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sirfrogsworth · 5 months

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The Pretty Average Trump Trauma

I really picked the wrong week to have a controversial post go viral.

The appeal deadline for my disability case is very soon and we just recently got the last of the medical records. My lawyer can get very busy and hard to reach. And I have been freaking out trying to get a hold of him to make sure everything is ready to be submitted. Thankfully he just emailed and said everything is on track and will be sent in for the appeal.

But having this weighing on me behind the scenes while also dealing with the blowback from my "vote for Biden" post caused me to enter into some unhealthy arguments and lose my temper on several occasions.

I didn't actually think about what would happen if that post went viral. Sometimes I write things and a hundred people see it, and it serves as a catharsis because I was able to get my thoughts and fears out of my brain.

And sometimes it gets reblogged 6000 times and I can forget I have a platform where that happens from time to time.

I wish I had written a better initial post. I think my thoughts in subsequent posts, along with the inclusion of what I think is a better strategy, would have gone a long way to help people understand my point of view. Looking back, that original post feels incomplete.

The post that ended up going viral was not inspired by reason or logic and it was never really meant to convince anyone of anything.

I thought I was preaching to the choir.

It was a representation of my fears. It was the result of two years of panic and trauma from the pandemic which ended in my mother's horrible death.

Let me explain...

On November 9th, Shaun, a YouTuber I respect, posted this.

And it scared the hell out of me.

A very popular leftist with a huge platform wrote this to 5 million people and I freaked out.

Shaun wasn't necessarily saying not to vote for Biden at the time. But he thinks people should all say they won't vote for him unless he calls for a ceasefire. I get the strategy. But I feared that nuance would be lost on many people and they would only see it as "don't vote for Biden... no matter what." Which was an accurate prediction on my part. The guy from Eve 6 has been going nuance-free for weeks now.

The one thing I greatly disagree with Shaun about is this...

Before the pandemic, I might have understood his argument. For the first two years, Trump was mostly an ineffectual goof. He had trouble getting a lot of his worst ideas to manifest. Most of the border wall he built ended up being repairs of existing barriers. And Obama droned civilians and kept kids in cages too—though Trump kept them in cages indefinitely and made up a rule that we can't actually know how many civilians he was droning.

So, a lot of the same, but turned up to 11.

But nothing about the pandemic response was pretty average.

There is something I have been choosing not to say during all of these discussions. I felt like saying it would be poor timing. I was worried people wouldn't actually agree with me. I worried it would make people think I was turning suffering into a competition. I didn't want to make it look like I valued certain lives over others. But then people accused me of all of that anyway. I was called evil and a collaborator and a supporter of genocide.

So I'm going to talk about it. Because the fact that few have mentioned it in these discussions has been bothering me. And the fact that the majority of society does not mention it makes me feel very alone in this belief.

I have long believed Trump and the majority of US conservatives committed a genocide of the disabled and elderly. I was never really comfortable calling it that word. I wasn't really sure how a genocide got classified as such. So I would just say things like, "40% of people who died during COVID should still be alive" and "Trump is responsible for hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths" and "Trump killed my mom" and hoping people would make the connection or at least see it as mass murder. I mean, this country judges everything by how many "9/11s" something is, but not the pandemic?

Donald Trump was the leader of the Republican party. When he refused to wear a mask due to vanity, his followers looked for something to excuse him. And I feel that directly birthed the "masks don't work" movement among conservatives. Donald Trump, having enormous influence among his acolytes, refused to correct this dangerous rhetoric. And he probably welcomed the cover so he could continue going maskless and not smear his makeup—even after he nearly died.

It is my belief this was the beginning of a genocide of apathy, deliberate and accidental incompetence, and non-compliance. And the reason for that non-compliance was not freedom as many claimed.

Conservatives did not like being inconvenienced.

They didn't like having to consider others.

And if competence requires effort and vigilance, they'd prefer doing the bare minimum.

Trump was famous for not filling vital administrative positions in the executive branch. Not only that, his turnover rate was 5 times higher than previous administrations. People were asked to do the job of several people because they didn't staff properly, and so those people quit. Thus creating a cycle of inexperienced new-hires that were out of their depth and asked to do much more than they bargained for. There is no way they could succeed in their jobs.

I think people forget that part of the role of the executive is the day-to-day boring administrative shit that is required to run a country. And when this day-to-day work isn't valued, it creates a crisis of incompetence. Which then creates things like not enough tests, not enough testing, Trump saying "if you don't test, it doesn't count", botched vaccine rollouts, rampant misinformation, poor education of the populace, and abysmal improvised press conferences where the President does a quick riff on injecting bleach.

This competence aspect is one of the hugest reliefs I had with the Biden administration. Not Biden. Not his policies. I'm talking about the regular workers getting shit done. This is the reason I am desperate to get my shit worked out with Social Security before the election. I once called Social Security during the pandemic and I literally got a recording saying to try calling back the next month.

Trump didn't care. People criticized him for not hiring people. He was aware of the problem. He just did nothing about it. And many conservatives praised him for "trimming the fat" or whatever. This idea that all of these government workers were useless burdens on the taxpayer fell apart during the pandemic.

There is incompetence caused by ignorance but it can also be a deliberate act. Trump was extraordinary in all forms of incompetence. He wasn't qualified to manage a pandemic. But he could have easily appointed experts and then gotten out of the way. But his narcissism would not let him cede power to anyone. He has always been convinced "only Trump can save you" and so his ego helped kill nearly half a million people.

Once the incompetence ball got rolling, that's when malicious apathy reared its ugly head. It was time to choose who they cared least about dying—who they felt was most useless. Conservatives decided it was time to devalue lives and start making sacrifices to save politicians' money laundering fronts small businesses.

Popular conservatives were going on TV and saying it was okay if Grandma died. It would be a worthy sacrifice to protect our freedoms.

The Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, basically offered up the elderly for sacrifice all while claiming that he spoke for them and was also willing to die. Though I don't take his personal willingness very seriously, since he has the money and resources to get the best medical care and probably had no expectation he was in any danger.

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ But if they had? If that is the exchange, I’m all in. So my message is let’s get back to work. Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves.”

But you cannot just sacrifice the elderly. You may justify it by saying they have lived a long life, but many of the same health risks were shared by the disabled. Many of whom still had normal lifespans, but just needed extra care and protection.

There are countless elderly who cannot "take care of themselves" but they are still of value to our society. They are still loved. They watch and teach their grandchildren. They are the keepers of the family stories. They bake cookies and give you two dollar bills. They have random bowls of butterscotch all throughout their house.

But some need help. Some are sick. Some can't drive. Some can't walk. I guarantee not all of them were prepared to die for the cause.

And none deserved to die for a sports bar.

Oh, didn't I mention?

Dan Patrick owned a chain of sports bars that were losing money from the lockdowns. Did you really think he was sacrificing old folks "for the children"?

Thankfully Dan's sports bars are gonna be okay. He ended up receiving a $179,000 PPP loan... that was forgiven.

Then they started saying COVID deaths weren't COVID deaths.

"Well, they had a bad heart." "They were obese." "They had cancer."

They dropped the elderly excuse and began to openly devalue the disabled as well. If you were sick, what good were you? They considered us the next sacrifices for their convenience. If we wanted to survive, we shouldn't have gotten sick. It didn't matter that we could survive for years or even have a normal lifespan as long as we were protected by our communities.

And then began the non-compliance.

Trump's followers ignored masks and lockdowns and eventually vaccines. They were unwilling to protect the vulnerable and so many of us just... died.

Again, 40% of the US COVID deaths could have been prevented. Hundreds of thousands of people should still be here. Malicious apathy, incompetence, and non-compliance were the direct cause of this genocide.

The United Nations Genocide Convention identified 5 acts that typically constitute genocide. Only one act is required and in the pandemic 3 of the 5 acts happened.

Killing members of a group. Causing members of a group serious bodily harm. Imposing living conditions on that group that would destroy them.

I'm looking at that third one just now and realizing why we have advocates to remind us of vulnerable groups that need protection. I was thinking about how the elderly and disabled were trapped in hyper-contagious nursing homes and care facilities, but I completely forgot about prisons and the concentration camps at the borders.

I am not trying to diminish the awful things happening in Palestine right now. This is not a comparison of suffering—but a reminder. When a current terrible thing is happening, it can be hard to focus on anything else. But I do wish more people recognized what happened as a genocide and that the leader of that genocide, the one with the power to stop it, was Donald Trump. If we are going to base this voting decision entirely on acts of genocide, why is this not part of the consideration?

It is an awful moral calculus we have to figure out. One president is supporting and asking for funding for a genocide and I feel the other was the direct cause of another genocide. That's why I said both choices sucked. And the only way I could resolve this moral calculation was by asking what path would cause the least harm for everyone involved.

And the most disappointing aspect of all of these debates was the ableism. People told me if Trump was elected and I lost my benefits I should grow my own food and learn about medicine. They said I valued disabled lives above those in Gaza. They told me to imagine myself in Nazi Germany as a collaborator despite the fact I would have been euthanized.

But I felt like they weren't considering the disabled at all.

I am a disability advocate. So of course I am going to remind people to consider us in their voting decisions. But I'm tired of hearing I value lives differently just because I speak on behalf of a vulnerable group more often. I'm tired of continually having to justify my existence. And I'm tired of people dismissing the very real trauma caused by Trump.

It was not pretty average.

I'd like to tell you the full story of my mother's passing. All of the details. Even the ones I can't bear to type. But this isn't just my story. This is the story of countless others who had to watch their loved ones slowly die behind glass or over the phone or on an iPad.

I spent two years in constant anxiety trying to protect my two very sick parents. It was always assumed that my father was the most at risk. And that he was probably going to die long before my mother. But she had started a treatment for her psoriatic arthritis that turned the volume down on her immune system. Something that would normally not be a huge risk... but a pandemic changed that. A vaccine needs a functioning immune system to protect someone.

She could either accept the agony of stopping treatment or risk getting COVID. If people would have been willing to protect her, it would have been an easier choice. And she would still be around today. And I wouldn't have to worry about being homeless right now.

I don't know for sure when she was infected. I kept her inside as much as possible. But she needed those treatments and we had to pile into a crowded waiting room every time. And I remember a man in his fifties who seemed preoccupied with having to wear a mask. And when he thought no one was looking, he'd pull it down below his nose. A few days later she was being taken away in an ambulance.

A few weeks before my mother died, she called me on the phone. She was heavily medicated and they had two different breathing devices assisting her. The nurse was holding the phone up to her ear and she was trying to speak over the volume of the air rushing into her face from the masks. I could not hear her no matter how loud she yelled. So she asked the nurse to take the masks off for just a second so we could talk.

Her only concern was for my father. We all contracted COVID and she was so worried he would end up just like her. Thankfully the vaccine worked for him and he was okay at that moment. But she kept yelling, "Is Dad okay? Is Dad okay?" And I kept trying to tell her he was fine, but she was hard of hearing and the phone could not be held very close to her ear.

Unfortunately, the yelling made it harder and harder for her to breathe. She started gasping for air. The nurse kept insisting she put the breathing equipment back on, but my mom refused. "I want to talk to my son! I need to talk to my son!"

I knew there wasn't much we could do to communicate. And so I kept trying to yell "I love you, Mom. Everyone is fine. I love you!" I then asked the nurse to tell her that. And when she finally understood what I was saying, she burst into tears.

Her oxygen levels were getting dangerously low and she was fighting the nurse. And she just yelled out, "I'm so scared! I think I'm going to die! Tell Dad I'm sorry I can't take care of him! I don't want to die!" She kept repeating that over and over. The nurse had no choice and had to put the masks back on. My mom screamed and shouted "No! Please no! That's my son!"

And those were the last words I ever heard from my mother.

Gasping for air. Scared of dying. Worried about her family.

This moment has intrusively popped into my brain on a regular basis since it happened. It happens when I'm awake. It happens in my dreams. I have no control over it. I just have to keep experiencing it like it is happening for the first time.

After I saw that tweet from Shaun and then many others expressing the same thing (without the strategic aspect), my dread and trauma resurfaced with a vengeance. I've been reliving my mom's final words in my dreams. That moment keeps popping into my head. I feared the man I feel is most responsible for my mother's death may regain power and kill me and the last of the family I have left.

I keep asking myself the same questions over and over. What if there is another public health emergency? What happens to my trans friends if he turns the US into Florida and Texas? What will happen to the migrants at the border?

All I have is my two best friends. Katrina is gay and Delling is trans and disabled. All of us are vulnerable.

I wrote that post to help deal with the nightmares. Writing is part of my coping process. I didn't really expect it to go super viral. I just needed to get that out of my brain. But when people pushed back and started calling me evil and a collaborator and that I was valuing my life above those in Palestine, all with a huge heap of ableism, I found myself unable to let it go and not respond. I couldn't choose the healthy thing and step away.

While I feel I made some good arguments and put forth some solid ideas for other ways to handle this, I also got angry and lost my temper and stayed in arguments for way too long—all to my mental detriment.

My little world felt like it was collapsing and the world at large also felt like it was collapsing. I had personal horrors in my mind mixing with the horrors of this global conflict.

It was too much.

I don't regret what I posted. Many felt the same as I do. And I think my subsequent posts did a good job of expanding on my thoughts while also offering hope for alternate solutions.

But I do regret the timing and I wish I hadn't lost my temper. Especially in a reply I left with a lot of cussing.

People might disagree but I am hoping that people can understand the fear and trauma that influences my point of view.

I am actually willing to risk quite a lot to protect other people. Even people in faraway lands I don't know.

But I refuse to offer up the vulnerable to be sacrificed if it won't actually help anyone. That's what a Texas Lt. Governor would do.

#trigger warning #death mention #genocide mention

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ataleofcrowns · 1 year

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hiiii, i'm working on my first ever twine game and i'm kind of really nervous about dealing with reader interaction after i post it, i was wondering if you had any advice for that? not just anon hate but like, boundaries with an audience in general. you seem to handle that very well

First off, good luck with your project!! I wish you success 💖

Regarding hate anons, I kinda answered that in this ask, but overall my advice to new IF authors would be to maintain a distance from your audience.

Yeah, I know. It doesn't sound fun. I'm not saying never to engage with your readers, I do that plenty. But if you want to maintain a creative vision, it's better both for you as well as the quality of your work that you put up certain boundaries, as you put it.

This means telling readers that they're wrong sometimes. That they misinterpreted a character, or a scene, or a plot detail. This means telling them 'no' when they demand certain edits or features you don't feel fit your original vision. This means taking all the time you need to work on your story without feeling guilty, and not caving into pressure to put content out that ends up sub-par because you rushed it to satisfy your readers.

But most importantly, it means remembering that as an artist, you don't owe your audience anything. Choosing to write for an audience and prioritizing their desires over your own is the quickest way to burn out as a writer, and completely lose sight or even lose control over your own work.

You don't owe other people creative control. You don't need to cater to complete strangers on the internet. Forget about trying to appeal to everyone, it's never going to happen.

It might be daunting at first, especially starting out. Yeah, a few weirdos might get mad, but who cares about them? They're just some randos on the internet throwing a temper tantrum because they think they're entitled to your art. Their opinion doesn't matter.

Write what makes you happy, and people that appreciate your work will find you and support you regardless.

#ask #anonymous #advice #interactive fiction

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cawyden-gaming · 3 months

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Rogue Trader - Toybox - Heinrix romance and romance related scenes

As I mentioned in a different post, you can use toybox to check and change values e.g. if you want try out or fix things or help with the game (e.g. reskill without cost etc.).

For the Heinrix romance you can find the values for the closeness and devil flirt counters here and you can influence the romance status (start/complete...).

Toybox:

(Mod on Nexusmods), install as instructed.

In game e.g. during dialog press CTRL + F10

Here is the link for the newest version on GitHub (you need to update after patch 1.1.28).

Bag of Tricks

The first tab has a lot of quality of life things that might be helpful to you.

set a key bind to instant kill enemies (if you are in a hurry)

give you resources like reputation points etc.

suppress jealousy + gender limitations for romance

suppress conviction restriction for dialog

etc.

Party

Here you can set (under Stats) your abilities and conviction points. You might need to decrease some points first and then save to allow another conviction to increase above the threshold (I think 45 points for stage 2?).

Oh and free respec - but not from origin - for that you might want to try the Level Up tab but no idea if this works.

Dialog & NPCs

Here you can see in some cases if you require a certain threshold (e.g. devil points) to see a conversation or if something is triggered (like here Start etude (Heinrix) would start his romance)

Etudes/Search'n Pick

For the Etudes you can go to the Search'n Pick tab and on the left side check for Etudes and then enter in the left search "Rom" or "Romances" to get the romance etudes displayed.

If you see "Start" it hasn't started yet. If you see"Complete" and "Unstart" it has started. Pressing on "Start" should start the romance.

E.g. - here is the situation after the first talk (in RTs quarters) with Heinrix where I did not use any of the dialog lines to start his romance:

And here if I have the bridge talk with him where I choose the "lonely" line to start his romance:

For the devil/closeness counters go to "Search 'n Pick" tab and on the left side to "Flags". You can search for "Heinrix_R" to show his romance flags and change the values (don't forget to save before closing the toybox screen)

Corruption points

The flag CorruprionInterrogator (-> please check the spelling - it is not corrupTion but corrupRion) is the one responsible to make Heinrix leave the inquisition (if romanced) see info here how to get the points in game).

If you missed a dialog option or got a bug you can use toybox to manually set the counter.

You need value 2 for the date scene in act 4 to get additional dialog to get another corruption point. For the 2nd romance scene ("freeze" scene) you need 3 points for Heinrix to leave the inquisition.

At some point it will set etude Heresy for Heinrix to leave the inquisition. So if you are very late in game deciding to have him stay, it might be that the corruption point counter is not taken into account anymore when you change it. In this case check the Heresy etude - if it is active he will stay, if not then he will return to the inquisition.

Act 4

1st romance scene: Date

Trigger is explained here.

Etude name: QuietEvening

2nd romance scene: Freeze

Should trigger after doing the main quest on Euphrates II when you leave the planet. There is currently a bug where it does not work, then you can use toybox as workaround and press the play button to play the scene directly (-> but NOT on Euphrates II, go to your ship first).

Jealous scene

You can trigger it (even if you do not romance anyone else, just to see how Heinrix reacts) with toybox too:

Look for the etude Jealousy_ktc and start it - it should trigger the jealous scene (in my case I set it right before leaving Euphrates II and got it after Heinrix's freeze/romance scene).

-> Don't forget to save before closing the toybox screen if you want to keep the changed values.

Heinrix quest flags and endings

Please see here for some Heinrix specific quest flags and how it affects the endings.

Romance related scenes:

Act 1:

- first talk after recruitment + bridge talk afterwards (-> some lines are available in later acts but not all and there are romance related lines (e.g. asking him if he is lonely) in there too)

Act 2:

- Footfall docks (when he returns). You can also have afterwards a mission talk with him but I haven't found romance related lines in there.

- Pillars of Viridice (black ship on ice planet -> has to be done in act 2! If you take other companions with you he will get interrupted by one of them but you can go back to the ship after the scene to get your crew for the later fights in the ship)

- Janus (end of quest after you deal with the governor he will initiate the talk when you leave her office)

- Talk after his quest on Kiava Gamma (in your study + bridge talk afterwards. You can unlock playing (repeatedly) regicide with him)

- Dragonus ceremony (talk with him before you leave for your chambers)

Act 3:

- At the beginning talk on bridge about what happened at the ceremony

- In Commoragh when you find him and in the pit (or you can do Commoragh without him by taking him not with you to the quest where you get captured, then you will get a romance scene at the start of Act 4)

Act 4

- Beginning of Act 4 talk (about Commoragh - just a bridge talk if he was there or a romance scene if he wasn't and you unlock the option to sleep with him whenever you like)

- Early Act 4 during travel (date) (after his companion quest?)

- After Euphrates 2 (optional jealous scene) and romance scene (if you have three or more corruption points you get additional dialog in his romance scene and a bridge talk option afterwards -> this has nothing to do with the conviction, if you go full heretic he will leave you before Euphrates 2! These corruption points are only for him to leave the inquisition to stay with the RT.

Act 5

- Before end planet talk on bridge (you can click several times on him and you will get new dialog but the main romance related one is the first one).

#toybox #rogue trader rpg #rogue trader #rogue trader crpg #rogue trader toybox #rogue trader heinrix van calox #heinrix van calox #heinrix van calox romance #rogue trader spoiler #heinrix x von valancius

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nancydrewwouldnever · 1 year

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The good thing about a long commute is that it leaves you with plenty of time to think, so you can really pick at those things in the corner of your brain.

I’m about to half-assed pop psychology all over this crap.

So, yesterday was really interesting from a picking apart Chris Evan’s subconscious kind of an angle. I don’t want to look at the still photos montage. I only want to think about the first and third posted video – the mouth video and the Mario Kart video.

We now know from the scare video dump in January and this dump yesterday that there’s a lot of material floating around out there on cell phones. (But, yeah, we already guessed that, didn’t we.) So, we have to really start finely parsing why a person would choose two videos as bizarrely uncomfortable as those he posted to try to sell a “serious love story” on the holiday for the serious love story. Because neither of those videos sold love or even affection – they sold the subtext of disdain.

When you both say in a video you post “you’re not going to like this” or write “she hates this, but I find it funny,” you are communicating an inherent lack of respect for the person you are showing as the subject of said videos. There’s no way you can look at either video and not see that in some way Alba is being portrayed, whether intentionally or not, as somehow inept or incompetent, hapless or helpless. She “doesn’t know what to say” or do in the first one; she is being put physically in a position which has inherent sexualized overtones from porn culture. He is physically holding her down, to a certain way of thinking. In the second video she struggles to play a video game originated before she was ever born(!), and he finds this ineptitude to be hilarious. From my way of viewing, as the audience, I don’t find either video to be indicative of cute couples’ behavior behind the scenes, but rather of an older dominant male putting a younger more inexperienced female into shaming/ridiculing situations. And then blasting those situations to the world via social media.

Why would you ever make those choices for those videos, knowing you probably have others to choose from that show situations far less riddled with open-ended interpretation. (Let’s be real, he could have shown them skiing at Okemo, not much subtext there.)

This is where we get into the pop psychology angle, which I’m probably just going to massacre, but oh well. We all started musing about that “I hate myself” quote the minute we read it in SMA. Now, I invite you to think about the psychology concept of projection.

I think that self-hatred and self-loathing he holds is far deeper and far more insidious than any of us can comprehend. I’ll give him some credit, he’s done a somewhat good job of covering it up and still having career success even while dragging it around.

But it’s bad, and I think he directs a lot of it into his interpersonal relationships with women.

That self-hatred and self-loathing is what keeps him from having true long-lasting and healthy romantic partnerships. He subconsciously detaches parts of it from himself, through his insecurities, and projects those insecurities onto his partner. Therefore, he’s already given himself an out for why the relationship will fail, but it’s not on him, because he’s projected it onto them. However, it is always on him, even if he can’t see that, because he’s never working on the actual root cause of why everything doesn’t work, doesn’t fit, doesn’t fulfill his intense emotional lacks: because he’s never acknowledged that there is some intense trauma there somewhere that set this self-hate and self-loathing into action, and that it needs to be brought into the light with therapy and worked on. Nothing will change until that happens.

Instead, the subconscious cycles and patterns are self-perpetuating, so he will continue to search out situations which feed the cycles. Ergo, always someone he can project onto, not someone self-realized enough to be the kind of person who could actually help him come to terms with his own trauma.

So, whatever this toxic situation with Alba is, it is even more toxic because it serves his subconscious need to project all his own insecurities onto her. And she’s in no way capable of stopping that, because she just doesn’t have the life or relationship experience to do so. So, I postulate that what you see in those two videos, that’s him projecting his own self-disdain, self-ridicule, and immaturity onto her in a situation he has perfectly created for it. If you’re watching those videos and you feel like Chris is viewing her through a lens of shaming or derision, know it’s not just her: he’s viewing himself the same way as well.

So, I’ll end by paraphrasing a great line from Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery. (Apt, given Chris also has a really off-the-rails Madonna/Whore complex.)

Chris – get thee to a psychoanalyst’s couch.

(Freud's actual couch.)

#random musings #albagate

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seraphinitegames · 2 years

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The Wayhaven Chronicles—Update 23/September/2022

Chapter 18 is done!! Oh yeah!

Though saying that, I think there is actually a bit I want to add to it in rewriting, hehe! :D But I won't be doing that until I come to edit it, and my focus was on editing earlier chapters after I finished Chapter 18 this week (even though I may also have gotten a little more done towards the opening for Chapter 19 too...)

Along with feeling a major sense of achievement at that and realising just how close I am to the end(!!), I also figured out a MASSIVE moment I wasn't sure how to write out.

I'd been thinking of how to do said certain moment for a certain character. It's a pretty major scene that I knew exactly how I wanted it to go for the others, but for this one character nothing was working! I actually just have a big blank hole in Chapter 20 of my plan where I skipped it because I haven’t been able to think of anything.

Then at 2am on Sunday night—WHAM! It comes to me! And it is SO perfect. I love it so much I'm already way too eager to get to that point so as I can write it :D

And seeing as it was apparently the week of awesome ideas, I also had a plot idea that I'm really eager to use. In fact, I'm tempted to change out Book 6's original plan with this one! But at least I have a good while to think on that before deciding, hehe! :D

And September finally rolled on enough that Mason/Morgan's PoV scene for Book Three, Chapter 6 posted on Patreon! I was so happy you guys enjoyed it! M's was one of the ones that I knew exactly how M was feeling and thinking during that intensity, and it was so great to get to share that side of the moment!

So it was a pretty exciting week, and next week should be just the same!

I'll be working on Chapter 19—19 has a split opening and then variations depending on how you came into this chapter (what options you choose, etc). So there's a lot of work to it, but it's the BIG culmination of the story, so I really want it to have that dramatic feeling to it!

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend! We'll be offline as usual, so I'll update you all again next Friday! <3

#the wayhaven chronicles #interactive fiction #update #progress report #book three #patreon

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luxaryllis · 2 years

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Hope I didn't ask for another request too soon, but I saw that you write for Genshin Impact? Could you maybe do the dorm leaders from twisted wonderland reacting to mc with a vision?(Sorry I really love the dorm leaders.) Maybe Mc has a different vision for each dorm? And how would they react to what happens when someone loses their vision and how people get visions in the first place? (If you didn't know you lose your ambition and sometimes memories.)

Genshin!Reader with TWST Dorm Leaders

Note: Hi!! And it's alright haha; I'm sorry this took a LONG TIME to answer and post-

And yes, I do wrote for Genshin! And of course I can do that!! It took a bit of a while for me to choose an element per dorm, but all's well!! And yes, I know what happens when you lose a vision-

While I haven't been playing Genshin so much recently (experiencing burn-out), I do know majority of the storyline! I'm AR 53 in my main acc so I know a lot!

And my first Genshin request!! Yey!! I hope you all like this!! 💙💙

Also, please note that the personality/ies of each MC for each dorm will be based on what I think are the common traits for each vision. And for each Mc, I made it that they're used to fighting, like they have enough experience in a battle. But their backgrounds woun't be shown or mentioned, so you can fill those parts in however you want!

And since no one can have all visions at once, I'm going to assume that it's a different MC for each dorm or something, so yeah-

Heartslabyul - Hydro:

Riddle Rosehearts:

🥀 What do you think the world was thinking, putting a Hydro Vision with Grim?

🥀 There's just a bunch of "Vaporize" effects EVERYWHERE!!

🥀 The Welcoming Ceremony? "Vaporize"'d!!

🥀 And didn't the Dark Mirror say that MC has no magic?

🥀 Then WHY ARE THEY USING MAGIC RIGHT THERE, IN FRONT OF HIM?!?!

🥀 Yeah... the welcoming ceremony was full of mist.

🥀 Riddle also doesn't understand why or how this supposed "magicless" student can use magic

🥀 When the headmage had asked MC, they said "this isn't magic... this is my Vision.", gesturing to the strange blue gem on their person.

🥀 What do you mean "vision", that blue gem is where and how they see???

🥀 In the end, Riddle's questions end up ananswered, and a bunch of new questions pop up.

🥀 Someone pls help this boy 🤣🤣

🥀 He's just really confused now 🤣

🥀 Anyway, nothing much really happens.

🥀 I personally believe that most Hydro vision havers have some sort of sense of justice or have a certain TYPE of virtue with them or something similar (even Childe doesn't pick fights for fun; he just fights who he thinks is strong enough; though his mental stability is very questionable-)

🥀 So when Riddle gets mad at Ace because of the Mont Blanc incident, MC's "virtue senses" started tingling.

🥀 So, like the original MC, Hydro!MC also revolts against Riddle.

🥀 But, unlike the original MC, Hydro!MC would add in more comments about Riddle's horrible behaviour, which angers Riddle even further.

🥀 So yeah, plot goes on.

🥀 When MC finds out about Riddle's past, they feel rather... sympathetic... towards Riddle, but still believes that it doesn't necessarily fully justify his actions, nor does it put him in the right.

🥀 So yeah.

🥀 I headcanon that most Hydro-vision weilders are great thinkers or strategizers most of the time; like they can think pretty quickly and sharply. And most of them also do pretty good at playing in the background (similar to Kokomi, who doesn't exactly do much of the fighting (from the fighting) as she does more strategizing and healing in the beckground; and Xingqiu, who literally made an entire plan for the traveler and Paimon to fix the conflict of Chang the Ninth, and didn't ask or receive any credit, due to the fact that he did everything behind the scenes)

🥀 Or I might be overanalyzing-

🥀 But anyway, MC helps the ADeuce combo think of a plan and strategy for the duel.

🥀 It depends to you whether or not you want MC to think that ADeuce would win or lose against Riddle.

🥀 But anyway, plot goes on.

🥀 Again, Hydro!MC also revomts against Riddle, but this time, may have accidentally let it slip that they know about Riddle's past.

🥀 They also insult Riddle's mom.

🥀 ...and Riddle.

🥀 Yeahh....

🥀 That causes Riddle to ALSO insult MC and their parents/guardians.

🥀 Their reaction depends on you.

🥀 Riddle overblots and MC is actually the first one to start fighting it.

🥀 Because of their sense of justice and/or virtue, they just feel the need to get Riddle out of that horrible mindset he has.

🥀 So yeah! Also, since Riddle's Overblot's main attacks are mostly fire and/or grass, Hydro!MC does have a bit of an advantage.

🥀 Also a disadvantage, because there's mist all around now.

🥀 It's also probably flooding a bit-

🥀 Riddle VS Hydro!MC literally looks like 🌊🌊🔥🔥🌫🌊🌳🌳🌊🌊🌊

🥀 MC doesn't have to worry about accumulating blot, so they deal the most punches to Riddle's overblot.

🥀 MC is also the most experienced with fighting a bunch of strange stuff (like regisvines, hilichurls, mitachurls, lawachurls, etc), so they recover quite quickly when seeing an Overblot phantom or something pretty out of the ordinary.

🥀 So yeah! MC does help comfort Riddle.

🥀 They also apologize for insulting him and his mom, though they truly do mean what they said.

🥀 They admit that they may have gone too far with their insults and snide comments, though.

🥀 They also try help fix the dorm.

🥀 The hydro stuff they summoned during the battle also disappear, along with whatever weapon they were using.

🥀 Riddle (and the rest of Heartslabyul) are pretty fascinated by how the water and the weapon simply disappear to those pretty gold sparkles.

🥀 So during the Revenge Unbirthday Party, after the other Heartslabyul students run to chase Chen'ya out, they decide to ask MC about their world.

🥀 MC talks about their world, the visions, the 7 Archons, basically everything that they know.

🥀 They also explain that a person's vision represents their ambition; so when a person's vision is taken away, they also lose their ambition.

🥀 Riddle asks what happens to a person who loses their ambition/vision.

🥀 When he finds out about it, he's horrified. People lose their memories, and sometimes even get mental disorders?

🥀 When MC tells them about the Vision Hunt Decree in Inazuma, Riddle is reminded of what he did as a 'tyrant'.

🥀 MC mentions that the people here are very lucky that getting your magic disabled doesn't have much circumstances or go through any bad effects in this world.

🥀 And Riddle wholeheartedly agrees with that.

🥀 If MC is from Inazuma; and have been affected by the Vision Hunt Decree, be it by seeing a close one go through the consequences of losing their vision, or from seeing someone d*e at the hands of the Shogun or the Tenryou Commission, Riddle apologizes if his actions have caused any bad memories to pop up.

🥀 Afterwards, Riddle and MC often hang out.

🥀 MC also shows Riddle some cool and fun tricks using their Hydro Vision.

Savanaclaw - Dendro:

Leona Kingscholar:

🦁 Another disaster during the Welcoming Ceremony

🦁 Because Grim's flames keep burning MC's dendro attacks.

🦁 This causes a burning smell that Leona does NOT like.

🦁 It's too much for his nose.

🦁 And from my speculation (as we have NO released playable Dendro characters at the moment), Dendro-vision weilders would most likely be quite knowledgeable and possibly wise. Because the Dendro Archon is the God of Wisdom. So, for this, I will be saying that Dendro!MC is pretty smart and thoughful and pretty witty.

🦁 So luckily, for both MC AND Leona, they stop trying to help stop Grim.

🦁 How the hell does this herbivore have magic, when the Dark Mirror said that they DON'T have magic??

🦁 Another confused person.

🦁 But Leona's pretty quick to shrug it off and go about his life, thinking that the herbivore wouldn't be such a bother in the future.

🦁 HAH! BISH YOU THOUGHT!!!!

🦁 Anyway, when MC meets Leona in the Bitanical Garden, Leona (like he does with the original MC) sniffs them.

🦁 He notices that they smell a lot like plants. Their scent is very... nature-y. Not necessarily earthy, but close.

🦁 When he found out that MC was on the case of all the incidents and accidents going on, Leona also didn't think much of it.

🦁 What he didn't expect was for MC to LITERALLY walk up to him and CASUALLY ask him if he knew why no one from his dorm was getting injured.

🦁 Sh*t

🦁 Dendro!MC would definitely wonder why no one from Savanclaw was getting injured.

🦁 Plus, Jack mentioned that, "he probably won't get targeted".

🦁 So MC, being the smart@ss they are, goes to investigate Savanaclaw.

🦁 Leona replies that he doesn't know, and that the culprit might be too scared to mess with Savanaclaw.

🦁 MC refutes this, by saying that the culprit should have also been cautious of Diasomnia, Scarabia, and Octavinelle students too, as they are the most... calculating and most likely to get revenge.

🦁 Leona is now intrigued and interested in this herbivore; he thinks that they seem really sharp.

🦁 Leona then replies, "How would I know? I'm not the culprit."

🦁 MC is now absolutely sure that Leona is a suspect.

🦁 Before they could ask him to come with them (to interrogate him further), Leona adds, "What? If you really suspect that I'M the culprit, where's your evidence?"

🦁 This leaves MC quiet, and they leave Leona, frustrated.

🦁 After that, Leona makes sure that Ruggie is more careful with his "work".

🦁 But this does cause Leona to be a bit more daring at the same time.

🦁 As usual, plot continues, but MC is a lot more thoughtful; they even closely inspect the "crime scenes".

🦁 Plot goes on again.

🦁 Now, MC and Riddle's plan definitely OBVIOUSLY worked.

🦁 Also, MC definitely talks and critically criticizes Leona.

🦁 They mostly criticize his way of responding to a situation where he knows that someone is better than him.

🦁 They also comment on how f*cked up his life is, but the way he acts towards his life is probably even more problematic.

🦁 They don't talk about how he's the second-in-line; they know not to play with that part of his life.

🦁 Also because they don't know about his background yet.

🦁 Leona overblots

🦁 Again, Dendro!MC is quick to go up to Leona and fight his overblot.

🦁 The fight is normal, to be honest.

🦁 Except MC is in a bit of a disadvantage.

🦁 Since I see MC using their Dendro to capture people, like trap them, Leona would simply turn their attacks to dust.

🦁 So they're left with trying to affect him through making plants/flowers with strong pollen to disorient him.

🦁 It works; since Leona's a lion, his nose is quite sensitive.

🦁 Plot goes on.

🦁 I don't see Leona being someone who would willingly acceot comfort, and MC acknowledges that.

🦁 So they don't comfort Leona.

🦁 Instead, they ask him why he wants to be king so bad.

🦁 They also give him a bunch of questions to ponder over.

🦁 Like, "don't you want to be something else?", or tell him that there are other better options than being a king.

🦁 After that, Leona is a bit less hostile to MC; he is STILL wary, though.

🦁 He asks questions about MC world, though.

🦁 When he finds out about what hapoens to a person when they lose their vision, he's a bit more nonchalant.

🦁 Don't get him wrong, though.

🦁 He's pretty terrified at the thought of all those side effects.

🦁 He's also pretty glad that he isn't in MC's world.

🦁 But other than that, he's pretty chill!

🦁 He also plays Chess with MC a lot!

🦁 He thinks that they're a great opponent to go against.

🦁 Their scent is also pretty relaxing sometimes-

🦁 So he steals them away from whatever task to use them as his pillow.

Octavinelle - Geo:

Azul Ashengrotto:

🐙 Now, for Geo Vision wielders, I see them as people with a specific sense of duty and and perseverance; and are often great/recognized in what they do.

🐙 So I’ll be basing that on this MC.

🐙 Azul easily notices that this supposed magicless student has a very... calm and mentor-like aura/vibe to them.

🐙 When Grim causes fire everywhere, Geo!MC doesn’t stop Grim; but they create shields to protects everyone from the fire.

🐙 Azul also notices that the magicless student made certain... constructs? around the place.

🐙 What these constructs do is up to you-

🐙 Azul is now curious.

🐙 The supposed magicless student actually has magic..

🐙 Perhaps the Dark Mirror was unable to detect magic from them?

🐙 However... shield magic and creating constructs are quite useful...

🐙 Perhaps they would be willing to make a contract with him?

🐙 *insert Azul's capitalism thoughts*

🐙 They could have other abilities that he could take advantage of too...

🐙 Coming back to the Octavinelle Dorm, Azul's thoughts were full of how he could possibly get MC and the new students into a contract with him.

🐙 MC seems like a very respectable person, so they might know what he's trying to do...

🐙 Or not...

🐙 Azul knows not to judge someone based on their cover or outward appearance, so he has Jade and Floyd observe spy on MC.

🐙 Before the Octavinelle Arc, Azul has always been trying to get them in a contract with him.

🐙 However, MC has a feeling that Azul's intentions aren't as nice as they seem.

🐙 So they're quite cautious and wary of him, and often dodge his attempts to capitalize on their talents and abilities.

🐙 They also can't help but think that there's more to this shady b@stard than meets the eye...

🐙 They volunteer to teach him how to use their weapon, though!

🐙 Unless MC uses a catalyst-

🐙 But other than that, they're alert around him.

🐙 When MC FINALLY appraches Azul about the jerk anemones, Azul is celebrating on the inside.

🐙 F*CKING FINALLY!!

🐙 Ahem!

🐙 Anyway, Azul puts in the contract, "The Ramshackle Prefect's Powers, Abilities, and Knowledge"

🐙 He put it in a small font.

🐙 He was half expecting, half not expecting that MC would fully read the contract.

🐙 MC does read the contract; it takes a while to do, though.

🐙 And SOMEHOW, MC finds the small fine print, and explains to Azul that it's impossible for someone to use someone else's Vision.

🐙 They also tell him that they CAN give him knowledge abouy their world, though.

🐙 Azul begrudgingly accepts and acknowledge this and takes off the part where it takes Mc's powers away, should they break the contract.

🐙 MC accepts the contract, after going over it a couple more times to check for any other rigged prints.

🐙 Azul fully expects that MC won't be able to complete the contract.

🐙 However, what he doesn't know, is that Geo!MC is very dedicated.

🐙 Once they start something, they WILL end it.

🐙 So, the plot goes on as usual.

🐙 When Azul realizes MC's plan, he's surpirised, but a small part of him was a bit satisfied.

🐙 Finally, a worthy opponent.

🐙 MC might have commented a bit on Azul's unfair scamming.

🐙 Azul interprets this as MC bullying him, which further brings him to overblot.

🐙 During Azul's overblot, MC was easily able to shield everyone from his attacks.

🐙 They also dealt quite a lot of damage to the Overblot phantom thing

🐙 When Azul wakes up, MC already has a few herbs or a potion to make him feel better from the pain.

🐙 When they confront Azul, they also comfort him a bit.

🐙 MC tells him that he doesn't have to prove anything; and that those bullies were kids.

🐙 Besides, people dislike or are afraid of anything/anyone they aren't familiar with.

🐙 This doesn't exactly comfort Azul, but it does help him be more open-minded

🐙 MC also tells him about their world; and gives him some knowledge about common things in their world, as well as what they're really good at.

🐙 When Azul finds out about what happens to someone who loses their Vision, he's also pretty scared and horrified.

🐙 He is aware that the side effects are NO joke.

🐙 If you are from Inazuma & have been affected by the Vision Hunt Decree, he has a lot more respect for you.

🐙 Azul is also very interested in the Geo Archon; the God of Contracts, you say? 👀

🐙 But other than that, Azul admires MC for MC perseverance and dedication to what they do.

🐙 And MC admires Azul for his business and his hardworking-ness. Even though sometimes, his intentions aren't as positive.

🐙 Basically, both admire and look up to the other and better themselves to be like the other.

🐙 Great friendship, all-in-all.

🐙 MC also works as a guard or a bouncer for Monstro Lounge.

Scarabia - Cryo:

Kalim Al-Asim:

☀️ Oh dear...

☀️ Another disaster during the welcoming ceremony-

☀️ When Kalim's butt was on fire, MC probably froze it for a while.

☀️ The ice was controlled, and wasn't numbingly cold, don't worry.

☀️ MC also probably tried stopping Grim by freezing the fire, aka cancelling it.

☀️ Another mist combo-

☀️ MC also froze Grim too.

☀️ Again, the ice was controlled and not too cold either.

☀️ Kalim was AMAZED by the supposed magicless prefect's powers.

☀️ He probably forgot that the Dark Mirror said that they were magicless.

☀️ He thought that there was a small misunderstanding.

☀️ Now, my headcanon/s for Cryo Vision wielders is that they've mostly lost something, or longing for something that they can't have (like Qiqi, who lost her life and memories; Ayaka, who lives a very rich life, but longs to be treated as a normal person, etc). And most of them have quite ironic circumstances. (For example, Chongyun is an exorcist, but he hasn't seen a spirit; Diona is a bartender, but hates alchohol; Ayaka is a very famous and loved person, but has very few trusted friends)

☀️ So MC has some characteristics there.

☀️ I also imagine MC's attitude to be a bit closed off and reserved; quite the opposite to Kalim.

☀️ Polar Opposites Become Besties trope?? 👀👀

☀️ Anyway!

☀️ Kalim was VERY excited about becoming friends with the person who helped him!

☀️ Actually, I think he already does consider them friends-

☀️ But when he sees them in the Scarabia Dorm, he's absolutely excited to get to know MC better!

☀️ He shows them his favorite food and has them dance/sing with him (if they're comfortable).

☀️ Basically, it's all fun and games until Jamil mind-controls him-

☀️ MC, who doesn't understand what's going on, feels a bit betrayed; because one moment Kalim is all sunshines and sparkles, and the next, Kalim's really scary and demanding.

☀️ They also get very concerned about Kalim.

☀️ That is, until they notice a pattern.

☀️ Before Kalim goes all strict and tyrant-y, Jamil is with Kalim.

☀️ Most Cryo users are a bit analytical, and observational; so I do think this will apply to Cryo!MC.

☀️ This makes MC pretty suspicious of Jamil.

☀️ Kalim still isn't off the hook, though.

☀️ Whenever Jamil stops his Snake Whisper on Kalim, Kalim is always confused as to why MC and the others avoid him, or act a bit distasteful to him.

☀️ When it's revealed that Jamil did what he did, Kalim is betrayed, and MC is quite mad and upset at Jamil on behalf of Kalim.

☀️ When Kalim is still feeling sad, after getting thrown to the "ends of the world", Mc comforts Kalim; saying that while Jamil's feelings is pretty justifiable, his actions aren't.

☀️ Basically, MC comforts Kalim.

☀️ Unfortunately, they can't do anything about the freezing temperatures.

☀️ MC is also probably used to the cold, as they do have a Cryo vision.

☀️ Tbh, I'm torn on how I want the scene where Kalim uses Oasis Maker to go, so you have a choice in this:

☀️ The first choice is that everything goes on normally; the Tweels turn into their eel form and swim everyone else back to Scarabia.

☀️ Or after Kalim uses Oasis Maker to fill up to oasis, MC freezes the river so everyone could simply skate or slide back to Scarabia (ka(e)yaking)

☀️ Or MC summons a Cryo summon that brings everyone to Scarabia.

☀️ Your pick, really.

☀️ When they go confront and fight Jamil's Overblot, Kalim is amazed at MC's talent and ability with their weapon.

☀️ They have him use Oasis Maker so they could freeze the water.

☀️ This makes the mind-controlled people to slip or freeze.

☀️ After all that, Kalim and MC continue to be close friends!

☀️ MC also makes sure Kalim doesn't do anything TOO extreme.

☀️ Jamil sighing in relief in the background.

☀️ Kalim and MC are definitely Freeze combo besties!

☀️ When Kalim asks about MC's world, he's amazed at the Vision stuff.

☀️ But when he finds out about what happens to people when they lose their vision, he's crying.

☀️ If you have a close one who's went through these side effects, he definitely feels sorry for you and cries for you.

☀️ Other than that, you're both amazing besties!!

Pomefiore - Electro:

Vil Schoenheit:

👑 Probably the BIGGEST disaster for the Welcoming Ceremony-

👑 Grim's fire and your Electro do NOT work well together-

👑 Overload reactions make explosions, right?

👑 Yeah... not a great idea.

👑 I think that most Electro Vision wielders are people who are very clear and honest with their identity; and are often loners. They also often reject or contradict what society often think is "normal", so they're often considered "strange" or "abnormal".

👑 So I'll be basing Electro!MC off that.

👑 Also, Electro people are GORGEOUS, or cute-

👑 Anyway, Vil absolutely LOVES MC's appearance; it very much suits them.

👑 Also, that lightning magic they create is very aesthetically pleasing; especially with the prevailent purple and black surroundings.

👑 What Vil DOESN'T like is that the lightning and fire create explosions.

👑 It's very dangerous!

👑 Luckily, the creature is stopped.

👑 When Vil sees MC's friends and that creature are auditioning for the VDC, he's intruiged, and sorta expects that MC would also audition.

👑 Surprise, surprise! They didn't audition!

👑 Anyway, he surprised that MC is just there for moral support; but shrugs it off.

👑 When he gets to Ramshackle, it's honestly even more of a mess because MC has had to stop Grim's shenanigans often.

👑 So Vil is disgusted and concerned cuz HOW THE HECK DO YOU LIVE HERE?!?!

👑 Anyway, plot ensues normally.

👑 Vil overblots, etc.

👑 You absolutely DESTROY his overblot.

👑 Like, he barely stood a chance, since Electro does very well in long-ranged.

👑 So MC's able to deal great amounts of damage while staying pretty far away from him to not get so affected by the poison.

👑 After all that, MC comfort everyone when NRC loses.

👑 After the overblot, Vil approaches you (or you approach Vil, either is fine), and you both talk.

👑 I don't think that acting is a thing, outside of plays and operas, etc; since there isn't a TV in Teyvat-

👑 So MC asks Vil about them.

👑 In return, he asks about MC's world.

👑 When he finds out about what happens to a person when they lose their vision, Vil is also pretty horrified.

👑 There aren't any side effects to losing your magic in Twisted Wonderland, unless it was specifically from someone else's Unique Magic; so this is all foreign to Vil.

👑 Afterwards, he's pretty chill honestly.

👑 He also has MC sometimes model in his room, or do some skin care or hair care together.

👑 MC and Vil also have salon/spa hang outs; he pays.

👑 Vil likes the sort of collected, yet powerful presence MC has, and respect that.

👑 He gives MC clothes to further accentuate that aura they have too!

Ignihyde - Pyro:

Idia Shroud:

(Note: This might be pretty short compared to the others as I don't know much about this character. I might edit this soon when I do know more about the character, though.)

💀 Oh dear...

💀 Pyro!MC using their Pyro to stop Grim's fire doesn't fix anything-

💀 Plus...

💀 Idia is freaking out at the background cuz the heat might melt his tablet-

💀 HOW IS THIS HEAT WORSE THAN THE NORMAL FIRE SPELL!??!

💀 AND WHY THE HECK DOES THIS SUPPOSED MAGICLESS STUDENT HAVE MAGIC?!!?

💀 Plus, being so skilled at it too-

💀 Idia solemnly swears to himself never to go near MC.

💀 He sees MC as this deadly character in a game that saves you, but is really scary-

💀 He also notes that Mc's origins of being from another world is like the generic normal isekai anime/game story.

💀 He now also sees MC as an Isekai Main Character

💀 Now, most Pyro characters are very passionatw about a certain skill, thing, or goal they have. Like Xiangling and cooking; or Diluc and keeping Mondstadt safe; etc.

💀 So Idia sort of sees MC's passion as something to be careful about.

💀 He wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of their weapon and their vision.

💀 Since idk what happens during and after Idia's overblot, I'll be keeping this short-

💀 Sorry-

💀 When he finds out about what happens to people when they lose their vision, Idia is pretty horrified...

💀 He's pretty curious as to how people handle it, but is probably too scared to ask-

Diasomnia - Anemo:

Malleus Draconia:

(Note: This might be pretty short compared to the others as I don't know much about this character. I might edit this soon when I do know more about the character, though.)

🐉 As he wasn't invited, Malleus doesn't know what happened during the Welcoming Cermony.

🐉 He does hear Lilia (who heard from Sebek and other first years) tell him about a supposed magicless prefect who apparently had wind magic, had helped save the students from a fire cat monster.

🐉 Only thing is, it doesn't help much-

🐉 In fact, the wind/Anemo that Anemo!MC uses only fans the flames higher-

🐉 So they had to stop unless they wanted NRC to burn down.

🐉 He found a great interest in this child of man.

🐉 So when he finds out that they are the now-Prefect of Ramshackle Dorm, he's quite satisfied.

🐉 He IS quite sad that he won't be abke to go to Ramshackle for hsi nightly expeditions/walks, but he's still content with being able to learn more about the prefect.

🐉 Now, in my opinion, Anemo Users are often people who also have a sort of sense duty, while still advocating (or longing) for a sense of freedom in some way (For example, Jean and her sense of duty as the Acting Grandmaster, while advocating for freedom for Mondstadt; Xiao and his role as the only Yaksha, longing for freedom from his perpetual agony; Sayu's a hard nut, but perhaps her role in the Shuumatsuban and her wanting to sleep more to be taller, perhaps??). Some Anemo users also have some type of role model or leader or something similar (like Sucrose has an admiration and looks up to Albedo very much; Jean who looks up to Lady Vanessa, and the Anemo Archon). I also see that some Anemo vision wielders prefer to work alone rather than in a big group; or they carry a burden that they keep alone (like Jean and the burden of all the work being the Acting Grandmaster; Xiao and the burden of his karmic debt; Sayu and her burden of being small and often underestimated)

🐉 So I'll be modelling Anemo!MC based on that.

🐉 So, when Malleus and MC become close, MC is a lot more open to Malleus, and treats him like how they would anyone else.

🐉 They admire how Malleus is very strong and efficient in magic too.

🐉 Both Malleus and MC often show off a bit of tricks using their vision or magic.

🐉 MC also tells Malleus about their homeworld, all the adventures they've gone through, all the hardships, etc.

🐉 In return, Malleus also shares some of his own knowledge about Twisted Wonderland; and gargoyles!

🐉 Especially gargoyles!!

🐉 When he finds out about what happens to a person who loses their Vision, he's quite taken aback.

🐉 He's not exactly downright HORRIFIED, but he is pretty surprised that there would be such consequences to losing that.

🐉 Other than that, he's also quite chill about it.

END!

OMG FINALLY POSTED SOMETHING!!

So sorry for the long wait, and I hope you enjoyed this!

Comments and feedback are always welcome!!

Thank you everyone for your support and for reading this!! 💙💙

#twst #twisted wonderland #genshin impact #genshin #twst x genshin reader #twst x genshin #twst crosscrossover #genshin crossover #riddle rosehearts #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #kalim al asim #vil schoenheit #idia shroud #malleus draconia

975 notes · View notes

celestie0 · 2 months

Note

any tips on starting a story?? i created my account cuz i wanted to create small fanfics and gain a following but idk how 😭

hiii love thank you for your ask i’ll try my best to give the tips from what i’ve learned so far!

i also answered a similar writing tips ask for another lovely you can find here. and if you do post your works n you’re comfy w it i’d love to support you!! feel free to tag me 🫶🏼💕

story planning. this is more applicable to lengthier fics, but don’t get too caught up in planning that you don’t actually write the story! it’s okay to have a general idea, or even a multiple paths idea for your story. i did this for kickoff but i wrote alternate chapter ideas branching off from some of the chapters n ended up just choosing which ever one i wanted n thought fit best lol. but basically things are subject to change, so you don’t need to have a scene-by-scene in order to start a story, just a general idea

central theme. i think to start any story and have it be engaging throughout, it’s important to have a recurring theme that gets brought up often, or something that ties two characters together, etc. from the very beginning! could be a physical proximity thing (ex neighbors) or a mission thing (ex bodyguard), choosing something like that can get a story started and create environments btwn characters that feels necessary rather than forced just for plot (assuming you’re writing for romance)

inspiration. if you’re just looking to write fanfiction, there’s nothing wrong with just starting off w a concept or idea that you already know you like from a tv show or book! for example if you like spiderman, then just write a canon-adjacent spiderman au w your fave character from an anime or something haha. and then maybe once you start writing, your own original ideas start to come into play and you go off of those. i think in the fanfic community, people adore spin-offs & mainstream concept ideas bc it’s just nice to have fun with it

high stakes. creating high-stakes within any conflict or decision is really simple, even though it may sound difficult, but it could be as easy as having a character take up a certain job because she really needs the money, or another character’s inability to quit a toxic workplace is because they need health insurance for a certain illness, etc. i think conflict is necessary throughout a story, rather than just one major conflict at the climax, but introducing little ways to up the stakes is a great way to make things more real

logistics. i think to build a following it’s also necessary to know when to post, how often to post, etc., but at the end of the day it’s just a hobby and you should be writing what YOU want to write!! and just get started! ☺️ that’s the easiest way to write—is to just write

i hope this helps my dear i wasn’t sure if you were referring to long-fic or short-fic stories but i tried to keep my recs relatively applicable to both 😭🫶🏼💕 good luck im rooting for you!!

#anon #asks #writing tips #just writer things

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kmlaney · 7 days

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WIP questionnaire

tagged by @coffeewritesfiction and I am so sorry to take this long on a reply. Thanks for the tag!

Tagging @fallenscintilla (if you want! No pressure!) and @waywardwizzard and anyone who wants to!

1. What is the first part of your WIP that you created?

The very first line was: “D’ya think I care how it tastes?” I posted an edited version here. There's a snip of the original here.

For the record, it started as a character background for a TTRPG. In fact, it wasn’t even going to be the character I was going to play. Harrowed (undead/revenant) gunfighter? *eyeroll* Too cliché. I even made a homebrew archetype to play: a “spiritualist” in the late 1800’s sense. But that first line kept bugging me so I figured, okay. Fine. I’ll write this one scene and then work on my spiritualist.

Yeah. No. I never played the spiritualist.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I did all the fan stuff for Phil and Skyfallen, like playlists, faceclaims, all of that. I never did that before. I selected music for the theoretical TV show: main theme, a rotating list of outro/credits roll music, pieces for certain kinds of scenes. So if Skyfallen were a TV series, this would be the theme:

youtube

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

That’s like asking which of my pets was my favorite. I love them all. I guess I loved Phil enough to make them the viewpoint character. They’re a more-mature version of the kind of character I wrote when I was a kid, now with serious problems I can explore as an adult. I like Phil’s father, whom I was determined to fridge in the beginning because fridging is usually a female character. Ha Ha! Then I went and gave him a character arc that could only end in his death so he’s not fridged after all.

I like Travelling Sam for being a conniving, money-grubbing jerk, but he’s fun to write. I like Eva as Carnival Mom; Maury for being a flamboyant, fun-to-be-around person hiding a serious drinking problem that everyone knows about. I like Doc Butcher for his name, for actually being trained as a vet but caring about everyone, and trying to do his best when he’s in over his head because he can’t do nothing.

I like Maker Lewis for his change of heart, though he was already on the fence and just needed a shove. And I like Miss Warren for being a nosy reporter whom Phil doesn’t want to like but ends up liking anyway. She also lets me play at muckraking reporter. Choosing words to specifically slant a piece is a load of fun.

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fan base would share?

Skyfallen has its roots in Westerns, so people who like cinematic westerns are a potential fanbase. I include horror, steampunk, and gothic elements, so if your venn diagram of interests includes those things then it might be for you.

Things I like that influenced or feel like this story: Silverado, The Magnificent Seven, RIPD 2 Rise of the Damned (movies. I hate to admit that last one but it was fun). Deadlands (TTRPG game. I created Phil for this setting). The Dark Tower novels--primarily Wizard and Glass but any of the parts dealing with Roland’s world.

There is zero romance. Phil’s ace, there is no main love interest, and anyone who gets together does so very off-screen.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

When writing the draft, the individual scenes flew out of my brain. I could hardly write them fast enough. In deep editing, though, it’s the big-picture stuff I find challenging. Which themes do I want to emphasize and which are less important? Do I really need all this buildup or should I start later? I need to show certain things so the later ones make sense, but that makes it even longer. It’s already very long; shouldn’t I be cutting things down? Argh. It's frustrating.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

There are animals. Most are utilitarian: Horses, dogs, cats, chickens, cows. There are monsters also (for certain values of “monster”) all along the continuum from “non-sapient animal” through to “self-aware human intelligence.”

The way they figure into the story is more interesting. In life, Phil liked animals in general and had a special fondness for horses and mules. After dying and coming back reanimated, animals can’t stand to be around them. Phil doesn’t figure it out right away, and it hurts when they do.

7. How do your characters get around? (Ex. Trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

For the area the characters are in for the bulk of the story, most people walk, ride horses, or ride in wagons, carts, or coaches pulled by horses or teams of horses. There are a couple of trains but they are rare. In other areas, trains are common, as are ferries and lake boats. Airships exist; they are novelties and considered simultaneously luxurious and dangerous. In larger cities, along with the horse-drawn vehicles, people have bicycles, rickshaws, pedal-powered rickshaws, and palanquins. Automatons in a variety of configurations may be subbed in for horses or people in any of those conveyances.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

I’ve identified some specific foreshadowing that needs to happen. So I need to add that in. There are a few names that aren’t consistent; they’re flagged so I can fix them. I need to put in a few encounters so later ones make sense. It’s not exactly foreshadowing so much as worldbuilding. So editing stuff.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe) of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

I have a hard time identifying tropes in my work, probably because I’m in the trees, so to speak, and can’t see the forest. Or groves, to push the metaphor. Having said that, here’s an attempt:

Portal/isekai

Found family

Unlikely group of heroes

Humans can be evil; monsters can be sympathetic

Religion, Magic, and cults

Monsters dwelling among humans

Enemies to not-friends (don’t push your luck)

Things get worse

Everyone has secrets

Lost memories, memory tampering

Weird West

Steampunk and Gothic Horror

Gunslinger/trick shot

Noble Demon/antihero

Good is not nice

I did come up with one of those taglines that you might see on the bottom of the cover of a book:

“Every Skyfallen has something they want to forget. And everyone in the Mistlands is Skyfallen.”

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

Originally I was hoping for traditional publishing. I might still try to go that way. I’m also looking into self-pub, and websites that host serial stories. I think this story fits better into a serial format than a traditional book format. I need to make it more coherent (hence editing phase)

#kmlaney writes #kmlaney characters #kmlaney answers #All About my WIP #bad luck phil #mistlands #skyfallen #writing #coffeewritesfiction #fallenscintilla #Youtube

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zombeebunnie · 7 months

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Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and welcome new followers, it's nice to see you! :]

I am here with another update about the game development progress so far! There wasn't an update last week because I wasn't able to work on any of it until a few days ago. I couldn't start from where I left off so I decided to give my mind a fresh start!

There's one final route I'm currently writing up that's been in the works for quite some time now! It's going to be a fairly long one that has different interactions depending on what you choose along with your closeness with Noah to a certain point.

This all happened because I originally planned for there to be only a follow up into one specific choice that would lead into it but now, there will be a few choices instead which go into it but certain ones can drastically change what can happen. I think once it's all done it'll probably end up being the longest path now instead of a previous one I finished a while back if you go through different varying choices.

This might(?) change at some point since this makes the route dialog heavy depending on what you do, I can't say for sure but we'll see! :,]

The progress for it has been steady and I got a CG done for it along with a certain section! I can't show it but I really loved how it turned out and how my improvement for drawing Noah and just drawing in general has come so far. :,]

Speaking of CG's, I'm really trying to balance them out for this, at one point there was going to be 3 different CG's back to back in one scene but I felt as though that was too much just for that one setting. Once my play tester is available to play everything, I'll see what they think! :]

Lastly I'm going to take the liberty of organizing my Tumblr and having specific #'s to make it easier to navigate through. It's been on my mind as something I wanted to fix along with posting more doodles/lore art here and there. I'm just really particular on how I want to go about it since it's been fairly quiet here. I'll talk more about it next week once I get everything together! :,]

Overall I think that's all I have to report right now!

Thank you guys for your patience and understanding, I appreciate all of the support encouragement for this when I wasn't able to work on anything until a few days ago. It means a lot! :]

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deanwinchesterswitch · 9 months

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July 2023 Fic Rec List

Another month of fabulous reads!

Enjoy!

Many of these blogs and fics are NSFW-18+. Please honor any requests from a blog regarding no minors. I am not responsible for the content you choose to consume; heed the warnings for each fic.

~MCU~

I Never Told You ~ @justagirlinafandomworld. Author's Summary: None (Drabble; Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Rock Around My Christmas Tree ~ @justagirlinafandomworld. Author's Summary: None (Stripper!Bucky x Reader)

Sunglasses and Orange Peels ~ @justagirlinafandomworld. Author's Summary: None (Ficlet; Bucky Barnes x Reader)

~RPF~

Grandpa Ackles ~ @whatareyousearchingfordean. Author's Summary: Y/n was enjoying her husband’s new style post Supernatural, that is until a certain pair of glasses come onto the scene. How will Jensen feel about her teasing?

Imagine Accidentally Texting The Wrong Number ~ @sincerelysaraahh. (This one came to me via @kickingitwithkirk. However, it was written by sincerelysaraahh, but the original link is broken and I couldn’t find another one. I did discover that there are 3 more parts to this fic.) {Jensen Ackles x Reader}

~Supernatural~

Afraid to Love ~ @sofreddie. Author's Summary: Afraid of love, afraid of the Mark, afraid of the consequences of their night together, she ran. When Dean shows up in her life again, she has to decide whether to accept the second chance she’s been presented with or give in to her instinct to run.

Caveat Emptor ~ @thoughtslikeaminefield. Author's Summary: Gabriela Cruz invests in a Victorian mansion in the middle of America where the rule of Buyer Beware is absolute. When her twin sister goes missing, a couple of federal agents show up. Lucky for Gabi, Dean and Sam Winchester are on the case.

If You Want It To Be-Series Masterlist ~ @zepskies. Author's Summary: When your car breaks down after a hunt, Sam and Dean tow you back to the bunker for Christmas. This time of year gives you and Dean a little courage to be honest about what you both want. And what you want, is for him to see you. (18+)

Imagine Dean getting all flustered every time he comes in to your coffee shop... @supernaturalfreewill. Author's Summary: None (Drabble)

Make it Better ~ @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior. Author's Summary: Y/N is at the end of her rope. Can Dean help her hold on?

Me, Myself and Why ~ @wi-deangirl77. Author's Summary: So I was listening to this song on repeat and couldn’t help but think of good ‘ol Dean Winchester and how he never could get that apple pie kind of life. But I think that he had some special ladies he visited more than once, but told them not to fall in love with him. And this is about one of those ladies.

No Title ~ @supernaturalfreewill. Author's Summary: None (Drabble; Dean Winchester)

No Title ~ @supernaturalfreewill. Author's Summary: None (Drabble; Benny Lafitte)

Promise Me ~ @justagirlinafandomworld. Author's Summary: No one is guaranteed a long life. Least of all hunters. Dean knows this and so do you. Still, you pull promises from each other to protect the sliver of happiness found together.

Slow Fire Burn ~ @justagirlinafandomworld. Author's Summary: None (Drabble; Dean Winchester x Reader)

~The Boys~

No Title ~ @zepskies. Author's Summary: None (Imagine; Soldier Boy/Ben x Reader)

Love Actually ~ @zepskies. Author's Summary: Ben gets in late on Christmas Eve with a Grinch-like attitude, but you’re determined to force some holiday cheer into his system.

On AO3

Independence Dean ~ Author's Summary: Summer is in full pandemic swing and our heroes are going to celebrate the holiday. Eventually. (Dean x Reader)

On Patreon

Rebekah Jordan (Impala-Dreamer)

Go On And Beg ~ Author’s Summary: Dean Winchester has got quite a mouth on him, and he knows just what do to drive you insane...

It Works If You Believe ~ Author’s Summary: Dean treats Y/N to a piece of vintage jewelry that may turn out to be more than it seems...

Take A Break ~ Author’s Summary: Laundry can be annoying and overwhelming, so it's important to take breaks now and then...

thinkinghardhardlythinking

Someone To Watch Over Me-Parts 21 & 22 ~ Author’s Summary: (AU) Y/N is married to a very rich, decidedly unscrupulous and powerful man. A man whose inability to trust means he hires someone to watch over his wife while he isn’t around. He hires Dean Winchester, a handsome stranger to Y/N, who is soon to become a very big part of her life.

From the Christmas in July Event

Home For Christmas ~ @fangirlingfromdownunder. Author's Summary: None (Jensen Ackles x Reader)

The Christmas Con ~ @whispersandwhiskerburn. Author's Summary: None (Dean Winchester x Reader)

The Gift Box ~ @whispersandwhiskerburn. Author's Summary: None (Dean Winchester x Reader)

#monthly fic recs #fabulous writers #dw's witch reads #july 2023 #080723

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arcadiabaytornado · 1 year

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Life Is Strange Ending Idea’s

Life Is Strange is one of my favorite games of all time, but I have mixed feelings about the ending. The choices you make don’t matter, and they don’t play into how the game ends. You can disagree with Chloe 100% of the time and still save her, or you can agree with her 100% of the time and still sacrifice her. That’s not how I think the game should end, so instead I’ve come up with ending idea’s that tie into the choice system.

Sacrifice Chloe:

You can get this ending by disagreeing with Chloe for most of the game, and then choosing to make a sacrifice to save Arcadia Bay. Depending on if you kissed Chloe earlier, you either get a hug or a kiss before traveling back in time. This ending plays out like it would if you sacrificed Chloe in the game.

Long Post Undercut:

Sacrifice Max:

You can get this ending by agreeing with Chloe for most of the game, and choosing to make a sacrifice to save Arcadia Bay. Max won’t admit her plans to Chloe, but she will tell her that she’s the strongest person Max knows. She says that it’s going to be okay, and apologizes once again for abandoning her best friend with the butterfly blue hair.

With this said, Max kisses/hugs Chloe and goes back in time. She yells out to Nathan when he pulls out the gun, getting herself killed in Chloe’s place.

The timestream changes with this event. We see a picture of Chloe getting shot being burnt away and replaced with a picture of Chloe holding her childhood friend’s body. You see Nathan being interrogated by police, and Chloe watching Mark getting arrested for indirectly killing both loves of her life. Joyce then holds her as she cries on her bed, and David watches from the doorway realizing that he’s been a major asshole to her. Those pictures then fade to show Chloe wearing Max’s grey hoodie and meeting with Warren and Kate to celebrate Max’s life. The final two pictures are of Chloe taking a selfie with Max’s camera and Chloe standing near the cliffside in funeral attire.

During the funeral, Chloe glances up to see two transparent does in the forest. They stare at her as she smiles their way, thinking about her doe-like former best friend as the screen fades to black.

For the final scene, you get a time skip to Chloe graduating with a degree on an ambiguous subject. She’s shown acting friendly/flirty with a girl her age, showing she once again has caring people in her life. Despite everything she’s gone through, Chloe will be okay.

Sacrifice Arcadia Bay:

This ending could stay the same as it does in the game. If Max agrees with Chloe most of the time, she’ll unlock with option and sacrifice the town to be with her. The only thing I’d change from the original game is a small cutscene after they drive off from Arcadia Bay.

Max and Chloe can be seen sitting in her truck under the night sky. They either share a kiss or hold hands depending on if you kissed Chloe in Episode 3.

Rachel And Chloe:

This is an ending where Rachel and Chloe survive, but it’s not without major consequence. This would be defying Rachel’s fate after all, and since the other endings aren’t completely happy neither is this one. Also I feel like this would be the hardest to achieve ending.

To get this ending, you need to make certain dialogue choices through the game. EVERYTIME Max has the option to bring up Rachel she needs to take it, until the point it’s clear that she’s just as invested in Rachel as Chloe. If you pick all the dialogue correctly, you can bring Rachel back, but at the cost of the town and Max.

I don't know exactly how exactly Rachel would be brought back. This is just throwing around fun idea’s. However, Max somehow is able to go back in time to the day Rachel vanished. She’s quick to find her, and warn the popular girl that Nathan is dangerous. Rachel isn’t totally on board with this idea, but she recognizes Max from Chloe talking about her. Because of this, she goes off to find Chloe and tell her that her former best friend is back in town. Thus setting off a timeline where Rachel survives.

But Max doesn’t. The strain from time traveling so far is to much for her body, and it gives out as soon as Rachel walks away. She dies in the middle of campus, but it’s not enough to expose Nathan and Mark for their crimes. They don’t get legal punishment in this ending, but they do die in the storm.

The timestream changes from Chloe being shot, to Rachel comforting her by the lighthouse. Then a picture is shown of the girls playing with David’s gun in the junkyard, before the next picture shows them train hopping. You see Rachel and Chloe playing in ocean, before you see Chloe taking pictures of a posing Rachel with Max’s camera. Then you see Chloe attending Max’s funeral, only for that picture to be burned away and replaced by one with Chloe and Rachel standing in the storm.

The storm destroys Arcadia Bay, leaving Rachel and Chloe as the only one’s standing. In a parallel to the bae ending, Chloe and Rachel drive away from Arcadia Bay and finally escape the town they hated.

Stuck Between Realties:

You get this ending if you’re a terrible investigator. If you didn’t touch Dana’s pregnancy test, didn’t find David’s files, didn’t hear the phone message from the cops, didn’t find Nathan’s pin code, and didn’t find David’s locker code, you’ll get this ending. Max will refuse to make a sacrifice. She doesn’t understand anything that’s happening and feels left without answers. Max will yell she needs more time to think and rewind. Except she keeps rewinding farther than she’s ever gone before. Only when she stops does Max realize she’s trapped in a blank space in between realties, never to go home.

New World:

You can only get this ending if you're a fantastic investigator. If you touch Dana's test, find David's files, heard the phone message from the cops, found Nathan's pin code, and found David's locket code, this is the ending you get. Max won't be willing to make a sacrifice. She's lost so much this week and found out so many dark secrets. She can't lose Chloe and her childhood home too.

Max will either hug or kiss Chloe, depending on your relationship with her, before going through the butterfly picture. But instead of letting Nathan shoot someone, Max is resolved to fix everything no matter what it takes. She makes a different choice this time, confronting Nathan before he pulls out the gun, therefore setting off a new timeline.

It's implied that Max will stay in a time loop of the week we've had in-game until she finds a way to fix everything using all the pictures she's taken. It's left up to the player's imagination if Max can succeed in her goal of saving Chloe, the town, and possibly Rachel, or if she's forever trapped in a time loop trying to change things out of her control.

#I've wrote this before #but this is a rewrite because my style changed a lot between now and then #Life Is Strange #Chloe Price #max caulfield #rachel amber #Pricefield #Amberprice

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transflynnscifo · 3 months

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Tell me about ur Flynn Scifo thoughts

HI sorry for taking a bit! I decided to take the tangent I caused in my friend's DM's and structure it more coherently

Choc's original question: “Do you think Flynn might get touch starved while hes in the knights? […] I don’t have context, I was just thinking about how Yuri probably gets to casually touch ppl all the time, but Flynn has duties.”

DISCLAIMER this is headcanon-y and self-indulgent. While I give specific examples to support certain ideas, I by no mean intend to act like this is gospel.

This has spoilers for the game too

I assume that because Flynn and Yuri grew up together, they definitely were able to hold hands/hug/nap (and obviously sparred together). The former things probably got dropped as they entered adolescence as a lot of teens tend to be mortified over showing they have any feelings. This is to establish that they have likely always been comfortable around each other. Regardless of how much one may consider side content canon, it is enough to infer from in-game that Yuri’s leaving the knights resulted in their relationship becoming strained. Though Flynn pre-game is stated to have dropped by often enough in the lower quarter, it still shows that they probably barely interacted normally until Capua Nor in Act 1. (and even Capua Nor interactions are something, to say the least)

In my opinion, by the start of the game, Flynn had become good at suppressing a lot of different thoughts and feelings. I’ve already mentioned it in a previous post, but Flynn has a tendency to be quieter in group skits where he isn’t the topic of discussion. Though there is a subtle characterization I enjoy there-- he does react with his portrait changing even whilst not speaking. But even when prompted for an opinion, he struggles to express it, defaulting to saying a general statement that ultimately results in a non-answer on at least one occasion.

This suppression would behave like a sleeper agent. As the game progresses, the player is able to see more of Flynn. His banters get more known, his flaws stick out more, he becomes more closer to a regular man VS the knight paragon that he is expected to be. Those walls could have subtly started crashing around the time he and Yuri started speaking again. Now, I also look at it through a fluri lens. After not having spoken for years, feelings would naturally reignite, and Flynn would become stuck with feelings of longing for more.

That’s where it gets trickier for Flynn. Though he shows signs of opening to the other party members, we are dealing with years’ worth of repression. Though Flynn’s primary character conflict is about where one would draw the lie between crime and justice, there is another that is strongly related to another important theme of the game: choices, and being able to make them on one’s own. This part of Flynn’s character development is most apparent in the second act of the game, especially notable during the part of the game where Estelle is absent. It’s about what he wants to do himself, as opposed to what he should do as a knight. I won’t go too much into it, but the Baction and Heracles dungeons, as well as the scenes before Zaphias castle exemplify what Flynn ends up operating on. Ultimately, he is stuck doing the job he has vowed to take up, as there is no one else to do it. (Much like Yuri choosing things of his own volition, but only because no one else wants to.)

But going back to touch starvation and yearning, this would all come to a head for Flynn until, I presume, post-game. This is because by Aurnion, Yuri and Flynn are finally able to patch things through. The game strongly implies in certain ways that their repaired bond (regardless of whether one sees it as romantic or not) would be stronger than ever, and harder to damage. But even as they become on good terms again, they aren’t able to often see each other. This part is apparent even throughout the game, as Flynn and Yuri are pulled in different directions until their paths cross again. This could be like an odd repeat of the few years they barely interacted, but this would be not because they would be avoiding each other. Rather, this is because they’re finally maintaining the promise over protecting the smiles of people, and making the world a better place.

It could make the times they spend together both a relief and an incredible pain for Flynn, who is able to spend time with his best friend, but the nature of their roles now means that they are ever so slightly out of reach from one another. Flynn would be happy to be in Yuri’s life again, but would he allow himself the selfish wish of having Yuri around always? When he has knights to lead, and Yuri is free to travel and do as he pleases? (in the “Feelings regarding the knights” skit, Flynn, albeit jokingly, wishes Yuri could still be in the knights, while acknowledging that the freedom he has now suits him better.)

And Flynn’s duties matter too much, that much is true. However, Yuri matters even more. Remember how he used his knightly authority to use ships to look for Yuri’s body post-Zaude?

The worst part of Flynn’s touch starvation is if he is actively pining for Yuri in the romantic sense. Imagine wanting to take Yuri’s hand in the same way like you used to, except you are both too busy and important as people to indulge so simply. That isn’t even acknowledging Yuri’s complexes against Flynn and the manner of which he puts Flynn on a pedestal by the end of the game. I don’t think Flynn would worry that he doesn’t deserve Yuri, though I myself like to entertain the idea that if Flynn had insecurities about being good for Yuri, they would definitely manifest differently. The issue for Flynn would be essentially choosing between his happiness as a person or to jeopardize that because he is the Commandant. And Flynn tends to be characterized as a workaholic due to how serious and dedicated he is to his tasks.

Interestingly, Baction (which is the earliest dungeon of the three), has Flynn behave selfishly in his wish to help save Estelle and inquire Alexei for his motifs. But when Flynn wanted to go with Yuri and the others in Heracles and Deidon hold, he went against those wishes in order to lead the knights who needed a leader. Ultimately, it all ties back to the fact that his duties as a knight, and as a leader, mean that he has to jeopardize his desires. He expresses that he missed traveling in the “Battle maniacs” skit. He enjoys fighting, but he also doesn’t get to do it as much when he isn’t in the party. By extension, he would also miss spending time with Yuri like how they used to. He would be biting down leather with his teeth over this, in private. Unable to have time for what he loves.

Though there is warranted criticisms over certain aspects over Vesperia’s comedy, Flynn is, admittedly, definitely repressing certain thoughts. In skits, if a dialogue/topic with a more suggestive tone comes on, Flynn tends to become embarrassed and quiet about it. Though this is intended with a humorous effect, given Flynn is the designated “spoilsport” in many aspects, it does leave an interesting implication: the one most against suggestive topics gets the most embarrassed about them. I tend to see it as Flynn’s imagination running rampant enough to go down the gutter by itself. So it’s worth to assume that Flynn’s self-imposed repression isn’t even doing that well, given it is fairly easy to generally fluster him. Applying that to the fact he already is strongly guarded, he would probably short-circuit if he received a hug from anyone (and for the sake of this post, likely from Yuri too). It’s a metaphorical imagining of Flynn’s very armor. Does it protect him from attacks? Yes. Does it make it harder to see him under the bulk and to touch the skin of his hand? Absolutely.

Even if he took Yuri’s hand, he wouldn’t feel it under his glove, and Yuri, in turn, wouldn’t feel Flynn through it either.

Yuri acting skittish about his insecurities wouldn’t help either. And that’s what makes it even more compelling for me! In many pairings where one character is a knight, it’s usually the other party that wants to push the knight to accept selfishness. In fluri’s case, Yuri first has to stop thinking he’s going to hell in order to consider wanting to push Flynn into indulging his own wishes!

And then Choc told me they meant general touch deprivation, like even with friends, to which I put my clown nose and honked.

#permission to reblog is granted but i dont want this in the main tags. godspeed #woe tovposting be upon ye #woe joystick be upon ye

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princesssarisa · 1 year

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"A Christmas Carol": Canon vs. Fanon

@ariel-seagull-wings, @reds-revenge, @thealmightyemprex, @the-blue-fairie, @thatscarletflycatcher, @faintingheroine

Since my overview of the various Christmas Carol adaptations isn't finished yet, and since the Christmas season doesn't officially end (as per the Church calendar) until this coming Friday, I thought I would share another Christmas Carol-related post. A long one, addressing the always-important subject in fiction fandoms of "canon vs. fanon." Certain details that are widely believed and used in adaptations, but which aren't really true, or necessarily true, in the book.

Belle is Fezziwig’s daughter. As far as I know, this is only true in the musical Scrooge: the original 1970 film, the 1992 stage version, and the 2022 animated remake Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. The book never says any such thing. Fezziwig does have three daughters, but we don’t know if Belle is one of them or not.

Belle left Scrooge because he repeatedly insisted on delaying their wedding until he had earned more money. In The Muppet Christmas Carol, the direct catalyst for Belle ending their engagement is that Scrooge insists on postponing their wedding for “another year.” A few other versions also allude to Scrooge’s insisting on delaying their marriage. But the book says nothing about wedding-postponement; Belle only speaks of Scrooge having lost all his “nobler aspirations” in favor of “the master-passion, Gain,” and of knowing that if they weren’t engaged already, he would never choose to marry a girl as poor as she is.

Bob Cratchit has to plead for Scrooge to give him Christmas Day off. This is probably another misconception that stems from The Muppet Christmas Carol, where Scrooge initially tries to give Bob and the other bookkeepers just half an hour off on Christmas morning, and Bob is forced to persuade him not to open the office on Christmas because all the other businesses will be closed. But the equivalent scene in the book doesn't play out this way. Scrooge complains about having to give Bob the day off, but he makes no attempt to avoid doing it. Since some employers in 19th century London did make their employees work on Christmas Day – for example, the milliner whom Martha Cratchit works for – the fact that Scrooge does give Bob the day off without being asked, despite complaining about it, is probably an early hint that he's not all bad.

Character names. Mrs. Cratchit's first name is never given as "Emily" – that name comes from The Muppet Christmas Carol. Fred's surname is never said to be "Holywell" – that name comes from the 1984 TV adaptation with George C. Scott. Scrooge's ex-fiancée is named Belle, not Isabel – unless you're talking about the musical Scrooge or Mickey's Christmas Carol. Somehow or other, these specific names from adaptations have stuck in people's consciousness and been applied to all versions of the characters, when Dickens never wrote them.

Fan died in childbirth. The 1951 film has firmly planted this assumption in many minds: that Scrooge's sister Fan died at Fred’s birth and Scrooge despises his nephew because he blames him for her death. But Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past only says, “She died a woman, and had, as I think, children,” and Scrooge replies “One child.” No one ever says she died in childbirth.

Mrs. Fezziwig is fat. “One vast, substantial smile” is the way the book describes her; this is all we have to indicate whether or not she’s fat.

Marley’s Ghost dwells in hell. Few of us can forget the dark comedy sequence in 1970’s Scrooge where Marley’s Ghost welcomes Scrooge into hell during his vision of Christmas Yet to Come. Nor is that film the only version to imply that Marley resides in hell and that Scrooge will too unless he redeems himself. Even in The Muppet Christmas Carol, the deleted last verse of the song “Marley and Marley” implies that the ghosts are going back to hell after visiting Scrooge. But the book’s theology is nowhere near so traditional. Marley never mentions hell: he only speaks of wandering the world. In Dickens’s Carol, it seems that hell is on earth. The souls of sinners are punished not with fire and brimstone, but by being forced to wander and helplessly witness the suffering of the living, which they either caused or failed to alleviate when they themselves were alive.

Mrs. Dilber is Scrooge’s charwoman. First of all, Mrs. Dilber is the laundress in the rag-and-bone shop sequence. Despite several adaptations giving the charwoman her name instead, the latter goes unnamed in the book. Secondly, there’s no indication that either thieving woman works for Scrooge, rather than for the person handling his affairs after his death. Scrooge himself shows no sign of knowing the thieves. (Though to be fair, it’s not out-of-character for Scrooge to pay so little attention to his own charwoman and laundress that he doesn’t recognize them, and their insulting remarks about him can be seen to imply that they knew him personally.) Memorable though Mrs. Dilber’s role is as Marley’s and later Scrooge’s charwoman in the 1951 film, it isn’t her role in the book.

Scrooge buys a goose for the Cratchits on Christmas morning. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard Scrooge’s gift of poultry referred to as a goose. I even remember once reading a review of one of the film versions where the critic complained that the screenplay “Americanized” the gift by changing it from a goose into a turkey. But these are Dickens’ words: “It was a Turkey!” When people misremember it as a goose, they’re confusing it with the goose the Cratchits eat in the Christmas Present sequence. Scrooge’s turkey popularized turkey for Christmas dinner after A Christmas Carol became a success and helped lead to its replacing goose as the most ubiquitous Christmas poultry.

Scrooge’s chief vice is that he hates Christmas. It should go without saying that this is a gross oversimplification. Scrooge’s greed and miserliness, his cold indifference to the poor, his shabby treatment of Bob Cratchit and neglect of Bob’s needy family, his rejection of his own nephew, and his general bitterness and self-isolation from the world are all more significant than his disdain for Christmas. The latter is only a symptom of a much larger problem and his ultimate vow to “honor Christmas in [his] heart” means to embrace the spirit of love and good will, not just to celebrate the holiday.

Scrooge changes his ways out of fear. Again and again in pop culture, we hear the claim that Scrooge is “frightened into changing.” But if fear were all it took, then only Marley’s ghost would need to visit to warn him of damnation, or else only the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come to show him his bleak, lonely death. The Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present would serve no purpose. That statement overlooks the fact that reliving his past softens his heart by reawakening old emotions and reminding him of what his greed cost him, that seeing others’ present joy at Christmas makes him want to share it, and that observing the Cratchits and Tiny Tim teaches him to care about them and want to help them.

Scrooge constantly says “Bah! Humbug!” Believe it or not, he only utters those iconic words together twice. Several other times he says “humbug” by itself, but only twice, in just one scene, does he precede it with “Bah!”

Scrooge fell in love with Belle while working for Fezziwig. It’s ubiquitous for adaptations of the Carol to show Belle at the Fezziwig Christmas party. Whether young Scrooge is shown proposing to her there, meeting her there for the first time, or just dancing with her, even the most faithful adaptations include her. It’s easy to forget that Dickens doesn’t feature her in that sequence at all! We don’t know if Scrooge met and fell in love with her while he was Fezziwig’s apprentice or later in his youth. The book never tells us.

Scrooge has a large hooked nose. It’s been ubiquitous to depict Scrooge this way ever since John Leech did in his original illustrations. Of course, Leech didn’t work in a vacuum either: nearly all greedy or miserly men in fiction tend to be depicted with large curving noses, probably because greed, miserliness, and large hooked noses are all anti-Semitic stereotypes (see “Scrooge is Jewish” below). But Dickens only describes Scrooge’s nose as “pointed.” He never mentions its size or anything else about its shape.

Scrooge is a crooked businessman. Occasionally, adaptations will hint that Scrooge engages in illegal business practices. But the book never implies any such thing. He's just an extremely conservative businessman, who strictly and coldly follows the rules of making profit, and follows the rules of decency and charity that his society enforces (e.g. paying his taxes to support the workhouses for the poor, giving his clerk a Christmas holiday with pay), but sees no point in doing anything beyond that. His harshest, most unfeeling speeches were typical conservative arguments in the politics of Dickens's England. He sees himself as having done nothing wrong, and the fact that Dickens calls him a "sinner" anyway reflects a perspective other than the law.

Scrooge is a fair and reasonable employer to Bob Cratchit. This argument is sometimes made by conservative critics. After all, Bob and his family live in a house, not a tenement (never mind that it’s a four-room house for eight people), they can afford a goose and plum pudding for Christmas dinner (never mind that their feast would have probably cost Bob a full week’s wages), and Scrooge gives him Christmas Day off with pay (just one day off a year, with extreme reluctance). As for Scrooge’s stinginess with the coal in his office, these critics say, why shouldn’t Bob just wear an overcoat and save the money? (Never mind that Bob has no overcoat.) And as for Tiny Tim, they say, most families lost at least one child in the days before modern medicine. (As if that somehow exempted employers from trying to save their employees’ children from preventable deaths.) Besides, they say, it was irresponsible of Bob and his wife to have six children in the first place. (To quote the Ghost of Christmas Present: “Oh God! To hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”) It should go without saying that these arguments are precisely the kind of sentiments Dickens wrote the Carol to argue against.

Scrooge is Jewish. It’s no surprise that some people jump to this conclusion. Many aspects of Scrooge’s character mirror anti-Semitic stereotypes. He’s greedy, miserly, works as a financier, disdains Christmas, has a Hebrew name from the Old Testament (Ebenezer), and in pop culture is often depicted with a large, hooked nose (see above). It’s entirely fair for critics to complain about the Jewish “coding” in his character. But if Dickens had meant for Scrooge to literally be a Jew, he would presumably have called him a Jew, as he notoriously did with Oliver Twist’s Fagin. Old Testament names were common among Christians in 18th and 19th century England, Scrooge’s nephew Fred is a Christmas-loving Christian, and in the Christmas Past sequence, his sister Fan says they’ll be together “all the Christmas long,” indicating that his family celebrated the holiday in his childhood. There’s no real hint of Jewishness whatsoever.

Scrooge only pursued wealth for Belle’s sake until after she left him. Some critics try to defend young Scrooge against Belle’s accusation that “another idol [had] displaced [her]” by arguing that he only wanted to be rich for her sake, and that he only really turned to greed to fill the void after she ended their engagement. Several adaptations also emphasize that his motive (at least at first) was to provide for Belle. But Dickens’s young Scrooge never argues that he only pursues wealth for Belle’s sake – only that he’s grown “wiser” by striving to stave off poverty, and that despite it all he’s not changed toward Belle. Nor does Dickens’s narration ever imply that Belle judges him unfairly. He describes young Scrooge’s face as already showing signs of “avarice,” with “an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root.” And when Belle says that if their engagement had never been, he would never choose a dowerless bride now, Dickens writes that he “seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition” before attempting “with a struggle” to deny it… and even then, he never says he would still choose her, only “You think not.” It seems to me that Dickens meant for Belle to be right.

Scrooge’s father was cold and distant because of grief at his wife’s death. Again and again, adaptations of Scrooge’s childhood explicitly state that Scrooge’s mother is dead, and often imply that his father was embittered and hardened by his grief for his wife, explaining why he neglected his son at boarding school. But the book never even mentions Scrooge’s mother. She might have still been alive when he was a child, for all we know. Nor is any explanation given for why his father neglected him, nor for why he eventually became kinder and brought him home. Dickens didn’t choose to flesh out Scrooge’s childhood that far.

Scrooge’s mother died at his birth. Elaborating on the above, the two most acclaimed film versions of the Carol (the 1951 and 1984 versions) both explicitly say that Scrooge’s mother died in childbirth and his father neglected him because he blamed him for her death. But as mentioned above, Scrooge’s mother is never actually said to be dead. Furthermore, Fan is Scrooge’s younger sister in the book (the ’51 and ’84 film versions both make her the older sibling, a young woman instead of a child), so unless their father remarried and she’s actually Scrooge’s half-sister, Scrooge’s birth couldn’t possibly have killed their mother.

Scrooge’s only childhood hardship was loneliness. Rarely do adaptations depict Scrooge’s childhood boarding school as the decrepit place the book describes, with its damp and decaying exterior, cold and dreary rooms, and air of “too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.” Nor do they usually portray the schoolmaster (if they depict him at all) as the imposing figure with the “terrible voice” and glare of “ferocious condescension” that Dickens describes. It’s a surprise that even the adaptations most determined to flesh out Scrooge’s backstory tend to just highlight the loneliness of his childhood, and/or his mistreatment by his father that the book only vaguely alludes to, rather than lean hard into the “Dickensian” nature of the school as Dickens described it.

Scrooge's worst traumas all happened at Christmas, which is why he hates the holiday. Well, it's true that young Scrooge was at his loneliest at Christmas as a boy, when he was left alone at boarding school while all the other boys went home. And it's true that his only friend Jacob Marley died on Christmas Eve. It's also probably true that Belle broke off their engagement at Christmastime – all the other scenes the Ghost of Christmas past shows to Scrooge takes place at Christmas, so it does seem most likely that this particular scene does too. But Dickens never explicitly names Christmas as the time when Belle and Scrooge's split took place. Most adaptations place it on Christmas Eve or thereabouts, but at least one very book-faithful adaptation, Richard Williams's 1971 animated short, sets the scene in a green park in the spring or summer. Nor, unlike in some adaptations, is Fan said to have died at Christmastime. She almost definitely didn't, since the Ghost only mentions her death rather than taking Scrooge to revisit it.

Scrooge visits the Cratchit house on Christmas Day. Many adaptations condense the action to have Scrooge visit the Cratchits and show them his newfound benevolence on Christmas Day itself. But in the book, he reveals his transformation to Bob when he arrives at work on St. Stephen’s Day.

Scrooge wears a nightshirt throughout his adventure with the spirits. So many adaptations depict Scrooge in a nightshirt that it can be hard to imagine him dressed in any other way. This is no doubt enhanced by the fact that in John Leech’s original illustrations, Scrooge’s dressing gown is white – since we rarely see white dressing gowns made for men in modern times, it’s easy to mistake it for a long nightshirt. But the book describes him as putting on his dressing gown and nightcap over his day clothes before settling down by the fire to eat his gruel (an understandable choice at night in the era before central heating, especially since miserly Scrooge doesn’t make his fire very big), and after his exhausting encounter with Marley’s Ghost, he falls into bed “without undressing.” Even in Leech’s illustrations, his trouser leg is visible in the scene where he kneels at his own grave. A book-accurate Scrooge would spend his whole adventure with the ghosts wearing his dressing gown over his shirt and trousers: a costume that so far, only a handful of screen Scrooges have worn.

The Ghost of Christmas Past and Scrooge fly over the rooftops of London before they arrive in the past. This is a ubiquitous image from the screen adaptations, starting with the 1938 MGM film. But in the book, they simply pass through the wall of Scrooge’s chamber and are instantly standing in the countryside of his boyhood.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is female, or of indeterminate gender. The ghost is described as “it,” but so are Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Present, despite their blatantly male appearance. As for Christmas Past, its strange appearance is likened to both a child and an old man, and Scrooge addresses it as “sir”. That said, its touch is described as being “gentle as a woman’s hand,” and since its gender makes no difference to the plot, it makes sense that so many adaptations should cast it as female to add another role for an actress to a largely male-dominated story.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a skeleton beneath its cloak. The final ghost’s resemblance to the Grim Reaper has led several adaptations to imply, or eventually show, that its hidden form is that of a skeleton. But the book repeatedly describes the ghost's outstretched pointing hand, the only part of its body not hidden by the cloak, and its main method of communication to Scrooge. Nothing indicates that this hand is anything but a human hand with flesh on it. So at the very least, the ghost isn't entirely skeletal.

The great tragedy of Scrooge’s past was the loss of Belle. Many an adaptation gives Scrooge’s childhood a perfunctory treatment, or even passes it over altogether, and derive the chief pathos and lesson of the Christmas Past sequence from Scrooge’s broken engagement to Belle. But while Dickens’s Scrooge is obviously pained by revisiting that memory, and by the sight of her children who could have been his, he shows much more anguish at seeing himself as a neglected child alone in the bleak boarding school. He weeps uncontrollably when he revisits his childhood. So many adaptations reverse those emotional beats, having him show only restrained sadness over his childhood but then break down in tears over Belle’s departure. But those are adaptations, not the book.

The male thief in the Christmas Yet to Come sequence is an undertaker. Even though adaptations tend to portray him as the undertaker himself, the book calls him “the undertaker’s man.” He’s just an assistant, making it all the more natural that he should supplement his low income by pawning stolen goods.

The third spirit is called the Ghost of Christmas Future. No, it’s called the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

The three spirits are the ghosts of people from Scrooge’s past. I remember once reading a short sequel to the Carol by a modern author, which revealed that the Ghost of Christmas Past was the ghost of Belle, the Ghost of Christmas Present was Fezziwig, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was Dick Wilkins. Each one of the spirits has also been speculated to be the ghost of Fan, or portrayed as such in some adaptation or other. This is pure speculation, though. There’s no hint that any of the Ghosts of Christmas were ever human.

The visions of Christmas Yet to Come all take place at the same Christmas. People tend to assume that Scrooge's death and Tiny Tim's death are shown as taking place near the same time. This leads some to assume that Scrooge has only a year left to live at the end of the story, since the Ghost of Christmas Present predicted that with no change, Tim would have died in less than a year. But if Scrooge has only a year left to live, then how would he have enough time to become "a second father" to Tiny Tim, and how could it always be said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well if he won't live to see another Christmas? Of course we could assume that after his transformation, his new lease on life will give him more years to live. But Dickens writes that the visions of the future seemed to occur in no particular order. So it might be that while the scene dealing with Tiny Tim's death takes place only a year in the future, the scenes dealing with Scrooge's death take place many years later.

Tiny Tim is a saintly, all-forgiving child. Several adaptations show Tim echoing his father’s gratitude to Scrooge, eagerly drinking the toast to him, and/or objecting to his other family members’ negative talk about him. But surprisingly, the book implies that even Tim shares his mother’s grim view of Scrooge rather than his father’s generous spirit toward him. “Tiny Tim drank [the toast to Scrooge] last of all,” Dickens writes, “but he didn’t care twopence for it.”

Tiny Tim is the youngest Cratchit child. This is an easy assumption to make, and the book never contradicts it. But it never explicitly calls him the youngest either. It’s possible (not necessary, but possible) to interpret the description of Tim’s unnamed brother and sister as “the two young Cratchits” as indicting that those two are the youngest children and Tim is slightly older. At least one adaptation, the 1999 TV film with Patrick Stewart, portrays them this way.

Tiny Tim has a chronic cough. Several adaptations – The Muppet Christmas Carol, 2001's Christmas Carol: The Movie, and 2022's Scrooge: A Christmas Carol – use the classic shorthand for "very sick" by giving Tiny Tim a bad cough. But the book never describes him as coughing. Might he have had a cough, though? Well, that depends on what disease he has, which we don't know. If we assume he has spinal tuberculosis, like Dickens's young nephew Harry Burnett Jr. who allegedly inspired the character, then he likely has pulmonary tuberculosis too, and presumably does have a cough. But if he has some other disease, then he might not. (See below for more on the subject.)

Tiny Tim was crippled from birth. Every now and then we hear this statement in descriptions of the character. But the book never actually specifies if Tim was born with his disability or not. Since Tim’s disease is never specified (see below), it’s impossible to know if he was born with it or developed it later.

Tiny Tim’s illness. We only know that Tim has his limbs supported by an iron frame and requires a crutch to walk, has a small, feeble voice and “withered” hands, and would have died within a year if not for Scrooge’s transformation. But he survives (though the text never says he was cured, only that he didn’t die) thanks to Scrooge improving the Cratchits’ fortunes. Several theories exist regarding his disease. One possibility is Pott’s Disease, which Dickens’s young nephew Harry Burnett Jr. suffered from: spinal tuberculosis, which wasn’t curable in the 19th century, but could go into remission with the right care and nutrition. Another is renal tubular acidosis, a kidney disease that makes the blood too acidic and causes bone deterioration: this disease was curable in the 19th century, though its rareness makes some critics doubt that Dickens would have thought of it. Yet another suggestion is rickets, although this is a nutritional disorder, so it seems unlikely because none of Tim’s siblings seem to be affected. Cases can be made both for and against quite a few different diseases.

#a christmas carol #canon vs fanon #charles dickens #literature #adaptations #long #tw: death #tw: illness #tw: antisemitism

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beloved-cat-gremlin · 5 months

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Part 2 of my FNaF movie theory post

Part 1 here

Spoilers ahead!

However for the longest time I thought I was going crazy as I was pretty certain this wasn't the only time I heard this specific music cue in the movie. And right I was, for the same note pattern appears again here:

(Original track: "My Grandfather's Clock")

This is the second credits song that plays after the living tombstone's iconic FNaF song. And for all of those who somehow lived under a rock this whole time or only joined during the Security Breach era and haven't checked out some of the classic FNaF stuff: this song is a remix/remake of the iconic music box theme (by the same name) from FNaF 2. Which was used for the Puppet.

Now it's nothing new to assume that the Puppet will be part of the second movie, we all pretty much agree that it will be the case. And some of us (me included) even went so far as to go with the theory that Garrett might be the one possessing the Puppet.

As it seems the Aftons and Emilys seemed to have traded places, with Garrett now taking Charlie's role from the games.

However I think this little musical cue, this tiny note pattern, that's the key to confirm that the Puppet will be in fact possessed by Garrett.

Why would they choose this random little music pattern from a random scene in the middle of the movie and put it in the end credits? Credits music is either there to reflect on the score of the entire movie or highlight the most important songs from it.

So not only do we get a song that hasn't been present at all during the entire runtime, but we also have this random note pattern thrown into the credits song.

I believe that this is the leitmotif of possession in the movie. The first time we hear this theme is when we see Mike witness the animatronics move on their own for the first time and realizing that they aren't being controlled by someone behind the scenes. This music cue is associated with the realization that these robots aren't just robots.

They have souls in them. Spirits.

So now take that information and apply it to the credits scene. We have a rendition of the Puppet's music box accompanied by the musical cue associated with possession. Aka we already know for a fact that the Puppet will have a spirit inside. It won't get possessed during the second movie, it already is.

Even if us old fans already knew that it will most likely be the case, this theme, this leitmotif, basically confirms that it 100% will be the case.

Now all we gotta wait for is to find out if Garrett will be the one or not.

On an additional note: this musical cue does play twice in the credits song. Unlike in the first track where it only plays once.

Since our boy Golden Freddy doesn't seem to have two spirits inside (or maybe he does who knows) what if we still keep the trend going of Mike's brother and someone else possessing the same animatronic? Who knows really. Maybe it will be two spirits in the Puppet or just one.

And that's the end of this random post.

Could I be reading way too much into all of this? Absolutely.

But that won't stop me from rambling about stuff that I love. And I sure do love me some leitmotif connections!

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf movie #long post #rambles #no art

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bsd-cherish-official · 7 months

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BSD: Cherish Second Anniversary Interview

On September 21st, the second anniversary of the fanfic, Bungou Stray Dogs: Cherish, a post was made on this account by myself, its author and first artist, @linklethehistorian, stating that in celebration of the big milestone, I would be running a poll-based interview consisting of 10 polls with five questions each — which fans of the fic could vote on and have the most popular questions in each poll to be answered at the end of the voting period.

This is the result of those polls, and my responses to the winning questions that were determined therein.

Full interview below the cut for minor Cherish spoilers. Proceed on to read.

Q: Why did you choose to have four different artstyles used throughout the fic?

A: Well, in the beginning, you know, for the first…almost a year or so, I didn’t really have a co-artist on the project with me; it was just me, myself and I that was working on Cherish alone, and I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have artwork for — and included in — the fic, so in that first year-ish that it existed, I basically just had to make do with using my own artstyle that was based on the BSD anime.

So, you already have that going on, and I was pretty happy with that, but the truth is that from the beginning, I’d always really wanted to have at least some of the art — especially the cover art I’d sketched up years and years back — resemble the actual official art from Harukawa-sensei in the BSD manga and light novels. After about a year of procrastinating and overthinking everything about it, I finally worked up the courage to ask my friend, Asachuu, who was not only a fan of the story but also had a very lovely artstyle and was very good at recreating the look I wanted, if it would be possible for us to collab on a piece, and sent the old sketch for the cover, and from there things kind of just…took off. Pretty soon, one single collab had very happily turned into me suddenly having a dedicated co-artist who could contribute some absolutely beautiful BSD manga-reminiscent artworks for certain chapters.

Then, after the Storm Bringer Stage Play had come out, I ended up extremely inspired by a lot of the very cute and lighthearted official chibi artworks and merch that sprung up from it, and thus, by the end of last year, I ultimately wound up endeavoring to create some chibi artwork of my own for Cherish; originally, this was not intended to be any sort of long-term staple for the story, as I expected it would just be a one-and-done thing to surprise fans with during the holidays, but…as I’m sure most of you have seen, after discovering how fairly quick and easy yet still adorable the end result was, I made the choice to continue with that style of art for all of our little celebrations, events, and milestones.

Lastly, those little chibi drawings also unintentionally came to invent a brand-new style of coloration in regards to my methods, which resulted in the final type of my artwork that you see involving Cherish — a sort of lighter, softer way of coloring that results in an almost crayon-like effect. This was initially a complete accident, as it was nothing more than me using a random brush for the first colored sketch of the holiday 2022 piece, but after some experimentation with keeping it for the finished work, I found that I really liked it quite a lot and later began using it for more than just the chibi-style artworks, as it brought a certain warmth and light-heartedness to the scenes, and reminded me a tiny bit of this one still image from the first season of the BSD anime:

And so, there you have it! Although the gorgeous manga-reminiscent style of my co-artist may be the well-known face of the fic in a lot of ways given that our collaborations are reserved for and make up the bulk of many of the most intense or important scenes and chapters of the story, every artstyle that is involved with Cherish’s official art has its own special and equally important part to play therein.

Asachuu’s manga-like style lends a certain extra feeling of authenticity to Cherish as having its place among the other BSD light novels, and presents certain scenes and chapters in a uniquely stunning form, and with extra attention to detail that likely wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

The more typical BSD anime artstyle that is my usual signature, with its fuller and more official-looking coloring technique, is used to depict the rest of the darker, more somber-toned scenes that do not receive the previous treatment; this, I feel, not only properly represents the anime artstyle in some form as I had wanted to begin with, but also brings forth a sadder, more down-to-earth aspect than its lighter and fluffier, almost crayon-like colored counterpart, which is conversely used to evoke the happier, more heartwarming moments and emotions within the fic.

And, of course, the chibi artstyle allows me to make much more quick, cute, and mostly much less serious little drawings to share with my friends and fans of the story, easily celebrate special events and milestones, and express my endless gratitude toward Cherish’s continued support. 💖

Q: Who are your least and most favorite characters to write for in the fic?

A: Oh, this is kind of a tough one. I actually wouldn’t say I genuinely dislike writing for any of the characters that have appeared in Cherish thus far, but I guess if I had to pick one that I liked dealing with a little less than the rest, that would have to be Ango; it’s not that he’s a bad character by any means, and I honestly like him in BSD quite a fair bit, it’s simply that he’s the most…I guess you could say “ordinary” or “stiff”…out of the group, in terms of outward personality — at least, under the circumstances in which he was introduced and presented up until now.

“He was still pleasant to write and there was a moment or two there that was a little fun to do, he just didn’t really have the chance to truly show off the more intricate parts of his soul in that scene”, is I guess how I’d put it.

As for most favorite, that’s a bit harder to pin down. haha I like all of the main cast in different ways.

Obviously, I’m very, very fond of both Arthurs; not only do I just really love both of their personalities and find them both super interesting, but I also relate to them both in a lot of different ways, and the subjects that often get tackled with their scenes, dialogue, and thoughts are all very important matters to me that I treat with a lot of personal care, respect, and passion, so it would be very hard for me to say that those two aren’t one of the absolute main highlights of writing Cherish to begin with.

At the same time, though, also really into writing for Chuuya and Paul — especially when they’re interacting with each other, because of how perfectly their polar opposite personalities, apparent outlooks, and ways of communicating their feelings play off of each other, though definitely not exclusively there, either. I really just find them fun, well-written, and fascinating to explore in general, too.

And then of course there’s Mori. I guess if we had to talk about pure novelty and entertainment value alone when it comes to writing, then he would have to be the top pick for the most fun and smooth experience overall, since his ability to change from cheerful to chilling on a dime, like the simple flip of a light switch — or even accomplish both at the same time, without even doing anything explicitly threatening at all — is a uniquely cool concept and character trait to play with.

I don’t know, to be honest, I just think they’re all super neat in their own ways.

Q: Are there any outfits you really want to draw someone in, in a future artwork?

A: Oh God, you have no idea how many, but yes; I have a lot of planned outfits for the future that I want to draw and release some proper Cherish art for, and some that I really already have done and just haven’t been able to share with all of you because it is spoilery.

I think two outfits in particular I’d really like to draw in a full-on chapter artwork, though, are the outfit Arthur was wearing to the restaurant in Chapter 10, and then the cute little casual number Chuuya was wearing in Chapter 11. You can actually see both of those in the Valentine’s and White Day chibi artworks I’ve made for this year, but I consider those to be a little bit different from drawing it in a more properly proportioned piece…

Q: Are there any minor plotholes you’ve had to go back and fix that nobody noticed?

A: Well, technically, yes — if memory serves, at least; I mean, I believe the day that I released Chapter 10, I had left in one instance in which Mori called Paul “Verlaine-kun” right there in front of Arthur, despite that the doctor himself had been the one to insist that he use an alias, and I think I then had to go back and fix that retroactively so that he called him “Marion-kun” instead.

Granted, they were both speaking Japanese to begin with, so it’s not totally impossible that Arthur wouldn’t have picked up on what Mori was calling him, but…yeah, to be honest, I think that’s one thing that both Mori wouldn’t risk and Arthur wouldn’t so easily overlook or fail to hear.

Other than that…well, this isn’t technically a plothole or anything because it did have a reason from the start — it’s more just a case of something not having been elaborated on as much as I’d like — but there’s currently a scene in Chapter 6 where Rimbaud, in a fit of frustration and emotion, goes off to Paul about how no one back home was worth returning to or would even really miss him if he died or disappeared, and he references his past lover fairly clearly as having been a man.

The possible “problem” that I think there’s potential for someone to take away from this moment is that later on, Arthur acts deeply worried about Paul finding this fact out and being severely discriminatory or cruel to him as most people in his original time were about such things and refusing to continue being there for him or even helping him as a result — thereby possibly making it seem like I’d forgotten that Arthur had had this outburst.

That isn’t really the case, though; moreso, it was originally intended for there to be a scene at some point where Arthur would reflect back on what he had said and inwardly question why Paul had continued to be so kind to him despite knowing that he had been involved with a man, ultimately deciding that it was likely that Verlaine didn’t really pay attention or give enough thought to all of the finer details of all of what he was rambling on about back then, in the heat of the moment, too focused on calming the teen down to be bothered with picking apart every statement he’d made — as Arthur himself simply couldn’t imagine he’d have been lucky enough, on top of all the other ‘highly fortunate’ circumstances he’d landed in, to have also just so happened to find someone who would be that ‘absurdly’ willing to overlook his orientation. (It’s not like he could have imagined that Paul simply wouldn’t think anything of it at all — which was actually the case…)

Unfortunately, I forgot to put that dialogue in, so at present, it kind of just has to be inferred by the reader… I do have plans to go back at some point before the start of the next arc and add this in, in some manner, but thankfully no one so far seems to have cared that this wasn’t explicitly explained, so I’m glad of that, at least.

And if you have wondered…well, I guess you have the answer for now. Sorry it’s not explicitly in the fic at the moment, but hopefully it will be quite soon.

Q: Is there anything you’re afraid you might have been TOO subtle about?

A: Well…yes. I’m going to put up a disclaimer here and now that the response to this question could not only be potentially triggering for some people who have experienced certain types of trauma, but also is kind of NSFW, so…if either of those things might be a problem for you for any reason, you may want to skip over this question.

We alright? Have you decided whether you wanted to keep reading this or not?

Okay. Let’s get into it, then.

So…while I don’t exactly want to say there isn’t plenty of room or time or even plans to perhaps go into it more deeply later, since there definitely is and I most likely will in some manner, given that it is my first time delving into such topics, I do wonder now and again if some of the dark implications made in Chapter 7, Chapter 8, and Chapter 13 — namely, that Arthur had been through multiple cases of extreme sexual trauma, in addition to the other emotional and physical traumas he had endured throughout his life — were altogether too cryptic to have been picked up on by the average reader at present.

I did intend from the very beginning to be more subtle about the matter in these chapters and only make little references to it in passing where it was immediately relevant and/or was natural to come to mind for Arthur in light of the situation, but I frequently worry if the things that I see as having been decently clear indications towards that end actually were decently clear or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter if they were or not, since that is something that as I said is bound to be more obvious at some point in the future chapters anyway, but it is something I think about nonetheless.

I think that if you were fully familiar with and completely in the current know about the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s life as it unfolded in our world, and especially have kept up with all of the most recent findings, then you might have a slightly better chance at putting two and two together on your own, and in that case I think my words will almost certainly have served their purpose, but for anyone else, I do have some minor concerns that maybe my desire to have been more subtle about it at this stage in the story actually ended up backfiring and making it altogether impossible to assume or even question…

Anyway, that particular heavy subject aside, I often also just in general worry about whether or not I’m coming off clearly enough when it comes to any existing or possible future hints towards anything that is remotely non-traumatically sexual or relating to sexual attraction in nature as a whole, since, as an asexual person who myself doesn’t experience sexual attraction whatsoever, it is a subject matter that on some levels is fairly unnatural to my own personal human experience and sexuality; I don’t think that I’m bad at talking about it by any means, I just don’t know that I’m particularly amazing at it, either.

But yeah, those are…pretty much my only main times when being too subtle might have ever crossed my mind, I think…?

Q: What’s the message you most want people to walk away with after reading Cherish?

A: Good question.

The thing is, I wouldn’t say that I originally created Cherish with any specific message in mind at all; I mean, obviously, there were always going to be heavy themes and topics that I knew it would have to tackle, and there were things that it definitely represented to me on a personal level after it came into being, but back when I first created the headcanons themselves that would eventually become this story, considering that I had absolutely zero plans to share it with anyone at the time, I didn’t really ever consider the idea of it carrying an actual message I wanted to convey.

Even now, I don’t want to define Cherish as this thing that exists solely for the purpose of communicating a particular idea to others, because it isn’t; I’ve known from the very beginning that to some people, this tale is just going to be something they look at and enjoy on a completely surface level — as something that is exactly what it says on the tin and nothing more — and I’m fine with that.

To me, Cherish is both of these things: a story that exists simply for the sake of itself — for the love of its characters, its pairings, and its plot, taken entirely at face value — and something which on a deeper level also represents and carries a great deal of messages and concepts which happen to be very important to me, that I hope other people might see and feel touched by as well.

Given that it does represent more than one thing in my eyes, though, that makes this question a little hard to answer; provided I had the ability to ensure it somehow, I’m really not sure which message I would want everyone to walk away with the most.

I suppose, in the end, if I could only choose one thing, then the message that I would most want my readers to see would depend upon who they themselves are, and what they need to hear most.

As I’ve mentioned in one post before, I would very much like it if some victims of abuse and/or trauma might be able to feel seen and heard by the fic, and maybe even find hope or at least catharsis in reading it. I don’t want to say too much about the matter in this particular interview, as a lot of the commentary I could make beyond that could lead to spoilers for people who would rather not know certain things that will happen or the outcome of them, but I will say that there are many questions and themes in this fic that I would like to believe might strike a comforting note for some people who are going through a lot of uncertainty in their lives, in the aftermath of traumatic and/or abusive experiences.

Likewise, I would hope that for anyone who maybe knows someone who has gone through abuse or trauma but struggles with understanding it, because this story has not only been carefully researched and written about, but also by, someone who has been through certain types of abuse and experienced the lasting effects of trauma, it might be able to help them get a closer look at some of the possible ways those things can present themselves and the things that can potentially go through our heads as a result.

For someone who might be reading this with either a newly budding or already pre-existing interest in the real life Arthur Rimbaud who once lived here in our world, I would like to think that this story — albeit having some minor differences here and there that I will get to in a later question — might show a bit more nuance towards his situation compared to how many other forms of media surrounding the topic (especially, but not limited to, the English ones) tend to present it.

Having spent the many, many years that I have researching his life story in multiple languages and every possible remotely credible source I could find, digging to the bottom to find the absolute truth as best as one can, I have found that in many cases, there is sadly far too much of a focus around sensationalism when it comes to coverage of the individuals and events involved, and far too little of a focus on actually bothering to get all of the facts and the interpersonal dynamics straight in order to present the most accurate and nuanced recounting of history that can humanly be given.

While I don’t want to get too into it in this little interview, as I’ll probably be making a separate post about it sometime anyway, I will put it out there that it is largely thanks to this failure to share crucial details that for quite a while into my earliest endeavors of research, I myself was led to believe the very much false and yet sadly most widely spread, highly sensationalized narrative that either, at best, both Verlaine and Rimbaud were equally terrible people who were, likewise, equally to blame for what happened between them, or at worst, that Rimbaud was the one to blame almost entirely for Verlaine’s supposed “descent” into a crueler and less respectable person — both of which narratives, by the way, cannot exist without completely ignoring and omitting several key facts that provide much more nuance than most of these various coverages were willing to provide: such as the several extreme power dynamics involved in their relationship coming from Verlaine’s side, the extremely traumatic background that Rimbaud had come from and how that had left him a vulnerable target in numerous ways, and most notably, that Verlaine had a pre-established pattern of alcoholism, extreme abusive tendencies of practically all varieties, homicidal urges, guilt-tripping tactics, and exactly everything else for his entire adult — and to some extent even teenage — life, far prior to meeting Arthur, and also continued on that path for the rest of his life even after their parting, whereas Rimbaud by all accounts prior to their meeting was nothing more than what, by today’s standards, would be considered overall a perfectly normal, if (and understandably so, given his background) troubled, teenager, who would later also go on to be a perfectly normal if somewhat withdrawn, well-adjusted adult once their relationship was over.

My hope, then, in that vein, is to tell this story without shying away from or missing those facts, and in doing so, to hopefully present his life story from an angle that is rarely seen or covered by many of the most popular sources of information out there, allowing people to perhaps step away from the great echo chamber of omissions, sensationalism, and misinformation for a moment and view and understand Arthur from a much more real and human perspective — to see him as a real, feeling, troubled human being who once lived, breathed, loved, struggled, and suffered just like nearly anyone else, rather than some dehumanized, over-exaggerated spectacle spoken of purely to be gawked at and made into a shocking and scandalizing caricature into which only the most extreme of rumors and actions are projected, as is so often sadly the case.

So, uh…yeah, those are my main messages I’d like to get across, I guess. I’d like to return to talking about this more in the future when the fic is complete, since by then I can truly get into the topics more, but for now, there you have it.

…I think at the end of the day, though, what’s most important is that people who need it get from Cherish whatever it is they came for; if there’s a message they really need to hear right then, then I hope they hear it. Sometimes as writers, we see a certain message in our stories and we intend to have that come through, but someone finds an entirely different and equally beautiful one inside it instead — one that we didn’t even intend to be there — and it helps them. I think that’s pretty awesome.

Q: What chapter are you most/least looking forward to recording for?

A: Well, to be honest with you, despite that by the time of answering this, I’ve already finished what I think will be the final recording for it, Chapter 2 has been a massive bitch to work with from beginning to end — nothing like Chapter 1 — so…yes, that would be the one I was least looking forward to recording out of the thirteen chapters that already exist; I’m honestly relieved it’s over.

I don’t really know how to explain what the problem even was with that one; it’s not a bad chapter by any means, but the first time I recorded it — an impossibly perfect take all the way up to the last third of the fic, by the way — I sadly found out that the audio ended up somehow distorted beyond any repair or salvaging, and ever since then the lines for some reason have just refused to be spoken out loud the same way that they do when I read it in my head.

As of this moment, I still haven’t listened to that recording more than the few seconds that were necessary to make sure that it took this time, so I don’t even know whether or not I’ll end up completely unsatisfied with the result, but it was really the best that I could do, so whatever the case, I’m stuck with it the way that it is. Let’s just hope it doesn’t totally suck.

There are way too many chapters that I think will be a cool experience to record for me to narrow it down to just one right now, but the closest one that I’m really anticipating is actually Chapter 3; I’ve always been really fond of the whole exchange that happened between Paul and Chuuya there, and I think getting to narrate those lines would be really exciting, since up until now, I haven’t had a great opportunity to get into the more emotionally intense lines. I hope that when the time comes, I’m able to do them justice.

Some other chapters I’m really looking forward to recording, I think, are 6, certain parts of 7, 10, and 12.

Q: Is there anything you wish you had been able to keep in the fic, but couldn’t?

A: Well, I definitely think there are some things that would have been more intense and exciting for people who were maybe expecting a more canon-typical plot to what we’ve gotten so far, but I don’t really know that I have regrets about not being able to use them in the fic.

For example, because the very first iteration of the original headcanons that make up what would eventually become Cherish were, well, headcanons, and tied to a much longer overarching storyline with no clear-cut beginning or end, both the way that the story started and, in some aspects, how it will wrap up is somewhat different from how it was back then.

I’m not going to elaborate on that at this time, because there are some aspects of those things that I had to change which I intend to still try to potentially incorporate at a different point in the fic, and thus I don’t want to spoil any of what might happen in the future, but there were definitely things and characters that had to be cut from the final version of Cherish that I do wonder what it would have been like for my readers if I had kept it; I wouldn’t say it’s a regret, though, as I’m quite proud of the fic I have now, and I think it’s probably best as it is currently.

Other than that, I guess my only potential regrets about things I couldn’t keep would have to be some of the deleted scenes and lines delving into certain characters’ mindsets, but I talk about those in the development notes already, so I won’t delve into that here, either.

Q: Do you plan to find a way to reuse all of the scrapped content for Cherish?

A: As much as I reasonably can without impacting the story in a negative way, at least, yes; it would be utterly impossible for me to keep literally everything in the fic that was ever discarded, but within the margins of good sense, I will try to re-incorporate whatever I feel is important, insightful, cool, or interesting and works with the plot.

Almost anything worth talking about that is left over after that is likely to end up in my Cherish Development Notes, so maybe keep an eye on those if scrapped content tends to pique your fancy.

Q: Do you think Cherish would’ve been as successful if it kept its original title?

A: Honestly? In some ways, I think it probably would’ve been a lot more successful – at least, in terms of marketing.

The thing about Cherish as a title is that although it’s very fitting for the story, and I do love it a lot, it’s very definitely not even half as marketable as a name like Storm Chaser would’ve been; there’s simply no getting around that fact.

Yes, for a fic, something short, sweet, and romantic like ‘Cherish’ does just fine – it’s expected, even; searching it up as a fic title right now, in fact, there are a total of 764 results, 3 of which by the exact same title are in the BSD fandom – obviously including mine. That’s just the issue, though; sure, it’s a perfectly normal and acceptable title, but that just means that when it comes to marketing, it doesn’t help it to stand out at all from the others.

If we’re talking in terms of more conventional ideas of success and popularity, then for a fic that is meant to be a fully-fledged light novel of the same quality and effort as its official canon kin – and which has been made into such a massive project stretched out across so many forms of media – having a title that sounds like what one would usually expect to be some little oneshot drabble of the most common kind is absolutely a bad move.

Storm Chaser as a title for a fic, on the other hand, has only 29 total entries on AO3, none of which are in the BSD fandom, and it sounds like an actually plausible name for an official sequel to Storm Bringer; there is no doubt that at the very least, something like that would absolutely generate more clicks and hits out of pure curiosity alone than Cherish ever could.

That being said, though, generating more curiosity clicks doesn’t necessarily mean generating more genuine love and interest, and I’d rather have people clicking out of interest in the summary and description and tags than over something as petty as the title to begin with – not to mention that I decided a long time ago I’d rather make Cherish from the depth of my heart in every way, in accordance with what I want it to be, than to worry about its popularity levels.

Q: How historically accurate do you feel that this fic is in its representations?

A: Well, at least more accurate than a great deal of the more popular sources of information out there, when it comes to irl Rimbaud and Verlaine’s life stories and situations, unfortunately — as I said further up above.

Granted, there are going to be some small differences and creative liberties taken here and there, given that the versions of them presented in Cherish come from a slightly alternate universe to ours, but that’s mostly just to do with the fact that in this alt-world, Paul actually succeeded at making a second attempt on Arthur’s life at the train station where the teen intended to have their final parting; apart from that and the obvious connecting of dots and filling in of blanks wherever information simply didn’t fully exist about the more intimate and intricate details of their lives, great care was taken to ensure that everything was presented as realistically and accurately as possible, according to all of the intensive research I have done about them over the years.

As for the general historical representation of the time period they come from itself, I’d like to think that I’m doing well with it, as I try to do my research on every aspect the very best that I can, but aside from certain highly specific subjects, I don’t claim to be half so much of an expert of the general late Victorian era itself as much as I am an expert on them and their life stories, relationship, and circumstances specifically; if there’s a minor slip-up or two in regards to facts about the era that I somehow managed to overlook or misunderstand, I’m truly sorry about that. haha

Q: What is your favorite fan interaction you’ve had to this day?

A: I’m going to guess that my interactions with my dear co-artist don’t count here, right? In that case, it would definitely be finding out that my new pal, @dazaisshippingcontainer, is making fanart of my fic; that was such a touching moment for me — the thought that someone out there (especially someone that at the time I wasn’t close to) had been reading my fic and loving it enough to actually make fanart for it. 😭 Moments like this are moments I truly treasure beyond compare. Ily Clover, buddy. 💖

Let’s be honest, though; I love and live for every single fan interaction I’ve had to date. 🥺💖 They all mean the world to me.

And of course there’s Art — my dear, dear friend and co-artist, whom I appreciate so, so much… I truly feel blessed by it all.

Q: Do you ever read your own fic?

A: Oh, you have no idea... lol Yes, yes, and a thousand times more: yes. I adore Cherish; it’s not just something I wrote for you all to enjoy — it’s something I wrote for me, too, something precious that I adore with all of my heart, and something that I’m immensely proud of.

Every time I release a chapter, I read it together with my partner, and besides that, I probably re-read a chapter from my fic —if not multiple or all of them — just by myself at least once a week.

Needless to say, I really love Cherish.

Q: How many animatics do you plan to have for Cherish?

A: Ideally, I’d like to have at least one for every arc in the fic, plus one last animatic at the very end as a final look back on the story and a great celebration — which would make for six — but I don’t know how that will actually work out, in the end, given how massive of a project making even just one can be; I may end up making more than that or less — we’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

—

And, that would be all. Thank you for your questions, everyone, and I look forward to the next time we hold an interview like this together!

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