#it’s your choice and that’s one of the reasons i really like that ven lets vanitas go here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

karla-the-elemental-dreamer · 1 year

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Convo With Terra re. KH Guardians of Light

These days, it seems like I'm naturally drawn to some of the KH guardians more than others, where as at the start (in 2020/2021), I was able to see and spend time with the whole group if I wanted to.

What started off as a casual conversation with Terra quickly became a therapy crash course, from an all of a sudden wise Terra, on how to get the whole group again. The energy I get determines what Terra (or anyone else) says, and here, like I said, Terra got freakishly smart and powerful; and it made for a very interesting chat.

Everything that's spoken about is what's occurring in my timeline, it isn't obviously the cannon timeline nor do you have to adopt it.

I've been prompted on many occasions in my dreams to 'unite' the guardians and get them back all into one space, which is why I feel I need to carry this out. With Riku and Terra leading the pack as my dream guides.

The 'main event' was my grandma having a fall this weekend (while being sick) and having to go to the hospital to get checked out.

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START CONVERSATION

Me: “Hey Terra, you’re always checking on me, so this time I’m just seeing how you’re doing; especially after everything that’s gone on so far this weekend”.

Terra: “Thanks for checking up on me, I’m doing alright. There really hasn’t been anything big on Kingdom Hearts’ end as we’ve spent most of our time looking after you this weekend. We did have a meeting earlier in the week to say that you’re still struggling with all the guardians, but then Riku and I had to call Jak and rush to your side”.

Me: “The main event is over now. Heaven forbid anything else happens. At least we can all breathe tonight and I can get back to my own personal ventures. Now it’s back to chasing guardians and, as you said, trying to have all nine or ten of you here again all at once”.

Terra: “I know this might contradict what I’ve said recently; but maybe it’s not a good idea to actively chase after them. The only reason I say that is because I notice you making some sort of action plan in your mind, but when it comes time for you to act it out or just put pen to paper, you tend to get really tired and lose steam to be able to do anything”.

Me: “Communication interference again. Blame the current Mercury Retrograde, and the Lunar Eclipse, and another energies or concepts tampering with this timeline. For my brain to suggest something but then not let me carry it out really pisses me off. Like was my set job to unite Kingdom Hearts or not? Perhaps it’s the bloody 3D environment again”.

Terra: “Mmm. That’s another thing I worry about. That if you manage to get some of the other guardians onboard, but when you’re no longer putting energy into talking to them, then they’ll slip away again”.

Me: I’m thinking about them again now; so let me lay out my thoughts fast”.

Terra: “Alright”.

Me: “The ones I had strong connections with were different at the start. Like at the start of it all, I was so close to Roxas and now we barely even rate a signal, let alone any of the Twilight trio. That’s just one example between now and then”.

Terra: “Mmm. I recall that Roxas carried you once or twice. Your intention was to give him a sub role at the start, but now that’s what Ven’s got. Ven and Roxas are both connected to Sora, and they both look the same. So what I actually think is that Roxas’ imprint has been given to Ven, but in a way that you didn’t pick up on it. I think that if you went with Lea, then Roxas would have been more involved. But as it stands, you’ve headed in the direction of our trio, being Aqua, Ven and I”.

Me: “But I thought I was supposed to be with the entire group as a whole”.

Terra: “As frustrating as it may be, I saw that these so called end times are all about you choosing a side. So there’s that ultimate choice of good versus evil, but then you might also have to choose with smaller issues”.

Me: “And how does that relate to the trios?”.

Terra: Our Wayfinder and their Twilight trios are very different, and If you’ve paid attention to the two, they almost seem like opposites. To you, the Twilight guys might seem more relaxed and easygoing, where Aqua, Ven and I have more structure and sort of code of conduct. So you’re either pulled towards them, or us”.

Me: “But I haven’t anchored Aqua to the magnet as it were”.

Terra: “And that’s why you’re able to pick up one of the Twilight guys. Aqua wanted to step up so that we could in-fact take you as a trio, but obviously you and her weren’t a good match. So Lea’s there instead as her opposite. And like I said before; it’s either Ven or Roxas; and so that leaves my opposite being Xion or Namine”.

Me: “And that’s another odd thing, being that I’ve never spoken to Xion. She and I are both INFJ, and yet we know each other the least”.

Terra: “I wouldn’t be able to do much on that one as I don’t really know Xion that well myself. But I think the reason you talk to her the least is because you know the least of her story. You haven’t really seen enough of her at all to be able to imagine and launch your interaction with her. Hang on a minute, Riku’s saying something to me as well. Riku says that Xion comes from Sora’s memories of Kairi. So perhaps if you were closer to Sora and Kairi, then you would be drawn to Xion more. But as it stands, you’re close to neither of them”.

Me: So you’re saying that the guardians have a link, and depending on who I’m with, that determines which link I follow?”.

Terra: “It makes sense because at the start, you chose Riku, and then you saw that I was connected to him as a link, being that I passed down the power of the keyblade. Did you ever notice that when you were just under Riku, you aligned more with Sora and Kairi?”.

Me: “Yes. I frequented the islands more, and Sora and Kairi were present without much thought. That’s also when I was able to travel to other KH worlds more freely”.

Terra: “That’s because you were more on the main plot line back then, whereas by having me as your direct mentor, you’re channelling the Birth By Sleep plot line, whether you intended to or not. Under Riku’s instruction, that’s when you had all the big group gatherings, and you were able to land yourself in any world, because that’s what his best friend did. Riku and I may both be your dream guides, but depending on who you spend more time with, you also take the direction of that one’s surroundings. The reason you have an equal balance with everyone in Jak’s world is because Jak’s your only dream guide and he’s the main guy”.

Me: “Man… Talk about a game, book or movie dictating where I go in life…”.

Terra: “I guess I know why some people in your world call it subconscious programming. But with the ascension process in mind, you have the power to do anything and shape your world into what you see fit. You’ve already done that with Riku, Jak and I, so now you have to think about doing it to all the guardians. Rather than thinking about the guardians as individuals who look and behave different, and who live in various different worlds; try to focus more on us as the collective, who are on the same team, fighting against the darkness for the greater good. I know you can do it because I’m already a changed man thanks to you. I was designed to be a broken man mourning the loss of my father figure and still lamenting over what could have been. But you’ve destroyed Xehanort’s grip over me and my feelings, and that’s allowed me to move on much quicker than if we didn’t find each other. And you set up a personal mission to correct the way that you perceived Master Eraqus had treated me. You actively made the choice to free me from that pre-written script. You’ve set me on the path of discovering my own true potential, with my friends by my side, whilst being your teacher, friend and father figure”.

Me: “Hang on a second… I’ve just noticed a bit of a contradition. You’re saying to change my view of the guardians from individual to collective, yet to shape them into suitable beings for the timeline individually?”.

Terra: “In your timeline, most of the guardians of light are still running loose. You’re going to spend more time trying to round them each up individually than as a whole group, because while you’re focusing on Roxas, Kairi slips out and runs off in a different direction. That’s why you gather them all at the same time, and then when you have them, that’s when you can go to each of them and fine-tune all the details. Get them out of that scripted matrix and then work on them”.

Me: “There’s just one thing I’d like to know”.

Terra: “What’s that?”.

Me: “How did ‘I don’t know what help I can offer’ and ‘don’t chase after them’ change to you seeming to innerstand the entire issue and talking to me like you’ve hacked into my brain and you’re telling me exactly how to get all of them and make them stay?”.

Terra: “Like I’ve become some sort of scholarly sage huh?”.

Me: “Yes… How?”.

Terra: “Well you pretty much gave me the keys to the entire vault; and with that, you said I have free reign to use what ever resources in there and to do what ever I had to, to guide you and keep you on the right path. So with a few ground-rules in place, you pretty much gave me access to everything and told me to work as if I’m your dream dad”.

Me: “I raise another concern here, being that I don’t want every single guardian to be a dream mum or dream dad, aka dream guide. So how do I work with each one individually while placing that boundary on them?”.

Terra: “You have the perfect answer to that question with Aqua, because that’s exactly what you did with her. She acted in one way, but then you took the time to shape her into the path that you wanted her to go down. She pushed too much for your liking, so you told her to back off. But then she went too much the other way, so you went back and told us what you want again, as well as putting those taxes in place”.

Me: “So I have to do that for every single guardian of light”.

Terra: “You don’t have to if that’s not what you want, but it’s probably the best way to keep them. Like with Sora, you clearly got him out of Quadratum and I was there when it happened, but because you didn’t give him anywhere to go after that, it’s like he’s still lost. I know you think you shouldn’t have to give them every single direction and that they should be able to make their own decisions as people, but it’s just about putting them on some sort of path rather than leaving them in an empty void. Think about how you did so with Ven. You gave him an event to work towards, which is what you call the last day”.

Me: “So I guess I’m pretty much on the right track with your trio then, which is why they’re intact”.

Terra: “As it’s the next day now, I wanted to pass on something that Lea said to me in the space of time when you were getting ready for bed last night”.

Me: “What’s it mainly about?”.

Terra: “It’s about Xion”.

Me: “Ah, okay”.

Terra: “Lea said that the reason you’ve had almost no interaction with Xion isn’t because you don’t know her story, but that it’s something to do with her actual personality. You might be both INFJ, but I’ve realised that you’re more of an ambivert, which makes you unique. Whereas Xion’s almost completely introverted, which makes her more shy and closed off than you are. She doesn’t openly talk to someone unless they’re really close to her, and rather she keeps a lot of things to herself”.

Me: “So Xion will be the hardest to work on”.

Terra: “Having the same personality type doesn’t always mean that it’s going to be easy, especially if one of your traits is more subtle and there’s is more intense; or the other way around. But Lea said that if you want his help to connect with the other Twilight Town guys, then he’ll do what he can. And you know that Riku and I are always here for you too. I might just leave you with one last thought. You know how you’ve got the whole of Kingdom Hearts’ attention with me? It’s not just because you and I are connected, but it’s the lengths that you’ve gone to in order to look after me and transform me as a person. That’s just a reminder that you have the power to do anything if you put your mind to it and make some time to do the work, or at least believe that it can come true, as Cinderella taught me”.

Me: “Thank you so much, Terra. I’ll see what I can do with all the information you’ve given me, and maybe it’s the ultimate boost I need to get everyone back here and united”.

Terra: “That’s okay. Let me know if you need anything else, alright?”.

END CONVERSATION

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EDIT: Just now (1:10 AM), Terra pointed out to me that half the guardians are fairly stable, and half aren't; so I can split them into 2 groups:

Stable (/adequate): Riku, Terra, Aqua, Ventus, Lea

Unstable: Sora, Kairi, Roxas, Xion, Namine

0 notes

dehliadelights · 2 years

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I posted 133 times in 2022

That's 130 more posts than 2021!

68 posts created (51%)

65 posts reblogged (49%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@luxu-loveskh

@luxmoogle

@abrasive002

@khgenerator

@writeranon69

I tagged 102 of my posts in 2022

Only 23% of my posts had no tags

#kingdom hearts - 38 posts

#twewy - 8 posts

#kh ventus - 7 posts

#kingdom hearts oc - 7 posts

#neo twewy - 5 posts

#caelynn - 5 posts

#kh vanitas - 5 posts

#kh terra - 5 posts

#kh sora - 5 posts

#caelynn june - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 77 characters

#theres gonna be a fucking riot when someone makes a xehanort-official account

My Top Posts in 2022:

isabela: status report on mariano

dolores: the target has been taken out.

isabela: very goo-

dolores: it was a wonderful restaurant. candlelit dinner. he proposed at the end of it.

120 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

kh1 riku is a closeted homophobic gay with a crush on sora he tries to deny by becoming soras rival for kairi's love but all that gets is sora getting a crush on riku in ✨bisexual✨

121 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

encanto content? naaahhhh...

See the full post

302 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

i just wish to reiterate the well known fact of vanitas' japanese translation being actually really bittersweet.

"it's my reason for being born. it is because i am darkness, that you both belong to the light, able to exist there. if that isn't 'working together' i don't know what is."

vs. the english version.

"because i am darkness. and i do stand by your side. i'm the shadow that you cast. how much closer could i be?"

it's not just a case of "lol i am darkness", but that's how the english version of the game makes it seem. it's a case of "because i am on this side, you get to be on that side". vanitas is jealous of ventus because HE is the one to be on the side of light, to have people that love and care for him. but he's resigned to his fate, he was created from the darkness in ventus' heart, and he knows that in the end, he doesn't belong in the realm of light.

but he doesn't want ven to know his jealousy. he's too prideful to accept help from anyone, especially ventus.

ventus: "there is no need to bother with who is with the light and who is with the darkness, i am me and you are you, it's fine to live freely the way we want."

vanitas: "freely? yeah, i am living freely... in this way."

vanitas HESITATES for a split second. he hears ventus basically asks him if he really wants to vanish into the darkness he was born from, and vanitas hesitates. he doesn't want to accept his other half's offer, he's too prideful.

ventus: "is living trapped in the darkness freedom to you?"

no, it isn't, but vanitas won't admit that. instead, his reply?

vanitas: "this is how i chose to live my life."

ventus: "i see."

vanitas doesn't say 'yes' to ventus, he DEFLECTS the question by saying "this is the life i live". he says 'chose', but he never got the choice. he was created because ven had the choice, he chose not to summon the 𝑥-blade. that's the reason vanitas was created in the first place, so it could be formed another way.

kingdom hearts at it's finest.

400 notes - Posted September 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

AITA for treating two 'children' like shit because i was jealous they were such good friends with my best friend?

(inspired by @goldensunset and @palizinhas)

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

So I (27m) and my friend 'L' (also 27m) were recruited into this cult of nobodies after forcefully having our hearts and bodies split. While we originally planned to use this to find a way to save our friend 'X' (18?F). However, as our newest members joined, let's call them 'R' (0M) and 'P' (0), L quickly abandoned me in favor of these kids.

Of course, I was rightfully upset, given the fact he forgot about the reason we were originally working for, and i tended to take that out on R and P.

R happens to be a special nobody with the ability to wield a special weapon, of a boy we'll call 'S' (16M). However, P was created to be a replica of S, so therefore it is not a person.

While I admit, my response to the two of them being friends was probably irrational, it doesn't change the fact that they were incompetent little brats who slacked on their missions and ran off to a nearby town at every possible opportunity.

So reddit, AITA for treating R and P like shit?

Edit 1: R and P were returned to S, as they held his memories and he was unable to wake up as a result of them existing. L is absolutely distraught.

Edit 2: The group I was in has been remade with certain different members, and I, along with my coworker 'V' (40M), plan on trying to create bodies for R, Xi ('P' doesn't really work for her anymore, as it was a derogatory name), and another nobody of a friend of S' called 'N' (0F). My idea is to cause Xi to remember L and R, in order to switch her to the side of light. While it means I have to get the shit beaten out of me, I'm sure it will be therapeutic for R and Xi. Thank you for reading.

Final Edit: We're a family now.

See the full post

403 notes - Posted September 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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daylighteclipsed · 2 years

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YES BITCH

#kingdom hearts #you can’t separate light from darkness #bad feelings from good feelings #there’s no such thing as pure light or pure darkness within people #which is what ymx doesn’t seem to understand #he thinks because people have dark within them that the light within them is false #but that light wouldn’t be light without darkness to define it. like hot and cold #you can’t label specific feelings or people as all good or all bad #and such labels are arbitrary. in the end it’s not what you are but what you do that matters #his big plan almost feels like religious extremism. playing judge jury and executioner #except in his eyes everyone is damned and unworthy of salvation. everyone is impure #and summoning the big kh is like bringing on judgement day #but… the only one who really decides whether you’re worth saving or not - worth any good or not - is yourself #it’s your choice and that’s one of the reasons i really like that ven lets vanitas go here #he respects vanitas’ choice even if he doesn’t agree with it #and it hits especially when you think about how little agency ven has had over his own life #he understands while sora doesn’t #even though they both share this feeling of ‘i never asked for this!’#idk I’m rambling #i just really like this scene

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mercurypilgrim · 3 years

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How would Commander Ven react, when the someone belonging to the Empire clashes with his people? I mean, they work together, there is trade (I assume), I guess it is nearly inevitable that one day a Sith electrocutes a smuggler for not bowing fast enough, or sth like that. (I am assuming a case, where the Alliance-member has not mouthed off, just an Imperial/Sith behaving the Stupid Evil way Avior and Ven would not have been able to eradicate completely yet.)

Well, he wouldn't be pleased, that's for sure!

Ven isn't a possessive person generally, but he does have a strong feeling of responsibility for those in his Alliance, moreso even than when he led Imperials as Wrath.

These people chose to give him their loyalty, chose to let him lead them, and in return he is responsible for them.

Therefore he would take anyone taking liberties with his people very badly indeed.

If he saw it happening in person, he would wait a moment to make sure it wasn't friendly ribbing or something the person wanted to handle themselves. It is was, no foul. If it wasn't, he would march over there and stop whatever it was with force, if necessary.

Ven's still very much Sith, and would act like it.

Snippet under the cut!

Ven's eyes catch something across the hangar, and he frowns.

That could be a inconsequential tiff, or even friendly banter, but the way the people moved made him unsure.

A mechanic sporting a grubby Alliance patch was clenching her fists as a someone, a tall pureblood, berated her.

A crimson skinned hand darted out and backhanded the mechanic, and Ven was already moving through the people turning to look.

The hand was raised again for another blow, but he wrapped clawed, gauntleted fingers around the wrist and squeezed.

"What," he began, fury churning his belly. "Do you think you're doing?"

The Pureblood was snarling and reaching for her blade, but seeing who it was her expression turned snooty.

"This little rat scuffed my shuttle," she accused, sulphur yellow eyes narrowed. "Darth Venator, you really should instill some discipline in your people."

The mechanic, a twi'lek with lines gathering at her mouth and around her eyes, moved her gaze to Ven, upset and unsure. She flinched from his gaze, and he felt his belly twist. She was afraid of him, too.

"Here," he corrected, tone acidic. "I am Commander. If you ever lay a hand on one of my people again, I'll cut it off."

He tightened his grip until he heard bones creak, and the pureblood started to panic. The metal claws on his gauntlets dug unto her skin, drawing little beads of blood.

"You were informed of the rules when you arrived on Odessen, and you chose to ignore them. Apologise."

The pureblood stared, as if she had never been asked to apologise before.

Perhaps she hadn't.

"This is ridiculous. I will not apologise for merely disciplining an errant slave!"

The twi'lek looked about ready to cry.

"I am not a slave." She cried, hurt.

Ven laid his free hand on her shoulder. She jumped, eyes huge.

"Leave." he snarled at the Sith, who blinked. He released her wrist with a painful squeeze. "I want you off Odessen within the hour."

She frowned, rubbing her wrist. It was turning turning an angry purple.

"Darth Venator, be reasonable-"

"I think I'm being plenty reasonable." He snapped. "You refuse to follow the rules on our planet, so you clearly have no respect for the Alliance, or me. You assaulted one of my people, and refuse to apologise. Emperor Kallig will be hearing about this from me, and you had better hope you have a good explanation for jeopardising the relationship between the Empire and the Alliance."

She grew paler as he spoke, turning a sickly shade of washed out crimson.

"Commander, I-"

Ven stared her down.

"If you'd have behaved like that in front of me when I was Wrath, I'd have taken your arm off." He assured, mean. The reminder of his former role in the Empire never hurt, and the pureblood swallowed. "Luckily for you, this is Odessen and not the Empire, a fact you seem to have forgotten."

There was a choice for her, here. She could up her bluster and hope he would back off, of she could accept defeat gracefully.

Wisely, she chose the latter.

She inclined her head stiffly before storming away, mortified and furious.

Ven watched her go, and sighed.

He turned to the twi'lek by his side.

"Im sorry about that," he murmured. "It shouldn't have happened. Are you alright?"

The mechanic nodded, shaky.

"Thank you. I- I thought she would kill me."

Ven felt his stomach twist unpleasantly.

"I wouldn't let that happen. If anyone, Sith or otherwise, give you or anyone else trouble, please report it. We'll take care of it."

She glanced up at him, still shaken.

"I- okay." She paused. "Is it really like that in the Empire?"

Ven sighed.

"It used to be. Emperor Kallig doesn't stand for that sort of thing, but it does take time to change attitudes."

"You're not like that."

He smiled.

"Not every Sith is, just the really entitled ones." He gave her a grin. "Take the rest of the day off. Head to the medbay if you think you need it."

She smiled at him, and she wasn't shaking any more.

"Thank you, Commander."

Ven nodded, belly warm.

"Any time."

#swtor #ven'fir polaris #asks #Snippets #Ven has no time for your attitude

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blackjack-15 · 3 years

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Two Can Keep a Secret (if the Family Tree is Dead) — Thoughts on: Ghost of Thornton Hall (GTH)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT, SAW, CAP, ASH, TMB, DED

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with my list of previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: GTH; SPY; mention of ASH (and the ASH meta); mention of Nik/HER’s spoilery hints about GTH.

NOTE: THIS META CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF AND REFERENCE TO SEXUAL ASSAULT. MORE DETAILED SECTIONS ARE MARKED, BUT THIS WARNING STANDS FOR THE WHOLE META.

The Intro:

It’s time to get our Spooky on, lads. And we’re gonna do it in a meta of truly staggering length, so maybe go to the bathroom and get a snack before you start. My apologies.

Due to the (to be quite frank) absence of nostalgia surrounding them, there’s not really many games that are post 2010 that the fandom tends to agree on, but Ghost of Thornton Hall happens to be a standout in that pretty much everyone has found something to like about it. It often tops the charts of “best newer game” polls, and puts in a valiant effort against the more nostalgic mainstays.

There are a lot of reasons for this, in my mind – the quality of the writing, the choices that Nancy can make that actually affect the outcome of the game and especially affect Nancy, the fabulous voice work, the purposely-unanswered questions that give a deeper sense of horror — but if you ask me, the love for GTH really boils down to one thing:

Atmosphere.

Nancy Drew game fans (and I’m including myself in this) tend to prioritize atmosphere in the games, probably because without good and proper atmosphere it’s easier to pick apart the formula as you’re playing and to avoid being immersed in the game’s story, and GTH has it thick on the ground (figuratively and literally). The fear, unease, and overall sense of being an Intruder in this story comes from the overwhelming atmosphere provided by the grief of the characters, the time-sensitive nature of the crime, the secrets of the house and family, and, of course, the rather stellar visuals and locations.

The Thornton’s house and grounds really feel alive, but dead — in fact, they almost feel alive in the way that a zombie is, where they function and feed but have no heart. The gloriously (and meticulously) decorated walls are cast in shadow and grime; the portraits feel ominous and disapproving rather than lifelike and nostalgic; even the graveyard, as spread out and opulent as it is, feels claustrophobic and unwelcoming.

In a word, the game is – visually, thematically, story-wise, and atmospherically — haunting. And I think that overwhelming feeling of being haunted is, in large part, what draws fans back to this game again and again.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the scariest parts of this game are the things that you, as the player, do not see. Sure, the apparitions of Charlotte, the ghostly figures, the appearance of Harper — these are all scary, but the fear is gone after a moment, leaving the player unsettled but not running to hide under a blanket. The deaths of the fifty-four souls, the secret behind Clara’s birth, Harper’s breakdown — all these things that you don’t see, that you can only hear about or have hinted at are where the fear of the game kicks in, especially for older players.

It’s no secret that, despite the games being labeled for ages 10 and up, that the actual age of the Nancy Drew games fandom hasn’t been around 10 for some time — most people playing these games are in their 20s or 30s, or have siblings who are in their 20s and 30s and got into the games through them. Sure, there are some outliers, but the Clue Crew is much closer in general to the ages of the River Heights crew than they are to the age that that box says.

Because of this, the writers (and I’m going to especially hat-tip Nik here) behind the games have been able to slowly graduate the topics of the games to be a little bit older, hiding the true horror behind things that younger kids just won’t think about. This is especially the case with GTH and SPY, but you see it in a lot of the newer games, where the implications of events are normally scarier than the events themselves.

GTH takes that and runs with it, choosing to hint at and dance around truly upsetting — for any age — topics, presenting a mystery and a story that only get scarier once you’ve finished staring at the screen. The characters’ emotional problems and issues — loss, abandonment, anxiety, guilt — are like this too; while they’re present in the game itself, when you take a step back after finishing the game you realize just how badly scarred everyone is in the story.

Because answers were purposely left vague in order to 1) make the player work for it and 2) keep the 10+ rating, pretty much everyone who plays GTH has a slightly different opinion on what went down at Charlotte’s party, who the Thorntons really are, the circumstances of Clara’s birth, why the children of a female Thornton take their mother’s name — you name it, and there’s around 10 distinct opinions on it, and many more offshoots of those opinions besides.

I’m going to talk a little bit here about a couple of the “biggies”, since I don’t want it cluttering up the Suspect portion of this meta, so bear with me. I’m not so much interested in “this is the Correct answer” as much as just presenting the information from the game and wondering about its conclusions…but I (like everyone else) have my little pet theories, so what follows will be a little bit of reporting, a little bit of inference, and a little bit of supposition.

What follows is a frank discussion of topics such as rape and incest as they apply to GTH. If this is something you’d rather not consume, skip down to the next bolded line.

The most talked-about question left hanging in the game is, of course, who Clara’s father was. I think this question is best addressed from a two-pronged approach, however, because to figure out who Clara’s father could have been is a question that requires another question to be answered: why would Clara’s mother not tell her, even on her deathbed.

The most popular — and horrifying — answer to this is that Clara’s father is Jackson, and that she was a product of rape and incest. Now, just looking at the timeline, this theory adds up; Rosalie (Clara’s mum) would have been 25 when her father was 51 and would have raped her — young enough (especially in relation to her father, a middle-aged man of a lot of power in and out of the family) that she would have been scared to tell anyone anything, but old enough to not have it be super out of the ordinary that she got pregnant and had a baby — especially in 1968.

To add to this theory, there’s the note in the cellar that asks “who was this Jackson?...what’s he hiding, and who put it there? Was it Charlotte?”. If you’re looking for clues with the incest theory in mind, this seems to point directly to it — “who was this Jackson”? both Rosalie and Clara’s father. “What’s he hiding”? his crime of raping his daughter and impregnating her. The mention of Charlotte alludes to the supposition that Charlotte found proof of this crime — tangible proof — and put it somewhere; this pretty much supposes that there’s a document somewhere that names Jackson as Clara’s biological father, such as an admission of guilt or a paternity test.

The final “proof-positive” to this theory is that Rosalie refused to tell Clara who her father was even on her deathbed. We know from the family tree and Wade that Clara was between 5-10 when her mother died (I’m inclined to believe the family tree, and chalk the discrepancy up to either the writers not being concerned with math or, more likely and more charitably, to show that Wade isn’t a Perfectly Reliable source, just like everyone else), and Rosalie’s protection of Clara from the truth makes sense with a child in that age span. It’s one (horrible, horrible) thing to be forcibly impregnated by your father, but to have to say it out loud, and to say it to your child — that’s something that no one can even remotely blame Rosalie for not being up to, especially when weakened by sickness.

There are smaller points — like pointing out that this might be why Virginia (Wade’s mum) was skipped over in inheritance — but these small points have dozens of explanations, so they’re not really good for bolstering a theory unless you’re already dedicated to it and are looking for crumbs to shore it up.

End of frank discussion. The previous topics may be alluded to and/or mentioned, but not discussed in detail from this point on.

Now, let’s talk about another explanation. I think there’s a tendency to jump on the “Jackson Theory” because 1) there are clues that support it, but more importantly 2) because it’s horrifying, and it’s natural to leap to the scariest thing you can think of when considering a game that relies on fridge horror in the first place.

In the “Jackson Theory”, Rosalie would have hidden Clara’s parentage because of shame, horror, and trauma, and probably to (at least momentarily) spare Clara’s feelings — but Jackson isn’t the only explanation for her reticence.

Generally, we can break apart the reasons for Rosalie’s silence into three distinct emotions or emotional states: shame (supports the Jackson Theory), trauma (supports an assault by a known wolf), or, often overlooked, ignorance.

Clara is mentioned repeatedly as being outwardly and obviously scared about her place in the family — a fear borne from and exacerbated in her childhood, as Nik plainly states (“her insecurity wasn’t just a personal flaw, it was a response to her uneven upbringing,” emphasis mine).

An easy way for Rosalie, worried as she must have been about leaving her daughter alone, to fix this if Clara really was a product of incest, is to name a distant Thornton cousin, preferably one who was already dead or out of the picture, as the father, which would assure Clara’s place in the Thornton line by both blood and her future adoption. This way, if Clara’s parentage was tested, she’d show up as a Thornton from both sides in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious, and her daughter would have an easier life.

But Rosalie didn’t do this — she never even hinted at the identity of Clara’s father. As a woman known primarily for secret keeping — not just about Clara, but about everything (“She loved her secrets,” Wade says), Rosalie would have been adept at hiding things through various means, including through lies and subterfuge, not simply staying silent. Given the little we know of Rosalie’s character, then, let’s consider why she wouldn’t have said anything — even something false — to ensure her daughter’s safety when she died.

Looking outside of Jackson (and with any other known Thornton being quite unlikely), the vast majority of assaults are committed by those known to their victim — friends, acquaintances, classmates, etc.

The Thorntons were — and are — an incredibly powerful family, both monetarily and socially. Having dealt with families such as the Thorntons before in matters like this one, it is frankly incredibly unlikely that, had Rosalie been assaulted by someone she knew, that the truth wouldn’t have come to light through another source, and that the perpetrator would have been punished in every way possible.

BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Some people familiar with only the post-20th-century world as “the modern age” and with a less stellar grasp of the pre-tech-boom world might raise an eyebrow at this supposition of punishment, but this is Exactly what would have happened — and did happen with regularity — even as “far back” as ’68 — especially when the crime was committed against a young, privileged, wealthy woman of the community.

Note, this is after the USMPC adjustment to the definition of rape in ’62, but before the adjustments in the early 70s; in 9 years, forcible rape rates (this number includes only female victims, so the true number of victims is indisputably higher, given the enormous jump in rape statistics in 2016-present as male cases have been included) had soared in the United States from around 17,000 per year in 1960 to, in the year Clara was born, 31,000 reported cases (source: DisasterCenter). With these soaring numbers came soaring awareness, and combined with Rosalie’s identity as a rich, powerful young woman in a rich, powerful family, it’s on the outside of belief that, had her attacker’s identity been known or suspected, that it could have remained a secret and gone unpunished.

END OF BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Given this historical and social backing, the simplest and unavoidable potential answer to why Rosalie wouldn’t have either told Clara who her father was or made up a “brief love” who abandoned her Dishonorably, is this: she didn’t know.

(I’ll spare a mention here to say that, ignorance because of being a “wild child” in the 60s and having had multiple partners would be a possible theory, but it disregards everything else we know about Rosalie and her behavior, and that her reputation as a party girl would have been common knowledge, unable to be hidden from those who were alive at the time. So let’s move on to what else would cause ignorance.)

Though attacks by a person unknown to the victim are, in relation to known assailants, rare, in the absence of other evidence, the simplest answer to Clara’s parentage was that Rosalie was assaulted by someone that she did not know and had no way of knowing — and who had no idea of the social power of his victim.

Rosalie truly left nothing behind that points to her daughter’s parentage, even for later discovery or for Clara’s private eyes in a bank lockbox when she came of an Age that Rosalie deemed appropriate — so the conclusion to be drawn is, in the absence of evidence, that Rosalie didn’t answer Clara’s question because she simply couldn’t.

This ties into the other theory/mystery I want to cover here — that of what happened the night Charlotte died, and how (and in what way) Clara was culpable and responsible for Charlotte’s death. We know that, according to her, Clara went there simply to “scare” Charlotte — and given the circumstances that Clara gives this confession in, I’m inclined to believe her — and it’s my opinion that the reason didn’t have anything to do with the truth of the identity of Clara’s father.

My stance here — and it’s here that I take a solid stance, rather than presenting options — with Charlotte (and I’ll talk more about her general character in the Suspects section) is that Charlotte found the same breadcrumbs as the players did and came to the same conclusion — that Jackson was Clara’s biological father. The difference, however, is that I believe Charlotte’s conclusion to be understandable, but ultimately incorrect, and that Rosalie’s assaulter was a stranger.

Horrified, this is where Charlotte’s “cryptic obsession with Jackson” (mentioned in the note in the cellar) began, and what led to her changing the beneficiary of her will from Clara — poor, pitiable Clara, already a victim of so much, whose insecurities would be compounded by this truth — to Harper.

An important part of this theory — and of really any theory — is the consideration that Clara was pregnant with Jessalyn at the time. Not only does this partially explain why Clara’s thought was to save herself (and her baby) rather than dragging Charlotte out with her (regardless of any other factor), but it also brings a potential answer as to why Charlotte would change her will to favor Harper, rather than Clara. Just as the cellar note asks “Who was this Jackson?”, I find myself asking a similar, but no less important question:

“Who was this Austin Neely?”

Listed as Jessalyn’s (still living) father on the family tree, Austin Neely isn’t present anywhere else in the game — not by name and not through mentions of “Jessalyn’s father” or “Clara’s ex-husband/ex-boyfriend” or anything like that. There’s not even a mention of Clara contacting him as a guest for the wedding or to help search for their daughter. His absence is glaring, especially in a game so focused around family — so the question of who is Austin Neely is a question that seems incredibly important to me, given that Clara was pregnant at the time of Charlotte’s death.

In mentioning this theory, I do fully acknowledge that I have only some circumstantial evidence — mostly emotional, and based off of who the characters are/were — to support it, but given the total lack of information on Austin Neely, my guess is as good as anything else.

So here’s my theory: Austin Neely is not Jessalyn’s father, and Clara, like her mother, became pregnant via some type of assault (and given that this was the late 80s and given Clara’s age at the time, I would say the most likely culprit is date rape). When Clara became aware that she was pregnant, given her insecurities about her place in the Thornton clan and her lack of knowledge of her own father, would have come to this conclusion: she was not going to let her baby go through what she herself went through. So she did what her mother could have — and honestly speaking, probably should have — done, and lied.

Austin Neely was probably a friend or an acquaintance of Clara’s — someone her family didn’t really know, but that she could make up a story about dating/being engaged to and became pregnant by before it all fell apart. He would have likely received a payout (probably a rather large payout, given the Thornton’s money and influence) and disappeared from the area and the Thornton’s lives, signing off any responsibility or claim to “their” child before he left.

As a result of this, her child now has a father and doesn’t have to grow up wondering, and Clara avoids the stigma, court case, and general Uproar that would come with attempting to find her attacker. She also, importantly for her, avoids that mess for her child, who will grow up in a semi-normal atmosphere, surrounded by family, not doubting her place in the world — and no one has to know.

Except, of course, one person would know. The head of the family: Charlotte Thornton. From then on, based on this series of events, the story behind Charlotte’s death becomes quite straightforward.

Clara’s paranoia and general cleverness clue her in to the fact that Charlotte has changed her will in Harper’s favor, and is scared out of her mind; having recently experienced a trauma and being pregnant with a child, she’s afraid that she will be left with absolutely nothing, that her machinations with Austin Neely and all her striving will have been for nothing, and she will be cast off, unable to give her child the life she wants to give her.

Compounded by her ground-in fear that she does not belong, she decides to try to settle it with Charlotte — she’s going to scare her, to punish her, and make Charlotte rethink the changed will.

And Charlotte, bearing the weight of the family name and business, not to mention its continued propagation on her shoulders, sees a woman who has been — like her mother — assaulted and left pregnant, whose mental state is already fragile, and who the “revelation” of who Charlotte thinks her true father is would topple her completely — sees poor, pitiable, emotional, suspicious Clara, and refuses.

I think that, more than anything else, would have set Clara off. Remember what she yells at Charlotte’s ghost?

“You had so much, so much, and I had nothing.”

In answering some of the questions about the game, Nik/HER’s response is to say that Clara did not literally light the match that burned Charlotte alive — but we know that Charlotte burned all the same. In the video of her birthday, there are candles; in the dust and soot on the floor where Charlotte died, we see candlesticks. And in the response, again, we know that Charlotte lit the candles for the celebration.

In my ASH meta, I discussed the many meanings of the word “fire” and the term “setting the fire” — and that’s important here too. In this case, the fire was set by Charlotte refusing to reconsider the terms of her will; in her refusal, she probably touched on the same point that she makes in the note in her room — that Clara isn’t stable enough to take over the company. Now, I doubt she would have said that straight to Clara’s face, but even framed as a “you have enough to be going on with and I don’t want to burden you” sort of thing, that just would have reaffirmed all of Clara’s fears — that she was unwanted by the Thornton clan, that her child would be unwanted as a matter of course, and that she would truly have nothing.

And so my guess would be that Clara shoved her. Not hard enough to break anything, not even into a direct flame, but shoved her, and Charlotte jostled the table, and a candelabra fell to the floor, where we see it still in the modern day.

When Nancy sees Charlotte’s ghost out in that house — and yes, I’m firm on that being Charlotte’s actual ghost, as she’s out in the open air so carbon monoxide doesn’t figure in, and there’s no way for that to be Harper/Jessalyn — she burns from the skirt up, which follows with a candle falling to the floor and lighting that incredibly flammable dress on fire.

The last thing to note from HER/Nik’s response is that at the end of the game, Nancy faces the exact same choice that the Thorntons have: to help, or to save herself. In this, we have to look back to Clara and Charlotte, and conclude this: Clara chose not to help. It’s debatable how much help she could have really been — we’re not sure how pregnant she was at the time — or if it even occurred to her until she was already out and chose not to go back in — but at the very least, Clara’s guilt comes not only from the fact that she quarreled with Charlotte right before her death, but that she could have tried to prevent it, and didn’t.

Given the supposition that Charlotte was literally on fire, I really do doubt that getting her out or finding water to throw on her would have been successful, but it doesn’t matter — because Clara looks at it as a choice, and Clara (more importantly) looks at it as the wrong choice, and a choice that she’s been punished for since the day it happened. That’s why, when speaking to Charlotte’s ghost, she says this:

“Haven’t I suffered enough for you?”

The last point I want to make in this OBSCENELY long introduction is about GTH’s place in the pantheon of “Haunting Games”. When you look at the bare-bones (heh) circumstances that make up GTH, you’ll start to see shades of other games.

A relationship/marriage gone a bit wrong, a family secret, an ancestral home, a relative/ancestor whose spectre looms over the story, mysterious apparitions and appearances, and Nancy’s status as an outsider and a skeptic — yeah, both CUR and HAU should come to mind immediately.

Having said my piece about, well, the badness of CUR and HAU and their unsuccessful approach to their basic plot points, it delights me that GTH takes a good hard look at them and says “well, what if we did this well this time? What if we gave our characters the complexity, the emotional resonance, the secrets and lies that we should have the first time?”

Like CUR and HAU, the Family is at the center of the game — except this time we believe in this family, in their relationships to one another, and we feel the effects of the family and their choices, not just hear about it from a diffident 9-year-old or a cranky caretaker. The history of the Thornton clan comes alive through the house, the graveyard, the books and journals that we have of them. We understand what this family is and the choices that they make — even if we don’t approve of them — and they feel real, not just like a background chucked in to Make The Spooky Things Happen.

Also like CUR and HAU, we deal with a central relationship and the complexities that come over two people deciding to get married. Happily, this game (unlike CUR and HAU) treats the central relationship as a thing of Import, and comes to the conclusion that it’s the happiness and well-suitedness of the couple that matters, not the family that surrounds them or anything else. It asks the question “what happens if one person runs away from the relationship?” and answers it, quite satisfactorily, with “there are probably some issues that need ironed out before anything else should happen”.

Interestingly, GTH also takes the good points of CUR and HAU – especially HAU’s atmosphere and CUR’s love of family tidbits — and improves upon them as well. Instead of Jane showing off her studies so that Nancy can solve a few puzzles, Wade walks her through the Thorntons were (at least in his eyes) and helps her get to know the people she’s helping. Instead of being duly impressed at the atmosphere in a bombed-out castle, everywhere on the island is teeming with fog — literal and figurative — as Nancy tries to decode the past to help the future.

Now then, let’s leave the general behind, and focus on the specifics of GTH.

The Title:

Ghost of Thornton Hall is a great title in the way that Secret of the Scarlet Hand is a great title – moody, evocative, gives us our location/focus right away, but not in a way that spoils anything, etc. If anything, it’s a little more flexible – are we dealing with The Ghost of Thornton Hall (Charlotte), the ghost(s) of the Thornton family, the ghosts of those who died on the island, or — in a very fun way — are we talking about the ghost of Thornton Hall — the spirit of the building where so much life and death has happened?

As a title for a Haunting game, you really don’t get much better than GTH, and it centers the player’s attention right where it should be — on the messed up family that the game centers around, and how their past impacts their future.

The Mystery:

Nancy’s phone rings in the middle of the night, with Savannah Woodham’s drawl on the other end, informing her of a kidnapping that’s taken place. She’d go herself, but believes wholeheartedly – and is frightened by — the ghost that’s taken up residence on Blackrock Island, Georgia, and doesn’t believe she’d be enough help.

Of course, this isn’t the whole truth, but we’ll get into that later.

Armed with both her detective skills and her inherent skepticism, Nancy sets off for Georgia to find the missing bride-to-be. Of course, when she gets there, she quickly discovers that the family — and family history — is even murkier and laced with tragedy than the presence of a ghost would suggest, and that, even with everyone searching for Jessalyn Thornton, she is nowhere to be found.

To find her, Nancy has to delve deep into the Thornton family lore, Jessalyn’s relationships with her family and friends – not to mention her preoccupied fiancé — and figure out what really did happen to dear, sweet Charlotte Thornton nearly two decades ago…

GTH, as a mystery, is chock-full of hints, clues, red herrings, and background facts that make figuring out the truth behind everything a joy and a delight — not to mention a task that will take more than one playthrough. GTH is also unique in that its mystery can end in more than one way, and that Nancy’s choices actually have more of an impact than just what souvenir she sends home to her erstwhile boyfriend. Choosing to save herself, to save just the “innocent” (for a certain value of innocence), or to save everyone leads to different endings not just for Nancy but for everyone involved with the Thornton Clan, from its matriarch all the way down to a certain spook-hunting ex-girlfriend.

Underpinning the mystery is this question: did Charlotte really come back as a ghost to haunt Blackrock and the Thorntons, or are her appearances just the result of sneaky relatives and atmospheric maleficence? Can all of the sightings be explained by a mixture of carbon monoxide poisoning, a few relatives playing dress-up, and huge amounts of suggestion and guilt? Is it the case, as Rentaro posited a few games earlier, that a ghost doesn’t have to be real to haunt you?

In a word, no. In a few more words, of course not.

Tying the whole of the ‘haunting’ mysteries together is this (previously mentioned) fact: Nancy is not remarkable for being a Skeptic, she is remarkable for being a Skeptic in a world where ghosts exist. The moving wood (and possibly the silhouette) in MHM, Camille’s ghost dancing along in TRN, the reflection of Kasumi in the water in SAW, the ghost of the Willow in GTH — these are all real, unexplainable-by-tech-or-imagination ghost sightings, and the fact that Nancy doesn’t believe in them doesn’t change their reality one bit.

In the house, you can cite carbon monoxide and Jessalyn/Harper running around in a costume for at least some of them — though not all. But the sightings outside — carbon monoxide does not stay in the system for very long in clear air, blessedly — of Charlotte? The consistency of the spectre? The apparition of her burning up at the site of her birthday party? These aren’t things that you can explain by costume theater — especially since these sightings have been happening for over a decade by people who haven’t stepped foot in Thornton Hall.

When they say that Blackrock belongs to Charlotte and has since the fire, it’s not a literary turn of phrase — Charlotte is there, and refuses to be forgotten. Nancy’s status as a Skeptic prevents her from hysteria, but it does not stop her from being haunted by the Ghost of Thornton Hall.

Now, let’s talk about the players — dead and alive — that make this mystery as complicated and dark as it is.

The Suspects:

Beginning with the matriarch of the Thorntons seems as good a place to start as any, so let’s talk about Clara Thornton. Cousin to Charlotte and Harper, Clara was taken in after her mother’s untimely death (but before her aunt and uncle’s equally untimely deaths) and became the equivalent of a sister in at least Charlotte and Harper’s eyes — though Clara herself was always unsettled and wary about her place in the family.

After the events of Charlotte’s tragic birthday (covered above), Clara visited Charlotte’s grave every night for a year, and was hospitalized after being pushed off of the widow’s walk (more on this later). Whether due to her upbringing or her Thornton blood – or, most likely, both — Clara is secretive, paranoid, wracked with guilt…and a loving mother and extremely capable businesswoman.

Though GTH doesn’t actually have a culprit —Jessalyn wasn’t kidnapped and Charlotte wasn’t murdered — Clara is, as the resident secret keeper and witness to Charlotte’s death, the closest thing that we’ve got. Clara’s sense of guilt is far beyond anything that she could have done, and is haunted so completely as to turn her rather cold.

I have a lot of sympathy for Clara, who made a mistake in a fit of anger (whether that’s pushing Charlotte or just not helping her when she started to burn) at the age of 21 and has been wracked with guilt and haunted by the spectre — real and imagined — of her ‘sister’ ever since (not to mention knowing that her other ‘sister’ blamed and hated her for it). Charlotte died before she had the time to make too many mistakes, but Clara had the entirety of the estate and the business — thousands of people’s livelihoods — thrust into her hand when she was a single mother of 21 years of age. Even had Clara been completely stable, it would have been a lot, and it’s no wonder that she rules the company with an iron fist.

I also want to point out that, due to Harper’s breakdown at the funeral and her afterwards, that even had Charlotte’s second will been found right then, Clara still would have inherited until at least Harper received her bill of mental health, as the closest heir to Charlotte of (legally) sound mind and body.

Let’s talk then about the other heir, Harper Thornton. A fan favorite for a myriad of reasons — her Helena-Bonham-Carter-esque design, her wonderful VA (props to Keri Healey, voice of Hotchkiss, Sally, Paula, Simone, and Madeline!) knocking her lines out of the park, and her dark sense of humor, Harper is, like most of the Thorntons, incredibly unstable, paranoid, violent…an affectionate aunt, and a pretty darn good detective in her own right.

Since GTH doesn’t have a ‘culprit’, Harper stands in her own guilty/not guilty paradigm along with Clara. She had nothing to do with Charlotte’s death personally, but was the one who caused assorted injuries and thousands of dollars in property damage at the funeral, and the one who pushed Clara off the widow’s walk and hospitalized her. Yes, Harper was young — 18 when Charlotte died, but pushing your cousin/sister off of a balcony is wrong at any age.

It’s worth noting that of the three Thornton ‘sisters’, one is guilty of some degree of manslaughter/criminal negligence, and the other of attempted murder. When Charlotte notes that she herself has a dose of the “Thornton paranoia”, she’s not just whistling Dixie.

The biggest problem the Thorntons have, honestly speaking, is that all of them are way too emotional and react without thinking. Clara confronting Charlotte, Charlotte not taking Clara aside to talk about the will, Harper’s injuring of others and blaming/pushing Clara, Wade destroying machinery, Jessalyn disappearing rather than talking things out…none of the Thorntons, past or present, have seemed to think with their brains since the woman who received the land on Blackrock Island after the Civil War in the first place.

In keeping with the theme, I want to talk about Charlotte Thornton next. A girl who inherited the Thornton land and business at way too young an age — I don’t even wanna know why Jackson hated his adult daughter Virginia (and yes, I know that there’s a supposition to this in the “Jackson Theory”, but it’s pure supposition) so much that he would stake the family future on a 20-year-old, no matter how much everyone liked her — after the death of her parents four years prior, Charlotte was the darling of the Thornton family.

Well-liked by everyone with a beautiful singing voice, Charlotte was nonetheless every inch a Thornton; she outright acknowledged her own paranoia, kept secrets and locked rooms closer to her than her family, and had a flair for the dramatic and emotional. After considering her cousin/sister Clara too unstable for the task of inheriting the family Business, Charlotte, rather than turning to her older aunt or naming multiple beneficiaries to ease the load, instead leaves 100% of it to her younger sister Harper.

I do want to point out the irony here in leaving the business to Harper over Clara on the grounds of mental stability. Whatever else Charlotte was good at, she was not a good judge of character, even giving leeway for her being 21.

After her death, Charlotte haunts the family home, unable to leave the place that was, for a year, hers to inherit. But why would ‘dear, sweet’ Charlotte haunt, frighten, and otherwise unsettle those around her — from family to neighbors to curious kids — especially to the extent that she does?

To answer that question, we need to talk about the family member that everyone says is incredibly close to Charlotte in personality — our missing bride, Jessalyn Thornton.

Clara’s daughter, Jessalyn is painted as being a sort of return of Charlotte; everyone loves her (all Thornton employees are combing the island looking for her, for heaven’s sake), everyone agrees on her, and she’s next in line to inherit the Thornton family business. She’s even around Charlotte’s age (24, rather than 21, but close enough) during the game, for heaven’s sake — the comparisons are not subtle, nor are they meant to be.

Since it’s more than halfway through the game that Nancy meets Jessalyn, the things that people say about her are the best clues to her personality that we have…right?

Everyone agrees that Jessalyn would never run off and make people worry like this, that even if she was scared or had second thoughts about the wedding or even just needed to be alone, that she would never do this to her family. And, as it turns out, everyone — her mother, her uncle, her best-friend-cum-fiancé — everyone is wrong. Jessalyn did exactly that — she ran off, made everyone worry, and didn’t think about her family, friends, fiancé, or employees one bit.

It also takes her no effort at all to fully believe a woman she’s never met that her mom is a vicious, cackling murderer just because her (single, incredibly busy) mother is a bit emotionally cold, so she’s also not a great judge of character.

And remember, we’re told over and over again — Jessalyn is just like Charlotte. Sure, Jessalyn is also our Nancy foil in this game — a young woman who needs to learn the truth about her mother, coerced/guided by a quasi-unreliable source, worrying her family by running off — and that’s important for Nancy’s character, but Jessalyn is first and foremost our Charlotte analogue. Jessalyn’s family and friends don’t understand who Jessalyn is…so I think it’s fair to say that Charlotte’s family and friends didn’t understand who Charlotte was, either.

We see Charlotte, through her writings and actions, could be thoughtless, was a poor judge of character, was secretive and paranoid — all things that no one even alludes to when speaking of her. Sure, there’s the idea of not speaking ill of the dead, but someone would have noted these things, even fondly or mildly.

So why would Charlotte haunt this place, haunt these people, when she was so good and kind and loved everyone? The simplest answer, the least convoluted explanation, is just that she wasn’t. That the Thorntons didn’t understand Charlotte, as much as they loved her, just like they didn’t understand Jessalyn.

Speaking of Thorntons who may be misunderstood, we’ll focus on Wade Thornton next. A little more rough-and-tumble and a little less refined than his relatives seem to be, Wade is introspective, superstitious, hard-working, and a bit gloomy…along with having some anger issues, vast amounts of distrust, and a bit of egotism.

Wade’s (at least legally) guilty of a few things in the past, but since he won’t even go into Thornton Hall, he’s a pretty easy cross-off of our list of suspects. Wade’s there to give Nancy information on the Thornton Clan, to provide the explanation as for (partially) why Savannah isn’t there herself, and to show another facet of the Thorntons — their anger.

Whether or not you agree with Wade’s actions that led to Clara pressing charges — though I think everyone can agree it’s pretty stupid to destroy your own family’s machinery, especially when the only danger to the employees was caused by him scaring them half to death — and it highlights that Wade, philosophical though he is, is just as much a Thornton as those he despises. He even calls himself out on it – that while he used to think he was on the side of “Good Thorntons”, he’s not so sure anymore.

The best (serious) line in the game does come from Wade — I will be in love with his description of dating Savannah as “[falling] for her like a Black Tuesday banker” until I die. It’s a perfect metaphor without sounding pretentious, and shows just how bleak his own worldview really is.

Next is The Fiancé, Colton Birchfield, who has the most hilariously WASP-y name to ever come out of a Nancy Drew game. A man who’s struggled with depression and anxiety all his life, Colton was born to two politicians and has lived in the spotlight — and his marriage to Jessalyn is getting just as show-stopper-y as a campaign trail before she disappeared.

I mentioned above that the resolution to Colton and Jessalyn’s relationship is the healthy, sane version of what should have happened in CUR and HAU, and I stand by that. While I don’t necessarily like him going back to Lexi after the game is over — a relationship interrupted by one party being paid off is not the healthy, loving, loyal relationship that Colton needs — it’s clear that he and Jessalyn would have made each other content, but never fulfilled romantically.

Colton’s guilty of nothing more than not being in love with his best friend, and he’s a refreshing breath of air as someone related tangentially to, but not cast down by, the Thornton family drama. He may get less sympathy than our other cast members, but he’s no less deserving of it, and I’m really rooting for him to find someone that will give him the same amount of love and loyalty that he’ll give them.

We’ll journey outside the Thornton family and their (almost) relations for our next ‘suspect’. Addison Hammond, Jessalyn’s friend and bridesmaid, makes a cameo phone appearance here to tell us that Thornton Hall is Totes Spooky, and that Jessalyn vanished not once, but twice in the night.

I quite enjoy Addison, not because she plays a big part or because she’s an exceptional character — she’s as bare-bones as we get in the later games (ignoring MED/SEA/MID), honestly — but because she’s simply a girl in her 20s reacting the way that most of us would if our unnecessarily spooky friend dragged us to an old haunted house and then vanished twice. Good for you, girl.

Coming in for a wonderful appearance is Savannah Woodham, ex-ghost hunter, ex-girlfriend of Wade Thornton, and the detective who was supposed to be on the case. Savannah’s too scared of the Ghost (and too reticent to talk to Wade face-to-face) to risk stepping foot on Blackrock Island herself, but she’s more than willing to send the biggest skeptic she knows, hoping that Nancy’s skepticism will keep her safe.

As lovely as Savannah is in SAW — and I adore her in that game — she really shines in GTH. Probably the biggest moment she gets in the game — and probably my second favorite moment in the game period — is her tale of tracing the shape of the old willow tree on her wall, only to have a body discovered under that exact willow tree after a storm. It’s a delightfully creepy — and most importantly, completely inexplicable by any means other than accepting that the supernatural exists — moment, and I think it’s key to understanding Savannah as a character in GTH.

Savannah suffers under the weight of knowing that there truly are Things that Go Bump in the Night, that can’t be arrested or captured or gotten rid of by normal, legal means. Her background knowledge of the Thorntons helps Nancy to get an initial feel for the family, and it helps to not have an ex-girlfriend wandering around that the Thorntons might have a grudge against or dislike for.

She is, in effect, the mirror image of Nancy — what Nancy might have become without her inborn skepticism — and that alone, even ignoring everything else about her, is fascinating to me.

Our other phone contacts are Ned Nickerson and Bess Marvin, teamed up due to George’s absence while doing an internship (at Technology of Tomorrow Today, no less!) and Bess’ extreme boredom without anyone else to hang out with.

The lovely thing about Ned and Bess is that we get to see Ned when he’s not Solo Boyfriend Ned, but a college guy hanging out with his friend. Their light-hearted banter is hilarious and comfortable (Bess dramatically asking permission to do a spit-take in his living room is of particular note), and we really get to see a different side of Nancy’s oft-abandoned boyfriend.

You can tell that their voice actors are having a terrific time as well (Scott Carty’s pitch-perfect imitation of Jennifer Pratt’s cadence and tone makes me laugh every time), and it really helps bring a bright and colorful spot to this otherwise rather tense and grim mystery.

We’ll round out our character list with the quasi-amateur, quasi-professional detective herself, Nancy Drew. Through her foil with Jessalyn — discussed above, so I won’t get too into it here — we get to see Nancy in a slightly different light, and get to look at the effect that she has on those around her when she disappears.

We know Carson and Ned (and occasionally Bess/George, and even more occasionally, Hannah) worry about Nancy while she’s off on a case, but this is the first time Nancy herself is dealing with what she leaves behind every time she jets off to Venice, or gets trapped in a lava tube, or lost in a rock maze. Nancy hasn’t investigated a straight-up kidnapping (or what appears to be one) since Maya in FIN (no, I’m not counting HAU, as it’s not played as a kidnapping nor does anyone think it is until 2/3 of the way through the game), and she has the same sense of urgency here that she did back then.

Upon replaying the game, the player will lose that sense of urgency for Jessalyn — we know she’s alive and well, and was never kidnapped — but Nancy’s reactions to the family are what stay interesting. She’s concerned for Jessalyn, but does most of her detective work through getting a sense of what the rest of the family thinks of the missing girl.

Given Nancy’s reputation as a good girl, a solid presence (if an occasional one) who loves her family and friends, and who is always responsible, it’s easy to see why she misses the one question that would have helped her solve the case in half of the time: what if Jessalyn isn’t missing? After all, Jessalyn, like Nancy, would never jet off after hearing an unsubstantiated claim about her mother without telling anyone or pausing to confirm it through a different, more trustworthy source, right?

In this game, we discover a huge characteristic about Nancy: she is reckless. Now, we know this already from other games — that Nancy is reckless physically, confronting bad guys alone, diving down into murky catacombs, jumping from pillars in ancient tombs — but here we see that she’s also reckless emotionally. Even though it interferes with her investigation, Nancy gets personally involved in this case; she’s mad at Colton for “cheating” on Jessalyn, she’s upset by the tragedy of Charlotte’s death, and she’s concerned for Jessalyn’s safety in a different way than she usually is with a victim or suspect.

Nancy’s always been willing to take huge risks, but she always stays emotionally on the surface level of a case — a good and necessary trait for a detective, and one that allows her to face down killers, saboteurs, and forgers without blinking. Here, Nancy’s dragged down into the web of the Thorntons, and — as we see in the middle and bad endings especially — she doesn’t quite recover from it. Nancy loses a bit of objectivity here, but what she gains is humanity — and she’ll need that for the last two games in this meta series.

The Favorite:

With such a well-executed game — even though it doesn’t fall in my personal top 5 ranking — there’s going to be a lot to love, so let’s get down to it.

My favorite puzzle is probably Nancy’s trek to ‘discover’ the ‘ghost’ — aka completing Harper’s tasks in order to meet her, culminating with reciting Charlotte’s rhyme while blindfolded. It’s a different kind of puzzle than the type we get commonly with Nancy Drew games, and really helped spark and keep the tension needed to maintain such a spooky game.

My favorite moment in the game is a quieter one — it’s Nancy’s remarks on Charlotte’s room. She’s taken aback at how, after a game of everyone talking about Charlotte, that it’s opening the door to her room that cements Charlotte as a living, breathing person. She continues that she can’t let that feeling distract her, that she needs to treat the room like the rest of the house and gather tools that will let her find Jessalyn, but it’s lovely to see the effect of the Thornton’s history really settle into Nancy’s bones as Charlotte Thornton turns from a scary rhyme that children chant to a girl who lived and died in the same walls that Nancy’s exploring.

There are, of course, other things that I love — the objectively creepy poem (“we’ll let you share with Charlotte/a gown of coal and glowing flame” is an incredible line), Savannah’s story about the willow tree, the small Francy crumbs of Frank being sullen after his Very Revealing voicemail in DED and considering an MBA, the multi-layered relationship that Wade and Savannah have, the gorgeous detail of Thornton Hall — and all of these add up to a game that’s frankly just enjoyable to play.

The big thing to mention in this game, as I talked a bit about in the intro, is its atmosphere.

Throughout the entire game, there’s this palpable feeling of death and grief and loss and pure pain, and those emotions are what GTH relies on to keep itself Scary, not the few spectre scares and swinging scythes that it also has to offer.

I don’t normally quote things other than the games/words of the cast and crew in these metas, but I do make exceptions when the quotation is this good, so I tip my hat here to Tumblr user aniceworld, speaking about ranking GTH their top Nancy Drew game of all time:

“The reason GTH is so successful as a scary game is because there’s such a pervasive sense of sorrow at Thornton Hall. People have died here who shouldn’t have. A family has been destroyed. The house has seen so much trauma it can literally no longer stand on its own. There are ghosts that live here, whether you can see them or not.”

This horror is far better than bloody slashers or obnoxious “continuous mysterious accidents”-style thrillers that tend to permeate the genre; instead of random death-by-umbrella or scary-guy-in-the-shower incidents driving the plot, the emotion behind death and loss and betrayal gets to take a turn at the wheel, and the game is much better for it.

The Un-Favorite:

As with any game, however, no matter how good the atmosphere, there are some things that I don’t love.

I’m not actually the biggest fan of Harper; while her design is great and her VA does a spectacular job, she’s a little cartoonish among a cast that endeavors to stay as far away from broad stereotypes as possible.

It’s fine to have a large personality, it’s fine that she’s a bit cracked, it’s great that she has her own reasons and motivations beyond “expose the truth” (especially since she’s not interested in exposing the truth, just in proving that Clara’s a murderer) — she’s just really not my cup of tea, and I prefer Harper as the Anonymous Note Leaver to Harper the Conversational Partner.

Even if she does get some of the best lines in the game.

I don’t really have a least favorite moment or puzzle that sticks out to me; there are puzzles I struggle more or less with, but none of them are immersion-breaking or so frustrating that I have to get up and walk away. The ones I love, I enjoy solving; the ones I don’t love, I turn to the walkthrough and finish them up to get on with the story.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Ghost of Thornton Hall?

Even given my small problems with Harper, I’m not sure I’d change her. Sure, she’s a bit Broad for the game, generally speaking, but she’s also another example of what loss can do to a person — it can make you cold and withdrawn, it can make you righteously angry and dismissive…or it can turn you malicious and violent. She’s an important presence regardless of my personal taste, and while I might tweak a line of dialogue or two, it’s important to note that her Persona is just another thing for Nancy to discover and re-discover as she investigates the Thorntons.

While not a perfect game — very few, if any, of the Nancy Drew games qualify for that title — Ghost of Thornton Hall is an excellent entry in the Nancy Drew series as a whole, and in the smaller series of Nancy-centric games. Through it, we get to see what happens to those who are left behind after a tragic, sudden, and even violent loss — and that becomes more and more important as we leave behind the gloomy Georgia island and leap across the pond to Glasgow.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #ghost of thornton hall #nancy drew meta #GTH #my meta #long post #video games

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Final Space: And Into The Fire Review or Now with 110% More Homoerotic Telepathy

Welcome new and old to my first Final Space review! If you’ve never seen the blog before, and given this is the first “new” series i’ve covered as it come out in some time that’s probably quite a few of you, welcome. I’m Jake, I do recaps and reviews of various animated shows and comics, mostly just stuff I want to do, often on comission (5 dollars an episode if theres any episode of the first two seasons of this show or any episode of any other show you’d like tos ee me cover), or for my patreon patreon.com/popculturebuffet. And it is my utmost honor to add this show to my rotating roster of shows I cover as they come out.

I friggin love Final Space. I was intrigued by it back when TBS released the animatics alongside Close Enough (Wth the two shows ironically finally together on HBO max as of earlier this month), for their doomed block. I heard a lot of good things about season 1.. and let it get away from me, not watching it till Season 2. But both seasons had more than enough to pull me in with intriguging characters, even greater jokes and a truly unique idea for a premise involving giant monsters, an edltrich god and lots of cookies.

So while it took an extra year given Covid, I’m super friggin pumped to get into season 3 at long last after the hell of a cliffhanger, especially since ironically last night I saw Steven Yeun’s oscar nominated performance in “Minari”. Now i get to watch him play a cat teenager again too.. and in a few days Mark friggin Grayson. It’s a good week to be a fan of his is what i’m saying and a good week in general.

Previously on Final Space Yo!: Since it’s been a year and while the series provides a recap , I’m going to be doing these anyway so:

Our heroes finally got all 5 dimensional keys and freed Bolo, and in the process also freed Avacato from Invictus, the horrifying entity controlling final space. Meanwhile Tribore got Sheryl to stop being a selfish prick and she joined the team trying to be a better mother from now on. But freeing Bolo came at a high cost as Nightfall sacrified herself as the sixth key (KVN was natrually both Gary and Bolo’s first choice, but was inllegible. ) So we ended the season with our heroes entering Final Space and Gary reuniting with Quinn.... while Invictus loomed. So over a year later we finally get some answers so join me under the cut for spoilers, recaps, and homoerotic text ahoy.

Something i’m doing since both the roster keeps changing.. and as I correctly guessed from the trailer, and the general tone of the promos for this season, that everyone won’t be all together all season.. or even in one piece.. i’ll be doing a silver age style roll call to let us know who all we have on the Team Squad for the episode Roll Call: Gary, Quinn, Avacato, Little Cato, Ash, Fox, KVN, HUE, AVA, Sheryl, Bolo, and Tribore

So we pick up right where we left off, Gary tearfully reuniting with Quinn, with Quinn wishing he hadn’t come for her, and Gary being Gary naturally having ignored that, and actually been more determined since that made it forbidden which made it extra tempting and him want to extra do it. God I missed this glorious idiot let me tell you.

So things are quickly interrupted by invictus, who turns out to be a giant flaming head.. thing... and chases them and the crimson light, which has to start speeding with our heroes tethered to the outside, Quinn holding onto Gary.

So we get one hell of a thrilling chase as the Crimson Light outspeeds the demon head and runs into two titans, but Bolo shows up to take out one, with Mooncake trying his dimension shattering blast thingy on Invictus.. and naturlaly g ven this is the big bad we need to show off how horrying they are, and it does NOTHING. But Gary catches his little buddy so we’re alright.

Sheryl also shows off her badass bonafieds by LIGHTFOLDING THROUGH A TITAN... granted she still has some parenting skills to learn as “lightfolding while your son is hanging out the back through an edltrich god” really isn’t a motherly thing to do.. but neither is trying to murder your child several times or blaming him for how shitty your life turned out so ANYTHING is a step up for her.

But.. it’s not enough. While she does manage to kill ONE the Crimson Light is too badly damaged to go on and we get two tragic deaths in one go... The Team Squad is forced to abandon the Crimson Light.. and AVA is too damaged to Upload into HUE. “I’m Sad” “For who?” “For you.. and for us. “ God damn Tom Kenny is amazing. You don’t need me telling you that, but sometimes you need a reminder.

So our heroes end up on a desolate mystery world, stranded in final space with no ship, no suplies and no hope. The only thing to do now is survivie and hope they can continue the mission at some point.

ONE MONTH LATER

Things have not gotten any better, as naturally , our heroes have only found weird cartoon eyed worms that regrow their heads when you bite them off. So while this means unlimited food, it’s also disgusting and Garry hates it. “This may be a head but it tastes like a butt”. Quinn and Tribore are with him and Quinn hasn’t been ready to talk about her experiences trapped in this hellscape and still isn’t but being a good dude, Gary dosen’t push her on it. Though the weird red veiny thing on her arm tells me maybe one of you should speed that up before she explodes or gets cronnenburgy. Just saying. I’ll also say i’m not huge on the one month time skip, as while I feel they probably have a reason for being that specific i’ts a bit TOO long and I question why have that long a period of a jump, not the longest but still long enough for things to happen with nothing changingin that time? Still it’s a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic episode so I can let it go, I just don’t get it.

What we do get is some Gary Corpses dropping and Invictius puppeting them... i’m with gary that is bowel openingly scary. I also do like how despite the FAR more dire circumstances, they still get in the requisite shenanigans this series requires. I’ts not to the network mandated subplot levels where it distracts, but it’s enough to help ease the terror of the situation and isn’t around for situations like the opening where it really SHOULDN’T be. As the series always has when something big happens, the bollocks goes away. Once we’re in between we can get back to literal pissing contests, KVN leading a crowd to their deaths and HUE in a pimp hat like god intended.

So yeah our heroes have to outrun the horrible horde of Gary’s, though Little Cato catches on something’s wrong as Tribore makes gary cary him as foreshadowing for later and Sends mooncake down to asssit. Our heroes escape.. but a cave in happens.

After the break, Gary wakes up confused with the party now split in two: Gary, Quinn, KVN, Tribore and HUE on one side and Avacato, Ash, Fox, Little Cato and Sheryl on the other. So Gary does the logical thing... and take his shirt off telling Avacato to feel him.

I mean I didn’t even ship them before this scene but... Gary claims because of their bond he can telepahtically connect with Avacato. That’s normal Gary shenanigans.. except not only does he shrug off his girlfriend asking why they can’t do that.. but it WORKS. We have a scene of the two telepahtically talking in a wheatfield that is so homerotic I guarantee there only wasn’t the Careless Whisper sax because they couldn’t afford it.. or their saving it for later this season. Look sometimes you don’t ship a ship because you just.. dont’ care that strongly one way or another and sometimes you just need an incredibly gay scene to see the light. Same thing happened with Weblena same thing here.

Fox also says “that was glorious to watch” same man. That was freaking art. So our heroes split up into three plots. As usual for me

Team Gary: So yeah... Triobore’s pregnant. No way to really softball into that. He’s been pregnant this whole time. So we get a stupid and mildly horrifying gross out sequence with Gary having to look Triobore in teh eyes and Quinn having to “uncork him”. Which is code for ... you know what i’m not going to say it. If you’ve seen the episode you know and if not your better off not visualizing it trust me. Point is this whole sequence is dumb and the worst part of the episode by far. And the series CAN do good gross out. While Olan Rodgers regrets it, the pissing contest was one of the funniest scenes of season 2, and managed to make a gross idea on paper actually pretty damn funny. This.. this is just “Haha males giving birth and tribore’s an asshole”. There’s no joke here just a .. plug. .. gah.. the vomit is rising let me tell you.

We do get something good out of this nightmare, Tribore’s son who hatches as the army of gary’s dig their way in, Quanstranstro, who rapidly ages into a stylsih spanish speaking adult badass. He is fucking awesome and a great addition to the team and the sheer.. oddity of his birth is wonderful even if the actual birthing was not. Then the climax happens so before that.

Team Avacato:

Avacato and Co come across a sleeping giant robot cyborg .. thingy. Naturally Fox wakes him up. Little Cato remains not suprised. It occelates between panicking over it’s legs being gone and amenisa and is pretty damn funny. It’s voiced by John Dimagio. But it gets serious as we find out nothing has ever made it out of final space, and things.. change the longer there there. And Quinn’s been there several months if not a year. Whuh oh. This part is much better both due to better jokes and plot advancment.. though again Quanstrano is still fucking amazing.

Team Bolo: Bolo meanwhile returns and fights a titan, and has mooncake help him rather htan join the others, but looses, hitting the planet with his body.. I mean he might not get back up.. but the impact shatters the caverns and causes an explosion. Everyone but Gary, Quinn, KVN and HUE are MIA, as our remaining party find earth floating overhead.

TO BE CONTINUED>

Final Thoughts: A decent start to the season. Like I said the whole birthing sequence can die in a fire and reminds me of the terrible comedy subplots adult swim wanted grafted onto two episodes.. but otherwise it’s a tense stark opener that sets up the bleak tone while still keeping the series rediciulous shenanigans in tact. It’s the perfect welcome back after so long. I mean the gay telepathy alone would make it a winner.

Next Time on This Blog: We dive into a little history with HIsteria. See you at the next rainbow.

#final space #gary goodspeed #avacato #little cato #quinn airgon #ash grayven #fox #KVN #HUE #AVA #invictus #bollo #sheryl goodspeed #tribore menendez

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oveliagirlhaditright · 4 years

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Written for Valentine's Day: Terra keeps being shirtless around Aqua, hoping that it might make her realize her feelings for him and want to start dating. A bit more serious than it sounds. Aqua's point-of-view. Canon compliant. Oneshot. Post-Melody of Memory. Fluff. Humor. Rated T.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595876

Aqua’s PoV

"Naminé, I need your advice on something..." Aqua told the younger girl, as the two of them sat looking up at the stars in the Land of Departure. "And I hope you can make what’s going on seem more innocent than I’m currently seeing it as," Aqua said, blushing now.

"Of course, Aqua. What is it?" Naminé asked kindly, as she would do to anything

"...I swear Terra's always shirtless around me these days, and I don't know what to make of it! He's like a brother to me, so I want to believe it's nothing, y’know? And I was hoping that talking to you would help me see it that way, since you see the innocence in everything."

But Naminé instantly let Aqua down by giggling. And the dainty way she put a hand over her mouth, and laughed so pearly, reminded Aqua of bubbles on the sea. "Aqua, I think Terra likes you. And I guess it's up to you to decide if you feel the same way or not."

That couldn't be, could it? Sure, they'd kissed that one time... but after that, for certain reasons, Aqua had just assumed that was Terra being a hormonal guy. And Aqua had gotten rid of any feelings she could have had for him, post-haste.

And, of course, it would be when Aqua was trying to prove to Naminé that there was nothing between her and Terra, that the man would show up. And—it really figured, Aqua thought—he was shirtless, dripping in sweat after having sparred with Kairi. And that's what one should have expected from someone in the the Land of Departure, but Aqua still felt flustered... for some reason.

"Hey, Aqua? Do you have any Gatorade? That last sparring session with Kairi really wore me out. I think she's trying to prove something. And you know what? I'm proud of her for it, but exhausted."

"Oh sure, Terra. Let me go look for some." And was Aqua not magicking some right then and there an excuse to leave this awkward situation? Yes.

Aqua made it back into the kitchen as slowly as her feet would carry her, and poured the found drink into a glass, even, to waste even moretime.

To take up another second, Aqua thought about the little two-year-old they had recently adopted, who already seemed to have a connection to the Keyblade. And Aqua beamed for the fact that she was taking well to the cardboard Keyblade they’d made for her. And was already learning how to “fight” with it some.

But with nothing else to do, Aqua finally let herself think back on the time that she and Terra had kissed, as she walked back to him.

"Here you go, Terra," Aqua said, handing her friend the beverage whilst looking anywhere but at him.

Ven, who was now showing Kairi how to run even faster than she already could, wolf-whistled for some reason.

And at that rude hint from Ven, Aqua decided she should face her fear and look into her older brother's face... but was that really how she saw him?

"Aqua, you seem to be acting weird around m-"

Apparently, Aqua wasn't as ready to deal with this as she had thought she was. Because she ended up mumbling, "I'm going to go bake something. Bye!" before just leaving Terra there like he meant absolutely nothing to her.

...

The night before their Mark of Mastery exam... before Ven had come down, Terra and Aqua had already been outside. And somehow and some way, they had ended up kissing. And yes, Terra had been shirtless then too, because he'd come to the summit after going to bed. And Terra slept without a shirt on, apparently.

But Aqua may or may not have given him a sneak peek at the wayfinder charms she had been making for them all... And when Terra had joked that of course they looked like cookies, because she loved baking so much, Aqua had playfully hit Terra... and that had somehow led to her being in his arms and the two of them lip-locking. And, yes: it was every bit as magical as the princesses Aqua would later meet and their princes’ bonds.

But it had ended in disaster... right after Aqua, Terra (and Ventus, too) had had their falling out in Radiant Garden, Aqua had tracked Terra down at the Mirage Arena. He had then decided to hurt her even more than he already had, by saying that he'd never loved her romantically, but had only wanted her for her body.

Later, they had of course made up: in the Keyblade Graveyard twice (once more than a decade ago, and now a year ago), but Aqua had never faulted him for not having feelings for her—as one couldn't control that.

But could it be that Terra did feel for her and had lied about what he’d said in the Mirage of Arena... so when he had been apologizing, he'd also meant to do so for that?

And while Aqua was trying to suss all of this out, she was interrupted by none other than Terra. And, yes: he was shirtless once more. But this time, there seemed to be an excuse for it: he had a massive scar on his chest that needed stitches, which was clearly why he'd come into the infirmary (Aqua was in their right now, because she was trying to use her magic to make some of their medicines even stronger).

"Sorry, Aqua," Terra told the azure-haired girl upon brushing by her to pick up a needle, thread, and some antiseptic. "Sol almost fell off the castle—and I ran and caught her—but in doing so had one of the chains near the mountain go right through my chest."

"Terra!" Aqua exclaimed in pure horror, while she reached for her friend. "I know your Cure spells leave something to be desired, but you don't have to stitch yourself up! Here! Let me heal you. And nice job, saving Sol!"

"Thanks," Terra beamed at Aqua. And at first, she thought he was going to go into a proud fatherly rant about Sol, but instead he seemed to have another train of thought. "Aqua... I think you have feelings for me. Will you admit to that even remotely?"

Thankfully, Aqua wasn't as naive as she was back when Zack asked her out. And not coy or young enough to pretend like she didn't know what Terra was talking about when he said “like”, so she simply told the truth. "Maybe I do... but what of it?"

"'What of it?!' Aqua, we could be happy and together right now. Don't you want that? I don't get why you're shutting me out, after I apologized-"

“Did you really apologize, Terra?! God, give me some time! You really hurt me back then. And you left it open-ended so that I might not even realize you’d tried to say sorry for what happened at the Mirage Arena?! Forgive me if I don’t exactly want to kiss you yet, let alone anything else!” Aqua snapped.

And Terra pulled away from Aqua then, looking like he no longer trusted her to use Curaga on him. And he opened his mouth like he was going to say something… but then he quickly closed it and smiled. “…You’re right, Aqua. And I’m sorry again. I really should have been more clear that I meant to apologize for the things I said in the Mirage Arena… and I wish I could take them all back. I’d say that I subconsciously had realized that Master Xehanort wanted to hurt you and Ven, and was trying to push you away to protect you back then… but I don’t even know if I believe that. Take all the time you need. Or even leave me hanging. The choice is up to you.”

And Terra turned to leave, but not before Aqua let her magic find him to help him.

Terra, whether he realized it or not, had given Aqua a great gift in giving her time to think here. And she planned to do exactly that.

…

It was a little while before Terra broached the subject of “them” again, and Aqua was certainly grateful about it.

Though she continued to see him in normal situations: like as they ran the Land of Departure together and continued to train Ventus, Kairi, and Sol… while Aqua and Terra investigated just how the Land of Departure existed between light and darkness, and as Naminé came over again so Aqua could see if she could use her powers to strengthen the witch’s memory magic, so she might be able to connect to the missing Sora…

But eventually, Terra was curious once more… and yes, he had his shirt off again (and this time, it even made Aqua laugh). But this time, there was a good excuse for it: they were putting a pool into the castle. (And Terra had been good before this, and worn his shirt in all the normal situations they’d been having lately.)

“So, have you made up your mind, Aqua?” Terra asked her now, earnestly. And he took Aqua’s hand into his own when he asked this—as if doing so was the simplest thing in the world; maybe it was—and Aqua found her breath hitching in her throat as he did it. So perhaps this would be easy, after all…

“I have,” Aqua smiled, as she resisted the urge to push Terra back into the pool that he’d just gotten out of. She imagined Kairi might have done that to Sora and/or Riku… but Aqua wasn’t that feisty. Yet. Mayhap she would be soon, for having spent so much time with the younger girl these days.

“And to be honest, Terra… This has been hard for me to wrap my head around. For a while, I was starting to think I saw you as a brother—as a defense mechanism?—but you responding to my anger so gracefully the other day? It showed me just how much you’ve grown. And I like who you were back in the day,.. but I think a love who you are now. But while I do have romantic feelings for you, I wasn’t sure if I had sexual feelings for you… but now I think that I might. And I’d probably be willing to try and have a relationship with you.”

And though Aqua was now looking at Terra with the expression of a love-struck teenager, she was sure, she hated how unfeminine she had just sounded. Or like her feelings for Terra were just a business transaction. Perhaps Terra had been right all those years ago, when he’d said that she was “such a girl” only sometimes…

But then Terra pulled Aqua into a kiss out of the blue. And oh, his hand on her back that was ever slightly going down was good—as was them being pressed flushed against each other, while Terra was shirtless—and the way Terra’s tongue probed Aqua’s mouth in a way she was sure another part of him wanted to was also wonderful; and Aqua felt heat growing in her stomach as they held onto each other and made out even longer. Oh, how Aqua loved that Terra was also sweet—his arms wrapping around her shoulders now, as hers were on his waist—and tasted like sugar.

And when Terra eventually pulled away for air, Aqua knew she was grinning at him like an idiot. But surely it was her turn to act like a silly-goose around him, and not the other way around.

“I think you were right before, Terra,” Aqua told her… boyfriend now, holding both his hands like a young school couple would do—surely taking a page out of Sora and Kairi’s book, as she did so. “Let’s be happy and together. I mean, we pretty much have an adopted daughter in Sol now, so why not go the full nine-yards and get married or something?”

And Sol appeared that very moment, as if to prove Aqua’s words as valid. And she grabbed both of Aqua and Terra’s hands and began pulling them away somewhere.

But Terra kissed Aqua on the head—and oh, how she flushed here—before the two of them could trip over their own two feet after Sol, and made her heart still, like he had been doing since they were teenagers. “Proposal accepted, Aqua.”

Author’s Note: The scene of Terra and Aqua in the Mirage Arena is something I wrote in an old Terqua fic of mine (as is Terra and Aqua kissing the night before their Mark of Mastery, now that I think about it), that I’ve since deleted. And I decided to bring that back here:

)In fact, this entire fic was sort of inspired by that story. Because there was one Terra shirtless scene in that fic. And one reviewer of it loved the story, but thought that was a little fan servicey (LOL)… and I decided to take that up to eleven here, almost as a joke: even though this ended up as a serious story in the end.

The Sol stuff is because I figure Terra and Aqua (and maybe Ven eventually?) will probably start taking up Keyblade apprentices, but I don’t know how young or not young a person is when they’re first taken to the Land of Departure. For this fic, I decided to go with really young for the hell of it (even though I doubt someone would be a potential wielder this young in canon), maybe based on some other KH fanfics I’ve read where that happened. And the little girl being named “Sol” is a reference to Terra and Aqua’s daughter in The Genius Mage’s fic “Birth of the Sun”. “Sol” means “sun” in Latin. And of course, the Wayfinder Trio’s names are Latin.

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mimiplaysgames · 3 years

Text

Terra Week Day 7 (Bonds/Fave Scene)

Summary: Terra lets his friends love him. | Word Count: 3,462

Read on AO3

A/N: For Terra Week 2021! You can find that account on Twitter!

~*~*~*~*~

At the end of the day, your chains weigh a burden. Share them. At the end of the night, your Bonds make you free. Mend them.

The stars wink sometimes, if you stare at them long enough.

Terra’s been lying on his back at the roof of the residential tower, where the slats are at a gentle slope so he’s not doomed to fall off. A small, square window behind him gives him easy access; he and Aqua used to waste many nights at this spot for years. Here, they can watch the sun rise behind the mountains, so they get the best of night and day.

The sound of the window slipping open means she’s here—he just wasn’t expecting the plop of an open book landing in his face.

“Look what I found,” she says, and he pulls darkness out of his eyes to see detailed drawings of a fox with a bow and arrow, talking to a large bear who is spying from behind a bush. Robin Hood and his sidekick, Little John. They used to role play as these characters when they were children for hours. Aqua lies down on the space next to him, careful not to slide too close to the edge.

“Thanks, I was looking for this earlier.”

“It was in the potions section. Do you remember putting it there?” He doesn’t, and she shrugs and rolls over to her side. “I forgot there was a part where he dressed up as a blind beggar to sneak into the prison.”

Terra flips pages. Many of them have multiple bends, bookmarks to areas of the story that the two of them enjoyed to play with. That is one of his favorite scenes, Robin Hood dressing in a long cloak and dark sunglasses to hide the fact that he is a fox (despite that it’s still obvious), shaking a beer jug for coins. Those goons he fooled are so dumb.

“It’s still kind of funny after all these years.”

“You would do something like that.” She hides her smile behind her fingers. “Dress up to trick the enemy so you could sneak in and save the hungry.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

She slaps his bicep. “I am not.”

It’s the greatest compliment he could receive but it’s also the greatest cringe. He’s always wanted to be compared to his hero... yet it’s still something he can’t quite believe, like there’s a twist to the joke, even though Aqua would never. She’d speak from the heart.

“Dress like this with me”—he shows a drawing of Robin Hood and Little John in their signature thief green tunics and hats—“and I’ll believe you.”

She rolls her eyes. “They don’t have any pants on.”

“That’s the point. We’d be wild.” Terra hides a smirk behind his finger.

“Only if you pay me a thousand munny.”

“... You know, that’s not going to be hard to collect.”

“A bold claim.”

“Okay, but if I end up collecting it all—”

“You’re seeing nothing.”

He laughs and she joins him, warm and painful in the stomach, something that hasn’t happened so sincerely since they have come back. Nights so far have been tight and insecure, as though laughing would expose them to an enemy hiding around the corner.

Out here, graced with the breath of fresh air, they’re safe under the guidance of the stars. It feels like a young night when their dreams for the future come uninhibited.

“I talked to Yen Sid,” she says once she’s able to slow down.

“And?” Terra swallows air down the wrong pipe and coughs.

She wipes a tear from her cheek. “I convinced him to change the standards of your Mark of Mastery.” Picking herself up by the elbows, she sighs. “Though I still think it’s unnecessary, if you want my opinion.”

Terra doesn’t agree, flipping towards the end of the book where Robin Hood and his love are sent off by a carriage, free from persecution. “What are the new terms?”

“Everyone is splitting up to look for Sora and… I proposed searching for him in the Realm of Darkness.”

Terra rolls to his side, dropping the book, all joy that stayed with them minutes before now drained away. He speaks softly. “You want to go through that again?”

She purses her lips. “I don’t want to, but if it helps with finding Sora, then what other choice do I have?”

Terra hums. “I understand. It’s just… you’ve been through so much already, Aqua.”

“It’s crazy it’s been twelve years,” she mutters before perking up and pretending it’s not a heavy subject. “If you survive the Realm of Darkness, then Yen Sid will name you Master.”

Terra sputters. “Are you serious?”

She giggles. “Partially, but that did come out of my mouth in the meeting. Ven would want to come with us of course, but Yen Sid is most concerned about your affinity to Darkness… which isn’t fair.” She brings her knees to her chin. “We all carry Darkness, and you have already shown, twice now, that you are able to face yours and defeat it. So, I suggested you come with me and face the Master of Darkness yourself.”

“What do they look like?”

“Whatever you think it looks like.” She shrugs. “Yourself.”

Terra doesn’t know what to say. He traces the ridges of the slats in front of him. The Realm of Darkness is a different plane of existence entirely, one where the rules of Light don’t apply, where logic makes no sense and there’s only the constant pressure of regret and succumbing, based on what he’s read from the books. From what he’s heard from her, Darkness is the never-ending fight of giving yourself reasons to keep waking up the next day—when there’s no reason to.

“Twelve years,” he muses. “I couldn’t have survived if that were me.”

Aqua sombers, watching the horizon for the outlines of mountains that you can only see in the night if you squint. “It’s not so different from what you have told me.” She looks at him. “About Nowhere and not knowing when it would end. If it would ever.”

Terra rolls back to look up at the stars. Darkness gives them room to shine. “So all I have to do is survive while we search for Sora?”

“When you say it like that,” she says with a mock-wave. “You know, twelve years isn’t that long. How about we make it twelve days? Survive twelve days and you’re Master. That sounds fair.”

He does a double-take. “That’s not funny. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m taking a page out of your book and making inappropriate jokes.”

He groans. “This is why you’re not funny.”

“I am, you just won’t admit it.”

He shakes his head, but he can admit it brings a smirk to his face.

The window slips open again with a thud, Ven’s golden head of hair sticking out but not joining them. “You two are the most predictable ever. It was easy to find you.”

“You’re predictable for looking for us,” Terra reminds him.

“Did you find the thing?” Aqua asks, her head leaning back to address him.

“We did.”

That’s right. We. They accepted another member to the family the day of the Master’s memorial, when a talking cat-thing appeared out of nowhere and crashed the end of the eulogy. Terra and Aqua haven’t found a trace of its breed in any of the books in the library (five floors of it). They call it Cheers (because “Chirithy” is a ridiculous name; how in any star can anyone pronounce such a thing?), and every time they ask it questions about its past and how it knows Ven, it responds with more vague questions. Otherwise, it doesn’t offer much opinion. Much like that stupid book, Affairs of the Heart.

But Ven inexplicably has a bond to it, and they are simply going to have to trust his heart.

“What thing are we talking about?” Terra asks.

“Can’t tell you,” Ven quips. “Sworn to secrecy.”

“To who?”

“Come with us, Terra.” Aqua stands up, brushing dust off of her drapes and bending to squeeze through the window.

Just when he was getting comfortable.

Lanterns light the way. Aqua likes to be in charge of how bright they get, and tonight they shine for a feast, bright with a cheery kick, glistening the golden halls of the castle as though it’s sitting in daylight. She marches to the entrance hall where they held their Mark of Mastery years ago. Cheers is already here with two books and a bouquet of flowers on one throne and more knick-knacks on another that Terra doesn’t have a reference for.

“What’s this about?”

“An honorary title ritual.” Ven cranes back into his own arms, proud of himself. “We found a couple of books on how they did it in the Age of Fairytales. A lot of it we can’t translate, but it’s pretty cool.”

“A title ritual?” Terra asks Aqua, who is stroking the middle throne where the Master used to sit, eyes closed in prayer.

“An honorary one.” She brings her hands to her heart. “I believe the Master really wanted to name you Master. And I agree. Riku does, too. I know you want to prove yourself and do it traditionally, but we wanted to do a little something special for you. A title that only we know of so you can keep it to yourself and no one else has to find out.” She steps down. “Until you want them to.”

“Aqua…”

“This is my thanks for what you’ve given me.” She summons Rainfell, and it springs in her hand among glowing petals and a swirl of waves, a second quicker to respond than the aged and wise Defender. She’s whole.

“It looks like so much fun, too,” Ven says with puppy-dog eyes.

“You deserve it,” Aqua says.

“Pfft,” goes Cheers.

“We’re supposed to be equals,” Aqua continues, twirling her Keyblade like it’s as natural as wiggling her fingers. “The Master said so that day.”

“Just say yes.” Ven nudges his elbow. “Roxas already calls you Master.”

Terra coughs on a snort. “Does he?”

“He calls all of us Master for some reason.”

“Maybe it’s because he thinks you’re all old,” Cheers mutters but Ven continues—

“When I tell him there has to be official recognition and an exam, he just shrugs.” He raises his shoulders too high to his ears for a good imitation. “He says, What difference does a dumb test make?” Ven is trying to act voguish, but it makes him look dorky instead. “Master Ventus sounds pret-ty cool if I say so myself.”

“Ahem,” Cheers announces, broadening its arms to command attention. All it needs is a conductor’s baton. “Shall we begin?”

“Do it with us?” Aqua pouts and raises her eyebrows, joining Ven in the ridiculous charade of coaxing Terra into playing along.

Terra huffs. “Okay.”

Both of their faces beam, Aqua throwing a sheepish high-five to Ven’s enthusiastic holler, giggling like they’ve won a game. It’s touching.

“I’ll need your Keyblade,” Aqua says, handing over Rainfell. “Trade?”

“Huh?”

“Standing Masters must accept the Blade of the candidate. To bless it,” Cheers says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“If you say so,” Terra says, straining a chuckle from pouring out in case Cheers gives him a death glare. He summons Earthshaker and lends it to Aqua by the hilt. Rainfell is as light as a feather, as it has always been—he held it when she first called it at the age of thirteen, surprised by the paper-lightness of its weight, wondering How in the stars do you expect to hit anything with this? when he’ll learn the truth later that she hits just as hard as he does.

It doesn’t feel arrogant and big like a Master’s Keyblade. It just feels like Aqua’s, the longest friend he’s ever had.

“Terra. How on earth—?” Aqua grunts and pulls. Earthshaker screeches across the floor, and she takes breaks before inhaling and dragging it more. “So impractical.” She cries a sigh of relief when she reaches the throne.

“Now the masks, in accordance with tradition,” says Cheers, peeking into one of the books.

“Oh.” Ven hurries over to the other throne, grabbing thin, plastic masks Terra’s seen in amusement parks, with the rubber strings that cut into your circulation. “Masks apparently were really fancy in the old days.”

“Yes,” Cheers says. “Made of porcelain and leather. Very tasteful.”

“This is what we got.” Ven showcases three tacky half-face masks of a pig, a bee, and a frog like a deck of cards. “Which one do you want to be?”

Cheers wrinkles its snout in disgust.

“The pig is kind of cute,” Terra says. It’s bright pink, with holes cut out in the eye sockets and a tout nose. The string squeezes him around the temples, so he hopes the ceremony will be quick.

“You be the frog, Aqua.” Ven hands over her mask and dons the bee, complete with springy pom-poms for the antennae.

“Don’t forget the robes,” Aqua says as she slips the frog on, lumpy and shiny, bracing herself so that Earthshaker leans on her hip.

Ven comes back with three of the Master’s hand-me-downs. They smell like dust from a damp dresser. The one given to Terra is too short, and the one Ven is wearing drags on the floor. Aqua’s hangs off the shoulder (We’re going to need to hire a seamstress, she mutters).

“Now we shall truly start,” Cheers says.

“Why does Cheers get to lead this?” Terra asks.

“Because Aqua is the one to honor you and Ven is the witness,” Cheers says. Duh. “Master Aqua, you understand what you must do.”

Aqua holds Earthshaker by the hilt like one of those knights in the attic, its point at the floor. It’s bigger than Rainfell, reaching up to her chest. She gestures for one of the books and Cheers is too eager to turn to the right page and hand it over.

“That book?” Terra rolls his eyes, remembering that no one else can see.

“Yep.” She brings Affairs of the Heart closer to her face, frowning before checking her attitude and reciting:

Thus a wield'r and a cousin, so longeth as thy heart stayeth true, and thy duty vows to who, a mast'r to the endeth, so longeth as thee behold not backeth.

She sniffs and double checks the passage, her chin wrinkling.

“That’s it?” Ven asks. “What the stars does that even mean?”

“You shall also honor your bonds,” Aqua says, whipping her nose out of the book.

“You’re improvising,” Terra says.

“And never scare me again.”

“Mmm—”

She slams the book on his head with enough pressure to make him nod. “Say yes.”

“Yes, Master.”

She chuckles.

“Now we shower the room with flowers,” Cheers says.

Ven gathers up the flowers he plucked—a mix of withering vanity plants, such as tulips, and weeds, such as dandelions late into their development, where they spit white fuzz.

“That’s all you have?” Aqua says.

“It’s late into the season,” Ven says, defensive. “And you didn’t want to wait too long for me to get more.”

He throws them and they droop down to the ground, crinkling on the floor in an unceremonious finish and lack of climax. Terra brushes two petals off of his shoulder.

Cheers stares in contempt. “Well… it is done.”

“Now I call you,” Aqua says, licking her lips as they tremble, and she stops to cup her cheek and compose herself. “Master Terra.”

Master Terra.

He doesn’t know how to feel when she leans his Keyblade toward him. Earthshaker feels the same–not more powerful, not more wise, but a friend patting his back. But what for?

“Has a nice ring to it,” Ven says. “Master Terra.”

“How do you feel?” Aqua says, slipping fingers under her mask to wipe her eyes.

“I don’t know, I guess I expected to feel… something that justifies it all. But I’m still me.”

“Isn’t ‘me’ the person who spent all these years studying for Mastery?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense in my head.”

“I felt the same way,” Aqua says quietly. Cheers is closing books and picking up dry flower petals, urging Ven to help. “Without you by my side, it just felt… a little empty and confusing.”

“I never congratulated you.”

“I’ll do it first. Congratulations.” She smirks, her cheek wet under the frog mask.

Terra pulls off his mask—ignoring Cheers when it squeaks, Excuse me, but that must stay on for the rest of the night out of respect for your appearance—and studies her. “What’s that look for?”

Aqua pulls hers off as well, her eyes red but soft and happy. “I want to see Yen Sid’s face when he names you Master and I get to tell him that I already did.”

He snorts. “What if he objects?”

“What if he’s too stuck up in past grievances and can’t appreciate you for who you are or what you’ve accomplished?” Cradling Rainfell in the grip of her hand, she nods to herself. “Who gives him a say? I spent twelve years in the Realm of Darkness. Not him. There were some things the Master was wrong about. Do you know why that is?”

Terra wants to say it’s because the Master was afraid, but he won’t speak over her. “Why?”

She looks away at a wall, blinking too much. “I’ll never use it again. It makes me feel like I’m not thinking straight, that I’m too close in making a fatal mistake I can’t take back. But I can’t help but feel there’s a purpose for it. Darkness exists not to put us astray on our path but to help us understand ourselves and our needs better.” When she speaks with this much conviction, Aqua seems the tallest in the group. “Within us, it needs comfort as much as the Light needs faith.”

“That’s what makes the heart strong enough to protect what matters.”

Aqua smiles. “That’s why.” When he’s about to object, she places a hand on his shoulder. “The Master is no longer with us. If you continue like this, who’s to say you’ll be okay with Yen Sid accepting you as well?”

She’s right. “I just think I need to do more to atone.”

“Atone?”

“I faced the Darkness, and maybe I’ve won. Sure.” Terra shrugs, and the change in tone catches Ven attention, who ignores his immediate chores to come close and remove his mask. “But I’m still missing the same Light you have, Aqua. The one that made you, Master, as you deserve. Mine is not that strong.”

Ven sighs.

Aqua opens her mouth to say something but stops herself, searching his eyes with a gentle mix of love and skepticism. “There’s something I never told you.” She rubs her palms together. “In the Dark Realm, I… there were many moments where I wanted to give up.

“I saw you once, a bright light standing in front of me. You talked to me. You protected me from Xehanort, and you told me to never give up.” She breaks, swiping her eyes and sniffling loudly, willing her body to breathe normally.

Terra stares at her. “I thought I made that up.”

“No,” she says, smiling and shaking. “You never stopped lighting me back, either.”

Ven holds her hand, silently crying with her. He looks up at Terra, as he’s done for years, worshipping the ground Terra walks in, thinking he is a prime example of what a Keybearer should be. They did this because they believe in him.

“Thanks for doing this for us,” Ven says quietly, and Aqua nods in agreement. And Terra takes them in his arms, Aqua under his right and Ven under his left, letting them sink their faces into his chest and wraps their arms around his waist.

“Thank you for always being there.” Terra doesn’t know what else to say that would measure what they mean to him. Forgiveness is not a real friend, and they don’t have reasons to give it to him, but he hugs them close without going too tight, his tears falling on their crowns.

“We still have things to clean up,” Cheers mutters.

“Come here.” Ven opens an arm to which Cheers happily accepts, nuzzling its nose into Ven’s neck. It’s only cheerful with him. Terra is most cheerful with all of them. A broken home renovated, a hearth revived, a clear sunrise over the mountains.

Those who know him as Master Terra hold onto him dearly, under a night sky that waits behind stained glass in a moment they keep to themselves, where the future is irrelevant and the past goes to sleep.

#terra #kh terra #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfic #aqua #ventus #AHHHH it's finally done OMG #i'm so burnt out and tired hahaha #my fic

15 notes · View notes

kessielrg · 3 years

Text

[DA+KH] Let Down Your Guard for Me (Just This Once)

Summary: An unofficial part of @chibi-mushroom‘s Dragon Age AU for the Kingdom Hearts series, in which Ventus invites Sabrina somewhere special for one-on-one sparring practice. Inspired by something that happened in chapter 36 of Dragon Age: Wayfinder.

Rating: K+ (because DesireDemon!Vanitas is a very angry critic)

Word count: 3,862 words

If you liked this story, please reblog!

---

The conspicuous sounds of Ventus grunting is what initially caught Sabrina’s attention. How she was able to hear it when he ended up being on the other end of Redcliffe Castle was beyond her. She was quite disappointed to find that he was in the training room. Training sword in hand, he was giving some potshots at a straw filled dummy. The bard, curious to see how long it would take for him to notice her, simply laid against the entryway in amusement.

He didn't take as long to notice her as she first assumed, however. His reaction at her being there was just as great in the meantime. Ven had caught her out of the corner of his eye. At first, he just as easily dismissed the intruder, since they were just staying at the door. It was when he noticed the light purple cotton blouse that he ceased his movements. He had turned completely around before finding himself shocked at Sabrina's presence.

“Sabri-” Ven exclaimed, his voice reaching a pitch so high that his voice cracked. He quickly covered it with a cough before trying again. “Sabrina. What are you doing here?”

“In the castle or in the room?” she replied with a wicked grin. “Because that first one shouldn't be a surprise. I sleep with you.”

The young man let out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck. Beads of sweat reminded him of just how hard he had made himself work. Did he look like he had given himself an intense workout? Oh Maker, how much did he stink? Would Sabrina even notice? She didn't seem to act like it was noticeable at the moment. Instead, the bard casually strode into the room and almost to his side. His face started to heat up the closer she was. Whether it was from embarrassment or being flustered was a little beyond him at the moment.

“Let me see your sword.” she requested, holding her hand out to him. Admittedly, Ven had to do a double take. His confusion immediately made her groan in disgust. She amended her previous statement with an annoyed, “The sword in your hand, you moron. The training sword.”

“Oh!” Ven realized -just as easily feeling dumb for his initial thought- before giving the sword to her.

Sabrina gave one last judgmental raise of her eyebrow being looking over the training sword more carefully. She held the wooden sword with both hands, occasionally taking a few test swings out of amusement. Ven simply watched as she let out a small hum of interest. In a thoughtful tone, she mused, “You've always held your swords in reverse.”

Confused, Ven asked, “What makes you say that?”

Sabrina moved closer to him again, holding the sword up so they could better examine its craftsmanship.

“Your practice sword has a special guard.” she informed him. She even bothered to run a finger along said guard to help him see it. “It's better designed to block incoming blows.”

After saying this, she picked up Ven's hand so he could take the sword back. Although the sword was back into Ven's possession, the two did not step away from each other. The air had become a bit heavier as they lingered there. Ven, for one, wanted to say something but didn't know what. Why was carrying on a conversation so hard? He never had this problem when he and Terra would seek trouble together. All they had to do was mention sparring each other, and they'd grab the training swords to head out to...

“I want to take you somewhere.” the young man blurted.

Sabrina looked at him. Her fingers instinctively going for her rabbit shaped mask- even present when she wasn't wearing it on her face, it clipped to a string that she tied around her waist. Ven immediately stopped her by placing his hand on hers. The bard flinched slightly at the unexpected touch, but didn't move him. Instead, she looked up at him with a certain darkness in her eyes.

Ven unintentionally gulped before quickly telling her, “You won't need your mask where we're going. Promise.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, but in seeing his honesty, she relented.

“Fine.” she agreed. “But at least let me put it in my room.”

Ven quickly gave her an eager nod. “Meet me at the back gates.”

“The back gates?” she repeated. “I… Whatever. Fine. I’ll meet you at the back gates in 10 minutes.”

“You won't regret it, I promise!” Ven eagerly told her, almost taking her hand. He was impressed by his own refrain, actually.

Sabrina still looked him over- as if she still needed some reason to bail out of the situation. They both knew she couldn't find a good excuse for this, though. When she finally turned to go put her mask away, Ven's heart was already pounding in his chest. Even if they were just going to get sweaty all over again, ten minutes was enough time to take a quick bath. Right?

. . .

It was always suspicious when Vanitas was silent for long periods of time. Even more so when Ventus's heart fluttered at the thought of Sabrina's presence. Today the desire demon was quiet- not that Ven was going to ruin that quiet. He needed all of his thoughts to belong to himself. Taking Sabrina to this spot was as important as remembering which spoon to use during a formal dinner. Maybe the demon knew this was important, so he was minding his own business for once? Didn't seem right, but Ven wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Where are we even going?” Sabrina asked. She had arrived at exactly the ten minute mark. Of course she would.

“Do you trust me?” Ven just as easily questioned, offering his hand out to her. He was answered with a skeptic raise of her eyebrow.

“For now.” she replied as she took his hand. The young man held her hand tight as he started to lead them away from the castle.

Ven held a brisk pace as he lead them around the town and to a wooded area. The sounds of the town disappeared the further they went, and eventually the sounds of gentle waves hitting the shore became more prominent. Ven let go of Sabrina's hand when the woods finally dispersed to a small beach facing Lake Calenhad. A small chill coming off the lake sent goosebumps up Ven's skin. He turned back to Sabrina to take careful notice of her expression. She didn't look very impressed- her eyes drifting to the sand, taking note that it was clear of driftwood.

“Terra and I used to come here when we were younger.” Ventus then explained. He moved closer to where the sand met the lake water just to subtly guide Sabrina out of the woods some more. “He found it one day after getting mad at Dad. After awhile, it became a place where we would spar each other for fun. I was… I was wondering if we could spar too...”

“Did you bring another practice sword, then?”

It was the bluntness of her question that caught Ven off guard. “H-huh?” he fumbled, looking back at her with an almost fearful expression.

“Figures.” she grumbled with a roll of her eyes. Placing a hand on her hip, Sabrina looked over the area before tilting her head at something. Ven wasn't quite paying attention. He was absently rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

“Really didn't think that through, huh?” he mused to himself. “We should head back.”

“No,” Sabrina then all but snapped at him. “Just give me a minute.”

At this, Ven looked up. Sabrina had already ventured by the trees bordering the area, apparently looking for something. The mage gave her a curious look as she went over some fallen limbs and branches.

“Here,” she noted before bending down to pick up a branch almost as long as her body and half the width of her arm. “This will do for now.”

“You mean you do want to spar with me?”

“We're already out here, aren't we?” came the callous reply. “Might as well make it productive.”

Ven watched as she knocked some excess dirt off, and even stripped the bark in certain places. For a moment, he wondered if he had ever seen her wield different weapons before. Let alone something like a sword, or fighting staff as she was going to treat this branch.

“I thought you used knives?” he wondered.

Sabrina just let out a little hum as she tested the staff in her hands. “A bard is trained in many things.” she claimed. “Like various weapons, seduction, potions, and-”

Sabrina got cut off when Ven attempted to attack her with his wooden sword. Her reaction time was just skilled enough that she blocked it with the staff. Just barely.

“And how not to gloat when the enemy is also armed?” Ven teased, pressing up against her a bit more just to playfully grin at her.

Sabrina's momentary look of bewilderment became a boastful smirk. “Something like that.” she agreed as she pushed him off. Ven let out a small laugh as he moved away from her a bit. They needed a better area for their practice- the main beach would have the space.

They were both incredibly confident as they got ready. Ven casually spun his sword with a single hand, his heart almost pounding in his ears as the grin on his face got wider. His cheeks were going to hurt later, and he didn't care one ounce. Sabrina stood tall as she adjusted herself for the fight. (And yes, he did notice that her foot was pointed when she brought one leg around to adjust her stance- assuming that little movement wasn't just to distract him.) She held her makeshift staff with enough certainty, you almost would have assumed that it was her weapon of choice. Sabrina was not a mage, though, and she certainly didn't plan on using it to channel magic.

“Whose count do we start on?” Ven asked. He couldn't even hide the excitement in his voice at the question. Something Sabrina countered with a firm smirk of her own.

“Mine.” she decided before lunging at him. Ven suspected as much, and was easily able to get out of the way. A laugh erupted from his lips as they continued to fight. Nothing else mattered at the moment- just him, her, and the sound of their wooden weapons knocking against each other.

. . .

Aqua needed an excuse to leave the castle for a moment. She had no sense of envy for the arl and arlessa- politics had never been the Hero of Ferelden's strong point. At least she was able to leave if the hustle and bustle served to be too much. Or, even use the distraction of finding Ven, who was no longer in the training room and apparently not even in the castle anymore either. He had a meeting to go to soon, and his random disappearance would probably be a cause for concern.

She wasn't going to lie about it, but Aqua had been worried at first. It wasn't until she realized that someone else hadn't been seen in the castle for awhile that she gained a certain hunch. A small trip to the training room helped support the theory. Now it was only a matter of where they went. It came to Aqua with a sudden realization- one that she was just as easily embarrassed about. Thinking on it more, it seemed only natural that he would take her there. After all, Terra had done the same with Aqua not too long ago.

“Have you seen Ven?” Aqua heard Terra ask her just as she was about to leave the castle. The Hero of Ferelden stopped just to look at her boyfriend.

“I was just about to go get him.” she affirmed. “Would you like to join me? I'm not quite familiar with the path yet.”

Terra raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask where she thought Ven was. Considering she made it seem like he would know where they were going anyway, he instead gave her a solemn nod of his head. Aqua beamed in satisfaction and gestured for them to walk together.

The woods had become more dense since the Fifth Blight. The canopy of the trees almost blocking out the sunlight as they moved away from the village. Sticks and small branches that had fallen out of the trees had also covered the ground- not quite big enough to be kindling, but too small to be used for much else than potential bird's nest supplies. It didn't take long for the duo to hear the sounds of some fight up ahead. From the sound of it, it seemed like wooden weapon against wooden weapon as the two duelists made snappy remarks at the other. Terra and Aqua recognized both voices at the same time.

“Not a bad parry.”

“I can do better. Watch this!”

“Oh, so close. So very, very close- yet so very far, far away.”

“Hmph. Maybe we should call a draw. You're not even trying.”

“Giving up already? It's not my fault you're easy to read, sweetie.”

Hearing them made Terra walk faster. He stopped when he and Aqua were close enough to see the other duo, but far enough away that they could still hide behind several trees. Aqua put a hand on him to guide him over a bit. She already knew he wasn't going to like this, so at the very least she could try to keep him out of sight for a bit longer.

“What is he doing here with her?” Terra questioned. His expression was darkening as his gaze locked onto Ventus and Sabrina. Most of it was targeted at the latter.

“For the same reason you brought me here, I'd guess.” Aqua calmly replied, even putting her hands behind her back. “He's getting her to open up. We can't interrupt them now, or they may never have this opportunity again.”

Terra looked at Aqua like she had gained another head.

“This is ridiculous.” he asserted. “Ven has other things he needs to-”

Terra was cut off when Aqua grabbed him by the collar, forcing the two of them to stand fairly close to each other. A mocking grin was etched on her lips as she told him, “Nobody interrupted us.”

Terra's face immediately lit up in a deep scarlet. He took several steps away from Aqua while refusing to look at her.

“I'll find Tidus and tell him that Ven is busy.” he grumbled under his breath. Aqua only smiled.

“Yes you will.” she agreed. Terra gave her a stiff nod before leaving. She laughed at him before turning her attention back to Ventus and Sabrina.

It was apparent that Ven was not used to fighting with a sword after so long. Sure, you could tell that he had fought with one in the past, but it was not at a level able to defend him in an actual battle. However, as Aqua observed with a tilt of her head, Sabrina was not showing the best of confidences with her two handed staff either. Of course, she had always been a more offense fighter than defense. There were small moments where Sabrina tried to be direct, only for her to leave an opening for Ven to exploit. It was equal to the times when Ven tried to prepare a spell, but remembered that he wouldn't use them- a small moment of hesitation that lead to a great advantage.

But it was their smiles that had Aqua's full attention. She couldn't see them well from here, however she could almost hear it in their voices as they bantered back and forth. Hearing Ven enjoy himself wasn't much different than usual. Hearing Sabrina with genuine amusement in her voice had been the more shocking discovery. It was in thinking that Ven was lucky enough to see this side of Sabrina, Aqua decided to quietly make her leave. She did make note of the sun's position, wondering how long it would take for the two to come back to the castle. The smile on her face wouldn't leave, no matter how hard she tried. It was great seeing the odd couple be so happy.

. . .

They never knew that they had gained onlookers for a few minutes. Even after Terra and Aqua left, Sabrina and Ven kept going at each other. Their faces were flushed from exertion, and their breaths came out heavy and shallow. But they kept going. Neither one wanting to give up the high they had in this form of intimacy. They weren't even keeping track of what they were saying to each other either. Words spilled out of their mouths that could have been flirting, or insults, or appreciation, and they would have forgotten their meanings almost instantly.

Their draw came without warning. It only took one last block that made the two pause. Ven's focus had immediately gone to Sabrina's eyes. Almost half lidded from her own exhaustion, they were trained to where his sword met her staff. If she was looking at anything else (anything lower), then the future arl had no way of knowing. He took a very careful step forward, bringing them almost chest to chest, and leading Sabrina to look up at him.

He almost kissed her, right then and there. As if he truly needed a reminder of how much he loved her.

“We work well together.” he managed to husk out. Sabrina simply looked at him. A certain sense of vulnerability and mutual attraction coming through that he'd only seen on her in the dark. It was even more beautiful in the day. Amazing, even.

“We do.” she agreed, not quite aware of her saying it.

But after this declaration, the tone started to become more somber. The weight of what they really meant coming down on them like a heavy fog. The gaze they soon gave each other measured an equal heartbreak. Ven moved forward just a bit more, closing the distance between their lips. Sabrina reacted by tilted her head up a bit, but didn't move much further than what they were.

“Please stay with us.” Ven then whispered.

“I… I don't know if I can.” she said. Her voice even more timid than his. “I only stayed as long as I did the first time because...” She trailed off, looking away from him as she took a few steps back. The corners of her mouth turned into a distressed frown. Ven only watched her- too afraid that any wrong movement would make her turn away. Her conflict on the situation was obvious. She couldn't easily find a way out of the situation- she felt trapped.

“This was a mistake.” Sabrina decided with a shake of her head. She immediately dropped the staff, turning away to leave. Ven was caught shaking his own head as well.

“N-no, wait!” he called out, not expecting it to work.

To his surprise, it did. Not knowing how much longer he had before she left for good, Ventus quickly tried to give her a speech from the heart.

“Sabrina, I love you. I love you so much that I don't even know how to express it. I don't know… I don't know how to say it so you know it too. So that you're sure that I'm telling the truth. And you know I can't just go reverse psychology on you because you'd still take it at face value. What do I need to do, Sabrina? What do I need to do to make sure you know that I love you?”

That was when Sabrina turned her body back toward him. She still refused to look him in the eye. She wanted to say something, but all words seemed to fail her. Instead, she just looked up at him with an expression so vulnerable that no other person would be able to see later. That was when he understood. Maybe not everything, but enough.

Ven used his hand to cup the side of her face, his thumb gently outlining her cheek. Sabrina cautiously leaned in to the embrace, placing one of her hands at his wrist. She didn't attempt to remove his hand- she didn't want to.

“I love you,” Ven once more said, almost afraid to say it, as he pulled them in for a small kiss.

The kiss had been bittersweet. At the same time, it bore a lot more affection than when they were actually heated. Pulling away had been the hardest thing to do.

“I'd rather you become an arl than Grey Warden.” Sabrina softly admitted. “But if you take on a political spouse, they have to fit my criteria before you ever dream of putting a ring on their finger. Got it?”

“I wouldn't have it any other way.” Ven smiled. Sabrina only offered a stiff nod. Her usual attitude was slowly returning- he could tell by the way she held herself. Her chest was lifting, her back a bit straighter, and any vulnerability was taken away to a hard callousness.

“I plan on staying in Ferelden until I receive word from Orlais. But I don't want to stay sitting at the castle. I need something to do.”

“You were still looking for things of your mother's, right?” Ven offered. A hand reaching behind his neck to absently rub it. “Maybe I can scout around for you. If there's a lead, we could go together to find it?”

In one last show of true emotion, Sabrina's eyes widened before her signature scowl came into play.

“I wouldn't mind that.” she agreed. The corner of her mouth twitched before adding, “Thank you.”

Ven offered her a small smile. She took it as a sign to leave. Her head was once more cast down as she went back through the trees.

'3 stars.'

Hearing the demon's voice in his head after so long nearly gave Ven a jolt.

'What?' the young man mentally replied, starting the trek back to the castle as well.

'I give this episode 3 stars. Good tension, but not a lot of build up between points. What even was that resolution? Did the writers not know how to end the story?'

'You do know that I have no idea what you're talking about, don’t you?'

'You're not the one that needs to.' Vanitas huffed. 'Could you guys do that thing were you take a bath and end up in bed after? I like that. I need it after this mess. You two really need to learn to start fucking it out when the tension's high, not bait switching it with pity. Sure, it gives Wabi-Sabi some development, but it train wrecks the whole mood. How hard is it just to get your shit together?'

Ventus couldn't help but roll his eyes. Nice to know that someone had faith in their relationship.

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pamphletstoinspire · 3 years

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The Ascension is Not a Pastoral Burden

Let’s admit it: the Solemnity of the Ascension is a practically marginal feast for Western Catholics. In many Western countries and much of the United States, it’s even been rendered ahistorical, shunted off from the fortieth day of Easter to the nearest Sunday. The dirty little secret is that the feast is so irrelevant to the self-understanding of most Catholics, evidenced by paltry Mass attendance on Ascension Thursday, that bishops, ostensibly to address the “pastoral burden” of attending Mass on a weekday, transferred the obligation to the next Sunday (where at least the remnant of Catholics still going to Church after the great episcopal lockdown of 2020 might ramp up attendance figures).

I want to suggest that our problems with belief in the Real Eucharistic Presence of Jesus are related to our ignoring of the Ascension.

In 2019—before ecclesiastical field hospitals struck tent and shut down last year—Pew reported that seven in ten American Catholics either misunderstood or simply rejected the Church’s faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

What does this have to do with the Ascension?

Dissident theologians since Vatican II have pushed a false model of Catholic faith and dogma in their effort to marginalize Catholic teaching they did not accept. In that model, some truths of the faith were “central” to the faith, others more “peripheral.” Catholics had to believe the “central” truths—like Jesus’ Incarnation or saving death—but had more “freedom” about those “more removed” from the central deposit of the faith (e.g., the Virgin Birth or the Assumption or most moral teachings apart from a generic “love your neighbor”).

This model of theology is false because Catholic teaching is not arrayed across a football field, with some truths on the kickoff line and others on the 40-yard line. A more Catholic understanding of our faith is one Joseph Ratzinger has recalled, even though it has a much older provenance: the “symphony” model.

The truths of our faith are not arrayed across a football field, some for the quarterback, others for the wide receiver, and a few hoping for a “Hail Mary” pass across the goalpost. The truths of our faith are a symphony, in which there are major motifs and minor notes, but which all illumine each other and work together to create not just a coherent, but a beautiful work where none of those elements are “optional extras” open to omission, much less rejection.

Ven. Tomás Morales, S.J., reminds us that “the Ascension closes the circle of love opened in the Incarnation. He takes us completely into heaven.” The Ascension is not Jesus’ closing act before dropping the curtain, having “done” what He set out to do. Jesus, out of love of human persons, became a human being in the flesh and redeemed us. Having redeemed us as our Priest, Sacrifice, and Advocate, He returns to His Father to “always plead our cause” (Preface for Easter III) in the flesh at the right hand of God.

Jesus’ Ascension is not, therefore, a marginal event whose celebration imposes a workday “pastoral burden.” (Couldn’t He have waited till the weekend to do the “goodbye” thing?) It is the continuation “in heaven” of His Work “as it was on earth.”

So, the questions for the Ascension become: (1) do we really believe this is a watershed moment (and mystery) in Jesus’ life and (2) do we really believe that human flesh and blood is in heaven?

I suggest that the answers of many Catholics to the second question range from “I don’t know” to “no” to “does it matter?” And if those are our answers to the mystery of the Ascension, it’s not hard to understand why pollsters asking about the Real Presence got answers ranging from “I don’t know” to “no” to “does it matter?”

Perhaps at one time an understanding of a disincarnate “spirituality” accounted for such thinking. Perhaps we so focused on Jesus that we forgot that Jesus “reveals man to himself” (St. John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, # 8) so that, where the Head has gone is relevant for the Body that will follow. Or perhaps we really don’t believe much and just go through the motions.

Our culture does not help. The constant drumbeat today is one of a gnostic, disincarnate anthropology that reduces human beings to thoughts or, more accurately, wants with a body attached. What I “want” is “me.” The body is at best a malleable tool to meet those desiderata, at worst a prison oppressing “me.” Ancient Greek dualists had nothing on moderns who think of sex as a psychological state, personhood as consciousness or conferred by the “choice” of another, and other deficient philosophical and theological anthropologies. The problem is that these anthropologies are not just intellectual errors but inflict real damage to persons who should be loved.

And even Catholics cannot swim in these polluted intellectual currents without absorbing some of the toxins.

If “I” am a thought with a body attached, the Ascension (and Assumption) are meaningless: what does it matter that Jesus (or Mary) is body and soul in heaven? If “I” am consciousness, Jesus was in fact a fool: the Passion was melodramatic overkill for salvation that He could have just wished. Time and history are irrelevant: if the body is just $2.98 worth of chemicals serving a particular person at a contingent moment of history, then history is unimportant; it’s all an eternal return and so who cares if it’s Ascension Thursday or Sunday or Saturday afternoon or even if it’s the Ascension?

The Resurrection is irrelevant: as liberal Protestant exegetes once put it pace 1 Corinthians 15, “what would it matter if we dug up the bones of Jesus?” The General Resurrection of all humanity is both meaningless and absurd, imaging it were “even possible,” much less necessary, that all human persons be united soul and body.

And if the body is sub-personal and subject to the “me” that wills, then the Eucharist as the “Real Presence” of Jesus, body and soul, humanity and divinity, is an absurdity: all we need is “spiritual Communion,” joining our thoughts and hearts to Jesus. (This is why the ongoing blur about getting Catholics back to being present at real Mass is not just a pastoral disservice but a theological danger in which the bishops appear to be acquiescing.)

The French poet Charles Péguy wrote in “Je suis leur Père” of Jesus bringing to heaven “a certain taste for man, a certain taste for the earth.” Perhaps the reason we don’t “get,” much less celebrate, the Ascension is that we have lost that taste here on earth.

BY: JOHN M. GRONDELSKI

#ascension

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pine-lark · 4 years

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later at night

Hi so last time you heard of Ven in “soup” was when he was just starting to let his sympathy get the best of him, right? Well, I have a bad habit of skipping around in timelines, and this is a big leap! There’s a lot of development coming in between these drabbles but for now it’s just… a BIIIIG jump from “hi I’m a decent person now probably” to “oh look they’re in love now”. So uh. Without any context or further ado, enjoy! ✨

(also, for those of you who looked at the masterlist going, “wait wait wait…. RECAPTURE ARC???” uh…………. Yeeeeah. About that. *slips into vent*)

CWs: tiny!whumpee, tiny!whumpers, tiny!caretaker, romance (nonsexual- these are my lil tiny hopeless ace romantics!!), forced nudity (nonsexual), implied recent noncon/aftermath of noncon, captivity and implication that only some captives are ‘allowed’ clothing, implied starvation, implied wing whump/amputation, implied reluctant!whumper/caretaker dynamic where Ven essentially has no choice but to participate in the torture of Arion and then comforts him when no one else can see, this is generally just a pretty sad drabble about Ven sacrificing the few things he has for Arion who he feels needs it more.

Arion’s legs collapse when he tries to stand, so when he slips into Ven’s cupboard, quiet and hurting, he’s half-crawling, half-sliding. He’s a mess. A bleeding, aching mess with sharp, pained eyes and tear-stained cheeks, still red from the backhand slap and the following deep, burning shame. He feels horrible. Used. Disgusting. Uncomfortably warm, that same sickening feeling on his skin that a fever may invoke. But it’s not a fever.

Being completely spent, with no more energy to spare, his arms tremble to a halt once he’s within the safety of the cabinet’s walls and he collapses right there, headfirst, one limb failing at a time.

“A- Arion?” Ven yelps from somewhere in the room, surprised and panicked and heartbroken all at once. Arion barely registers Ven’s hurried footsteps before he’s at his side, handing him a thin, worn blanket to cover with, brushing careful, fleeting hands over his shoulder and through his hair. Ven’s black wings move to shelter him, to hide him from the lingering gazes and hands that aren’t there anymore, but still stain like ink in his mind. “Arion… what- what did they do to you, what did they- Ari…” His voice drops to a hoarse whisper as Arion breaks into sobs. Ven reaches for him, pauses to ask before touching. Gathers him in his arms.

Arion seems thinner than he was the last time Ven held him. His hair is matted, greasier, thin. Brittle. All of him is brittle. Ven’s noticed his healing is slower than it used to be. It only took a few days to mend his own bones when he first got here, Ven remembers, after Heston lost it and broke both Arion’s legs with the big sledge hammer that always had hung near all the knives. Ven had cowered then, safer in his cabinet with his hands over his ears, backed up in the corner with wide eyes as he heard the screams and Heston’s yelling. You thought you could run? Just thought you could pack up and leave? That you had a right to go to some nice little house, and heal and sleep and eat like a pig, and you thought that was fine?

His body had healed quickly then, from nearly a year of mending, nearly a year of being safe in a warm cabin with someone there to protect him. But now… now it’s been a week, maybe two, since Arion had been knocked off the garage desk and crippled; and he still limps, if he can even manage to walk at all.

The blanket, the one that’s been there even before Ven, is scarce and small and full of holes and barely covers Arion, let alone keep him warm. It’s been passed from captive to captive over the years, Ven assumed, until finally it was himself who landed the luck to be placed in a cabinet like the others, and not a cage.

Ven’s stomach lurches. It wasn’t really luck, though, was it.

Arion chokes on his own tears and coughs at the breath that catches in his cracked ribs. He shifts closer to Ven, arms to his chest, nuzzles pleadingly at the collar of Ven’s shirt. Closer, please, closer, hold me closer, the gesture says, but Ven’s afraid of holding him any tighter, afraid of brushing up against an open wound, afraid of hurting what’s already hurt. He presses a kiss to Arion’s temple, instead. “Want to lie down?” he whispers. “We can lie down on my mat.”

He nods in answer but as soon as Ven shifts to stand, Arion’s voice breaks, his fingers tuck into the folds of Ven’s shirt with a white-knuckle grip, he holds tightly to him with renewed desperation. Don’t let go, he says, words broken and taught and barely audible, please don’t let go, please, don’t let go of me, I need you, I need you, and by the time he says those last words his voice is gone and he’s just mouthing them. Just silent, heavy truths.

Ven hushes him in the gentlest, most patient voice, weighted with the sheer ache nested deep within his chest. “I won’t. I won’t,” he promises. “I’m not letting go, Arion. Not until you ask me to let go. I’m here.” He moves to stand once more but this time he makes certain to keep a firm hold on the other shaking arivie. “I’m here, I’m staying,” he murmurs. “They won’t find you here.” With some effort he helps Arion to stand, but only so that he can easier sweep him off his feet, and carry him the rest of the way.

Ven’s mat is no nest, and it’s no dollhouse bed. It’s dirty and worn and the old fabric is itchy but it’s so much better than the floor, so much better than the cage. Arion melts into it as Ven sets him down. The tension in his shoulders eases and the growing headache at the base of his skull begins to ebb. His breathing still hitches but its slows, deepens. Ven sits at the side of the mat, but hesitates there.

It doesn’t sit right with him, that all Arion has is the pathetic little piece of cloth to cover. Ven’s own clothes start to feel too hot, though he’s only wearing a black t-shirt and pants that feel of thin, synthetic fabric. He knows it’s wrong. Knows that Arion wouldn’t be here, cold and bare and terrified and starving, if it weren’t for Ven’s selfishness.

He’d still be at that cabin.

He watches Arion try to curl in on himself, draw his legs closer to his chest, move the flimsy blanket forward to feel less open, less seen, less vulnerable. Ven feels a sharp pang in his chest, just from the sight.

“Do you remember, when, when I said I would give you the clothes off my back, Ari…” he says, quietly.

Arion turns his head to meet his gaze.

“I, um.” He swallows. “I meant it, you know.” He thumbs the hem of his shirt, just a little too big and meant for a doll. He lifts his arms, pulls it over his head.

“Ven, I, no no no no no, you don’t, don’t have to-“

“Please take it.” He says. “Both. I- I’d rather you have them.” He watches the sad way Arion regards his long, pale scars. He hates having them uncovered. His skin starts to crawl. But it’s better than what he knows he’d feel if he deliberately let someone he loves go unclothed while he didn’t, while he held them but still wouldn’t let them have what he was unrightfully given. Ven swallows thickly against the crashing, threatening waves of guilt resting in his throat like a stone. “It’s not fair. Ari, please let me.”

Arion shakes his head, wipes away a few stray tears with a bruised wrist. “I-I can-can’t, can’t, can’t, I, I can’t, Ven, can’t. Don’t. You need- they’re yours.”

“I have wings, Arion, I- I’m okay. I’d rather it be me than you. I’d rather it be me.” Those words have more weight to them than he voices. I’d rather it be me.

Arion takes the shirt in his hands, but he doesn’t move to put it on. “I’ll, I’ll get them, I’m dirty, I-“

“They have a little blood on them anyway. I don’t care. Arion. Please.” He waits for Arion to shift to slip it over his head before he sinks his hands to his waistband- and Arion softly turns to look away- and Ven pauses only briefly at the vague breath of a horrible memory before sliding off the only other layer of clothing he’s allowed to wear. His wings circle around him, wrap over his sides like a long, thick black towel, and even still he feels guilty that at least he has that, at least he always has something.

Arion looks like he’s about to cry, as Ven hands that last piece of clothing to him. Like he’s about to refuse, like he wants to so badly, but he knows that it’s only out of love that Ven’s doing this and for that reason he can’t quite bring himself to. It’s as if this is some grand gift, the greatest sacrifice, something so tremendous that he can’t except and it shouldn’t be that way, it should never be that way. Ven whispers small assurances that yes, he still means it. Yes, take it. Really, he’s okay. He’ll be okay. He’s just fine. Please take it. Please sleep.

And even as he says it he knows that if anyone found them like this they’d both be dead or worse by morning. But, at this point, for both of them, to be alone and to have the opportunity for a little comfort among all the suffering…

It’s worth the risk.

---

tagging: @whumping-every-day, @deluxewhump, @sola-whumping @haro-whumps, @inaridriscoll, @whatwasmyprevioususername, @kiretto-laorentze @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @ahorriblebimess

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daybreak-academy-fanfic · 4 years

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Daybreak Academy: Chapter 99

Intervention

Summary: In which Ephemer has a bad feeling about this. Word Count: 1,733 First | Previous | Next ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆

He never thought he'd see the day when he'd run out of places to hide. And of course Anora was the reason behind it too.

Curse her.

But not too much; he still wanted her to live a long, healthy life.

If only he was made to live the life of a hermit. Then he could just play stakeout in his room until classes started back up. When the first Vulpes and Leopardus cross house class happened, he'd just pretend to be sick. It was a brilliant plan. But Ephemer was not made to be a hermit. He could barely sit down at his desk to play solitaire without tapping his foot on the ground. Everyone knew this, and so now everyone was trying to corner him.

Not that he could confirm that they were. It was just this feeling that he got, like when Skuld was acting odd during the spring play. It was a secret superpower that he held on to with a tight righteousness. Rest assured, this feeling that something was wrong was an absolute curse too. He didn’t know where, or how, or even when something would happen. He just knew that it was due to happen soon.

Ephemer had been so on edge that when he tried to eat lunch, he almost couldn’t. Who, in the name of the Nine Old Men, decided to put raspberries in the fruit parfait this week?

“Mind if I sit with you?”

Brought out of his thoughts by the prudent voice, Ephemer looked up to see Sabrina casting a rather hard expression at him. The young man shook his head, gesturing for her to sit across from him. Sabrina did so before looking over at his tray.

“You gonna eat that?” she asked. “I skipped breakfast this morning.”

“You can have it.” he said as he shoved the tray her way. “I’m not hungry.”

“Thanks.” the girl replied before starting to pick at the food. Ephemer didn’t know what else to do but to watch her. Eventually, after taking a sip of milk, Sabrina asked him, “So, what did you do during break?”

She sounded like she really didn’t want to know, honestly. But Ephemer told her anyway. As Sabrina continued to make her way through the food, the two of them had simple conversations about their breaks. Her answers back to him consisted of only one or two sentences- if Ephemer’s level of suspicion wasn’t already raised, it would have been.

“This is the most we've talked in awhile.” he pointed out. “Is something wrong?”

For this, Sabrina gave him a small half shrug. “I was just told to distract you.” she callously told him. “Something about getting you to talk to your girlfriend.”

Something in Ephemer froze. “I don't have a girlfriend.” he told her- his voice wavering for a moment.

The ten year old cocked an eyebrow at him. “You mean that pink haired chick you keep trying to avoid isn't your girlfriend?”

Ephemer almost let out a sharp gasp in surprise. This was it. This was what he was so afraid of- someone, somewhere, was staging an intervention.

“I think Ven was supposed to help, since this seems like a Dandelion thing.” the girl went on as if she couldn't detect Ephemer's worrying. “But Brain said he wanted to let me help. Something about 'you could be a good spy if you wanted to' or some dumb thing like that.”

“Sabrina,” Ephemer then said, “I-I have to go. I don’t think I’m, uh, feeling very well.”

The girl looked at him and simply let him go as Ephemer dashed out of the cafeteria. Letting out a hard sigh, Sabrina dug for her phone and started to pull up a number that was just added to her contacts this morning. She barely had to wait for someone to pick up.

“Hey Brainiac, I messed up the mission. Huh? Where was he heading? Hmm… About the direction of the dorms. Yep, any time.”

With that, the girl hung up her phone and continued to eat the rest of the lunch she stole from Ephemer. She didn’t know what he was running from, but he definitely wasn’t going to win that battle today.

. . .

Ephemer nearly cursed when he saw Lauriam and Strelitzia heading his way. By the time his brain registered that he needed to walk in the opposite direction, the two siblings were already close enough to take him by the elbow. In fact, they did just that as Lauriam cheerfully greeted him.

“Ah Ephemer, it’s such a shame that we haven’t been able to meet since Strelitzia and I came back to campus. How have you been?”

“I…” Ephemer faltered. He took quick glances between the brother and sister. They were in on it. He could tell by that equal look in their eyes. “I was just going for a walk.”

“So were we.” Lauriam agreed with a calm nod. “Come, let us walk over to the main building. I heard they set up a display on the main floor to welcome everyone back.”

Even if Ephemer had tried to protest, it would have been futile. The grip Lauriam had on his elbow was unsurprising, but it was Strelitzia -who took to wrapping her whole arm around his elbow- that had a surprising amount of strength to her. Ephemer didn’t have a choice as the two guided him into the main building. Turns out, they hadn’t been lying when they said the main floor had been decorated. How did he not notice that before?

Not that it mattered- he needed to find a way out of Strelitzia’s grasp. But how?

“Hey, Strelitzia,” Ephemer casually tried to say as the three of them were looking over some of the art students' work, “You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s more stuff on display upstairs, do you?”

Strelitzia let out a little hum in thought. She gave Lauriam a small glance- when her brother gave her a nod, she let out another agreeing hum. “I think so.” she said. “Would you like to go check?”

Ephemer gave her a quick nod. “Yes please.”

It physically hurt to watch as Strelitzia tilted her head from side to side- as if she were deciding to kidnap Ephemer instead.

“Alright,” she finally agreed, much to Ephemer’s relief, “Go see if there’s more to the display upstairs. Lauriam and I will remain here.”

“Thanks Zee, you’re the best.” Ephemer said as she let go of his arm. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as a distraction before he quickly dashed up the staircase.

Strelitzia was bashful for all of a moment before remembering the mission. She turned to Lauriam and said, “Quick, call Brain.”

“Already on it.” her brother affirmed- his phone already up to his ear as it rang over. When Brain picked up on the other end, Lauriam didn’t waste any time in filling him in. “He’s going up the stairs now. Tell Skuld to be prepared. Of course. We’ll be on standby if anything rises. Not a problem.”

“Well?” Strelitzia asked as Lauriam put down his phone. He looked at her with a particularly cunning grin.

“It’s all up to Skuld now.”

. . .

Ephemer did curse when he almost ran into Skuld in the hallway. She was standing by the door to one of the homerooms. He hated that he could tell that she had been waiting for him.

“In a hurry?” she teased without skipping a beat.

“Yes.” Ephemer immediately replied. “I mean no! I mean, ack! Just get out of my way Skuld! I don’t have time to play mind games with you today.”

“Why?” his friend challenged. “Need something from the classroom?”

Ephemer had to take the moment to think. The classroom should have been empty still, right? He could hide out in there until everyone decided to get off his case. Maybe it would take a few hours. Or the rest of the afternoon. Or even until classes started back up. He was a flexible guy.

“Yes.” Ephemer decided. “I did a lot of scavenger hunts with myself over break, you see? Turns out I left one of my favorite pencils in there, and I need to get it back before classes start up. So would you please get out of the way?”

“Alright.” Skuld agreed with a shrug. She even opened up the door for him and gestured for him to enter.

“Thanks.” he nodded. It didn’t even hit him that she could have been trying to trick him until the door shut behind him.

Ephemer immediately spun around to try to open the door again. “Why’s the door locked?!” Ephemer wondered out loud in horror.

“That's because we need to talk.”

Every fiber in Ephemer's body froze. He turned toward the teacher's desk to see the seat turn around to face him. Sitting there was Anora.

“H-hey Anora.” he sheepishly greeted. “Long time no see.”

She did not give him an answer. Instead, she quirked an eyebrow at him. With the grace of a figure skater, Anora pulled herself out of her seat and walked toward him. Her arms were folded in front of her chest as she looked right at him. She stopped just short of being within arm's length of Ephemer. A lump formed in Ephemer's throat when he realized he could see the determination in her eyes. Oh blessed Mary Blair, he was weak.

“I...” Ephemer started to croak, but stopped himself. This was a real bad time to admit he still loved her. Wasn't it? This was an intervention, after all. There was no way that this was going to be that easy. It wasn't like she still loved him too. Right?

Right...?

“Ephemer,” Anora finally spoke- her voice low and almost pleading, “I want -need- to talk. And I need you to listen for all of five minutes. Can you do that for me?”

At this point, Ephemer was sure that he was going to have a heart attack or a brain aneurysm. He had no idea what she had planned. But whatever it was, he could tell that it was important. Swallowing back dry saliva, he rasped out a nervous, “S-sure.”

Anora let out a soft sigh. When she looked up at him again, she was ready to tell him her story.

#daybreak academy #chapter 99 #kingdom hearts fanfiction #Ephemer #Sabrina #Lauriam #Strelitzia #Skuld #Anora #Season 3

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rottmntrulesall · 4 years

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Venus and Hamato Family Story: Cherished Little Treasure

This was a gift fic by @fanfic-inator795 . After the events of “Many Unhappy Returns”, the Hamato Family are introduced to the Turtles’ little miracle. Little Sister Venus x Sibling/Family AU combined.

Venus might have been quite the little surprise - not just for her aunts and uncles, but supposedly for her father and brothers as well.

After the Shredder had been taken care of for the moment, they had left for Japan to pick up a few things before returning - Saki didn’t trust Big Mama whatsoever, and while his siblings agreed with that, they also just wanted an excuse to spend more time with their brother and nephews.

After not seeing Yoshi- Lou- Splinter for so long, could anyone really blame them? Aimi certainly couldn’t, she had been eager to get back as well (even if taking a break from the sewer smells was admittedly nice...).

However, when they returned to New York City just a few weeks later, they discovered not just Splinter and their nephews… but a baby niece as well. To say their family had been a bit, well… shell-shocked at the sudden appearance of the little turtle girl was an understatement, to say the least.

“Iiiiit’s kind of a long, sort of sad story,” Splinter had half-heartedly explained when first asked, “But let’s not worry about that now! Let us focus on the present… and my wittle Venus~” He then nuzzled her scaly cheek, and Baby Venus squeaked and smiled a little at the fur that tickled her.

“Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Aimi said softly. Frankly, she didn’t need an explanation. If the mutant members of her family were happy, then so was she - and she was definitely happy when she was given permission to hold and hug her new granddaughter.

So, not having much of a choice, the rest of the Hamato Clan settled back into the atrium, each of them taking their turn in meeting little Venus De Milo Hamato-Jitsu.

“Not that it isn’t a lovely name, but why Venus?” Nori asked as she gently rocked the little Indian tent-turtle in her arms.

“Well, her brothers are all named after artists,” Splinter began to explain, “So, I thought why not name her after a piece of art? Keep it going with the theme and all.”

“And it’s a good thing he came up with that idea instead,” Leo spoke up, giving his pop a sly smirk, “When she first hatched, he thought about naming her Eggy.”

Splinter scowled, swatting a tail at his blue-masked son, who just laughed. “I was still trying to think of names! Sometimes it just takes me a bit to think of one, that’s all!”

“Is that why you still call us by our colors most of the time?”

“Hey, you try and keep track of four different names while trying to keep up with all of you!”

Nori chuckled, and looked back down at her niece. Venus was staring up at her with curious brown eyes. “You have a very silly papa, Ven-chan,” Nori told her, gently petting the side of the turtle’s tiny head with her thumb, “But he and your brothers still love you very much, and so do we.”

Venus just yawned, and snuggled up to her auntie’s chest. “Awww…” Nori began to hum an old lullaby she had remembered her mother singing to her as she continued to rock the baby turtle to sleep…

()()()()()()()()()()()()

“I just can’t believe how small she is~!”

“It makes sense. She’s a baby. Babies are small.” Mei reached out, poking Venus’ cheek. Venus pouted a bit at that, moving her face away. “And squishy. Squishier than I thought a turtle would be.”

“Stop that, Mei,” Hiroki scolded, “You’re going to make her cry!” Thankfully, the scowl didn’t stay on her face too long, especially not when Venus began to coo and babble. “Ugh, I just LOVE her! We are definitely going to have to get her some proper close though.” Splinter hadn’t even bothered making his sons wear clothes most of the time, just belts and masks. “We’ll have to get her some dresses and yukatas, and especially a kimono! She can wear it for her 100 day ceremony! And maybe some more ribbons and hats-”

“And a set of kunai,” Mei stated, “Maybe some shuriken too.” When her older sister gave her another look, Mei simply said, “What? She may be a baby now, but she’ll have to train eventually like we all had to - and if she’s anything like her brothers, she’ll want to train anyway once she sees her father in his movies.” Not that she would be able to look down on her - or any of her nephews - for that. Lou was pretty cool back in the day, after all. “We might as well help her get a head start.”

“Why don’t we save knives for her seventh birthday, alright?” Hiroki suggested, “And in the meantime, we can dress her up like a little princess! You would like that, wouldn’t you Venus?” Venus blinked, mumbling to herself as she sucked on her hand. She then looked past her aunts at her uncle, who despite staring at her still hadn’t tried any closer. Tilting her head slightly, she gave a small shout, hand still halfway in her mouth.

“Oh! Uh, hello,” Hikari nodded, giving her a small wave. He had to agree with his twin somewhat, Venus was pretty cute. Even if she was a baby turtle… Frankly, he was still trying to get used to teenage turtles, along with all the other strange creatures and yokai he had encountered lately.

Venus called out again, bringing Hikari out of his thoughts. “Yes, hello, I see you,” he said, waving again. But Venus just continued to make small shouts, waving her arm at him. Just what did she want?

Hiroki rolled her eyes at her brother. “She wants you to play with her - like this!” In one swift motion, she swooped her niece up and began tickling her tummy. ...Though, when she realized that wouldn’t exactly work on a turtle, she moved her hand to Venus’ tiny foot. That definitely did the trick, making Venus squeal and squirm with giggles. “See! She likes playing! Now you try!”

“Er…” Hikari moved a bit closer, feeling nervous. He had interacted with babies before, he knew they were typically harmless. But with Venus still being part animal, he couldn’t help but worry about her potentially biting him if she didn’t like him for whatever reason.

So instead of getting his hands near her, Hikari instead stuck his tongue out at her, crossing his eyes a bit. He tried making other silly faces too, and even threw a bit of peek-a-boo in there, covering his face occasionally in-between changing expressions.

“...Wow. And you all say I am the weird one in the family,” Mei dryly commented while Hiroki tried her hardest not to cringe at her twin. But just then, Venus started to laugh again - even clapping her hands a couple times before trying to mimic her uncle’s silly faces.

Hikari smiled a little at that. “I guess you like me after all, huh? “GA!” “Heh, thank you, little one…”

()()()())))()()()()()()()()()()()

“-and our clan had been able to save several villages and many people that day, with your great, great, great grandmother leading us to victory! Of course, that is just one of our family’s many stories. There was another time, a little later on, when-”

“Uncle Kenji?”

Kenji smiled as he looked over his shoulder. “Hello Raphael. Did you or your father need something?” Last he heard, Splinter was taking a well deserved nap after little Venus had been up all night, and Kenji had volunteered to take the day shift, wanting to have some bonding time with her before Nori or Hiroki could swoop in and snatch her up again.

Raph shook his head as he walked around to sit beside his uncle and sister on the couch. “Nah, just seein’ what you guys were doin’.”

Recognizing her oldest brother immediately, Venus smiled at him, making excited churs and shouts. Raph practically beamed at that. “She’s so cute~!”

“Heh, she certainly is,” Kenji agreed, adjusting his hold on her so she could see her brother better.

“...Do you remember what it was like when my dad was a baby?” Raph asked after a moment, fidgeting with his hands a little, “Like… do you remember what it was like being a big brother to someone who was so much younger than you?”

“Well, my brother is only three years younger than me,” Kenji explained, “Given that I was only a toddler when Yo- Splinter was born, I don’t remember our earliest years together too well, only the times after that. However, I do remember what it was like when the twins and Mei were born, so I do have some experience with babies.”

“Ah, right…” When his nephew glanced away, Kenji gave him a curious look.

“Is there anything else you would like to ask? Or anything you would like to say?”

“Well…” Venus began to babble again, and Raph held his hand out to her. He smiled a little as Venus tugged and squeezed his fingers, but he also couldn’t help but wince a little at the fact that his hand was twice the size of her head.

“...You know I love Venus, right? A-And I love havin’ her around but… I’m not used to bein’ a big brother to someone who isn’t just a year or two younger than me…” He frowned, using his other arm to sort of hug his midsection. “What if I accidentally hurt her? Or she ends up hatin’ me when she gets older? Or-” Raph stopped when he felt Kenji put a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Raphael, I can promise that she will not ever hate you,” Kenji told him, “You are just as kind to her as you are to your brothers, she could never hate someone with a heart like that. And as for hurting her… Yes, I can understand the worry. She is quite small, and a bit fragile, but you are also gentle and careful. You haven’t hurt her yet, right?”

“Well, no but- hey!”

Taking the distraction opportunity, Kenji quickly moved Venus out of his lap and into Raph’s. The snapper froze for a moment, instincts taking over as he tried to give Venus proper support so she didn’t fall or hurt herself. Venus whined a bit at the sudden activity, though luckily it didn’t take her long to get comfy again. Parts of her big brother might’ve been spiky, but that didn’t stop other parts of him from being soft.

“...” Raph sighed a bit, relaxing ever so slightly.

“See? You are doing great!” Kenji said as he patted him on the shell, “Sometimes the best way to gain some confidence around babies is to just get comfortable holding them, and to let them get comfortable around you.”

Raph smiled a little as Venus snuggled deeper into his arms. “Heh, I think she’s already got the comfortable part down.”

Kenji chuckled. “I suppose so. ...Say, did I ever tell you about the time Splinter and I tried exploring the forests near our home? We had been hoping to find ghosts, or perhaps an abandoned magic sword.”

Already curious and being a huge fan of his uncle’s stories, Raph sat back as he and his little sis listened to Kenji’s tales.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Venus hadn’t seen this much activity in her home since her aunts, uncles and granny first came to visit them. Everyone was moving around, setting up various decorations, tables and more.

“Man, how come we never got a fancy 100 day meal-ceremony?” she heard Big Blue mumble as he and Big Purple cleaned the last of the tv room’s space.

“Because back then, I’d be lucky enough to just find food for us for the day, let alone things like mochi, tai and sekihan,” Daddy explained, “Though, for the record, I still considered it a miracle when the four of you survived 100 days.”

Looking over to the coffee table that had been set up in front of her Daddy’s chair, Auntie Nori and Granny were setting up fancy dishes in red and white bowls. Venus still didn’t quite understand why - if they were hungry, why didn’t they just drink milk like she did? What was so great about this food stuff anyway?

Just another mystery for her baby mind… like the outfit they had made her wear for this supposedly special day. Venus gave a small huff as she tugged at her kimono again. The fabric was pretty and soft, but she didn’t like how constricting it felt around her shell and arms. It was like a blankie, but she couldn’t just throw it off whenever she felt like it. So annoying…

Though, speaking of annoyed- A slight grumble brought her attention to the tv room’s entrance, where her grumpiest uncle stood. However, his scowls and glares didn’t bother Venus in the slightest compared to how they bothered everyone else in her family, and when Saki began walking away, she rolled herself onto her hands and knees and began following him, not caring if she was getting her kimono dirty.

“A complete waste of time,” Saki huffed. 100 day meals were traditional, yes, but the infant receiving this one was anything but ‘traditional’ and normal! And even if she was, Saki still considered it a waste of time. If he had things his way, he’d be training in the garage/dojo, but Donnie had locked it up tight along with his lab, following his father’s orders that no work would be done that day, only celebration.

Saki had briefly thought about breaking the lock, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with his siblings complaining about it. Maybe he would just go on a walk around the city instead. By the time he got back, the meal would be over, and at least he would be doing something produc-

“Ah!” He felt a tiny hand pull at his pant leg.

Looking down, Saki saw that it was the tiny Guest of Honor herself. Scoffing, Saki stepped away from her, but Venus just crawled forward, tugging on his pants again. “Ugh…” No baby that young should be crawling already. The logical part of his mind reasoned that it made sense - she was a turtle, moving on all fours was natural even at a little over three months. But the more stubborn part of him chalked it up as yet another thing that made her an abomination, a mutant that shouldn’t exist, no matter how seemingly cute and ‘innocent’ she may have been.

Whether she was unaware of her uncle’s feelings towards her or simply didn’t care, it didn’t matter. Venus just smiled and stretched her arms up, making grabbing motions as she gave small shouts.

“No,” Saki said firmly. Venus didn’t stop. “I said no.” Venus didn’t stop. “I don’t like mutants!” The turtle-girl remained undeterred. “Ugh…” Knowing that she would just continue to follow him if he tried to walk away again, Saki reluctantly picked her up. “There, now understand that while we may technically be family, you are still a yokai creature and therefore-!”

Venus smiled up at him, giving a small giggle as she reached up towards his face. Saki braced himself for her to start smacking and pulling, and was more than ready to start yelling at her for it. However, surprisingly, Venus was gentle. She lightly touched and squished her uncle’s cheeks before moving down to his beard - a feature that, while darker and shorter than her father’s, still reminded her of him - cooing all the while.

“...” Saki remained stoic, even if internally he felt a bit awkward having this baby turtle touch his face.

Once she was satisfied, Venus snuggled into her uncle’s arms, resting her head on his broad shoulder. “...I still don’t like you,” he told her, even as his hand instinctively began stroking her back just as he had done with his own child when they were an infant.

“Oh Venus! Sweetie, where did you-?” Splinter emerged from the tv room, and blinked when he saw his brother. “Saki? You’re-”

Immediately, Saki moved Venus from his arms to her father’s. With a slight sneer, he told him, “You should teach your daughter not to bother others,” though his tone didn’t have quite as much bite as it usually did. He then walked away towards one of their home’s exit tubes, not once bothering to look back at them.

“...” Venus stared at her uncle before looking at her father for answers, cooing curiously.

Splinter just sighed, giving her a small kiss on the forehead. “Come on, little one. There are plenty of other people who wish to celebrate your life.” With that, he took Venus back inside.

She was placed in front of the fancy food, and while she was still much too young to eat it herself, the meaning and symbolism behind the dishes still rang true for her family as they ate it along with the other foods Mikey had prepared. “Pizza and hot soup are both very important parts of this fam,” he had insisted, “They should be part of EVERY celebration.”

“A new type of tradition,” Splinter nodded, lifting a cup of tea to his second-youngest and his culinary efforts.

Seeing this, Venus tried to do the same, raising her bottle with a small cheer. Her family laughed and smiled, and Venus smiled back. Maybe she didn’t always understand her aunts or uncles, or even her father, brothers and April at times, but she still knew how much they loved and cared about her. And really, that was all she needed.

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roxasboxas · 5 years

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An Exhaustive Post About WHY I Hate Eraqus So Fucking Much

*back on my bullshit voice* so the thing about Eraqus, right

We don’t see a lot of him, so when analyzing him we have to focus on his impact on other characters. And the first thing to note is how a lot of people in canon consider him pretty great, for whatever reason. But, again, we don’t see him being much of anything. So, his lasting effects on other characters are where it’s at.

Terra

Terra doesn’t display any actual skill when it comes to being able to tell who’s trustworthy.

Some of it comes from him not having grown up on Disney movies like we have, but even then a lot of the people he falls in with over the course of BBS are pretty blatantly suspicious. A lot of people put this on him as a personal failing, but I’d argue that a good deal of that falls on Eraqus, his fucking teacher-dad who was supposed to help keep him safe and know how to keep himself safe.

Although, in all fairness, this may be a skill Eraqus lacks, too, as he hangs out with Xehanort.

Still, though, Terra seems to trust people (especially authority figures) with an almost unnatural absoluteness in most circumstances (ie, any time outside of that scene where he saves Ven from Eraqus), which plays into my next point.

Terra is ridiculously hard on himself.

Terra: *makes one mistake while acting in self defense* Terra, literally: “I can never go home” (in the scene it’s a bit more obvious, but it’s implied that his thought process is that Eraqus would never accept him home after, yknow, him making a literal mistake)

Xehanort kills Eraqus, but who does Terra blame? His own damn self, to the point of telling Aqua that he Terra killed Eraqus, rather than that Xehanort who literally killed Eraqus did it.

Where did Terra’s darkness come from, anyways?

We don’t really have a solid idea of how hearts and light and darkness work in Kingdom Hearts (despite how often they’re brought up) but darkness at least seems to be pretty heavily sourced from negative emotions (Ansem SOD possessing Riku via him being upset about Sora not needing him, Vanitas’ entire character, etc.)

So. Terra’s darkness. Terra has enough negative emotion for it to apparently be a palpable problem that we are concerned about. Like, does he have a genetic predisposition to depression or anxiety or something? Are there any therapists in the Land of Departure? What’s going on there

Terra has so much going on emotionally that he literally gets possessed. He needs some milk therapy

Aqua

Aqua is the golden child and the eldest daughter and it. fucks. her. up.

She’s two years younger than Terra but she’s taking the Mark of Mastery at the same time as him. Did she just start at the same time as him? Why did she start so young? this is ridiculous

She absolutely puts herself in a caretaker role (definitely to a higher degree with Ven, but also with Terra at times). Her fellow apprentices are almost more her responsibility than Eraqus’ at times, which should absolutely not be the case. My girl is 18 in BBS she is too young to be raising a 16y/o boy and a 20y/o man.

What parental stuff does Eraqus do on screen? “Terra, you are like a son to me” fuckin act like it then

If anything Eraqus encourages this thought process and behavior when he tells her to keep an eye on Terra as he sends the two of them off to punch monsters. This aint healthy man. shut up

Even when she’s hanging out in the realm of darkness for a hot decade her focus is less on taking care of herself and more on getting back to Terra and Ventus because she feels so obligated to take care of them

She’s only IN the realm of darkness in the first place because she hopped in to save Terra, who was kind of. hella possessed and evil at the time.

I feel like this actually shows up in her game mechanics as well. She’s a glass cannon. She’s out here solving other peoples problems and killing monsters like a champ but shes got no health bc shes not taking care of her own needs.

All of Aqua’s problems really fall under that one category but hoo boy it is a doozy huh

Ventus

im going back and getting the exact dialogue for this part because holy shit

Eraqus: “Ventus, you’re alone? I thought Aqua would-- Well, what matters is that you’re home. You don’t belong outside this world yet. You need to stay here, where you can learn--” Ventus: “In your prison?” Eraqus: “What?” Ventus: “That’s your excuse... for keeping me imprisoned here, isn’t it?” Eraqus: “What did you hear?” Ventus: “That I’m supposed to be some weapon... Some kind of... ‘X-blade”!” Eraqus: “I knew it. Xehanort-- He could never let it go.” [pause for flashback] Eraqus: “I failed. I had the chance to stop him and couldn’t do it. But I will not fail again.” [Eraqus summons his fucking keyblade to kill a child] Ventus: “Master! What are you...” Eraqus: “The X-Blade has no place in this or any world. Xehanort has made his purpose clear... and I am left with no choice. Forgive me... But you must exist no more.” [Terra steps in and saves Ventus.] Eraqus: “What?” Terra: “Master, have you gone mad?” Eraqus: “Terra! I command you-- step aside!” Terra: “No!” Eraqus: “You will not heed your Master?” Terra: “I won’t!” Eraqus: “Why do all my attempts to reach you fail?” [side note: this is its own fuckin loaded statement but its in terms of his effect on Terra’s own self doubt rather than what Ventus is up to] “If you don’t have it in your heart to obey... then you will have to share Ventus’s fate.” [Terra and Eraqus begin to fight] Ventus: “Enough, Terra! He’s right...”

Or, tl;dr, Ven literally believes he should fuckin die just bc Eraqus said so. What the FUCK

Ventus: hey did you know about this Eraqus: yes. die Ventus: shit ok

Things to keep in mind:

Ventus has about 4 years of cumulative memory due to magic heart shenanigan induced amnesia

Eraqus was technically responsible for him this whole time, and claimed to Ventus (getting Terra and Aqua to lie about this, BY THE WAY) that this had been the arrangement since forever.

Xehanort and Yen Sid

Xehanort

Okay, we can’t blame Eraqus for Xehanort being evil as shit and we’re probably gonna get more info on that in the new Xehanort game, but. Eraqus fucking cheats at fantasy chess. Probably didn’t contribute that much to Xehanort’s darkness problem, sure, but probably didn’t help at all, either.

Yen Sid

Dude just lives in his tower. doing jack shit. making Sora and Riku teach themselves during their final exam. Making Merlin teach Kairi and Lea. do something my guy you’re irrevocably caught up anime drama anyways

this is the joke section. to lighten the mood after talking about the whole child murder thing

And then Eraqus had literally no direct effect on anyone else in the whole ass series. His entire impact was literally negative. I hate him

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts meta #eraqus #eraqus hate #terra #aqua #ventus #this is all completely unprompted btw i just. fucking hate this guy #and i was thinking #about how much i fucking hate this guy #and i love talking about my opinions sooo

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blackjack-15 · 4 years

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(Pachin)Koping Mechanisms, KuroSAWa, and Putting The Ring On It — Thoughts on: Shadow at the Water’s Edge (SAW)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. For this meta and the next (CAP), I’ll have a section entitled “The Faerietale” where I break down the issue of genre within the game and how it adds to the experience.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: SHA, SAW, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SPY, GTH, Rashomon.

The Intro:

Full Disclosure: draft titles of this meta include “Yurei-sing the Tension” and “Using Your Girlfriend’s Mom’s Horrific Death For Fun and Profit”. They ultimately don’t fit the tone of the game (or the meta), but I thought they were fun…so you’re being subjected to them anyway.

Freshly out of the games of growing pains, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is the first of our two Faerietale Games, where we delve fully into Theme and Allegory and other such literary devices — which happen to support some pretty fine mysteries as well. As such, in case you didn’t see it above, both SAW and CAP will have a section diving into the Faerietale-ness of it all (partially because it’s That Interesting and partially to keep the intro section from being like 2k on its own).

SAW is interesting for a number of reasons (which I’ll go into throughout the meta) but one of the things that stuck out to me on a replay was how much it leans on Rashomon for its story about the past. For those unfamiliar, Rashomon is a Japanese film by Kurosawa Akira from the 50s that deals with the rape of a woman and the killing of her husband, a samurai, as told through four different points of view.

Nowadays called “a Rashomon episode” or “false flashback”, the idea of different, opposite points of view being shot and filmed to present to the audience is almost a cliché, but Kurosawa was the first to really bring it to film and to popular consciousness internationally.

Like in Rashomon, we’re presented with different views of the situation at the ryokan (including but not limited to Kasumi’s death) from our characters’ perspectives — and, like in Rashomon, no point of view nor opinion on what happened is ever confirmed to be the Honest Truth.

Was Kasumi’s death accidental, and on whose part was it accidental? Does the world stay the same inside the ryokan, or is it just as prone to change as the rest of the world? Is the ryokan a resort or a prison? Should you respect what your loved one wants for themselves, or is it your job to want something better for them? Takae, Rentaro, Miwako, Yumi, and even Kasumi all have different opinions on these questions, and we’re never told who’s correct, nor to what extent.

Finally, like Rashomon, the game is content with leaving a few answers undiscovered. While shooting the movie, Kurosawa was approached many times by the actors, who wanted to know what “really” happened in the movie — and each time he refused to say, wanting the story to be truly Alive in a way that it wouldn’t be if he answered their questions.

Nancy’s job is to expose the malevolent force in the game for what it is, not to heal the family, nor to make decisions for them.

And speaking of their decisions, let’s talk about what motivates our characters in this game. I know, this intro is already kind of long, and I normally keep this kind of talk for the Characters section, but given how much they intersect in this game, we’re gonna go into it here. All of our suspects here in the game are driven and informed by one thing: their coping mechanisms.

C’mon, no surprise here. It’s in the title of the meta for more than just the pun.

Because our suspects are living in the “Once Upon a Time” section of the faerietale — aka the past — it’s their coping mechanisms that drive them. Takae is driven by guilt over her daughter’s death and fear of a changing world; Miwako is driven by anger towards her family and personally-assumed responsibility over Everything That Happens; Rentaro is driven by selfish pride and concern over his loved one; Yumi is driven by avoidance and individualistic willpower.

These are all common when dealing with loss, and each of these tell us exactly how our characters are going to act throughout the tale. In a very real way, SAW is a game about how we, as humans, deal with the stories that we tell ourselves (another thing that it has in common with CAP), and how that changes the way that we perceive the world.

It’s the breakdown of Rentaro’s coping mechanism — his pride in always being correct — that causes him to Do Evil while claiming that it’s The Right Thing. Everyone else’s mechanisms are what allows for him to be as influential as he is; Kasumi is already haunting Takae, and Miwako is already feeling the world crash down around her. Even though the yurei is just wires and metal and Upsettingly Damp-Looking Hair, its presence in the ryokan isn’t physical – it’s psychological.

Remember, “a ghost doesn’t need to be real to haunt you”.

The Title:

Let’s be real here, we’re getting into the segment of Nancy Drew games where the (most of) titles just kick butt and aren’t afraid to do so. Like, Shadow at the Water’s Edge? Gives you creepy vibes right off the bat even without the yurei on the front giving you The Ring flashbacks. Properly atmospheric without being too specific, and “shadow” gives us the idea that we’re dealing with a monster that’s more ghostly, rather than flesh and blood.

I don’t even have anything negative to say about this title, that’s how good it is — plus, I mean, the acronym is literally “saw”. Awesome.

Let’s move on then to the faerietale behind the title.

The Faerietale

SAW and CAP both function, genre-wise, as a faerietale — a story with few characters, big pasts, legends and magic, and a moral at the end to tie things off. In both cases, interestingly enough, it’s our villain who gives us our “moral” — the Truth that ties the plot, history, and characters together, able to be said in a single sentence. In SAW, it’s this (rather chilling) statement from Rentaro that does it:

“A ghost doesn’t need to be real to haunt you.”

But let’s start at the beginning.

Like in a lot of faerietales, we have two sisters who are as different as can be, an inheritance (a ryokan rather than a crown or a prince), absent/dead parental figures, a wizened mentor related to our main characters (Takae), and a Monstrous Force opposing them and their ‘kingdom’. In this story, Nancy is the Dashing Outsider (not unlike the Prince from The Twelve Dancing Princesses) who vows to learn the secrets, defeat the monster, and save the kingdom, restoring balance to the ‘royal’ family and allowing them to prosper.

(And no, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in this game Nancy’s the Knight in Shining Armor when CAP and Renate’s talk about them is right around the corner, but we’ll save that for next time.)

Having established that the game is a faerietale, let’s talk about why that actually matters (beyond the fact that it’s kinda cool in itself) when we’re looking at the game.

It basically matters for a handful of reasons: it allows us to figure out the suspect Fairly easily, it allows the writers to Allude to subject matters that are a little Dark for the E/E10 rating that Nancy Drew games normally get, and provides a bridge between the (overall) concrete games of the past and the more thematic, character-development-focused games that we’re coming up on. So let’s break that down.

Assigning our characters faerietale roles lets us see immediately that Rentaro is Missing an easy assignation. He doesn’t fit the prince, doesn’t fit a sibling — he doesn’t fit anywhere, in short, which is our first clue that he’s the villain.

Even ignoring the fact that the yurei is obviously mechanical, that Rentaro has free access to the entire ryokan in a way that no other character does, and that he’s responsible for upkeeping the ryokan (which is why it’s suspicious that he’s not the one Dedicated to figuring out the mystery) — which are all excellent things that point towards Rentaro, his absence in the faerietale points to a hidden role.

Since the only role worth hiding is either an 11th hour ally or a villain, and Rentaro is present from the beginning of the game, it’s pretty clear which one he is.

Situating the game as a faerietale also lets HER play with a few more themes than they normally can, given their target audience. Starting with a rather blatant implication of suicide, the game spins on to abusive relationships, overpowering guilt, and Nancy being, well, downright mean with her questions about a family member’s death.

While Nancy’s always been a bit insensitive, the mystery surrounding Kasumi’s death sends her into the realm of bullheadedly rude (to the point where you can get a game over for it). We see why this writing choice was made in SPY (which we’ll cover in that meta), but it’s one of my favorite things about this game; it takes a slight character trait of Nancy’s and gives it a character-driven purpose.

The last function of SAW (and CAP) as a faerietale is to provide a bridge between the older and the newer games. The older games tended to be self-involved entities: they began with Nancy’s room and ended with the letter to Carson/Hannah/Ned. As the game technology improved and the player base got older, however, that started to not be good enough; Nancy and her mysteries needed to become A World rather than simply a string of cases held together with a handful of familiar names and archetypes.

The first step towards this was the inclusion of the Hardy Boys back in our Expanded games, but it’s really SAW and CAP that show an Active Transition. Faerietales are often thought of, literarily speaking, as the bridge between children’s fiction and adult fiction; they involve simplistic plots and archetypes that children can easily grasp, but teach hard lessons about the world that adults will understand and resonate with.

The earlier Nancy Drew games, on the whole (there are of course a few exceptions), are largely concrete, like the children’s fiction they’re based on. The good and bad guys are simply and easily divided, Nancy and co. are always the heroes and always do right, and the bad guys always go to jail.

The past few games leading up to SAW start to shift slightly; while generally our heroes and villains are still sharply divided, nothing is quite as simple as it seems (look at TOT, where at least a few bad guys get away and actually profit from their bad actions).

It’s here in SAW, however, where we see that take a sharp shift. Those who should be good guys (Rentaro is a Love Interest, he enjoys puzzles, he’s a ‘fixer’ by trade) aren’t good at all; those who should be the bad guys (Takae and Miwako behave a lot like early Nancy Drew villains with their cageyness, dislike of Nancy, and ability to get Nancy to Second Chance) really aren’t.

In case this point is a bit obtuse, Logan is the perfect example of what I mean.

In SHA, Charleena Purcell has a receptionist (well-voiced by JVS) that at first prevents you from talking to her, but isn’t much of an obstacle. It’s a cut and dried ‘solve this one puzzle’ and then Nancy can talk to the author as much as she chooses — it’s barely an impediment, honestly.

In SAW, we’re dealing with another famous author, who also has a receptionist — Logan Mitchell. Unlike the receptionist in SHA, who’s just Doing His Job and exists long enough for a puzzle, Logan is a rather spiteful character who enjoys hanging up on people, and does it to Nancy with Great Joy.

As a character, Logan matters; he has his own viewpoints, loyalties (that are explored in SPY as well), and his own idiosyncrasies that make dealing with him — repeatedly — a bit like dealing with people in real life. The receptionist in SHA isn’t a character, no matter how much I personally like JVS’ voice work with him. Logan is. And that’s a huge difference in the approach of the games and the shift from the concrete, insert-puzzle-and-go nature of the older games and the more abstract, thematic nature of the newer games.

Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you, the player, and your personal preferences. But it can’t be denied that there is a shift, and it’s the genius of SAW (and CAP)’s genre-shift to a faerietale that does it.

The Mystery:

Our mystery picks up where TOT left off, with Krolmeister sending Nancy to one of his favorite ryokans in Japan as a thank you for her help in the previous case.

This is how we find out that Krolmeister is apparently Spooky AF, as the ryokan is haunted.

Nancy decides to pick up a job while she’s there (the ‘how’ of her obtaining employment and an E-2 visa so promptly is ignored) as an English teacher to some of the cutest (and one of the most disturbing) children in Japan, which is how she spends her days — and how the game gets away with it taking place Solely at night.

The more time Nancy spends at the ryokan, however — and the more people connected to it that she meets — the more that she suspects that the ryokan might actually be harboring a malevolent entity bent on wreaking havoc and shutting down the place once and for all…

As a mystery, the game is solid; you spent most of your time “on-site” at the ryokan, soaking in the very well-done atmosphere, with only a few moments in-game spent at other locations (such as the pachinko parlor, Yumi’s apartment, etc.), and the amount of work that went into every detail of the ryokan is staggering (especially the garden).

Normally, I wouldn’t hang so much on the atmosphere when talking about the plot, but it’s actually relevant here, since the atmosphere is part of the plot — i.e., is it the ‘atmosphere’ of the ryokan that makes the hauntings happen, and did the ryokan kill Kasumi.

Speaking of Kasumi, she’s one of the biggest open-ended mysteries in this game. Did Shimizu Kasumi kill herself, or was her death an accident, or was it caused by a Paranormal Entity, leading to her becoming a ghost herself?

The game tells us how Kasumi died — cleaning a bath that she had never cleaned before, leading to her drowning — but the circumstances outside of her death like her will and her premonitions about her death speak less to an accident alone and more towards Something causing her death.

In my own point of view, Kasumi — remember, this is the Nancy Drew Universe, where ghosts are actually real — had a bit of Prescient Awareness to her, and knew that her death was coming, though not by what. While there’s evidence towards her knowing about her death that could, if looked at in that light, lead one to suspect Kasumi of suicide, it’s unexpectedly hard to kill yourself via drowning in a shallow body of water. Add to that her future plans, and I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Kasumi knew she would die, but she didn’t plan and execute a suicide.

Of course, there’s good arguments to be made on the other side. Whichever way you look at it, I’m just happy with the presence of loose ends, as that’s not the mystery that Nancy’s there to solve — and, indeed, without the presence of an actual suicide note from that period, is a mystery that simply cannot be solved.

The Suspects:

We’ll start with (and yes, the names will all be in Japanese rather than Western order) Shimizu Miwako, the Younger Daughter in our faerietale and the current force behind the ryokan.

As the one (via a faerietale’s rules) destined to succeed, Miwako sure does get the short end of the stick when it comes to her relationships. Her causing/contributing/worsening the rift between herself and Yumi aside, her boyfriend is actively sabotaging her and her grandmother doesn’t think she should be the one running the ryokan, no matter how good a job she does.

As a culprit, however, Miwako would have been a bit confused, given how much she likes the ryokan and the good job she does with it. For a Miwako ending to make sense, she would have had to been influenced by an actual ghost, sabotaging the ryokan without wanting to and having your usual blackouts that come with Psychic Interference. It would have been interesting, but out of the faerietale genre (and out of the Nancy Drew game genre as a whole) and thus not a very good story.

Next up is the Elder Daughter, Shimizu Yumi, who left the ryokan as soon as she could and instead sells bento boxes in Kyoto. Framed as a sort of free spirit, Yumi doesn’t see any need for her to run the ryokan and instead does something that she likes and is obviously very successful at.

As a culprit, Yumi would have, to be frank, been a major disappointment. Already taking fire from her little sister and her grandmother for the Abject Sin of not taking on the family business, Yumi would have been way to easy, both character-wise and tonally for the game as a whole. The Elder Daughter in a faerietale is usually the one who fails (the Youngest Daughter almost always succeeds), and so it’s refreshing to have everyone but herself consider Yumi a failure.

Their grandmother and quasi-mentor, Nagai Takae, is the other person who helps run the ryokan — much to her displeasure, as tradition dictates that Yumi, not Miwako, help run the family business.

Because someone who resents being there will definitely be a much better worker in the hospitality market than someone who loves the ryokan.

Takae has absolutely no head for anything but her own ideas and clings onto tradition not for its sake, but because change is scary, hard, and (in the case of her daughter’s death) heartbreaking.

As a culprit, Takae would have been interesting, but absolutely impossible — unless she was working with someone else. And as interesting as a Takae/Rentaro team-up would have been, Takae simply has no motive for scaring everyone else out. She needs the ryokan to survive, to do well, if she’s going to be able to cling on to the things that she wants.

Rounding out our main faerietale cast is our Malevolent Force, Aihara Rentaro, the ryokan’s handyman and tech expert, who secretly builds robots resembling his girlfriend’s dead mother and uses them to scare people out of the ryokan.

He’s a peach.

Not only is Rentaro our only option for a faerietale ending, but he’s also just the best option for the culprit in general. Handy enough to build a “ghost”, expected in any place in the ryokan without suspicion, and with a strong (if dickish) motive). Like all Evil Wizards/Malevolent Forces in faerietales, he wants to ruin the kingdom and steal away the Daughter — though, unlike a lot of faerietales, he’s convinced himself it’s For Her Own Good.

Which yeah is super gross, but hey, he’s our Villain. Villains should be a bit gross.

Lastly, we’re going to look at two characters who are inseparable from one another for the purposes of discussion: Savannah Woodham and her assistant Logan Mitchell.

Savannah (as we meet her in SAW) is a former ghost hunter who now writes about technology (hence her presence in Kyoto) who mentioned the ryokan in a book about the paranormal. Not being fond of interruptions, she pays Logan to be her assistant so that he can deal with the calls that she gets.

She also brings in a nice little easter egg talking about CAP, where Castle Finster is implied to be the castle she mentions in SAW.

As a character in the Nancy Drew world (as it becomes a world), Savannah is an odd presence, in that she’s a sage without being an academic. Most of the ‘authorities’ that Nancy calls for information are professors, researchers, etc., but Savannah doesn’t quite fall into that designation.

Sure, she’s written a book, but ghost hunting isn’t exactly a…respected profession or topic — and yet, Savannah is clearly the smartest person in the game (and one of the smartest people that Nancy encounters as phone friends). This is great — Nancy herself is no academic, and I do get tired of the prioritizing of Academia over actual knowledge.

Savannah also gets the best lines, and her VA absolutely smashes it out of the park. I’ll talk more about her as the Nancy Games (beginning in ASH), as a lot of her dialogue is foreshadowing for our next games, but suffice it to say that, other than the Hardy Boys and the Drews, Savannah probably fights only Alexei for the most significant NPC in the ND universe.

Her assistant is no slouch in the Significance department, though.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR SPY AHEAD, IF YOU DON’T WANT THEM SKIP UNTIL THE NEXT ALL-CAPS PARAGRAPH.

Logan (according to him) started working for Savannah to make some money during spring break and found the job too weird to quit once break was done (according to him). He loves hanging up on people, resulting in Savannah referring to him as her “lil’ Georgia bulldog”, and would like to go out on a date with Bess (according to him).

Yeah, pretty much everything about Logan should be taken with a grain of salt, as he’s the one who tells it to us, and…well, Logan is a spy. A spy who’s assigned to Nancy at least as far back as SAW, who gets close to her friend(s) and reports back to Cathedral that Nancy’s obsessed with her mother’s death and thus will probably be used by those who want to know Kate Drew’s secrets.

He ‘fires’ Savannah from being his boss prior to GTH because his work is done; he’s completed the mission he’s been assigned and is now working on other things. Logan isn’t a ghost hunter, nor a receptionist, nor a guy who wants to take Bess out on a date — until he needs to be. Like any good spy, Logan is all things to all people, and it’s his tiny bit of backstory in SPY (easily missed if you’re not paying attention — remember, in Nik games especially there’s no such thing as “optional reading” — that makes him so significant in SAW.

SPOILERS END HERE, YOU’RE ALL GOOD TO CONTINUE.

The Favorite:

There’s a lot to love about SAW, so let’s dive right in.

The first thing I’ll mention, because I just mentioned it, is Logan, who is one of my favorite parts of the Nancy Drew universe, let alone this specific game. His VA is great, his dialogue is great, his character is great — he ticks all the boxes, and I love it.

Savannah is, of course, also a favorite; any game with Savannah in it automatically moves it up a few clicks in my estimation. Savannah (and sage-type characters like her) is where Nik’s writing really shines, and her dialogue is always a joy to read and hear.

My favorite moment is actually a tiny moment, despite it being the titular incident: the shadow at the water’s edge. It’s easy to miss, but when Nancy looks in the bath and sees Kasumi’s shadow for that split second…it’s the haunting that games like HAU and CUR really wanted to have — subtle, upsetting, and fully within the bounds of the Laws of Haunting that the ND universe has set up.

My favorite puzzle is hands-down the bento boxes. Longtime readers of this meta series (which will be two years old this summer!) will know that there’s nothing that I like better than a good logic puzzle, and the bento boxes are a great logic puzzle. It’s fun, cute, and I love that you can do it as much as you want.

I do love, lastly, that this game is a faerietale. Having read and analyzed faerietales for a good portion of my life, it’s nice to see that niche interest represented within another niche interest.

The Un-Favorite:

There are a few things in SAW that I really don’t like, as much as I think this game is great.

The most important is my least favorite puzzle: the frame puzzle. This puzzle is one of the few puzzles that actually make me white-out in Rage and refuse to play further, which is a problem given that SAW is actually a great game and I enjoy playing it. It honestly stops me from replaying the game as often as I really should, given its significance to the ND universe, and for how just good it is. I usually make my sister or my best friend play it for me, but I do actually have to leave the room while they do it because it infuriates me that much.

My least favorite moment in the game is a little different, given how good the game actually is; it’s the very end where, depending on the choice that Nancy makes, Rentaro’s apology is accepted by Miwako. Sure, Nancy says it’s unlikely that they’ll date again, but this is a case where the choice to tell on him or have him tell himself should result in the same result: him having to leave. Handymen aren’t thin on the ground, and the ryokan needs help, rather than the same toxic influence that helped bring it down in the first place.

While I appreciate the choice for Nancy impacting the end — I really do — it should say more about Nancy as a character than it should about Miwako and Rentaro. That it doesn’t is a failure in storytelling at the 11th hour, which is a shame in a game this good.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Shadow at the Water’s Edge?

First things first, I would obviously change the frame puzzle a bit. I don’t think it needs removed per se, but I would definitely shift it. Give an option to skip it, perhaps, or make it easier the more time you spend on that screen, or make it easier if you go in and out of it a few times. Heck, even having it reset when you back out (or having a reset button) would be better, since getting stuck in the puzzle results in Hours of Frustration.

Other than that, I would only change the ending choice. Like I said above, the choice is great, but it should be changed to show us exactly who Nancy is (not unlike the choice in GTH). Is Nancy the kind of person who would not trust Rentaro to tell himself and thus does it, or is Nancy the kind to give him just enough rope to hang himself?

Either way, we’re given a view of Nancy that we’ll see more and more — that she is not always kind, nor infallible, nor impartial. She lets her feelings interfere with her cases, and while sometimes that’s good (again, GTH is a prime example), sometimes the only impact her choices need to have on her is to show us her character.

All in all, Shadow at the Water’s Edge is a good, mature look at the Nancy Drew universe, and continues the thread of connecting case-to-case. While it’s ultimately imperfect, I believe it’s not only one of the most fun games to play through, but also to consider in the larger realm of Nancy Drew games and in adaptation of genre altogether.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #shadow at the water's edge #nancy drew meta #SAW #my meta #video games #long post #i didn't really go into the whole Japanese Culture influences in this meta b/c frankly it's not what the meta is about #but shoot off a message to @tinkchick555 if you wanna hear about it; she's the Expert

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