#in this scenario luci is i believe; a bit off limits

[safyresky]

YOOO hellooo!!

Okay! It took me awhile to think of some titles, lmao, BUT:

Snap, Crackle, Pop

Road Trip

Lazy Day

Poker Face

Ghost Town

These are all from my braino but I DID at one point consult a fic title generator just to see what it cooked up and the first result was “Case of the Blue Pygmy” which— you don’t have to do anything with, but thought you’d appreciate bc it had me absolutely. HowLING. Catch Mel constantly referring to Jack as “the Blue Pygmy” from this point onwards, lmaooooo.

ALSO ALSO PLEASE tell me about Fino’s orcish rival, they sound fab!!! The Lucy in me is already shipping like mad! 🥺🥺💖

THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT THIS ORCISH FELLOW OF FINO'S (not to sound like my 60 plus year old neighbour) BECAUSE I LOVE HIM TO BITS (orc friend shenanigans under cut)

ANYWAY, HERE'S WONDERWALL PROMPT REPLIES

Snap, Crackle, Pop

Would take place in Pyros House Arrest AU. Could also be called "How Jacqueline Finally Got Used To Having Her Evil Uncle Around".

CRYSTAL SPRINGS SPOILERS ABOUND

In which, during multiple midnight rice krispies cereal excursions, Jacqueline and Pyros start to sort of get along. Sort of. Would include: a lot of roasting (Pyros is like is this how Blaise is going to kill me dead if I don't behave?? His teenage/young adult daughter just roasts me to death with WORDS?!). Unpacking the whole, uh, evil mind control bit, and uh. All that. As well. She doesn't forgive her Uncle for taking away her agency and attempting to destroy everything she knows, however, she can make him see how bad that was. Y'know. Through ROASTING. Until the ice breaks with a shitty joke >:)

CRYSTAL SPRINGS SPOILERS UN-ABOUND

Road Trip

The Legates get de-magic'd and have to road trip cross country (countries?!?!?) to get their magic back in working order.

This one is an ANCIENT idea that popped into my head MANY years ago when I was at the Big Apple. Not New York, no; at the Big Apple, Canada, which is this roadside attraction off the highway in the Trenton/Kingston corridor. It's. Well.

It's a Big Apple.

Google it.

You Will See why I say it is a CURSED OBJECT. The guy who created it was inspired by DISNEYLAND I shit you not. The view from the top of the apple is abysmal. IT'S ON THE SIDE OF THE 401. THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE BUT TREES AND PEOPLE DRIVING BAD AND ANYWHERE FROM 20 TO 40KM OVER THE LIMIT. Their claim to fame, aside from the giant murderous apple that could TOTALLY be a weeping angel, are apple based products. They only got an apple orchard like in the last 5ish years. They have existed for at LEAST twenty.

ANYWAY they have this sign at the front of the shop that just has like, all these locations and how far from the Big Apple they are, and one of them is the North Pole, and every time I see that sign (I regret to admit I have stopped at the big apple too much for my liking), I think of a scenario where Jacqueline tries to poof herself and several legates, but their magic is fuckey so who KNOWS where they'll end up, and when they appear she sees the 401, sees the big apple, and is just like GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. Thankfully a witch she knows has a little shop down the street so they go there for help! (Mel perhaps? Who's to say!)

Lazy Day

Blaise tries to have a lazy day. It does not go well at all. This man is inCAPABLE of doing nothing. Winter catches him prepping dinner and she almost freezes him solid. She's like, this is not how a lazy day works. Blaise is like but we need to eat and Winter's like I CAN COOK, DEAR, BACK TO THE COUCH GO ON NOW DON'T MAKE ME KNOCK YOU OUT

Poker Face

Either Winter enters a poker tournament and cleans everybody out, gets banned from poker tournaments. OR. A 1000 word piece on all of Blaise's tells told from Winter's POV (maybe a stream of consciousness bc I think Winter's thoughts must be very funny) that explains why he's so easy to read (to her) because, believe it or not, Winter doesn't actually cheat at cards ;)

Ghost Town

Diteline kids find themselves in a right pickle when they are trapped in a literal ghost down. It is deserted except for ghosts. Robyn and Eira/Bianca (still haven't decided on which name for her ): won't stop bickering about which one of the two of them got the three siblings stuck in the Ghost Town. Robyn's like you shouldn't have opened the weird door! And Eira/Bianca is like YOU'RE THE ONE WHO WENT hey sis check out this cool scroll, and ACTIVATED IT MISTER OU LOOK AT ME, I CAN WARLOCK!

While the two youngest are arguing, Joy reaches out and touches a ghost and it goes from a passive little floating sad sack to a murderous violence machine, making things about 1000% worse.

So now the three have to fend off all the murderous shades while trying to figure out why they're trapped and if putting the ghosts back in the afterlife will free them from Ghost Town because Mom's making burritos tonight and Mater made an angel food cake with SPRINKLES IN IT and this is one of the FAVOURITE dinner/dessert combos the kiddos have.

Object: Figure out why the ghost town exists, fight the ghosts to get the town fixed, and make it back home in time for dinner!

Their moms have no idea where the kids are today. It's just a fun evening of cooking for them, while their kids are facing The Horrors.

---

"The Blue Pygmy" sounds like some kind of very inconvenient little monster, so I think Mel's onto something with dubbing Jack that lmao. Either that, or it's a weird magibean cold/flu 😂😂😂😂.

DR. MILLER, WE'VE GOT PYGMYS, CODE BLUE and she's like well SHIT! and rushed over to be a bamf doctor witch as she do!

Anyway, thanks for sending this in!

(from this post: send me a made up fic title and i'll tell you what i'd write about)

RIGHT SO ORC FRIEND

I haven't even NAMED HIM YET but he snuck his way right into my heart (and also Fino's! Fun fact! Of all 4 kiddos Fino is the only one to ACTUALLY TELL A PERSON HE LIKES THAT HE LIKES THEM. He's the suave one out of all 4, believe it or not. Jack is like "I'll keep everything bottled up inside until I DIE", Jacqueline is the most OBLIVIOUS mother fucker and then, when aware, an absolute MESS of a magibeing, and Fiera panics hard before finally attempting to take the first step if she doesn't get overwhelmed with uh. EMOTIONS and EVERY WORD SHE WNATS TO SAY EXPLODING ALL AT ONCE while she's trying to do the asking) and I am soft for him and Fino! Ah!

BUT ANYWAY when Fins is in caster school, he meets this orc who always, always, ALWAYS has to get better marks than him. It's like a competition. Very one sided, bc Fino's just vibing and happy to learn. But Orc Friend is like, if I do not surpass this sprite I will surely perish.

Turns out, the orc is under a lot of pressure from a parent to DO BETTER for w/e reason, and our orc friend is very stressed until one day he like, explodes when Fino gets half a mark better than him on an ALREADY PERFECT TEST.

Fino, who has 0 concept of this competition being a thing, is like dude. Okay. Why is this a thing. Why are you so upset, the only reason I got a half mark more was b/c of this doodle here! Like why are you pitting us against each other, that's how you get RANK mental health!

And the orc admits that his parent or parents really want him to be top of his class and DO BETTER and he's really, really trying but he doesn't LIKE it and it's taking the joy out of learning all the magic shit and Fino is, of course, appalled bc learning is SO FUN TO HIM. HE LOVES THAT SHIT. How DARE someone make learning NOT FUN. ILLEGAL

So they become study buds and Fino helps him like, love learning again. Orc friend does a LOT better when Fino is making it fun and helping him not feel the pressures of home life NEEDING him to do good! He's just doing it! And their one-sided rivalry ship becomes a funky two-sided FRIENDLY rivalry that they both ham up on occasion (Fiera is very proud when Fino fake dies when Orc Friend does better than HIM by half a mark, Orc Friend thinks it's gd hilarious) and Orc Friend now has a Fino Friend!

Anyway, they become roommates later on and Fino brings him to holidays and shit and he v much becomes one of the family and is often referred to as Fino's partner :) I'm still debating if Fins is on the aro scale or not, so this bit's a little murky, BUT it is so important to me that you know that when Fino's like oh I like this dude more than normal, he is like to Orc Friend "Hey man, I think ur real neat, wanna go out??" Like. It is SO IMPORTANT TO ME THAT YOU KNOW, THAT EVERYONE KNOWS, THAT FINO IS THE ONLY FROSTY KIDDO TO ACT NORMAL WHEN LIKING SOMEONE. SO IMPORTANT TO ME TO MAKE THIS KNOWN.

okay I opened this ask with this bit but I have gotten uh, carried away with Orc Friend (who feels like a Ken?? But that CAN'T be right), so imma just. Slide this under a cut and pretend I STARTED with the uh, original ask box shenanigan :o

but YEAH. Holidays at Frost Manor are FUN in later years. Fino and Orc Friend are like, sparring together in the backyard, talking smack and shit (it's their flirting). Fiera's latest catch is probably schmoozing the parents, unless it's her one long term partner who is SO fucking normal, he's probably like, grilling with Blaise and Fiera is just sitting at the bench like, ogling him like "my god. my god he is flipping burgers while holding the WORST beer ever. He is so normal. holy shit. I'm love him".

Dite and Jacqueline are being v cute, or, Dite is being a sweetheart while Jacqueline either A) ogles Dite being sunshine incarnate while Fiera ogles mister normal, or, B) doing something absolutely batshit with the Diteline kids (depending where in the timeline we are) and dodging Fins and Orc Friend sparring.

Suddenly Jack goes flying through a window, lands in a heap. Killian sticks his head out the broken window, laughing at Jack's pain.

Just another holiday at Frost Manor ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#long post #sorta #dani answers #definitelyy-not-a-vampire #ask box shenanigans #crystal springs #crystal springs FACTS #fino's orc friend #frost family #I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THE BLORBOS AS YOU CAN SEE #AND DITELINE KIDS ARE THE DEFINITION OF 'SHENANIGANS' #Blaise has to relax in that scenario bc of either too much work related stress OR he got a magical sickness and needs to rest it off #but refuses to rest #so winter's like. HOUNDING HIM #the BLORBOS. I JUST. AH.

[beelsbreakfast]

au where the brothers are humans and just all half brothers (except the twins obviously) and it’s college au lmaoooo

lucifer is a teacher though, like he’s 30 something. while the twins are in their 2st year of college. the rest are all in between. kinda wanna place levi in his final year though

mammon doesn’t go to school ‘cause he’s already a famous model so he didn’t bother, and asmo isn’t either ‘cause he’s focused on fashion and IS an influencer. so mc meet them after meeting luci, levi, satan, and the twins

satan has big dreams obviously. his thirst for knowledge remains unchanged

their dad is a dick and ditched when the twins were born. i’d like to think the moms all found out and instead of hating each other they decided to raise their kids like brothers

lilith existed but died in car crash with some guy and therefore belphegor hates everyone and has been depressed ever since

diavolo is the YOUNG headmaster of the college or whatever y’all call it and luci and him FUCK. he’s also RICH as hell, and barbatos is a butler as well but more like someone to keep diavolo in check

if mc is there they just get somehow in the middle of that stupid family cuz it be like that sometimes

lucifer is the hot shit teacher and therefore is popular. satan is in the student council and is also the hot shit. and EVERYONE knows they’re half brothers and their rivalry

thinking back about it, solomon is probably the one who got mc into this mess by introducing the brothers to them. lol. he’s the shady friend they kinda knew in highschool but never hang out with

simeon is lucifer’s childhood friend and has a little brother, luke, who’s 10. mc meet them somehow

also i guess they wouldn’t leave together but wouldn’t it be fun to have them all under one roof in human world. like. who pays the bills ? lucifer ? LMAO

#in this scenario luci is i believe; a bit off limits #but it’s fiction so.. yeah ™ #not into luci but if you are #yeah #this IS A DATING game alright

[therealvinelle]

How many people do u think the cullens have killed?

A lot.

I’ll try to answer on a Cullen to Cullen basis, and make my estimate as conservative as possible. Also, for this estimate I'll look only at direct kills, complicity doesn’t count, which for example means I won’t add Royce King II & friends to Carlisle’s count, even though he made himself complicit when he helped Rosalie plot their murders.

Without further ado:

Alice has had her accidents, plural, so 2≤ humans. After joining the Cullens, mind you, we don’t know how she lived as a newborn. I’d guess her visions told her to feed from animal blood early on, to accustom her to it sooner rather than later so life among the Cullens would be easier. The interesting thing about Alice having a body count is that her gift should be helpful in avoiding these kinds of situations, meaning that Alice’s accidents have caught her unawares. So, we have at least two humans, and considering the newborn army the number might be higher. Might. Jasper tried his damndest to keep Alice safe in that fight, so it stands to reason he killed anyone who got close to her. Alice might not have had the chance to kill any newborns. If she did, and counting kills she helped with, then I’d put my estimate at a conservative 0-1. Then we have Rosalie, who says she has the second best streak in the family, second only to Carlisle. Rose killed 5 humans (she corrects herself a bit later to 7, but this doesn’t make a difference. She’s still second best to Carlisle). She admittedly doesn’t mention Alice, but if Alice had a better record than her she likely would have. Which jumps Alice up another few steps, to 8≤.

Bella hasn’t killed anyone. 0.

Carlisle had a perfect record until the newborn army attacked. So, no humans, but most likely newborns. When Carlisle attacks Bree in “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner”, it’s a fast and brutal attack. I’ll just paste the scene: A blond vampire glanced at me, meeting my gaze, and his eyes flashed gold in the sunlight. (...) I turned and really ran for the trees (...) I was a few feet into the trees when a force like a wrecking ball hit me from behind and threw me to the ground. An arm slipped under my chin. (The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, page 91) For the record, holy shit Carlisle, that was so brutal! I can’t believe that the minute Bella steps off screen the guy rips off his shirt and becomes the Terminator. Damn. ... Point being, Carlisle was an active participant in that battle. It makes ethical sense for him to be, the newborns had to die, it would have been hypocritical to tell his family “you guys go roll in the mud, I’m too saintly to get my hands dirty”, and if he didn’t pitch in his family and the shapeshifters would be in danger. It becomes morally just to join in the battle, and with a zeal at that. Or at least that’s how he appears to have reasoned, because holy shit, Carlisle took the gloves off. So, Carlisle can reasonably be assumed to have killed at least 1 newborn, likely more. I’d say 3 at the most, though there’s the possibility that he co-opted some kills with the others. (I have more thoughts further down).

Edward left for four years to eat people. At first he ate junkies and homeless people, they did not taste good. Would this have motivated him to eat more than one every fortnight? Alas, I’m keeping my estimate conservative, so let’s wager no. So, one human per fortnight for four years. 26*4=104. That’s the lowest possible estimate of people Edward killed, though I’m inclined to think higher. Given his mission to stop evil, if Edward found a rapist it’s not like he’d go “aw shucks, I can’t kill him yet because it hasn’t been a full two weeks!” Add Victoria to that count, and we’re at 105≤.

Emmett killed his two singers, but considering Rosalie’s statement he too falls under the 8≤ number. He helped kill James, which adds +1 to the vampire tally. Then comes the newborn battle. Bree sees him kill one of the newborns, so we know he got some action. I’ll make the same assumption as I did for Carlisle, which is 1-3. So, 2-4 vampires total.

Esme is explicitly stated to have a worse record than Rosalie. She has killed 8 people or more. As for the newborn army, I’m not sure I can picture it. If Esme did kill anyone, I imagine it was along with others. Let’s put her down for 1.

Jasper my poor guy, he’s in another league. Turned in 1863, he lived with Maria until 1938, then met Alice and became a vegetarian in 1948. He’s had a few accidents since. From 1863 to 1938 I think we should assume one person per week, as strength was paramount in the world of newborn armies, blood was a reward for soldiers, and Jasper won Maria a lot of territory. They would not want for blood, and he recounts she rewarded him often. So, 52*75=3900 dead humans. Jasper then runs off with Peter and Charlotte, presumably eating at a normal rate of every other week. We don’t know when he split off from them, but let’s assume an even split and that he left after five years, leaving another five years of lone wandering where he tried to starve himself. So, 26*5=130 for his years with Peter and Charlotte, then assuming he made it a month each fast before surrendering, 13*5=75 for the lone years. We then have accidents. He’s had more accidents than any of the other Cullen children (I don’t think it’s every actually specified that he’s had more accidents than them all, meaning Esme could still have slipped more), putting him at 9≤ accidents. Then comes the vampires he’s killed. We know he killed Nettie, Lucy, and James, so that’s 3. Newborns take time to train, but to make up for that we have a lot of armies. Let’s assume Maria’s army got into one battle every six months. Let’s assume Jasper always killed at least 1 vampire. (See what I meant by conservative? In my defense, Victoria’s army was huge and not at all representative) That’s 130≤ vampires. Jasper also mentions that as a newborn he kept getting into fights with his brothers-in-arms, he killed several. So, let’s assume 4≤, since it sounds like it was certainly more than 2. More numerous are the vampires he executed. Jasper’s gift meant Maria could have a lot more soldiers than most, and he doubled her army’s numbers. His first major accomplishment was to make her an army of 23 newborns. Assuming he kept up this good work, knowing as we do that Jasper was the only vampire Maria never replaced, and assuming some newborns were lost to infighting or battles, we can assume a replacement cycle of Maria needing 20 vampires executed on a yearly basis. 20*75 = 1500. Which... does feel a little high, but Jasper’s backstory is extreme. As for the newborn battle, let’s assume 4.

Renesmée hasn’t killed anyone either, 0.

Rosalie we know for sure, 7 humans. Let’s assume as with Carlisle and Emmett that she took out 1-3 vampires.

(NOTE: When it comes to how many newborns from Victoria’s army each Cullen killed, all we can do is estimate:

The Cullens divided evenly with the shapeshifters. There were 16 newborns at the battle, giving us 8 newborns per Cullen. There were 6 Cullens present, meaning at least 1 each. Jasper did more than his fair share, and Alice and Esme can both be speculated to have been smaller parts in this battle. I think it’s fair to assume Carlisle, Emmett, and Rosalie killed at least 1 newborn each, though likely more, especially if we take shared kills into consideration. I think 1-3 is a fair assumption, and I’m tempted to assume Jasper killed was everywhere and it feels like lowballing to estimate 4.)

Total:

Alice: 8≤ humans, 0-1** vampire. 9 total

Bella: 0

Carlisle*: 1-3**, all vampires.

Edward: 104≤ humans, 1 vampire. 105≤ total

Emmett: 8≤ humans, 2-4** vampires. 10≤ total

Esme: 8≤ humans, 1 vampire. 9≤ total

Jasper: 4105≤ humans, 1638≤** vampires. 5743≤ total

Renesmée: 0

Rosalie*: 7 humans, 1-3** vampires. 8≤ total

*with both Carlisle and Rosalie we have an upper limit. Carlisle’s body count can’t be higher than 15, and Rosalie’s can’t be higher than 22 (I get the number 15 from 16-1 newborns, as there’s one vampire we know for a fact was killed by Emmett alone) and that would be in an extremely contrived scenario where he or she was somehow everywhere at once.

** when adding up the total of vampires killed by Cullens at the newborn army, regardless of the composition of who killed who, the sum is (assuming an even split with the shapeshifters) 8.

Added together, this gives us:

4240≤ humans and 1643≤ vampires.

If we remove Jasper’s past from the equation, because newborn army George who spent 75 years in a newborn army killing every day is an outlier and should not have been counted, then the tally becomes: 

144≤ humans and 10 vampires.

If we remove Edward’s rebellious era from the equation, as he was not a Cullen at the time, the human tally sinks to: 

40≤ humans. (This is counting Rosalie’s revenge. There have been 33≤ accidents.)

This is the lowest possible estimate. The number is likely higher.

Special thanks to @theunexpectedness​ on the Twilight Forever discord for digging up her copy of “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” for me so I could get my quotes straight.

Also, feel free to point out errors in the math. I’m sure I’ve made some.

#alice cullen #bella swan #carlisle cullen #edward cullen #esme cullen #emmet cullen #emmett cullen #(no i still haven't decided how many t's) #jasper hale #rosalie hale #renesmée cullen #twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #Anonymous #ask #long post

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 29

AO3

Taglist: @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @alastair-appreciation-month

Previous Chapter: Chapter 28

Next Chapter: Chapter 30

The drive to Inverness was long and uncomfortable. Will was driving his car, with Gideon in the passenger seat and Cordelia, Lucie and Tessa pressed in the back. It was a small car, and the three of them in the back only just fit, with Lucie pressed against Cordelia. Not that she minded that exactly, and Lucie didn’t seem to either. Cordelia concluded her hips were too wide for this seat, little to be done about that.

Lucie tried to distract everyone by telling them about one of her stories, but even Lucie couldn’t hide how nervous she was, and got confused halfway through the story several times. Cordelia knew that rarely happened, Lucie could keep track of pretty much everything she wrote. Every once in a while Tessa scolded her husband for going over the speed limit, to which Will replied that they were in a hurry.

When Lucie was done with her stories, they began to discuss strategy instead. Who would approach Tatiana first, how would they fight her, how to make sure she didn’t escape using dark magic?

‘If she escapes into the land in between, I can follow her,’ Lucie said. ‘And the spell needs to be finished in this world, not the land in between. That’s what Jesse said. So if she escapes into the land in between, and we keep her occupied there so she can’t get out in time, then she’ll miss the window of opportunity.’

Time moved differently in the land in between, and almost always returning from there meant more time had passed in this world. If Tatiana fled into the land in between at the last moment, she would not make it back in time and that would win them at least a day.

‘We’ll need to stop her from speaking too,’ Lucie said. ‘Do we have any tape?’

Cordelia at some point fell asleep during the trip, she must have been more tired than she thought. She woke up when the car stopped. They were on a parking lot in what seemed like the middle of a city.

Cordelia got out of the car, and walked around a bit, trying to get the stiffness out of her body. She practiced some of her movements, without the sword for now as she didn’t want to draw unwanted attention. While Lucie’s parents and Gideon were looking around for the best way into the hotel, Lucie joined her, stretching too.

‘My butt hurts,’ Lucie said. ‘I am not taking the middle seat on the way back.’

The middle seat of Will’s car was a bit harder than the rest so Cordelia could imagine why Lucie might prefer not to sit there.

‘I think you’re the only one who fits there,’ Cordelia said.

Lucie was the shortest, both Cordelia and Lucie’s mother were quite tall and had long legs. Lucie was probably also the only with hips narrow enough to fit there.

‘Fair point,’ Lucie said. ‘Before we go in, I’ve been meaning to tell you something.’

Cordelia frowned, she wasn’t sure this sounded good. As if Lucie was about to confess something bad.

‘I know you probably don’t feel the same way, but I guess if something goes wrong today, I would rather you knew. I’m in love with you. I didn’t realize until recently, but I guess I’ve loved your for years.’

It was not what Cordelia had been expecting. Even if Alastair had told her Lucie probably liked her. Even if it was what she’d been longing to hear.

‘I do feel the same way,’ Cordelia said. ‘I only realized about a week ago, but I do like you too. I just never thought you’d feel that way about me. Or well, Alastair did but I think I was scared.’

Lucie’s eyes went wide, he cheeks turned a rosy pink. ‘Alastair knew?’

‘He read some pages from the beautiful Cordelia and he did not know how else to explain it,’ Cordelia admitted. ‘I just didn’t dare believe.’

‘I think for most of the time while writing it, I didn’t realize it myself either. But I always thought you were so beautiful and brave. I just had not yet considered I might love girls. Can I kiss you for good luck before we go in?’

‘Does that work?’ Cordelia asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Lucie said. ‘In stories it happens sometimes. It makes for romantic scenes, but often I’d expect the main characters or at least the main couple to survive. But when it’s real life, it might just all go to hell and this could be our last chance.’

‘It won’t be your last chance,’ Cordelia said. ‘You have too many stories you have to finish.’

Lucie laughed. ‘If I can’t die while I have an unfinished story I’ll probably live forever.’

Cordelia put her arm around Lucie’s waist, pulling her closer, and kissed her on the lips. She’d only kissed one other person before, which had been Lucie’s brother James. While he was not a bad kisser, it was different. Lucie’s lips were softer and tasted off her lipstick, and she was shorter than Cordelia so she had to bend down a little.

‘Oh, you have a little smear,’ Cordelia said when they broke apart. ‘Your lipstick.’

Lucie started laughing. ‘Probably. But I feel like I can face Tatiana with smudged lipstick. I understand now why they do good luck kisses. This worked.’

Cordelia had to agree. She felt better, more confident. At least she’d told Lucie. At least now they both knew how they felt about each other.

‘Let’s try it again,’ Cordelia said.

After several more kisses, Lucie’s parents still weren’t back, and Cordelia decided to call her brother. She wanted to tell him he was right and Lucie was in love with her, and she wanted to tell him she’d arrived in Inverness safely. When he didn’t answer his phone, Cordelia called Jem instead, to let them know they had arrived at least.

‘Is Alastair there?’ Cordelia asked. ‘I’d hoped I could speak to him.’

‘I’m on my way to the cottage right now, but I can give him your phone as soon as I arrive. How are you doing?’

‘I think we’ll be confronting Tatiana as soon as we can,’ Cordelia said. ‘Is everything alright there? How’s Alastair?’

‘Tired and stressed out,’ Jem said. ‘But he’s coping as well as he can. I’m surprised he’s doing so well, to be honest, but I find Alastair can be very hard to read. He always seems to be hiding how he really feels, and contrary to popular belief I cannot read minds.’

Cordelia had to agree, for a long time Alastair had hidden all of his feelings, his relationship, what Father really was like. She’d always sort of suspected he hid things from her, but could never have guessed the extent. Even now, the habit of hiding was difficult to break, and sometimes Cordelia still found herself trying to hammer down his walls.

‘And Thomas?’

‘No improvement, but he’s not getting worse either. Sophie and Alastair helped him go back to bed and he’s sleeping again. I’ve arrived, I can give you Alastair.’

‘Why didn’t you pick up your phone?’ Cordelia asked as soon as she’d confirmed he had the phone.

‘I can’t find it,’ Alastair said. ‘I think I left it in my bedroom, but I don’t want to leave Thomas to look for it. Did you make it to Inverness?’

‘Yes, we’re there now,’ Cordelia said. ‘You were right, by the way, about Lucie.’

‘About what exactly?’ Alastair asked.

‘That she likes me,’ Cordelia clarified. ‘Which was nice to figure out before we potentially die.’

‘You’re not going to die, Layla,’ Alastair said. ‘Have faith in yourself. I know you can do this. Good luck.’

‘To you too, dâdâsh,’ Cordelia said.

Cordelia put away her phone when Will, Tessa and Gideon came back, arguing, Will and Tessa both gesturing wildly. Gideon looked tired most of all, and didn’t participate in the argument as much.

‘Why do I have to be the decoy?’ Will asked. ‘Why can’t I go up there myself?’

Tessa sighed. ‘Because you’re best suited for the job.’

Will smiled. ‘Oh, tell me why then.’

‘Because you’re the best chance we have at charming an old woman receptionist,’ Tessa said. ‘Gideon’s too awkward and I’m not sure she’s interested in women.’

‘Thank you,’ Gideon said drily.

Will grinned. ‘Oh, I will charm her. I will charm her with such force she’ll be lying on the floor trying to remember her own name.’

Lucie looked mortified, Cordelia started laughing, picturing the scenario in her head of Will trying to flirt with the receptionist.

‘I actually did that once,’ Will said. ‘Jem and I needed to break into another hotel where someone had trapped a couple of fairies.’

Fairies, as Cordelia knew it, lived in the woods and tended to be small. They could get up to mischief, but weren’t dangerous. Part of what Will and Jem used to do was also protect creatures like that from humans who intended to harm them, and it was an important part of what Cordelia wanted to be like. She knew some of her ancestors had only focused on protecting humans, and killed indiscriminately, and she was determined to do better.

‘Ah, good old times,’ Will said. ‘The old lady didn’t know what hit her, and Jem had every chance to sneak inside and break out those poor fairies.’

‘So, do that again,’ Tessa said. ‘We can’t all go in at the same time, it’ll draw too much attention. Lucie, you’re with me. We won’t draw too much attention together. Cordelia, you can’t wait for too long after that. You go in alone. If you get caught, pretend you were looking for a bathroom. Otherwise, pretend you belong.’

Cordelia guessed she was bound to attract the most attention either way with how she looked, but there was nothing to be done about that.

She waited outside with Gideon while Will, Tessa and Lucie went inside. Gideon looked weary, and anxious. She understood how difficult it was for him, if it were Alastair who’d gone down such a path she would keep hoping for far longer than she should. She couldn’t imagine what it was like, to watch a sibling lose themselves and become evil and be able to do nothing. Because Tatiana had shut everyone out. So while Cordelia acknowledged her pain, she also believed Tatiana had had a hand in digging her own grave, by allowing revenge and hatred to consume her rather than seeking support from her brothers who would have welcomed her back any time.

‘Go,’ Gideon said, as he looked in through the window, while looking through his phone.

Cordelia suspected he wasn’t actually looking or reading anything as he was holding his phone upside down, it just made him look less out of place. The lobby of the hotel was nice enough. Nothing fancy, it was the kind of hotel most people could afford, but everything looked clean. Of course, the real place the judge the cleanliness of a hotel was the bathroom, but Cordelia had no reason to go there.

Will was chatting up the receptionist, who was a little older than he was, but not an old woman either. From a distance, she overheard him asking questions about the city, exaggerating his Welsh accent to show he was not from around here, but was not an Englishman either.

The receptionist’s attention was on Will, and Cordelia tried her best to act natural as she walked past her and into the corridor. A little farther, Tessa and Lucie were waiting. Both acted casual, as if they were supposed to be there.

‘I’ve texted Will,’ Tessa said. ‘He’s the getaway driver in this plan, and if we’re in trouble, someone should text him or call him or whatever works in the situation and he’ll drive the car front.’

‘He’s probably not too happy about that,’ Cordelia said.

‘But he won’t be able to get himself inside without drawing attention, and he has the car keys,’ Tessa said.

Cordelia suspected Tessa also knew Will was likely to antagonize Tatiana even further, whereas she and Gideon might have a chance to calm her down. She clutched her necklace, ready to take cortana into her hand the moment they stepped into Tatiana’s room. When Gideon joined them, the four went looking for the room number Jesse had given them.

‘Nine hours until midnight,’ Tessa said.

Gideon nodded, shaking on his knees. Had he said goodbye to Thomas, Cordelia wondered? Would he be able to live with himself if Thomas died and he was here and not with him? Thomas would undoubtedly claim it was fine, as he always did. He and Alastair were alike in that manner, although Alastair was a bit more convincing when he pretended to be fine. But perhaps Thomas would want his father to be with him as he died.

‘She should be in here,’ Lucie said, pulling on the door. ‘Locked.’

‘Let me,’ Cordelia said, cortana in hand.

With a single motion she cut her way through the lock, opening the door and revealing Tatiana, who was dressed in old fashioned dark brown clothes, and looked like she hadn’t slept in a couple of days.

She was startled by their presence, but recollected herself quickly, grabbing a dagger and holding it in front of her.

‘How did you find me,’ she hissed.

‘You have to stop, Tatiana,’ Gideon said, putting his hands in front of him. ‘I can’t imagine how hard it was to lose your son, but that does not justify killing others to bring him back.’

‘No, you can’t imagine. I would do anything for my child. You could never understand such a thing, and that’s why Jesse will live and Thomas will die. Turn back, or I’ll kill you too.’

Cordelia took a step forward, cortana in hand and ready to attack if necessary. The sword had one dull edge, a chance for mercy, and an edge so sharp it would cut through anything. She didn’t have to kill Tatiana, but she would stop her.

‘Last chance, surrender,’ Cordelia hissed. ‘You lost your siren, you can’t win.’

Tatiana laughed. ‘Oh, can I? Good luck finding your way home, Carstairs.’

Before Cordelia knew for sure what was happening, she found herself in a forest. Not just in a forest, in the air between the trees and falling fast. Cordelia grabbed onto a branch of a nearby tree before she could fall any faster, pulled herself up and secured her position before scouting where she was. Tessa had gotten lucky, she fell onto a branch a bit lower, but had found a relatively easy route down to the ground.

Gideon wasn’t so lucky, he did crash into the tree before making his way to the ground, yelling in pain. Cordelia couldn’t tell from here if he was alright, but at least the tree had broken his fall somewhat. She was too high up to jump down without hurting herself, and in a difficult position to climb. She didn’t see Lucie anywhere.

She felt the branch creaking under her weight, and she slowly moved closer to the tree’s stem. There was another, thicker branch below her, but making it down would not be an easy exercise. She was trained in climbing, of course, otherwise she would have gotten stuck like a cat in there, or she’d fallen all the way down. But she was also heavy and most trees couldn’t hold her weight. She was a little out of practice, and right now that could be dangerous.

She hung down from the branch she was currently sitting on, hands twisted together above while hanging underneath. She could find the branch underneath her with her feet, and found some stability. From here it would be easier to get down, but she’d have to lower herself onto the branch first. She moved her grip from the branch above to the stem of the tree, carefully balancing herself until she was sitting on the branch. She let out a breath she’d held on to all that time when she was in a secure position. Now to make her way down. The branches were closer together, and she could get a little lower, and then she’d have to jump.

Beneath her, Tessa had fallen as well, but she’d made her way to her feet and seemed unharmed. Gideon, she wasn’t so sure about. Tessa was bent over him. Cordelia returned her focus to the tree, making her way to a lower branch, and putting her foot even lower. From here she could climb down until she was hanging about half a meter above the ground, from which she dropped, bending her knees to absorb the impact.

She ran over to Gideon and Tessa. ‘Are you alright?’ she asked.

‘I am,’ Tessa said. ‘A few scrapes and bruises, that’s all. Gideon has a broken arm. It needs support, but I’m not sure how.’

Cordelia undid the cardigan she’d tied around her waist, thankfully she’d forgotten to take it off. ‘Can you use this?’

Tessa sighed. ‘It’ll do, I guess. Where are we?’

‘The land in between. Where’s Lucie?’

‘I haven’t seen her. Lucie!’ Tessa yelled.

Cordelia also called her name. No response. Where was she? Cordelia suspected the three of them were in the land in between. The only time they’d escaped that place without Lucie’s magic was after killing the werewolf, which would mean walking until they made their way back into the real world. If that were even possible, they might very well be trapped.

‘I don’t think Lucie came here with us,’ Cordelia said.

***

Thomas slept most of the day, and Alastair made sure to be there with him whenever he woke. That became less and less frequent though, and Alastair was growing worried. Just after Thomas had gone back to sleep, a car pulled into the driveway. Who would be coming here?

Sophie opened the door to three young women. Of course, Thomas’ sisters were coming. Two of the girls had the same brown hair Thomas had, one a bit softer and rounder while the other was shorter and had more angular features. The third woman was Indian and Alastair remembered Thomas’ sister Eugenia had returned to India with her friend, and this had to be her.

‘We came as quickly as we could,’ Eugenia said. ‘Babs flew to Edinburgh this morning. Where’s Tommy?’

‘He’s sleeping,’ Sophie said. ‘You can check on him in his bedroom, but I think it’s best to let him rest and wait until he wakes up.’

Thomas’ two sisters left for his bedroom, while the Indian girl sat down on the couch next to Alastair. He’d been trying to read one of the family’s journals, but couldn’t concentrate. Not with the horrible knot in his stomach caused by worry.

‘You are Thomas’ boyfriend, aren’t you?’ the girl asked.

Alastair looked up from his work. He didn’t know who she was. He didn’t even know if she knew anything about what was going on. On the other hand, why would Thomas’ sister have brought her if she did not understand what was going on.

‘My name is Alastair Carstairs,’ he said.

‘Kamala Joshi,’ she said. ‘I’m Eugenia’s girlfriend.’

‘Right. I imagine Eugenia must have been worried,’ Alastair said.

He felt like he eased into the conversation a little. It wasn’t as stiff and forced as conversation usually felt for him.

‘We’d just returned from India when Eugenia received the call. She was very upset no one had told her about her brother being in danger sooner. But as I understand, your communication was cut off, was it not?’

‘What do you know of what’s going on?’ Alastair asked.

‘What Eugenia told me,’ Kamala said. ‘Something about her crazy aunt, a dark realm, and a deal with a creature that could bring back her dead son. I can’t say I understand everything. I’ve mostly tried to stay away from everything supernatural.’

‘But you do know,’ Alastair said.

‘A monster killed my parents,’ Kamala said. ‘I never found out what it was, but ever since, my eyes have been opened. At least somewhat, I can’t see the way Thomas or Barbara can. But when I first came to England, I rescued a fairy in the park from group of older boys who’d somehow seen her. It’s easier for children, I think, even without the sight. The fairy blessed me with a healing power. It’s minor, mostly I can heal injuries. I can’t cure complex diseases or anything like that. But it’s helpful, and Genie hoped I could help with healing Thomas.’

Alastair gazed down. ‘I don’t think so. His life is tied to someone else’s. If his cousin is brought to life, he’ll die, no amount of healing can save him then. On the bright side though, my sister is fighting Thomas’ crazy aunt right now. I am sorry about your parents.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Kamala said. ‘I was six when it happened, seven when I was given my powers.’

Thomas’ sisters joined the two of them. They both greatly resembled Thomas, Alastair thought, and each other. He wasn’t sure which was which until the shorter, angular girl put her arm around Kamala. That had to be Eugenia.

‘Thomas is still asleep, I take?’ Alastair asked.

‘Yes,’ Barbara said. ‘He has a high fever, and I think he needs lots of rest. Much like when he was a child.’

Barbara soon turned her attention to Jem discussing something Alastair did not have the medical knowledge to follow. Barbara was a nurse, he remembered. She seemed knowledgeable at least.

‘So,’ Eugenia said, turning her attention to Alastair, ‘what do you want with my brother?’

Alastair was taken back, and it took a few moments to be able to formulate an answer, to push the words across his lips. Thomas had told him Eugenia could be fierce and both his sisters were very protective.

‘Genie, don’t be rude!’ Sophie called.

‘Right now, I want to save him,’ Alastair said.

***

Thomas woke up to find both his sisters sitting on chairs next to his bed. No. Oh no, what were they doing here?

‘Go home,’ Thomas said as he tried to sit up. He couldn’t. ‘Please.’

‘No,’ Eugenia said and Thomas cursed the stubbornness that plagued their family. ‘You’re in trouble, and we’re here to help. Kamala is here too, and she could use her magic on you, maybe that’ll heal you.’

‘Probably not,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s Tatiana.’

‘That’s where everyone else went, isn’t it?’ Barbara asked. ‘Dad went with uncle Will and aunt Tessa to confront her.’

‘And Lucie and Cordelia,’ Thomas confirmed. ‘Who are probably the most essential part of the plan. Lucie can command the dead and open gateways and Cordelia has a magic sword. They’re going to save me. Hopefully.’

Thomas hated that he couldn’t be of more help, that he was lying here in bed unable to do so much as get up. He’d slept most of the day, only waking up every once in a while and sometimes he feared he wouldn’t wake up at all.

‘Don’t lose faith, Tommy,’ Barbara said, stroking her thumb over his cheek. ‘You’re going to be alright. How are you feeling?’

‘Tired. Cold. Everything hurts. I shiver a lot. Like, actual, uncontrollable shaking.’

Barbara frowned. ‘Are you sure we don’t need to take you to a hospital? It sounds like you might have sepsis.’

‘It’s not that,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s the thief, Tatiana’s ritual. No amount of antibiotics can save me. Tatiana must be stopped.’

Thomas tried to stay awake for as long as he could, talking to his sisters, and later Alastair who came to join them. He was glad Alastair seemed to be getting along with both his sisters, even if Eugenia had been a little rude to him at first. Of course, he’d expected nothing less from her.

In the end he had no choice but to go back to sleep though. His eyes were falling shut, and Alastair, Barbara and Eugenia all noticed he couldn’t stay awake anymore.

‘Sweet dreams, nooré chesm-am,’ Alastair whispered in his ear before kissing him on the cheek. ‘Please wake up again.’

***

Eight in the evening. Sophie had tried to get Thomas to eat and drink a bit more, but he had not woken again. Alastair finally decided to try and wake him up. Nothing. Calling his name didn’t do a thing, nor did pulling on his shoulders. Perhaps he was in a deep sleep. Alastair could not quite convince himself. They quietly ate some of Sophie’s soup, but Alastair couldn’t take more than a few spoons. He felt tense and sick in his stomach. He needed to know Thomas was going to be alright, if Cordelia was doing well, if she was even alive.

Nine. Still no word from Cordelia, from any of them. Alastair had tried calling all of them. The only one who consistently picked up was Will as he’d been made the getaway driver. He’d been waiting outside for hours. He’d gone in and found everyone gone, confirming Alastair’s suspicions they’d gone into the land in between. He’d asked Will to call him as soon as he heard anything.

‘I’m going to check on him,’ Alastair said.

Thomas was still breathing when Alastair entered his bedroom. He was in a deep sleep, and Alastair couldn’t wake him up. He even threw the glass of water standing on his nightstand over his face. Nothing. Alastair grabbed a towel to dry him off, unable to leave him like this. No response.

Alastair blinked away some tears. ‘Don’t you dare die on me, Tom.’

A pause. Determination. ‘You’re not going to die tonight.’

Alastair returned to the living room. ‘He’s still sleeping. I don’t think he’s going to wake up. I need some air.’

Alastair went outside, but it wasn’t because he needed air. It had been too long. Cordelia was missing, something had gone wrong. If they’d stopped Tatiana, she would have let him now and they’d gone in hours ago. There was no way the fight could have taken this long, even if they’d gone into the land in between. Not to mention Tatiana could easily escape from there and finish the ritual.

Alastair felt as if he wasn’t inside his body anymore, as if he weren’t really alive. A terrible numbness at the thought that his sister was gone, that she’d failed. Perhaps she wasn’t dead, he told himself. Perhaps she was simply trapped in the land in between and time was passing much faster here for him. If that were the case, only Lucie could bring them back and he had no clue how long they had, if Tatiana was stopped, if Thomas was going to live.

He knew what ritual Gideon and his brother had interrupted all these years ago. With the knowledge from the Carstairs’ journals and the memory, Alastair had been able to piece it together and figure out how to summon the thief of souls.

He drew the circle and symbols in the sand. It wasn’t difficult. Just an incantation. He might have messed up the pronunciation of the words here and there, but he repeated the words Benedict Lightwood had said so long ago.

The thief appeared in the middle of the circle like demons often did.

‘Welcome to my circle, thief of souls,’ Alastair said. ‘I want to make a deal.’

#Alastair Carstairs #Cordelia Carstairs #Thomas Lightwood #Lucie Herondale #Lucelia #Thomastair #fanfiction #tlh #the last hours

[cath-with-a-c]

When there really was no other way - a different father-son dynamic in AC (rant)

This is a continuation of my other post, focusing a lot on the relationship between William and Desmond, where I talked about the abusive behavior, and how it seems to be lowkey condoned in a lot of media. Warning - this post is super long

One of the most popular defenses when it comes to parental abuse is the idea that “there was no other way”, that in order for the child to benefit in the long run you have to hurt them now. The real-world example would be medical procedures and certain types of physical therapy, that hurt no matter how gently you go about them, but they are important to the child’s well-being and/or survival.  In fiction, particularly in fantasy/sci-fi, it’s usually some type of training or skill, that has to be acquired in limited time, or ability, that can only be unlocked under pressure, that a child needs to survive because the world is more dangerous than ours.

While there are situations where this is plausible and works, still not excusing the fact of the abuse but making the person committing it less disgusting. the idea of “there was no other way” gets grossly misused. And, when William’s behavior towards Desmond is being shoehorned in that category, I get mad, because no, William is just abusive. What’s more, there IS a father-son relationship in AC-universe (albeit in the comic), that does fall under “there was no other way”. 

I’m talking about Nikolai Orlov and his son Kenya, Daniel Cross’ ancestors as portrayed by comic “Assassin’s Creed - The Chain”.   In 1926, Nikolai and Kenya live off the grid somewhere in the US, hiding form both Assassins and Templars. At one point in the comic, an 8-year-old Kenya is made to sleep outside as a punishment during winter until he manages to do his father’s bidding.

If we take the situation without context, it is a clear picture of parental abuse. However, I can name a few reasons, accurately presented in the comic, that make it “there was no other way” situation and why the same points don’t work for William and Desmond. The list of 5 (-ish) reasons is as follows: #0 - Do we know them? This is not an actual reason, that’s why it’s at #0, but it’s a good foundation - for us, Nikolai isn’t a new character, we are not introduced to him making his 8yo son sleep outside. There already was a 3-issue comic, that gave us an insight on his character and values, we have an opinion on him. 

William, on the other hand, gets an introduction by being an asshole to others and showing no normal human emotion in the face if his son being in a coma and his protege’s death. Granted, I’m not sure if the Ubisoft tried to make his connection to Des a surprise, but his first full introduction at the start of AC3 when we already know he is the father is... actually the same - him being an asshole.

#1 - An established good parent One of the main reasons why for me the comic situation is more plausible is that Nikolai is established as a good parent by the narrative. He and Kenya live off the grid, all alone, away from people, he has no one to impress by being a socially adequate parent. However, his behavior toward Kenya is undoubtedly supportive and loving.  The comic starts with the father and son hunting and Kenya being a soft-hearted kid, being unable to shoot the already wounded doe.  Nikolai’s reaction? He tries to cheer his son up, by joking that next time they can hunt fenceposts. He doesn’t show any disappointment or anger, he doesn’t belittle Kenya for failing him. From their interactions, we get the sense that Nikolai, while very jaded by everything that happened to him, tries his best to be a good father to his only son. 

This is important because the “no other way” scenario only works if it’s not the norm, If the abuse is limited to that particular situation and not all-encompassing. 

William, once again, isn’t shown to be even somewhat good parent, at least not objectively, like Nikolai. The only moment when Bill is objectively not terrible comes in AC: Revelations when he talks about how Desmond killed Lucy, and he got to train both of them and it’s sad. It’s a simple dialog line, with an appropriately soft tone of voice (also a side note - gotta give it to the voice actor - he fucking nails the arrogant asshole voice, I literally get hives), and the way it’s so unlike Bill is lampshaded by Shaun, asking him if he’s gone soft. Every other instance of Bill being not terrible comes from Desmond whose perception is skewed by the impending doom. That’s why the attempt to establish something similar to comic in AC4, in the audio file n3, doesn’t work - it’s from Desmond’s perspective, it’s not objective. 

#2 - No time to waste (or literally any other external constraint) When the “no other way” scenario is used right, there are constraints in place, that lead to parent turning to abuse as the last resort. In fiction, it’s usually a lack of time to train or acquire the skill properly.

In the comic, the abuse comes after another assassin, Sergei, finds Nikolai and threatens Kenya’s life. Realizing, that soon there will be more people coming through and that he is a bit too old to properly protect his son (he has to be at around 60-70 at the time), Nikolai resorts to speed-training Kenya how to ambush and kill, using himself as target and bait.  It’s, honestly, brutal and heartbreaking, watching a sweet, soft kid gradually losing his humanity in order to do his father’s bidding. And even more so when you realize, that before that Nikolai was willing to take his son’s education in this particular area as slow as he could - and now that opportunity is gone, because the enemy could come knocking on their door any day (another side note - I actually believe that sleeping outside was not only a punishment and incentive but also done so that if the attack happen, the kid had better chance at getting out). 

One could argue, that the time crunch existed in William’s and Desmond’s case too, and that one would be wrong. We are actually shown, how the pre-Daniel Cross assassin communities looked like - mostly in passing, but one of them is shown inside and out. In previous comic, the Fall, Daniel ends up in one of the assassin compounds. It’s large enough that the people living there don’t necessarily know everyone else who lives there (that’s why at first they believed Daniel was from there), it’s located close enough to the city that no one bats an eye on someone sneaking out to get drunk unless they get so pissed they start mistaking civilians for Templars. The general vibe the compound leaves is akin to Xavier’s school from X-men. Those assassin’s don’t look like they are on the verge of running, they look like equal players, just not as public as Templars. And at the same time, out there in the Black Hills, 11-year-old Desmond is going through training from hell while unable to ever leave the compound and already losing any belief in the cause.

What’s interesting is that time crunch could be applied to Desmond’s upbringing, if he was made younger - 21 instead of 25, or if the Daniel’s Purge was moved from 2000 to 1996. That would create a situation where most of the Brotherhood is gone, the Farm is one of the last communes left standing, and they have to suddenly up Desmond’s training, while he’s around 9 years old, and probably yet to realize what happened and why.  

#3 - Tangible threat Segwaying from #2, the threat is another thing that makes “no other way” situation work. Usually, the threat is what creates constraints for training, while also fueling the parent’s want to give the child a survival chance, and that overrides their morals. 

In the comic, the threat is tangible and undeniable to both Nikolai and Kenya - they’ve already been attacked, and there are more people to come.

In the games, while the threat is real, it’s not immediate. Moreover, it never becomes more than a boogieman to Desmond, because there’s no evidence given, just war stories (yet another side note - in one of @esamastation‘s works, sometime yesterday, there was a very interesting take on why the education on the Farm was built as it was. Check it out, it’s far better than anything I could ever write). Desmond isn’t dumb, I highly doubt he’d miss something like an active attack, or the fact that some adults go away from the Farm and never come back for no reason. So it means that objectively Desmond was safe all along - moreover when he’d run away, it took Templars nine years to find him. The threat was never as close as it would need to be to warrant abuse.

#4 - Limits For the “no other way” scenario to work, the abuse should not be something the parent usually does, and that means, amongst other things, that it’s supposed to be limited to a specific instance.

In the comic, the abuse is limited to Nikolai having a specific goal in mind - for Kenya to learn how to ambush and kill without hesitation; when the goal is achieved? The abuse stops immediately. As soon as Kenya proves that he is ready to defend himself from anyone, Nikolai stops him and embraces him, reassuring the kid. 

In Bill’s and Desmond’s case... well, let me just quote Desmond himself on this: “What scared me was the training. Sweat, tears, bloody lip every once in a while. How far were they going to push me? I couldn't stand it! What was the point? For years and years I thought some major catastrophe was on the horizon. I didn't know what to expect. “ (c) Desmond’s Journey - Training. I’m not gonna even comment on this.

#5 - Payoff Last but not least - if there is no other way, then it has to mean something, contribute to the story at large. The abuse becomes a setup - and needs a payoff

In Kenya’s case, the harsh training he received was pivotal to his survival. His ambushing skill helped him get the attackers into a trap, and in the end, he mercy-killed his father and the last attacker in one shot an managed to escape. If there was no training, he would’ve been a liability and ended up dead.

However, in Desmond’s case you could actually delete the abuse part altogether, make Bill a harsh, but not abusive father and nothing would change to Desmond’s arc. The abuse wasn’t the reason he’d run away - the reason was his lack of belief in a cause and his want to see the world. His arc was about embracing his identity as an Assassin - and you still could have this internal conflict without the abuse part. His external conflict with Bill also didn’t need abuse to back it up - they have dissonant values. Even the training doesn’t factor in - Desmond gets re-trained using the Animus. There is no payoff

In conclusion, while parental abuse is inexcusable, there are ways to portray it in a manner that wouldn’t have your audience lining up to kill the parent. But in the end, it’s still important to understand, that even the abuse that comes from a place of love and out of genuine necessity (and not just justified in this way) can still fuck the victim over and they don’t have to forgive the parent. It just makes the parent not a total scumbag. (thanks for sticking with me till the end)

#assassin's creed #assassin's creed comics #Desmond Miles #william miles #nikolai orelov #rant #writing help #i guess #meta #i got carried away again

[akutagawaprize]

No offence, but I feel as if in this chapter, the author got tired of this entire ark in general, as the entire situation was solved ridiculously fast. Now, I don't really understand Japanese, so this may not be accurate. But from what I see, both highly powerful opponents were ridiculously quickly subdued, and somehow Fitzgerald decided to side with the Mafia and the ADA for no reason. We didn't even get to know Fyodor's ability yet, and he's already defeated.

I, too, was disappointed in this chapter, but after collecting my thoughts, I decided that it wasn’t a bad way of ending this arc, if this indeed is the end. Sure it may have looked abrupt, but it could have been worse… Or so I like to tell myself.

(Warning: I try my best to be unbiased and objective but this may read like a lot of whining. Only proceed if you’re fine with that.)

The good:Akutagawa’s promise to Atsushi; appearance of the rest of ADA and Port Mafia; Fitzgerald saving the day; Ango and his crew appearing; that not-so-subtle nod to Odasaku in the end

The “I don’t have much of a good or a bad opinion on this”:Shin soukoku new combo move;  Chuuya still in the book

The bad:Quick resolution to the arc; implied lobotomy(!?); Dazai and his keikaku doori antics again; strange sense of déjà vu since they used practically same buildup as the last arc, but now it’s the remix version

First of all, I’ll just have to throw out my wildest (not really) theory out here: Fyodor is still the “final boss”. Come on, he gets the moniker “The Demon” and gets jailed off like that? No, no. It doesn’t make sense at all, at least to me. So my guess is that Agatha and the Order of the Clock Tower will swoop in to try and mess with the Agency, but when they’re on the verge of defeat, Fyodor steps in and uses this chance to strike ADA for himself. So uh Guild Arc 2.0. Or something along those lines. This could’ve been a test drive. Or he could have other Rats in Russia waiting for orders in case there’s a Phase II. Call me optimistic, but that’s what I would like to believe.

We jailbreak from Azkaban and invade Ministry of Magic now.

There really isn’t much to say about Dazai proving himself a formidable chessmaster again, other than I called it on an earlier ask. I just hope I’m not the only one tired of him being right all the damn time. No one can be that all-seeing…

People keep asking about Chuuya. Some were disappointed he only had one panel, some were rejoicing because it was “in-character” he stayed because he enjoyed fighting. But Ranpo kinda confirmed Chuuya stayed not because he wanted to beat people, but because it’s faster that way than using his brains? He’s not dumb, but come on, why would he prolong his stay if at that time his current concern was to protect Mori/kill off Fukuzawa? So yeah, his fate doesn’t really interest me, because I’ve always thought he was someone who is too popular to die… Not important, because sheesh let’s face it, Asagiri hasn’t really fleshed him out yet and doesn’t seem to have the intention of wanting to anytime soon. (Light novel soon please? Or a backstory in the movie if they wanna get dat yen lmao)

I’m more curious about how Ranpo got out, because the last time Poe trapped him, he was transported back with Yosano after solving the case. Was there some unwritten rule that a person can be selective with who he brings back with him? I hope we get clarifications on this, I’m a sucker when it comes to analyzing abilities and their corresponding limits and restrictions. It bugs me that in BSD there are a lot of additions and contradictions when it comes to abilities and that they come up only when it’s convenient to the plot. (For example, anyone can activate Doppo Poetry as long as they have a page with them. I don’t think it’s been mentioned before, but anyway it bothered me for some reason.)

Another big thing this chapter: Akutagawa’s promise to Atsushi. I got an ask talking specifically about this, so I’ll write a post about that later. For now, I can just say that it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to Akutagawa after the “You got stronger” shoulder pat. I’m not expecting him to turn over a new leaf, now full of hope and vigor for life, but he’s trying and he might come up with his own concluson to an unanswered question in his heart: “What is my life worth living for?”

Oh and Atsushi being able to rip out abilities… Imagine if Wolverine can No Longer Human enemies… I don’t like this at all, but what can you do, he’s the protagonist anyway so he gets a pass.So for now I’ll be bumping Atsushi to No. 2 of the most powerful known Ability users second only to Lovecraft. Granted, he had to team up with Akutagawa to come up with this Ultimate Dark Claw thing, but still. I guess I just like balance. In any case, one can argue that shin soukoku needs to grow stronger if they want to fend off the coming Europeans.

Food for thought: If Dazai can nullify abilities and Atsushi can also cancel out abilities with tiger claws, will they cause a singularity if they got into a serious fight?

Hmm.

Fitzgerald! He didn’t care about Fyodor getting his leftover assets actually, but remember, it was Fyodor who crashed Moby Dick. He also reasoned that while he has no interest in whatever he’s “left” behind, he didn’t want a rat using his leftover resources. In short, he did it to spite the Russian. So while I can respect that, I was still hoping that instead of Dazai coming up with the deal (how did he even know Fitz acquired Eyes of God?), it would be Katai who would call this to attention. After all, as someone who is knowledgeable about technology and electronics, he could have picked up information on Eckleburg. Of course, there’s a fair bit of chance that he heard about it from Ranpo or Atsushi (they were there when Alcott asked for help) but there was no explanation for how Dazai came to that knowledge. Ah. Well.

I mean, until now we don’t know how Natsume saved Katai.

Dazai then went on to say that Fitzgerald will declare war on them again so this + the yacht are the last friendly gestures they’re going to get from the Guild. Wonder what happens to Lucy and Poe now…

They totally could have asked for a Special Ability Permit in exchange for their services but okay Richard!

The victory afterparty. Kunikida and Katai were nowhere to be seen, so was Yosano. You know who else we haven’t seen? Hawthorne and Katsura. With Katsura, he could have been helped by Kunikida… who I believe is still mourning the deaths of the innocent children… They should really address that next chapter. Or whatever. As for our Winter Soldier, he’s either roaming around aimlessly or he was captured. Who knows? We don’t know how he got mind-controlled either (another Rat? or suffered a similar fate with Ivan…). But if his goal was to heal Mitchell, then Yosano is the perfect answer.

What else? Oh! Fuku wasn’t in the party too right? Meeting up with Natsume and Mori? I don’t know…  As you can see, I come up with various scenarios and get them wrong 75% of the time. I was being dramatic too over Elise even though I knew she’d come back, but… This was fast. Glad to see her again though!

Oops. I rambled enough. Those were my thoughts, more or less. As I’ve said, it was a fairly standard BSD chapter. Disappointing, but still has a lot of loose ends which can be neatly tied up in upcoming chapters. I know a lot of people liked how this chapter ended, but… I’m not one of them, I’m afraid. I hope to be more enthusiastic about future chapters.

#asks #bungou stray dogs #text #spoilers #i suppose it's obvious i'm more plot > characters #though that can go hand-in-hand

[hypnoticcastiel]

VALERIAN: skyjet conceptart & interview with Ben Mauro.

Hi Ben. Tell us a little about your background in design – was film always the field you wanted to get into, or did you start in another discipline? I got my training in industrial design and entertainment design from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA where I got a good set of skills to begin my career as a concept designer many years ago. I think initially I really just wanted to work in videogames, I was a huge fan of games like Halo growing up so I thought it would be fun to design levels and architecture for worlds and experiences like that. This led me to Seattle initially to explore that path out of high school, but in the middle of it I found I was more interested in the design side of things and ultimately shifted my education from more of a 3D direction into more of a design focused one down at Art Center, where it was a pretty easy transition to working in games and films afterwards with the skills I learned there.

As you began designing for films, which artists and illustrators have provided the most inspiration to your personal style? I don’t look at much art anymore while I design, but starting out I definitely tried to learn and study everything in school, I wanted to know what had come before to get a holistic understanding of all film/automotive/product/aerospace/architecture/nature and any other form of design throughout history. Through that study, the more entertainment based artwork that resonated most to me was mainly a combination of French and Japanese artists such as Katsuhiro Otomo, Shirow Masamune, Katsuya Terada, Kow Yokoyama, Yasushi Nirasawa, Yoji Shinkawa and Makoto Kobayashi on the Japanese side of things and artists like Moebius, Meziere, Sylvain Despretz (who I was lucky enough to get to work with on Valerian!) and Juan Gimenez on the French/European side of things. These two main groups of artists were sort of a melting pot of influences for me starting out, and of course American artists like Syd Mead, Doug Chiang, Ian Mccaig and Ralph McQuarrie are hard to not be influenced by growing up here.

When I started working professionally I sort of turned off a lot of my personal preferences for the sake of learning new skills, the first 7-8 years I just wanted to learn as many different things from everyone I was working with to grow as much as possible. On the one hand this approach was good to create a very diverse range of skills to offer clients/projects, but it also means a lot of your individuality gets lost quite a bit. Luckily the projects with Luc tend to overlap with a lot of my early influences that I enjoy the most, so Valerian came at a very good moment, I was able to sort of go back in time to all the work I loved at the beginning of my career but armed with a lot of new skills to help build this universe in much more detail than I could have when I was younger. In a way, Valerian sort of felt like the project I had been training most of my career for, which was a really cool thing to be a part of.

As a 21st century artist, what type of design do you feel is more challenging: Something that evokes the past through fantasy, like The Hobbit, or something that projects futuristic realism like Elysium? I definitely think sci-fi work is more challenging than fantasy as far as being a designer on the project, with (live action) fantasy design it usually means taking real world elements and slightly tweaking/exaggerating them to be more fantastic or mixing ancient designs cleverly with natural or geometric forms and patterns. Something like Elysium which is a more realistic near future design direction, I guess kind of falls into a similar logic as a lot of the design was referencing real world technologies to make everything more believable while obviously exaggerating/tweaking it to create something new. I think even under those circumstances the world/scenarios created in a sci-fi setting like that are more new/interesting (to me at least) than what can be found in fantasy based projects. The most challenging projects (to me) would be sci-fi universes like what we created for Valerian, where it’s not necessarily always based on anything found on earth/reality so we are going pretty far into uncharted territory creating something new/original, those types of projects definitely push you to your limits as a designer.

Valerian is your second project with Luc Besson (Lucy was the first); how did you come to work with him and what about his world-building do you find most creative? I actually worked on an early version of Valerian before Lucy around 7 or so years ago now. Luc found some of my early work created when I was still a student and got in touch with me, I had just started working on film/videogame projects at the time and helped him out on an earlier version of the film for a few months before things went on hold for a couple years. At the time I remember being a little sad that things went on hold for so long, but in hindsight I’m kind of glad as I feel like I needed those extra years in-between to get better and be ready artistically to do the job I ended up doing on the final film.

After the success of Lucy, Valerian came back and we began on that project full-time for the last few years. I think the thing I enjoyed the most working with Luc on a world building creative level was how much he wanted to see something that was cool/original above all else, style over reality. Most of the other projects I worked on in my career followed a pretty strict ‘reality’ based logic, it’s almost more of an engineer like approach to design where everything has to be ‘grounded’, you need to be able to find something in real life and extrapolate functionality/form language from it to create something that would/could possibly exist. This logic works fine for many projects and is easy to grasp as a designer, but I find it can be restrictive creatively and sometimes hard to break out of if you go too far down that line of thinking. I remember early on for Valerian having to break out of this mindset and sort of ‘unlearn’ a lot of things I had experienced over the last few years because it was getting in the way of me solving problems successfully for Luc. That moment came when I was designing this big spaceship that splits into 1000 smaller ships, I was trying to design something that could logically fold up and connect together in a way that allowed all the pilots to get into each of the individual smaller ships and I remember struggling with this assignment for a little bit until Luc said something along the lines of “Ben, this is a movie, not real life! Don’t worry too much about that, this is what I want the ships to look like and here’s what I want to happen in the sequence, it will be a cool moment”. After that I learned to start turning off the more ‘reality’ based logic and just having fun with the designs on the film, coming up with the funkiest/coolest things I could imagine.

You’ve spoken before about the iterative process of concept art for film, and how complex that can be. How close would you say the designs for Valerian ended up on-screen versus the initial concepts? On Valerian I felt like Luc was very good about making sure the approved design he likes ends up pretty much identical in the final film which has been amazing to see! It’s a very rare occurrence to work with someone that knows what they want on such a massive project and able to make decisions years in advance and stick to them. Because of this he has also been the most efficient director I have ever worked with, it was really inspiring to see and made for a very pleasant working experience all the years I was on the film. After working on other projects where we are sometimes asked to do 500+ designs/revisions on small insignificant objects in a movie, I kind of didn’t believe it when Luc approved the first design I did for one of the big creatures we see early on in the film, the Megaptor. I remember really liking the design after creating it and thinking “Well, at least this first idea is cool, it will probably change 100 times”, but he ended up liking it as much as I did and approved it! Even after that I still kind of didn’t believe it until I saw it running around in the trailers 2 years later, ha!

What was Luc’s vision for the SKYJET originally? Luc was after something simple and iconic, something the audience would be able to easily understand and remember long after they left the theater.

What is the main inspiration for the design of the ship? The exterior design inspiration mainly came from nature, looking at things like dolphins, orca and sharks to create a very fast and aerodynamic looking design. I also looked at more man made objects such as fighter jets, luxury single seater submersibles and other aquatic/flying vehicles to make sure the scale and level of detail was suitable for the SKYJET in the world we were trying to create in the film.

What is the primary function of the SKYJET? Is it a personal commuting vehicle for future motorists or is it a more specialized mode of transportation? The way I understood it was that the SKYJET was more of a specialized military type vehicle built specifically for Valerian and Laureline (or whichever agency they work for) to be used by highly trained agents on their missions and adventures all over the galaxy.

Do you design a vehicle like this thinking of material components? For example, is the outer shell composed of something like carbon-fiber or a completely new material from the future? I imagined it would be some sort of advanced future military grade metal material capable of withstanding any blasts and attacks from various alien technologies/weapons they might encounter on their missions.

How fast does the SKYJET travel? Can you give us details on its proposed performance? Does it have an altitude limit, or can it fly in outer space? I imagined the top speed and altitude limit to be comparable or exceed modern day fighter jets (An F-22 Raptors top speed is 2,410 km/h) while flying on planets with atmosphere. While flying in space I imagine it would go faster without any atmosphere/friction to slow it down.

What role do you think AI might play in cars of the future? I think AI and autonomous driving will become a big part of cars in the near future, especially in larger city based locations congested with traffic. Those technologies will definitely help streamline commutes and keep things moving more smoothly while cutting down on accidents. A car will most likely start to become more of a moving extension of a person’s office or leisure/entertainment space with all control given up to AI. That being said, I hope manually driven car technology will still exist in some form so that cars can be used for fun.

Lastly, for our fans and followers who might want to get into concept design for films one day, what advice would you offer them that you feel is invaluable? If you really want to do this job for a living then go for it! When I was starting out a lot of this information was really hard to find and isolated to a few schools in California which not everyone could afford, but I feel like now all information needed to be a competent designer/illustrator in games and films is easily available/affordable in books and the dozens of online schools or artists Gumroads/Patreons offering very high level training for not a lot of money. It’s almost the opposite of what I experienced starting out, the difficulty now is from there being too much information available to you which I think is a good problem to have. So if you know what you want to learn and are self motivated enough to put in the time to learn it, the sky’s the limit.

[Nicole Campos,lootcrate]

#valerian movie #valerian and the city of a thousand planets #skyjet #spaceship #concept art #artwork #scifi #ben mauro #design

[tumblunni]

Bunni continues to play Richard And Alice! Random thoughts and stuff!

* I’m really not good at point and click advantures, so i dunno if my opinion is very valuable, but this one just seems... not good, gameplay-wise. The sections are all different lengths and difficulty levels in each chapter, and not in a fitting way. Like so far the only one where I had to combine two items was the first chapter, it took me ages to figure out what the game wanted me to do with the bedsheets. And then the second chapter had like zero point and click at all, you just had to find one toy brick and stick it to block one hole, then it was just story cutscenes. And now in chapter three we have a suddenly huge snowfield to explore with your painfully slow walk speed, yet there’s only like one thing you need to find and just... I’m getting surprisingly anxious worrying if I missed something cos i only found that one thing! There was a whole section i didnt explore cos i didnt realise you couldnt go back outside after you managed to open the door. And what was with the misdirect of Alice saying ‘maybe i can reach this window if i have something to stand on’ and then instead she just shot off the lock on the door? Does that mean there were multiple solutions to this puzzle and thats why the place was so huge?

* Anyway, the story continues to be intriguingly good! I continue to be really engaged in poor Alice’s journey through this post apocolyptic snow world with her lil son, and I continue to be really worried what happened to that son, since this is a flashback and Alice met Richard alone... Also I like the continuity that Barney is continuing to talk about the close call they had last time with a monsterous bastard who kidnapped them. This poor lil 7 year old is struggling to keep up and struggling to keep smiling so his mum won’t be sad, and its just SO COLD and he doesnt understand why they left ‘the safe house’ because he doesnt understand they were prisoners there. And god, its so sad cos you can understand how Alice might be getting frustrated with him, and you can understand that she KNOWS she’s being irrational, but she’s just so scared that she sucks at keeping up a brave face for her kid. But I think she’s doing a great job, she’s way more of a badass survivor than anyone else would have been in this situation! And Barney is being incredibly good too, he’s being really patient and obedient to his mum and he’s a really considerate kid, he gave his mum his toy car cos she was getting sad remembering when her husband was alive and they used to ‘go on adventures’. (”But we’re on an adventure now, mummy!”)

* And MAN I am REALLY WORRIED for this poor kid, he’s been showing signs of getting sick as they were travelling the snowy wasteland and I hope they can at least get a break now they’ve found this abandoned house to sleep in. BUT NOPE! Alice finds mysterious scary notes with some sort of log of... people...? It definately doesnt feel like just someone recording visitors or survivors they met, its got a weird sort of... priorities, to what was written down. ‘Fem. caucasian. 20s. Compliant. 65lbs.’ And then what struck me as especially weird was that someone would classify a kid as ‘Female. age 7. 21 lbs’ instead of like.. actually writing that it was a kid. This is someone seeing these people as.. merchandise. You never really get an answer in this chapter but I think it’s someone who was offering survivors fake shelter and then cannibalising them T_T The chapter just ends with Alice finding an ambiguously scary room with a bloodstain, but this is the only shelter they have, so all she can do is lock the door again so her kid doesn’t see, and barricade the front door in case this cannibal cult comes back for their home base... *shudder*

* But also seriously, why did I collect like five other red herring letters as well as the cannibal one? And a rusty saw and ammo for a different gun. Was that JUST red herrings or did I miss an optional puzzle?

* Its actually a weird relief to get back out of the flashback and back to our slightly-less-horrible horrible situation in present times. Sure, Alice and Richard are locked in prison, but in this apocolyptic scenario its a relief to be somewhere where you get daily food and working electricity. There’s even a tv that only sometimes doesnt work! And they have each other, and they’re building up a nice friendship now, and it just feels quite optimistic. Richard’s even getting a bit of a crush on Alice, even though the attempts at flirting between the two of them are failing horribly cos they’re both total goobers. i dunno, if they do get together in the end, I totally wouldnt mind it! I dont think its really necessary though.

* Aww but the more we learn about everyone’s backstory, the more I really wanna hug em! We still dont know very much about Richard, but we’ve learned now that he had an ‘average childhood’, at least, by his definition. And he lived in some sort of small country town, and he joined the army in order to see more of the world. But it went really badly and he got sent to prison for rebelling against a superior officer who made a clearly immoral order. JUSTICE FOR RICHARD, GRARR!! And then Alice continues to be way more well developed and interesting, even though I do still feel sympathetic for richard, yknow. Just a lil frustrated that it took us so long to even hear that lil bit about him, when he’s supposed to be the ‘main character’. Seriously he seems like just a framing device for us to talk to alice and see her flashbacks! Anyway, now we’ve learned that Alice didn’t have much of a childhood, because she was hospitalized for a long time. And she talks about how she felt like a burden and felt suicidal and how she never even got to make any friends til she grew up and became a lil more healthy, and then she sorta ended up in an unplanned pregnancy with the first man she ever dated, and never had a chance to pursue her dream career and just... wow Alice dear god, someone up there in the heavens hates you! God, I hope this game has an actual happy ending, please! And also it makes me EVEN MORE WORRIED about what happened to her kid, now im starting to worry if maybe he inherited her childhood disease and like.. it only first started manifesting during the apocolypse and she wasnt able to find a doctor in time.. or something... MAN THIS GAME IS GIVING ME A MILLION WAYS THIS SWEET BOY COULD DIE

* Oh but one random complaint... much as I care about Barney, he kinda isnt a very well written character. They fall into a lot of super outdated ‘fake movieverse child’ cliches instead of like.. bothering to listen to what actual kids talk like. He’s always using that fake cutesy talk like ‘i made you a waffle but i eated it’. Its rather jarring! ...but still I WILL DEFEND MY VIRTUAL SON FOREVER dont you dare kill him off just because his dialogue is poorly informalized!

* The next chapter is kinda boring, its not really even a chapter but just an intermission to show us some more gameplay and nothing else. Richard and Alice do nothing but have an awkward fetch quest to find enough stuff to make a pole to reach the termostat outside the jail cell, and then after all that it ends up failing anyway. I guess at least we do get a bit of character development cos we get to see them both frustrated and having a bit of an argument, then making up again, and etc. But meh, bring on the next actual plot flashback!

* “Why does Daddy live in the ground?”

* thats it im done this is how bunni is slain fucking hell

* god, I dunno if I made the right choice but I chose to be honest with the kid and try and explain what death is. I got to hear the backstory of how the dad died, so i THINk that was the right choice? It seems he died back when barney was too young to even really know him. It was at the start of the apocolypse and the family was doing semi okay living in a shared shelter with a bunch of other people. But then it was the start of government aid breaking down and society crumbling, and a gang stole the last food ration pack from them and the dad thought he could reason with them. And its just so sad cos Alice is thinking of all the ways it could have been prevented! ‘We’ve gotten used to surviving with less now, what if we’d just let that food go? we could have lasted’ And what if they’d shot first and asked questions later, instead of trying to be diplomatic. And apparantly back then things were a little less abd so there actually was a trader they could have got more food from, but resources were limited so they decided it wasnt worth it at the time. And the after the gang killed the dad and some of the other leaders of the shelter group, it seems like things just collapsed in a power struggle and thats how Alice ended up alone... And you just have this sad sidequest to gather flowers for his grave and then Barney is all ‘i dont really know him and i dont understand so i feel bad that i cant cry’ and then he’s asking if dead people can hear you from down in the ground. And I picked being honest again, and Alice didnt say yes or no, she just admitted that nobody really knows what happens after you die, and you have to choose what you want to believe. So Barney chooses to try and tell his dad about how they’re having a good day playing in the snow on this adventure, and Alice tells him that Barney’s grown up so big and strong, and Barney says ‘Yeah! Strong like a lion! Or you, daddy!’ and BUNNI’S SOUL SHATTERS INTO A MILLION PIECES

* i am gone i am deceased at this deceaseness aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

* And there’s like an optional note you can find that tells the story about some unnamed kid who was living alone with their friend Lucy and they were trying to survive without any adults to help, and its all SCARILY VAGUE and I hope we get to learn more about them later cos it just says how the same gang who killed the dad was just.. ominously circling around the area and Lucy was acting weird and then dissappeared, with a letter saying she chose to leave for [insert name of far away settlement here] but it was really suspicious and the unnamed kid thinks that the gang was threatening lucy and they must have kidnapped her and faked this note and then the diary just ENDS it just ends with the kid talking about how much they love lucy and cant live without her and we dont know if they found her or if she even really was kidnapped?? ITS SO VAGUE! its so vague that honestly im only just assuming the diary writer was a kid too, i mean maybe they were lucy’s parent or sibling or something? or maybe both them and lucy are older? but the way it was written sounded like they were like early high schoolers or something (then again this game is bad at writing kid characters so maybe not) I MOURN FOR YOU, UNNAMED DIARY PERSON AND LUCY OF MYSTERY

* OH GOD DOOM when it went back to modern day, now its got all mysterious and weird and sad too, AAAARRRGH the heroes are still in prison, but the guards have stopped coming to their cell and theyre stuck here scared and worrying and you dont know if the obvious has actually happened... i mean maybe the prison has been abandoned or everyone died and now they’re stuck here locked in their cell and AAAA eventually the cold will start seeping in and kill them too and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

* okay im gonna go get back to playing this game

#bunni plays richard and alice