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arkus-rhapsode · 6 months

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Let's Talk About Fire Emblem Supports: A Discussion on the State of one of Fire Emblem's Iconic Mechanics

So I'm sure if you are someone who is keyed into the Fire Emblem community, something that has been discussed for some time is the current state of the support system. Arguably Fire Emblem's defining feature which in recent years has almost come to eclipse other facets of the gameplay.

However, with that has come some pretty noticeable backlash. Lets back it up for a second.

This is not going to be a "This is the right way to do this and if you disagree you are wrong" post. This is me as a long time fan of the franchise giving my honest opinion on how I feel about these aspects of the game and why I think they are the way they are and what I think could be improved and what I think works as is. I don't think Fire Emblem or InSys are gonna go be "diluting" themselves if they don't make these improvements, nor do I think someone who has different interests in how the support system should be implemented is wrong. I'm just a fan with an opinion.

So Fire Emblem's support system has been with us since FE4 in a primordial state, but its modern day form really started in FE6. While entries after that varied in terms of things added to it, it was around Awakening with the franchise on dire straights did making it so every character could support and marry for their prime future baby. This pairing mechanic brought on a bunch of new fans that enabled them to get a bunch of character interactions that resulted in loads of content for fans to then take into transformative properties. But the thing is that a lot of Awakening worked in context. What was assumed to be the last FE means its flaws were less evident and were built with the child mechanic in mind.

Now, Awakening's supports are seen as okay supports plagued with a bunch of redundancies due to the fact that one character interacting with everyone character can only produce so much dialogue. That and each support's length could also lead to loads of padding. The child units were also discarded after Fates basically proved that the mechanic without some proper context can feel more intrusive. But that still leaves us with games with many many characters and a lot of interactions.

The criticism of modern FE Supports can vary but the general points are

Too many characters

Too much repetition in interactions

Length of each support

Separated from the events of the narrative

The supports themselves are just poorly written

This is also not ignoring the ways this has been shaken up like Shadows of Valentia's use of memory fragments, the base conversations of the Tellius games, the monastery scene of Three Houses etc. So any discussion of how these support systems could be improved often calls back to other variations of the support system. And that's at least how we will be trying to examine FE's support system, using its other systems and variants for reference and comparison.

So firstly, I think the stance people take on this will actually be different depending on what aspect of the game you value most. If you are a gameplay fiend your focus will be more on integrating supports into the gameplay the way a Persona game might. If you are a more narrative fan of Fire Emblem you would more take the stance that the supports are relevant and reactive to the plot. And if you're a character fan, you likely want the content of the supports to be plentiful but endearing to the characters. So I want to at least establish that where you fall on how supports are implemented will be of personal preference.

As this is my post, my personal stance is Fire Emblem is a narrative game with supports acting as ways to elevate the characters. As such, that is why I feel confident in saying that I am personally not a fan of the idea of making every FE character support relevant to the narrative. The narrative is important to me, but critical world building and character motives shouldn't just be buried in the supports or battle conversations. I shouldn't need to play with certain character combinations to find out vital information for the plot you are writing. In my personal opinion, the best remedy for this was the creation of the base convos. These were interactions the played out when certain conditions were met at certain points in the story.

This had allowed for a lot of side characters to feel as they had some relevance even if they weren't plot relevant. To contribute to how far along this journey has been and how a map scenario may relate to them. A small version of this was done in Garreg Mach Monastery where each chapter would allow for Byleth to walk around the hub world and speak with characters who would provide their thoughts on the previous chapter or what might be coming in the next chapter. These weren't as long as base convos, much shorter. But it still gave the idea of everyone contributing a new insight. That said, as much as I think base convos are good in games like FE9, they should not be a replacement for the current support system but rather an enhancement. These I would consider as narrative moments that often hinge on events that happened in the narrative. With character commenting and interacting off of it. But I feel that if we were to remove the support system and only have base convos we would be distancing a lot of the casual fans of FE who want to see characters interact, but not always as serious. And because FE is often a war story franchise, the tone of base convos are often serious in subject matter.

With Engage and the implementation of the somniel and even walking around defeated battlefields, I actually really would have liked base convos to be implemented this way. Perhaps after a battle you may be able to walk around a camp and see an indicator of who you can talk to about an event that just happened that would trigger a more fleshed out cutscene. I say camp, because while I appreciate the monastery, but one of the issues I have is that it is a stationary location and makes FE not so much a journey but rather just able to fast travel to certain conflicts. Making the world feel smaller and repetitive.

Most likely than not, you will not unlock every support in game on your first try. This to me adds replayability and an incentive to grind with characters you may not regularly use. However, in the case of base convos, unlocking them often hinges on them just being alive at the time. So if you were someone like me who impulsively starts over even on casual mode to not lose a character, when you see all base convos, you have seen them all. You can only walk around the Monastery and ask Sylvain what he thinks about fighting Miklan only so many playthroughs before you just don't bother. The replayability will then come from difficulty spikes and not character or story incentives. So I do believe base convos should return but as an enhancement not a replacement.

(Some may suggest that one could implement a support system lock like FE3H did with its time skips, but that suffered from an issue of not accounting for everything interaction when the time skip happened. So it actually feels very bizarre to watch Ashe and Petra have a lunch time excursion in Faerghus when the country is apparently under occupation. So I think weaving supports with narrative dependency for some supports but not others will actually be more confusing.)

In fact I daresay, supports that are disconnected could actually add levity. Mia and Ilyana's support is almost completely comedic, and it feels more endearing than watch the two of them brood over Daein and Crimea.

Speaking of repetition, lets talk about support redundancy. This is part of another issue in FE's supports which we will get into, but let me at least try to establish what people mean by redundant. I find saying FE characters are "too anime" rather lazy and dismissive. At their core a lot of side FE characters are stock characters with some limited traits. So when you hear Sully talking about working out, or Rosado's obsession with cute things, or Raphael loving food, a lot of the supports they have can come back to or revolve around these topics. And when you have games with the other issue of many many characters hearing them have these convos around these topics again and again can be very boring.

Some could say that this is an easy fix by simply reducing the number of characters. Focus more on say the size of a persona cast. Well the difference is that FE is a tactical RPG with permadeath while Persona is an RPG with a focus on time management. The smaller sized cast benefits the player in ways that help them interact with every character, but not having to worry about one becoming unplayable after you spend a lot of time on one. FE however as a tactical RPG where the mass amount of characters is so you have options to solve strategic map scenarios. Reducing the number of characters to only plot relevant ones would be very difficult. Hypotethically, if we reduced Engage to the characters who have to be around for the plot that only leaves you with Alear, Vander, Clanne, Framme, Mauvier, Veyle, Alfred, Ivy, Diamant, and Timerra. Not exactly a plethora of options for making interesting maps.

Now InSys seems to have begun implementing changes to this already. No longer are we going full Awakening or Fates with supports. Supports are much more limited in scope but not quite as anemic a line up as Shadows of Valentia did with who could support who. 3H and Engage have honestly made far more strides in lowering the number of supports and honing in on who may be relevant for a character to interact with and who outside of that circle could they interact with. Three Houses often relies on the house members each being to support each other with maybe one or two students from other houses or the monastery staff. Engage seems largely to focus on characters from countries having the same interactions with a few from others. This is a good thing, honestly if we were to get a remake of Radiant Dawn, I would love for something similar to be implemented between the Ike, Elincia, and Micaiah casts with some crossover supports when you get to the back half of that game.

So if this is already something InSys is improving, why is it something people are still critical of? Well I think what some may miss is that even if we compact a cast to more manageable interactions, that still leaves the interactions themselves.

Remember how I said Fire Emblem characters are stock characters with some limited traits? Well that is often done with identifiability. When you meet L'Arachel as a holy women but she has a snotty attitude or Sylvain the noble who hits on every woman, its done so you can recognize this character. But when you get into their supports, you often see that there might be reasons for why they act this way or it makes them more fleshed out and rounded characters than how they may seem at face value. This is where I think some Fates fans will often argue that Nohr's cast is very compelling in their supports even if the game's narrative had made many come off as one note. But you can see the flippside with Engage where its supports are more manageable, people didn't think supports were elevating the characters in ways that you had known them. That's not to say all of them, Yunaka is a stand outing how her supports both inform her as a non plot relevant character but also endear her to the audience. This to me is a sign that supports will ultimately be cases of writing. And there can just be poor writing and utilization of characters. This can also hinge on context as well as 3H has recruitment of characters far different from any FE game and just hands you your house with the expectation your interactions with them will make you learn more about them rather than just playing and recruiting on a quest like some may want.

I may have been a bit snide to Shadows of Valentia as even by the account of wanting less quantity of supports, I still found it almost too small. But even then some of the supports are the best in the franchise. Particularly Python and Clive's. But I don't think this was good because SoV had less character supports, I think it was good because the writers had looked at this pairing of characters and what each one was about and what depths could the reveal about each character. I would very much like to see that for a majority of supports.

Last point is length, and honestly we've seen this improved with games like 3H. Some supports can just be short. In fact some people can have only two support chains. Honestly, just doing more of that would've probably led to less issues overall and hope for that to cut down on padding.

So with all this in mind, what is my final take away. Well I ultimately think it comes back to what I usually want out of a Fire Emblem game. The narrative should be all there in the campaign with characters arcs for plot relevant characters, but the supports should be used as a way to enhance these units. Adding dimensions to characters who ultimately don't factor into the plot as a whole. I think 3H did make a lot of these improvements particularly because it was made with the social aspect in mind with that game practically carried by all of its characters and their depths. But I did feel as the narrative of 3H had suffered and wasn't all that tight. Post Engage, I think we are seeing a system I'd like to maintain, but I think what was lost was some of the added depths to cast members that supports can provide as well. Yes, Engage was made with a lot of celebratory fun in mind so it wasn't all that serious, but it would be nice to get more Yunakas and Pandreos in that case than say Ambers. Another aspect is the pairing, and I really hope that pairing characters without the need for child units returns as well.

I am all for the return of base convos like FE9, but I don't think it should be a replacement. Again it is another form of enhancement not replacement for supports. I think completely junking supports in favor of the base convos would be a bad idea especially with newer fans of the franchise. Overall, FE supports I feel are where they should be, but there are plenty of minor tweaks that could be implemented, if just more utilization of the characters beyond their face value.

#fire emblem #fire emblem supports #fire emblem fates #fire emblem awakening #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem engage #fe3h #fe awakening #fe engage #analysis

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theprincessofpowerremake · 5 months

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So what plans do you have for your remake/rewrite of SPOP (Ex, plot and character directions, lore changes, etc)

for future asks, keep in mind that this account is going to be mainly centered around the original she-ra show ( from the 1980s ). so, if i'm misunderstanding the question and it is about the original, i apologize, but i won't be able to discuss that at this moment.

however, in the meantime, you are all free to ask me anything spop-related, including how i would rewrite it.

keep these in mind, though:

i'm mainly going to be sticking to the general route spop went with, so that will mean there may not be as many references or details from the OG as desired.

i will make these posts specific to one aspect at a time ( for ex, this one will simply be about adora and catra's characters, developments, and relationship ), rather than making a very long and very winded post about everything i'd do.

there's going to be 'fundamental' changes ( even though i don't necessarily consider most of them fundamental, as this show is a dumpster fire and a half anyway ).

like i said in the second point, i'll be answering this question with my personal changes to adora, catra, and their dynamics.

[ keep in mind that in all of my spop // she-ra content, adora is not white, and is POC in one way or another. in the spop-specific universe, she is Asian Latin-coded. ]

[ LONG READ ]

adora - quiet, reserved, and subtle in her kindness. eager to make her superiors proud and to achieve true justice, adora is often described as the prodigy of the horde. however, in catra's eyes, she is merely a relentless people-pleaser, foolish and naive.

catra - snarky, lazy and egotistical. often putting others down, figuratively or otherwise, for fun and thrives on opportunity. especially if she can manipulate someone to do what she wants. in adora's eyes, she can be kind, has potential, but simply lacks motivation.

in the beginning, adora is introduced in a personal training course, tested on efficiency, stealth, and strength. shadow weaver and hordak are watching her, noting how strong she has become from her time as a sickly young child.

[ in this rewrite, adora had become sick as a baby after her transport from eternia. reasons why are unclear. ]

nearing the end of her training, it is revealed catra has been watching the entire time, mindlessly scratching her nails together. does she have a plan?

by the end, adora inevitably succeeds and is sent off to her locker room, told that hordak will personally discuss her progress with her.

[ a detail that would be shown is a branded horde symbol over her back, rather than on her shirt. ]

adora and catra's relationship introduction is when catra pops up from behind her and jokes about how stupid she looked while training, teasing about how adora thinks of herself as so serious and so cool. adora doesn't respond, used to her insults, but is visibly disappointed in catra for sneaking in again, shaking her head with a quiet sigh.

shadow weaver walks in, and is furious at catra's defiance, but the feline teen manages to get out of the trouble by insisting she is merely observing the prodigy at work for her own training. "she's going to be our force captain, after all," catra says, smirking. though she is flippant and full of crap, shadow weaver only sighs in irritation before telling adora she must come along.

during her meeting with hordak, the speech is very generic promotional talk, but the body language between the two establishes that they're a lot closer than originally thought.

[ in this scene, hordak would place his hand on adora's cheek, almost like how shadow weaver would. though, it's not necessarily out of manipulation, and rather genuine fondness for adora. ]

adora leaves the meeting with her very first big smile, and with the badge in hand.

at adora's promotion, catra slowly claps with another smirk. "oh, i'm so surprised the prodigy has actually been successful," she teases, but adora only shows mild agitation and ignores her comment. catra pretends she's thinking, before suggesting that adora could put in a word for her to hordak as well.

it's only then that adora speaks. "you're better than that catra." and catra merely rolls eyes before she begins. she curls her tail around adora's wrist as she circles around her, assuring that she has been training and doing well.

"reports from octavia say otherwise," adora counters, visibly annoyed that catra is now lying. with a tsk, catra simply says that octavia only reports her as such because fish-eye doesn't know the difference between smarts and constantly punching fists.

adora and catra go back and forth, with adora insisting that she has to be a team player and can't just rely on everyone else to do her dirty work. that it won't be that way outside, on the field. catra argues that adora has no idea what's out there, that anything goes in battle, and if she can prevent herself from getting dirty, she'll do just that.

"and what will you do if no one's there?" adora asks, angered, shaking, and near tears. "you won't always have the odds in your favor, catra! one mistake, and you could die!" catra says nothing for a few moments, blinking, as if adora is overreacting, before groaning once more and leaping out of sight, adora calling out for her.

adora and catra 'reconcile' through adora's apology for overreacting, but says that she's just worried about her. catra tells her there's nothing to worry about, and that she has her own strengths. she's simply gonna die of boredom if she doesn't get outta here.

[ this isn't meant to be a good scenario, just to be clear. catra doesn't apologize for freaking adora out, for pushing boundaries, or even just generally being rude. ]

due to her guilt, adora decides to do something she is visibly hesitant about. with a reluctant sigh, she forces a smile and pulls out skiff keys. "only a peek," she insists.

the skiff scene is essentially the same, except when they get to the whispering woods, adora starts receiving flashes of a sword and someone holding it. it worries her, and she is about to go back, but catra grabs the gear and sends them flying into the woods.

the whispering woods is more dangerous and thick with greenery, catra's speed and insistence leading to the two receiving scrapes and bruises before adora gets hit by a branch, her body sent flying off the skiff and landing on the ground.

[ adora's relationship with the sword and she-ra will be discussed in another post. ]

when catra finds adora, it's in a bombed town, and adora is stuck in shock. there is blood on her cheek. catra is confused and tries to pull on her, telling her to get up so they can go back home, but adora gets out of her hold and crawls towards a destroyed house.

a child's corpse.

catra winces, saying that the real thing is much more disturbing. adora looks back at her, still shocked, but holding anger.

"the real thing?" she chokes out, tears in her eyes. catra realizes she messed up, just for a few seconds, before feigning confusion. "uh, duh. what, did you just figure it out?" adora is shaking.

standing up, her legs twitch and tremble. "they've been messing with our heads since we were kids. thought you knew that by now." it doesn't make any sense. but she's digging her heels in.

"how could you possibly be okay with that?!" adora shouts, violently shivering in terror and rage, catra taken aback. she's never raised her voice towards anyone, let alone her.

does anyone else know? lonnie, kyle, rogelio, octavia, did everyone know? was it just her?

"adora, c'mon, it doesn't matter what they do." catra puts her hand on adora's cheek, smiling. "the two of us look out for each other. and soon, we'll be the ones calling the shots anyway." adora's eyes get almost impossibly wider, her tears flow continuous.

catra asks if they can go home already, and more bombs go off behind them. adora flinches, and pulls away from catra, who tries to reach for her anyway.

she insists she is never going back to the horde. it's no longer her home. not after everything she's seen. in a feeble attempt, she hesitantly takes catra's hand.

"come with me... we don't have to go back there. we can fix this."

catra is in her own shock before a snarl washes over, snatching her hand out of adora's grip.

"you've known these people for a couple of hours and, what, you're gonna throw everything away for them?! what's gotten into you?!"

it's then adora's eyes dull, and she realizes it might be too late.

but she has to do something.

turning away, she meekly apologizes to catra and walks. electricity burns through her blood, her veins, her eyes glowing momentarily before she collapses onto the ground.

catra glares.

from this point on, adora and catra's relationship severs.

s1 is, more or less, adora being stuck in a limbo, wanting to cling onto the idea of catra being a good person, just not having the chance, just being misunderstood, just adora not pushing her. she's desperate, scared even, but she attempts three or so times to convince catra.

and they're all futile.

catra is set on taking over the horde on her own, and taking revenge on adora for throwing everything away for 'stupid ideals', while solidifying her relationship with shadow weaver ( won't confirm whether or not it's good for her, but let's say it's complicated ).

in the beginning, she patronizes adora, treating her like a stupid, naive child who simply doesn't understand the ways of the world. her and shadow weaver 'mother gothel' adora, basically.

but by the end, both of them treat adora as disposable, merely something for benefit, while she is completely broken, terrified, and alone in her pain.

s1 would most likely be one of the worst seasons for adora's psyche, as she is constantly manipulated, gaslit, and victimized by the people she loved and cared for very much ( with the complicated exception of hordak ).

there is no 'power of friendship' rainbow ending. they win, but adora won't be the same. and, maybe, to some extent, that's a good thing. but it'll take her a long time to heal.

feel free to ask more for specifics of s1 and onward, including adora's relationships with glimmer and bow, the other princesses, etc. if asked, i'll talk about how adora and catra's relationship practically burns in a fire-

some of those fundamental changes i mentioned:

mara and adora are the only ones in the she-ra line ( it is by blood, because it's the easiest answer )

perfuma and entrapta are not princesses

everyone is 18 or older ( including frosta, sorry )

this is more of a visual thing, but the cast would be more fantastical looking ( for ex, frosta is a white-furred magicat, perfuma is based off a moth orchid, etc. )

most of the ships won't be canon

thank you for the read, and again, feel free to ask any questions!

#spop #she ra #spop salt #spop critical #spop rewrite #spop adora #she ra adora #adora #adora deserves better #adoradeservedbetter #spop catra #she ra catra #catra #anti catra #anticatra #fuck catra #anti catradora #anticatradora

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wetbloodworm · 7 months

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#bg3 spoilers #bg3 dark urge spoilers

can't sleep, let's talk about sabine instead

discussing aasimar vs tieflings

so i know there's the whole 'aasimar are good, tieflings are bad' association that like even WOTC eventually started emphasizing is not true. MY recent understanding of the difference is 'aasimar 'descend' from celestials/deities/etc, tieflings 'descend' from fiends/devils/etc'. so alignment doesn't come into it at all, even in their ancestry, it depends more on the like... species of being that had an affect on their bloodline.

(the forgotten realms wiki is telling me that alignment of the ancestral being IS the thing that determines which they are, so like tieflings can come from deities if the deity is evil-aligned. i am choosing to ignore this completely.)

so with that understanding, sabine! sabine is half-elf in the game but as i develop her more, y'know what? i'm deciding she's an aasimar. i think like, it's difficult to determine whether she's technically full aasimar or if there's some kind of balance between that and half-elf, because she was created rather than born. she is a direct piece of bhaal, molded to be his idea of what a half-elf was (or for durges in general, whatever their species is). in sabine's canon, half-elf was picked because she could go (mostly) unnoticed and (mostly) accepted in most communities. so his blood is the only thing that runs through her veins, no second parent involved. and not only is his race not determined anywhere that i'm aware of, i feel like he's so far removed from mortality (or at least full mortals) that his original race before ascension doesn't matter anymore, so it wouldn't matter even if sabine WAS born more traditionally.

i think when it comes down to it, sabine is only half-elf in the way she's built, mostly. she's made to look like one, but her divine blood means she's really more of an aasimar or something adjacent to one than anything. i mean when it REALLY comes down to it her species is 'bhaalspawn' in a way others with the same father/lineage don't experience. others who were born traditionally could be a genuine half-elf or tiefling or orc or whatever with 'bhaalspawn' describing their lineage more than their species. being scooped out of a god does weird things to What You Actually Are, i feel like.

so! she's got aasimar-like traits. half-elf ones, too, but that's like. mimicry more than anything, y'know? anyway, i've copied ez and made a checklist out of the aasimar traits and tiefling traits pages because i like them a lot. i've gone through and edited the language and some details to appeal to me more, and i'll continue tweaking the list as i go along and adding more traits i think of. the two lists are combined here b/c the originals very strictly stick to 'aasimar have good blood/are good' and 'tieflings have evil blood/are evil'. so just mash 'em all together, why not. will use the checklist going forward with characters like these when i want to give them some extra traits.

here's a screenshot of sabine's list so far. i am absoLUTELY not done coming up with stuff for her but i'm impatient and want to share now lol pic should be able to be enlarged

the colors just represent sources, blue for the aasimar traits list and red for the tiefling traits list. green for stuff i've added, purple (maroon?) for what's specific to one character.

one thing i like doing with her is making seemingly positive effects/traits actually sinister. babies stop crying and you think they're soothed if you don't look too closely at how they're responding. people sleep so soundly around her but that's to make them more vulnerable. i want more of those.

might get rid of the shadow and humanoid-shape-to-blind-people one. not sold on them.

i also like the idea that sabine wouldn't know she has black bones until she's in the illithid colony reading the research notes about the various autopsies and other ~explorations~ that were performed on her. her just like MY BONES ARE BLACK? WHY ARE MY BONES BLACK?? WHY ARE MY BONES BLACK!!!!!! which is often her reaction to things she discovers about herself.

the black marks when touched one might get tweaked to more like the original trait where the marks left are black rather than bruise-like. something even more clearly unnatural. also, her discovering that when she's pulling gale out of the. the thing. and she catches sight of her palms.

the smelling of blood one is arguably at least partly canon. the ghoul started shouting about delicious blood when it went to test her.

okay i'm done for now. ty. for your time. i may be back with more later.

#sabine tag

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silverwings22 · 2 years

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Caught in the Crosshairs: Chapter 11 How to Save a Life: The Fray

Series warnings: Smut, mind control, canon typical violence, childhood trauma, language, chronic illness

Chapter Warnings: character injury, baby's first war crime

Translations: ni kar'tayl gar darasuum: I know/love you for eternity

cyare: beloved

Previous chapter:

Next chapter:

The 212th showed up to take the freed slaves home or to a refugee camp if they didn't have one to return to. Obi-wan was pleased with the smoldering wreckage of the factory when he arrived, and since Crosshair had finally set Miria back on her feet he walked over to talk to her. He hadn't missed the clone sniper following her like a second shadow, but she seemed unconcerned so he didn't ask.

"I must admit, your unit is unorthodox Miria. But you do get results." He chuckled.

"My boys are the best. No offense, Cody." She smiled as the commander passed by.

"None taken, General Halcyon." He chuckled.

Miria leaned back, crossing her arms. "Luckily we got all the prisoners out without casualties, but how many were killed before we arrived? It's disgusting."

"It's a cruel reality of war." Obi-wan sighed. "But I am proud of you for saving so many lives. The Council is as well… there may be a seat in the council room for you sooner rather than later."

Behind her, Crosshair stiffened. Miria smiled a little. "Me, a master… goodness, I never thought of that. I wonder what Master Koon thinks."

"It was his suggestion." Obi-wan chuckled. "I think you'd make an excellent addition."

Miria chuckled. "We'll be returning to Coruscant for some much-needed rest. We can discuss this there. But I think I'm ready for a lie-down…"

"How are you doing, Miria? Really?" Obi-wan put a hand on her arm. Crosshair thought about breaking his fingers, but held still.

"I'm alright. I'm doing good work, I've made amazing friends, I've found new perspective… I think I'm happy, Obi-wan. My body hurts, but I've never felt more alive." She looked at him, and there was a charming brightness in her lavender eyes. "I'll see you back on Coruscant, yes?"

"I'll buy lunch. Dex's?" He laughed.

"I'm dying for a milkshake. Come on, Crosshair. It's time."

The sniper nodded impassively and they headed back to the speeders, but Obi-wan noted the hand settled carefully on his old friend's shoulder and the quick glance she shot up at the clone. There was something in the Force between them that shimmered like sunlight on a clear lake.

Miria slung a leg over the back of the speeder and wrapped her arms around Crosshairs middle. "Missed you." She said quietly.

He was quiet a minute. "I missed you too. Let's get back. " he hit the throttle and they took off, her with her cheek pressed against the back of his armor and him comforted by her arms around his waist.

"We'll catch up." Hunter chuckled quietly as Tech gave him a look. "Give them a minute."

When they reached the ship, Crosshair scooped Miria off the speeder. She smiled. "You didn't give the others too hard of a time while I was gone, did you?"

"I'm not answering that." He grumbled. "Let's just say you wouldn't have liked it."

"Cross…"

"No. Hunter made me leave you down there. While someone was hurting you." He snarled. "I almost hit him."

"That's not a fight you want to get in, love."

"Don't care." He carried her into the Marauder. "At least I'd have been doing something. Instead of just sitting there watching that fucking whip."

She tucked her head under his chin. "It was the right thing to do, Cross. For the good of others."

"What about your own good, Miria? I'm tired of watching you destroy yourself for other people. I'm tired of finding you broken and bloody. I'm tired of not being able to protect you!" He hadn't realized his voice was raised until it echoed around the ship. She was stiffened in his arms, and he dropped his head. "Sorry… I'm not yelling at you. I swear."

"I know." She murmured softly. "You're frustrated."

"I should be keeping you safe. But I'm not. The thing with that Sith, this… how many close calls before I lose you? And now the council…? You might be safer, but-"

"I'm not leaving the team, Cross. If the council asks that of me, I'll decline. And it would be a temporary position anyway. I'm leaving the Order after the war." Her voice was firm. "To be with you."

He kissed her quietly, standing in the middle of the hold. "So fucking recklessly kind. What am I going to do with you?" He muttered faintly.

"If all goes well? What's today, Wednesday? The war will be declared over on Thursday, I'll announce my resignation from the Jedi on Friday, and we'll get married on Saturday." She teased.

He sucked in a breath. "Don't joke about that."

She met his eyes. "I'm not joking, darling. I'll marry you if you'll have me." Her fingers curled in his hair, bravery finding its way to her voice. "Marry you, have a family together, build a home. Give you everything you want but won't ask for because you're so bloody stubborn."

He rested his forehead on hers. "I'm probably the least prepared person in the galaxy to be a husband or father."

"Good thing I'm a children's teacher." She chuckled.

"What if I fuck it up?" He frowned. "I'm not exactly-"

"Cross, do you remember what you said to me a year ago? That I was letting a few people convince me I wasn't worth knowing? You're letting the same thing happen to you right now. You want this, yes?"

He closed his eyes. "Do you even have to ask?"

"Tell me, Crosshair. Do you want to marry me?"

His voice was cracked when he answered, arms tightening around her. "Yes." Maker, he wanted it. Wanted something concrete, something that screamed at the galaxy that this woman loved him and they couldn't drag her out of his arms with all the firepower in the GAR.

She smiled. "Then what are you so afraid of?"

He wanted to rebuff the accusation he was afraid, but she knew him too well. He sighed. "What if I fuck it up?" He murmured quietly. "What if we do have kids… what if they hate me?"

"Oh Cross…" she pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "What if they love you?"

He sat down in the hold, cradling her to him. "Fuck. You see right through me…"

Miria smiled. "I see your light. And I love it."

Crosshair couldn't help but smile back. "Let me fix your back up. We gotta return those speeders when everyone gets back…"

"Alright. I want to get out of this outfit anyway."

He begrudgingly let her out of his lap and followed her to the bunkroom, where she tossed the shredded and filthy clothes off. "How do you look so good in civilian clothes? I swear, I've yet to find-"

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. "I thought you were cute. Lay down, let me see how bad it is."

She smiled and lay down on her stomach. Crosshair knelt beside the bed and examined the dried bloody cuts in her skin before cleaning and bandaging her up. She chuckled. "No backless dress for a while, I suppose?"

"You wear a backless dress and I will go feral." He smirked.

"Oh, is that a promise? Because we missed our first anniversary and I intend to celebrate properly when we reach Coruscant." She chuckled, sitting up and reaching for her normal clothes. "Gloves off, darling."

"Develop a hand kink in the last day?"

"I know you punched the ship and Hunter said you cracked rock when you saw me get hurt. Let me see." She cocked an eyebrow casually. "Hit anything else?"

He paused. "Kinda was hoping you hadn't seen that…"

"Hand, Cross." She held hers out expectantly. He grumbled but took off his right glove.

His knuckles were black and blue, torn open and caked with dried blood. They looked swollen when he flexed his fingers, and she carefully traced the bones with a fingertip to be sure he hadn't broken anything. "Darling, your trigger hand." She murmured.

"Sorry… I just… I was furious and had no where to go with it." He muttered awkwardly as she dabbed bacta on the hand gently. "You were in trouble and I couldn't fix it."

"Don't I know that feeling. I could have died when you got shot on Salucemi." She sighed, bandaging him up. "We'll work on it."

"Yeah… promise." His fingertips brushed up her arm and settled under her chin, turning her pretty face to him. "I love you. Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum."

"I love you too, my darling."

Returning the speeders should have been easy enough. They'd left Wrecker to pack up camp, since he'd had some extra energy to burn and Hunter wanted a few quieter moments before they met him at the space port in Mos Eisley. They were almost to the city when Miria held a hand up. "Hold a moment. There's… something around here. Something concerning."

They all pulled over. Tech frowned and wiped grit from his goggles. "How concerning is concerning, General?"

She swung her legs over and dismounted. "Something… an echo in the Force. It's not actively dangerous, but something terrible has happened here."

"Miria…" Crosshair frowned as she headed past him, across a high sand dune. "Fucking hell…"

Hunter sighed. "Jedi are weird." He dismounted, and the three of them went after her. The sergeant paused, sniffing the air. "... It smells like death."

"Because it is." Miria called as they crested the dune. She was looking down at a half buried Tuskan village, utterly decimated. "Force… this was a massacre."

Hunter skidded down to take a look. "Infighting between clans?" Tech frowned.

Miria touched a shredded tent. "No… look at this burn."

"A lightsaber." Hunter nodded. "One of those Sith?"

Miria knelt by a half buried skeleton, eyes wide. "This was a child…" she whispered. "Why would a Sith attack a village with women and children…?"

"That Ventress seemed like a bitch." Crosshair frowned. It did seem odd, though. This was a low value target, why would a Sith waste their time?

Miria lay her hand on the broken mask of the dead child. "Show me, little one…"

Sorrow boiled into unbridled fury like an unattended kettle. Screaming, a flash of light. Blue light, not red. The dead woman hung limp in strong arms not strong enough to save her. Failure, he'd failed, she was dead and he'd known she was in danger and he still hadn't come. Mother. Mother, dying breath was her love he didn't deserve. They'd killed her. They had to pay, even the score of a cruel galaxy that had stolen the only good thing he'd had. Terror from the Tuskan as they scattered, not fast enough to escape his rage. It consumed all like a lava tide.

She snatched her hand away. "Anakin…"

Hunter frowned. "Why would General Skywalker…"

"His mother." She stood, closing her eyes. Tears pricked them, for her friend's suffering and the senseless slaughter before her. Oh Anakin, how could you?

She lifted her hands and the sands shifted, burying the dead completely until the sands lay smooth and the broken village was left entombed. "May the Force guide these souls back to it's embrace." She murmured. "Let's go… there's nothing left here but ghosts."

Crosshair caught up to her first as she headed back to the speeders. "You okay?"

"No." She muttered. "My friend, someone I've known since he was a little boy… he murdered children, Cross. I… I know it was grief, I know he suffered greatly at his mother's death but… Force, Crosshair. I could almost understand the captors. But their families? How can that be the same boy I helped raise?"

"I'm sorry, cyare." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Really, I am."

"I know… I just…. I have to talk to him when we get back to Coruscant. He's hurting, and his pain could allow this to happen again. He needs help. I can't avenge the dead, it's not our way. But I could protect the living. And save him from being lost to the-" She paused, coughing sharply into her elbow.

"You overdid it, didn't you?" He frowned, the hand on her tightening a little.

"We're going back to the Temple soon. I'll be fine." She shook her head. "It's okay."

He nodded, anxious, watching her get back on the speeder. They headed back towards Mos Eisley, everyone stuck in their thoughts. Miria felt her heart breaking for her old friend.

Anakin...

Miria put her crew up in a nice hotel on Coruscant, before going off to the Temple to get checked out. They needed to decompress as much as she did.

"You seem troubled, young Halcyon." Master Che murmured as she settled into a seat and the healer began to tend her aching chest. "What bothers a light so bright?"

"Just a lot on my mind. It will all be released into the Force." Miria murmured.

"I would think you'd be happy. I've heard the Temple gossip. Someone is being considered for the high council." The twi'lek chuckled fondly.

Miria smiled faintly. "It's a great honor to even be considered."

Master Che patted her shoulder. "Enjoy your leave, dear. You've earned it."

"Thank you." Miria pulled her cloak back up. "I told Anakin we'd have dinner together, I should head out and find him." What she'd seen on Tattooine still haunted her, but she couldn't find it to even be angry any longer. She was just heartbroken for Anakin.

"I believe the young Hero Without Fear is in his room. I spotted Ahsoka Tano with Bariss Offee out by the gardens."

"Lovely. Thank you, Master." She smiled and headed out, stretching her shoulders. The ache in her joints felt better immediately following a session in the Halls. It never really went away, but she didn't feel it grating on her nerves. She needed the relief, before she broke down in frustration one day.

Force knew Plo Koon had dealt with that many times. And poor Crosshair didn't need that stress right now.

She drifted over to Anakin's door and knocked.

The door opened after a minute, revealing her tousle- haired friend in his sweatpants and a loose shirt. "Miri!" He grinned. "I didn't think you'd be out of the Halls yet. Come on in, I picked up some of that tea you like." He stepped aside so she could come in. "Okay, technically I asked Obi-wan to pick it up, but he knows way more about tea than I do."

She chuckled. "I appreciate the thought. How are you?"

"Way better after that nap I just took. Ship beds are so uncomfortable."

Miria chuckled. "When I first took my assignment, I slept in a hammock in the cargo hold. I understand."

"I'll turn on the kettle." He grinned. "How'd Tattooine go?"

"Ah… I wanted to talk to you about that." She quieted. "Anakin… how are you really?"

The man froze at her tone, looking at her with a concerned expression. Her eyes found his blue ones, and he was relieved that he only saw concern. "I'm fine. Why?"

She took a steadying breath. "I know what happened to your mother."

The speed at which he shut down almost came with an audible snap. "What do you mean?" His voice went low, almost threatening.

Miria straightened her back. "I found a destroyed village, Anakin. Please… just talk to me." Her voice stayed soft and kind, like he was a feral massiff as likely to bite as to run. "Let me help you."

He stared at her for a long time before his shoulders relaxed marginally, determining she wasn't a threat. "I'm sorry, Miri… I made a mistake."

"Come sit with me. Tell me what happened, dear. I want to help you. I know you're hurting." She reached for his hand.

Desperation met her halfway, his metal fingers curling into her soft ones, and she pulled him to his own couch and sat him down. It reminded her of long ago, when he'd come to her rooms with tearful frustration and beg her to help him make sense of this new world he barely understood.

He hung his head quietly. "I couldn't save her, Miri… I tried. I was having dreams about her dying, but Obi-wan told me not to dwell on them, and then… I knew something was wrong and I didn't go immediately. When I got there, it was too late. She died in my arms."

Miria kept a grip on his hands, worried he'd slip away like sand in fingertips if she loosened her grip. "When, dear?"

"Right before Geonosis… I was with Pad- Senator Amidala. She believed me and we went to Tattooine together."

"That's been over a year, Anakin… you've been carrying this all this time alone?"

He looked up. "Who can I tell? The council already barely trusts me, no matter what I do!"

She took a deep breath. "Oh Anakin… you've already suffered so much in your short life. You don't have to be alone. I'm here, and Obi-wan-"

"You can't tell Obi-wan, Miri! He'd be furious!"

"He'd be worried, as I am." Her voice was firm. "You know Obi-wan loves you. You're a brother to him, as you are to me."

"And you're disappointed in me, aren't you?" He started to pull his hands away, frustration creeping back into his eyes.

"I'm worried about you. There's a difference." She held tightly. "But I know you, Anakin. You're not a terrible person. You're a good man, I've watched you grow from a frightened boy into a brave knight of the Order. I'm proud of you." She squeezed his hands. "I need you to believe that. I didn't come here to scream at you. I came here to help my friend. You're in pain."

He hung his head again, leaning into her shoulder when she tugged him into a hug. "I was so angry, Miri. I couldn't stop… until they were all dead. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head like she had when he was a child, holding him like a youngling even though he was several inches taller than her. "I know, sweetheart. I know. I'm here. You're not alone, Anakin."

"I always thought you were like a little mom, you know. You remind me of her… she was always kind hearted." He mumbled. "Do you think she's disappointed in me?"

"I think she knows how much her son loved her, Anakin." She hugged him a little tighter. "How great an honor it is, to be loved so much."

He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "You won't tell Obi-wan?"

"No. But I think you should, when you're ready. Until then, your secret's safe with me…"

"Will you keep one more secret? In case I… you said I'm not alone, right? Can I tell you something, so if anything happens I can come to you?" He looked up, and she saw that nervous padawan she'd always loved back again in his eyes. It blew her mind that this was the same General Skywalker that lit up the holo news with his daring victories.

"Of course."

"I'm married." He sat up slowly, just in case her hug turned into a headlock.

Miria blinked, buffering like an old data pad. "Married… to who?!"

He looked sheepish. "Padme Amidala…"

"The Senator?!"

"You're the one who said I could talk to you!"

"You can! It's just…" she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I didn't see that coming. Hold on, give me a moment. I knew you had a crush on her as a youngling…"

"It just kind of worked out in my favor… we got married after Geonosis."

"You know the council wouldn't approve." She sighed.

"I'm not asking them to. I love her."

She looked up and her smile surprised him. "That's fair enough, I suppose. Goodness, and I thought I was breaking rules left and right."

"You?" He cocked an eyebrow. "You're the Order's Golden Girl."

"Gold also tarnishes, dear. I'm not nearly as good at following the Code as some might think."

Anakin grinned. "I smell a good story."

She laughed. "Will you keep my secret, then?"

He nodded eagerly. "Yeah. I swear." This was too good to pass up. The Order's darling with a dirty little secret? Oh Maker, yes.

"I… well, I'm in a romantic relationship with one of my teammates." She tread carefully, watching his face. "And we've agreed to be married after the war."

"You're engaged to a clone. Holy kriffing shit." He gasped.

"Language." She clucked her tongue. "You're as bad as he is."

"Engaged, Miri!"

"It's not quite so formal as that. It's just something we've talked about…"

"Which one?!" He was delighted now.

Her lips quirked softly. "Crosshair. The sniper."

"This is hysterical, Miri. You're up for consideration on the Council."

"I intend to leave the Order after the war." She chuckled faintly. "If I'm fortunate, I'll be permitted to continue seeking treatment with the healers here, even after I'm no longer a Jedi. Then he and I can have a relatively normal life…"

"What if they don't allow that?" He sobered suddenly. "You'll die…"

"Then I'll steal as much time as I'm allowed, and try to leave behind a child to love him when I'm gone." She looked so… at peace about it. "I don't fear death, Anakin. I've been dying all my life. When I met him, I finally started living. A few years of something wonderful is better than a hundred of nothing special."

Anakin smiled and hugged her again. "You're brave, Miri. I always liked that about you."

She chuckled. "Come on. Let's get dinner. I'm starving, and Obi-wan owes me a milkshake. Dex's?"

"Sounds good. I'll call him."

"Wonderful. It's been too long since we've all hung out." She chuckled. "And an order of onion rings is calling my name."

He grinned. "Let me get dressed in something other than nap clothes. Hold on a sec."

She waited on the couch, chuckling. "You know, Cross was terribly jealous of our friendship. Wait until I tell him you're married!"

"It should put him at ease. You're not my type anyway."

"Nor are you mine." She laughed. Everything was alright. Anakin was going to be okay, she'd made sure he was supported. The dark side couldn't have him.

#crosshair #crosshair smut #eventual smut #explict #original character #clone force 99 #caught in the crosshairs

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rek1s-headband · 3 years

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hi could i request something? basically just HCS about langa and reki when you guy get into a fight or sum idk LMFAOO, you dont have to do this if you dont want to tho <3

➯ A/N: Thank you for the request! I hope you enjoy. I added a few characters, hope you don’t mind:)

➯ When you guys get into a fight

➯ Characters: Langa Hasegawa, Reki Kyan, Kaoru Sakurashiki, Kojiro Nanjou, Hiromi Higa and Miya Chinen x gn reader

➯ Warnings: angst if you squint, fluff

Langa:

Ok the majority of your fights are generally because of a miscommunication. If things aren’t spelled out for the poor boy, he’ll be completely oblivious to what’s bothering you

When you finally snap, he always seems shocked, asking why you hadn’t said anything sooner, even if you’d been trying to hint at it all week

Not really one to shout, but if things get heated enough he might snap. He always feels awful afterwards though. No matter what, he really believes no one should be screamed at because of something as silly as a disagreement

Rarely storms out, he’s always going to try and stay until the end to try and get something, anything out of you that he can use to try and understand your point of view

Understands space. He knows when you dont feel like talking to him, and he will give you that time to collect your thoughts. When you’re ready to speak again, he’s all ears

Gets overwhelmed really easy. It doesnt really show in what he says, but when you raise your voice his brain goes to putty and he can feel his breath get narrow. He’s not scared, he just doesn’t want to be the reason you’re feeling like this.

Never lets you go to bed angry. He’ll give you your space, but if you’re still quiet by bedtime he’s making sure you’ve eaten and you’re not still really upset by whatever played out that day

Overthinks a lot. How long did he not realise you were upset? What if its actually a much bigger deal than you’re letting on? What if you leave? Of course, he knows a lot of it is completely irrational, but it still lingers in the back of his mind, so you can imagine how relieved he is when the fight is over and you’re back in his arms

Asks people for advice a lot. Reki and Cherry are usual helpers, giving Langa their opinions on the matter without going into too much detail. The rest is up to him.

Gives the best hugs and comfort after a fight. He understands couples can fight, and never really takes the aggression let out by the pair of you too seriously. Rubbing the back of your head and holding you close to his chest, he’ll reassure you that he’s not going anywhere, that he’s not going to leave “just because of a silly fight” while you fight back tears on his shoulder.

Reki

Unlike Langa, Reki is a very open person in terms of his feelings, so your fights are rarely because of closed away emotions. However, many are caused by you feeling he is spending too much time in his workshop, overworking himself and not spending as much time with you as he should.

As for Reki, he gets mad when he feels you’re being closed off from him, not telling him things and hiding your true emotions. It’s not that he doesnt trust you, he just doesnt want you shouldering anything by yourself, and tries to make things easier for you by halving the problem.

A very emotional person, and this really shows when the two of you argue. There’s a lot of tears, a lot of raised voices, yknow those exhausted laughs when you’re tired of arguing with someone? Those. He pulls at his hair a lot in frustration too

Both of you need to walk away from each other a lot during arguments. You’re both driven by your emotions, so its hard to think logically once you’ve both gotten really upset.

The type to sit outside a door after an argument if you’ve locked yourself in a room, pressing against it and quietly talking to you, regardless of whether or not he gets a response

Understands space, to a certain extent. He’ll try and talk to you after an argument, try anything to get you to just answer him, to come out from your room, to stop ignoring him. He knows when you really don’t want to face him though, which is when he’ll go out for a while, either to Langa’s for advice, or just for a quiet skate.

Despite how upset he gets in the moment, he gets over it quickly. Once he’s out of his head and seeing properly, he’ll take some time to think it over and see things from your point of view. He’ll come back to you with an apology, and when you’re ready to talk, he’ll discuss things with you this time around instead of fighting

If the fight lasts overnight, he refuses to let you take the couch. If he feels a fight will last, he’ll glue himself to the couch, making it impossible for you to sleep anywhere other than your bed. No matter what the fight was about, he refuses to have you sleep uncomfortably.

Tends to cry after making up. It’s rarely out of sadness, of course, more relief than anything. He’s just happy to have you back in his arms, no longer ignoring him.

Cherry

A very rational person, fights are very rare between the pair of you. When you do fight, it tends to be because you feel he’s being closed off from you, not being as open and emotional with you. As for him, he doesnt like when you act too aloof about things that are actually serious to him

Fights start out quiet, talking in normal tones and using your heads. However, as the fight goes on, your voices gradually get higher and louder, arms thrown in the air as you get in each other’s faces.

He snaps quite a bit. Petty remarks, snappy replies and other unnecessary comments are thrown out without much thought as he gets more pissed off. Not necessarily because he doesn’t have anything to defend himself, but because once he’s started, he’ll do just about anything to piss you off

Depending on the fight, it could last an hour or a week. Both of you are so petty that you’ll refuse to apologise to the other, forgetting who was even in the wrong in the first place

Honestly, whoever goes to sleep first gets the bed, he’s not as considerate as Reki. However, as the fight goes on, the pair of you will stay up for ungodly hours into the night, trying to outlast the other because they dont want them sleeping on the couch. You’ll never admit that though, which is why you wont just fall asleep on the couch first. Besides, if you happen to fall asleep on the couch before Kaoru goes to bed, he’ll carry you upstairs and sleep on the couch himself. He’ll never admit that though, he’ll simply say you woke up and went upstairs in a hazy half-sleep, which is why you dont remember.

He’s definitely programmed Carla to apologise to you for him at least once, rolling her into the room you’re in before quickly walking out to the sound of “Y/N, I-am-very-sorry-and-I-was-wrong-please-forgive-me” in Carlas robotic voice

If you ever go to Joe’s restaurant to cool down, he’ll make a big fuss, swaying and sighing, dramatically shouting about “however will these lovers reconcile!?” Once his act is over though, he’ll comfort you and give you your favourite meal, tutting over the pair of you and thinking of ways to help you make up

Literally won’t let you go of you for at least a week after you fight. This mf is hanging off you, constant forehead kisses, the whole deal. He’s gone without your affection for a long time while you fought, he’s simply making up for lost time

Joe

You get really pissed at him when he flirts with other girls. He doesn’t mean to, he’s just a bit of a girl magnet and it’s his nature to entertain them. Of course, he all yours, but he forgets sometimes that jealousy is actually a thing

Doesnt take arguments as seriously as he probably should. He’s the type to tell you to “calm down” in the worst possible moment, its usually what makes you explode, actually.

Absolutely dense. The type to listen to you shout for five minutes, and only then have the audacity to ask you just what your problem was

It’s not his fault, bless him. He’s just a little unobservant when it comes to your emotions. When he realises you’re actually upset though, he’s apologising profusely and promising to never do it again

His apologies are always so genuine, you generally forgive him. However, if he does something that really pisses you off and you dont forgive him, he’ll give you space to think

Fights are usually resolved within a day. Like Langa, he refuses to let you go to bed angry

Cooks for you every meal regardless of whether or not you eat it. He’ll leave meals outside your door as a sort of truce, quietly pressing against the door and asking you to please come eat with him, that he hates the idea of you holed up in there all alone

Like Kaoru, he tends to reply with snarky remarks that have little to do with the argument, but they have a little less bite to them. More petty, if anything

Another big reason for why fights never last long is because this man literally. Will. Not. Survive. Without. You. You’ll be trying to ignore him while he comes in every five minutes, asking you how to get a certain channel on the TV, or stupid things you know he’s only asking because he misses talking to you

After you make up, he literally wont even look at another girl for at least a week. Mf will literally turn his head the other way if a girl comes near him, shouting about how he’s spoken for

Shadow

The biggest hothead. He says a lot of things he doesn’t mean in the moment, which will cause you to storm out and he’ll immediately regret it

The fight almost immediately escalates past hushed voices, swear words thrown around as you get in each other’s faces

He’ll get really upset, but he’ll mask it with being pissed off and angry, clashing pots around and acting like a literal baby. He doesnt want to admit it, but he always feels awful right after a fight. He knows youll need a bit of space after the intense shouting, so he’ll give you that space before even attempting an apology

Aggressively cares for you. Like he’ll say things like “I made food, it’ll taste like shit if you leave it, so I suggest you have it now” or “nope, I want the couch, I’m gonna watch something” he’ll never admit it, he just wants to make sure you’re alright even while fighting

If the two of you go to S while fighting, it’ll be very obvious. Usually you’re attached at the hip, but now you couldn’t be further apart. However, he’s still looking out for you, keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re alright. If you’re ever getting hit on by some creep, the fight is forgotten and he’s back at your side, daring the stranger to come any closer to you.

Reki is always the first to notice, poking him and pushing you over to him, trying to get the two of you to make up. Surprisingly, it actually does help clear the air

He can never stay mad at you for long though, he’s completely soft for you

Makes you bouquets to try and apologise. He’s taught you a lot about the meanings of flowers, so he’ll specifically pick ones with hidden meanings like “I’m sorry” or “I love you”

Not very good with verbal apologies. He knows when they’re needed though, and they are usually delivered through a series of grumbles and sad expressions. The thought is there though

Gives very gentle, long hugs after you make up. He’ll hold you close, suggesting a date or a movie to help the two of you relax

Miya

Literally the biggest bitch out of the six to fight with. He’s so petty, he will refuse to admit he’s wrong for the longest time. Once he’s in, there’s no accepting he’s not right

At least for a while anyway. He’ll start to feel bad once he sees just how upset you’re getting, frustrated with his inability to see anyone’s point of view but his own

King of the silent treatment. He’ll hide away behind his switch, drowning out his guilty thoughts with the white noise of animal crossing

He’ll skate to take his mind off things, practicing new tricks until he’s exhausted

Makes really snide remarks that have absolutely nothing to do with the argument. The type to bring up shit that happened 4 months ago just to help his case

Reki is usually the one to make him see sense, telling him just how petty he’s being, and that he cant get so defensive when he’s in the wrong. He knows this, obviously, he just can’t help it sometimes.

Although he’s not one for real apologies, he’ll slowly begin to stop ignoring you, bringing you small snacks or sending you funny things he saw on his phone. He’ll sit beside you, acting as if it was completely unintentional, but will slowly inch closer and closer until he’s curled up at your side, mumbling about how he wasn’t completely right after all

Will literally hit anyone who tries to comment on how the pair of you have made up, talking about how “its not even that big of a deal, just shut up”

Ad*m

Yall fought cause y’know. He’s ad*m

Sat outside your house with a speaker and an ugly ass sign. It started raining and his sign got ruined and his makeup ran

You broke up with him and he cried

Slipped in the rain while leaving <3

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radexchangeprogram · 3 years

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This is a random one but can I request head cannons of the Brothers and Dateables reacting to an MC that’s actually a half demon but was really great at hiding her demon side since she grew up in the human world? They see a demon man just bounding towards MC before the boys could do anything MC’s like “DAD! 😃” before jumping in his arms like a child. Around her Dad she gains fangs and horns like him but she reverts back to normal when she wants to. The boys are like “Why didn’t you say anything?” And she’s like “I’m just used to my human side” or “You never asked 🤷🏾‍♀️”

Of course! I love this idea. I didn’t get a chance to proof read this so I apologize for any grammatical mistakes.

Author’s notes at the end (marked by *s)

Spoiler warning for up to chapter 17 to be safe. Especially with Belphie.

Half Demon GN!MC Headcanons

General

Everyone noticed that you never seemed too bothered by the fact that you were surrounded by demons, but figured you were just rather good at adapting.

This theory was proven wrong at a party Lord Diavolo hosted.

As you chatted with the brothers, a large demon with griffon wings, a lion’s mane, and horns similar to a gazelle began to head in the direction of your group.

The demon, who the others instantly recognized as Duke Vapula, walked up to them with a cheeky grin.

The brothers were instantly on guard, Mammon even growling slightly, as it was extremely uncommon for anyone to approach them so casually.

Diavolo, Barbatos, Simeon, Luke, and Solomon all took notice and were prepared to intervine should something happen.

You turned around to see what the issue was and let out a loud gasp.

“DAD!”

Lucifer

Absolutely dumbfounded. How did he not know about this? He read your files to the point of practically memorizing them before you came here and he swears there was nothing about you being a half demon.

He was honestly a bit embarrassed that he didn’t know about something this major.

When confronting you, all you did was say that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that you figured they already knew.

You really give him a migraine sometimes.

He feels a bit relieved that he doesn’t have to worry as much about you dying, though.

If you wish, he may start teaching you demonic etiquette, such as having you shift form at formal events.

If you prefer your human heritage, he won’t pressure you to conform to your demonic ancestory.

Mammon

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN HIS HUMAN ISN’T ENTIRELY HUMAN?!?

The loudest about his displeasure about not knowing.

“I’m your first man! I’m supposed to know everything about you!”

When you explain to him that you’re more comfortable with your human half, he calms down a little.

Tries to call you ‘stupid half-demon’ but it doesn’t feel the same as ‘stupid human’ :(

You tell him he can just keep calling you ‘stupid human’ :D

Wonders if he can get your dad to pay him for ‘providing his child with such incredible protection’.

You immediately tell him no.

Leviathan

Holy shit this sounds like something straight out of an anime!!!

Very upset that you didn’t tell him, you’re his Henry! You’re supposed to tell him these kind of things!

When you shrug and simply say that no one asked, he gets even more pouty.

You make up with him quickly by offering to play games with him all night.

Extremely curious about your demonic form for the primary purpose of cosplay. Do you know how many more characters you can be if you have a tail or wings?!?

You might inspire some fanfiction. (half demon Henry x Lord of Shadows au slow burn 100k words, def not Leviathan projecting no not at all-)

Satan

He is extremely shocked. Not only did he have no idea, but half demons are extremely rare.

From what he’s read, most half-human half-demon offspring don’t survive past birth and all documented cases that have survived reside in the Devildom so that their powers can be better managed.

He asks you about this and you reply that you’re actually quite good at controlling your powers, but that you prefer living as a normal human.

He’s not upset that you didn’t tell him, but he has a billion questions.

How long is your lifespan? Do you take more after your demonic father or your human mother in terms of power?What are your weaknesses?

He really wants to learn more about human-demon hybrids and will ask you to help in his studies.

Also a bit excited as your father is well known for some for his knowledge and writing about the sciences. He wants to discuss some of it with you, assuming you’ve read what your father has written.*

Asmodeus

Oh he is so excited.

A bit relieved that his charm isn’t wearing off, it just doesn’t work because you’re the child of a demonic duke!

You know those boiling hot springs he talks about visiting? Well he’s happy to learn that you actually can join him without fear of your skin melting off!

He’s not upset that you didn’t tell him, getting mad over stuff like that can cause wrinkles.

He will absolutely want to help you groom your horns/wings/scales/tail.

He already has shown you a lot about demonic fashion trends, such as extra clothing that can be fitted around demonic extremities, but now he actually can actually have you try on some! Do you prefer gold tail bangles or jeweled horn cuffs?

Beelzebub

Relieved that Duke Vapula wasn’t looking for a fight.

He can’t help but smile a little when you hug your dad. It makes him happy that you love your family.

When you blush and tell him that it just slipped your mind to tell everyone about your heritage, he isn’t upset.

Happy that he doesn’t have to be so scared of accidentally hurting you with how strong he is.

If you’re able to safely eat some more demonic food, he will absolutely get you to try some of his favorite foods that normal humans would die upon eating.

Overall, you’re still the MC he has grown to love and doesn’t treat you too differently.

Belphegor

Is now more awake than he has been the entire evening.

Half demon? Nah this is just some dream.

Is understanding when you explain to him that you prefer being human and living as a human.

He’s happy he found out after making amends with you. He used to despise half-demons just as much as normal humans, seeing them as repulsive.

He still very much treats you the same, but is a bit annoyed with his brothers.

With knowledge of your demonic blood coming to light, they drag you out even more often and naps with you are becoming rarer.

If you get too overwhelmed with his brothers constantly wanting to try things they thought would previously kill you, he will be more than happy to lend you some of his hiding spots. He does charge the small fee of getting to take a nap with you though.

Diavolo

Similar to Lucifer, is shocked that he didn’t know before you came to the Devildom.

You aren’t the first half-demon he’s met, but he is surprised that a demon of Duke Vapula’s rank had a child with a human.

He’s actually very excited to learn that you’re a half-demon who is in more in touch with your human side. He feels a lot more relieved that you aren’t as defenseless as previously thought.

He does, however, make absolute sure that you have full control over your demonic powers. Every other half-demon lives in the Devildom for a reason and he can’t have someone who is technically one of his subjects accidentally cause mass destruction.

He invites you for tea more frequently, asking so many questions about how being raised in the human world as a half-demon was.

He likes to exchange stories with you about your younger years and the power fluxes you both struggled with as you grew.

Tells you that should you ever wish to live in the Devildom that he would be more than happy to make the needed arrangements.

Barbatos

He knew the whole time. When Diavolo asked him to look into the success of the program, he made note of your heritage right away.

However, he decided that keeping this information hidden when he saw that you were raised human and preferred to be seen as human.

When he explains this to everyone, you can’t help but feel thankful.

While some of the others make no effort to hide how annoyed this makes them, he doesn’t mind. He knows he made the right choice keeping this from everyone and doesn’t regret it at all.

Barbatos is actually a pretty good friend of your father’s and grew up with him. He actually met you when you were a baby because of this.*

Solomon

He has seen a lot in his years in the world of magic, but nothing like this.

Usually, half-demons were very easy to spot as they struggled to control their powers, but you practically had it down to an art!

You explain to him that you’re actually pretty good at keeping your powers under control. He’s rather impressed by this and will ask to see your spell work.

Thinks it’s a little funny that he has a pact with your dad.*

Like Satan, he wants to know all about you. Unlike Satan, he is going to actually conduct experiments instead of stick to interviews.

He has a new potion that he wants you to try almost every day now.

Can half-demons make pacts? If so, you have now been added to the list of demonic beings he wants to make a pact with.

Simeon

Very surprised considering he’s blessed you before.

Blessings aren’t supposed to work on anything of demonic nature so he’s baffled.

When you explain to him that you were raised human and prefer to live as human, he smiles.

He comes to the conclusion that you being a good person must be greater than the demonic blood in your veins.

He treats you the same overall, knowing that you’re still you no matter your heritage.

Luke

Absolute denial.

There is no way someone as nice as you is part demon! He refuses to believe it!

Gets upset and accuses you of trying to manipulate him, which you quickly deny.

When you explain to him that you prefer being human, he huffs.

Simeon gives him a bit of a talking to, about how you’re still the same MC who he sees as a big sibling.

He bakes you some apology cupcakes for being rude to you.

You sometimes shift form to mess around with him, it never fails to make him let out a shocked yelp before he snaps at you for picking on him.

Everyone (except Luke) thinks it’s funny tbh.

Author’s Notes:

*Duke Vapula is described as being able to bestow knowledge about all science contained in books.

*Barbatos is also a duke in The Goetia. I thought a fun nod to this would be to have them as friends.

*The Goetia talks about the 72 demons that King Solomon evoked. Vapula is one of the demons that he evoked. The game actually references this by talking about his 72 pacts. Asmodeus and Barbatos are both included in the 72 demons which is why he has pacts with both of them in the game :)

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high-functioning-lokipath · 3 years

Text

Prompt: "I'll Be Here To Protect You" - Loki x Reader - Words: 2,564

A/N: This sort of follows the oneshot "Worthy" but can be read alone. Basically, Reader is Silver Shadow (see Marvel character list for reference), Loki and Reader are married, yada yada, you'll see…

"Silver? I think you should take a look at this," Cap said over the comms. You, Cap, Loki, and Widow had gone to investigate a Hydra base you'd received intel on. You'd been informed that the base was abandoned but that they still had some records stored there.

"On my way," You replied to the Captain, teleporting over immediately. "Oh my goodness," You gasped at the sight that greeted you. There, lying curled up in a small cage, was a girl no older than 5 or 6. Cap ripped open the cage and gently pulled her out, holding her in his arms. She whimpered slightly and you could tell she'd been beaten. Instantly, you wanted to kill the people who'd done that to her.

"Can you help her?" He whispered, not wanting to startle her any more. You nodded and held out your arms to take her. As soon as you touched her, you started working.

"You might need to hold me up," You warned the Captain. "This is going to be tiring."

"Alright," He nodded. "Then let's get you out of here." He easily lifted you both and carried you out to the quinjet. You vaguely heard him talking on the comms but were a bit too focused to actually make out his words. He set you down on one of the chairs with the girl curled up in your lap. After a while, before the others got back, she seemed to be healed and sleeping. You were exhausted so you adjusted yourself slightly in the chair and dozed off as well.

"Y/N?" You turned your head, eyes still refusing to open with exhaustion, and groaned slightly feeling the kink in your neck from sleeping weird. "Y/N! Please wake up, hm? Please?" Someone said. Now they were poking your arm. Your other arm however seemed to be asleep, as you couldn't feel it, and you had a weight on your legs and chest. Suddenly remembering what all had transpired, your eyes shot open. "See? I told you she would wake up if I did that!" Natasha said, with what you knew to be false happiness, to the girl on your lap. The girl simply glared back at Nat before turning her attention to you, with a completely different expression. Her eyes widened and she tried smiling as though she was out of practice and waved slightly.

"Hi there," You smiled. "My name's Y/N. What's yours?" She frowned and looked away before mumbling something. "Hm? I couldn't hear you," You said.

"Helius," She replied with a frown.

"Oh," You replied. "Well, do you like that name?" She shook her head vigorously. "Would you like a new name? One just as pretty as you?"

"Really?" She asked, eyes lighting up once more.

"Yep! And then you'll have a special name for yourself! Just like I do, and just like Natasha," You said pointing at the redhead. "And-" You were about to point to your husband when you realized for the first time since waking back up that he wasn't with the team anymore. Your eyes darted back to Nat who looked worried.

"Y/N?" The little girl said quietly, pulling on your sleeve.

"What is it, dear?" She whispered in it in your ear and you nodded. "Oh yes, um. The bathroom's right over here." You took her over and opened the door.

"I get to use that?" She asked, surprised.

"Yes," You replied slowly.

"Wow! You're really nice!" She hurried inside and closed the door herself. You stood there for a moment, shocked, and Nat walked up behind you.

"She's not even accustomed to using a normal bathroom, Nat!"

"Those people, if they even should be called that," she said, shaking her head. "Are monsters." You looked around once more, trying to see if Loki had shown back up. "He's up with Steve," She said, pointing to the cockpit.

"What? Why? He's willingly spending time with the Captain?" You said teasing.

"He said he needed to think."

"Did he give any clues?"

"Not verbally. But I think he's nervous."

"About what?" You exclaimed. She nodded towards the bathroom door.

"Being a Dad."

"A Da-" you interrupted yourself, chuckling lightly. "You think just because we found her means we'll be her parents?" Nat smirked and nodded. "First of all, Tony will probably have a cow if we wanted to keep her."

"Well your husband had a horse, may I remind you."

"That was a made up story! Would you please stop referencing it!" You shrieked.

"Only when it stops being funny," She laughed.

"Second, there's probably already some rule in place that states we need to put her in the custody of Child Protective Services."

"We'll see about that."

"She's yours!" Tony said 2 hours later once you'd arrived home and gone straight to a conference room to meet with him.

"What?" You exclaimed. You hadn't even had the chance to talk with Loki yet. You glanced outside the room at the girl sitting in the hallway. The whole team was there with you but Loki had still not said a word. You looked at him but he refused to make eye contact and you couldn't read his expression. "Don't get me wrong, Tony. She's wonderful and I think she deserves the world but why?"

"You found her! Who knows if she has powers? It's best to have one of our own caring for her just in case. And besides, according to Romanoff's story, the girl practically glared daggers into anyone else who came her way."

"Alright I guess. I mean," You sighed. "Loki? Darling? Um, what do you think?"

"You've already made the decision, Stark. I will respect that and allow my wife to make the necessary changes to our living quarters to care for the child. Now is there anything else you'll be needing at the moment? I need a shower."

"Uh, no. It's-we're done," Tony said, seeming surprised at Loki's attitude just as you were. You all started to head out but Tony stopped you for a moment. "Here," He said, handing you a credit card. "Buy whatever you want for her." You smiled and shook your head.

"What do you know? The man of iron does have a heart."

"Yeah but don't tell anyone," He chuckled.

About a week later, Helius was in her new bedroom, thoroughly showered in gifts from Tony, but still not talking to anyone. Neither was Loki for that matter. You yourself were exhausted, staying up late nights keeping the girl company when she woke up screaming from nightmares. When you eventually came back to bed, you often found your husband had gotten up already and disappeared somewhere to 'be alone'. With Helius, you offered her a few ideas for a new name but she didn't like any of them. You even told her some ideas the others had suggested but she hated those even more. You seemed to be the only one she was comfortable with. With Loki, you'd tried to talk to him, even calling and texting him but he wouldn't answer. Today, though, you decided you needed to do something about both of them or else you were probably going to go crazy. First, though, you had some formal paperwork to take care of with Tony in order to have legal guardianship of her.

"I don't know what to do about it, Stank," You sighed, hours later. Tony wrinkled his nose slightly at the nickname but listened. "Half of this I honestly still can't fill out for you because she won't pick a name. I don't know how to make her socialize and I sure don't know how to get Loki to spill what's bugging him." Tony got up and walked to your side, putting his hand on your shoulder.

"I'm not sure what to tell you either, Shiny."

"Watch it," You hissed, whipping out a knife you always kept on your person and holding it dangerously close to his baby-maker. He backed away quickly.

"Maybe you just need to corner your husband and, uh, pull that trick on him," He chuckled nervously. "Ok, well, um, just hold onto that paperwork and send it to me when it's done, alright?" You nodded and gathered it together before heading back to your floor. It was early afternoon and you thought you may have a shot at talking to your husband while Helius took her nap. She'd found her own little routine to keep her occupied during the day in her room even when you weren't there. But you always had to be home when she slept because of her nightmares and she refused to socialize with others.

"I'll be in the bedroom until dinner is ready," Loki said upon your return.

"Can we please talk first?" You asked.

"There's nothing to discuss," He replied, quickly walking to the bedroom and slamming the door.

"Oh yes there is!" You exclaimed, teleporting yourself inside the bedroom.

"I hate when you do that!" He yelled.

"Well I hate when you do this! Now man up and tell me what's wrong or I really will back you in a corner with my knife!"

"I don't want to talk about it, alright?" He hissed. "Now keep your voice down or else you'll alert the child that we're having a disagreement."

"Oh, so you're finally acknowledging her?" A guilty expression flashed over his face and he turned away. "What is it, Loki?" You pleaded. "I don't want to argue. I just want to know what's going through your mind. Ever since we found her, you've been-"

"You found her," He said. "I want no part in raising a child that is not my own."

"What about your own blood?" You asked, wondering for your own future if he was against kids in general or not.

"I-" He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't know. But I certainly don't want to adopt. I've never seen a good result of adoption."

"Oh," You said slowly. "So that's what this is about."

"What do you mean?"

"You're worried about your own background. Is that it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," He huffed, crossing his arms and further distancing himself from you.

"Loki, please. Listen to me. You may not have had the best family situation yourself, but that doesn't mean you won't be a great Dad. I think-no-I know you'd do wonderfully! Please believe me!"

"I-"

"Mommy!" A voice called out, sounding frightened. Your eyes and Loki's widened in surprise. She'd never called you that before.

"I had better check on her," You sighed. Loki nodded and you rushed off. Half an hour later you came out of her room to find Loki waiting for you on the couch.

"What happened?"

"More nightmares," You groaned and slumped down next to him.

"Is that why you're never in bed anymore?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah. It seems she can't go more than half an hour without having another one." He nodded silently and took your hand in his.

"Well, I suppose I should commend you for your sacrifices for her. I just don't know if I can-" You shushed him, pressing a finger to his lips.

"I understand, Loki," You smiled sadly. "Mind you, I don't exactly agree. But I respect how you feel. I guess I can talk with Tony tomorrow about finding her a new home." You got up quickly, to hide your own emotions from him, and went to prepare dinner. That night, Loki made you go to bed extra early so you could actually get some sleep. You appreciated it, but your internal clock had gotten so used to it already that it woke you up a few hours later about the time Helius would be having her first nightmare. When you didn't hear anything from her room, you got worried. You rushed out of your bedroom and, as you approached her room, heard voices.

"Where's mommy?" Helius cried, again sounding frightened. Drawing your knife outside her closed door, you were ready to teleport in a surprise whatever intruder was there.

"She's sleeping, sweetheart. Do you think your new Dad could help you?" You nearly cried at hearing Loki's voice so soft and gentle with her. It took you a few more seconds to process that he'd referred to himself as her 'Dad'.

"I thought you hated me," She whispered.

"I don't hate you, little one," He assured her. "Do you want to know why I haven't talked to you yet?" You didn't hear a reply but as Loki went on you could only assume she nodded. "I never had a good father. And when you came along a week ago, I was so worried that if I tried to be your father I would mess something up. And I couldn't let that happen because you are too wonderful and too beautiful."

"I don't have a beautiful name," she sighed.

"Hasn't mommy come up with any good ideas?" He asked.

"No, well, yes but I didn't like any of them. They're pretty but," she trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"May I suggest one of my personal favorites?" You cracked the door open just a little so you could see. Their backs were to you, sitting on the edge of the bed. Loki had his arm wrapped around her as she curled onto his side, dwarfed by his height even sitting. She nodded slowly in reply to his question. "How about Arabella?"

"I love it!" She exclaimed, standing quickly and jumping up and down. "Thank you, Dad," She said smiling brightly as she threw her arms around his neck for a hug. He was surprised but gladly gave her a somewhat awkward hug back. "But what if the monsters come back?" She asked, voice trembling slightly.

"I'll protect you."

"Always?"

"I, Loki of Asgard, hereby make a promise to you, Arabella, my daughter. I'll be here to protect you forever and always." Arabella hugged him again and started crying. "Why are you crying, my dear?"

"Because you're the most bestest Dad I could ever ask for."

"Well, I, uh, thank you," He stuttered, not used to that kind of compliment. "I've got an idea. How about tomorrow morning I introduce you to some of the others here?"

"Why? I don't wanna!" You bit back a chuckle at her childish exclamation.

"But they're all really nice and they'll be like your new Aunts and Uncles!"

"Well, maybe," She conceded.

"Good! Now why don't you go back to sleep and I'll stay right here until all the monsters go away for tonight." She nodded and gave him another hug before allowing him to tuck her in. You smiled, wiping away your own tears, and snuck back to your bedroom. A couple hours later, Loki snuck back in himself.

"So how's the bestest Dad doing?" You whispered. Loki tensed up when you said that.

"So you heard us?" He said. You got up and wrapped your arms around his waist from behind.

"Yep," you said. "And I couldn't be happier. You really mean it? This means I don't have to talk to Tony tomorrow?"

"Absolutely not!" He replied grinning.

"Well then I have some very exciting news for you." He turned around, quirking his eyebrows questioningly. "How would you like to be a father to two?"

#loki #loki oneshot #loki imagine #loki fanfic #loki x reader #loki x oc #silver shadow #marvel #avengers

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madswonders · 3 years

Text

A Lesson In Romance #11: Actions

Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader

Genre: A little ✨spice✨ and a little ✨action✨

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, brief mentions of alcohol consumption, gun violence, mild (???) dirty talk

Word Count: 2.3k

Plot: Reader keeps getting caught in rom-com situations with Spencer Reid. This time, they pretend to be married.

A/N: I would like to dedicate this chapter to the Classy Restaurant Music playlist on Spotify for capturing the fancy restaurant vibes I needed hahahah

Masterlist | All chapters here!

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"You know, this is not how I imagined coming back here." You said quietly. Next to you, Spencer smiled.

Your eyes were still adjusting to the warm light, a stark contrast to the blue winter evening outside. This was your second time here, technically, but the sensation of his hand on your waist and the cool metal on your left hand made it all feel brand new.

"Table for Mr. and Mrs. Reid." He said to the hostess, calmer than you'd ever seen him before. You didn't miss the way he tugged you closer when he said "Mrs." and despite the truth of the matter, giddy smiles tugged on both your lips.

But it was the hostess' reaction that gave it away for you. When she glanced at your intertwined hands and matching rings with a soft smile, you began to realise why the two of you were chosen for this in the first place. The effect you had on each other was hypnotising.

Sending you and Spencer undercover as newlyweds was probably the easiest decision Hotch has ever had to make. His reasoning came from basic human psychology; people are drawn to extreme events, and while this generally applied to accidents and tragedy, it also applied to marriage and child birth.

In this case, few things would stand out more in a crowded restaurant than a pair of shiny new wedding rings, a large bouquet of flowers, and a bottle of champagne for two. And to top it all off, he had the two of you. Everything else came secondary.

Still, it was strange. Being isolated from the operation only made you more in awe of your team. Even under the duress of three hours, they operated like clockwork; devising a comprehensive undercover mission, building a profile for an unsub they didn't even know, and training an entire restaurant's staff in a handful of hours.

By the time the final pieces fell into place, all that was left was for you and Spencer to carry out the final stage of the plan.

Maybe it was the pressure of having the entire team rest on your shoulders, or this new "character" you had to play, but something felt different tonight. It was like electricity crackled in the air; you felt it when his hand lingered on your back, low enough that you felt a growing warmth in your belly, making you yearn for his touch long after he let go.

Maybe it was the stress from going undercover for the first time that made you trail your gaze down his suited figure, muscled and lean as a side effect of this job. Maybe that's why the image of him standing at the foot of your bed in this very suit couldn't leave your mind, until the physical action of squirming in your seat jolted you out of your own imagination.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Spencer locked eyes with you, his hazel eyes dark under the dim restaurant lighting.

"Just thinking about you." You admitted, placing your hand across the table. He took your hand in his instantly, his thumb tentatively resting on the jewel on your ring finger.

"All good things, I hope?"

"Nothing but good things."

"Well, perhaps I can add to that. You look beautiful." He pressed a soft kiss to your hand, his eyes crinkling playfully when your cheeks turned pink in response.

"How do I know you're not just saying that for our audience?" You whispered, eyes darting to his tie where the mic was hidden.

"If it weren't for our audience, I'd be saying a lot more, love." He replied lowly, and you bit back a thought you didn't want any of your colleagues to hear. You could already imagine them cringing as they listened in on your conversation, and the image made you giggle.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Dr. Spencer Reid?" You accused jokingly.

"When love is not madness, it is not love." He answered simply.

You thought for a moment, before the reference clicked in your head. "Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Interesting choice. You weren't lying about your education in classic literature, doctor." You looked impressed.

"I'm hurt that you even doubted it." He mocked insult, and you grinned.

"No, I'm just surprised."

"Wait until you see my actual surprise." He smiled, gesturing behind you as a waiter appeared carrying two plates in your direction.

"I took the liberty of ordering our food in advance." He explained. When you looked at him in surprise, he simply shrugged. “I figured I should expand my theory beyond breakfast.”

"And here I thought tonight couldn't get anymore exciting." You said, marvelling at the appetisers as they were placed in front of you two.

“You can reserve your compliments for when I guess everything correct, and I will.” He mock bowed.

“You're on." You giggled. "Now, can we finally have some of this champagne?"

Dinner went by smoother than you thought it would, and thankfully for your team listening in, your conversations steered away from thinly veiled flirting to classic films as the food appeared.

Not that it was any easier for you talk about Billy Wilder and Francis Ford Coppola with what was happening in front of you. Spencer had taken to playing with the ring on your finger while you talked, and each time his long fingers brushed against yours, it sent chills down your spine.

But it was when his leg brushed against yours underneath the clothed table that you felt yourself lose grip of your facade. The first time it happened, you even thought it might be a mistake. But after the second and third time, it was clear that Spencer knew exactly what he was doing, even if the innocent expression on his face didn't betray anything.

If you didn't know him better, you would even think that he liked it, teasing you underneath the restaurant table on case, where you couldn't act on it. Instead, you pushed away the thought and allowed your skin to prick with every touch; all the while you sipped on your champagne, taking the chance to observe the patrons around you through the rim of your glass.

Unfortunately, your luck was a little worse in the unsub department, and your concern only continued to grow as your entrées made way for dessert.

Before you entered the restaurant, the team had discussed the best-case-scenario for tonight — identifying and apprehending the unsub quietly before the dinner shift was up. But if you ran out of time, there was always one back-up plan, something that would definitely force the unsub's hand.

The good thing about having two unsubs now was that victimology became incredibly simple to decipher. What you and Spencer had considered inconsistencies at first, were now clear patterns distinguishing each one.

The first one was impulsive but experienced, driven purely by a compulsion to complete his pattern as fast as possible. Despite that, he had the sense to stick to high-risk victims and secluded locations, which made him so hard to catch in the first place.

It was the second unsub that was interesting. He seemed more controlled and calculating, choosing low-risk victims and public locations. The team profiled him as the narcissistic component of the original profile. The more high profile the victims, the more they attracted him.

And now that you’d spent the entire night drawing attention to yourselves, all you had to do was present an easy opportunity for the unsub to pounce — right into the BAU’s trap.

The moment Spencer beckoned you to come closer, you knew something was up. "Listen carefully, love. I'm going to call for the bill, and we're going to go outside. If I'm right about my guess, the unsub is going to be right behind us. Do you understand me?" He whispered into your ear, low and calm.

You made an obvious move to cup his cheek as you leaned back. "Can we go home now, baby?" You cooed. Yeah, you got him.

As you walked out of the restaurant, you intentionally stumbled as you clung onto his arm, letting out a loud giggle. Your gaze fixed adoringly on your date, even as Emily and Hotch called for their bill on your left, Derek and Rossi no doubt already rounding to the front of the restaurant from the back exit.

"Trust me." Spencer murmured as he opened the door for you, and when you nodded, he pulled you into one final kiss for the public. What you didn't expect was for him to move his hand down and squeeze your ass, causing you to let out a loud squeak at the doorway.

If anybody was looking at the two of you before, they were certainly staring now, and the doctor confirmed this with a low whisper. "He's coming."

When he finally caged you against his car, you had to remember not to go overboard for your listening colleagues, but you couldn't help but let out a quiet moan into his mouth as he pushed his leg lightly against your core.

"Sp— Spencer—" You breathed, locking your fingers behind his neck.

"Just hold on a little bit more, love." He muttered, cupping your cheeks with his large hands and stroking your hair. "Just a bit mor—"

You heard the sound of a gun cocking next to you as you broke apart, lightly gasping. A middle-aged man stood in the shadows, waving his gun aggressively. Bingo.

"Get into the car."

The two of you raised your arms warily. "Who are you?" Spencer shouted, moving to shield you from the unsub.

"I said, get into the car!" He yelled. "Starting with you."

"Okay, okay." The doctor conceded, unlocking the car and slowly getting in the backseat. He left some room for you to get in next, but the unsub trained his gun on you.

"Not you, sweetheart. I'm going to finish you right here." He narrowed his eyes at you. "Drop your bag on the ground."

Everything seemed to fall silent as you slowly lowered your bag, and your hidden gun, to the ground. When you stood back up with your hands in the air, the unsub slammed you into the side of the car and you groaned at the sudden impact.

You didn't need to gather your senses to know that his gun was pointed right at you.

"Leave her alone, James." Spencer threatened, already out of the car and levelling his gun at the unsub. All around you, the team moved into the light.

"FBI! James Luther — put the gun down." Hotch ordered.

The unsub looked shocked for a moment as he looked around, finally realising the situation he was in. His expression was unusually calm, and it chilled you to the bone.

"Very, very interesting. Are you a fed too?" He sneered down at you.

"It's over, James. Either you put the gun down, or you don't walk out of here alive." Spencer warned, but the unsub only laughed.

"I should have known that it was too good to be true. It's not often I get such a perfect couple, much less one with a wife this pretty." He drawled, waving the gun in your face.

"Spencer. I'm okay." You ordered through gritted teeth, already knowing what the genius was about to do.

"Look at her, so brave. Are the two of you even married? Or is everything about this fake?"

"I won't say this a second time. Put the gun down." Spencer repeated, cocking his gun straight at the unsub's head.

"T-think about this, James." You reasoned. "If you kill me, they'll kill you, and you won't be able to hear what the press will say about your murders after we expose you. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want to stop living in somebody else's shadow?"

The unsub's grip on his gun slackened. "They're not going to run a story on me. Why would they unless I keep killing?"

"They will if you give us the names and descriptions of all your victims, and we will make sure your face is front and centre for every single one." Spencer added. The unsub looked into both your eyes, seemingly searching for a hint of a lie, but there was none.

"Fine. Looks like the lady lives, this time." He gave up, dropping his gun to the floor and putting both hands on his head.

"James Luther, you are under arrest for the murders of Lucy Patt..." Derek recited his rights while dragging him away. You braced yourself against the car, catching your breath.

"Are you okay?" Spencer rushed over, sweeping you into a hug before you could even reply. You buried your face into his shoulder, tears welling up in your eyes involuntarily as you inhaled the familiar scent of paperbacks and coffee.

"I-I'm okay, baby. I'm okay." You mumbled, not sure if you were reassuring your boyfriend or yourself in that moment.

"It's okay, just let it out. You're safe now. I'm here. You're safe." He repeated, stroking your back as he kissed the top of your head again and again and again until you lost count.

You'd never been so relieved to arrive back at the BAU. Penelope was the first to give the two of you a big hug when you returned, fussing over the small cut on your face and the bruises on your arms, while you reassured her that you'd been cleared by the medics to go home.

"Good work today, both of you." Hotch called out from behind, shooting a small smile at you and Spencer. "Reid, take her home, and take a day off tomorrow. The two of you deserve it."

"You wouldn't be able to drag me into work tomorrow if you tried." You joked, and Spencer chuckled. For the first time, he wasn't about to argue with an order to take a break.

Nor was he about to argue when you asked him to come in to your apartment, or when you asked him to stay the night.

The only thing he wanted after tonight, was you.

---------

Tag List:

@blue-space-porgs @nobutalsoyes @lady-loves-a-lot @queen-flower @agentcarterisgay @totalmess191 @sapphic-prentiss @oops-all-ajs @spottedzebrasinpartyhats @mellowalieneggsknight @kenny-0909 || @averyhotchner @amesandpineapples @willowrose99

#mads fics #spencer reid x reader: a lesson in romance #spencer reid x reader #dr spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x reader fluff #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fic #cm fanfiction #cm fanfic #cm fic #criminal minds #cm #criminal minds self insert #spencer reid x reader smut

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cockslutpadalecki · 3 years

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Demonology And Heartache

Summary: Y/N never should've gone to the bar alone.

Characters: Demon!Dean x Reader.

Words: 1429.

Warnings: dub-con (if you squint), female masturbation, p in v.

A/N: Inspired by this post and my tags which @waywardbaby and I then discussed in a lot of detail and thus this was born. This is for you, Zee. Beta: @deanwanddamons but all the general bullshit is entirely mine. While likes are gold, feedback is golden. Masterlists can be found in my pinned post. Subscribe to Patreon and get access to fics, just like this one, two weeks before Tumblr for as little as $3.

Neon lights shine down on you, illuminating the parking lot as you stroll up to the entrance, hesitating before choosing the right moment to head inside. The intel was concrete, air tight. Sam promised you this was the place. The bar he frequented more than you surmised he did motel rooms with the cheap women who filled them.

You know something is off the moment you enter. If the lack of music doesn’t unsettle you immediately, then the absence of anyone other than you inside should’ve. The stench of cigarette smoke lingers thickly in the air, and through the low-lying cloud of stale nicotine you can detect the hint of sweetness from spilt alcohol.

Slowly you edge further into the belly of the building, eyes darting quickly from left to right, mentally preparing yourself for someone— something— to jump out at you.

Nothing hides in the darkness. The blanket of ebony surrounding the main room is empty, and as you step over the threshold into the light, your eyes are drawn to the solitary figure drinking alone at the bar.

Dean’s leaning on the wood with his elbow, corners of his lips pulled into a smirk as he spots you lurking in the shadows. It’s almost as if he’s been waiting for you, expecting you.

“What took you so long?” he confirms, voice thick and rough like gravel. He lifts the glass in his right hand to his lips, taking a large sip of the honey-coloured liquid swirling around in the tumbler.

“You’re a hard man to find.”

“Lying never suited you sweetheart,” he chuckles dryly, “and besides, I’m not really a man anymore, am I?”

As if to prove his point, Dean’s eyes flash obsidian before returning to their normal shade of green. You stand transfixed, watching him place the tumbler onto the bar as he helps himself to the half empty bottle standing next to it, pouring out a full measure before adding a little extra.

Picking it back up, he brings it to his lips and swallows a mouthful. A stray droplet remains on his pink, plump lips as he removes the glass. It takes every ounce of resolve in you not to walk over and lick it off. The man— demon, in front of you may wear the face of your lover, but it doesn’t stop the fear of how easily he could snap your neck from bubbling hot in your veins.

“So, tell me somethin’ princess,” he says, “is Sammy really so afraid of me that he would send my little lamb to get slaughtered instead?”

You stiffen at his words. “I came alone. Sam has nothing to do with this.”

“That so? You snuck into the lion’s den without backup, baby?” Dean clicks his tongue. “That’s reckless, even for you.”

“Didn’t think I’d need it,” you shrug, trying to remain aloof in the hopes Dean won’t be able to sense your rapidly rising unease, but given your knowledge of demons, you know that’s a lie. Even you can notice the tiny quiver in your voice every time you open your mouth, so Dean is bound to have too.

“And why’s that sweetheart?”

“Because we’re gonna walk outta here amicably.”

“Will we?” he teases, almost laughing at the absurdity of your statement. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because you don’t wanna hurt me, Dean.”

“You sound awful certain for someone who’s terrified they might have underestimated me.”

“I’m not terrified,” you reply defiantly.

He smirks. “Guess I must’a mistaken your arousal for fear then.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“C’mon baby, you can’t bullshit me.” He inhales deeply, eyes fluttering closed momentarily, but when they flicker back open, you’re confronted with his onyx stare. “I could smell you half a mile down the road. That sweet, tight little pussy that was always so deliciously wet for me. That still is.”

Dean slowly slinks forward, fingers tapping lightly against the wood, the sound vibrating through you like it’s set to a hundred decibels. The thump, thump, thump of his fingertips settles deep in your core, your mind wishing they were dancing inside you instead.

“Wonder how Sammy would react if I sent you back pumped full of my cum,” he muses, the brazenness of his statement making your skin prickle with heat. “Because right now, I’m doing all I can not to come over there and rip your clothes off,” he threatens, “with my teeth.”

As his voice cuts through the final word. You watch his tongue poke through the aforementioned teeth upon the “th” sound, remembering how they used to feel on your skin. The way he’d nip and suck on your flesh, leaving you marred and bruised like you were his own personal canvas, your skin a perfect backdrop for his intimate artistry.

If you needed any cue to flee, this had to be it. Naively, you had fooled yourself into thinking the man standing before you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at your presence, but clearly you were wrong. Dean said it himself; you’re like a lamb to the slaughter.

As he slinks to the end of the bar, you muster up enough courage to reach into the back pocket of your jeans and pull free a set of handcuffs, a delicate devil’s trap etched into the ironwork.

He scoffs at the sight of them dangling from your fingers. “You really think those are gonna work?”

“Well, there’s only way to find out.”

You don’t know what you were expecting. Did you really think he would just relinquish himself to you and go quietly? You had heard the stories from Sam— how lethal and merciless Dean had become in this stripped back state. How the demon birthed inside of your lover fed on the darkness and most depraved parts of him, burrowing deep and taking root in those virulent cracks, and allowing the monster Alastair had forged in hell to roam free.

He’s too fast for you, your reflexes lagging as Dean catches your wrist within his hand before wrenching it behind your back. You wince at the sharp pain pulsing in your shoulder, letting your breath hiss out through gritted teeth as he forces you against the worn mahogany of the bar.

“Drop ‘em,” he commands into your ear, the baritone of his voice pin balling straight to your cunt.

You struggle briefly, but the cut of Dean’s grip around your wrist tightens and you let go, the restraints clattering to the floor loudly.

“Good girl,” he praises against your hair, and you can’t help the whimper that escapes from your trembling lips. A faint chuckle resonates from deep inside Dean’s throat as his hold on you loosens to spin you on the spot. With his left arm behind your back, his free hand edges its way down your stomach until it reaches the waistband of your jeans, his eyes piercing as he waits for you to surrender.

You suck in a tight breath as he manipulates his way between your legs, his calloused fingertips walking across your skin as light as a feather.

His fingers finally meet the soft patch of hair at the apex of your thighs, smoothing across it until you feel his touch against your folds, gliding through your heat like it’s spun silk.

“Oh baby, you can’t tell me you don’t want this,” he snickers, the tips of his digits easing inside you with very little effort, making your cheeks sting with shame. “See, always such a willing little slut when I’ve got my fingers deep in this cunt, aren’t you?”

You hate that your body reacts to him without your mind’s consent, unable to resist the way he can make you succumb to your limits without a moment to question it.

Withdrawing his fingers, Dean paws your jeans open, deftly popping the button before pulling down your zipper. You’re completely powerless— pinned between him and the bar behind you as he turns you once more, finally freeing your arm from his grip.

He tugs your jeans and panties down your legs roughly, and while you try to fight him to keep your clothes on, you lose spectacularly. Your once prideful strength is feeble compared to Dean’s. He was always stronger than you, but with the addition of the demon bettering those previously admired traits, you don’t stand a chance as he pushes your head onto the wood in front of you, forcing your bare backside into the air. And there’s certainly no way out when he fills you in one violent and punishing thrust.

***

Supernatural: @angelofthetrenchcoats @ambthegamer @akshi8278 @becs-bunker @caspleasesavemyass @clemanime @deanwanddamons @deans-mind-palace @deanwinchesterswitch @deanloveboi @dawnie1988 @doctor-hp-mcu @downanddirtydean @ellewritesfix05 @fandom-princess-forevermore @flamencodiva @fanngirl19 @gayasslookinass @gabbywindsor @heavensangel45135 @hoboal87 @hobby27 @inlovewithspencerfuckingreid @katymacsupernatural @joseyrw @katelynw93 @michellemxndes @mrswhozeewhatsis @peachyafshawn @patrick-hockslutter @pinkshenanigan @quxxnxfhxll @spnbaby-67 @stoneyggirl @sammykb1994 @sharp-cheekbones-locked @shylittlewolf @sidbecross @tumbler-tidbits @tvdspngirl314 @treat-winchesterswith-kindness @uncreativezx @vicmc624@waywardbaby @winchest09

Forever: @akumune @amandamdiehl @buttercandy16 @crashdevlin @castiel-has-bees @daughterofthenight117 @donnaintx @dandywinchesterbras @dumbbitchenergy17 @death-unbecomes-you @doozywoozy @foxyjwls007 @hurricanerin @hoewkeye @heyyouwiththeassbutt @ilovefanfic86 @itsjustfics @itsthedoctah10 @imyournewfairygodmother @imcastiel-youassbutt @jewelswrites-ish @jenmisheels-bi-kid @letsby @letsdisneythings @multi-fandom-fanfiction @maddiepants @mogaruke @my-fav-imagines-17 @nightsbite @notyourtypicalrose @onethirstyunicorn @pink1031 @princessmisery666 @petitgateau911 @randomparanoid @ssworldofsw @sambucky8 @sea040561 @sillygoose6969 @sweeterthanthis @softie-socks @slutformarvelmen @that-one-gay-girl @warriorqueen1991 @xoxabs88xox @zpandaqueen

#dean winchester #dean winchester x you #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester fanfiction #demon!dean x you #demon!dean x reader #demon!dean fanfiction #demon!dean winchester

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mostlymovieswithmax · 3 years

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Movies I watched in May

Sadly, I kind of skipped writing a post for April. It was a mad month with so much going on: lots of emails sent and lots of stress. I started a new job so I’m getting to grips with that... and even then, I still watched a bunch of movies. But this is about what I watched in May and, yeah… still a bunch. So if you’re looking to get into some other movies - possibly some you’ve thought about watching but didn’t know what they were like, or maybe like the look of something you’ve never heard of - then this may help! So here’s every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of May 2021 Tenet (2020) - 8/10 This was my third time watching Christopher Nolan’s most Christopher Nolan movie ever and it makes no sense but I still love it. The spectacle of it all is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had also watched it four days prior to this watch also, only this time I had enabled audio description for the visually impaired, thinking it would make it funny… It didn’t.

Nomadland (2020) - 6/10 Chloé Zhao’s new movie got a lot of awards attention. Everyone was hyped for this and when it got put out on Disney+ I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. Seeing these real nomads certainly gave the film an authenticity, along with McDormand’s ever-praisable acting. But generally I found it quite underwhelming and lacking a lot in its pacing. Nomadland surely has its moments of captivating cinematography and enticing commentary on the culture of these people, but it felt like it went on forever without any kind of forward direction or goal. The Prince of Egypt (1998) - 6/10 I reviewed this on my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. For what it is, it’s pretty fun but nowhere near as good as some of the best DreamWorks movies.

Chinatown (1974) - 8/10 What a fantastic and wonderfully unpredictable mystery crime film! I regret to say I’ve not seen many Jack Nicholson performances but he steals the show. Despite Polanski’s infamy, it’d be a lie to claim this wasn’t truly masterful. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Admittedly I was half asleep as I curled up on the sofa to watch this again on a whim. I watched this with someone who demanded the dubbed version over the subtitled version and while I objected heavily, I knew I’d seen the movie before so it didn’t matter too much. That person also fell asleep about 20 minutes in, so how pointless an argument it was. Howl’s Moving Castle boasts superb animation, the likes of which I’ve only come to expect of Miyazaki. The story is so unique and the colours are absolutely gorgeous. This may not be my favourite from the legendary director but there’s no denying its splendour.

Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015) - 3/10 The next morning I watched some absolute trash. This crazy, over the top Indian movie is hilarious and I could perhaps recommend it if it weren’t so long. That being said, Bāhubali was not a dumpster fire; it has a lot of good-looking visual effects and it’s easy to see the ambition for this epic story, it just doesn’t come together. There’s fun to be had with how the main character is basically the strongest man in the world and yet still comes across as just a lucky dumbass, along with all the dancing that makes no sense but is still entertaining to watch. Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 If it wasn’t obvious already, Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, so more thoughts can be found there. Red Road (2006) - 6/10 Another recommendation on episode 30 of the podcast. Red Road really captures the authentic British working class experience. Before Sunrise (1995) - 10/10 One of the best romances put to film. The first in Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is undoubtedly my favourite, despite its counterparts being almost equally as good. It tells the story of a young couple travelling through Europe, who happen to meet on a train and spend the day together. It is gloriously shot on location in Vienna and features some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve ever seen put to film. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10 This Japanese classic - along with being visually and sonically masterful - is a lot about appreciating the people in your life and taking the time to show them that you love them. It’s about knowing it’s never too late to rekindle old relationships if you truly want to, which is something I’ve been able to relate to in recent years. It broke my heart in two. Tokyo Story will make you want to call your mother. Before Sunset (2004) - 10/10 Almost a decade after Sunrise, Sunset carries a sombre yet relieving feeling. Again, the performances from Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke take me away, evoking nostalgic feelings as they stroll through the contemporary Parisian streets. There is no regret in me for buying the Criterion blu-ray boxset for this trilogy. Before Midnight (2013) - 10/10 Here, Linklater cements this trilogy as one of the best in film history. It’s certainly not the ending I expected, yet it’s an ending I appreciate endlessly. Because it doesn’t really end. Midnight shows the troubling times of a strained relationship; one that has endured so long and despite initially feeling almost dreamlike in how idealistically that first encounter was portrayed, the cracks appear as the film forces you to come to terms with the fact that fairy-tale romances just don’t exist. Relationships require effort and sacrifice and sometimes the ones that truly work are those that endure through all the rough patches to emerge stronger. The Holy Mountain (1973) - 10/10 Jodorowsky’s masterpiece is absolute insanity. I talked more about it on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10 Another watch for Grand Budapest because I bought the Criterion blu-ray. As unalterably perfect as ever. Blue Jay (2016) - 6/10 Rather good up to a point. My co-hosts and I did not agree on how good this movie was, which is a discussion you can listen to on my podcast. Shadow and Bone: The Afterparty (2021) - 3/10 For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, which is why I wanted to see what ‘The Afterparty’ was about. This could have been a lot better and much less annoying if all those terrible comedians weren’t hosting and telling bad jokes. I don’t want to see Fortune Feimster attempt to tell a joke about oiling her body as the cast of the show sit awkwardly in their homes over Zoom. If it had simply been a half hour, 45 minute chat with the cast and crew about how they made the show and their thoughts on it, a lot of embarrassment and time-wasting could have been spared. Wadjda (2012) - 6/10 Another recommendation discussed at length on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Wadjda was pretty interesting from a cultural perspective but largely familiar in terms of story structure.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 2/10 A truly terrible movie with maybe one or two scenes that stop it from being a complete catastrophe. Tom Green tried to create something that almost holds a middle finger to everyone who watches it and to some that could be a fun experience, but to me it just came across as utterly irritating. It’s simply a bunch of scenes threaded together with an incredibly loose plot. He wears the skin of a dead deer, smacks a disabled woman over and over again on the legs to turn her on, and he swings a newborn baby around a hospital room by its umbilical cord (that part was actually pretty funny). I cannot believe I watched this again, although I think I repressed a lot of it since having seen it for the first time around five years ago. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 - (2011) I have to say, these movies seem to get better with each instalment. They’re still not very good though. That being said, I’m amazed at how many times I’ve watched each of the Twilight movies at this point. This time around, I watched Breaking Dawn - Part 1 with a YMS commentary track on YouTube and that made the experience a lot more entertaining. Otherwise, this film is super dumb but pretty entertaining. I would recommend watching these movies with friends. Solaris (1972) - 8/10 Andrei Tarkovsky’s grand sci-fi epic about the emotional crises of a crew on the space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris is much as strange and creepy as you might expect from the master Russian auter. I had wanted to watch this for a while so I bought the Criterion blu-ray and it’s just stunning. It’s clear to see the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration but Solaris is quite a different beast entirely. Jaws (1975) - 4/10 I really tried to get into this classic movie, but Jaws exhibits basically everything I don’t like about Steven Spielberg’s directing. For sure, the effects are crazily good but the story itself is poorly handled and largely uninteresting. It was just a massive slog to get through.

Darkman (1990) - 6/10 Sam Raimi’s superhero movie is so much fun, albeit massively stupid. Further discussion on Darkman can be found on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) - 1/10 Abysmal. I forgot the movie as I watched it. This was part of a marathon my friends and I did for episode 32 of our podcast. Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) - 1/10 Perhaps this trilogy is not so great after all. Only marginally better than Darkman II but still pretty terrible. More thoughts on episode 32 of my podcast. F For Fake (1973) - 8/10 Rewatching this proved to be a worthwhile decision. Albeit slightly boring, there’s no denying how crazy the story of this documentary about art forgers is. The standout however, is the director himself. Orson Welles makes a lot of this film about himself and how hot his girlfriend is and it is hilarious.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) - 4/10 More style over substance, Sony’s new animated adventure wants so much to be in trend with the current internet culture but it simply doesn’t understand what it’s emulating. There’s a nyan cat reference, for crying out loud. For every joke that works, there are about ten more that do not and were it not for the wonderful animation, it simply wouldn’t be getting so much praise. Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10 The first movie I’ve seen in a cinema since 2020 and damn it was good to be back! I’ve already reviewed Taxi Driver in my March wrap-up but seeing it in the cinema was a real treat. Irreversible (2002) - 8/10 One of the most viscerally horrendous experiences I’ve ever had while watching a movie. I cannot believe a friend of mine gave me the DVD to watch. More thoughts on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Don’t watch it with the family. The Golden Compass (2007) - 1/10 I had no recollection of this being as bad as it is. The Golden Compass is the definition of a factory mandated movie. Nothing it does on its own is worth any kind of merit. I would say, if you wanted an experience like what this tries to communicate, a better option by far is the BBC series, His Dark Materials. More of my thoughts can be found in the review I wrote on Letterboxd.

Antichrist (2009) - 8/10 Lars von Trier is nothing if not provocative and I can understand why someone would not like Antichrist, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. After watching it, I wrote a slightly disjointed summary of my interpretations of this highly metaphorical movie in the group chat, so fair warning for a bit of spoilers and graphic descriptions: It's like, the patriarchy, man! Oppression! Men are the rational thinkers with big brains and the women just cry and be emotional. So she's seen as crazy when she's smashing his cock and driving a drill through his leg to keep him weighted down. Like, how does he like it, ya know? So then she mutilates herself like she did with him and now they're both wounded, but the animals crowd around her (and the crow that he couldn't kill because it's Mother nature, not Father nature, duh). Then he kills her, even though she could've killed him loads of times but didn't. So it's like "haha big win for the man who was subjected to such horrific torture. Victory!" And then all the women with no faces come out of the woods because it's like a constant cycle. Manchester By The Sea (2016) - 6/10 Great performances in this super sad movie. I can’t say I got too much out of it though. Roar (1981) - 9/10 Watching Roar again was still as terrifying an experience as the first time. If you want to watch something that’s loose on plot with poor acting but with real big cats getting in the way of production and physically attacking people, look no further. This is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen because it’s all basically real. Cannot recommend it enough. Eyes Without A Face (1960) - 8/10 I’m glad I checked this old French movie out again. There’s a lot to marvel at in so many aspects, what with the premise itself - a mad surgeon taking the faces from unsuspecting women and transplanting them onto another - being incredibly unique for the time. Short, sweet and entertaining!

Se7en (1995) - 10/10 The first in a David Fincher marathon we did for The Sunday Movie Marathon, episode 33. Zodiac (2007) - 10/10 Second in the marathon, as it was getting late, we decided to watch half that evening and the last half on the following evening. Zodiac is a brilliant movie and you can hear more of my thoughts on the podcast (though I apologise; my audio is not the best in this episode). Gone Girl (2014) - 10/10 My favourite Fincher movie. More insights into this masterpiece in episode 33 of the podcast. Friends: The Reunion (2021) - 6/10 It was heartwarming to see the old actors for this great show together again. I talked about the Friends reunion film at length in episode 33 of my podcast.

Wolfwalkers (2020) - 10/10 I reviewed this in an earlier post but would like to reiterate just how wonderful Wolfwalkers is. If you get the chance, please see it in the cinema. I couldn’t stop crying from how beautiful it was. Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) - 6/10 After watching Wolfwalkers, I decided I didn’t want to go home. So I had lunch in town and booked a ticket for Disney’s Raya and The Last Dragon. A child was coughing directly behind me the entire time. Again, I reviewed this in an earlier post but generally it was decent but I have so many problems with the execution. The Princess Bride (1987) - 9/10 Clearly I underrated this the last time I watched it. The Princess Bride is warm and hilarious with some delightfully memorable characters. A real classic!

The Invisible Kid (1988) - 1/10 About as good as you’d expect a movie with that name to be, The Invisible Kid was a pick for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 34. Babel (2006) - 9/10 The same night that I watched The Invisible Kid, I watched a masterful and dour drama from the director of Birdman and The Revenant. Babel calls back to an earlier movie of Iñárritu’s, called Amores Perros and as I was informed while we watched this for the podcast, it turns out Babel is part of a trilogy alongside the aforementioned film. More thoughts in episode 34 of the podcast. Snake Eyes (1998) - 1/10 After feeling thoroughly emotionally wiped out after Babel, we immediately watched another recommendation for the podcast: Snake Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage. This was a truly underwhelming experience and for more of a breakdown into what makes this movie so bad, you can listen to us talk about it on the podcast.

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thechangeling · 3 years

Text

Ok so a conversation @littlx-songbxrd and I were having made me remember something I was ranting about to a friend of mine once.

Brace yourselves this is going to be long. I'm sorry.

The sexism, homophobia and racism of the shadoworld straight up doesn't make sense and here's why. So if we start chronologically with the infernal devices. There is sexism towards Charlotte right? People don't want her running the institute and they don't want her becoming the consul because she is a woman. But the Clave has no problem letting women train and fight. This doesn't really make sense in my opinion.

Now you could argue that it's because they believe woman can be string capable fighters just not rational thinkers. Which is weird because in my experience you don't meet a lot of people who are "partially sexist" in that way. Like if a man believes a woman can't do high profile, high paying jobs then they usually also don't want them in the military. Anyways moving on, there aren't any mentions of homophobia in TID, mostly because they're arent any queer characters except Magnus and Woolsey.

But something interesting to point out is that none of the characters who know about Magnus and Woolsey ever comment on it really. And following this point, none of the mains display any signs of misogyny either really. (Except for what Will says to Tessa at the end of CA but that was because of the "curse.") You could argue that this is because they're the protagonists so they are supposed to be better then that. But accidental microaggressions are pretty common especially during that time period. More on that later.

Moving onto racism, this is the interesting part. Jem says to Tessa that shadowhunters believe that you are a shadowhunter first and your nationality or eace second. Actually Jem doesnt mention race but he says this while talking about being half Chinese so it's kinda relevant. Shadowhunters rarely tall about race throughout the books in general except for a few instances. When Jessamine criticizes Jem to Tessa, she calls him a foreigner and says some other racist shit that I can't really remember. Something about the yin fin and calling him lazy. That directly contradicts Jem's statement about them all being shadowhunters first. Also Will and Jem actually constantly talk about being Welsh and Chinese in the books so that statement is kinda bogus in general.

And if CC didn't want her mains being sexist or homophobic to show them as good people then why was it ok for both Jesse and Gabriel to say questionable shit about Jem? Anyways moving on to TLH. Sexism is still running rampid with their cultural customs and people being shitty about Charlotte being consul. Bots have to ask the girls to dance, girls cannot have sex before marriage or else they will be ruined or whatever you know the drill. But again, they let the girls fight. Cordelia is allowed to carry around a giant ass sword but she can't get some????

IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE CASSANDRA!!!!!

Sorry I'm losing it. Anyways. Regarding racism. Alastair and Cordelia have experienced micro aggressions from the mains (Matthew and Anna) but it's never addressed. I'm pretty sure if memory serves, the inquisitor makes a nasty comment under his breath about persians when the Carstairs family sans Elias arrive. And then we have the whitewashing of Ariadne/Kamala by her parents.

But none of this stuff ever gets brought up really. Exceot for Kamala talking about her past and who she was before and sharing her original name, but she still doesn't talk about how it effects her potential coming out. Alastair doesnt mention race when he talks about the bullying he went through at the academy and none of the white characters ever stop to think about how Kamala and Alastsir's races play a part in their crappy situations.

There's probably more I could discuss with this but I'm moving on to homophobia. It's a thing in terms of the heteronormativity and people's judgement of Anna but it's not illegal like in mundane societies at this time. But all of the mains are totally cool with it which brings me to, I'm sorry but fucking bullshit! There is no way every single adult would be totally fine with it in this time period. Like I'm not saying outright homophobia but maybe some questionable comments you know? (CC is perpetuating this idea that good people never commit microaggressions which is untrue and harmful.)

I don't think there's any mention of whether or not gay marriage is allowed in the shadowhunter world at this point. Because the issues surrounding Magnus and Alec getting married were about Magnus being a warlock right? Because Helen and Aline got married before them in TFTSA because she was only half fae. So that brings me to when was gay marriage legalized in the shadow world?????

Is there any mention of this because I don't think there is? Anyways moving onto TMI. This is where everything goes to absolute shit in terms of world building with the standards for these things. Misogyny isn't really a problem in tmi anymore from what I remember. Nobody has issues with Jia as consul (from what I remember,) and that's that. But homophobia is still rambid throughout shadowhunter society so much so that Alec is terrified to come out because he believes that he can't be gay and be a shadowhunter in peoples eyes. Also there is pressure to "carry on the family name" which doesn't make sense because if the sexism has died out then women can have babies with whoever and not even be married and carry on their family line. And not everyone needs to have children, ergo there is less pressure on the sons to carry on the family name or whatever. This also doesn't make sense because homophobia literally cannot exist without sexism!!!!

This is because of colonial gender roles being forced on society. And men being with men and women being with woman totally smashes the whole gender roles, "woman do this and men do that" idea. There's more that I could say on that but this is already so freaking long so please just look it up. And speaking of gender roles it's literally mentioned that Maryse didn't teach Izzy to cook because she didn't want her to be forced into a housewife role like she was (although there's no evidence to suggest she was?) But then Maryse is lowkey homophobic?

It doesn't make sense Cassandra!!!!!

CC doesn't get that you literally don't have homophobia or transphobia without sexism. Indigenous societies pre-colonization didn't care about any of that stuff. Literally two spirit people were revered and respected and no one gave a fuck about gender until my ancestors literally came along and ruined everything. (I'm so sorry.)

But anyways there's no mentions of racism amongst the shadowhunters in tmi. Just Maia talking about her experiences with mundane society as a black girl. When Clary confronts Valentine and basically calls him a n*zi, he laughs at her and basically says that shadowhunters don't see race the way mundanes do which yikes @ CC. Granted this was 2007. This kind of sounds like what Jem said in TID. Only it clearly wasnt true.

Anyways I'm just super confused at this point. In TDA there was basically nothing in terms of all the isms and phobias. (Oh we arent even discussing ableism because my fucking head will explode!) But we do discuss transphobia a bit with Diana. But again it doesn't make fucking sense because transphobia exists because of sexism and clear gender roles (and homophobia.)

Society is still shown to be pretty heteronormative though which I guess makes sense but the Blackthorns have multiple queers in their family! You would think that they would be less so. When Livvy mentions all the reasons that Annabel could have a forbidden love she doesnt even think to mention that it could be a lesbian relationship. When Mark finds out that Jaime was in Dru's room he freaks out but I guarentee you, he wouldn't have if Jaime was a girl. I mean you could argue that it's an age thing and not a gender thing but idk. That scene always bothered the fuck out of me. Because Mark is literally half fae like why is he caught up on bullshit "boys and girls can't just be friends" hetero bullshit.

In QOAAD we see Dane Larksoear being sexist so randomly for no reason. Like it's so strange because CC literally created a caricature of a sexist villian with him. And it makes no sense because no one else seems to feel the way he does. Like Zara is basically the leader of the cohort right? And nobody gives a fuck. It makes no damn sense Cassandra!

And finally, why is the faerie world sexist with gender roles WHEN EVERYONE IS LITERALLY BISEXUAL AND THEY'RE FAERIES CASSANDRA!!!???? THEY'RE LITERALLY FAERIES WHY IS THERE A CONCEPT OF GENDER AT ALL CASSANDRA????!!!!

Ok lol now I'm done. Sorry this is so long. But yeah I'm so confused.

Tldr: CC's world building in regards to sexism, homophobia, racism and transphobia is very inconsistent and contradictory and it makes no damn sense.

#tsc #tda #the dark artifices #tlh #twp #the wicked powers #the last hours #tmi #tid #tw mentions of transphobia #tw mentions of racism #tw mentions of homophobia #tw mentions of sexism #anti cc #long post

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beaubokuto · 3 years

Text

━ smile a crooked smile

pairing: koutaro bokuto x f!reader

genre: best friends to lovers, royal!au, angst, fluff

summary: koutaro bokuto was the light amongst the darkness that was the kingdom of peredine. but being in love with a flame can only last for so long before burning out.

for the #tooruluv2kparty contest hosted by the lovely @tooruluv !!

prompt: “falling in love with my best friend...it is the most destructive thing i have ever done.”

tags/warnings: angst, royalty, swearing, medieval, fantasy, friends to lovers, characters age up throughout the story, minor depictions of violence (dueling, a little bit of blood, open wounds, the creation of a scar), stealing, made up words and phrases, mentions of domestic violence

You met your soulmate at the age of six. As just a mere child, you had found a piece of yourself in someone else.

It was the first day of schooling. On the first day, it nearly always consisted of crying children begging to stay with their parents and teachers pretending that everything was okay.

You had walked to your first day alone.

As you took the steps that lead to the small building, you walked by a small boy sobbing into his mother’s chest. She was petting his head and whispering something to him that you couldn’t hear.

He was the only one left outside.

“Look,” His mother said, this time in a voice a tad louder. Just enough for you to hear. “She is being brave and going in all by herself.”

The boy turned to you, tears in his eyes and face a shade of red that you never witnessed before. He looked on either side of you, assessing the fact that you were by yourself, and turned back to his mother.

“I can do it.”

The boy wiped the tears that stained his cheeks and gave his mother one last hug, barely a second, before rushing to your side. You hadn’t realized that you paused on the steps. It was as if you were waiting for him.

“Hi.” The boy was a little small compared to you, still baby fat and full cheeks. “You’re alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Not anymore!” He smiled. You felt the need to squint. “I am Koutaro Bokuto and my dad isn’t here because he’s a knight, so that’s my mama. She said you’re brave.”

“I guess.” You walked again. Bokuto followed. “You’re brave, too.”

He sent another bright smile. This time it was accompanied by a twinkle in his golden eyes.

The friendship only grew from there. You would sit together during reading, play together during recess. He would wait for you on the steps every morning just to walk into the building together.

This continued into advanced schooling, into your preteen years and into high school.

He became a true friend.

At the age of ten, four years into your friendship, he asked you to have dinner at his house.

“Why?” You asked in return.

“I think it would be a good idea!” Bokuto took a bite of his lunch. “I can show you around! And my mother is a great cook.”

“I do not think...”

“Don’t think!” He pointed at you with his spoon. “Just agree!”

The thing about Koutaro Bokuto was that he was never formal. He would talk to teachers as if they were his friends; he would laugh at the King if he had the chance.

He was the only one you were informal with.

“Fine.” You slapped his hand away from stealing a bite of your lunch. “Meet me in the town square tonight?”

“Yay!”

That started your routine dinner. For years, you would either meet with Bokuto or arrive at his house for your final meal of the day. Bokuto’s mother would greet you every time with a smile that mimicked Bokuto’s and took your tastes into consideration while cooking.

Bokuto had a life that you wish you had. His parents were married, but his father was a knight who worked in the castle a majority of the time. He had two older sisters, one who was working towards becoming a teacher and one who was only two years older than you two. They would laugh and smile together, discuss each other’s days.

You couldn’t remember the last time you and your mother had spoken since your father left on a mission to another kingdom.

A garden lined their backyard, and you found your peace in the flowers.

The line between love and friendship is rather thin. You love your friends, of course. But, when does that line blur and shift into something else entirely?

You feared you knew the tightrope of love.

The year between your first and second year of high school was the year Bokuto became taller than you.

He grew overnight, it seemed, as he arrived at your doorstep. His shoulders were muscular against his giant frame. You had to gain your bearings for a moment.

You found yourself staring.

“You seem smaller.” He joked, obvious to his recent growth and broadness.

“I suggest you bite your tongue.” You rolled your eyes.

You were going to say another quip, something about gloating in the presence of a lady, when you noticed a bruise on his cheek. It was purple against his naturally sunkissed skin, boiled at the surface of his cheekbone directly under his right eye.

His father.

You reached to trace the bruise that marked his skin. He must have forgotten about it; he sent you a confused look as you placed your hand on his cheek.

“It was him again, wasn’t it?” Your thumb brushed the purple. Bokuto winced, but only a little.

“It is all right.” He took your hand off of his face and intertwined your fingers with his. “We will be late for school if you continue to stare.”

Holding hands was not something new to the friendship. Oftentimes, you would find your hand on his or fingers interlaced. Bokuto would grab your hand, and you would allow him to do so. It was a common occurrence.

But his hand in yours felt like flames. He was attempting to comfort you, telling you that it was all right without using more words.

That he could endure the pain his father inflicted.

"Twist your waist.” Bokuto giggled from across the grass. “You cannot possibly think you are doing this correctly.”

You sighed. “Kou, I am throwing knives. You are the one that is good at this. I am not.”

“You are good at everything you do.” He walked to your side.

He had placed a false target on several trees, lining from close to pretty distant from where you stood. The two of you spent most days under the leaves; there was a dock that lead to the seas close by, and you preferred the smell of the salt anyway.

“This is the hardest part.” Bokuto stood directly behind you. You had grown used to his height and broadness, yet you still felt small with his chest at your back. “Here,”

His hands found your waist, clasping you at your sides. He turned you in a quick movement, only at the hips.

“Do you see?” He was far too close for you to breathe. “Now repeat that motion, but aim at the same time.”

You inhaled when he took a step back. You felt the oxygen enter your lungs as if he had taken it away in his mere presence.

You did as told, moving your hips as you held the knife in the same way he taught you. Letting it fly, the knife landed in the second-most outer ring of the target on the tree.

Bokuto cheered. You smiled, noticing the improvement.

“I was right.” He wrapped his arm around your shoulder and leaned to your head. “You are good at everything you do.”

You wanted to tell him that you were still not hitting the middle, but you could not bring yourself to damper the mood. You pressed your side closer into him, instead, “And you are always right.”

Being the son of a King’s Knight, Koutaro Bokuto was invited to many of the castle’s festivities. There was a hierarchy according to profession, meaning that the richest were the ones who worked for and with the castle (The High Order: Knights, Cooks, Messengers). Many of the Magick and Medics lived with favor to the castle as well.

You always stared at the Castle of Kageyama from afar. The castle sat on top of a giant hill that overlooked the rest of the kingdom; it was dark and always seemed to have a black shadow cast over it. You could only imagine how large it was if you were closer.

Bokuto and his sisters would tell you stories of balls, dinners, meetings. Sir Bokuto was high in the chain of command after General Shimizu, and that created a favorable blanket for the rest of his family.

This particular time, Bokuto received an invitation to a ball for Princess Miwa. She decided to step down from the crown, not wishing to be a Queen and planned to travel to the other kingdoms and discover new things. The ball would be her departing gift.

Bokuto asked you to come alongside him.

“Kou, I would not even know what to wear.” You laughed. “I do not even know how to dance.”

“I want you to come.” Koutaro Bokuto pushed you. You fell onto his bedroom floor. “You do not need to dance to have fun. I am always bored at these events without you.”

“Are you able to invite me?”

“Yes, why could I not?”

“I would need a dress.”

“I can do that.”

You looked up at him from his floor, his eyes twinkling in hope and anticipation. How could you tell him no?

“Then I will go.”

The dress he brought to you was blue, mimicking his tailored black and white jacket and slacks with the same colored blue accents.

You surprised yourself at how beautiful you could become, had given effort. The dress was one of his sister’s, but it fit you perfectly. You even did a spin in your mirror.

When you arrived minutes later at his doorstep, Bokuto was the one who opened the door.

He was surprised, too. With wide eyes, he blinked at you. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

“Thank you.” You replied. You hoped that he would not notice the blush on your cheeks when he took your hand.

You realized that your soulmate was Koutarou Bokuto at the age of fifteen. As a teenage, you had found a piece of yourself in someone else.

At the ball, he was someone new in your eyes. He smiled at everyone, talked to every person as if he knew all of them by name, waved at the cooks and they waved back. It was completely different than any atmosphere than you had witnessed.

You could not take your eyes off of him.

He left you for a moment, something about retrieving drinks, and you found yourself alone. All you could do was watch him from through the crowd. He danced through the people as if he did it everyday, easily weeding through them and greeting some in casual conversations.

He was glowing.

“For you, m’lady.” Bokuto said to you once he returned. The cup was of red liquid that smelled like fruit. “It is pretty good, though I am unsure of what exactly it is.”

“Why thank you, my liege.” You joked. You took a sip, the sweetness of the drink honey on your tongue.

“Good, is it not?” He took a drink after you took a second sip.

You nodded.

“That is enough of that.” He snatched the cup from your hand. You were going to protest, the words on the edge of your lips. “I believe it is time for a dance.”

“That juice must be expensive, we cannot just leave it.”

“They have plenty.” Bokuto took his hand in yours and nearly dragged you to the middle of the ballroom floor. “Follow my lead.”

Your feet matched the timing with his as he forced you to dance. The flow of the music seeped into your ears. You could feel lightness grow in your chest as the two of you danced in the festivities, fast music and laughter mixed together into a yellow light.

You never knew that the inside of the dark castle could glow such a color.

Koutaro Bokuto and you were one in the same, circling around each other and dancing to a rhythm you could only feel rather than hear. You were out of breath, sweat gleaming on your forehead, and your legs were tired. But you continued to dance. His smile matched yours, golden eyes shining with the reflection of you.

Perhaps being in love with him was similar to a dance. Unbearably exhausting, but you wish to do it forever.

You would hide your feelings, you decided. You had stared at the ceiling of your bedroom for what seemed to be hours. Your mind bleeding in thoughts and scenarios of you telling your best friend that you were in love with him.

If you knew him at all, you knew that Bokuto was dramatic. He would tell you that everything was fine, that he did not love you in the way you loved him, and he would do everything to make the situation seem casual and normal, only to make things astronomically worse.

You did not want that.

Hiding your feelings, masking them under the platonic love you shared, would be easiest. Perhaps they would go away in time, perhaps they would be replaced by someone else.

You did not even know what love entitled, anyway.

A crumbled napkin hit your face, causing you to look up with a glare. The lunch room of the high school was full of students, eating and chatting and enjoying the little free time between classes.

“Our final year of school and you still decide to drink milk instead of juice.” Bokuto laughed, blatantly ignoring the scowl you were sending him.

“Would you prefer I grab a juice next time, just for you to steal it?”

“I am no thief.”

He was, though, you thought. Because he had your heart in the palm of his hands.

“Sure you are not.” You jokingly agreed, though you rolled your eyes.

Keiji Akaashi was a transfer your final year of high school. He was younger than you and Bokuto, but quickly found place in your friendship.

The two of you were walking to the peer, doing nothing other than walking off the sweat and weakness of just training and practice fighting in the woods. Bokuto loved to spar with you, hand to hand; “It is great practice for your future husband!” He would joke.

As you walked along the sand, you caught sight of Akaashi spearing fish in the shallow water. With every draw of his spear, a fish would be on the end. He hadn’t missed a single shot.

He was almost beautiful, the way he stood in the water. His dark hair reflected off of the blue that glittered in the afternoon sun. You looked at Bokuto, your best friend, and thought of how it never matched to him.

“You are excellent!” Bokuto complimented, catching Akaashi off guard. The boy turned around, spear in hand, and shoved the fresh fish into a netted bag at his side.

“I hear you are amazing with knife throwing.” Akaashi said. He walked closer to you smoothly; it was as if the water was no barrier for his feet. “I am a mere fisherman.”

The boy seemed to not do well in social situations. His words were carefully thought, said in a manor of formality you only witnessed when village people spoke to the High Order or royalty.

“I have watched plenty of fishermen.” Bokuto crossed his arms over his chest. You had to look away before you would get distracted in the veins that marked his muscle. “No mere fisherman can catch every fish as you can.”

“Perhaps I can teach you, if you wish to teach me some of your knife throwing.”

“I can do that. I taught this one here how to, and now she is the best knife thrower in Peredine. After me.”

You scoffed at his superiority and pushed him in his side. Bokuto only chuckled and pushed you back.

“How long have the two of you been a couple?” Akaashi asked. He was becoming more casual after noticing your informality, you noted.

“She is only my best friend.” Bokuto flicked your forehead. “We have been best friends since the age of six.”

“He would not stop talking, so I had to give in to his friendship.” You told him. You were not wrong, which made your joke better. Bokuto laughed.

Bokuto turned to the netted bag that hung across Akaashi’s chest. “What are you planning to do with that?”

“I planned to sell them.” Akaashi shook the bag, sending drops of water into the tide below. “I am trying to save up to a moonful. Hopefully I can enter the knight program come summer.”

“Head towards the center of the town.” Bokuto advised. “They would love fish, they usually end with what the fisherman and peer do not have.”

“Thank you.”

“You can sit next to us at lunch tomorrow.” Bokuto said. “I invite you to the sanctuary.”

Akaashi spared you a glance. You shrugged. “He has invited you. You must attend, now.”

The entirety of your life, you had wished for more.

You would walk the streets of the village hoping for more. The village, especially near the center. It was dusted in browns and beiges, dirt and dust. Moss climbed the side of buildings and horses stood on the streets.

You would not hope to live in the castle, surrounded by white and light and food for days. You would not hope to be royalty, or to be a member of the High Order.

You would hope of travel. You would wish for what was beyond your island; you would wish for being... away.

You understood why the princess left.

Then your mind would remind you of Koutaro Bokuto. He was the only reason for your stay. Your family was not an avid presence, or a presence at all for that matter, and you had one other friend that you only recently became acquainted with.

Bokuto was your only reason for staying.

Despite every fiber of your being wishing to leave, you knew that you could not. The worst part of it all, is that you knew that if you were to tell Bokuto that you wished to leave ━ if you were to tell him that you wanted nothing more than to get on a ship and travel far, far away from Peredine and the Kageyama castle and the knife throwing every day and the walks on the beach ━ he would tell you to go.

He would tell you to live your life. He would tell you to write him every day and visit when you can. He would have a smile so bright that it burned.

How could you possibly leave someone who shined that brightly?

Shining that brightly would only end in destruction, you feared.

You already felt the inside of you withering in hopes of him returning your love.

You remembered the last day that Bokuto smiled.

It was nearing winter, cool air replacing the warmth of autumn. Leaves scattered the ground in every place imaginable. The entirety of the village seemed to be blanketed in brown and orange, reds and yellows.

You walked hand in hand, fingers interlaced and swinging with each step.

“Let’s spar!” Bokuto turned quickly, trying to catch you off guard. He might have been quick, but your reflexes were slightly faster.

With a swish of your wrist, you sliced his face with a knife. He had been the one to tell you to “always be prepared” and wear the knife attached to your thigh.

The moment your knife connected with his left cheek, you knew what you had done. He did not collapse, but reached up to stop the bleeding.

“Oh!” You immediately dropped the knife to check his face.

He was bleeding profusely, the hand he clapped to the cut doing nothing to stop the flow. You must have had a deeper motion than you thought.

“I’m all right.” He muttered, but there was a gargle beneath his tone. He was choking on his own blood.

“No, no. We must go to a Medic.” You said. You wanted so badly to move his hand out of the way to assess the wound, but you knew that it would only be worse.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

You held his elbow and rushed back through the trees. Leaves crunched under your feet, matching in footsteps. Blood dripped onto the ground in a trail.

You reached his home before long. You left him to run into the kitchen, finding his mother cooking. She dropped the ingrediants that she was working with the moment she viewed your expression.

“It’s Koutaro.”

You followed his mother out of the kitchen and to her son, who was still actively bleeding. She brought his hand out of the way to finally━ finally━ see the wound.

You had cut him across his mouth. It started just under his nose, across the left side of his lip, to his chin, and curved back into the middle of his left cheek. This may sound rather vulgar, but the skin was very gross and you wondered how it was still attached.

“We must go to the Medic. Now.” She turned to you. “Grab a towel from the kitchen and catch up to us.”

You nodded and ran into the kitchen, finding the cloth and rushed to walk with them to the Medic.

Because of their family being one of the High Order, they lived on the hill below the castle. The Medics were only a little higher on the land, their neighborhood close together rather than spread out along the grass.

We entered a house, not bothering to introduce ourselves with a knock. The family was eating a meal at the table, standing immediately at the blood. A mother, a girl, and a boy your age.

“We need your help.” Bokuto’s mother said. She must have known the family, because the Medic flew to Bokuto’s side.

“Aiko, the sewing set.” The mother ordered. The girl took off down the house’s hall, disappearing into the dark. “Asahi, the herbs.”

You watched from afar as the Medics worked on your best friend. He would grimace in pain, tears painting his cheeks. They laid him on the dinner table, replacing the food and dishes with his body. They were effortless in their movements, as if it was every day that they fixed a man with a gaping hole in his cheek.

“He will be all right.” The boy said from your side. He watched alongside you, as his mother and older sister finished their healing.

“I know you.” You did not look up at him. You could not take your eyes off of Bokuto. “You are in the same school year as I am. Asahi Azumane.”

“Yes.”

“I did not know you were a healer.”

“I did not know that you loved Bokuto as you do.” He replied.

It was three weeks for the cut to turn into a heavy, thick scar. It was three weeks of Bokuto’s absence.

He claimed that he was too ugly for you to see him. He did not want to see anyone, his mother told you after your hundredth visit to their home.

After the third week, he greeted you outside of your door.

“I cannot miss anymore school.” He said as a greeting. “And I cannot miss anymore of you, can I?”

Before you could take another breath, you leaped into his arms. He hugged you back, effortlessly, chuckling into your neck.

When you pulled back, you viewed the scar that curved on his face. The stitches had been removed. The scar was lifted, pink and bruised still; you could not help but want to cry.

You had done that.

“I am so incredibly sorry.” You said as you scanned the scar. You wanted to touch it. “Please accept my deepest apologies.”

He pushed your head playfully. “Do not apologize. I am the one who taught you to do that. I am a bit proud, if I were to be completely honest.”

You pouted, but he only sent you a smile.

A smile that only lifted to his right side. His smile would be forever crooked.

Because of you.

Bokuto would not stay because of you.

You knew that he wanted to leave someday. You knew that he wished to travel and fight and be himself. It was rather hard to be yourself when everything and everyone around you expects brilliance.

You could not tell him to stay when he told you that he wanted to be a knight. It was already something that you knew. He wanted to be a knight, to work on the King’s Court and throw knives for a living.

To be a better one than his father.

With a smile, the edge of his right lip the only one to reach the full length, he told you, “Do you think I would be a good knight?”

How could you possibly tell someone who shined that brightly no?

To be a knight on the King’s Court, there was a series of things you must do. Spend a moonful to be admitted━ a rather large sum, train in the castle for months━ dueling, fighting, training to the brink, and finally win a duel against the General or the King━ your choice. If you were to fail, you would have to pay another moonful to reenter.

You have heard that some people had been training and failing for years.

However, Koutaro Bokuto was confident. With his family being well off in terms of coin, he paid the castle his moonful.

“I start this summer.” Bokuto stated. Excitement drenched every feature. “Akaashi paid his sum, too, and will be coming along!”

“Akaashi is a year below us.”

“He will graduate early, his transfer from Hittaku allows him to leave when we do.” He explained. You hadn’t thought of that. “He will do amazing with his spear, perhaps that can be his specialty.”

As he rambled about becoming a knight with Akaashi, you let your mind wander. He would leave you come summer, and he would be taking Akaashi with him.

You would be alone.

The start of winter arrived as quickly as a blink.

Snow replaced the leaves beneath your feet, hiding the dirt and grass you walked every day.

You wondered if your love would be similar. Hidden and masked.

Koutaro Bokuto had a sweet tooth.

He loved desserts. He would beg after every dinner to have something sweet. He would pay for small chocolates and creams from the village center.

You were surprised that he was broad and large instead of overweight and rotting.

“Thank you!” He gleamed at the clerk, who handed him a bag of chocolate covered berries. The clerk thanked him back, adoring the generous tip that Bokuto had given.

“I think your addiction to sweets will be the reason for your inevitable destruction.” You told him, holding his hand as you walked through the town square.

“That must be why I am addicted to you.” He joked, handing you one of his chocolate covered berries. You accepted.

“I am not sweet.”

“Oh, you are correct.” He pretended to think, popping a berry into his mouth. “Perhaps that is why you are addicted to me, then.”

He had no idea, you thought.

The snow had been incredibly difficult that year. Clouds and snow casted the kingdom in white every day, baring the land and stealing away the darkness. What was once hidden in the thick trees was exposed.

One afternoon, the snow had slowed. Several feet lined the ground and hovered in the branches. Yet, you found Bokuto outside, throwing knives into trunks.

You were walking to the peer, prepared to trade some of your saved food for something better with the pirates and traders that never seemed to leave the beach. You dropped your bag and rushed to your best friend, kicking up the snow as you did.

“Hey, Kou.” You announced as you approached. He must have heard you, snow was not an easy feat to run in.

But he hadn’t. He was focused primarily on the target in front of him. With no gloves on, you could see the redness stinging his hands. Tears stung his cheeks as well.

“Kou, hey.” You stepped in front of him as he started to aim another knife. He threw it, the knife flying past your ear and into the bark behind you next to around five other knives. “Look at me.”

He wouldn’t. His tear stained face was red in coldness, matching his bare hands. He was not dressed to be outside.

“Look at me.” You reached for his face. He did not hesitate to let his face fall into your hands. “What are you doing out here?”

“I ━” Bokuto finally looked at you. You immediately felt a burning in your chest; his eyes were dull and more brown than gold. “I have to be better if I am to be a knight.”

“You are excellent.” You tried to warm his ears with your gloved hands, but also tried to examine him at the same time. “And you cannot get better if you overwork yourself. Or if you manage to get sick.” You wiped some of the dried tears away. “What happened?”

He did not utter another word. Instead, only more tears left his eyes and he collapsed into you. You stumbled against his weight, but held him with every ounce of your being.

His cheek was cold against yours.

“I’m sorry.” Bokuto muttered against your ear.

You did not know what he was apologizing for. “Everything is all right.”

Seasons changed quickly.

The snow melted, cascading the land in dead grass and leaves attempting to grow again. Attempting to live again.

You wished to stop time. There must be Magick Folk somewhere with that ability, to stop and freeze time. You knew that there was not.

The grass started to turn green, bright and vibrant.

Summer was arriving sooner than you wanted.

You could feel a rush of emotions at the thought of your best friends leaving. You were never one to be sad, or get emotional at all; but the thought of being alone left your chest aching in a way you never experienced.

You held back tears. For the first time in your life, you thought of crying about Bokuto.

Keiji Akaashi was a great person to be friends with. He never pushed his boundaries, he knew when to speak and when it was best to sit in silence. He always seemed to know exactly what to say and when.

He would also tell you the honest truth, which was refreshing against Bokuto’s natural optimism.

“You love him. I am correct, right?” Akaashi asked you.

You were sitting in Bokuto’s garden, waiting for him to arrive. He was the one who wanted to go for a walk, after all.

You sat up, looking to him. “You cannot tell him.”

“I have known since I met you.” He replied. “I would not tell him now.”

“Then yes,” You blinked. “You are correct.”

A string of silence filled the air. It was not uncomfortable; Akaashi was trying to find the words to say.

“You should tell him.” He finally said. “He would want to hear it, before going into the knight program.”

You sighed. You looked at him, sitting beside you in the colorful flowers. “Being rejected is not on my itinerary.”

“What will you do when he leaves? When we leave?”

“I do not know.”

You would be lonely.

That was all you knew.

You would be lonely without the two of them. There had never been a day since the age of six that Bokuto was not a part of. Every single day consisted of him.

You would go to school together, walk together, throw knives at trees together, sit on the beach together. You would go to sleep only to wake up to him.

It was no wonder you found yourself in love with him.

Bokuto hugged you tightly on your last day of school.

You only had limited time left.

The color blue reminded you of him.

He sat beside you on the sand. The beach was beautiful this time of year, just before summer. The water made the air cooler, yet you felt warm.

“I will miss you.”

He was leaving the next afternoon. He would head into the castle, starting his training and taking a step into his new life━ his dream.

“I will miss you too.” You told him, staring at the water.

As the sun sat close to the horizon, covering the ocean in sparkling light, you thought of him. He was the color blue, calm and kind and light and happy.

You opened your mouth, ready to tell him that you were in love with him. Ready to tell him that you wanted him to stay, to sit with you like this, forever. You only closed it.

If you truly did love him, you would allow him to follow his dream.

The knights in training cannot be visited or visit. Only when they become knights will they have opportunities to visit, few and far between. They have the busiest jobs.

Once he left, you did not know when you would see him again.

You stared up at him, watching him as he watched the waves crash far away. His golden eyes twinkled, white hair shifting in the breeze.

He truly was more beautiful than the ocean would ever be.

You were talking with his older sister, listening to her stories. You were happy for her, enjoying the story of her meeting her love in a woman in her travels to Hittaku.

“I need to speak to my best friend.” Bokuto interrupted. You looked up.

His sister waved you away, smiling still. Bokuto had given everyone their goodbyes already. You were the last one.

Akaashi told you goodbye earlier in the day, telling you a brief “Do what you think is right for you, not for him.” before departing.

He would be waiting in the dorm for Bokuto.

The moment you were alone, Bokuto pulled you into a hug. You fell into his chest, cheek pressed against his heartbeat. Strong arms were arm around you.

His head rested on top of yours. “I will miss you the most.”

“I will miss you more than I would like to admit.”

“I will write you with every chance I receive.”

You nodded. You would not cry, you told yourself even as the tears trailed down your face and onto his shirt.

“You are crying.”

You heard the crack in his voice. “So are you.”

You pulled back, not wanting to break the embrace. His arms stayed on yours, and you kept your arms on his forearms.

You took him in for what seemed like the last time. His white hair was pushed from his forehead, golden eyes marked with sadness. The scar looked much better, pink against his tan skin.

His eyes met yours, and they were full of emotions you could not describe. He looked at you as if you were a dimming light in the darkness and he needed you to see.

He leaned closer, and you could feel the breath on your face. He smelled of wood and sea salt.

You could only inhale when Bokuto pressed a kiss to your lips.

The kiss was brief. It was a peck, barely a second before he pulled back to rest his head on yours again. You hadn’t even noticed his chapped lips, or that he tasted like sweets.

It was silent for a moment.

“Until we see each other again?” You offered.

He nodded, holding you against him. “Until we see each other again.”

You decided to travel.

Listening to Bokuto’s sister’s stories, along with some of the dreams you had already wished for, you decided that travelling would be the best option.

You were on the next boat out of Peredine, only a small suitcase at your side and the sun on your face.

You never did tell him that you loved him.

You did not think you ever would. As he hopped off of his white horse, full armor proving that he could only gain muscle, you could not help but feel the same ache in your chest.

He lifted his helmet off, his white hair releasing in a mess over his forehead. He rushed to you, pulling you into a hard hug. You laughed, the familiar feeling of drowning drenching your body.

You both were livelier, your travels and his knighthood.

You smiled at him, listening to him talk about the castle and battles he had been in since you last spoke over a year ago.

You were drowning, but you managed to hover close to the surface. Every breath you took of his familiar and wonderful scent, you could feel the water fill your lungs.

Falling in love with Koutaro Bokuto was easy, but the consequences were excruciating.

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blackjack-15 · 3 years

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Two Can Keep a Secret (if the Family Tree is Dead) — Thoughts on: Ghost of Thornton Hall (GTH)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT, SAW, CAP, ASH, TMB, DED

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with my list of previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: GTH; SPY; mention of ASH (and the ASH meta); mention of Nik/HER’s spoilery hints about GTH.

NOTE: THIS META CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF AND REFERENCE TO SEXUAL ASSAULT. MORE DETAILED SECTIONS ARE MARKED, BUT THIS WARNING STANDS FOR THE WHOLE META.

The Intro:

It’s time to get our Spooky on, lads. And we’re gonna do it in a meta of truly staggering length, so maybe go to the bathroom and get a snack before you start. My apologies.

Due to the (to be quite frank) absence of nostalgia surrounding them, there’s not really many games that are post 2010 that the fandom tends to agree on, but Ghost of Thornton Hall happens to be a standout in that pretty much everyone has found something to like about it. It often tops the charts of “best newer game” polls, and puts in a valiant effort against the more nostalgic mainstays.

There are a lot of reasons for this, in my mind – the quality of the writing, the choices that Nancy can make that actually affect the outcome of the game and especially affect Nancy, the fabulous voice work, the purposely-unanswered questions that give a deeper sense of horror — but if you ask me, the love for GTH really boils down to one thing:

Atmosphere.

Nancy Drew game fans (and I’m including myself in this) tend to prioritize atmosphere in the games, probably because without good and proper atmosphere it’s easier to pick apart the formula as you’re playing and to avoid being immersed in the game’s story, and GTH has it thick on the ground (figuratively and literally). The fear, unease, and overall sense of being an Intruder in this story comes from the overwhelming atmosphere provided by the grief of the characters, the time-sensitive nature of the crime, the secrets of the house and family, and, of course, the rather stellar visuals and locations.

The Thornton’s house and grounds really feel alive, but dead — in fact, they almost feel alive in the way that a zombie is, where they function and feed but have no heart. The gloriously (and meticulously) decorated walls are cast in shadow and grime; the portraits feel ominous and disapproving rather than lifelike and nostalgic; even the graveyard, as spread out and opulent as it is, feels claustrophobic and unwelcoming.

In a word, the game is – visually, thematically, story-wise, and atmospherically — haunting. And I think that overwhelming feeling of being haunted is, in large part, what draws fans back to this game again and again.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the scariest parts of this game are the things that you, as the player, do not see. Sure, the apparitions of Charlotte, the ghostly figures, the appearance of Harper — these are all scary, but the fear is gone after a moment, leaving the player unsettled but not running to hide under a blanket. The deaths of the fifty-four souls, the secret behind Clara’s birth, Harper’s breakdown — all these things that you don’t see, that you can only hear about or have hinted at are where the fear of the game kicks in, especially for older players.

It’s no secret that, despite the games being labeled for ages 10 and up, that the actual age of the Nancy Drew games fandom hasn’t been around 10 for some time — most people playing these games are in their 20s or 30s, or have siblings who are in their 20s and 30s and got into the games through them. Sure, there are some outliers, but the Clue Crew is much closer in general to the ages of the River Heights crew than they are to the age that that box says.

Because of this, the writers (and I’m going to especially hat-tip Nik here) behind the games have been able to slowly graduate the topics of the games to be a little bit older, hiding the true horror behind things that younger kids just won’t think about. This is especially the case with GTH and SPY, but you see it in a lot of the newer games, where the implications of events are normally scarier than the events themselves.

GTH takes that and runs with it, choosing to hint at and dance around truly upsetting — for any age — topics, presenting a mystery and a story that only get scarier once you’ve finished staring at the screen. The characters’ emotional problems and issues — loss, abandonment, anxiety, guilt — are like this too; while they’re present in the game itself, when you take a step back after finishing the game you realize just how badly scarred everyone is in the story.

Because answers were purposely left vague in order to 1) make the player work for it and 2) keep the 10+ rating, pretty much everyone who plays GTH has a slightly different opinion on what went down at Charlotte’s party, who the Thorntons really are, the circumstances of Clara’s birth, why the children of a female Thornton take their mother’s name — you name it, and there’s around 10 distinct opinions on it, and many more offshoots of those opinions besides.

I’m going to talk a little bit here about a couple of the “biggies”, since I don’t want it cluttering up the Suspect portion of this meta, so bear with me. I’m not so much interested in “this is the Correct answer” as much as just presenting the information from the game and wondering about its conclusions…but I (like everyone else) have my little pet theories, so what follows will be a little bit of reporting, a little bit of inference, and a little bit of supposition.

What follows is a frank discussion of topics such as rape and incest as they apply to GTH. If this is something you’d rather not consume, skip down to the next bolded line.

The most talked-about question left hanging in the game is, of course, who Clara’s father was. I think this question is best addressed from a two-pronged approach, however, because to figure out who Clara’s father could have been is a question that requires another question to be answered: why would Clara’s mother not tell her, even on her deathbed.

The most popular — and horrifying — answer to this is that Clara’s father is Jackson, and that she was a product of rape and incest. Now, just looking at the timeline, this theory adds up; Rosalie (Clara’s mum) would have been 25 when her father was 51 and would have raped her — young enough (especially in relation to her father, a middle-aged man of a lot of power in and out of the family) that she would have been scared to tell anyone anything, but old enough to not have it be super out of the ordinary that she got pregnant and had a baby — especially in 1968.

To add to this theory, there’s the note in the cellar that asks “who was this Jackson?...what’s he hiding, and who put it there? Was it Charlotte?”. If you’re looking for clues with the incest theory in mind, this seems to point directly to it — “who was this Jackson”? both Rosalie and Clara’s father. “What’s he hiding”? his crime of raping his daughter and impregnating her. The mention of Charlotte alludes to the supposition that Charlotte found proof of this crime — tangible proof — and put it somewhere; this pretty much supposes that there’s a document somewhere that names Jackson as Clara’s biological father, such as an admission of guilt or a paternity test.

The final “proof-positive” to this theory is that Rosalie refused to tell Clara who her father was even on her deathbed. We know from the family tree and Wade that Clara was between 5-10 when her mother died (I’m inclined to believe the family tree, and chalk the discrepancy up to either the writers not being concerned with math or, more likely and more charitably, to show that Wade isn’t a Perfectly Reliable source, just like everyone else), and Rosalie’s protection of Clara from the truth makes sense with a child in that age span. It’s one (horrible, horrible) thing to be forcibly impregnated by your father, but to have to say it out loud, and to say it to your child — that’s something that no one can even remotely blame Rosalie for not being up to, especially when weakened by sickness.

There are smaller points — like pointing out that this might be why Virginia (Wade’s mum) was skipped over in inheritance — but these small points have dozens of explanations, so they’re not really good for bolstering a theory unless you’re already dedicated to it and are looking for crumbs to shore it up.

End of frank discussion. The previous topics may be alluded to and/or mentioned, but not discussed in detail from this point on.

Now, let’s talk about another explanation. I think there’s a tendency to jump on the “Jackson Theory” because 1) there are clues that support it, but more importantly 2) because it’s horrifying, and it’s natural to leap to the scariest thing you can think of when considering a game that relies on fridge horror in the first place.

In the “Jackson Theory”, Rosalie would have hidden Clara’s parentage because of shame, horror, and trauma, and probably to (at least momentarily) spare Clara’s feelings — but Jackson isn’t the only explanation for her reticence.

Generally, we can break apart the reasons for Rosalie’s silence into three distinct emotions or emotional states: shame (supports the Jackson Theory), trauma (supports an assault by a known wolf), or, often overlooked, ignorance.

Clara is mentioned repeatedly as being outwardly and obviously scared about her place in the family — a fear borne from and exacerbated in her childhood, as Nik plainly states (“her insecurity wasn’t just a personal flaw, it was a response to her uneven upbringing,” emphasis mine).

An easy way for Rosalie, worried as she must have been about leaving her daughter alone, to fix this if Clara really was a product of incest, is to name a distant Thornton cousin, preferably one who was already dead or out of the picture, as the father, which would assure Clara’s place in the Thornton line by both blood and her future adoption. This way, if Clara’s parentage was tested, she’d show up as a Thornton from both sides in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious, and her daughter would have an easier life.

But Rosalie didn’t do this — she never even hinted at the identity of Clara’s father. As a woman known primarily for secret keeping — not just about Clara, but about everything (“She loved her secrets,” Wade says), Rosalie would have been adept at hiding things through various means, including through lies and subterfuge, not simply staying silent. Given the little we know of Rosalie’s character, then, let’s consider why she wouldn’t have said anything — even something false — to ensure her daughter’s safety when she died.

Looking outside of Jackson (and with any other known Thornton being quite unlikely), the vast majority of assaults are committed by those known to their victim — friends, acquaintances, classmates, etc.

The Thorntons were — and are — an incredibly powerful family, both monetarily and socially. Having dealt with families such as the Thorntons before in matters like this one, it is frankly incredibly unlikely that, had Rosalie been assaulted by someone she knew, that the truth wouldn’t have come to light through another source, and that the perpetrator would have been punished in every way possible.

BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Some people familiar with only the post-20th-century world as “the modern age” and with a less stellar grasp of the pre-tech-boom world might raise an eyebrow at this supposition of punishment, but this is Exactly what would have happened — and did happen with regularity — even as “far back” as ’68 — especially when the crime was committed against a young, privileged, wealthy woman of the community.

Note, this is after the USMPC adjustment to the definition of rape in ’62, but before the adjustments in the early 70s; in 9 years, forcible rape rates (this number includes only female victims, so the true number of victims is indisputably higher, given the enormous jump in rape statistics in 2016-present as male cases have been included) had soared in the United States from around 17,000 per year in 1960 to, in the year Clara was born, 31,000 reported cases (source: DisasterCenter). With these soaring numbers came soaring awareness, and combined with Rosalie’s identity as a rich, powerful young woman in a rich, powerful family, it’s on the outside of belief that, had her attacker’s identity been known or suspected, that it could have remained a secret and gone unpunished.

END OF BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Given this historical and social backing, the simplest and unavoidable potential answer to why Rosalie wouldn’t have either told Clara who her father was or made up a “brief love” who abandoned her Dishonorably, is this: she didn’t know.

(I’ll spare a mention here to say that, ignorance because of being a “wild child” in the 60s and having had multiple partners would be a possible theory, but it disregards everything else we know about Rosalie and her behavior, and that her reputation as a party girl would have been common knowledge, unable to be hidden from those who were alive at the time. So let’s move on to what else would cause ignorance.)

Though attacks by a person unknown to the victim are, in relation to known assailants, rare, in the absence of other evidence, the simplest answer to Clara’s parentage was that Rosalie was assaulted by someone that she did not know and had no way of knowing — and who had no idea of the social power of his victim.

Rosalie truly left nothing behind that points to her daughter’s parentage, even for later discovery or for Clara’s private eyes in a bank lockbox when she came of an Age that Rosalie deemed appropriate — so the conclusion to be drawn is, in the absence of evidence, that Rosalie didn’t answer Clara’s question because she simply couldn’t.

This ties into the other theory/mystery I want to cover here — that of what happened the night Charlotte died, and how (and in what way) Clara was culpable and responsible for Charlotte’s death. We know that, according to her, Clara went there simply to “scare” Charlotte — and given the circumstances that Clara gives this confession in, I’m inclined to believe her — and it’s my opinion that the reason didn’t have anything to do with the truth of the identity of Clara’s father.

My stance here — and it’s here that I take a solid stance, rather than presenting options — with Charlotte (and I’ll talk more about her general character in the Suspects section) is that Charlotte found the same breadcrumbs as the players did and came to the same conclusion — that Jackson was Clara’s biological father. The difference, however, is that I believe Charlotte’s conclusion to be understandable, but ultimately incorrect, and that Rosalie’s assaulter was a stranger.

Horrified, this is where Charlotte’s “cryptic obsession with Jackson” (mentioned in the note in the cellar) began, and what led to her changing the beneficiary of her will from Clara — poor, pitiable Clara, already a victim of so much, whose insecurities would be compounded by this truth — to Harper.

An important part of this theory — and of really any theory — is the consideration that Clara was pregnant with Jessalyn at the time. Not only does this partially explain why Clara’s thought was to save herself (and her baby) rather than dragging Charlotte out with her (regardless of any other factor), but it also brings a potential answer as to why Charlotte would change her will to favor Harper, rather than Clara. Just as the cellar note asks “Who was this Jackson?”, I find myself asking a similar, but no less important question:

“Who was this Austin Neely?”

Listed as Jessalyn’s (still living) father on the family tree, Austin Neely isn’t present anywhere else in the game — not by name and not through mentions of “Jessalyn’s father” or “Clara’s ex-husband/ex-boyfriend” or anything like that. There’s not even a mention of Clara contacting him as a guest for the wedding or to help search for their daughter. His absence is glaring, especially in a game so focused around family — so the question of who is Austin Neely is a question that seems incredibly important to me, given that Clara was pregnant at the time of Charlotte’s death.

In mentioning this theory, I do fully acknowledge that I have only some circumstantial evidence — mostly emotional, and based off of who the characters are/were — to support it, but given the total lack of information on Austin Neely, my guess is as good as anything else.

So here’s my theory: Austin Neely is not Jessalyn’s father, and Clara, like her mother, became pregnant via some type of assault (and given that this was the late 80s and given Clara’s age at the time, I would say the most likely culprit is date rape). When Clara became aware that she was pregnant, given her insecurities about her place in the Thornton clan and her lack of knowledge of her own father, would have come to this conclusion: she was not going to let her baby go through what she herself went through. So she did what her mother could have — and honestly speaking, probably should have — done, and lied.

Austin Neely was probably a friend or an acquaintance of Clara’s — someone her family didn’t really know, but that she could make up a story about dating/being engaged to and became pregnant by before it all fell apart. He would have likely received a payout (probably a rather large payout, given the Thornton’s money and influence) and disappeared from the area and the Thornton’s lives, signing off any responsibility or claim to “their” child before he left.

As a result of this, her child now has a father and doesn’t have to grow up wondering, and Clara avoids the stigma, court case, and general Uproar that would come with attempting to find her attacker. She also, importantly for her, avoids that mess for her child, who will grow up in a semi-normal atmosphere, surrounded by family, not doubting her place in the world — and no one has to know.

Except, of course, one person would know. The head of the family: Charlotte Thornton. From then on, based on this series of events, the story behind Charlotte’s death becomes quite straightforward.

Clara’s paranoia and general cleverness clue her in to the fact that Charlotte has changed her will in Harper’s favor, and is scared out of her mind; having recently experienced a trauma and being pregnant with a child, she’s afraid that she will be left with absolutely nothing, that her machinations with Austin Neely and all her striving will have been for nothing, and she will be cast off, unable to give her child the life she wants to give her.

Compounded by her ground-in fear that she does not belong, she decides to try to settle it with Charlotte — she’s going to scare her, to punish her, and make Charlotte rethink the changed will.

And Charlotte, bearing the weight of the family name and business, not to mention its continued propagation on her shoulders, sees a woman who has been — like her mother — assaulted and left pregnant, whose mental state is already fragile, and who the “revelation” of who Charlotte thinks her true father is would topple her completely — sees poor, pitiable, emotional, suspicious Clara, and refuses.

I think that, more than anything else, would have set Clara off. Remember what she yells at Charlotte’s ghost?

“You had so much, so much, and I had nothing.”

In answering some of the questions about the game, Nik/HER’s response is to say that Clara did not literally light the match that burned Charlotte alive — but we know that Charlotte burned all the same. In the video of her birthday, there are candles; in the dust and soot on the floor where Charlotte died, we see candlesticks. And in the response, again, we know that Charlotte lit the candles for the celebration.

In my ASH meta, I discussed the many meanings of the word “fire” and the term “setting the fire” — and that’s important here too. In this case, the fire was set by Charlotte refusing to reconsider the terms of her will; in her refusal, she probably touched on the same point that she makes in the note in her room — that Clara isn’t stable enough to take over the company. Now, I doubt she would have said that straight to Clara’s face, but even framed as a “you have enough to be going on with and I don’t want to burden you” sort of thing, that just would have reaffirmed all of Clara’s fears — that she was unwanted by the Thornton clan, that her child would be unwanted as a matter of course, and that she would truly have nothing.

And so my guess would be that Clara shoved her. Not hard enough to break anything, not even into a direct flame, but shoved her, and Charlotte jostled the table, and a candelabra fell to the floor, where we see it still in the modern day.

When Nancy sees Charlotte’s ghost out in that house — and yes, I’m firm on that being Charlotte’s actual ghost, as she’s out in the open air so carbon monoxide doesn’t figure in, and there’s no way for that to be Harper/Jessalyn — she burns from the skirt up, which follows with a candle falling to the floor and lighting that incredibly flammable dress on fire.

The last thing to note from HER/Nik’s response is that at the end of the game, Nancy faces the exact same choice that the Thorntons have: to help, or to save herself. In this, we have to look back to Clara and Charlotte, and conclude this: Clara chose not to help. It’s debatable how much help she could have really been — we’re not sure how pregnant she was at the time — or if it even occurred to her until she was already out and chose not to go back in — but at the very least, Clara’s guilt comes not only from the fact that she quarreled with Charlotte right before her death, but that she could have tried to prevent it, and didn’t.

Given the supposition that Charlotte was literally on fire, I really do doubt that getting her out or finding water to throw on her would have been successful, but it doesn’t matter — because Clara looks at it as a choice, and Clara (more importantly) looks at it as the wrong choice, and a choice that she’s been punished for since the day it happened. That’s why, when speaking to Charlotte’s ghost, she says this:

“Haven’t I suffered enough for you?”

The last point I want to make in this OBSCENELY long introduction is about GTH’s place in the pantheon of “Haunting Games”. When you look at the bare-bones (heh) circumstances that make up GTH, you’ll start to see shades of other games.

A relationship/marriage gone a bit wrong, a family secret, an ancestral home, a relative/ancestor whose spectre looms over the story, mysterious apparitions and appearances, and Nancy’s status as an outsider and a skeptic — yeah, both CUR and HAU should come to mind immediately.

Having said my piece about, well, the badness of CUR and HAU and their unsuccessful approach to their basic plot points, it delights me that GTH takes a good hard look at them and says “well, what if we did this well this time? What if we gave our characters the complexity, the emotional resonance, the secrets and lies that we should have the first time?”

Like CUR and HAU, the Family is at the center of the game — except this time we believe in this family, in their relationships to one another, and we feel the effects of the family and their choices, not just hear about it from a diffident 9-year-old or a cranky caretaker. The history of the Thornton clan comes alive through the house, the graveyard, the books and journals that we have of them. We understand what this family is and the choices that they make — even if we don’t approve of them — and they feel real, not just like a background chucked in to Make The Spooky Things Happen.

Also like CUR and HAU, we deal with a central relationship and the complexities that come over two people deciding to get married. Happily, this game (unlike CUR and HAU) treats the central relationship as a thing of Import, and comes to the conclusion that it’s the happiness and well-suitedness of the couple that matters, not the family that surrounds them or anything else. It asks the question “what happens if one person runs away from the relationship?” and answers it, quite satisfactorily, with “there are probably some issues that need ironed out before anything else should happen”.

Interestingly, GTH also takes the good points of CUR and HAU – especially HAU’s atmosphere and CUR’s love of family tidbits — and improves upon them as well. Instead of Jane showing off her studies so that Nancy can solve a few puzzles, Wade walks her through the Thorntons were (at least in his eyes) and helps her get to know the people she’s helping. Instead of being duly impressed at the atmosphere in a bombed-out castle, everywhere on the island is teeming with fog — literal and figurative — as Nancy tries to decode the past to help the future.

Now then, let’s leave the general behind, and focus on the specifics of GTH.

The Title:

Ghost of Thornton Hall is a great title in the way that Secret of the Scarlet Hand is a great title – moody, evocative, gives us our location/focus right away, but not in a way that spoils anything, etc. If anything, it’s a little more flexible – are we dealing with The Ghost of Thornton Hall (Charlotte), the ghost(s) of the Thornton family, the ghosts of those who died on the island, or — in a very fun way — are we talking about the ghost of Thornton Hall — the spirit of the building where so much life and death has happened?

As a title for a Haunting game, you really don’t get much better than GTH, and it centers the player’s attention right where it should be — on the messed up family that the game centers around, and how their past impacts their future.

The Mystery:

Nancy’s phone rings in the middle of the night, with Savannah Woodham’s drawl on the other end, informing her of a kidnapping that’s taken place. She’d go herself, but believes wholeheartedly – and is frightened by — the ghost that’s taken up residence on Blackrock Island, Georgia, and doesn’t believe she’d be enough help.

Of course, this isn’t the whole truth, but we’ll get into that later.

Armed with both her detective skills and her inherent skepticism, Nancy sets off for Georgia to find the missing bride-to-be. Of course, when she gets there, she quickly discovers that the family — and family history — is even murkier and laced with tragedy than the presence of a ghost would suggest, and that, even with everyone searching for Jessalyn Thornton, she is nowhere to be found.

To find her, Nancy has to delve deep into the Thornton family lore, Jessalyn’s relationships with her family and friends – not to mention her preoccupied fiancé — and figure out what really did happen to dear, sweet Charlotte Thornton nearly two decades ago…

GTH, as a mystery, is chock-full of hints, clues, red herrings, and background facts that make figuring out the truth behind everything a joy and a delight — not to mention a task that will take more than one playthrough. GTH is also unique in that its mystery can end in more than one way, and that Nancy’s choices actually have more of an impact than just what souvenir she sends home to her erstwhile boyfriend. Choosing to save herself, to save just the “innocent” (for a certain value of innocence), or to save everyone leads to different endings not just for Nancy but for everyone involved with the Thornton Clan, from its matriarch all the way down to a certain spook-hunting ex-girlfriend.

Underpinning the mystery is this question: did Charlotte really come back as a ghost to haunt Blackrock and the Thorntons, or are her appearances just the result of sneaky relatives and atmospheric maleficence? Can all of the sightings be explained by a mixture of carbon monoxide poisoning, a few relatives playing dress-up, and huge amounts of suggestion and guilt? Is it the case, as Rentaro posited a few games earlier, that a ghost doesn’t have to be real to haunt you?

In a word, no. In a few more words, of course not.

Tying the whole of the ‘haunting’ mysteries together is this (previously mentioned) fact: Nancy is not remarkable for being a Skeptic, she is remarkable for being a Skeptic in a world where ghosts exist. The moving wood (and possibly the silhouette) in MHM, Camille’s ghost dancing along in TRN, the reflection of Kasumi in the water in SAW, the ghost of the Willow in GTH — these are all real, unexplainable-by-tech-or-imagination ghost sightings, and the fact that Nancy doesn’t believe in them doesn’t change their reality one bit.

In the house, you can cite carbon monoxide and Jessalyn/Harper running around in a costume for at least some of them — though not all. But the sightings outside — carbon monoxide does not stay in the system for very long in clear air, blessedly — of Charlotte? The consistency of the spectre? The apparition of her burning up at the site of her birthday party? These aren’t things that you can explain by costume theater — especially since these sightings have been happening for over a decade by people who haven’t stepped foot in Thornton Hall.

When they say that Blackrock belongs to Charlotte and has since the fire, it’s not a literary turn of phrase — Charlotte is there, and refuses to be forgotten. Nancy’s status as a Skeptic prevents her from hysteria, but it does not stop her from being haunted by the Ghost of Thornton Hall.

Now, let’s talk about the players — dead and alive — that make this mystery as complicated and dark as it is.

The Suspects:

Beginning with the matriarch of the Thorntons seems as good a place to start as any, so let’s talk about Clara Thornton. Cousin to Charlotte and Harper, Clara was taken in after her mother’s untimely death (but before her aunt and uncle’s equally untimely deaths) and became the equivalent of a sister in at least Charlotte and Harper’s eyes — though Clara herself was always unsettled and wary about her place in the family.

After the events of Charlotte’s tragic birthday (covered above), Clara visited Charlotte’s grave every night for a year, and was hospitalized after being pushed off of the widow’s walk (more on this later). Whether due to her upbringing or her Thornton blood – or, most likely, both — Clara is secretive, paranoid, wracked with guilt…and a loving mother and extremely capable businesswoman.

Though GTH doesn’t actually have a culprit —Jessalyn wasn’t kidnapped and Charlotte wasn’t murdered — Clara is, as the resident secret keeper and witness to Charlotte’s death, the closest thing that we’ve got. Clara’s sense of guilt is far beyond anything that she could have done, and is haunted so completely as to turn her rather cold.

I have a lot of sympathy for Clara, who made a mistake in a fit of anger (whether that’s pushing Charlotte or just not helping her when she started to burn) at the age of 21 and has been wracked with guilt and haunted by the spectre — real and imagined — of her ‘sister’ ever since (not to mention knowing that her other ‘sister’ blamed and hated her for it). Charlotte died before she had the time to make too many mistakes, but Clara had the entirety of the estate and the business — thousands of people’s livelihoods — thrust into her hand when she was a single mother of 21 years of age. Even had Clara been completely stable, it would have been a lot, and it’s no wonder that she rules the company with an iron fist.

I also want to point out that, due to Harper’s breakdown at the funeral and her afterwards, that even had Charlotte’s second will been found right then, Clara still would have inherited until at least Harper received her bill of mental health, as the closest heir to Charlotte of (legally) sound mind and body.

Let’s talk then about the other heir, Harper Thornton. A fan favorite for a myriad of reasons — her Helena-Bonham-Carter-esque design, her wonderful VA (props to Keri Healey, voice of Hotchkiss, Sally, Paula, Simone, and Madeline!) knocking her lines out of the park, and her dark sense of humor, Harper is, like most of the Thorntons, incredibly unstable, paranoid, violent…an affectionate aunt, and a pretty darn good detective in her own right.

Since GTH doesn’t have a ‘culprit’, Harper stands in her own guilty/not guilty paradigm along with Clara. She had nothing to do with Charlotte’s death personally, but was the one who caused assorted injuries and thousands of dollars in property damage at the funeral, and the one who pushed Clara off the widow’s walk and hospitalized her. Yes, Harper was young — 18 when Charlotte died, but pushing your cousin/sister off of a balcony is wrong at any age.

It’s worth noting that of the three Thornton ‘sisters’, one is guilty of some degree of manslaughter/criminal negligence, and the other of attempted murder. When Charlotte notes that she herself has a dose of the “Thornton paranoia”, she’s not just whistling Dixie.

The biggest problem the Thorntons have, honestly speaking, is that all of them are way too emotional and react without thinking. Clara confronting Charlotte, Charlotte not taking Clara aside to talk about the will, Harper’s injuring of others and blaming/pushing Clara, Wade destroying machinery, Jessalyn disappearing rather than talking things out…none of the Thorntons, past or present, have seemed to think with their brains since the woman who received the land on Blackrock Island after the Civil War in the first place.

In keeping with the theme, I want to talk about Charlotte Thornton next. A girl who inherited the Thornton land and business at way too young an age — I don’t even wanna know why Jackson hated his adult daughter Virginia (and yes, I know that there’s a supposition to this in the “Jackson Theory”, but it’s pure supposition) so much that he would stake the family future on a 20-year-old, no matter how much everyone liked her — after the death of her parents four years prior, Charlotte was the darling of the Thornton family.

Well-liked by everyone with a beautiful singing voice, Charlotte was nonetheless every inch a Thornton; she outright acknowledged her own paranoia, kept secrets and locked rooms closer to her than her family, and had a flair for the dramatic and emotional. After considering her cousin/sister Clara too unstable for the task of inheriting the family Business, Charlotte, rather than turning to her older aunt or naming multiple beneficiaries to ease the load, instead leaves 100% of it to her younger sister Harper.

I do want to point out the irony here in leaving the business to Harper over Clara on the grounds of mental stability. Whatever else Charlotte was good at, she was not a good judge of character, even giving leeway for her being 21.

After her death, Charlotte haunts the family home, unable to leave the place that was, for a year, hers to inherit. But why would ‘dear, sweet’ Charlotte haunt, frighten, and otherwise unsettle those around her — from family to neighbors to curious kids — especially to the extent that she does?

To answer that question, we need to talk about the family member that everyone says is incredibly close to Charlotte in personality — our missing bride, Jessalyn Thornton.

Clara’s daughter, Jessalyn is painted as being a sort of return of Charlotte; everyone loves her (all Thornton employees are combing the island looking for her, for heaven’s sake), everyone agrees on her, and she’s next in line to inherit the Thornton family business. She’s even around Charlotte’s age (24, rather than 21, but close enough) during the game, for heaven’s sake — the comparisons are not subtle, nor are they meant to be.

Since it’s more than halfway through the game that Nancy meets Jessalyn, the things that people say about her are the best clues to her personality that we have…right?

Everyone agrees that Jessalyn would never run off and make people worry like this, that even if she was scared or had second thoughts about the wedding or even just needed to be alone, that she would never do this to her family. And, as it turns out, everyone — her mother, her uncle, her best-friend-cum-fiancé — everyone is wrong. Jessalyn did exactly that — she ran off, made everyone worry, and didn’t think about her family, friends, fiancé, or employees one bit.

It also takes her no effort at all to fully believe a woman she’s never met that her mom is a vicious, cackling murderer just because her (single, incredibly busy) mother is a bit emotionally cold, so she’s also not a great judge of character.

And remember, we’re told over and over again — Jessalyn is just like Charlotte. Sure, Jessalyn is also our Nancy foil in this game — a young woman who needs to learn the truth about her mother, coerced/guided by a quasi-unreliable source, worrying her family by running off — and that’s important for Nancy’s character, but Jessalyn is first and foremost our Charlotte analogue. Jessalyn’s family and friends don’t understand who Jessalyn is…so I think it’s fair to say that Charlotte’s family and friends didn’t understand who Charlotte was, either.

We see Charlotte, through her writings and actions, could be thoughtless, was a poor judge of character, was secretive and paranoid — all things that no one even alludes to when speaking of her. Sure, there’s the idea of not speaking ill of the dead, but someone would have noted these things, even fondly or mildly.

So why would Charlotte haunt this place, haunt these people, when she was so good and kind and loved everyone? The simplest answer, the least convoluted explanation, is just that she wasn’t. That the Thorntons didn’t understand Charlotte, as much as they loved her, just like they didn’t understand Jessalyn.

Speaking of Thorntons who may be misunderstood, we’ll focus on Wade Thornton next. A little more rough-and-tumble and a little less refined than his relatives seem to be, Wade is introspective, superstitious, hard-working, and a bit gloomy…along with having some anger issues, vast amounts of distrust, and a bit of egotism.

Wade’s (at least legally) guilty of a few things in the past, but since he won’t even go into Thornton Hall, he’s a pretty easy cross-off of our list of suspects. Wade’s there to give Nancy information on the Thornton Clan, to provide the explanation as for (partially) why Savannah isn’t there herself, and to show another facet of the Thorntons — their anger.

Whether or not you agree with Wade’s actions that led to Clara pressing charges — though I think everyone can agree it’s pretty stupid to destroy your own family’s machinery, especially when the only danger to the employees was caused by him scaring them half to death — and it highlights that Wade, philosophical though he is, is just as much a Thornton as those he despises. He even calls himself out on it – that while he used to think he was on the side of “Good Thorntons”, he’s not so sure anymore.

The best (serious) line in the game does come from Wade — I will be in love with his description of dating Savannah as “[falling] for her like a Black Tuesday banker” until I die. It’s a perfect metaphor without sounding pretentious, and shows just how bleak his own worldview really is.

Next is The Fiancé, Colton Birchfield, who has the most hilariously WASP-y name to ever come out of a Nancy Drew game. A man who’s struggled with depression and anxiety all his life, Colton was born to two politicians and has lived in the spotlight — and his marriage to Jessalyn is getting just as show-stopper-y as a campaign trail before she disappeared.

I mentioned above that the resolution to Colton and Jessalyn’s relationship is the healthy, sane version of what should have happened in CUR and HAU, and I stand by that. While I don’t necessarily like him going back to Lexi after the game is over — a relationship interrupted by one party being paid off is not the healthy, loving, loyal relationship that Colton needs — it’s clear that he and Jessalyn would have made each other content, but never fulfilled romantically.

Colton’s guilty of nothing more than not being in love with his best friend, and he’s a refreshing breath of air as someone related tangentially to, but not cast down by, the Thornton family drama. He may get less sympathy than our other cast members, but he’s no less deserving of it, and I’m really rooting for him to find someone that will give him the same amount of love and loyalty that he’ll give them.

We’ll journey outside the Thornton family and their (almost) relations for our next ‘suspect’. Addison Hammond, Jessalyn’s friend and bridesmaid, makes a cameo phone appearance here to tell us that Thornton Hall is Totes Spooky, and that Jessalyn vanished not once, but twice in the night.

I quite enjoy Addison, not because she plays a big part or because she’s an exceptional character — she’s as bare-bones as we get in the later games (ignoring MED/SEA/MID), honestly — but because she’s simply a girl in her 20s reacting the way that most of us would if our unnecessarily spooky friend dragged us to an old haunted house and then vanished twice. Good for you, girl.

Coming in for a wonderful appearance is Savannah Woodham, ex-ghost hunter, ex-girlfriend of Wade Thornton, and the detective who was supposed to be on the case. Savannah’s too scared of the Ghost (and too reticent to talk to Wade face-to-face) to risk stepping foot on Blackrock Island herself, but she’s more than willing to send the biggest skeptic she knows, hoping that Nancy’s skepticism will keep her safe.

As lovely as Savannah is in SAW — and I adore her in that game — she really shines in GTH. Probably the biggest moment she gets in the game — and probably my second favorite moment in the game period — is her tale of tracing the shape of the old willow tree on her wall, only to have a body discovered under that exact willow tree after a storm. It’s a delightfully creepy — and most importantly, completely inexplicable by any means other than accepting that the supernatural exists — moment, and I think it’s key to understanding Savannah as a character in GTH.

Savannah suffers under the weight of knowing that there truly are Things that Go Bump in the Night, that can’t be arrested or captured or gotten rid of by normal, legal means. Her background knowledge of the Thorntons helps Nancy to get an initial feel for the family, and it helps to not have an ex-girlfriend wandering around that the Thorntons might have a grudge against or dislike for.

She is, in effect, the mirror image of Nancy — what Nancy might have become without her inborn skepticism — and that alone, even ignoring everything else about her, is fascinating to me.

Our other phone contacts are Ned Nickerson and Bess Marvin, teamed up due to George’s absence while doing an internship (at Technology of Tomorrow Today, no less!) and Bess’ extreme boredom without anyone else to hang out with.

The lovely thing about Ned and Bess is that we get to see Ned when he’s not Solo Boyfriend Ned, but a college guy hanging out with his friend. Their light-hearted banter is hilarious and comfortable (Bess dramatically asking permission to do a spit-take in his living room is of particular note), and we really get to see a different side of Nancy’s oft-abandoned boyfriend.

You can tell that their voice actors are having a terrific time as well (Scott Carty’s pitch-perfect imitation of Jennifer Pratt’s cadence and tone makes me laugh every time), and it really helps bring a bright and colorful spot to this otherwise rather tense and grim mystery.

We’ll round out our character list with the quasi-amateur, quasi-professional detective herself, Nancy Drew. Through her foil with Jessalyn — discussed above, so I won’t get too into it here — we get to see Nancy in a slightly different light, and get to look at the effect that she has on those around her when she disappears.

We know Carson and Ned (and occasionally Bess/George, and even more occasionally, Hannah) worry about Nancy while she’s off on a case, but this is the first time Nancy herself is dealing with what she leaves behind every time she jets off to Venice, or gets trapped in a lava tube, or lost in a rock maze. Nancy hasn’t investigated a straight-up kidnapping (or what appears to be one) since Maya in FIN (no, I’m not counting HAU, as it’s not played as a kidnapping nor does anyone think it is until 2/3 of the way through the game), and she has the same sense of urgency here that she did back then.

Upon replaying the game, the player will lose that sense of urgency for Jessalyn — we know she’s alive and well, and was never kidnapped — but Nancy’s reactions to the family are what stay interesting. She’s concerned for Jessalyn, but does most of her detective work through getting a sense of what the rest of the family thinks of the missing girl.

Given Nancy’s reputation as a good girl, a solid presence (if an occasional one) who loves her family and friends, and who is always responsible, it’s easy to see why she misses the one question that would have helped her solve the case in half of the time: what if Jessalyn isn’t missing? After all, Jessalyn, like Nancy, would never jet off after hearing an unsubstantiated claim about her mother without telling anyone or pausing to confirm it through a different, more trustworthy source, right?

In this game, we discover a huge characteristic about Nancy: she is reckless. Now, we know this already from other games — that Nancy is reckless physically, confronting bad guys alone, diving down into murky catacombs, jumping from pillars in ancient tombs — but here we see that she’s also reckless emotionally. Even though it interferes with her investigation, Nancy gets personally involved in this case; she’s mad at Colton for “cheating” on Jessalyn, she’s upset by the tragedy of Charlotte’s death, and she’s concerned for Jessalyn’s safety in a different way than she usually is with a victim or suspect.

Nancy’s always been willing to take huge risks, but she always stays emotionally on the surface level of a case — a good and necessary trait for a detective, and one that allows her to face down killers, saboteurs, and forgers without blinking. Here, Nancy’s dragged down into the web of the Thorntons, and — as we see in the middle and bad endings especially — she doesn’t quite recover from it. Nancy loses a bit of objectivity here, but what she gains is humanity — and she’ll need that for the last two games in this meta series.

The Favorite:

With such a well-executed game — even though it doesn’t fall in my personal top 5 ranking — there’s going to be a lot to love, so let’s get down to it.

My favorite puzzle is probably Nancy’s trek to ‘discover’ the ‘ghost’ — aka completing Harper’s tasks in order to meet her, culminating with reciting Charlotte’s rhyme while blindfolded. It’s a different kind of puzzle than the type we get commonly with Nancy Drew games, and really helped spark and keep the tension needed to maintain such a spooky game.

My favorite moment in the game is a quieter one — it’s Nancy’s remarks on Charlotte’s room. She’s taken aback at how, after a game of everyone talking about Charlotte, that it’s opening the door to her room that cements Charlotte as a living, breathing person. She continues that she can’t let that feeling distract her, that she needs to treat the room like the rest of the house and gather tools that will let her find Jessalyn, but it’s lovely to see the effect of the Thornton’s history really settle into Nancy’s bones as Charlotte Thornton turns from a scary rhyme that children chant to a girl who lived and died in the same walls that Nancy’s exploring.

There are, of course, other things that I love — the objectively creepy poem (“we’ll let you share with Charlotte/a gown of coal and glowing flame” is an incredible line), Savannah’s story about the willow tree, the small Francy crumbs of Frank being sullen after his Very Revealing voicemail in DED and considering an MBA, the multi-layered relationship that Wade and Savannah have, the gorgeous detail of Thornton Hall — and all of these add up to a game that’s frankly just enjoyable to play.

The big thing to mention in this game, as I talked a bit about in the intro, is its atmosphere.

Throughout the entire game, there’s this palpable feeling of death and grief and loss and pure pain, and those emotions are what GTH relies on to keep itself Scary, not the few spectre scares and swinging scythes that it also has to offer.

I don’t normally quote things other than the games/words of the cast and crew in these metas, but I do make exceptions when the quotation is this good, so I tip my hat here to Tumblr user aniceworld, speaking about ranking GTH their top Nancy Drew game of all time:

“The reason GTH is so successful as a scary game is because there’s such a pervasive sense of sorrow at Thornton Hall. People have died here who shouldn’t have. A family has been destroyed. The house has seen so much trauma it can literally no longer stand on its own. There are ghosts that live here, whether you can see them or not.”

This horror is far better than bloody slashers or obnoxious “continuous mysterious accidents”-style thrillers that tend to permeate the genre; instead of random death-by-umbrella or scary-guy-in-the-shower incidents driving the plot, the emotion behind death and loss and betrayal gets to take a turn at the wheel, and the game is much better for it.

The Un-Favorite:

As with any game, however, no matter how good the atmosphere, there are some things that I don’t love.

I’m not actually the biggest fan of Harper; while her design is great and her VA does a spectacular job, she’s a little cartoonish among a cast that endeavors to stay as far away from broad stereotypes as possible.

It’s fine to have a large personality, it’s fine that she’s a bit cracked, it’s great that she has her own reasons and motivations beyond “expose the truth” (especially since she’s not interested in exposing the truth, just in proving that Clara’s a murderer) — she’s just really not my cup of tea, and I prefer Harper as the Anonymous Note Leaver to Harper the Conversational Partner.

Even if she does get some of the best lines in the game.

I don’t really have a least favorite moment or puzzle that sticks out to me; there are puzzles I struggle more or less with, but none of them are immersion-breaking or so frustrating that I have to get up and walk away. The ones I love, I enjoy solving; the ones I don’t love, I turn to the walkthrough and finish them up to get on with the story.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Ghost of Thornton Hall?

Even given my small problems with Harper, I’m not sure I’d change her. Sure, she’s a bit Broad for the game, generally speaking, but she’s also another example of what loss can do to a person — it can make you cold and withdrawn, it can make you righteously angry and dismissive…or it can turn you malicious and violent. She’s an important presence regardless of my personal taste, and while I might tweak a line of dialogue or two, it’s important to note that her Persona is just another thing for Nancy to discover and re-discover as she investigates the Thorntons.

While not a perfect game — very few, if any, of the Nancy Drew games qualify for that title — Ghost of Thornton Hall is an excellent entry in the Nancy Drew series as a whole, and in the smaller series of Nancy-centric games. Through it, we get to see what happens to those who are left behind after a tragic, sudden, and even violent loss — and that becomes more and more important as we leave behind the gloomy Georgia island and leap across the pond to Glasgow.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #ghost of thornton hall #nancy drew meta #GTH #my meta #long post #video games

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