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jacks347 · 3 months

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The bell on the coffee shop door jingled as Raven pushed it open, the familiar "Welcome to the Regrets Cafe!" greeting barely being processed. She ordered her usual, hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and a peppermint stick. Call it childish, Raven found it comforting when she was wallowing in her own thoughts. Blame it on her growing motherly instincts from raising Paloma.

She carefully cradled the warm mug in her hands when her name was called, watching the steam peek our from the gaps in the melting whipped cream as she settled into her usual table by one of the massive front windows with a world weary sigh. What she failed to notice was that, for once, the table wasn't empty.

"Rough day?"

Raven just about fell out of her chair, head snapping up to see a person sitting across from her, the barest hint of a smile peeking out from behind the coffee mug they were sipping from.

When Raven finally recomposed herself in her seat, she cleared her throat before answering the question. "That's a word for it, sure." The person hummed, setting down their mug and leaning forward over the table. "Mentally or physically?" "...what?"

They gestured to the shop around them. "This is the Regrets Cafe. Hardly the place people go when they're just tired from a hard day at work but it wouldn't surprise me. So, I ask again, mentally or physically?" Raven blinked a couple times before sitting back in her chair, deflating a little. "Mentally." "I figured. What's on your mind?" "Are you always this prying?" "Only to the people who sit at my table looking like they hold the weight of the world on their shoulders."

Raven highly considered just getting up and moving to a different table at this point just so she wouldn't have to actually talk about what was going on in her head but by now, this person had caught their attention. "You first. Why are you here?" They chuckled at that, sitting back and crossing their arms over their chest. "Should've expected that." They turned and stared out the window into the setting sunlight. "Just thinking about someone I shouldn't." "Ex?" A whirlwind of emotions passed over their face at the question; anger, betrayal, sadness, regret, before landing on a cold mask of apathy with a click of their tongue. "Tsk. Nah, he's burning in hell where he belongs. Just...a friend who got caught in the crossfire." They finally turned their gaze back to Raven. "Now you. Got an ex on the mind?"

Raven sighed, laying their forehead on the table with a quiet thunk. "Ex feels too strong of a word for him. Like yes that is his title but it doesn't feel right." "Was he a good ex or a bad ex?" "What's the difference?" "Physical and/or psychological abuse. The fact you have to ask is a touch concerning." "Oh, well, by that definition he was a good ex." "Okay, where's the regret?" Raven paused for a moment to swallow the rock in her throat that had formed as she lifted her head off the table. "...he didn’t deserve to die. If it wasn't for me, he'd still be alive." "Ah, there it is. Survivors guilt." They nodded sagely. "Can't say it's an unfamiliar feeling, though it is an unfortunate one." "Did you lose your friend too?" "Mm, not quite. They're still alive just...don't remember me. And I can't talk to them again." "Can't bring yourself to?" "No, legally I cannot speak to them again. Trust me, I would if I could."

Raven almost laughed. Legalities, boy was she familiar with those. "Yeah, I get that. I lost my name the day I lost him. I lost...everything. Everything I'd ever known died with him. It had to." "Run away? Start a new life?" "Not exactly? Went into witness protection." "Ahhh, that explains it. So you had to start all over, leave everything behind whether you wanted to or not." "Pretty much." "Are you scared?" "Of witness protection?" "Of forgetting. Forgetting who you were, who you used to be. Are you scared of the day you forget your own name?" The intense stare the person was leveling them with made Raven shudder. She almost felt like she was back on trial. "Sometimes. But at the same time, that life brought me nothing but pain, I'm glad to leave it behind."

They sat back, eyes turning to the ceiling like they were searching for something in the tiles. "Do you regret loving him?" Their tone was softer, more thinking out loud than an actual question. Raven smiled the smallest bit, taking a swallow of her now significantly cooled cocoa. "Sometimes. But then I look at the people I have now and remember that I found them through loving him. So maybe it was all worth it." She watched their head tilt back down, looking at Raven again. "What about you? Do you regret loving your ex for what happened to your friend?" They sighed, chewing on their lip as they contemplated their words. "Every day. Every day I regret loving him because if I hadn't, they would be fine. They wouldn't have had to go through everything that they did. They wouldn't have had to get their mind wiped and all the memories taken away. They wouldn't have...had to forget me. Had to forget how they helped me in the lowest point of my life. Had to forget how much I cared about them." They paused, their jaw clenching to hold back tears. "But then I see the domino effect. The things that happened because of it. The person I met because of it. And then I wonder if it was all worth it and if fate really does exist. It's-" "Confusing. And complicated. And frustrating as hell." Raven finished for them, making them chuckle. "Sounds like you've done this before." Raven shrugged with a smile. "Not so much a reoccurance, more so just a more recent one." "Oh? So then miss recent expert, what's your opinion?" They leaned forward with a smile and a quirked brow. "What's your advice?"

Raven considered what to say for a while. What would her advice be? "Others can't write your story for you. They can hand you the pen and paper but they can't put the words on the page. You have to write your ending yourself. It's up to you to decide if you want to write it happily or not." The words rolled off her tongue easier than she thought they would. Her own spin on the words that kept her from running away from the best thing that happened to her. Would Crow be proud of her? She hoped so.

The person's eyed widened for a moment, blinking in surprise. "That was...shockingly profound. And actually really good advice. Huh. I'll have to remember that." Raven stirred her mostly melted peppermint stick through her cup. "Your turn now. What sage wisdom do you have for a newcomer to grief?" Raven half teased, not really expecting an answer.

"The world isn't out to get you. You're allowed to rely on others, the people around you want to help. You can't keep throwing yourself at the wall and expecting it to break every time. One of those times, it's going to be you that breaks. But when you do, you don't have to pick up all the pieces by yourself." They spoke softly, sounding like they were repeating a mantra. Maybe they were repeating advice of their own. Raven couldn't help laughing. "Sounds like we both are rehashing the words of someone far better at this than we are, huh." "Aw damn, you can tell that easily?" They both dissolved into laughter, not noticing the jingle of the bell at the door.

"Darlin?" A smooth Southern accent made Raven turn her head. Standing behind her new friend was a man, flannel shirt and worn blue jeans with a cowboy hat. Looked like he'd walked off the set of a western movie. Her friend tipped their head back to look at him and smiled. "Hey there cowboy. Come to find me?" "Clearly. I've been trying to text you but you haven't been answering." "Ah shit, have you? Sorry, got caught up talking, I haven't been checking my phone." They pulled their phone out of their pocket and scrolled through what Raven assumed was their missed messages. The cowboy just smiled and ruffled their hair. "It's fine, darlin. I'm glad you made a friend." He turned and faced Raven. "Sorry, should've introduced myself. Name's Sam. Their partner." Raven almost slapped herself when she realized she'd spent this whole time talking and never bothered to introduce herself. "Oh, hi. Sorry, I never actually introduced myself. I'm-" "Miss Raven!!"

A familiar excited voice interrupted her, the girl it belonged to running up to cling to her in a hug. "Paloma, don't run, you could slip." Ivan chided softly, coming up behind her. Raven just laughed, squeezing the little girl in return. "She's fine, Ivan. What are you even doing here?" "Well you weren't home at your usual time and hadn't texted so I figured you stopped on your way home somewhere and came to take a look. I'm just glad we found you." Ivan leaned down and kissed Raven's forehead, earning an amused look from her new friend. "He yours, I'm assuming?" "Yeah, he's mine. And the cowboy belongs to you?" "Who, this guy? Nah, he's just some puppy I picked up off the street one day." "Darlin..." Sam warned but his smile made the threat hollow. "Well, I thank you two for finding my girlfriend and keeping her in one place. Made it easier on me." Ivan offered, earning a wave from Sam. "Ah, don't thank me, thank my partner here. I only came in a minute before you did to find them myself. So I should be thanking you." "Please, it was no trouble. It was...quite the productive conversation." Raven waved off his thanks, smiling softly at her friend. They shrugged, returning a half smile. "Yeah, you could say that. Have a few less regrets than when I walked in here. Maybe one day I'll get rid of them all." They downed the rest of their drink and stood, taking Sam's hand. "Well, it was nice to meet you Raven. Maybe we'll run into each other again." "Maybe. Stay safe out there." "You more." They gave a final wave and headed out, leaving Raven with Ivan and Paloma.

"So, who were they?" Ivan questioned, taking the now empty seat. "Honestly...I have no idea. I never asked for their name. But they gave an interesting perspective for me to think about." "In a good way or a bad way?" "Good way, definitely." "Well that's nice." Raven hummed in agreement, turning to look out the window. "Maybe one day I'll stop having regrets too." "Miss Raven, are you going to finish your drink?" Paloma asked, poking the now cold mug. "Ah crap, my cocoa! Aw, now it's all cold." Raven pouted sadly, making Ivan laugh. "Oh Raven, has held the weight of lives in her hands yet pouts when her hot chocolate gets cold."

"Oh we'll see how funny it is when I pour it over your head mister!" "No, wait, I concede! Ah!"

(I have no idea why I wrote this. I had the thought "What if Darlin and Raven had a conversation about how dating their exes changed their lives" and boom, this was born. Okay this post is long enough, I'm shutting up now.)

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butchsophiewalten · 3 months

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For the character opinion bingo can yuo do felix..

This fucking guy. I have such a torrid relationship with this character. I've spent a lot of time joking about actively hating him, just because (especially back in 2021, when I first got into The Walten Files) there was such a gross oversaturation of these terrible, bland, thoughtless interpretations of the character. Like so many people saw this really interesting sort of character, and watered him down into something that was more personally palatable and sympathetic for them.

I don't know. Felix is so uninteresting when you don't hold him accountable for anything. I remember a lot of people trying to pin the responsibility for his actions onto the other people in his life, chiefly Jack, because they sympathized with his personal struggles and wanted to woobify him into a character who had never really done anything wrong. Which is such a shame, because that sort of wishy-washy attitude a lot of the fandom had taken towards his actions really soured me on him for a while. And that's not fair, because he's a genuinely fantastic and really interesting character.

I've always loved Felix when it comes to canon depictions of him, y'know? Because it's so free of that kind of Fandom Baggage. Even the good fandom Felix content has to bear the burden of that baggage a lot of the time, and it's worsened for it. But it's like, man, I always forget how fucking fascinating Felix is until we get some Fun New Canon, or someone in the fandom writes or draws something really good, and then it all comes back to me. I'm dying to see more of this character. I really want to get further into his head. I want to see exactly the depths of depravity he's willing to go to save his own skin, and I want to see how he justifies it to himself all the while.

I think a lot about his Formerly Positive relationships with other characters, too, because I think even before things went bad, Felix was always pretty self-centered. Very upbeat and overfriendly to the point where it seems, very obviously, like he's compensating for something. I think he cares a lot about what people think of him, but doesn't necessarily value other peoples' opinions. I think he very genuinely thinks of himself as the smartest person in the room, but is chronically resentful of everybody else in his life for outsmarting him. I really love the idea of everything with him being this sort of paradox. He's so self-deprecating, thinks so little of himself, but would move hell and high water to avoid actually changing and improving anything about his life. He's always so sorry, when he does something wrong and it blows up in his face, but the last thing he'd ever be willing to do is try and do better next time. He treats every tragedy that befalls him as some terrible innevitability he's subjected to, instead of the natural consequences of his own, controllable behavior.

I've already said I think Jack was a bit of an emotional anchor for him, in a way where Jack was this sort of representation of a Successful, Fulfilled man, so Felix really craved validation from him. He would always try, with varying degrees of success, to be on Jack's good side, because having Jack tell him he had done a good job made him feel that much closer to being the Pinnacle of Success he imagined Jack to be. And in this way, Jack was sort of dehumanized by Felix from the very beginning. Jack, in many ways, stopped being Felix's friend, an important person in his life, and started being this idyllic representation of a Good Man that Felix both resented and desperately clung to.

I think about this idea a lot when rewatching Guilty and hearing Felix try and justify his actions to himself through the lens of how Jack would feel. He had to bury Edd & Molly, because Jack would be devastated to see them like that. He could never do that to Jack, his best friend. Jack would be devastated. That's why it has to be a secret, why Jack can never know. He's doing good, he's protecting Jack's feelings. It's such a fundamental disconnect from the reality of the situation, and it feels to me a lot like he's projecting this imagined idea of Jack Walten onto the circumstances to soothe himself, and in the process is denying the real Jack Walten his autonomy in the situation. Jack doesn't get to be told what happened and decide for himself how to feel, Felix gets to decide how Jack would probably feel, and act on that instead.

Imagine for a moment, this same situation, but involving something much less terrible and serious. Maybe Jack has a nice vase in his house that he likes and is important to him. Maybe one day, Felix comes over and, when Jack is in the other room, accidentally knocks it on the floor, and it shatters. Felix, imagining how upset Jack would be to know his favorite vase was broken, sweeps it discreetly into the garbage, and plays stupid when Jack asks about it later. Now, Jack: 1. Never gets the closure of knowing that happened to this thing that he valued so dearly. He never knows if it was stolen or misplaced and is in one piece somewhere out in the world, or if it really was broken, and he should give up trying to recover it. 2. Never gets to decide what should happen in the aftermath of this vase being broken. Maybe he, too, was just going to sweep it into the garbage. But maybe, beforehand, he would take the opportunity to mourn this broken thing before it was out of his life forever. Or maybe he'd try to glue the shards back together. The point is not what he does, but the fact that he was never given the chance to decide what he would do.

I'm worried that last paragraph might come off as pretty patronizing. The point I'm trying to make is just that I don't think Felix really considers Jack as an autonomous person, and that's a really interesting part of their dynamic to me that I think is relatively really underutilized.

Apparently I have a lot to say about Felix Kranken. There's a lot more I could say, but this post is so fucking long already, holy shit.

#ask #This is my first time really sitting down and drawing Felix and trying to make him look. like. accurate to the vision of him in my mind #it was kind of therapeutic honestly! it feels good to get My Take on him out into the world #felix

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