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rosezemlya · 4 years

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I love your Gerudo rank breakdown! However, I feel like we haven't seen much of the white fulfill leadership roles beyond very high ranking fighters (I think Neesha told Hunter, somewhere in the early chapters of The Return, that the Elite are the king's personal guard though of course that might not be all they do). Do you have any scenes/outtakes/interludes/thoughts on any of the Whites taking specific non-fighting leadership roles?

Well, most of the characters in the story are very highly placed people in the various governmental / societal structures at play, so most of the scenes cover decision making discussions rather than implementation. This is a function of leadership, but not one that takes place where the hierarchy would be immediately obvious (especially if the narrator is Link, who isn’t someone who pays a whole lot of attention to hierarchy as a rule, existing, as he does by nature and also by definition, outside of most of them).

(Hunter has some thoughts on the other hand.)

(He’s drawn org charts trying to explain it all back home.)

Except for Nabooru over the Elite, for the most part nobody in that room has the authority to order anybody else in that room to do anything, it’s all discussion and negotiation. After it’s done, the Elite all split up and go to boss around their respective subordinates and actually make the plans happen.

The personal guard thing definitely isn’t all they do. It’s just the most obvious function when they’re away from home with Link. The Son is the second most important job the Gerudo have (the first being the defence of Hyrule from hostile interlopers), so when he’s away from the Fortress, the Elite - as the best of the best - are charged with protecting him. To be fair to the Elite, other Sons have not travelled anywhere near the extent that Link does. Some of them didn’t really travel at all. Even Ganondorf travelled less, and he started a whole ass war. But Link has, like, forty-five different magical means of instantaneous travel and distance means less than nothing to him and he didn’t grow up in the Fortress and he’s used to a world that is much bigger than the desert. So this generation of Elite finds themselves away from their main duties at the Fortress more often than past generations have. (They’re working on this. Compromises like allowing Neesha to count for the purposes of protecting him when he’s away, even though she’s so young and also not an Elite, is one of them. Reassigning workloads and taking more flexible approaches to organizing themselves is another. They’ve done things a certain way for a very long time - most of those habits and processes are getting looked at and revisited now.)

Also, because they’ve been at war for so long, a LOT of the current Elite came up from the Red, rather than the Green, and a LOT of the current activity is based around military action/responses, so there’s a lot of combat discussion (and of course because of the nature of Plot, the combat is where the narrative is focused), and less of the other stuff featured in the story (I’ve got half thoughts for another in-between story that might feature more of the latter, but I have so many projects already I can’t see myself taking that on any time soon). But, like, right now, with the Gerudo heading out across Hyrule Field to go shut down the moblin portal before trying to take Castletown - the scenes focus on the Elite, because they’re the named, established characters whose personal storylines are part of the plot. But their force is larger than that. They’ve got reds and purples with them too (probably no greens - they didn’t take a big enough force to merit that level of coordination (the greens would be less happy about being left behind on THIS one except there is a LOT of clean up to do at the Fortress right now and they don’t really have the time or capacity to be properly put out over it)). The Elite will call the shots when combat starts and the reds and purples will deploy accordingly. (There are, perhaps, more Elite than there need to be on this trip, BUT this is a very exciting trip, and it’s very hard to stop an Elite from doing a thing if she wants to and they ALL want to, and also it can be justified because the Hylians sold out their King, so this is a little bit of an Achieving Restitution and A Little Bit of Revenge trip as well, and all things involving the Son involve the Elite. Also, they aren’t 100% sure how complicated taking over the city will be administratively yet, so more is probably safer until they’re established and can send for whatever greens they might need).

In terms of specific non-combat roles for the currently named Elite, Indiga, for example, is in charge of the Gerudo network of diplomats/spies. They don’t have a LOT of spies since the war ended - a lot of the women who were spies under Ganondorf were very uninterested in continuing to be so after he was gone for various reasons - but they have a handful. Diplomats are more common, particularly bearing in mind that the Gerudo have dealings with non-Gerudo communities deeper in the desert and beyond Hyrule’s borders. Indiga manages this network as one of her primary functions.

Aliza oversaw a lot of the work where the Gerudo laws and religion intersected, which included sitting in judgement on trials for serious accusations (but not so serious they required the Son to weigh in), hearing appeals of decisions made by the greens on lower-level accusations, and - post-Link - overseeing extensive and spirited discussions about the meaning of his existence, how to properly interpret all the many aspects of it, and what changes those might required to the existing laws (and also what laws needed revision now that Ganondorf wasn’t there to insist they work a certain way). She was very active in the aforementioned revisions to King Defence Protocols, from the perspective of determining what would and wouldn’t fulfill their oaths to the Wind in relation to her Son. She also oversaw the organization of the oath swearing ceremonies for girls passing their rite of passage mission and etc.

Again, on both counts, they weren’t necessarily doing this work themselves (except where appropriate). They were directing, overseeing and managing it, based on the decisions made by the Leader, in consultation with the Elite as a whole. In the story it can seem like they spend all their time with Link, but that’s mostly a function of narrative needs. If you were to follow them around for a day (I am having the BEST images of a Parks and Rec style mockumentary of the Gerudo going about their day to day right now), they would spend most of it doing other stuff.

#loz rr #overzelos #ask rose

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kaibutsushidousha · 5 years

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What are your thoughts on Hakuno Kishinami? And you do prefer the make version or the female version? P.S. I love your blog💖

I prefer the female Hakuno (the canon Hakuno, thank you Last Encore). Anyways, I like Hakuno a lot, specially after CCC. My second favorite Type-Moon protagonist after Shirou.

Notes: This post will not contain Extella series content because I barely remember anything from Extella and never played Link. I also won’t contain any Last Encore content because Deadface is an entirely different character and I already talked about him.

Hakuno is, on many levels, not what I expected. After we’re treated to the death of the other protagonist in the prologue, we’re introduced to Hakuno as the character we choose the gender and name for. That combined with their extremely bland (although very cute/handsome) design gave me the impression of a blank slate self-insert protagonist, which is something I already commented a few times to be something I detest. When your character’s default name is an anagram for “your name is blank”(kimi no na hakushi), that’s not a good way to start. Well, Hakuno had their own dialogue/inner monologue, at least it couldn’t be as bad as Fujimaru.

Hakuno is introduced as an amnesiac Master with no noticeable talents, no ties to any other character or any wish they knew of. They decide to fight just out of the possibility that they would discover their identity along the way. Nothing interesting was done with them until the first week ends on the reveal that the loser of the Grail War die for real. It was a really trivial and obvious twist but for Hakuno’s character this changes everything.

Week 2 is where Hakuno really starts to shine as a character. Hakuno is very afraid of death but they are also (initially) just as afraid of killing. Partially because they are too good natured to casually murder someone (at first), but moreso because their lack of memories cause them to fear the possibility that the goal they forgot is not really worth taking someone’s life for it. Luckily for them, their opponent here is Sir Dan Blackmore, an old man with an already fully realized and not much else to look forward to, and most importantly a fellow kind man with experience in having to take other people’s lives. In that harsh situation, Dan advises Hakuno to try to find purpose in every battle they fight and every sacrifice they make. This is advice is pretty much the cornerstone that built Hakuno’s character.

Week 3 is another “easier” case because Alice is a cyberghost, so she wouldn’t be alive even if she won the Grail War, but Week 4 is huge to Hakuno’s for two very game-changing reasons. First is that, regardless of your choice, Hakuno’s opponent would be the first time they would knowingly kill a young living person with a long and possibly bright future ahead of them. The other big thing is the discovery that Hakuno is just a NPC that joined the War by an error.

The latter is really major because it changed everything about how Hakuno saw their situation. They could go on up until now because they believed they would remember they had a purpose that would make all the blood in their hands meaningful, but now they know that they got nothing and they were nothing. No memories and no objective. Every life they took were, by their own admission, much more valuable than their own and they needed to take even more of those to survive. Ironically enough, this very blood in their hands was one what gave them the will to keep going. Hakuno is very afraid of death, but they are even more afraid of a meaningless death, and dying without ever accomplishing anything would be giving meaningless deaths to their victims. Well, that and their experiences with their Servant giving some substance to their short life.

By the second half of /EXTRA, Hakuno’s character is already fully established and doesn’t really changes much throughout the rest of the game. Their feelings about their identity are organized and their hesitation is gone. They are terrifyingly determined to survive, to the point they can now fight and kill without questioning the morality and the consequences of their actions. But of course, that doesn’t make them blind either. There’s always full acknowledgement despite the lack of hesitation. Due to Hakuno’s lack of connection to the world, they care for the small connections they built throughout the game a lot more than they care about the full-on world war that’s defining Rin and Leo’s grand motivations. Everything Hakuno does is entirely about Hakuno and what Hakuno likes.

Hakuno summoned their Servant without a catalyst, meaning they were summoning out of compatibility, and what they got from this was either a tyrant who could only think of what she loved, a Counter Guardian who was able learn to kill without hesitation out of need, or an outright monster who sees human life in a very different way than humans do. They are all anti-heroes and that’s not without reason. Hakuno is very good natured and sympathetic, but can’t really be called a perfectly good person and doesn’t consider themself one either. In fact, Hakuno straight up calls themself evil at one point in CCC. They are a dangerous hero I could see and enjoy as a villain in some future story.

Hakuno was an amazingly enjoyable protagonist to follow and very easily one of the highest points of both /EXTRA and CCC. Not only for their compelling determination and fascinatingly questionable morality but also for their general personality too. From their bland design and blank slate nature, I expected them to have the “generic everyman” personality, especially considering Shirou and Shiki Toono also had the “generic everyman" personality underneath their trauma, but Hakuno turned out to be much more of a silly weirdo compared to them, bringing us narration gems like “Rin went from comatose to bitch in three seconds flat” or “This were I would love to call this goddess a giant hag, but I would rather not die immediately”. Easily the goofiest Type-Moon protagonist until Fujimaru decided skydrop for no reason to impress a goddess with a wrestling move.

That said, as amazing of a protagonist as Hakuno is, their character really doesn’t fit the story of Fate/EXTRA and I think the game’s biggest narrative problems trace back to Hakuno. Fate/EXTRA is a game very big on world building. There’s really a lot going on in the background with Rin, Leo and even Twice, but we never get a real close look to that world because we’re stuck in Hakuno’s perspective and Hakuno really doesn’t care about the big picture of the world they’re in. I don’t dislike that they live only for what they directly interacted with, but it really clashes with the backstory the game is trying to tell.

CCC doesn’t add much of anything new to Hakuno’s character but really makes the best of use of their established traits, reinforcing everything I liked about them while taking away what I disliked. The dungeon progression being about invanding other characters’ mental worlds does a great job in both exploring and showing the limits of Hakuno’s willingness to harm others for their goals. Their unstoppable drive to avoid a meaningless death gets full and amazing display in the interlude between chapter 4 and 5. Their silly nature is perfectly at home with the heavily comedic tone of the first half of the game. And most importantly, since CCC’s backstory is the OG /EXTRA game, we don’t have Hakuno ignoring the background in this one.

But the best trait CCC expands upon is their self-awareness, resulting into some points in the game, in their conversations with Sakura, where Hakuno presents a really well done character study on themself, tying up how they are just a nameless, pastless and futureless human who can’t fight for anything larger than themselves to how unstoppable they are. All Hakuno has is the present and their simple and real connections to the people they like, so all they can do is fighting for those people. And, fortunately for the world, their favorite type of person are the people who face any and all adversities to make others around them feel better.

I really like this establishing of Hakuno’s type, not only because it fits all 3 of the Extra Servants and Sakura (and Nightingale, but Nightingale’s role in CCC is a topic for another day), but because if really fits their story and good nature. Hakuno appreciates people capable of self-sacrifice because that’s something they don’t feel very able to do, especially in the OG Fate/EXTRA, and most of all, Hakuno appreciates kindness because that’s something their circumstances never allowed them to perform, except for the one time they saved Rin or Rani. This probably means a lot to Hakuno, since Hakuno is a very kind-hearted person who considers themself evil for doing the only thing they could to survive.

Ideally I would add an extra paragraph about Eliza’s character arc because that’s Hakuno at their best, but I couldn’t find any good place to fit and this part would be better off in an Eliza ask, so that’s pretty much all about Hakuno. For my tl;dr conclusion, I’ll go with a CCC quote that best demonstrates both Hakuno’s silly personality, self-awareness, and unstoppablenss all in one line: “Going back to search around the abandoned school or exploring the Labyrinth at this point would be insane. Luckily, I am not exactly sane.”

Thank you very much for the ask (and sorry for taking 5 months to respond, you asked my while I was still early in my CCC playthrough). I love this absolute mad(wo)man.

#fate extra #fate extra ccc #kishinami hakuno

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contrariancy · 6 years

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liner notes for ‘reach’.

So, uh. When I write, whatever I write, I always keep a separate “notes” file with things like general plot points, timelines, stuff I’m debating putting in, cut things, and deleted/rewritten bits. And needless to say, the notes for reach got a little, well, long.

Some of the cut stuff I��m actually repurposing for an upcoming series (tentatively titled ‘iƒ’, based on branching points in ‘reach’), but even when I remove that, it’s a lot. So I figured I’d just dump them here and hopefully someone will find them interesting or what have you.

➤ this fic was how I coped with chapter 295; chapter 1 was written almost in its entirety before 296 came out. I acted cool on tumblr and twitter, but I was absolutely sweating bullets and fully prepared to write bizarre fix-it fic because I wanted it. After 296, I lost some steam, but I had a couple friends tell me they really liked the first chapter and thought it was a good concept. I’ve done enough "lost scene" fics that I wanted to try a new challenge and see if I could create an engaging AU fanfic.

Here is exactly what spawned this:

➤ there were a few rules I created for myself before I got started. The first one was that I couldn’t post anything until the fic was mostly done and once I started posting, that was a commitment to finish it. The second was minimal to no OCs — I had to bend this later with Bathin, but I compromised by making his power fear-based and having him take other forms.

The third rule was that any character introduced had to have some sort of role to play; they couldn’t be there just to "be there" and exist to boost up other characters. Zeal was the only character in it out of necessity, as Guila would have been written entirely differently if she didn’t have her brother with her. Even then, I tried to give him something that wasn’t "[X] in distress." I think the character that came closest to being that was Hendrickson, honestly.

➤ originally, Hendrickson was going to have a phone that he talked to and would have run into Dreyfus while exploring the city. I opted against this because I didn’t want to write any OCs in this and a phone counts. Also, it would be ten times more interesting to have him bounce off of Dreyfus instead of some phone that the reader does not care about. It was also important to me that Dreyfus get introduced as soon as possible, especially in a fic like this where the reader is being asked to accept something different from the top.

➤ Jericho and Howzer were not in the initial draft notes. Then I came up with the pair concept early on (after realizing there was a pattern with Guila-Zeal and Hendrickson-Dreyfus and I could play with that for the eventual Merlin reveal). Fraudrin was an actual character briefly before I decided that Fraudrin as a villain was kind of a tired thing; if I was going to write for him at this point, I would want to explore more of the shades of gray with his character, and this fic would not give me the time or leeway for that. So Howzer became Gil’s paired partner instead, also because I just wanted to write Howzer. Jericho offered the most opportunity for writing things, and I wanted to play her off of Hendrickson and Dreyfus.

➤ Merlin was always going to be the deus ex machina. Merlin was always a factor and always the only Sin I was going to put in. The only thing that changed is she went from sweeping in and completely taking out Bathin and Fixing Everything Ever to coming in for the assist at the end with her OP skills.

➤ Helbram is only in it because he was the first dead character I thought of as a potential partner for Zaratras. I wrote the first half of interlude 1 before anything else and I loved the odd couple pairing, so he stayed and became kind of essential. He’s also very fun to write for and I thought he would be an interesting contrast to the others.

➤ Bathin was going to originally be a straight up Fraudrin clone and just the entity Bathin using Fraudrin’s guise as a persona or whatever. Again, I decided Fraudrin as a villain was a tired thing at this point and having the villain just be Fraudrin again was a bit of a cop out, even if I really didn’t want to write any type of OC. Bathin is like Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist, later complete with Velvet Crowe from Berseria’s arm (which is. also Meliodas and Derieri and I went "oops oh well"). I liked the mental image of Margaret beating everyone up too, so that’s why that happened. It’s also because they’re the two figures in Hendrickson’s life that get possessed and Bathin poses as both of them.

Bathin was meant to be cruel but fun, like an animal that plays with its food. His downfall is his hubris! He thinks he’s on top — and it’s his world, why wouldn’t he think that? — so he doesn’t see anyone as a real threat. The unknown terrifies him though, and that’s why he was tearing his hair out over the 'interloper.'

➤ ftr, Bathin is one of the many demons referenced in the Lesser Key of Solomon. I’d originally considered something else and even looked into a lot of Arthurian lore, but since Nakaba mines those for canon and I didn’t want to risk any overlap, I swerved in a different direction all together.

➤ epilogue 1.0 is hot garbage, I started writing this before 296 came out and it was built on assumptions that thankfully turned out not to be true. I trashed it quickly and I like 2.0 much, much better. It’s embarrassingly bad though and this is why you edit, okay. Also, it focused solely on Hendrickson and Dreyfus when the fic did become an ensemble piece and therefore, the other characters deserved to get closure. Some of the sentence structure and imagery got cannibalized for the very last part of the new epilogue, though.

➤ most of the chapter titles stayed the same from the beginning; only chapter 5’s changed. It was originally "in which a good boy questions a demon’s fashion choices" which was a reference to Howzer switching sides and Bathin-as-Fraudrin stuff. Bathin shifted to chapter 6 entirely though, so it became less relevant. The placeholder title was 'in which lightning strikes twice’’ which is a reference to Gilthunder and Zaratras, but since Zaratras doesn’t actually fight in that one, it didn’t make sense.

Everything from here on is from my notes in my project file; the only things I’ve done are rearranged the order for clarity and expanded on shorthand, though there are a couple of italicized notes in parenthesis that I added in later. Some of it is pretty disjointed tbqh! I have a bad habit of not writing in order.

Like I said before, I do a notes file for pretty much anything I write, as it’s where I dump ideas so I don’t forget or move cut text to in case I decide I like the older version better later on (it’s happened). This one just got ridiculously large, so hopefully someone besides me gets a kick out of it.

General notes

Hendrickson wakes up in an apartment, everything is taken care of, wtf

maybe Zaratras has been there for a bit and they're like ARE WE DEAD?? and he's just all HA HA you better not be.

Zaratras is the guy who has just been there!! Forever!! He runs a bar.

Gil is from just before the Kingdom Infiltration arc, so he is just sad and tired all the time.

Howzer is from early and a good boy but also devoted to Dreyfraudrin so it’s like. ??? When he sees those two. He will bond with Hendrickson and this time it will be Hendy’s turn to be like hey. Come. It’s fine.

The ultimate goal with Gil and Howzer is basically attempting to make people whisper "who hurt you."

Merlin shows up in the end like hmm you were all pulled into a pocket dimension but don’t worry, you should be expelled right back into the timeline where you left. No big deal. Bye.

Helbram and Hendrickson kind of. They’re not OKAY but they realize they are both shitty people who were in an impossible situation. Helbram is the petty type, so he’s not really going to forgive him, but Hendrickson doesn’t need his forgiveness either. The two of them work together though because it’s the only way out

Helbram just dunks on Hendrickson constantly because of course he does

Guila is from the same period as Hendrickson and Dreyfus, but she has been there for months by the time they arrive. Zeal is there too because otherwise she’d destroy everyone and everything.

They come in pairs, from similar points in time?

Guila and Zeal are just before the holy war, around chapter 252. Team smartass gen z

Hendrickson and Dreyfus are post 266 / 285 or whatever. Team old man

Zaratras and Helbram are team post death. Team DEAD

Gil and super early bro Howzer who work for Dreyfraudrin. Team dumb boys

Jericho and Merlin. Merlin just lurks for ages, there should be hints about her from chapter 2 on then she’s like lol hi. Post 197 for Jericho, Merlin plays coy because who cares. After 197, Merlin senses Bathin and is like gimme. Team Jericho Broke Nothing

Bathin notes

It’s powered by a crystal that preys on their fears?? Hence Dreyfraudrin existing. Zaratras kind of knows what’s up because he can sense it, since the energy sort of started when he got there, the dude gained a form when Gil showed up, then power when Guila arrived and later Jericho, and now Hendy and Dreyfus sort of complete the collection. It’s their fears all manifested. Merlin has no impact on it though and actually weakened it because ha ha ha you think she has fears, that’s cute. (this shifted to Bathin’s true form being a crystal — I was trying to stick to my "no OC" rule.)

Beleth or Bathin, a fragment of the sangréal? <— too complicated, stick with Ars Goetia lore interpreted for nnt-land. (I think my plan here was some ancient artifact?? Like the sacred treasures. It got really complicated really fast which is no good.) Belialuin Bathinal

Bathin is a demon, its true form is the crystal, it feeds on fears and created the pocket dimension to try and regain a more viable physical form, the weakened state is why its legions are so weak.

But also Bathin feeds on fears and craves Hendrickson and the others’ fears of Fraudrin and everything, and when Bathin finally gets Hendy and is like aren’t you afraid?? He’s just. Yes. I am absolutely terrified. But because Dreyfus took the time to punch him in the heart repeatedly he’s not going to roll over, he has to keep going. Helbram also yells at him like HOW DARE YOU. YOU CAN’T. (This shifted to Jericho in chapter 5 so it could become a more solid arc in the end with the confrontation in 6. Helbram got his moment with Hendrickson and Guila instead and, later, his goodbye.)

Bathin appears like Dreyfraudrin and Margaret, so when they strike Fraudrin down and are like ok?? We good?? Margaret turns and cuts them?? You have until chapter 6 to decide. (it’s pretty obvious what I decided.)

Outline

Hendrickson is the perspective character. Only the interlude, which is Dreyfus-centric, isn’t. (The other two interludes were added as I was writing later on.)

Chapter 1: Hendrickson and Dreyfus and general scene setting. Chapter 2: They actually go around town, Guila and Jericho are super introduced, we get glimpses of Gil and Howzer and they kind of talk to the latter. Kind of. Chapter 3: They get to the bar where there’s a bartender that dresses like a mysterious knight, spooky scary etc etc. It’s Zaratras. Helbram is there, too. More on Gil, Howzer should be questioning. Hendrickson leaves Dreyfus at the bar, runs into Howzer on the way out. Interlude 1: Dreyfus figures out Hendrickson’s plan re: Ludociel. Interlude 2: Jericho and Guila on Helbram. Interlude 3: Howzer and Gilthunder. Chapter 4: The confrontation between Dreyfus and Hendrickson. Howzer crashes their place because of course he does. Chapter 5: The Dreyfraudrin chapter. Vs Gilthunder. Zeal will guide them; alluded to in chapter 3. Chapter 6: The source, Bathin, is revealed, Merlin shows herself. Epilogue: The end. "I’m going to make you see how wrong you are." —> this promise HAS to be fulfilled.

TIMELINE:

Five+ months — Zaratras and Helbram

Five months — Gilthunder and Howzer

Three months — Guila and Zeal

A week — Jericho and Merlin

~Days — Hendrickson and Dreyfus

Setting

Eighteenth Plaza — Bathin is the 18th Goetia. Based on Shibuya 109 on the outside.

Pub’s name — Wandering Knight, Silver Helm

Possible Combos - Shot Purge (Guila-Hendrickson) —> Holy Shot?

Flats are like a venus fly trap, lulling them into a false sense of security and complacency so Bathin can keep feeding off their fear?? Maybe it was and then Merlin showed up like lol hi. (I dumped this because it overcomplicated things a lot; it just became very subtly and only partially implied in chapter 5 but ultimately not very important.)

Cut lines

Chapter Two: What the four of them manage to put together quickly — really, Guila and Hendrickson exchanging theories and ideas while Jericho and Dreyfus watch from across the booth in silent wonder, occasionally exchanging glances as if to say what is wrong with these two — is this: (I wish I could have kept the Jericho and Dreyfus bit, but it didn’t work. This was when they were in the booth, exchanging information.)

“Now hold on a minute, Gilthunder!” Dreyfus turns back to face him, squaring his shoulders. “This— this isn’t what you think! If it’s about M—”

It’s Hendrickson’s turn to yank Dreyfus back, hissing in his ear. “Don’t.” (I didn’t want to complicate it with Margaret. This was before I’d decided to have Bathin use Margaret as a guise as well, but I’d still cut it even if I knew.)

Chapter Five: “You should be.” Hendrickson counters, resting his hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward to look down at Helbram. “Because he brought you and Zaratras here before anyone else. It’s likely that he preys on the souls of the dead.” He pauses at that, glancing over at Guila who nods in agreement, before shifting his attention back to the fairy. “Even if we ‘get out,’ you can’t just live here. Bathin will continue to eat away at your very spirit.” (there are several logical flaws in this that got cleaned up in the final version, which reads very similarly.)

“That should be plenty of time.” Guila pats at Zeal’s shoulder lightly. “Some of us won’t even need that much time, certainly.” (The scene was dragging on for too long and this was ultimately unnecessary. I tend to be really wordy and not know when to stop a scene, so I cut a lot for the sake of flow later on or rework things.)

“Especially since this isn’t Dreyfus’s field of expertise.” (This was cut from the conversation Hendrickson had with Zaratras -- about strategy -- because frankly, it isn’t true and even if it was, Hendrickson wouldn’t say something like that. I cut a lot of stuff like this where it works for the plot but doesn’t track with the character. editing good!!)

The screech of tires can be heard in the distance.

“Ah, I believe they’ve managed to find a vehicle!” (god I really wanted to put Zaratras commenting on grand theft auto in this, even if it made no narrative sense.)

Chapter Six: “Huh?” Jericho gives her a confused look before looking back over her shoulder, where Bathin and Gilthunder were battling it out hand-to-sword. “Yeah, I just— this place is starting to fall apart.”

“Yes, it is, which is why we need to be careful. If you could provide a distraction—”

“Oh!” She snaps her fingers in response. “Yeah, okay, I can do that!” (Jericho was a bit too passive here and it was difficult to transition to the next beat. I reworked it in the final version.)

“Be careful. He’s using his weight as a weapon.” (This was somewhere in phase two of the Bathin fight. I was trying to set the character apart from other demons that they’ve fought, but this was too expository. Hopefully, the sentiment got across in description and whatnot and if not, uh. Oops.)

As he pulls away, flying off towards solid ground, the ice begins to audibly crack. Hendrickson stares up at it, almost resigned in a way. “So this is it,” he murmurs to himself, watching the cracks spider-web their way along the platform (I removed this and tweaked the final paragraph because it didn’t quite line up with Hendrickson’s character in this, especially given the turning point that comes only a paragraph or two later. That one line doesn’t line up with the rest of his arc in the entire fic; I was trying to make it obvious that the ice was cracking and wasn’t going to hold, but uh. This was not the way to do it.)

As an amicable silence falls between them — a far cry from the silence that lingered the last time he took this elevator up — (The transition in the elevator was hard.)

Gilthunder clenches a fist. “That’s exactly why I can’t forget. If I—” He swallows hard. (A lot of stuff gets cut because I start typing and can’t figure out where to go with it. It just didn’t work in the sequence and was too emotional for Gilthunder’s canon point.)

“By the way, have you seen Helbram?” (Zaratras was going to ask about Helbram as well, but that would have dragged the pacing down. Besides, I’d like to think that after their time together, Zaratras ‘gets’ Helbram on some level and knows he’d want to head out on his own terms.)

The orange hue fades into the black of the night, growing brighter and brighter with every passing moment, much like the world around them. And then, it reaches a point where it becomes blindingly bright, like a warmth washing over all of them at once. And then—

And then— (Did you know that this was basically the same format I used to end the pentultimate section of another fic because I sure didn’t until I just so happened to reread it before posting this one. god. damnit.)

Epilogue:

“I’m getting better, right?”

Jericho looks over her shoulder at Hendrickson, then gestures at a small patch of ice in front of her. The druid glances between her and the patch, looking mildly uncertain. “It’s progress,” he admits after a moment.

“You should have seen it the other day, though!” She stomps her foot. “Sir Dreyfus told me I had a lot of potential. (This was originally how Jericho’s epilogue was going to start. It didn’t seem right for her though, especially given the ‘reset’ tone, so I cut it and started from scratch. This would potentially work if it was Dreyfus, but not Hendrickson.)

Detailed chapter breakdowns

Chapter 3: Helbram is disguised, Zaratras is in his armor, it’s a pub and they’re INCOGNITO ok. Helbram spills a drink on Hendrickson like an asshole before the reveal. They figure out that the bartender and server aren’t on the same “script” as the NPCs.

CHAPTER 4 ends with them meeting up with Guila and Jericho, Guila is like this is Bathin, the Eighteenth Duke of the Demon Realm.

CHAPTER 5 is the big planning chapter + infiltrating and fighting Gilthunder. At the end, Bathin’s legions converge on Eighteenth Plaza and Dreyfus stays behind to stop them. Zaratras helps, brothers!! They can have a sad scene with Hendy.

CHAPTER 6 will have a big fight scene in it, this needs to be carefully blocked and mapped out. (narrator voice: it was not carefully blocked and mapped out.)

THE PLAYERS

Bathin — via Dreyfraudrin and Margaret. A lot of darkness, demon powers, fear manipulation. Teleportation? Dreyfraudrin has strength, Margaret has Velvet Crowe-esque hand bs? Dark tendrils, like a cat’s tail.

Hendrickson — Purge, Acid. Purge can weaken Bathin’s power. Dreyfus — Break, Full Size. Full Size might be too much for the building. Dreyfus and Zaratras could hold off Bathin’s legions? Guila — Explosion. Combo with Hendrickson at one point. Jericho — Ice Fang. Someone can get thrown out the elevator at some point and Jericho uses ice to extend a platform and keep them from falling. Eventually uses ice to root Bathin in place so she can PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!!! Howzer — Tempest. Gilthunder — Thunderbolt. Short circuits the electronics? Helbram — plays his part disguised as Gil to get everyone in, fucks off partway through. Returns to yell at idiots. (This plan was too complicated; what I settled on works better character-wise and narratively speaking.) Zaratras — Great Thunder. Works with Dreyfus to hold off Bathin’s THIRTY DEMON LEGIONS so the others can take him.

Merlin — Infinity. She needs Bathin to be weakened and have his guard down to strike, which is why she slinks in the background and waits. Probably steps in after they’ve done that but Bathin is like YOU FOOLS!! Etc etc. Uses infinity to keep the Holy Shot effect goin’ (see above notes about Merlin)

THE SETTING

Top floor of Eighteenth Plaza. There’s the massive office, the long hallway, and the elevator. This is the main area for Bathin.

In the lobby, Zaratras and Dreyfus will take on Bathin’s legions of demons after freeing Gilthunder from his influence.

Guila and Hendrickson get thrown out the glass elevator window, Jericho creates an ice shelf that they cling to, Howzer and Gil work on keeping Bathin busy while Helbram flies out and grabs Guila at Hendrickson’s urging. Hendrickson falls.

Small brief flashback to super young Hendy and Jenna? A call back to being shown how wrong he is. Jenna’s just like LOOK YOU’LL BE FINE, YOU NEVER LIKED IT HERE ANYWAY!! Gosh you’re such a dour kid sometimes, geez, but don’t worry, someone’ll show you how wrong you are someday.

Full Size Dreyfus catches him because gratuitous yes.

Bathin is unfair but so is Merlin.

. . . and that’s it! Hopefully that was interesting to someone and if not, uh. I’m very sorry. Thank you for reading! 🙏

#nnt #fic #liner notes

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cait-el · 7 years

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Keith Analysis - Season 3

Pre S1E1 + Introduction / Season One / Season Two / Season Three / Season Four / Season Five

I highly recommend reading the rest of the posts in this series to get the most out of this! But here’s my take on Keith’s role in VLD Season three!

Season Three

Boy oh boy, does S3e1 have a lot to unpack. Let’s start at the very end of S2/ the beginning of S3 where we see Keith up in arms about the fact that Shiro is gone. By this point, I’ve already established that Shiro is as close to an actual family that Keith’s got, so of course he’s upset. Also, this upset of normal is just another nail in the coffin that is Keith’s sense of safety. He was finally feeling like he had a place on Voltron, then the whole half-Galra thing happened, and that was sort of solved in Allura’s apology, but with losing Shiro, Keith is losing his own sense of validity. Season 3 will be about re-establishing that in his own way, without Shiro there to back him. It’s a huge opportunity for character growth.

Brief Lance Note

Another really good scene in S3e1 is during the fight on Planet Puig with Lance, Hunk, and the Blade of Marmora. Firstly, we have Lance starting to feel the pressure of being the face of a team that’s falling apart at the seams. He’s supposed to be the glue of Voltron or the light-spirited one that keeps things happy. Now that Voltron can’t really form, he’s starting to feel that pressure now more than ever.

We also have discrimination against the Blade for being Galra, which is understandable, but demonstrative of systematic racism/oppression. No wonder Keith feels so lost; he’s literally at the center of all of that!

Back to Keith

This is the instance that I referenced at the very beginning of this whole thing where Keith says that he won’t give up on Shiro because Shiro was one of the only people that never gave up on him. I think that startles the other paladins a little bit because they’re finally realizing that Keith isn’t just some “lone wolf” who’s full of shit. Yes, he can be volatile, but he’s really hurting now, which is demonstrated when he blows up at the diplomacy dinner.

The most important part about Keith’s outburst is what happens afterwards – this will draw on a little bit of Lance’s development as well, so bear with me. At the very end of the episode, we have Keith staring at the black lion, with the other paladins standing awkwardly in the background. They all look to Lance, who is the first to step forward and tell Keith it’s alright to be hurting.

Pidge, Hunk, Allura, and Coran jump in with their own anecdotes about how they feel about suggesting to replace someone who seems irreplaceable, but it’s Lance tying everything together that makes Keith take a deep breath and decide that he’s being irrational. This is the first in a long arc in season three that establishes Lance and Keith’s relationship in a way that goes beyond just a romantic ship. I’m going to return to what I talked about in season one with Keith having a borderline crush on Lance, which I still stand by. In season one, it was all fun and games. In season two, Keith had a lot of his own stuff to worry about with the Blade, but he had Shiro to talk to about it, both the Galra stuff and the Lance stuff, so it didn’t seem as overwhelming.

Now that Shiro’s gone, Keith is looking for something to fill the rapidly growing void that’s sucking away his sense of validation and trust, and he’ll find it in Lance, but most importantly, in himself, and I’ll prove that with my analysis of the rest of S3.

And just for fun, here are my two cents on Lotor’s introduction

Lotor is one of my favorite characters for a few different reasons that are established in this episode. Firstly, he’s crafty. He had Ezor watch Throk, and then used that to call him out in front of the whole crowd. He’s the embodiment of the honest and martyr-like villain (which will play into his romance line with Allura later, but that’s not for a while) in that he preaches that what he does will be good for the universe because it fosters loyalty rather than fear. Secondly, he’s charismatic as all fuck. He’s the villain that says “okay, I’m going to write down everything I’m about to do on a piece of paper and give it to you. You’ll know my entire plan. Will that stop me from completing it? You can bet the fuck not.” And he’s right. Even I believed him! When I first watched it, I was like “yeah, okay, this guy could actually be a good king.”

And then, the kicker, he gives all this confidence to Throk, and then demotes him to the farthest reaches of the empire under the impression that he just got this huge promotion. That’s savage. Lotor is so good at what he does. I’m thrilled to see what he does next for the sheer cleverness of it.

Back to Keith/Lance – I’m just going to start referring to them jointly for now because here’s where they start to become super intertwined

Man, S3 literally has so much in the way of character development that I’m only on the second episode and I already have so much to say. Let’s start with the discussion of who should pilot the black lion while in the lounge of the Castle. Pidge points out that everyone has their “thing,” and she calls Lance the goofball, which he doesn’t take well to (remember S2e10). He calls himself a ninja sharpshooter, to which Keith responds with “is that a joke?” Honestly he probably shouldn’t have poked the dragon, but I do believe he meant it in a good way. His eyes were nice and he was smiling. Lance was just feeling particularly insecure at that moment. Payback for S1e6 when Lance totally invalidated Keith’s tiny advance. Ugh, boys.

Anyways, Lance says that he would never follow Keith as a leader in retaliation, which sparks an argument and triggers Keith to say “that’s just what Shiro wanted.” This puts Keith in kind of a tough spot; it’s not that he’s against piloting the black lion, he just doesn’t want to 1) undermine Shiro, who is his idol, and 2) he’s afraid he can’t be what everyone needs him to be – he can hardly be what he needs for himself. This is reflected in the moment where he actually enters the black lion. While everyone else was thinking of themselves (except Lance, but I’ll get to that in a second), what caused the lion to awaken for Keith was Keith saying (about Shiro) “I can’t lead them like you.” This is the beginning of Keith learning to respect himself outside of what others project on to him.

However, he still doesn’t want to accept it. This is where Lance comes in. Lance literally tried so hard to be the one to take up responsibility of the black lion, but not for himself. This becomes apparent when he yields to Keith. Everyone is appalled at Keith’s objection to the lion even though it chose him, except Lance. Lance steps up, puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and tells Keith he can do it. And Keith actually listens. This shows that Keith responds well to respect; he just doesn’t have a lot of it for himself yet.

When Keith actually goes to fly the lion for the first time, he does so by saying “this one’s for you, Shiro.” This hearkens back to the idea of Keith being a self-imposed martyr – he justifies doing things for himself through the lens of doing things for others. This will be the season that subverts that, though, which I will discuss once I get to the end of the episode.

Now back to Lance for a moment. Blue shuts him out (quick interlude for some cute headcanon: Lance has referred to his lion as male in the past, but in order to get Blue to open up, he hits on the lion like he would presumably hit on a girl, as he is so famous for. Does this provide evidence that Lance is bi? Maybe if you squint and tilt your head to one side. It’s something to think about anyways). Then, which lion calls to him? Red, of course! Lance being Keith’s right hand is really elevating their relationship – it plays perfectly into all of their other interactions. They’re a messy team, but a team all the same, and they each need the other to properly function.

Also, something that starts in this episode and will continue through S5 is Lance’s reflection of Alfor and Altean values. Keith is a reflection of Galran values; this has already been made abundantly clear. We’re just setting up another parallel between the two and further entwining their paths in some way. Also, more of Lance’s insecurities show when he’s actually considering that he may not even have a contribution to the team as he originally thought, that he might just be “the goofball.” This starts to show a self confidence issue that is far from being resolved. He’ll definitely need a little help with that one. Luckily, he’s just starting to form a relationship with a little emo boy who is legitimately built out of insecurities and MCR. It’s beautiful. One last thing about Lance in S3E2 is that he says at the end “sometimes what you want is not necessarily what you get,” and I think this is starting to reference his shift in viewing Allura as an object for romance to a friend and true teammate, which is something we’ll see more of in S4 and 5.

And finally, Keith grows a lot during that battle, especially towards the end when he makes that terrible decision and rockets off to track Lotor without consulting the team. But here’s the thing about that scene: Keith made that decision of his own accord and not because he was trying to emulate Shiro. His whole arc in S3 is learning how to accept himself as a valid leader, and this is just the beginning of that. While I want to whack him over the head with a stick for putting everyone else in danger, at least he’s trying.

And now, a word on Lotor in S3E2

Lotor, you mother fucker. First, he says “mercy has never been the way of the galra…until now.” Again with the craftiness! And his whole role in S3E2 was just to gather intel on Voltron by using their need to protect to draw them out and force them to work as a team. What he doesn’t realize, though, is in forcing the paladins to make up for their shortcomings, he’s acting as a foil to the whole team. Without being pressed by Lotor, Allura and Lance would have never figured out that they needed to pilot different lions. This is the beginning to a long storyline of Lotor and Voltron working together that doesn’t actually get played out until S5.

Back to Keith/Lance

S3E3 takes us to the first real instance of the new team of paladins working under Keith’s leadership, and it’s pretty much a mess from the beginning. What I appreciate about this episode is that it further develops the bond between Lance and Keith as a team and as people, starting with Lance’s immediate opposition to entering Thaeserix (the gas planet that fucks up everyone’s sensors.) We have Keith barreling through and getting everyone lost until Allura finally can’t keep up and gets separated. Everyone’s freaking out, and Lance is the one to tell Keith they need to go back, and he finally does. As demonstrated before, Keith listens to Lance before he listens to the others. This shows that Keith has some measure of respect for Lance.

They rescue Allura, but Keith is still all hot for battle and continues forward, getting the team separated even further until it’s just him and Lance. This is the first time where Keith actually admits that he messed up, and he hits a low point for a second. He voices his concern to Lance, who responds perfectly, saying “yeah, you fucked up. But hey, we’ll fix it together.” This is what inspires Keith to keep going, and the team can eventually form Voltron because Keith is actually starting to think like a leader, and not just because of the leader Shiro was. He’s starting to become his own leader. He couldn’t have done it without Lance.

My favorite part is the cute line at the end where everyone is ragging on Lance for being dumb (not true btw, Lance is very intelligent and kind, he just has some self confidence issues, so shame on the other paladins for taking advantage of that), and Keith says “I’m glad we’re all making fun of Lance, but we have a job to do,” or something along those lines. It’s the look in Keith’s eyes that gets me; he’s teasing Lance, but not in the same way as the others. He’s really grateful to have the blue paladin there for support. It’s a different type of support than he’s received in the past; from Shiro it was support of an upper, someone he idolizes and thus tries to emulate. From Lance, it’s support from an equal, so it’s an even stronger sense of self-validation, which is something that Keith really needs at this point.

A quick note: in the episode where they enter the alternate reality and find Sven and Slav, Keith all of the sudden has the black bayard and Lance has the red bayard. When did that happen? That seemed to come out of nowhere, but I think it’s an important thing to note, especially when we get to some of the symbolism in terms of the past paladins at the end of this season. This episode also has good evidence of Keith stepping into the leadership role, which he will continue to develop over the next few episodes. I’m also glad that Keith was able to find Shiro, but as I’ll discuss in the next few paragraphs, I think he senses that something is not quite right.

The Symbolism of 6

I’m about to discuss S3E6, but begore I get into that, I’d like to talk a little bit about the symbolism of the number six as it relates to Keith and Lance’s relationship. Coran says pretty early on that he’s ordered the paladins by height, most notably calling Pidge “number five.” He doesn’t ever refer to the other paladins by these number names, but that implies that they all have a number (and they all have pretty distinguishing heights). Shiro is the tallest and the leader; he’s number one. Lance is the next tallest; he’s number two. Then comes Hunk, then Keith. Keith is number four. What’s four plus two? Six.

I already talked at length about the importance of S1E6 to Keith and Lance, with this being the first instance where Keith realizes he may have feelings for Lance (the “I cradled you in my arms!” moment). In season two, the distinction isn’t quite as obvious, but we see Lance questioning Keith running off with Allura. Granted, this is probably canonically related to Lance’s “crush” on Allura (which I’ll discuss a little more come season four and five), but the fact that he’s asking if the two of them are together and he’s so bent up about Keith doing anything with Allura could be in reference to his conflicted rivalry feelings towards Keith in the first place. He probably doesn’t realize it, but he’s just as annoyed at the idea of Keith being with someone as he is at the idea of Allura being with someone (hint: he’s bi /like meeeee!/).

Anyways, now we have S3E6, which has, in my opinion, one of the most important Klance scenes so far (save maybe the pool scene, but that was just too too cute so does it really count?).

Season Three, Episode Six

We open from Lance’s POV as he’s acting sniper for the rest of the team. He’s about to take someone out when Keith rushes in with some sword badassery (“Hey, Keith! I had that guy!”). He keeps the scope on Keith for a little while, then watches Allura do some crazy stunts with her whip, to be met with “Well, that was awesome!” Similar to what I was talking about back in S2E6, this is a neat parallel drawn between Lance’s feelings for both the red paladin and the pink paladin. This, in conjunction with the sheer symbolism of colors (red/blue/pink), practically seeps with Lance being bisexual.

Anyways, now that we have Shiro back, this episode throws a wrench into the leadership dynamic that Keith has built for himself. Throwback to season two where everything was going fine until he found out about his Galra blood, this is another instance of regression for Keith. He spent all that time building up his confidence and leadership skills, only to now butt heads with Shiro. Actually, he doesn’t even really butt heads; he yields. He completely yields the black lion to Shiro. Coincidentally, Shiro can’t use the black lion right away, and I think that might have something to do with the whole Clone Shiro arc (which I honestly still don’t understand completely, so I’m going to keep my theorizing about that to a minimum). It’s a complete back swing to his seeing himself as an invalid leader (“they need you, you know” – Keith is once again isolating himself from the other paladins in favor of doing what he thinks is right for the team and placing himself at a disadvantage).

This is interesting when we get to the major Klance scene, and I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this: Lance voicing his concern to Keith. Initiall, Keith is surprised at Lance’s advance, but he’s very accepting of it. It’s an interesting side to keith’s character that we haven’t necessarily seen yet. He’s soft and kind of flustered at the whole thing, which is sO cute.

Lance, on the other hand, is being so brave by voicing these concerns in the first place. We’ve seen multiple occasions of him wanting to be on team Voltron (for glory, for recognition, for the universe, etc – we saw this when he tried to pilot the black lion), but he’s willing to give all of it up if it’s what’s best for the team. Remind you of anyone? Yes, Keith!

Keith is appalled by this and instantly shuts it down, telling Lance not to worry about who pilots what. I think he’s surprised that Lance trusts him so much, but that trust gives Keith confidence. As we’ve seen, Keith responds to trust very well, even enough to make a joke (leave the math to Pidge + a bonus Klance smile). I also believe that he’s telling Lance these things just as much to comfort him as it is to comfort himself; he cares about Lance, and he doesn’t want him to leave. We see that in Keith’s initially reaction (“What are you talking about?!”). Another important line in this scene is Lance’s “this isn’t a participation game. This is war and you want you best soldiers on the front line.” Judging from Keith’s reaction, Keith honestly believes that Lance is one of their best warriors; he values Lance’s place on the team and wouldn’t think of jeopardizing that for a second. Overall, this scene was great. It had Lance’s vulnerability, and it’s the first time another member of the team has recognized that and actively comforted him for it. This will be important to remember once Keith leaves and Lance doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it anymore.

Also, when the Paladins are fighting Lotor’s generals, Keith is blindsided by Acxa, but then he is saved by a good shot from Lance and a reassuring “I’ve got you, buddy!” They really have bonded trust-wise. If romance does come out of this, it will definitely be a slow burn, built on a strong bond of vulnerability and trust. And the smile Keith gives Lance after that interaction! I headcanon that at this point he’s over his initial crush and is instead seeing Lance as a real person and teammate that he cares for deeply. Lance’s faith in him is a beacon of strength and light in a particularly dark time. And Keith switching hands with the bayard? That’s some cool shit. He just keeps getting better and better.

Side note for Keith and Acxa: I’ve seen the theories where they are siblings, but I don’t know if I buy it. We know virtually nothing about Acxa’s past except that she somehow got trapped in the stomach of a weblum for who knows how long until Keith rescued her. It’s just not enough for me to see them as related. If ANYTHING, they could be half siblings since we don’t know anything about Krolia yet either except that she’s a deep cover agent for the Blade. This versus the literal ten pages I’ve written on Klance thus far.

Okay, now back to Keith’s leadership conflict. It’s especially apparent when he starts arguing with Shiro about taking out Lotor on the recon mission. He shows off some of his old colors by wanting to run off on his own, but then listens when the team tells him to stick together. What’s important, though, is that Keith doesn’t completely give in to Shiro. In choosing between taking out Lotor’s ship and taking out the cargo ship, Keith makes a snap choice, against Shiro’s wishes, that targets both. He’s a good leader, and he’s making good decisions. The rest of the team just invalidates that, bringing back the doubt that has brought him so much trouble in the past, which we see in Keith and Shiro’s exchange at the end of the episode.

Final note on season three: past parallels

In the last episode of the season, we get some back story on Alfor and Zarkon’s relationship as well as some of the other past paladins. There’s the potential to see Alfor and Zarkon as a parallel to Shiro and Keith, but there’s also the potential to see it as a note on Lance and Keith, seeing as Lance is showing Altean traits vs Keith’s Galran traits. I’m about to try to debunk that with my own theory: there was also a scene in that episode where Alfor, in the red lion, saved Blades, the pilot of the blue lion. The connections between red and blue just keep being dredged up. There are red and blue stars in the astral plane. Red and blue are everywhere. Keith and Lance are literally written in the stars.

#klance #keith #lance #voltron #ace speaks #i worked hard on this please love me #opinion

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nemrut · 7 years

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Web-Series Novel: A Practical Guide to Evil by Erraticerrata

Title: A Practical Guide to Evil Author: Erraticerrata Status: Work in Progress

Link: wordpress

Summary: The Empire stands triumphant.

For twenty years the Dread Empress has ruled over the lands that were once the Kingdom of Callow, but behind the scenes of this dawning golden age threats to the crown are rising. The nobles of the Wasteland, denied the power they crave, weave their plots behind pleasant smiles. In the north the Forever King eyes the ever-expanding borders of the Empire and ponders war. The greatest danger lies to the west, where the First Prince of Procer has finally claimed her throne: her people sundered, she wonders if a crusade might not be the way to secure her reign. Yet none of this matters, for in the heart of the conquered lands the most dangerous man alive sat across an orphan girl and offered her a knife.

Her name is Catherine Foundling, and she has a plan.

Words from the author: A Practical Guide to Evil is a YA fantasy novel about a young girl named Catherine Foundling making her way through the world – though, in a departure from the norm, not on the side of the heroes. Is there such a thing as doing bad things for good reasons, or is she just rationalizing her desire for control? Good and Evil are tricky concepts, and the more power you get the blurrier the lines between them become.

Updates every Monday and Wednesday, as of the latest Patreon goal.

So I burned through this in 4 days or so and yeah, there is a lot to love about it. Guess the initial similarities in its premise to Worm can't be denied, what with being a teenage girl who joins the villains in the hopes to do good and is pretty ruthless in order to reach her goal, while she befriends people on the side of the villains where some aren't that unreasonably while the people on the side of good aren't necessarily all nice or good either. Still, make no mistake, it very much does its own thing. The concept with the Names is just fascinating and really, really cool. The way the rules of storytelling influence the world and characters and the different ways the various characters have found to interact with them is really creative and interesting

I love the setting. It's a an awesome fantasy setting with the familiar faces that I want to see, like Roman legions, orcs, goblins, dwarves, gnomes and so on but also given a creative fresh spin that it doesn't feel like an unimaginative D&D or LotR rip-off. The fact that the dwarves and gnomes seem to be by all accounts the heavy hitters of the setting with whom no one dares to fuck with is a nice change, for example. The geopolitical snippets that we see where the different nations, cultures and coalitions clash and unfold has been one of the stories bigger strengths. The racial and cultural clashes between characters hailing from different nations and social classes has also been explored in a rather good manner. It also has a certain anime feel to it, in a good way, that just makes it even more enjoyable to be me. I also love the fact that gender barely plays a role in this. Whatever role, job, class or function, in all facets in nearly all cultures, everything basically has a roughly equal split in terms of genders, with the goblins being the sole exception with their matriarchal society, which in turn was already alien enough, being goblins and all. No token girl or token boy characters in anything and no "you can't because you're a girl" story line either, it's rare to see it like that. Just enjoyment of the journey the character is on. Same with sexuality, it doesn't matter to anyone in the setting which way you swing or if you swing at all, so various things can be explored without taking over the plot. The lead girl is bisexual, btw, with a leaning towards girls. One of my favorite things have got to be the quotes at the beginning of the chapters. They can be hilarious and many of them have this distinct Magic the gathering flavor text feeling to them. I love them. Quotes like “Always mistrust these three: a battle that seems won, a chancellor who smiles and a ruler calling you friend.” – Extract from the personal journals of Dread Emperor Terribilis II

“I’ll be honest, Chancellor – revenge is the motivation for over half the decrees I’ve made.” – Dread Empress Sanguinia II, best known for outlawing cats and being taller than her”

or “Now kneel, fools, and witness my ascension to GODHOOD!” – Last words of Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous

They generally crack me up and I am genuinely impressed that the author managed to come up with so many of them that are honestly lough out loud funny, well, at least to me. The dialog and witty banter has been consistently funny and energetic. I have laughed countless times and a lot of the side characters are lovable because of it. The good lines are not reserved for the main character alone but virtually everyone gets at least a few, it's rather balanced on that account. And it never becomes muddled enough that it makes the characters indistinguishable from each other, even if they share the same type of dark humor. By seeing when and on whose accounts they make the jokes, their characters still shine through. The fight scenes are decent, and the quirks and strengths of the setting and the dialog allow them to punch outside their weight-class. The meta aspects of the story itself are worked very well into the scenes and I believe that that is a very difficult thing to do. Here is a scene relatively early on: “We can get to that later,” I dismissed. “Evidently you’re the gritty type, but how far up the antihero scale are you?”

“As far as I need to be,” he responded gravely. I pushed down my urge to make something out of that. Crossbow Tamika had already finished reloading, and the pair of them seemed to be considering their next target. I really wasn’t liking the way Spear Tamika was beginning to angle towards me. “Are you the kind of gritty that works with enemies?” I probed. “You know, for the greater good and such.” A lesser author would have made me hate this but he pulled it off and made this fun.

More after the break but for anyone who wants to avoid even minor spoilers, give it a read, it’s awesome. Not perfect or anything as it does have its weaknesses but very well worth the read.

The side cast is funny and interesting. The 15th legion has some fun characters who are likable and enjoyable throughout. When talking about the Calamities and some others, things become downright amazing. The way they are introduced and then explored in their interludes on how they've built their legends meshes wonderfully with the more intimate and casual moments they share with each other when they just bicker and enjoy their company. I always hated the "if you lose you are dead to me" kinda villains and even though they are all very much villains, they also love and care for each other and generally having a personality allows for characters to have more depth, to have them care for more than just power. The Calamaties are larger than life, fun and epic. Which kinda flows into one of the not so much strengths of the story. Heiress is, as far as villains go...not exactly top notch. It doesn't help that while I do believe that she is a serious threat and annoyance, and that her plans are appropriately “oh shit” level, I still can't respect her because in her core, she is the stupid kind of villain, the short sighted backstabber who, as a character archetype, just isn’t that interesting, at least to me. The clash of ideologies that very much defined books 1 and 2 between the Lone Swordsman, the Heiress and the Squire suffered under the fact that both the Lone Swordsman and the Heiress upheld positions that, well, sucked. It wasn't a matter of who was right because it was abundantly clear who was and that's the main character. The Lone Swordsman was a partly mindfucked/brainwashed zealot with few redeeming qualities and the Heiress just wants to be properly evil and hates all this efficiency, stability and success that the villain faction had for a while now. What is there to ponder? I guess I would have preferred antagonists who also had good paths/plans rather than just being flat-out wrong/evil. Heiress especially, who at all times has been the bigger danger simply because she cares only about being evil in the right way and is unable to prioritize anything else. Still, she isn’t terrible, she has interesting/fun aspects, it is fun to hate her even if I roll my eyes a lot and her dynamic with her father is fun, even if only for the inevitable scene where Cat will do something horrible to him in order to punish the Heiress. Catherine is a character who has some weaknesses but in general she is fun to follow, entertaining and someone who knows how to end a fight. She has good lines, one gets a good feel for her as the story goes along and it’s interesting if a bit frustrating when her own, culturally biased morals shine through. Like her inherent dislike and condemnation of human sacrifice despite the fact that she has about committed nearly every atrocity but since she is from Callow, that kinda thing is a no-no. It’s the arbitrary if not contradictory moral position of a true person. I enjoy her journey and character and appreciate the way she deconstructs several conventions that are typical to the "want to save a society/nation/people" archetype. The story contained several digs at other stories, like this quote when they learn that the Heiress set her slave soldiers free. Nominally granting the Stygian war-slaves their freedom meant absolutely nothing, when they’d been indoctrinated from birth to obey their orders of their owners without fail.

Which is basically the biggest "take that" I've seen in a while, directed at Dany's freeing of the Unsullied who in turn then moved by her actions chose to follow her nonetheless. And of course, Cat is absolutely correct. That one act of liberation probably didn't really mean that much to those who, in her words, had been indoctrinated from birth to obey and fight. Later on, when the Lone Swordsman comes upon them, he is also aware of this dilemma. His solution was to not ask them to fight, to give them that freedom but that more than anything was what convinced them to fight for him anyway, and thus he unwillingly manipulated them into doing it anyway. I really loved that touch, especially since it was a plot point that was well set up in advance, touched upon over several chapters and then had a rather satisfying resolution. Or the general theme of the shonen protag/hero of the story taking umbrage with the lesser methods of his enemies and saying that's not the right way because it's wrong. It's a conversation that that crops up all the time, and that the hero will find a better way, only never saying what that better way is, mainly because he hasn't one until he pulls unlimited power out of his ass. Cat isn't like that and hates people like that and this inherent struggle against story conventions, especially with regards to the Black Knight is fascinating to me. Having the Calamaties and the Empress scheme and work around these inherent story elements is just cool. The romance in the story was rather lowkey which isn't bad per se, but Killian didn't exactly leave a big impact so far but I'm hoping this will change with the recent developments. Either strike out with someone more interesting or have Killian become more interesting and defined. So far, it was pleasant and cute but not exactly much substance. One more minor point of complaint would be the relatively steady amount of typos, missing words and the like, which happen about once or twice per chapter. Nothing tragic but definitely noticeable. Author also uses adverbs a bit too much, especially the "-ly" modifiers for the verbs instead of showing it through action and dialog how they feel but it works for the most part. Think that’s about it. The writing is overall rather good and I enjoy the story format, what with the interludes and all. So yeah, really loving the story. Story got its hooks in me and I powered through and it was a blast from start to the latest available chapter. Supposed to be five books, and we're in the first third of the third one so, this story will be going on for a while and I'm looking forward to it. 4/5

#a practical guide to evil #apgte #quotes #erraticerrata #webseries #webnovel

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sightofsea · 7 years

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this is rly dumb and there is the HUGE chance im going to regret this but ok

basically when i was 15 i wrote an approx. 200k OC doctor who fanfiction featuring a kind of half self insert/half attempt to subvert mary sue comapnion stereotypes named jenna quigley. and ive been thinking about it more lately like the general storyline bc like. idk. n i figured i should write it out.

i should mention this is all 11th doctor era bc i was a huge fan at that time, and it takes place between that time he leaves amy n rory to when he does his farewell tour bc i wanted to try n add some canonical irony that ill get to later

so basically its all narrated from jenna pov as kind of stories she’s telling to the tardis database via recording. why, we don’t know yet. she;s. ok so in the plot she was from our universe n was an AVID fan of the show which like tacky i know but whatever. she starts out 15 and in basically my house and neighborhood (this fic started from a constant daydream i would have of going on adventures w the doctor bc i was a nerdy 15 yo so like. sue me) and there have been a disturbing amount of disappearances in the surrounding area that local police are stuck on. so everyones kinda afraid to go out into their own homes and at one point, jenna is doing something out in her backyard and actually witnesses one of the abductions, but is surprised to see the kidnapper looks like the silence, aka the television show shes been watching. she thinks shes going bonkers. her family leave her alone for the day to go to a thing for one of her siblings and she’s just kind of ruminating on this event when--lo and behold, an officer arrives at her door.

and jenna, she’s very skeptical about this guy. like, given recent events she doesnt trust her own eyes. and the guy is...off. like his badge n credentials, if she concentrates, looks like something else for a flash of a second, and for some reason the figure of him is kind of hazy whenever jenna tries to look directly at him. he is shown to have a quirky, friendly demeanor n jenna figures well, i gotta tell someone about what ive seen, so she invites him in. they have a brief chat n its obvious to the reader that this guy is someone VERY familiar (mostly due to my bad writing at the time) and jenna begins to explain what she saw and how its like this one show she watches, and this guy suddenly becomes very very interested in this before realizing he’s got it all pieced together and asks for jenna’s help in navigating the area to find what is, ultimately, a silence space ship.

jenna agrees and over time realizes this guy is most definitely connected to something in the whoniverse and originally believes he might be a time agent bc that seems more likely given their number as they travel to the ship. its also revealed that the officer has brought jenna along bc the key thing about what she saw is that she actually remembers the silence and can see past perception filters due to the qualities of alternate universe, slightly alternate brain chemistry and so on. its not exactly perfect--she can’t get through perception filters rly, especially good ones--but its enough to know something is wrong n remember certain things others from the dw universe might not be able to like the actual silence aliens themselves.

anyway they make their way to the ship, which has come through a massive tear in reality that the officer came through. in the fic lore i guess tears are seen as usually benign things meant to leak ideas of universes into other universes as a kind of waste disposal system, and as a side effect create inspiration in those who are close to them. this tear, though, became too big, kind of like a leaky pipe, and actual material was able to get through by keeping a frequency from both ends of the tear as a kind of safety rope. and to maintain their energy as a stranded ship the silence have been using humans as batteries. i put a lot of thought into this, i know.

SO once theyre in the ship the “”officer”” (we know who he is by now lets just face it) and jenna are captured n separated. jenna is held hostage and it is revealed she is a part of a second half of the “silence will fall when the question is asked” prophecy which goes “the unexpected shall follow the guided task” (i loved rhymes) which is further revealed to the be the following: change the timeline and destroy the doctor. and jenna, being jenna, is like “listen u guys i dont even know the guy so uh failed step one i guess”. she’s saved by the “”officer”” in the nick of time through work of faulty electrical work (like? i know its for style but the silence have all those lights on the floor n it is VERY dangerous) so the whole ship is blacked out n she hears the differently pitched speech patterns (”why do u sound all different” “they took my equipment nevermind lets go”) and after doing some work to reverse the frequency and basically make the ship implode back into its original universe they run back to jenna’s home in the dark, seeing as she was out for quite a bit. her family is conveniently not home yet n decided to hang out with some friends. and when she gets back n is finally in the light SURPRISE!!! turns out the officer was the doctor all along in disguise from the silence using a perception filter. 15 year old me was a literary genius.

n u might think hannah this is rly long is it done now and of course it isnt!! that was just the intro!! after the initial shock jenna kind of parses what era the doctor is from, which is pre-silencio but after finding out about it n in that 200 yr stretch that was never rly shown. and jenna’s like, a whole season ahead of him basically and knows all this stuff and is trying to engage with this guy she’s a huge fan of without like accidentally spilling the beans on his future. she sits him down to explain the whole tv show thing n lets him watch an episode while she goes to her room to pack like clothes n her laptop because its not every day the doctor just flies in and she’s 15 so shes like hellz yeah im gonna be a COMPANION not even THINKING of the consequences in terms of the multiverse, the prophecy and her family (she does leave a note but its self centered n kinda lame tbh just like be back whenever). afterwards she walks the doctor back to the tardis and is like so where we gonna go n the doctor looks at her like jenna you are a literal child im not taking you anywhere and jenna though some MASTERY of writing that was basically hey look over there! and doing it anyway sneaks into the tardis when the doctor isnt looking n becomes his stowaway.

for the next few weeks she just kind of chills in the tardis with this fear that the doctor will immediately bring her back home so might as well have fun and kinda sneaks around him and keeps couch hopping from room to room. the tardis does not like her one bit due to the whole different universe funky energies thing (and this was pre-clara and i really wanted to see a companion the tardis didnt like so) and has multiple conversations with it via the interface hologram which meant i could write cameos for classic companions and write the tardis as a character bc i was a nerd.

SO after weeks of casually avoiding the doctor eventually she gets caught by him and hes not happy about it so shes like well ok then send me home n then she gets the real kicker which is the tears all mended up. after the material was put back in place it went back to being benign n too small for anything to travel between. so jenna basically stuck in this foreign universe with a very slim chance of returning back to her old life and her family and friends and she mistakes the doctors anger at the situation for anger at her so shes like basically im all alone here oh god n has a crisis n has a dramatic run off into the bowels of the tardis hallways

eventually the doctor finds her and they bond over being kind of the last of their kind in a way and he takes a kind of fatherly role and is like well youre already here and im miserable on my own so why dont we two birds one stone it n just go on adventures for the time being and takes a kind of fatherly platonic role with jenna bc i was sick of seeing companions hook up with the doctor and was confused as to why they wanted to hook up with him (spoiler alert: huge lesbian)

so they set off on their adventures. the first one was about the doctor and jenna accidentally boarding a ship of genetically engineered soldiers called evos being shipped off to a galactic war and finding out some of them had rebelled and had been camping out in the ships underbelly. they had no mouths but were able to communicate via sign language n empath touch powers of transferable memories. the captain was a bitch who didnt see the evos as living things n eventually in a stand off either offered them a chance for the other, still podded evos to live and for them all to live a horrible life or have the podded evos be ejected into space in return for them to have a chance to fight for their freedom. the choice ended up coming down to jenna, somehow, i think, and she chose freedom and cost the lives of like 200 evos but were able to get the ones they were able to save (about, like, 100 i think) to safety and create their own civilization away from harm on a distant planet and their success and triumph to live their own lives i guess canceled out the fact that jenna played a part in the deaths of 200 beings. it was. i dont even know

the next “episode” after a brief interlude of less impactful adventures and discussing mortality was a sherlock crossover episode that im too embarrassed to go into detail about but did reveal jenna’s newly formed abandonment issues due to her stranded in a strange universe situation and the fact she had a self harm problem that, surprise, mirrored mine. her n the doctor went on some more adventures over the next few months that were mentioned in passing. it should be noted that this first “act” i guess takes place over a solid year

the next episode featured river song bc i was gay for her without knowing it and i had just learned about easter island in history class and i decided to expand on one of the adventures said in passing during the series to kind of root my fic in canon bc i was a smarmy bitch. it involved being perceived as gods and the silence and using the flesh as a means of luring villagers to be used as human batteries and also putting a percetion filter on the ship so what was actually a crater was perceived to be a mountain. through this episode we saw the doctor again facing his own mortality, river sitting jenna down after a series of events pieced together her abandonment issues n harm problem n being like you cant rely on the doctor for this alone trust me i know its fun but when it starts ending it wont be. jenna gets kidnapped again by the silence n is reproduced as flesh to try and steer the doctor n river away from saving the day but overcomes that impulse and eventually pulls herself out of it and helps save things.

this episode also imports an important plot device of misplacement, which i shouldve put in earlier if im honest. the basic idea of it, within the fic lore, was that the universe, multiverse, whatever had to compensate for temporal displacement all the time when choices were made, but when big things that would alter history happened--like a giant supposed mountain blowing up 200 years after it had already blew up--it had a fail safe to transport the object causing the harm to the exact place but in a different time where the event would have less of a temporal impact. theres also an important note here where the doctor doesnt recall jenna being with him on their first adventure together. both are setting up the larger plot.

after the deal with the kidnapping and the flesh and all their adventures the doctor becomes kind of protective of jenna because i mean the dude also has abandonment issues like lets be real. so he kind of tones down the danger in fear of jenna dying or getting hurt. i mean, its been a year and theyve kind of become these friends who snark at each other like a family would and its nice that jenna has this person she can trust because she watched the show and like, knows him and knows his tells and calls him out on his bullshit before he can even get started and feels a kind of responsibility for due to the prophecy she was given and the doctor has someone to talk to and someone he also doesnt have to hide from really because she already knows almost everything. theyve been equally protective of each other--jenna keeping the doctor in the dark about the prophecy about her and keeping mum on the fact that she knows he isnt going to die, and the doctor worrying about jenna’s safety and trying not to screw her up like he has past companions to kind of try to atone for his past mistakes and make it up to this girl whose life he kind of unintentionally ruined. ok honestly idk why im getting in depth but i spent. years on this fic you dont understand

so. after a while jenna just kind of calls the doctor out like come on lets at least go somewhere fun and end up spending christmas eve in new york in the forties and befriend this newly single mother and jenna fakes a REALLY BAD accent to get across that her n the doctor are related n poor to gain sympathy. they do all the things she wants like times square and macy’s, where surprise! she sees amy n rory n their son and just kind of like. guides them away from the doctor like guys. this aint ur guy. and it would fuck EVERYTHING up also hi i know your guys’s entire life story, cute kid, etc. they give jenna some advice dealing w the doctor and she tells them that she’ll try her best to make sure he doesnt like, go self hating n all that bullshit n they part ways. her n the doctor meet up again and throughout this whole first part jenna’s been noticing people following her? with like, these weird orange-y eyes. and she thinks like fuck ok this’ll ruin the adventure, maybe theyll leave but they end up starting to go after her and reveal themselves to be a species called the visicheck

after escaping and dumpster diving because the visicheck hunt based on scent, jenna and the doctor start heading towards the single mother’s place for refuge (she had seen their situation n offered a place to spend christmas eve) and on the cab ride over the doctor explains that the visicheck r these ancestors of the family of blood, and basically are lifeless specks that latch onto living things and possess them until they burn them out and move onto the next one. they consume what is the basic energy a thing needs to exist and be alive, and for different species there’s different levels. lets say a dw universe human is ur basic ten on the scale. because of different circumstances in different universes, jenna is basically a 120 on the scale. like, these things could possess her body and use it for centuries to wreck havoc with the kind of energy she holds. and jenna, thinking about the prophecy of changing the timeline and also not wanting to basically be the living dead is like yeah ok fuck this is bad.

they find some brief refuge in the single mothers apartment for a time and enjoy a lovely christmas eve dinner but eventually the visicheck catch up to them. the doctor escorts the single mother n her kid into a cab to get as far away as possible while jenna is just supposed to keep holed up in the apartment, but things arent so easy and they end up breaking in. she’s able to hit them over the head with a pan n kind of stave them off for a bit and heads for the roof, but is eventually backed into a circle. knowing the visichek can’t possess something that is dead and not wanting to potentially endanger the universe just to keep her life jenna jumps off the building in a dramatic fashion that i wrote to play with the carol of the bells because i thought it was cool, and you know what? it was. it really was.

and so jenna dies

at least for a bit

she wakes up in the tardis, rly confused because like, she died. like she knows she did. and the doctors not speaking n acting all broody and she finally gets the story out of him that after she died (posted as an anonymous person in the newspaper, i should note, and put in an unnamed grave to keep the whole “written in stone” thing in line) he kind of. went off on his own for a bit before rly hating himself for letting jenna die right in front of him and went back to catch and save her before she landed, therefore altering the events as it happened. and jenna is...not happy about this. like, one bit. because, in a twist of fate, because she is both living and dead the universe must compensate by going to misplacement, but jenna can’t fully complete the misplacement “”process”” i guess until she is in the exact location she is misplaced from, only different time and all, and in this case she’s in the tardis which almost always has its shields up, so she can’t even complete that bit. so, as explained, the universe will start the process over whenever the tardis decides to fly off again, and send jenna to a different time within the tardis’s general vicinity.

basically, she’s gonna be stuck hopping around the doctor’s timeline. like, all of it, until she finally meets up with the right doctor who knows her n has been past this point. which could take years for her. and, mind you, the task she was “assigned” in the prophecy was to change the timeline, and as a result destroy the doctor. so this is basically jenna’s worst nightmare, and she finally spills the beans about the prophecy in a fit of anger before trying to say goodbye and being whisked off

and this is where the angst stuff happens

basically, for the next year or so (when i rewrite in my head its two years, makes more sense) jenna is thrown around one end of the universe to the other, trying to stay out of the way of the doctor’s events while also trying to, you know, survive and eat and drink and sleep. she’s basically a homeless vagabond for most of it, and her abandonment issues and self harming kind of escalate. she begins leading a really lonely life, and grows this kind of love/hate relationship with the doctor where she really hopes to see him again but also grows bitter against him for putting him in this situation. she visits companions before their time with the doctor, like donna, by accident and stumbles through meeting them and trying to just keep going. in her loneliness she starts talking to a version of the doctor in her head, which starts taking more and more of a form to her before its a fully grown kind of hallucination she’s created out of loneliness (which was kind of based off of me being a lonely kid and having pretend conversations with characters to simulate human connection which is. sad. i know. really sad. its a lot).

for a time jenna is stuck with the doctor and martha during the months leading up to human nature/the family of blood, and inadvertently meets martha and gets a job at the school as a fellow maid through helping martha drag the doctor to the place. she figures its the only stability she’ll have for a while and since she was never shown in the show it isnt rly affecting the most important bits of the timeline, and resolves to stay as far away from john smith as she can and just live out her life until the events of the episodes start happening and she’ll vamoose. she adopts an accent to blend in and when she has free time finds the stashed away tardis, which initially does not recognize jenna as a companion until finding archived recordings from the future bc duh its a time machine, which brings the whole pov thing full circle, and interacts with the interface to get answers about her growing questions about the silence and her situation and learns about a device called the cage, which has been alluded to in previous “episodes” only by name, as a great machine created by the silence that is meant to basically make it so that anything inside of it would be erased for existence, past present and future, using energy form the cracks in the universe. this was still at a point in the actual series where we knew nothing so i just kind of went buckwild.

anyways

jenna ends up having to interact with the tenth doctor as john smith once, and kind of aims all of her bitterness towards her future self at him and realizes that isnt fair, apologizes, and has a cathartic moment of finally moving past a grudge with the wrong version of the doctor. eventually the events of the episodes start happening and she vamooses before getting sent off to god knows where again, yippee

eventually through the next year jenna kind of begins to rly lose hope. like, it’s been a year already, she doesn’t know if she can keep living like this. so she makes a deal with herself to wait out until the end of this second year of time travelling vagabonding before she decides to off herself to save herself and the universe the trouble.

she keeps going through the motions and actually stumbles upon a future, post-silencio doctor, with rory and amy in tow, and in a fit of like oh my god relief she kind of runs up to him and is like i found you, finally, holy shit n the doctor looks at her like im sorry but i dont...know you? like i genuinely dont know who you are. you might have ur timelines all switched up. and jenna knows this isnt true and freaks out and kind of just is like, theres like fifteen days until the deadline, all hope is lost, gonna just completely self destruct n cuts her hair and stops eating, but on the day of the actual deadline she keeps stalling as she zaps from place to place before finally deciding to end how it should end by jumping off a building n she has this heartfelt convo with this imaginary figure thats kept her company all this time

so she makes the journey up this apartment building in this basically abandoned future...chicago, i think? yeah. and you know, is about to do when whaddaya know, a familiar voice is calling out for her. she thinks its just the hallucination but eventually realizes that its actually the doctor, one that knows her, and they have this really heartfelt hug before she punches him square in the face

after the fact is a lot of secret keeping on jenna’s side. she doesnt want to be a burden and just kind of wants things to eventually get back to normal after a period of just resting finally and lies about her time being thrown around the doctors timeline, telling him it was only a few months instead of two years, and hiding the evidence of her self harm and other forms of self destruction to try and get things back to the way they were. the doctor can see through jenna’s bullshit though and over a month of just kind of chilling in the tardis and getting better she eventually tells him and after being pulled into an adventure with alien bees and a prison break and characters very much based off of the captor brothers from homestuck they kind of find their original rhythm

the next adventure was the one where i stopped writing mostly bc the plot absolutely sucked. it was a beach adventure episode, involving aliens and aliens who were mermaids and being stranded on a remote island. also, at the time i was going through a sexuality crisis and decided jenna was gonna go through it too and made her realize she was gay for one of the alien mermaids and totally made out with her. you can see how the plot was failing a bit, and the only thing i dont regret is the whole mermaid makeout thing really.

the rest of the series from that point on was supposed to go something like this: jenna has to go back to her old high school, except in the dw universe, and finds out she actually doesn’t exist in this universe??? which is weird. the doctor plays teacher and they live in the prop attic of the school investigating a counselor that literally feeds off of emotions until the students are a husk and die. there was going to be a filler where the doctor and jenna start the doctors farewell tour (it is revealed when they finally find each other at the end of the timeline jumping debacle that the doctor has like two years left until silencio happens, with like a hundred years passing between new york n finding jenna) and the doctors mortality is discussed and jenna begins to wonder what happens to her since she isnt at the event or anything going forward, and begins to worry about the prophecy again.

the finale of jenna’s adventures was supposed to go like this: they end up tackling the silence again, only with the help of the cage, after jenna notices the doctor beginning to forget more and more things about her. they get captured and the silence plan to place the doctor in the cage and eradicate him from existence so that the question to be asked never existed to begin with. i hadnt figured out how yet, but basically jenna would finally click everything together and realize it was her destiny to do this, and even had a better chance since it eradicated her from this universe, and she still had a life in another one and could maybe start over and appreciate her family and friends a bit more, and would pull a switcheroo so that she would be put in the cage and slowly eradicated from existence. from that point the silence ship would kind of go haywire from the power being used by the cage and jenna would drag the incapicitated doctor back to the tardis and saying she has to go record something real quick, and then we dont hear from her again.

last scene would be of the doctor, years and years into the future, during one of his alone periods, sifting through the tardis database and happening upon the archived recording files and listening to them, not remembering exactly but living through these events with a person that was there but also never there to begin with, and the last recording being an actual face recording of jenna saying you know, she doesnt regret a minute of it, go out there and have a nice life and dont feel bad for her before saying goodbye and zapping out of existence.

last “scene” i guess would be a fifteen year old jenna, rather than the 18-19 year old we’ve come to know, waking up the day it all started and realizing she accidentally napped through the whole day when her parents wake her up. it seems apparent she doesn’t remember a thing, but her parents say something offhand that wouldve been a prolific line and she has a sense of deja vu and hints towards her someday maybe remembering but also having a chance to live a life without the trauma of her life lead in the other universe

so uh yeah. idk why i decided to write all of this. actually i do i have an essay i have to write but. idk this fic was a huge part of my life for like. a good amount of time and despite its tackiness im actually very proud of it and just wanted to share its story without having anyone ever have the link to it and read it because despite my careful planning i did narrate like a superwholock for most of it and it was REALLY annoyin. but this fic and the character of jenna actually helped me work through a lot of my own bullshit and im still kind of in love with it. and in the years to come actually m*ffat fucking used these plot points like the tardis hating the companion n the doctor forgetting about a companion like years after i wrote this shit but i think i wrapped up the cracks in the universe n silence thing pretty fucking well so uh. petition for fifteen year old me to rewrite the last half of season 6 i guess. anyway its 2 in the morning and i just wrote honest to god a full 5,000 words about my doctor who oc fanfiction so uh. yeah. fuck.

#so dumb

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