#i’m in a corner all by myself writing think pieces about their dynamic as siblings that are literally fire but okay

[junkosblunt]

being a despair sisters stan in the danganronpa fandom is like looking both ways before crossing the street and then getting hit by a plane

[thatgirlonstage]

@fluffyblue-multifandommess so I tried to save your ask in draft at one point while I was working on answering it (it uh.... got... long on me) and fortunately I didn’t actually lose it but it did fuck the formatting to hell and I couldn’t fix it, so I just copy-pasted into a new post entirely; sorry about that.

@fluffyblue-artnwriting asked: I'm thinking about possibilities for a wangxian Witcher!AU and I can't decide which one of them is the Witcher because on one hand WWX has a personality way closer to Jaskier but ALSO the whole Public View Of Witchers Is Shit thing parallels demonic cultivation nicely.... And THEN I thought, but what if LWJ is the witcher and WWX is... like Yennefer. Then who would take on the bard's role... IDK. Maybe NHS? I like the idea of LWJ&NHS friendship A Lot but their dynamic would be very different from Geralt and Jaskier’s obviously. However that all works out, one thing is obvious; A-Yuan is Ciri.

*rubs hands together* Okay hear me out: WWX as the Witcher and LWJ as the Bard, but paralleling a sort of Jaskier/Geralt roleswap AU. The one where Jaskier is a witcher and Geralt is a bard, albeit a much more subdued type of bard, the kind who sits in the corner of an inn and strums his songs and gains a reputation as this guy with a deep, husky (well, Geralt is husky, LWJ in this instance is more… warm and round) kind of voice who is maybe not the best for a jig but whenever he sings he has a way of just making everyone stop and listen. He tells stories with his songs, and he makes people want to hear them. And he doesn’t really like to stick around after he plays, he doesn’t want to be dragged into every piece of gossip and every scandal of every small town he visits, he prefers to meet people privately and gather his stories thoughtfully and carefully before he sets them to music. But one day after his set, just as he’s packing up, this has-no-fear witcher sprawls himself across the table nearest the bard and calls for a drink and a meal for the man who sings so beautifully, golden eyes glowing (like the sun, Lan Wangji thinks, like he wants to light the world around him, not hellfire and brimstone like he’s heard). So he takes the meal but turns down the drink and requests instead to follow him for a day and see if there’s a story waiting in the witcher’s company.

And there is, there’s dozens of stories, but more importantly there is Wei Ying with his golden eyes and bright smile and fierce whirling swords, and the way he laughs and waves it off when the innkeepers throw food in his face or people lie about what they agreed to pay him or even when he is literally stoned out of town. So Lan Wangji vows he will write songs about the witcher, about the children he saves and the long nights in the mud and the wilderness, about stitching his own wounds back together because not even a doctor will touch him. He will write songs so beautiful it will make grown men weep, he will write songs so popular that no one will be able to get them out of their heads, he will write songs for noble and common alike, he will make people stop looking at Wei Ying with fear and revulsion if he has to play until his fingers bleed.

(“Lan Zhan, why do you write so many songs about me?” Wei Ying laughs as he asks it, the question only half serious.

“I write songs that I want people to hear,” he answers, and Wei Ying’s mask slips slightly to the complicated face beneath the smile.)

(He writes one song that is not about him, but for him. One song that no one else will ever hear.)

(“Wangji, be careful with your songs,” his brother tells him, but it doesn’t stop him.)

(Oops it got long, more under the cut)

I am vaguely aware from fanfic that there was at some point, some kind of attack? On the witchers? A bunch of them were wiped out? This would be a lot easier if I knew more lore and history but I want to read the books now* so I’m not gonna spoil myself by looking at the wiki (I also imagine with the number of different canons that looking at the wiki is likely to confuse me more than anything). But anyway: the destruction of Lotus Pier.

Lan Wangji eventually meets Wei Ying’s family, Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, two other witchers, three of very very few witchers left. Jiang Cheng fights monsters with a whip that crackles with purple lightning. Jiang Yanli uses potions that make her monstrously strong, and drips poison on her blade. Lan Wangji asks Wei Ying why his swords seem perfectly ordinary, if largely too heavy for the average man to swing about with ease, or why he doesn’t use the same potions and poisons Jiang Yanli does, the ones she warned Lan Wangji not to touch lest they burn his skin. He asks why the scars in his skin seem so much deeper, like they took far longer to heal. Wei Ying laughs it off and hastily changes the subject.

(Netflix told us fuck all about witcher lore so I am kinda flying by the seat of my pants here and also this is a more subtle version of losing his core. But the idea here is that WWX gave up some degree of witcher magic that would have allowed him to use magic weapons/the potions. He’s still unnaturally strong, he can see in the dark, he can smell out monsters, but he’s not quite what a full witcher should be.)

One time, when they meet in a roadside inn, Wei Ying seems fit to burst with excitement at seeing him. He pulls him up to his room before Lan Wangji can protest and takes a glossy black flute from his saddlebags. “Teach me to play it, Lan Zhan?” Golden eyes shine like the first glimmers of dawn. “I’ve always wanted to learn music but the witchers never allowed it, and now I’m never in one place long enough to learn.” He has a way of talking around things, Lan Wangji has learned, when it’s something that he fears will evoke pity. Lan Wangji knows that no community suffers a witcher to stay a day longer than necessary, and that even if he managed to earn his keep in a borderland city or somewhere like that, somewhere he could return every month or so, no one would take a witcher as a music student. “But we travel together all the time!” Wei Ying is saying. “So you can teach me!”

Lan Wangji takes the flute, examining it. “I do not play the flute,” he says. Wei Ying’s face falls.

“Oh,” he says. “Right. I thought about getting a guqin like yours, but it’s too bulky to carry with everything else, and I’d be too worried about breaking it when I get in fights…” He reaches for the flute, but Lan Wangji does not return it.

“My brother plays. I took some lessons with him when we were children. I remember the basics. I will teach you.” And Wei Ying lights up again, the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

He’s fumbling at first, his ear unused to the difference between flat and sharp, his fingers unaccustomed to the delicate pressure needed. But he’s a fast learner, and his hands have always been clever. Soon, the days that they travel, when they don’t end in monster hunts, they end in music, in quiet evenings around a campfire, improvised duets weaving through the smoke.

One time, when they meet out on the road, both chasing the same rumor of a cockatrice (well, Wei Ying chasing the rumor, Lan Wangji chasing Wei Ying), Lan Wangji takes out a newly purchased jian and says “Will you teach me?” He doesn’t expect the horror and sadness that spasms over Wei Ying’s face.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, more somber than Lan Wangji has ever seen him, “you don’t have to kill monsters to travel with me. You don’t have to kill anything.”

“Mn. I have no wish to kill. I only want to be able to defend myself, so that you do not have to risk yourself if I am in danger.” Wei Ying still looks hesitant, but he brightens considerably, and agrees to teach Lan Wangji the basics of swordplay. He is not starting from scratch — he learned a few things growing up the child of nobility — but it has been many years since he has been near anything more serious than a bar brawl or a mugging. He is also a fast learner, and so long as Wei Ying does not use his witcher strength, after enough practice Lan Wangji holds his own and even puts Wei Ying in the dirt from time to time.

As for Yen, I actually really like NHS as Yen? He grows up in a family where he was supposed to swing a sword he never wanted to pick up, and he hated it so much that one day he simply teleported away. By the time Nie Huaisang makes it back home, his brother has a plan. He has recently thrown out the Unclean Realm’s Brotherhood advisor, Meng Yao, for treason. If Nie Huaisang has the spark, then Nie Mingjue will send his defenseless little brother to become a powerful mage, and then he can be the Unclean Realm’s advisor. So much easier when things stay in the family. So Nie Mingjue writes to one of the rectors, Lan Qiren, and secures Nie Huaisang’s place in the school. Nie Huaisang goes, and he is a shuddering, tearful mess, and he seems to survive by the skin of his teeth, and not even his classmates notice how skillfully he learns to make the world dance with a crook of his finger.

Years later, Lan Wangji accidentally destroys an amphora containing a djinn. He, in a fit of anger, speaks carelessly for once in his life, at the worst possible moment he could have done so. He rides back into town as fast as Wei Ying’s horse can carry them. He hears of a mage who might be able to help. “No mages,” Wei Ying tries to say, but there’s barely enough air in his lungs to force it out as words. Lan Wangji drags him to the mage’s door and begs for help. Nie Huaisang does it out of curiosity more than anything. Never met a witcher who couldn’t guard their mind before. What happened to your magic?

Get out of my head, Wei Ying thinks, but he lets the mage heal him.

“Why no mages?” Lan Wangji finds the courage to ask, much later, months later, fingers trembling over his guqin with the paralyzing shame of his actions. Wei Ying looks away and tells him the story of two siblings — Wen Qing and Wen Ning — marked as cursed, tells him the head of the Brotherhood, Jin Guangshan, sent his nephew Jin Zixun to kill them for fear of what they could become. He walked into the middle of the conflict. Both Jin Zixun and the siblings asked him for his help. Wei Ying chose the Wens. He killed Jin Zixun. The mages declared him an enemy. When Jiang Cheng tried to protect him, they nearly killed him. To repay Wei Ying, Wen Qing saved Jiang Cheng’s life. But no magic comes without a price, and the price for this was Wei Ying’s witcher magic. Afterward, Wei Ying demanded the Jiang school of witchers disown him, and make peace with the Brotherhood, for everyone’s sake. To cement the peace, Jiang Yanli married a mage and Jin Zixun’s cousin, Jin Zixuan.

(Lan Wangji understands, now, why he’s only every met Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli in the wilderness, and then only rarely, why Wei Ying has pleaded with him not to write songs about them, why his brother tried to caution him away, why his uncle seems so exceptionally chilly on the rare occasions they see each other.)

(Nie Huaisang learned Wei Ying’s history while he was poking through his mind. He laughed when Wei Ying asked if he was going to kill him. “Your friend promised me gold and music if you live,” he said. “I would far rather have that than the dubious honor of giving your head to Jin Guangshan on a platter.”)

(It was Jin Guangshan, after all, who — with someone whispering in his ear, Nie Huaisang is certain — noticed how dangerous letting him go home to his brother would make the Unclean Realm, and instead contrived to send him to the ends of the earth, where Nie Huaisang elected to abandon his duties and the Brotherhood.)

Wen Ruohan rules Qishan with the defected Brotherhood mage Meng Yao by his side. He has found and welcomed back his distant relatives Wen Qing and Wen Ning, in the years since they met Wei Wuxian. Hearing their stories, he sends an invitation to the Black Wolf Witcher, to come visit his kingdom. Wei Wuxian pleads and cajoles Lan Wangji into going with him because really Lan Zhan, do I seem like I belong in rich halls among the nobility? I don’t even know what shirt to buy.

(Okay I am about to careen wildly into Simply Making Shit Up that only has a passing resemblance to either canon, bear with me.)

Wen Ruohan, in the midst of his entire court, demands Wei Wuxian choose a reward for saving Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s lives (Wen Qing saving Jiang Cheng’s life is not, cannot be public knowledge). Wei Wuxian tries to demur, but Wen Ruohan refuses to exist in anyone’s debt, let alone an outcast witcher’s. Somewhat desperate and on the spot, Wei Wuxian invokes the Law of Surprise. It can’t be seen as insultingly low or high in value, and he figures at most he’ll get a puppy from the next litter of Wen Ruohan’s hunting dogs, or something equally inane, and they can all call it even. Unfortunately for everyone, Wen Xu’s wife chooses this exact moment to become spectacularly ill, the first sign other than a late period that she is pregnant with Wen Ruohan’s first grandchild. Wei Wuxian flees. He spends a lot of the next few years fleeing.

(“Come to Gusu with me,” Lan Wangji pleads, some time later, on top of a mountain.

“No,” Wei Ying tells him, not because he doesn’t want to, not because he wouldn’t leave the path if he could, but because he can’t stop running, because there are too many maligned creatures who don’t deserve death and too many monsters preying on innocent people that do, because if he doesn’t help them who will, because how can he stop, because he’s terrified of stopping.

“I cannot watch you destroy yourself, Wei Wuxian.”

“Then leave, Lan Wangji.”)

It ends in fire, when Wen Ruohan grows too power hungry, and the Brotherhood turns on him with the Unclean Realm and Lan Wangji’s family on their side, and it turns out that Meng Yao’s defection from the Brotherhood was an act (some of the time? all of time?) and he’s been spying (for years? for months?). Nie Mingjue manages to pull his brother out of exile in return for his help against the Wens, although Nie Huaisang is doubtful about the merits of this.

Wei Wuxian is there when it happens, having been dragged reluctantly back by the strings of fate and the nebulous tie to a child he has never met but who is still a child and doesn’t deserve to die in the coming carnage. Wen Ruohan locks him away for trying to take his grandchild — and heir, after both Wen Xu and Wen Chao perish on the battlefield. He escapes while the city is sacked, but doesn’t manage to find Wen Yuan before he’s fled the city. Instead he finds Wen Qing and Wen Ning, and defends them from the mages when they come into the city. It would’ve been a futile effort, if not for Nie Huaisang and — surprisingly — Meng Yao, who had been at court with them for years at that point, and — even more surprisingly — Jin Zixuan, who has had years of cajoling from Jiang Yanli at this point, stepping to his side. It’s enough that they’re allowed to leave unscathed.

Wen Yuan, meanwhile, meets an elf boy called Jingyi, flees through the fields of refugees, and learns that he has the same kind of magic or curse he heard people whispering about his relatives Wen Qing and Wen Ning having.

Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning find A-Yuan in a destroyed field, lost but alone no more, and he runs into their arms.

Aaaaaaaaaand I have run out of Witcher canon, and this is also OBNOXIOUSLY long by now, so uh, pending part two, maybe, when s2 happens/when I read the books, whichever comes first

[briannaswriter]

I was told I should take the high road. I should just accept that Hillary refuses to speak with me again. I shouldn’t expect answers from someone who won’t give them - has never given them. At the same time, I don’t feel like I can genuinely let this go without talking about it in a format that isn’t DMs.

This is really long, sorry? But I wanted to get all of it out because I want to be free of it, I don’t want it to keep being an ache in my heart whenever I think about it. 

tl;dr at the end. Feel free to reply, idc, I’ll get back to it tomorrow.  

I met Hillary in a group called @/heroesrpg in about 2012. While I was there, I operated under two pseudonyms: Miranda/Isa and Bea. The why for that is a long story. I have nothing negative to say about Hillary here! She was a great friend who taught me a lot about writing and challenged me to become a better writer. I don’t think I would have gotten this far without writing with her. When I left heroes in about 2013, we didn’t keep in touch. I didn’t really stay in the RP world so I didn’t pay attention to it.

In 2014, I was invited to join Ashbourne at her behest. I don’t recall the specifics of how I found it, I think it was simply me reaching out to her again and finding out she was in a group which she invited me to join, too. I ended up playing a woman named Nadeya Khan who was in a ship with her that was later discarded. Later I picked up Shiloh Morgan, the best friend of her character, Adam, and later Mira Lowell, the elder sister of her character Meyer.

I won’t lie, these dynamics were a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing them.

I was upset that my ship with Nadeya and Adam was discarded (I have a distaste for Adam and the FC Ben/edict Cumberba/tch now, I’m petty, sue me), but I think it was more sucky when all threads with them trickled to a halt. To me, it felt like my character was no longer important because it wasn’t a ship, even if a friendship dynamic would have been just as interesting. I ignored this feeling.

I was sad to leave the group, but I was uncomfortable with an interaction from another player and feeling pushed aside in favor of other ships so I made the decision to leave.

I did keep in touch with Hillary, or I attempted to, but once we were no longer in a group together, we just sorta drifted. We didn’t talk for the longest time here and I forgot her url for a long time. Frankly, I’m not sure how I found it again!

We started interacting again in about September 2018 when I think I reached out to her. This eventually ended with the creation of @lethe-rpg where we could write about old time favorite characters - and we wrote so much in Lethe’s run. Everything from romances, to long-lost parent, to siblings, to best friends, to unrequited loves. We wrote nearly twenty characters each and over ten ships in the time Lethe ran from September/October 2018 to June 2020 when it closed. Or, I should say, we wrote all of these things in theory and a lot of it happened behind the scenes in DM’s between us. When we did write things, they would frequently reach only a reply or two before we had to move onto the next one because she didn’t want to finish the one before. I’ll fully admit that I found this frustrating after a while - but I found it difficult to say no to her about anything, or to speak out against her.

Not only was she my friend, but I very much looked up to her. I considered her a mentor as much as a friend, and her approval meant a lot to me. It meant agreeing with dynamics I didn’t enjoy

pushing for a ship between my character Wesley and ANY of hers. Even if it was already mentioned to her that I had an ongoing connection with another character. If I tried to make this dynamic a friendly connection instead, it was promptly dropped altogether.

trying to get a ship between Gemma and Nate when I mentioned point blank that I didn’t want a pre-planned romantic thing with him after his other one failed.

the fact that Gemma and Lily didn’t get like any interactions completed together until I relented a little on Gemma/Nate. Any mention of them was largely forgotten. Half the time, Lily was treated like a child who hadn’t experienced any pain. Not just from Gemma, but from Gabe and from Hillary herself, who seemed to think that my young FC meant nothing compared to the history I had written for this character. Lily in general was ignored until she brought Lachlan along and prodded him into a ship with Lily. Do you know how many starters I wrote on Lily that were ignored?

the fact that Pat/Kate were the oldest ship in the group but they had like one completed thread the entire time lol.

the fact that Odette/Kate were the oldest family dynamic in the group who had like three NOTES between them.

the fact that Odette/Orion became a ship later who were just... never written. I can be honest now, I found them boring and I’m wondering if she felt the same, or if the lack of writing made me dislike them. Either way, Orion became a drain on my Odette muse, just as the lack of Kate/Odette was.

most stuff with Odette makes me sad. I feel like I had really good connections for her that... didn’t work out, and maybe I took to long to address it.

Mira/Andreas is a dynamic I blame myself on. I did feel sorta like I wasn’t getting anything written with her old ship, and I think me and the mun were drained on it, so while Mira was on hiatus and the mun for her last ship, Clark, was debating letting him go/killing him off, I didn’t mind discussing a new ship. I wanted this ship to be a slow burn, I wanted proper closer on the last one because it was a good ship and the mun is a good friend. This was handled with so little tact on her part, we were instantly hitting ship dynamics from the beginning and I found it callous. I dragged out replies just to avoid it. A shame, because I loved the dynamic, but the way it was handled put a bad taste in my mouth

she wanted an August/Delilah ship? Which I didn’t really want, but she’s really good at convincing you bit by bit that it’s a great idea. When I finally jumped onto this ship and flung myself into it, we got like two notes into it and nothing. Are you seeing the theme yet?

I got nothing against Arthur/Cora because I loved writing them, the only thing I did dislike is how rushed they were and how little I got to explore some of the Riverborn aspects of Arthur’s story with Cora. Also a pregnancy happened hella fast.

But I did have something against the Meadowes dynamic altogether: we had so many pieces of it to use that were never written. I failed sometimes on my part, but a lot of it was Hillary getting easily distracted by something else. Cora/Faolan were rarely written beyond the first reply to a thread. Gabe/Faolan were often two notes in and done. Faolan/Alistair lasted a bit longer, I was impressed. Gemma/Lily was mentioned above, but I’ll also mention how often she tried to take pieces of Faolan’s history and twist it to be her character’s pain without any consideration to previously discussed lore or connections. It wasn’t even about a connection anymore - it was about making her character the focal point. Look at how the Daniel Bisset, Aurelie, and Gabe things turned out: half of the plots were twisted to benefit Gabe’s momentum in the story, and the pieces of angst that should rightly lingered on Aurelie were shifted to the side. I didn’t even write that ship, and sometimes looking at them made me feel like a discarded sweater, but they were cute. Anyhow, this is long, moving on.

Faolan/Saby. I literally almost forgot about them, but like... Legit, I’m glad this ship ended because Saby was wholly too dependent on Faolan’s feelings for her, which he couldn’t even acknowledge because he was still in love with his two centuries deceased wife. Was this handled gracefully, did we get to slow-burn some of their stuff in writing? Sometimes. But again, they weren’t really written, and the ship was pushed and pushed, even when I wasn’t really interested in writing it because I didn’t want a ship for him yet.

Aliza/Tien was twisted out of me piece by piece, prodding at the parts of the Aliza/James connection I found uncomfortable (like the murder, like how difficult it was to plot after a point) until Tien seemed like the best answer. This was late enough into Lethe that I woke up enough to cut the ship off and drop the dynamic. In hindsight, I regret letting this even get so far.

Jonas. Just... most of the things written with him lol because he was constantly pushed onto my characters and others. Jo was hinted as a thing, Wesley was hinted as a thing, I think Nate was at one time. It definitely opened my eyes to the fact that she wanted a ship and that dynamics outside of that were largely ignored.

Do you know what it was like to put your heart into a character / story that was ignored ENTIRELY because she didn’t ship with them? Do you know what its like to be excited about a friendship or sibling or parental dynamic that... stopped getting written because your friend only wrote the character for a ship and the next shiny thing attracted her attention and instead of letting the character go, she made you think the next reply was right around the corner? Do you know how many threads we wrote that didn’t go anywhere, and how thrilled I was to write them still because I thought each time it would be different?

TL;DR: if it wasn’t a ship dynamic, it wasn’t written. If it was a ship dynamic, it was sometimes written. If you weren’t doing any of those things, you were ignored.

TL;DR 2: Do not misread this, please. I understand that RL comes first, I understand that dynamics change, that you’re allowed to change your mind. But do you realize how often I was strung along, or how often I was shoved aside? How hard it was to keep a character going sometimes because their big connection was only important for about a week?

and biting my tongue when my own feelings were callously ignored

when we wrote a ship between Selene/Gabe which was later discarded for a ship with Aurelie which had a much better chemistry, but was handled with little tact for my own feelings as I received constant updates on how their ship progressed, and also how the friendship we developed between Selene and Gabe was just dropped altogether - as it was with Adam/Nadeya so many years ago - instead of revamped to fit a changed dynamic as we discussed ooc.

when I would message her and be ignored unless it was about one of our ships

like the fact that I became an admin in Lethe to help her out and eventually the burdens of handling it were on my shoulders. I don’t mind this, but when it came to asking her for help on simple matters (sending me the psd for banners when I switched computers and no longer had it, posting a bio, skimming a post so I could verify it was okay to post, plotting out future events, posting unfollows/follows for people) or asking if she could write something from an admin post, getting a “sure! I’ll do that later!” and then finding out it wasn’t done for a week until I sucked it up and did it myself. We addressed this eventually, but Lethe ended shortly afterwards. 

So. That’s how the last two years have gone, and lord knows how much I’ve forgotten. Hillary and I wrote so much over the last two years, and we definitely grew close. I thought we were beyond just writing friends, that we might have been real friends (after all, we sent christmas/birthday gifts to each other. Hell, I still use the mouse pad she gave me).

I ignored the way she ignored me if we weren’t writing something interesting. I ignored the way she didn’t care about my characters even passively until I shipped with her in some form. I ignored how it felt when entire sections of a back and forth DM was ignored if she didn’t care about the character. I ignored how she refused to write with other people because she disliked their FC, or she didn’t want to write with the mun, or she found the character boring. Half the time, she found a character boring because she didn’t bother learning about them, and the moment she did read about them, they were intriguing. I ignored how she belittled my other ships with other players because “oh I don’t think they click” or “imo that one is boring” or tried to poach those characters to one of her ships. I ignored how she made me feel like a part-time friend sometimes and her best friend other times. 

I ignored the way she didn’t help with admin problems even when she knew admin duties were taking a toll on me as people demanded more and more from me. Not even when we discussed ways to handle things on both our parts to make it easier and promptly ignored them the first chance she got.

She made me feel so important when we would headcanon things. It felt like my characters were important, and that I was a good writer with clever ideas and intriguing characters, and that writing her was reaching a pinnacle that others couldn’t reach. She never said this, I’ll give her credit for that, but I have to admit, I felt like my characters didn’t work out unless I had a connection with her.

The last few months were eye opening. I had already spent the last year frustrating from her lack of leadership as an admin, and anger for the way she ignored people’s feelings even when it was pointed out and gave the bare minimum when interacting with other people, and sadness for the fun dynamics we had discussed but never wrote beyond the posted biography. When Lethe ended, I was ready to let it go and move on, I said my peace about my admin things and letting the characters go meant a fresh start. To me, we were friends REGARDLESS OF BEING IN A GROUP TOGETHER OR WRITING TOGETHER. You don’t talk about ooc things and ic things as much as we did only to stop talking the instant you’re done writing together, right?

Wrong. She didn’t even help us close the group that she created, or helped us discuss things with members who weren’t sure what was happening. I gave her time, just short messages about random things because I wanted her to know that I didn’t hold Lethe’s end against her, that we were friends anyway. Those messages were ignored. I gave her more time and then after nearly a month or maybe two, I finally messaged her on tumblr with a brief snippet on how thankful I was to know her because she helped me as a writer, and apologized if I implied Lethe ending was her fault (which I still agree that it wasn’t entirely, it was a situation handled callously and frankly I still think people should have considered that Hillary was barely 3% of the admin team at the time since Ally and I were shouldering the burdens of everything else). I mentioned how I felt like our friendship was being ignored because we weren’t writing together, and how I had thought after nearly two years of talking that we were friends enough to chat once in a while at least, but if we are only RP friends, let me know so at least I don’t have to fucking think about it.

Do you think that got a response?

It didn’t. She didn’t log into discord to chat about it or something else, she didn’t respond to the message, nothing. She quietly unfollowed me and then blocked me. She unfriended me on facebook, I feel like that’s answer enough.

I’ve known her at least eight years and while some of those times were brief, the last two years were most certainly not. And not only does it make me angry that I’ll never know whether she just dislikes me, or whether I made her uncomfortable, or what, I’m also just... really upset that I lost an eight year friendship. There’s only one person I know longer than her and I had hoped that, if not real friends, then we would still be able to meet up in another group together someday. Now it’ll never happen again, and it devastates me. I can count my friends on one hand and I thought, you know, that she was one of them. It feels like a physical blow whenever something comes up on the dash that involves her. I feel so stupid for thinking we were friends when she showed me her priorities in Ashbourne, when she showed me in little pieces here and there throughout Lethe. I feel stupid for writing this entire thing and crying about it. I feel stupid for assuming.

And I don’t know how to talk about this in a way that’ll let me say goodbye to it because I do need to let it go, but I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose my ability to write because she’s been such a big part of the writing journey for me.

So here it is. Eight years of friendship summed up in however long this is and here I am, trying to let go - and still a little part of me hopes she’ll see it and reach out about something, anything. And a bigger part that’s angry and doesn’t want to talk to her ever again because I don’t want to do this another time.

tl;dr:

I miss my friend Hillary, but also she’s kind of a shitty friend who only seems to care about people when they are writing with her and I’m an idiot for thinking anything else when I’ve had eight years to learn it. Likely if she did find this post, it’ll be misinterpreted in every way until I’m not only an idiot, but also I’m a bully who didn’t give her time and space, who pushed things on her she didn’t want, who she pitied. Because it just occurred to me now how easily she can warp the truth, how she can prod things bit by bit, until it fits just how she wants things to look that’ll benefit her the most. I love my friend, but I’m done. No matter how much I miss her, I deserve more than to be the butt of whatever joke she wants to say to make this sound cool.

[vfdbaudelairefile13]

Chapter Eleven:

The One With Higher Stakes and Dire Consequences

“Thank you for taking the time out of your busy orphan schedule to see me,” Vice Principal Nero barked, yanking open the door before they could knock. The children looked uneasy at one another. “Hurry up and come inside. Every minute I spend talking to you is a minute I could spend practicing the violin, and when you’re a musical genius like me, every minute counts.”

The three children walked into the tiny office and immediately noticed Coach Genghis standing in the far corner, leaning his back against the wall, smirking at the three children. Nero glared at them waiting for them to clap their hands for him. All three siblings slowly and softly began clapping their tired hands together as Nero took a few bows. “There are two things I wanted to talk to you about,” He said once the children stopped applauding. “Do you know what they are?”

“No, sir,” Violet said annoyed.

“ No, sir,” Nero mimicked, “Well, for starters, Coach Genghis, here, tells me that even after running laps for nine hours every night, you remain out of shape and winded. Your teachers say you’ve flunked quizzes in personal anecdotes and measuring random objects. And finally, don’t even get me started on Sunny’s employee evaluation. I couldn’t more disgusted if I’d written it myself!” He barked throwing the employee evaluation at the children.

“You did write it yourself,” Klaus pointed out.

“ You did write it yourself,” Nero mimicked. “Don’t get smart with me, boy!”

Klaus shrunk back a bit behind Violet but kept a firm grip on Sunny’s hand.

“Not to mention, you three have missed thirteen of my violin recitals, and each of you owes me a bag of candy for each one. Thirteen bags of candy times three equals forty-nine,”

“Thirty-nine,” Violet corrected.

“ Thirty-nine,” Nero mimicked annoyed. “Are you getting smart with me, too, orphan girl?”

Unlike Klaus, Violet stood tall, keeping her head up. Glaring at both the despicable men in the room.

“Also, Carmelita Spats informed me that she has delivered you fourteen messages and you’ve never given her a single tip,” Nero said. “That’s a disgrace and rather cheap of you three. Now, I think a nice tip for such an adorable little girl should be a pair of earrings with precious stones, so you ower her fourteen pairs of earrings. What do you have to say about that?”

“I think a Vice-Principal should not be referring to any of his students as ‘adorable’,” Violet said angrily.

“You’re just jealous,” Nero remarked angrily. “That no one finds you to be adorable,”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Genghis remarked under his breath. Nero did not hear him but the children definitely did. Violet’s skin crawled and her blood boiled. Klaus glared daggers at Genghis as he made his way in front of Violet rather than behind her. He still kept his grip on Sunny’s hand but he felt like it was his job to protect Violet as much as she would protect him.

“Now do you have anything to say about the topics at hand?” Nero asked.

The orphans looked at one another with their sleepy, sleepy eyes. They had nothing to say about that. They had plenty to think about that, that they’d only missed Nero’s atrocious concerts because Coach Genghis had forced them to. They wondered how someone who didn’t know that thirteen times three was thirty-nine was able to be a Vice Principal. And that tips are always optional and usually consist of money instead of earrings. But the children were too tired to argue all of these points to this tyrannical piece of shit. This disappointed Nero as he stood waiting for one of the children to say something so he can rudely mock them.

“You three,” he began when he realized that the children weren’t going to respond to his question. “Have become the three worst students Prufrock Preparatory School has ever seen. Mr. Poe told me that you two were very intelligent and hard-working children, but you’re just a bunch of cake-sniffing orphans!”

This was Violet’s breaking point. “We’re the three worst students because we’re fucking exhausted!” she barked.

“And we’re fucking exhausted because that piece of shit forces us to run laps every night!” Klaus barked, pointing at Genghis.

“Galuka!” Sunny shrieked, which meant, “So yell at that piece of shit! Not us!”

Nero gave the children a big smile, delighted that he was able to answer them in his favorite way. “ We’re the three worst students because we’re fucking exhausted!” He mimicked. “ And we’re fucking exhausted because that piece of shit forces us to run laps every night! Galuka! I have had enough of your nonsense! Prufrock Preparatory Schoool has promised you an excellent education, and excellent education, you will get...or, in Sunny’s case, an excellent job as an administrative assistant! But…” Nero said slowly calming down. “Luckily, for you, your new gym teacher has a solution. Jim,”

Genghis smirked at the children as he walked slowly towards them. A dark grin plastered on his face as he looked at each tired child in front of him. “Let me tell you...a story,”

Klaus groaned in agony as Genghis continued. “Homeschooling,”

“What?” Klaus asked, his eyes widening and his heart shattering.

“Homeschooling,” Nero explained, “It means staying at home, sitting at your kitchen table, instead of clogging up a classroom,”

Sunny gripped Klaus’ hand tighter as she felt him begin to shake. “V-vice Principal N-Nero,” Klaus stuttered. “Mr. Poe specifically placed us at Prufrock. He wants us to stay here at least a trimester.”

“Keep your grades up, or I’ll toss you three out on your rears!”

“Your wealthy rears,” Genghis commented.

“Now, tomorrow morning I’ve instructed Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass to give you both more-or-less comprehensive exams in front of the whole school. Violet, you’d better remember every detail of Mr. Remora’s stories. Klaus, you’d better remember the length, width, and depths of all of Mrs. Bass’ objects, or I will expel you from school. And for Sunny, a professional reappraisal featuring a special sequence of demeaning menial tasks. If you don’t complete them to my satisfaction, I will fire you.”

“What happens…” Klaus asked worriedly. “If we’re expelled and fired?”

“If you fail,” Genghis said, smile plastered on his face, “it’s off to Coach Genghis’ Ultra-Dynamic Life-Ending Workshop,” he said chuckling.

“We’ll pass those exams and reappraisal,” Violet replied.

“O-of course, we will,” Klaus agreed nervously.

“If you’ll excuse us, we’re going to study in our shack,” Violet said picking up Sunny slowly.

“You don’t have much time,” Genghis commented. “You’re due at the athletic field for Special Orphan Running Exercise in a matter of hours,”

“We still have to run laps?!” Klaus yelled.

“Of course,” Genghis replied.

“And it doesn’t mean you’ll be excused from tonight’s violin recital. Ooooh, you’re going to owe me three more bags of candy!”

“We can’t study for comprehensive exams and run laps all night!” Violet pleaded.

“We’d have to be two places at once!” Klaus reasoned.

“Consider this a learning experience, orphans,” Genghis said. “It’s important you figure out the balance between academics and extracurricular activities,”

Nero nodded his head in agreement. “Well said, Genghis,”

Violet sighed in frustration.

“Listen to us!” Klaus begged. “This man is…”

“This is not Count Olaf.” The advanced computer interrupted as Genghis stuck his face into its camera.

“Oh, goodness, how careless of me,” Genghis replied glaring coldly at Klaus. “Now...what is it you were saying?”

Klaus whimpered as he and his sisters turned to leave Nero’s office. Once outside, the three children quickly explained what was happening to their friends.

“This is awful!” Duncan cried as the five children trudged across the lawn so they could talk things over in peace. “There’s no way you can get an A on those exams, particularly if you have to run laps tonight!”

“This is dreadful!” Isadora cried. “There’s no way you can make all those staples, either! You’ll be homeschooled before you know it!”

Klaus, who was the quietest of the three when they were updating the Quagmires about their meeting with Nero, shook his head. “Oh...he’s not...he’s not going to homeschool us…” he whispered. “He’s going to do things much, much worse. So much worse,”

“Klaus…” Duncan said putting a comforting hand on Klaus. “It’s going to be okay,”

“No...no it’s not. It’s never going to be okay!” Klaus yelled. “He’s...he’s won. Do you know why!?”

“Why?” Isadora asked.

“Because there’s no one here who can help us,” Klaus whispered. Violet looked at him with a look that was a mix of hurt and anger.

“Wait a minute,” Violet began.

“No!” Klaus yelled looking up at her, with his tear-soaked eyes. “I’m sorry but you can’t do this...you can’t...you can’t help us and the one person who did help us...he’s dead. He’s fucking dead because of us…”

“Klaus…” Violet began. “It’s not your fault that he’s…”

“Yes, it is!” Klaus yelled. “You’re a kid, Violet! You can’t stop Olaf...I can’t stop Olaf...no one can stop him! Your father was an amazing man for trying...and I do apologize that I got you into this mess…”

“Stop talking like that,” Isadora chimed in taking Sunny from Violet. Violet hugged Klaus tightly.

“Stop…” Violet whispered to him. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Remember my promise?”

Klaus slowly nodded his head. “I’m giving you the chance to take it back. Take back your promise,”

“Why would I ever do that?”

“It’s too dangerous. He’s got us. Sunny and I are as good as dead...but you. You can run...hide…” Klaus pleaded.

“I’m not..”

“Violet...this should have never happened to you. Your father didn’t deserve to die...I’m sorry for ever involving you or him…”

“Stop talking like this,” Violet cried sternly. “I am in this for the long run. No matter what,”

“I can’t let you,”

“That’s funny...I never asked for permission,” Violet commented. “Klaus...I am doing this because I am your sister...I am doing this because this is what my father would be doing had he not met a fiery death...I’m not going to let his death be for nothing. He died trying to save you guys. I’m going to do the same...because that’s what family is for,”

“You’re in way over your head,”

“Like father, like daughter,” she replied shrugging her shoulders.

He smiles at that but shakes his head. “No,” Klaus cried grabbing Violet by her shoulders. “You...you don’t know what he’s capable of!”

“Well, I will once you tell me,”

“NO!” Klaus yelled. “You’re going to have to just...trust me on this, Vi. You and the Quagmires are to run to safety...Sunny and I can handle our own,”

“Snickets take care of their own,” She informed him. “You and Sunny...are my siblings. Which means…” she spoke slowly, trying to get this through Klaus’ thick skull. “ You are my own. I’m not letting that piece of shit hurt you guys anymore. He wants you, he’ll have to go through me.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!” Klaus yelled shaking her shoulders. “ You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

Violet looked into her brother’s eyes and what she saw...not only destroyed her but enraged her all the same. She could see so much fear in his eyes, a level of fear that she couldn’t explain because he wouldn’t. She could see desperation...she can also see just how exhausted and fatigued he truly was and she knew it wasn’t only because of the thirteen egregious days of S.O.R.E that he had endured...it was because whatever Olaf had done to them back when she wasn’t involved, haunted him. It eats at him...it eats him alive. She swore that she would make the man who did this to her brother and sister pay. She gave Klaus a small smile as she pushed his hands from her shoulders. “That’s fine,” she said finally. “He doesn’t know what I’m capable of either,”

“Are Snickets all this stubborn?” Klaus asked annoyed.

“Actually,” Violet replied smirking. “My father said I get that from our Mother. So that means Baudelaires are stubborn,”

Klaus rolled his eyes.

“Look, I ran into a burning building in an attempt to save my father,” Violet told him.

“Wait, you did what?” Klaus asked. “Are you crazy?”

“Possibly. But that’s not my point,” Violet replied. “I’d honestly do the same for you guys...and I’ve only known you for two weeks. But it feels like I’ve known you two your whole lives,”

“Elsna,” Sunny shrieked, which meant, “Yep, you and I are definitely sisters!” Klaus translated for Sunny as Violet smiled.

He turned to the Quagmires. “I wouldn’t blame you if you guys were to leave and forget all about us,”

Duncan put his hand in Klaus. “I’m not leaving you,” he said staring into Klaus’ eyes. “The five of us will defeat him,”

“Together,” Isadora added, slipping her hand into Violet’s. “Now we need a plan,”

“Well…we now know his plan. He made us run laps all those nights because he knew we’d be exhausted. He knew we’d flunk our classes, or fail to perform our secretarial duties. He knew we’d be expelled from Prufrock and then he can get his filthy hands on us,”

Klaus groaned. “We were waiting for his plan to be clear, and now it is. But it might be too late,”

“It’s never too late,” Violet replied letting go of Isadora’s hand as she began to tie up her hair. “The comprehensive exams aren’t until tomorrow,”

“But we have more laps tonight,”

“What we need is a plan, a complicated plan that,” Duncan suggested. Violet stepped a few feet away from the four younger orphans, which allowed them to continue on their conversation while she focused solely on concentrating.

“We have to get Violet ready for Remora’s test,” Isadora mentioned. “And Klaus ready for Bass’ test,”

“And we have to make staples for Sunny,” Duncan reminded.

“And you guys still have to run laps,” Isadora commented.

“Brooklyn,” Sunny chimed in, which meant, “And we have to stay awake and go another night with no sleep,”

“I can’t think of anything,” Violet admitted frustratingly.

“Mama,” Sunny suggested as she pointed to the silver, heart-shaped locket that hung from Violet’s neck.

Violet smiled at her little sister as she opened the locket starting at the picture of the woman inside. She stared intensely at her mother. Come on...if there was ever a time where I absolutely needed a brilliant idea, it would be now. I have to protect them! Help me protect your kids! Violet thought.

The four younger orphans all watched as she silently stood there, locket opened and at eye level. Her hair tied up to keep from distracting her. Klaus took this time to polish his glasses and set them back on his nose. Sunny scraped her teeth together, to make sure they were sharp enough for any task ahead. And the two triplets took our their notebooks from their uniform’s pockets. Coach Genghis’ evil plan had become clear through the prism of the Snicket, Baudelaire, and Quagmire experiences, and now they had to use their experience to make a plan of their own.

Violet’s head shot up as she closed her locket setting it back to where it belonged. She turned around to face the four orphans, giving them a big smile.

“Violet?” Isadora asked with anticipation.

“I think I’ve got it!” She said smiling deviously.

“We’re listening,” Duncan replied.

The three siblings and their two triplet friends now sat in the Orphan Shack, which had never looked less unpleasant than it did now. All five children were wearing the noisy shoes that violet had invented, so the territorial crabs were nowhere to be seen. The salt had dried up the dripping tan fungus into a hard beige crust that was not particularly attractive but at least did not plop! Drops of fungus juice on the youngsters. The Orphan Shack had become quite a bit less mountainous and quite a bit more molehilly since their arrival. It still had a long way to go to be attractive and comfortable living quarters, but for thinking of a plan, it would do in a pinch.

And the children were certainly in a pinch. If Violet, Klaus, and Sunny spent one more exhausting night running laps, they would flunk their comprehensive exams and secretarial assignment and then Coach Genghis would whisk them away from Prufrock Prep, and as they thought about this, they could almost feel Genghis’ bony fingers pinching the life right out of them. The Quagmires were so worried for their partners and best friend that they felt pinched as well, even though they were not directly in danger...or so they thought, anyway.

“I can’t believe we didn’t figure out his plan earlier,” Isadora commented mournfully.

“We did all that research, and we still didn’t figure it out,” Duncan remarked remorsefully.

“Don’t feel bad,” Klaus replied. “Sunny and I have had many encounters with this fucker and it’s always difficult to figure out his scheme,”

“We were trying to find out the history of Count Olaf,” Duncan informed. Violet’s head shot up in interest. A history of him...might have pieces that could be of her parents’ history. She thought. “When we snuck into the library, we found that the library has a pretty good collection of old newspapers, and we thought if we could find out some of his previous schemes, we might figure out this one.”

“That’s a good idea,” Klaus muttered.

“I never would have thought of that,” Violet admitted.

“We figured that Olaf must have been an evil man even before he encountered you, Baudeliares,” Isadora explained. “So we looked up things in old newspapers. But it was difficult to find too many articles because as you know he always uses a fake name and disguise. But we found a person matching his description in the Bangkok Gazette, who was arrested for strangling a bishop but escaped prison in just ten minutes.”

“That sounds like him, all right,” Klaus muttered.

“And then in the Verona Daily News, there was a man who had thrown a rich widow from a cliff. He had a tattoo of an eye on his ankle, but he had eluded authorities,” Duncan explained.

“Violet?” Isadora asked gently shaking Violet. “You’re not napping, are you?”

Violet giggled. “No silly goose, I’m concentrating,” she said pointing at her tied up hair. “I think I figured out how to help Sunny with the staples. But I can’t figure out how I can invent something and study at the same time. And since S.O.R.E began, I haven’t taken good notes in class, so I won’t be able to remember his pointless stories.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about that, silly,” Isadora replied smiling at Violet. She held out her black journal for Violet. “I’ve written down every one of Mr. Remora’s boring ass stories. Every boring detail is recorded in this notebook,”

“And I’ve written down how long, wide, and deep all of Mrs. Bass’ pointless objects are,” Duncan informed handing Klaus his green notebook. “You can study from my notebook, Klaus. And Violet can study from Isadora’s.”

“Thank you,” Klaus said smiling at Duncan. “But you’re forgetting something. We are supposed to be running laps this evening. We don’t have time to read anybody’s notebook and he definitely isn’t going to let us read them while running.”

“Fuck,” Sunny replied. “Tarcour,” she whined, which meant “you’re right. S.O.R.E always last until dawn, and the tests are first thing in the morning,”

“If only we had one of the world’s great inventors to help us,” Violet said, “I wonder what Nikola Tesla would do.”

“Or one of the world’s greatest journalists,” Duncan said. “I wonder what Moxie Mallahan would do in our situation.”

“And I wonder what Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian, would do to help us,” Klaus informed. “He was one of the world’s greatest researchers.”

“Or the great poet Lord Byron,” Isadora added.

“Piranha?” Sunny mused.

“Who knows what any of those people or fish would do in our shoes?” violet said. “It’s impossible to know.”

Isadora’s head shot up. She looked at Duncan, who seemed to be having the exact same idea, “In our shoes!” Isadora yelled happily.

“That’s it!” Duncan yelled agreeing with his sister.

“What’s it?” Klaus asked confused.

“How will my noisy shoes help?” Violet asked.

“No, no,” Duncan said. “I’m thinking about Coach Genghis’ expensive running shoes that he said he couldn’t take off because his feet were smelly,”

“I bet they are smelly,” Isadora commented. “I’ve noticed that he doesn’t bathe much,”

“But that’s not why he hears them,”  Klaus explained. “He wears them for a disguise,”

“ Exactly!” The two Quagmire triplets yelled in unison.

“I’m sorry…” Violet said.

“Lost,” Sunny said, which meant, “We don’t follow,”

“When you said, ‘in our shoes’, you gave us this idea,” Isadora explained.

“We know it’s an expression meaning ‘in our situation’ but what if someone else were actually in your shoes?” Duncan added.

“What if we disguised ourselves as you,” Isadora suggested. “Then we could run laps for you and you could stay here and study for your exams,”

“And make your staples for your job,” Duncan added.

“Disguise yourselves…” Klaus repeated in panic. “...as us? No way! Absolutely out of question!” he yelled.

“You two look exactly like each other, anyway,” Violet countered. “But you don’t look anything like us,”

“So what?” Duncan said. “It’ll be dark tonight. When we’ve watched you from the bleachers, all we could see were three shadowy figures running,”

“That’s true,” Isadora agreed. “If I took the ribbon from your hair, Violet and Duncan took glasses to look like Klaus, we’d look  enough like you that I bet Coach Shitfuck wouldn’t tell,”

“But your hair is shorter than mine, I have bangs,” Violet countered.

“We’ll figure it out,” Isadora insisted.

“Out of the question,” Klaus replied.

“We can even switch shoes, so our running sounds like your running,” Duncan added.

“But what about Sunny?” Violet countered.

“We’re not doing this!” Klaus shouted.

“Shush, hun,” Duncan replied patting Klaus’ hand. “What about Sunny?”

“There’s no way two people can disguise themselves as three,” Violet countered.

The Quagmires’ faces fell, “If only Quigley were here,” Isadora mused.

“I just know he’d be willing to dress up as a toddler if it meant helping you guys,” Duncan said.

Violet closed her eyes, her hands untying her ribbon and tying it up again. “What if I built a pretend Sunny,”

“Robot?” Sunny mused.

‘Not necessarily a robot but...like a dummy,”

“That could work,” Isadora agreed. “Sunny’s super tiny even though I know she’s a toddler, she’s small for her age and still looks like a big baby...no offense, Sunny. You know I love you,”

“Denada,” Sunny said, shrugging but smiling at the triplet girl.

“We can find a lot of material that’s as big as Sunny,” Duncan announced as Violet nodded.

“No!” Klaus yelled. “Being in each other’s shoes seems like an extremely risky plan! If it fails, not only are we in trouble but you are as well, and who knows what Coach Genghis would do to you?”

I hate to inform you, but, this, as it turns out, was a question that would haunt the orphans for quite some time, but the Quagmires gave it barely a thought. “Don’t worry about that,” Duncan said. “The important thing is to keep you out of his clutches. It may be a risky plan, but being in each other’s shoes is the only thing we’ve been able to think of,”

“And besides, it’s what friends are for,” Isadora explained as Duncan nodded. “You would do the same for us, and you know it,”

Violet looked at her siblings who both slowly nodded their heads. All three siblings knew that the Quagmires were entirely correct.

“Now we don’t wanna waste any time trying to think of something else,” Isadora stated. “Let’s get moving,”

“We need to find material to build a pretend Sunny,” Violet explained.

“Kitchen?” Sunny suggested.

The four older orphans looked at one another and then at Sunny, all nodding their heads at her suggestion.

______________________________________________________

A little before dinner, the children snuck into the deserted kitchen. Violet pushed open the doors. “Coast is clear,” she whispered as Duncan walked in with Klaus’ hand in his. Isadora held tightly to Sunny. Violet waited until all four younger orphans were inside before closing the door slowly. “Duncan…” she whispered. “Can you be look out?”

Duncan gave her a thumbs up. “Okay...find some material to make fake glasses,” Violet whispered as the four others split up.

Almost immediately, Sunny grabbed a pair of egg tongs. “Focals?” she asked her older sister.

“Sunny, you are fucking brilliant,” Violet whispered in reply, rubbing Sunny’s head. “You think you can help me out with that…”

Sunny studied the tongs carefully and replied with a thumbs up.

Klaus grabbed a pair of dishwashing gloves. “These might come in handy,” he whispered.

Violet smiled. “Good job, y’all. You guys are thinking like inventors. Remember there is always something,”

Violet glanced at Sunny. “We need something for the body,” she whispered to Isadora. Isadora looked around the kitchen, her eyes fixating on a big bag of flour.

“Would flour work?” she asked Violet.

Violet glanced from Sunny to the bag of flour. “Hell yeah, it will. Okay. Isadora grab the flour. I’ll carry Sunny and…”

“Fuck,” Duncan whispered. “Someone’s coming,”

Sunny quickly hid behind the bags of flour. Violet and Isadora ran for the pantry, making sure to keep the door slightly ajar, so they can see what was happening. Klaus and Duncan quickly ran behind carts containing clean cookware. All five orphans didn’t dare make a peep as the person entered the kitchen. They couldn’t see who it was because they made sure to keep all the kitchen lights off but all five orphans were pretty sure they knew exactly who it was because they could hear the tapping of her tap shoes.

They listened and watched as the silhouette of Carmelita grabbed a bucket from where Sunny was hiding. Sunny held her breath as Carmelita didn’t notice her and carried the bucket to the dessert case. All five orphans looked at one another as best as they could, utterly confused. They watched as the bully stepped on top of the bucket, take a deep breath, and then plunge her face into a cake covered in powdered sugar. They could hear a few quick sniffing sounds as Carmelita removed her nose from the cake. All five orphans had to suppress and muffle their laughter as they watched the bully, whose nose and mouth was now covered in powder sugar, put the bucket back where she had found it and gave a few quiet sneezes as she exited the kitchen.

Once they were sure the coast was clear, all five children burst out laughing. Isadora laughed so hard that she and Violet fell on to each other. Klaus and Duncan were laughing so hard that they couldn’t breathe and even Sunny, who slowly walked out of her hiding place to meet with her siblings and best friends was laughing so hard that she was wiping tears from her eyes.

“That…” Violet said still laughing.

“Was…” Duncan said chuckling.

“Perfect,” Sunny said practically squealing.

Klaus grabbed the smaller materials as Duncan grabbed Sunny. Isadora grabbed the bag of flour as Violet grabbed a few more random objects that she believed could come in handy and all five children exited the kitchen, heading towards the Orphan Shack laughing their asses off.

The five orphans walked back to the Orphan Shack, they walked nervously from the cafeteria to shack. And although they were laughing at Carmelita’s expense, they were all very nervous. They were nervous because they were not supposed to have snuck into the kitchen to steal materials for an invention. They were nervous because their plan was indeed a risky one. It is not a pleasant feeling, as you and I know, to be nervous, and I would not wish for small children to be any more nervous than Violet Snicket and the Baudelaires and the Quagmires. But I must say that they weren’t nervous enough. They didn’t need to be more nervous about sneaking into the cafeteria, even though it was against the rules. But they should have been far more nervous about their plan, and about what would happen that evening when the sun set on the brown lawn and the sunrise to shine brighter than the luminous circle. They should have been nervous, now, in their regular shoes, about what would happen when they were in each others.

[xseedgames]

Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection - Localization Blog #1

Excelsior, true believers! Nick here again, penning these gladsome tidings from my grand scriptorium full of musty scrolls and ancient cartridges. Alas, it’s been quite a while since I checked in with all of you – well over a year, in fact, with the release of the first Trails of Cold Steel. With that giant title now roaming free in the wild like the majestic brachiosaurs in Jurassic Park, you may have wondered what I’ve been working on over the course of the last year. It always seems to unintentionally happen that I get assigned to projects I can’t talk about for significant lengths of time, but this stretch has easily been the longest. So many times I’ve wanted to tell you some quirky story or fun little side-note about this game as I worked through its script, but alas, the official XSEED duct tape was covering my mouth – until very recently, that is.

In our yearly lead-up to the gaming extravaganza that is E3, we finally announced my long-in-coming project: the classic Falcom action RPG Zwei 2, making its debut outside of Japan as Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection!

Of course, I’ve also helped out with a variety of other, more time-sensitive projects, leading to Zwei taking a bit longer to bring to you than it would have otherwise, but I think we’ve got something you’ll really enjoy in the making here. And conveniently, the benefit of the slow going is that the release isn’t too far off now. As Zwei II enters its final stretch before release, I wanted to tell you more about the game – which is exactly what I’ll do, over the course of the next couple weeks.

Zwei II has an interesting history: released in 2008, it was the very last game Falcom developed exclusively for PC. Back then, the PC gaming market was far from being the robust, thriving scene we know it as today, especially the Japanese market. Thus, the title seemed almost fated to fly under the radar despite its quality craftsmanship and hours of fun. But now, with the worldwide PC game market booming and digital storefronts ensuring copies can get into the hands of anyone who wants to play, it felt like the right time to fill this conspicuous gap in Falcom’s lineage.

“But...what about the first Zwei?” you may be pondering aloud to your monitor. If you’re wondering whether you’ll be at a disadvantage playing the second game in the series before the first, worry not! I’ve played both (thanks to Tom’s Japanese boxed copies) and can confirm that Zwei II gives you all the info you need to understand the world, its plot, and its characters. There was a 7-year gap between the first and second Zwei games in Japan, and Falcom couldn’t assume players would’ve played the earlier entry, so the structure is something more akin to Trails in the Sky versus Trails of Cold Steel, where the games take place in the same world, but in different locations and with different casts. This makes it easy to jump right in.

To start things off, I wanted to sit down and flesh out the game a little for you, since compared to its siblings in the Ys series, and even Xanadu, it’s far less known by fans. What is the Zwei series? What makes it great? How does it play? Why is it cool?

Let’s start from the ground up: the name of the game. “Zwei” is simply the German word for “two” and, as you’ll soon discover, it’s a very fitting title – the game features not one, but two protagonists. Our leads in Zwei II are Ragna Valentine, a lively treasure hunter and pilot-for-hire, and Alwen du Moonbria, a confident vampire princess looking to avenge herself against an unknown enemy. How these two very different people meet and come to really understand (and maybe even appreciate) each other is the relationship that forms the heart of the game, and I’ve done my best to make that journey of growth and understanding a fun and memorable one. And, as with any good RPG, the journey is not without obstacles to overcome. Fortunately, our hero and heroine are up to the task, with Ragna skilled at mixing it up in melee, and Alwen versed in the ways of magic. You can swap between them at any time, and whoever you’re not controlling runs along behind you, ready to leap into the lead role at the press of a button.

Zwei II’s combat is action-based, not unlike the Ys games or Gurumin, but the two-character setup creates an interesting dynamic in combat. Over the course of the game, Ragna will be able to upgrade his weapon, the half chain-whip/half katar Anchor Gear, into several different forms, and Alwen (who begins the game bereft of most of her magic) will regain her powerful spells. You end up being able to do some interesting things, like using a claw-variant of Ragna’s Anchor Gear to grab an enemy, then throw it into another enemy, knocking both into a corner, then swapping to Alwen and unloading a fiery salvo on them. Or have Alwen cast her whirlwind magic to sweep up a couple enemies and keep them stun-locked, then swap to Ragna to leap into the air and string together a midair combo on them. In many dungeons, I often found myself favoring one or the other to take the lead because of the strategies I came up with to best deal with certain types of enemies, and you’ll likely fall into styles of play that fit the way you prefer to approach the game’s combat as well.

And speaking of approaches to combat, Zwei II has a rather unique leveling system, too. In the game, you don’t earn EXP from quests, or from beating up monsters. You actually earn it by eating food – the same food you use to heal yourself when you’re running low on HP. There’s even a “food exchange” service available at the restaurant in the main village of Artte that lets you trade 10 of any one type of food for one of another type that gives more EXP than the ten individual pieces of food would have if eaten on their own (example: trade 10 cheeses worth 10 EXP each for a single pizza worth 150 EXP). Will you chow down now, or hoard in the hopes of cashing in for savory plates of EXP-rich cuisine? You decide! It probably sounds weird (it certainly did to me when I first learned about it), but in practice, it actually works really well. It frees you up from having to grind in dungeons, or feel like you absolutely MUST kill every enemy on the way to your destination. It also gives you a lot of control over your own challenge level. When I was playing the Japanese version of the game, my loose rule was that I’d never eat food just to level – I’d just use it when I was hurt, to restore HP. I ended up going through most of the game under-leveled because of this, but never TOO under-leveled, because the more under-leveled I was, the more damage I’d take, thus getting infusions of EXP more frequently from using food to heal myself. There’s a strange sort of balance to it, and the game isn’t stingy about giving you food in chests, as drops from enemies, and even from giant slot machines you’ll find in each dungeon, so you can decide whether you want to blow through the game as a force of nature but with less on-demand healing available, or a bit underpowered but with a fully-stocked pantry.

If that talk of slot machines that dispense food or trading wedges of cheese for a pizza sounds a little...weird, that’s by design. More than any Falcom game I can think of, the Zwei series embraces its sense of humor, poking in good-spirited fun at its two main characters, the townspeople, and even many of the foes you face down along the way. It’s got a lively, colorful, and cartoonish art style that has helped the graphics hold up well, too. You probably know from personal experience that stories more focused on being comedic sometimes run the risk of not being able to successfully shift into a more serious mode when the story calls for it, but thankfully, Zwei II doesn’t suffer from this issue. It’s surprisingly adept at conveying a serious atmosphere when the story calls for it, making for some excellent dramatic moments, and even a dab of pathos here and there. But on the whole, Zwei II is a game that feels deeply informed by 90s anime and manga, with all the oddness and charm that comes with that. I can certainly say that being rooted in that style proved fertile ground for my work to help the game achieve its comedic potential (speaking as a weeb from ancient times), and I’m already planning my next blog post to focus on some of the details of the writing and the characters.

One thing I love about Zwei II is that it reaches out and really grabs you from the start. In just the first 20-30 minutes, you get the following ace setup (obviously, skip these next two paragraphs if you want to go in totally blind):

The game begins in the skies, as courier pilot Ragna Valentine is cruising in his cool red biplane, the Tristan, toward the island of Ilvard on a routine delivery mission. Suddenly, he’s ambushed by unknown assailants, and after a dogfight against a pair of dragon-riders in the skies over Ilvard, his plane takes a bad hit and plummets toward the land below. The next thing he knows, he wakes up in a bed in the nearby town of Artte as the town doctor marvels at how he came out of such a crushing impact with barely a scratch. After all, his plane didn’t fare nearly as well. Going out to investigate the crash site, Ragna finds his plane on a hill on the outskirts of town, busted up and snapped in half just as the doctor said. So how did he even survive such a nasty crash?

Well...he almost didn’t. After that crash, as he lay among the wreckage, broken of body and bleeding out, he was rescued from his mortal fate by none other than Princess Alwen du Moonbria. Alwen isn’t your ordinary RPG princess, though: she’s a sharp-tongued shut-in vampire princess. Not too long before the start of the story, Alwen’s castle was invaded by a mysterious foe who ultimately seized the stronghold and gave her the boot, after stripping her of her ancestral magic. Seeing the outsider Ragna as her best bet to help her search for her magic and retake her castle, she takes some of his blood and gives him some of hers, sealing a pact that turns him into her ‘Blood Knight’ – a warrior in thrall to a powerful Trueblood vampire whose physical abilities and regenerative capacity far exceed what humans are capable of. But Ragna, see, is all about freedom and doing things his way, and he hates the idea of working as anyone’s lackey. After realizing the situation he’s in, though, he strikes a deal with Alwen: he’ll help her get her castle back as thanks for saving his life...but instead of being master and servant, they’ll do it as equals.

And so, our story begins.

Cool, right? And that all happens in fairly short order – no longwinded tutorials, no hours of quests before the gears really start to spin. Zwei II has a lot of heart and a lot of dialogue, and to its credit, it seldom feels like it drags. The story starts with a bang and keeps things moving at a good clip.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to do, though. The island of Ilvard is dotted with thriving communities and, in the fashion of the Trails or Ys games, they’re populated with fleshed-out NPCs who have their own small story arcs and conflicts to overcome over the course of the game, with dialogue that changes frequently after progressing the main story. Some of the residents are funny, some are petulant, and some are just downright strange, so I hope you enjoy getting to know all of them over the many times you’ll visit the towns. You might even stumble upon unique scenes, a secret hint, or a good ol’ fashioned RPG quest (you know, the kind from back before there were convenient quest logs to keep track of things). And of course, what with Zwei II being focused on Ragna and Alwen as dual protagonists, they’ll often have unique things to say in response to other characters depending on whom you’ve got in the lead.

In the course of working on the game’s script, I observed with no small amount of fascination that in some ways, it almost seems like Zwei II was made more with Westerners in mind than the Japanese market. Ragna himself is an incredibly un-Japanese character, with his bravado, easygoing swagger, and sass, but he’s a character that I know will click instantly with the North American audience in particular. We see Ragnas in our books and films; we all probably know someone like him, or who has elements of his personality. Alwen, too, is a character I think will be well-liked by the West. Not content to lament the loss of her home or sit idly by, she picks herself up and decides to get even and take back everything that was taken from her even though it promises to be an uphill battle. The core of her personality is her self-assured nature – even when confronting a world she’s mainly just read about (in books that were, sadly, out of date on the latest trends and customs). Quick-witted and keen, she matches Ragna tit-for-tat, helping the two play well off each other. Beyond just them, there’s the wild west-flavored bounty hunter Odessa, chain-smoking nun Isabella, the worldly jazz pianist Shester, dependable engineer Miriam, and of course, the irrepressible luchador-masked man of mystery, Gallandeau, among many others. Having a zany cast of characters like this all together in one place feels like the kind of storytelling we enjoy so much in Japanese games. But at the same time, after seeing so many forgettably milquetoast light novel-style characters in the games and anime of recent years, it’s refreshing to come upon a game where the characters have an abundance of personality – where I know they’ll resonate with the audience I’m localizing the game for.

So...there you go. In a nutshell, this and more is what you have to look forward to when Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection finally makes its debut. Like a time capsule laden with the charms of a bygone era of RPGs, I think it’ll prove its worth to you as more than simply a pleasant surprise – I think it has the merit to stand proudly as one of Falcom’s finest.

[ellysdoespoems]

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by Ellys Lawlor

There’s something primitively, instinctively thrilling about capturing and keeping things. Whether that’s to display as a point of pride or to privately reminisce over a token of time gone-by. Maybe I’m revealing too much about my tendency for excessive hoarding, but I think the same applies to most people. Pokémon built a whole all-consuming cult predicated on the compulsive need to ‘catch ‘em all’.

My parents spent much of my childhood capturing moments with a grey Polaroid instant camera. There were days dedicated to poring over photo-books, tomes stuffed to capacity with old friends, new friends, lost friends and family members before I’d known them. Each laminated rectangle carried a story that, more often than not, my mum would revel in recalling and my dad would sheepishly deny. I found out more about my parents those days sifting through their old memories than I ever did otherwise, a whole hedonistic late 90s lifestyle carefully compartmentalised across a series of innocuous looking folders.

The first camera of my own I remember having was a little orange disposable with a flimsy cardboard sleeve, bought from Boots down the road from where I lived. It’d be my travel buddy for a school trip to Castleton, my first weekend away from family at 9 years old. Unfortunately, I discovered on that trip that my tendency to hoard comes coupled with a certain overzealousness and it wasn’t the first evening of the trip before I’d spent all 20-so of my photographs on pictures I was convinced I’d needed. Of luggage, streams, the motorway, the school bus. We never bothered taking the camera to get the photos developed when I got home and it’s probably still sat in my cupboard somewhere now.

One Christmas my brother and I got a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder each. We’d moved house just outside the city we’d always lived in. I had just changed school and my brother hadn’t long started his first year of secondary school in a town a bus ride away. The camcorders were far out-dated then and we only had a tape each to record with but it didn’t make any difference to us then. My brother crafted Spielbegian epics featuring Godzilla hand puppets, whereas I ended up drafting all my siblings to help put together a series of crude stop motion animations based on the BBC Robin Hood TV show with a bunch of the action figures I’d gotten the same Christmas, fanfic I more or less invented on the fly. We got bored eventually and I didn’t want to over-write my tape but the mornings, afternoons and nights spent huddled together plotting the next opus in our auteurist catalogues kept the both of us sane through all the upheaval happening around us. My brother became my best friend in those intense brainstorming sessions. Like the disposable camera, those MiniDV tapes are probably in the same cupboard, the contents having never left tape land.

The months after I’d left college I was completely aimless. I had a bunch of GCSEs and some respectable A levels in my back pocket but I had no interest in pursuing anything. When university came up as a topic of conversation during college tutorials, I simply didn’t fill out any applications because I figured I wouldn’t make it to the end of college. Even if I did, what did it matter anyway? The last few years of school had soured me on education, where it seemed many of the teachers were coaching us to hit statistic targets they needed to cash their pay cheque month by month. Desperate, college became a last resort when I almost fell into abject complacency after the last year of school. I enjoyed my time there but I still didn’t have any sense of purpose. I convinced my parents that the year after college was a gap year and I’d figure out exactly what it was I was going to do in that time. My dad assured me that if I didn’t do anything with my time, and wasn’t either at university or in a stable job by the end of the year, I probably wouldn’t have a place to live.

I ended up interviewing for a voluntary position as a history guide at my local art gallery. It was looking over my credentials that the volunteering co-ordinator running the interviews thought I’d be better suited tagging along with the Media department they had on-site. I went along with it, not really knowing what working with the Media department would mean doing. It became apparent in the successive interview that they were best described as teachers rather than strictly a media-based team. In the latter years of school, as well as the sense of disillusionment, I ended up seeing an NHS-based counsellor who told me that I was suffering quite severe social anxiety and less apparent depressive tendencies. I didn’t really “get” what was going on in that regard and I hadn’t had many major events in the time since school but I knew sitting in that interview that there was frankly nothing I wanted to do less, and nothing I was less suited to, than helping teach people. That being said, I went along with it anyway.

Under the presumption that I knew what I was doing with a Photography AS on my record, I was invited to spend my first day with a group of students who were going to be undertaking a project photographing shopkeepers along a particular street in the city. True to any expectation I had of myself, I was excruciatingly awkward as I introduced myself to the small group of students, retreating to a corner of the room and remaining stiff throughout the rest of the session. The session ended with a trip to the row of shops the students would be investigating, an opportunity to test their skills with a camera at the beginning of the course. My boss thrust a kit lens Canon 600D into my hands. “Documentary.” he said, “Follow ‘em round and get ‘em while they’re working.” In a blind panic I flicked the wheel on top of the camera to Non-Flash (saves having to faff about with settings) and stuck to the first group that looked remotely okay with seeing me like a fly to honey.

The day was capped off with the staff looking over the photos everyone had taken, documentary included. I winced when I saw my offerings, hazy long shots of mistakable silhouettes fiddling with tripods and standing around with their hands in their pockets. They weren’t just technically bad photos; they were boring to look at. There was none of the exuberance I saw in many of the students as they tried to feel each other out, the complicated social workings as they started to relax around each other. I could tell the team were disappointed and I went home cursing myself for cocking up so badly. I was sick the next week when I tried to get up and help out with the session, largely at the thought of making an arse of myself again, but nevertheless after some time away I eventually returned. I improved a little over time but I could still never relax around the group, I hid behind the camera lens and used it as an excuse not to involve myself. You could see it in the final results, which often appeared more like blurry paparazzi shots.

In the store room taking equipment out a few sessions later, one of the members of the team handed me a 50mm Canon lens. “I was always told it’s the best lens to start with.” she said, “The focal length is just close enough to what our brain processes from our eyes. There’s no zoom on it either. If you want a close-up, you have to get up close.” This piece of advice ended up being my saving grace. With no zoom there was nowhere to hide, I had to be in the thick of it. Suddenly, standing next to them, it became far less daunting to be in the room. As I got to spend more time with the students, the pictures got better steadily too. They went from static portraits to displaying them in lively, dynamic form. To their credit, I soon figured out that many of the students had absolutely no inhibitions when it came to being photographed. Soon enough, I was asked to help out with a second group made up of young men aged 16-18 to help out with a similar project.

The year I spent with this group was one of the most fulfilling experiences I’ve ever had. They were loud, boisterous and a hell of an experience to stand in a room with. I wasted no time getting involved; the documenting became secondary to getting through the tasks each week. I started to look forward to coming in each week, all of them were characters, perfect to photograph and delightful to be around. One session had them recording the dialogue dubs for a music video they were putting together in the sound studio. I stood on the sidelines some paces away from the microphone, snapping away when I could. They loved the performance aspect of their project and these are some of the pictures I’m most proud of. On a hard-drive somewhere is a collection of melodramatic air-punches, arms outstretched like they’re reciting a Shakespearean monologue.

The end of the year for these guys came with the end of their course. An event was put on where they screened their music video project, the result of months of hard work (as well as a change in the main cast that had me dressed like an Anne Rice vampire in full stage make-up), along with a montage of all the documentary photos we’d kept over the year. It was a point of pride for me, not necessarily because I’d helped produce it, but more so in watching these young men see themselves grow over a sequence of still images. They hadn’t seen any of the photos I’d taken of them and suddenly they were seeing their story unfold. I couldn’t help but feel I’d finally come full circle, back to those days in front of a folder of photos as my parents related all their lost stories.