fir-fireweed

[fir-fireweed]

Me, coming back to my hotel room after a full day at a theme park, only to see VIATICA UPDATED OMG???

I will get to this as soon as I can! Not sure I can finish today sadly, since I'm dead on my feet after the extreme coasters!

Hi Konoi! Take your time and rest, I hope you had a fun day! You don’t have to finish tonight anyway because now…

you can…

…

SAVE YOUR PROGRESS!!

🥳🙌🏻

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Finally able to get to that post everyone is talking about

OH MY FUCKING AIDBAJBSHXJABSHS FIIIIIRRRRRRRRR

*squealing and hugging squeezing you through the screen*

OAHDHSHSHS OHHHH MY GOSH HAPPY 1ST ANNIVERSARY TO VIATICA. THE DARLING SECOND IF THAT GOT ME MORE HOOKED INTO THE WORLD OF IFS THANK YOU VERY MUCH 😭😭😭😭💖💞🎉❤️‼️

AKSNDJSJSHKSDBSH SUCH A GREAT PRESENT WAITING FOR ME AFTER EXAMS OMG 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

On that note, and it's a sudden thought that came to me, how would Robin feel if the MC we're counting their freckles and saying they're like stars in the galaxy that is Robin LADBSISJSBJSJASBSHJANABSH

SO CORNY SO ROTTINGLY SWEET UGH 😫

ANYWHO, VIATICA WAIT FOR ME AFTER EXAMS, MY BELOVED

Hi Ryn! 👋

Thank you for this, your reactions always crack me up! 🤣

You know Robin would absolutely love that! Play their ending on the rebellion route—the extra epilogue has a lovely little Easter egg and it’s one of my favorites. 🤭

I hope your exams go well and that you enjoy returning to Viatica!

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Now that Viatica is once again going go be 90% of my brain chemistry for the rest of this week and the next one, I wanted to share a bit about my own MC, a bit that I can't change no matter how many playthroughs I go through and who I romance

And that is that her chosen name is Moth

The reason is simple: the start of the game, the digger, the flame, we have the option to hold his gaze, and that flame lights up inside of us like he just passed the torch to us

Like a moth to a flame

And this is also why I had a hard time choosing to leave the city and instead almost always end up with the revolution

That phrase is just what symbolizes the main character perfectly to me: a moth to the the flame that digger lit up

Anyways now I shall go back to replaying viatica and going through all routes again

Have a nice day fir!

Ayy, I love that!! That also feels like something I’d write, lolz. 😅

You have a nice day, too, my friend! 🫶🏻

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omIIGOODHDHSJDHWKZBEKWFJ viatica?????????? THE THE HUHH CHANGES EXTRAS SAAAVES EASTER EGGS HADIIWCJEOFJV

im so sorry this is not comprehensible but goooooooosh. what. aAAA. I need to sit down and finish viatica omfg. im actually at my most free currently with a few self imposed writing deadlines to wade through but I don’t think I’ll be able to bother with them now that I have discovered this.

kicking my feet giggling twirling my hair oh my gosh I need to play this. I didn’t even see the announcement post I just saw other asks mentioning something about viatica and it’s like my brain just flipped a switch and is now internally screaming with glee.

so thank you for the time and effort you put into this wonderfully no longer secret project! also massively looking forward to cantata in October!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will go take a breather and be Normal about this

Hi, Carp! 👋

Thank you! I’ve been dying to talk about this for so long! It makes my heart happy to see these reactions to a story I hold quite dear. ❤️

I’m pleased with Viatica and probably won’t add to it again, but it definitely needed a glow up and anniversary celebration. And if you never finished it, now is the perfect time!

::cracks knuckles:: Now I can refocus on Cantata, lol.

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HAPPY ONE YEAR AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE RE-RELEASE SAVE FILES MY BELOVEDS!! <333 PLUS new spicy epilogues like Heron darling I am ON MY WAY. And now I'll finally play all the other routes! I'm so excited to replay after my D&D session today you have no idea!!

Yay!! I’m happy to hear that! 🥳

They’re waiting for you… 🤭

[fir-fireweed]

The Matriarch Isn’t the Villain. She’s the Mirror

I often hear a discourse where Celine in K-pop Demon Hunters, Alma in Encanto and Ming in Turning Red are seen as vilains. They’re the ones who restricted the younger generation, hurt them, and are ultimately responsible for their pain, trauma and self-doubt. They’re framed as the real villains of the story. But I’d like to differ.

These are stories of intergenerational trauma. They are women who survived, repressed, and tried to protect their families the only way they knew how: through control, perfectionism, and emotional suppression.

And yet, when the next generation begins to reclaim joy, freedom, softness — they become the obstacle. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re scarred. Their minds cling to survival strategies, unable to recognize that the environment has changed.

Alma is still stuck fleeing the colonizers.

Ming is still afraid of her true self.

Celine believes that fear and mistakes must be hidden.

It’s not about hating these characters. It’s about how unprocessed trauma twists love into control. How survival, unexamined, turns into rigidity. These women were never given space to process their own pain and they project it onto their daughters and granddaughters.

And here’s something we rarely say enough: intergenerational trauma can create toxic patterns but that doesn’t always mean there was abuse or conscious harm. Even when their love becomes suffocating or controlling, these women are not necessarily “abusive parents.” They are daughters of silence, fear, and sacrifice. And they were never taught another way. It’s important to make that distinction, especially in a world that often pushes a binary, punitive reading of family dynamics.

They’re the product of a generation that was told to endure. But endurance without healing becomes its own kind of violence.

What’s powerful in these stories is that they don’t end in vengeance. They end in confrontation and transformation. The confrontation is necessary: the younger generation refuses the silence. Refuses the shame. Refuses to carry a burden that wasn’t theirs to begin with.

The house is destroyed in Encanto.

Mei accepts her full self.

So does Rumi.

And in the best cases, this confrontation allows the elder to soften too. Alma opens up. Ming listens. And I’m hoping in the sequel, Celine will open too.

Maybe that’s also why these stories speak so deeply to POC audiences. These aren’t stories about cutting ties. They’re stories about how hard it is to transform them, to protect ancestral bonds while refusing to perpetuate inherited pain. In many racialized families, collectivity, loyalty, and intergenerational duty are sacred... even when they come at the cost of personal boundaries.

And sometimes, Western individualist frameworks read these tensions as dysfunction or villainy. But for us, they’re just the difficult truth of growing up and trying to do better.

These women aren’t villains. That would be too easy. They embody the fragile, necessary work of bringing change without breaking the thread. These stories are about refusing to inherit their pain without reflection. Because love, without accountability, is not enough.

These stories show us that each generation has something to learn from the next. And the new generation must also break free from the chains they inherited while preserving what is meaningfull.

But it’s not just their story.

One day, we’ll be the older generation.

And we’ll need to be humble enough to learn from the ones after us.

So don’t be a fool.

We may be Mei, Rumi, or Mirabel today.

But tomorrow, we could be Ming, Celine, or Alma.

And when that time comes, we’ll realize how hard it is to unlearn what once kept us safe.

So let’s have compassion for all these characters.

Because these stories show us not just how the cycle of generations works, but how it can make us better, stronger, and more connected... if we’re all willing to go through the change.

∘₊✧──────✧──────✧₊∘

If you’re curious, I’ve written more on K-pop Demon Hunters:

A post on the mental health themes woven through the songs — right here.

A breakdown of Celine-Rumi in comparaison to Gothel–Rapunzel dynamic — here.

An analysis about Rumi, Jinu, and the danger of sinking together — here.

Some book recs for each of the K-pop Demon Hunters characters — here.

[fir-fireweed]

This was an excellent IF, and while I will miss it, I wish the author all the best on their professional career! I understand how difficult that choice must have been, and we all appreciate the honesty. Good luck, dear author, and congratulations!

An Explanation and a Goodbye

Hey everyone,

This isn’t a post I thought I’d be writing so soon and certainly not following on the habit of closing blogs before they can be finished, but here we are. As a lot of you know, I was recently accepted to Oxford (it still feels surreal to type that!) and I’ve been having some long, uncomfortable conversations with alumni, college advisers, and people already working in the field I’m aiming for.

The takeaway from those talks? If I want the best shot at building a career in Big Law and to be taken seriously in the conversations around international affairs and systems, I need to be absolutely sure nothing from my online presence could be held against me years down the line as evidence of a lack of professionalism. And while I love this blog and the creative world we’ve built here together, it’s not something I can 'professionalise' in a way that would pass the kind of background searches firms are known for. Try as I have to continue writing and brainstorming ways to finish FKAC potentially without a blog.

So, after nearly a year and a half of getting to share stories and support from so many people (nearly 25,000 readers!), I’ve made the difficult decision to close this blog permanently and retire from writing for leisure. This community has been such a joy for me. Your support of For King and Country, your messages, your enthusiasm, it’s all meant more than I can say.

I’d like to briefly mention that, whilst I am closing my account in order to focus on being a force for good in the professional world, I’ve realised through those selfsame conversations over the course of this summer that I have not used my online voice, limited as it is, to draw attention to the causes that now inspire my actions and guide my decision to close this blog. I want to commend everyone who has been an unwavering voice for the Palestinian people in the face of immense suffering, everyone who has spoken out for trans and LGBTQIA+ communities in such a reactionary era, those who have advocated for the rights of artists and writers during this new era of Generative AI and all those who have remained principled advocates for the inclusion of BIPOC in literary spaces. I hope to contribute to the good fight in real life.

Thank you for being part of this chapter in my life. It’s bittersweet to close the book here, but I’m carrying the good memories with me into whatever comes next.

This blog will remain up for the following week and FKAC on CoGDemos for the remainder of the year.

With Peace, Love and Solidarity — The Author

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ahhh we read cantata with the circle! i love it!

[fir-fireweed]

Reread the whole thing and cried again, thanks for that

Dang, you’re fast! 😆

And you’re welcome, thanks for the reread! ❤️

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I am literally vibrating in my seat right now YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I've been wondering if you would ever consider remaking Viatica in sugarcube but little did I know, you were already doing it lmao. Ferret, I am coming for you, watch yourself 🫵 (lovingly)

And extra scenes?? Let's go 🫶🫶🫶🫶

And saves!!!!! Finally, I can have multiple saves 😭😭😭 I can never choose between Lion and Ferret

Thank you Fir, I am hugging you through the screen. Viatica was my first IF and seeing it in the simple Chapbook format was what made me pick up Twine in the first place. But we're moving up in the world and we're upgrading 💪

How long did it take you to convert everything? Bet it was killing you to keep everything a secret

Thank you, Blue! Big hugs back!🫶🏻

Omg, the secret was KILLING me! 🤣🫠

I started the rebuild and extra scenes in June, after Cantata Chapter 3 released. It took me about a week and a half to build, plucking away at it daily. The hardest part was proofing afterwards and checking the code variants. For instance, italics in chapbook are written *word* while in Sugarcube they’re //word//. Lots of little formatting things like that. My beta readers were an immense help!

Also, huge shout out to Fennyth @stygiansun-totaleclipse for helping me with the code for the pic in the sidebar! 🤗

Thank you, again, my friend! I’m so happy to finally accomplish this!

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LETS GOOOOOO HERON BBY IM COMING FOR U WAIT FOR MEEEEE

🏃🏻‍♀️‍➡️🏃🏻‍➡️

I’m especially proud of his extra epilogue if you play as a male MC on the escape ending, just saying. 😏

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I have a confession to make.

I told you Chapter 4 wouldn’t be done till late October. I said this was because the chapter was a biggie and I had several trips planned.

This was all true.

What I didn’t tell you was that I was working on a secret project.

Did you know that today is the 1 year anniversary of Viatica’s publication on itch?

Did you also know that I’ve written a new, spicy, second epilogue in honor of said anniversary?!

And did you further know that I’ve completely rebuilt Viatica in Sugarcube for this re-release?!?!

NO YOU DIDN’T! BECAUSE IT WAS A SECRET! AHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Lord, it’s taken me all my willpower not to talk about this! 🤣

I have completely rebuilt Viatica in Sugarcube! Which means… drumroll… SAVES!! 🙌🏻

Click HERE to play!

To further celebrate the anniversary, there is a spicy second epilogue for each route! 🌶️ 🍆 You still have the options of fade to black or snuggles only, but this is mainly smut. 🤭 There is no new platonic content.

I also sprinkled Cantata Easter eggs throughout. Let me know if you find them!

Happy Viatica Anniversary, everyone! 🥳 Thank you for following me on this journey!

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Is it weird that Cantata is becoming a sort of comfort game for me? Like there are definitely tough topics, but there is also kindness and strength and laughter. I keep thinking back to Cantata when I'm tired or drawing or working or whatever. Maybe the songs are what get me idk

I suppose that even when we struggle and suffer, there is still hope

Thank you for this, Fir

Not weird at all, that’s EXACTLY what I strive for! ❤️ Thank YOU for telling me that.

The message that I strive to convey in all my stories is exactly that. No matter how we may struggle and suffer, there is always hope, there is always a reason to persevere. There is always a light at the end of the long dark.

[fir-fireweed]

Vicente would be the worst patient EVER! Luckily, they’ve got an excellent constitution and don’t get sick often, but if they did, they’d soldier through, and fairly successfully. He doesn’t take medicine that can hamper his control, and he’d refuse to stay in bed. You may need to enlist Bayram’s help to get the sick, hissy cat in bed.

If there is something that Akila hates more than the Regis, it's when someone she knows ain't taking care of themselves ☝️

(idk what you mean by medicine that hampers his control. Do you mean medicine that could make him sleepy???)

She's gonna be like that one sibling who snitched on mom (Bayram or Thaleia)

GET YOUR ASS BACK IN BED MISTER OR SHE SWEARS—

Her threats are bark and no bite... Well, if you count the possibility of Akila smacking Vicente with an umbrella no bite ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Anywho, she would leave Vicente to the decision of powering through, but just know she'll be insufferable about it if Vicente fails.

Sometimes I wonder if I should actually make them friends or ship them together lmao 😭

Corinne would soldier through quite successfully till the point where she falls dead from exhaustion. She’s great at taking care of everyone except herself. She’d refuse to go to bed; your best way to convince her would be a logical argument as to why a healthy Corinne is best for everyone.

Introducing Brook! (yes, I'm terrible with alias names)

The most patient, kind-hearted being in the universe. Soft giant (taller than Corinne).

Being water-attuned, he'll notice if Corinne is feeling unwell (can it work that way?) and try to convince her how healthy Corinne is better the sick Corinne.

If that doesn't work:

He'll be there with Corinne as she powers through. Take these medicine first. Take it easy. Here's some food and water/tea. Need these documents? Here you go. Someone causing a ruckus? They'll deal with it, just stay where you are. Make sure to take a bit of rest, darling.

Small actions like that.

Don't worry Corinne, your darling partner will take care of what you need 💖💖💖. Just say the word.

Hi Ryn! 👋

Yes, Vicente doesn’t drink alcohol or take any medicine that can make him drowsy or otherwise impair his judgement.

As far as Corinne, Brook sounds like a wonderful partner for her! MC technically can’t be taller than Corinne, only the same height; at least, the story won’t reflect that but you can certainly imagine.

A water-attuned would know if she’s feeling distressed or in pain, but a fire-attuned would be better at feeling if someone’s unwell or feverish.

Either way, love the scenarios! 😁

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I really like fictional couples that actually enjoy spending time with each other. It seems like such a simple, mundane thing. But, often, I see fictional couples who are completely enamored and dramatic and willing to die for each other, which is fine. But like… do they enjoy hanging out? Do they have private jokes and would they be friends even if they weren’t in love? It feels like such a basic thing, but it’s something that I actually don’t see that often. And it feels so refreshing and honest compared to these over-dramatic romeo and juliet-esque romances. Just two people who become good friends and because they enjoy each other’s presence so much it grows into a strong attraction. It feels more real and tangible than two attractive people meeting and “falling in love at first sight” - like, of course, you fell in love at first sight! You’re both supermodels! Sorry, can’t relate.

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Hello there dear author! I'm not sure if you've gotten this ask before, but I am curious!! do you have any songs that remind you of the RO's?

Hello, dear anon! The best answer is the actual Cantata playlist, lol. Each RO has their own theme, you’ve heard Corinne’s and Calliope’s already in Chapter 3.

That being said, I do have certain songs on my personal playlist that remind me of some of the ROs. I don’t have one for each.

“Don’t Give Up on Me” by Andy Grammer feels a little Corinne-coded to me.

“Stronger” by The Score reminds me of Tellus.

And “Vendetta” by Unsecret reminds me of Vicente.

I don’t really have songs for Calliope and Bayram, but there’s one song that reminds me of the overall story and themes of Cantata: “There Will Be Time” by Mumford & Sons and Baaba Maal. It fits Calliope and Bayram’s joyfulness. It’s a beautiful song about finding love and hope in the midst of difficulty, and of that light guiding you through the dark times.

If you’ve never heard it, check out the live performance!

[fir-fireweed]

Some days are "I require cuddles" days

How would ROs react to MC glomping onto them? I would 100% do this platonically, but could also be romantic idk

Hugs for you Fir, thank you for Cantata

>:3 gonna shower everyone with so much affection they learn that they are lovable and will be loved whether they like it or not

Thank you, anon! Hugs to you, too! 🤗

Calliope:

Corinne:

Vicente:

Bayram:

Tellus: