#and there's the main plot of all routes

[junipvelt]

I'm uh working on a visual novel btw

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[lunian]

me: nah, i won't play Baldur's Gate 3 on working days, I won't make it alive. It's only for weekends, bc I'm an adult person and my real life is—

brain: So we just postpone Gale's future marriage proposal.

me: IM AN ADULT HUMAN BEING, I NEED TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR—

[toffee4you]

Waking up in Night Raven College vs. Investigating Crowley for the overblots.

In all seriousness, this read was somewhere between terrible and not bad.

This concludes my weekly "terrible genre" bookclub...

[magnusmodig]

ovo whispers menacingly abt his grandstanding .

[general-grey]

by the way, i finished Nadia's route for the first time and I can really confidently say that out of all the routes i've done thus far - Lucio's and Julian's finished, Asra's and Muriel's half done -, this one was the most well put together for me - which is funny, considering Nadia herself is ALSO the most well put together character in the game :')

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than amogus

Update: I couldn't find any kobold sprites so the main character and their sibling are now scorpions

[arolesbianism]

Ok it's official I properly give a shit abt the alt facility nuggets now it's all falling into place baby

[iceunhie]

— out of this world (and into another) : genshin impact

premise: you could've sworn the transmigration curse didn't have an effect on you... so what exactly are you doing here?! (alternatively, you tumble straight into your favorite video game; and you're kinda fucked)

...or, a genshin manhwa otome game inspired au.

act i: scaramouche, alhaitham, wriothesley.

↳ act ii: lyney, neuvilette, kazuha, kaeya. (next)

warnings. fem!reader but can be imagined as genderless if u'd like hehe, a shit ton of manhwa tropes in one, this is a hot mess aka not proofread all that much, half clunky half decent writing

a/n: as promised via the poll heh,, while i do plan to make this an actual au, im not that sure ^^; just the tip of the iceberg here tho!!

MAIN MASTERLIST | AU MASTERLIST (coming soon)

YOU — unsuspecting civilian turnt transmigrator

you've always been too attached to fictional characters for your own good.

yes, even the ones that are remarkably irredeemable (the power of a backstory is very formidable) and complex (complexity is a virtue!)

villains have always been destined to die, be cursed, or destined to curse others. it was heartbreaking, really. you've wished for a chance to rewrite their fates for them to find even a sliver of happiness, even when the fate of their plot says otherwise.

which is why when you find yourself awake into the game of your dreams, “Teyvat's Seven Stars”, like any lover of cliche novel and manhwa tropes, this is the time you think that maybe life wasn't so shitty on you.

....there's only one tiny, teensy, itty bitty problem here, actually.

you're not the protagonist. you're not even one of the protagonist's faithful friends and underlings that light protagonist's road to conquering the world and its men (and as of the 4.0 update, it's women); no, you're none of those.

you're a no name extra, and not to mention, a character involved with the game's main villain characters who are coincidentally the love interests of the game's black route!

[ unlock transmigration package: ultimate transmigrator's route ( ????? MODE ) ]

[ no ] [ yes ]

( 国崩 ) SCARAMOUCHE — the tyrant

“as of today, you will be engaged to crown prince kunikuzushi, who is her grace the shogun's rightful heir to the throne.”

when given approval to stare at your so-called soon to be husband, you expect the worst, mostly. the multitudes of character dialogue you've played through detailing his rather discourteous personality (which basically meant he was a huge asshole) don't exactly paint a pretty picture.

however...

who was this tender hearted looking scaramouche that ‘obliterated armies in the blink of an eye?’ the t in tyrant stands for tyrannical, not timid!

eyes like lighting framed by the longest eyelashes you've ever seen and an unfairly pretty face, comparable to a fair lotus. after fawning over his otherworldly countenance, a sinking realization of dread pools in your stomach.

oh, you are so screwed.

essentially tied to the indigo-haired ticking time bomb of a future tyrant due to the strong standing of your family for a period of until the main story starts, you're destined to never get crown prince scaramouche's affection, being his fiancée who scaramouche is arranged to for political means only.

not to mention, you're in an even more deadly position; of all the characters you switched souls with, it's the one that essentially dies by their own fiancé's hand because they were horrible to him! what atrocious luck!

frantic, you wrack up about three ways to survive.

plan a) win over the shogun's favor by being an appropriate partner unlike the original flavor of this body, who resorted to bullying the innocent prince and unknowingly digging their own grave or b) be a guiding friend to scaramouche as he learns the ways of the world and c) make sure you don't end up giving the protagonist a bad ending via his twisted personality.

weighing all these options, you decide to do all three in hopes to cement a life instead of a deathflag. prevention is better than the cure (aka: the protagonist) after all!

(you may also just want to spend time with your favorite character. having a time limit and a sign that says ‘i'll die in the future!’ should at least warrant you extra time to show some affection to scaramouche, at least.)

so, you do what anyone in your position would do: give affection! lots of it.

admittedly, it wasn't all flowers and rainbows. scaramouche—ahem, kunikuzushi—was very shy and reserved indeed, with his mother ei even worse off! (besides, who trains and studies all day and has to stop crying every time they were injured?! that was just too much!)

it was rather hard at first, the frigid atmosphere of the usually silent Tenshukaku Palace almost impossible to permeate. but with your amazing charm (read: deathflag radar) and social skills, you manage to let the members of the Royal family open up to you.

speaking words of praise in ei's cooking (a very difficult feat to accomplish), spending afternoons with your fiancé and teaching him ‘how to be a shoujo worthy male lead, name-version’ (very confusing to explain), and the cherry on top, driving away that vile teacher of his—the Doctor—once word got out that he'd been taking advantage of scaramouche as a political puppet king in the future. trauma enabler destroyed! look at your immeasurable powers!

(“you're not a failure.” clasping kunikuzushi's hands in yours as he reels back from you. damn that doctor.

his tears shot a wave of heartache through you. you can't bear to see your favorite in such suffering. “whatever happens in the future, i won't abandon you.

no matter what, i'll always be on your side, okay?”

kunikuzushi looks at you with something in his eyes—something like adoration. “do you promise that?”

“yeah.” you say without hesitation, the glow of the sunlight hitting your face so dazzlingly that kunikuzushi's eyes widen that his mouth hangs agape in awe. “i promise, kuni.”)

to your greatest delight, your efforts worked in your favor.

ei now spends time with her son, and though it's almost always just a tad bit awkward, you and the guuji yae miko get the two to strike up conversation, and overtime, kunikuzushi becomes more open to you.

(“[name], what kind of man is your type?”

“huh? well...” you think for a while. this was a great opportunity to say it, right? that life changing protagonist quote!

“to me, the only person i'll ever like the most is you, kunikuzushi.”

“do you really, really mean that?” and oh, he looks so cute—flustered and red from your words. worth it.

“yup! now, i made some shimi chazuke, try some—”)

(admittedly, lots of favoritism is involved.)

—and while you reap the fruits of your hard work, you spend warm, sunlit afternoons with ei at tea, even learning about other nations from scaramouche's aunt nahida and even befriended a few of his future affiliates—childe (though for some reason, kunikuzushi always pulls you away from him whenever he spots the two of you together), signora (she tolerates you, you think) and etcetera.

(“then, if i do well, can you kiss me on the cheek, [name]?”

you agree, much to his delight. scaramouche avoids the gaze of a certain pink haired fox eyeing him questionably. unbeknownst to you, he glares at the woman's scrutiny.)

unprecedented things unrelated to the plot happen too; like how your family, which basically only saw you as a political bargaining chip and an unwanted child they could get rid of easily—no longer sent you any demeaning letters demanding money once scaramouche found out....

(“they've been leeching off of you for how long?” so scary... is this was kunikuzushi is like when he's worried?)

(“...kunikuzushi, how long will you keep up that weak-hearted facade of yours? if they find out how.... dishonest you are....”

“i don't need the reminders of a foxy old hag that doesn't know her place. this is fine as it is.”)

(you don't need to know.)

but, you're nothing compared to the inevitable flow of the plot. inazuma is wracked with war, and it just so happened that you'd been unceremoniously kidnapped by a certain resistance leader's trusted general, used as a hostage bargain for approximately the majority of your life. in the worst moments in your dreary cell, there's only one thought in your mind.

....kunikuzushi's face, devastated when he tries to reach for you, before slipping away from him like sand— face morphing into an unbridled state of rage that's too natural, too familiar. when did he learn to make a face like that?

(they say the kingdom was wracked with thunderstorms all night that day.)

afterwards, fate doesn't make it kind for you.

years go by in the blink of an eye, with your capture fervently forgotten in the midst of the growing animosity of the two conflicting forces.

although you did hear that yae sent out a search party for you while at the resistance's base, the shogun's forces never reached you.

eventually, you got released secretly by sympathy of kokomi, the leader of the resistance, who felt pity for you getting caught in the crossfire. letting you go under the condition that you'd likely never meet any of the precious characters you've gotten to know and change was a heavy price to pay, but you didn't have any choice.

indeed, no matter how much you tried to divert the plot, your duty as an extra has ended, and you were even lucky to even be alive. you could only hope that your fiancé—ex-fiancé—took note of your lessons well, bidding farewell to inazuma as you hop on the boat to mondsdat.

by now, you at least hoped that scaramouche and the protagonist met, his true chance at happiness starting now that you were basically dead.

(even if your heart felt like breaking into a million pieces.)

....is what you thought would happen, but why is it that after three years from your supposed capture, inazuma was still at war?

“that crazy prince... he's still working to find his former fiancée... and he's razing almost every village apart looking for them!”

“—didn't the shogunate say that whoever finds her would receive almost 3 million mora?”

“the entire lot of them are lunatics, i tell you. all because of a missing person, too!”

what's more, why was it still going because of you?!

( 艾尔海森 ) AL-HAITHAM: the information guild master

to be fair, normal people don't really run into one of their favorite characters often after transmigrating.

but to be fair, again, you certainly didn't think you'd actually be in your favorite video game franchise caged in bed with essentially one of its main love interests.

eyes wide and unceremoniously looking—definitely not ogling— at the toned body that's currently enveloping you in its arms, the soft tuft of ashy gray hair caressing the crook of your neck, murmuring incoherent mumbles of—is that another language?

???????

you blink, looking down at the bare body currently embracing you. oh. oh.

you're an extra.

you're just an extra, but why are you in bed, currently being served breakfast by the most gorgeous man you've ever laid your eyes on, with a pretty view of the rainforests' canopy?

“you should lie down. if i recall, sufficient sleep is required in order for the human body to perform its basic bodily functions. although our partnership is temporary, to let you fall to harm is a situation i'd like to avoid as much as possible.”

“....what?”

“...?”

the guild master, al-haitham, is a character in Teyvat's Seven Stars that is heavily debated on whether he's technically a villain or not. in the game, he's the right hand of sumeru's leader, nahida, working as the overseer of the AKASHA, a guild that gathers information to the nation's leader. he's a pretty shady character—always working behind the scenes and very unfalteringly blunt—and a ‘villain’ for crown prince scaramouche's route, helping the protagonist escape his clutches.

he's often the subject of comedic ire, his banters with a certain broke architect always the highlight of any bonafide al-haitham fan.

“we're expected to work together by lord kusanali's decree in the duration of investigating the hivemind project the lord suspects the baron siraj is partaking in.”

right, that one scene in the game where al-haitham needed to go undercover to infiltrate a coup de etat staged by one of the factions against nahida... right... what.

you were that extra! the one that fell in love with him and pined for his affection!

(“well, i get that part, but does sleeping together really have to play a part in this...?”

al-haitham gives you a mere quirk of the lip, tilting his head. “we do have to play the part of a married couple in dire straights, do we not? this cover is more efficient.

...besides, i don't have anything to complain about. you're certainly better company than kaveh.” )

in truth, al-haitham wasn't bad company. far from it. aside from the internal giggling and fangirling (you) and the incredible stack of books (alhaitham) that you have to see more than the grey haired man on a daily basis, the two of you work out a rapport that stems from memories of the body you transmigrated in.

he's nice to be around, surprisingly considerate when he wants to be—he tells you about the books he always reads....

(who even reads ‘20 Tongues Language Memorization Guidebook: A Basic Overview of Vocabulary and Terms’ for enjoyment?

the content makes your head run in circles because of how complicated it is; but who wouldn't like to listen to an extremely attractive man overexplain to you with a calm and pretty voice?)

...is generous enough to provide meals and cook dinners that have you crying tears of gratitude because you know how awful yours compares (it was either too bland or too seasoned; al-haitham is surprisingly picky when he wants to be)

(you assigned al-haitham the title of “absolute s-tier husband material”— his capabilities are out of this world!)

by chance, you once gave al-haitham a little tidbit of information that proved to be valuable later in the investigation—courtesy of your avid game knowledge—when you two had been lost to the psychological illusion magic cast by siraj when you two finally broke in his estate.

(“whatever happens, if siraj messes with your mind, just make sure to think of me instead of anything else.” al-haitham lets his hand find yours.

“you once asked me if i trusted you, [name].”

“....” you're treated to one of al-haitham's rare smiles, one that warms you up from within. “i do. so don't let yourself get hurt.”)

however, your temporary partner had faltered for once, flinching when siraj took the form of his old grandmother who'd passed to exploit al-haitham's mind, hesitating and frozen in place while siraj inched ever closer to finding out his weakness.

and you couldn't stand it, the character you cared for—the al-haitham that always had a plan, always knew how to stay calm, had looked so unsure and hopeless.

(“wake up, al-haitham!”

with you cradling his face, al-haitham stares back at the only constant in the memories of his grief, eyes meeting yours. “you don't have to do it all alone. i'm right here, aren't i? believe in me.”)

your (fake) husband snaps back to reality, finally allowing enough time to apprehend siraj and put a stop to his malicious project.

(“thank you.” al-haitham tells you solemnly. it hits you that this may be the last time you may ever see him. “i'm grateful that you brought me back to y— to my senses.”

there's a sincerity in your voice that rings from your heart. “anytime, al-haitham.”)

you thought that was the end of it.

defeating siraj meant you two no longer had to associate with each other, but somehow, to your great surprise, al-haitham doesn't stick to the plot at all. you were sure you didn't interfere with the game, though?

for some reason, al-haitham doesn't erase himself from your life, unlike the original route's flow.

in fact, he's become... easy to run into, a constant in your otherwise mundane life. he takes you out to lambad's tavern for an occasional drink, says he's lending you his headphones when you find yourself overwhelmed by the city (you were never good with noises) and even helps you out as you vent your problems to him.

(the day after, said problem conveniently disappears. how strange....)

and most of all, allowing you to enter his personal space... leaving kaveh's jaw dropping when he accuses al-haitham of having a lover.

“you're always going who knows where with them! what else is there to figure out?”

“...we are merely friends.”

“a friend that you let into your personal library? do they know that you still keep the ‘fake’ ring in a box inside the closet?” kaveh laughs. “nice try, al-haitham.”

(after all, kaveh could never unsee the way al-haitham's eyes softened at the feeling of the head on his shoulder lean onto him, with you no doubt asleep. he even took his headphones off! kaveh has never seen him actually take them off in order to keep the person who's sleeping on his shoulder as undisturbed as possible.

in fact, kaveh doesn't think he's ever seen al-haitham be this touchy or considerate with anyone this much before.

.....and most importantly, kaveh would never forget the way al-haitham, a man who found no merit in politeness and preferred bluntness, a man who preferred solitude rather than company—deliberately getting close to someone—pressing a fleeting kiss on the crown of your head.

kaveh blinks. it seems even the throes of love can reach even the most unconquerable of peaks....)

( 莱欧斯利 ) WRIOTHESLEY — the monster duke of the north

“—i need you to gather information on duke wriothesley. serve him undercover as one of the prisoners of the fortress.”

the duke of meropide—a man swamped with terrible rumors. they say he was exiled from the nation due to murdering his entire family. they say he possessed a face worthy of the title of a beast— grotesque, littered in scars. they say that any who end up in his estate, the iron prison of the north, meropide, never saw the light of day again.

(“only criminals of the worst kind are fated to be sentenced there. nobody returns, so we've stopped questioning it...” )

so to say you're not fearing for your life that bad right now is a massive understatement.

“now, mind telling me how you were able to sneak into the most impenetrable prison in all the land, miss prisoner?”

how did it end up like this?

so you wake up and find yourself in jail. lovely.

seriously, of all the places you can transmigrate into, why did it have to be fontaine?! Teyvat's Seven Stars chapter 4's main starting point, the nation of justice is littered with dark themes and high difficulty capture targets.

.... such is the case with the man in front of you. unlike what the rumors of him say, duke wriothesley paints a rugged yet dashing picture of a nobleman, even if he was —if you recall— one of the hardest capture targets to conquer in the game.

a villain character who you played once during one game route, acting as the driving force during one of the love events of one of the protagonist's other love interest, lyney. duke wriothesley almost assassinates lyney's younger brother, freminent, leading lyney to rally up a certain group to bring the nobleman down.... a typical side character villain, who's existence was added as late as 3 patches away from lyney's.

(even inazuma would be better than this! at least the tyrant route could be avoided, and let's not mention the easy sumeru route as well...)

“well, miss prisoner, cat got your tongue?”

in summary: fortunately for you, the body you transmigrated is in the position to spy on the current affairs of the fortress of meropide, with courtesy and with permission of one of Fontaine's leaders, neuvillette. unfortunately for you, it seems our dear monsieur wasn't able to inform wriothesley beforehand, leading to the current situation.

aka, you're pressed dangerously close to wriothesley's chest, with a knife at his throat and his hands pinning you against the wall, noses almost touching. you're not sure if this is even the kind of tension that two people who are trying to kill each other are supposed to have...

(“i'm an ally!” you sputter out. wriothesley raises an eyebrow at you. “monsieur neuvillette sent me.”

“how am i supposed to trust you after i saw you slinking around here, knife at my throat?” he replies, eyes narrowing. “i know that i'm labelled as a beast, but i don't really know what came over that pretty little head of yours when trying to sneak into my chambers.”

what does he take you for?! “...are you accusing me of something indecent?!”

“just saying — i've met lots of prisoners with your excuse, my lady.”

“i'm prepared to use this knife, you know.”

“hah.” wriothesley grins. “how aggressive. more aggressive than most. do you want me that bad?”

“stop twisting my words!”)

in any case, you hate wriothesley. you know he's one of the characters in Teyvat's Seven Stars and is a villain for one of the easy love interest routes in the game, but his personality is... a real piece of work.

you'd rather the protective and kind kazuha, or even the charming and elusive lyney! why did it have to be him?

not only did he not believe you, he even told you to prove your authenticity! you're just glad that his assistant sigewinne had been there to vouch for you — you're not sure if you'd even be on your two feet right now if she didn't.

so now you're stuck constantly on your feet, running to and fro — helping the dark-haired man record new prisoners, establishing trading routes to the main city of Fontaine, and treating other prisoners of the fortress with sigewinne.

your biggest surprise by far, though, is just how... different the duke is from the rumors. his scars were merely battle scars of honor (to which sigewinne rolls her eyes, “your grace, please stop trying to look cool”) he got from various succession fights, not scars to show how he was cursed to turn into a beast. he has a love for tea, but always seems to have a cup of your favorite blend with him when you feel tired after a long day of working (laboring) for him and the estate.

(“your daily report of new convicts, your grace.”

“-this is the tea you like, your grace. i've prepared it in advance.”

“you're very adamant on proving yourself. aren't you sick of such tasks by now, miss prisoner?”

“no.” wriothesley's expression screams 'why not?' on it. “ it's because of my own misjudgement of you.”

“...elaborate.”

“i may have had unnecessary prejudices on your conduct thus far. but you're... not like what the rumors paint you out to be.” you say sincerely. “you're more amazing and incredible than anyone else. i truly do admire you.”

wriothesley's expression; you couldn't decipher it. “i see.”)

he's battered, but caring. sigewinne makes you watch (in horror) as she doodles cartoonish looking characters on his face when he's asleep — wriothesley never fusses, only an exasperated sigh to his assistant. he's harsh with his tasks and duties, but is the first to rush you into sigewinne's infirmary to tend to you after you pass out from overwork.

(“don't worry, [name]. the duke may not look it, but he's very gentle!” sigewinne giggles. humoring the little girl who was the first to show you actual decency in this place, you try to nod. sigewinne doesn't seem convinced.

“i'm serious! after all, compared to other people who've snuck into the fortress, you're the first he's treated this way.” she says cheerily.

“what does that mean?” you can't help but scoff at that. “so he just works someone to the bone from the get go?” you shudder. damn production zone...

sigewinne blinks. “ oh no, not like that. it's just that he's never been so lenient before. in fact, when you fainted, he even gave me the order to prioritize treating you over anything else.”)

well, this wasn't exactly what you thought you would be doing when you transmigrated into your favorite game, but you suppose you can take it.

besides, you'd miss a certain duke otherwise. life truly is full of strange twists....

a/n: thank you for making it this far! if anyone asks why wriothesley's was short, listen, this was completely impulsive and i was out of inspiration LOL, but i do hope you enjoy! look forward to new parts though hehe :3

@ ICEUNHIE: do not repost translate or plagiarize my works.

[dilatorywriting]

Twisted Hearts: The DLC

Gender Neutral Reader x The Draconia Fam Word Count: 3.2k

Summary: In which the Isekai Truck Driver of Fate sends you right into the messiest Briar Valley Sitcom you never could have asked for. Found family wasn't meant to come with a kill count, you don't think.

Twisted Hearts was a game that had grown so popular that it had veritably wound up eating itself along the way.

What had started as a simple but effective love story spanning the social hierarchy of a medieval world had shot off into horror game emulators, snack brand sponsorships with weird, integrated advertisements straight out of The Truman Show, and so many DLC character packs that the original cover art boys had all but been drowned in a sea of pastel ikemen with tragic backstories each more miserably sad than the last.

The creators had concocted sweeping romance routes for every available NPC down to the distant, foreign merchant mentioned exactly once in a letter you could unlock during one of seven royal escapade routes. They’d even introduced technology—technomancers, technically. As if a fancy name suddenly made the idea of dragging beep-boop squeaking robots into a world still living without modern plumbing less of a desperate bid for relevancy. They’d run through a hundred heroes and a hundred villains. Written ‘I object!’ into so many wedding scenes that it ought to have been basic tradition for nuptials by this point. The spited lovers laughing in glee could all be overlayed into their own goddamn harmonized symphony, and the list of tropes lined up and ticked off like an itemized to-do list could have made a bureaucrat wince.  

And you hated it.

The miserable, repetitive, corporate slop it had become. A money tree blooming from what had once been a seed of genuine greatness.

No, the original plot had never been anything to write home about. A tale of lovebirds finding solace in one another in a world where pairings were made off practicality and romance treated as a tool. The King falls for his Lowly Servant, and his Vengeful Fiancé will ruin them. The Second Prince falls for his rival royal’s Lowly Servant, and his Vengeful Betrothed will ruin them. The foreign dignitary falls for his host’s Lowly Servant—and on and on. But what had made that generic garbage so worthwhile had been the golden shine of the characters buried beneath it all. True gems hidden just there, right beside the sludge.

So you’d stuck around. For them. As ridiculous as that sounded.

Endured all the pay-to-play walls, and the looping circles of cliffhangers, and the product placement. Scoured each new route like a weary archeologist searching for the creaking remnants of a lost civilization. For just five keys you can unlock a special dialogue branch off the main route with [Selected Character]—

And maybe the original story had just happened to come along at a time in your life when you’d needed it most—had offered up lovely, warm promises of forever when a scarred, fragile heart had wanted that gentleness so terribly. It’s hard to forget the first person who tells you that they love you, that you’re worth something to the world. Even if the voice behind such a sentiment is filtered through the tinny grain of a laptop speaker and their soft smiles grew pixelated at the edges.  

But anyways.

The point of all of that was to say that you knew this goddamned game. You knew every ending, every dialogue pitfall, every enemy, everything.

So you would certainly know when you’d wound up as one of its most reviled antagonists.

‘Brother Complex,’ as they were so often called, did not have a set name. Like Professor Oak so often forgot the moniker of his own flesh and blood, the player was expected to look the littlest Prince or Princess of Briar Valley in the eye and dub them whatever they wished. It was one of the first examples of an otome game so flagrantly allowing their player base to project their most hated foe onto its antagonist. Middle school nerd drama had found a new battle ground in Twisted Hearts: The Regency Routes.

‘Brother Complex’ was a character that hadn’t existed in the original series, but had been incorporated along the line as an extra level of challenge for those who saw Lord Rune’s reign as an obstacle too easily toppled. ‘Brother Complex’ was Malleus Draconia’s adopted sibling—a rare, draconic fae, just like him. One of perhaps the last in existence. ‘Brother Complex’ doted on Malleus, and expected just as much rabid devotion in return. They were expected to grow together, age together, and eventually wed—restoring the dragon race to the land and ruling as a beloved king and queen for all time. And that was what made ‘Brother Complex’ so much more of a fight.

Because the original Malleus hated Lord Rune. Playing the main character in that tale was more a fight to avoid the petulant fae’s attempts on your life than it was to win the male lead’s heart. And no one liked Rune in those timelines. So sneaking your way into the dragon’s arms didn’t leave many dissenting voices in the crowd.

But ‘Brother Complex’ was not that. Malleus adored his sibling, and on top of that, they were two dragons. Veritably destined to wind up mated and married. Childhood friends to lovers with just enough of a sprinkling of forbidden ‘oh, step-bro, what are you doing?’ to make things juicy. So when you played as the MC in that story, you were out there fighting for your goddamned life. Battling with an antagonist who had the male lead wrapped around their little finger, and the entire government body of their world rooting for their success.

On one hand, it made for a genuinely intriguing story. Particularly as the MC uncovered more and more about ‘Brother Complex’ and all of the dastardly deeds carried out in the name of keeping their favored sibling all for themself. On the other hand, it had landed ‘Brother Complex’ at the top of everyone’s villain shit list. They had the worst deaths, the cruelest ends, and the most fandom antagonism you had ever witnessed on god’s green earth. Unlike in many other otome tales where the hero’s failure just meant spiraling into their own demise, you could snap in this one. Kill the scheming sibling when you saw no other option to end their reign of terror, and in doing so, lose the love of your life in the process. Or said sibling could even off themself in the name of laying blame on your weary shoulders—backed into a corner with no way to victory, so deciding to simply take the MC down with them. It was complicated, it was dramatic.

And now your life, it would seem.

Because when you had first woke with teeny, tiny claws for hands and fluffy wings at your back, you hadn’t thought anything terrible at all. Just that Heaven was pretty cool, and you would love to be a dragon. Even if you were only the size of a housecat for now.

But then you’d seen him. Lilia Vanrouge. A man who needed no introduction but received one in every iteration of Twisted Hearts that had ever been released nonetheless. Adopted son of Maleficia Draconia, companion and brother to Maleanor Draconia, father figure and blood uncle to none other than Malleus Draconia, himself—the Cover Art Boy. The hallowed night general who had reared not only the future dark prince, but his sibling.

Brother Complex.

Fuck.

“Oh, you poor thing,” the fae frowned, leaning down amidst the heavy droplets of a Very Convenient Rainstorm to shield your teeny head. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

‘Not letting you pull me into Plot Hell, is what!’ you hissed, instantly scrabbling for a tree, a big rock, anything.

Lilia yelped out a ‘hey!’ and was diving after you before you could blink. He almost got a hand around your tail, but you turned around and bit him square along the wrist until he was cursing under his breath and dropping you back into the mud.

“Get back here! You little—!”

No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. You weren’t going to face down the isekai gods just to wind up as the most hated antagonist in all of bodice-ripping literature. Because what else could you be. With your useless, fat wings and snuffling, silver snout. Made to be a literal foil to Malleus’s sleek, black hide and sharp edges.

You jumped for it—dove into the air like a fat caterpillar dreaming of its wings—and Lilia snatched you out of her freefall with a squawk.

“You—” he gasped, winded, and you smacked him square in the face with the feathered tufts of your tail.

He spat the downy fluff from his mouth and you screamed enough obscenities at him to make the devil blush. But all that came out of your pointy toothed maw was a cacophony of shrieks, and bleats, and growls that were infuriatingly squeaky.  

Lilia huffed, eyes narrowing as you hissed, and spat, and chewed at his fingers.

“You’re not making this easy, you know,” he complained, bordering on good natured, and you wondered if you could force yourself to shit in his lap. “I don’t know how you managed to get yourself stuck all the way out here,” he continued, and you were really focusing now. You swore you could feel your stomach starting to churn. “But for a hatchling—and you—you’re a—"

You opened your mouth and promptly vomited all over his vest.

Lilia gawked, you preened. You burped, a cloud of funky, unpleasant mist that had Lilia wrinkling his nose.

“…Such a baby,” he rumbled under his breath, and you turned up your nose.

But then his palm came down to rest between the buds of your new horns and you froze. Because Lilia was smiling. Small, and crooked, and amused.

“You have a lot of manners to learn, I see.”

You gulped.

Lilia reached up to tweak the point of your snout between his black-tipped nails and you burped again in a miserable effort to burn off his hands. He snorted and tucked you into the loose hood of his cloak, wrapped up like a burrito and restrained. You wiggled, miserable, and Lilia shot you a smirk.

“Nice try, beastie. But I’ve had more than my fair share of experience with unruly children already. You can’t beat me.”

You scrunched up your nose in irritation and then tipped open your silver maw with a yelp. To wail, and wail, and wail the whole way home.

.

.

You arrived at the Wild Rose Palace in the same sort of way that you pictured children sneaking frogs into the house in their back pockets.

Lilia kept you tucked in the folds of his cloak the whole while, whispering promises of treats and toys if you just kept quiet for a little longer. Your lip curled, and you would have screamed out of spite alone. But you’d roared your teeny throat so sore that you couldn’t do much but croak in miserable complaint. A proper pocket toad, indeed.

Eventually the flashes of light from windows, and chandeliers, and who knew what else came to a steady standstill. Soft, repetitive flickers of pale green licking the walls rather than wispy streaks of smudged embers whipping by. Lilia shifted, pulling you from the makeshift cradle of his arms, and you were rumbling on a snarl again all at once. This time he was clever enough to keep his fingers well out of reach, but surely there were more ways you could manage to wiggle free.

“You’re late,” a silken voice trilled, far too amused at something so simple, and from above you, Lilia’s mouth curled into a smirk.

“Oh? We had a prior engagement? Other than you simply taking all your dedicated periods of counsel to tug at my pigtails?”

“I’d cut them right off your head if you still had them,” the other lamented. There was a shfft, expensive fabrics slipping against each other in a waterfall of velvet. “What have you got there? Another mortal bauble for your collections?”

Lilia puffed, and you gnawed determinedly at the buttons on his vest.  

“Not exactly.”

There was a pause—telling, somehow. And the air of whomever Lilia was sparring with shifted alongside it. Into something focused and stern.

“Well. Go on then. Out with it.”

The night general held you aloft in your burrito prison like a baker presenting his most prized loaf of bread out of the oven. And the whole room went silent all at once. Even the crackle of the flaming sconces seemed to fall muted beneath the sweep of… whatever had settled over the hall. You blinked, dizzy from the height, and promptly sneezed in a burst of sparking, silver embers all over the floor.

“…this cannot be.”

“That’s what I thought as well,” Lilia returned, gently lowering you flailing self back down to the floor. You rolled around in a mess of feathers and clumsy wings—scrabbling at the black marble and flopping over face first when your little claws slid right out from under you. Lilia scooped you gently beneath the arms to right you again, and you bowled right back over in an attempt to swat him away. “But I found them. Abandoned by the borders of the Verduous Moors.”

“The Moors?”

Another pause.

You bolted forward, running in place against the slippery floors, and Lilia calmly reached out to pull you back by the scruff with a screech of nails over tile.

“…it’s been years,” the woman continued. Maleanor, you realized. There had only been a few portraits of her shown throughout the whole of the game—that, at least, had been kept sacred no matter how the IP descended into degeneracy—but her regal visage and youthful, sharp face would have been enough to give it away.

She was meant to die, as all Mother’s were in games like this. More space for a soft touch later in life, when the poor, lonely hero needed it most. But clearly whatever tragedy befell her had not yet had a chance to sink its teeth into this happy, blooming family and rend it apart. She looked down at you with narrowed, emerald eyes that crackled with a power that you could feel all the way from across the hall. You shivered before you could help it, curling down into a teeny, tiny ball of scrunchy fluff and feathers.

“And there was no one else? You’re certain?” she pressed, something anxious twisting her lovely features. Her claws drummed against the seat of her throne, sending off sparks of spitting, black static into the air.

Lilia shook his head, already bending to work away at easing you out of your armadillo squat.

“No one, Melly.”

You could have sworn that the Great Queen’s lip wobbled at that. Something quick, and jerky, but there. And then she was clenching her jaw and lolling back against the high back of her throne with a put-upon sigh.

“Well then, do whatever you like with it. It’s hardly my concern.”

You paused in your cycle of burrowing and biting to rear up, startled. None of her concern? But Brother Complex had done nothing but wax on and on about Maleanor’s grace and sweetness—how the dragon queen had so readily brought this new hatchling into her fold. Maybe that little bitch had really just been a liar through and through, or maybe you had already managed to make such a poor impression that Briar Valley’s Matriarch was happy to throw you out on your ass.

You perked up, tail nearly wagging, as you turned to trot towards the nearest window. Ready to take a plunge to freedom.

But then there was another noise.

A small, squeaky yawn and a leathery flutter not unlike a bat’s wings.

You turned before you could help it, serpentine eyes narrowing in on the sound like a second instinct. There, rising from a heap on Maleanor’s lap the same color and sleekness of her ebony dress, was Malleus Draconia. Or, well, the creature that would one day become Malleus Draconia. Right now he was just… a lump. A small, black and purple drake with the proportions of what a dragon might look like if drawn from memory by a toddler. Thick and round at the middle with eyes far too big for his head and wings far too stubby for the rest of him. He yawned again, high pitched and whiny. And instantly Maleanor was bending down to fuss over him with big kissy faces and head scritches.

But Malleus was looking at you.

With those stupidly vacant eyes and head tilted like a dog.

A sharp ‘what the fuck are you looking at’ came out as barely a chirp—like an angry baby bird. And Malleus blinked again, out of sync and slow. Your hackles raised and you paced in place, stomping your little feet and swishing your tail. Because this was the man who would lead to your end in all but a select few timelines. And on top of that, there was some new, core, instinctual part of you that was rearing up afraid over the idea of a strange dragon snuffling around your very delicate self. You bared your fangs and Malleus showed his in a strange, gummy display that almost looked like an attempt at a smile. But awful.

You stomped again and Malleus hopped down from his mother’s lap like a spoiled house cat. He fell half-way off her knees and the Queen had to give him a proper scoop to help him to the floor, but he just rolled forward with it like a pill bug. Used to the coddling.

Your feathery hackles arched up and up the closer he trotted, and off to the side Maleanor and Lilia were sharing an entire, silent conversation in terse looks and astonishment.

Malleus plopped himself down about a foot away, forked tongue flicking past his canines. And he just… stared. There was a low, slow rumble coming from somewhere in his throat, and you Did Not Like It. You curled around yourself with a growl, ears flat and claws kneading anxiously into your tail feathers.

And then the future Dragon King and Demon Lord folded over onto his side like a deflated balloon—head against your furred hip and stared up at you with the most braindead, green eyes you had ever seen in your entire life.

“…Sevens,” someone gawked, and Malleus’s tongue flopped out of his mouth like fucking road kill.

“Do you think he—”

“—Maybe it’s—”

“—And if that’s really—”

You glared down and Malleus returned your bitter leer with something so endlessly empty for a moment you wondered if he was even alive in there at all. He reached out with one of his clawed toes—syrup slow and lazy. And then his talons were kneading into your tail alongside your own, and he sighed contentedly. Burrowing into the fluff there with a strange thrum almost like a purr.

“…well,” Maleanor choked. “I suppose that decides that.”

“It does indeed,” Lilia echoed, sounding distantly astonished.

The princeling hummed again, low and long, and Maleanor murmured something that you did not want to even think about.

“Do you hear that, beastie,” Lilia called, warm. “You’re going to be staying with us now, hmm? How’s that sound?”

You lunged forward and bit Malleus straight in his Cover Boy snout.

.

.

[truthscrapper]

Devlog #1 📚 The Very First Devlog

We announced Truth Scrapper with a beautiful trailer this month!!! The response has been absolutely incredible, thank you so much for following me on another funky memory adventure. Throughout the development of ISAT, I have written monthly devlogs on Steam, talking about the making of the game. People liked them a bunch, so…

That’s right. It’s time. For the Very First Truth Scrapper devlog!

In case you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.

Alright! Development talk time. Where’s the game at?!?!

So, right now, I have just finished writing the script for Day 4, so I "only" have the art, code, and implementation to do for that day. Truth Scrapper is divided in 7 days, with three different routes you can go through from Day 6 onwards. So really, I need to write and code 11 days. Which puts me at almost ⅓ through development! WOAHRGH!?? At this point, I know where the story is going, I know what each route will consist of, etc. I just don’t know the Details. The portraits are all done, backgrounds are done sequentially for every day, gameplay is all figured out… TLDR: It’s In Good Shape!!!

“That was a good short paragraph, but can I have the detailed timeline of the game. Please.” ok fine you asked for it.

The Big Timeline (and some images!) under the cut

📚 this image was made so early in development, it didn't even have Betz's shibari-like pink harness

TRUTH SCRAPPER TIMELINE

DEC 2022: I finish ISAT around NOV 2022. I get an idea. I write it down. It was going to be an RPG but nobody got time for that. Main themes and ending are here. I work on pre-production very slowly over the next couple months (because I am recovering from finishing ISAT and still gotta keep working on post-production stuff for ISAT)

JULY 2023: Ok fine let's make a renpy file and figure out if the most important gameplay thing can be done. AKA: can I make a book menu where the game remembers the choices you make, and how complicated is that gonna be for me to add to it down the line. It works and I am happy

📚 this image was made so early in development, it just looks very bad

AUGUST 2023: Character design. They look Not Great and character design takes me like nine months. Plot is getting somewhere though!

NOV 2023: In Stars and Time comes out. People like it I think.

MARCH 2024: I decide I need to work on something, and decide to work on that and apply for the Ontario Creates grant. This game is actually starting for realsies!!!!!!!

MAY 2024: I actually lock down character designs.

JUNE 2024: I hire Dora, who was the producer of In Stars and Time and who rules.

📚 dora and i signing our lives to one another on discord. the bond between a creator and their producer can never be broken

SEPT 2024: I work on da gaem

MAY 2025: Day 3 is implemented. We announce the game. Now we’re here!!!!

Alright, that’s it for today! This first devlog is more about telling you where the game is at, and every month you will have a whole new devlog where I can tell you about all the great things I did that month for the game. You can even comment with questions and I might answer them one day. Ok. Thank you. And as always, DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Links! 📚 Official Website 📚 Join the Discord 📚 Sign up for my mailing list 📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky 📚 Follow ME on Bluesky

[sevsevteen]

hii im certain i already read this somewhere else but i cannot for the life of me find it

sooo i would love to see your version of it :)

it was 14th member with clown phobia during the gose episode where they have to find the keys in order to get out

i forgot what exactly happened in the fic but i know that was the main plot

just maybe hurt/comfort with the members

if you’re comfortable with it ofc !!

thank you for giving me a reason to rewatch gose (^q^) IT CAME OUT 4 YEARS AGO ?? this was so interesting to write fr; i tried to make the scene as similar as possible to the actual set (i hope)

[GOING SEVENTEEN 2020] The Trap

-- જ⁀➴°⋆

The camera lights dimmed on the rooftop, the rest of the members huddling together, hand-in-hand as they watched the live feed of your turn inside the escape corridor.

Unluckily, your loss in the game of rock, paper, scissors to Hoshi meant you had to walk through the escape route by yourself this time, while he paired up with Joshua.

“Fighting~!” Jeonghan sang through the mic right as you stepped through the metal doors. Along with him, Seungkwan, Jun, Mingyu, Vernon, Dino, Woozi and Wonwoo were already seated in the courtyard of the building after they’d gone though their turns.

“She’s going to scream within ten seconds,” Mingyu grinned, placing a bet with no one in particular.

The screen flickered to life: a grainy night-vision feed of you from the camera strapped on your neck, while one hand shakily gripped a flashlight.

“Okay, It's fake. It’s all fake. It’s literally Chan in a mask, probably,” you whispered to yourself as you stepped through the door.

The first room you approached was dim, one with rusty table-tennis tables that sat in the middle. Your hands swung, pointing the flashlight at anything and everything in the room. 

Sure enough, the first staff appeared at the corner, slowly tilting its oversized jack-the-ripper mask with a janky squeak, his plastic knife reflective against the light. Your shoulders stiffened visibly. You laughed nervously, backing up.

“Ey, don’t do that. I know you’re staff.” You muttered, but your voice cracked mid-sentence.

All was well when you moved on, now in another larger room that with a very cluttered floor. Empty boxes, computer trays, and old DVDs sat across the ground, obviously there to distract you from finding the key.

You bent down, walking at a slower pace this time to scan the ground for the right key.

“Ah...is this not it?” You clicked your tongue, doing a little head tilt before approaching the room's exit on the other side to the next room. The hallway that led to the exit.

.

But the second you turned in, you froze.

There it was.

A grotesque, life-sized clown, slouched in the middle of the hallway, its mask with a face twisted in a sinister smile, red nose glinting under the bare lights.

You felt the familiar buzz of horror, this time, mixed with something entirely new, entirely on instinct. You felt your heart hammering against your ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the rising terror. You tried to tell yourself it was just a prop, part of the game - but it didn’t work.

“Oh– no,” you breathed, instantly backing up. “Nope. Nope. Not doing this.”

Outside, the members burst into laughter.

“She’s overreacting already,” Vernon smirked.

“She definitely knows how to be dramatic,” Seungkwan said, eyes on the screen.

But something was different. You weren’t moving forward.

Inside the corridor, your breathing picked up. “Why can’t I– just go around it?” You asked no one, pressing yourself against the wall nearest to you. Your eyes were wide, body tense like you were fighting every instinct to run.

When the clown tilted its head slightly, your breath hitched.

It didn’t move, just stared. You took one step forward - and the clown lunged.

The air rushed out of your lungs as a shriek tore out of your throat, sharp and raw. Not the exaggerated, playful kind they all used for laughs during these episodes. This one was real. Your blood ran cold. The earlier unease exploded into full-blown, paralyzing terror. Your vision tunneled, the room spinning around the unblinking, painted face of the clown. You stumbled backward, a strangled gasp escaping your lips.

You legs moved before your brain did; You bolted - and slammed headfirst into the locked glass door. You crashed, bouncing back and stumbling, the sound of the chains clinking followed. Your flashlight clattered to the floor, hands scrambling at the locked handles. 

The laughter outside wavered.

“…Wait.” Hoshi sat up straighter.

“That was…” Jun trailed off.

You backed up, curled slightly, hands over your ears, unable to make yourself move as the clown inched closer again.

“Stop. Please stop,” you said shakily. “I can’t- I can’t look at it.”

Silence fell on the rooftop.

“That’s not acting,” Seungcheol said, standing up immediately.

The PD beside them leaned forward in alarm. “Wait– should we cut? That doesn’t look staged–”

“Hyung, pause the recording,” Minghao said, already heading for the hallway door.

.

On the other side, Jeonghan and Mingyu froze.

“Yah!” Mingyu gasped, rushing up the stairs, hands slamming against the glass. “OPEN THE DOOR!”

“What the hell?!” Jeonghan shouted, yanking at the handles. But the chains rattled in place, unmoving.

Inside, your hands were shaking. You slumped down, sliding against the door, your back pressed to the cold glass as tears welled up in your eyes.

“I can’t– I can’t–” Your breaths came out short.

“Hey,” Jeonghan called out firmly, voice muffled but steady. “Hang in there! The others are coming!”

But you couldn’t focus anymore. You didn’t care if the clown was still in the hallway or not - the fear had already won. Your phobia wasn’t just nerves. It was real.

Every part of you trembled like your body wasn’t your own anymore. Your breath came in shallow spurts. Your knees tucked close to your chest as you pressed your forehead against your knees.

Outside, Wonwoo paced, fists clenched, visibly pale.

“This isn’t right,” Jun muttered. “She’s really scared.”

In the courtyard, even as the production team watched, they grew alarmed. It wasn’t the kind of reaction they were expecting - not one this serious.

But phobias don’t always make sense.

So when Seungcheol and Hoshi came sprinting down the hall with staff keys, the door was yanked open immediately.

You didn’t even wait.

The moment the chain loosened, you stumbled forward straight into Jeonghan’s chest, arms wrapping around him tightly. He barely reacted — just curled one arm around your shoulders, his free hand smoothing down the back of your head.

“It’s okay. We’re here now. You’re okay,” he whispered.

.

You sat bundled in a hoodie and blanket in the yard, sipping water with trembling hands. Your face is pale, eyes still glassy from the rush of adrenaline.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered. “I didn’t know I was actually scared of them. It’s so dumb–”

“It’s not dumb,” Jihoon said firmly. “Phobias aren’t logical.”

“You were shaking,” Chan added, his hand resting gently on your shoulder.

“You don’t have to finish that challenge,” Seungcheol told you softly. “The footage we got already proves how strong you were for even walking in there.”

You let out a breathy laugh. “I think I almost punched a clown.”

--

[thewritingfairy]

↪ 17. A deck of cards

PREV PART I've yet to completely decide on the route of the good ending so at the end there is a poll where you basically chose the plot, but I might make outtake chapters with the other routes in a condensed form trigger warnings: (past) violence, (past, kinda) medical + physical + emotional neglect, DRUGGING, delusional batfamily, anger, tell me if I missed any! main m.list    series m.list    bad ending m.list

Dick had never felt this anxiety, not when Jason was kidnapped by the Joker, not even on his various undercover missions. Jason and him smashed the head in of a civilian, one you care deeply about. Fuck, he never harmed a civilian to this extent and Jason didn’t even seem to care. He was just going through the day as if nothing happened.

When they told Bruce what he did, he seemed almost proud. Glad that his two eldest sons are finally taking matters in their own hands, especially since you aren’t coming around. Why can’t you just fall in line? If you had just fallen in line Dick wouldn’t have become all he fights against. Can’t you see?! This is all your fault!

But Duke’s reaction solidified that they fucked up.

“What the fuck have you done?!” He shouts at them, getting right up in their faces. Honestly, at this point this is the whole relationship they have with Duke. He barely tolerates them on the field and they might have even burned that bridge. “What did you think would happen if you went after (Name)’s friends?! That they wouldn’t realise it was you two?!”

Jason groans, he should have threatened them more. He should have made sure they couldn’t speak after that little confrontation. “What does it matter?!” Jason shouts throwing his hands up like he’s a toddler. “Those friends are a terrible influence on them!”

And Dick can’t help but agree, he truly wants to feel guilt for what he did but he just doesn’t. He doesn’t because all they have done is try and get the family back together. All they have done was to protect you and if you can’t see that that’s your fault. “Please,” Dick spat out as he takes in Duke’s expression. “I know you agree with us, you wince every time (Name) brings up your so called mutual friends. You grimace every time you need to see them when they aren’t looking!”

Duke laughs, he just can’t help it, Dick is trying to establish a connection to him. Sure, he doesn’t like your mutual friends as much as you do, but that’s because he has just joined the friend group. He just needs to warm up to them, right?

Still Duke doesn’t know what to say back, because Dick is right. He does grimace and winces every time you turn away after talking about your plans with them. So he turns to Bruce who looks obviously confused. “Good luck cleaning up your sons mess after you clean up your own,” he says in a mocking tone. “tampering with your own child’s medication, how low can you get?”

Bruce tampered with your medication. Your father tampered with your medication. You knew he was a piece of shit, you knew that he was starting to feel entitled to managing your health, but to do this? Is he a fool? He could have killed you had your doctor not been suspicious, you’re lucky he won’t report it to the police because if there is anything you don’t need it’s a police investigation. At least not for now.

You will need one eventually, but not until the court of public opinion is on your side. Bruce could easily pay of anyone he wants to, and everyone in Gotham seems obsessed with upholding the Wayne name (well almost everyone). If you do not have the public’s support nothing will happen even if you find some criminals that don’t care about the Wayne name.

You need to find someone to leak the files you have on your family without it being traced back to you or should Duke do it so that he stays out of the crossfire? No matter what you do your family will know, but the public shouldn’t. They need to feel as if you are the perfect victim even if there is no such thing, because otherwise they will put the blame onto you.

The only thing you wouldn’t destroy is the Bat-family’s reputation, not when Gotham still needs them. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make their life harder.

That’s the only mercy you’ll show them.

After you got permission to take photo’s of Willow’s and Warren’s injuries you started documenting everything, the test results that came back on your medication and the possible outcomes of Willow’s injuries. Your brothers are lucky she didn’t have a haemorrhage, because if Willow died you wouldn’t be this kind. You would have burned the manor down with all of them inside.

You would have askedthe Penguin to connect you to Slade, a terrible man who kills with no mercy, one of your favourite customers. Incredibly polite, just a tad bit too obsessed with Nightwing for your liking and most of importantly, he can be bought.

But you aren’t going down that route yet.

You just need to convince Penguin that it’s worth attacking your family with a social media bomb. That it’s worth to dismantle the Gotham Elite and to not ignore Bruce Wayne, even with all the ‘good’ he does as himself.

You don’t have a concrete plan yet, that much is obvious. You still need to figure out a way to get out of that house without Bruce being able to claim that you ran away or have been kidnapped….

Just look at the deck of cards in your hands, you might have to use them all or perhaps one bluff will be enough to burn that house of deceit down.

NEXT PART short for poll's sake

taglist (CLOSED): @prettiest-thing-in-the-morgue, @bunniotomia, @devotedlyshamelessdetective, @princessbonnie-bell, @seemee3, @pix-stuff, @venomsvl, @amber-content, @stove-top96, @frank-vanderboom, @leeiasure, @1abi, @shadowytravelerlover, @chericia, @lithiumval, @lingxio, @cssammyyarts, @marsmabe, @foolishseven, @kore-of-the-underworld, @bunbunboysworld, @homeless-clown, @miashico, @alwaysholymilkshake, @1cxndy, @kittzu, @rtyuy1346, @exactlynumberonekryptonite, @hopingtoclearmedschool, @artistwithcreativeburnout, @alishii, @vanessa-boo, @holylonelyponyeatingmacaroni, @91-kya, @ryuushou, @jjsmeowthie, @justthere1956, @depressed--therapist, @xzmickeyzx, @cheappremingerfromdelululand, @plsfckmedxddy, @itsberrydreemurstuff, @trashlaternfish360, @leogf, @dirtydiavolo, @lilyalone, @welpthisisboring, @kenman00001, @nxdxsworld, @icefox8155, @ironsaladwitch, @holderoflostmemories, @asillysimp, @wisefuncherryblossom, @eyeless-kun, @marina27826, @muggleloveralways, @ironsaladwitch, @shyenemyperson, @iamaunknownsecret

[sunderwight]

PIDW but it's a game.

You play as Luo Binghe, the lowliest disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's Qing Jing Peak. The first part of the game proceeds more or less like a semi-normal fantasy dating sim -- Luo Binghe is bullied and downtrodden, but can seek help and opportunities to build relationships with various female characters, like Ning Yingying and Liu Mingyan. The game's interface implies a truly staggering number of potential romance candidates to unlock, however, so it makes sense that the first part in your disciple years doesn't get you very far in any of the routes.

But then for the second part, things start to shift. You get an option that seems to amount to asking whether you want to make things better for Luo Binghe or not. When you click the obvious choice, that you do, your previously cold and ruthless shizun seems to go through an inexplicable change of heart. You get a weird kind of fanservice-y scene featuring him during the Skinner Demon Mission. Then he features extremely heavily in the Demon Invasion Mission, only to turn up as your companion in the Dream Demon Mission.

After that, it seems like you've gotten onto his route, somehow? Why does the scummy male teacher even have a route in a game like this, though? You try to check for player guides but you can't seem to find any. You try reloading older saves and making other selections, but no matter what you choose, you end up finishing the Dream Demon Mission by moving into Shen Qingqiu's house, and the routes for Liu Mingyan and Ning Yingying and the briefly-encountered Sha Hualing are all greyed out.

But maybe that just means they're inaccessible for advancement for now, or something. And a lot of games have plot points that are on rails, and you can see where Luo Binghe actually getting a place to live would be one of those things. The format of the game changes as well, going from a relatively loose sequence of scenes and interactions to a daily management style, where you have tasks to complete (make shizun breakfast, go to morning lessons, cultivate, do chores, etc) and only a set number of hours in which to complete them. You have affection points, but any time you try to spend them on anyone other than Shen Qingqiu you get an error message. There are dialogue options for flirting with other characters, but they're always greyed out and impossible to select.

Still, you can unlock scenes. A lot of them are just long slow shots of Shen Qingqiu doing things, like reading, or lecturing, or eating. You get missions, and sometimes you meet female characters who seem to unlock new possible romance paths, even though they're still constantly greyed out. Maybe this part of the game's just especially on rails? Waiting for the actual harem-building segment? You kind of like a lot of aspects of it anyway, though. Luo Binghe is an especially compelling character, not at all like the usual sort of non-entity placeholder main guys in games like this. He definitely has personality.

But then you get to the third part. The Abyss. Shen Qingqiu pushes Luo Binghe in, and suddenly you're wondering if you've somehow reached a bad end. You were saving up some of those affection points for later, maybe you should have spent them all on him? Was there something you did wrong to make this happen? You're not even sure why he's thrown poor Binghe away, he was cold and cryptic about it, and now you're wondering if all the time you spent distracted by other things was time you should have spent farming a better relationship with him. You can't help but wonder where you went astray, because Luo Binghe will not stop wondering about it, and wondering about it in ways that make you feel oddly like he is accusing you, the player, of making the wrong choices... but in a way that could still plausibly be aimed at himself, as a character. You feel bad. You kind of want to restart, but you also can't bring yourself to abandon Luo Binghe. You have to see this through, to help him make it to the other side.

Regardless, the Endless Abyss seems like it must be an inevitable plot development. A lot of the game shifts to account for it. There's even an option to essentially select this "thought" from Luo Binghe's internal diatribe, that this is inevitable, and it seems to turn off the litany of recriminations for a while, although sometimes it also results in Luo Binghe... glaring at the screen?

At you?

Anyway the daily management system goes out of the window, and instead there's an energy bar now. Encounters with monsters or the occasional demon woman will lower the energy bar, how much depends on what you choose and how the encounters proceed. Sometimes there are romantic/sexy responses for interacting with the demon women you meet, and they aren't greyed out, but if you try and select them the cursor will jump to another option. You think there might be something wrong with your mouse? Sometimes you get Luo Binghe glaring at the screen scenes afterwards. When Binghe's energy bar hits zero, you're offered two choices -- "sleep" or "think of shizun". Sometimes even if you pick "sleep" the cursor will still jump to "think of shizun", and you'll be treated to another one of those slow lingering scenes of Shen Qingqiu. Except they are becoming increasingly strange, obviously warped by the exhaustion and trauma of the situation, so that aspects are eerie or even disturbing. For example, sometimes Shen Qingqiu seems to be missing limbs, or eyes. Sometimes there's blood on his hands. Sometimes the food he's eating is rotted, or the bamboo house background looks like the Qing Jing Peak wood shed. That kind of thing. You don't mind the idea of harm coming to the man. He deserves it, really, for pushing Luo Binghe into the Abyss. But the few times you try and select options along those lines, the UI glitches again.

Also the "think of shizun" option only restores a quarter of the energy bar, whereas resting restores all of it. But if you try to go for too long without doing it, it will lock you into choosing it successively for a long time.

In addition to the energy bar, there's a calendar. It's not all that sophisticated or even consistent, and it's clearly meant to reflect the fact that Luo Binghe has troubles accurately judging the passage of time in the Abyss. However, the longer you spend in the Abyss, the more violent and unhinged things start to become, and the more the UI starts glitching to reveal disturbing messages, and the more often Luo Binghe "glaring" scenes happen. So you decide to do your best to get Binghe out of here as quickly as possible. This part of the game must be broken, but hopefully if you can make to the next segment, it will work properly again.

Eventually you get to the Xin Mo Mission, which is the last part of the Abyss section, and Luo Binghe escapes.

But the weirdness continues. Worsens, even. You still get missions to like, take over the demon realms and infiltrate Huan Hua Palace, all cool stuff, and you still meet girls who seem to unlock possibly romance paths. But most of the time everything is greyed out. There will be 5 dialogue options but maybe only 1 or 2 of them will be selectable. Parts of the menu are inaccessible. You don't have an energy bar anymore, you have a Xin Mo corruption bar, and it just keeps steadily rising. Sometimes you're presented the option of propositioning a character to "mitigate corruption", but if you try and click it the game glitches or the cursor freaks out and it fails. Sometimes the game crashes outright, and when you reload your last save, it starts with Luo Binghe glaring at you through the screen. You still get the "rest" and "think of shizun" options at times, but neither one helps the corruption bar.

Then. Jinlan City. You reunite with Shen Qingqiu. There seem to be a lot of options for acting vengefully towards him, but they're all greyed out, except for a few which let you chase him down or manhandle him a bit. The whole segment is frustrating, full of weird fanservice-y moments but also mired in how little Shen Qingqiu will say, how often he insists on evading or running away, and how Luo Binghe doesn't seem to have the right prompts to actually get him to explain himself. At times it seems like the "think of shizun" mechanic is bleeding over into the real interactions with the character, so that you can't tell what's really going on vs what are the manifestation of Luo Binghe's trauma or even hallucinations. The Xin Mo bar has maxed out. You have to catch Shen Qinqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu--

Then suddenly the bar is at 0, and you're watching Shen Qingqiu's lifeless body fall towards the ground, his energy expended in the effort to push back the corruption. Like, all of his energy.

You catch Shen Qingqiu. Or at least, you stop his corpse from hitting the dirt.

Now the game art is crisp and clean again. All the weird UI artifacts and blocked-off menus are either gone altogether or else working properly. The sound, which had been very gradually deteriorating with low-pitched ringing and muffled portions, is normal. You can hear characters gasping and distantly shouting, and birds chirping somewhere, the ragged cadence of Luo Binghe's breaths, while the camera focuses on Shen Qingqiu's body.

Huh, you think. That's a sort of dramatic resolution to that plot arc, and it raised more questions about Shen Qingqiu than it answered, really. But at least it's over with now? Does this mean Luo Binghe can finally start to recover, or advance other plots?

Then everything blacks out. You get booted to the main menu, or something that looks like it, except the only option you can select now is the New Game+ one.

When you click it, it seems like you've started the whole game over again. Except that there is a Xin Mo corruption bar, greyed out, already waiting for in a corner of the screen. And instead of starting out with a view of Qing Jing Peak, you start out with the young Luo Binghe looking directly towards you. Like he's staring through the screen. It's the basic starting point character, except he already has his demon mark on his forehead, and his expression is way more cold and calculating than anything the junior protagonist would have worn.

"Don't get in my way," he warns.

Then the game proceeds like a visual novel with extremely limited choices. The old selections and the menu for various romance routes don't even appear, the menus have all changed again, this time oriented entirely around hiding Luo Binghe's demonic cultivation (while building it) and managing daily choices and Shen Qingqiu's relationship status. A romance game with only one romance route, and it's the treacherous crusty old teacher? Wtf? But otherwise it seems almost normal, except for the special faint-lettered red options that sometimes appear in weird places on the screen, suggesting things like preventing the Skinner demon from catching you unawares, or saving Shen Qingqiu from Without a Cure poisoning, or keeping out of the Endless Abyss.

Those options seem like they should create different outcomes, and you click them whenever they show up, but they consistently fail. As if there's some other force in the game pushing things back onto the rails no matter what you do...

Anyway, eventually you get through the main plot again, and Shen Qingqiu dies once more. This time the game keeps going from that point, however, with quests to try and find ways to resurrect him. You're starting to wonder why you're still playing -- after all, you signed up for a harem game, not this tragic gay love story? You're not even gay! It's just that Luo Binghe is such a compelling character. You decide it's time to take a break, though, so you get up, do some stretches, go to the bathroom, etc.

It feels like someone's watching you.

You've definitely been playing that game for too long. Sometimes you think you catch sight of Luo Binghe's face out of the corner of your eye, in the bathroom mirror or on the black surface of your phone's screen, just before you turn it on. But when you look twice or turn your phone off again, nothing's there. You call your little sister, to apologize for dropping off the face of the earth for a bit, and you joke about getting too invested in this weird game that might be broken? She hasn't heard of it, but she sounds a little worried as she suggests maybe coming over and taking you out to lunch, or something.

You decline -- she's got a lot on her plate, and she mentioned already having plans earlier -- but then you promise to get some fresh air anyway. But when you go to head out, somehow you find yourself turning away at the last minute. You try again, and yet it's like you just keep getting distracted before you can open the door. After a few tries you give up, swallowing down your growing unease. You take off your shoes and coat. When it comes to it, you really do want to find out what happens to Luo Binghe next.

The game is running.

You don't remember turning it back on...?

The screen is focused on the familiar image of Shen Qingqiu's preserved corpse. You can see Luo Binghe's hand in the frame as well, transferring qi in yet another familiar sequence, the one that seems to run at the end of every in-game day. There's some text.

Is it you? the red letters ask, scrawling and flickering, as if someone is attempting to write directly onto the screen. Are you the one behind all this? Thwarting me at every turn?

Yes/No options appear in the game's usual font and position. You try to click "no", even though you're unsure and feel like you must have missed a scene somehow. But the interface warps and when you hit "no" it changes to Stay Silent.

I can't figure out. Are you here to help me, or get in my way?

Help/Harm. You click "help" but again it changes to "stay silent" afterwards.

What do you want from me?

This time there's no option to select at first. Then, as if being shoved onto the screen by some alternative function, a text box opens up. Like the kind that some games have for implementing cheats or selecting character names. This particular game has never shown such a function before, Luo Binghe's name was locked in and you don't even know if it has cheats. The cursor blinks, and somehow it feels as if you have only one chance, and if you don't take it now, it will be gone forever.

You type in "help" and barely manage to hit enter before the interface blinks out. No list of prompts or possible options appear.

Shizun? the red text scrawls, shakily.

Then the whole game crashes.

You wait, but it doesn't start up again. You try to run it again, but you can't find it on your system, somehow. Really weird. Even if it had crashed, it shouldn't have gotten deleted? But you still can't find it. You start to feel genuinely alarmed. Not only can you not find the game on your system, but when you try and search for it absolutely nothing comes up. You try and go to the online shop page for it, but you can't remember where you actually got it from in the first place, now that you're thinking about it.

What bullshit is this?

What, was the game actually some kind of virus? It couldn't have been. Also who would make a virus like that? You get up and pace, trying to make sense of it.

It's gotta be some kind of mistake. Maybe you've just missed too much sleep, you're not thinking right. You'll take a break and when you come back you'll realize that you were just looking in all the wrong places, somehow.

You head over to the fridge to grab something to eat.

You can't remember the last time you went shopping, but the food in there is probably still fine. Right?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since you've mentioned Scarlet Lady in one of your posts, what's your opinion on it?

I've mentioned before that I'm a big Scarlet Lady fan, which is the only reason that I'm comfortable answering asks like this one. I don't publicly criticize the content of hobby creators. That's wildly inappropriate! Punch up, not down.

The linked post was a general discussion of the adaptation process and how @zoe-oneesama did a fantastic job, so for this one, I'm just going to do some general gushing because I do actually like praising and enjoying things!

Scarlet Lady's chosen format (comic) allows it to have this wonderful conversation with canon where it can rely on the framework of canon to tell it's own story while also using canon for jokes and meta commentary. This means that Scarlet Lady is about as close as fan content can get to a direct reboot because it's able to have moments like this one from the comic's first post:

[Image description: Adrien standing in his room after transforming into Chat Noir for the first time. He is beaming and his eyes are shining with excitement as he exclaims, "This is gonna be awesome!"]

A single picture that communicates everything we need to know about Adrien getting his miraculous. When I've done this same thing in fanfic, I had to write out the full scene because that's how novels work. You have to give the full picture. With a comic, you can just quickly acknowledge this thing that we all already know and then move on to the new stuff. A picture really is worth a thousand words! (Or, in my case, more like two thousand...)

This allows Zoe to keep the same akumas that we get in canon without her story feeling like a boring rehash because she can focus on what's different in her version. A novelization of the same content would have to show both the stuff that stays the same and the stuff that changes for it to be coherent. That's a lot less fun to read and write. It's why I basically never revisit canon akumas in my own stuff. It's just too derivative for the written word.

This is one of the big reasons that I loved Scarlet Lady. Because it was able to have that more directly conversation with canon, it was able to take canon and say, "hey, why don't we embrace the tone that you established in season one and retell the story with that vibe?" That's something that I desperately wanted to see, but that is totally unsuited to my chosen artistic form. It couldn't be a novel. It had to be a comic.

If you want to know what a true formula show version of Miraculous would look like, Scarlet Lady is it. It does everything that Miraculous should have done:

Sticks to a lighthearted tone where nothing is ever super serious

Keeps Gabriel entirely unsympathetic

Has slow character development and background hints at a bigger plot as the only serial elements, allowing the individual episodes to be their own story while never feeling incomplete or rushed

Allows characters other than Marinette to shine while keeping Marinette as the clear main character

Makes Adrien narratively important

MAKES THE LOVE SQUARE CUTE SO I CAN ACTUALLY SHIP IT

Understands that Lila and Chloe can't coexist as antagonists

Reverses the love square, which is the best way to tell their story. Yes, I will die on my "love diamond" hill. It's a good hill. Come join me. I'll bring cookies.

I could keep going, but you hopefully get my point. While Scarlet Lady is certainly not the only way to do a formula version of canon, it's proof that a formula version does work! You don't have to go the serious route for Miraculous to be successful.

I want to take some time to gush about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so I'll put that gushing under a "read more" in case anyone hasn't seen it. I'll finish out this less spoilerish section with this:

I feel like some people are surprised when they learn that I love Scarlet Lady because - as some of you have probably picked up - it is quite different from my ideal version of canon. I'm not sure why that would stop me from enjoying a thing, though. It's important to remember that our personal ideals are not the only way to tell a good story. There are lots of ways to take what canon gave us and make something wonderful! It's part of the reason that I enjoy being in a fandom.

If I only wanted to see my ideal take on canon, then I'd stick to writing/imagining my own stories. But I don't want that! I like seeing alternate takes, too. Scarlet Lady is one of my personal favorites. It's completely different from anything that I'd ever think to write and that's why I'm so glad that it exists! I like being entertained just as much as I like creating my own entertainment and I don't want to only read stories that look like something I'd write. That's boring!

Spoilers below:

I've mentioned before that there are many, many ways to properly handle Chloe's character and Zoe did such a good job with her take on that! Chloe isn't absolved of all the things she did wrong, but she's also treated as a young woman with the ability to change.

While the comic bares the name of Chloe's alter ego, she was the never the main character. She never went on a journey. The story kept her to her shallow season-one self: a petty brat who just wanted attention. It did this because that's who Chloe was in canon and who Chloe needed to be for the comic to work.

The first time we see any complexity from Chloe is in the comic's final few episodes, which was absolutely the right call for Zoe to make! In a recent post, I talked about how the end of a formula show is the only time when you can break the formula in catastrophic ways and that's what Zoe did. She kept Chloe static until it was time to end the story and that's when the formula breaks. That's when Chloe gets depth because, once she has depth, the formula doesn't work.

That depth is not used to redeem Chloe, but to show us that there's hope for Chloe. That this petty brat who we've been dealing with has some serious issues and needs help. Help that she's going to get far away from the people that she's hurt because her issues aren't an excuse for what she's done. They don't erase the harm that she caused. At the same time, understanding her issues makes us hope that she can be better now and Scarlet Lady took a moment to give us that hope. To show us the START of Chloe's true story.

That is the kind of ending that I have wanted to see in so many properties!!! It was so wonderful to finally get one that did this right. A story that understood that full redemption to the team and damnation to death/suffering are extremes on a scale of possibilities. You don't have to go to extremes! You can fall in the middle and the middle is a perfect, natural place for Chloe to land in this kind of story. Fully redeeming or even fully damning Chloe simply doesn't work in lighthearted formula content. It's too big a lift as canon has already demonstrated.

I also loved Zoe's take on Emilie. I've mentioned that I don't like evil Emilie in part because it makes her revival feel like the start of a new story. She's back and she'd bad, so we have to take her down now! But I don't want that. I want the story to end when Gabriel is stopped. Zoe does this by giving us an Emilie that is another perfect middle ground. She matches canon's uncomfortable implications without feeling like a true villain who is a threat to society.

[interact-if]

Writing Spotlight: Infamous (Interview)

We had the great pleasure to interview Amy, author of the massively beloved IF Infamous (@infamous-if). She shared some tips, tricks, and insights on her approach to writing.

One of the most notable things about Infamous is how quickly readers get sucked into its world and invested in its web of characters — be it Orion or Blake or G or Victoria or the slightly controversial Seven. They are all incredibly multi-faceted, complex, and sometimes heartbreakingly real.

Amy says:

“I’ve read something by a writer once that I’ve followed faithfully: you should always know what’s happening in the other room. Even if it won’t be available to readers, it helps establish the world and characters as real, tangible things that don’t just poof out of existence once they walk ‘off-screen’ so to speak.”

Here’s the full interview:

1. What drew you to interactive fiction as a storytelling medium? Did you have any experience writing in other formats before, and if so, would you say there’s any differences in the way writing for IFs should be approached?

There’s so much about writing interactive fiction that I love, but I think the main one is the freedom that comes with it! There are so many ideas I can explore, so many endings and storylines. It’s just as fun for writers as it is for readers to push the limits of what their world and characters can do. You can truly sink your teeth into it and develop the story in ways you don’t see often. 

Coming from writing traditional fiction and having never written an interactive story before, I did need to change my mindset a little. You have to learn to be flexible. Very often, I’m writing routes I wouldn’t particularly take as a reader, and it’s interesting to go against my gut to offer a varied experience. I’ve discovered a lot of fun things about Infamous and its characters from routes I would never take if I were reading it in another IF!

2. What does your writing process look like?

I am a plotter to my core! I am endlessly envious of writers who can pants their way through a scene or a chapter. I need to outline every single beat, every scene, every conversation. The plot comes to me first and then I slowly build the main character around that and ask myself what kind of story I want to tell with that main character.

The MC in Infamous leans heavily into the ‘underdog’ trope. That’s how I got much of MC’s personality from. The main thing I ask myself when building the main character is: what do they have, what do they want, and what do they need? I use that to inform the rest of the cast and the stats. My main goal is that every piece works in tandem with the others. They all make sense in my head! 

3. What does good writing / good characters / good world-building etc. mean to you, and what are some central tenets or principles you follow to achieve that? 

A story that gets me invested is a success in my eyes. I want to care for the characters and feel like the world is one that truly exists somewhere. I’ve read something by a writer once that I’ve followed faithfully: you should always know what’s happening in the other room. Even if it won’t be available to readers, it helps establish the world and characters as real, tangible things that don’t just poof out of existence once they walk ‘off-screen’ so to speak. The characters had lives before the story started, people they knew and things they’ve experienced. It informs their personalities and builds them what they are once you meet them on page.

The world is still turning even while the main character is asleep. Things are still happening everywhere…even when we don’t see it. That’s how I try to approach every story to bring it to life. 

4. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting out in interactive fiction?

Be firm! It’s so easy to get swept up in the excitement of having an audience and wanting to keep that audience. It’s not uncommon to make the mistake of overpromising to please every reader. You won’t be able to, trust me! You’ll only write yourself in a corner. It’s healthy to find a good balance between sticking to your gut and accepting/being open to suggestions. 

A tinier one but: know your endings! It’s best to know what you’re writing toward. It’ll be so much easier to stick to the story and avoid meandering through the plot if you know how each route ends. Everything I write is to get to that ending in one way or the other.

5. Where do you find your ideas or inspiration for new stories or mechanics?Where did your story idea originate? Has it strayed far from that concept/evolved during the writing process? 

I guess it’s quite on brand to say that almost every story idea I’ve had came from a song, Infamous included. My head is always thinking of songs as potential needle drops or playlists as movie soundtracks. Infamous in particular, was formed from Brie Larson’s cover of Black Sheep in the Scott Pilgrim movie. It features a Battle of the Bands sequence that made me want to read a story with the same concept. I scoured and scoured for a band IF that scratched that particular itch but didn’t find any. Eventually, I gave in and did it myself! That’s one of the best parts of the community; you can just do it. 

Surprisingly, this is one of the few stories of mine that hasn’t strayed far from the original idea. I think it helps that I’m writing exactly what I wanted to read once upon a time.

End of interview

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A big thanks once again to Amy for her insightful answers, and @veswrites-if for taking the time to coordinate the interview. Hope that this was a fun and interesting read.

Stay tuned for more of these interviews :)