#in fact the first 6 chapters don't take place in canon at all

[mortuarywriting]

Falling into Place

Ao3 Link - [First] - [Next Chapter ->]

All things considered this isn't what you were expecting to wake up to when you went to bed. One minute you're on your phone, trying to pass out, and the next? You're here. You've had some interesting greetings in your life, but dropping about six feet and having twelve guns leveled at your face? That takes the cake

Warnings:

Reader Insert, Plus-Size Reader, The Author Regrets Everything, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Isekai, canon divergence Look we're gonna dig into the implications of omegasverse changing bits and pieces of history as well as addressing whatever the FUCK is happening as CoD's history. Idk man Godzilla is canon and nobody bats an eye at that fact and you think I'm gonna be normal about that? No

You could be having a worse day, you think, as you stare at the interrogation table you're cuffed to. They could've shot you the second you fell the six feet from the sky into a random army base. That's a very real thing that could've happened.

But no, you just had a dozen guns pointed at you in one moment and a slew of questions you didn't have satisfying answers for.

No, you had no idea how you got there. You'd been in bed tooling around on your phone and then you were falling.

They asked who you worked for, and were not impressed by your mundane answer. You didn't work for some pmc or intelligence organization. You asked them to their faces if they thought you could pass a PT test if you tried. Not that they answered or appreciated your point, mind.

It was only after you gave them whatever identifying information you had that things got… spicy.

"I would love to tell you what this designation of yours is if you tell me what you mean. Is it like a classification of civilian versus enlisted? Is it physical? Is it your horoscope? I don't know what I don't know," you explain again for the Nth time. You didn't wanna play twenty questions but here you fuckin were, captive audience and all.

The man asking you questions had lost his charming good cop look. He was getting more and more annoyed on this one, "your designation," a demand, not a question and sure as shit not an answer.

"Again, would love to tell you! I don't know what you mean! Feels like some kinda Star Wars thing," you grumble the last bit to yourself but the man cocks his head.

His eyes narrow, "what are… Star Wars, you said?"

You blink owlishly, "beg pardon?"

"Star War. Clarify."

It's your turn for your brow to furrow, and furrow it does, "Star Wars? As in the multi-billion dollar franchise created by George Lucas and eventually sold to Disney," your tone is questioning, just shy of asking if the guy lived under a rock but his expression didn't let up and the last thing you needed was bad cop, so you continued, "the story of what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? The political space series of movies versus Star Trek's more scientific and discovery based longstanding TV show? Nine major movies and the Clone Wars before Disney sunk their talons in. Like yeah we got more shows and movies that expanded the universe but they also cut out decades of book contributions in their acquisition and that kinda sucked. But yeah, that Star Wars?"

"Nine movies," his tone is disbelieving, and now it's your turn for your eyebrows to raise, "can you name them?"

You nod, "well yeah. Do you want them in episode order or release?"

His brows furrow, "did they not release in order?"

"In a sense? Three trilogies, 4-5-6 back in the late 70s early 80s, then 1-2-3 in the late 90s early 00s, and 7-8-9 through the teens. So order, yes, just… not a cohesive one."

"Release, then," he leaned back and crossed his arms, a position you'd love to mimic if you weren't cuffed to the table for… an indeterminate period of time now, actually.

"A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi-"

"Woah now, empire? What's a jeddy?"

You give him a blank look, trying very hard to mask your disbelief as you look between him and the mirror behind him. You look at your reflection, take a deep breath, and- "sir would it be easier for you to maybe check the internet?"

He seemed to bristle, nose flaring and looking at you expectantly.

You just… kinda sat there. You tapped your fingers together on the desk and kept the eye contact he was intent on. It took a good minute and him getting progressively pissier before you simply ask, "would you like the other movies now?"

You didn't expect an explosion of movement from the man. He downright snarled and slammed his hands on the table as he burst to his feet, the sudden change sending his chair screeching back before falling with a clatter. You leaned as far back as your cuffed hands would allow, eyes wide and a panic rising.

Both of you turned to look at the door when it slammed open with a barked, "Williams!" 

The man who opened it reared back a bit, "Christ, layin' it on a bit thick," he groused, his tone sounding more like someone chastising a teenager for using too much Axe body spray. He smoothed his posture back into something casual as he fanned the air dismissively with a hand, "cap wants you to take a walk."

Your interrogator- Williams, apparently- stares at the man in the door, the two locking eyes before the one in the door straightens from his purposely relaxed posture. You watch the both of them, noting the shoulders tensing as the two just. Staring at each other? Eventually the guy who'd been grilling you looked away and stormed out, the man in the doorway letting him slip out easily enough before turning a charming look back to you.

He took a minute to fan the door a few times to get newer, blissfully cool air in before he entered the room, "sorry 'bout him. He really did a number in here," the new guy tsked before closing the door quietly behind himself.

Your brow furrowed even as you slowly relaxed a bit, had this Williams guy like… farted or something? A nice quirk of ventilation keeping you from smelling something abhorrent? Either way you simply shrug as he walks in and tips the chair back up, sitting and giving another reassuring smile, "how you doing, love?"

You opened and closed your mouth a few times before simply settling on, "I'm a bit… whelmed? This has been," you give as vague a rolling gesture as you can without your cuffs rattling too badly, "a lot? And I have no idea what just set him off either?"

It's the man before you's turn to quirk a brow, "no idea?"

"If I knew the answers to his questions I'd've given 'em by now. I don't, though, and then he just started staring? And hell I just thought it was some kinda macho 'I can stare the truth out of you,'" you pitched your voice lower and pushed your shoulders out for a second to mimic the douchebag behavior before settling, "so I kept eye contact because I'm so out of my depth I have no reason to lie at all and now…" you trail off, gesturing around the room, "all that."

The man nods slowly, "alright love, could you tell me about the last five years?"

Your brows furrow, "oh fuck, 2019 was five years ago wasn't it. God, time is an illusion. Anyway, you want what I was doing leading up to and through the pandemic?"

You think he might've startled for a second but he simply moved to scratch his chin, "mhmm. Just your thoughts on the last five years is all."

So… you ramble. Because he was nice and not prodding or asking weird questions. You talk to him about your job before the pandemic, how people thought covid was just a flu until the death tolls kept climbing, how tons of governments dropped the ball on a local or country-wide level and how that kicked back onto your life, and then the absolute crapshoot of the last election cycle, the shitty 'oh no this is the new normal everything is fine' behavior that has lead to surges and cycles of a fucking plague and so on. He simply nodded, gave some sympathetic hums and winces appropriately at your experiences.

"And did you go back and watch Star Wars through that? Or other things Disney owned?"

And, well, that was a weird way to phrase it but you shrugged, "the mouse is just shy of a monopoly and not one that anybody can take that down so… yeah, I guess? They kept putting shows out and expanding their Star Wars universe so that's been kinda neat to watch but not just them, no. Couple other games and stuff like that to keep me busy, too," you kinda handwave and shut up because panic rambling to MILITARY PERSONNEL is probably not your smartest move in hindsight. Especially when you don't know his name. A+, self.

You tap your fingers against the metal table as he looks at you, "and you said covid has a long term effect of ruining people's senses of smell and taste?"

You nod slowly, "yeah, dude? It's one of the biggest warning signs for most people? Like if everything starts tasting like it was made by a middle class white mom who keeps shoving random letters in her kids names you should swab? That kinda shit?"

What rock has this guy been living under? You were pretty sure the military were supposed to be way more familiar with this shit all things considered, but you've been wrong before.

It was his turn to give you a bit of a wide eyed look before he poorly covers a laugh, "alright, that's fair. I need to go talk with my captain," he hooks a thumb over his shoulder to the window, which didn't surprise you that there had been people back there. He offers a reassuring smile as he stands, humming idly as he pushes the chair back in. He pauses mid-step, "you mentioned that there were cards…?"

You find yourself nodding slowly, "yeah it was important and you couldn't fly or go to certain places if you didn't have one for a while. Should still have a picture of mine buried on my phone," you really didn't wanna get another first-round of covid shots, you REALLY didn't wanna repeat the 24 hours of suck for no reason.

"Cool, thanks," he flashes another charming grin before he slides out of the room.

You lean back in your chair, what an odd guy. Nice though.

-------

"Right," Gaz says as he opens the door to Price and Ghost, "either our mystery guest is off her nut or she's legitimately from somewhere and somewhen else."

Ghost and Price look at each other before turning back to Gaz, this… complicated matters.

Well, it's not like you hadn't given them information to identify yourself. They'd dig up who you were one way or another.

-------

You stare blankly as the nice man from before gives you a sympathetic look, "what do you mean I'm dead?"

Behind him is a guy you're not sure if he's just fuckoff huge or if he's just moderately huge and it's forced perspective.

You don't think it's forced perspective.

You are absolutely trying not to panic spiral.

You are absolutely doing a horrible job at that.

"Well," he opens the file before him and there's a news article, proudly proclaiming "Locals Die in Horrible Freak Accident" like that's not some form of you that was looking like some smear on the pavement, "there's this. Fingerprints match up. Can check for dental if you're really curious."

"Were there even any teeth left after that," you mumble as you take and read the offered article. Seven people were involved, the pictures used are mostly flattering. Hell, you almost don't mind what pic they used for an alternate you but… "that's certainly not the pic I would've wanted. Maybe this me had different tastes?"

You take the time to actually read through the article. It's not helping because for as much as you stare at the page you're not absorbing any information. Some form of detachment, if this was really you? You'd died. A different you but a you nonetheless. You died and you're reading how it happened. There was a lot to unpack in all this and you just needed to put the suitcase away for now. You'd much rather throw it away at this rate.

You were rapidly coming to the understanding that you and Toto were not in Kansas anymore, and there wasn't a convenient yellow brick road to get yourself back home. No easy way to get the hell out of Dodge either. Was it Dodge or the O.K. Corral that was in Kansas? No the O.K. Corral wasn't in Kansas- Dodge was though, that's right. 

This analogy was getting away from you and some part of you figured this was just your brain trying to protect yourself but… wait, wasn't this a metaphor? There wasn't 'like' or 'as' or goddammit not again.

You recognize some names here and there but largely everyone involved were perfect strangers. The article doesn't cover if it would've been slow or quick. You hope for the smear that it was quick. Smears like that don't happen slowly, right? Well, not unless it's like a dramatic slide down a window, but not usually across pavement like that.

Still not sure how you feel about all of it. Bit morbid being confronted with your mortality like that.

Certainly answered a lot of questions about your theoretical passing you never thought about. Like if the obituary for you in what you know to be your own home and world is just as… really kinda just mediocre as this. Have you really done nothing of note for an obituary? Damn.

You kept pouring over the article, each pass bringing new words into focus that help connect the picture a little bit, but… Something repeated in the article made you pause, "two alphas, four betas, and an omega?" 

There was no decent way to ask about that. Any questions invoked from here would border into dangerous territory better kept between yourself and a private browser history. You knew what you were about but there was no fucking way.

"Their designations," the nice man whose name you still hadn't caught explains, "mostly explaining their secondary gender."

You look at him owlishly. You pray to whatever God might be listening that you wake up shortly. Or that the earth below your feet opens up and swallows you. Whichever comes first, the mortification will snipe you otherwise.

"Please tell me this is an elaborate joke at my expense," you are very quiet as you are trying to get really cool with a lot of things really quickly.

"Negative," the big fucker in the back practically growled and you knew that voice would do things to you if you weren't half stepped out of your own body. 

You missed whatever his followup was but your brow furrowed when you checked the date on the article, "I've been dead for months? That…" you let the paper fall from your hands. Everything about this is wild at best and very overwhelming at worst. 

A lot of this qualified as worst.

You look up at the two, missing the odd look they shot at each other as you try to pull yourself back together, "so now what? You've got a not-a-smear of me that fell from the sky onto a secure military base, and where I'm from we didn't have," you paused to gesture between the paper and the two soldiers, "dynamics was it? That was just a fanfiction special."

"Fanfiction."

The way he said it was so carefully neutral you paused, "oh my god without Star Trek to popularize fanfiction and the fan community, how has fandom evolved? Is fanfiction a thing- well, yes, it does fanfics have been a thing since Dante Alighieri wrote the Divine Comedy and even before- well, the question is more if it's still popularized? Are there still the wattpad fics of- I am getting so off track. What exactly is the next step?"

You look from the nice man to the big fucker and back, neither saying anything but looking at you with careful blankness.

You felt like you were being weighed and measured in their eyes.

You hoped to anyone listening that you weren't found wanting at least. Not when you're in the shit situation it looks like you ever so increasingly fell into.

"Considering I'm. Not smear. And very much not from here? Are blanks a thing? Or is that what a beta is I'm," you trail off, brow furrowing, "fuzzy. On the whole thing. The flavor of understanding, dynamics, and population skew tended to be dependant on the author's level of horny."

The did get a bit of a snort from the pretty one before you, the one in the back tilting his head just so as the pretty one spurred you on, "okay please don't take this the wrong way, you have given me nothing to go on but A/B/O and-" a finger was raised in question to that, you quickly explaining, "the fanfic shorthand for the universe without being a mouthful. Anyway- I've seen population numbers being roughly the same across the board, I've seen alphas and omegas at roughly 1% of the population of society on either end, I've seen alphas at about 5% and omegas at 1%- those ones are usually the most horny I swear.

"And it's all over the board, no consistency- sometimes it's betas are infertile, sometimes they're the straightman to the comedy that's an alpha and omega trying to woo each other without being too horny to function. Sometimes it's a sliding scale where being beta just means you're more the more middle-ground regulated hormonally with alphas and omegas being the opposing ends of a spectrum. Can you please say something and give me a fucking break because my panic rambles are probably like. Some kinda prejudiced. I'm still not over the 'I'm supposed to be a smear on the ground we don't even have dental images of to confirm who it is anymore' nugget you dropped on me. I think I'm doing well for this"

You would rather not tell them that as soon as you're out of this box of a room you were gonna be curled up in a ball and unabashedly weeping. That was none of their business.

The pretty one gave you what you're sure was supposed to be a reassuring smile but the quiet stretched just a bit too long. You looked from one to the other before leaning forward, "is this supposed to be soothing in some way? Because it's just a bit of an extended awkward silence and that's uh-"

It was the big one in the back's turn to give an amused snort, the pretty one looking bashful, "right, sorry, we uh-"

You jerk a bit, "wait, was that supposed to be some scent thing," you really didn't wanna say pheromones and potentially dig yourself into a deeper, more awkward hole based on Horny Pseudoscience.

Pretty rubbed the back of his neck, "something like that. You really couldn't smell anything?"

You know the exact Face you're making. It's very much your 'I have told you this and I'm getting tired of having to repeat it' face. You can tell he clocks it but for the record, because to your mortification this has to be recorded, you simply give a succinct, "no, I haven't smelled anything. Not from you, not from him," you jerk your head towards the big fucker, "and not from douchebag from be- Williams! His name was Williams. Nothing. Really had no clue why you were fanning the door when you came in."

You sigh, rubbing the heels of your palms into your eyes, "okay. Assuming I'm not about to be put into past tense a second time. Do we have any idea what popped me out here?"

The sentences are stilted, you know you're getting more rattled the longer you're here but sue you alright it's been the worst six hours of your life here.

They just continue to look at you, pretty keeping a polite almost customer service look as big one just stares unceasingly.

"Right. Okay. Am I going to be reintegrated to society or is this," you gesture around the little room as much as you can, "looking like my home for the foreseeable future."

No change in what you can see of either's expression, and you just sag. Deep breath in, deep breath out, "cool. Alright. Well. I know nothing of how biology is altered here, I'm not sure how that has impacted changes throughout history, and frankly I don't know what your pop culture has done. I'm assuming math and written languages are largely the same but in all fairness I don't know what I don't know."

You just stare quietly at the table for a bit longer before looking back at the two of them, "is there anything else you need because I can feel the freakout creeping up and while I know there's no real privacy, uh…"

The pretty one looked back to the big one, at some point you're sure you'll get some sort of names but for now? Now you watch the big one nod, the pretty one give you a polite smile and some vaguely polite bullshit your brain is swiftly going too far out to hear.

You only hope that whoever is behind the mirror is polite enough to look away as you put your head down on the table and give yourself the opportunity to, just this once, cry. As a treat.

[Next Chapter -> ]

[greenerteacups]

Hey GT, glad to see you're back! I'm still halfway thru Lionheart (just read the world cup chapter, what a delight) and your notes got me wondering.

I'm sure you've probably answered this before but how do you manage to make the world feel so rich? I'm not that into the fandom so I don't know If there are some things fanon agreed upon or if it is your own musings about the magic world. Like Draco explaining to Hermione about portkeys or how many languages Krum speaks.

How do you decide what's important enough to get a mention? Where do you go when you need answers and Canon is not enough to provide it?

Thanks for the kind words, and for the question! It's a matter of personal taste, like anything. Some writers prefer an athletic, streamlined plot, with only as much worldbuilding as you absolutely need (how does Panem run a command economy of 4.5 million people primarily on fossil fuels when its coal district has a population of less than 10,000? fuck off! who cares! they're Y/A dystopias about a TV show where teens beat each other to death!). Some writers, on the other hand, won't bother to start the story until they know the pH of the soil in every region of the world they're writing about. I'm somewhere on the second half of the scale, in that I'll give details that aren't strictly necessary to the plot, just because I like to feel like I'm writing about a world where real, extraneous things can happen. Some details are foreshadowing; some details are Special Mouseketools that will Help Us Later; and sometimes, you just get to know a cool fact about portkeys.

I guess part of the fun of building out a world is getting to think about Everything, which is what my brain normally does. I have a pretty broad body of literature as a starting gate, so there's plenty of room to play. E.g., when I started writing Krum, I thought about how he's not super fluent in English in canon, and that naturally made me ask why, because he clearly has taken English, so either he only started lessons recently or it hasn't been a priority for him; and then I went "wait, what's his first language? Bulgarian, right? But Durmstrang isn't — hang on—" and then I pulled up an actual map of Europe, which led me to realize that he wouldn't likely be speaking his first language at Durmstrang, which means he already had to become bilingual just to start his wizarding education, and that explains part of why he doesn't have a ton of time/effort to spare for a third language, plus he'd probably have a translator available whenever he traveled with a team because he's a B.F.D. — etc., etc. And then you keep thinking about that until you remember that you're supposed to be writing a fic, and you scramble to get back to doing that. Only now, you have worldbuilding! Congrats.

To try for an even halfway useful answer to your question: worldbuilding becomes most important when it creates limitations, because limitations define your characters and give them chances to develop/reveal themselves. So the details of portkeys become important because they explain the limitations of magical travel, which is a big nebulous ??? in the original series, since the introduction of teleportation via Apparating means that all other forms of transportation become inefficient by comparison. It also means the limitations introduced by travel — that is, not all characters can be in all places at once — also go away, because anyone can be anywhere immediately. From a narrative perspective, this sucks massive horse ass. Hence: I dumped a shit ton of limitations on Apparation (i.e., (1) it requires a ton of energy, (2) it's really fucking hard, (3) it's really fucking dangerous, (4) it's more of both the farther away you're going, (5) it's more of both the more people you take with you, (6) you can't Apparate without a clear destination in mind which means (7) you need to have been there already, and so (8) some people prefer not to do it). Hence, I also put limitations on portkeys (i.e., they have to be set up well in advance, you need to identify out both destinations precisely beforehand, and the calculations are difficult to do). Those limitations, and the Watsonian explanations you create for them, are your worldbuilding. They're what make the world feel real, because they give it grit and character. They give you a more complete sense of what you can and cannot do.

The rest of it is taste and preference, really; it's what interests you, and what parts of the world you want to explore. That's going to be unique to every author, and that's the beauty of worldbuilding — it reflects the parts of the world that you like to think about.

[sushisocks]

Okay, another Sean and Lenny meta post, this time also featuring some stuff about Javier. I wanna talk about why I think Sean and Lenny would side with Arthur at the end of RDR2, and bring forth all my reasoning as to why I will die on this hill.

Rant under the read more to spare my mutuals. (Fair warning this is a LONG one babes, there is so much meta)

So, to start, I don't actually think the story of RDR2 would look the same, if at all, were Sean and Lenny not to die their scripted deaths. Even in a version of things where they survive and they go to the same camps, the unfolding of events would by necessity be different due to the impact their personalities and frames of thinking would have on the people around them. However, let's for arguments sake say that in this hypothetical, things are mostly the same, and we're down to that last scene in Beaver Hollow, the last showdown, with Dutch and Micah on one side, and Arthur and John on the other. We know where Javier and Bill go, but where would Sean and Lenny gravitate?

I've already made my stance on the matter clear, so let's really get into why I think Lenny and Sean would choose Arthur's side over Dutch's.

First off, I think it's important to remember that it isn't JUST Dutch vs Arthur, in this scene. In its essential form, it is Dutch & Micah vs Arthur & John. Arthur points at Micah as the rat, and Dutch believes Micah over Arthur. John arrives and accuses Dutch for leaving him to bleed out and die, and Arthur believes John -- not that Dutch denies it.

The point here is, though, that it's not JUST Dutch or Arthur, they're choosing. It is also the people who side with those individuals, whom we must take into account.

Sean and Lenny are canonically Micah-haters, if you will. There are several instances throughout the game, while the two are alive, where they loudly proclaim their dislike of Micah. Sean calling him an 'oily turd' and getting offended at being compared to him, is a near and dear line from the game, for me. And I doubt I have to explain why Lenny isn't besties with the most outwardly racist member of the gang.

"Oh, but Teki!" I hear you say. "Javier is also shown to dislike Micah, and yet he sides with Dutch in the end!" And, see, now you have activated my trap card, so let's really take a look at Javier, before going any further.

Javier is among the most loyal members of the gang -- Arthur literally says this as a camp interaction with him, long before chapter 5 or 6. The fact that Arthur is the one saying it, should tell us something -- this is coming from the man whose loyalty is such a strong character trait it turns into a flaw, and ultimately leads to his demise. And if you think about it, Javier being exceedingly loyal - to the gang, to Dutch - should not be surprising!

When Dutch met Javier, Javier didn't even know English. Javier was starving, on the run, with no safety or know-how, in a country he didn't know nor understand. Javier's story with the gang literally STARTS with Dutch saving him. He is brought into the gang, and in the four years he's there, he is taught English and also shown more respect and compassion than many other places in the US at the time. There are many examples of how Javier is treated as a Mexican in the US, throughout the game, and he, like the other POC in the gang, is allowed to stand up for himself and punish other gang members who slight him (Micah and Bill, in particular). In many ways, Dutch provides through the gang a safety net Javier probably didn't even dream of achieving when he crossed the border.

And then Guarma happens.

I, personally, cannot overstate enough how much I think Javier's experiences on Guarma reinforce his loyalty and blind faith in Dutch. He is tortured, ridiculed, and humiliated, and who is it that opens that cage door and literally pulls Javier out of it all? Carries him over his shoulder out of a compound of Cubans that would rather see their heads on pikes?

You guessed it, it's Dutch. Yes, Arthur does a lot of the heavy lifting, but let's be real - Dutch is the one who gets the credit, as usual. He made the plan, after all, and notably, he IS actually the one grabbing Javier and hauling him out of there.

That means, that the two times we know of, where Javier has been at his absolute worst, Dutch is the one who has saved him. Javier, who is so loyal even Arthur acknowledges the immensity of it. So who is then surprised that he doubles down even harder, when they return to the US, and things take a turn for the worse in Beaver Hollow?

In that moment, at the end of chapter 6, Javier cares more about siding with Dutch, than he cares about Dutch siding with Micah.

And I'll argue a similar case for Bill; he has speeches, camp events, where he straight up says Dutch saved him, saved the people of the gang. This is literally The Thing, with these two, that makes their choices at the end really make sense, in my eyes.

It's also important to note that Javier is literally the most clueless among them when he makes that choice. He wasn't there for most of the conversation leading up to it -- he literally just came from being on watch, to warn them about the encroaching Pinkertons. And, as everyone knows, he doesn't point his gun at Arthur and John, and he nor Bill are there for the horse chase scene, blah blah, those points have been done a million times, you already know them.

"Okay, but Teki," you say, trying to reason with my rambling fanatic self. "How do you know Lenny and Sean wouldn't go down similar paths, if they survived past their scripted deaths?" And I say onto you, verily; because neither of them really have similar savior stories with Dutch, thematically.

I mean for goodness' sake, Sean tried to ROB Dutch and Hosea, upon meeting them intially. They just liked his guts and invited him along, and Sean was like, 'shit why not, aint got nothin better to do!' - paraphrased, of course, but in my heart of hearts that's what he said.

All we know definitely with Lenny is that he joined the gang while traversing the Grizzlies, the year before the events of the game. Whether it was a savior situation or a mutually beneficial situation, isn't actually fully known. We can make assumptions and speculate until we're all blue in the face, but I have stronger points for Lenny's case so let's move on.

So, as I've talked about before, Lenny is acknowledged as among the smarter members of the gang, despite his youth. He is one of the only ones who intellectually challenges Dutch, and he is clearly not afraid to criticise Dutch's ideas and ideals -- when prompted.

(Side note, as I said at the start but want to really emphasize here, I really think chapter 6 is the one that would be the most impacted by Lenny's survival. He has shown himself remarkably aware of societal issues contemporary to his time, so look me in the eyes and tell me you genuinely believe he, as a black man, wouldn't attempt to intervene in some way when Dutch starts fucking with the Wapiti. That kid has balls of steel and audacity up the whazoo, and he's excruciatingly aware of how black people in the US have been royally fucked over by white men. You think he'd see the Wapiti struggling, Dutch scheming, and be like 'oh yay more white man shenanigans! lets go!' ?? bffr!)

Lenny ALSO is among the newer members of the gang; it provides him safety and respect that's hard found outside it, yes, but in my opinion he straight up does not have enough cost sunk into this fallacy, for it to fallacy properly in his head, if you catch my drift. I think if it's not for the fact that he has genuine bonds with people in the gang by the time chapter 6 rolls around, like Charles and Sadie do at that point, he probably would be smart enough to dip, like other characters do.

And that's sort of the thing, too, with both Lenny and Sean. They don't actually have daddy issues in the same way Arthur and John do.

Lenny and Sean are very similar in that they had good relationships with their fathers, and are proud of their parentage -- what wisdom and teachings their fathers managed to impart upon their sons before passing, has stuck with them. They are not in need of a new father figure, and they certainly do not seek it in Dutch(nor Hosea), not like Arthur and John do.

They find a sense of brotherhood in the gang, sure, and they view the other members as family (you can pry their little brother statuses from my cold dead hands), but Dutch is their leader, not their guardian, not their teacher, and certainly not anything close to a father, in their eyes. The fact that Lenny discusses literature with him is indicative of this -- the conversation is one of opinion between would-be equals, not of mentor and protege. The fact that Dutch only really seems interested in Sean as far as he serves as camp clown is also indicative of how Sean might feel about him, too. Dutch literally yells at Sean for taking a break from being the silly goofy distraction, in one camp interaction -- and from the way Sean talks about him, I don't think that sort of behavior has a lot of fatherly associations for the 'irish terrier'.

And that leads us to my pièce de résistance, dear fellow cowboy maniacs (you must be, if you've read thus far). Lenny and Sean are both closer, and friendlier with Arthur, than they are with Dutch. Example: Both of them poking fun at Arthur in ways they do not with Dutch. Sean telling Arthur he loves him - like an insane amount of times. Lenny chooses Arthur to go riding with, time and time again.

And guess what? When we see Sean and Lenny at their lowest, who is it that helps them out?

If you answered Arthur Morgan, give yourself a pat on the back and a gold star sticker!

We are literally introduced to Sean while Arthur leads Javier and Charles into saving him from bounty hunters. Arthur is the one cutting him down from that tree, bringing him upright, making sure he is okay. Arthur is also the one who saves him from being shot to death on the train robbery in Pouring Forth Oil. When Lenny comes to tell the gang about Micah being in jail in Strawberry, he has also just narrowly escaped being lynched, and it is Arthur who brings him away from that experience, calms him down and allows him to relax and let loose again.

Both Sean and Lenny have a deeper, more profound connection to Arthur, than they have Dutch. And consequently, if they were to survive until the end of chapter 6 and were the then much-more-unlikely showdown scene to happen, they would certainly not side with Dutch & Micah, over Arthur & John.

[gloomstalkertav]

Summary: In which all of Act II is summed up in one angst-riddled chapter, and no tieflings are spared the horrors of canon.

Part 6 of 10

Warnings: Slaps roof of chapter: This bad boy can fit so much angst! TW: trauma flashbacks, semi-graphic descriptions of canon character deaths and not exactly canon but not not canon character deaths, and super unhappy sad times pretty much all the way around.

Word Count: ~8.2k

View story masterpost | Read on Ao3

“Listen —” 

But instead of saying anything more, Alfira snatches up her tankard and takes her first real drink of the interview: a long, slow, fortifying draught. When she sets it down, her cheeks are flushed, her eyes overbright, but her voice is strong and steady as she resumes:

“Listen —” 

But instead of saying anything more, Alfira snatches up her tankard and takes her first real drink of the interview: a long, slow, fortifying draught. When she sets it down, her cheeks are flushed, her eyes overbright, but her voice is strong and steady as she resumes:

“I know this part will be hard. For me, too. I don’t like to think of the Shadow-Cursed lands any more than I can help, but … it’s an important part of the story. Tav’s story. Personally, I think it’s where she sort of … came into her own as a hero. I saw a lot of her at Last Light and she was … different, somehow, than she was at the druids’ grove. Older, almost. More sure of herself. Like she knew what she was doing now. In fact, the only time I think I ever saw her panicked was when she found out you were missing.”

Alfira’s eyes flit to Zevlor’s, but his are fixed on his tankard — the contents of which he's barely sampled, nor does he allow himself to do so now: penance for the little shiver of satisfied pleasure he feels at hearing of Tav’s concern. Not that a few sips of weak ale will make a difference. Zevlor knows there’s not enough alcohol in the Elfsong to dull the pain of what he must remember next.

“Anyway,” concludes Alfira, shrugging on a brisk, business-like tone, “none of us would have made it out of that place alive if it weren’t for Tav, and we’re doing this for her, so…” The bard reclaims her quill, dips it in ink, and shakes her parchment out in front of her: her sword and shield against the trial ahead. “So, all I really need to hear is her part: how she rescued you from Moonrise. You don't have to talk about what happened when we … when you were captured. Or about being tortured or whatever else that cult did.”

The privacy curtain ripples. Alfira starts, but the dusky tail and leather boots visible beneath the velvet hem are already hurrying past. She jumps again at a sound from across the table: Zevlor clearing his throat to speak.

“Torture—”

But his voice fails. He swallows hard and closes his eyes. And when he starts again, it is not for Tav, though it is Alfira's picture of the hero she became at Last Light that lends him strength. It is for Alfira herself, and every other tiefling outcast he betrayed: another sort of penance, and one long overdue.

“Torture,” says Zevlor at last, “would have been a blessing I did not deserve.” 

Yet he longed for it. For whips or racks or needles or knives. An enemy to fight, a punishment against which to rage. But his tomb-like prison was too narrow for Zevlor to lift his arms any significant degree, let alone assault its translucent sides, and the shrouded figures that occasionally wandered across his limited field of vision did not spare him even a passing taunt. 

His was the suffering of utter stillness. The hell of frozen inaction. A doom befitting his crime...

… Screams. A spray of red, bright in the darkness. The metallic scent of blood. The thud of falling bodies all around while he stood passive and unmoving, hypnotised by the voice caressing his mind: promising power, purpose, a place in Baldur’s Gate, the realisation of every fantastic possibility he craved—

Zevlor ripped his mind free of the unbearable memory, and, in a futile effort to keep it at bay, shook his head until his neck ought to have ached. But sensation did not exist inside his prison. He felt neither hunger nor thirst, heat nor cold; his body registered no physical pain. How long had he been trapped here, fading in and out of nightmare? It felt like an age — like a lifetime had passed since he’d made the decision to lead his people through the fringes of the Shadow-Cursed Lands, since the cultists had ambushed them, since he’d heard his own voice command their surrender — but it might only have been years, perhaps mere tendays. The dim, red light outside his prison never changed. There was no way for Zevlor to mark the passage of time. Avernus had been the same...

…The blood-red sky broken only by the crackling lightning of the black Companion. Elturel’s clock tower toppled - time another blessing the gods had revoked. Life reduced to short bouts of restless sleep between the swinging of his sword, the bracing of his shield, the holding of the line against demons and devils and the risen corpses of his own fallen friends. A fight for survival he feared would never end. Perhaps it hadn’t. Perhaps the ascent and all that followed were nothing more than fevered dreams: his exile from Elturel, the road to Baldur’s Gate, the struggles at the grove, the fight against the goblins, Tav—

Zevlor’s mind resurfaced blearily. He could not guess at how long he’d been under. But outside his prison, shadows shifted in the weak, red light and muffled echoes filtered through.

“… those without the tadpoles?”

“Let them rot. The Bonedaughter wants more bodies.”

“Surely a few more wouldn’t go amiss? In case the Harpers and those bloody rogue True Souls find their way down here?”

“General Ketheric says not to worry, they’re no longer a threat. He has the Duke and the Nightsong, and he’ll be…”

The voices drifted away, leaving Zevlor once more at the mercy of stillness and silence and stewing madness, his only small comfort the knowledge he would, at least, be permitted to die. He wished it would come soon. Death would be infinitely better than the hells inside his head. He tried vainly to rally his thoughts, to pick through what he had heard — minutes, hours ago? — for useful meaning, but the words drifted anchorless through his brain, swallowed into the roiling sea of distorted memory…

“…wants more bodies...” But there were too many bodies already: his platoon of Hellriders, the soldiers for whose lives he was responsible, lay dead in heaps at his feet. Or were they his fellow refugees? Blank faces blended. The lifeless eyes all looked the same. He no longer knew which hell he was in. “…bloody rogue true souls…” True Soul. That’s what the Absolute offered him. Her honeyed voice enveloped the sounds of people — his people? — fighting and falling; her visions subsumed his sight. He saw himself entering Baldur’s Gate not a beggar, but a leader, a conqueror, a paladin once more; toppling that godless city by the river and rebuilding it in her holy image: a second, better Elturel, a home for his displaced people, and a worthy offering to any beautiful, raven-haired tieflings who would one day make their way there. Until the voice slithered away and the golden vision vanished, leaving him to cruel hands and cold chains and dying screams that rent his soul as he was dragged into the dark. “…said not to worry…” Tav’s face smiled up at him, silhouetted in the grove’s flickering torchlight, her hand warm on his arm. “We’ll figure something out. Don’t worry. Zevlor?”

Even in memory, her voice carried a tangible clarity. Zevlor blinked back to hazy consciousness again. But Tav’s voice remained.

“Zevlor? Zevlor!”

The roll of his name in her accent, strangely muffled though it was, was an undeserved comfort. As was the vision of Tav that swam into focus before his eyes: slightly wavering, but distinct, like a reflection seen through water. Was he dreaming again? He must be. Only this was not a memory of Tav he could place. She wore armour Zevlor did not recognise, her dark hair held off her face by many intricate plaits, and, though she still carried her rapier, a short sword dangled at her other hip. The steel of the two mismatched blades glinted in the dim, red light. She stretched out a hand to touch him and hit translucent barrier instead.

Tav was standing outside his prison.

Which meant madness had claimed Zevlor at last. Or death. Perhaps the gods had conjured an image of her to guide him to whatever plane waited beyond. Charitable of them, he supposed, though they might have made her look less horrified. Unfamiliar lines of fear and anguish broke like lightning across her storm-coloured face as she pounded with both fists on the barrier between them.

“Zevlor! Can you hear me?”

The thuds reverberated around Zevlor like rolls of thunder, disrupting his precarious mind’s attempts to grasp her words. One thing alone was clear: Tav could not get to him, divine emissary though she must be. Was the prison preventing his soul escaping his body, somehow? Zevlor tried to relax, to release, to follow her voice, but both it and her reflection were fading back into red shadows. Panic rattled in his brain. Little though he deserved even the sight of Tav, he could not stand to lose it. But new figures were parading past his prison now: another, taller tiefling; a slight, pale elf; two men, one sporting purple robes, the other curling horns Zevlor thought he must once have seen. The man turned his head towards the prison, and Zevlor recognised the stone eye: the Blade of Frontiers.

These were Tav’s companions, he realised, or some of them at least. Was it ... was it possible they were truly here? Had she come to rescue him yet again? Or had his sanity finally shattered? Zevlor’s vision flickered as the dark maw of delirium tugged at the edges of his mind, threatening to drag him under. He struggled against it. Muffled voices overlapped in argument — but were they real or in his head? — until Tav’s rose above them—

“I don’t give a tuppenny fuck how many mind flayers there are, Astarion, I am not going to let him die!”

—and all Zevlor's fragmented thoughts were extinguished by a hideous crush of sound. Pressure engulfed him. White steam obscured his sight. He toppled forward, his arms abruptly free but too slow to break his fall, and hit the ground face first. Pain radiated from the base of his horns to the back of his skull. Heartbeats he could once more count pulsed loud in his ears. He lay still for several of them, un-thinking, simply breathing in and out, lungs greedily accepting his ragged gasps of rank air. Then someone tripped over his prone legs. Zevlor grunted in discomfort, automatically lifting his head. And the world outside his body impressed itself upon his newly-woken senses.

It was chaos.

Shouts, the twang and hiss of arrows, a sulphurous smell of what must be some infernal magic, and the unmistakable thunks of steel striking flesh filled Zevlor’s mind. No. His ears. This fight was not a memory. It was happening here, now.

On instinct, he rolled to his side — clumsily; his body more cumbersome than he remembered — in time to see four taloned feet attached to a something his brain could not name scuttling straight for his face. He braced his hands against squelchy ground to push himself up and away, but his arms refused to bear weight. He threw one across his eyes, steeling himself for the gouge of claws that never came. A light splat of liquid hit Zevlor’s vambrace instead. He lowered it, and watched a thin rapier retracted from the top of what his eyes insisted was a four-legged brain. Then boots he did not recognise kicked the thing aside, and a tail he did brushed the limp end of his own as Tav lowered her weapons and crouched next to his face.

“Zevlor! Can you move?” she yelled over the clamour — a bellow, the breaking of glass, and the crackle of flames, close enough for sweat to bead on the back of Zevlor’s neck. “Come on, you've got to get u-ah!”

The word ended in a cry. Tav dropped hard to her knees, both blades tumbling to the ground. The edge of the short sword missed Zevlor's bare hand by a breath, and only because he succeeded in struggling to a seat: some hidden vestige of strength igniting within him at Tav’s distress. Her eyes were squeezed shut; she clutched her head as if struck from behind by a pommel. But the enemy levitating slowly towards her wielded no weapons, apart from whip-like tentacles and the razor-sharp nails of its outstretched hand.

A mind flayer. Zevlor knew the monster instantly, though he’d never seen one before; nor would it have held any particular terror for him — he'd met plenty worse in Avernus — were it not for the tentacles wriggling purposefully towards the back of Tav’s bent head. Zevlor found himself suddenly on his feet, the fallen short sword in his hand, with no idea how he'd accomplished either and no time to think of it now. He swung. Tav’s sword, sharp — but slighter than he was accustomed to — missed the meat of the tentacles and sliced the outstretched tip of one instead. Distraction enough. The mind flayer stumbled as its feet touched ground. Its small, orange eyes locked on Zevlor’s, shrieking its indignant rage — not into the shrouded air between them but directly into Zevlor’s head. He could feel the creature’s consciousness grate against his, then twist and contort, becoming less a shriek than a song: an enticing stream of notes that wrapped themselves tenderly around his thoughts, coaxing, cajoling, commanding him to lower his blade.

"Enough!" Zevlor heard himself shout, voice cracking with long disuse. "My mind is my own!"

He gripped the pommel of the sword until his knuckles popped, lifted it over his head, and brought it down on the creature’s neck where it erupted in a fury of radiant sparks — a ghost of the holy power Zevlor once commanded — and passed cleanly through rubbery flesh. The mind flayer's body toppled first. Its severed head followed, tentacles still twitching. Zevlor merely adjusted his stance and swung again. And again and again, riding the surge of familiar power until the last sparks of divine wrath were gone, and there was no coherent form left to aim at, and the silver blade of the borrowed sword was black with alien innards. Blinking drops of the same noxious fluid from his eyes, Zevlor swivelled, searching for more enemies to smite, but the battle around him was dying an equally swift and bloody death.

A few paces away, a second mind flayer corpse lay charred and smoking. A third hung pinned by arrows to a wall, uneven and spongy as the chamber’s ground. Near this violent tableau, the pale elf was bent double, tugging salvageable arrows from more fallen, oozing brains; while across from him, just visible through the smoke and dim, red light, the Blade of Frontiers and the other tiefling — Karlach, Zevlor’s brain belatedly prompted — helped another figure clamber from an eerily steaming pod. Zevlor blinked at this, his sword arm faltering as his brain made another connection, then whirled in place. An identical pod loomed behind him. His prison. The narrow, sensation-less, time-less tomb he'd been trapped in for who knew how long, where he had been so sure he would die. Where he would have died, if not for...

Zevlor let the short sword fall from his fingers as his eyes sought Tav, but she was already on her feet, tripping over bits of pulverised mind flayer to meet him. Her cobalt eyes sparkled with tears that might have been lingering headache or joy; for she was smiling: the exact smile she'd offered Zevlor in his every memory of her. A wave of dizzy unreality shuddered through him. He wet his blood-flecked lips, almost afraid to ask:

“Are you real?”

His voice was a croak he barely recognised. Tav's, too, was unusually distorted as she answered through what sounded like both laughter and a wild sob.

“Yes!” She tore frantically at her fingerless leather gloves to cup Zevlor’s gore-streaked face in clean, bare hands. “Yes, I'm real. I'm here. And you're here. You're alive. You're alive,” she repeated, as if she, too, found this miracle hard to grasp, and ran her fingers desperately over his face to prove it: her thumbs tracing the sharp, infernal ridges of his cheeks, the base of his horns, the outline of his ears, her long nails tangling in the loose, unkempt strands of his hair.

“Alive,” Zevlor echoed, hardly aware of his words or anything else that wasn’t the blissful feel of Tav’s skin against his. “Hells. I - I didn't think I was going to make it. But how did you … how—”

“They told me you were taken.” Tav's face was so close to Zevlor's he could taste each of her rapid, shallow breaths. “But when we rescued the other prisoners in Moonrise, you weren't with them, and none of them knew where you’d gone. I looked everywhere, all over the shadowlands and that whole bloody tower and I couldn't find you. I was afraid—”

She broke off: whether unwilling to name her fear or because she, like Zevlor, had become aware of footsteps behind her, he wasn't sure. Careful to do nothing that would dislodge Tav’s mindlessly stroking hands, he threw a glance over her shoulder and watched her companions tromp into view: the pale elf and the wizard from one direction, Karlach and Wyll from the other, supporting between them two new figures whose grimy, tattered tabards proclaimed the insignia of the Flaming Fist. Hope welled in Zevlor’s parched throat. If Tav had rescued prisoners, and more were alive down here, then surely that meant there was a chance…

“The others. The ambush,” he whispered against the skin of her wrist, unable to look her in the eye as he asked, “Did you find them? Did they survive?”

It took Tav a second too long to respond.

“Don't - don't worry about that now,” she stuttered, her hands sliding slowly from his face. “There’ll be time for stories and - and explanations later. First, we need to get you out of here. All of you,” she added, turning to the two new arrivals; and the loss of her warmth and her ominous non-answer left Zevlor abruptly shrunken and cold.

Battle, and the ecstasy of reuniting with Tav, had driven the memories which had haunted his imprisonment temporarily from Zevlor’s mind. They caught him up in a breathless rush — screams; that spray of wet red, bright in the living shadows; the sickening scent of spilled blood — and escorting them was a new, unconsidered horror: how Tav would react when she found him out. What would she say, how would she look at him, when she realised she had spent all that time searching for, not a victim of the cult, but a villain every bit as much to blame? Guilt, grief, and pure selfish panic washed over Zevlor so palpably he swayed. Voices rose and fell around him, but they sounded strangely distant, as if he were once again a prisoner in a pod.

“I’m sorry — you want us to climb back up that wretched hole we just spent an hour climbing down? And what — leave a note with one of those brain things asking Ketheric to pretty please pause whatever he’s planning with the Nightsong until we get back?”

“Astarion’s not wrong. Finding and stopping Ketheric has got to be our first priority, surely?”

“I’d say destroying the Absolute deserves a slight precedence.”

“And finding Zariel’s asset. Wyll’s not becoming Kyton food on my watch, soldier.”

“And we are - mmph - we’re not going anywhere till we find the Duke. I heard one of those cultists saying Ketheric’s got him somewhere below. If I can just - arrgh - borrow a sword...”

“Not to rub proverbial salt in a very literal wound, but as you can barely lift yourself, I’m not sure how you expect to lift a sword.”

“It’s that or fall on one when we return without our - urgh - charge!”

“Enough.”

Tav’s command was quiet, almost careless, and all that was needed to snuff out the other voices. Including those in Zevlor’s head. He blinked away the intrusive visions and refocused on Tav, who had reined in her frantic joy and replaced it with an authoritative calm: comfortable on her face, and as inherently comforting to see as the first hint of wisteria sunrise after an endless-seeming stretch of night.

“Gale’s right.” She addressed the unhappy female Fist doing her damnedest not to lean on Karlach. “Neither of you is in any condition to go running after Ketheric. But that’s where we were headed before we found all of you, and,” - her eyes drifted in Zevlor’s direction before snapping back - “finding him is the priority right now. If the Duke is really down there, you have my word, we’ll do everything you would have done and more to bring him back.”

Tav held the Fist’s gaze until the woman grudgingly relented, or was simply unable to stand any longer — she nodded once, then slumped against Karlach’s arm. That settled, Tav turned to Zevlor.

“Can you help them out of here if I tell you the way?”

A task. A mission. An actionable item to occupy his body and distract his mind.

“Of course,” he agreed without hesitation, and threw himself immediately into the job at hand.

While Tav and her companions collected themselves and their gear, Zevlor picked a careful path across oozing pieces of mind flayer to Karlach, and helped her transfer the Fist’s arm across his shoulders. His own muscles, no longer cushioned by adrenaline, wept at the added weight. He ignored them; his body deserved far worse punishment than this. He waited only for the second Fist to gather his comparatively steady feet underneath him, then set a laborious pace across the oddly fleshy ground. Tav hurried ahead of him, ordering her companions on in the opposite direction while she herself showed Zevlor the way out.

“Through there. Stay to the right,” — she indicated a passage every bit as dim and unpleasant as the room he was to quit — “and you’ll come to a dead end. You’ll have to climb for a bit, but Shadowheart and Lae’zel are standing by at the top. Call up, and as soon as they can hear you, they’ll help. And here. Take this.” She tucked her short sword, hastily wiped clean of ichor, carefully into Zevlor’s belt. “Just in case.”

Zevlor paused, resting the Fist’s dead weight against the ground, and shook his head. Loose hair fell past his horns, tickling his face; he swiped his free hand uselessly across it as he protested:

“You’ll need that more than I.”

“It won’t make a difference,” Tav insisted, fumbling something from around her wrist Zevlor could not see in the darkness; but he understood what it must be when she closed the short space between them, stretched on her toes and gathered the limp strands of hair from his face, fastening them behind his head. “We threw all the steel we had at Ketheric before and barely scratched his armor. I don’t think swords are going to win us this fight. It’ll have to be speeches.” Her lips twitched as she dropped her hands. “I’ll get it back from you if I manage to pull it off.”

Tav's tone was light, but, as she leaned back to inspect her handiwork, her calm assurance flickered. And for a moment, she was simply staring at him: her cobalt eyes wandering his face, as if memorising its every sharp angle; clearly worried she was seeing it, all of him, for the last time. In a way, Zevlor thought, she was.

“You will,” he said in lieu of farewell, and it rang with bittersweet surety.

For he had no doubts whatsoever. Tav and her companions would defeat the General, the cult, perhaps the Absolute itself — nothing seemed beyond her anymore. But when she returned and discovered the part he had played in his people's destruction, Zevlor was equally certain she would never again look at him like that: with such tender care and concern and, he'd once allowed himself to hope, love.

Ale dribbles down Zevlor’s constricted throat as he takes a few clumsy gulps. But this draught seems less fortifying than the first. On the contrary, he feels distinctly ill. His fingers tremble again as he replaces the tankard on the table. He wonders if Lakrissa can have put something in his drink. He’s noticed her colourful hair bob by the privacy curtain more often than strictly warranted while he's talked.

Ale dribbles down Zevlor’s constricted throat as he takes a few clumsy gulps. But this draught seems less fortifying than the first. On the contrary, he feels distinctly ill. His fingers tremble again as he replaces the tankard on the table. He wonders if Lakrissa can have put something in his drink. He’s noticed her colourful hair bob by the privacy curtain more often than strictly warranted while he's talked.

“So,” prompts Alfira, “I… assume you stayed at Moonrise after that? I mean, none of us ever saw you at Last Light.”

Despite her efforts to sound gentle, unpressing, Zevlor can tell the bard is eager to move the story on; to put the Shadow-Cursed lands behind her for good. But the awful memories he's already been forced to relive and the ones still ahead, not to mention the ale now churning his stomach, have shaken Zevlor's resolve. He imagines refusing to speak; leaving the interview here. Simply rising from the rickety wooden chair and walking out of the Elfsong's open doors into the night. Even with Lakrissa's help, Alfira could hardly stop him.

But something does. An innate sense of duty, an ingrained commitment to justice, the almost physical need to atone for his failures in some real if negligible way, keeps Zevlor bound to his seat; just as it had at Moonrise Towers those many months ago.

“Yes,” he sighs, “I stayed at Moonrise. At least, until Tav returned.”

“Zevlor?”

A voice he knew without thinking roused Zevlor instantly from a slumped and unrestful doze. Harder to identify were his surroundings.

He was seated at a long wooden table, a sword that wasn’t his laid out on the bench at his side, in a room that, in spite of its expensive windows and intricate tapestries and paintings obscuring the stone walls, had the cramped spartan beds and unmistakable stale odour of military barracks. And the memory came sidling reluctantly back. This was the cult's barracks in Moonrise, where the githyanki, Lae'zel, had assigned him to sit after leading the three rescued prisoners from the top of the ruined tower. Zevlor uncurled his spine, and hissed in discomfort. His back was stiffer than he could ever remember it being, every muscle in his body fiercely cramped. The result of tendays of disuse, followed by battle and a painstaking climb out of that mind flayer hell. And he supposed sitting hunched over and unsupported for the last few hours had not helped.

He shifted on the bench again, more gingerly, and the blanket one of the Harpers had thrown over the sticky, gore-slick armor he'd refused to remove slipped down his arms. Zevlor snatched at it automatically, but faster hands beat him there. They arranged the itchy wool more securely over his shoulders, then removed the empty plate and tin cup he’d knocked over in his doze to a spot further down the table. He dropped his eyes to the ground and watched as boots still splattered with blood and worse stepped around him to retrieve a fallen chair. It was lifted and set right at the head of the table beside him, and a creak of old wood informed Zevlor that Tav had sat down.

Neither spoke. Zevlor did not know for how long; he was out of the habit of counting time. Nor could he interpret Tav’s silence with his eyes still locked on the smooth stone floor. He contemplated asking how her mission had fared, but if she was here she had obviously succeeded, and pleasantries only delayed the inevitable: the moment she would broach the subject, and he would have no choice but to explain and to watch her wisteria face grow stormy with disappointment and disgust. He dreaded it more than he had his own death in that pod.

But when Tav did speak, it was only to ask, “Have you slept at all? I mean, actually slept? Laid down? You can’t get a real rest like that. If you don’t fancy any of the cots, you could try Ketheric’s bed. I’ve seen it, it’s quite grand. And he won’t be needing it anymore.”

Zevlor knew the younger woman well enough by now to recognise her babble for what it was: nerves. Though what she had to be nervous about, he could not fathom.

“Or, if you’d rather, I can have someone draw you a bath? Or find you something else to wear, at least, if you want to get out of—”

Unable to bear another second of sweet considerations he did not deserve and could not accept, Zevlor interrupted, his voice a hopeless rasp, “I know I don't deserve to ask, but ... will you tell me if the others … if any of them survived?”

Tav hesitated: one second, then two. Then—

“Some of them,” she admitted. “Rolan kept the children safe, and they and a few others managed to escape and find refuge with the Harpers. A few more were captured and brought here to Moonrise Towers where we rescued them. They’re all at Last Light Inn together. I can take you there. Now, if you like.”

Zevlor winced, tail spasming under the blanket, at this offer, but did not bother it with a response. Instead, he asked, “Who didn't?”

Her pause was longer this time. Too long. After a minute, Zevlor raised his eyes enough to watch Tav’s bare hands twist together in her lap. She had shed her unfamiliar armor, but, he assumed by the sweat stains and the distinctive wear on the knees of the dark cloth trousers, was still in the soft kit she had worn underneath.

“I … I don't know if that’s the best… or if this is the right time for…” Her hands flexed convulsively as she struggled for words. “I mean … does that really matter right now?”

Zevlor sat up, letting the blanket rustle to the floor, and, at last, looked Tav in the face. It was thinner, he noticed in the candlelight, the infernal ridges of her cheekbones more prominent than when they had first met in the grove. Her modest horns, too, were more obvious now her wild hair was plaited down. What had her own road here been like? Had supplies run short in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, or had tendays of battles and the worry she had wasted on him carved those hollows in her cheeks, drawn those new lines along her brow? He wished he could ask. He wished they could have a different conversation — the sort of heart-to-hearts they’d had what felt like a lifetime ago. But Tav’s heart no longer belonged anywhere near his.

And when Zevlor opened his mouth, his words were not for the friend he was soon to lose or the lover he would never have, but the leader he knew would understand:

“Would it matter to you? If it were your companions, the people you were responsible for — would you need to know?”

Tav had no argument for this. She held Zevlor’s gaze a few seconds more, then swallowed hard, nodded once, and began to recite:

“Asharak … Elegis … Kaldani … Ikaron …Okta … Guex…”

She said each name alone, giving every abruptly-ended life the same solemn space and weight. Zevlor set his shoulders and received them all, stoically. Until Tav came to, “Tilses,” when a guttural noise bubbled horribly in his throat and hot tears appeared fully formed and without warning in the corners of his eyes. He covered his face with a hand, motioning Tav on with the other. He could hear the hint of tears in her own voice as she continued, but she did not stop until she finished her list with, “Locke … Komira,” then, after a beat of sober silence, added:

“I went back for the … their bodies after we, well, neutralised the Shadow Curse — that part’s hard to explain and it isn’t important right now. Anyway. Halsin helped me, and we brought them to Last Light and … and buried them properly. So there’s a place to pay respects, if … if that’s important, too.”

Gratitude enveloped Zevlor: a more substantial blanket than the one crumpled at his feet. He had no intentions of insulting the dead by intruding on their resting place, but there seemed little point saying this to Tav; she would understand soon enough.

“Thank you,” was all he croaked into his hand.

Tav did not reply in words, but the shuffle of boots and a groan of wood sliding over smooth stone indicated she had moved her chair closer. Zevlor knew without looking what she was going to do — the same thing she had always done — and also knew how abominable of him it would be to accept her comfort. But his will had been weakened by sorrow and tears, and the memory of Tav’s frantic hands on his face, in his hair, burned bright in his mind — and other parts of him over which he had even less control. He could not move. He could not abstain from the feel of her fingers: warm, soft, and blessedly, in spite of everything, alive. But they had only just brushed the back of his hand when a rap of knuckles on wood and the creak of the door behind him brought Zevlor’s moral dilemma to an end.

He sat up. Tav, too, straightened, and let her outstretched hand fall to her knee as she peered around Zevlor to the door.

“Tav — oh, you found him, then,” came a vaguely familiar voice that sounded almost as dismal and lost as Zevlor felt. “Good for you. But do you know where the Nightsong went?”

“I think she’s still, uh … catching up with Isobel somewhere.” Tav’s eyes flicked to Zevlor’s as she said this, and, for reasons mysterious to him, a blotchy, storm-cloud blush crept across her cheeks. She returned her attention hastily to the visitor. “I know you need to speak with her, I haven’t forgotten. If she’s not back in a bit, we’ll go look for her together. Alright?”

The voice made some murmur of subdued agreement, but Zevlor was no longer listening to it. He pressed his fingers to the inner corners of his eyes to clear them, then rolled his sore shoulders and steadied himself for the debrief he could put off no longer. Tav had her own people to attend to. He had already wasted far too much of her time.

“I owe you an explanation,” Zevlor began hoarsely the moment he heard the creak and snap of the re-fastened door. “You’ve heard some of it already, I’m sure, from the others. That I … froze, or broke, or some other lie, that is kinder than the truth.”

“Cerys said you surrendered,” Tav inserted, expressionless, into Zevlor’s pause for breath.

His eyes squeezed shut of their own accord, but he wrenched them open and fixed his gaze determinedly on Tav — or, at least, a point on the stone wall beyond her left ear.

“We were ambushed by cultists,” he explained: a flat and efficient report. “We had little hope of defeating them in that damned darkness, but then ... then I heard her. The Absolute. Their false god. Whispering promises in my mind. I would be a paladin again. With a god’s purpose, a god’s power. Everything I needed to protect my people. Everything I needed to—” He stopped short. He would not downplay his failures for Tav, but she did not need the sordid details of the Absolute’s temptation, surely. He cleared his throat and resumed, “And all the while, the cult tortured them: the very people I fancied I could save. They fought and ran and died around me, while I imagined myself their saviour. By the time I regained my senses, it was too late.

“So,” he concluded miserably, “Cerys is only partially right. I did not just surrender to the Absolute. For a moment… I welcomed it.”

His final confession echoed off the room’s stark stone walls and high ceiling, then faded slowly away. And still Zevlor sat, awaiting Tav’s verdict, tail flicking in increasing agitation. He could not bring himself to look at her directly. Instead, his mind raced with visions of the form her building outburst would take: her pretty face screwed up in righteous anger … or soured in subtle revulsion … a babble of unrestrained distress spewed between tears … or her voice sharpened to a knife point as she delivered some scathing rebuke...

Zevlor flinched at the justified fury of his imagined Tav, until the one across from him said at last, all quiet, cautious sympathy:

“It sounds like you were being enthralled. You can hardly blame yourself for that.”

And her defence of him was so unexpected, so ludicrous, he laughed. Or almost laughed. The sound crawled from his throat raw and flayed.

“It would be nice to think so,” he said bitterly. “But whatever these monsters twist us into, I believe it begins in us.”

“Alright, but … don’t you think it says more about you that when you were back in your right mind you chose not to join the Absolute, whatever it offered?”

Tav’s voice remained infuriatingly gentle and measured. Her head was cocked very slightly, hands open on her knees, as if approaching a skittish colt, or a small, stubborn child. Zevlor frowned at her. But was saved from attempting any sort of response by the frenzied creaking of the door and a bang as it hit the stone wall.

“Tav, are you in — yes, you are! Ah, and Zevlor too. Glad to see you made it out.” Zevlor gave a very slight nod of acknowledgment at this, but did not turn round. “I do apologise for such an ill-mannered interruption, but, Tav, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. It is essential I speak with you at once.”

“Gale, is this life or death essential, or a really great story essential?”

“Both.”

The word practically vibrated with the wizard’s clear excitement; one which Tav just as clearly did not share. Her mouth worked in poorly-repressed frustration for a moment, then, apparently deciding it would take longer not to humour him, she sighed through her nose and pushed from her chair, bending to murmur, “Two minutes, I promise,” in Zevlor’s ear as she passed.

He did not reply. For once, Zevlor was grateful for Tav’s departure. He waited until he heard the door swing shut and the wizard’s energetic monologue start up behind it, then slumped forward onto the table, and dropped his head into his hands. He closed his eyes: grief-sick and aching, confused and, somehow, more unhappy than if Tav had just hit him.

It had never occurred to Zevlor that Tav might make excuses for his failure. Could her fondness for him stretch so far as to be willing to overlook such heinous crimes? Or was she in denial? He had considered her a pragmatic, highly competent leader, and impolitic loyalty was not a quality such a leader could afford. But, as memories of Tav at the grove played out across his eyelids, the obvious thought struck Zevlor’s admittedly debilitated brain that while Tav was a leader, she was not a military commander, or any sort of soldier at all. She was, he supposed, more than anything else, a bard. A lover of tales, and the people who inspired them. A hero who preferred speeches to swords. A magician who, when outcomes appeared immutable, pulled new possibilities from thin air — or private trunks. A musician who found the hidden notes of good in nearly everyone she met — violent gith, hot-headed apprentice wizards, archdruids seduced by shadows — and plucked them to the forefront of their individual songs.

That's what she was doing now, with him, Zevlor realised: spinning his failures, the truth of his baser nature, into a story with which he could live. And he loved her for it. Affection and admiration for Tav swelled, warm and invigorating as a bonfire, in his chest…

…and was extinguished the next second by a cold, dark wave of guilt and grief.

The metallic scent of blood. The bodies at his feet. Their last living sights their own leader, unmoved by their pitiful screams—

Zevlor's head shot up from the table. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but the scene was seared across his mind, not his eyes. He knew he would never escape it, nor should he. His peoples' deaths would weigh forever on his conscience, their blood permanently stain his hands. Nothing even Tav said could absolve him of that.

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice made Zevlor jump; her words, press his hand to his mouth, worried he might have been speaking his thoughts out loud. If he had, Tav did not acknowledge them further, only transferred her short sword from the bench to the table, then took its previous place. Beside Zevlor. She perched on the edge of the bench, one leg curled underneath her.

“I suppose this means you don’t want to go Last Light, then? Find the others and lead them on to Baldur’s Gate?”

Her sudden brisk tone, and the now multiple voices issuing from under the firmly closed door, led Zevlor to guess Tav expected additional interruptions at any time. He eased his sore body around on the bench to face her.

“Would any of them trust me to?”

It was a rhetorical question. Even Tav could not argue in its favour. Which did not stop her trying.

“Of course they would. I mean, they will. When they understand what really happened. When you explain—”

“No,” and Zevlor himself was surprised at the steel in his voice. “I won’t make excuses. I cannot make amends. It would be foolishness for any of them to trust me again, when I’ve let them down so many times.”

“Alright,” Tav conceded unexpectedly. “I still think many of those points are debatable, but if it’s too much for you now, I understand. So… will you come with me, then? With us?” It bore all the trappings of a casual, throwaway question, but Zevlor did not think he was mistaking the nervous excitement that whispered underneath. “I can't pretend it won't be dangerous. Even with Ketheric dead, we've got more enemies than ever, not to speak of the Absolute itself which is what we’re truly after, but … I could use another blade for what's ahead.”

“Only if you can trust it won’t be buried in your back,” retorted Zevlor grimly. “If it comes to a fight with the Absolute, I would be less than useless to you. Its already swayed me once before.”

“Well, actually,” said Tav, with the air of a Three-Dragon Ante player revealing their winning hand, “we've got a sort of protection against that. It's hard to explain. Gods, everything is now, when did it all get so complicated? But anyway, if that's what you're worried about, you'll definitely be safer with us.”

Tav's mouth curled, anticipating its own smile, so sure she would hear the answer she wanted; the answer Zevlor wanted to give. It would be so easy to say yes … to accept Tav's amnesty, her forgiveness … to join her cause: his new purpose the Absolute’s destruction, his new place at her side.

Everything the Absolute had tempted him with in the first place.

Zevlor closed his eyes again, and, this time, sought that wretched memory out. He forced himself to watch the bodies fall, bodies he could now name. Asharak. Okta. Guex. Tilses. He had entertained temptation before, and it was they who had paid the price. He had failed them. He could not let himself fail Tav.

“No,” said Zevlor, loud enough for the word to bounce off the stone walls; a hundred refusals in his voice. “I can't risk it. I won’t risk it happening again.”

An odd hush made the room seem larger and emptier than before. Zevlor realised the voices outside had fallen silent. As had Tav. He could not even hear her breathing. His eyes found her face without his permission, and she could not have looked more surprised or devastated if he had spat in it. Her tail drooped to the floor.

“Zevlor.” Her voice was delicate and trembling as the fingers she reached out and rested tentatively along the edge of his jaw. “I trust you.”

It took every ounce of Zevlor's self-control, and more he did not know he possessed, to turn his head, dislodging Tav's hand.

“I wish I shared your faith.”

For seconds that recalled the timelessness of his prison, the two of them sat in the dissonant wake of this exchange; together, but, it felt to Zevlor at least, wholly separate, disconnected, for the first time since they had met. Then another importunate rap at the door knocked a groan from Tav. There was a pain in it Zevlor thought too visceral to stem from the interruption alone.

“Yes, alright, I'm coming,” she called, and her words, too, contained a disproportionate grief. She uncurled slowly from the bench, then stood for a moment, as if unable to tear herself away. From the corner of his eye, Zevlor could see her face flit around the room, searching for something: a new angle or untried manoeuvre, perhaps. “Look,” she said at last, “you’ve been through something unspeakably awful. Months worth of awful, in fact. You need to sleep, really sleep, and … we can talk more about what to do when you've had some rest.”

Zevlor knew it was useless to argue. Nor did he have the energy left. To deny Tav — to deny himself of Tav — had drained the last of his strength. He could barely lift his arm to grip the hilt of the short sword and slide it along the table towards her.

“Here,” he said simply, then, “Thank you,” when Tav's slight wince made his heart ache.

“Keep it,” she said just as baldly. “You left your sword at the grove. I’ve got to go deal with … everything. But if I don’t see you before, I’ll come find you in the morning.”

Two abrupt and equally bemusing questions furrowed Zevlor’s brow. But Tav had already walked away. He had time to call out only one of them after her:

“Is there a morning in this place?”

Her hand on the doorknob, Tav turned as she wrenched it open, and offered Zevlor one last smile.

“There will be.”

“And there was, of course,” Zevlor finishes. “I saw it from the ruins of the town beyond Moonrise. I waited until most in the tower had settled to sleep, then slipped out around the side. I stayed there until - until I saw Tav and the others leave.”

He stares into his tankard, light-headed and slightly nauseous: from its contents, or the memory of watching Tav and her companions trek across the ruined road. He had recognised the pale elf lifting his arms to embrace the newborn sunlight, and Karlach's boisterous laugh, and Tav, walking alone, slightly ahead of the rest of her party; and though he could not make out details of her face, he had thought her aspect unusually sober.

“If I'd only followed her then,” Zevlor laments, “or listened to her before, perhaps things would have been ... well...” He sighs heavily. “It doesn't matter now. I thought I was finally doing the right thing. I didn't understand I was really doing what I'd always done: running from my shame ... indulging my own pride.”

“But you do … you do understand now, don't you?” Alfira ventures tentatively. “I mean, that none of it — what happened to us — was your fault?”

Zevlor shakes his head. Which isn't an answer.

“Some strategies work in theory,” he muses after a minute's contemplation, “but fail when enacted in actual battle.”

Which is hardly more of one.

“Yes, well,” interjects Lakrissa's voice as the privacy curtain suddenly parts, “strategies and battle plans are all well and good, but you can't win a fight without food. Armies marching on their stomachs, and that,” and she pushes a bowl in front of Zevlor. “Roveer's closing up the kitchen for the night, but he had a bit of pudding left over.”

Zevlor stares into the bowl. It's filled to the brim with generous slices of some sweet-smelling loaf soaked in syrup and dusted with sliced almonds, almost too decorous-looking to eat. Nonplussed, he catches Alfira's eye. By her blank expression, she's every bit as bewildered as he. Zevlor lifts his gaze at last to Lakrissa. But all she says by way of explanation is:

“Alan's ale on an empty stomach's enough to make anyone sick. And, I reckon you've suffered enough.”

[innerchorus]

Details about Hilmes not having been named crown prince (which has not been directly mentioned in the manga so far, as far as I recall, but it is an interesting tidbit of his canon backstory in the novels):

'If a king were to die, he must have a successor to take his place. Usually it was the king’s eldest male child who would continue the royal line, but as Osroes’s son was only eleven years old at this point, the ceremonies formally naming him crown prince had not yet been held. Osroes had kept from doing so on account of younger brother Andragoras and his supporters. After all, powerful enemies lay on either side of Pars, and if a mere boy of eleven were to take the throne, it would no doubt stir the ambitions of those various nations.' (Book One, Chapter 2, part iii)

This paragraph explains the situation, but it should be noted that this is from a rather early point in the story. Given where the manga has reached now, we know that it's likely not just because of pressure from Andragoras and the faction who supported him that Osroes didn't name Hilmes crown prince. Unlike Andragoras who, although he didn't care for Arslan, fully intended him to inherit the throne, Osroes raised Hilmes with what appeared to be love, yet never planned for him to succeed him or even live beyond his death.

Andragoras named Arslan crown prince in Pars Year 311, when he was just 5 years old. Osroes could surely have done the same for Hilmes even if it came with a caveat that should he die before the boy was of age, Andragoras would act as regent at first. But he doesn't ask this of Andragoras before he dies; instead, he asks him to kill Hilmes, the boy who was never going to become king.

Incidentally, I do think this (not being named crown prince) is a sore spot for Hilmes. Take a look at Chapter 39, where he infiltrates Peshawar Fortress and runs into Arslan:

Hilmes can't bear to refer to Arslan in terms other than 'Andragoras's brat', 'spawn of the usurper' etc etc. When Arslan confirms his identity by stating that he is "Arslan, Crown Prince of Pars" it's no wonder that this in particular is what Hilmes's apoplectic rage is focused on.

Also, whenever I see the bonus gag manga from Vol. 6 it makes me think of this fact.

Yeah, definitely don't call him "crown prince", Zandeh, because he never was. The thought of Zandeh ever calling Hilmes "my prince" though.

[aranciadotcom]

since i posted screenshots of that one sb fanfic (if you've seen that post, i'm so sorry 💀), the thought has lingered in my head to share some fics that are actually enjoyable to read:

(unfinished)

when i first saw this ff, i thought it wasn't really going to be all that good but BOY WAS I WRONG-

it was really fun to read and it felt like an episode of sb but extended and not in the typical sb formula! the last update was from april of last year, sadly...

oh... and the kids get kidnapped x

(finished (?))

one of the fanfics that i would read again and again is definitely this one! this also felt like an episode of sb too (if you minus the shipping stuff but i don't mind it). i won't blurt out too much information about this one, though... ^^"

(the ff is also on fanfiction .net as well)

the ezekiel ff - finished

the two lilith ffs - active, has slow updates

(edit: i'm so sorry but i forgot to say that the ezekiel fanfic has themes of bullying and s*xual harassment so if you're sensitive with these themes and the depiction of them, then i'd advise you to not read it. the author does leave warnings for their work, though it's best for you to read those first before you get on w/ the ff)

these three ffs are from the same person! the concept of them was really unique in the sense that they'd also include drawings too so it felt like reading a webtoon rather than your typical ff on wattpad

all two (or three in this case) are from the author's vision of what a future season 6 would be like. compared to the canon reimagined episodes, it includes even more mature themes and the kids are now in their late teens!

(the last one is a continuation of the second ff, if you were wondering)

(finished)

this could possibly be the oldest sb ff there is since it's from 2009. this time, it's not based off reimagined, but classic instead (given the fact that reim. didn't officially release its first season until 2011)

(finished)

gizmo, would you stop taking pictures of yourself? your owner's going to jail /ref

(just kidding, giz doesn't actually appear in the fic)

but i'm not joking when i say that chris gets arrested in this ff. there's also a homophobic woman that got chris arrested in the first place and joy gets ptsd yayyy 🎉 /hj

the only part i wasn't keen on was when the two animals came in but that's abt it /spoiler (?)

(there's also two pages, if you're wondering)

(unfinished)

this one was pretty great too! you'd probably realise that most of the fics regarding the kids also age them up to be teenagers

the ff is a continuation of the actual series, but the kids are now in high school and basically, chris gets withdrawal symptoms bc joy moved to another state

(the reason why i started this on the 2nd chapter is bc that's when the fanfiction actually starts)

(finished)

as you might've noticed, the ff is in russian. you might have to turn on translate so you get a rough understanding of what's going on

basically chris and joy are now celestial beings and they take care of these two children who they've known through the children's parents

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Me seeing the ask game: *cracks knuckles* Let's go.

I hope you don't mind answering all of these 😅.

1.

6.

8.

9.

10.

12.

13.

16.

20.

21.

22.

24.

25.

Have a nice day!

I won’t answer all of them haha. I had no time to write that much plus I wanted to actually give hOt TaKeS.

8 common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I’ll start of by saying that I’m not one who wants to police other people’s interpretations of the text. BUT I will say this: Jon is not a below average swordsman! He’s not even average. He may not have many on page feats, but he’s only been in less than a handful of serious fights and they were against middle aged men with decades of experience over him. People like to bring up his loss to Mance, but this fight was against a man who managed to unite the wildling tribes under his rule; Mance is a highly skilled warrior.

Remember, Jon is 15-16 years old when most of these fights are happening. So he’s still young and growing. People will also say “oh, but Jaime Lannister was a god at that age”. Honestly, who cares? How many characters are comparable to Jaime at any age? It’s such a dumb comparison. I’ve even seen people argue that a 13 year old Peck is better than Jon and huh? Jon hasn’t won over any knights….because he’s not encountering them in the first place.

It’s clear that GRRM holds Jon’s skill in high regard. I mean the first Jon POV chapter established him as a noted swordsman. It also clear that Jon isn’t meant to be the warrior type. He’s a deconstruction of the archetypal fantasy protagonist. GRRM has chosen to build his political skills, so he’s not putting much of a focus on how well he swings his sword. That doesn’t mean though that he doesn’t have any skill at all. Just that it’s not the main focus of his character. But I think this fandom generally has the most wretched discourse when it comes to this stuff. Like people on Reddit this past week tried to argue that Brienne is overrated…Brienne, of all people. It’s just insane to me that people think they know more than the guy who wrote the damn books.

13 worst blorboficiation

Has got to be Kevan Lannister. Not so much on tumblr, but it’s a disease in some of the other communities. For whatever reason, he’s quite beloved. And this is rather strange because he is very much complicit in the corrupt Lannister regime. And as far as we know, he’s also fully supported Tywin in everything (which includes legitimate war crimes). He has his moments where he is shown to actually care for family members (e.g., Lancel, Tyrion), and that makes him a delightfully complex character. He’s also really funny. But we shouldn’t ignore his really bad traits. I’ve had to suffer a bunch of “Kevan Lannister is the best guy ever” posts on Reddit, and it’s absolutely maddening. That’s not to say that we can’t like “bad” people! Heck, Cersei is one of my faves. But it’s weird how certain characters get a pass for doing problematic things (e.g., Kevan or even Bobby B), and other characters get lambasted for the most tame things imaginable. It’s just the hypocrisy that’s annoying.

16 you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Powerscaling lol. It can be fun, but the people who engage in these discussions can be so tedious and boring. Tiktok and Reddit are full of this. “Who is the greatest fighter”, “who is the best warrior”, “this is why prime Robert low diffs Barristan Selmy”, and it’s the same old arguments every time. I think we should get more creative with powerscaling if we have to do it. Like “who has the best 🛌 skills”. Let’s at least argue over something fun, damn.

22 your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

This is going to be twofold:

- On tumblr? Easily Jon’s relationship with magic. In fact, people on here will go out of their way to argue that it’s actually not important to the plot, which is absolutely bonkers. Beyond warging, there’s a lot of weird magical stuff going on with Jon that should be put under the microscope. And I’d even argue that Jon’s a pretty special warg and cannot be compared to the other Stark kids (even Bran) because of how his powers manifest. Ghost is also obviously one of the most special animal familiars in the series (maybe even THE most special one), but no one ever talks about how special he is. A lot of people seem to believe that Jon will be KiTN, but it’s insane how we don’t talk about why it’s magically important for him to rule the North, considering his deep connections to Northern mysticism, religion, and lore.

- Elsewhere: the parallels between Jon and Bran. They’re essentially the same character base split into two (Seoman Snowlack, Frodo, King Arthur, Paul and Leto Atreides, Odin, etc). Both arcs parallel each other and are heading to the same destination, but the details will be different. This is getting to my last point, but I firmly believe we’re getting an ending with both King Jon and King Bran. I like to think of them as two competing but complementary sides of King Arthur’s tale. Jon is the one that is true to legend, as he follows the archetypal hidden prince-to-king trope. Jon is essentially “what if Arthur actually went on his hero’s/knightly quest?”Bran is the subverted one, where young Arthur gets a little detour; so “what if Arthur didn’t go on the hero’s/knightly quest but instead had to take up a job as a part time wizard?” Both will end up kings, just as Arthur did, but it will be different versions of the legend.

- Also: WTF is up with the Watch/Wall? What magic was used to build the Wall and who built it? Why can’t dragons cross? And why can’t wights cross either? What magic dictates that? What’s up with the Nightfort? Why does one only need to say part of the vows to open the gate? And what’s up with the NW vows? Why do they give Lightbringer vibes?! Is the NW Lightbringer? The NW is directly credited with the ending of the Long Night so was the last hero a member of the original group? Who was he? What happened to him after? If the last hero inspired AA then did the NW (and their vows) inspire tales of his flaming sword? And why did the relationship between the Watch and the CoF fizzle out? When did it fizzle out? And who are the LCs whose tenures have not been recorded? Why did they only start recording in the 600s (iirc)? What other history has been lost over time? Who was the Night King? Where did his half-human children go? Need that old man to answer these stat

25 common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Several people will block me for this…but King Bran. Look, I get that Bran isn’t the most popular character out there. But so many people convinced themselves that he would die in that cave or he would amount to nothing which is very, very strange. And it also doesn’t help that a lot of the complaints reek of ableism.

GRRM obviously considers Bran to be central to this series. He is the first viewpoint character (and potentially the last one). He is the most magical character in the story. The scene that birthed ASOIAF came about because of Bran. It’s also said that GRRM considered writing the books through Bran’s POV but decided against it pretty quickly.

Anyone who paid attention to Bran’s story would know that we’re going to get some huge payoff to his story. In fact, I think it’s safer to assume that kingship has always been in the cards for him. I think most of us Bran stans thought he’d be KiTN (actually some of us over at Westeros.org thought he’d end up as the final Lord of Harrenhal). I never once considered King of all Westeros but I’ve had time to think about it ever since the show ended and I’m like, “duh!”. It’s thematically relevant and sound for Bran to end up king. We’re about to enter into a winter apocalypse but Bran’s direwolf is called Summer. Not only is he the representation of summer (which means renewal, rejuvenation, etc.), but he’s also fashioned after the Fisher King. He is also the second coming of Brandon the Builder - who constructed castles all over Westeros, not just the North; and if legends are true, this happened after the Long Night. He’s following after the footsteps of the Last Hero, and is the only other character apart from Jon who is actually fighting in the front lines against the Others. He’s going to be super important!

I can understand some of the questions people having regarding King Bran, mainly those of a political nature. But we’re left with two books. And two books is plenty to move the necessary pieces for Bran’s crowning. Hell, did people expect that Dany would be Queen of Meereen as they started reading ASOS? Most didn’t. A lot can happen in two books. A lot can happen in a singular book. GRRM has enough time to set up a scenario on which Bran is the only one left to rule.

I personally think that the apocalypse will essentially destroy Westeros as we know it, leading to the creation of a new kingdom(s). D&D botched the GoT ending so people have a hard time seeing the thematic weight of a boy who represents summer rising to kingship, but the books lay enough groundwork imo. And I think ACOK shows us that Bran, despite his age, would make a wise ruler. So I’m all for King Bran. Not only is it thematically sound, but I love the idea of a disabled kid rising to power at the end since we don’t see that in a lot of fantasy.

[starfall-spirit]

Hate to break it to you, but Feysand has always been a retcon and SJM is a liar who says she’s always had them planned to sound cooler and to cover up the fact that she’s always said 1) she never plans her books and 2) she had to add Rhys in earlier and that she’d originally planned for him to be the villain.

Detailing the actual story of how ACOTAR came to be from her own former newsletter, she wrote two and half ACOTAR books in 2009 (then originally only a trilogy). In 2014, SJM scrapped and rewrote the entirety of that original second and half of a third book and completely started over with them, creating what is now ACOMAF and ACOWAR. She did not change anything in ACOTAR, though, but she did add things in during editing. She’s also said Nesta and Lucien were originally supposed to be mates and that she didn’t even plan for Nessian until she wrote the scene where the IC goes to ask Feyre’s family for help.

If Nesta and Lucien were originally endgame, that would infer that Feyre in the original second book actually spent a majority of her time in the Spring Court because how else would Nesta meet Lucien? He doesn’t live in the NC. He doesn’t live the AC. And if a majority of the plot is taking place in Spring and the story is from Feyre’s pov, it would also imply Feyre was still with Tamlin. 🤷🏼‍♀️ And a quick reminder that the entire series was originally a Beauty and the Beast/Tamlin retelling, not just the first book.

You can love Feysand, no one is telling you not to, but if you’re going to try to debunk what others are saying, then at least find out why they’re saying it in the first place so you can provide a proper counter argument. There’s overwhelming evidence within the first book that anything after it was never planned.

In fact, you could take Rhys out of the first book and the Calanmai scene would still work if Lucien had been the one to find her. The dresser would still work if Feyre and Elain’s drawers were swapped. Amarantha’s whore could be anybody, and the scene where Rhys forces Tamlin and Lucien to beg for Feyre could’ve happened with that anybody, not just Rhys. Maybe you should think about why the first book of a book series, where he’s supposedly been the plan all along, could still play out without him. 😬

Hi, anon.

I would first like to let you know, my inbox is not a place to start ship wars or attack people for their opinions of canon fandom matters. I hope in the future you respect the simple request at the top of my page to leave me polite asks.

But, to clarify a few points you've addressed here, look under the cut

"She never plans her books."

Anon, I'm not sure what precisely you mean when you say plan. There are many types of writers. When you're drafting an original story you may create an outline detailing the step by step plot, conflict, character development, call to action, etc.

Or perhaps you are an author like me, who instead prefers to free write. I won't hesitate to admit I can't stick to an outline beyond points A, B, and C. For example, my Anastasia AU

Chapter 1: The Rumor, The Legend, The Mystery (St. Pete)

Rumors

Plan Con

Meet Elain

Chapter 2: Things My Heart Used To Know (December)

Learning Heritage

Rhys’ 1st appearance

Chapter 3: The High Lord Lies Cold (Neva flows)

Rhys Bonus

Chapter 4: Let Me Say Goodbye (Stay I pray you)

1997 ~For the Magic~

Carriage out of Dusk 

Carriage stopped enroute

Escape

Chapter 5: In a Crowd of Thousands

Nightmare/Talk

Travel on foot to gate to Day

Meet Helion

Chapter 6: Could it Be? (Quartet)

2. "She had to add Rhys in earlier than planned to be a villain."

What exactly is the point of this statement? Maybe Feyre could have stayed inside the manor on Calanmai. Maybe Lucien could have stumbled upon her and the three fae who targeted her. If you think she's the only author to rewrite a story or add characters in an earlier or later position, I'm going to guess you don't have much of a concept of the natural writing process.

3. "Detailing the actual story of how ACOTAR came to be from her own former newsletter, she wrote two and half ACOTAR books in 2009 (then originally only a trilogy). In 2014, SJM scrapped and rewrote the entirety of that original second and half of a third book and completely started over with them, creating what is now ACOMAF and ACOWAR. She did not change anything in ACOTAR, though, but she did add things in during editing."

Again, the natural writing process. Rewriting a hundred times over if it's necessary to get the book published. Editing for the sake of a fluid storyline.

4. Your points on Nesta, Lucien, and Cassian have nothing to do with a Feysand of Feylin endgame. There could have been a dozen different ways SJM planned on Lucien and Nesta meeting outside of Spring that we will never know. The fact is that in the end, SJM decided "Lucien and Nesta would be at each other's throats. And not in a good way". Or something along those lines. In walked Nessian.

5. "You can love Feysand, no one is telling you not to, but if you’re going to try to debunk what others are saying, then at least find out why they’re saying it in the first place so you can provide a proper counter argument."

I am aware I have the freedom of expression in the fandom. I would also like to clarify I was entirely polite in "debunking" the counterargument to defend Tamlin. Did you feel particularly attacked when I told a new fandom member to try the second book and see if it was to their liking when they saw Rhysand's story?

Or was it my assessment of Tamlin's lack of anger management and every marker of an abuser he shows from the second he comes to take Feyre across the wall.

TL;DR

No matter how many rewrites ACOTAR went through, there was no character retcon on Tamlin or Rhys. Book one was an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast and Book two was an adaptation of Hades and Persephone, even if very few elements were taken from the actual tales.

For any others who wish to drop in and give me a polite hello, my inbox is always open and I'm chugging along so I have some lovely Feysand and crack ship snippets to provide you with.

[a-little-bit-of-tradition]

Hello! Some of you may have seen me around. I'm technically a nobody in this fandom on here as I like to keep to myself, but am taking a plunge and getting this off my chest now that the show's over for me. I don't see myself as a writer, but I have my own headcanons now for how I would have taken the Upstead story that I've written out and thought I'd share in case it helps other people. I've lost a lot of ships in my time! It never gets easier, you just learn new coping mechanisms. Will continue posting/reblogging content of older seasons to remember what we had. 💕

As I mentioned here in tags, events may have given them a nudge, but all their decisions were made out of love. They may have experienced trauma and their own demons that influenced their methods, but this relationship and being together was always where they wanted to be. Their relationship was never a trauma response. Immediately leaning on someone else is a trauma response.

Headcanon 1: (personal fave) Tracy leaves first half of season.

In those 6 months, Jay and Hailey were talking and were both starting to open up and connect again. We learn divorce is brought up but they choose to work through it. Hailey was therefore feeling less pain and reintegrating herself back in the team. Jay lets her know that he has an end date and he wants to come home to her if she wants him too and that he's sorry. He thought that was what he needed but now knows all he wants is a life with Hailey.

Hailey decides that she's experienced enough in Intelligence and wants to try something new and lets Voight know she's leaving and that she and Jay are good. We learn Hailey and Jay have made plans to leave Chicago as they both have too many ghosts and need a fresh chapter. (Insert casual reference/joke to starting with a very belated honeymoon/reconcilation time, perhaps in a cabin in Northern Wisconsin if that still exists, or just anywhere).

Once Hailey has left, we later learn through a team conversation in passing, that they are in Seattle (humour me!) and she has taken up a new position in a role that's closer to the cop she wants to be. And Jay is doing something quieter in a more educator/training position rather than full combat. The two are happy and now prioritising their marriage and joining their lives together.

Headcanon 2: More in line with canon with my attempt to try and make sense of it...

Hailey and Jay are now divorced. Jay could hear Hailey was in pain in those 6 months and felt obligated as the cause of it to free her from him, even though we as the audience knew it was the opposite of what Hailey wanted from him which was to just come home. Hailey's mad because it's not how she wanted things to go but doesn't actually tell Jay that, thinking she has to let him go, so now has to bear a life without the man she loves and focus on the one thing she has avoided, (according to canon) herself.

Through talking with Kim she hesitantly decides to start therapy and in the next 5/6 months, slowly starts to think about who Hailey is and what Hailey wants. She decides that she's ready to leave Intelligence and try different areas of policing. She's a "good cop" but wants to be a better one.

Then in the last 2 eps, Hailey has reached out to Jay, to let him know she's ok and hopes he is too. He's thrilled to hear it as he didn't want to reach out in case it caused her more pain and feared she hated him. She's in a better place and at this point they can talk as old friends and she tells him she has a new job and will leave soon. Jay later mentions he has an end date and that he'd love to see her if that's something she'd want. She cautiously agrees, as she knows that is in fact what she does want, and they make plans to. We learn next season through the team that they are trying again with a fresh start.

💕

[sharpe-teeth]

Samahl Lavellan (my inquisitor) / Fenris / Solas - ❛you love the way i look at you.❜ Linkin Park lyrics! 🥰 Have fun!

I don't know if I actually met the brief BUT this is what it inspired. :) This takes place in my canon worldstate, in which my nonbinary inquisitor is in a relationship with both Fenris & Solas. You can read the first 6 chapters of that origin story here! This is for @dadrunkwriting and I hope you like it!! 429 words

There was a bump against Sam’s knee that nearly sent them into the roof. After they schooled their ears and expression, they glanced across the table at Fenris. He was as cool and cocksure as he had been during the whole outing to the Herald’s Rest - his attention never wavered from Solas. A small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. In that moment, Sam hated him. He was putting on airs, testing the mage.

For his part, Solas appeared suitably and almost theatrically kowtowed. Except for the fact that, as Sam quickly deduced, he had been the one to bump their knee. And it had been deliberate. They were certain of this when, without stopping mid-sentence, he did it again. He gave no indication, his grey gaze solely focused on Fenris as he spoke about something. Sam’s head swam.

When Fenris flicked his gaze to Sam, winked, and then immediately returned to Solas, they were certain they were being pranked. One stein of beer wasn’t enough for whatever nonsense these two elves had cooked up. How they’d done it was beyond their ken, but through sneaky glances and quick smiles, somehow the two most important people in Sam’s life - who they had been deathly afraid would hate one another - had plotted to send them into a fit.

They stood and crossed to the bar. Cabot took one look at their flatted-ear expression and poured another round for all three. Sam grabbed up the clay steins in one hand and returned to the table, serving their companions and removing their old mugs. They took the moment that it took to walk back from the table to the bar to steady themself. Whether they were trying to fluster Sam, to tease them, or whether this was all a misunderstanding on Sam’s part, it was all okay. Fenris and Solas were talking. They were sharing a space and building somewhat of an understanding. And that made Sam feel okay.

As they turned to walk back to the table, they were shocked into stillness. Both Fenris and Solas were staring at them. Fenris’ expression was unschooled, open and soft. His ears tipped down slightly. Solas’ face was drawn into a slight smile, eyes crinkling at the corner. All their anxiety fell away by the warmth that spread through them. They were doing this for Sam. They smiled widely, returning to the table. They squeezed Fenris’ arm and kissed the top of Solas’ head as they crossed to their seat at Solas’ side. This time, when he bumped their knee, Sam grinned.

[bnhaobservation]

BNHA Observations, speculations and assorted info: U.A. High School (Part 1: Infirmary)

So, in order to write my fic, I spend much time observing canon scenes, comparing the manga and the anime version, take note of details, translations and info in them as well as finding out how are some things called.

Since what I noticed/speculated/found out can be of use for other fic authors I thought to share as well.

Resources:

Chap. 7 “Costume Change?” (服着よう？ Fuku Kiyō?) Chap. 11 “Bakugo's Starting Line” (スタートライン、爆豪の Start Line, Bakugō no) Chap. 21 “In Each of Our Hearts” (各々の胸に Onōno no Mune ni) Chap. 206 “Match 3 Conclusion” (第３セット決着 Daisan Set Ketchaku)

Ep. 6 “Rage, You Damn Nerd” (猛れクソナード Takere Kuso Nerd) Ep. 8 “Bakugo's Start Line” (スタートライン、爆豪の。 Sutāto Rain, Bakugō no.) Ep. 13 “In Each of Our Hearts” (各々の胸に Onōno no Mune ni) Ep. 96 “Match 3 Conclusion” (第３試合決着 Daisan Shiai Ketchaku)

OBSERVATIONS, SPECULATIONS AND ASSORTED INFO:

As all the Japanese schools U.A too has an infirmary or helath room (保健室 ‘Hoken-shitsu’), though the English version prefers to call it Nurse's office.

There aren't many pictures about in the manga and the anime, as it's a place that appears only 4 times though the story but they're enough to give us an idea of how it is.

THE ONE IN CHARGE OF THE INFIRMARY

Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl (妙齢ヒロイン リカバリーガール Myōrei Heroine Recovery Girl), real name Shūzenji Chiyo (修善寺治与) is in charge of the U.A. infirmary.

Chapter 4 refers to her as ‘Kango kyōyu’ (看護教諭 “Nurse teacher”) where normally, in Japan, nurses in charge of the infirmary are called ‘Yōgo kyōyu’ (養護教諭 “Health Teacher”) or ‘Hoken-shitsu no sensei’ (保健室の先生 “Infirmary Teacher”) and this person provides first-aid treatment for injuries, illnesses, etc. of students and monitor their physical and mental health through medical examinations, health observations and so on. Recovery Girl is likely raised to the rank of “Nurse teacher” because she also has a nursing licence and provides much more serious nursing care to the students than just first aid help in fact during the sport festival, when Midoriya is injuried she says she did surgery on him.

Also, in Japan the person in charge of the infirmary is part of the teacher body and, in some cases, can teach to classes, though this would risk leaving the infirmary empty.

INFIRMARY SIGN

To point out the place is an infirmary, outside the door there's a sign saying so.

We don't really get to see the corridor in which the infirmary is but it likely looks like one of the many corridors in U.A. with the rooms on one side and giant windows on the opposite one. Actually, even if it's not said, this could very well be the corridor that lead to the infirmary as the view from the window seems the right one and it would make sense for the students to go visit Midoriya but as it's not clearly stated this is just my speculation.

DOOR (FROM THE INSIDE)

The door is a sliding one. In the manga there's either a glass on it or something attached to it but the same can't be said for the anime. Ironically while in the manga the door opens in one direction in the anime it opens in the opposite one. In the anime it's shown that the window on the corridor is so clear and large you've the impression the door opens on the outside.

WINDOW (FROM THE INSIDE)

The infirmary has a large window on the wall opposite to the one of the door. In the manga we can't see out of it, but in the anime treetops are visible, hinting the infirmary is placed on one of the upper floors of the school.

INSIDE

Inside there's Recovery Girl's desk with a deskchair as well as two infirmary beds and a stool for patients or visitors to sit on.

On Recovery Girl's desk there's the screen of a pc but I can't see any keyboard. Possibly it's a touchscreen. She also seems to have books on her desk.

Manga and anime seem to more or less agree on the design of the room for the left wall. Things change when we move to the right wall, as it wasn't shown in the manga early on and so the anime had no references when they drew the first series and had to make up the tiny glimpses of it we see and then decided to stick with what they made up. The result is the anime has a room with less space than the manga and a closet in it.

We can also sign a sign which I think is the one to check eyesignt, what should be an instrument to measure height and a message board.

The anime shows us there's also a clock on the wall and a speaker.

Also, the anime shows the recycle bin.

OUTSIDE

In the manga we aren't shown where the infirmary is located. The anime, showing the treetops from the windows, seems to imply it's on a upper floor. This image from which ballons of what Recovery Girl is saying come out from the last floor seems to imply that's where the infirmary is but it's likely not the case or it would be in such a high place they wouldn't be able to see the treetops. But well, this is just me, I can't say for sure.

[astxrwar]

TTB 6 Meta

Meta below the cut that's linked to in the chapter preface for content warning + context reasons.

Below is a sort of context-based content warning; if you're looking for a content warning that just describes What Occurs, that's all the way at the bottom.

TTB6 gets into the sort of. Maybe not explicitly dubcon territory, but definitely flirts with that line and involves heavy coercive elements that are, imo, pretty standard as far as Beck as a character goes. His Thing(TM) is manipulation; this isn't really confined to just nonsexual encounters, because he is Not A Good Person.

With that in mind, RC is to some extent aware of this in TTB6 and "consents" (extreme air quotes. it does not work like this at all! when i said consensual but not safe or sane i meant it!) to having sex with him with the understanding that he's going to push her boundaries and be manipulative. This is Bad. I do not shy away from the fact that this is Bad, because that's The Point it's a Fucked Up Story about two people with Problems.

The ways in which he crosses boundaries or just does things without asking are not actually all that new, it's more RC's awareness/thoughts about it and the narrative approach to it that's changed. The things that he wants and will attempt to get as long as he believes it won't result in RC like. hating him or actually trying to get him to stop, are (for the most part) just more intense versions of things that he already did to some degree in TTB2/3. The reason there's more focus on the Fucked Up aspects of that this time around is because 1. TTB6 takes place in a location where he inherently has more power and control and 2. this is not the first time, so RC is actually thinking about things instead of just kind of. vibing. being Along For The Ride, so to speak. I know TTB2 was a while ago (3 years!!! whoops) but it did a fairly decent job at setting up the Type Of Person that he is wrt: sex.

There is a reason he kind of dialed it back in TTB3/4, namely (and this is meta that may or may not be explicitly described in later chapters. haven't decided, I'm explaining it here for Context anyway) that in TTB2 he was thinking she was just going to get it out of her system and then not want anything to do with him after that. Hence him being more willing to just. Do whatever the fuck he wanted and not ask for permission. Mostly biting and being physically aggressive.

Second and other times? Still not all that nice but definitely less aggressive because he's realized he can keep her around for a while and Entertain Himself if he's careful to not push TOO hard. Still is pushy, obvs, even in TTB3 it's like. He does stuff without asking. Stuff that you should not do without asking lol, and that gets Worse in TTB6. Because, again, power and control due to the location, but also because he has developed a more complete understanding of exactly how hard he can push without her getting freaked out/angry/revoking consent completely; the fact that she even came with him to a Second Location (terminally saying this in a john mulaney voice. i digress) is a big factor in why this has changed.

Also important to note. I do imagine TTB!AU Beck as someone who will (not kindly and not without being an asshole about it, however.) back off if someone tells him explicitly to stop, moreso because of his own not wanting to like. deal with what that would entail emotionally. Or be charged with assault, lol, but like that would never happen anyway because *gestures at judicial system*. (Canon MCU Beck? I shan't answer what I think he would do because he's Worse and has way more manipulation tactics at his disposal. This Is Partially Why I'm Playing With His Fucked Up Psyche In A Marginally Softer AU!!! because he's kinda pretty extremely fucked up. ) TTB!Beck does still try to manufacture an environment where the thought of asking him to stop is uncomfortable/it appears as though he wouldn't listen anyway so they don't bother asking/ etc. so that he can still get what he wants under a guise of plausible deniability. He also will outright ignore explicit requests to stop if he is positive that they're asking for a reason that's not like. Actually disliking it. Because, again, not a good person. Cannot stress enough that he is extremely not a good person + how much the narrative will not shy away from that. There are mentions of this in TTB6, where RC is approaching overwhelmed by his behavior and considers telling him to stop, with a small part of the reason why she doesn't being this manufactured atmosphere of "he wouldn't listen anyway". (some absolutely nonnegotiated CNC thoughts come to play here. again, this is two people with problems and those problems are Apparent). It's still kind of watered down by the fact that he does not want to make RC hate him/want nothing to do with him because then he'd be Bored.

If this is kinda uncomfortable territory for you as a reader: I Get It and that's totally fine. If you want to check out atp that's also totally fine. If you'd just like to skip the more grey-area aspects, know that he will, generally, not be as awful as he is in this from now on and that I will ALWAYS give warning on chapters where there's any sort of gray-area content that really toes the line beyond "lack of communication". But in general this is as bad as it will get, he will suck Less from here on out. Going forward it will be less drastically unsafe because he starts actually wanting her to like him vs just tolerate him + he starts getting involved emotionally to some degree, which makes him Worse at figuring her out in that sort of detached, clinical sense; this means that he becomes less sure of what he can and can't do without asking for explicit permission, so he just. Gets a lot more cautious except in instances where she's pushing him on purpose and he can Tell. There will still be warnings for this though lol.

Anyway. If you are reading still I hope you enjoy and I adore you for sticking through my longest work with me! Kind of an aside but if you have a tumblr and you've been reading TTB this whole time please send me an ask I'd love to be mutuals! I love and appreciate u guys sm!!

*** Detailed content warning: in order-- biting, pain play, rough oral m-receiving that's worse than ttb3; if you want to skip this stop reading when they get to the bedroom and CTRL+F start from "What the fuck did you do that for". brief mentions of dacryphilia (gross word, why is it such a gross word! unnecessary), oral f-receiving, edging + orgasm control + biting + more pain play that's not discussed at all, RC has thoughts multiple times about like.. CNC kinda? It's a really blurry line because of aforementioned Vibes beck goes for intentionally. overstimulation, one brief moment of kinda-sorta-consent being revoked but not really? more just the aforementioned entirely un-negotiated CNC. overstimulation, also not discussed. No safe words lmao, literally no actual discussion of any of this at all, and they're both into it in a way that is objectively Unsafe. There will be brief kind-of-not-really aftercare in the next chapter but its still not like. discussed. Please for the love of god don't have sex like this irl. Bad idea.

[ariapmdeol]

8:11 anon here again. Wow. W o w. Brain empty but just. Wow.

Went through all the endings and then had to go back to Arrival Point S to cope with all the other ones. And, as expected, the first ending and S destroyed me. Cried at least two times. My god. It's been a while since media made me cry, and I certainly didn't expect to get so emotionally invested in CoE.

However! I have questions!! Spoiler-y ones? If you don't mind, of course. Sorry if it's a lot?? I'm definitely going to re-watch everything again to connect whatever is left.

First off: is there a "canon" ending? Surely S is what everyone wishes to be canon (although E is pretty good too, in its own way, definitely wouldn't want it to be canon, though) but is there a defined one by the developers? Actually, what even is the first ending gotten before S?

Second: what triggers change the endings? I figure that for deaths it's mostly a matter of wasting time, which is really neat and genuinely puts urgency into the situation.

Connected to that, what's the blue-colored person speaking at the end of most endings? The one who "guides" the player on what they missed to try again?

Third: honestly what (and who) the hell is Kanou. Man shows up as quickly as he dies, reappears in like two endings, commits suicide in both. Is he just the local cryptid? A doll? There's something going on with him, between the Told You So death, the text about murdering coworkers at a previous lab, and his corpse disappearing (and, in specific endings, showing up as...human? Dialogue specifies that)

Fourth: you mention the DLC, but also Hermits Room and Interlude, however I don't see them in the playlist? Do they have to be played specifically as there's no uploads?

Fifth: wow Utsugi is so incredibly fruity. My god that guy is gay, good for him, good for him. That's not a question just need to state it. Also Sanemitsu being emotionally not there ever and Atou threatening him every five seconds. Peak dynamic, love them all so much. Shinano being happy. S ending my beloved

Sixth: I heard something about a...cipher? An art book cipher? Or an ARG? Idk but if you're willing to explain.

That's...it? Surely I have more questions but these are the main ones I can think of now. Again, sorry if this is a lot???

And!! Enjoy 8:11 whenever you get the time for it!! It was so fun to play and mind-boggling.

CONGRATS ON FINISHING AAAA!! i'll answer all these in order!! let me know if you need clarification on anything <3

Yes, there is a 'Canon' Ending'. S+ is considered the canonical ending! This actually answers the other part of this question: the Ch 8 Arrival point S goes through S (Future), which directly leads into S+ (Empyrean Point). The two endings are connected, and S needs to happen in order to achieve S+! OH ALSO. THERE ARE POST-S CHANGES, which i will put under the cut bc I have collected them <3 These technically happen in S+, but we don't see them bc we only check back in when Atou is in ch 8 already. The DLC (Records of Sanemitsu Isoi) takes place almost exactly 3 years after S+. (These are shown in the playlist after the Ch 4, 6, and 7 extras <3).

ENDING FLAGS: Fun bonus fact: the purple text will tell you what you missed, and this changes based on what you did wrong! S Root: get all the info, don't let anyone die. A Root: keep everyone alive but don't get all the info. Ensure that you have charged Shinano's Phone B Root: everyone alive but Shinano's phone was not charged or unlocked. C Root: Succeed in saving Yanagi. Fail in Saving Karen D Root: Succeed in Saving Karen. Fail in saving Yanagi E Root: EVERYONE DIES!! YIPPEEE Mx. Purple Text is something that you'll learn about in the DLC, so I'll RAFO you for now (Read and find out). It is purple specifically! (though i also made that interpeted it as blue at first sdajkldsjkal)

Kanou Flag: in Chapter Four, you can read Yuusuke Aiba's Journal without Kanou (this is shown in the extras for chapter 4). This starts the kanou flag. This is what triggers a couple of small changes surrounding Kanou (the quick flash of him in ch 6 comes to mind) and grants access to the kanou elevator scene. TLDR Kanou was infected with cells, which let him live a little longer, but not enough to grant abilities. They talk about dying as a 'human' because if he lives longer, his cells will morb and he'll become a doll or a creature. He also gives us a Note that says something like 'live for me'. This note gives us a buff during the origin beta boss fight (his "curse" protects atou <3)

The first Five records of the DLC (+ the intro) are in the playlist! for anything beyond that point, contact me here, on discord (@ ariapmdeol), or on twitter (@ AriaPMDEoL ) and I'll help you!

UTSUGI FOREVERRR HE'S SO. he makes me so emotional i love you noriyuki utsugi. Sanemitsu my darling my beloved he is trying but he also sucks so much <333 i love him. The Reiji-Sanemitsu-Haruki family means so much to me. they make me emotional UEEEE. S and S+ make me explode,,

YES there are ciphers!! there's an official artbook for COE (which unfortunately isn't being sold right now orz orz) Which has a few ciphers in it! The one that i was looking at is HORRIFICALLY warped (i genuinely don't think we were actually meant to solve it LMAO) but I solved it and a friend was kind enough to translate it for us! There is also a Cipher in DLC, and a few others in the DLC 2020 credits! I have solutions to all of those as well. It's less 'ARG' and more "here's some information hidden behind a cipher." They're not REQUIRED reading but they help a lot with theorizing, and I've been finding it to be a lot of fun :D

I CANNOT WAIT TO PLAY 8:11 I AM VERY EXCITED HEHEHE

OK POST S CHANGES ( you'll have seen one of these before). These are sorted by chapter. DON'T WORRY IF THESE DON'T MAKE SENSE TO YOU YET.

CHAPTER 1.

"You want to forget the rat without a head" has been changed from Red to Purple.

CHAPTER 4.

There is an Item on the floor in chapter 4 (the room that you have to walk through in order to get to Aiba's journal) which reads "Zero Does not Exist".

Chapter 6:

This document has been replaced, the first time you look at it, by a document by CODE:DANTE. This one is a little long so you can DM me and I'll grab it for you!

Chapter 7:

ok so. this is shown in A root but it's not an A root thing, it's a Post S root thing (it's because of how the YT translator got their endings, dw abt it). All mentions of Seodore Riddle have been removed

This text has changed (both in normal vision and in Vision shift. it reads:[normal vision text] 'This is not the start of a nightmare but the end of a peaceful dream' and 'but what will you see when you wake' is added post S. [purple text] 'Aare you enjoying this divine comedy?' with 'i'm glad, you've enjoyed the love of god' added post S.

^this section was translated by tumblr user hermitroom!

[booklovertwilight]

☕️ thoughts on different fanfiction sites perhaps? (AO3 vs Wattpad vs ffnet vs whatever else there is lol)

Hi friend! Sorry for the late reply, one of my posts blew up and the notification avalanche scared me off the site for a few days.

So I've been writing fanfic for *checks watch* 13 years now. I've posted it on AO3, Wattpad, FanFiction.net, Reddit, DeviantArt, YouTube comments sections, and blogs I set up myself. I'mma cover the first three individually, and do the others as a sort of collective.

I started off writing on FFnet back in 2009, and even back then I was aggravated by how much work it takes to do something as simple as post a new chapter. The UI to search for and read fic is fine, I guess, but as a prolific writer (I posted over a dozen stories on that site), the fact that it takes like ten steps to post a chapter is just Bad™. Like you have to 1) open your author profile 2) go to the side column and expand the 'works' tab 3) go to 'manage works' 4) scroll through your entire list of fics to find the one you want to add a chapter to 5) click the chapters list 6) click the add chapter button .... etc etc AAAAAAA. I have not written anything on the site in years and I still remember this stupid process. Btw the menus still look & act like this. In fucking 2022.

Wattpad is much nicer in terms of user interface. In fact it's got an option to add cover art which will be displayed front and centre along with the title and summary in search results, which, as a writer/artist who draws his own covers for his fics anyway, I thought was great. Generally, the process of posting new works / new chapters to existing works is a lot more seamless here than, actually, any other site on this list. It's also got this neat feature where you can comment on a fic line-by-line, by highlighting the text, which is a lot more user-friendly than having to copy the text and paste it in quote marks into a comment. But the nice UI/UX can't make up for the fact that -- at least in 2014, which was when I briefly tried writing there -- Wattpad was a cesspool of the most annoying human beings to ever exist. I wanted to post my writing to a community that would give me interesting comments and useful feedback, not write incoherently-spelled rants about how I was taking the source material too seriously. I lasted on Wattpad about 5 months.

After I quit FFnet and Wattpad I went around posting fic to a bunch of random forums, none of which really worked well because they hadn't been designed for that purpose. Posting long-form stories (which is pretty much all I write) to either Reddit or DeviantArt is an absolute nightmare of comment-section-linking. And posting fic to my own blog requires I have some way to bring people to see it, which is remarkably difficult to pull off and requires a lot of work. And on top of all that, there's no community, really, so you get whatever bottom-of-the-barrel internet trolls think it would be funny to harass you.

AO3 is where I post my fic now (@booklovertwilight on there too, in case there's still anyone following me who doesn't know that), and for good reason. I've tried a lot of stuff (perhaps too much stuff) and it's all-around better than anything else available. Its UI isn't the best, but it's manageable. Its site design is pretty good. But crucially, the community on there is just wonderful. Part of this is the fact that the Death Note fandom in specific is just a lovely place to be (nowadays), but even when I've posted fic for larger or more militant fanbases (*cough cough* Sword Art Online), even the criticisms have been coherent and well-thought-out. I felt less like I was being ridiculed in a school cafeteria and more like I was being given a constructive critique by a fellow english major.

There's also the factor of legal recourse. I used to write long disclaimers at the top of my FFnet stories saying things like "I make no money off all this, all rights belong to [creator of canon], please don't sue me I'm broke". Everyone did. I absolutely love the dignity in being able to post fic without having to grovel to the copyright overlords, knowing some lawyer I pay for with my yearly donations is doing it for me. The community is what brought me to AO3, but the legal safety is what's gonna keep me here.

Hope that answered your question, friend! Thank you very much for the ask, this was a lot of fun to think and talk about <3

[goldom]

AFoLiS author commentary Part 3-3

Okay, let's get this one done with.

Oh yes, the start of Interlude 4 took me forever to write, because I had an image in my head for Firefly's dress (it wasn't based on anything, just made up), but I had no idea about any of the words needed to describe dress parts. Stelle's suit, on the other hand, was something I'd seen in several fanarts at the time, though I don't know who came up with it first.

"the wall sconces have are dimmed" uhhh yep good job perfect sentence. Annoying thing is Word even has it marked as having a problem, but it's so unreliable about grammar that I just tune it out, boy who cried wolf style.

OH, okay, it's here! I was wondering when the first one would pop up. Parallel occurrences between the two. Pulling all these out for myself is the biggest single reason I wanted to do these notes.

If you ever saw a phrase and thought, "Didn't the author already use that exact line before?" Yes, and it was intentional. Even the game has Firefly point out that the SH are the AE's shadow to their light or whatever, which is super emo, girl, but yeah, they are mirrors of each other. But not in the sense of one being the dark and the other light. Not at all. I wanted to write it so that both, despite all their differences, would continually find themselves thinking identical phrases, often quite far apart in the story. This was on purpose.

So here in Part 3 Interlude 4, when Firefly says she grew her hair out for Stelle:

You didn’t have to do that almost leaves Stelle’s lips. But she did. She did it for you. That makes it even more beautiful.

Then allllllllll the way over in Part 5 Chapter 23, when Stelle gets made up for her, Firefly has her parallel:

You always do and You didn’t have to do that run through your mind, but those aren’t the right choices. “You’re stunning,”

And, little sneak peak for the probably nobody ever gonna get this deep in these notes, this idea actually will get another mirror from Stelle later in Part 6:

You want to tell her she didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to. But that would be an awful thing to say after the fact. She did, and she did it thinking of you.

What's it about? Wait and see... Okay, moving on.

Stelle dumps out the champagne in a potted plant. I always meant to reference that later with a 'mysteriously' dead plant in the parlor, but never did. Oh well.

Stelle explains the journal. I was surprised to realize I never actually had her say to Firefly that she thinks it uses the Glamoth psychic bond. I think I just thought, well it's covered in the "fade to black" of her describing the journal, but because it was never actually shown, I got to have her explain it later in Planetshine, and it was a beautiful moment.

"World." The word "world" has caused me so much stress. In phrases like "save the world" or "in the whole world." Doesn't work in space sci-fi, does it? In early parts I was using "galaxy," until I realized HSR takes place across multiple galaxies. Sometimes I use "universe," but it sounds so forced, so sometimes I just say "world" and figure people can understand it's just a saying.

Her wife. What an incredible phrase.

I think this was the first time I put any focus onto the fact that this is a gay relationship and that that's something special, and I barely dipped a toe in it. I think I was nervous to, because for one, it's just not something canon will ever actually address, and also it's just generally not done in yuri media, (which I absolutely would call this part of, as opposed to being a descendant of western lesbian fiction). But then, titans of the genre like Bloom Into You do address it, and they're better for it. I wouldn't really dive into the topic further until Part 5. And uh. Part 6 is gonna be something.

I keep having to have Firefly know less about Stelle's mission for the SH than she really ought to, simply because we don't know about it, and I couldn't have her keeping that secret in my story for years to come. I might break canon when I need to, but I'm not going to write my own end of HSR before the game itself reveals it! I think, given their prior relationship, it's believable that she wouldn't be let in on the details.

One of my favorite things about doing a long series like this is being able to go back to scenes from earlier parts and reveal moments that happened off camera (because I hadn't thought of them at the time) but are now relevant. Okay, saying it like that sounds like a lazy writing cheat, but there's only so much you can do when publishing serially, since I can't just go back and add scenes to earlier chapters. Their moment watching the comet is one such thing. It didn't get much focus here, but then Stelle remembers it again in Part 4 with new details.

Firefly's little comment on how she views Sam as alive, though she knows they're not sentient... that kinda went nowhere. When I first wrote it, it actually more overtly said Sam had an AI, but like a day later I read an impassioned post about how someone hated when people treated Sam as a separate person, and it made me reconsider. Turned out to be the right choice, because they're not. I probably wouldn't suggest it at all if I wrote this now, but I won't take it out.

So, after finishing this interlude, I was fully in a hurry to get them back together. I stuffed in a few entries just to feel like there was some time passing. I think the pacing would have been better if there were a lot more, but my heart couldn't keep them apart any longer in real-time.

As long as she’s alive, there is always hope. That’s what I believe.

I wrote in the entry about Cocona. Based of course on canon-Stelle's line, "But I know… as long as there's life… there are possibilities." And let me tell you. You know, if you're someone who is reading this far in, you KNOW how happy I was when I saw her say that. Once in a while, canon-Stelle is exactly the character I want her to be. I loved Cocona's story so, so much.

Uhhh and then in the next entry the girls have psychic make-out time or something.

Oh and here's the entry written when I broke my keyboard and pretended it was Stelle breaking her phone. You know... I bought a replacement part, but never actually changed it out. Right now, my left ctrl doesn't press right, and the tab key clip is broken so it falls off every couple days. I should probably install the replacement. But I've gotten used to the way it is, and it means taking apart the entire thing.

P.S. We’ve been invited to the opening of the Radiant Feldspar airship on Penacony next month. You’ll be one of us by then, so you can come too! Wanna make a cute date of it? Everyone will be so jealous of me~

So I've never exactly addressed how that went down in my universe. Reminder, this was all written between 2.2 and 2.3. Probably never need to. The implication is that nothing of interest happened, because of course my Firefly's third death happened elsewhere. I did find a way to point out in Part 5 that Stelle is not the Feldspar's captain. Not for any plot important reason, just because it never had a chance to occur in my version.

Aside from slightly shorter hair, she looks exactly like the girl Stelle met in the Dreamscape

Huh. I forgot that. I guess by this point I'd already decided to abandon the "she looks different" angle. The comment here was about her wearing her signature outfit, but yeah, I guess she... uh... man I don't know, it'd make more sense for her to start looking the same post-cure. You know what, I'm gonna change that line, it doesn't actually make sense.

The decision here to hide their relationship from Himeko and Welt was written after those two's reaction to Stelle going feral in Part 4. As I mentioned at the time, I was writing parts 3 and 4 concurrently. After having them react so negatively to Stelle, I realized I needed them to not know the two were dating, or else it'd be really out of character for them to be so cold. So I went back to the end of Part 3 and had Firefly want to hide it in order to prove herself.

Wild how things actually make more sense when you write the whole story before posting chunks of it lol.

Here's I think the first instance of Stelle's negative self image, which is still an ongoing challenge for her. I originally thought of giving her that issue based on the fact that she looks really out of place for a girl in a gacha game – she's, like, a normal woman, y'know? Not hyper sexualized, not hyper cute, just normal. And I LOVE that to be clear, but if you were her, surrounded by all those other people, wouldn't you feel a little plain? Though, she also has other reasons for her uncertainty that are still forthcoming.

And uh then they have sex for the first time. Even though I faded to black over everything explicit, I had never written anything like that before and was so embarrassed by it.

And then Stelle gets sad that it's the end of the story, which totally isn't the author talking nope.

We close with a photo of the journal, the framed selfie (printed out on one of those machines at the drug store lol) and a fuzzy blob that's supposed to represent Amber. But actually, it's not a dog at all! It's a stuffed polar bear. Which... accidentally became Firefly's stuffed animal later in Planetshine. The framed photo is still sitting here to my side. The frame originally had an old picture of me with my spouse, and I was gonna just use it temporarily and put us back in afterwards, but then I took more than a passing glance at it and realized it was a pre-transition photo of me, and I decided, y'know what, I'd rather look at StelleFly.

The End! Tomorrow, onward to Part 4.

[moonchildridden]

Thanks for sharing that context on the difference between book GramBlack and show GramBlack. I'm going to take that as an excuse to ply you with more questions. 😁

Are there any other major or interesting changes that you recall? And would you say that the book is more or less political or anti-authoritarian than the show? Or about the same level, or differ in another way? Thank you!

No problem, this is why we are all here, to share knowledge, so you can ask away and if I can answer, I will :)

Ok, changes are too many so I will display them through "novel - series" explanation:

1 - Both in the novel and the series, Black and White were separated after their parents divorced and each stayed with one parent, Black with their mom and White with their dad. However, the reason why Black and their mom do not get along is not because of different political views or anything but (if I recall correctly) because his mom used to make debts with other people and Black was the one responsible to pay them back.

2 - In the series, Black gets into a coma after being beat up and only wakes up weeks later. In the novel, Black is fairly fine, fine enough to flirt with the nurses taking care of him and even move around his hospital room. He was kept there for observation but his medical state was not as serious as it is in the series.

3 - The novel is your typical wattpad story, in terms of storytelling, character development, progression, transitions, stuff like that (I am a wattpad writer, but I'm using "typical wattpad story" here to talk about the type of stories that gave wattpad its infamous reputation) and even how it navigates certain subjects. There are a few non-con/dub-con" sex scenes in there and SeanWhite's first time happens while they are both drunk (or one of them is drunk, I don't remember very well), but in the end, your typical wattpad story.

4 - Tawi, the trama involving Sean's dad (which includes Dan), Dan himself and his relationship with Yok, Eugene, Nuch, Gumpa, the sour relationship between Black and Todd, basically everything political or authoritarian related are exclusive to the series. Anucha basically only took the name of the novel, the names of the characters, the central plot (that was White getting into the gang in place of Black) and created a whole different story with it.

5 - The story about GramBlack is a bit more complicated that them just being canon in the novel. Gram and Black met first before Black met the rest of the gang and even then Gram was in love with Black and Black had some “lingering” feelings for Gram but just decided to shrug it off. That’s actually one of the reasons both of them are the closest in the gang.

6 - In the novel Sean knew Black had a twin brother and they had already met before but White forgot about that because he was involved in a car accident and the trauma made him forget a few things related to the accident or something like that (the novel was a mess in terms of explanations). And that same accident is the main reason Black hates Sean (in the series, the hate is mutual but in the novel is one-sided).

7 - The reason Black hates Sean because of the accident is related to the fact that he is schizophrenic and when he saw the accident, he thought that Sean had pushed White to the road. The problem with this fact is that it was only revealed in the last chapter of the novel or something like that, and nothing during the novel made it seem like Black had a mental illness; it was just Black hates Sean -> Black hates Sean because he saw Sean push White to the road and that caused White to be involved in an accident -> Black hates Sean but he was wrong about Sean because it was in fact Gram that pushed White and Gram was joking with White -> Black has schizophrenia and that’s why he made up that confusion, and things ended up going like that.

Like I said, a mess.

8 - The reason Black got beat up was because of one of his mom’s debt, not because of Todd.

9 - This is just TMI but the author made SeanWhite have sex in Sean’s room, while GramBlack were having sex in the living room and then made Gram watch SeanWhite be lovey dovey and guess why “Black” was acting like nothing had happened between them and why was Sean was going around saying that he was the one that had sex with “Black”. Black basically went there, had sex with Gram and then dipped like the jerk he was.

10 - Sean knew all along that White was not Black and decided not to tell anyone about that, for whatever reason.

I think those are the major differences between the novel and the show and, having read the novel, I guarantee you that Anucha did a much better job with the plot and the potential the plot had than the novel author. Seriously, when I saw Not Me’s mock trailer, I got super excited with the story and went after the novel, just to be met with an almost sloppy story that could’ve been so much more than it was. Basically, the series is better than the novel.

I hope I managed to answer your question because I just got into a tangent in my brain remembering all these differences and my frustration with the waste of potential the novel presented me with and how Anucha managed to turn the novel into the masterpiece that it was the series, so sorry for the rambling lol