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mrnoobdude · 2 months ago

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Duality and the bridge

Arcane is a show about duality.

It's present in everything. There's duality within characters, showing different sides to themselves; and between characters, with different matched pairs. Duality is referenced in the big monologues: Silco talking about drowing as a story of opposites, and everyone having a monstrous side; and Viktor explicitly talking about the duality of humanity. It's present in the the themes of order vs. chaos and science vs. magic. And in the structure of the show, two seasons with dramatic reversals between them. And of course, duality is reflected in the setting, the relationship between Piltover and Zaun.

What I really love about Arcane is that it really does justice to this theme, there's real depth to it. It's not just that everything is two-sided, it's that the two sides are deeply interconnected and interdependent. They're insprable, they come from the same source, one side cannot exist without the other, they condition each other and can transform into each other. And, as I mentioned, the theme exists at all levels of the story.

One thing that encapsulates this really well is the symbolism of the bridge, and how it's used. (The making-of documentary of season 1 is even called "bridging the rift", so we know that the concept of the bridge is important.)

Duality is a contradiction. It does not mean either total unity or total division, it means both at the same time, the unity of two things that are opposite from one another. And that's what a bridge is, it connects things that are apart from each other. A lesser show would have used the bridge as simply a symbol of connection, but Arcane uses it in a more complex way.

In a story about duality, the first image we get is not of two separate things. The first image *is* the bridge.

The scene is one of the worst conflicts between the cities. It's incredibly violent. The next image (after several more shots of the bridge) is an enforcer firing their gun, and then approaching the camera, with the monster-face scribbles.

So right away, this site of connection is also a site of deep division. And of course it is, where else is conflict going to take place, if not in the spot where two forces meet? The only way to avoid conflict is to avoid connection.

At the same time, the first lines we hear, in a scene that's otherwise without dialogue, are the lyrics of "Dear friend across the river".

Dear friend across the river My hands are cold and bare Dear friend across the river I'll take what you can spare I ask of you a penny My fortune, it will be I ask you without envy We raise no mighty towers Our homes are built of stone So come across the river And find [Powder is cut off, but the rest of the lyric is: "the world below"]

The lyrics establish the relationship between Piltover and Zaun, the haves and have-nots. But the song is not just asking help, it's also an invitation. It's addressed to a friend, to come across the river, to enter their world. The invitation is cut off by the violence around the characters. But the fact that the song includes an invitation implies not just the possibility for connection between the two cities, but the desireablity of it.

So right off the bat, the narrative already has this great contradiction to it. Because duality *is* a contradiction.

And then the scene ends with this shot of Vander carrying the kids, walking along the bridge.

They're small against this backdrop. This bigger problem that's located on the bridge, the problem of the bridge. And Vander is walking away from it. He's refusing to deal with it, and he's exiting screen left, he's retreating.

More under the cut:

It's not long before we see the bridge again. In the next scene, the kids escape across it, and it opens up.

This is the only time that we see the drawbridge raise. And I think it's significant that it happens at this point, after the time-skip. We're seeing what's happened since the time of the failed uprising. The drawbridge raising turns the bridge from a point of connection into an obstacle to connection. The implication being that Piltover and Zaun are farther apart than ever.

The fact that the bridge can act as a symbol of division just as much as symbol of connection, again, shows what a good grasp the creators have of this theme. For a bridge to exist there needs to be division in the first place. You can't have connection without division.

The bridge as a symbol of division is emphasized explicitly in episode 2, when Vander takes Vi there to talk with her.

He tells Vi, "I led us across this bridge, thinking things could change," with the implication that he now believes that change is impossible. He wants her to abide by the rule that "topside is off-limits". The bridge is there, but it's not for crossing. It's a borderline. Vander wants to avoid conflict, and he's talking about not provoking topside. But his approach also means preempting any possibility of connection. He's trying to eliminate the contradiction of duality by separating off the two sides.

Throughout the first season, the bridge continues to be a site of division and conflict, moreso than it's a site of connection.

It's the spot where Piltover cuts Zaun off, it's where there's resistance, and where there's violence.

Like Vander, Jayce tries to prevent conflict by enforcing a strict division, with his blockade. And as with Vander, the method doesn't work.

The bridge is used to signify similar themes with relationships as well.

It's where Jayce and Viktor have their falling out, where Jinx and Ekko fight. I'm also including Vander and Silco in this, because I think it's clearly deliberate that their final scenes take place on a catwalk, on a kind of bridge. (Also, I love how the suspension cables are used to direct the eye in these shots).

These sets of characters are all dualities in themselves. They share fundamental characteristics or experiences (Silco and Vander both fought for Zaun, Jayce and Viktor are partners and share similar dreams, Jinx and Ekko shared their childhood). But each set are also facing real differences (of philosophies, of priorities, of what they're fighting for). It's about tension, about unity and division pulling against each other.

The Ekko-Jinx fight is probably the best example of this. Of the three it's the scene that's the most self-contained story. And it's not a very straightforward one. The emotional punch of it comes from the fact that these are childhood friends who are now enemies. But it's not just a case of what was once united now being divided. Because in the end, that connection between them still exists, it still overcomes Ekko. Both tendencies are present at the same time, both coming together and pulling appart, both attraction and repulsion.

But then there's also instances of relationships coming together on the bridge.

Vi and Caitlyn's first hug, the first real acknowldegement of what they've come to mean to each other, happens on the bridge. That's a really significant moment, it's the first instance of a connection successfully taking place there, and it's one between characters from either side. I think to a large extent, Vi and Caitlyn's relationship itself represents the possibility of reconcilliation between Zaun and Piltover. By having this moment on the bridge, that symbolism is played up.

Later on, Heimerdinger and Ekko meet for the first time by the bridge, another connection between characters from two opposite sides, and one that turns out to be vitally important to the fates of the two cities.

Then, in act 3 of season 2, we start to see the bridge in quite a different way from season 1.

Starting with the AU world in episode 7. We see the connection between Piltover and Zaun fully realized. Not only is the bridge open, but it's full of activity and life. People are fully living in that connection.

And not only that, this is on the part of the bridge that opens up. But there's people just hanging out there. Heck, there's seemingly permanent businesses there. That means the bridge hasn't been raised in some time. Which sounds very inconvenient for maritime trade. But more importantly, it shows how well-established and stable the connection between Piltover and Zaun is.

The spot where two forces meet isn't just the place where they come into conflict, it's also where they begin to integrate. And of course, the division between Piltover and Zaun still exists in a literal sense, people are never going to not need the bridge to move between them. But it's being crossed over constantly as if it's nothing.

Then in the next episode, we start to see the bridge being used to connect rather than to divide in the main timeline.

Like in season one, enforcers are set up with their flood lights, but this time as an invitation rather than as a barrier. And there is a small number of Zaunites who come across, showing that first potential for a coming together.

And I want to go on a bit of a tangent here, because the show could have gotten quite simplistic at this point, to just be like, the two sides need to come together and sing kumbaya etc. But the show doesn't do that.

The characters who cross the bridge in this scene become subsumed into Piltover. They wear the same uniforms, and go through the same training. And the two characters that are highlighted the most, Gert and the nameless father, they die. And Piltover still loses to Noxus.

It's only when Zaunites show up under their own leadership, fighting with their own methods, that the battle turns around. A positive kind of unity does not mean one side being subsumed by the other. It doesn't mean submitting chaos to order. It doesn't mean eliminating the contradiction of duality (as Viktor tries to do). It is a unity of opposites.

We see this in the last scene on the bridge, the memorial.

The bridge is finally a true meeting place. There's still a certain two-sidedness to it, Sevika and Shoola are each representative of their two cities, and they're presented as being on opposite sides, with a strong line between them. But at the same time, when you look at the crowd, Zaunites and Piltovans are mixed together. Shoola and Sevika's colour palettes are very similar. Behind them, the two land masses look like they're tapering into each other. It's a unity of opposites.

I think the theme of duality carries over into the final scene with Cait and Vi as well. Like I mentioned above, I think Vi and Caitlyn's relationship is itself partially representative of the potential unity between their two cities. And even though the scene is not set on the bridge, bridge is still invoked by the song that Vi hums. The potential for connection that was first implied in the song has been fulfilled.

Of course, that doesn't mean the end of struggle, or the end of tension, or the end of the story. Caitlyn says as much, "our story isn't over." We see that there's still tensions when Sevika joins the council. Differences are not blended out, the duality remains, with all it's contradictions, which means that the relationship between the two sides will continue to be dynamic and evolve. And then there's the idea of "the dirt under your nails" which I think has layers of meaning, one of which is being a reminder of the past, a reminder that Caitlyn got her hands dirty, and in that sense, a reminder of what the history of Piltover and Zaun has been. There's no erasing the past or forgetting it, but there is forward movement, which is then communicated by the airship, carrying Jinx off to start a new story.

Point being, the relationship between the two sides, the duality of it, has changed its dynamic, but not its complexity.

I feel like there's not a lot of shows that can deal with such broad themes on so many levels, and do such a good job of it. And part of that is using symbols in complex and evolving ways.

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mrnoobdude · 3 months ago

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Good day Mr Flanagan. please what does "the rest is confetti" mean to you and in the context it was used in hill house??

Okay, here we go. Buckle up for a long read.

To answer this, I've got to explain a little bit about what was happening and where I was when I sat down to write episode 10 of The Haunting of Hill House.

Hill House was not a fun shoot. The picture above is from very early in production, when I was still chubby and happy.

It was my first foray into television. I was absolutely terrified that I'd mess it up. So I'd opted to direct all of the episodes myself, figuring that - if nothing else - I'd have no one else to blame if it went south.

It was the most grueling professional experience of my career. The shoot was by no means a smooth one, every day was an uphill battle from a budgetary perspective, and between the three giant production entities involved with the production, I spent a lot of time fighting over the creative and logistical elements of the series.

I began losing weight. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

By the end of the shoot, I had dropped almost 40 lbs.

I was very depressed. Every day was a battle, and for the first time in my career, I wasn't excited to go to work in the morning. We were fighting for basic resources, fighting for the show we wanted, and even fighting amongst ourselves by the end. It was grueling.

We hadn't written all of the scripts when we started production. I believe we had finished through episode 7, but the rest of the scripts had to be finished while we were already shooting.

We'd mapped everything out in the writers room, and I had great support on the other episodes, but I was writing the finale solo. I'd thought I'd be able to juggle it with everything else. I quickly fell behind.

I finally got to the script about halfway through production. I'd work on it between takes at the monitor, and then get home to our tiny rental house in Atlanta, where Kate was waiting with our baby son. (One of the rare bright spots of this shoot came when Kate found out she was pregnant about halfway through production. We even named our daughter Theodora, in honor of her origins.)

I'd typically fall down from exhaustion when I got home, but I had to push through it and work on the script. My weekends were spent shotlisting and prepping for upcoming episodes. We didn't have enough time to stay ahead of prep, so every available day was used for that... I went three months without a single day off at one point.

I'd sit up late staring at the script. I was in a dark, dark place. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling like I lived in an eternal present. Each day bled into the next and it didn't feel like there was an end in sight. That feeling of unreality was heightened because we kept returning to the same sets, same locations, and even the same scenes throughout the 100 shooting-day production. Stepping back into the exact room we had shot in days or weeks or even months ago made the whole thing feel absolutely surreal. Making movies is always an non-linear experience, but this one felt particularly so... it was like the days of our lives were happening to us all out of order.

I remember feeling something like despair creeping into my daily experience on the show. And I remember dwelling on that when I got into the scene work of episode 10.

As I worked through the draft, I recall that despair coloring a lot of what was on the page. My filter was breaking down. There's a monologue at the beginning of the episode where Steven's wife Leigh (played by my dear friend Samantha Sloyan) spews out a torrent of eviscerating insults about Steve's value as a writer. That is just me vomiting onto myself. She was voicing all of my deepest insecurities about myself at the time, and of what I was doing with this series.

She says "Is anything real before you write it, Steve? The things you write about, they're real. Those people are real, their feelings are real, their pain is real - but not to you, is it. Not until you chew it up, digest it, and shit it out onto a piece of paper and even then, it's a pale imitation at best."

This was the mindset I was in for a lot of the shoot. The writing became a reflection of a lot of that turmoil, and I knew who I was referring to in that monologue - I was talking about my family. I was talking about how much of their lives I'd used as building material for this show. I was talking about the fact that I'd lost two loved ones to suicide, and seen what it had done to my mother in particular. And I knew I was using - possibly even exploiting - those people for this series.

There's a lot of despair in this episode. The Red Room, as we conceived it, was a place that would feed upon those emotions. Grief, sadness, loss... those were the real ghosts of our series, and where our characters find themselves at the start of the finale. They're being slowly digested - eaten alive - by those feelings.

So finally, it came time to write Nell's final scene with her siblings. I knew from the outline we'd constructed in the writers room what this was supposed to accomplish - she was supposed to be their salvation. She was supposed to take all of these feelings that we'd been wrestling with and finally provide catharsis... finally say something that would free everyone.

I remember sitting with a blinking cursor for a long time. The Crain siblings had just turned and seen Nellie standing by the door, and suddenly were able to hear her speak. But what should she say? What would I say? What would I want someone to say to me?

What she ultimately says lays bare a lot of what I was thinking about when it comes to grief. It exists outside of linear time, much as I felt I existed at the time. That sense of eternal present, that sense of a nonlinear eternity of moments and memories - it all came out in her speech to her brothers and sisters.

I remember feeling, looking at my insane present and looking back at my past, how strangely overwhelmed I was by memories. That I wasn't experiencing time in a straight line, and hadn't been for a while - for the better part of a year, I'd felt more like I was standing in a whirlwind of moments. "Our moments fall around us like..." Nell said, and I recall sitting back and trying to find the words.

"Rain," for certain, but there was something too uniform about that. The moments of life as I experienced them weren't that orderly, they weren't that small. They didn't fall the same way. Some sailed by, fast and unremarkable, while others lingered in front of me, twisting and stretching. So it was a good word, but not the right word. I left it on the page though.

"Snow" was my next attempt. Better, in that I imagined the snow blowing in the wind, swirling and dancing and feeling more organic. More chaotic. More like life. But for some reason, the word that stuck with me, the word I felt Nell Crain would connect with was...

"Confetti."

And that was because I was thinking not of Victoria Pedretti at this point, but of Violet McGraw.

Violet played Young Nell, and I wondered what she might have said if she experienced time this way. As an adult, Nell was despairing. Nell was overwhelmed. But as a child... there was an innocence to the word. There was a joy to the word.

I imagined moments falling around her, this little girl with the big smile and the wide eyes. Her moments would be colorful. They would be of different shapes and sizes, some falling fast and some falling slow, flipping and turning and dancing in the air, independent of the others. Sparkling, whirling, doing lazy summersaults as they sauntered down to Earth.

I thought of myself, and of the members of my family. I thought of those we'd lost. I realized what I hoped for them, and for us all, in the end... was to look upon that mosaic of experience, that avalanche of days and minutes and moments... and to smile with some of the joy we had as children.

And this, I thought, was something that gave me hope. This gave me a glimpse of some kind of salvation for them. This was also how I hoped my life might seem if I was a ghost - a cascade of color and light and shape and movement, something I could dance in.

So Nell smiled and said... "or confetti."

It stuck with me. The rest of her monologue gets heavy again, and gets to the real point of the show - the point of the whole series, if I'm honest - and that's forgiveness.

I figured the only thing that would let the Crain children out of the Red Room was to be forgiven. I thought of the losses in my own family, and I thought of what I wished for my mother and for my aunts and uncles and cousins and I tried to pour that into her final words.

"I loved you completely, and you loved me the same," she said, "that's all." And this was the point I wanted the most to make. That at the end of our life, if we can say this about each other, the rest doesn't matter. The rest is that rainstorm, or that blizzard, that fell around this one central truth, and maybe built itself in piles around it, to the point we lost sight of it along the way.

And I thought again of that little girl, and almost as an afterthought, wrote "The rest is confetti."

I liked the way it sounded, but I was insecure about the line. I almost took it out, in fact. I remember asking Kate to read the scene and talking about that last line with her. "Is it too cute?" I wondered. She was on the fence. "Depends on how it's acted," she said, and I figured she was right. We could always take it out if it didn't work. The scene could end with "I loved you completely, and you loved me the same. That's all."

Why not shoot it and see what happened.

I turned in the script, we published it quickly so that we could start breaking it down and prepping it. And the next morning I was back on set. I'd deal with episode 10 when it came down the pipe again, sometime in the coming months. We had a lot of shooting to get through before I had to worry about it.

I recall Netflix asking me to cut a lot of that monologue, and I remember them also having questions about the "confetti" line. I pointed out that it didn't cost us any extra to shoot it all, it was only words, and fought to keep the script intact.

Ultimately, they insisted I make a series of cuts on the page. I begrudgingly agreed, but left Nell's speech alone. I made superficial cuts around it, throughout the draft, and even considered changing the font size to fool them into thinking it had gotten shorter (I ultimately was told I wouldn't fool anyone and not to risk starting a war). But Nellie's final goodbye stayed intact.

It must be said - Victoria Pedretti SLAUGHTERED this scene.

By the time we got around to filming it, things had never been worse for the production. There was almost nothing left for a lot of us. Tensions were sky-high, resources had been exhausted completely, and we were all ready to give up.

Filming in the mold-ridden Red Room was depressing, morose, and led to a lot of arguments and unpleasantness. The room itself just felt gross, always, and we were in there for days at a time. The last thing we had to shoot in there was Nellie's goodbye.

Victoria came to set having to push through pages of monologue, and she did so with captivating bravado. I recall being teary-eyed at the monitor watching her work. And when we finally made it to the last line, I watched her deliver it with... a smile. A sincere, innocent, longing, joyful smile. A smile informed by the sadness, grief, and loss of her own situation, of her own life... but a smile that finds forgiveness and grace after all. Pedretti knew how to say the line, and how that word would work.

And as she said it, I knew it would stay in the show.

Over the years, that sentence has become something of a tagline for The Haunting of Hill House. I'm always a bit mystified and touched when I see people approach me with the line on T-shirts, or even tattooed on their bodies.

I started signing it with autographs back in 2020 after enough fans asked me to. Now it's my go-to when I sign anything related to Hill House.

The line, for me, represents a lot of things.

It's about the insane, chaotic, non-linear experience of making that show. It's about trying to find and hold onto joy, even in the grips of despair.

It's about the way the moments of our lives aren't linear, not really, and how we may be unable to understand them as we exist in their flurry. It's about finding hope, innocence and forgiveness in the final reckoning.

And it's about how, outside of our love for each other, the rest is just... well, it's fleeting. It's colorful. It's overwhelming. It's blinding. It's dancing. And, if we look at it right, it's beautiful. But it's also light. It's tinsel. It flits and dances and falls and fades, it's as light as air.

The rest is the stuff that falls around us, and flits away into nothing.

It's the love that stays.

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mrnoobdude · 3 months ago

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Artwork from the Gallery Nucleus event

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mrnoobdude · 3 months ago

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my warden amell thought the circle was a totally flawless and good institution til her journey (ie her new friend morrigan) taught her otherwise

(commission info // tip jar!)

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mrnoobdude · 3 months ago

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syrils death was so anticlimactic compared to the others, and that’s saying a lot for Andor. Dedra didn’t see his body fall, Cassian didn’t remember who he was. Just another face in the massacre and if he hadn’t seen Cassian he probably would’ve survived, and come a lot closer to maybe not a redemption, but a grayer area of deflection from the empire and it’s definitely intentional having his story end like that. We’ll never see how Gorman’s massacre would’ve affected him in the long run. He’s another imperial worker just.. gone. And that’s that. And it’s so interesting to me that they showed him having that POTENTIAL to change, that massacre having such an impact on him, having Dedra and the empire LIE so boldly to him like that, and he was about to grow, but he saw Cassian, fought, and died. Because that’s how it is in a war. It’s death, on both sides, and there is no changing that.

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mrnoobdude · 3 months ago

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Drunken Deeds

@emmithar-blog shared with me a scenario from a dream that I could not resist writing, so... blame her?

Dreamt of drunken Arthur running inside modern store where he keeps trying to lasso the little kiddy horse ride and shouting 'he's getting away!' each time he misses.

Modern AU; Tilly summons Hosea to help sort a situation with an inebriated Arthur.

cw: alcohol/drunkenness, grief/mourning, child loss

Drunken Deeds

Lord knew judgment weren't the reason Hosea went for him. Sinners like them, well. They knew better than to throw stones in glass houses and his being the fine, crystalline structure it was? Made it clear, in every ironic sense, that claiming piety wouldn't do more than put a new window in what had to be a solid wall. Only so many times even a silver-tongued shyster like himself could patch up the fractures and make the illusion of it being whole.

No judgment, then, spurred him into action when Tilly caught up with him between the aisles of books and across from the jewellery counter, his eye on a lucrative little piece kept displayed under lock and key. Had himself an angle, a real nice thought to go with the wilted widower, seeking something fine to honour his late wife. In his pocket, tucked in a velvet bag, he had the cheap glass duplicate ready to switch when the attendant turned to fetch him a tissue as his old eyes misted up with fond memory of dear, sweet Bessie - sadness summoned at the drop of a hat in his line of work, the years having dulled the ache of loss.

"It's Arthur," Tilly said in a hushed voice, looking over her shoulder to ensure no one peered to close at them.

"Arthur?" Hosea shook his head and set a gentle hand on her arm. "No, Arthur's not here, my dear," he assured her. "Dutch has him covered." In a sense. Keeping Arthur from trouble were a two-man job at the best of times, but with how close the young man'd become to the whiskey bottle of late, well. It meant a certain degree of supervision needed to keep him from drowning and it weren't his lifeguard shift quite yet.

Tilly fidgeted with the hem of her jacket, a lovely flowing yellow piece which lent her a sense of innocence that the world'd otherwise stolen from her sweet soul. "That's just it," she insisted. "Me and Mary-Beth both heard him holler and she's there right now, trying to talk some sense into him."

"I'm afraid Miss Gaskill will run out of air before making any headway," he said. "Boy never did possess a lick of sense." Hosea gave her a crooked, confident smile - something to ease the tension that tangled her fingers together worriedly. He patted her arm gently, knowing that none of Miss Grimshaw's ladies aimed to cause a fuss when the matriarch weren't around to cause it for them. They were observers, sharp-eyed and sharp-witted, able to find the smallest opportunity and make it lucrative when the airs were peaceful.

That worried him some, then, that Tilly spoke of Arthur and hollering, a disruptive shift to her subtle efficiency. He paused, head tilted back with some consideration, then nodded as though his decision made - one already decided when she insisted on it being Arthur. Never had a son, him nor Bessie, and with his wife gone to heaven, well, Arthur were the best son he could hope for, so he'd always be ready to go after him. "Why don't I go speak with him? Then you and Mary-Beth can continue on your day."

Many things existed which Tilly Jackson could handle and he had no doubt that she'd've done herself justice here if he hadn't been around, but ability didn't mean comfort, nor the confidence needed to snap Arthur back off whatever track he'd gone down. The man wouldn't never hurt no lady, of that they all knew, but he could be right ornery and a headache all the same. Ruinous for a lovely shopping afternoon, or for a scouting foray hid amidst feminine wiles.

She smiled, a bright ray of sunshine and relief, and took his arm when he offered it, guiding them towards the back of the department store. The deeper they went, the more apparent it became that the ladies hadn't made the call to fetch him lightly. Hollering he heard loudly, and the plaintive requests from store employees doing their best to stop the chaos that'd started unfolding. He could hear Mary-Beth's voice pitched louder than the lady preferred, asking Arthur to let things go and come walk with her. A last-ditch appeal to those few gentlemanly manners he kept hidden beneath the gruff.

Then, as they came around the final corner, Hosea understood the extent of disruption his not-quite-son'd gone and done. Toys lay scattered everywhere, the aisle one for toddler treasures, and Arthur stood in the midst of it. Swayed more like it, glassy-eyed and clearly drunker than a skunk bathed in moonshine. He, in turn, faced off with a truly formidable opponent that seemed to have him bested: A small horse on four wheels, the sort that one might give a toddler to scoot around on in the house.

"Ye- You ain't gettin' no away, y'bastard," Arthur muttered, words slurred together as he readied up a lasso made from skip rope. "I ain't- You ain't-" The effort of talking too much, he raised up the lasso and cast out, missing the horse by a good foot. "Dang-- Stupid-- Horse, stop! He's gettin' away!"

Hosea gave Tilly one final, gentle pat on the arm and stepped away, an understanding sinking deep into his bones to what was going on. Three weeks ago had been the phone call that severed the faintest threads of hope for a life away from his past. Three weeks since Arthur broke his phone by punching it and his fist into the wall until something broke. The phone could be replaced, but his knuckles still bore bruises and half-healed scrapes from repeated impact against the brick wall. Three weeks since the young man'd been sober and, based on Hosea's own experiences with grief and liquor, likely three months or more until he'd return to it.

He held up both hands, calling up the attention of the employees and passersby that were staring wide-eyed as Arthur tried and failed once more to lasso the toy horse. "Ladies and gentlemen, I implore you to forgive my son," he said, voice one of authority and apology both. "Things have been quite difficult of late and, as you see, he doesn't have much sense to be dealing with it sober. My humblest apologies for the disruption - and I assure you, any damaged merchandise will be paid for." This he said with a hand over his heart, a promise he could later wheedle them out of. "If you could all just move along, I can promise there will be no further disruptions."

Mary-Beth, looking rather relieved, took that as her sign to start shuffling gawwkers away, while Tilly took a rather more blunt approach against the stubborn few clingers that remained. "Shame on you, with the phone? Would your mamma want you recorded when you're in need?" She shook her head and the filming rubberneck drew back, interest curbed and phone lowered. "Why don't I help you delete that, so no one needs know better, hmm?"

Content that the ladies had that part of the process handled, Hosea approached Arthur, who'd sunk down to his knees and held the skip rope tightly between his hands. "Okay, Arthur," he offered, calm and steady, as he crouched down. "Why don't we get up now, leave these folks to their day."

Arthur blinked slowly, focus broken from his horse nemesis, and looked up when Hosea offered him a hand. Bloodshot eyes, shadowed by weeks of drinking and despondency, flashed recognition, than the heaviness of understanding that he'd gone and screwed something up. "What're… 'Sea?" he mumbled, looking down at the skip rope, around at the toys.

There'd been a part of him that hoped to get Arthur out of there before he realized quite where he had ended up, and that part must've lost its bet with fate and luck. Hosea did not sigh, nor did he judge, as he let his knee rest on the ground, providing a barrier between Arthur and the few store employees left to deal with his mess. "That's right, Arthur, it's me," he assured him, reaching to gently pull the lasso from his hands. "Why don't you and I go for a walk?"

"That- Dutch said." Arthur shook his head, grasping blindly through the fog of intoxication for whatever sense had led him here. "Dutch said I oughta walk… get some air. Some space. Be good for me."

Hosea bit back the desire to curse, to pull out his phone and send Dutch a sharp text reminding him that Arthur needed folk around him, not to be sent away. Foolish, prideful desire to go off on one of his plans no doubt spurring Dutch to encourage the boy outside the confines of their safe house. "I think you've had plenty space for today," he replied, setting said the skip rope and shifting to haul one arm over his shoulders. "Let's get you up."

Arthur tried, lord did he, but he must've found and drank the good whiskey by the way his legs kept turning to rubber and dragging them down. Then, halfway through a third attempt, Hosea heard a small, choked sob and the man's full weight pulled them both to the ground.

"S'gotten away, 'Sea," Arthur muttered, miserable and hoarse as he stared at the little toy horse. "Don't- It don't matter hows far I try, he's…"

"Gone, Arthur." Small and softly spoken, for all the ache it awoke in his chest. He let the man slump there a moment, shielded him from prying eyes so the tears that tracked down his face had no witness to haunt him later. The mourning, the loss - he knew this pain. From going through it himself with Bessie, drunken and cussing for months on end. Now watching Arthur go through it, his heart shattered because it ain't never been true love with him nor Eliza, no. But Isaac? Weren't no love more true than that father to his son.

Lord knew judgment weren't the reason Hosea worked hard to get Arthur on his feet, thanking Mary-Beth when she came back and offered her assistance. And judgment wouldn't never be the result of seeing Arthur broke down like this, shattered since the day he got the call, the day he'd learned his son'd been taken from life. Judgment had no place here, never would - Hosea'd make sure of that, a small consolation for a young man dealt one of life's worst hands.

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mrnoobdude · 3 months ago

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Bill Living His Best Life

I requested a Cameo from Steve Palmer, and it was everything I had hoped! Here it is, for all my fellow Bill Williamson appreciators!

(Transcript below the cut.)

Thank you so much, Steve, I absolutely love it, and I laughed out loud at the end! (Bill needs a hug.)

"Hey, so Zana Zira requested a Cameo herself, from me, Steve J. Palmer. I play Bill Williamson in the Red Dead Redemption game series from Rockstar Studios, and Zana had this question:

Zana says, 'Hi Steve, I love your work, and I was curious what you think Bill would have aspired to or enjoyed if he had the opportunity to live his best life,' as opposed to the tragedy that befell him in the series. 'He's really such a tragic character, and I'd love to know what happiness could have looked like for him.'

Well, that is a great question Zana. Um, you know the story, I think the story in itself, I wouldn't change a thing about it because Bill is meant to be a tragic character and that's why, even though it can be heartbreaking, some people think he got what he deserved but that's... that's great storytelling and to be able to be objective and - and look at it through sometimes even a painful lens... Ah, but because... In the hypothetical sense of, y'know, eh woulda-coulda-shoulda if Bill hadn't made a left instead of a right, or what have you, um... I think Bill... Y'know, ah, that's a really good question.

Bill could've... I think Bill could've, uh, y'know, might've been happy bein' a security guard at a... y'know, at an oil pla - at an oil refinery, or he could've, uh, done manual labor at a... Well, no. No, I don't think Bill would've been happy with any of that. You know Bill, Bill kinda rejects authority.

But I think Bill could've... In the modern world he could've found a nice person to relate to, person he could live the rest of his life to, find that one special person. Who that person is, that's been debatable since the series came out. So, that's the big question, like is Bill a bear at heart, could he have found some guy? I - I could see him running a tavern, or basically his significant other being like running the tavern and maybe Bill would just kinda, y'know, bring supplies in and run security.

I think Bill really just needed to be loved, and uh, I think if Bill had found - See, there's your answer. If Bill had found that special person, and - and - and that would've been his outcome as opposed to the tragedy that would later befall him, I think he would've done anything. I think he would've done anything. I think that finding true love would have usurped his - his defiance of authority, and he would have been happy with any task.

That's in my head, but uh... anyway, hope that answers your question. Um... We'll never know. We will never know, but it's interesting to think about. Anyway, Zana Zira, have a wonderful, wonderful day, and outlaws for life.

[In Bill's voice] And, uh, yeah, y'know, you're not gonna - nothin's gonna happen unless you start a dating profile, so that's on me. Guess I should - don't be so scared to get myself out there."

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