms of etiquette as well as a value system that idolizes wealth and connections above all else. Persuasion is a great story in part because it focuses on how Anne Elliot learns to follow her heart and avoid being "persuaded" by others (and by society) to follow a path that will not make her happy. She's had to live with the regret of following the well-intentioned but harmful advice of others (Austen notes that Lady Russell values social connections too highly) over her own feelings and judgment, nearly losing her chance to be with Wentworth. The romances are significant in that they reinforce the dignity and self-respect of the female heroines. To a certain extent, Austen's stories are realistic in that marriage is necessary for material well-being in a patriarchal society that provides few ways for women to provide for themselves. But most importantly, she also sees marriage as a means of affirming self-respect and dignity of the women. It's one of the few parts of their lives over which they have any control because they get to choose whom they marry (for the most part, unless the marriage is arranged). Their wish to marry for love is revolutionary because they dare to aspire for something more than wealth. They want their future partners to be their equals, someone who they can love and respect (or be totally honest with them) and who will provide the same in return. This line from Emma (the 2020 movie adaptation) sums it up: "I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Fame I do not want. Fortune I do not want. Consequence I do not want."

The difference between outward appearances and inner character is a fascinating theme that appears in several Austen novels, most notably Pride and Prejudice, where Wickham and Darcy are foils of each other ("one has got all the goodness, the other all the appearance of it"). A lot of the villains in Austen's novels are those who deceive others about their motivations or lie for their own advantage. A common trait these villains all have is that they have a charming outward appearance that masks their true natures; they don't look ugly nor are they unpleasant (ex. Wickham having great social skills, Willoughby following the trope of the knight rescuing Marianne as the damsel in distress but leaving behind many broken hearts, Mr. Elliott being charming and knowing exactly what to say and how to act but actually a swindler). In contrast, the "good" characters are honest, even at the cost of social displeasure, use manners/etiquette to show respect rather than deceive people, and act selflessly to prove their worth (actions speak louder than words). It can be summed up this way: "don't judge a book by its cover."

Psychology: Austen very effectively described hindsight bias when sarcastically commenting on how the village of Meryton turned on Wickham after the elopement with Lydia, when previously they regarded him as an "angel of light." She also understands how easy it is to manipulate peoples' minds through confirmation bias (Wickham telling Elizabeth all the dirt about Darcy, which she eagerly takes because she hates Darcy so much). She also knows that emotions can override people's judgment: "angry people are not always wise." It's fun seeing how her people are social animals who make flawed judgments based on first impressions/emotions.

The secondary characters: Mr. Collins the clergyman is the most famous and he's so funny because of his arrogance in spite of his low social position (he keeps worshiping Lady Catherine instead of respecting God). Another great one is Sir Walter Elliott, a nobleman who is vain and constantly checks himself in the mirror (the most obvious social criticism). Also Austen understood how women insult each other: through passive aggression (ex. Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst talking negatively about Elizabeth behind her back). Austen's female bullies use their talent and "good breeding" to intimidate or shame others.

The romance (no explanation needed): "You pierce my soul. I am half-agony, half-hope. I have loved none but you." I love how the couples learn about each other through many spirited conversations and become slowly fascinated with each other until they realize they are in love and then have a conflict between formality and their growing passion...or they fall back in love with each other...or they are friends who slowly realize that they are more than friends...okay I'll stop talking nonsense I've been trying so hard to be semi-scholarly

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