#not me having this in my drafts literally since like november of last year LMAO

[bbmyungho]

03

warnings: mentions of violence, major character death, death scenes may be a bit graphic (nothing gorey or super descriptive but still y'know), mention of weap0ns

"God, I feel like my head's gonna explode." Yongha groaned, massaging his temples in the low light. I looked at him as I paced, the ache in my own head still pulsing slightly.

"You'll live." I quipped, returning to trying to figure out a way out of here uninterrupted. If my calculations were correct, Yongha and I had been awake for about thirty minutes, but that still wasn't a great estimate for how long we'd been down here: god only knew how long we had been knocked out, laying at the mercy of the spirits.

"Yeah, sure hope so. Remind me, what was the mortality rate on that doc's research subjects again?" Yongha bit back, standing up and walking over to where I was pacing to stop me in my tracks. "We have to find a way to lead the others down here, or we have to figure out how to get back to them ourselves." He said.

"Oh, really? Thanks for letting me know, I'll put a pin in that." I nudged the man out of my way, rolling my eyes as I continued pacing. "If I remember correctly, which I do, we're on the southeast side of the basement. The bodies in the hallway are supposed to go down the body chute, so I'm willing to bet that's where they lead. There's a hallway there at the chute, there should be an emergency exit that feeds up into the south ward near the circulation desk." I said, walking through what I remembered from studying the blueprints.

"Okay, so how do we get there?" Yongha asked.

"You can come up with something too, y'know." I muttered, giving the man a pointed look. He went back to peer down the hallway, staring owlishly for a few moments before a sudden bang on the door sent him stumbling backwards, my heart leaping up into my throat at the yelp he let out.

"Yongha!" I rushed to his side, holding his head in my lap as he shook briefly, his hands finding my arm and gripping tight while he regained his composure. I ran my hand through his hair soothingly, trying my best to calm him as he sat back up, shielding me in his arms as we watched the door eagerly. It creaked open slowly, my hopes that maybe it was one of the others come to save us being crushed slowly as the torn edge of a lab coat licked around the corner.

Finally, the door opened fully to reveal a man with skin so pale it was grey, the remains of his lab coat hanging off of his abnormally tall figure as he limped towards us. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be; I'm here to make you all better." He cooed, fear licking at the base of my spine briefly while we just sat there, helpless.

My eyes cut to Yongha, the determination in his eyes spurring me forward. We knew exactly what to do and who we were; what were we doing just sitting here? I counted to three in my head, and with that, Yongha and I pushed off of each other like springboards. The spirit seemed caught off guard as we charged him, Yongha running around back while I took a swing.

Unfortunately, he had good reflexes, just barely ducking out of the way of my fist and stepping harshly backwards right into Yongha's arms. A yelp sounded from my teammate, but he recovered quickly, holding on tight and allowing me to swing a pipe that I was praying contained iron into the spirit's chest, sending the apparition dissolving into a charcoal grey cloud.

Yongha stumbled back with the force of the explosion, landing hard on his backside as I looked to the still-open door. "Now's our chance, let's go!" I said, running to the door before it could shut again. I expected Yongha to reemerge quickly, but when I turned, I saw him struggling to catch his breath. "Yongha, what's wrong? Let's go." I said, tilting my head. A pit formed in my stomach as I watched him still keeled over, having to really work to try to push himself from the floor. He approached holding his forearm tightly, a broken syringe clutched in his fist.

"What... what is that?" I gulped, staring blankly at where his hand was covering his arm.

"I'm not gonna lie, he knicked me pretty good." He chuckled as he leaned on the doorframe across from me.

"No, no, you're fine. It's just a scratch from when you fell." I shook my head.

"Y/n." He sighed. I looked at him desperately, his hand moving to reveal a deep cut on his arm, the surrounding veins already starting to turn a sickly grey color. I wanted to cry as I cradled his arm, watching the dark liquid coarse slowly up and out. I desperately tore my shirt sleeve, wrapping it around the area tightly as Yongha watched in confusion.

"We're gonna find the others and get you out of here and get you better, okay?"

"Y/n-"

"Whatever we have to do, we'll make it work. It'll all be okay."

"Y/n."

"We're going to make it out of here, Yongha. End of story." As soon as I finished tying the makeshift bandage, I shrugged him off, marching off down the hallway to find the exit.

We trudged through the dark, musty hallway in silence, our breathing thin due to the thick layering of dust and the growing stench of our destination. The volume of bodies grew as we neared, poor souls abandoned here after the shut down. I grimaced when I tripped over a hand, reaching out to grasp Yongha's before he could do the same. "Watch your step." I muttered. I led him stumbling through the dark until we reached the stairwell up, my heart suddenly feeling lighter when I saw a faint light peeking through the fogged glass on the door.

Before I could begin our ascent, Yongha pulled his hand away from mine, a labored breath parting his lips. "Yongha, what are you doing, let's go." I grabbed at his hand, but he pulled away with even more force than the first time.

"Y/n, let's be honest here, there's no way I'm making it up those stairs." He said, putting his hands on his knees and bending down at his waist as if to prove his point. "I'm tired, my head hurts, I can barely breathe; you can barely breathe, and you haven't even been injected with whatever I was."

"Yongha, please." I couldn't help it, tears started brimming at my eyes.

"Y/n-" He began, but was cut off by a pained yelp, his figure lurching forward on his hands and knees now as his breathing became more rapid. "Y/n, go... go!" He pushed my leg towards the stairs, the look he gave me telling me what I'd been pushing down: this was it. And then his eyes shifted a little bit, the whites extending a bit into the dark brown of his irises; it sent a shiver down my spine. I knew I had to run.

I bolted up the stairs as quickly as I could, Yongha letting out a terrible scream behind me. I heard his footsteps ascending the metal stairway behind me, getting closer and closer. They were heavy and clumsy, not at all like my Yongha's. I pushed with every bit of strength I had left, skipping two or three stairs at a time as I tried to prevent him getting any closer than he already was.

I reached for the door knob before I was even on the platform in front of it, pushing it open with all of my strength and throwing myself through it and onto the cool marble tile of the south ward. I kicked the door shut just in time to keep whatever was chasing me from piling on top of me, whatever had corrupted Yongha's body pounding on the door and screaming incoherently as I tried with all my might to keep the door closed. I had just turned the lock, praying that it would hold, when the beam of a flashlight pierced through the darkness.

"Y/n! Y/n, is that you?! Guys!" I heard a familiar voice call out, a sigh of relief leaving me as Daehyeon's familiar scent enveloped me in a tight hug.

"Y/n!" Junseo was quick to follow, essentially tackling Daehyeon and I when he finally reached us. I burrowed into his neck, tears I didn't even know were present flowing down my face and onto his shirt. "Y/n, honey, what happened?" He whispered, holding me tighter when I cried harder.

"Where's Yongha? Have you seen him?" Yohan asked.

The room went stiff. I whimpered as I tried to meet Yohan's eyes from my place in Junseo's arms, pointing weakly at the door that was still being abused from the other side.

Yohan heaved a deep sigh, bending and putting his hands on knees as if the air had been knocked out of him. I heard Junseo swallow thickly, his arms trying their best to pull me even closer as he watched the door.

"What happened, y/n?" He muttered, brushing his lips against my forehead as he said it. I looked up at him tearfully, only able to hiccup now.

"He- we were locked up. The doctor- came in and attacked us. We barely made it down the hall and he just turned." I gripped my boyfriend's shirt tighter in my hands, trying to calm my breathing. I could practically hear everybody thinking.

"Yongha- but..." Seokhwa started. His gaze stayed glued to the floor, his throat bobbing as he tried to swallow what he was really feeling. "The last time I saw him I was just digging into him."

"Seokhwa, you were just playing around-"

"That doesn't matter! We all know how Yongha gets." He paused. "Got." Nobody knew what to say; that singular word had put that much more of a weight on all of our chests. My heart physically ached. "I told him he was a bad hunter. I- why did I say that?" Seokhwa buried his head in his hands, Daehyeon taking a sharp inhale and picking up his bag quickly.

"Guys... I think it's best if we leave. We'll come back tomorrow when it's light out." He muttered.

"What? Are you insane? We're just giving up?" Yohan spat.

"We've already lost one team member, almost two. Y/n doesn't even have their bag or their rings and there are too many spirits here to even try to push through to the ones we're actually supposed to be finding." Daehyeon said. "We need some rest, we need to recharge, and we'll hit it harder tomorrow, but right now, we clearly don't know what we're up against."

"Yongha wouldn't want to leave without getting the job done." Yohan said. Daehyeon and Donghan both visibly bristled at his words, Junseo placing me aside gently and stepping in quickly.

"Yongha wouldn't want us fighting amongst ourselves in the middle of a mission, either." Junseo said firmly. "Pull it together, guys, come on. We've been doing this for years, let's act like it. Think."

"I think I know how we can level the playing field, at least a little bit." I spoke up. Their heads whipped around to me as I reached into Junseo's bag and extracted a lighter and some fluid. "The body chute is right downstairs. There are people lining the hallways, I'm sure if we gave them a proper send off then we'd be able to discern them better; maybe one of our major ones is even down there." I said. Five pairs of eyes shot to the door behind me, the incessant banging a little bit softer now, as if he was getting tired, but still definitely present.

"How do we get down there, though? Or, if we do get down there, what if we run into Yongha?" Why'd you have to ask?

We all knew the answer. None of us wanted to say it.

"We're gonna have to- he-"

"I'll do it." Daehyeon said. Our eyes shot to him, sadness reflected in all of them. "I'm the leader and the oldest, I can take care of it. We need to send him on just like the rest of them." I hugged Junseo tightly. "As soon as I open this door, you shut it behind me and hold it tight. I'll give a signal when I'm ready for you. Be prepared for more to come."

I heard the door open. I heard the struggle to get Daehyeon inside. I heard the door slam shut again. The ringing in my ears kept me from hearing Yongha stop yelling.

Before I knew it, we were rushing down the stairs, Junseo, Seokhwa, and I rounding out the back with shotguns loaded with rock salt. Daehyeon and Yohan led us towards the hallway I had traversed several minutes before, my stomach twisting tighter and tighter the closer we got to the bottom. "Yohan, you spread the fluid. I'll drop the lighter when you're done. As soon as it's lit up, run. Don't look back, it'll spread quickly. Y/n, can you show him the room where you were held; my best guess is that's where whatever's keeping this asshole alive is." I looked to Junseo unsurely, but the curt nod he gave me was the push that I needed. Somebody needed to follow up on Yohan anyways.

I gave Junseo one last tight squeeze and Yohan and I started rushing down the hallway, dumping lighter fluid anywhere and everywhere we could reach. I led him to the room where everything had gone down, keeping my stance at the door as he doused the room twice. "Fuck this place." He grunted, taking a good look at the room that had cost us a piece of ourselves.

We returned to the others quickly, Daehyeon seeing us all off up the stairs to where Donghan was holding the door for us. As soon as he judged we were far enough, he dropped the lighter, and it was only a matter of seconds before the entire basement was up in flames. It was even quicker than we'd anticipated, the mixture of smoke, dust, and scent emitting from the bodies making my head spin as I pumped my legs as hard as I could. Junseo grabbed my hand, pulling me along almost faster than I could take, but the light of Donghan's flashlight kept moving me up, up, up, until-

I thought my jacket had gotten stuck in the railing. But my wrist was cold despite the overbearing heat, and then my mouth was covered so that I couldn't even call out.

"Y/n!" Junseo screeched; he lifted his weapon, but then I felt a pinch in my arm, and everything looked dimmer all of a sudden.

"It's okay. I'm making them better; it'll all be over soon." That voice made my blood curdle, and then I felt the metal grating on the floor pushing into my skin. I could barely see Junseo rushing towards me, Daehyeon grabbing him and pulling him back when I held my hand up to stop him. The last thing I saw before the door closed was Junseo's face; the best thing I could do for him giving him a faint smile before everything turned to smoke.

[beehindblueeyes]

Missing poster update! Promo mistakes? Details 6!-

So I absolutely went nuts when seeing this promo package someone had received on Instagram considering it allowed us to see the missing posters we don’t see clearly (Vance, Billy , Griffen) however there’s some… discrepancies with the movie itself and what we know. But also stuff I really like so let’s jump in

New dates!

So these missing posters go so far to have had some of the boys missing since 76! Which at first was a bit of a shock to me but makes a little sense. It also notes that My headcannon of Griffin being the youngest/ 12 years old as correct! BUT it says he went missing in April of 76’ but Gwen said - at least I could’ve sworn she said “last winter” but I know for sure Vance was “last spring”

These posters might be from before they were finalized for the movie because both Robin and Bruce have the wrong dates! Neither of them went missing In 76, they both went missing in 78! It also has the mistake of the newspaper trying to say Bruce was taken before Vance when it’s straight up wrong? Vance was “last spring” and Bruce went missing July of 78.

This is Robin and Bruce’s posters IN MOVIE:

All Info lines up except the dates they went missing. I’m assuming that earlier drafts of the movie would’ve been in 77? This is my best guess considering these are the ones in the movie. Maybe Vance was the last in a earlier draft of the movie?

These two I believe completely, as we get a shot of Billy’s in the opening and it lines up and Vance also lines up apart from it being in September and not spring. (Lines up with Max’s notes. Taken on a Monday etc)

Only thing I don’t agree with is Vance being 13. I’m more inclined to believe he is 14 as he was cannonically held back twice. UNLESS he’s actually a grade below the other boys because of this? So he’s in 7th grade instead of 8th? Idk I think he’s 14. It also says he has brown eyes so I’ll take everything with a grain of salt lmao

New timeline-

Personally I like the idea of it being ? Slightly more spread out. besides some of the dates being straight up wrong in this promomaterial it DOES make a lot more sense for there to be greater stretches of time.

Griffin- Late summer 1976 (don’t like poster date/feels wrong)

Billy- Fall- winter 1976 (poster date also feels wrong)

Vance- Spring 1977 (stated by Gwen)

Bruce- July 18th, 1978 (seen in movie)

Robin- November 9th , 1978 (seen in movie)

Adresses?

So I didn’t know that missing posters (at least used to. I’ve only seen one in reality and it was a kid who’s been missing since like 1987? So a really really old case) contained the kids address? At least these ones and what I’m assuming to be. The adresses that are across the top before the rest of the information. As it later states “last seen” and vauge locations, so fake the  Address info as you will writers.

The constant date mix up’s are giving me “Finney Shaw”* vibes. Where it’s wrong and no one knows how it got that way.

*Literally every info talking about the movie says Finney’s last name is Shaw but it never was. It is Blake. In the short story his last name is Finney so Shaw literally came out of nowhere.

[dallonm-archive]

REVELATIONS, REVELATIONS | UPDATE #1

Hello y’all! I refuse to believe it’s been 3 and a half months since I last made an update post for this novel because time is not real :) whoops! This has actually been sat in my drafts for like a month though 

A rundown of things that happened: 

We have a new title! I already went into the meta and possible interpretations (it’s ~ambiguous~), so if you want you can read about that HERE.

I did 3 weeks of Nano and wrote 15k words! On the site I recorded 15053 but I think it was more 15.5k? I’ve edited the original doc now so idk but I’m v happy with that!

After that I took a break and a lot of Life Things happened re a certain pandemic that is taking :) all my motivation :) so I didn’t return to drafting until January. I also really struggled to progress with the story and decided the best thing was to revisit what I already had and work on that

It’s not that the original chapters weren’t working, I was just trying to understand the story for the first time and also Nano was such a hazy blur and I’m 99% sure November didn’t happen. I probably won’t revisit a section this intensely again until I’ve finished the draft but at this stage it really helped because the more I worked on it, the more I understood where it had to go next - I know the structure (for now), the basics for the middle and how the story ends :) hehe :) and I don’t think I’d had those revelations (aha) without revisiting this first part. I got to fall in love with the story all over again and I’m very happy with where it’s going!

This intro is already getting so long so I’m just going to jump straight into it because this update is LONG. I’m talking about all the chapters today even though not all of them are new, but since I’ve learnt a lot about them and this is officially update #1 post-nano, it makes sense to talk about all of them! I’m also going to do a new taglist because I see this as a new set of updates also I am awful at keeping up with taglists so! I’m just tagging friends who have already expressed interest + mutuals who I’m like 99% sure want to stay on so! please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed! 

@kowlazovdi​ @isherwoodj​ @avi-burton-writing​ @pamsdrabbles​ @ryns-ramblings​ @kitblogsthings​ @svpphicwrites​ @aetherwrites​ @radiomacbeth​ @bijouxs​ @writerlywonders​ @haldimilks​ @alicewestwater​ @piyawrites​ @coffeeandcalligraphy​ @shaelinwrites​

usual content warnings for religious trauma and cult discussion, specific CWs will come before excerpts!

So I’m currently working with four parts, and I’ve extended the timeline from one year to four years. This suits the story much better BUT pretty much everything here was written before that decision and I do not have the energy to restructure all of it right now :) Each part is split into two sections, one for each POV. So four parts, 8 sections, Felix and Dorothy get four sections each. I let the structure grow with the story but this one is working very well!

Also I started setting my pages to light green and it was LIFE CHANGING. Much kinder on the eyes and just looks so nice?? Calming?? This post is your sign to set your page colour to light green like LOOK

So we have a prologue now!! The story made a lot more sense once I added this because originally the information we learn was just shoehorned into Chapter 1 in a flashback when really we needed to know this information going into it. That being said I struggled with this for a bit just because to justify a prologue I need that information to be conveyed in a way that is completely unique to the rest of the narrative so I didn’t want to just write this as a flashback. I ended up writing it in 2nd person and it came out in a way where it’s not clear which twins POV it is? Like it’s more of a fusion of both of them where neither of them have their own individual identity beyond “the twins” yet. I can’t tell if this is my funky POV peak or a clarity nightmare but I like it! I want it to only be ~500 words so we can take the risk.

In this they’re fourteen and they do a “blood pact” as a way to symbolically cut themselves from their family (aka: their father) whilst they’re still tethered to it. I really love it because not only is it exactly what these slightly unhinged-but-havent-tapped-into-it-yet, co-dependent-and-dont-realise-it kids would do but it immediately brings up the question of family and what family actually is. I’ve also realised a huge idea in this story is the idea of the tangible and for them, the concept of family and blood isn’t tangible so they struggle to recognise its significance (not that it. has any for them in the first place.) but their relationship, seeing each other bleed and pressing the cuts together is. The writing itself is kinda wonky because of the whole funky clarity nightmare POV but here’s a little taste of the ending:

cw: blood

You’ll slink back into your family room to clean and plaster each other’s hands and you’ll ask yourselves: which bloodstains came from who? Who bled the most and who stopped first? Who will come up with the story for the cuts on your palms and who will dispose the bloodied towel? Who is Dorothy without Felix and who is Felix without Dorothy?

Shiny new first chapter! Originally this was in Dorothy’s POV but now it’s switched to Felix and instead of just showing their reunion (which turns out is....very anticlimactic and not appropriate for an opening lol??) we actually explore Felix’s thoughts an actions after he decides to escape the cult, which was a very impulsive decision and spans about a day and a half. This one is definitely gonna take a few drafts to get right because it’s such a delicate but intense event to write and I’m content with the fact that it’s not There Yet but the prose is! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and it really helped me get back into the swing of loving this story. There’s something very delicate about it but also very troubling under the surface. The opening gave me a lot of trouble, but the first line hits!

The day Felix decides to leave the sun glows the same, and the pine trees breathe the same, and the chapel cross stabs the sky the same. 

Ironically, a good chunk of the chapter happens outside the cult, as Felix decides to spend his final day taking Lola - a woman his age who is literally the only person he likes lmao - to one of the nearby towns. Whilst the main function of the chapter is to introduce the cult itself, it’s also to show how normalised leaving actually is - it’s just every time he’s left has been temporary, and every time he has left, he still feel separated from this “outside world”. They go to a candy store and a thrift store - where Felix lies about his mom (who he hasn’t seen in 20 years) being in hospital so he can use a phone :) Lola is a new character so I don’t have much to say on her, but all I can say is they are wlw and mlm solidarity but also she knows how to read him 

“I don’t know why Dotty and I loved this place so much - we always got  toothaches.”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“These apple ones are nice, but I think the lime is my favourite. Do you think the apple or the lime is nicer?”

“I think you’re leaving, but I also think you’re scared, so you’re pretending that I’m going to leave with you and that’s why you wanted to go to town. You chose the candy shop because this is where you went the first time you left, but this time you’re not coming back. Does that scare you, Fel?”

And here is my favourite paragraph in the whole chapter because <3 what the fuck <3 and if pine trees are a key Felix symbol no they aren’t 👁️ yes they are

cw: falling out a window? pushing yourself out a window? description of bones breaking

The day Felix decides the leave, when the clouds bleed amber, he pushes the scratched mahogany dresser so it lines with the windowsill, lies on top and hangs his head out. It’s never comfortable, but it’s always peaceful: sometimes cars murmur on nearby backroads, sometimes a wind chime flutters, sometimes brush rabbits rustle in shrubbery and they all breathe the same oxygen as him. He closes his eyes, inhales the pine air, and plays God: pushes himself further out, an inch at a time, until his shoulders cross the line and he wonders what bones would break if he fell. Would he break both arms or one, both legs or one? Would he break his spine? Which vertebra would crack, and how many? Would he feel them all in one big strike, or all the individual bones burst like popping candy? Evening breeze whispers against his face and he could do it right now, leap out the window and if he didn’t break his legs or back he could run to the bushes, to the pine trees, to the road, the town over East or West, the county line.

If Felix hit the ground, would it be because of a freak fall, or because he pushed himself out?

We have to laugh because I’m pretty sure I said in my Nano update that this chapter was the strongest so far besides one scene but when I looked back that scene <3 took up 80% of the fucking chapter <3 So I just said fuck it I’ll rewrite the whole thing for fun!!!! And I love it!!! It’s so jarring compared to Chapter One and that’s the point!! Everything is so over saturated and originally that was just to convey the absolute shock Felix gets from the Major Impulsive Life Decision He Just Made, but now I think it’s intentional on his part and it goes back to the idea of the tangible: whilst he didn’t grow up totally isolated this is still a new life for him, and he has nothing to latch onto, so he looks to his surroundings and hyper-focuses and latches onto it because it’s something that’s now tangible and accessible to him so he sees it in this very bright, romanticised way (the romanticisation of San Francisco is very amusing to me but it’s also very relevant). But even with that he still distances himself from this environment still - the same way he did whilst living in the cult. He has no idea how he wants to exist in this world and he doesn’t even know how to exist yet.

And so it became clockwork: eyes burst open at two, three, four in morning, doesn’t bother trying to fall back to sleep. Lurk into the kitchen, make a coffee or water or whiskey. Sit under the fritzing lightbulb with no shade, think about everything and nothing and everything and nothing. Or go for a smoke, inhale the vapours until it hurts his chest, breathe in the cool air until it hurts his teeth, wander around the block until it hurts his feet. Sneak back into a room that doesn’t belong to him in an apartment that doesn’t belong to him in a city that doesn’t belong to him. Count the bumps in the popcorn ceiling until footsteps sneak down the hall – Dorothy leaving a room that doesn’t belong to her. Join his sister back at the kitchen, she complains that they need to replace the lightbulb. Over pulpy orange juice and scrambled eggs on toast, she retells her dream and lists the possible meanings and he lists his plans for that day on how to immerse in the outside world, familiarise himself with the city until it belongs to him. Travel by trolley for the first time, eat seafood at the waterfront for the first time. Bump into a cherry-headed conure parrot by chance. Climb Twin Peaks and gaze at the new view of home. Trace the outline of translucent mountains in the air and pretend you’ll ever hike them; trace the outline of high rises in the air and pretend you know the people in them. He asks Dorothy when he’ll stop feeling like a tourist – she has no answer for him.

(context: Dorothy’s roommate, Jolie, is out of town at this point, so Dorothy tells Felix to take her room whilst she takes Jolie’s and they’ll sort it out later. Dorothy has no problem sleeping in Jolie’s bed because her and Jolie are Very Good Friends)

I also realised that, in the nicest way possible to November me, that this chapter was so damn boring because it’s very dialogue heavy but in every dialogue moment they are literally just 🧍 doing nothing. So I wrote a scene as a half-joke of Just Met Like Three Hours Ago Beau and Felix going to the arcade and it saved this chapter. It is SO fun but it also comes straight after this very emotionally intense moment and it’s really interesting to see that reach its zenith and then just. fizzle out but linger in the background? I love this scene but I also can’t take it too seriously because they play Frogger and @aetherwrites​ joked that the game’s a metaphor for Felix leaving the cult and I love her and hate her because she is so right I can picture the LIT1000 seminar where that analysis would be made unironically and it’d be ME who makes it and I am so close to just running with that for real. Also these two aren’t love at first sight but the chemistry is so loud like did you two meet today or have you been married for eight years and own five dogs together what’s the truth? Anyway here’s Felix murdering Beau on sight 

“You know, you could’ve warned me that you’d be that good,” Beau says.

“It’s not that difficult, you could’ve warned me that you’d be that bad.”

Beau leans across to shuffle through cassette tapes in the glove compartment. “I’m not, you just got lucky. I let you win.”

“But it’s not even competitive. You just died seven times in a row.”

I’m a little unsure of the pacing for this chapter now because its effectiveness lies in the fact it takes place a week after the previous, and my job with this section post-draft is to stretch it out longer since it only spans three weeks. I’m hoping I can make it work where there’s little time between Chapter 1 & 2 but still cover more time in chapters 3-5 because I think that’d be jarring in the best way? Like the absolute intensity of that initial week quickly dissolving and suddenly he’s been living this life for months he didn’t notice go by. Again <3 a problem for post draft me <3

I don’t have much to say about this one because in Nano I didn’t even finish it, and now I have but it’s still <3 giving me trouble <3 - however I’ve realised this is probably the most important chapter at this stage of the novel because it’s the first full chapter with just the twins, trying to have a bonding moment and catch up but only learning that they a) love each other b) can’t stand each other whilst not realising just yet that they are c) extremely co-dependent. I like to call this novel multiple plot threads in a trench coat and that’s definitely it, the twins have their own individual plot threads separate to one another, but if there’s a central plot (and there kinda is?? its a surprise :) ) at its essence is them realising how fucked up their relationship is, but wanting to rectify that and trying to understand the difference between a tangled and toxic relationship. 

This chapter introduces that each character has a key symbol that’s attached to the world somehow and Felix has chapters like these in his arc where he tries to navigate the state of their relationship (so there’s one later on titled “Ocean (Beau)”) and his associations with them. We have to laugh here because I was really like “oh Dorothy is sapphic so I’ll make her obsessed with the moon” but then it became a major symbol in the story <3 Dorothy IS obsessed with the moon, and Felix is frustrated because he can’t see it the way she does and he feels like part of him is missing because of that, when it’s just a different perspective but nooo these two need to have unhealthy co-dependency and then get mad when they’re unhealthily co-dependent on each other :/ Anyway I’d just like to talk about how Felix’s need to be like his sister in this chapter is demonstrated through a symbol that’s attached way more to her than it is to him even though in the prose he describes the moon as this fragile, breakable thing which is the complete opposite as how Dorothy would and lets talk about the blade mirroring the prologue!!!!

He closed an eye and pointed the blade at the moon. If he could, it’d be so easy: surgeons precision, swift wrist flick, carved and plucked from the sky. Laid out on his palm like tissue paper, half translucent and as breakable as skin - a birthday present for Dorothy, if he doesn’t tear it. He’ll try not to, but it’d be so easy.

In further development of the Moon Imagery, I’ve started using a lot of Star Imagery with Felix and a lot of general space imagery in both of their POVs and I’m delighted to say I have no idea what the meta means with that but I like it!! It fits the story very well and they’re probably mirroring each other or something!

This little chapter taught me that I need to be flexible with form <3 this was originally meant to be the final scene of the last chapter, and I was so hyped because it was one of the first scenes I conceptualised, but then it ~sucked~. However I didn’t realise until recently that it sucked because I was writing it in a traditional storytelling form - which most of this book benefits from, but this moment certainly does! not! I’m really glad because I think this book is the perfect playground for experimental form - although here it’s relatively simple though, most of the setup for this happens at the end of the previous chapter and then this is just all the information condensed as much as possible. This chapter is focused on memories so it really works for it to be cut off from the previous which is in the fictive present, and Felix’s perception of memories right now are ~a little jarring~

The final scene of Moon (Dotty) depicts Felix and Dorothy breaking into a park at 4am, promptly having an argument that results in Dorothy leaving, and Felix sat next to a fountain picking pennies out of it and trying to associate a memory with the year on the back - this chapter is those memories and this introduces the fluid relationship characters have with their past. For Felix, he’s seeing the last 20+ years from a bird eyes view in a very sporadic way and it’s starting to sink in that those 20+ years actually Happened. Some of the memories are very distanced, others are as intense as flashbacks, and some are a mixture of the two. This one is very interesting to me because he completely separates himself from the memory halfway through Fel do you wanna talk about this (unfortunately I cannot drop the name because of plot <3)

cw: light/implied homophobia

IN GOD WE TRUST / 1978

The first time Felix held a boys hand was in 1978 in the back pew at morning service. It was the first time [redacted]’s father preached and they got stuck in the back because they arrived late, because they laid in the grass together, wearing each other’s identical pecan coloured blazers as sunrise peeled back the night, and they slunk into the back of service like ghosts everyone could see and maybe they knew why they were late. [Redacted]’s father had a razor voice and he made sure every word sliced into his son and his son interlocked fingers with the boy next to him. His son didn’t look at the boy he held hands with the same way he’ll pretend his blazer is his and not the boys and the same way he didn’t look at the boy the first time they kissed behind the chapel building and the same way he didn’t look at the boy during Bible study for the week after.

Whilst I’d say in Chapter 2 the chemistry between Beau and Felix is as clear as day this is the first instance where Felix’s queerness is explicitly introduced and I’m taking this chance to say this book gets more queer every fucking week. Like I think in the last updates I was like ohhh sexuality doesn’t play much into Felix’s arc and know it’s like 99% of his damn arc and we LOVE it. But at this point he doesn’t realise like when I tell you guys this man is so repressed

I am literally only putting this here because I talk about all the other chapters and it’s weird to me to leave one out. Also because the graphic and title is pretty. Not gonna lie I love making these posts and that is 10% to ramble about meta 90% making pretty graphics that is literally just cropping photos on Unsplash and putting Garamond text over them <3

Anyway this was originally Lessons in Holy and when I revisited that chapter I realised it was so fucking messy and I tried to fix it but it didn’t really work and I’ve been scared to touch it since. However the meta is top notch so here we are - it mirrors Chapter One, Everything Holy, which explores Felix’s decision to leave the cult and with that, leave God. Everything Holy / In San Francisco explores his relationship (or lack thereof) with God and how much Felix’s life has changed since he left - and how “holy” it is. It definitely goes back to the idea of the tangible because the holiness preached to him growing up was not something tangible to him, whereas with this he looks at real life experiences, so he tries to find holiness in that. It also ties with Cyan City and the romanticisation of San Francisco as something tangible and something he can find holiness in, which a) he needs to learn that things don’t have to be “holy” to be valuable and b) it would be a shame if :) he centred everything good about his life around SF and then :) something bad were to happen whilst living in SF :) the way he and Dorothy both do this

My plan for this is basically: Condense The Shit Out Of It. The hardest part about this chapter is it is very thematic and you know as a lit major (derogatory) I love that but with more theme centric chapters the line between subtle and Too Much can be verrryyy thin, but I think focusing on character exploration over theme will fix that pretty easily. I’d also like to separate the Isaias introduction into its own chapter because it’s such an important moment and November me just? Latched it on at the end? And that plus Felix’s crisis in the same chapter is just too much. This chapter is gonna get changed A Lot but for now here’s Felix’s very chill and relaxed ending to his POV section :)

cw: drowning, drug mention

Felix didn’t speak to God for three weeks and everything unholy became holy: the coffee scorching his throat, the kaleidoscopic t-shirts and high waisted jeans, the punk rock they play at the record store – loud and electric. It’s unholy, but he sleeps through the night now, he folds coloured card into butterflies at breakfast and scribbles biro eyes over the newspaper's sudoku on his lunch break. He earns money and he spends a pinch of it on himself: on new wave records and playing cards and earrings he can’t wear yet. Sometimes he buys marijuana it’s not a sin because marijuana means he only smokes tobacco twice a day now – one at breakfast, one before bed. He bar hops with Beau on Saturdays and hikes with Dorothy on Sundays and he tells strangers he studies American Literature and he smiles with his eyes more and nobody notices that somebody’s holding his head underwater. And he doesn’t know whose hand it is, but it knows how to grip tight. And he doesn’t know how to swim, but he knows how to swallow water. And he doesn’t know if this is the punishment or the sin because the water stings his eyes but he chooses to keep them open, and the water will tangle in his lungs but he chooses to keep his mouth open. And hellfire can’t touch him under here, so he’ll keep swallowing water and it’ll burn him in a different way, and he’ll like how it scorches his throat.

(Once again context I didn’t share because I don’t like the writing that talks about it: Felix has a deep fear of drowning from past trauma, but he’s also very obsessive about it and often imagines himself drowning.)

(also the way these excerpts are just showing off my love for repetition my Intro to Creative Writing Tutor that called repetition lazy is seething rn!!!!)

Overall though, I’m v happy with how this section came out now that I actually know what the story is! As I’ve finished drafting it, I have noticed where the missing plot beats are and this is what I expected because I Do Not have a lot of experience with novels (I’ve never passed 15k on a novel before so we’re in new territory now) and generally struggle to see beats before I finish a draft. I’m thinking there’s at least one chapter missing and maybe a shorter one, like MSATBOTF, but I won’t be touching this section again until I finish the draft. Most of all I learnt a lot about the story’s form and I’m excited to play with that and be a bit more flexible! 

I’m currently drafting Indigo, the first chapter in Dorothy’s POV, and I was going to talk more about it but this post is too long and the next update will be <3 all about her <3. But the chapter introduces her and Jolie’s tumultuous relationship and here’s a lil peak! 

Me, a sapphic, capable of writing happy sapphic relationships: 

Me instead: 

cw: light/implied homophobia

If she didn’t display the ticket on the bedside table - like she had something to prove - she could have easily been in Dallas, in New York, London, Cannes, Moscow, Tokyo, Cairo, Sydney. But wherever she went, Dorothy and Jolie have had four airport reunions before today - four times they’ve had to soften themselves, disguise themselves. Old high school friend flying in to be her maid of honour, college roommates who don’t see each other as a day past eighteen, pen pals reuniting for the first time since the seventies, business trip colleagues in casualwear. The fifth time, there’s nothing to hide, and as they walk to the car, Dorothy has to wonder: if they were seen by nobody, would Jolie have hugged her with both arms? Would she have kissed her? Would Dorothy kiss back?

I’m midway through this chapter, so I’ll keep the rest of it for the next update! That I promise won’t be in three months!

If you read through all of this then I am in love with you <3 

[yeoldontknow]

catch up tag 🌸

tagged by beautiful angels @chillingtae and @yoonia to do this catch up tag. thank you so much loves! i hope you guys are having a happy friday <3 <3

1. what do you prefer to be called name-wise?

kat is fine! i introduce myself to people as kat. if youre using my full name youre either upset with me or a member of my family lmao

2. when is your birthday?

jan 23

3. where do you live?

nyc

4. three things you are doing right now?

working (waiting for one of my systems to load which has been bogged down and super slow lately), listening to my spotify release radar (which is....not great today im disappointed), mentally drafting lines and description for the next hero chapter as im in the mood to write today but im absolutely not in a romantic place lmao

5. four fandoms that have peaked your interest?

uhhh ill list fandoms ive written fanfic for! kpop (obviously), merlin, muse, and supernatural (but like really specifically supernatural seasons 2-5)

6. how has the pandemic been treating you?

i mean....50/50. my company is amazing and i know im super privileged. ive been working from home since the end of february and corporate have been extremely generous (giving us additional time off, mental health days, extending summer fridays until end of 2021, compensating for home office needs, restructuring work from home policies to accommodate parents). i got a bonus in june in place of my raise due to financial tensions but was confirmed for another promotion next year - even was offered a new job, literally straight offered didnt even need to interview, to create my own team in a different department. i have a roof over my head and food on my table. my family is healthy, my parents are retired and safe. like...im so so so grateful.

mentally and emotionally and creatively...i am struggling. a lot of my inspiration for fics comes from being out in the city and observing people and their interactions. even architecture inspires me. the act of moving through a city inspires nearly all of my fics (like..i think everyone can sense that lmao asas is in london, light sakura is tokyo, all quiet is movement through spaces, hero was inspired by a building in harlem). not having that kind of motion and observation has made writing really hard. and also just...the news and the onslaught of hyper-reality. its been utterly daunting and ive found myself completely burned out more this year than ever before. usually my burnout hits during new years or the holidays. ive spent part of summer and part of autumn and literally all of november just...vacant.

so yeah. 50/50

7. a song you can’t stop listening to?

Flexibility of Mind - GRoost

8. recommend a movie?

Summer Wars (2009, hosoda mamoru)

9. how old are you?

31

10. school, university, occupation, other?

currently employed at a major company in the arts & entertainment industry

11. do you prefer heat or cold?

cold!!!! its so easy to warm up and bundle. who doesnt love cozy socks and hoodies and slippers <3 <3 its so hard for me to cool down in the summer and i hate sweating lmao

12. name one fact others may not know about you?

uhhh i worked in music supervision while getting my masters and the two degrees i have do not necessarily relate to the work i do now lmao

13. are you shy?

i can be. im definitely introverted and find other people to be way, way more interesting than i am. i enjoy listening to people talk about their passions and what interests them, and this also means that i dont say much or say anything at all about myself, really. im not usually the first person to engage in a group or even to introduce myself first to someone unless i get the sense there is someone uncomfortable (with the energy, the topic, the setting, etc) and then i will put myself in a position of leadership to make them feel safe

14. preferred pronouns?

she/her !

15. biggest pet peeves?

people who react rather than respond to criticism or confrontation; people who instigate drama; really loud groups of people on public transportation

16. what is your favorite ‘dere’ type?

i dont believe i have one

17. how would you rate your life from 1-10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be?

ill say like...8

18. what is your main blog?

this one - yeoldontknow

@yeoldontknowiread is for ficrecs

20. is there something people need to know about you before they become friends?

i can be pathologically secretive in that i dont really talk about myself or what my day has been like or what im up to unless something happens that is exciting or interesting. being an introvert also means that my regard for our friendship will define it as something sacred and i will likely be more devoted (though quietly so) than you might be if youre an extrovert. im really passionate about things and if i sense that you are not as passionate about those same things i will likely not bring them up again unless i feel like you want to hear about it. it might take me a while to respond to texts or messages, but it doesnt mean i love you less. there could be long periods of inactivity in our friendship but if someone else asks me about you i will say i love you and you are special to me and will call you a close friend even if its been years since weve last talked

tagging: @yehet-me-up @kyungseokie @jenmyeons @jamaisjoons @j-pping @yeolville @loeybeans @ditzymax @imdifferentshadesofpurple @red-exo @iris-somnia @inkedtae @yeojaa @hobi-gif @sahmfanficbts @snackhobi @delhyun @yutacrush @nunchiwrites @blackberrykai @kimtaehyunq @jiminiethot and anyone else who wants to do this. i know i tagged a lot of people but really i just want to check in on you and see how youre all doing. as always please only do so if you wish <3

[dazais-guardian-angel]

This post has been sitting in my drafts since like mid-November around when I finished replaying the game, long enough for me to write and upload a fic about some of the concepts I wrote here, what the fuck. DGS brainrot is real. But aNYWAY finally, here are my massive thoughts on Unwound Future, the golden child of the PL series. This is literally *checks* 8k words, because I can never shut up!! and because there is just SO much going on in this game at all times, so many different interweaving plot threads and funny moments and incredible, fascinating characterization, especially combined with the games that come after it; I just had SO much to say. So much analyzing and headcanons and crying galore. :’) There’s a reason this is considered the best game, and that’s why I had so damn much to talk about.

behold the incoherent, rambling, unconnected mess of a novel that I hope makes a modicum of sense under the cut:

Continuing the trend, this game has simply AMAZING graphics/art/music, with a huge uptick in cutscenes and voice acting, and I feel like the sound/music quality is greatly improved too? I love the main bgm for London in this game, never really remembered loving it before, but it’s just *chef’s kiss* and so is the song that plays in other areas like the hospital and subway

Quickly mentioning the gameplay, I really love all the minigames, and the storybooks are especially hilarious to play with putting the wrong things in the spaces to create mad libs-esque crack that makes no sense; it’s so fun lmao

The beginning flashback segment with the time machine demonstration is honestly just so funny, for so many different reasons: Dimitri droning on and on with time travel technobabble while Luke, Bill, Chelmey, and Barton represent the definitive last four brain cells. Hershel being skeptical about successful time travel after all the magical shit they went through just like a year or two ago. The way that Bill’s sprite slowly and nervously shuffles onscreen after Dimitri calls him to the stage, like omg I don’t know why that cracks me up so much but it does. Dimitri’s lowkey savage shade he’s throwing at Bill throughout this whole thing. The way Bill says “wHAT” when Dimitri asks him to help, clearly about to shit his pants. Dimitri just standing there completely unfazed as the smoke from the machine flies past him. And of course, “sOmEtHiNg’S gOnE vErY wRoNg!”

…okay but in all seriousness, am I just stupid or do they never explain how they get Bill to the underground city, like the machine CLEARLY explodes with him in it, there was no secret elevator built into the thing like at the clock shop, so…???

also the presenter’s voice is really funny lmao

Still disagree that this is the biggest mystery they’ve ever encountered, despite being near the top; Luke you say that literally every game!! so what is the truth!!

Spring’s face is terrifying as FUCK in the two cutscenes in the clock shop… why they decided to show both of them in ominous, shadowed lighting in those scenes I do not understand a;lskdl;fds

I need someone to draw a diagram of how exactly the shop looks as a giant elevator because frankly I still can’t wrap my brain around it-

THE FACT THAT WE NEVER GET TO MAKE UP WITH HAZEL IS A TRAVESTY, HONESTLY

Belle… why…… ugh

Wish they’d had “Schrader” drop a casual nod to the events of Diabolical Box; it would have been cool :’) (especially since this is Paul so he’d know about all that)

College-age Hershel is just….. the pinnacle of adorableness. someone protect him from all the pain

One of the few flaws/plot holes in the story of Unwound Future that I only noticed during this replay with more media under my belt, is the that the developers didn’t really decide on what kind of time travel they wanted to portray, or more likely just didn’t scrutinize Clive’s fake role enough when writing it. This is blatantly obvious upon the very first meeting with Clive where he desires to test Hershel to make sure he’s really him. Obviously in a closed loop scenario, everything Luke and Hershel are doing “Future Luke” should remember doing himself in his past, so a test would not be necessary; this is a major trip-up on his part that it’s very odd Hershel doesn’t notice for how smart he is, imo. However, later on when meeting “Future Layton”, Paul calls Dimitri out on this exact principle, proving that he’s not actually Future Layton because he doesn’t remember the absence of a pen in Hershel’s pocket in this moment in his past, and it’s a nice little touch that Paul, on the other hand, an actual scientist, would mention this. Back to Future Luke, though, he should know how everything goes down with stopping Future Layton, because he lived it all as a child with Hershel, which makes it even more dubious to the fact that after seeing all this, Hershel still goes dark and everything plays out the exact same way it’s portrayed in the “future” of the game; it’s the idea that destined fate can’t be changed, but the suspension of disbelief is quite high, especially since we already doubt that Hershel would ever do such a thing, knowing what kind of person he is. Of course this wouldn’t be the case in an open-loop/branching timelines universe, but since the game uses the former type with the pen argument (and something else important I’ll mention in a second), I feel like the rest of the game should have adopted this idea as well and addressed it. Because Dimitri is outed via the fact that he should have memory of things he doesn’t, so it would have been easy to simply add Hershel adding that argument into his final explanation in the bar (”my suspicions were first raised when we first met Big Luke, and he didn’t know if I was really who I said I was- [etc etc]”). Even if they didn’t want Hershel to bring this up early else the entire story would fall apart, they could simply draw attention to the fact that he notices something in these moments, like with a “...” or “Hmm”, and then he explains it at the end like I said. Interestingly enough, Clive actually addresses these concepts at one point in the game with Luke in the statue plaza: he doesn’t want to tell Luke how things play out in his future, so that… things play out the way they’re supposed to…? Even though his entire story here is that he wished Hershel hadn’t gone dark and distanced from him, and ruined the city? But then he makes the suggestion that they could instead be operating on an open-loop/multiple timelines system, where in his past he never travelled to the future, but in our Luke and Hershel’s timeline they do. This is only a hypothetical he gives though, with him seeming unsure of how things truly are, which… again, in this story he’s concocted, he should know for sure, because if he doesn’t “remember” time traveling and how everything went down, then they’re operating on different timelines and it shouldn’t matter how much he tells Luke about his future. You can definitely argue that in-universe Clive didn’t think all this through when planning his dialogue for this role (but I honestly find that hard to believe, since he’s so intelligent, and he nailed the realism of everything else to a T), but it’s obvious just that the writers didn’t think it through, because like I said Hershel really should have picked up on his blunder when they first met, as well as later when Clive is surprised to see Flora suddenly with them and didn’t know for a fact that she and Chelmey/Barton would arrive there. Since the time travel scenario in 99% of the game isn’t actually real, I don’t entirely fault the writers for not getting every single detail right… and yet, that 1% exists where time travel is real, with Claire’s situation. It’s a very isolated incident though that wouldn’t be replicated, with only her going to the future… and yet, she does return to the past again, if only for a split second before dying and thus not enough time to do anything with her future knowledge, the real thing to note here being that they took care to show that she was wearing the same outfit when she died that she gets in the future, one she wasn’t wearing when she entered the lab originally. So they DID think about some things very well, like such a minor and easily-overlooked detail here (but that blows your mind once you realize it). All this is hardly enough to ruin the game or break the immersion completely though, especially since the player is already predisposed to heavily doubt everything with PL’s “the town is a lie” track record lmao, but I can’t help but be bothered by it now after playing games like Zero Escape and watching time travel shows like netflix’s Dark, which have bootstrap parodoxes and timeloops galore looool. My friend who watched me play the game blind this time around brought up all these questions as Clive said things, as someone who didn’t know if it would end up being real or not, and so I spent a lot of time puzzling (har har) it out with her… even though it wouldn’t matter lmao.

……In short, if it wasn’t obvious, despite Unwound Future’s time travel setup being completely fake, I’m really fascinated by the notion of how it would all work if it was real. >.> …and I mean, I know I’m not the first one; monocle Layton aus are popular, after all, but I don’t really care quite as much about the allure of an “evil Layton” as I do just about how everything else would be, I think.

Because, like, lets be real? taking the prequels into account with Unwound Future’s proposed setup, the potential is endless. It honestly KILLS me that the prequels didn’t exist yet at the time of UF, because!! so many people from Hershel’s past!!! SO MANY REASONS FOR HIM TO WANT TO HARNASS TIME TRAVEL AND CHANGE THE PAST, NOT JUST FOR CLAIRE’S SAKE. FOR RANHENGELA’S SAKE. FOR LUKE AND EMMY’S SAKE. FOR HIS PARENTS’ SAKE. FOR DESMOND. listen, listen, you don’t understand how much the idea of Desmond being involved in UF’s concepts destroys me. I wrote about this in my last fic but. imagine if Desmond learned about Hershel going down a dark path for his sake and everyone else’s, just like he did. Or imagine if, instead of Hershel being the one to do it, it was Desmond himself; he’s willing to play the bad guy once again, one very final, this time definitely final, time, if it means he can undo everything that caused all of them so much pain in the first place: his betrayals, the death of his former wife, he and Theodore’s separation, their father’s betrayal, ALL of it, and Hershel would never know. When Luke first is like “oh it’s gotta be Don Paolo right” and Clive says no, i LITERALLY screamed “BUT IT COULD BE DESCOLE!!”. JUST. PAIN. And where would Randall be in this future; what would he, too, think if it was Hershel going after time travel? Imagine him trying to smack some sense into him just like Hershel does in MM, trying to tell him that despite those lost 18 years of his life, despite everything wrong he ended up doing, he’s still happy, and so are Henry and Angela. So is Desmond. And Emmy, she wouldn’t want undone those years she had with Hershel and Luke and then Aurora and Desmond, despite how sadly it ended. Just… so much pain. So much potential. I hurt :’)

and adding on to this, i love love LOVE the idea of Clive knowing about some of this stuff in Hershel’s past, in order to faithfully play his role as Future Luke. Like obviously he wasn’t in Misthallory with them all, he wasn’t on the island in ED, he wasn’t at Monte’dor, and he wasn’t on the Bostonius or at all those Azran ruins that I can’t remember the names of right now, of course he wouldn’t know the intimate, specific details of what all went down, but if there was just one npc who was in the right place at the right time at any of these locations, who knows what beans they could spill? Maybe even an ex-Targent person or something. Hell, fucking Bronev is in jail for at least a little while before the events of UF. There are possibly MANY people Clive could have gotten information from to pull off this role - he’s a reporter, he’s skilled at digging for stuff. Not to mention just reading and hearing about large incidents in the news. And this makes his character so much better because he’s admired Hershel for so long, grateful that he saved his life all this time, to the point that he asks him to unknowingly come and save him again… and he most definitely didn’t know back when he first encountered Hershel that he’d already experienced so much loss and pain as well (some of which Hershel hadn’t even gone through yet by that point), but learning about everything he’s suffered? I think it would really affect him, and possibly contribute to why he asks him for his help in the first place in UF: because Hershel has suffered just as much as he has, and he feels a connection to him, feels like he can relate to him, and wants someone who can empathize with him, and show him how to cope. All of these reasons and emotions would probably be completely on an unconscious level, but they would exist - he’d use this limited but meaningful knowledge to try to connect with Hershel more when he’s still in Future Luke mode, to try to convince him he’s really Luke, at first, but unconsciously it’d be an effort to get closer to him emotionally, which is what he truly desires deep down, until his so-called act somewhat stops being an act, and talking about these things makes his vulnerabilities start to show (again, i wrote a fic about this). This all just adds to why Hershel is the perfect person to help and support Clive - the prequels make their similarities even stronger, more than just with Hershel losing Claire, and those accidental parallels when the writers hadn’t even conceived the prequel trilogy at the time of UF are just *chef’s kiss* beautiful.

THE CASINO SCENE IS JUST ICONIC, IT’S SO FUNNY. LUKE BEING SCARED OF THE SHOOTING AND HERSHEL JUST DITCHING HIM. CLIVE’S LITTLE HOP AND ROLL BEHIND THE SLOT MACHINES. THE SLOT MACHINE GUN IN GENERAL. THE CLONE FAMILY MEMBERS FALLING OVER LIKE DOMINOS UPON BEING HIT. BOSTRO CRYING AND SPLINTERS AND LOCKJAW RUNNING IN CIRCLES PANICKING WHILE LAYMAN JUST IS LITERALLY PUSHED BACK SLOWLY WITH ONLY A CHAIR TO DEFEND HIMSELF, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW FUNNY LAYMAN AS A CHARACTER IS TO ME. it’s just so glorious, oh my god. this series is ridiculous i love it so much lmao

Luke wanting to use the time machine though… there are so many reasons why he might want to, mainly from Azran Legacy. :’)

The statue is the worst thing ever for multiple reasons. The fact that it represents Hershel & Luke’s relationship, the two main characters, who have been through so much together and have such a strong bond that can never be broken, and how it ties into the whole Evil Layton scenario and seems to foreshadow that their bond does end up breaking, as “Future Luke” seems to be proof of (though the game doesn’t really put much emphasis on this; Luke is more worried about the fact that he’s moving away soon straining their relationship, and not the whole Future Layton thing. imo it would have been interesting to see his actual thoughts on/feelings about it, since he’s surprisingly calm throughout the entire game before the reveals happen; you can argue he just has complete faith in Hershel and doesn’t think he would ever go dark, but then why doesn’t he bring this up, insist that this can’t be true? I think he should have). The fact that as I just said it foreshadows how Luke will leave Hershel at the end of the game, something that Luke worries about later on in the game. And most of all, the biggest, worst thing it foreshadows… Hershel’s relationship with Clive. Clive had that statue made himself, put it in his giant set. He WANTS that kind of mentor-student bond with Hershel, that’s how he sees them, just from their one interaction in front of the exploding buildings… or at least, that’s how he wants to see it. He sees how close Hershel and Luke are throughout the entire game, and he yearns for that kind of bond with Hershel, too. The fact that the boy in the statue story has an illness that he eventually dies from, but that their friendship withstands… it’s probably meant to represent Clive’s insanity, that he hopes Hershel will save him from - he is Clive’s light of hope in his despair. Or, to be more accurate to the statue, even if Clive’s madness ends up killing him (which it very nearly does, and by that point he fully expects that it will), he’ll still have had those memories of that time he spent with him, and Hershel will never forget him, and that will mean something special. man though can you imagine an AU where Clive is literally terminally ill too, and that’s why he’s yolo-ing this entire thing so hard and doesn’t care if it ends up killing him in the end, at least he got to be with Hershel one more day; ahahahaha turn up the angsttttttttttttt-

Shmelmey and Shmarton do not at all look like Chelmey and Barton, smh

For everything Clive accounted for with his role and setting, he’s honestly way too rude and crass sometimes to be Luke lmao, even if you try to imagine a world where Hershel did go dark and Luke was changed by it… at least imo

the like 4 puzzles that give Clive’s solving animations/dialogue are the most serotonin-boosting things in the world

“you will come back, won’t you?” Clive asks Hershel about his trip to visit Chelmey, desperately wanting him to stop him before it’s too late :’)

Rosetta and her....... sessions....... with Hershel........ hajkkALSKDLD

Okay but Hershel is kind of dickish sometimes though, despite his whole “gentleman” thing??? There’s the elephant in the room which I’ll Get To, but like first he guilt-trips Chelmey into getting him access to confidential information about the lab explosion, and then he has the absolute balls to tell him “Bill Hawks is being held in the future” and that’s IT. No explanation, nothing else, just THAT, and then he LEAVES, after he’d promised to share every last detail with him. I don’t blame Chelmey at all for tailing them and barging in to get information himself, like damn Hershel, why so savage sometimes in not a good way

which brings me to Ranting About Flora’s Treatment, Part 3: The Finale. Y’all I literally cannot even BEGIN to describe how much the way Hershel and Luke treat Flora in UF specifically makes me seethe..... It was already bad in DB, no doubt, but in this game they are straight-up rude to her, mostly Hershel, for absolutely no reason, and I CANNOT fathom why. He constantly makes the excuse that he’s concerned for her safety, and that the places they’re going to are too dangerous for her, but it all exudes a level of thinly-veiled annoyance, even confusion as to why Flora is so upset that they never bring her along and wants to go with them at all... almost like her “frail” feminine appearance (which isn’t helped by how the games make her feel sick or dizzy or tired multiple times), compared to someone like Emmy who could fight and has more masculine traits, means she’s less capable in Hershel’s mind, which, like, even if it’s unconscious on his part... how about no?? I could accept being worried about her, even if I’m still frustrated at her being left behind, and her constant kidnapping (which isn’t Hershel’s fault, even if he probablyyy could do a better job both times at protecting her), but I CANNOT excuse how short and dismissive Hershel is with her in this damn game; it honestly borders on ooc to me for him, I don’t know what the writers were thinking; do they just hate Flora that freaking much??? He treats her like a burden the entire time, apologizes to people for her, acts irritated at having to accommodate for her, when poor Flora just wants to spend time with him and feel like an equal to him and Luke. Meanwhile Clive of all people is the first one to treat her with kindness and respect and pleasure to see her when they first meet, like when Luke bitches about Flora being excited to see the river and not taking things seriously and Clive tells him to go easy on her (Clive, the one who has been rushing them along this entire time himself). honestly can see why it’s so easy to ship them, when literally everyone else treats her like crap It’s SO depressing honestly. Flora asks them if they thought to wonder where her future self was, and Hershel is just like hhhhh we’re kinda busy thinking about... you know.... important things... sorry not sorry....... like BITCH I WILL STRANGLE YOU, BE NICER TO YOUR DAUGHTER!!! Luke at least is a kid, but Hershel??? there’s no excuse!!! Luke be like “damn I hope Becky doesn’t look down on us for leaving Flora behind... >.>” THEY KNOW. THEY KNOW IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT THEY DON’T CARE AND DO IT ANYWAY. I’M SO MAD

Beasly just gets... straight-up murdered yo... between him and Subject 3, what were they smoking when coming up with the animals in this game, jfc. Test subject animals?? that’s unnervingly dark, despite how glossed over it is and how hilarious Subject 3 is a;lksd

LUKE LOVES SHERLOCK HOLMES THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THE DGS CROSSOVER IS WAITING, LEVEL-5 AND CAPCOM. MAKE LUKE’S (AND MY) DREAMS A REALITY

the intentional zoom-in on Clive’s sinister face in front of the tower will never not amuse me, and baffle me as to why they drew attention to it lmaooo

And okay back to time travel bullshit shenanigans, WHY the fuck does Dimitri not pick up on why him not remembering about the pen is such a big deal as soon as Paul first brings it up?? bruh. bruh. aren’t you a fucking TIME TRAVEL SCIENTIST. WHY DO YOU NOT KNOW SUCH A BASIC CONCEPT THAT BREAKS YOUR WHOLE FACADE IN SECONDS. It’d be one thing if he just couldn’t provide the right answer, but no, he straight-up HAS NO IDEA WHY HE SHOULD HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT THE PEN. “HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW-” bruhhhh. Dimitri. my dude. i love you but you are actually so dumb sometimes, like holy shit (more on this later though)

Paul talking to Dimitri about his plan is really good; he has a “...” moment before telling him what he’s doing can’t be excused, like “oh shit let me jump on board, wait fuck i gotta stay in character, Layton is a wuss he would never agree to this god dammit Layton-”. jokes aside though, I’m honestly confused as to how much he actually knew before Dimitri’s exposition in the pagoda, and why exactly he goes along with helping Hershel stop him... and what Dimitri was thinking roping him into this. Because I can’t really figure out Paul’s motives here and how they changed, if they did at all. The only information we get about how he first became involved is that Dimitri was paying him a lot of money to get Hershel to the pagoda and to him - he knows that “future London” isn’t real, he knows Future Layton isn’t real, so the extent of his knowledge seems to be that “this man wants to screw Layton over somehow and is giving me $$$ to get it done; there’s no downside here, never mind this suspicious as fuck fake London and all these people that shouldn’t be here”, but then Hershel gave him more information, probably that Claire was involved in what Dimitri was doing, and his concerns about a traitor being involved if he had already begun to suspect Clive by that point, and then he suddenly decided to turn against Dimitri? Even though you’d think saving Claire would be a reason for him to want to help him...? Or did he plan to turn against him from the very start, and wanted Hershel to come because he knew he could stop all this (part of his character development)? The latter is the most likely, though I still don’t entirely understand or maybe I’m just having a brain fart, that’s very likely too. And Dimitri on the other hand, did he know that Paul liked Claire too and would want to save her (and maybe about his salt for Hershel too), and that’s why he got his help? That makes more sense... but also doesn’t, cause as I said it seems like Paul didn’t know Claire was involved until Hershel told him and then Dimitri told everyone at the pagoda, so maybe he literally just said “here’s some money, help me fuck over Layton, not telling how” and just trusted in him that much, even though Paul is an evil genius who could and does put a stop to all his plans with his machines... once again, Dimitri looking dumb....

Clive, in the most deadpan voice ever at the top of the pagoda: oh no, the prime minister is in danger, someone help him

Flora as they’re escaping the tower: “professor no please take me with you instead of future Luke” Hershel: *ignores her feelings and makes a decision for her yet again* Clive: “shhh don’t worry Flora; i know i’m going to kidnap you in like an hour but i’m just trying to rescue you from these insensitive jerks. not Don Paolo though; he’s a gentleman.”

It’s interesting to me that Luke and Hershel keep acting as if Future Luke and future London are legit even after Future Layton has been revealed to be a fake. Hershel at least probably knows none of it is real by now, even if he hasn’t exactly figured out Clive’s role in everything yet, and is just not revealing his knowledge for now, but Luke is still rolling with it... wonder what’s going through his mind by this point. again, it frustrates me that Luke really has no emotional reaction to anything in UF, aside from the statue and his worries about leaving Hershel soon and how that in particular will affect their relationship

I also wonder what Clive is thinking by this point. Now that the Future Layton jig is up, what kind of story is he going with now? We never find out because Hershel reveals everything completely the next time Clive joins up with them again, but in the (unreasonable) case that he hadn’t, would Clive have just acted like he didn’t know that Alain Stahngun was actually someone named Dimitri, who was actually pretending to be Layton, and that the real Layton was somewhere else out there that they needed to find? I don’t know WHY I’m so interested in details like these that don’t matter at all in the long run a;lksdfklfd, but I am... he tells Flora to continue the “investigation” without him, so clearly he still had something in mind, and didn’t expect Hershel to out him quite so soon after that even if deep down he wanted it

Chelmey really cares for Barton and it’s actually so sweet, oml :’)

I didn’t really praise Paul’s character development in this game enough before, but I really do love it, even if I don’t quite understand the circumstances that started it. It’s not something I would have expected with how he’s presented in CV and DB, but it’s very nice to see this be the culmination of his character, and it’s kinda sad that it feels a bit more natural than Descole’s sudden shift in backstory/character between ED and MM/AL... It’s very funny and good to see him and Luke bicker at each other, and how he seems to have a soft spot for Flora... it’s all cute. I just wish there’d been a bit more time for him to talk to them, but that’s what fanfic is for

Don’t make me have to see Hershel beaten up in the street :’(

The sprite of Dimitri standing in the bar is incredibly hot.... damn why are all the older male characters my type >.>

Alright but it’s about time I finally talk about Dimitri without dissing him for being stupid sometimes and say that in short, I love him. He might even be my favorite new character in UF, even more than Clive; I don’t know if it’s just the Liam O’Brian Tragic Sexy Tired Villain effect or what (nah let’s be real, that’s a huge part of it lmao), but he’s fantastic and utterly breaks my heart, in a much more understated way than how the game shoves Clive’s angst in your face, but his tragedy is nonetheless impossible to ignore. The flashback with young Dimitri is my favorite scene in the entire game, it is devastating and feels so cinematic, so raw and painful, and I’m glad they animated that part because it humanizes him so much more. Claire was his everything, he loved her so much, but it is so obvious to me (and to a lot of the fandom too, I think) that his love was entirely selfless - he might have been a little sad, but he was still mostly content letting Hershel have her, and when it comes to after her death, Dimitri would have been absolutely happy not being able to have her if he managed to save her life; he just wanted her to live. He was in love with her, yes, but he also loved her, as a friend, as a scientist, as a person whose time was cut far too short for entirely selfish and unnecessary reasons, and the majority of his anger and bitterness and drive came from a desire to fix such an injustice - to save an innocent person’s life. And the saddest part of him doing all this and trying to sustain Claire’s existence in the present once he finds her, if you go with the closed loop time travel theory, is that Dimitri should already know it’s impossible for him to succeed in this as long as he remembers finding her body in the past - him succeeding would create a paradox, thus, he can’t save her. But he’s so deep in his despair and obsession and insistence on preserving her life that I don’t think he ever stops to think about this - or he does, but refuses to acknowledge it. I’m sure he was incredibly sweet and kind and soft in the past, with her, and with his passion, and it’s heartbreaking to see how broken he is now, how miserable and tired he is, how much everything changed him. And wanting to get back at someone like Bill, who had it all to begin with and then carelessly used them to gain even more, well, I don’t blame him for that. >_> Not to mention his relationship with Clive, which is all kinds of fascinating to think about: the most chaotic, dysfunctional mess of a half-business partnership half-father/son relationship there is, ahaha... Both of them are unhealthy to the extreme in different ways, but with how much time they spent together, it’s inevitable they had vulnerable moments around each other... Clive is the only other person Dimitri would have around during his research to possibly grow to care about, even if it was entirely unconsciously. Learning he was using him would, well, ruin their relationship even more than it was already messed up, but maybe he would visit Clive in prison at least once, assuming Hershel was. I just crave content for them, ugh. Dimitri just deserved so much better, he makes me so sad </3 and I honestly hate that we don’t get to see him say goodbye to Claire at the end before Hershel; sure it would have utterly killed me, but surely he deserved that much...

The utter, frankly amazing, stupidity of Flora’s kidnapping has been stated everywhere, we all know it, but just.... yeah. smh

Seeing the mobile fortress be like *war flashbacks to the Detragon* “Not This Shit Again” Hershel why tf you putting Luke in more danger AGAIN???

The car scenes with the mobile fortress are, at least to me, the funniest parts of the entire game, even better than the casino, oh my god they’re AMAZING. Luke screaming and flailing his arms while Hershel deadpan flings the car towards the fortress, all the bumps they hit riding across it later on, the car just FALLING and Bill almost falling out of it, and then the plane, all the while Hershel displays no more than mild frustration while everyone else is PANICKING... “a plane? This is an automobile!” ...iconic. top PL moments ever. Luke don’t you recall the time when Hershel built an entire mini plane out of a chainsaw and a barrel in ED, come on now

Onto Claire. Claire doesn’t get much screentime, but some of the moments she does have are very good; she’s one of the best and most fleshed-out female PL characters imo, and like a lot of things, I appreciate her a lot more after this replay than I did years ago... LayClaire is a cute ship and all, but I was never really obsessed with it; rather, I’m realizing now I’m more invested in what Claire has to offer by herself. I hate to use the term “strong female character” cause that sounds so cliche... but she really is strong. The entire part with her wanting to save Clive, their conversation, and her bringing him out... god it gets me, it really does. She’s known she’s going to die for ages, and at this point in the game she knows it could be any moment now, so she has no reason to try to keep herself safe; she’s doomed no matter what, so she might as well spend the last few minutes of her life saving another life, and not just anyone: someone who’s just killed countless people, who anyone else would see as insane, who doesn’t care for her, doesn’t care if he lives or dies - but Claire is compassionate enough that, despite everything, she fiercely believes he deserves to live. Because of her own guilt and sins she believes she bears, yes, but also simply because she believes he can still change, and doesn’t deserve to die, despite the HORRIBLE atrocity he just committed. She’s just that good a person. It’s no wonder she and Hershel loved each other and were made for each other; both of them are such kind, loving, selfless people who see the best in anyone no matter what. Perhaps she hoped and suspected that Hershel would look out for and care for Clive once he was in prison, so she wanted to make sure that could happen, even if she wouldn’t be around to ever see it.

sorry I just get really emotional about this part, about the entire mood and tone of Claire desperately trying to save this kid, and the way the camera focuses on the massive scale of the fortress and how it dwarfs them in size... It’s a really powerful and melancholic scene (just like Dimitri’s flashback scene; have I mentioned how much I adore the atmosphere and cinematic direction of this game? cause god I do) with the knowledge of her real identity and circumstances, the visuals and the music are so good, ugh i just have so many feels. mom Claire hurts me </3 she’s so good... Despite the fact that she dies, and so much of what everyone is doing is because of her death, her presence in the story is so strong, and it never feels like her only purpose is to die for everyone else’s development and that’s it (unlike... well, a lot of other pl females :’); she has her own things to do, she stops the fortress alongside Hershel, and literally saves the main antagonist’s life. Seriously I just adore the fact that she of all people is the one to rescue Clive in the end even though she wasn’t at all obligated to (although I’d be interested and cry over an AU where Hershel saves him instead; it honestly surprises me that he wasn’t going to until Claire said something...), because Clive is the only character (of the adults) who doesn’t have a direct relationship with Claire, but they’re still connected by the explosion, and so it makes for an interesting and terribly sad dynamic, even if they only have a few minutes with each other, for all the reasons I said earlier. Claire doesn’t think what he did was right, but she knows what she and the other scientists did wasn’t right either - and it’s too late for her now, but it’s not too late for him; she knows he has a kind heart, deep down, and that he needs help if he wants to redeem himself. She feels responsible for him, feels like she owes him that second chance, after indirectly taking his parents from him and causing him such misery and brokenness... She’s so brave and strong-willed to be able to do and admit all that she does; I just love her. It clearly kills her to leave Hershel, I don’t think she intended at first to ever let him know who she was (hence Celeste), but she’s not too upset in the end, because she (rightly) knows that he will be all right. ;; She’s so beautiful, too... wish we could have seen her interact with so many of the other characters </3

and so my favorite “insert Descole into the main trilogy” AU is where Descole intercepts Claire and makes some sort of body for her, like how everyone headcanons that for Aurora post-AL. (or/also just mobile fortress vs. Descole robots, that’s cool too lol)

And finally, Clive, the infamous star of Unwound Future, thought I talked about him a bit already (and also in this post a few weeks ago). Clive is probably the PL series’ best written villain Anton excluded, I absolutely love him, like everyone does. Nothing really about him hasn’t been done before elsewhere, but that’s not a bad thing; when I was younger and first played the game I really only paid attention to his sympathetic side, but now I’ve also grown an appreciation and fondness for that kind of unabashedly awful, manic, evil insanity a villain like him has, it’s just SO entertaining to watch. If PL was a more mature/higher rated series I’d love to see his chaotic crazed energy played up even more, just to really hammer in how messed up he is, ahaha, but of course that would make it harder to sympathize with him..... and unfortunately, it already is kind of hard, because.... shit, the number of people he must have killed? It’s a LOT. A FUCKTON. The level of sympathy the game gives Clive and the way it presents him at the end is not at ALL relative to the astronomical amount of people that had to have been squashed to death by his machine, to the point that it honestly makes me uncomfortable, and I try to just retcon that in my head, as hard as it is to imagine a scenario where that thing could have come up to London and not hit any houses, because like..... There’s no coming back from that. He knew exactly what he was doing, madness or not, and I honestly just... don’t want him to be such a mass murderer. Maybe it’s wrong to ignore it, but the game wants me to feel sorry for him and see his potential for redemption, and his relationship with Hershel is so good... dammit game, why’d you have to show those houses being crushed. Ugh. Because Clive is so compelling as someone who feels betrayed by people in power, who desires revenge not only for himself but for all the people who suffered just like he has that he says he bore witness to as a reporter; it’s a very relatable position and a good story, for his well-meaning intentions to be skewed and lost in the midst of his rage and despair and hatred and insanity, where his very valid point of “hey people in government are fucked up and don’t give a shit about us and that needs to change” gets turned into “they all need to die even if the very innocent people I want to save get hurt by this as well”, and I really wish that whole angle of it had been played up a bit more, and there had been more of an opportunity for Hershel to reason with him and argue that in the midst of his blind need for revenge, he’s become even worse than the people who need justice handed to them (cue some Descole allusionssss). He wouldn’t have to win him over, Clive is already too deep by that point despite how much he wanted to be stopped, but just having more of that than just what happens in the surveillance room would have been sooooooo good, I love that conversation. It would have made Clive even better and really drive home that he’s 1) kinda right about some things and wants better for people 2) still very fucking wrong and selfish at the same time and has taken it all way too far 3) very fucked up and broken. Not that the third point isn’t already abundantly clear, but... yeah. It would have given him even more depth, made him more sympathetic, and helped juuust a little to offset how much the game handwaves his mass murders... just a little... One of my favorite Clive scenes though is when the fortress is breaking down and he’s still there, desperately trying to save it, still in denial about the fact that all his plans have failed and that everything he’s done (and himself) is about to go up in flames; I know everyone loves making fun of him and that that scene is pretty memeable (he does get bodied so much in the game, lmaooo), but it makes him look so vulnerable, all alone in there by himself, like a child, which is what he really is, deep down: he never truly wanted to do something so abhorrent and evil, but his emotions and mind spiraled so badly out of control and it led him to such a dark, horrible place, where he couldn’t stop himself, no matter how much he wanted to, and in the end all he can do is watch helplessly as the reality of what he’s done and his unwound future all comes crashing down in front of him, never to be salvaged. And he believes wholeheartedly that he is going to die, that he deserves to (this is my favorite Clive scene; he’s so hurt and resigned, the voice acting kills me ugh), he doesn’t understand at all why Claire wants to save him, especially if he knows she’s one of the scientists (as his line of “why are you of all people helping me” implies), because he always thought none of them ever cared about him and people he saw as like him, thought everyone was like Bill Hawks, but Claire still cared enough to want to save his life, even though she was one of the people he was actively targeting with his revenge... I wonder how he would have felt at the time if he had known about her situation and that she was dying. </3 I just want so many good things for him, as so much of the fandom does. He’s so messed up but that’s what makes him so interesting, and his potential relationship with Hershel that the ending of the game suggests could happen is so touching and lovely and uplifting, one of my favorite kinds of relationships in fiction: Clive’s issues would persist for so long, for forever, really, but Hershel would support him and help him heal, and be there for him always, no matter how much Clive would feel like he didn’t deserve it. I eat this dynamic up, I really do, every single time I encounter it in a story, and it’s made even better by the fact that as I’ve said, Hershel has so much in common with Clive, and so they would get along very well for that reason, and Clive could unknowingly help Hershel just as much Hershel tries to help him. They’re so good for each other. Add Luke too, and Flora, and Desmond...! just ahhhhh........ there’s so much goodness. Clive you absolute glorious, fucked-up mess of a character, I love you. :’) and I love fic writers who explore facets of his personality and write about him. He’s only in one game, and there’s still a few hiccups, as I said, yet he’s handled far better than Descole or Randall in my opinion (though I love them too)... just an amazing fucking villain, and character. I wish UF could have gone deeper with him than it did, but even so, the possibilities with Clive are endless. I love him, so much ;;

and some of the themes of the plot in this game, uhh, hit a little close to home in good ole’ 2020/21 time we live in? :’) #FuckBillHawks

Hershel saying goodbye to Claire.... god. One of the top scenes in the entire series, probably the #1 most iconic I’d even go so far as to say. I don’t even really ship LayClaire, but there’s an indescribable emotion that finale gives me... it’s just breathtaking, in the most gutwrenching, nostalgic, beautiful way. I still maintain that Diabolical Box’s ending is sadder than this one, for a multitude of reasons, just comparing the stories and situations the characters are in, but I 100% don’t blame people for bawling at this scene more than any other, just because of the way it’s done yes I know I won’t shut up about the cinematography; the lighting, the camera angles, the pacing of it, Hershel’s fucking kicked puppy faces, the dialogue oh god the dialogue; it ALL hits like a TRUCK and comes together beautifully. At this point in his life Hershel has been through so much loss, so much so that it is unbearable - when he cries that he doesn’t want to say goodbye again, that he can’t say goodbye again, that he refuses to, nothing in the world is more true: this man has been through too much, and he’s hit his breaking point. even if you don’t have the prequels in mind when watching this, as most people don’t/didn’t the first time through, the overwhelming sense of burden and loss Hershel is feeling is so palpable, so painful - you get the sense that this isn’t just about Claire; Hershel has never shown emotion like this before up to this point, so for him to finally break down like this... it speaks volumes. After so many years of holding everything in, he finally can’t take it anymore, and basically stabbing me in the fucking chest would hurt less </3 I complain about Hershel never showing emotion like this (never crying) in the prequels whenever he’s hit with an equally horrible bombshell, and I still feel that way, but at the same time a part of me is also glad that’s the case, because it makes the very last (two) scenes in the entire series hit so much harder, knowing that he finally loses his composure after dealing with so much. As the titular character of the series, Hershel’s development is very understated and subtle, so it’s all the more meaningful when he actually snaps, because it makes him feel so much more real and human than he ever is the rest of the time, when he maintains his facade of being a perfectly composed, calm, and together gentleman; this scene finally say that, no, Hershel is a person, and he is broken in a lot of ways, because some puzzles you just can’t solve no matter how hard you try, and it’s so sad. And this sad tone of loss and longing permeates the entire cutscene; the way the title is dropped in Claire’s dialogue (both versions equally haunting imo), and Hershel taking off his hat for the first time ever, and the pan up and transition back to show the falling snow as “Time Travel”, my favorite instrumental in the series, kicks in... y’all there is no other feeling in the world like the feeling that elicits, there really isn’t ಥ⌣ಥ ❤️💔 the only thing that might even come close to it is the ending of Azran Legacy with Surely Someday, simply because it was the ending of the series, but the ending of Unwound Future hits me harder knowing it’s the end of the timeline, and with everything else in hindsight. And then an unknown amount of time later, even with Luke gone and Hershel only having Flora there with him anymore unless we headcanon DESMOND COMES BACK BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DID RIGHT, Hershel is still no longer wearing his hat, to show that he’s finally started to heal from his pain, and accepted the loss(es), because throughout all of UF Hershel had never really gotten over Claire’s death no matter how much he tried to pretend like he had, but you don’t realize that until you see the ending, until he got one final chance to see her. I just... ugh I love it so much, so much. It means so much, for Hershel and for the series, and that’s why it makes me cry (and don’t even get me sTARTED on Luke’s goodybe, and how upsetting yet beautiful THAT is. yes, Luke isn’t a gentleman yet, and Hershel finally learns that maybe he doesn’t always have to be one, either :’’’’’’)

Unwound Future is a masterpiece. Diabolical Box has my favorite characters and story for the new characters, and favorite settings, personally, but Unwound Future is such top-tier storytelling and writing; it feels so epic and sweeping and (here i go again) cinematic, it’s so polished and everything flows so well, the pacing is wonderful, everything ties up so perfectly and there’s very little I would change Flora bitching aside and practically nothing that feels like filler, even though some of it technically is. The tone stays consistent and they really push the boundaries of how serious and heavy these games can be, and it works, and doesn’t feel silly or glossed over or too unrealistic or too heavyhanded like some of the other games are at times; the plot twists/reveals feel the least absurd and the most grounded in reality, despite still being wild, and it focuses on some really relevant stuff and themes (again, it feels really grounded and raw, and the least fantastical, which isn’t a bad thing for the other games/movie per se, but being more realistic works in this one’s favor. No one is going to have their family separated and murdered by a criminal secret organization working to unearth ancient advanced civilized ruins, or lose years of their life and memories in said ancient ruins, or have their life ruined in an eternal unaging state from hallucinogenic gas, but being screwed over by people in government who will do anything to make sure they never have to face consequences? now that’s a mood). It’s just a really fucking good game, by far the best Professor Layton game, and I’ll always stand by that, despite preferring DB just a bit more cause it hits more of my personal tastes (DB is still very good too though, don’t get me wrong), and it’s also enhanced even more by the prequels, though it stands perfectly on its own. The perfect culmination of Hershel’s character arc, and the absolute high point of the series. It’s one of the ones I keep coming back to the most, just because it has so much to offer; as someone who is absolutely enamored with near-perfect stories of this caliber, I couldn’t ask for more. ❤️

[melien]

I wanted to express my gratitude for your amazing support throughout the latest Twinkle storyline. All the lovely comments about Carn and Claret have made me so happy. I think I can’t find the right words to describe how thankful I am, and how much these comments always made me smile, laugh, go “awww” and be like “god same” when people were yelling at them. I have to confess that along the way (ever since I started planning their story in March/April last year), I’ve also hopelessly fallen in love with these two, and all this time I was trying so hard not to give up and just spill the beans. I usually reply directly under the post when I know what to say, but I didn’t want to spam you all, so I decided to compile the comments from the last few days into a large reply post! I haven’t made such posts in more than a year since they’re quite a pain due to x-kit, and they will probably be occasional, but this time I wanted to do one, and even made a new banner for it. I’ll try to replicate my live reactions to the comments :D

Carnet will be back very soon with the quadruple portion of feels (and I mean it). It makes me so content that you love them as much as I do, and I promise to deliver. 😁 Now, it may be a good time to start posting at least a little introduction to my new legacy, the Lilygreens. Here’s a fun story about where I got the inspiration for their last name: I was looking for something special to no avail. But what inspired me was this song (only true eurofans will remember, lmao. It’s from ESC 2010). It’s so lovely and reminds me of a few couples of mine (Carnet included, I’ve listened to it a lot during working on their story). So I thought the singer had a really unique last name, and the rest was history. I hope you’ll enjoy this legacy, it’s a vanilla one and I haven’t played vanillas in such a long time!

aestheicpixels replied to your photo “Claret: And this one is… ???: Claret?”

Lowkey hoping it’s Carn even though it probably isn’t.

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Claret: And this one is… ???: Claret?”

Eeeee is it who i think it is??? i hope so *excitedly waiting for the next post* :D :D

I mean, it could be Master Fu Huang or Cami or Cat or her parents or literally anyone... but I’m sure it would be frustrating :P

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

♥o♥ is it possible to be in love with a sim?!? Omg, he's such a heartthrob ♥ ♥ Claret is one lucky girl! :D

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

Also, her face, i'm dying xD

No worries, that’s exactly how I feel about Carn :D

cafeheart replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

SHIT HE GLO'D UP

I think he had the biggest glo-up among my sims, ever! He doesn’t even look like his old self anymore. :D

a-simming-princess replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

*low-key screaming*

cloudberry-sims replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

I KNEW IT!!! I had this feeling in my gut that Carnelian would come for Claret *w* Ahh what a lovely love story!

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

YEET, also awwwww her reaction!

vintageplumbobs replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

He’s such a cutie. I love this boy 💜

simside replied to your photoset “Claret: CARN!!!”

IM CRYIN

Ajdksdkslkd I was anticipating this post so much! I was trying so hard to keep my lips sealed :D

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Carnelian: Oh my god, you– your hair! Claret: No, it’s your hair! And...”

lmao xD omg i love this ♥

I just imagine them screaming at each other until they realize what’s going on xD

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset “Claret: I sent you scenery pics! I thought it’s more important!...”

Awwwwwww, I am so excited about this! This is too cute!

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset “Claret: I did. I really missed you. Come here… I’m so happy to see...”

AWWWWW

That hug, how much both of them craved it!

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photo “Carnelian: We have matching hairstyles now. We’re basically soulmates....”

Soulmates! <333

The original draft said something like “soul buddies” but I guessed it would be too much even for them lmao

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset

Awwwwww

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset

I love them

I do too, so much ♥

borderlinedub replied to your photo “Carnelian: Why am I even in lo– I mean, why am I even friends with...”

DON'T BE A TWIT CARN

weirdsimfreak replied to your photo “Carnelian: Why am I even in lo– I mean, why am I even friends with...”

We all know what you meant Carn ;)

monets-pixels replied to your photo “Carnelian: Why am I even in lo– I mean, why am I even friends with...”

boi just SAY IT

aestheicpixels replied to your photo “Carnelian: Why am I even in lo– I mean, why am I even friends with...”

👀

Carn is one of those precious people who is constantly worried about overstepping boundaries, so he was trying so hard to show that his intentions are solely friendly ;_;

cherishsims replied to your photo “Carnelian: Oh my god, you– your hair! Claret: No, it’s your hair! And...”

He became a daddy during Claret's time away

Stop it Anonymous Friend

borderlinedub replied to your photo “Claret: And this one is for Cami and Cat. They are already bombarding...”

fsr Claret's eyelashes are particularly prominent in this one. so pretty

Right, I love these eyelashes! They sometimes glitch out and randomly disappear but it’s not too much of a problem, I just replace them.

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Claret: And this one is for Cami and Cat. They are already bombarding...”

Awwwwwwww ♥

aestheicpixels replied to your photo “Claret: And this one is for Cami and Cat. They are already bombarding...”

They’re so adorable!!

Spoilers: Cami and Cat died from all the feels

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Carnelian: Ahhh… Quite refreshing, after such a long flight. Claret:...”

Bahaha, Carn's face xD I love him ♥

High five, I’m so in love with him right now! :D

tainoodles replied to your photoset “Claret: You’re beautiful. Carnelian: Uh… me? Claret: I mean! The water...”

guuuuuurl

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “Claret: You’re beautiful. Carnelian: Uh… me? Claret: I mean! The water...”

LMAO i mean she's not wrong ;) but that words vomit, i love it xD

For some reason the words vomits are always so fun to write!

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Claret: What a wonderful day. Blue sky, green grass, Carn’s abs… Wait,...”

Dang right girl, no one missed those Carn abs xD

simmeronnie replied to your photo “Claret: What a wonderful day. Blue sky, green grass, Carn’s abs… Wait,...”

Relatable tbh

Love me some abs

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset “Chinese guy 1: Girl, just kiss him already. Chinese guy 2: Yeah....”

Carn and Chinese Guy 2 for sure

weirdsimfreak replied to your photoset “Chinese guy 1: Girl, just kiss him already. Chinese guy 2: Yeah....”

New otp

a-simming-princess replied to your photoset “Chinese guy 1: Girl, just kiss him already. Chinese guy 2: Yeah....”

Haha!

Claret who?

vintageplumbobs replied to your photoset “Claret: I mean, what I did to you at the homecoming. What I’ve been...”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “Claret: I mean, what I did to you at the homecoming. What I’ve been...”

Omg omg omg

theladygrace replied to your photoset “Claret: I mean, what I did to you at the homecoming. What I’ve been...”

ALJDKLLSJDKL FINALLY

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “Claret: I mean, what I did to you at the homecoming. What I’ve been...”

asdflasdkfs OMG I wasn't expecting her to actually say it, i'm dyyyyyying ♥o♥

a-simming-princess replied to your photoset “Claret: I mean, what I did to you at the homecoming. What I’ve been...”

YAYYYY finally, a confession!! 😍😍

simmeronnie replied to your photoset “Claret: I mean, what I did to you at the homecoming. What I’ve been...”

*insert more screaming*

This post!!! I’ve come with the idea of it when I was going on a trip in November and was exceptionally bored on the bus. It was past midnight, too. All the best ideas come unexpectedly! But yeah, since then I was imagining how he’s saying “I won’t force you into loving me when you don’t” and she’s like “but I do...” and not gonna lie, it made my heart skip a beat every time I thought about it. Sometimes simple lines like this can evoke so much feelings!

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Carnelian: You… do? Claret: I was lost and confused when I was...”

His face, I'm dying right now!! ♥ ♥

aestheicpixels replied to your photo “Carnelian: You… do? Claret: I was lost and confused when I was...”

Yeeeeeeee

I also love how his face turned out. Deep inside he almost lost hope that she’ll ever reciprocate! But she, unknowingly for herself, did all along.

simmeronnie replied to your photo “Carnelian: You mean, about Lemon? Claret: No. It’s hard, but I’m...”

I keep reading Lemon as Lennon for some reason and I don't like it lmao

OMG SAME! I’ve done it so many times that I lost count. Stop haunting me, Lennon!

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Claret: I know what you’re thinking! Now I made everything awkward....”

I'm crying, i love this so much ♥ ♥

aestheicpixels replied to your photo “Claret: I know what you’re thinking! Now I made everything awkward....”

Awww! I’m so happy now! Oh my goodness! Best thing to happen!

I’m happy that I have made people happy and managed to touch hearts, it’s the main purpose I want to achieve with my stories!

aestheicpixels replied to your photo “Claret: My parents had this magical love story which almost seemed...”

This is so beautiful. Like beautifully written and oh my goodness Claret

simlovinggirl replied to your photo “Claret: My parents had this magical love story which almost seemed...”

I think someone inherited some writing genes from her mommy :) She could be a poet with this, love it ♥ ♥

Claret has a soft poetic side for sure :P I’m always insecure about my writing, but I can definitely say this is one of the best scenes I’ve written and I’m 100% satisfied with how it turned out, it’s the kind of scene I’ll probably be randomly reading in the future and getting hit with feels. I’m glad that you also like it! ♥

a-simming-princess replied to your photoset “Carnelian: There’s a reason why I had no chance to be happy with Guava...”

Omg make me cry 😭💗

monets-pixels replied to your photoset “Carnelian: There’s a reason why I had no chance to be happy with Guava...”

AAAAHHHHH

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “Carnelian: There’s a reason why I had no chance to be happy with Guava...”

My hear omg ♥

vintageplumbobs replied to your photoset “Carnelian: There’s a reason why I had no chance to be happy with Guava...”

😭😭😭😭

Quoting my girl Claret when she was talking to Cami, “my mission is to make you cry. Happy tears, of course. I won’t accept sad tears”.

a-simming-princess replied to your photoset “But you’ll never be alone I’ll be with you from dusk till dawn I’ll be...”

Mfkfkdiejddnslcof the lyrics match perfectly with their names 😭💕

Yessss! I’ve always associated this song with them. I had quite an interesting experience with naming these two. I know a lot of simblrs had a dusk/dawn theme going, but it wasn’t them who influenced me. I’ve always wanted to name my sim Dawn ever since I had banilla legacies going on, it’s a beautiful name. It was Claret’s first name originally, but then I decided to give her a double one, because that’s when I started noticing there’s a lot of sims around with this name or middle name, including some people’s BPR heirs for gen 3, and I didn’t want to seem like a copycat.

As for Carn, he didn’t even have a middle name originally, for some reason I was dumb and didn’t figure out I could give them matching ones. But it was once again on another trip in summer, at 6 am, when I was tired and the only thing that kept me awake was listening to my playlist. This song, “Dusk Till Dawn”, came on shuffle, and I was like “... Carnelian Dusk. CARNELIAN DUSK. I’M SO DUMB WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG”. I had to replace his tag too when he was still a kid. But yeah, these names fit them absolutely perfectly.

So yeah, that was story time with Melien :D

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “But you’ll never be alone I’ll be with you from dusk till dawn I’ll be...”

*sobbing* ♥ ♥ ♥

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “But you’ll never be alone I’ll be with you from dusk till dawn I’ll be...”

Omg omg omg

I'm not crying not crying

Wait I'm totally crying

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset “But you’ll never be alone I’ll be with you from dusk till dawn I’ll be...”

YEET

Words cannot describe how happy I am

I’m happy too, it was so hard to keep it under wraps!

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “I’ll hold you when things go wrong I’ll be with you from dusk till...”

*cries happy tears* ♥ ♥

tiny-tany-thaanos replied to your photoset “I’ll hold you when things go wrong I’ll be with you from dusk till...”

They are so beautiful! ♥ ♥ ♥

I wasn’t kidding when I said that I also cried during writing this scene. I don’t know, it’s just so feelsy! I love slow burn relationships because it’s so satisfying in the end when they finally get together.

simlovinggirl replied to your photoset “Carnelian: Ah, Claret. Your lips are the sweetest I’ve ever kissed....”

lmao xD ♥

a-simming-princess replied to your photoset “Claret: Hah… Carnelian: What? Were my kissing ideas so funny? Are you...”

Okay but they are so cute??

aestheicpixels replied to your photoset “Claret: Hah… Carnelian: What? Were my kissing ideas so funny? Are you...”

This is so great. I love them so much

I can’t wait for you all to see how wholesome they are as a couple! I can hardly call this a spoiler because it’s obvious that they would be. :P

[yamsfreckles-archive]

Omg I hope it’s not too personal to ask about ur experience leaving the Mormon church; I was going to an lds church for a hot second and just oh god no

Thank you so much for your patience with me taking so long to answer this! Moving is stressful af (Also I hope you don’t mind that I’m answering this publicly. I rarely talk about this huge part of my life, but I feel it’s important for others to know before making a decision on joining a religion)

I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Usually called the LDS Church, or often just the “Mormon Church”). I was “born in the Covenant”, which is just a fancy way of saying my family was already members of the church when I was born. So basically, the mormon church and culture framed my Entire Life from the moment I was born until I officially resigned from the religion a year and a half ago. 

The core principal of mormanism is The Plan of Salvation - basically the idea that we were predestined in our pre-mortal lives to come to Earth and be tested, and if we remain faithful for our whole lives, when we die we will be exalted to the highest degree and have our family with us for all eternity. (Also there are three kingdoms of exaltation, and the highest one has three layers to it, and if you are in the highest layer of the highest kingdom then you actually get to create your own universe [if you’re a man] and become the God of that universe. If you’re a woman then your eternal duty is to bare children for your God-husband and populate that universe and never really be acknowledged lmao). Although that last fact isn’t super well known in the church doctrine. 

The mormon church follows the Bible like most Christian religions, but they also follow a separate book called “The Book of Mormon”, which the church authorities refer to as “the most correct of any book on Earth”. The Book of Mormon is all about how a righteous family left Jerusalem before it was destroyed and built a boat and sailed to the Americas where there was a war and half of the family descendants - the Lamanites - were evil and sought to bring down the kingdom of God, while the other half - the Nephites - were righteous to a fault. The Lamanites ended up getting struck with “blackness” for their sins so that they could be told apart from the white, and therefore good, Nephites. Church authorities in the past have claimed that the Lamanites were the direct ancestors of the Native Americans. Which is hugely racist and disgusting to say, because the book literally said that black skin would show “their abominations”. (But hey this church has been openly racist, sexist, and homophobic since its conception so big surprise there)

Anyway, there is a lot more doctrine and I could spend an eternity writing about it because it gets me so angry, but I feel this answer is already going to be fucking long enough so I’ll just leave those two points. Though if you want to know more about the church’s history with racism or sexism, let me know!

So like I said, I was born into this church and I was baptised at eight years old (the age of accountability) to become an official member of the church. I was completely in love with the church. It gave me purpose and friends. If you live in Utah or Idaho, Mormonism is the primary religion and you can’t go two blocks without seeing a church building.

When I got to high school I attended Seminary every day (basically church school for teens) and my senior year I was actually on the seminary council - a group of kids who got their kicks because they were the most righteous. That was the year I started to doubt, and doubt hard. Everything on the surface of the church seemed good and nice, but there were little things here and there that bothered me. I was told to “doubt my doubts before I doubted my faith” and that if I sought the Lord in sincere prayer, that he would answer me and I would know for sure the church was true. 

And I did pray. I prayed and fasted and did everything I could. I read my scriptures and attended church and did the best I could in my church callings. I never received an answer. And of course that made me feel like I wasn’t trying hard enough. So I doubled my efforts and ended up having a nervous breakdown because I was a doubter and God didn’t want to speak to me because of that. 

Around this same time I was also starting to come to terms with my sexuality which only made me feel worse about the whole thing, because homosexuality is a sin in mormonism, as it is in most major Christian religions.

Finally after a full year of radio silence from God despite my best efforts and humbling myself and truly wanting an answer, I started to research on my own. If God wasn’t going to give me the answers I needed, then I was going to find them for myself. And thanks to my research, I came to the conclusion that none of it was true. Which makes it sound like an easy process, but it took a long time and it emotionally hurt me reading so many contradictory things. Because I had truly loved the church. When I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t true, I honestly felt like a part of me had died.

After my revelation I went away to college and cut myself off from the church. I made some amazing friends who helped me realize how awesome being gay is, and that no religion can determine my worth. But I still felt the loss of the church and ended up in a huge depressive episode that ultimately made me drop out of college. I’m still trying to pick up the pieces of my life and consolidate everything I know with my relationships with my loved ones who still believe. The guilt-trips I got from family and “friends” when I stopped going to church were insane.

And then a new policy was released in November of 2016 stating that if a child of a gay couple wanted to join the church, they could not be baptised until they were 18, and they had to publicly disavow their parents’ lifestyle before they would be allowed to join the church. The church was literally making children turn on their loving parents to join a church. The effects of this policy were horrendous. There was a spike in Utah lgbt teen suicides as a result. I was horrified and disgusted, and that’s when I decided that, even though I hadn’t been to church in years and that I knew it was absolute garbage, I could not have my name tied in any way to this organization. So I drafted a formal resignation letter to send to the church administration building and demanded that they take my name off their membership records. 

I’m still facing repercussions for that decision from family members. To a lot of them, it’s like I’ve died. Because to resign from the church means you cancel all the effects of baptism and any saving ordinance you received while a member. Meaning, I won’t be exalted and I won’t be with my family forever when I die. And even though I know it’s not true, it was such a huge aspect of my life and personality from the day I was born, that I’ve struggled having an identity since I left. Having a spiritual crisis seems like an easy thing on paper, but it is so much more complex than a lot people make it out to be. Right now I don’t have the ability to see a future for myself where I am finally done being affected by mormonism, but every day I get a step closer if that makes sense.

This answer has been long enough, so I didn’t have a chance to touch on the abuses within the church, gaslighting, magical underwear, how the church is actively covering up and excusing sexual assault, how children as young as 12 are subjected to private worthiness interviews where sexually explicit questions may be asked by an adult man, how the first Prophet of the church who “translated” the Book of Mormon was a treasure hunter who had multiple wives and married girls as young as 14 years old, or eternal polygamy (not the same as polyamory which I fully support mind you). Plus much much more. My research was extensive.

But hopefully that gives you a “brief” explanation of my experience escaping from the mormon cult.