#so they had to work with vague ideas like 'the earliest in the series'

[raylin-creates]

Me when I see a post about how First is useless to the lore: I. respect. your opinion. (internally raging) (fists shaking) (teeth gritted) (body trembling) (breathing ragged) (mind shook) (eyes wild) (mentally holding myself back from replying with the force of a blue whale being dropped to the ground at terminal velocity)

[redpandaramblings]

Hello 👋

I hope I'm not bothering you too much with this question, but I just need to know.

Before I ask I wanna tell you how much I am enjoying your story "Like Caramel for Chocolate". I think your writing is really really good and that you make the characters seem realistic or/and make their choices realistic.

Now to the question: "How would it have been if Denki and (y/n)/reader actually have gotten married? I mean like what would have needed to happen for them to get married? How would the wedding have been? Would they have gone on a honeymoon? How would the others have found out? Would they have children?

And most important question: Would they be happy or close to ha

Questions never bother me, dearheart. Always feel free to send me an ask/ request/ anything of that nature. (I am still working on my year old backlog of prompts and requests. I will get them out eventually!) And thank you for the compliments! I really do try my best.

I have no problem answering your questions about the relationship between Reader and Denki. I will say though, I have said before and will say again, is that I do have vague future plans to write an alternative ending to Like Caramel, where Reader would indeed end up with Denki in the long term. So, if you don't mind potential spoilers, answers to your questions are below!

How would it have been if Denki and (y/n)/reader actually have gotten married? I mean like what would have needed to happen for them to get married?

I think one of the real essences of Like Caramel is that series of small choices end up adding up to big consequences, and that wouldn't really be any different in this situation. Lots of different scenarios going slightly different would have furthered the chance of Denki/Reader endgame. One of the earliest changes that would have had that impact is if Denki wouldn't have hidden the engagement/marriage date. If Denki had walked into his agency after getting back with a ring on his finger, talking about how his family had set him up to be married to an old family friend and how he's happy and thinks it will work out? Shinso would have been heartbroken, but wouldn't have fought it, because there never would have been a confrontation intense enough for Denki to confess. And if Denki had been open about it, Reader would have felt the need to break up with Bakugou much sooner. (Possibly even over the phone the night after the date.)

A lot more of the catalysts hinge on if Denki and Shinso ever honestly talk about their feelings for each other, honestly. Because once Reader agrees to the engagement with Denki, they are 110% committed to that idea until Denki calls it off.

How would the wedding have been?

Small. Possibly destination. They'd go for an only family invited "elopement," in part so that their friends wouldn't have to make the awkward decision about if they should attend or not.

Would they have gone on a honeymoon?

Honeymoon in terms of a vacation? Yes, absolutely. They would jump at the chance to get away from everything and everyone for a while. They know that they more or less dropped a nuke on their friend group, and so they would use the time to try and collect themselves before having to face reality again.

Honeymoon in terms of the horizontal tango? Nope. They figure that will come eventually, but neither of them are anywhere near emotionally prepared for that at that point. Sex probably wouldn't happen until their second or third Heat/Rut together, and become a regular thing after that.

How would the others have found out?

Honestly, they mostly would have told them, I think? Still thinking about details on this one, honestly. But like I said if going with the example I said earlier, Denki wouldn't hide that he was engaged in general. Reader might admit to an arranged engagement when they break up with Bakugou... Sero's going to figure it out on his own before anybody says anything, possibly would low key confront Reader and Denki about that they need to tell everyone. Or maybe people would figure things out because of what Shoto's sister saw, with Dekusquad playing a bigger role in how this version of the story would play out.

Long story short, I don't know yet. Lots of options.

Would they have children?

Absolutely. Takes a few years, unless they have an oops, but yeah. End up having like 5, not to mention a small menagerie of pets. The household is absolute chaos, in a good way.

Would they be happy or close to happy?

One day, about two or three years after they get married, they're going to be at home, just doing some domestic shit. Maybe Denki is pulling a particularly hard weed and falls on his butt when it finally gives. Maybe they're baking and reader accidentally rubs her flour covered hand across her face, leaving a smudge. Whatever the scenario, they're going to be laughing and teasing each other. And in the midst of this, they're going to look at each other, and realize like a bolt from the blue that yeah, they actually really love each other. For real. And right then is when they have what they consider to be their actual first kiss.

It takes a little time. But yeah, they're happy. 💛

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

Did no one seriously ask you about Ocelot for the character meme? Well, I guess I gotta do everything around here. As a fanfic writer I'm very curious abt your thoughts, namely mgs3 era but all is good with me.

It's definitely never too late ^_^. I'll be answering these for as long as people feel like sending them in.

Send Me a Character to Rant About/5 Things About Them

Ocelot Ocelot. I have some thoughts and ideas about Ocelot. If Major Ocelot is your main interest I'll put much of the focus of the ask on that, but I'd like to include later Ocelot as well. Thinking about Ocelot is like putting a thought into a blender and every thought becomes their own thoughts and a lot of that is definitely intentional given how many flavours of Ocelot exist and yeah. Narrowing this all down into something vaguely coherent is going to be challenging, but I’m sure I can do it.

After all, it’s no secret MGS’s man behind the majority of the series grey-to-black Russian cowboy is one of my favourite characters, and that I have lots of thoughts about him. (Funny enough Major Ocelot’s actually the one I have the least general information on in my head, but there’s plenty there).

Ocelot came into this world violently, left it violently, and brought down the Patriot’s with him. This man operates on a level I can only vaguely grasp at but funny enough “how tf does this man keep his plans straight’ doesn’t baffle me quite as much. I imagine he has little file folders in his brain, and those file folders have subcategories and he can pull from those categories when required and-

Anyway!

Five Things about Ocelot, let’s go!

(Obviously this won’t be all my Ocelot thoughts, this is another book on it’s own, these are just some)

1. All the world’s a stage (or is it?) Person vs Performance and Ocelot’s Mixing of Both.

It’s a no-brainer that one of the biggest and most consistent character arcs of Ocelot is that he’s putting on a performance 90% of the time, and with almost every interaction. As a spy, as a soldier, as a person. One could ask ‘who actually IS Ocelot?” and be left wondering that themselves. Most of the games end with an infamous post-credits moment of Ocelot, once again, being behind the whole ordeal you just played through. Once the player gets comfortable with what they assume to be Ocelot, the rugs ripped out from under them and once again, we are left asking ‘Who the HELL is Ocelot?!?” Good question! The man has a seemingly near-endless ability to be whoever the person he’s working for (or persons) is at any given time. Someone able to shape himself to the situation as it calls for it with an almost endless array of personalities at hand to aid him into doing just that. And he’s very good at doing this, but that isn’t just who he is. Because if one does observe him throughout the course of every game, some patterns do begin to emerge, and there are some consistencies throughout.

Ocelot was raised by the Philosophers. Trained from a frighteningly young age to be a spy, to be the man they wanted him to be. We can’t even truly confirm if he was raised within the Soviet Union, or in various other places. We know that by 1984 he speaks 7 languages (one of the highest language stats on Mother Base, though some surpass him).  Someone with enough skill behind himself to be inserted into the Soviet Army at 20, in his own spetsnaz unit. Now, some of that was obvious string pulling and meddling, but they aren’t going to send a guy into a role like that who hasn’t got a serious set of skills either. That’d be mission suicide. Especially for a mission as unbelievably complicated as that. Eva is a spy too, and she’s older than Ocelot. 

I can imagine most of his earliest personality was what the Philosophers wanted for it to be, and he had to sort of..figure out who he was for himself sometime later than that. We know Major Ocelot is fairly arrogant, but he’s also arrogant in a way that can come off as trying so hard it cycles back to being cute, and immature in a way older Ocelot almost never is. He’s trained, he’s working hard at his spy and soldier duties but he’s still young and experiencing growing pains. And that’s okay!

I think Ocelot learned a lot about himself during the events of Snake Eater, and that learning helped shape him into the person that he’d later become. I think he might’ve taken Snake Eater as a very viable lesson in how to arrange and mold himself into further situations down road, and the sort of things he may have wanted from life after that.

All this aside, what do I think Ocelot is like as himself, when not focusing on a role? I think these are the character traits that come to mind when I consider Ocelot as Ocelot and not ‘Ocelot and the crafted persona for the necessary job at hand.”

Mainly:

How smart he is.

His personal quirks *his guns being the absolute biggest personal quirk I can think of, along with his fondness for the cowboy aesthetic*

His sense of devotion.

His sadism, and personal taste within that. His personal enjoyment and investment with torture and interrogation is confirmed multiple times within canon, and I think it’s a key factor in his personality. It’s important to who he is as a character.

The fact that he’s morally dark-grey to black (I don’t believe MGS has any characters that are just all black, or all white, or all grey, I think of the MGS characters in flow, as complicated as real people are and none of the ones entrenched in the war machine are good people) Ocelot’s darker than most of them and personally, that is how I like him.

His competence. His Mother Base stats are..nothing amazing, many of the soldiers outrank him in pure stats alone, but that’s ok. They don’t really have a set stat book for the things Ocelot is bringing to the table.

The fact that he’s queer. Not much to expand on there in this instance. He’s queer. People can argue it all they want, YouTube, Reddit etc the internet can Russian taunt it out of the abyss and back, the guys queer. And he knows it himself.

2. Growing Pains and Ocelot Being a Fast Learner

It’s probably not a surprise that one of the most legendary soldiers in the world birthed a son with the sort of abilities we see within Ocelot, and while the man gets his ass handed to him more than once, I don’t think this does him a disservice, in the long run. Young Major Ocelot is humiliated in many of the fights he has within the series, and Snake has him on the ground within minutes of their first encounter after single-handedly taking out his unit, but what happened before that?

Before this, Ocelot shot 6 KGB agents, in a single round. The last one tries to run away. He isn’t successful, thanks to Ocelot’s apparently super human ability to utilize ricochet. People react to him with some trepidation and fear, and that didn’t just come of tossing a well-known name around, since Ocelot is able to back up his skills.

(From a player stand point too, I find his fight before the Pain interrupts genuinely challenging too, so I appreciate that). He picks up CQC largely from OBSERVATION. “I picked up a few new moves!” Yes, yes you did sir, and in the space of..days? That’s impressive, and there’s no denying that fact. Snake isn’t turned off by him either. Happy to help him within minutes of defeating him, and only seems genuinely upset in Ocelot’s presence when he tries to shoot Eva to death. Which seems pretty understandable of Snake, to me. Ocelot’s naturally observant, not just to the degree of soaking up information like a sponge, but also being able to then take that information, be it world events or a new move, and use it later. Fairly quickly to. He’s an extremely adaptable guy, and that’s a very useful skill to have.  I’ve seen several people headcanon him as ambidextrous because of the gun twirling, and I can see that being possible. If not by birth, then something he forced himself to become, because it’s a damned useful skill to have. Major Ocelot is boastful, and arrogant, but at least it’s not coming from nothing and made out of wild dreams and hopeful thoughts.

Eva flattens him with the motorcycle (something he deserves in the moment, this is still war and this is still people fighting for their lives), but he also puts up a damned good fight and chase on his own bike when Eva and Snake are escaping from the Shagohod. It’s one thing to be arrogant with absolutely nothing to back that up, another when there’s at least some probable cause. And as I said, Major Ocelot’s still young and immature in ways his elder self absolutely is not,

3.Soldier, Spy,  Interrogator, Torturer and Sadist (Shalashashka and Everything in Between)

Ask anyone about Ocelot and this is what comes to mind first, and not without reason. In series, he’s the interrogator. He’s the guy that’s getting your answers (with some painful persuasion) and he’s good at it. Huey is by far the best example we are given of this (I have listened to Huey’s interrogation tape more than is possibly healthy, and I am never not fascinated by how Ocelot is able to break down Huey’s arguments and get what he wants from the man, not just with suggestive words, but with gentle probing and being able to get into Huey’s head frighteningly well. He knows what Huey’s about, and he gets results. I also believe Venom lets Ocelot deal with the “issues” that might arise in the brig. I can easily see Venom looking to the brig, and then instructing Ocelot to just do his thing.

It’s suggested Ocelot didn’t care as much about torture until Snake’s torment under Volgin in MGS3, and I do believe that to be the case. But not that I think Ocelot didn’t have some interest in it before, but that Volgin was so incredibly bad at torture Ocelot didn’t see how it could be useful until it was someone he was deeply invested in on the receiving end, and notably, someone who didn’t die during the process. Once Ocelot had a more personal investment in it, and saw it beyond ‘victim dead in three hits’ he was able to let his mind wander and expand upon that, which is where I think his real genuine interest in it began to take root.

Torture and Interrogation are not the same thing. They can exist together, and they can also exist outside of one another. Torture is often a by product of interrogation, since breaking someone to get answers is a common hand-in-hand with the situation, but torture can also just exist for the sake of torture. I think Ocelot has a genuine, invested interest in both but he’s not delusional about it either. I think he enjoys breaking people down, getting to the core of their conscious and twisting it to get what he wants. I think he takes great pleasure in getting good at something (pride) and isn’t afraid to let himself indulge when the moment suits him to it. Sure, he has a job to do, but he’s not going to not have some personal fun either if he thinks he can get away with it in the moment.

Note my sidebar of my blog a moment.

Congrats, Huey. You manage to have even less of a moral code than Ocelot. Take a bow.

I want to point out a couple things here.

1. Only person who can see this right now, is Huey. Ocelot is beyond needing to intimidate Huey. Huey is already plenty well intimidated by Ocelot. He’s been in this room many times up to this point. They have surpassed the need for Ocelot to have to resort to scaring the guy, he’s in denial, but I’d imagine he’s plenty scared.  So..why bother?

2. Well, because even it’s for a split second, Ocelot does enjoy his job. He’s not a good person, isn’t pretending to be a good person, and if he thinks he can indulge..why not? Sure, it’s selfish. Ocelot’s selfish sometimes. I highly doubt he cares if it’s selfish. This moment of brief, intense cold smirking lasts SECONDS (getting this actual screenshots kind of a nightmare, it’s so damned fast). he’s doing this because Kaz can’t see his face, Boss isn’t here to argue, and he’s not above flicker-brief personal enjoyment if it suits him. Hypnotized or not.

But! I want to note something else here too, I think he might reserve that for people he genuinely despises. And Huey is someone he genuinely despises.

Something that I find interesting about his most famous interrogation and torture scene, that is, when he tortures Solid Snake in MGS1, is that not once does he actually LOOK at Snake.

Oh console, thy be fascinating! (Twin Snakes has better lighting sue me)

He only looks at him when he is asking him questions, or talking to Snake. 

(I was too lazy to cap out the red youtube line again sue me) Something something  Russia something something ideology he probably doesn’t give a right shit about. Being a quadruple agents tough.

But when he is electrocuting him, he stays fixated upon the console. Now, one could argue about that (well he has to control the console, he has to focus) but the guy can multitask. I don’t believe he dislikes Snake at all. The torture of Snake doesn’t have the underlying current of personal disgust or interest (unlike Huey) so for Ocelot this torture is more pragmatic and job oriented and doesn’t carry the moments where Ocelot might let his more..depraved sense of self slip in because Snake doesn’t disgust him as a person, Huey does.

Which also tells me Ocelot is capable of separating the two AGAIN. He’s a sadist yeah, but he’s not unreasonable either. He’s a skilled, competent professional. He openly tells Venom about how his Shalashaska moniker got a little bit out of hand, but it’s also something he’s not about to argue with if it’ll help his situation. He’s practical that way.

4. He’s a weirdo, and I genuinely adore him that way.

I need a slight breather and this is already frighteningly huge. Ocelot is one of those characters that is going to be read differently based on the person viewing him. Personal lens I think is going to affect him a great deal, and like with any character, I don’t think there’s a totally right or totally wrong way to interpret him. He’s one of those characters that’s so multilayered and complicated that you could talk to ten people and every single one is going to get something different out of him. And that’s okay! Heck Ocelot would probably agree.

He has some quirks I think are again, as I said above, all him. I think he developed the cowboy fondness and aesthetic on his own. Probably one of the first truly himself things he made after breaking out of the grasp of the Philosophers. To me, he’s got some vanity, and cares about his appearance, but is willing to be practical about that too. (His boots are scuffed and muddy in MGS3, and I don’t know how many personal indulges he has. I like to think he had a pink mustang at one point, because it amuses the hell outta me)

I wish he had this at some point, please let him have this.

The meow battle rally was his idea too. Why? By the time he was called Ocelot he probably thought it was just perfect.

The gun twirling was something he originally intended to be off putting, A way of a younger, less established him to intimidate, annoy and confuse his foe. Overtime *coughs, Snake*, he ingrained it into his personality. Something he choose to keep doing as a habit, and never stopped doing. It’s also incredibly amusing *and kind of touching* to me that Ocelot made Revolver a huge part of his personality and self just because Snake suggested it to him. Snake left an impression on him, big time. Of course, that could also serve as possibly the second most well-known Ocelot fact, couldn’t it?

That being said.

5. Ocelot’s Love for Snake is the most genuine thing about him.

Ocelot loves Snake. It’s a no-brainer to say isn’t it? Least, it sure feels that way sometimes. Why did the Patriots get taken down? For Snake? What did Ocelot spend 50 years of his life dedicated to? Big Boss. How much of the MGS plot as a whole exists because Ocelot fell grave-deep in love with an American CIA agent and never recovered or wanted to? Why does Venom exist? 1. Because Zero wanted it and 2. Because once told it would do Big Boss good, Ocelot was more than on board.

I’d note though that genuine and pure are not the same thing. Ocelot fully, willingly destroyed an entire person at the behest of helping the man he loves the most. There have been countless victims in the trail of this love, and well..this is just fiction, so it doesn’t bother me. It fascinates me. But there’s some genuine more pure elements to that as well. If you broke down all of that, and pushed aside every single complicated element that came of it, (and I’d like to also point out the love isn’t one-sided, Snake had a genuine interest in Ocelot too, enough that people around him questioned it, Snake is just uhm..dense is unfair, maybe not as..obvious?) because if there is one thing that Ocelot just cannot ever be subtle, or transparent about, it’s how much he goddamned loves Big Boss.

Being in love with Big Boss ain’t unique in MGS, but Ocelot is not like the others. He’s not a soldier in the Big Boss cult. He’s not Eva, he’s not Kaz. He’s the one who fell in love and spent his entire life dedicated to helping him, and, ultimately, died for him.

(I also believe Ocelot knew he was queer before he met Snake, but Big Boss activated a real primal feeling within and brought everything else to that forefront). I don’t think Ocelot ever held any strong ideology. He’s vaguely patriotic in MGS3 (completely appalled that Volgin’s willing to nuke his own comrades) but not enough so that it’s going to make him lose sleep, and I don’t believe his speech about Russia losing it’s ideology that he has to Snake in MGS1 really bothers him that much) I think Ocelot crafts those ideologies when he requires it, but at the end of the day, the thing he really, ultimately believes in, above ALL else, is Big Boss. That also might be a very simple way of breaking down an unbelievably complex man, if you really wanted to do so.

6. All the Ocelot Versions are Genuine to some degree (Negating perhaps Liquid Ocelot)

*Liquid Ocelot is a whole other thing that I need another brain to think of and this ask is already way out of hand length wise.

A complaint I’ve seen before is that hypnotized Ocelot in MGSV is out of character because he’s not hamming it up, isn’t being overly dramatic, and isn’t as ‘fun’ as the Major Ocelot of MGS3.  But I have an argument about that. At this point, Ocelot is 38. He’s grown into himself as a person, he’s competent, confident, and has nothing to prove because as far as his blissfully hypnotized self knows, he’s right where he wants to be, at the side of Big Boss. What is there to perform or fake where he’s quite possibly in one of the happiest scenarios he could possibly come up with?

Major Ocelot is genuine as the youngest we’ve seen him. Not only playing a role, but with something to prove. That’s as genuine as a middle-aged Ocelot (again, self-hypnotized but not completely devoid of his personality), and the later, far older Ocelot who is working for Liquid (probably through somewhat gritted teeth) and flamboyant once again because Liquid isn’t Big Boss, nobody else is Big Boss to Ocelot and all the people he’s dealing with are people he doesn’t know and gets to scare, intimidate all over again.

Ocelot is an incredibly dangerous man. A point I haven’t really touched on much but definitely wanted to get there too. He’s skilled, he’s competent, aside of ‘Big Boss’ you almost never know what he’s fully about. He has a mind that would be genuinely amazing to pull apart and dissect. He’s clever and quick and plays mind games on a completely different level than any other, but it’s not just the head. He’s skilled as physically as he is mentally. He’s feared and with good reason. Flamboyant, strange, quirky, incredibly threatening, intimidating, dangerous and morally questionable. A villain, an antagonist, a man I could rotate endlessly in my head and genuinely never get tired of.

I need to pull myself together. I’m going to start talking in circles at this point and I feel bad that I didn’t just really address the MGS3 Major Ocelot as you’d requested, but I have trouble not looking at him as a whole. I am sorry if it seems like I ended up saying a lot and cycling back to saying a bunch of nothing, but I tried.

Meow, and thank you for sending in! These are only some of my thoughts, and I hope this ask at least gave something to work with.

[monstrouslyobsessed]

still working on a thing and ima try and throw up another concept or hc later today tomorrow~now ima answer some asks < 3

tw: n'sfw subjects, kink talks, pregnancy(-related) mentions

What blogs and writers(ones that do dark romance stuff) do you recommend? —anonymous

i get this question a lot tbh, i should think about adding to faq, but uhhhhh, depends on what you're looking for. original or fandom? most of my mutuals, friends, and writers i liked/found write genshin, jojo, and other popular fandoms.

if original works only, i haven't found many, no, and tumblr ain't great with their rec feed (99% time they're fandom only).

@dear-yandere (she's not active, but i love her works sm) made a post you can look through! linky link

Favorite kinks to write in your opinion? —anonymous

uhm, i'm sure you can tell with most of my works lol but ig i can explain why i like a certain few. rest tho, i just like them lol

pregnancy / pregnancy sex / oviposition, im actually a touch tokophobic irl, but in writing, its not so much on for children (they're cute though) but because it's the near-total loss of control over one's body, if that makes sense. as its my thing to write the darling losing control to their possessive spouse, pregnancy is one of my go to.

monster dick(s), because we could use some variety in our d's lol human d's is good too though ofc

stomach bulge / cumflation, p similar to pregnancy in some ways, the darling loses the sense of losing their body to the other. (pseudo?) body destruction, really.

size differences, because i want to be picked up and be carried sometimes

yeah, most of the kinks i listed here had to do with the loss of control.

YES I CAN U BACK DEAR 💕💕💕💕 —anonymous

that was painful;; so glad to be back!! 💕

Yoo have you seen the movie called the descent? If you have, what do u think of the monsters!! —anonymous

uhmmmm, the name didn't ring a bell...google time!

oh waittttt, i vaguely remembered this one. this was based on dante's inferno, wasnt it? after checking the monsters, yes hi.

i prefer they'd bathe first though lol but i'd be down for them! pretty simplistic in design, reminded me of buffy the vampire slayer's vampires, actually! think buffy was one of the earliest monsters i can remember really liking as a wee lad.

So, have you read the Neonomicon? I saw it on one of your posts. I actually read the thing online and I immediately fell in love with the Deep One too despite the noncon. Is that weird? —anonymous

are you referring to the one i did where the darling had to watch the world burn in the palm of cthulhu?

thats the only one i can recall of ever doing, but on reading the neonomicon, no! you're talking about the comic series one? i don't generally read american comics because of how weird they organized their issues, but if its not long and good, then i'll be happy to check it out!

and nah, not weird at all imo. humans are drawn to things we simply don't understand, and as long as you are not harming yourself or anyone else, its fine to indulge. we all find appeals in certain things others don't and that's perfectly normal. most of the monsters i liked as a kid were actually violent and murderous so.....yeah. im literally one of the last people who should judge you , dear nonnie.

just know that youre far from being alone though! heck you'll find many n'sfw artworks and other contents of the deep ones and other monsters if you know where to look.

Dude I've been binging all your pyramid head works and I love them sm!! Would u be writing more for him in the future? —anonymous

mmmaybe? like i do have a couple of ideas, but nothing too concrete. one idea involved the reader being, well, the mother of monsters and the butcher would probably become more monstrous over time because of the silent hill related plot reasons. thing is, the reader wouldn't know there were changes at all, being too addicted to the butcher's to pay attention. I'm being very vague on this one because...idk how to communicate the story yet, if at all.

the other one might involve incest though, because of the monsters the reader birthed cooperating with the butcher, under the god's order. this one is just...a concept more than anything though because tentacles are fun.

otherwise, its just straight pron with the butcher. I'm glad you liked him tho! &lt;3

now to work on things...inbox is always open tho~!

[felicitysmoaksx]

Hi everyone! Another Rheese married fic? From me? Shocking right? But this one should be a little different because of how the universe is being sculpted. I've been working on this idea since late December? So I'm really excited to finally share a piece of this with you!

And this will be a series of one-shots or mini multi-chapters. But originally it was going to be a fairly long multi-chapter. However, I realized my strength is a big story in small increments. So some of these may end fairly abruptly.

Thanks so much for reading! And I hope you enjoy!!

Summary: Connor didn’t know how to respond to this, so he didn’t. Instead, he asked, “How much am I going to have to rebuild with her?” “All of it. You’re going to have to rebuild your whole relationship with her because she woke up thinking she’s two weeks into her ED rotation as a med student.”.

Word Count: 4.0k

Warnings: Vague depictions of a car accident and probably inaccurate depictions of amnesia (even though I’ve done my research!) . Along with probably many more inaccurate medical procedures.

Read On AO3 | Fic Playlist | Want to be tagged when I post a Rheese story?

Rare as the Glimmer of a Comet

Bright lights loomed over her. Then there was the beeping, measured and steady. Sarah blinked. Was she in the hospital? No sooner than the question came to her, the pain settled over her like a weight, pulling her down.

“Ow,” she winced softly. Her head throbbed in tandem with the ache in her body. But what happened? What had put her here? Sarah tried to remember, but the harder she thought about it, the more her headache worsened.

“Sarah,” a new voice said and she glanced up to see Dr. Choi standing there in the doorway. A smile, that could only be categorized as gentle (a word she never thought she’d use when she described him) on his lips.

“It’s good to see you awake. You gave us quite a scare.” He said, coming up on the right side of her bed. “I’m just going to check your vitals, okay?”

He pulled a penlight from his pocket and was checking her eyes when she asked if he knew what happened to her.

“You were in a car accident.” He explained in a soft tone. He moved on to check her reflexes and breathing. “Another driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran a red light. Hit you from the left.”

Okay, that made sense-why her body and head ached, if someone had clipped her while she was walking down the street.

“Your car was totaled.” Dr. Choi continued as he moved to take her blood pressure. But now that didn’t make sense. She didn’t even have her license. When she told him that though, Dr. Choi just smiled that same gentle smile from before as he pushed some hair out of her eyes. “Get some sleep, Sarah. I’ll be back before the end of my shift, okay?”

She nodded, blinking at him owlishly. Dr. Choi was acting so familiar with her and he was calling her Sarah instead of Reese. Which -her eyes drooped heavily. Whatever medication she was on was working its way to pull her back under- was so weird because she didn’t know him that well. She yawned, her eyes falling closed once more. After all, she hadn’t been at Med all that long.  

Sarah jerked awake, looking around she saw Dr. Choi was back, this time with a backpack.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be that loud,” he said when he saw her awake. She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing there when a sudden coughing fit interrupted what she was going to say. Dr. Choi moved quickly. He grabbed the pitcher of water and poured some into a cup before he pushed the cup into her hand. Then he was helping her sit up so she could drink it.

“Better?” He asked when she had downed the cup. She nodded. “Good.”

“What are you doing here?” She asked again as he helped lay back down on the bed.

“I told you I’d be back and neither Will or I liked the idea of you up here by yourself. Not with Connor getting in so late. He said the earliest flight he could get was three in the morning. So he’ll be here later tonight. Will too. He’ll be here much sooner though. He just went to get you something more vegetarian friendly than what Med has to offer.”

Will? Connor? The only people she knew were named that were... “You mean Dr. Halstead and Dr. Rhodes? Why would they be coming to visit me?”

Dr. Choi merely chuckled, “That’s a good one.”

But Sarah wasn’t trying to be funny. She told him as much. Trying to make him understand. “It’s you who’s not making sense, Dr. Choi. You say my car was totaled, but that’s impossible because I don’t even know how to drive, let alone have a car. I take the bus to and from work every day. You say Dr. Rhodes and Halstead are both on their way. But I barely know them or you for that matter, I’m only two weeks into my ED rotation, and…what?”

A critical yet somber look had taken over Dr. Choi’s face, replacing the smile he had before. “Sarah…what year is it?“

The question caught her off guard, but it was his tone that made her answer. Albeit with a little hesitation, “2015?”

He didn’t have to say that it was the wrong answer. Sarah knew by the way his whole face seemed to darken.

“Dr. Choi, what-” her question was cut off by a knock on the door. Then Dr. Halstead was there, poking his head in. He smiled when he saw her awake.

“Hey, there’s the ED’s favorite patient.” He said, walking in with a plastic container. Then he noticed Dr. Choi’s expression. The smile he wore faltered. “What’s wrong?”

“Reese, why don’t you eat your dinner while Will and I talk in the hallway?”

“Dr. Choi,” she started, in a slightly panicking voice, even to her own ears. The doctor rested his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slightly, “We’ll figure this out, Sarah. I promise.”

Then he stood and moved across the room. He took the food from Dr. Halstead and placed it on Sarah’s rollaway table.

“Eat. We’re not sure when you did last,” he told her. When he didn’t see her move, he spoke again. “It’s okay Reese. It’ll be fine. Will and I just need to talk and then we will possibly need a consult.”

But nothing felt fine. Her body ached and her head throbbed from a car accident where she had been behind the wheel instead of beside it and apparently, it wasn’t 2015.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Dr. Halstead demanded, eyes darting from Dr. Choi to Sarah.

“In the hall Will,” Dr. Choi bit out before Sarah could say anything. Then, before she could even blink, Dr. Choi was dragging Dr. Halstead out by his arm. The sliding door closed behind them. The click of it echoed in Sarah’s head.

“What is going on? Why does Sarah look like she wants to throw up? Is she nauseous? Does she have a concussion? Or one of her migraines? Connor says those are really bad for her.” Will asked as soon as they were out in the hallway. Ethan shook his head slowly before he grimly explained the conversation he had with Sarah just before Will got there.

“We need to get Dr. Abrams down here,” Will said and Choi nodded in agreement.

“Do you want to tell Connor or should I?” He asked, but the red-headed doctor was already shaking his head at the suggestion.

“No, we’re not telling him anything right now. He’s already worried about her. We’ve told him about the accident. That’s enough for now because there is nothing he can do from L.A. or the plane. But I can tell him when he gets here. I’m his best friend. I feel like I should tell him.”

“I’ll page Abrams then.”

They came back fifteen minutes later with Dr. Abrams in tow. And that confirmed to Sarah that it was as bad as she thought. The neurosurgeon, who always slightly terrified her, asked her a lot of questions. What year she thought it was, the last thing she remembered, where she lived as a kid, what her mother did for a living, who the doctors behind him were…questions of that variety (For the record: 2015 even though she knew from Dr. Choi’s face earlier that wasn’t right. Helping Dr. Rhodes and Dr. Zanetti with Dr. Rhodes’ friend that came in with an entire chandelier inside of him, New York, litigation attorney, and Dr. Choi and Dr. Halstead.)

“Okay, Dr. Reese. Well, I want to run some other tests just to be sure and to try to determine what kind, but I’m afraid you do have amnesia just from the way you answered these questions.”  He wasn’t unkind like Sarah thought he would be, but he was very clinical and to the point.

“Is it permanent?”

Dr. Abrams shrugged, “Typically, no. But each case is different. It could be weeks, months, even years in some cases before you regain your memories.”

“Years?” Sarah squeaked, what little food she had managed to eat, flipped in her stomach. For all his bedside manner was lacking, Dr. Abrams patted her hand and said, “That's a worst-case scenario though. I do want to do a head CT as soon as possible. To make sure your brain isn’t swelling. Then if all is clear, we’ll do the other tests later. Give your body a chance to rest.”

He stood up when she nodded and looked at the other two doctors, “I assume you’ll be wheeling her up there?”

Both Dr. Choi and Halstead nodded.

He made to walk out of the room but Sarah’s voice made him stop.

“Wait. If it’s not 2015, then what year is it?”

The doctors all shared a look. Then it was Dr. Choi who faced her. That same gentle look on his face from before. He sighed, “2019.”

Sarah felt her head spin and her stomach swoop as her medicated brain processed the number slowly. “Four years… I’ve lost four years? ”

She faced the neurosurgeon, “How is that possible? For me to just lose four years of my life?”

“It’s not unheard of but it’s not fairly common either. The brain, although we know more than we did ten years ago, is an organ that we know frighteningly little about.” He said this with a logical voice. “So I’m sorry to say, I’m not sure how you lost four years. But I can assure you I’ll figure out why.”

Then he took his leave, after nodding to the other doctors in the room, which left Sarah to stare at Dr. Choi and Dr. Halstead.

Connor couldn’t help his hurried steps as he made his way into the hospital. He swiped his ID badge, before all but running into the hospital. (He had never been more grateful to have worked in this hospital in his life because by the time he arrived, he knew visiting hours would be over, and was it a little sneaky to use his privileges as a doctor here? Probably. But Connor was past caring at the moment. Not until he saw with his eyes that Sarah was alright.)

“Connor! Hey Connor, wait!” He heard Will call out as he made a beeline for the elevators. There were footsteps and then a hand dropped to his shoulder.

“I need to tell you something before you see Sarah,” Will explained. But Connor shook his head. Nothing was more important than seeing Sarah right now. “It can wait.”

“No. No, it can't Connor, because it’s about her condition.” Now that made the former trauma surgeon look up as the elevator arrived with a ding. Will sighed, running a hand through his red locks of hair and hoping his best friend didn’t shoot the messenger. “Come on, I’ll tell you on the way up.”

His hand placed on Connor’s back propelled the double-certified surgeon forward into the elevator. The door had just begun to shut when Will said, “Sarah was unconscious when she was brought in. Didn’t wake up till just earlier this evening. We did an initial head scan when she came in and she didn’t seem to have any injuries there. So we let it go and focused on her other injuries. But when she woke up, Ethan said she seemed confused. But he thought it was just a side effect of the medication. It wasn’t until she woke up a second time that he knew something was wrong.”

Connor released a breath he had been holding since he got the call informing him of the accident when he saw his wife lying in the bed. His feet carried him forward as he reached out and moved a lock of her hair out of her face. Then his hand drifted down to hers covered in bandages.

“Jay and Kim saw the accident happen,” Will told him, sounding uncertain. “They said she’s lucky to be alive with how the car looked. It’s totaled by the way but…”

“Will, I don’t care about the car,” Connor told him shortly. Sure, it was a Porsche, but he could always buy another car. Besides he had more important things to worry about. Like Sarah’s recovery. He sighed, glancing over at his shoulder at his best friend. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.”

“I know. You don’t need to apologize.”

“Yes, I do. You and Choi stayed with her till I got here. You worked her case, even when it wasn’t your shift.”

“Technicalities and Ava helped work her intake too,” Will said to him, “But we did that because you and Sarah are family. Don’t you get that by now?”

Connor didn’t know how to respond to this, so he didn’t. Instead, he asked, “How much am I going to have to rebuild with her?”

Silence.

The surgeon turned, looking at his friend once more. His friend looked like he wanted to be anywhere else than where he was. Will looked like he didn’t want to give him any more bad news. Connor fisted his hand, knuckles turning white.

“Will,” he started. He didn’t sound angry but he also didn’t sound happy either. But it did sound like he was at the end of his rope.

“All of it. You’re going to have to rebuild your whole relationship with her because she woke up thinking she’s two weeks into her ED rotation as a med student.”

White-hot anger flared in Connor’s body. Will winced as his best friend hit a water bottle on the rollaway table pushed off to the side. It fell with a dull thud. The red-headed doctor wanted to say something. Words of reassurance, but he knew they would not be well received right now. So instead, Will said, “Dr. Abrams left for the night. But he’ll be by tomorrow morning to fill you in on next steps.”

“Yeah okay. Thanks, Will.” Connor set his bag down as he fell into the seat by Sarah’s bedside. “I know I don’t seem like it right now. But I really do appreciate what you and everyone else have done for Sarah.”

“‘Course,” Will patted his friend’s shoulder, yawning. “I think I’m also headed home for the night now that you’re here. I have an eight am morning shift. But I’ll have my phone on in case you need anything.”

“Thanks, Will,”

When Sarah woke up again, the sun was just starting to rise.  She still felt foggy. Like the world was still spinning just a little slower than when she first woke up. But still, spinning all the same because who lost four years of their life?? She pushed herself up so she was sitting up more. That’s when she noticed the two people standing just outside her door. Dr. Abrams was back and was speaking with… Dr. Rhodes, Sarah realized with a start. If she hadn’t believed Dr. Choi or Halstead when they said four years had passed, then the sight of Connor Rhodes would’ve made her believe it. While all three of the doctors had looked more or less the same, Dr. Rhodes looked older.

He wasn’t old by any means of the word. But from where Sarah was sitting, she could see three wrinkles lined his forehead that hadn’t been there the last time she remembered seeing him. And his scruff, his scuff was gone and in its place, there was a full beard. He had a grim expression on his face, his arms were folded, and was nodding to whatever Dr. Abrams was saying. At least until he noticed she was awake. His mouth moved. The other doctor turned, looking up. Then they were both moving towards the room.

“Dr. Reese,” Dr. Abrams addressed her. It felt so surreal to be addressed that way when she didn’t even remember graduating from medical school. But then she must’ve or they wouldn’t be addressing her like that.

“Dr. Reese? Sarah?”

Sarah shook her head, looking up at Dr. Abrams. “Sorry. I was…I was thinking.”

“I asked how you were feeling.”

“Oh,” she looked down at her hands. Finding them fisted in her hospital blanket. She dropped the fabric. Then her eyes flitted back up at the doctor. “My body still feels floaty and achy all at once. But you probably don’t need to know that. You want to know about my head. That’s a little more than achy too. I’m prone to migraines. Like severe debilitating migraines. I have medication prescribed to me because of how severe they are. And my head feels like it always does when one is about to end. A very deep dull throb.”

The older doctor nodded, pulling out a tablet and typing on it for a moment.

“If I can find her glasses and get her medication for her migraines, would that help? I have some of it in my locker. ” Dr. Rhodes spoke up and Sarah’s eyes found his as they widened in surprise. He knew where her glasses were and he kept her migraine medication in his locker?

“It might. But you know our general rule here with medication.” Abrams told him. Connor nodded. Abrams faced her again, “As I was telling Dr. Rhodes outside. Your head CT was clear, which is a fairly good thing. No brain injuries. Unfortunately, that leads us no closer to figuring out why you have amnesia. So I say we let your body rest for a day or two. And then we run a few more tests.”

“So you still have no idea why I just lost four years -” her voice broke and she stuttered over her words for a moment while panic swelled up in her, “-of my life?”

“Sarah,” Dr. Rhodes interrupted softly. She jolted at the sound of her first name falling from his lips, but it was more than that. It was the way he said her name. Like she was someone he cared about. Like he adored her. Like her name was a careful caress of his lips. He moved forward. Then he was sitting on her bed as he reached out to hold her hand. The one that wasn’t covered in bandages.

His palm was callused but soft and a warm weight in hers. He squeezed her hand tightly. She looked down at their joined hands then up at him. His blue eyes, which she was so close to now she saw were a deep steely blue were soft as they stared into hers. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. But Sam is right. We need to give your body a chance to rest.”

She had always trusted Dr. Rhodes. Even from her first disaster day down in the ED, that to her was just two weeks ago. Sure he was a little gruff when it came to a patient and their care. But he was a good teacher when it mattered and he always seemed to be on her side. So for that reason alone, Sarah fell silent and nodded.

Dr. Abrams left soon after, but Dr. Rhodes didn’t. He moved to the chair by her bedside. Which Sarah found odd until she remembered something Dr. Choi had said. Connor had been on his way here to be with her. But the earliest flight he could get had been three in the morning.

“Can I ask you something, Dr. Rhodes?” She asked timidly. Not sure of what she was going to say, especially when he nodded.

“How do you know where my glasses are?” Not that question. Sarah Reese, you are such a coward. She had wanted to ask him what he was doing here or why he was sticking around. She opened her mouth again, but still, the wrong question came out. “And why do you keep my migraine medication in your locker?”

Coward. She thought to herself as Dr. Rhodes yawned, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Besides knowing that you’ve lost four years, did anyone tell you anything about those four years?” He asked.

Sarah shook her head once. “They were going to-Dr. Choi and Halstead-after my head CT last night. But I fell back asleep before they could.”

“Probably for the best. They probably thought some things would be better coming from me anyway.” Dr. Rhodes told her before sighing, “And I don’t know exactly where your glasses are. But I can probably find them if you want. They’re probably back at the apartment.  As for your medication, I keep some in my locker because you’re a menace about carrying it and I’m always worried a migraine will develop when you’re on shift. But somehow I don’t think that’s the question you want to ask.”

He said the apartment. The apartment. Not her apartment. It was as if …she sucked in a breath. “Do we… live together?”

“We do. People tend to do that when they’re married.” Connor explained gently. Sarah blinked at him. Once. Twice. Three times, before she managed to croak. “Married?”

“Yes.”

“As in me and you?”

“Yes,” now he sounded amused.

“Together?”

“Yup.”

“Oh,” Sarah glanced down. He shifted forward and when he did, she caught sight of a silver ring on his left hand. On the ring finger.

“Is that so hard to believe?” Connor asked gently. Yes. Yes, it was because he was Connor Rhodes: trauma surgeon. One of the best trauma surgeons in Chicago and I’m- Sarah licked her lips, “Sort of? Dr. Rhodes-”

“Connor,” he interrupted her.

“Huh?”

“Connor,” he said again, “You haven’t called me Dr. Rhodes in over two years when we’re not on shift, and even when we’re on shift the only time you call me Dr. Rhodes is when you need a consult on a patient or you’re introducing me to them.”

“Connor-the last thing I remember is helping you and Dr. Zanetti with your friend. The one who had the chandelier stuck inside of him? So seeing how we got from A to B is a little hard right now.”

“I know. So you can ask me any questions you need or want to and not just about us. About anything, Sarah.” Connor said in that tone again. The one he used earlier to calm her down. The gentle cress of his lips.  He grabbed her hand and squeezed it again. A foreign contact to her, but something he probably did every day without thinking about it.

“You have a ring. Do I have one?” Again that wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. Why couldn’t she just ask him the questions she wanted to? Maybe because I’m scared I’m not ready for those answers. If I ever will be.

“You do. It’s around your neck.” He explained with a slight smile. Now that Connor (it was still so weird to call him that) had said something, she could suddenly feel the metal of a chain. Sarah reached up with her uninjured hand, fingering the chain until she felt a small circular band. “You’re afraid you’ll lose it at work, so you wear it around your neck when you're on shift.”  

“Here I can…I can help.” Connor offered as she struggled to get the chain off of her neck before he stepped more into her personal space than he had ever been. His hands were warm as they lifted the chain off her neck. Then the thin metal chain was dropped into her hand. She stared wide-eyed at it. Here was…not hard proof like a marriage certificate would be. But tangible poof. Proof she could hold.

“Holy shit,” she murmured the words in amazement as she stared at the delicate ring she would’ve picked out for herself.

Connor’s chuckle brought her back to where she was as he leaned down and kissed her forehead without thinking about it. “I’m going to go get your migraine medication and track Ethan or Will down to see if you can have it with your pain meds. I’ll also get some breakfast to put on your stomach just in case. I’ll be back.”

Then with that promise, he was out the door and leaving his amnesiac wife to stare after him in alarm. Connor wouldn’t realize until later what he had done or the anxiety he may have caused Sarah.

[morrak]

Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 81

I’m writing tonight from beside a stack of heretofore firmly packed away things — my oilstones and some ancillary lathe tooling — which should be appearing in long-promised posts soon. My head’s been miles away from the usual coffee-, plant-, and writingposting these last couple months, but I’m trying to keep pace with my own maladaptive expectation where possible. Closing in on closing out some of last year’s prose ideas, and anyway, I guess a Theophrastus UWLS entry is vaguely botanical. The brand must be upheld or something. I don’t know what you all read me for, but I’ll damn well keep guessing wildly so long as it’s even vaguely fun.

But Theophrastus, yeah? Wrote both Enquiry into and Causes of Plants, plus some other stuff. Peripatetic, successor of Aristotle at the Lyceum, purported father of botany, so on and etc. Translated by lots of people into lots of languages for a lot of years running, including the aptly named Arthur F. Hort in these volumes, which are mostly Enquiry ‘and minor works on odours and weather signs’.

The Loeb collection is/was a Harvard Press line in collaboration with London’s William Heinemann Ltd. This set was first offering in 1926, but got several reprints over many decades and outlasted lots of editors. My pair is of mixed vintage, but we’ll save that for The Object.

The How

If you’re interested (like I am, for some reason) in botany largely as a futile but crunchy taxonomical-phylogenetic problem, Theophrastus is unavoidable. At minimum he’s etymologically unavoidable — he’s the earliest source we have for a heap of plant names; Linnaeus appealed to his vocabulary pretty constantly and you don’t quickly outgrow roots like those — but that doesn’t even touch the biogeographical or linguistic or philosophical or systematic kick these books imparted to botanical science per se.

That’s a long way of saying I thought I should poke at them cautiously, maybe, and found some copies used online.

The Text

Hort’s translation is the earliest complete English rendering I’m aware of. I presume it’s fine, but despite myself I have practically no Greek. A project Hort set for himself, for better or worse, was guessing about the identities of every plant referenced in the text, spare only the longest shots. Many of his conclusions are either questionable or outright conflict with more recent readings, but it’s a noble effort. Brave, sure, and arrogant, but noble. Usually works OK.

This printing is bilingual, which is perfect for pulling down references, and very closely obeys the original text’s organization. More closely even than its own pagination, actually; the index gives locations in book-section-paragraph rather than absolute number.

For a guy who had doubts about how to talk about plants and even about how they worked, Theophrastus had a lot to say about the things. Some anatomy, some geography, occasional rough ethnobotany, etymologies, horticultural tips, the works. Several layers of hearsay are usually afoot, as you’d expect — ‘about the oak accounts differ’ and so on — but that’s kinda fun. Books 1–5 contain some general points and then a workup of trees, and 6–9 runs from under-shrubs to herbs and then digresses about juices (pitch, myrrh, resins and extracts) and medicinal applications.

Nicely arranged; big fan of weildy paragraphs.

The Object

My second volume is a 1977 printing from the UK. The first one is an undated edition from the Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group out of York, Pennsylvania. It’s more recent — acid-free paper, much better condition, some tweaks to the presentation — but contains no dates other than an unhelpful (erroneous?) ‘First published 1916’.

To my eyes the Greek type is slightly worse overall than the English, and the Maple-Vail copy worse than the older one. My eyes are right on both counts; these are nice to look at and good to handle but a little tiresome to really inspect, if you get what I mean.

The Why, Though?

I kind of already said, but I made an omission. I could find the text itself online if I needed, but this particular preparation contains Hort’s decision that κάκτος maps to ‘cardoon’, which, hmm. Either he was wrong, lots of other seminal botanical writers were wrong, or, more likely, they all are.

Also this is the reference to silphium, which is another huge question mark in antique studies and goddamnit if that’s not tantalizing.

Because I haven’t hit my image limit for once, some pictures from the back shelves. Wild cardoon Cynara cardunculus and some giant fennel Ferula communis, one candidate for silphium, in (modern) habitat vaguely near where some of this book can be traced to.

[lily-orchard]

Entirely agree that this past episode was... not very good in how it was nothing more than an exposition dump - funny how it's the episode the creative staff was hyping up on social media as one of their favorites to work on, but I knew to be wary of that from your own experience when it comes to over-hyping. I was way more invested in how Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf were going to get past Hooty than anything else - what do you know, Raine?! Glad they were there to provide somewhat of B-plot, however small, to break from Hunter's moping.

But with that being said, do you think having exposition-dump episodes like this can be tolerated in an otherwise good show, or are breadcrumbs a better option? It really felt like they wanted to get the rest of Belos' baggage out there in its entirety in a single episode so he can just focus on being the villain for the rest of the series, instead of leaving a trail of his backstory and red-herring-sympathetic-moments over the next five episodes. I'm somewhat glad they didn't drag his story out longer than it already was (nor try to paint him as sympathetic in any way), and all of those less relevant backstory bits were shoved into background painting-memories this episode for the fandom to incessantly comb through, but the episode still felt weak overall.

The problem is that nothing was shown that we didn't already know. What did we learn this episode?

The Day of Unity is a bad thing.

Hunter is a construct

Belos is a liar and a tyrant

Belos was Philip Wittebane

Belos' entire thing is British colonialism mixed with a dash of Witch Hunting hysteria and a heaping pile of fascism

And what did we learn that we didn't already know?

Jack. Fucking. Shit.

It's one of those episodes that exists mostly to confirm "theories" when the show was already brazenly obvious about this stuff to begin with. One of the things that made The Owl House good was that it avoided this stuff. That it didn't just end on dramatic cliffhangers, stringing you along with vague mentions until the season finale where they just string answers back to back and pretend that's satisfying.

It was a show made for viewers, not MatPat.

And most of Season 2B has just been adding all that boring Adventure Fantasy stuff in.

The "Belos is Philip" thing should have been the earliest revelation, and the episode should have shown how he got from "make a portal back home" to "genocide the witches." As it stands, we know nothing more about Belos than we did beforehand unless you are just profoundly thick and inattentive.

Furthermore, this is yet another Hunter Episode where the driving conflict is him taking way too long to clue in as to what the right decision is. Hunting Palismen and Any Sport in a Storm already had this storyline of Hunter being in denial for 9/10ths of the episode and then having the epiphany to do the right thing.

Say what you will about Amity, she only had to stand up to her abuser once and then we were allowed to move the fuck on. This is another problem with Hunter in that the crew clearly really likes him, but they don't actually have any ideas for what to do with him. It's like they just made the design and liked it so much they were determined to crowbar that shit in somewhere.

Hunter's been the main focus of five episodes now and has made zero forward momentum as a character. This is a problem that the other characters don't have. Luz, Eda, Amity, Willow, Gus, they all have forward character growth in every episode, and build on it the next time. But Hunter grinds to a halt, has to constantly re-learn the same thing every time he shows up, and he has nothing going for him other than being an angsty white boy for the racist parts of the Owl House fandom to hyperfixate on.

They have done nothing with this kid. Within five episodes of focus, Amity went from Bully to Neutral, to Friend, to Jittering Trauma Gremlin to Disaster Lesbian. Within five episodes Hunter went from Fun to Conflicted to Conflicted to Conflicted to Conflicted.

In the wake of my sneering disdain of Hunter, people have gone "What makes Amity different?" Well with Amity at least stuff happens with her. She does things and grows as a person and the stories she's involved in don't feel like meandering wastes of fucking time.

But Hollow Mind has the same problem every Hunter episode has in that so much time is wasted watching this kid hem and haw that nothing of value is accomplished.

Hollow Mind is the Re:Coded of The Owl House. Nothing happens.

[thattimdrakeguy]

Gosh, I loved this issue so much. Like absolute gobs.

I think this is the first time since Young Justice (2019) #1 that I’ve felt like I was reading actual Tim, since after that it started to feel less like Tim quite a bit, and more and more generic.

But even if it’s just coincidence given what they have Tim do in this or not, Tim’s written really well. Which could be because Jurgens has actually written Tim pretty well in the past.

(This also kind of confirms to me that the Robin in “Teen Titans: The Burning Rage” (the Wal-Mart series they turned into a mini) was supposed to be Dick, given they’re written so dang differently.)

Seeing Tim talk to Batman, even if it’s literally only that passing panel, just makes me happy. It barely even means anything to the story besides exposition, but it’s just satisfying. There’s no Tynion “Tim is the best. Praise him” melodrama writing. It’s just the boy that said Batman needs a Robin, and it made it his goal to help him and keep him grounded.

He loves Dick tons in this too it feels like. Which he should, because that’s how their relationship is supposed to be, and that hasn’t been truly acknowledged in a long time. Tim looks as Dick as his big brother, and Dick looks at Tim as his little brother. That was their dynamic pure and simple. They cared tons for each other. Dick put himself near a potential life-ending explosion just to save Tim’s life because he was “the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have”. It’s so nice to feel like they actually legitimately care again.

Although, for this issue we had to deal with him beating up Tim because of that stupid brainwashing bit--

Even if, it just comes off like that to fill the need to mention family, because DC Comics seems to only really acknowledge them as a family primarily for pandering at this point. It feels so genuine comic from Tim as a character in this specific situation, because that is something he would say and do.

The boyish, dorky way that Tim speaks, but still making it through with his smarts. The anxiety he generally has. That also feels so much like Tim, because that’s who Tim is. Tim has anxiety.

This was one of Tim’s earliest appearances mind you, but his behavior and narration continues to implicate that he does become easily anxious.

Like people have this idea, that when Tim started wearing the black and red suit, that he was instantly this dark and edgy figure, but that was honestly mostly just from the Teen Titans series at the time, that was playing up melodrama. In Tim’s own Robin series he was still like this, he was learning to cope with his grief, and he’s clearly got darker, but that’s just fitting considering that’s his situation. He still possessed this same personality.

The personality they wrote here, even if by pure coincidence. Which works extra well, considering this is a Tim that never experienced any of that grief personally, besides Batman, which I think is only a maybe because of the vagueness around it. That whole part of Tim’s life of losing people was from a different timeline he only remembers because of magic, he didn’t really experience it himself properly anymore.

A lot of this is pulled together by the art, I think they did a real good job at representing Tim. He has his short height and babyface that makes him look younger than his age, which he is noted as having more than once.

His movements are more boyish, and awkward compares to the others. Which works alongside how part of Tim’s character is that he wasn’t an immediate natural with some things, yet he’s still capable. That weird little worried face even feels like Tim, because he’s had some really funny looking expressions over the years.

Rather by coincidence or not, this is some of the best Tim writing in a long while even if it’s so short, and ultimately not very eventful.

I’ll take Tim being Tim, rather than the generic super genius trope they kept trying to apply to him for a year. Tim isn’t a genius besides when writers wanna push it. He’s just a very clever boy, just as they write here.

[sullustangin]

Ok, so, I don't know how far you've gotten in the expansions, and I have no idea what your plan is for the expansions for Corellian Whiskey and Sullustan Gin, but.... What are your thoughts on the Fractured Alliances Arc because like, if I were Eva, I don't know if I could handle it happening twice!! And Theron Knows her history... Anyway, feel free to ignore this if it's too spoilery (and I hope it's vague enough to not spoil anything for you)

Day 3: Fractured Alliances and the the Taste for Spies

Thanks for this ask! I've played through Fractured Alliances twice (and will do so again shortly!), but I was fortunate enough to start playing the game AFTER it was resolved. In short, I didn't have to live through it live and miss Theron for 9 months. I’ve got general opinions about the arc under the cut, but I’ll speak specifically to the Corellian Whiskey and Sullustan Gin series first.

Talk about trust issues. In my headcanon, Eva and Darmas were serious; I'm working on a piece where Darmas finally has to make the choice as to whether to tell her about who he really is... or not.

The way the game goes, the answer is obviously "not" until Corellia. I've already written about how that has screwed up Eva in terms of her own self-worth; as far as her own future goes, she's a nihilist.

The problem with Theron knowing Eva’s history with Darmas was that they never talked about it again after that one time on Rishi -- before the carbonite freeze.  They did not talk about the ex. At all.  Ever.  For her, it was painful.  For him, he didn’t want to upset her. She was not who she was then, and Darmas was rotting in jail.  He wasn’t coming back for her. It was irrelevant to their relationship.  

Until that moment on the train.  When Theron did the villainous monologue and... she just stared at him.  After losing it all, coming back, and almost making it back to ... peace?... , Eva was back to being 22 and having her heart ripped out.  What was past was present.  It was all real yet not at the same time.  

Akaavi Spar delivered the line, “Your taste for spies isn’t for the weak” in “The Parting of the Ways.”  How right she was. 

How did Eva deal with Theron's betrayal? She did not.  After carbonite, she has lingering physical and mental health issues. Although she improved greatly over the last three years... Eva wasn’t strong enough to take this.

She was weak.

Eva dissociated at Umbara, and ‘she’ didn’t come back until Theron is in medbay on Odessen, after Nathema.  The Voidhound -- the alter ego she created to do the ugly business of Voidfleet and to preserve her 'self' and her crew -- essentially took over.

After Theron came back, Eva decided she was done with the Alliance and maybe Theron too, and so she and the crew of Virtue’s Thief took a three-month sabbatical... Eva’s first real break from the job, the life, everything since Skavak stole the blaster shipment.  She’d never stopped. 

Everything eventually ends happily (because I can’t stand a sad ending) but in my series, it will take longer than a frolick out in the field.

Longer-winded explanation and links to some fragments I’ve written about this below the cut.  Also, my general take on the arc. 

I've written Eva's experience of carbonite and beyond as a complete demolition of what she was prior. She was stripped of everything she had, including her family, her friends, her ship, and even her blaster skills. Unfortunately for Valkorion, the struggle for control of her mind and body was a war he always lost, much to his surprise and dismay. Canonically, the smuggler is mentally strong.

That doesn't mean invulnerable. After five years of fighting Valkorion in her mind, the shock of losing five years threw her into a dissociative state. Throughout much of the earliest days with Koth and Lana, Eva did not know what was past or present. What was real. This caused Koth, early on, to refer to her as 'the lunatic.' By the time Theron arrived on Odessen, Eva was far more stable, but there would still be moments he'd walk onto the Thief, and she'd be speaking to Risha and Corso... who have been missing for three years. Or even better, her parents, who have now been dead for fifteen years. Theron kept Eva in the present; he was an anchor to what was real and present-day. Her mental health improved from fair to good by the time Vaylin attacked Voss.

That was undone by the betrayal.  That reawakened the old issues with Darmas.  

Something had to take charge and keep her alive, if her crew wasn't there, if she wasn't the same strong person she was before carbonite. Get her off that damn train. That something was the Voidhound.  I’ve written a small piece about how Lana figures out what has happened to her -- courtesy of Guss, strangely.  (I will write the Fractured Alliances fic, as narrated by Guss, because otherwise I might not get through it).

I've always treated the Voidhound as more than just a call name or a reputation or a title. I plan on writing about that more next week. The Voidhound is Eva's alter ego, something she becomes; Theron honestly hoped it had died during the five years. The Voidhound survived the carbonite, and there were a few occasions where Eva dropped into that mode to deal with Alliance business. Nobody -- not even Kaliyo -- felt safe around it.

But that was who dealt with Theron's betrayal. The Voidhound.

Minus a short period when she first got back to Odessen, Eva was gone from the Alliance as long as Theron. I have a scene in my head where she sort of 'snaps out of it,' only to realize she has lived nearly five months in a sort of secondary capacity to this creature that felt no warmth, no affection, had no regard for anyone but its own aims, and made ugly, nasty choices in the pursuit of finding Theron.

Nobody was really sure whether Eva was gone forever until Nathema... and we'll see how that plays out later this week in a fic I've written. I have written the aftermath of the marriage proposal that Eva does accept from Theron, as well as Jace Malcom’s reaction to finding out Theron got married.

~~

In regard to the overall arc, in general, the big ideas were good.  Is it in-character for Theron to go off on his own to save the people and institutions he loves? Yes; his loner workaholic issues don’t magically resolve entirely over the years.  Would he not tell anyone because it would risk the illusion?  Yes; double agents often cannot tell anyone but the person who assigns them the mission.  Theron assigns himself this mission, which he has done in the past but not as a double agent (just ask Marcus Trant, who alternates between praising Theron and wanting to chuck him down the trash compactor). They even offer that explanation VERY late in the arc, during the Nathema flashpoint.  

The execution of the plotline was poor, however.  The speeches Theron gives on the train are particularly low-quality, especially if you played a super LS person who saved every civilian possible. (You can headcanon this as Theron pretending to be brainwashed... but even that’s a bit of a stretch and he immediately undermines the idea by his follow-up letters.)  They also plonk the code from Rishi into a listening post, which ‘exonerates’ Theron, but creates the difficulty of ‘why not write it down?’ or ‘isn’t GEMINI watching, which is why you couldn’t tell us?’  Again, Theron going rogue to save the galaxy is not out-of-character; how dumb everyone acts, including Lana and Theron, IS, and that’s a writing failure.  Too many plotholes.  Also, how far the conspiracy stretches -- involving Vanilla choices, some of which are super high up  -- reveals that the Republic and Sith Empire haven’t learned shit since the Revanites, another frustrating element. 

And that never comes up again.

This was also tied up into the elimination of the Eternal Fleet, a plot point left by KotET when there was anticipation of a third KotXX expansion; the Fleet would have been destroyed at the end of that.  Instead, because of the cancellation and the upheaval at SWTOR/Bioware, all of this was smashed into the Traitor Arc and rushed through, just like the Arcann redemption.  

And then they put in a petty kill option for edgelords (the execution of which degrades Lana to being a lackey rather than “her own woman”).  Sigh.

(I also got issues with the marriage proposal, and I got a whole damn fic about that.)

Fractured Alliances could have been so much better if the time, money, and execution had been there.  Those items were not, so it falls to fic writers to... make it work, to quote Tim Gunn.

[subwalls]

CONFRONTATION. || DreamSMP 

An analysis on Ranboo’s January 30th stream, meant to pick apart c!Ranboo’s complex relationship with reality and the voices in his head. This will be broken up into three (3) parts: introduction, stream analysis, and conclusion.

cw unreality, derealization, etc.

INTRODUCTION.

Before we start, I want to make clear that this is just my personal reading of the stream’s events, and as such it may not be the same as yours, and that’s okay! Critical reading is all about how one work can be viewed through a variety of lenses to yield very different conclusions, and the validation of one does not immediately mean all the others are Bad and Wrong.

We all got that? Cool.

Now, a common theory being tossed around at the moment is the idea that the entire stream was a dream (ha) or hallucination. This possibility is somewhat backed up by a few observations I will point out in the rest of this post, but for the sake of seriously dissecting this dream into truths and untruths, I will not be assuming that everything that happened was fake. I’ll delve a little deeper into why this theory doesn’t completely convince me in the conclusion, too.

STREAM ANALYSIS.

Aw yeah, here comes the frame-by-frame analysis of 41 minutes of footage.

... Well, kinda. Let’s start with a play-by-play instead of a frame-by-frame, yeah? 

At 2:45 into the stream, Ranboo starts out in the panic room, looking at the “You are fine” sign. He says that Sam told him he can visit Dream (”him”) today, and reflects on the fact that he’s no longer looking for clarity or confrontation (me, looking at the stream title: uh,) but rather to make Dream think about what he did.

“He deserves to know what he did.” (Ranboo at 3:47)

“I’m gonna tell him what those thoughts are.” (Ranboo at 3:55, which is an... interesting remark, seeing as the voice in his head that sounds like Dream has been trying to tell Ranboo what his thoughts are. But it doesn’t mean anything substantial.)

Vibe check so far? REAL. Nothing appears to be out of place in the panic room. Ranboo is nervous but keeping it together and talking himself through it. Sounds great!

After a bit of psyching himself up (and noticeably declaring his memory book to be the only one that hasn’t been tampered with), Ranboo starts towards the prison. He’s scared and doesn’t know why, but he’s gonna do it.

One thing of note is that he passes by Sam Nook’s construction site, and the place’s big map sign thing never quite loads in properly. The whole thing just stays black. Suspicious, but those maps are honestly kinda glitchy at loading in anyway because they’re entities instead of blocks. Or maybe Sam Nook’s doing some prep. (Edit: more likely is that this is a clone of the Dream SMP server for the sake of what they’re about to do to the prison, and it doesn’t have the map plugin, so all the picture maps in the world are broken.)

As the prison comes into view, he continues talking to himself (he’s never been to prison, apparently; he’s been inside Pandora’s Vault before, but not as a prisoner). He thinks about the fact that he could get rid of Dream if he wanted to, but no, he couldn’t. 

The prison entrance portal is actually already lit. Ranboo isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do but eventually hits the button.

After quite a bit of waiting, Sam eventually greets him (13:32) and invites him to step into the portal. Ranboo goes through the portal and appears in a warped forest biome.

This is incredibly suspicious. The prison’s nether portal is supposed to be a customized portal in six (6) layers of obsidian that floats over a sea of lava. In fact—and I will come back to fix this if I’m mistaken—I’m pretty sure the portal resides in the fringes of a basalt delta, not a warped forest. You can see a bit of a basalt delta poking over the warped fungi in the distance, but Ranboo is very clearly in the wrong spot. 

So why the warped forest, the wrong biome and the wrong portal? It probably has something to do with the fact that Ranboo is part enderman, and enderman live in the warped forest. With the End forbidden and unknown (seeing as Techno and Phil had no idea what an End Portal was), the warped forest is likely the closest thing endermen as a species can call home in the Dream SMP.

Anyway. This is the earliest instance of either a brief hallucination or Ranboo losing his connection to reality altogether.

Ranboo goes through the portal when instructed to by Sam and properly appears in the prison’s interior portal, facing Sam at his warden’s... desk thing. Sam has Mining Fatigue right now, by the way, as seen by the particles. Ranboo is then teleported to Sam (14:20) for some reason (maybe because, behind the scenes, he was in a duped prison portal in order to make the warped forest thing happen), appearing to be inside Sam’s space before he moves back out. They do not acknowledge this.

Sam does the same series of questions to Ranboo that he did to Tommy. Ranboo says that he has not come to the prison before or even spoke to Dream before, and expresses to Sam his desire to bring his memory book along. Sam agrees on the condition that he holds onto it during the way there.

Side note: Ranboo does not get Mining Fatigue until he’s already inside the prison and being questioned. (14:47) This is quite different from the timing when Tommy got Mining Fatigue in his visit, but considering the fact that we don’t know the placement of the elder guardians or even how many there are, this could just be natural variation...

Anyway, Ranboo does the same thing we saw Tommy do with the locker and the examinations and whatever, except that Sam is... more cordial. Nicer. This is vaguely suspicious, but he’s been a little softer since his encounter with the Crimson and he has a clear soft spot for the kids. Tommy also is very different from the clearly nervous Ranboo (Sam points out that Ranboo is nervous later on, around 20:01, so he definitely noticed), so he could have just been being nice to the poor traumatized kid... Or maybe this is just a Sam constructed from Ranboo’s memories of a nice person, and not the real one. It’s not very clear but could be swayed in either direction.

One odd thing—Ranboo took quite a bit to die to the harming potions, and I feel like Tommy died faster, but I’ll have to check. It’s as though Ranboo got Harming I instead of Harming II? Sam even comments that it “took a minute” (19:12). Also, Ranboo loses his levels in this process, so, uh, if his next stream he appears with levels, that means there’s something happening that we ain’t seeing.

A skeleton dies somewhere offscreen lmao.

Ranboo is immediately re-inflicted with Mining Fatigue every time he dies, by the way, so they’re definitely within range of the elder guardians.

Ranboo endures the water section of the trip and it sucked but he seems about the same level of nervous as before, so. Sam takes the time to reassure him and give him the memory book at the last step before the cell itself.

“He [Dream] shouldn’t misbehave, he knows what happens when he does.” (Sam at 25:23, he still got that bit of ruthless warden in him.)

Vibe check again—this prison, physically speaking? Seems real. It’s possible that Ranboo could be drawing on memories from his other self, but considering that he has never been to the prison before, the fact that the prison is the exact same as the real prison that Tommy went to seems to indicate that this is a real experience. 

Ranboo’s Mining Fatigue gets refreshed, so looks like the elder guardians reach here too. Dream has the Mining Fatigue particles as soon as he comes into view. (Only pointing this out because it notably took Dream a long time to get Mining Fatigue back when Tommy visited him.)

A weird sound happens at 27:31. Not sure what that’s about.

The lava curtain comes back down, and Ranboo turns around to see Dream. His screen shakes a bit as he turns, which could be anything from lag (there’s a lot of lava moving right now) to nerves (both in-character and out). (Edit: confirmed in the chill stream following that he was just nervous, and feeling his character’s nervousness.) First thing of note, here: the item frame holding the clock on the wall is transparent. This is a texture pack thing, presumably—could be the same thing that fucked up the construction site’s map sign earlier, maybe it’s even just the texture pack that some members of the SMP have installed for the chess thing—but it’s still something to notice. 

Dream greets Ranboo with quite a bit of joy and energy, and says it’s not a surprise for Ranboo to visit, and altogether makes numerous implications that he and Ranboo’s other self have been conversing a lot in the times that Ranboo doesn’t remember. 

“We’re best friends, right?” (Dream at 28:19, and I better not see any serious remarks about gaslighting here Dream is actually telling the truth, he just has not realized that this Ranboo doesn’t remember their conversations.)

“I’ve probably talked to you more than I’ve talked to anybody on the entire server.” (Dream at 28:27, indignant at Ranboo’s claim that they’ve barely talked, which. Yeah. I mean this whole thing could be a lie or fake but... I don’t know, I’m not convinced.)

Ranboo, whose understanding of his relationship to Dream is very different from Dream’s apparent understanding of their relationship, claims that Dream is just trying to scare him. Dream sounds confused and asks, “Why are you acting different?” (28:45) so he’s definitely not had dealings with this (awake?) Ranboo, but rather the... other set of memories.

“Ooooh.” (Dream at 28:56, which I think marks the moment he realizes that this is the other Ranboo, and it isn’t the one that he normally speaks with.)

Dream continues to say that he’s glad that Ranboo’s come to visit, that Ranboo’s been a great helping hand, and Ranboo immediately accuses him of somehow knowing about the whole panic room situation, and after Ranboo declares that he’s not going to let Dream trick him into thinking that he did those things—

“But you did do those things.” (Voice at 29:36)

Voice is always fake; it’s not “real” (audible by anyone else), and it’s not Dream.

Kudos to cc!Dream, by the way, his tone audibly changes when he switches into Ranboo’s Voice. This, I believe, is the turning point of the stream. The Voice returns, marked by the tone difference from c!Dream and also by the constant referral to Dream in the third person. 

Now, here’s the interesting thing. The Voice claims that the reason why it went away is because Dream was put in prison and thus they haven’t been talking as much, which leads to Ranboo forgetting how Dream sounds like and thus robbing Voice of that, well, voice. (29:58) The implication here is that the reason behind Dream’s voice being the Voice of the “other” in Ranboo’s head is because the other just talks to Dream a lot. 

Ranboo questions the third person thing, asking if he’s gone insane in prison, and there’s a pause, and then Dream says, “You’re right, you’re right. Yes, yes, there’s not much to do here.” (30:20) The tone shift is a little more subtle here, but the way Dream responded—it’s like he was responding to something else. “Have you gone insane” doesn’t usually lead to “You’re right”, because that’s a question, not a statement. 

We’re real again, folks. But only briefly. Actually, it sounds like real Dream has been talking to someone while Ranboo was talking with his Voice, and when Ranboo heard him again, he was mid-conversation. Dream may have been speaking with that other Ranboo and we as the audience and Ranboo simply couldn’t hear.

Dream apparently doesn’t like his clock (30:32), and then prompts Ranboo to see what he’s been writing. In suspiciously good timing, we hear the elder guardian’s curse go off again to refresh Mining Fatigue, and then Dream hands Ranboo a book.

Here, the unreality really sets in.

The book is named Do not read. (30:47) It is a precise copy of Ranboo’s memory book, and when Ranboo checks Dream’s chest full of books, they are all named Do not read. and have the same contents. What appears to be real Dream invites him to look through them, and as Ranboo panics over this, what appears to be the Voice rather than c!Dream tells Ranboo that he needs “to face the truth” (31:18).

Ranboo says the truth is that Dream is a terrible person who hurt others.

The Voice says the truth is that Ranboo helped “me”. (31:35) Now, I can’t tell if this is a slip of the tongue on cc!Dream’s part or on the Voice’s part, but he does correct himself and say “Dream” after, so take that how you will. 

At this point, the Dream on the screen’s body language starts to match up with the Voice (moving while it talks), and the Voice claims “I’m not even Dream,” which lines up with its prior claims that it is just another part of Ranboo. 

Ranboo tries to rationalize the situation, assuming that the real Dream is speaking right now, but the Voice refers to Ranboos memories in the first person (“I know what I went through because I’m you,” 32:01), reinforces the fact that “you” (Ranboo) use to talk with Dream every day, and the only reason the Voice stopped happening is because he couldn’t picture Dream’s voice after not speaking with him since Dream went to prison. 

“He [Dream] would tell you [Ranboo] things to do. You were like his little... servant.” (Voice at 32:24)

Ranboo refuses this, the Voice continues to insist that he did help Dream, Ranboo asks why he doesn’t remember, and Voice says that he does; the Voice remembers, and the Voice is Ranboo. 

And then the Voice says, “I’m not even real,” and the Dream on screen vanishes. 

We don’t see a logout message on screen, but Ranboo isn’t in f1, so Dream probably either /tp’d somewhere OR switched to spectator mode. Ranboo suddenly gets the Nausea effect, panics and looks at the chest and says that he got rid of the voice, but the obsidian starts falling (gravity applied to the cell, hope they have a backup of the server to rollback to or let themselves use creative lmao) which unveils some details in the Pandora’s Vault inner chamber that I’d love to dissect but not now, and then Ranboo "hits the ground too hard” and dies.

Of note: Ranboo’s death screen is not vanilla. The word “Died” is capitalized where it shouldn’t be, and even though Ranboo lost his levels dying on the way in, his score is 206810. I bet that’s a code for something but I have no idea what for.

(I typed 206810 into my search bar and got a hex code for green. Yeah. Darker than what you’d associate with Dream, but... green.)

And then we have morse code crown and smiley that’s supposed to say “not free yet” or something but apparently there’s other translations because cc!Ranboo might’ve hecked it up a little bit. Oops.

But yeah, there you go! That’s the stream.

Not once does Ranboo press tab, by the way. Something makes me think that that might be because they’re not on the real Dream SMP—also to, you know, avoid having to rebuild the prison.

CONCLUSION.

I do think the prison visit is real at first. Ranboo falls in and out of contact with reality, and the warped forest is definitely fishy, but the layout of the prison is too precisely accurate to be wholeheartedly dreamed up. He’s never been there before, after all, and Sam doesn’t correct him—which could mean that Sam is fake and Ranboo is drawing on those other memories, but we never see Ranboo use memories he doesn’t have, he just acts on emotions and feelings that his other self seems to have.

So, the moments that are “real” are Ranboo walking to the prison, through the prison, and the first part of his talk with Dream. He clips back into reality just in time for Dream to show him a book, which immediately pops Ranboo back into the land of hallucinations, because there’s no way Dream has so many copies of the real memory book when he’s been isolated in his cell this entire time. The warped forest was probably a hallucination born of Ranboo’s enderman (sleepwalking) half being nervous, since Ranboo said he was nervous but couldn’t pinpoint why; it was probably that other side. Still don’t know why he’d be nervous though, when it seems like Dream’s happy to see him. 

The room caving in and Dream disappearing are fake. I think it’s symbolic of the other side forcing Ranboo to black out in order to have a conversation with Dream that isn’t being interrupted by the awake self. Who knows where and how Ranboo is going to wake up next time, honestly. Or even if he’ll remember the visit at all.

Oh, and I really doubt this costed a canon life. There’s some very funky implications if it does, but I’ll only get into that if we get a confirmed life lost.

Again, the Voice is not Dream but instead is the side of Ranboo that actually remembers the supposedly “bad” things he did at Dream’s behest. Interestingly, Dream calls them besties, but the Voice sounds almost... scornful and refers to Ranboo as Dream’s little servant. Sure tells you how fucked up c!Dream’s definition of a friend is, huh?

Speaking of c!Dream, here’s an interesting thought: sleepwalking Ranboo only speaks Ender, as shown by his attempts to communicate with Philza. So, assuming that sleepwalking Ranboo is the “other” Ranboo that remembers things, he probably couldn’t have visited the prison, because he couldn’t organize a visit time with Sam, because that would require speaking Player.

However. He used to speak with Dream on a regular basis.

Which means Dream speaks (or at least understands) Ender. This would also explain why the Voice manifests as Dream’s; it’s the only other voice that understands the tongue it uses.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts about Pandora’s Vault because we got a little sneak peek at some of the redstone behind those obsidian walls when the room started caving in, but that’s for later. Hope this was helpful to... I dunno, anyone? I’ll probably come back and add/edit things as needed.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep14

Do you ever wanna just watch two little girls who are actually 100+ year old witches beat the absolute SHIT out of each other for 20 minutes straight? :)

Anyway, thoughts under the cut. Plus Umineko spoilers.

Part of this might just be because I’ve been high on painkillers for a few weeks now [long story short, I’ve got a lot of dental work that needs done], but this is perhaps the most entertaining episode of anime I’ve seen all year, lol. Not even in a jokey ironic ‘so bad it’s good’ way.

I feel like this is going to be the most polarizing episode of this whole show, because for better or worse it really crosses the line between Higurashi and Umineko, so whether or not you’re a fan of that whole trajectory the story’s been taking will really change how you feel about this.

Though to be honest I think on one level people are ignoring how Higurashi has always had a lot of these things in it. For one thing, the concept of the fragment space and ‘game boards’ has been a thing since Minagoroshi, and we’ve always had stuff like Hanyuu being a literal god who can manifest in the real world, and the existence of the mythical sword was hinted at in Matsuribayashi and then expanded upon in Kotohogushi. This episode also directly referenced the over the top rooftop fight scene from Tsumihoroboshi, which was just the start of Higurashi having lots of fun and silly fight scenes, like the fights between the club members and the military in Matsuribayashi, or the whole fighting game spin-off arc thing. Even in the VN there was an intentional shift from horror and mystery to high-octane fight scenes fueled by the power of friendship and miracles.

Obviously on the other hand there’s definite Umineko stuff going on here, but in general this feels like a pretty natural progression for this series to take.

Anyway, this was absolutely worth the wait, and it goes a long way toward making up for how bad the pacing in Sotsu has been thus far, lol. I still think they could have cut this down by at least two or three episodes, but still. As a climax to this whole conflict between Rika and Satoko, it was really cool.

Sort of like how Nekodamashi had it’s rollercoaster death montage, I really loved how this whole episode transitioned between fragments in increasingly seamless and surreal ways. The use of transition cuts between scenes was honestly really cool, and made it way more dynamic and engaging than it otherwise would have been to basically have an entire episode spent on one fight scene.

I think a lot of people are hung up on the exact logistics of how the fragment-hopping worked in this episode, but I don’t really think you should read into it too much. It basically operated on dream logic and heightened emotions. In the first few fragments Satoko might have waited a bit before attacking Rika, but it very quickly became one continuous sequence of events for all intents and purposes, with how their back and forth dialogue and their exact movements transitioned from one fragment to the next.

Basically it ended up becoming a fight between voyager witches who have become totally divorced from reality and just hop from one fragment to the next whenever they please.

I was wondering how they’d follow up on the gun scene, since it created this stalemate where they both know what’s going on and thus have no reason to surrender, but I really like how they decided to take this. I know a lot of people have been wanting more of a drawn out battle of wits between them, but the whole concept of them just getting into an endless fight with each other now that everything’s out in the open is extremely entertaining to watch.

It does make me even more convinced that it was a bad idea to have Nekodamashi happen in Gou, though. The immediate resolution to the cliffhanger was more anti-climactic than most people would have wanted after so much time spent leading back up to it, and the whole tone and pacing of Nekodamashi would have flowed very seamlessly into this. It also would have fixed the issue of the last two episodes being almost entirely recaps if this was instead the first time that we saw the Nekodamashi loops.

Anyway, there’s been a lot of debate about whether or not we might get a third season or some other kind of continuation to this, and I think this episode makes me way more convinced that it’s actually just going to end here, whether people like it or not. I think I’ve already said that there’s literally nothing the story needs to do anymore except have Rika and Satoko hash things out with each other, and that’s exactly what they’re focusing on now. Maybe they could spend time recapping Satokowashi, but that’d be extremely pointless. And at this point it’s pretty clear that one way or another the other club members just aren’t going to be very important to this story. There’s a bit of a loose end with their teenage selves showing up in the OP with new outfits, but that might be as simple as an epilogue scene set back in the Matsuribayashi fragment or something, and them looking ominous might be a red herring.

Also, in a more meta sense, there’s certain stuff the staff are doing and saying that make this seem like the finale of the whole series, like how in a couple months they’re going to release a congratulatory book compiling all the official artwork and interviews for Gou/Sotsu, or how they recently released a compilation CD of all of Ayane’s Higurashi-related songs, or how [I think] the artist for the Gou manga said on Twitter that the new chapter that just came out will be the last one to come out while the anime’s airing. We’re also getting two new Higurashi manga arcs starting soon, along with the reveal that the Gou manga will diverge from the anime and go into a new answer arc called Higurashi Jun.

So in general it just comes across like everything’s being wrapped up with Sotsu. I can see why people would be disappointed if we don’t get more, but with how the story’s been going, there’s just not really much material left to work with. Also, we know from TV listings that there at least won’t be a direct continuation in the next season, so if we get anything more it wouldn’t happen until January at earliest, and at this point I’d rather things just wrap up here instead of having to wait even longer to get the actual ending, lol.

I guess we won’t know how things will end until next week, but we really seem to be barrelling headfirst into this being Bern and Lambda’s origin story. Which has been pretty obvious for ages now, but this episode in particular really cements it. This whole fight is really similar to the one they have in Episode 8, and you can see throughout the episode how they’re embracing their looper/witch personas and becoming divorced from reality. You can even see the foundation for how Bern and Lambda have a twisted love for each other based on the fact that they’re basically the only people who can actually understand each other, and they’re so detached from reality that the violence between them is more like a sign of affection.

I feel like this is also going to end up tying into the miracle that Hanyuu is waiting for. At the moment we’re in a situation where it seems like they’re stuck in an infinite stalemate because they’re in a fight where neither of them wants to lose, but neither of them wants to win if it means permanently killing the other. So it seems like there might not really be any way out of this, but if they’re able to truly forgive each other and embrace their identities as witches, then they can basically step away from this entire conflict and just enjoy being with each other. It seems impossible for this to end with either of them ‘winning’ and things going back to how they used to be, so it could certainly be called a miracle if they both decide that they’re OK with that, and they take a third option where they can both be happy in a way that neither of them would have predicted at first.

This could also lead to a situation where Rika is able to ascend to a higher level by letting go of her human side once and for all, which could give her the ability to appear in the part of the fragment space where Eua and Hanyuu are, so she can save Hanyuu from getting killed by Eua’s spear.

And on that note, the whole bit with Hanyuu at the end actually reminds me a lot of the idea of logic errors in Umineko. I think people kinda over-use that term when it comes to stuff in this series where it doesn’t really fit, but that scene was actually extremely similar to the whole set-up where Battler got stuck in a locked room that he couldn’t come up with an answer to get out of, and he had to wait for the ‘miracle’ of Beatrice awakening so that Kanon could arrive and save him. Hanyuu is in a position where she’s already committed to flying straight at Eua, but the spear is right in front of her face and about to kill her once time starts again, and she has to wait for a ‘miracle’ to happen to change her fate. Which is also a lot like how in Matsuribayashi she almost got shot by Takano, but a miracle happened and Rika was able to divert the bullet. So it’d make a lot of sense in general if in the next episode we see Rika show up there and save Hanyuu.

And considering how Featherine acts in Umineko, I could honestly see Eua sticking to her word and rewarding Hanyuu if a miracle like that actually happens and saves her. So even if it’s anti-climactic, this might end with Eua accepting her loss and backing off, and maybe not even doing anything to punish Satoko for losing in her fight against Rika. Which is part of why I think the whole lingering threat of the ‘world without Rika’ might not even lead to anything and might just be a vague threat towards Satoko that never materializes.

Other than that, I think the last episode will probably also involve us going back to Matsuribayashi and seeing what sort of ending Rika and Satoko’s ‘human selves’ get once their ‘witch selves’ leave them behind once and for all. Which will probably just be along the lines of Rika going to the Saiguden to check up on Satoko, and them heading over to the cafe where the other club members [and probably Satoshi as well] are waiting for them, and it’ll just end on the note of them presumably working things out between each other peacefully.

Along those same lines, I think that the whole story of Gou/Sotsu will also get somewhat recontextualized as being a sort of deranged power fantasy that Satoko came up with in her head while visiting the Saiguden. I don’t think that’d be intended to devalue anything that happened here, but it’d be like how Umineko presents enough narrative framework for a non-magical interpretation of everything, while at the same time still acknowledging the value of the magical interpretation.

While I remember, I’m curious to see how the manga version turns out, since it’s clearly diverging a fair bit from the anime. It might just be an alternate take on the story concept, but at this point I think it might be presented as an ‘earlier loop’ of Gou/Sotsu, with how it’s been implied that Eua and Satoko have met before without Satoko remembering it. So maybe this whole series of events has repeated over and over again, presumably with Satoko ‘losing’ each time so things get reset, and Gou/Sotsu is the final iteration of that loop where they’re finally able to achieve a miracle.

I feel like the manga version is probably gonna end up being closer to what people wanted out of Sotsu, since it seems to be going in the direction of Rika knowing everything without Satoko knowing that, so they can have more of a drawn out conflict between each other as Rika tries to figure out how to win. Which is one way to take the story, but I still like how the anime ended up doing it, even if it could have been paced a lot better. I also think that the manga isn’t exactly a straight improvement over the anime anyway. There’s stuff it does well, but there’s stuff it doesn’t do well, like how the whole Nekodamashi arc feels extremely weird in the context of Rika not remembering her deaths [or at least not being given a clear reason for why she can suddenly remember them], her not deciding to go for five more loops before killing herself, and Satoko apparently not having any idea about Rika remembering her deaths, which seems to defeat the point of Nekodamashi’s rapid-fire death loops.

Either way I’m curious to see how Jun goes. I assume that we’ll still get some version of Satokowashi out of it, but I think that unlike with Sotsu they’ll spend much less time on answering the damashi arcs, and I also think at this point that the answers to them won’t be exactly the same as they were in the anime either.

Also, we recently found out that two entirely new Higurashi manga arcs will start in November, called Oniokoshi and Hoshiwatashi, which seem to be collectively referred to as Higurashi Rei, using the kanji from ‘the Reiwa era’, since it seems like the idea of these new arcs is that they take place in the Reiwa era. Oniokoshi seems to be about Keiichi’s son and a new mysterious character, while Hoshiwatashi seems to be about two entirely new characters, so I’m really curious to see how their stories pan out. I’m particularly excited about Oniokoshi since it’s being drawn by Natsumi Kei, who’s basically the primary artist for the Umineko manga, so that kinda makes me biased towards it, lol. And even though there’s basically nothing to go off of except for one preview image, it looks like it might go in a bit of a gay direction, which would be really neat. But we’ll see how it goes.

So yeah, I guess at this point with where things are going I’m gonna be really disappointed if we don’t get something like an Umineko remake after this, lol. It wouldn’t be very satisfying if it just ends on the note of ‘go and read the Umineko VN’ or something.

[makaronik]

fic masterpost

Not star wars:

the cool kids voted to get rid of me (series): the old guard. how Quynh got out from under the sea, found booker, how they saved each other and how the rest of the team dealt with it. rated teen. might post a few out of context snippets I have for it, but the story itself is complete.

common ground: atla, an exploration of waterbending, firebending, bloodbending and Zuko and Katara's relationship post southern raiders. could be read as pre-relationship or platonic. rated gen. don't have enough material or motivation for a sequel but i might try to squeeze a few headcanon posts out of what i have

The Curious Case of Dr. James Barry, or the Strange and Momentous Events that Transpired on a Quiet Evening by the Fire.: book canon Sherlock Holmes, johnlock, trans sherlock coming out. rated teen. I've had what was going to be a part two mostly written for years now, but it's just a few hundred words of sherlock talking about his past growing up trans in victorian britain. if anyone's interested feel free to bother me about it and i might try to edit something coherent out of it.

like watching tea steep: good omens, Crowley and Aziraphale figuring out the body swap the night after the apocalypse. teen and up. also has a cute little bus ride drabble in the series, and potentially pending a sequel if i get through the cringe I feel trying to reread all i have written for it since it's some of my earliest writing

in the sunlit garden: revolutionary girl utena. post canon, utena realising he's a trans man. rated teen.

star wars:

How to build a friend from scratch: when trying to run away from the academy after blowing up the weapon she built, Sabine gets intercepted by Vader who offers her a job as a mechanic. Stockholm syndrome to found family pipeline. rated teen. I adore this fic, it's my absolute baby, it's fully planned out and the one most likely to get updated next.

Emotion, yet Peace (series): Yoda refuses Obi-Wan's request to train Anakin, so he leaves the order and trains him on Tatooine. they kidnap Ahsoka at some point it's great. rated gen. I have the next few chapters planned and am excited for them, but no idea where the story will go after that.

blue skies ahead: Anakin dyes his hair blue and it saves the world. rated gen. inexplicably my most popular fic. last chapter is half written and waiting for me to get my shit together.

better late than never: Ahsoka wins the duel on Malachor and kidnaps Vader. she trains Luke and Leia, Obi-Wan is there too and so is the entire ghost crew, a lot of emotional discussions and scrambling to build something new because the old cannot be fixed. rated gen. my longest fic, and heading nowhere fast. I have some ideas for the next few chapters but only a vague image of the ending.

That's how stories work: Padme being unhinged and power hungry will save the world. rated teen. last chapter is a mess of disconected paragraphs in my docs for now, but there's a lot to work with there.

I'm you, but taller (for now, at least): Anakin is trans, and so is Obi-Wan. neither of them shares that, and familial drama ensues from the cultural differences between Tatooine and Coruscant, with the shadow of past childhood trauma, and the dark future this type of miscommunication will bring looming over them. rated gen, oneshot

heat and fuel: Ahsoka falls to the dark side to protect Ezra and Kanan from Maul on Malachor. rated teen, very short oneshot

[meikuree]

fic writer interview

tagged by @lightdescending -- tysm, this was really fun and i enjoy elaborating on things about writing/the writing process!

putting this under a read more because of my trademark verbosity (AGAIN)

name: meikuree

fandoms: actively writing for snk, tempted to write for the locked tomb

two-shot: oh i've not intentionally done these! twenty years of snow accidentally fits the bill, but only because it's on an indefinite hiatus

most popular multi-chapter: of aubades, my pieck-centric ficlet series, by some metrics

actual worst part of writing: when I get stuck in a loop of perfectionism and excessive self-scrutiny and rewrite… and rewrite… and rewrite again. my solution to this is to send it to a friend and ask for them to tell me just one (1) nice thing about it and put me out of my misery, or do freewriting where the point is to write whatever immediately pops into my head. usually then I’ll bump into an epiphany in the middle about how to Make It Work.

alternatively: fic writing is at times such a solitary, obsessively recursive activity and that’s one tension I dislike/have to negotiate with, because part of why I like art is to share it with people or at the very least engage in some kind of reciprocal conversation about it. community in art is very important to me in general, and I try to cultivate it in my online presence in small ways!

how you choose your titles: i'm a fan of grabbing titles from poems and songs/song lyrics (like you!) -- and drawing them from regina spektor songs in particular, bc she’s by some metrics my all-time favourite musician and i’m very familiar with her discography

do you outline: usually, yes. i don’t confine myself to it, but at minimum I outline pivotal moments and turning points. my process tends to start with a compelling scene or character interaction popping into my head and then goes on with me thinking about how i can use it as a vehicle for communicating a certain concept/philosophical idea/insight about XYZ characters' relationships somehow. that becomes the core idea/endpoint I want to reach by the end in a fic, so then i'll outline the main emotional or introspective beats i want to carry across in service of that

ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: wow, um... /gestures vaguely at my unending list of wips/ that said, one idea i'm tickled by is an obnoxious, utterly random M-rated pieck/lady tybur fic involving painplay and knifeplay, the plot for which is literally just… lara tybur stabs pieck with a knife, but make it sexy somehow… with a dash of political intrigue and a complicated ambiguous relationship where two women use each other in a decidedly callous but also self-aware and self-indulgent way. the idea for this just came from me going "ah yes... the inherent homoeroticism of being stabbed by another woman..." and wondering about ~scenarios enabled by being a titan shifter, when you can regenerate your wounds and such! (partial inspiration also came, I will admit, from the locked tomb fandom and its lesbian body horror influences)

callouts @ me: sensory details are one of my biggest weak points. i've been ironing it out through concerted practice, but when i first started out writing fic i tended to be more comfortable dealing with metaphor, introspection, and mental states than... writing about actual, corporeal things happening in corporeal textspace. it can create the impression while reading, I suspect, that the characters are stuck a lot in their own heads. one of my earliest and favourite ao3 comments i've gotten said in passing that i used "very little dialogue and description" and i'm still tickled by... how true it is as an MO. it also amuses me because it seems to parallel the same issue i had with essays i wrote at university, i think (!) -- my professors would tell me, “you have a great grasp on the theory but you need to include more concrete examples." and i'd go "what? i was supposed to use examples?? ?__? isn’t the point self-evident from the theory?” for me, shifts in relationship dynamics and the negotiation of one's worldview underlying an event ARE the plot! -- and everything else tends to become subservient to that when i write

the other thing, which is somewhat related to the above, is just... self-confidence! i can be very insecure about my writing style, as my partner and poor friends I’ve whinged to can attest. mainly because i always fear that reading it feels like wading through a thick, unappealing swampy bog of someone's thoughts. but i think the solution is to just take a grounded, balanced view, like: there are some things i do well, and some things i do not-as-well in writing, and that's fine! that's normal! and in the moment i can be very hard on myself, and wring my hands thinking OH MY GOD THE UTTER CRINGE OF ME WRITING ANY OF THIS but i find that somehow, i always end up enjoying rereading what i write.

best writing traits: the most consistent comment i get, i think, is that my writing is beautiful and poetic (and one time: "this is one of the most poetic things i've ever read." which -- ?!?!). I’ve also been told that i characterise people well or with nuance, and write about them sensitively and with depth. i'm grateful, always, to hear these bc these things constitute the one niche i CAN do, imo!

spicy tangential opinion: hm… from what I’ve observed, many fandoms have a tendency to flatten character motives and complexities into easy, tidy and dare i say, sometimes bizarre, labels and categories. it’s not surprising it happens, but sometimes there’s space for people (a big, vague, nonspecific ‘people’) to go beyond simplistic assumptions about characters and one-dimensional portrayals (and to give writers who achieve it their due! I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an incredibly well-written fic that was relatively undernoticed and gone, “why, fandom???”) sometimes you write to fix canon, and sometimes you write because it’s fanon that needs fixing instead.

tagging (no pressure): @ebbet @noxcounterspell @leksaa90 @minoan-ophidian @frumpkinspocketdimension @acerinky @rose-gardens @chocochipbiscuit @whiteasy @ochen @kallistoi  anyone else who wants to join in!

[angel-princess-anna]

Speculation Sunday

In which weekly(?), I try to connect two dots (and connect nothing) in regards to the second DA film. This week, it’s more about the lack of spoilers and how it will be that way for awhile (also I realize it’s probably now Monday for most of you, whoops)

This post is based on my own perceptions and experiences having followed how they filmed and promoted the TV show and first film. I love discussing Downton, and I love hunting for spoilers, haha. Mainly because I want to know what’s gonna happen with my faves ASAP.

That said, I think we are going to get even less spoilery crumbs during the filming of DA 2021 than we did with DA 2019.

Focus and Carnival kept the official synopsis of the first film a mystery for a very long time (basically until the first full trailer came out) and I assume it will be similar this time too. They then dumped some more info and stills much closer to the release date. Interviews with the cast focused on “getting the gang back together” and I assume the DA 2021 press tour will focus on “getting the gang back together after lockdown” and “we are bringing escapism in dark times”. Understandable, but not ideal for people like me who love spoilers!

During most of the filming of the TV series, we didn’t get a lot of info and pics other than paparazzi photos (social media being less of a thing during the early series, and the latter because of cracking down on spoiler leaks), but then with S6, we were spoiled with riches given that they filmed outdoors a lot, and there was a bit of a social media campaign for the end of the show to honor the crew.

With DA 2019, all we got was a handful of outdoor sightings (the major one of course being the parade filming). This year we’ll have to rely on the paparazzi and tabloids, but again that’s if they film outdoors.

And given how most of the cast is when it comes to social media, and the worry of being punished for spoiler leaks, they aren’t gonna be taking selfies all the time.

So while we wait for Entertainment Weekly or the likes to visit the set, or one of the actors to promote another project and feed us crumbs in an interview, or a still gets released for a holiday... let’s think about what we do know.

The “original principal cast” is back. In Focus’ DA 2019 press release, that wording preceded a list of the main ensemble that was in all six series of the TV show, plus Matthew Goode and Harry Hadden-Patton. Raquel and Michael weren’t listed at that time, and while neither has posted on social media lately that I can see, Raquel’s latest post (as of writing this) has Baxley related hashtags lol. I don’t see why Baxter and Andy wouldn’t be in DA 2021. Kiddo wise, we know that the Baker boys are back as George and their triplet sister is playing someone. Fifi Hart is back as Sybbie. No word yet on the other children, but there’s five child actors from that one agency back for the new film (which doesn’t discount there being child actors from another agency).

Lily James didn’t appear in DA 2019, and I don’t think she would here either (regardless of, uh, Dominic West). Tuppence Middleton confirmed on Twitter she’s in; Max Brown confirmed he’s not. I haven’t seen anything concrete on Imelda yet, but I do assume she’d appear. We have at least four new characters, but nothing on who the new cast members will be playing.

Filming has already begun(!) at Ealing Studios, the studios they used when they filmed the TV show. And now they’ve been filming at Highclere Castle too!

Meanwhile, Rob gave us some clues on ITV’s This Morning:

- "someone goes for a bicycle ride" (easy, that’s the postman or whoever lol) - "someone has an argument" - "someone falls in love" - "someone falls out of love" - "someone goes to the shops"

As HWW said to me, perhaps it is not people that the characters are falling in and out of love with, but perhaps places, things, or ideas. And in the case of Thomas and Richard, it’s possible that they aren’t ‘over’, it’s just that they can’t see each other in the time frame of the film and maybe Thomas receives at least a letter from Richard or something. 

Now, what we don’t know, which is... mostly everything.

The timeline is a biggie, as it would definitely influence some of the plots. And it was something that really wasn’t confirmed for DA 2019 until after we got the trailer. The cast gave us vague ideas, but uh... let’s just say not all of them were correct.

Fellowes has always said that he wouldn’t take DA into the ‘30s, but he always used to say that he’d never work on DA and The Glided Age at the same time, and yet, here we are. I feel like he or Gareth mentioned at one point a sequel would follow closely to DA 2019 timeline wise. They had similarly said DA 2019 would follow closely after the TV show’s timeline, and that ended up being an 18 month gap.

Considering that DA 2021 is coming out during Christmas time, this makes me think that Christmas will be featured at some point. Not every DA Christmas Special did, but it’s festive, timely, and an event to help anchor the film and bring characters together.

The question then is, does it center around Christmas though? Of the three CSs that feature Christmas in some form (S6CS is really about New Year’s Eve, but the decorations and tree are still up), S2CS starts there but ends mid January of the next year, and S5CS and S6CS both start roughly in late summer, and then finish in late December (well 1 Jan in S6CS’ case).

One potential choice is to have it be set in December 1927 and then go into the next year, akin to S2CS. The S5/6 CS idea would set it in 1928 at the earliest.

Another thing factor to take into account here is Edith’s pregnancy. Fellowes skipped over showing Mary pregnant with Caroline in the first film and had her born before DA 2019, so the same might happen here again.

Other potential big events are perhaps a wedding between Daisy and Andy and/or Tom and Lucy.

And then the elephant in the room: Violet. Maggie’s said time and time again that Violet’s too old, and then we had the plot in DA 2019, which would set...  you know... that all up.

So like... filming outdoors in Bampton (where the town of Downton and the church was traditionally filmed for the TV series) is something is that is easily spoiled. They can put up screens to block the view around the church, but to also do it around the cemetery might be too telling. They did kinda manage with S6E8 (well, only kinda, ahem).

Thinking now about how members of the cast have said that DA 2021 will be coming at a time people are wanting/needing "escapism,” I don't think that discounts anything sad happening per se; a lot of people continued to call the TV series "escapism" when it got more darker (see: S4-5), and, I mean, people call Call the Midwife "cosy escapism" despite there being traumatic situations almost every episode it seems. So Violet's days could still very well be numbered. I remember how S3CS was marketed as a fun and frolicking trip to the Highlands, until the Norwegian channel NRK’s trailer for the episode came out and gave away that there was going to be a car accident. Escapism isn't the same for everyone anyway, so we'll have to see what this all entails. I don't necessarily want this for Violet, but I do hope that DA 2021 takes itself a bit more seriously, as the TV show did.

The first movie was written in a manner that was so that it was (somewhat?) understandable to people who didn’t watch the TV series. I have to wonder if DA 2021 has been written similarly. Part of me thinks it will be more similar to the first film than to the TV series, but with a potential sad plot for Violet... who knows, it might go back to its more “serial” roots (if that makes any sense). If DA 2021 also leans more into comedy as DA 2019, I don’t foresee it doing so but we’ll see.

That’s it for the this ramble! I have a topic for the next one regardless of the lack of crumbs! ;)

[thedashingcaptainweird]

Writer's tag!

Thank you, @lamiahypnosia for the tag! I'll pass the baton to @dumbassentity, @kourumi, @ladyoriza, and @damejudyhench (no pressure ever!). But anyone who wants to do this, should!! I would love to hear about your fics.

About my fics (I'm only going to talk about my Outer Worlds fics)

Most Popular: "Dominion" (Explicit, ADULTS ONLY!! Link here).

This was my first ever smut! I did a two-parter for like a sort of AU Orion. It takes place outside of my personal canon for Orion and the progression of his relationship with Max. Damn it was fun to write. I was surprised there wasn't more MacRedd fic out there, because I love that guy, and him and Orion together seemed like a fun idea. Then of course, that had to be followed by Orion and Max. First time writing real smut (all my previous sex scenes were very vague, or were fade to black), first time ever posting anything like it.

Best: "Beacon" (Unposted) or "A Violent Correction" (Graphic violence, Link here)

Answering this feels weird! I'm not sure what to say is my best... I wrote one immediately after finishing the game, before reading any other fics, before even really dipping my toe in the fandom, and I think it was really really good. I don't think I'll ever post it, because it was an old version of Orion before he fully developed into the man he is now. It was a sequel story, post game. I was really depressed when I wrote it, and the Outer Worlds had been an escape for me, so when I finished the game I just felt overwhelmed. I really love what I wrote, especially the romance and longing between Orion and Max, but I don't know... it's just not the Orion I know and love now.

My choice from what I've posted is probably "A Violent Correction" which is about Max's time in prison, and I'm really proud of it.

Favorite: "Stranger Than a Serial" (Unfinished, new installments still being posted. Link here), OR an Untitled WIP

This is a series of scenes from the story of Orion and Max's romance and relationship, and how it develops. They're about 2 to 3K words each, and I really love them. I like showing the progression from them being at odds to being friends, to being in love, with little hints of the latter peppered into the earliest meetings. I also really love sharing queer content. Both of the characters in my main relationship have a lot of insecurities and fears, but their queerness is something they're both completely open and comfortable with, and that makes me really happy.

The other answer here is that my favorite one might be a longer fic I'm working on right now, about a standalone adventure that the crew goes on, complete with and evil villain, the continued love story of Orion and Max, danger, bravery, close calls... It's just really fun to write, and challenging to figure out how to connect the scenes I have in my head.

Least favorite: "Advice for the Lovesick" (Unposted)

I wrote a slightly-longer-than-a-vignette story about Ellie sussing out that Orion had a crush on Max, and spent like, way too much time on it, trying really hard to write my way into liking Ellie as a character and unfortunately it just didn't stick, so now it just sits in my Outer Worlds fic folders, nestled amongst a bunch of WIPs and it's not relevant anymore because my personal canon involves a crew where SAM and Conrad are the sawbones team.

[joemerl]

OC-Tober 2021, Day 5: "Throne"

OC/WIP: Tristan and friends from "Old Fantasy Novel Series That I Haven't Gotten Around to Renaming Yet"

Strap in, because I'm about to bare the stupidity of my teenage years.

So, around age fourteen, I started working on a series of fantasy novels. (Heck, I even wrote them out! Then tried to rewrite them, rework them, etc.) It was about a kid named Tristan, who lives with an abusive foster family and knows nothing of his birth parents. He's sucked into a magical world that's currently in a state of civil war, ever since the king's evil brother killed him, his wife and infant son. The weird magical medallion that Tristan has always had turns out to be a magical relic of this royal family, and will occasionally do Deus Ex Machina things, even though nobody except the true King of Fantasy Land should be able to use it. He also discovers and is able to use the royal family's magical sword, which is also supposed to be unusable to anyone but the true king.

Now...hold on, you're not gonna believe it...it turns out that Tristan is actually that infant prince who everyone thought was dead! Yeah, I know! Who could have seen that coming? Obviously nobody, until it was dramatically revealed at the end of the sixth book. I did plant some subtle clues though, like Tristan looking exactly like the dead king's portrait.

You can perhaps understand why, upon reaching adulthood, I decided to pursue other projects and put this one on indefinite hiatus.

But these characters still live rent-free in my brain, and every so often I think of how I might revive this into something not only readable, but maybe even decent and not the most obvious trash heap of clichés ever. So here's a brief summary of Tristan and his group of companions and vague ideas of what they'd be like in the revised version.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Tristan: The old Tristan was your "vaguely geeky and unpopular, mostly generic kid" sort of character; since he was supposed to eventually become a king, I did try to make him a good leader of his little group, mostly in the sense of being the diplomatic one when they fought. In the new version I want to both up his geekiness but also his charm, so we see that he's really popular at school and has a lot of friends.

One change that I think could be interesting is that Tristan also came to our world when he was a toddler rather than an infant; as such, he actually remembers the murder of his birth family, if only in vague and terrifying terms. Nobody knows his origin, but he's been in therapy long enough to believe that the "monsters" he remembers were surely ho-hum human murderers distorted by trauma, and anything that sounds like a castle or magic are also probably imaginary. He really, really would prefer to believe that, but the plot isn't going to let him.

When he finally winds up in Fantasy World The Name of Which I Need to Change, he is decidedly not going to want to take the throne. Whether or not he does anyway is undecided at this point.

Erasmus: Tristan's foster/adoptive brother (biological cousin in the old version), of approximately the same age. Timid and shy, he's both very close to Tristan and maybe a bit resentful at how much more outgoing and popular he is. There's a bit of irony there: Tristan comes off as happy and well-adjusted to most people, but "Raz" knows that Tristan also has a mysterious, traumatic past, which also means that Tristan can be at least a little vulnerable around him.

I think he's an albino, for reasons that relate the old version but I don't even want to get into right now. And hey, disability rep.

E(d)ric: In the new version he's probably, like...a football player or something? He's supposed to be a big guy and the best "normal" fighter. He's reserved and grouchy but extremely loyal to people he cares about. Reading this over, I feel like I need something to make him more interesting.

Cynthia: Hmm...in the old version she was a witch, but since I'm reimagining all of the main characters as being from our world, I'm not sure how that would carry over. Maybe she gains/has magic in the fantasy world for some reason? She's tough, sarcastic and smart. Erasmus has a crush on her. I swear she wasn't the only female character in the old version, but apparently she was the only one important enough for me to list here.

Pythian the magical snake, Bast(et?) the cat, That Baby Hippogriff Whose Name I Don't Even Remember: There were way too many team pets in the old version.

OTHERS

The Guide: Merlin knockoff. Actually, I think in my earliest draft he was Merlin, somehow, and I don't even know how fourteen-year-old me justified that. He may have been the one who sent Tristan to our world, but then stayed in Fantasy World to help fight the villains. Maybe he's more involved here? Hmm.

Jay: He was Tristan's younger foster brother in the old version (so his and Erasmus' here?), who witnessed him getting sucked into Fantasy World and wanted to figure out what the frick happened to him. I think that concept is interesting, but I'm not sure where it goes, exactly.

Connor: E(d)ric's younger brother. Looking back, pretty much everything I had planned for him in the old version was stupid or would work better for other characters. Not sure what to do with you, Connor. Maybe he's Jay's friend.