#dovetail games

[notaplaceofhonour]

my autism is calling me

[savingcontent]

Thomas & Friends Visit the West Somerset Railway DLC for Train Sim World 5 arrives at the station today

Continue reading Thomas & Friends Visit the West Somerset Railway DLC for Train Sim World 5 arrives at the station today

[sphinx-myth]

me trying to find a game company for work experience: ah rockstar has a place in london.

dovetail games: we support connections with your school

me:.. oh look ubisoft and a few other have some in england too

dovetail: we are like right next to you

me: ... how about waterstones, that seems fun

dovetail: we love our games :3

me: i dont.

dovetail: they have good graphics and mechanics for you to learn

me:... owl farm..?

[brutalgamer]

Catan - Console Edition brings the board game to life on Switch

Classic tabletop game Catan is making the leap to the Nintendo Switch, with today’s Catan – Console Edition.

[deathcupcake]

Dragon Age The Veilguard Atmosphere 1/?

Behold the cheese.

[mercyisms]

ooh diff anon - would you happen to remember when/where Tamsyn talked about playing disco elysium? And def agree about the fun women characters there; imo klaasje is simply a woman of all time... litmus test for me is if people love her or hate her (and 90% of the subreddit fails babey)

you are so correct for that, anon. one must also agree that klassje/ruby is an all timer. regrettably, i am deep in joyce messier's pocket, but i acknowledge that this is a me problem. me and my eternal weakness for evil old women. a lifetime affliction. tamsyn mentioned she played disco elysium in this one reddit AMA answer, but i never forgot it. she also discusses a few other video games she's played in this reddit answer. (as someone who played kingdom of loathing as a doe-eyed tweenager, it felt very oh, of course that this was something on tamsyn's radar.) frankly, it's just almost infuriating that she can turn out so much wonderful prose and be such a prolific gamer. i wish i had that skill.

[ct-hardcase]

For the headcanon game, Kanan and Hera?

Headcanon A (what I think realistically): Kanan and Hera were absolutely in a romantic relationship-cum-situationship for years but Hera had trouble specifically expressing "I love you" because her whole life had been war up until that point, and saying that out loud meant a commitment to Kanan that would last beyond it. Of course, Kanan and Hera would lay their lives on the line for each other (and did!) but it's the saying it out loud that was the sticking point, not the actions that defined it.

Headcanon B (what I think is fucking hilarious): Before getting sober, Kanan absolutely had a moment where he was drunk enough that he stumbled onto the Ghost, Hera tried to kiss him goodnight/tuck him in/help him change, and he confidently slurred that he was flattered/very sorry, but he has a girlfriend, before collapsing asleep on the Ghost's couch.

Headcanon C (what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends): uhhh honestly canon has me pretty covered there too, since Kanan never got to spend peacetime with his wife or get to know his biological son.

Headcanon D (what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway): I think canon did a lot right with Kanan and Hera, to the point where I wouldn't want to change it (or I bandaid headcanon it, like I did for Headcanon A). In lieu of a romantic headcanon, I'll hc here that Zeb was treated like an adult peer by them since before Rebels s1 and that the "one of the kids" thing was an ongoing joke that stuck after they saw Zeb having a rivalry with the very teenage Sabine and Ezra.

[zevfern]

Paraphrasing something since I finished my Mass Effect Trilogy run. Spoilers for it and the Bionicle Ignition comic book below.

"In his last moments, Shepard feels no fear. He know he has succeeded--life in the galaxy is finally safe. Organics and synthetics will be forever free from repeating the cycle of destruction."

"Shepard does not see himself as a hero. As an Alliance Soldier, an N7 Commando and as a Spectre, all he ever tried to do was his duty. Now that duty has led him to his destiny."

[warrenwoodhouse]

Warren Woodhouse on Dovetail Games’ Creators Club

[radiantmists]

I'm pretty new to non-5e ttrpgs so I could be wrong, but it seems like the reason these wouldn't get made is because the involved character creation process would feel pointless if the choices you make during it don't affect how your character interacts with the game, but that means that every choice you had the chance to make during character creation is now part of the official logic tree of 'things to think about before doing a game action'/'things that affect how an action pans out'.

I imagine a game creator could make a game where a complicated character creation process culminates in a very small number of gameplay-affecting characteristics, without too many niche mechanics for unique abilities/past traumas/allegiances/what-have-you, but i assume that would mean that even if you and your friend take wildly different paths through that process you might end up with characters who are stat-wise the same, and then you're right back at a 'simple character-creation, simple gameplay' system where the individuality of your character is in your hands, and you just have to roleplay them accordingly.

I suppose having been forced to think about those things would affect how a player roleplays a character, and obviously people enjoy that process on its own, but I can see how for a game developer it would feel like a waste of effort to figure out the whole thing when it has almost no mechanical weight.

The trouble with designing crunchy tabletop RPGs is that the people who want extremely complicated character creation rules and the people who want extremely complicated procedures of play comprise a Venn diagram with only partial overlap, so you keep getting people showing up at your table who put together wonderfully baroque character sheets which they haven't the slightest idea how to effectively play. What we really need to cut that particular Gordian knot is a game whose character creation rules are four hundred pages long and require flowcharts to properly understand, and whose procedures of play fit on an index card.

[savingcontent]

London Overground Mildmay line is out now for Train Sim World 5

Continue reading London Overground Mildmay line is out now for Train Sim World 5

[fallout-lou-begas]

So I started playing Ace Attorney but I accidentally started with the third game, Trials and Tribulations, and played the first case (Turnabout Memories) before realizing my mistake – but I did think, at the time, that it was a brilliant and daring design choice to start you out as Mia Fey, Phoenix’s mentor, in flashback, and play has her against several condescending, infantilizing, or even outright sexist court personnel in a drama that just so happens to feature the cool lawyer guy on the box in the most pathetic and embarrassing state imaginable before you even get to play as him. But then that “first” mission dovetailed into the actual first mission from the first game (The First Turnabout) perfectly, because Turnabout Memories is more or less a fanservice recreation and expansion of that first case, but by playing them in opposite order and immediately in sequence, it comes off instead as seeing right away via timeskip just how well that blubbering idiot you helped can handle himself in a court of law now, thanks to Mia’s tutelage – which is itself a continuation of Grossberg’s, as experienced prior. And every note is there, right down to your mentor getting stressed out to the point of exacerbating a medical condition, and opposing the same loser prosecutor.

And then the second case from the first game (Turnabout Sisters), of course, is about the death of Mia Fey that was foreshadowed at the end of Turnabout Memories, making it the first case where you (the player, mechanically) and Pheonix Wright (the character, narratively) are effectively on your own. You (as Pheonix) finally meet Grossberg again, and his staunch refusal to assist in the case is only made more concerning and significant by your firsthand experience playing as Mia under his wing in Turnabout Memories as the “first’ case, and you wonder immediately about their falling out. Maya’s introduction also keeps Mia in the world (including somewhat literally) by revealing more about the Fey family and Mia’s history, relationships, and legacy, and the thing is that I do have to say that playing Turnabout Memories first and getting that experience as Mia, and seeing her as a flawed and insecure rookie fighting for the win before we see her as the effortlessly cool and confident mentor figure, made for a much more narratively satisfying death of a woman than I think it would have been otherwise. You even get a line from Edgeworth in Turnabout Sisters where he calls Pheonix out for using “Mia’s style” of cross-examination – what he calls cowardly nitpicking of perfectly fine testimonies isn’t just how Pheonix does it narratively, it’s how you (the player) do it as the core mechanic of the game, because it’s how Mia does it, and while she is your guide in The First Turnabout, playing as Mia before you play as Pheonix and doing the same thing shows you firsthand that she’s taught him so well that even the prosecution can see it.

This accidental play-order of Turnabout Memories before The First Turnabout and Turnabout Sisters shows off an invaluable amount of Mia Fey’s character, agency, and development that combine to make her feel like the main character for a perfect and holistic three-act introduction to the series, where it doesn’t feel like Pheonix truly “takes over” until Turnabout Samurai – in which he literally does, in fact, take over the law office with Maya as his assistant. It left such a massive impression on me – much more of an impression, I think, that the intended play-order would, which I don’t think does Mia Fey a total disservice at all, but definitely relegates her to a relatively more one-dimensional mentor figure in Pheonix’s shadow for almost the entirety of her short on-screen lifespan if you don’t have the experience of playing as her in Turnabout Memories first. You as the player develop a much richer relationship to Mia that makes her death in Turnabout Sisters feel so much more personal, and the stakes of cracking the case so much more significant. It just enhances her character, and her role in these two cases, immeasurably.

And I mentioned it earlier, but it can’t be said enough that the player’s relationship to Pheonix benefits from this play-order, too – it’s because of Mia that he goes from the sobbing idiot who ate a bottle of poison on the witness stand for a girl who tried frame him for murder into the hotshot rookie lawyer through which you (the player) get to ask Mia for help during the trial in the first place! And she gives you that help because she has been in this same position herself and understands completely! You (the player) were there! The First Turnabout is also, honestly, kind of an underhand toss after Turnabout Memories (it's literally the first ever case so of course it's easy), but it only benefits the pacing of this play-order to have it as a second act before the much more complicated Turnabout Sisters. And when you, the player, are on your own after Turnabout Sisters and have to start Turnabout Samurai without her help, the only way that I can describe it is that you feel ready to make Mia proud.

[frogmagog]

Really been considering doing a video about r/lfg, the way people present their campaigns there is actually really interesting

[artbyblastweave]

There's a question which the west coast Fallout games are quietly litigating, which is that age-old gotcha about what you do with the remaining orcs once you've deposed Sauron. In the original Fallout, the Super Mutants are basically universally aligned against the quote-unquote "good guys," for whatever value of that term is applicable to the wasteland at large, but subsequent games make it clear that this was an ideological thing, and a product of the political moment of the mutants creation rather than an ontological quality that they have. The game is very aware that this is something that was done to them, and the tragedy of that; the first mutant you're likely to run into is dying scared and alone.

Fallout 2 presents super mutants who've broken in every direction ideologically in the aftermath of the Unity's collapse; the peacemakers under Marcus at Broken Hills, Gond as a member of the abolitionist NCR rangers, reactionary remnants of the original mutant army, genocidal self-hating fascists like Frank Horrigan. Fallout: New Vegas iterates on this beautifully. The mutants dovetail perfectly with the theme of how every faction in the wasteland is trying and oftentimes failing to reckon with the weight of history. Their utopian movement imploded outside of living memory, closer to the apocalypse than to the present day. The survivors- who can only dwindle in number due to their sterility- have been left to reckon with that in whatever way they can. And they have their backs to about a hundred and twenty years of that reckoning not going particularly well, of being the bugbear and boogeymen for bullies and ideologues whose grandparents weren't even alive to suffer from the Unity's actions. The lack of a collective future for mutantkind casts a pall over even the best ending for Jacobstown; humans are collectively resilient within this setting, but through violence, and accidents, dementia and senility, the day will inevitably come when there are no mutants left. And worse still will be the day before that, when there's only one mutant left. Finding some form of satisfaction or contentment within that dwindling window, with the world against you, is a task that falls to the individual mutant. (Take Mean Sonovabitch, for example. He seems to be doing alright for himself.)

Then we slide on over to the east coast games, where the mutants are.... morons. Cannibals. Marauders. And when you meet one who isn't, the game throws itself a ticker-tape parade for containing such an audacious twist. To go back to the orc thing, it's like if The Hobbit had contained a lengthy, empathetic subplot about the rich internality and fleshed-out-if-deeply-flawed ideology of the orcs, and then there was a pivot to treating them like a monolithic block of ontologically evil marauders in LOTR. While staring you straight in the eye the whole time, unblinking. Daring you to say something

[butchsucker]

EVERY ROAD LEADS BACK (part 1/3) | this is that twilight au i was yapping about a while ago. ellie returns to her hometown and reconnects with an old friend.

pairing: ellie/dina/abby

wc: 9.3k

cw: twilight!au, werewolf!abby, vampire!dina, childhood friends!ellabs, a sprinkle of angst, ellie and sarah as siblings, mentions of death, by extension grieving, that's all i got tbh

Rainy. Wet. Cold.

Those are the only words Ellie has to describe this place. The whole thing is stupidly gray. Forks, Washington: population small, skies perpetually overcast, and still somehow standing in its dreariness. A town that seems to rot at the edges no matter how much paint you slap on it. She used to call this place home. She's not sure if she still does. It’s been years, but Forks hasn’t changed—not even a little. Still damp. Still quiet. Still stuck in some eternal Pacific Northwest limbo where time moves sideways instead of forward.

Forks. God, what a dumb name. 

But Joel likes it here. Always has. Maybe it’s the quiet. The trees. The endless space to be alone without actually being lonely. “Plenty of woods,” he said, “and the right kind of folks—people who still appreciate things built to last.” Which, of course, is Joel code for “people who won’t scoff at a hand-restored dresser with dovetail joints.” He's made a life here, selling repurposed furniture to yuppies with flannel fetishes and retirees with money to burn. Ellie can picture him at the weekend market, grumbling about varnish with sawdust in his beard. It weirdly suits him.

Ellie had done the whole college thing because Joel always talked about how much he wished he did the whole college thing. Lived in the city long enough to flirt with burnout and brunch addiction. But before all that—before keg stands and shitty Tinder dates—she’d left. Not just Forks, but Joel, too. He wasn’t okay after Sarah. For a long time, he couldn’t even look at Ellie without something in him flinching. So Tommy and Maria stepped in, and Ellie shipped out at twelve with a bag of clothes and a heart full of resentment she didn’t understand yet.

She grew to know and eventually love the heat of Texas. She still visited Joel during her school breaks; he was better when he only had to hold himself together for a little while. They did the letters and the daily phone calls when she was away. Then, she found herself in California, living it up as a party girl who sometimes graced lecture halls with her presence. Even there, it was all warmth and sunny days. 

Ellie saw Joel a lot less then. Between her ever-constant games of a catch up and elaborately planned group trips, she found the time slipping through her fingers. 

Joel’s offer came after graduation. One of those casual, tossed-out invitations that carried the weight of every unsaid thing between them. “You know the house is still there,” he’d said, not quite meeting her eyes. “If you wanna come back for a bit.” Which, again, translated from Joel-speak, meant I miss you but don’t know how to say it without sounding like a softie.

She didn’t argue. She missed him too, after all.

So here she is, parking in the driveway of a house that feels like it’s been frozen in time. Same muted blue siding, same slightly askew porch light, same damn wind chimes that have always sounded like sad ghosts whenever the breeze hits right. Ellie hesitates before getting out of the car, her hand on the door, her heart doing a slow, nervous skip in her chest.

The only new thing is the monster of a truck parked beside them. It’s rust-red and hulking, with tires that look like they were meant for off-roading through Middle Earth. Ellie stares at it, puzzled, and throws Joel a look as he pulls the keys from the ignition.

“You got company?” she asks, brows arching.

Joel’s lips twitch like he’s trying not to smile. That should’ve been the first clue.

Instead of answering, he pulls a keyring from his pocket and drops it into her open hand. “Little birthday-graduation gift,” he says, voice thick with understated pride.

Ellie blinks. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah, kiddo. I’m serious.”

It’s ridiculous. A tank masquerading as a vehicle. The kind of thing that demands you be six feet tall and wearing flannel just to look right behind the wheel. Ellie is definitely one of those things. And it’s hers. And it’s ugly and loud and probably eats gas like it’s water, and it’s so perfect she can barely breathe around the sudden weight in her chest.

She hugs Joel—brief, rough, and over too soon—and practically trips over herself getting to the truck. It's all hard lines and sharp corners, no touch screens or Bluetooth, just analog dials and the heavy scent of worn leather. The paint’s faded in places, and there’s a dent in the back fender that tells a story she’ll probably never hear. Ellie runs her fingers over the hood like it’s a dog she wants to pet but doesn’t fully trust yet.

“This fucking rules,” she says, beaming. Her voice is filled with an almost child-like awe. “You fucking rule.”

Joel scratches his beard, suddenly bashful. “Aw, it ain’t nothing,” he says. “I’m proud of you, is all. And when I found this bad boy, I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d want it more than you.”

Ellie just hugs him again. “I gotta hurry and unpack so I can take this bad boy out!”

Joel insists on carrying both suitcases even though Ellie offers twice to take one. He shrugs her off with a grunt and that classic Joel expression that says arguing with me is just gonna waste both our time. She follows him inside, trailing her duffel, boots wetting the entryway rug. The house smells the same. Like cedar, coffee, and wood polish. 

They climb the stairs, Joel grumbling about how he should’ve replaced that third step, and Ellie’s heart kicks a little faster as he opens the door at the end of the hall.

Her room is...exactly the same.

Black-out curtains. Posters of bands she no longer listens to. A lava lamp in the shape of a skull that never quite worked right. Her bedspread is still this messy black-and-red flannel thing that used to make her feel cool somehow. The walls are plastered with cracked stickers, jagged magazine clippings, and a Nightmare Before Christmas wall scroll that hangs like a tattered flag over her desk.

She winces.

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, standing in the middle of the room like a crime scene investigator surveying a goth girl’s fever dream. “Why did you let me decorate my own room, again?”

Joel chuckles low behind her. “Didn’t wanna mess with it. Figured you’d want it the way you left it.”

Ellie gives him a side-eye. “You figured wrong.”

But there’s no venom behind it. Just that warm buzz of familiarity and a dash of horror at who she used to be. She tosses her duffel on the bed, kicks off her boots, and Joel claps a hand on her shoulder before stepping back.

“I’ll let you settle in.”

She nods, already peeling off her hoodie as he shuts the door behind her.

The silence that follows is almost too heavy. Too still. She turns on some music—some pop-punk tune crackling from a cheap Bluetooth speaker—and swaps into joggers and an old t-shirt she stole from a girl she doesn’t talk to anymore. 

It still smells like weed and sandalwood air freshener. She opens her suitcase and starts unpacking: clean socks in the top drawer, shirts in the middle, hoodies rolled and shoved in the bottom. She replaces the band posters with newer, more relevant ones and lines up her small collection of records along the wall beneath the window. Her fingers hover over the plastic sleeve of a Smashing Pumpkins reissue when a knock interrupts her.

“Yeah?” she calls, not looking up.

Joel’s voice comes through the door. “You got a visitor.”

Ellie’s brows pinch. “What? Who—?”

Before she can finish the thought, the door creaks open. Standing in her doorway is Abigail Anderson; a childhood friend, sometimes rival. She hasn’t seen her in years, yet she still feels a spot of familiar warmth bloom in her chest.

Ellie blinks. Her first thought is she got bigger. Like, noticeably. Not just taller (she always had a couple inches on Ellie), but broader, more solid. Her arms fill the sleeves of a worn gray hoodie like she’s been single-handedly carrying lumber up mountains. And yet…the same stupid braid. One long rope of blond tied neatly over her shoulder like nothing’s changed.

“Miss me?” Abby says, grinning wide.

It’s the same voice. Warm and teasing and way too pleased with itself. The years melt a little at the sound of it.

“Oh my god,” Ellie says, blinking. “What’ve you been benching? Buildings?”

Abby’s grin stretches. “Hilarious.”

And then, just as Ellie stands to her full height, Abby steps in, arms out, and pulls her into a full-bodied hug. Ellie lets out a breathless yelp as her feet leave the damn floor. She’s lifted. Full-on, air-between-her-socks-and-the-ground lifted.

“Okay—Jesus—Abby! Put me down!” she sputters, laughing against her own will.

Abby does, slowly, arms lingering at Ellie’s waist just long enough to make her cheeks flush. Ellie swats her shoulder and steps back, flustered.

Joel, still at the door, taps the frame and gives them a knowing little nod. “I’ll let you two catch up,” he says, before vanishing down the hall.

“So,” Abby starts, folding her arms and leaning her hip against Ellie’s dresser like she’s been rehearsing the line all day, “how’d you like the truck?”

Ellie’s face lights up immediately—she tries to rein it in, but the grin breaks through anyway. Just the thought of it, big and boxy and beautifully hers, makes her heart skip like a scratched record. “Dude. It’s so sick. I love it.”

Abby grins back, clearly pleased. “Thanks to yours truly,” she says, tipping her head in an exaggerated, mock-gallant bow. “Took me two weeks to fix that puppy up for you. Joel just paid for parts. I did the real work.”

Ellie blinks. That part she hadn’t heard. Her expression softens a little. “Wait—you fixed it up?”

Abby shrugs like it’s nothing, like she didn’t spend fourteen nights crawling around under a rustbucket with grease in her hair and busted knuckles. “Was already halfway done when Joel mentioned you might be coming home. Figured it’d be a good welcome-back.”

Ellie’s throat tightens in that quiet, inconvenient way it does when someone does something kind and she doesn’t know what to do with the feeling. “Shit,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Then, a little smirk pulls at the corner of her mouth. “I gotta admit, though...didn’t have you pegged for the jacked mechanic type.”

Abby snorts. “Yeah? Well, unfortunately for you, I did have you pegged for the noodly-armed artist type.”

“Hey!” Ellie laughs, shoving her shoulder. Abby doesn’t budge—solid as a damn wall. “My arms are not noodly,” she insists, tugging up her sleeve and flexing to prove her point. Sure, she’s not a mountain like the woman standing before her, but she can’t take the slander lying down.

Abby’s gaze drops, then lingers just a second longer than necessary. There’s something like curiosity behind her eyes, and something else, too. A little softness. A flicker of something almost shy.

“I stand corrected,” she murmurs.

It’s not sarcastic. It’s not teasing. It lands somewhere low in Ellie’s gut, spreading warm and unfamiliar. For half a second, neither of them speaks.

Then Abby clears her throat and straightens up again, rubbing a hand along the back of her neck. “Anyway. You break it, you bring it back to me.”

“Oh, you’re my personal mechanic now?”

Abby grins. “Only if you’re good.”

Ellie’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re crazy,” she says, shaking her head. Ellie folds her arms across her chest, eyeing Abby with the kind of reluctant affection reserved for people who knew you back when you still had braces and a bad haircut.

“You gonna keep staring at me like that or...?”

Abby chuckles and plops down uninvited on the edge of Ellie’s bed, the springs groaning a little under her weight. “Just surprised, that’s all,” Ellie says, leaning against her desk. “You’re, like...huge now.”

“Wow,” Abby deadpans. “Thanks. I’ll let my personal trainer know it’s paying off.” And then, because Abby is a major asshole, she turns to look in the mirror mounted on the wall and says to her own reflection, “I’m huge now. Those workouts are really paying off.”

Ellie smirks, then grabs a half-full water bottle and throws it at her. Abby catches it one-handed, effortlessly. Show-off.

“So, what’ve you been doing? Since—what, junior year?”

Abby leans back on her hands, looking way too at home in Ellie’s adolescent crypt. “Finished school early. Did a little time in Seattle—took some classes, worked security for a bit. Hated the city, though. Missed Dad, too. Came back here about a year ago.”

“Back to Forks,” Ellie murmurs. “God, we’re all just boomeranging back to the middle of nowhere.”

“Guess it pulls you in like a black hole,” Abby grins. “And hey, I hear we’re gonna be co-workers.”

Ellie blinks. “What?”

“Joel didn’t tell you?” Abby lifts an eyebrow. “I’ve been helping him out at the shop. Lifting the heavy stuff, managing deliveries. He’s been really excited about having you back, though. He says you have a good eye.”

Ellie snorts. “Okay, now I know you’re lying.”

“Nope,” Abby says with a smirk. “Swear on my huge arms.”

Ellie laughs, caught somewhere between flattered and skeptical. “Great. Now, he’s totally gonna expect me to, like, actually work.”

“It’s not so bad. Joel’s mellowed out a bit. Plus, now you’ll have me there to suffer with.”

“Oh, joy,” Ellie says, but her mouth twitches like she’s trying not to smile.

Abby grins and glances around the room again, nodding toward the door. “Oh, also—Dad’s downstairs. He and Joel are catching up.”

Ellie perks up a little. “Jerry’s here? Shit, I haven’t seen him since he gave me stitches after I split my chin on that dock.”

“Yup. Still the same. Talks too much about fishing, still insists plaid is ‘always in,’ and still makes that disgusting fish jerky he tries to give everyone for free.”

“Ugh.” Ellie makes a face. “He gonna try to take me fishing too?”

“Oh, definitely. Joel’s already promised you’d come next time.”

Ellie groans.

“Hey, at least I’ll be there,” Abby says, giving her a nudge with her shoulder. “You can sit on the cooler and make fun of me if I fall in.”

“You always fall in.”

“Exactly. Great entertainment. No screens needed.”

Ellie gives her a long look. There’s something weirdly comforting about this—about Abby sitting on her bed like no time has passed, like they didn’t spend four years slowly drifting apart. Her presence is bigger now, sure, but it still feels familiar. Like muscle memory.

They sit in an easy quiet for a second. Ellie’s about to ask if Abby’s staying for dinner when an obnoxiously loud ringtone—something vaguely chiptune and deeply uncool—breaks the calm.

Abby pulls a flip phone from the pocket of her hoodie.

“Damn. Are you deaf?”

“Shut up,” Abby says, flipping it open. She squints at the screen and answers. “Hey, Lev. Yeah...yeah, I’ll be right there. Do not go by yourself!”

Ellie raises an eyebrow, mouthing Lev?

Abby gives her a little wave and pushes up off the bed. “Gotta head out. It’s bad business to keep that kid waiting. I’ll explain later.”

She heads for the door but pauses with one hand on the frame. “It’s really good to see you again, El.”

“Yeah,” Ellie says, soft and a little stunned at how much she means it. “You too.”

Abby vanishes down the stairs, her heavy steps fading toward the front door.

Ellie lingers by the window, tugging the curtain aside. Sure enough, Abby steps out onto the porch, hoodie pulled up now against the drizzle, and jogs across the driveway to a beat-up black Jeep that looks like it’s survived a war or two. She’s halfway in when Ellie flips the window latch open and leans out.

“Hey, Abby!”

Abby straightens, looking up, rain misting her hair.

“Wanna go for a drive sometime?” Ellie calls down, trying to sound casual and not like her pulse just jumped into her throat.

Abby flashes that crooked grin again, already backing toward the driver’s side.

“Call me!” she yells.

And then she’s in the Jeep, taillights blinking, peeling out onto the wet road like she’s got somewhere important to be. Ellie watches until the trees swallow her up.

Then she shuts the window, turns back to her room, and lets the grin bloom quietly on her face.

She spends the rest of her first day back trying to reclaim her bedroom from the ghost of her teenage self. It takes time—too much time, honestly—to peel back the layers of her own old taste like dead skin. Eventually, she folds her laundry with a surprising degree of focus, and starts arranging her records in the exact order she remembers loving: alphabetical by artist, then chronological by release. She knows it won’t stay that way. Joel’s bound to touch something just enough to knock the order off. But the ritual of it is comforting. 

Eventually, she wanders downstairs to find Joel and Jerry still locked in their particular brand of middle-aged male conversation—half talk, half silence, both nursing lukewarm beers like they're sacred. 

The life-update thing happens: she fields all the expected questions, gives all the expected half-truths. College was fine. Yes, she graduated. No, she doesn’t miss the city. Yes, she’s happy to be back. No, she definitely didn’t party too hard. Jerry asks about music, Joel mostly listens, and when fishing inevitably comes up, Ellie tries to squirm her way out of it with every excuse she can invent on the spot. None of them land. They eat dinner at the table with real plates, and the conversation turns toward local gossip: what diner shut down, which neighbor moved away, how the high school football team still sucks.

Abby doesn’t come back. Not that Ellie expected her to. Okay, maybe she kind of hoped.

Jerry, helpful as ever, explains around a mouthful of mashed potatoes that Abby’s always “running around these days.” Always helping someone move a couch, or fix their carburetor, or walk their dog. “She’s a hard one to pin down,” he says with a chuckle. “Always in motion.”

It tracks. Of course it does. Ellie’s always known that about Abby. She’s the kind of person who runs headfirst into other people’s lives without ever tripping on the way in. Abby’s always been a doer. The opposite of Ellie in that way. Loyal to a fault, alarmingly present. She doesn’t second-guess her usefulness, she just offers it—puts her whole weight behind whatever or whoever needs her. Social anxiety is well and truly afraid of her.

And somehow, somewhere along the way, she’d decided that Ellie was worth her time. Ellie still doesn’t know how she pulled that off. Maybe Abby had been wrong. Maybe she wouldn’t think Ellie was worth it anymore. She tries not to think about that too hard.

That night, Ellie sleeps badly. She blames it on the cold, on how the air seems to sneak into her bones no matter how many blankets she piles on. But really, it’s the quiet. She’s not used to it anymore. She’s used to the chaos of shared walls, drunk laughter in the hallways, the distant thump of someone’s regrettable playlist. She used to fall asleep abruptly, thoughtless, too drained to care. Now, her thoughts won’t shut up. The silence gives them room to stretch.

She thinks about how lively this place used to be. About the sharp contrast of it now. When Sarah was around, the house had a pulse. It breathed with music and footsteps and the kind of energy that made you feel like you were just trying to keep up. Joel doesn’t talk about her, not really. 

Ellie can count every time he’s mentioned her on one hand, and in each of those moments, it was Ellie who brought her up. Joel always shuts it down. His voice shifts into something clipped and sharp, a hard line she’s learned not to cross. So they don’t talk about it. But Ellie’s sure Sarah’s room is still intact. She doesn’t need to check to know it’s still down the hall, frozen in time, a perfect little shrine to everything that was lost.

She considers opening the door. She doesn’t. She knows it’ll only make her chest ache in that awful, hollow way that lingers all day. So instead, she punches her pillow a couple of times, rolls onto her side, and begs her brain to shut up. Sleep comes in fragments—too light, too hot, too loud with thought.

She wakes up cranky, damp with sweat, and aggressively unimpressed with the sun filtering through her window like it has something to be proud of. The shower helps, a little. She combs her hair and throws it into a low knot at the nape of her neck—messy, ineffective, and the only option that doesn’t make her want to shave her head out of spite. It’s at that annoying length: not long enough to tie back cleanly, too long to leave alone. It tickles her neck like a taunt.

By the time she heads downstairs, Joel’s already at the table, nursing his coffee and penciling in his crossword. He looks up when he hears her footsteps, raises his mug in greeting like a toast.

“Mornin’,” he says, scribbling something in the margin. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty good,” Ellie lies smoothly, already elbow-deep in the fridge. “Joel, I am deeply concerned with the state of this fridge. Please don’t tell me you’re eating at the diner every day.”

He shrugs, completely unbothered. “S’good. They got good coffee.”

Ellie runs a hand down her face. “That’s not the point,” she mutters. “This is sad to look at. I’m gonna go get some real breakfast and hit the grocery store while I’m at it. You need anything?”

“Nah.” Joel peeks at her over his reading glasses. She holds back a snort. The glasses make him look like a dork, which is a comment she keeps to herself. “I’m goin’ fishin’ soon anyway. Abigail’s at the store, if you wanna swing by. Sure she’d be happy for the company.”

Ellie hums in response. Noncommittal. Chill. Definitely not overly eager. Because that would be humiliating. Sincerity is humiliating.

Still, she makes a mental note. Adds it to the quiet list building in her head—eggs, coffee, cereal, and maybe the courage to go say hi.

It would probably be faster to make a list of what she doesn’t need.

-

The antique shop is tucked into the corner of the sleepy main strip like it’s been there forever—because, in a way, it has. The hand-painted wooden sign hanging above the door still says Miller & Miller Refinishing, even though it’s just Joel now, and Abby, apparently. The windows are cluttered with mismatched furniture and old lamps and strange little objects that look like they belong in a movie set, not a storefront. It’s kind of charming, in a small-town-weird way.

Ellie pulls up, cuts the engine, and sits there a second longer than necessary, gripping the wheel. She doesn’t know what the hell she’s nervous about. It’s just Abby. Just her old friend with stupid strong arms and the smile that Ellie hasn’t been able to stop thinking about since yesterday. No big deal.

Inside, the shop smells like wood polish and old paper. Abby’s at the far end of the showroom, wearing a ridiculous beige apron over her tank top and jeans, chatting with an older woman who seems deeply, almost existentially, concerned about an end table.

“But it’s walnut, dear, not oak?” the woman says, squinting down at the grain with extreme scrutiny.

“It’s walnut,” Abby confirms patiently. “But it’s been oiled to a lighter finish. If you want something darker, we’ve got a reclaimed oak piece in the back I could bring out for you.”

“And that one,” the woman continues, gesturing at a spindle-legged side table, “what would you say its…vibe is? My granddaughter says I should focus on curating a vibe.”

Abby, to her credit, doesn’t even blink. “I’d say mid-century meets cabin chic.”

The woman hums like she’s just heard poetry.

Ellie leans against the front counter, arms crossed, watching with open amusement. Abby’s good at this. Good with people. She’s not surprised, but it’s still odd to see Abby in this element. Ellie’s always associated Abby with motion, with climbing trees and skinning knees and outrunning every kid in town. Ellie’s pretty sure she’s gotten a special version of Abby. Foolishly, she thinks, a version just for her. One that would punch her in the face and then hold the rag under nose while it bled. 

Everybody else, it seems, gets a perfect little angel. 

The old woman finally thanks her and makes her slow, creaky exit with promises to come back next week after “consulting her expert” Abby turns as soon as the door chimes behind her, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.

“Mid-century meets cabin chic?” Ellie says, raising an eyebrow.

Abby smirks. “I panicked.”

“You sounded disturbingly confident for someone panicking.”

“I’m a professional,” Abby says, stepping around the counter and unclipping the apron from her waist. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Ellie shrugs like she didn’t drive here on purpose. “Thought I’d say hi. Maybe kidnap you. I’m heading to the store. You wanna come?”

Abby checks the wall clock above the register with a dramatic sigh. “I’m not supposed to take a break for another three hours.”

Ellie frowns, then walks to the front door, flips the OPEN sign to CLOSED, and turns back with her brows raised in challenge. “There. Problem solved.”

“Absolutely not,” Abby says, but she’s already grabbing her keys from beneath the counter. “Joel’s gonna murder me.”

“Not if you blame me.”

“Oh, I was going to do that anyway.”

Ellie grins. “You’re such an asshole,” she says as they leave the store. Ellie pulls herself up with as much grace as she can muster because there’s no way in hell she’s going to embarrass herself in front of new, cool Abby. 

The old truck roars to life with a rumble that rattles through Ellie’s bones in a way that’s half-thrilling, half-concerning. The thing definitely has personality, and more than a little attitude. She adjusts the seat with some grumbling, something she hadn’t gotten around to doing in her scramble to get to the shop. It’s clearly been set for someone with longer legs. Abby, probably. 

Abby slides into the passenger seat, arms resting casually over her thighs, one boot up on the dash like she owns the damn place. “By the way,” she says, tossing a glance toward the glove box. “I left a little something in there for you. Meant to tell you yesterday but—y’know.”

Ellie pulls it open and rifles through a stack of burned CDs in slim plastic sleeves, each one labeled in sharpie. There’s a messy scrawl of band names and cryptic phrases like Drive Shit and Angry Cleaning Mix Vol. 2. She laughs under her breath and slides one out.

“Oho,” she says. “Rust In Peace? You know me so well, Abs.”

Abby lifts a shoulder. “I totally stalked your facebook.”

“You get bonus points for honesty,” Ellie says, popping the CD into the old stereo. The opening chords buzz through the speakers—heavy, high-energy. Ellie taps the steering wheel, head banging (as much as one can while operating a vehicle) along as they pull out onto the main road. The town isn’t big, so the grocery store is maybe a ten-minute drive if you hit all the lights. But she doesn’t mind dragging it out.

“So, Lev,” Ellie says after a beat. “That who called you yesterday?”

Abby nods, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah. I’ve known him for, like, four years now. Used to babysit his sister, Yara, when she was sixteen and Lev was only, like, thirteen then.”

Ellie chuckles. “They’re a little old for babysitting, no?”

“Yeah, now,” Abby says. “Yara got older, didn’t need me to sit anymore, but she still called. A lot of ‘hey, can you hang with Lev tonight so I can go party’?’ It’s important for the youth to get out and live life, so I always said yes.”

“Youth? Okay, grandpa.” Ellie glances at her, that grin still faintly playing at her lips. “You’re clearly very fond of those two.”

“I am,” Abby says, no hesitation. “Lev’s smart. Weird smart. He asks questions like he’s trying to crack the code of the universe. Makes me feel dumb sometimes, in a good way.”

Ellie nods, letting the quiet stretch for a second. “I’d like to meet him. Sounds like a cool kid.”

“He is,” Abby says, smiling again, more to herself than to Ellie. “Yara’s at college now—only about an hour and a half away—but I think she likes knowing someone’s around for him. And I like hanging out with him, so it works.”

The truck crests the small hill into town proper. A squat brick building comes into view with a hand-painted sign that says Greenway Market in cheerful cursive. There’s a cartoon dog leaning against a shopping cart painted across the front window—its tail mid-wag and its tongue lolling out in a ridiculous grin.

Ellie squints at it. “Okay but…do grocery stores really need mascots?”

“I think it’s cute,” Abby says with a shrug as she unbuckles. “His name’s Cooper.”

“That’s dumb,” Ellie mutters as they park. “You would like it.”

Abby’s already halfway out of the truck. “Are you five? Like, years old?”

Ellie flips her off with a grin, grabs her keys, and follows her inside.

The inside of Greenway Market smells like coffee and onions and those weird pine-scented air fresheners that hang from car mirrors. The linoleum tiles are scuffed and faded near the entrance, like everyone who’s ever lived in Forks has walked the same weary path through the automatic doors. Abby grabs a cart and elbows Ellie toward the produce section.

“Alright,” Ellie says, pulling a crumpled grocery list from her hoodie pocket. “Let’s knock this out like two very responsible adults.”

Abby snorts. “Sure.”

They work their way down the aisles, Ellie tossing things haphazardly into the cart while Abby does damage control—grabbing better brands, checking expiration dates, occasionally scolding Ellie for trying to buy Pop-Tarts instead of real food. They settle into a rhythm that’s easy. Familiar. Like no time’s passed at all.

“So,” Abby says, nudging a can of black beans out of Ellie’s hand to grab the store-brand equivalent. “What was college like? Did you become, like, super sophisticated and worldly?”

Ellie makes a noise. “Absolutely not. I did, however, go to a lot of ridiculous parties. Like, the kind where someone inevitably ends up passed out in a bathtub with their shoes on…I’m talking about me. I passed out in the bathtub with my shoes on.”

Abby hums. “Classy.”

“Oh yeah. Real high society stuff. Ooh, had a girlfriend,” Ellie adds casually, scanning a shelf of cereal. “Her name was Cat. She was cool. Artsy. We dated until junior year and then…broke up. Can’t even remember why now. I think she said I was ‘emotionally unavailable’ and I said something equally vague and untrue back.”

Abby lifts a brow, tossing a box of granola bars into the cart. “That’s very college of you.”

“I try,” Ellie says, then pauses, leaning her elbows on the cart handle. “What about you? Anyone in the picture?”

Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.

Abby looks momentarily thrown. Her brows knit together, and she scratches the back of her neck. “I was seeing someone for a bit,” she says, eyes fixed on the shelves. “But that was a while ago. That ship has definitely sailed.”

“Damn,” Ellie says, teasing. “Were they crushed when you told them you had to dedicate your life to fixing antique furniture and saving stray children?”

Abby chuckles, but it sounds a little strained. “Something like that.”

They round the corner into the refrigerated section, and that’s when Ellie sees her.

A girl stands in front of the meat cooler with a red basket hanging from one arm, and it's filled exclusively with cuts of raw meat. Ribeye. Chuck roast. Ground beef in pink styrofoam trays. Like a butcher’s special dream. She’s short, dark-haired, and stupidly pretty in that way that makes Ellie momentarily forget how to walk like a normal person. Their eyes meet, and the girl smiles—small, but direct.

Ellie’s mouth moves before she can stop it. “Damn. Someone’s bulking.”

The girl laughs, the sound low and melodic. “I like to feed the strays.”

Ellie blinks. “That’s a lot of steak. You must really like those strays.”

Another laugh, this one even more amused. There's something in her tone that feels like an inside joke Ellie hasn’t been told yet, but desperately wants to be. The girl glances at Abby for a beat—something flickering between them—and suddenly, Ellie notices how Abby’s body has stiffened beside her, like someone pulled a string tight along her spine. Her jaw’s clenched.

The girl doesn’t comment on it, just looks back to Ellie with a spark in her eye. “Hope I see you around,” she says, and then she’s walking off with her basket of meat like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Ellie watches her go, caught in a weird mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Okay,” she mutters. “What an interesting girl.”

Abby exhales through her nose, not quite looking at her. “Yeah, that’s Dina.”

“Friend of yours?” Ellie asks, arching a brow.

Abby doesn’t answer right away. “No.”

There’s weight in that answer Ellie can’t place. She stares down the aisle where the girl disappeared, then back at Abby, who’s suddenly very interested in a display of bagged salad.

She lets it go. For now.

“Alright, salad girl. Let’s finish this list before my will to live evaporates.”

Abby huffs a laugh and rolls the cart forward. “You’re such a drama queen.”

-

Ellie pulls up in front of the shop again just past noon, the truck’s engine grumbling low as she throws it in park. Abby’s unbuckling already, lifting the brown paper bag of groceries from her lap.

“Come over for dinner?” Ellie asks casually, like she didn’t rehearse it four times in her head. “When you’re done working, or whatever.”

Abby glances over at her, that easy half-smile tugging at her mouth. “Sounds good.”

“See you later, El,” Abby calls over her shoulder.

Ellie watches her head back inside, stupid braid swinging behind her, before throwing the truck into gear and driving off.

Back at the house, she hauls the groceries inside, taking her time putting everything away in a kitchen that feels slightly less unfamiliar than it did this morning. She makes herself a sandwich, chips on the side, the whole deal. Her phone—sturdy, gray, full keyboard—buzzes twice in her pocket and she slides it open to see texts from some college friends checking in. She answers them with lazy thumbs and half a smile, chewing absentmindedly as she does. 

She’s halfway through her sandwich when the front door creaks open.

Joel walks in, fishing pole balanced on one shoulder and a hard-sided cooler in his other hand. He kicks the door shut behind him and leans the pole in the corner with a quiet clatter.

“Well,” he says, setting the cooler on the counter. “That’s enough sun for one day.”

“Welcome back,” Ellie mutters around a mouthful of bread. “Catch anything good?”

Joel grunts. “Couple of trout, bass. Good sizes, too.”

“Wow,” she says. “I got some good catches, too! Had to really wrestle ‘em into the cart.”

He gives her a sidelong look, then gestures toward the kitchen. “So? How was your big adventure?”

Ellie shrugs, picking at a chip. “It was fine. Abby came with me. I promise I only stole her for a few minutes, your shop was fine. We ran into a girl who might’ve been the Grim Reaper, unclear.”

Joel looks mildly alarmed. “That so?”

“She was buying, like, twelve pounds of meat,” Ellie says. “Which Abby didn’t seem nearly bewildered enough by. Said her name’s Dina. You know her?”

Joel wipes his hands on a dish towel and nods. “Yeah, she’s around. Moved here a couple months back. Rented out that fancy place out past the woods. The one that looks like a Bond villain’s vacation home.”

“She lives alone in that place?”

He lifts a shoulder. “Far as I know. Keeps to herself. Comes by the shop every few weeks to pick up chairs.”

Ellie blinks. “Chairs. Plural?”

“Every damn time. Never says why she needs so many, maybe she’s a collector.”

“Of chairs? That’s not how furniture works, I’m pretty sure.”

Joel gives her a look like you tell her that and pops the cooler lid to start cleaning the fish.

Ellie props her chin on her palm, chewing slowly. “She sounds fucking weird. I need to know her immediately.”

Joel just grunts again and reaches for the cutting board. “If I didn’t know you so well, that would be an incredibly concerning statement you just made.”

Ellie just laughs, standing from the couch with a stretch to help prepare dinner.

The days blend together in that soft-focus way they tend to when you’re happy and a little bit aimless. The kind of happiness that sneaks up on you. It starts with dinner.

Abby shows up right on time, hair still slightly damp from a shower, and holding a six-pack like she's not entirely sure if it's appropriate. Joel takes one look at her, grunts in approval, and disappears into the kitchen to put on the finishing touches. 

The two of them eat dinner  and then settle in on the couch for Ocean’s 11. Abby sits close—too close. Not in a weird way, not in a way that screams “come on to me”—just close enough that Ellie can smell her shampoo and feel the heat radiating off her arm, her thigh, her stupidly long torso. Close enough that Ellie doesn’t remember anything that happens in the movie after the first heist scene. She just nods along and laughs when Abby does.

Then it’s work. Joel’s shop is charming in a low-stakes, dusty kind of way. Ellie starts picking up shifts a couple times a week. Mostly, she’s just an extra pair of hands to help with sanding or stripping old finishes, and Abby is always there. She’s better at the talking-to-customers part—Abby’s got this easy confidence, a dog-like endearment that really works for people. 

They work together well. Ellie doesn’t even mind the sawdust getting in her hair or the way her arms are perpetually sore now. And when Abby has plans with Lev, she always tells Ellie first. “Hey, do you mind covering Thursday? Lev wants to try this new ice cream place that just opened up.”

Of course she doesn’t mind. She wants Abby to hang out with Lev. She wants to meet him.

About a week later, she does.

It’s a thirty-minute drive into the city, Ellie’s truck rattling slightly on the highway. Lev is younger than Ellie expects—sixteen, maybe? Big eyes and quiet energy. He’s not shy, just observant, watching everything like he’s trying to catalog it for later. They go to an arcade and Lev absolutely demolishes Ellie in air hockey, which earns him a dramatic bow and a slice of pizza. 

He and Abby have that kind of shorthand that only comes with time and genuine affection, and it’s obvious from the way Abby ruffles his hair and lets him climb onto the back of her bike without a second thought. Ellie watches them and feels something soft and warm uncurl in her chest.

Not everything is bright and easy, though. Ellie still has her nights. The ones where she lies awake in her childhood room, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars that somehow still cling to her ceiling. The quiet gets to her sometimes, presses in too close. But those nights are the minority, and in the daytime, there’s Joel and Abby, and even Lev. She goes fishing with Joel and Jerry one morning and doesn’t hate it like she thought she would. 

They trudge through the damp undergrowth, Joel warning her about traps—real ones. “People up here like their privacy,” he says. “Sometimes a little too much.” Ellie nods and files that away in the back of her mind, along with the glint of something metallic she sees under a pile of dead leaves.

And for a while, everything is good. Genuinely good. The kind of good Ellie hasn’t had in a long time. She finds herself smiling without thinking about it, laughing harder than she has in years. Joel seems lighter with her around. Abby is always just...there.

Until she’s not.

It happens gradually. First it’s the slow shifts—Abby leaving work earlier than usual, or showing up late with vague excuses. Then it’s the texts that take hours to get responses, if they come at all. At first Ellie assumes it’s just life. People get busy. But then a full week goes by and the only time she sees Abby is at the shop. Even then, she’s different. Quiet. Preoccupied. Eyes flicking toward the window every few minutes like she’s waiting for someone. 

One afternoon, Ellie spots her walking through town with a group of people she doesn’t recognize. All of them look like they stepped out of an American Eagle ad. Ellie’s halfway across the street, about to call out, when one of them leans in and mutters something to Abby. She glances back just once before they steer her around the corner, out of sight.

She doesn’t show up for her shift the next day. Or the day after that.

Ellie tells herself not to overreact. It’s probably nothing. People have lives, right?

But then (because Ellie is incapable of nonchalance) she’s standing on Abby’s porch, fists clenched, pounding hard enough that it makes her shoulder ache. The door opens and Jerry stands there, looking slightly surprised.

“Ellie,” he says, smiling faintly. He studies Ellie’s tight expression, the way she fumbles for the words she wants to say and then sighs a little. “Abby’s out back. In the garage with Lev.” He jerks his head in that direction.

That stings more than it should. No text, no call, no nothing. And she’s just here. But fine. She walks around the house, the grass crunching under her boots. The garage is open and there they are—Abby and Lev, crouched over a pair of dirt bikes, grease on their hands and old rock music drifting from a battered radio. They don’t see her at first, too caught up in whatever they’re adjusting.

“Abby,” Ellie says, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Abby looks up, visibly startled before schooling her expression into something more neutral. “You got a minute?”

Abby sighs, wipes her hands on a rag, and nods once. “Yeah.”

Lev picks up on the shift in the air immediately. He’s smart like that, perceptive in his way. His gaze flicks from Ellie to Abby and back again, and something in his expression shifts—curious, maybe a little concerned, but not surprised. 

He straightens from where he’s crouched, brushing his hands off on his jeans, and says softly, “I’ll head in.” He doesn’t wait for a response. Just turns and walks up the path toward the house, boots crunching gently on the gravel. The screen door creaks open and clicks shut behind him, and then it’s just Ellie and Abby and the open garage yawning wide behind them, full of unfinished things and that stale, oily smell of machines in various stages of decay and repair.

Ellie stays where she is for a long moment, arms crossed tight over her chest like she’s trying to keep something from spilling out. She watches Abby continue to wipe her hands on the rag, slow and methodical, gaze pointedly on the dirt bike instead of her. The silence between them thickens, stretches, threatens to break.

“You gonna tell me what the hell is going on?” Ellie says, finally. Her voice isn’t loud, but it carries. Sharp and tight, like a pulled thread.

Abby glances up, eyes flicking to Ellie’s face before drifting away again, like looking directly at her is too much. “Nothing’s going on,” she says, and the words fall flat, brittle and useless.

Ellie’s laugh is hollow, disbelieving. “You seriously expect me to buy that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ellie,” Abby says, but she doesn’t sound convinced, not even a little. She busies her hands again, tightening a bolt that doesn’t need it.

“Bullshit, Abby,” Ellie snaps, stepping closer now, heat rising in her chest like a flare. “You’ve been weird for days. Hell, weeks. You don’t text me back, you leave work early, you show up late like you’re being chased. Like I’m some kinda obligation you can’t get out of fast enough. And now you wanna pretend like everything’s fine?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Abby mutters, and there’s a flicker of frustration in her tone now. Not anger. Something smaller. Guilt, maybe.

“Then fucking tell me the truth.” Ellie’s voice cracks, just slightly, and she hates that. Hates how raw she feels. “I’m not stupid. I know when something’s wrong.”

Abby hesitates a second too long. Her jaw tightens, and she exhales through her nose like she’s trying to steady herself. “It’s not about you,” she says eventually. “There’s just…stuff going on. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated,” Ellie repeats flatly. “That’s what you’re going with.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to stop lying to me,” Ellie spits, louder now, the emotion rising in her throat like bile. “I want you to stop acting like I’m being unreasonable right now. I want you to be honest, because I thought…God, I thought we were friends.”

Abby winces. It’s small, but Ellie catches it. Watches it ripple through her like a stone dropped into still water. “I don’t think this is a good idea anymore,” Abby says, and this time, she finally meets Ellie’s gaze. “Us. Hanging out.”

Ellie reels back, blinking like she didn’t hear right. “What?”

“I just think it’s better this way,” Abby says, carefully measured, like she’s repeating something she’s already told herself. “You’ve got Joel. And your other friends, I’m sure. Maybe it’s best we just live our own lives.”

“You’re joking,” Ellie breathes. “This—this was my life, Abby. You were—you are—” She cuts herself off, swallowing hard. Because there’s no way to end that sentence that isn’t too much. Too raw. Too honest. It makes a suffocating heat bloom across her chest.

She can feel the pressure building behind her eyes now, hot and humiliating. Her hands are fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms. “Fuck you,” she says quietly, voice trembling. “Seriously. Fuck you.”

Abby flinches again, and this time, she doesn’t try to hide it. But she doesn’t chase after Ellie either.

Ellie turns and walks away, every step louder than the last. Her boots crunch against the gravel, echoing in her ears like thunder. She doesn’t let herself look back. Doesn’t let herself think. Just moves, fast and angry, because the forward motion is the only thing keeping her upright.

The truck door slams with a force that rattles the window. Her hands are shaking as she turns the key in the ignition, the engine growling to life beneath her. She pulls out of the driveway too fast, tires skidding just enough to leave a mark. The town blurs past her in a smear of green and brown and memory. She misses her turn without realizing, doesn’t even try to correct it.

She doesn’t want to go home.

The road to the lake is longer than she remembers, stretching out ahead of her like it might never end. Her grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckled, hands aching from the pressure. The sky above is a cloudy gray-blue, heavy with the threat of rain, and the trees on either side of the road lean in close, branches brushing overhead like they mean to suffocate her.

It isn’t until she’s halfway there that the tears start. Not loud, not gasping—just silent and steady, like the pressure finally broke and now it’s all leaking out. She wipes at her face with the heel of her hand, angry at herself for crying, angry at Abby for making her cry, angry that she didn’t punch that big, blonde idiot when she had the chance.

The lake appears like a mirage through the trees, the water dull and flat under the overcast sky. She parks on the dirt shoulder and kills the engine, letting the silence wrap around her like a too-heavy blanket. The truck ticks as it cools. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears.

She doesn’t get out. Just sits there, forehead against the steering wheel, trying to pull herself together.

The lake is quiet in that late-afternoon way, the light filtered through thick cloud cover, turning the water to a sheet of rippling pewter. Ellie trudges down the narrow path that cuts through the trees, her boots crunching softly against pine needles and damp soil. 

Her shoulders feel too tight, her chest too full, like if she doesn’t move she might just burst from the inside out. A few stubborn tears cling to her lashes, but she wipes at them with the back of her hand before they can fall, sniffling hard enough to make her nose sting.

The shoreline is rocky, fringed with tall reeds and driftwood, and she makes her way over to a spot she remembers from when she was a kid. Before everything turned to shit. The water laps gently at the stones, steady and indifferent. She crouches down, picks up a flat rock, and hurls it across the surface. It plunks immediately, no skip, no grace. Just a sad little splash.

“Jesus,” she mutters. “Still fucking awful at this.”

She tries again, and again, each toss more frustrated than the last. The rocks keep sinking like they’ve got something to prove, like they’re trying to embarrass her on purpose. Sarah had always been good at it. Keen eyes for the best rocks and a perfect flick of the wrist; she could skip a stone clear to the other side of the lake, it felt like. Ellie used to watch her, envious and awestruck, always pretending she didn’t care. That it didn’t mean anything.

It’s stupid. All of it. She’s too old to be crying about people leaving; truly, she should be used to it by now. She shouldn’t care this much. Shouldn’t feel like her chest’s been hollowed out and filled with something sharp. It’s not like Abby owed her anything. They weren’t…they weren’t anything.

A rustle in the trees behind her breaks the spiral.

Ellie straightens up instinctively, tension coiling in her spine like a spring. She turns toward the sound, brows drawn, already imagining some mountain lion or bear lurching out of the brush. Instead, it’s—

“Dina?”

She says the name before she even really sees her, before the figure fully emerges from the woods. But then she’s there, slipping between the trees like she belongs to them. Dina moves like wind over water—effortless and unhurried. 

Dina smiles when she spots her, warm and curious. “Hey,” she calls. “Didn’t expect to see anyone out here.”

Ellie waves, awkward and abrupt. Her stomach twists. “Yeah. Same.”

Dina walks over, and for a few seconds Ellie can’t do much except stare. She’s wearing dark jeans tucked into boots and a mossy green sweater that clings just enough to be distracting. Her curls are pinned back loosely, a few tendrils escaping around her face, and her eyes—fuck, those eyes—feel too sharp and too kind all at once. Ellie tries to school her face into something casual. Probably fails.

“You alright?” Dina asks once she’s close enough. She’s not quite breathless. Dina doesn’t seem the type to ever be winded or tired, but there’s something gentle in the question, like she knows not to push too hard.

Ellie shrugs, eyes flicking away. “Just needed a breather. Got some air in town and decided to keep driving.”

“Good spot for it,” Dina says. She glances around, then back at Ellie. “Mind if I join you?”

Ellie doesn’t even hesitate. “No—yeah, I mean. Sure. Please.”

A little too fast. A little too eager. She winces internally but tries to cover it by gesturing toward the pier. Dina nods and follows, and they make their way over together in easy silence.

They sit side by side on the edge of the old wooden dock, the planks weathered and slightly warped beneath them. Ellie pulls off her boots and socks, sets them neatly aside. Dina does the same. Their bare feet dangle over the edge, toes just grazing the chilly surface of the lake.

For a while, they don’t talk. The water sloshes gently beneath them, and the breeze picks up, cool and crisp against Ellie’s flushed cheeks. The quiet doesn’t feel nearly as heavy as before; Ellie knows it must be Dina’s doing.

“Any reason you were pelting the lake with rocks?.”

“I was trying to skip them.” Ellie huffs out a laugh, surprised by how easily it comes. “Unfortunately, I was on a losing streak.”

“Serious technique you’ve got going.”

“Oh, totally. It’s called rage skipping.”

Dina smiles again, and it does something stupid to Ellie’s insides. “Patent pending?”

“I’ll cut you in on the royalties.”

Their shoulders bump lightly as they shift, and it sends a jolt up Ellie’s spine. She keeps her gaze fixed on the water. “I used to come here with my sister,” she says, quiet now, unsure why she’s saying it at all. “She was good at skipping rocks. I never got the hang of it.”

Dina glances at her, but doesn’t say anything right away. “But you don’t anymore?” She asks, tilting her head to the side. 

“She’s dead,” Ellie explains and it never feels any less awkward. Is there a more graceful way to talk about losing one of the brightest spots in your life? One that doesn’t make people look at you like you’re seconds away from falling apart? “I’m okay, though. It’s…been a while.”

“I’m sorry,” Dina says, soft and simple. It’s a far cry from the usual reactions and Ellie couldn’t be more grateful for it.

Ellie nods, jaw tight. “I think I’m mostly pissed off because she never taught me. It’s like she died and took all the good stuff with her.”

The sun slips lower behind the trees, and the lake darkens to slate.

Dina’s voice is low, steady. “I don’t think the good stuff ever really leaves. It just gets harder to find.”

Ellie doesn’t know how to respond to that. She just swallows around the lump in her throat and kicks her feet gently in the water. She can feel Dina’s presence next to her and it’s enough to quell the ache that she’d grown so accustomed to. 

“If you’re up for it,” Dina says after a while, her eyes catching Ellie’s. “I could teach you. I know a thing or two about skipping rocks.”

“Okay,” Ellie says, smiling and a little breathless.

[cellarspider]

Star Wars: The Old Republic and the virtues of hiding under a rock

After all the fun I had writing a deep dive on the delightfully unhinged decision-making process that gave everyone in the Sith Empire equal opportunity to shoot lightning out of their fingertips, I decided hey, why not do another post on Sith-side stuff? Why not focus on another aspect of how The Old Republic's backstory set up for the players to run around being special little guys?

Welcome to the Chiss Ascendancy, which really would rather not be here, thank you.

Spoilers for the Imperial Agent plotline, Act 2 of the Bounty Hunter plotline, Act 1 and 3 of the Jedi Knight plotline, and for the expansions up through the Traitor Among The Chiss flashpoint storyline, set just after the Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion. Also, spoilers for a 30 year old novel series, and bits of current canon. Assume all links to Wookieepedia may include unmarked spoilers for anything and everything under the sun.

Also, many, many side rambles in the picture descriptions. As soon as I realized they were a place I could hide secret bits of brain fluff, I could not be contained.

So, for a little out-of-setting backstory first: The Ascendancy is in SWTOR for one reason. If you're a Star Wars fan, you probably know his name by now. You might even be able to pronounce all of it: Grand Admiral Thrawn, known to his own people as Mitth'raw'nuruodo.

Thrawn was a breakout character from the early Star Wars tie-in Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn, which you can see reflected in the increasing amount of cover space he takes up on each re-release. Zahn may not have totally intended for Thrawn to be the character everybody latched onto so hard—I mean, it was originally the Heir to the Empire trilogy, but it's officially the Thrawn Trilogy now. Which makes it confusing, because Zahn has since written two other trilogies that actually star Thrawn as a main character rather than having him as the main antagonist.

Credit really has to go to Zahn for his work on those books, because despite his occasional insistence to the contrary, they revitalized Star Wars as a fandom. It had been seven years since Return of the Jedi came out, and there'd been nothing since then. George Lucas had been pretty burnt out after RoTJ, and the idea of a multimedia franchise wasn't all that common at the time. There'd been Marvel-produced comics, the West End Games RPG sourcebooks, a few tie-in novels, and a boatload of action figures, but all of those save for the West End Games books were produced to market the movies themselves, or directly profit off of their recent release.

All of these were of variable quality and "Star Wars-y" feel. The Marvel comics brought us such incredible things as a carnivorous green rabbit fighting alongside the main cast, and a couple wild comics by Alan Moore where Leia gets her heart turned to diamond by omnipotent Force spirits. The Splinter of the Mind's Eye novel was written while A New Hope was still in production before George Lucas had decided Luke and Leia were siblings, and you can really tell. Zahn, however, helped by the the West End Games books as a worldbuilding reference, did some stellar work integrating his writing into the Star Wars setting, while simultaneously shaping what fans would think of as a good Star Wars outing for years to come. Hell, some of his inventions made their way back into the movies: the name Coruscant is his. But Thrawn is what most people think of as his big contribution.

And it's for good reason! Thrawn is a memorable antagonist. He's smarter than the imperial officers depicted in the movies. He's able to outmaneuver the heroes on multiple occasions. He's got a unique gimmick that dovetails with the Imperial mindset—while the rest of the Empire utterly disdains foreign cultures, Thrawn takes an Orientalist interest in others' art, using it to build theories of a person or culture's psychology to use against them in war. In fact, as we will see repeated in SWTOR, his original role and his people are often used to represent a less obnoxious, more outwardly reasonable sort of imperial behavior.

He's also a cool-looking blue-skinned, red-eyed alien, later revealed to be from a culture of subterranean xenophobes with complex noble house dramas, among whom he's considered to be an outlier. Through all of this, he overshadowed other characters who may have been intended as the center of attention.

What's really funny is that the very next year, D&D would get Drizzt Do'Urden, a character who unexpectedly overshadowed the others in his series who'd been the intended center of attention, who was a cool-looking gray-skinned, red-eyed drow, from a culture of subterranean xenophobes with complex noble house dramas, among whom he's considered an outlier.

I don't know what precisely was in the zeitgeist in the early 90s, but apparently it was just a time for cool guys who grew up in caves.

It's probably similar fandom tendencies that have made both the Chiss and Drow big players in people's imaginations. Anecdotally, I'm one of those fans. You grow up liking elves, but you also became kind of a goth about it, maybe had a bit of an edgelord phase. You wanted cool elves. Possibly cool elves in space.

Apparently there was a critical mass of folks at Bioware who also were on board with cool elves in space, so they made their way into SWTOR, originally only playable for a couple of Sith-aligned classes. If you were to summarize their narrative role in a single sentence: they collectively act much as Thrawn did, providing a calmer, more collected, largely amoral presence that's peripheral to the overall setting narrative, but provides more substance to the villains.

If one were to take it less seriously, the Chiss end up as the serious side of an evil comedy duo. They are the deadpan comedic foil to the lightning-shooting madmen and their minions, the most obnoxiously british military to ever sail the stars.

So, let's dig into the Chiss a little. You kind of have to, given the "underground city" thing. Details around Chiss history and even biology have not remained fixed as canon has undergone its various convolutions, but it's generally theorized that they were the result of a genetically isolated human colony established on Csilla many thousands of years ago, which has since evolved into a near-human species, often with higher physical fitness than human average, but lower chance of spawning somebody with a Force-y destiny for whatever reason. When hyperspace travel became common, their region of space was discovered to be nigh-impenetrable due to a high concentration of wandering gravitational anomalies, which could turn your ship into an interesting collection of relativistic scrap metal.

This means that the "Unknown Regions" in the galactic west remained largely unexplored by the Galactic Republic, and local powers had to develop their own means of navigating the region. This suited the Chiss just fine, because they really, really don't like hanging out with other people.

The Chiss Ascendancy is a major power in the Unknown Regions, and it's highly isolationist, xenophobic, and authoritarian. A Secret Police force helps maintain internal adherence to the Chiss power structure. The average Chiss citizen in the Star Wars setting will never meet a non-Chiss in their entire life. That is, unless, they're stationed in the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force.

That's a hell of a name right there.

The CEDF takes an imperial pattern of national defense and turns it into doctrine: they never attack first. But if someone pokes the Ascendancy, the Defense Fleet will respond, and they'll make sure the poker can never poke again. But the Expansionary Fleet will scout out areas on their frontier, so, y'know, good luck to anybody who happens to be living there.

Within the Ascendancy, a rotating cast of Ruling Families run the government, noble houses that generally specialize in specific industries, space sectors, or resources. Most of the best positions go to those born into one of these houses, but a common Chiss can theoretically become a "merit adoptive", basically a probationary house member that can eventually become "trial-born" into the house proper, possibly achieving a status of "ranking distant". That is, unless you're found to be Force-sensitive, which during the SWTOR time period would either get you exiled, or you'd spend your life on Force-suppressing drugs.

This culture is, it should be noted again, not presented as nice or right by Timothy Zahn or SWTOR, though getting into the heads of Chiss characters can make it seem very sympathetic from their perspective.

Especially when SWTOR's backstory rolls around, and the Ascendancy had the misfortune of being "discovered" by the Sith Empire.

This led to a rather surprising pivot in Ascendancy policy: upon getting a whiff of what the Sith were about, their response was "Fantastic! Let's be friends," and swiftly negotiated a treaty to become a vassal state to the Empire, in exchange for the Empire leaving them the fuck alone.

Zahn's novels in the current Star Wars canon allude to this as a time that the movie-era Chiss are not exactly fans of, but it has an undeniable logic. The Sith are, frankly, out of their collective minds. They're also really focused on beating the snot out of the Jedi and the Republic, and they'll roll over anyone who gets in their way. Or might seem to be in their way. Or might, given the right paranoid squinting, one day maybe get in their way.

And given the Chiss and Sith tendencies toward similar, albeit factually incompatible politics around somebody being the most special thing in the universe, the two factions had enough in common to make the deal work. At least, up until the inevitable day when the Sith would presumably try and take a swat at the Chiss. This was a delaying tactic to defend the Ascendancy against an invasion from "Lesser Space", nothing more.

One might ask, if they're worried about the Sith, why not ally with the Republic? Well, there's two issues. One, the Republic doesn't have a damn clue where the Chiss are, and the Chiss want to keep it that way. The Empire has some clue where the Chiss are. That's more clues than the Chiss want anyone but themselves to have, really.

And furthermore, the Republic isn't really a better option from the Chiss perspective. It's an alien government, largely run by more of those weird Humans that are all over the Empire as well. Its history shows periods of aggressive colonization and expansion, and, the Sith would be very quick to tell anybody, the Republic sometimes decides to just completely obliterate their foes. Do the Chiss also do that? Yes, but they're Chiss, dammit, they're allowed.

So really, the ideal outcome for the Chiss would be that the Empire and the Republic beat each other senseless, with the Empire eventually imploding and the Republic never finding out where the Ascendancy is at all.

As Star Wars will eventually bear out, that's what happened. The Sith Empire falls apart at some point past SWTOR's time period. And in fact, the Republic would eventually go on to implode twice before anyone in the wider galaxy remembered that Chiss existed, when that funny little guy named Thrawn showed up. So, the Chiss might be the only ones who technically achieved their goals with this whole fiasco. How did they pull that off? And how funny is it to watch someone turn imperial chauvinism on the Sith Empire? The answers are: improbably, and extremely.

Throughout the initial war between the Empire and the Republic, the Chiss served as an unseen aid to the Sith. They provided resources and covert services, but they were utterly unknown to the Republic. They were also making moves unbeknownst to the Empire—if they were going to be breaking their usual isolationism, well, why not take up some territory that nobody else wanted while nobody else was looking? And even when they did let the Empire know they were on a planet, they didn't actually tell them where, or how many. Because really, the Empire wasn't too jazzed about somewhere like Hoth. But the Chiss? With a frozen homeworld, their cities dug deep into the glaciers and bedrock? Perfect! Just like home, but with more wampas. They built a sizeable forward base there, and kept that to themselves for decades.

In fact, if confronted about the existence of the base by an Imperial agent, the man in charge of the base will respond "Our presence here is legal, based on all existing treaties. The fact that you never noticed us is immaterial."

Lol. lmao, even.

By the time we get to Hoth in SWTOR, that base is still secret, but there's a sizeable CEDF detachment that are embedded with the Imperial forces on Hoth. And it's a decent little slice of folks, at least within the EDF. You get a whole range of people, from utter jerks like Warden Khel who tries to detain precious Jawa angel Blizz, to well-liked and respected commanders like Captains Yunaali and Yudrass, the later of whom has to patiently deal with the dumbest white man in existence.

Yudrass is also interesting for a further reason: his voice actor Tony Armatrading was from a British Afro-Caribbean background, and his accent comes through in his performance. In the context where the Empire is firmly Evil Space Wizard Britain, the accents of the Chiss stand out. They're a much more heterogenous mix. Yudrass speaks fluent Basic, but some of the others don't. One speaks Huttese, because he was originally assigned to the Outer Rim and hasn't had the chance to pick up a further language since then. A few speak limited Basic, best illustrated by the guy who gives a delightfully unenthusiastic response to finding out a non-Chiss player character has survived an attack by Imperial traitors: "You're still alive. Huh."

Hoth is also a fantastic place for turning around the chauvinism back on the Imperials, if you're playing as a Chiss. You can summarily ignore human officers in favor of engaging with their Chiss subordinates. You can work to have Yudrass promoted, both because of his competence and because you transparently don't like the other guy's face. You can privilege information gathered by the CEDF, because obviously they don't deal in bad intel. If you're playing an Imperial Agent, you can end up siding with the Chiss so comprehensively that you become a merit-adoptive of a Ruling Family. You can even reveal that you were never earnestly working for the Empire at all.

On the other side of the war, It's unclear when the Republic learns about the Chiss. Probably at some point during the quagmire over Hoth, but they're never thought of as a major player. Nobody in the Republic off Hoth really mentions them. They're treated with extreme suspicion, with a couple lines that are pretty eyebrow-raising. A Chiss defector dies while trying to trade information for asylum, and a Republic major responds to the news with "It's just as well. I'm not sure the men really wanted a Chiss hanging around here." Yikes, my dude.

Still, with their presence revealed, the Chiss seem to have slowly started taking more active roles liaising with the Imperial military, working in Imperial space, or even joining Imperial organizations. This begins as projects by the Ruling Families and other prominent Houses, but individual Chiss also started taking swings at making it in Lesser Space. Some of them may have been average Chiss trying to get ahead outside of the traditional Ascendancy power structure, and some of them might never have fit in well back home in the first place.

This is, for the record, why Chiss are a playable option for the Bounty Hunter class. It's not often remarked on though, and Bounty Hunters don't get much Chiss-specific dialog options.

And it's not like bounty hunters or Chiss are exactly welcomed in Imperial space, though. After all, the Empire has their blood purity laws and all that, if you're a non-human or non-Pureblood, you're constantly subjected to microaggressions and, frankly, macroaggressions. Possibly even megaaggressions. They'd never let Chiss near positions of power, or access to their secrets.

People who've played already know where this is going. And any curious souls who read my last post may recall a really odd evil space wizard gimp who decided he did not give one single fuck about those blood purity laws.

Darth Jadus, blessed maniac that he is, opened Imperial Intelligence to alien recruitment with all the political grace he was known for, which was none, with a side order of self-aware cultic rambling: Everyone should have equal opportunity to access the misery that is the Empire, because the Dark Side likes it when you do that.

And in so doing, he created a very interesting proposition for motivated Chiss willing to take the risk, and an even more interesting proposition for the Ascendancy's Secret Police: they could now embed sleeper agents within an enemy security force by submitting job applications.

And this is why new players can chose to be Chiss when they play as Imperial Agents. You get a lot of Chiss-specific dialog as an Agent. The game supports player choices to explicitly say you reject the Ascendancy, or that you're secretly working for it. Or, hell, you could play a Chiss who says they're in it for themselves, and then secretly confides later that they're actually an Ascendancy spy!

I am so, so tempted to describe the Agent plot in its absolutely bonkers entirety, but let's stick to the Ascendancy view… for now, at any rate. I probably have another of these essays in me somewhere.

So! Sleeper agents. If the Empire won't ever fuck off by itself, then the Ascendancy wanted to make sure that they had options to give it a push. That would allow them to go back to their usual isolationism, if they still wanted it—You hear at least one Aristocra intimate that the Ascendancy might go all British Empire on the rest of the galaxy, if they see the opportunity. Some Chiss now rather like the idea of being the tiny little backwater kingdom that suddenly owns literally everything, as great powers around it weaken.

Complicating their ambitions, things did not turn out that way. Well, not the way they expected. The Ascendancy was out there playing spy chess, while the Emperor was gearing up to eat the entire chess tournament.

Honestly, there was no way the Ascendancy could've predicted the crazy shit that was going to go down in the Empire. Like, really, nobody saw that coming, not even in the Empire. Except for Darth Jadus, if you're weird enough to let him take a swing at running the entire government. Hell, if you're an Ascendancy sleeper agent, maybe he's precisely the sort of destabilizing force you want in the Empire.

So, when it turns out you accidentally allied yourself with an eldritch monster that wants to Pac-Man all life in the galaxy, what do you do? Well, fortunately for the Ascendancy, the Jedi took care of that one for them! Unfortunately, the Jedi didn't count on the MMO having expansions. Turns out, the Emperor was not entirely dead, just a little dead. And also he had a spare Empire hiding elsewhere, just in case the first one didn't work out.

No, I'm not joking, this really happened.

Meet the Eternal Empire, the Sith Emperor's side project where he put all its points toward a cultural victory and military automation, so when he lost control of that empire as well, his usurper was able to just kind of fling remote-controlled fleets at the rest of the galaxy.

With the Republic and Empire all war'd out, they were pretty emphatically steamrolled by the Eternal Fleet. And because the Emperor had known where the Ascendancy was, they were also in the line of fire.

And so the Ascendancy said "Wow! We hate it! Kindly take some planets and fuck off."

And it worked! They had to pay some exorbitant taxes to the Eternal Empire, but not as crippling as what the other powers suffered—because invading them hadn't been as expensive and they made early moves to placate this new empire and its alien human madness, they mostly flew under the radar, and weren't targeted for reprisals.

After that, there was a whole song-and-dance that included a suspiciously protagonist-shaped person uniting the rest of the galaxy against the Eternal Empire, overthrowing two or three usurpers who'd taken over (depending on whether you count the evil mastermind droid who was just kind of there to vibe), and killing the Emperor again for almost the last time, the galaxy could finally stop with that whole nonsense and come to a realization: Everyone was flat broke.

The concessions to the Eternal Empire had crippled the major powers. The Republic was reeling once again, and the Empire had lost most of its leadership and was currently in a very funny series of events that canonically end up with an 87 year old who loves shenanigans assuming the title of Emperor. the Hutt Cartel was probably still having its own problems because it was only a few years since their Supreme Mogul decided to become a raid boss and got killed, then the next one was a violent Hutt supremacist who threw a tantrum that ultimately dropped his own palace on him, and we have no clear successor after that.

The Ascendancy responded to Imperial inquiries with something along the lines of "Oh, yeah, sorry, we'd really like to help, but the Eternal Empire, wow! They really did a number on us. We can't spare any resources right now. We totally would if we could, though."

Literally no one believes them, but because no Imperial ships have ever landed on Csilla, nobody could call them on their bullshit.

And that's about where things stand! There was a kerfuffle where one of the Ruling Families put their drama on display to foreigners, which was a big faux pas. The result is a brief series of missions that actually take place on an Ascendancy world.

But otherwise, the Chiss have maintained their isolationism up to the present day of SWTOR's story. Are they right to do so? I mean, the game remains pretty consistent with the rest of Legends on the Ascendancy: they're a bunch of very pretty jerks who only look better in comparison to their competition, who are grand champions of jerkassitude, and because we're not in a position to see the Ascendancy inflict itself on other people. If they were a major power on the level of the Sith Empire, we'd probably see a lot more of their ugly side.

And what about playing the part of being one of these people? It's not good, certainly. Turnabout may feel like fair play, but it's not great at actually improving the situation overall.

…But it can be fun to indulge in a bit, in the fantasy of an MMO. Especially when the Empire is just so, so dunkable. It's like a less dangerous version of when the English cricket team of 1932-1933 decided it was entirely sporting to give Australians skull fractures, right up until the West Indies cricket team said "Now hear us out—what if we attacked you with the ball as well?"

And beyond that, this is the game where you can get the chance to shoot lightning at people while your eight foot tall cannibal thrall-maybe-turned-husband approves on the sidelines. If anything, the Ascendancy might suffer from being less goofy than that. But taken in full context of the MMO, they're often standing in as the reserved or reluctant bunch who got collectively dragged into this whole mess and are just trying to ride out the chaos with all clothes, dignity, and eyebrows intact. When subjected to the galaxy's shenanigans, the Ascendancy would rather take the advice of the skeleton meme:

And that can be deeply funny to play around with.