#it's only when I read the script I noticed how repetitive he was there

[oxalisvulcanicola]

"It's not pining it's passed on! This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This, is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushin' up the daisies! It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible!

"THIS IS AN EX PARROT!"

#mycroft holmes #eurus holmes #sorry not sorry #it's only when I read the script I noticed how repetitive he was there #when he says the lines it doesn't seem so strange

[romchat]

Visual Analysis of the Slow Burn: My Journey to You, Story of Kunning Palace

How do you film a slow-burn romance?

One of the challenges of filming slow-burn romances is that creators have to figure out how to slowly build tension and intimacy between two characters without testing the audience's patience. We have to feel a couple’s chemistry and growing feelings for one another even if it takes a long time for them to get together. 

And here's where cinematography and visual parallelism can be a helpful tool. Visual parallelism is when we link two or more characters, events, storylines, etc. through a shared image. When we see repeated imagery, our brains connect those moments and give them more meaning than if we had looked at them in isolation. Because of this, visual parallelism can help complicate our understanding of characters and the world around them without having to spell out those nuances in the script.

In slow-burn romances, visual parallelism can be used to:

Connect characters who, on the surface, appear incompatible or unattracted to one another;

Signal major moments of change in a show's romantic storyline;

Compare and contrast a new relationship with a character’s past relationships;

And much more!

I think two dramas that use this technique in interesting ways are My Journey to You and Story of Kunning Palace.

My Journey to You

Before we jump into that scene, let’s talk about some of the visual techniques My Journey to You (MJTY) uses to establish the enemies-to-lovers relationship of its secondary couple, Gong Shangjue and Shangguan Qian. 

Something I immediately noticed about MJTY is that the show loves using certain camera angles and blocking patterns (or how actors are positioned in relation to one another) to define characters’ personalities and their relationships. This repeated imagery is an example of visual parallelism, and in the case of Shangjue and Qian, the show then uses breaks in that parallelism to communicate the subtle changes in their relationship over time. Through this technique, we see their growing feelings for each other even if we don’t hear the characters express those feelings with words. 

For example, at the beginning of the show, Shangjue is usually shot from a low angle while Qian is usually shot from a high angle, and the repetition of that camera language reflects the characters' constant game of cat and mouse.

In cinematography, low-angle and high-angle shots are often paired to visually enhance the power imbalance between characters. Low-angle shots make the subject look more powerful and threatening while high-angle shots make the subject look weaker and more vulnerable.

Qian, who is an assassin, has infiltrated Shangjue’s clan, and he is immediately suspicious of her identity and allegiances. He is cold and intimidating towards her, and she does everything in her power not to get caught. But because she is particularly good at reading and manipulating him, Shangjue soon finds himself intrigued by her. He might be filmed looming over her like he has more power in the situation, but her weakness is an act. We know this because we can see how Qian isn’t filmed with such high angles when interacting with characters who know her true identity and nature like Yun Weishan or Gong Yuanzhi. She is pretending to be subservient and delicate to seduce Shangjue specifically.

Side Note: One of my FAVORITE moments in MJTY is Shangjue and Qian’s “do you still think I’m gentle?” scene in Episode 12. Not only is the writing and acting electric, but the camera’s subtle shift in angles pinpoints the moment Shangjue begins to feel sexually attracted to Qian. When she gently blows on his fingers, the camera quickly pans to an eye-level shot and we see Shangjue clench his jaw. After that, the camera uses less extreme angles to film his conversation with her—his moment of desire and her strategic thinking equalized their power imbalance.

Which brings us to the famous bath scene in Episode 17. 

Whenever they share a scene, Shangjue is usually positioned at a higher level and facing forward in a thronal position while Qian is at his side, looking up at him obsequiously. The lack of visual alignment in their actor blocking represents how the characters can’t be completely vulnerable or honest with each other while the dominant/submissive pose plays up the sexual tension of their interactions.

So we know that the bath scene represents a critical turning point in their relationship because of the break in parallelism: 

Not only are they sitting at the same level while facing each other, the camera is set at a much more neutral over-the-shoulder and eye-level angle. Over-the-shoulder and eye-level shots are often used to bring intimacy to a scene and that camera language reinforces the actors’ relaxed physical acting and flirtatious dialogue. The two characters are sharing a moment of honest pleasure and have temporarily let their guards down, which is why Qian decides to take the opportunity to share her true intentions for wanting to marry into his family. It’s probably the most truthful and revealing conversation she has had with Shangjue up until this point and creates complications for each others' plans.

One of the lingering questions many MJTY viewers have about Shangjue and Qian’s relationship is whether or not Qian developed real feelings for him in the end. While the script could have done a better job of developing her character’s arc at the textual level, I think the show’s thoughtful use of visual parallelism gives us the answer. 

Not only does their final scene together subvert the camera language and actor blocking we talked about, but it also parallels an earlier scene where we can be reasonably sure of Qian’s honesty: the torture scene. And it’s the juxtaposition of what is shown versus what is said that gives us what I’d consider a satisfyingly bittersweet conclusion to their love story.

Story of Kunning Palace

Unlike MJTY, which uses visual parallelism to show changes in the secondary couple’s relationship, Story of Kunning Palace (SOKP) uses this technique to represent the undeniable compatibility of its main couple, Jiang Xuening and Xie Wei. 

Given the popularity of the show's second and third male leads, many viewers have expressed confusion as to if and when Xie Wei truly emerges as the rightful male lead. Even as a slow-burn romance, SOKP is slow slow. 

And yet when we take a step back and look at the show’s visual storytelling, particularly its use of symbolism and parallelism, we not only see why these two characters complement each other but how they find healing in their (admittedly messy and toxic) love. At its core, SOKP is a story about two traumatized and self-loathing people finding "the one" who still sees them as worthy despite all their flaws. Ning-er and Xie Wei are like two jagged pieces of a broken mirror reflecting one another’s sins and virtues, and the show constantly reminds us of that deep connection with how it juxtaposes the two characters on screen. (Just look at that split screen above--they literally complete each other.) 

We see this connection from the moment Ning-er and Xie Wei are introduced in Episode 1:

The composition and camera movement directly mirror each other. 

When we see parallelism in the portrayal of two characters, we should stop and think about the similarities and differences between them. Both Ning-er and Xie Wei share the trauma of having grown up alienated from their birth families, and the pain of what they experienced drives their ruthless desire for revenge and power. During the show’s first timeline, Ning-er violates her innate sense of goodness while Xie Wei hides his true self.

Side Note: SOKP also reminds us of this connection with its consistent use of a fire motif. Throughout the show, we often see Ning-er and Xie Wei surrounded by candles, furnaces, fires, etc., and this symbolism comes to a head in Episode 34 when Xie Wei desperately argues that they belong together because they've both been forged by the fire of their upbringing.

And yet at the same time, as noted by several characters, they are both incredibly loyal people, sacrificing themselves to change the fate of the people they care for.

Both Ning-er and Xie Wei overlook these redeeming qualities about themselves, but they “see” them in the other, which the show demonstrates through the visual parallelism of their gazes.

In Episode 14, Ning-er asks Xie Wei: 

Jiang Xuening: Between my past self and present self, who do you think is better? Xie Wei: Be it the past or the present, it is all you. You're the one and only Miss Ning'er. Besides, the present exists because of the past. Just face it as is. But if we have to make it clear, I think if the present Ning'er knows what she wants, she will be well. And she'll be even better in the future.

In a previous analysis of Episode 14, I've noted how "Ning-er's character arc isn't just about becoming a better person but also about recognizing that she has always had goodness in her and that goodness makes her life worth just as much as someone like Zhang Zhe....Despite being brash and cunning, Ning-er is also tenacious, brave, and even kind (all of which Xie Wei recognized when they first met years ago). She is an 'unrefined jade', someone who can choose a more righteous path than the one she started on. And he sees her. He truly sees her."

So across the show's multiple timelines, the camera will linger on Xie Wei's tender gaze toward Ning-er. In this case, the parallelism of such a distinctive shot communicates something that Ning-er doesn't realize: Xie Wei sees and loves sides of her that she is unable to accept about herself.

She eventually starts seeing him too. 

During the first timeline, Ning-er sees Xie Wei as a threat and warily engages him only out of desperation. But despite her fear, Ning-er also recognizes his true qualities enough that by the second timeline, she implicitly trusts him to help her carry out her own goals. She unlearns her assumptions about him and pushes him to find meaning in life beyond his self-destructive need for revenge.

So it's fitting then that during their private wedding, Ning-er and Xie Wei are shown gazing at each other, fully aware of and accepting of their true natures:

Jiang Xuening: “I’ve seen your light and your darkness, your vulnerability, and your madness. I know everything about you that is known or unknown to others. I might even say that I know you better than you do.”

They've fully entrusted themselves with one another.

#my journey to you #云之羽 #story of kunning palace #宁安如梦 #cdrama #meta #cinematography #zhang ling he #bai lu #cheng lei #lu yuxiao

[lunar-wandering]

Stim

Summary: Wukong has been told, for over 2,000 years, that “repetitive motions” are annoying and bad. Today he’s going to learn that’s wrong.

TW: Wukong has some internalized ableism thoughts in this, I didn’t get really into it that much to the point where I think it’s really bad but I’m putting a TW anyways. Oh, also there’s a tiny bit of self harm via him biting his cheek.

Word Count: 4.9k

Read on Ao3

MK was excited.

Wukong could tell, based on the overpowering smile and energetic…well, energy coming off of his successor. The kid had shown up for training and, instead of asking what they would be learning that day, had almost instantly started rambling. Something about a new game? Wukong wasn’t entirely sure. MK spoke so fast and there were a lot of younger monkeys running around at the start of MK’s explanation, so Wukong hadn’t managed to fully… get what MK was saying, and he didn’t want to interrupt by asking the kid now, since it had already been a good few minutes of the kid rambling off. He thinks he’s starting to get the gist of it, the new game seemingly having a character inspired by himself and-

Realization dawns on him, and Wukong interrupts his successor, stating the name of the game as well as the fact he needed to approve the script for it. MK freezes, and for a brief moment Wukong worries he got something wrong, that now wasn’t a good time in the conversation to interrupt with this fact. Maybe he should have waited until he was sure MK was entirely finished?

MK surprises him by jumping back into excitement mode at full speed, shifting gears from just talking about the game to asking if Wukong can give him any early access spoilers in zero seconds flat.

“C’mon, please? At the very least, just one hint.” He gets down on his knees to emphasize just how badly he wants to know, and Wukong barely keeps himself from rolling his eyes at the overdramatics, forcing back the memories of a certain… ex-friend of his doing something similar. (He’d been dragged to so many plays way back when).

“Well…. I guess I can tell you one thing.” Wukong chuckles, giving in, and kneeling down to whisper a small spoiler into MK’s ear that, based on the kid’s rambles, he just knew would drive MK wild.

And it seems he was right, as MK practically jumps up, and Wukong smiles at his successor’s excitement-

Only for that smile to drop as MK starts jumping up and down repeatedly, flapping his arms and shaking his hands as though trying to shake the energy out of himself. 

Wukong quickly fixes his expression to a neutral smile before MK can notice. Not that it would matter really, the kid was so focused in on moving around that he wasn’t even looking at his mentor. But, as he watches MK continue to do his thing, he has to wonder.

Did… Did he pick that up from him?

He couldn’t have, right? Wukong had completely managed to get rid of his “destructive and annoying habits” by the time the journey had ended.

So why was MK doing the exact same thing he used to do? He was so certain he’d stopped doing… any of that altogether. Had he slipped up and fell back into it at some point? The kid surely would’ve commented on it if he had, right? Oh no- how long had the kid been doing this for?

That thought struck a chord of pure fear in Wukong’s mind. How long had MK been doing this for?? Had his friends and family noticed?

It occurred to Wukong that he should take MK back to the city and, at the very least, apologize to Pigsy for accidentally passing down his old habits onto MK… somehow. He still wasn’t sure how MK had picked this habit of his up.

…Would it hurt that much to ask?

“Hey- uh, Kid, how did you-” Wukong started, then blinked, realizing that all that stood before him were the monkeys and a small indent in the ground. For a beat, he just stared at the indent in general confusion, briefly glancing up at the sky in a split second of wondering if something had fallen to the ground and he hadn’t noticed, before the dots finally connected in his brain and he shook his head, glancing off in the direction of the mainland, activating his golden vision to see MK vaulting his way over the ocean back towards the city’s shoreline. The kid had probably told him goodbye and he hadn’t even noticed it from how deep in thought he was. He hoped that MK wasn’t too upset that he didn’t answer.

…Albeit, considering the kid had outright left instead of staying for training, it finally clicked that something must’ve happened in the city.

Still swallowed by his earlier concern about MK’s new habits, Wukong turned himself into a bird and followed behind his apprentice.

-

Thankfully, it ended up just being Jin and Yin wrecking a little havoc again, a situation MK easily dealt with.

Unfortunately though, this meant that MK returned to Pigsy’s noodles with the exact same amount of energy coursing through him as he had before the fight.

Wukong winced as he watched the kid’s friends converge on him outside of the Noodle Shop- as far as he could tell, it was the usual checkup to make sure that MK hadn’t been injured (like he even could be, albeit, he supposed it was a fair concern, he wasn’t sure if any of them had noticed that he’d been slowly peeling back the magic seal to let MK be invulnerable again. It wasn’t at full strength yet like it was before, but it was starting to get there. …Actually, had he told MK he was doing that? He couldn’t remember. Huh. Maybe he should bring that up at their next training session- oh shit he was getting distracted again-), but the injury checkup wasn’t really what had Wukong concerned.

No, what made him outright cringe from his perch on the edge of a nearby building, was when MK began rambling about the game once more…and started doing the motions again.

He got himself ready to hop down there, to apologize, promise he’d fix it, like how he’d been fixed, and very nearly did when he saw Mei start copying MK’s gestures, assuming that she was making fun of him-

But paused, as their expressions finally registered in his mind, and it hit him like a truck that the dragon girl wasn’t making fun of MK.

She was joining in.

Wukong could feel his bird transformation drop, changing him back to his normal monkey form out of shock, and he quickly dove down behind the roof’s ledge before anyone could look up and see him. For a moment, he just sat there, staring at nothing, panic starting to grip at him. Had he somehow managed to influence not one, but two kids? Did he need to do double the apologies??

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed hold of the edge of the roof, lifting himself up slightly to peek over again, just to make sure, and only just barely stopped himself from letting out a noise as he saw what was happening below.

Which was…nothing.

Or well, it was something, MK and Mei still doing the gestures happily, talking back and forth, but-

The others… didn’t look mad?

It was like-

They all seemed to be acting like this was normal.

It took a moment, for that to sink in.

This was considered normal.

And now that he was really thinking about it, no-one passing by on the street were giving the Monkie Kid or the Dragon Girl a second glance either. If he had been doing the motions as publicly as MK and Mei were doing them, he would’ve certainly been receiving dirty glares by now.

But for some reason, that… simply wasn’t happening.

…Wukong wasn’t an idiot. He knew he had been isolated, and hadn’t interacted with the mortal world for some time. But- was it really-

Was it really true? Not some sort of prank?? This kind of thing was just… accepted now?

Wukong grabbed hold of his tail to keep it from swishing back and forth, taking a deep breath as anxiety pooled in his chest.

If this was normal now, it was arguably a good thing he hadn’t voiced any of his thoughts in front of MK. What if he had hurt the kid’s feelings? He could’ve. He almost did.

Wukong let go of his tail in favour of covering his face with hands, and slowly dragging his hands down his face, proceeding to resist the sudden urge to repeat the action. Standing up, he briefly glanced down again, just in time to see the small group happily entering the Noodle Shop, and he just as quickly looked away, not bothering with either his cloud nor his transformations as he simply teleported back to his house on the mountain.

Collapsing face first onto the couch, he rolled to the side, staring at his laptop, wondering if maybe he should use the internet to look into the motions MK and Mei had been doing.

He tossed the notion away as soon as he thought about it. Confirmation that it seemed to be a normal occurrence now aside- Wukong genuinely felt… almost afraid to find out what the motions meant. What he had missed.

…How the people he’d trusted might’ve been wrong.

Wukong turned back over so that he was on his stomach, his head face down into the couch cushions. His hand briefly skimmed the surface of the side of the couch, and he practically bit his tongue resisting the urge to do that again-

…Except it didn’t really matter, did it?

He paused.

The repetitive actions of Mei and MK, out on full view in the middle of the street, were deemed acceptable by modern society. Plus, there was no-one in here with him at the current moment, right? Nobody to get annoyed by his repetitive motions. He could do whatever he wanted. Without consequences.

Without consequences.

Tentatively, Wukong let his hand brush over the side of the couch again. And again. And- again. Speeding up slightly, to get m o r e of the sensation, before slowing down once his hand got tired, going back up in speed once his hand no longer felt like it was going to fall off.

Something about the- the texture, the repeated action of brushing up against it felt- almost soothing? Relaxing. Wukong could feel his muscles untense as he got lost in the sensation.

So lost, in fact, that he barely even noticed the time passing, until MK’s voice calling his name made him startle hard enough to fall off the couch.

Almost instantly the sound of running feet approaching him reached his ears, and he barely managed to pull himself off the ground and into a standing position before MK was stumbling into the living room, barely managing to stop himself from crashing into a wall due to the speed he had built up.

“Ah- hey bud!” Wukong lifted the hand he hadn’t been using to give MK a lil wave. His other hand still felt… tingly, almost incriminating, and he hid it behind his back, hoping the kid wouldn’t notice anything off. “Back to finally do some training today?”

MK, for his part, looked somewhat guilty.

“Sorry- were you napping? I didn’t mean to wake you up.” MK shifted nervously back and forth, rocking on his feet.

Wukong subconsciously found himself mimicking the rocking motion, before he just as quickly stopped himself, glancing off to the side. He’d found himself slipping into rocking motions around the kid before, and stopped them without pause, but now that he was thinking more about it, he felt almost… self-conscious? Maybe. That kind of seemed like the best word for it. Ashamed was another one, but he didn’t want to think about it like that too much…

Shaking those thoughts out of his mind, ignoring MK’s confused and concerned expression, he decided to focus in on the kid’s question.

“Napping? Uh-” He was about to deny it, before thinking better of it. Napping certainly was a better excuse as to why he had spent so much time on the couch to the point that it probably had left a decent mark on his face that the kid had picked up on, a far better excuse than what he had actually been doing. “Yeah, I uh, woke up pretty early this morning to deal with some… issue or other that the lil monkey’s had. I was just catching up on the extra sleep before you came back!!”

It seemed like a decent excuse. It was a perfectly reasonable scenario, in Wukong’s opinion.

But for some reason, MK still looked at him with doubt. Wukong, for some reason feeling like the kid could see right through him, glanced off to the side again, hoping he wasn’t being as obvious as he felt he was, the nervous energy growing in his chest and slowly extending it’s reaching fingers into his limbs.

“Are you o-” MK started, and Wukong instinctively reached back to grab hold of his tail as soon as it started swishing. There was barely a pause as MK quickly, and suddenly, switched gears. “Okay, I’ve been ignoring this for like, a while but why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Had he done something wrong?

“Grabbing hold of your tail whenever it starts swishing like that.” MK clarified, and Wukong winced, letting go of his tail immediately- swapping out the action instead for doing his best to remain perfectly still, almost biting the inside of his cheek as unease and a sense of just… generally being uncomfortable took hold of his body. MK’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hiding something. Again.”

“What?! No. I uh- I… only just woke up?” Okay, even Wukong knew that was a lousy excuse, wincing even as he said it, feeling a nervous smile starting to form on his face, actually drawing a small amount of blood from how hard he was biting his cheek in an attempt to prevent the nervous smirk he knew would appear from growing.

MK didn’t even bother to dignify him with a response, instead simply raising an eyebrow, just… staring. It took everything in Wukong’s power to not shift his feet nervously. He just knew the kid had picked up that look from Pigsy, somehow. It had just as much power on MK as it did on the respected pig demon. As in; a lot of power.

He only barely managed to hold out for half a minute before he caved in.

“I just-” Wukong started, then paused, thinking. How was he even going to explain this? Where should he even begin? From the point he first saw MK doing the motions? But that would require explaining his thoughts and- what if the kid got hurt by it? Wukong still wasn’t sure on the- specifics and everything, but it was obvious that it was considered a normal thing, and if he revealed he had thought it was bad, well- that’d- that’d definitely hurt the kid, right? Wukong didn’t want that. So how should he start then?

MK was still rocking back and forth on his feet, awaiting Wukong’s explanation. He had to say something. But where would he even begin??? 

“I… I followed you back into the city during the attack today.” He chose to begin there, hesitantly. “Um, and I stuck around for a little bit after Jin and Yin ran off- oh! You do know that I’ve been slowly making the seal less powerful right, your invulnerability is slowly returning to you, the others don’t need to be as worried about possible injuries as they are-”

“I kinda figured that out on my own, Monkey King.” MK said, calmly, almost gently in a way that made Wukong want to flinch. “It’s kinda hard to not notice when I don’t take any damage from a 3 story fall other than a small bruise on my elbow. But that’s not what you wanted to tell me, is it?”

No. It’s not. But in fact, he’d rather not tell MK about any of this at all.

But he’d been trying to communicate better with MK and the other’s lately. It had been insisted upon near a hundred times that in order for trust to be achieved they had to actually talk to each other, and tell the others when something important was happening-

Or when they needed help.

Wukong let out a breath.

“Okay. Okay okay. So- followed you back to the city. Not a lie.” He clarified, “But it- wasn’t because of the attack. It’s- I was worried.”

“Worried about what?” MK stood a little straighter, his rocking stopping as he gave Wukong his full attention. “Did something happen?”

“No- well- not anything- important, it’s- I.” Wukong ran his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face as he tried to figure out how best to phrase what he was going to say without offending the kid. “When… When I was younger. I used to do these… motions. And- I was. Taught? Told. I was told that these motions were… not good.”

MK slowly nodded, seemingly following, but still confused as to how this related back to the situation at hand. Wukong sighed.

“And, this morning, I saw you doing those same motions, and-”

“Oh.”

“-and I got worried that you picked that up from me-”

“Oh.”

“-So I followed you to the city, and I saw Mei join in with you, and I thought she was making fun of you, but she wasn’t-”

“Monkey King-”

“-and the others didn’t seem to mind, and everyone was acting like it was normal, and- I know that I’ve been gone from society for a long time, which means it probably is normal now, and I was just being stupid for worrying about it-”

“Sun Wukong.”

Wukong froze, looking up, not having realized until that moment that he had started curling into himself. MK very rarely used Wukong’s name, usually reserving it for moments of utmost importance. (And the occasional call out, but those were also, in fact, usually important. The only time it wasn’t from what Wukong could recall was when the kid had called him out on his stagefright, but that was more of a statement of all his titles, really, so he didn’t count it).

MK looked deadly serious.

“Monkey King, do you not know what stimming is?”

“...Swimming?”

“No, stimming.”

“I…no?”

MK inhaled sharply.

“But- you’re- you so obviously-” He stumbled over his own words for a moment, before pausing, marching forwards and grabbing hold of Wukong’s hands. “Have you been resisting doing the- motions?”

“...Yes?”

“How?”

The word was spoken with a sense of urgency, and Wukong immediately had the sense that his answer wasn’t going to make MK happy.

After a few moments of silence, MK’s grip on Wukong’s hands tightened.

“How, Monkey King.”

Wukong allowed himself just a few seconds more of hesitation, of delaying the inevitable.

“...Biting my cheek, sometimes.” He muttered, “Most often that’s it- or some other form of mild pain, ‘s usually enough to make the feeling go away. Biting my cheek is just the one people are less likely to notice. …Let me tell you though, blood tastes awful, I have no idea how vampires put up with it-”

“I’m taking you to see Mr. Tang.” 

“You- what?” Wukong didn’t even get an instant to process, as the next thing he knew, MK was using his grip on Wukong’s hands to drag him out of the house. “MK-”

“We’re going to go see Tang, and that’s final.” MK summoned the staff, glancing back at Wukong. “Are you going to cooperate and come on your own free will, or am I gonna have to drag you to the Noodle Shop?”

Wukong considered the idea of running away from this situation for just a second too long.

Next thing he knew, MK had shifted his weight, as well as his grip on Wukong’s and was using the staff to vault into the air.

-

They landed in front of the Noodle Shop with enough force to crack concrete. Wukong stumbled as MK let go of his hand, taking a moment to regain his balance (it had been a while since he vaulted with the staff, sue him), and MK gave him the briefest of moments to recollect himself before he was pushing Wukong into the building.

Thankfully, it seemed like it was currently a slow business hour, as the only other people in the Noodle Shop were Tang, and, of course, Pigsy. MK directed Wukong to a chair.

“Sit.” He said, not really giving the monkey much of a choice as he pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him into the chair. “Stay.”

“I’m not a dog, kid.” Wukong mumbled, but obeyed the request anyways, crossing one leg over the other and looking out the window at the people passing by outside as MK rushed over to whisper… something to Tang. A pair of chopsticks slipped out of Tang’s hand as the man froze in shock, and Wukong’s ear twitched as they clanged against the table. He could make a guess that MK was simply telling Tang what Wukong had told him, and he only barely repressed the shudder going down his spine. It was fine. This was fine. It was bound to happen anyways after telling MK, that was the point of this, being open about these things meant being open with all of them.

A bowl of sliced peaches slid it’s way in front of him, and Wukong wished he could say he didn’t jump at it’s appearance. Pigsy didn’t say anything, instead simply nudging the bowl slightly closer to him again, before turning back around and refocusing on cleaning some dishes left over from the lunch hour. Wukong stared at the bowl with a blank mind for a few seconds, before he slowly took a piece and started nibbling on it.

MK and Tang were still talking.

…Wukong could just leave, right now.

There was nothing keeping him here, no magic spell. He could just go back to the mountain, avoid the other’s questions, and maybe, in a week, they’d all forget about it.

…But these peaches were really good. (He’d have to ask, later, where Pigsy had bought them from). And, well, he knew better. The others would never let something like this just… drop. He knew that from experience. The last time he had tried to hide away, Mei had quite literally broken a hole through the wall of the safehouse he’d been hiding in. He still hadn’t bothered to fix it, instead just using a magic placeholder to make it seem like it’d been fixed. Now that he thought about it, he should probably get around to fixing that up eventually-

A tap on his shoulder broke him out of his thoughts, and he very nearly choked on the peach slice he’d been eating. He coughed for a moment, catching his breath, before turning in his seat to find MK and Tang standing behind him. When had they moved? Wukong hadn’t even noticed. This whole thing must’ve been bothering him more than he had thought if it had shot his concentration like this.

“So.” Tang said, “MK tells me you need my help.”

“Wha- psh, help? Please. I don’t need help.” Wukong wasn’t sure why MK thought that he needed help from Tang of all people. He’d already figured out that his thought process had most likely been wrong, and he’d already corrected himself. Simple. Easy. There wasn’t anything else to do.

…Was there?

MK had seemed very concerned by Wukong avoiding doing the motions…

But that was fine, right? He’d already kinda started on that, he had allowed himself that little couch thing, earlier- he didn’t really want to tell MK about that, considering how deeply he had lost himself in it, but maybe if he did MK would realize that he didn’t need any help? Surely they were making a big deal out of nothing, or something.

His tail started swishing back and forth again, and subconsciously Wukong reached out with his hand to stop it, before freezing in the middle of the action. MK had only called him out on this whole thing earlier because he had stopped his tail from swishing. Maybe he should just… let it happen instead?

He let his hand drop back to the side, allowing his tail to continue to swish, hoping that he didn’t look as self-conscious about it as he felt. He was fairly sure he didn’t, but something must’ve been showing on his face, as MK made a sort of ‘Do You See What I’m Talking About’ gesture in his general direction, and Tang made a nod of confirmation. Trying to ignore how kinda-uncomfortable this was making him feel, Wukong turned back around to put another peach slice in his mouth.

There was some rustling behind him, and his ear twitched, but he did his best to ignore it, for a while. Just, giving himself a bit of time to mentally prepare himself.

And then there was a metal clang, and Wukong spun around out of both concern and curiosity-

“Okay, how on Earth did you manage this.” Wukong deadpanned. The other tables and chairs in the Noodle Shop had all been shoved to one side, leaving a large open space, just the perfect size for Tang to have set up a projector screen, as well as the projector itself. A quick glance to the side showed that the Noodle Shop’s sign had been flipped from ‘Open!’ to ‘Closed’. “Literally- I don’t think even 3 minutes passed just now, how did you do this.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve needed to do this.” Tang said, pulling out a laser pointer from… somewhere, about to click it on, before glancing back at Wukong and, seeming to think better of it, tossed the laser pointer over his shoulder (Wukong swore he didn’t hear it hit the ground, where the fuck did it go-), and pulling out a ruler instead (okay, there was no way he had been hiding THAT in a pocket, why did no one else think this was weird?). MK pulled up a chair next to Wukong and sat down beside him. Wukong spared him a glance, and upon seeing how the kid was focused on Tang, turned back to look at what seemed to be his impromptu teacher for the day. The projector flicked on, and Tang lightly tapped his ruler against the screen. “So, first of all, it seems we’re going to need to start from the beginning with what stimming is-”

-

Wukong sighed as he finally collapsed onto his couch again. Tang’s presentation about stimming had taken just about three hours. Thankfully, MK seemed to be fine with missing one day of training, as Wukong genuinely didn’t think he had the energy left in him to go over fighting techniques, and he especially no longer had the energy to have a half decent spar. 

Laying on his back, he stared up at the ceiling, slowly letting the information settle into his brain.

Okay. So. the motions- stimming, stimming wasn’t a bad thing. And, apparently, preventing himself from stimming was bad for him. (The others had been wrong, his friends, his family, they’d been wrong……. Would they have reacted differently, had they known all the information provided in Tang’s powerpoint? …He didn’t want to think about it too much).

Tang had also gone over multiple different kinds of stimming. Some of them Wukong had already known about, he’d used to do them all the time after all, while some were newer to him. (Apparently Macaque’s habit of chewing on his scarf counted as a stim? Wukong had simply assumed he’d done it out of pure habit, or as a replacement for chewing gum).

Letting out another, heavier, sigh, Wukong held his hands up in front of his face, studying them. Slowly sitting up, he started shaking and flapping his hands, mimicking the stimming he’d seen MK and Mei do earlier, memories of doing the same thing in the past appearing in his mind.

It felt…nice. Calming, almost. But it was also tiring, like it took effort to do, not as natural as breathing as he remembered it being, or how MK and Mei had made it look.

Not to mention the looming sense of tingles in a circle around his head.

He stopped, instead moving his hands to gently trace around his head, trying to soothe the feeling, before flopping backwards to be laying down again, feeling slightly drained from the effort, but still like there was a bit of restlessness that needed to be let out, after putting up with the emotional strain of the day. He couldn’t think of anything else he could attempt though-

The memories of when he had been on the couch earlier that afternoon slammed into him like a truck, and he rolled over, staring at the fabric of the couch in contemplation.

Slowly, he rubbed his hand over it, before doing the same with his other hand, deciding to use both hands for it this time. A rush of sensation flooded over his palms, and the only thing stopping him from digging his claws in to try and get more of the feeling was the knowledge that he’d end up tearing a hole in the fabric. This didn’t feel like it took nearly as much energy as the hand-shakey one did.

Soon, he found himself getting lost in the feeling again, hardly noticing when a purr of comfort started up in his chest.

This was… wonderful, actually.

Maybe he could try some other stims, see what stuck, maybe see if he could bring his old ones back, tomorrow.

…Right now though, just rubbing his hands back and forth against the fabric was more than enough.

Baby steps.

#Monkie Kid #fanfic #my writing #autistic Wukong my beloved

[lluvia-lu]

Constellations

❗⚠️Please do not steal or copy! Give credit if inspired:)⚠️❗

This is a small script/scene? Between a character of mine (Priel) and a friend's character (Conel)

Some songs to listen to while reading:

- 4runner by Brenn

- 100 moons by Savannah Saturn & Jonmarco

- Won't you stay? by One Hope

- Constellations by Jade LeMac

- Show me how by Men I Trust

- Big Jet Plane by Angus & Julia Stone

Apologies in advance if there's any grammar mistakes of any sort or repetition. English isn't my first language <3

Main credits to my friend who came up with the scene.

Enjoy!

»»————> 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 <————««

He packs up his papers and pens in his tote bag, his expression solemn and tired as he softly sighs. Throwing his bag over his shoulder, he picks up the clipboard and begins walking down the long hallway towards the exit of the school. This has been one of the hardest cases he's had to investigate.

Why would anyone ever want to harm teenagers? Teenagers who are just trying to live the best of their life.

A gust of wind blows through his face as he opens the glass door, inhaling the icey breeze with closed eyes. Feeling some weight leaving his shoulders as he opens his eyes.

He begins walking again, his shoes softly crunching against the ground. Tapping on the pavement, then the soil as they come to a halt.

His head tilts back, gazing up at the boundless sky set ablaze with the fire of the setting sun. He breathes, his warm breath coming out as soft mist in the air.

It's cold..

Priel disassociates from the world around him for a while. Lost in the vast sky above him that slowly dips into hues of blue, purple, and pink. His teal eyes glimmer a bit at the sight of some stars. He feels an odd familiarity in them.

`

`

`

Tap, tap, tap..

Priel snaps out of his thoughts when he hears soft footsteps padding against the soil beside him reaching his ears as he sees someone familiar approaching him at the corner of his eyes. He turns and sees Conel, his eyelids raise a bit. In a little joy of seeing Conel, he can't quite put his finger on it, but for some reason, he feels an odd comfort in Conel's presence.

"..any plans for tonight?"

Conel asks, snapping Priel out of his stare. Priel blinks before turning away, his cheeks flushing a little in embarrassment for staring.

Dammit Priel, quit embarrassing yourself.

He thinks to himself as he looks down at the ground.

Conel's hands slip into his pockets as he takes a glance at the darkening sky, blank oplaine eyes staring back at him with a certain excited glimmer.

"If not, could I spare a moment of your time? I have something I want to show you."

Priel partially blinks as he looks back up at Conel for a moment. He feels an excited feeling grow inside him, it's only rare for someone to be asked that on his behalf. A smile crosses his lips, tilting his head a little as he answers.

"Of course, I'm not really up to anything tonight."

Conel has a small gentle smile, "Thank you, Detective." He turns and begins walking. Priel stands there watching with a softened gaze. Till his brows raise and eyes widen a little realizing he's supposed to follow him once he's about 10 yards away from him. He takes quick steps over with a small jog to catch up to Conel.

`

`

`

As they walk, Priel follows by Conel. Not right next to him, maybe about 2 steps behind to let Conel lead the way.

Their feet carry them down the paved walkway, past rows of picket fences and loftly swaying trees dancing in the breeze beneath the growing darkness and littered grains of silver.

Their stroll is filled with silence, except the occasional question Conel asks Priel about his day and such, which Priel happily answers as he feels more relaxed and less tense over the earlier stress he was feeling.

Conel's longing gaze filled with familiarity often pulled upwards as his feet bring him forward. Priel notices his eyes often looking up, and each time Conel does, his eyes follow. Priel stares up at the sky until he hears Conel come to a gradual stop, where Priel also stops. Looking back down towards Conel, then at where they've arrived.

They reached a rusty back gate, which opens with a hesitant creak.

Conel steps foot into his backyard, a quiant little desolate yard covered in freshly cut foliage and matters of jasmine vines creeping along the wooden fence. Priel takes a look around, a little hesitant to enter. He's never been in any other home than his own, but after a bit he takes a step forward.

Gently placing his bag and clipboard by the gate door. His teal eyes scan the area, until they rest on a large metal telescope already set up pointing at a specific location. Priel's eyes light up at the sight as a smile spreads on his lips. He follows behind Conel, Priel has never been this close to a telescope before. Seeing one so up close brings him immense joy and excitement. Albeit, he gently bites his bottom lip to contain his emotions.

It's a telescope! I've only ever seen them in pictures and videos, but there's actually one right here in front of me!

Priel thinks, twiddling his thumbs a little as he watches Conel smooth the back of his coat as he sits down on the soil, peering into the telescope momentarily before slightly sliding away to the side and gesturing Priel to have a look.

Priel blinks for a moment before sitting down next to Conel, peering into the telescope a little in wonder and suspense.

Warm sunbeams shine through cloudy blue eyes as Conel's lips purse together in anticipation when Priel looks through the lens.

A clear close-up is seen of the dark sky, blanketed with glistening speckles, pulsing and gleaming in unision. Particularly 6 stars, that are positioned in an oval with the largest a little bit over the center, perched near the top.

Priel's eyes glimmer just as brightly as the burning sun's in pure awe. His lips parting a little in amazement of what he's seeing.

"Do you see the six stars? It's a small little—"

"Constellation.."

Priel finishes in a whisper as he leans away from the telescope to look up at the constellation without the close-up.

Conel's gaze turns upwards as a tender smile melts on his face, hands that were in his pockets slipping out and holding a small square shaped piece of paper.

"It's special because..I won't pry, but you seem to be going through a difficult time, one more turbulent without the aid of knowing oneself."

Priel's lips close as his eyes move to meet Conel's.

Conel's gaze meets Priel's just as well, his eyelids slightly lower, expression blank yet understanding as he pulls out the piece of paper which is a small star chart of the constellation with it's coordinates on the side.

Priel's eyes are drawn to it, much to his knowledge, he doesn't quite know what a star chart is despite his love for the night sky.

"Therefore I got you your own star constellation."

Priel's breath is almost swept out of him as his eyes dart back up to meet Conel's in surprise. His heart skips a beat as his teal eyes glint a shimmer of admiration for Conel.

"My..own star constellation..?"

He asks in a breathy tone, his gaze following Conel's finger which lightly trails the circle pointing up towards the sky in a swift motion.

"Those 6 stars are you in the sky..they're actually registered. You can see it from anywhere in the world."

Am I dreaming..?

I'm seeing colors lately..

Priel's soft blonde hair subtly blows in the breeze as he listens to Conel's soothing voice. It feels as if every worry in the world is slowly vanishing. As if nothing else matters now, it's just him and Conel.

Conel's heavy eyelids close as he speaks,

"So wherever life takes you, wherever you end up, you can always look for these constellations and you would see those stars together, to see that you're not so alone in the world."

Handing the chart over to Priel, which Priel carefully takes as he looks down at it. His fingers lightly gripping it as he feels tears prick the corners of his eyes. He's never felt so cared for or notices like he feels now. His jaw tightens so to not let his emotions get the best of him.

`

`

Conel gives Priel a soft side gaze, tone quiet as he says,

"Sometimes we need a reminder..they're like seeds of hope, bearing a fruit of preservation."

A strike of embarrassment hitting Priel through the chest as he blinks into a blank expression. His cheeks flushing red as he looks up at Conel with slightly widened eyes and mouth agape.

Seeds..? Fruit..?

✧[Meaning of the name 'Priel' —> 'Fruit Of God']✧

Conel's eyes fill with winsome light as his smile parts into genuine faint laughter, glancing at the star chart of the constellation which was purposefully positioned to look like an orange then back at him.

Priel's eyes dart from the chart to the sky, chart, sky, and back to the chart. Now seeing the way it looks like an orange, filled with embarrassment. He's never been found of his name, so right now, he wants a big black hole to appear and gobble him up completely.

God this is embarrassing...

He thinks to himself as his clamy hand covers his flushed face with lips formed into a sheepish wobbly frown.

"I've always really liked your name, it's lovely."

Lovely...

Priel peeks at Conel through the crack of his fingers, seeing the fondness in his expression. The way his hand partially covers his mouth as he brings his knees closer to his chest.

Conel lays his chin on his knee caps as a warm glow filters through his irises.

"It suits you."

Priel's hand slowly falls from his face as his eyes fixate on Conel. The hand holding the small sheet of paper lowering as it rests on his knee of his crossed legs. He can't help the warm smile that forms on his lips and the way his eyes soften as he looks back down at the chart, and back up at the constellation in the sky.

If only you knew the things you do to me.

"Thanks..Conel."

Priel says softly, his eyelids lowering slightly.

"For....this. For..For caring and..taking the time to do this for me.."

He mumbles as his thumb traces the coordinates of the chart.

There's a moment of silence as Priel gets lost in thought as tears fill his eyes. Only, he immediately takes a quick deep breath. Looking up at the constellation to stop the tears as he let's out an airy chuckle.

`

`

`

`

"Thank you."

`

`

`

`

I think.. I want to stay here.

`

`

`

`

Priel sits in silence next to Conel as the cool air blows through their hair, the sound of the foliage rustling tuning into the silence. Gazing into the dark of night and at the burning stars that bring light into the hours of dusk.

— 𝑞𝑜𝑒

#short story #love story #oc #comfort character #original character #constellations #night sky #first post #text post #original post #original story

[yan-nyanyan]

GENSHIN BOYS: the moment they realised they really loved you:

Starring: Kamisato Ayato, Childe, Arataki Itto

[a/n: idk why i felt really wholesome but i felt like i needed to write something cutesy. Also like, lots of writing and long scenarios LMAO. I really cbf proofreading this but eventually i will… probably]

recommended song to listen to while reading: let’s fall in love for the night cover by junny!!

**its all gn so all you lovelies should be able to enjoy this :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kamisato Ayato:

It was a tiring day; the paperwork he had to deal with seemed endless, the heavy layers of fatigue nestled into his weary joints and creased his brows, hand aching and constant readjustments to his pen hold. Night had settled across Inazuma, the faint flickering of sunsietta hues cooled down to shades of lavender and he wanted nothing more than to sleep.

‘knock knock’

“Come in.”

The sound of pen to paper continued despite the intrusion, his stare unmoving as he signed and signed, paying no mind to the new presence in his room. Kamisato Ayato was entirely caught up in the repetitive action of reading the scripts and making adjustments—so enraptured by the work that he hadn’t noticed the figure near his own, kneeling at his side and reaching out with a tender gaze.

“Ayato..”

Gentle fingers ran over his shoulders, sliding off his thick kimono and running across the expanse of his shoulders, palms smooth and soft. Hands worked at the tension between stiff muscles, easing the stress he had gathered from being hunched and stilled in such a position for hours on end.

You let him continue his work; no endless nagging about how he should get sleep, but also letting your presence and support be known by just doing what you could. For the next few hours, deep into the still of midnight, you silently accompanied him. Easing his brows with light fingertips, combing back his hair and tucking it behind reddened ears, refilling ink as it ran low. It was a wordless encounter, but just the fact you didn’t need to say anything to keep the amiable atmosphere— to relax his soul, to know what he needed— it made something click within the him; the Head of the Yashiro Commission.

And that dawn, when the silky strands of coiling moonlight changed to pink pale light and milky orange hues, Ayato came to the realisation.

He could never love anyone as much as he loved you.

——————

Tartaglia [childe]

Life as a Fatui Harbinger was obviously one filled with perilous endeavours and countless hardships.

The supreme authority, the egregious amount of mora, the boundless amount of respect; it was a dreamy position for those in the Fatui, bound to the realities of earth only by the constant risk of your own life. For Tartaglia though, this only added to the thrill and pleasure of it all.

So when you and Childe made it more official—his endless showering of expensive silks, artesian grade brocades, and restaurant reservations finally accepted—you began to realise the cons of it.

The words “Harbinger’s Girlfriend” didn’t impact you initially; the taste of it on your tongue almost sweet at the prestige accompanying it. It wasn’t until a few months in when you found the words tasting strange and sour in your mouth; constantly monitored by uniformed men and ‘vision’ holders, limited to ventures across Liyue, marked with heavy prejudice and subject to many judgements. And it only stockpiled when your boyfriend would stumble his way home to your temporary stay; eyes lidded, skin bruised and torn, blood still warm and skin slick with sweat, your hands fumbling at a towel to wipe away the dampness of it all.

And so, after a year, Childe was fully expecting you to break up with him.

He had first handedly seen the horrors you bore witness to just by associating with him, and he wasn’t sure if he could handle subjecting you to it anymore. You were a light to him, a beacon of warmth which guided him home in the darkness, an all encompassing heat that warmed his chilled bones. But he was a loving man, and if letting something go meant better for them, he’d do it.

It was a tension-filled day; the rain hampering any outings you were finally allowed to do, the constant ticks of a clock echoing somewhere in the background, and your clothes seemed to fall in all the wrong places. You weren’t sure why today felt particularly irritating, but it sure as hell was, and it took all your willpower to not snap at anything.

Childe was nonchalant as he walked in; twirling a sharpened arrow between his fingers, harsh whistling to a random tune he heard some Liyuen kids singing. You ignored him at first, unsure if you’d be able to handle his teasing voice as he prodded at your clear annoyance like he did every other time. But when you heard a barely audible “tsk” escape his lips as he scratched himself with the clearly dangerous object, something inside you snapped.

You stomped over to the Snezhnayan man and pulled him forward by his collar— his blue eyes falling half lidded and murky.

‘It’s coming.’ He thought to himself.

“Ajax.” You seethed, steam pushing through your teeth as you clenched at his collar so hard your knuckles turned white.

“You always make me worried about you— every single second of the day I’m without you, all I can think about is if you’re okay. Are you eating well, are you sleeping well, are you tending to your injuries? So when you come home like that,” You released him from your pull, the sudden lack of tension sending him stumbling, feet stuttering to support his weight.

“… It annoys me how careless you are when I spend so much of my time worrying about you.”

You were met with a strange silence— something you rarely had when you were constantly surrounded by the Fatui and this talkative red-head. So when you finally gathered some sort of composure to look at your Harbinger once more, you were completely taken aback at what greeted you.

“…Childe?”

Childe’s cheeks were flushed a cardinal shade of red— a red so deep that it almost matched the shade of reds in his garb. His eyes were bright and glittering, a complete contrast to his normally shaded eyes, and he stared at you with a strange look; rapidly blinking and lips parted. His breath then came laboured and haggard, his hand holding his cheek as he tried to regain his own composure.

You weren’t upset at him because you were sick of it all, ready to break it off and live a new life— no, you were upset because you were worried about him. And for some reason, this set his heart beating so fast he couldn’t breathe; a lump caught in his throat and a tingle at his chest.

“I.. I think I really love you.”

————————

Arataki Itto

Itto and you were… a pair, to say the least.

Whenever the two of you went out, it always seemed comical to an extent. Whether it was due to the fact a clown like Itto seemed so head over heels for someone, or the fact his hard muscles next to your soft lines contrasted too much to reasonably stand, it was always met with grins.

His confession to you was comical too; a grandiose setting down the main road of inazuma, blocking all adventurers from reaching their next batch of commissions and lackeys lined like soldiers off to war. The tension in the air had set everyone on edge that day; a bunch of gangsters being explicit in the very town just a road across from the shogunate and their army itself; the very heart of order and justice in Inazuma. But the Arataki gang did not care in the slightest— eyes hardened and postures straight.

The Oni himself was waiting at the end of the road, a bouquet of haphazardly picked flowers bunched within his hand, unconsciously squeezing at the stems so hard even the petals turned white at the force of it. You had told him that you were just going to hand in some documents to the Kujou clan and that you’d be out soon, and Itto saw nothing wrong with this spontaneous get-up of a confession.

Well, to be fair, this wasn’t really a first time confession and realisation of his feelings. Itto already knew he cared for you deeply, to a point where he saw you as an extension of himself. He was always boastful of you and everything you did, even if you did nothing. In fact, if you had done nothing, it became all the more embarrassing as he began boasting about your endless beauty. All he knew in conversations was you and onikabuto, and it actually got to a point where he had talked so much about you to others, you’d get random strangers coming up to you and conversing about things you didn’t even know about yourself!

So he wasn’t concerned at all with the timing— he loved you and you loved him so he was just counting down the days anyways.

You walked down the makeshift pathway down towards your boyfriend(????), and as you stood before him beneath the Sakura tree, you noticed a blaring red pimple on his chin. Itto had told you repeatedly that he wanted you to use your less “pointy” nails to pop it for him once, but you always disagreed. In this moment however, something compelled you to give it a try.

Itto was currently pouring his heart out to you as you stared blankly at the pimple beneath his lips, his cheeks flushed red as he told you things he once swore he’d keep locked away in his heart. He told you about the way you captured his heart from your first meeting, to the way he adored your stumbling figure when you got caught staring at his abs a little to long. He told you about the little things you did when you were nervous, and the little things you did which made his heart flutter.

If the citizens of Inazuma didn’t know any better, they’d think this was a proposal.

Just as he was about to finish paragraph 6 of 13, a resounding “pop” filled the air.

Standing there, washed in the summer glow of blue skies and pale Sakura leaves, stood you and Itto. Your hands fell flat on his jaw, palm nursing the sharp of it all as your thumbs twiddled near his lips. What should’ve been a romantic confession scene was quickly filled with laughter as everyone stared at you and the freshly popped pimple on his chin.

Despite the howling laughter surrounding you two, Itto felt something stir within his heart. The fact that you were so unashamed to do something so intimate with him in public sent his heart aflutter, and the fact you didn’t seem to care about anyone else— the only thing in those dreamy eyes of yours being him and him alone— it made him stop in his tracks.

Out of everything you had done together, all the countless nights under star speckled skies, ventures across the Inazuma terrain, or antics of the Arataki gang— nothing compared to this moment for Itto.

And so, after that whole fiasco, you two were always known as a more comical pair. Despite all this, however, everyone knew just how deep Itto’s affection ran for you, and how much of a fool he would be just to please you. It was actually… really romantic, they realised. Arataki Itto might’ve realised just how much he loved you in that moment, but the entirety of Inazuma also realised then, the Head of the Arataki Gang was absolutely in love with you.

#Arataki #Itto #Childe #tartaglia #Ayato #Fatui #romance #scenario #Genshin #Genshin impact #x reader #GN

[ikroah]

The strangest gal I ever had never happy ‘less she’s mad. Oh, I got a woman mean as she can be, sometimes I think she’s almost mean as me. —“Mean Woman Blues,” Elvis Presley (1957)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ #16 - Crimson Caravan

Collaborative Issue! Guest Artist: Esseress

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

Girls’ night! Girls’ night!

I want this issue to speak for itself so I’m going to cut right to gratuitously thanking our latest guest artist, Esseress, who did a completely phenomenal on these five pages. We’ve been working on it for a long time and I’m over the moon to finally bring it to you now on this blog. I love writing this comic, and I loved doing the lettering and composition for it, but my goodness do I love Esse’s art. It was a real privilege to have that art as part of It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’, especially since the artist was such an immaculately pleasant collaborator. If you’re reading this, thank you again for such a fun project (and talking about Naruto with me lol).

Original Pencils (click for full size):

This issue was one of my most fun composition challenges yet because something that you want to avoid in comics as much as possible, I think, is talking heads. You want to avoid shots that are static, overly repetitive, and uninteresting. Now the challenge is, how do you do that when your whole comic takes place in a small storeroom and is nothing but a conversation between two characters?

Playing with angles and expressions, and using repetition intentionally with the percussive referent of Agnes cutting into the floorboards, made for some really suspenseful page layouts that complemented the script in a major way. I’m especially proud of the third page, with its quick cutaway to the exterior of the office and the cutting continuing beneath Agnes’ dialogue. Also, did you notice that you only ever see Agnes’ left side this issue? You never get to look her in the eye this issue, and given how cagey she’s acting, that evasiveness was an intentional compositional choice. It was satisfying to pull off, but hear me, it took a lot of planning in the thumbnail stage to pull off well.

The other fun challenge of this issue was lighting. When you’re in a closet a night and don’t want to be seen, how do you see? The delightful answer was to have Agnes actually use that damn flashlight she wears on her shoulder; attentive readers will notice that this is the second time she’s used it in the comic, with the first time being back in Boulder City at the end of Volume 1. Hmm…guys, I wonder if it’s a bad omen that she only seems to turn it on when she’s about to commit or assist in a murder…

Speaking of lighting! One last fun hiccup about this issue was the final page. The script I wrote called for it to transition from night to morning between the first and second panels, but in a case of unforeseen and magnitudinous pedanticism, it was while coordinating the lighting on that page with Esse that I looked up the actual time of sunrise in the Mojave Desert for the time of year this issue takes place, which is November 5th if you’re curious. Turns out the sun shouldn’t be rising until after 7:00 AM, which hardly makes McLafferty the exceptionally early riser her planner says she is. That’s not to say it’s actually 7:00 AM in the comic…go ahead and play the CinemaSins ding for the wrong sunrise time, or whatever. And it’s not like any of you would have known or cared if I didn’t say anything! It was just too weird of a writing quirk to not bring up. The lesson, folks, is to always remember your temporality when writing. It’ll help you sleep a lot easier.

Transcript:

EXT. CRIMSON CARAVAN, night. The lights are out and everyone in the caravan compound have retired to their barracks for the night. From inside one of the compound buildings comes a soft sound.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

INT. CRIMSON CARAVAN OFFICE. AGNES SANDS is bent over on the floor of a storeroom, carving into the wooden floor with her bootknife. ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY leans against the door behind her.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: So…have you ever killed anyone before?

AGNES continues cutting into the floor without looking at CASS as she speaks.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: And I don’t mean a raider or fiend or something, nothing in self-defense. I mean in cold blood.

CASS: You mean like you killed those Khans?

(NOTE: *IKROAH #14—Lou.)

CASS: Hmmm…no, I guess I haven’t. When it comes to bloody vengeance just for myself…

CASS: …be gentle, it’s my first time.

AGNES doesn’t react to CASS’ joke. CASS becomes equally serious.

CASS: …I’d imagine this ain’t your first rodeo, the way you asked.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS: I mean…this Benny guy, in Vegas. When we catch him, which notch on your blood-spattered bedpost is he?

AGNES stops cutting into the floor, raising her knife. CASS’s expression tightens with concern. The silence is uncomfortable.

AGNES: Second.

CASS: Oh, thank God.

AGNES: What?

CASS: No offense, but the way you got all serious, I worried for a second you might be some kind of serial killer nutjob.

AGNES: No, no, I’m sorry. I was just…thinking. I really know how to meet the wrong men, apparently.

CASS (smiling): Dead men, right?

AGNES frowns. Her knife plunges back into the wooden floor.

SFX: SKRITCH, SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS: Wanna talk about it?

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH…

CASS: Not like we have anything else to do.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH… 

AGNES: I really don’t.

CASS: Fine. That said, though, I did imagine this whole revenge thing being a bit more…exciting. Can’t say I like being stuck in a closet.

AGNES (smirking): You get used to it.

CASS: Why, though? You picked the lock to her fucking office like a cheap office toy. Why not break into her barracks and we shoot the bitch now?

AGNES: First, because that’s a great way to get us both killed.

AGNES keeps cutting as she speaks, deeper and deeper into the floor.

AGNES: Second, you want her to know it was you, so we have to get her awake and alone.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: Third, her planner on her desk confirmed what I already suspected—that she’s an early riser—so we’ll see her sooner rather than later, while the rest of the company is still asleep.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH…

AGNES: Fourth, we want to send a message to everyone else. So it has to be at least a little spectacular.

SFX: SKRITCH SKRITCH, SKRITCH SKRITCH...

CASS: Oh…you’ve really thought this through.

SFX: SKRIT-

AGNES stops cutting. She slowly lifts her knife out of the floor.

AGNES: Yeah.

CASS: Where’d a medic get so good at murder?

AGNES rises from bending over the floor to a kneeling position, turning back towards CASS and frowning.

CASS: Sorry. You probably don’t want to talk about that, either.

AGNES: Maybe another time. For now…

AGNES leans back, kneeling over an intricate cross-hatch, about three feet in radius, of deep cuts and gouges into the floorboards in front of her.

AGNES: …just trust me.

EXT. CRIMSON CARAVAN. Night turns to early morning, and ALICE McLAFFERTY, the boss of the caravan, walks up the steps of her office and enters.

AGNES (from inside, whispering): Alright. Now. Quickly.

From inside her office, a door is kicked open.

SFX: DTHUMP

ALICE: What the hell, who are you—!?

CASS: Rose of Sharon goddamn Cassidy, of Cassidy fucking Caravans, you bitch!

ALICE: No, you’re—

SFX: KABLAM

The sound of a shotgun going off in the middle of the compound wakes up the whole caravan. Crows scatter from the courtyard while guards start rushing towards the office door.

AGNES: Alright, now let’s go! Shoot the floor here where I—

SFX: KABLAM

The guards close in on the office while wooden shrapnel falls from a new hole in the floorboards of the office, and AGNES and CASS drop through to the ground outside, and crawl away from the caravan guards under the hut just as they reach the McLAFFERTY’s front door.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #courier six #rose of sharon cassidy #alice mclafferty #crimson caravan #volume 02 #16 #ikroah archive

[felikatze]

OOOOOOO YOU ARE LIKE, ONE OF THE VERY FEW PERSON WHO ACTUALLY NOTICED A'S ENTIRE PROBLEM OF ADVOIDANCE. sorry since I will now also ramble about A a lot for the next few paragraphs

I HAVE LEGIT TALKED TO MY FRIENDS ALL THE TIME about how all of the flashback having him trying to turn away from all the atrocities he committed, and it is not like he is ignorant about all of the death and tragedy that happened around him he just turn his gaze away from it in order to keep pushing on due to what you said about him being mentally fragile like you said i.e the option of ignoring Elijah slowly dying, him talked about how he already knows Gabriel's stage of grief long before his fall via his manner and clothing change but decided to turn away from it, it is even more evident when you got into the A(s) where Abel talking about he tried to keep pretending everything was fine and thing would become better tomorrow but then it never did, Abram talking about how every atrocities he committed made him feel disgusted at himself but decided to close his eyes to it until he becomes numb to it and Ayin who literally said it once again in the very end that the thing he has always been aware of but ignored from the very beginning is that people are losing hope, he just turns away from it since he feels like he like as a person he is couldnt do anything about it along with many other person in the City who just willingly ignore said problem but Carmen is different and willing to make a change so he is drawn to her that much (which kinda like, any other lob characters who joined the lab because of Carmen honestly)

Which then contribute to the cognitive filter and the meaning of Lobotomy Corp itself imo? the sephirah switching back to their robot form as the manager finished their suppression is also symbolize that A has came to finally be able to face the past tragedy born from the the goal he trying to reach rn that he has been avoiding for so long, the meaning of the script wasn't just "everyone does their job so we can seed like we baking a cake recipe" to me imo but also A digging into the repetitive past over and over again to reminded himself who has forgot and to find answer from it as someome who is not you know "himself" and solving his own crisis tbh? And I would like to add that this doesn't mean as in "oh A's plan is actually nice sunshine and rainbow actually" but more on "Lobotomy Corporation's cycle has more personal meaning to the protagonist development himself rather than just heading toward a pre set goal" which isnt like what the game is only about in case someone quote me on "uhm actually the game is about capitalism suck" but still a very huge plot point and theme which somehow A LOT of people tend to miss this specific nuanced which lowkey surprised me a lot ngl?

(0) (1) (3) (4)

YEAH YOU. YOU GET IT

Avoidance is A's ENTIRE whole thing even visually?? like ykno how in practically every single illustration of him he's always standing off somewhere alone and we never see his face.

i didnt even go into the three As of christmas past which is tragic so i love that you brougt em up because you are so right

the script is kinda two-fold in that it is There but also only Angela knows it exists, because what really makes the seed of light is pun possibly intended enlightenment. Which makes it impossible imo to just do it rote, which is why we have Angela doing the thing where she needles everyone into being horrible so A can needle everyone into getting better. It's a whole thing.

BUT that also means any character progression is sincere. They genuienly are moving on and changing and we see them become permanently better and healthier even if they still have problems in lor.

The switch back to robot forms is also suuuper signifcant and big yeah on it symbolizing A moving on, which contributes to the feel i had of "putting ghosts to rest."

i guess my thing abt A being a reactive character can come across as him just heading to a pre set goal but i agree 100% it has a LOT of personal meaning to him e.g again sephirah meltdowns enlightenment coping with his grief

again i just feel it's difficult to really get one coherent reading of this because in the end A does just die and I wonder if maybe it was about lessening his own feelings of guilt and disgust toward himself that he could allow himself to die.

Redemption through death is a trope i dislike typically but lobcorp did it with so much build up and implication i Cannot be mad at them bcuz like as i said in my post where else would A go? what else would he do? everything went to hell in a handbasket much too long ago.

if someone says the games are JUST about capitalism bad i WILL fight them because they are about breaking out of cycles and learning to cope and moving on and trying to exist and live in a world that so vehemently denies happiness

in fact once it was implied that perhaps my own reading of the game was that shallow i made my previous ayin post so yeah. yeah.

anon i am mentally shaking your hand i am rotating your ask in my mind

#Feli gets asked #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina

[unnaturalbleu]

DSMP SCHOOL NEWS AU

Anchors: Dream, Sapnap, Tommy, Wilbur, Tubbo, Quackity, Schlatt

Camera: Eret, Tubbo, George

Teleprompter: George, Tubbo, Fundy

Editors: George, Fundy, Tubbo

Producers: Tubbo, Wilbur, Dream, Eret, Karl,

Notes: George is forced to only be a part of the behind the scenes because of some repetitive unspoken events.

Tubbo has the power and experience to produce his own one man news show (he’s done it once and he can do it again.)

1st class period of the day. The school news show only provides the limited amount of “school” related news and the rest is just fuckery produced by the students.

Dream and Sapnap are the favored anchor duo. George never arrives to school on time so he sticks to just helping draft segments.

On the rare days, in the middle of the show with no introduction whatsoever, students will see a fifteen second vertical formatted video of George doing whatever the fuck he does.

George has been banned from the editing booth multiple times. He is now just a cameo… (unless)

Wilbur only joined for the CTE credit and easy pass.

But for the passing grade, he actually needed to produce segments so with one 50 second video of him walking around the school proposing a revolution. No one knows what the revolution is for but with the mild subtext of drugs, he gained a following of freshman that trailed behind him like ducks during passing period.

Tommy switched into school news, naturally following Wilbur. He didn’t do much besides grabbing a camera and finding ways to push Dream’s buttons.

The dteam trio were on a school field trip for whatever reason one day. Wilbur, Tommy, Fundy, Tubbo, and Eret realized that ten minutes before the bell for second period was about to ring, they didn’t have a news show.

Nobody had access the script, (or so they thought, really in too much of a rush to check the class files,) Wilbur begins bullshitting his way out of every news section.

The College and Career time slot was just Wilbur talking about the politics among the student body.

Tommy brought on sports by talking about Minecraft, I mean why wouldn’t he?

Fundy straight up speed edited the show. He’s never done that before. He was only in that class cause the rest of the electives were full.

Wilbur being hella proud of the freshman somehow whipping together a show right before the bell rings, he adopts Fundy. Senior adopting freshman moment.

Tubbo even found an entire folder among the school computer dedicated to George’s cryptic short videos. He throws one in to keep the consistency of the show.

When it’s aired, the teachers are confused and the students are mildly entertained. It was a success.

When the dteam come to school the next day, Dream and Sapnap find out that they are pushed to anchor the shows every other day. The other days, Tommy and Wilbur fill that spot.

War had begun. And the student body was only a witness.

It was decided, Wilbur made shows for men

It had begun from adding difficult words to pronounce in the script to adding props in the background. Everyday a crew sabotaged the other. The student body actually caught on and tried to notice the little Easter eggs of the opposing crew.

The dteam somehow took Fundy hostage, and the freshman (who actually wasn’t a freshman, just somehow everyone assumed he was) edited their shows from time to time, but he’s still loyal to Wilbur.

Eret, however, was persuaded by Dream’s offering of getting them coffee everyday. A dramatic day it was when the segment of Eret’s betrayal was released.

Some kid from the graphic design class had actually printed out revolutionary posters for Wilburs crew.

Near the end of the semester, their teacher politely begged the students to just end the rivalry and produce a normal show. Dream and Wilbur had actually typed up a full on contract for their teacher and talked to the principle about how they were going to conclude their story on the very last day of class for that semester.

Tommy and Dream were anchoring together that day. The show ran longer than any other show before. Between each actual section of school news, there were segments. Tommy and Dream even had a debate and school approved duel (kahoot).

All the students were shocked. Did it really just end? The crews built that whole story for months and it ended.

But that was only first semester. Everyone had more cards to play.

NEXT SEMESTER (a mess/ my brain cant remember most of the election arc so its just a plain mess at this point)

Around the time when the whole school was electing their student body presidents, he didn't have any interest in it, but Wilbur decided to get political and worm his way into the student elections just for entertainments sake of the news segments.

Dream didn't have much time on his hands this semester so he only stuck to regular news.

Sapnap cried about it and tried to drag George with him to make a segment, but the man is still banned from the news. He makes a segment about finding a new partner to produce segments with. He got himself a fiancé instead.

George gets unbanned from the show for like one day and he also, for some reason, also gets married to ninja... the teacher banned him very quickly.

When Dream actual out his focus back onto the news again, he found out everyone was getting married and he was very lost on whatever lore Wilbur's crew was producing.

Why was Wilbur filming inside of the janitors closet. Who was the new kid, (Schlatt), that was anchoring solo with Quackity. Fundy and Tubbo still stayed in the editors booth, seemingly oblivious to whatever's happened.

As one of those off days where everyone is just absent for some reason, Dream is half asleep, trying to get through reading the news. "And next in sports... Dream will you marry me, the basketball team won last nights game– Wait what?" he reads out, he looks over to the booth and it's just Fundy in there sitting at the teleprompter. "I'll bring you breakfast tomorrow if you say yes" Fundy types through the teleprompter. Fundy edits that part of the show out just so the teacher won't get mad.

The next day George walks into the booth to find Dream and Fundy sharing a whole ass buffet. He walks out.

Tommy was persistent to bring one of his friends onto the show just for a little cameo. Techno didn't understand anything that was happening but weeks later, he's still there and now has a cult following.

Towards the end of the school year, they make the last week of news very eventful. All school related news was speed ran and cut to one minute, the rest was just segments. Most was just a farewell for the seniors (/wilbur).

anyone please add onto this,,

#dsmp au #dream #sapnap #itsfundy #fundy #georgenotfound #wilbursoot #tubbolive #tubbo #eret #eret mcyt #tommyinnit #dream smp au #au #school news au #l'manberg #l'manburg #dream mcyt #karlnap #schlatt dsmp #quackity #fundywastaken

[tamblr]

Supplement 2: Conversations and some reading notes

The last two lessons had way too many tables and since I said that once pronouns and question words are learnt you’re good to go conversing, let’s see a simple conversation.

Noun vocab:

பேர் - name

வீடு - house

நன்பன் - male friend

All of the bolded words are the ones that we have come across in the last two lessons, the red ones, the noun vocab introduced above and the purple ones were introduced in the previous lessons. The green ones are the names you can substitute with your own.

வணக்கம், என் பேர் முருகன். ( hi, my name (is) Murugan)

உங்கள் பேர் என்னது? (What is your name)

என் பேர் ப்ரியா (my name (is) Priya)

இது யார்? (Who is this? *points to a person nearby)

இது குமார், இவன் என் நன்பன் (this (is) Kumar, he is my friend)

ஆ, சரி (oh ok) (*this can come of as quite rude, but for the sake of simplicity let’s keep it this way)

உங்கள் வீடு எங்க இருகிறது (இருக்கு)? (Where is your house?)

அங்க தான் இருக்கிறது (இருக்கு) (it is there only *points to a far off location)

போகலாமா? ( shall we go?)

ஆம், போகலாம் (yes, let’s go)

As you can see from the conversation above you can pretty much have a basic conversation with a native speaker if you understand the pronoun lessons because after that all you have to do is insert the nouns and verbs and at the beginning you can just use English words as substitutes as you build up vocabulary. Secondly, notice how the words that aren’t mentioned highlighted in the conversation above always come at the end, this is because it is an SOV language so verbs always come at the end and being able to identify that when listening will help when trying to understand what a speaker is saying.

Below is an example by a speaker who came to Tamil Nadu and their way of acquiring the language.

My first interaction with a Tamilian.

Me: Uncle, half litre milk please.

15 days later.

Me: Anna, half litre paal. ( Paal - Milk)

1 month later.

Me: Anna, ara litre paal. ( Ara- Half)

2 months later.

Me: Anna, ara litre paal kudunga. ( Bro, please give me half litre milk)

6 months later.

Me: Anow, ara litre paal eduthu vekka sonnene, vachingala? ( Bro, I asked you to keep aside half litre milk. Did you do it?)

Reading Tamil can be quite difficult because of the allophonic nature of the stop consonants i.e (க், ச், ட், த், ப், ற்) [see lesson 2]. Let’s see an English example: cat, car; in these two examples the a is pronounced differently. Tamil follows the same concept but the script gives a clue: க்க், க்__ are both pronounced [k] and _க்_, _ங்க்_ are pronounced [g]. The repetition of the same letter twice is called gemination i.e க்க் means that க் has been geminated. Examples with these consonants are given below.

பாட்டு [pāttu] song, பாடு [pādu] sing

திரும்பு [thirumbu] return, திருப்பு [thiruppu] turning

The gemination of consonants is important even for other consonants. Geminated consonants are pronounced a bit longer and can change the meaning of a word significantly.

1. பயன் [payan] usefulness, பய்யன் [payyan] boy

2. கன்னம் [kannam] cheek, கனம் [kanam] thickness

3. பணம் [paNam] money , பண்ணு [paNNu] make/do

4. புளி [puLi] tamarind , புள்ளி [puLLi] dot

5. புலி [puli] tiger, புல்லி [pulli] calyx

6. ஆமா [āma] yes , அம்மா [ammā] mother

#tamil #language #langblr #languages #desiblr #tamil lessons

[skitter-kitter]

Fic Recs

Here are a few fics I’ve read recently! They’re all in my bookmarks on ao3. There’s only a few, but I’ll probably make more of these lists! There’s a lot of fandoms I’ve put in the list, so they’ll be sorted by that.

They Let Him In by Shay_Nioum

Sanders Sides

Logan dwells in the aftermath of his plans being pushed to the side once again.

A really interesting logan-centric fic! I really enjoyed the use of the orange side in this, and the ending was really well done.

Orange Eyed Delight by Shay_Nioum

Sanders Sides

Virgil finds out about Logan's orange eyes.

Honestly loved this!! I wasn’t expecting it to be Virgil’s POV at first but it really shows his perspective well. I love his panic, and how it evolves from his normal paranoia to the decision to be there for Logan. Him comforting Logan was a really nice end! Plus the parallels with him leaving the dark sides with him thinking Logan would leave the light sides was really good!

My Darlin’, What Did You Expect? by Cultivation

The Walten Files

Five times Felix pines for Jack and one time Jack notices.

Really loved the descriptions in this! You can really tell how deeply in love Felix is with Jack. Plus, as always, love the author’s use of the time period!

Since You Don’t Remember by Cultivation 

The Walten Files

“How much is left ‘till we get home?”

Edd’s voice sounds… afraid. He swallows.

“Not much. I’m just kinda lost, I think.”

“Uncle Felix?” Molly says. “Were you drinking?” His fingers are still at the wheel. The radio fills the silence. “Our teacher says drinking is not good—”

“No, no, no— I’m just— I’m just— I’m just feeling dizzy. It’s not that big of a deal, alright?” Molly shifts nervously in the rearview.

“Alright,” says Edd.

“I wanna go home.”

Felix repeats the day— again and again.

And, he can never forget what he did the first time.

Little Molly and little Edd… left to rot in shallow graves.

He can never forgive himself. No matter how many times he tries to fix it.

(CW/TW in the tags!)

This fic is amazing. One of my all-time favorites for the fandom. It’s a time-loop fic of Felix going through the day he crashed the car, and him desperately trying to save the kids. Fucking adored the repetition in this! Can’t hear “It’s ringing, ringing… and ringing” without having flashbacks. 

Revenant by Bee_4

Dream SMP

Jack Manifold will keep the fire burning in his chest, or he will die.

This proves to be a problem when Tommy has been the thing keeping him burning for so long, but there is a solution to that, isn't there? Why not just... go back to hell, and pull Tommy out himself? What, like it could be that hard? (And hell, as always, reaches terrible hands back out for Jack.)

Honestly, I adore the descriptions in this fic. The way Jack throws himself into his goal of getting Tommy back is honestly terrifying to watch. Loved this fic!!

These steep woods and lofty cliffs by Rimeme

Harry Potter

He lets himself think about it—what a life without magic, without Voldemort, without this constant looming expectation to perform at the whims of the wizarding world might be like—and he feels little more than relief and an itch to get going already.

---

Overcome by grief and guilt after Sirius’s death, Harry leaves the wizarding world behind for a new life across the pond. As an unassuming Muggle, his life is ordinary and unglamorous, but fate eventually has its way of drawing him back to where he’s meant to be.

AU after Order of the Phoenix

A really enjoyable Harry Potter AU. I really love how they completely shifted the script, but manage to explain Harry’s life leaving without boring the reader. Honestly, I’m loving everything with voldemort and Harry in this fic!

running through the darkness with his own becoming light by imadetheline

Star Wars

His troops have already been through here, clearing out any remaining rebels and important information that may have been left behind. The transports are already taking off outside. Vader can hear them, feel the rumble beneath his feet, as well as sense the life forms moving towards the Executor waiting in orbit.

He is the only one here, standing like a spectre of death in the rubble and ruins that have been his companions for years. Only now are they beginning to wear on him and join the swirling emptiness his chest cannot contain.

Or: Luke leaves pieces of himself in every evacuated base and Vader is left trying to piece together the clues of his son's life without him.

Love the character study of luke through Vader’s POV. It’s the little details that Luke himself would never notice. I really loved this fic, the descriptions of everything luke leaves behind really manages to create a story of Luke’s life without ever truly having him in the story.

Keep quite still and wait by dimtraces

Star Wars

Decades after his brother’s death, there is little else left for Maul to seek but revenge—against Sidious, Kenobi, the galaxy—and the power to exact it with. He’s found a rumor of one such weapon. He should have expected a trap.

God. This fic. I’ve thought about it for MONTHS. It’s so good, it has Maul’s angst about his brother. Someone trying to help maul, only to fail. It has a monster taking on Savage’s face to manipulate Maul!!

That was just a hint of some of my bookmarks. Hope you enjoyed!

#skitty fic recs #sanders sides #logan sanders #logic sanders #sanders sides fic rec #virgil sanders #orange side #the walten files #felix kranken #jelix #jack walten #the walten files fic recs #mcyt #dream smp #dream smp fic rec #jack manifold #harry potter #harry potter fic rec #voldemort #tomarry #star wars #luke skywalker #darth vader #star wars fic rec #darth maul #Savage Oppress #Savage Opress #love these fics with all my soul

[armageddon-generation]

Articulating Why His Dark Materials is Badly Written

A long essay-thing with lots of specific examples and explanations of why I feel this way. Hopefully I’ve kept fanboy bitching to a minimum.

This isn’t an attack on fans of the show, nor a personal attack on Jack Thorne. I’m not looking to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the show, I just needed to properly articulate, with examples, why I struggle with it. I read and love the books and that colours my view, but I believe that HDM isn’t just a clumsy, at-best-functional, sometimes incompetent adaptation, it’s a bad TV show separate from its source material. The show is the blandest, least interesting and least engaging version of itself it could be.

His Dark Materials has gorgeous production design and phenomenal visual effects. It's well-acted. The score is great. But my god is it badly written. Jack Thorne writing the entire first season damned the show. There was no-one to balance out his flaws and biases. Thorne is checking off a list of plot-points, so concerned with manoeuvring the audience through the story he forgets to invest us in it. The scripts are mechanical, empty, flat.

Watching HDM feels like an impassioned fan earnestly lecturing you on why the books are so good- (Look! It's got other worlds and religious allegory and this character Lyra is really, really important I swear. Isn't Mrs Coulter crazy? The Gyptians are my favourites.) rather than someone telling the story naturally.

My problems fall into 5 main categories:

Exposition- An unwillingness to meaningfully expand the source material for a visual medium means Thorne tells and doesn't show crucial plot-points. He then repeats the same thing multiple times because he doesn't trust his audience

Pacing- By stretching out the books and not trusting his audience Thorne dedicates entire scenes to one piece of information and repeats himself constantly (see: the Witches' repetition of the prophecy in S2).

Narrative priorities- Thorne prioritises human drama over fantasy. This makes sense budgetarily, but leads to barely-present Daemons, the Gyptians taking up too much screentime, rushed/badly written Witches (superpowers, exposition) and Bears (armourless bear fight), and a Lyra more focused on familial angst than the joy of discovery

Tension and Mystery- because HDM is in such a hurry to set up its endgame it gives you the answers to S1's biggest mysteries immediately- other worlds, Lyra's parents, what happens to the kids etc. This makes the show less engaging and feel like it's playing catch-up to the audience, not the other way around.

Tonal Inconsistency- HDM tries to be a slow-paced, grounded, adult drama, but its blunt, simplistic dialogue and storytelling methods treat the audience like children that need to be lectured.

MYSTERY, SUSPENSE AND INTRIGUE

The show undercuts all the books’ biggest mysteries. Mrs Coulter is set up as a villain before we meet her, other worlds are revealed in 1x2, Lyra's parents by 1x3, what the Magesterium do to kids is spelled out long before Lyra finds Billy (1x2). I understand not wanting to lose new viewers, but neutering every mystery kills momentum and makes the show much less engaging.

This extends to worldbuilding. The text before 1x1 explains both Daemons and Lyra's destiny before we meet her. Instead of encouraging us to engage with the world and ask questions, we're given all the answers up front and told to sit back and let ourselves be spoon-fed. The viewer is never an active participant, never encouraged to theorise or wonder

 Intrigue motivated you to engage with Pullman's philosophical themes and concepts. Without it, HDM feels like a lecture, a theme park ride and not a journey.

The only one of S1's mysteries left undiminished is 'what is Dust?', which won't be properly answered until S3, and that answer is super conceptual and therefore hard to make dramatically satisfying

TONAL INCONSISTENCY

HDM billed itself as a HBO-level drama, and was advertised as a GoT inheritor. It takes itself very seriously- the few attempts at humour are stilted and out of place

The production design is deliberately subdued, most notably choosing a mid-twentieth century aesthetic for Lyra’s world over the late-Victorian of the books or steampunk of the movie. The colour grading would be appropriate for a serious adult drama. 

Reviewers have said this stops the show feeling as fantastical as it should. It also makes Lyra’s world less distinct from our own. 

Most importantly, minimising the wondrous fantasy of S1 neuters its contrast with the escalating thematic darkness of the finale (from 1x5 onwards), and the impact of Roger’s death. Pullman's books are an adult story told through the eyes of a child. Lyra’s innocence and naivety in the first book is the most important journey of the trilogy. Instead, the show starts serious and thematically heavy (we’re told Lyra has world-saving importance before we even meet her) and stays that way.

Contrasting the serious tone, grounded design and poe-faced characters, the dialogue is written to cater to children. It’s horrendously blunt and pulls you out of scenes. Subtext is obliterated at every opportunity. Even in the most recent episode, 2x7, Pan asks Lyra ‘do you think you’re changing because of Will?’

I cannot understate how on the nose this line is, and how much it undercuts the themes of the final book. Instead of even a meaningful shot of Lyra looking at Will, the show treats the audience like complete idiots. 

So, HDM looks and advertises itself like an adult drama and is desperate to be taken seriously by wearing its big themes on its sleeve from the start instead of letting them evolve naturally out of subtext like the books, and dedicating lots of scenes to Mrs Coulter's self-abuse 

At the same time its dialogue and character writing is comparable to the Star Wars prequels, more childish than media aimed at a similar audience - Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Avatar the Last Airbender etc

DAEMONS

The show gives itself a safety net by explaining Daemons in an opening text-crawl, and so spends less time showing the mechanics of the Daemon-human bond. On the HDM subreddit, I’ve seen multiple people get to 1x5 or 6, and then come to reddit asking basic questions like ‘why do only some people have Daemons?’ or ‘Why are Daemons so important?’.

It’s not that the show didn’t answer these questions; it was in the opening text-crawl. It’s just the show thinks telling you is enough and never shows evidence to back that up. Watching a TV show you remember what you’re shown much easier than what you’re told 

The emotional core of Northern Lights is the relationship between Lyra and Pan. The emotional core of HDM S1 is the relationship between Lyra and Mrs Coulter. This wouldn't be bad- it's a fascinating dynamic Ruth plays wonderfully- if it didn't override the Daemons

Daemons are only onscreen when they serve a narrative purpose. Thorne justifies this because the books only describe Daemons when they tell us about their human. On the page your brain fills the Daemons in. This doesn't work on-screen; you cannot suspend your disbelief when their absence is staring you in the face

Thorne clarified the number of Daemons as not just budgetary, but a conscious creative choice to avoid onscreen clutter. This improved in S2 after vocal criticism.

Mrs Coulter/the Golden Monkey and Lee/Hester have well-drawn relationships in S1, but Pan and Lyra hug more in the 2-hour Golden Compass movie than they do in the 8-hour S1 of HDM. There's barely any physical contact with Daemons at all.

They even cut Pan and Lyra's hug after escaping the Cut in Bolvangar. In the book they can't let go of each other. The show skips it completely because Thorne wants to focus on Mrs Coulter and Lyra.

They cut Pan and Lyra testing how far apart they can be. They cut Lyra freeing the Cut Daemons in Bolvangar with the help of Kaisa. We spent extra time with both Roger and Billy Costa, but didn't develop their bonds with their Daemons- the perfect way to make the Cut more impactful

I don't need every single book scene in the show, but notice that all these cut scenes reinforced how important Daemons are. For how plodding the show is. you'd think they could spare time for these moments instead of inventing new conversations that tell us the information they show

Daemons are treated as separate beings and thus come across more like talking pets than part of a character

The show sets the rules of Daemons up poorly. In 1x2, Lyra is terrified by the Monkey being so far from Coulter, but the viewer has nothing to compare it to. We’re retroactively told in that this is unnatural when the show has yet to establish what ‘natural’ is.

The guillotine blueprint in 1x2 (‘Is that a human and his Daemon, Pan? It looks like it.’ / ‘A blade. To cut what?’) is idiotic. It deflates S1’s main mystery and makes the characters look stupid for not figuring out what they aren’t allowed to until they did in the source material, it also interferes with how the audience sees Daemons. In the book, Cutting isn’t revealed until two-thirds of the way in (1x5). By then we’ve spent a lot of time with Daemons, they’ve become a background part of the world, their ‘rules’ have been established, and we’re endeared to them.

By showing the Guillotine and putting Daemons under threat in the second episode, the show never lets us grow attached. This, combined with their selective presence in scenes, draws attention to Daemons as a plot gimmick and not a natural extension of characters. Like Lyra, the show tells us why Daemons are important before we understand them.

Billy Costa's fate falls flat. It's missing the dried fish/ fake Daemon Tony Markos clings to in the book. Thorne said this 'didn't work' on the day, but it worked in the film. Everyone yelling about Billy not having a Daemon is laughable when most of the background extras in the same scene don't have Daemons themselves

WITCHES

The Witches are the most common complaint about the show. Thorne changed Serafina Pekkala in clever, logical ways (her short hair, wrist-knives and cloud pine in the skin)

The problem is how Serafina is written. The Witches are purely exposition machines. We get no impression of their culture, their deep connection to nature, their understanding of the world. We are told it. It is never shown, never incorporated into the dramatic action of the show.

Thorne emphasises Serafina's warrior side, most obviously changing Kaisa from a goose into a gyrfalcon (apparently a goose didn't work on-screen)

Serafina single-handedly slaughtering the Tartars is bad in a few ways. It paints her as bloodthirsty and ruthless. Overpowering the Witches weakens the logic of the world (If they can do that, why do they let the Magesterium bomb them unchallenged in 2x2?). It strips the Witches of their subtlety and ambiguity for the sake of cinematic action.

A side-effect of Serafina not being with her clan at Bolvangar is limiting our exposure to the Witches. Serafina is the only one invested in the main plot, we only hear about them from what she tells us. This poor set-up weakens the Witch subplot in S2

Lyra doesn’t speak to Serafina until 2x6. She laid eyes on her once in S1.

The dialogue in the S2’s Witch subplot is comparable to the Courasant section of The Phantom Menace. 

Two named characters, neither with any depth (Serafina and Coram's dead son developed him far more than her). The costumes look ostentatious and hokey- the opposite of what the Witches should be. They do nothing but repeat the same exposition at each other, even in 2x7.

We feel nothing when the Witches are bombed because the show never invests us in what is being destroyed- with the amount of time wasted on long establishing shots, there’s not one when Lee Scoresby is talking to the Council.

BEARS

Like the Witches; Thorne misunderstands and rushes the fantasy elements of the story. The 2007 movie executed both Iofur's character and the Bear Fight much better than the show- bloodless jaw-swipe and all

Iofur's court was not the parody of human court in the books. He didn't have his fake-Daemon (hi, Billy)

An armourless bear fight is like not including Pan in the cutting scene. After equating Iorek's armour to a Daemon (Lee does this- we don’t even learn how important it is from Iorek himself, and the comparison meant less because of how badly the show set up Daemons) the show then cuts the plotpoint that makes the armour plot-relevant. This diminishes all of Bear society. Like Daemons, we're told Iorek's armour is important but it's never shown to be more than a cool accessory

GYPTIANS

Gyptians suffer from Hermoine syndrome. Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves' favourite character was Hermione, and so Film!Hermoine lost most of Book!Hermoine's flaws and gained several of Book!Ron's best moments. The Gyptians are Jack Thorne's favourite group in HDM and so they got the extra screentime and development that the more complicated groups/concepts like Witches, Bears, and Daemons (which, unlike the Gyptians, carry over to other seasons amd are more important to the overall story) needed

At the same time, he changes them from a private people into an Isle of Misfit Toys. TV!Ma Costa promises they'll ‘make a Gyptian woman out of Lyra yet’, but in the book Ma specifically calls Lyra out for pretending to be Gyptian, and reminds her she never can be.

This small moment indicates how, while trying to make the show more grounded and 'adult', Thorne simultaneously made it more saccharine and sentimental. He neuters the tragedy of the Cut kids when Ma Costa says they’ll become Gyptians. Pullman's books feel like an adult story told through the eyes of a child. The TV show feels like a child's story masquerading as a serious drama.

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

Let me preface this by saying I genuinely really enjoy the performances in the show. It was shot in the foot by The Golden Compass' perfect casting.

The most contentious/'miscast' actor among readers is LMM. Thorne ditched the books' wise Texan for a budget Han Solo. LMM isn't a great dramatic actor (even in Hamilton he was the weak link performance-wise) but he makes up for it in marketability- lots of people tried the show because of him

Readers dislike that LMM's Lee is a thief and a scoundrel, when book-Lee is so moral he and Hester argue about stealing. Personally, I like the change in concept. Book!Lee's parental love for Lyra just appears. It's sweet, but not tied to a character arc. Done right, Lyra out-hustling Lee at his own game and giving him a noble cause to fight for (thus inspiring the moral compass of the books) is a more compelling arc.

DAFNE KEENE AND LYRA

I thought Dafne would be perfect casting. Her feral energy in Logan seemed a match made in heaven. Then Jack Thorne gave her little to do with it.

Compare how The Golden Compass introduced Lyra, playing Kids and Gobblers with a group of Gyptian kids, including Billy Costa. Lyra and Roger are chased to Jordan by the Gyptians and she makes up a lie about a curse to scare the Gyptians away.

In one scene the movie set up: 1) the Gobblers (the first we hear of them in the show is in retrospect, Roger worrying AFTER Billy is taken) 2) Lyra’s pre-existing relationship with the Gyptians (not in the show), 3) Friendship with Billy Costa (not in the book or show) 4) Lyra’s ability to befriend and lead groups of people, especially kids, and 5) Lyra’s ability to lie impressively

By comparison, it takes until midway through 1x2 for TV!Lyra to tell her first lie, and even then it’s a paper-thin attempt. 

The show made Roger Lyra’s only friend. This artificially heightens the impact of Roger's death, but strips Lyra of her leadership qualities and ability to befriend anyone. 

Harry Potter fans talk about how Book!Harry is funnier and smarter than Film!Harry. They cut his best lines ('There's no need to call me sir, Professor') and made him blander and more passive. The same happened to Lyra.

Most importantly, Lyra is not allowed to lie for fun. She can't do anything 'naughty' without being scolded. This colours the few times Lyra does lie (e.g. to Mrs Coulter in 1x2) negatively and thus makes Lyra out to be more of a brat than a hero.

This is a problem with telling Northern Lights from an outside, 'adult' perspective- to most adults Lyra is a brat. Because we’re introduced to her from inside her head, we think she's great. It's only when we meet her through Will's eyes in The Subtle Knife and she's filthy, rude and half-starved that we realise Lyra bluffs her way through life and is actually pretty non-functional

Thorne prioritises grounded human drama over fantasy, and so his Lyra has her love of bears and witches swapped for familial angst. (and, in S2. angst over Roger). By exposing Mrs Coulter as her mother early, Thorne distracts TV!Lyra from Book!Lyra’s love of the North. The contrast between wonder and reality made NL's ending a definitive threshold between innocence and knowledge. Thorne showed his hand too early.

Similarly, TV!Lyra doesn’t have anywhere near as strong an admiration for Lord Asriel. She calls him out in 1x8 (‘call yourself a Father’), which Book!Lyra never would because she’s proud to be his child. From her perspective, at this point Asriel is the good parent.

TV!Lyra’s critique of Asriel feels like Thorne using her as a mouthpiece to voice his own, adult perspective on the situation. Because Lyra is already disappointed in Asriel, his betrayal in the finale isn’t as effective. Pullman saves the ‘you’re a terrible Father’ call-out for the 3rd book for a reason; Lyra’s naive hero-worship of Asriel in Northern Lights makes the fall from Innocence into Knowledge that Roger’s death represents more effective.  

So, on TV Lyra is tamer, angstier, more introverted, less intelligent, less fun and more serious. We're just constantly told she's important, even before we meet her.

MRS COULTER (AND LORD ASRIEL)

Mrs Coulter is the main character of the show. Not Lyra. Mrs Coulter was cast first, and Lyra was cast based on a chemistry test with Ruth Wilson. Coulter’s character is given lots of extra development, where the show actively strips Lyra of her layers.

To be clear, I have no problem with developing Mrs Coulter. She is a great character Ruth Wilson plays phenomenally. I do have a problem with the show fixating on her at the expense of other characters.

Lyra's feral-ness is given to her parents. Wilson and McAvoy are more passionate than in the books. This is fun to watch, but strips them of subtlety- you never get Book!Coulter's hypnotic allure from Wilson, she's openly nasty, even to random strangers (in 2x3 her dismissal of the woman at the hotel desk felt like a Disney villain). 

Compare how The Golden Compass (2007) introduced Mrs Coulter through Lyra’s eyes, with light, twinkling music and a sparkling dress. By contrast, before the show introduces Coulter it tells us she’s associated with the evil Magisterium plotting Asriel’s death- “Not a word to any of our mutual friends. Including her.” Then she’s introduced striding down a corridor to imposing ‘Bad Guy’ strings.

Making Mrs Coulter’s villainy so obvious so early makes Lyra look dumber for falling for it. It also wastes an interesting phase of her character arc. Coulter is rushed into being a ’conflicted evil mother’ in 2 episodes, and stays in that phase for the rest of the show so far. Character progression is minimised because she circles the same place.

It makes her one-note. It's a good note (so much of the positive online chatter is saphiccs worshiping Ruth Wilson) but the show also worships her to the point of hindrance- e.g. take a shot every time Coulter walks slow-motion down a corridor in 2x2

The problem isn’t the performances, but how prematurely they give the game away. Just like the mysteries around Bolvangar and Lyra’s parentage. Neither Coulter or Asriel have much chance to use their 'public' faces. 

This is part of a bigger pacing problem- instead of rolling plot points out gradually, Thorne will stick the solution in front of you early and then stall for time until it becomes relevant. Instead of building tension this builds frustration and makes the show feel like it's catching up to the audience. This also makes the characters less engaging. You've already shown Mrs Coulter is evil/Boreal is in our world/Asriel wants Roger. Why are you taking so long getting to the point?

PACING AND EDITING

This show takes forever to make its point badly.

Scenes in HDM tend to operate on one level- either 'Character Building,' 'Exposition,' or 'Plot Progression'.

E.g. Mary's introduction in 2x2. Book!Mary only listens to Lyra because she’s sleep and caffeine-deprived and desperate because her funding is being cut. But the show stripped that subtext out and created an extra scene of a colleague talking to Mary about funding. They removed emotional subtext to focus on exposition, and so the scene felt empty and flat.

In later episodes characters Mary’s sister and colleagues do treat her like a sleep-deprived wreck. But, just like Lyra’s lying, the show doesn’t establish these characteristics in her debut episode. It waits until later to retroactively tell us they were there. Mary’s colleague saying ‘What we’re dealing with here is the fact that you haven’t slept in weeks’ is as flimsy as Pan joking not lying to Mary will be hard for Lyra.

Rarely does a scene work on multiple levels, and if it does it's clunky- see the exposition dump about Daemon Separation in the middle of 2x2's Witch Trial.

He also splits plot progression into tiny doses, which destroys pacing. It's more satisfying to focus on one subplot advancing multiple stages than all of them shuffling forward half a step each episode.

Subplots would be more effective if all the scenes played in sequence. As it is, plotlines can’t build momentum and literal minutes are wasted using the same establishing shots every time we switch location.

The best-structured episodes of S1 are 1x4, 1x6, and 1x8. This is because they have the fewest subplots (incidentally these episodes have least Boreal in them) and so the main plot isn’t diluted by constantly cutting away to Mrs Coulter sniffing Lyra’s coat or Will watching a man in a car through his window, before cutting back again. 

The best-written episode so far is 2x5. The Scholar. Tellingly, it’s the only episode Thorne doesn’t have even a co-writing credit on. 2x5 is well-paced, its dialogue is more naturalistic, it’s more focused, it even has time for moments of whimsy (Monkey with a seatbelt, Mrs Coulter with jeans, Lyra and Will whispering) that don’t detract from the story.

Structurally, 2x5  works because A) it benches Lee’s plotline. B) The Witches and Magisterium are relegated to a scene each. And C) the Coulter/Boreal and Lyra/Will subplots move towards the same goal. Not only that, but when we check in on Mary’s subplot it’s through Mrs Coulter’s eyes and directly dovetails into the  main action of the episode.

2x5 has a lovely sense of narrative cohesion because it has the confidence to sit with one set of characters for longer than two scenes at a time.

HDM also does this thing where it will have a scene with plot A where characters do or talk about something, cut away to plot B for a scene, then cut back to plot A where the characters talk about what happened in their last scene and painstakingly explain how they feel about it and why

Example: Pan talking to Will in 2x7 while Lyra pretends to be asleep. This scene is from the 3rd book, and is left to breathe for many chapters before Lyra brings it up. In the show after the Will/Pan scene they cut away to another scene, then cut back and Lyra instantly talks about it.

There’s the same problem in 2x5: After escaping Mrs Coulter, Lyra spells out how she feels about acting like her

The show never leaves room for implication, never lets us draw our own conclusions before explaining what it meant and how the characters feel about it immediately afterwards. The audience are made passive in their engagement with the characters as well as the world    

LORD BOREAL, JOHN PARRY AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

At first, Boreal’s subplot in S1 felt bold and inspired. The twist of his identity in The Subtle Knife would've been hard to pull off onscreen anyway. As a kid I struggled to get past Will's opening chapter of TSK and I have friends who were the same. Introducing Will in S1 and developing him alongside Lyra was a great idea.

I loved developing Elaine Parry and Boreal into present, active characters. But the subplot was introduced too early and moved too slowly, bogging down the season.

In 1x2 Boreal crosses. In 1x3 we learn who he's looking for. In 1x5 we meet Will. In 1x7 the burglary. 1 episode worth of plot is chopped up and fed to us piecemeal across many. Boreal literally stalls for two episodes before the burglary- there are random 30 second shots of him sitting in a car watching John Parry on YouTube (videos we’d already seen) completely isolated from any other scenes in the episode

By the time we get to S2 we've had 2 seasons of extended material building up Boreal, so when he just dies like in the books it's anticlimactic. The show frontloads his subplot with meaning without expanding on its payoff, so the whole thing fizzles out. 

Giving Boreal, the secondary villain in literally every episode, the same death as a background character in about 5 scenes in the novels feels cheap. It doesn’t help that, after 2x5 built the tension between Coulter and Boreal so well, as soon as Thorne is passed the baton in 2x6 he does little to maintain that momentum. Again, because the subplot is crosscut with everything else the characters hang in limbo until Coulter decides to kill him.

I’ve been watching non-book readers react to the show, and several were underwhelmed by Boreal’s quick, unceremonious end. 

Similarly, the show builds up John Parry from 1x3 instead of just the second book. Book!John’s death is an anticlimax but feels narratively justified. In the show, we’ve spent so much extra time talking about him and then being with him (without developing his character beyond what’s in the novels- Pullman even outlined John’s backstory in The Subtle Knife’s appendix. How hard would it be to add a flashback or two?) that when John does nothing in the show and then dies (he doesn’t even heal Will’s fingers like in the book- only tell him to find Asriel, which the angels Baruch and Balthamos do anyway) it doesn’t feel like a clever, tragic subversion of our expectations, it feels like a waste that actively cheapens the audience’s investment.

TL;DR giving supporting characters way more screentime than they need only, to give their deaths the same weight the books did after far less build up makes huge chunks of the show feel less important than they were presented to be. 

FRUSTRATINGLY LIMITED EXPANSION AND NOVELLISTIC STORYTELLING

Thorne is unwilling to meaningfully develop or expand characters and subplots to fit a visual medium. He introduces a plot-point, invents unnecessary padding around it, circles it for an hour, then moves on.

Pullman’s books are driven by internal monologue and big, complex theological concepts like Daemons and Dust. Instead of finding engaging, dynamic ways to dramatise these concepts through the actions of characters or additions to the plot, Thorne turns Pullman’s internal monologue into dialogue and has the characters explain them to the audience

The novels’ perspective on its characters is narrow, first because Northern Lights is told only from Lyra’s POV, and second because Pullman’s writing is plot-driven, not character-driven. Characters are vessels for the plot and themes he wants to explore.

This is a fine way of writing novels. When adapting the books into a longform drama, Thorne decentralised Lyra’s perspective from the start, and HDM S1 uses the same multi-perspective structure that The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass do, following not only Lyra but the Gyptians, Mrs Coulter, Boreal, Will and Elaine etc

However, these other perspectives are limited. We never get any impression of backstory or motivation beyond the present moment. Many times I’ve seen non-book readers confused or frustrated by vague or non-existent character motivations.

For example, S1 spends a lot of time focused on Ma Costa’s grief over Billy’s disappearance, but we never see why she’s sad, because we never saw her interact with Billy.

Compare this to another show about a frantic mother and older brother looking for a missing boy. Stranger Things uses only two flashbacks to show us Will Byers’ relationships with his family: 1) When Joyce Byers looks in his Fort she remembers visiting Will there. 2) The Clash playing on the radio reminds Jonathan Byers of introducing Will to the song.

In His Dark Materials we never see the Costas as a happy family- 1x1’s Gyptian ceremony focuses on Tony and Daemon-exposition. Billy never speaks to his mum or brother in the show 

Instead we have Ma Costa’s empty grief. The audience has to do the work (the bad kind) imagining what she’s lost. Instead of seeing Billy, it’s just repeated again and again that they will get the children back.

If we’re being derivative, HDM had the chance to segway into a Billy flashback when John Faa brings one of his belongings back from a Gobbler safehouse in 1x2. This is a perfect The Clash/Fort Byers-type trigger. It doesn’t have to be long- the Clash flashback lasted 1:27, the Fort Byers one 55 seconds. Just do something.

1x3 beats into us that Mrs Coulter is nuts without explaining why. Lots of build-up for a single plot-point. Then we're told Mrs Coulter's origin, not shown. This is a TV show. Swap Boreal's scenes for flashbacks of Coulter and Asriel's affair. Then, when Ma Costa tells Lyra the truth, show the fight between Edward Coulter and Asriel.

To be clear, Thorne's additions aren’t fundamentally bad. For example, Will boxing sets up his struggle with violence. But it's wasted. The burglary/murder in 1x7 fell flat because of bad editing, but the show never uses its visual medium to show Will's 'violent side'- no change in camera angle, focus, or sound design, nothing. It’s just a thing that’s there, unsupported by the visual language of the show

The Magisterium scenes in 2x2 were interesting. We just didn't need 5 of them; their point could be made far more succinctly.

In 2x6 there is a minute-long scene of Mary reading the I Ching. Later, there is another scene of Angelica watching Mary sitting somewhere different, doing the SAME THING, and she sees an Angel. Why split these up? It’s not like either the I Ching or the Angels are being introduced here. Give the scene multiple layers.

Thorne either takes good character moments from the books (Lyra/Will in 2x1) or uses heavy-handed exposition that reiterates the same point multiple times. This hobbles the Witches (their dialogue in 2x1, 2 and 3 literally rephrases the same sentiment about protecting Lyra without doing anything). Even character development- see Lee monologuing his and Mrs Coulter's childhood trauma in specific detail in 2x3

This is another example of Thorne adding something, but instead of integrating it into the dramatic action and showing us, it’s just talked about. What’s the point of adding big plot points if you don’t dramatise them in your dramatic, visual medium? In 2x8, Lee offhandedly mentions playing Alamo Gulch as a kid.

I’m literally screaming, Jack, why the flying fuck wasn’t there a flashback of young Lee and Hester playing Alamo Gulch and being stopped by his abusive dad? It’s not like you care about pacing with the amount of dead air in these episodes, even when S2’s run 10 minutes shorter than S1’s. Lee was even asleep at the beginning of 2x3, Jack! He could’ve woken from a nightmare about his childhood! It’s a little lazy, but better than nothing.

There’s a similar missed opportunity making Dr Lanselius a Witchling. If this idea had been introduced with the character in 1x4, it would’ve opened up so many storytelling possibilities. Linking to Fader Coram’s own dead witchling son. It could’ve given us that much-needed perspective on Witch culture. Imagine Lanselius’ bittersweet meeting with his ageless mother, who gave him up when he reached manhood. Then, when the Magisterium bombs the Witches in 2x2, Lanselius’ mother dies so it means something.

Instead it’s only used to facilitate an awkward exposition dump in the middle of a trial.

The point of this fanfic-y ramble is to illustrate my frustration with the additions; If Thorne had committed and meaningfully expanded and interwoven them with the source material, they could’ve strengthened its weakest aspect (the characters). But instead he stays committed to novelistic storytelling techniques of monologue and two people standing in a room talking at each other

(Seriously, count the number of scenes that are just two people standing in a room or corridor talking to each other. No interesting staging, the characters aren’t doing anything else while talking. They. Just. Stand.) 

SEASON 2 IMPROVEMENTS

S2 improved some things- Lyra's characterisation was more book-accurate, her dynamic with Will was wonderful. Citigazze looked incredible. LMM won lots of book fans over as Lee. Mary was brilliantly cast. Now there are less Daemons, they're better characterised- Pan gets way more to do now and Hester had some lovely moments. 

I genuinely believe 2x1, 2x3, 2x4 and 2x5 are the best HDM has been. 

But new problems arose. The Subtle Knife lost the central, easy to understand drive of Northern Lights (finding the missing kids) for lots of smaller quests. As a result, everyone spends the first two episodes of S2 waiting for the plot to arrive. The big inciting incident of Lyra’s plotline is the theft of the alethiometer, which doesn’t happen until 2x3. Similarly, Lee doesn’t search for John until 2x3. Mrs Coulter doesn’t go looking for Lyra until 2x3. 

On top of missing a unifying dramatic drive, the characters now being split across 3 worlds, instead of the 1+a bit of ours in S1, means the pacing/crosscutting problems (long establishing shots, repetition of information, undercutting momentum) are even worse. The narrative feels scattered and incohesive.   

These flaws are inherent to the source  material and are not the show’s fault, but neither does it do much to counterbalance or address them, and the flaws of the show combine with the difficulties of TSK as source material and make each other worse.

A lot of this has been entitled fanboy bitching, but you can't deny the show is in a bad place ratings-wise. It’s gone from the most watched new British show in 5 years to the S2 premiere having a smaller audience than the lowest-rated episode of Doctor Who Series 12. For comparison, DW's current cast and showrunner are the most unpopular since the 80s, some are actively boycotting it, it took a year-long break between series 11 and 12, had its second-worst average ratings since 2005, and costs a fifth of what HDM does to make. And it's still being watched by more people.

Critical consensus fluctuates wildly. Most laymen call the show slow and boring. The show is simultaneously too niche and self-absorbed to attract a wide audience and gets just enough wrong to aggravate lots of fans.

I’m honestly unsure if S3 will get the same budget. I want it to, if only because of my investment in the books. Considering S2 started filming immediately after S1 aired, I think they've had a lot more time to process and apply critique for S3. On the plus side, there's so much plot in The Amber Spyglass it would be hard to have the same pacing problems. But also so many new concepts that I dread the exposition dumps.

#His Dark Materials #his dark materials hbo #jack thorne #mrs coulter #ruth wilson #lyra silvertongue #philip pullman #northern lights #the subtle knife #the amber spyglass #the golden compass #hdm #hdm spoilers #bbc #lin-manuel miranda #daemon #writing #book adaptation #hbo #dafne keen #james macavoy #lord asriel #pantalaimon #lee scoresby

[peeterparkr]

perfidy;tom holland|14

chapter 14: the side-stories

enemies to lovers au/enemies with benefits

chapter summary: harry, tim, the oh shit moments and the ice cream. 

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings:  swearing, alcohol mention, smut mention, angsty (?) 

word count: 8k

here’s a playlist

and here’s another one

and here’s another one inspired by 1D

social media before you read (IMPORTANT FOR THE CHAPTER) :

before boarding: Haz wants free breakfast, Tim reaches out, and James gets protective

On flight : Tom joins a club, y/n tweets from the sky and Emma reaches out 

previous chapter next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

So, the chapter came earlier because I had time and inspo and because I really wanted to get to this chapter already. Anyway, huge thanks to @hxpeysuenxs​ for helping me out to get my ideas straight and also... PLEASE! 

Go read ‘the moment’ by @jambrosemc​ it’s a spinoff which I consider canon for Tim and y/n’s relationship. 

In movies they always manage a “meet-cute” moment, you know the guy who's walking his dog and the dog runs off to the girl of his dreams, or the clumsy— why is she always clumsy?—The clumsy girl who accidentally spills coffee on the guy and then he immediately falls in love with her. Stupid and cliché but they never fail. The repetitive script that we all know and adore. 

The guy who ends up with the girl, the girl who’s always so different from the rest. The girl who gives up her dream for a guy. You know, those incredible moments at airports when she runs to him and he declares his love, or he stops traffic or… any kind of cute crap we all know and adore. Those breathtaking moments. 

The movies, however, never show the “oh shit” moments, the moments when you realize that you’re way deep in love with them. The moment when you know that there’s no going back. The moment when you feel like you’re screwed.

Harry knew of those. Especially of the ‘oh shit’ moment, he’d had it with Y/N, when she’d turned 16. He remembered it, she had only started dating that idiot, Louis. Complete idiot, but y/n didn’t realize it until he dumped her hours before prom, but we already know that story. 

But when she turned 16, Louis had thrown her a party, under the … stars and the sea? It didn’t make any sense, not for y/n’s style. But Harry had taken her out after the party, to this café. And after hours and hours of talking and laughing. He remembered seeing y/n look outside, at the cars, and then chuckle to herself. And Harry thought she was the most beautiful girl he would ever see, with the most melodic laugh the most perfect smile. 

And that’s when Harry thought: “Oh, shit.” 

Harry also knew of the typical “meet-cute”, he’d heard of one and he’d lived one. Which wasn’t exactly how they’d met but… how one of them had realized of the existence of the other. 

Timmy and y/n had had one, long before they officially met. Harry had heard from Tim how he’d “met her” long before they’d met, the meet cute turned into the ‘oh shit’. 

Tim had already seen her, they had a class together, and the way Timmy described it, Harry knew it. Tim was perfect for y/n. 

“She’d walked in, 16 minutes late to the lecture, she didn’t even have to explain what had happened. Her head was soaking from the rain, she was carrying like twenty bags and she was holding her car keys, to the convertible, now I know exactly what happened….and she’d bit her lip and tried to quietly make her way to the back, and she failed because she dropped everything, and I remember seeing her, stare at her stuff, scoff and then she cursed under her breath, pulled out her soaking notebook and glared at me because I laughed. And I thought she hated me, but I just—I saw a main character, you know? She literally just—God, she looked so pretty. And I thought oh, shit, I don’t even know her and I’m already in love with her.” 

They were probably each other’s endgame, and Harry knew that.  How difficult it had been for him to finally accept it when they had initially started dating. 

But Harry wasn’t bitter about it, because Harry had seen y/n’s light turn off before Timmy. And slowly Timmy had brought y/n back from the death, if that made any sense at all. Y/N smiled again with Timmy, and she would laugh again and she would be herself, and that’s all Harry cared about. 

Harry knew that y/n’s sudden downfall had all to do with Tom, even though his brother never addressed that matter. Harry was completely sure that Tom and Y/N would always have unresolved issues because even if Harry didn’t like to admit it to himself, Tom and Y/N made sense, in the most stupid way they could. Even if they didn’t. Such a complicated relationship that Harry knew was only a redundant way to cover up for the fact that they probably both loved each other. Yes, Harry was not dumb and he knew Tom probably had always reciprocated y/n’s feelings. In his own particular way. 

It’s easy, when you’re in love with someone you see who else is, because you’re observant, because you know how it feels. Harry wasn’t observant but he knew his brother too well not to notice that Tom practically drooled every time y/n would walk into the room. 

No, Harry wasn’t stupid. But Harry had probably been the only one who knew. Or he thought so. 

He was very conflicted about Tom, because sometimes it genuinely seemed like y/n was his biggest enemy and that Tom was actually trying to destroy her. But there were other times when Tom wasn’t as good to hide up the fact that y/n made him blush. 

Our bodies never help us to hide up our feelings, no matter how good we think we are at hiding it and no matter how good of an actor he was. We all get weak. Specially when we are in love, it seems to be the best way to tumble down our walls. 

The eyes, Chico, they never lie.  And Tom’s eyes didn’t lie. Whether he said he hated y/n or not, Tom’s gaze was only for y/n. 

“Y/N only likes me because I’m a movie star,” Tom said once. 

But Harry didn’t stomach why Tom had never understood how y/n had loved him way long before he even considered being an actor. She’d said to Harry after Tom had gone to prom with her, how she also quite could figure it out. 

Harry remembered how Tom had broken her heart back then, he’d just been cast as Spiderman. 

“Congratulations, you now get to say Spiderman took you to prom.” 

Harry knew Tom and Y/N had kissed back then. 

“I think it’s funny how Tom always forgets I loved him before he turned into whatever he is today.” 

Tom often did forget that. Tom often forgot that y/n had loved him for a long while now. And he couldn’t really understand why his brother would continuously rip y/n’s heart apart. And why did she choose Tom over the course of the years? Harry had been right beside her, always. But he never said anything. 

Harry had almost told her how he felt before she left for Rome. He hadn’t, but he thought that she knew it. 

And it had almost happened. 

Y/N was almost finished packing, she was roaming around the room. 

“I mean it’s the whole summer,” she explained. 

“But you’re gonna wash your clothes, y/n,” Harry laughed. “Hey, what if we—take a break? You know, let’s order a pizza or something and then we will come back and finish with all this mess.” 

Y/N didn’t hesitate twice. 

Harry barely remembered how it happened, they’d ended up on the couch. Like any other night, it wasn’t special, it was just another rainy night in London. The lights went out after a lightning stroke, and y/n only jumped to his arms. 

Harry held her close, and she only hugged him back. This wasn’t weird, y/n was affectionate but of course, Harry somehow felt it was his last chance. 

He only stared deep into her eyes, and she sensed it. His eyes travelled down to her lips, and they stayed quiet, for a bit. Harry hesitated on whether he should make a move or not. He only leaned in slightly, and her gaze was scared, but she was leaning over, too. But maybe they had been tired, or maybe it had been the moment. But both of them knew it was wrong, and both of them pulled away before they could even get closer. She stood up quickly, out of his grasp. 

“Uh, I’ll… I’ll continue packing, sorry, I uh…” She didn’t say anything. “No…” 

“I’m sorry… I yeah, let’s get to packing--” 

And they had, so vigorously ignoring what just had happened. 

“Y/N about what happened-” Harry had said before he left her apartment. 

“We will talk when I come back.” 

But they hadn’t. 

Harry had noticed about three years ago just after she’d come back from Rome, how y/n’s eyes would brighten up even more each time Tom smiled, and how Tom would stop to listen whenever y/n spoke. Harry didn’t mind if they were dating. 

Not really. 

Though it was a burden to bear, the reminiscent smiles were only a hint for it. 

Of course he’d be heartbroken, we can’t control our emotions and feelings. But he’d be happy because if anything, Harry cared too much for his brother. And he genuinely loved y/n too much to impede her from being happy. 

And Harry himself had always been skeptical about his own feelings towards y/n. Had it been only a whim caused by a stupid childhood crush? No, it was love. 

It was love. There is nothing more painful than to love and know you’ll never be loved back. 

But he had accepted y/n and Tom were secretly dating back then, or whatever they were doing. Big was his surprise when they’d seen each other at the club. 

Which brings us to our meet-cute, going back to y/n and Timothee. 

Harry perfectly remembered how that night had gone, and he knew y/n, and he knew Tom. And Harry wanted an answer, if there was anything that Harry hated was the fact that Tom never admitted it. Why didn’t he? 

Or was Harry too dumb and too jealous and blaming the fact that y/n didn’t love him back that he had made himself think that Tom loved her too? 

Maybe Tom had never loved her. 

But he’d seen y/n fade away that night, he had seen how happiness had left her body. Harry could swear he had heard y/n’s heart shatter on that nightclub when Tom was kissing that pink shirt. 

And it wasn’t like this was the first time Tom broke her heart. He’d seen it again, and again, and again. And he’d seen how y/n would only take a deep breath, look away, and ignore the usual cold tear shedding. Harry would always silently offer his shoulder. 

But that night, he hadn’t. And he wondered what could’ve happened if he had. Timmy had made her smile even at that precise moment when y/n’s heart had broken into pieces. That’s how incredible Timmy was. Even in the darkest time, Timmy had made y/n smile. 

And Harry remembered wanting to fight Tom the very next day, without addressing what was really going on. He only wanted to kick his brother's ass and tell him off for breaking y/n’s heart again, but he hadn’t. Because Harry himself didn’t understand it, if they had been dating why had Tom so deliberately crushed her heart? 

That’s what Harry never understood, why would anyone do that? Make them fall in love with you only so you could hurt them? And Harry had seen Tom do it again, and again. Gaining y/n’s trust only so he could break her, betray her in any possible way. 

However, nobody had seen what had happened. Tom hadn’t gone home with that pink skirt, after y/n had left with Sam, Tom had drifted away from her, and then had left with Haz and Tuwaine. 

Tom had only pulled an act to mess with y/n. 

Harry had stayed with the other group, the one with Timmy and Emma. Emma… that was another story. 

And the very next day, Harry had seen Tom with tears in his eyes in the kitchen, looking up and asking questions to the ceiling. Swearing to himself. 

Harry didn’t talk to him initially, until he saw him coming back with yellow flowers. He seemed nervous. 

“Tom, were you and y/n on a date?” Harry had asked him. 

Tom watched him. “No.” 

“Did she know that?” Asked Harry with venom. 

“Yes.” 

“Are you fucking sure?” Harry snapped. “You are very aware that she’s got feelings for you.” 

Tom looked away. “Well she’s dumb,” Tom said. “She should clearly be in love with you instead.” 

“That’s not what we are talking about,” Harry sassed. “Did she or did she not know that it wasn’t a date?” 

“No.” 

“What was it, then?” Harry asked. “And why did you buy her flowers?” 

“How did—“

“Yellow flowers? She loves them.” 

“I will go and apologize for making her believe that I could—I dunno.” 

“Why do you insist on breaking her heart?” Harry wondered, “she’s—She’s the most amazing girl and you’re so fucking lucky that she loves you. Why would you insist on hurting her? She’s done nothing wrong to you, and her fucking biggest sin is that she loves you, and you did that? You think I didn’t see you? Strolling around giving her hope and making her fall in love with you? Go and tell her you don’t love her, because deep down she thinks you do, and she’s so stupid for believing that. But I swear Tom if you dare to keep that door open for her it’ll only get worse, let her be, and stop playing with her heart. Close that door forever.” 

And he saw him leave and then come back, with a bag full of dirt. He saw him, kicking the couch, he heard him yelling and then he saw him, downing beer after beer. 

Tom hadn’t spoken to anyone for a few days. 

And then y/n hadn’t spoken to any of them for months, she barely answered his texts. She would cancel on their lunch, and she would blame it on school. He’d seen her on campus, without her smile and the usual sunshine that followed her. He’d try to reach out to her but she would back away.

But Harry saw someone there… Tim. Little by little he saw the green eyed fella walking with y/n more and more. And little by little, y/n’s sunshine was coming back. 

He had seen her in the halls, walking with him. How Timmy would always make her smile, and blush. And Harry loved seeing that again. 

Harry knew that they were probably made for each other. Initially, when Timothee had appeared he wasn’t as fond. You can never be too fond of someone who is also in love with the girl you’re in love with. But for Harry it was different. 

For each and every rom-com he’d watched, for research purposes, he claimed, he had seen the perfect meet cute and the guy whom the girl is supposed to end with. And when Harry had once again heard y/n’s melodic laugh back, he knew Tim was her endgame. 

And he decided that it was time to move on. And he had, exactly with his “meet cute”, Emma. 

Emma had accidentally spilled her drink on Harry. And Harry would be lying if he ever said there wasn’t a strike of electricity when he’d looked into her eyes, like in movies, when the guy meets the girl. 

Emma. 

Who initially wasn’t fond of y/n, because of course, the girl didn’t even look at her best friend, and there was Timmy, all smitten with her. But Emma had become the perfect friend y/n could ask for. 

And the perfect girl Harry could never imagine. 

Emma had told him a lot about Timothee. 

“It's amazing we bumped into you guys that night, Timmy here had always had a crush on the girl with the cute jeans and dirty sneakers.” 

And he fell in love with Emma as an accident. He hadn’t planned it, and neither did Emma. Because it all started as two people hanging out because their respective best friends were in a relationship. Not because they had to, because they had wanted to. And they started to hang out, and Harry knew it, it had been one night under the stars, when Harry knew he was finally over y/n. 

And it was great. Until… y/n broke up with Timmy. Old feelings resurfaced. But when it occurred, Harry remembered how she had walked in, around New Years. 

He remembered how conflicted he’d been, trying to hold her hand, and how he had briefly opened his heart to her, but it hadn’t felt right. He knew it, he was over her. And though it hurt seeing her like this, he didn’t… feel the same. All he could think about when y/n was crying on her shoulder was Emma. And y/n had become a bittersweet song, an undermining memory. 

Emma was an accident, and she’d changed all of Harry’s plans. Initially, she had become a distraction, from whatever Harry was doing at the time, but slowly she dug her way into his heart. Emma was someone Harry would’ve never thought he’d fall in love with, but she was someone who now he never wanted to lose. That’s why he had proposed. 

But he had been… conflicted. When Emma told him she’d ask y/n to be her maid of honor...it felt weird. 

Why did he feel weird? It was normal, right?

Maybe it was weird because he had a feeling that Y/N probably was again falling into Tom’s spell. 

Of course, he had asked Haz and Sam. And they’d denied it. He had asked James, though. He hadn’t denied it, he didn’t confirm it..

“I don’t know.”

Simple answer. 

And Harry didn’t, either. 

Because maybe it hurt him. But it didn’t hurt him in the way one would think, it would hurt. It hurt in the way that he knew where Tom would go. Again breaking her heart. 

So he wondered why y/n was so stupid. How was she going there again? And was she? 

Did he have to reach out for her? And why did she keep ignoring him? 

He knew he couldn’t be for her this time. Or did he have to? 

Why did she keep ignoring him? Why did it bother him so much? 

Harry knew. Because y/n was his own first love. And it hurt to think of it that way, but he looked back at it. Like an old memory. An old song. 

And he found it funny, how y/n was someone who planned ahead and stuck to real thoughts, and yet she was always finding herself at the crazy curveballs. Which made her stay out of her lane. Out of Harry’s path. 

But maybe they were meant to stay that way, with their paths never touching, and their words never colliding. Only for a friendship. 

Maybe Harry had to let go off the plan, because he had a new one. With Emma. 

That didn’t stop Harry from reaching out to her. 

“Hello? Harry! Hello!” Y/N answered facetime. She was in the lobby, and she seemed tired, but her smile brightened up as soon as she saw her best friend. 

 “Hey!  How is it going?” Harry grinned as soon as he had seen her. 

“Good, good, uh, Tom and I just checked in on the hotel,” she explained, her voice was muffled then. “Wanna say hi to your brother?” She moved the phone and Tom gulped but waved. 

“Hey!” Was all he said. 

“Uh—y/n, I actually had to talk to you, I’ll talk to Tom later so maybe—“

Y/N stayed quiet. “I’ll—give me a sec.” She had turned off the camera. 

Harry was sweating, he didn’t understand why he’d taken up the courage to call her. It was late for him, but he couldn’t sleep unless he reached out to her. Because he knew all of this would go wrong and he couldn’t be right beside her. 

A muffled Tom could be heard, barely, but he was there. “Yeah, yeah, see you in a bit.” 

Which had Harry wondering, were they in separate rooms at the hotel? And why the fuck did it matter? 

“Harry!” A cheerful y/n said after she’d turned it back on, she still seemed to be somwehere in the lobby which only made Harry’s suspicion higher.  “Hola.” 

“Y/N,” Harry grinned. “Salut.” 

It was a very stupid tradition they had. They had taken Spanish and French lessons together, yes y/n had learned french even before Timmy and it had stuck, they would randomly say words in either language. 

“How’s New York?” Harry asked. “Finally you get to go to your dream place.” 

“Well, the airport was nice,” she laughed as she plugged in her earphones. “And so far I’m… in love with the city, Tom said he’ll give me a tour because he…” She laughed. “Knows it so well because he’s Spider-Man,” she mocked 

“Oh, don’t trust him, he’ll get you lost in five minutes,” Harry chuckled. 

“Wait, it’s like 1 am over there isn’t it?” Y/N chuckled. “Why are you awake? Long day filming?” 

“Yeah, a bit,” Harry admitted. “Gosh, it’s been crazy.” 

“I bet, but you’re having fun aren’t you?” She wondered.

“A lot,” Harry admitted. “But uh-- I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

Y/N cleared her throat. “Uhm… Is it about Emma’s… request?” 

Harry didn’t answer. Had she not accepted it yet? 

She smiled. “Because I haven’t had the time to answer her, but I’m going to say yes, don’t worry! I just wanted to sit down and write down a whole ass--” 

“No, no, it’s not about that--But great!” Harry gulped. “No, no, it’s…” 

“Yup?” 

“It’s about Tom.” 

The end of the line stayed dangerously quiet. She licked her lips and looked away. She didn’t move. 

“Y/N?” 

“Yeah, I’m here,” she sighed. “I… What about Tom?” 

Harry licked his lips. “I know you, y/n, I just… Don’t let him fool you again.” 

“He’s not fooling me, I--where are you even coming from?” She coughed, she’d turned stiff. “I.. We’ve become friends and that’s it. We’re getting along.” 

“I don’t have to be there to know you’re crushing on him again,” Harry explained. The tweets, the pictures, Tom and y/n constantly bickering on the group chat. James’ answer,  the way Harrison had denied it so intensely and...The way that Tom had been ignoring Harry. Harry knew something was going on. 

“I’m not,” she answered, but she had bit her inner cheek. 

“Look, y/n,” he clicked his tongue. “I’m only worried because I don’t know if I’ll be able to be there with you, and--Tom sooner or later will hurt you.” 

“Then you should call him up and tell him not to, don’t call me, I’m not… doing anything,” she snapped then squeezed her eyes shut. “Look, Harry, I can take care of myself, I’ve done it before and…” 

“And how did that work out for you?” Harry frowned. “I’m just saying this because I’m your best friend.” 

“But are you really saying it because of that, Harry?” 

“What?” Harry frowned. 

“No… Nothing, I’m just… I know where you’re coming from, but this time I won’t let him hurt me, and I.. I am not crushing on him.” 

“Fine, I’m just… worried, okay? And I know it’s hard already...Having Timmy there and-” 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I--Harry, I’m tired from my flight, okay? I need to go and take a shower and just…You know? I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” 

“Y/N I didn’t mean to-” 

“Love you, bye!” 

He shouldn’t have mentioned Timmy. 

And Timmy truly  didn’t know where he was standing. Timothee didn’t want to be too intrusive, but he couldn’t help it. He was jealous, that was unequivocally an understatement, Tom drove him insane. And Tim was getting prepared exactly just for that. Could anyone be prepared to see the love of their life happy with someone else?

Timmy had learned where they were staying. He had debated to himself whether or not he should bring her flowers, but over the course of the years he’d learned that y/n loved flowers, so it might give him a little… advantage. 

There was possibly no way that he’d be able to bump into them. He didn’t even know when she’d arrive, and was it creepy? He probably was being creepy. He was standing in front of a hotel with little to no information of whether y/n would be there. He held the peonies as he headed to the entrance, he had to leave this was… no. He was being crazy right? 

But he walked in, and he saw her, sitting down, bummed. Her hair resting against her hand, her hair falling down. She looked tired, but radiant at the same time, she looked like a summer song. And he wondered if this was the perfect movie moment, when the guy cheers up the girl and they fall back in love. He could easily run up to her and ask her to love him, and somehow, she’d do it. 

But he couldn’t. He just watched her from afar, and if he knew her well enough, he knew she was about to shed a tear. She took a deep breath and tapped her foot anxiously. 

What was troubling her? Maybe it had only taken a flight for Tom to break her heart. But… that wasn’t her ‘Tom screwed me over’ face. She seemed angry. 

Tim was frozen, he wanted to approach her and be there to comfort whatever Tom had pulled this time but just as Timmy had finally managed to move, he saw Tom getting out of the elevator. Strutting with arrogance. 

He stopped to watch the scene, he expected yelling. He thought y/n would turn around to Tom like she always did and yell at him. And Tim wanted to see the bickering, the usual fighting. But there… wasn’t any. Instead, Tom had come to wrap his arms around her from behind and placed a sweet kiss to her cheek. A smile came back to her face as she turned to face him, and they didn’t kiss this time, but the smile she dedicated him was all it took to break Tim. The glance y/n directed at Tom was the gaze Tim had fought so hard to get. 

And it only took Tom a stupid kiss on her cheek. 

Tim felt it again, the knife all across his chest as he watched them leave for the elevator, her hand clinging to his arm as he would lean over and whisper to her. And time stopped. And Timmy wished he hadn’t walked in to see that, he wished he hadn’t had the incredible idea to give her flowers. He wouldn’t have seen that, he shouldn’t have bought the stupid peonies. 

Honestly, he would never get used to seeing that. He felt like someone had cut off a piece of his heart and crushed it right in front of him. Timmy never really understood why she loved Tom. However, he knew y/n didn’t know it either. She’d deny it, she’d avoid the subject. She’d never speak of Tom, unless it was to assure him she despised him. And yet, as the elevator door closed, he saw her, slowly placing a kiss on his lips. 

That image had kept Timmy awake all night long, he’d blame it on the jet lag but it was unbearable. Because he wondered where had it all gone wrong? When had he stopped reading y/n? 

But had he really? 

The next day on set it got even worse, he saw them arrive, fingers locked and that smile Tim had gotten familiar with. The usual tender chuckle. But… was she happy? 

She seemed to be, but… Maybe Timmy hadn’t completely forgotten how to read her. She seemed confused, was she? 

Tim had brought the flowers again, though he probably shouldn’t have. He should’ve thrown away the peonies. But he couldn’t, y/n loved peonies.

Of course, he couldn’t… give them to her, so he just arranged someone to leave one at Tom’s trailer. Even when he knew that y/n could think they could come from Tom. 

But maybe y/n hadn’t forgotten that Tim’s signature flowers were peonies. Hopefully she really hadn’t. But Tom did take the credit for, he’d seen y/n kiss Tom’s cheek. 

And it hurt Timmy, but then she saw him… when she saw him, it felt like she knew. She just gave him a sad smile. 

Filming for the next few days had been…painful. Y/N and him hadn’t talked, not really. Tom didn’t let her be around, not that he had forbidden it but anytime Tim would get close, Tom would rush in, and pull her close to him. 

However, Timmy hadn’t stopped with the flowers, not big arrangement every day, a single peony every now and then, and he’d seen y/n with one, outside the trailer, confused...but she was too busy with Tom. And Tim had gotten to the idea, even if they hadn’t really talked about it. It was obvious. But Timmy faked blindness, even when it was too much to handle.  

Like that day when Tom and Mad had slipped while dancing, and y/n let out a loud laugh as she rushed to see him...to see Tom. 

“Did you just laugh?” Tom asked, chuckling. 

“No,” but y/n couldn’t stop laughing. “Well—I—I… its cause you—“She let out a loud cackle that could even be confused with a snore.

Tim smiled to himself, he missed that laugh. The messy one, the one that told Tim she didn’t care anymore. 

“You are still laughing,” Tom now started to laugh with her, as they threw their head back. 

Timmy saw it, and he felt it. The way Tom has probably felt throughout their whole relationship. Because what hurt Timmy the most wasn’t that he couldn’t kiss her, what hurt Timmy the most was he wasn’t the reason for her smile anymore. 

“Stop laughing!” Tom said. 

And then y/n kissed Tom, repeatedly. Her hands cupping his face as she only smiled against his lips. 

Well, maybe it did bother Tim. 

Because there was just so… much kissing. It seemed like Tom never missed an opportunity to get his lips on y/n. It was so annoying, especially when Tim was around, he seemed to have a magnet to her lips, and his hands always on her waist. 

They were disgusting. Other people called them adorable, but Tim called them disgusting. 

Because it bothered him, and because he had been right. About all of this. That troubled Timmy enough, let alone the fact that they didn’t care if he was seeing, it was the fact that he had been right all along. 

Never would have Timmy thought he’d end up with a cigarette on his mouth as he listened to a pianist on a New York bar. He had a scotch in his hands, and he could only wonder where y/n was. Probably with Tom, Tom probably was taking off her clothes and kissing that sweet spot on her neck that drove her crazy. Her clothes probably were on some fancy hotel floor, and her lipstick would be tattooing Tom’s body. And she probably was smiling, and Tom would get to hear her laugh, and she’d probably be moaning Tom’s name. 

And Timmy couldn’t believe it. Where had he gone wrong? What in this world did Tom do to have y/n making a fool of herself for him? 

And Timmy cried, even though he wasn’t really a crier, he couldn’t help it. Really, he couldn’t help it. But he soon forgot it, he started drinking with some random girl he’d met at that bar, with pretty eyes and a southern accent, she told him she was there looking for her dreams. And they had gone dancing instead because the piano had bored him, for the first time he was bored of a conversation, and he told her: I just want to dance, and the blue lights had barely helped him to forget y/n, as the girl kept grinding against him, and wrapping his arms around Timmy, but he could only think of y/n and how they were always dancing. But he kept drinking and smoking, and dancing. But y/n stayed on his mind, in his imagination. No matter how loud the music was going, and no matter how good looking the girl was, he couldn’t see anyone but the image of y/n. Because she was everywhere, in the music he was dancing to, in the shirt he was wearing, everywhere.

And Timmy wasn’t the guy to have a one night stand, and yet... He found himself walking out of a random wannabe New Yorker small studio to go back to his hotel. He wasn’t pleased with himself. That wasn’t him. But he had felt lonely, and he wasn’t over her, so he really only wanted to get his mind off of it. It hadn’t helped. 

If anything, this was y/n’s fault, because he couldn’t help but think about it. He’d slept with a stranger, but that wasn’t what was bothering him… It was the fact he had danced with a stranger. And dancing, dancing was their thing. 

Timothée was crying on the subway. 

“I fucked up,” he texted Emma. “I miss her so much and I can’t stand this.” 

Emma had called him immediately. 

“Talk to me, Tim.” 

“Did I wake you up?” 

“No, I was… already awake, tell me,” Emma said. 

“It’s just hard, Em,” he explained. “I don’t even know what to tell you, now, I feel like I’ve lost her and now, I just I know I fucked up by proposing but I--” 

“Timmy, don’t say that.” 

“But that was it, she faded away when I proposed, and that’s on me,” Tim sighed. “I should’ve known she wasn’t ready and that we--fuck, I don’t even know, I just want to win her back and be how we used to be, I miss her and her smile and her laugh and-” 

“Aren’t you guys talking? I thought you told me you were on talking terms,” Emma answered. 

“Not here, not in New York, and fuck, it makes it harder, New York makes it harder,” he explained. “Just before the proposal, we were planning on coming, you know? We had our whole trip planned, and in my head, I would have been walking down this city already engaged, and here I am, walking down to my fucking hotel after hooking up with some-”

“You hooked up with someone?” Emma questioned. “You?” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh, then it must be bad.” 

“I… just, I can’t stand seeing her with Tom,” Tim said. “I just… out of everyone.” 

“Hold on-Tom?” Emma asked. 

Tim bit his lip, did they not know about this? 

“Yes, Tom… I thought you would know,” Timmy frowned. “Didn’t Harry tell you?” 

“I don’t think Harry knows this,” Emma explained. “Which… is technically better for me, I guess.” 

Timmy didn’t answer. 

“I asked her… to be my maid of honour,” Emma explained. “Which I know, I’m sorry I would’ve asked you but…” 

Timothée kept quiet. 

“We both know she’s got history with the Hollands,” Emma sighed with sadness. “And although these are bad news for you, it…” 

“I know.” 

“Is it wrong?” Emma asked. “I know you love her Tim but… Is it wrong I still fear how she’ll act around Harry?” 

“It’s not her who you’re worried about,” Tim sounded convinced.

“You’re right, but… You know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” she explained. “And though she is not my enemy per se, I just can’t help but be anxious around her, after all she was Harry’s first love, and you’ve heard her say it.” 

“True love might only be the first one,” Tim answered. “I know, but… I really think you shouldn’t worry.” 

“And I really think you shouldn’t worry about Tom,” Emma insisted. “After all, he’s her enemy, and she might just be doing the same thing I’m doing, keeping her enemies close, and we both know Tom will eventually fuck up.” 

“You’re right.” 

Tim had texted y/n afterwards begging to go out for dinner, and y/n had eventually agreed, but it wasn’t really dinner she’d agreed on. Still, Tim was thinking about it. How  he’d been right all along. 

Tom did have feelings for y/n, and even if y/n had never admitted it. She had feelings for Tom. 

And Timmy knew this, but it’s easier said than done. He couldn’t stomach and map out any emotions, how could he? He had been right, this whole time. But he also knew y/n, and he knew that y/n was someone who always had her mind busy. Thoughts, creativity, lists… many lists. And guilt, y/n would often have to settle down her mind at night if something was bothering her. Even with simple stuff, like if she hadn’t tried an ice cream flavor even when Tim would assure her she wouldn’t  like it , she’d have to go the next day to try it. Or whenever a new movie came out and y/n would read the reviews and know she’d hate it, but went and watched it anyway just to be disappointed by it. 

So maybe that was what was going on. Tom was the coconut-pistachio cheesecake ice cream y/n so wanted to try, but wouldn’t like in the end. Y/N was dating the terrible reviewed movie right now. 

However, the ice cream bumped into Tim, anyway the same day he’d go out for dinner with y/n, holding a peony that Tim had given her that day.

“What are you doing?” Tom frowned. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tim said, looking down at the schedule he had to follow, he spoke then through the radio and walked past Tom. 

“You really think I don’t know these are yours?” Tom frowned. 

“Well, I’m helping you out, man, take the credit, for all I know you already are taking it,” Timmy rolled his eyes. 

“Why are you doing this?” 

Tim watched him. “I just gave her flowers man.” And really that’s all he’d done. He hadn’t even tried to talk to y/n. He didn’t want to intrude. One flower a day didn’t hurt anyone. 

“No, no, no, why are you trying to-” 

“I’m not trying anything,” Timmy answered calmly. 

Tom clenched his jaw. “You lost your chance.” 

“It’s funny you out of everyone say that,” Tim snaked. “Seems like chances are given for free.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Why are you angry?” Timmy shrugged. “She is your girlfriend, you don’t have to worry about me--” 

Tom didn’t answer. 

“Ah, she’s not your girlfriend, yet.” 

“Well but she might be.” 

“Then why are you worrying?” Tim cackled dryly. “If she is in love with you then she won’t even look at my flowers. And as I said, take the credit man.” 

“Exes don’t give out flowers,” Tom frowned.  

“Well, I do, I love giving her flowers, and at least I know for a fact she doesn’t cry whenever I give her flowers,” Tim shrugged. “Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

“You don’t have the right to mention that,” Tom frowned. 

“Seems like I already did,” Timmy rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you, you go be happy with her.” 

Tom watched him. “You don’t even know what we’ve gone through, and we are very happy.” 

Timmy stared at Tom. He truly didn’t understand why Tom was being so bitchy about this, yes, probably it wasn’t fair play giving her flowers. But honestly, Tom had been worse while y/n and Tim were dating, always big gestures, that of course would be erased by any kind of mean words Tom directed as y/n. Always hurting y/n. Yes, Tom had never been a fan of Tom, because he always managed to turn y/n’s light off, only with a glance and y/n would be on the verge of tears. Tom was a monster to y/n. Why the hell was y/n now sprinting with him? Why the hell did y/n kiss Tom the way she was kissing him? 

“I don’t have to know much to understand you’ve broken her so many times,” Tim argued back. 

“I’ve changed.”

“Have you really, Tom? And does she know that?” Tim had started to walk away.

Tom stayed quiet for a bit, “She does.” 

Tim turned around. “I think you’re scared because even if you know her from your whole life, you don’t actually know her.” 

Tom frowned. “I know her perfectly.” 

“But for your own conveniences, you know how to make her cry, you know how to break her, but that’s it,” Tim raised his arms, shrugging. 

Tom clenched his jaw. “You’re just angry that she’s screaming my name now,” Tom snapped. 

Timothée had to look away. “That’s the issue with you, Tom. You don’t know the magic of y/n,” he told him, shaking his head as he stared down at the floor. “Maybe you managed to get her in bed, but you won’t get to have her completely and you know that, because it’s the little moments that count for y/n, and you don’t get that, you always have to put up a show for her.” 

Tom rolled his eyes. “You dated her for only two years, what makes you think you know her more than I do? I’ve known her my whole life.” 

Tim chuckled. “I didn’t buy a Polaroid, for instance, I don’t have to fake around her,” Tim explained. “I made her smile with a single peony, because I know she doesn’t need whatever big flower arrangement I know you’re already planning to give her. I know her.” 

Tom scoffed. “I don’t need to give you any explanation, and I don’t even know why I’m bothering to argue with you, y/n doesn’t even love you, if she did she would’ve accepted your proposal,” Tom snapped with venom. “Now please stop sending her flowers, and don’t dare to bring her flowers tonight.” 

With that, the bad-reviewed movie had walked away. Tim looked away, he was hurt. But not because he’d said that. But because y/n had told him. It just… Didn’t make any sense. 

They’d meet at her hotel’s bar. A less formal thing, and Timmy understood.

He had seen her walk out of the elevator, and… Tom had, too. They seemed to be tense, but Tom kissed her cheek anyway before leaving for the entrance.

Timmy really didn’t like elevators anymore.

Y/N walked over to Tim, she didn’t seem… excited. 

“Hi,” he greeted her. He hadn't brought her flowers this time. Not because Tom had asked him to, but because he knew it wasn’t the place for it. 

“Hey,” she gulped as she watched him. “Let’s… go for a drink, shall we?” 

And it was awkward at first. They’d never been awkward but she had been this time, quiet, and she looked sad. They were sitting on the tallest stools in the bar, where y/n was swinging her legs, trying to get a hold of the film canister she’d pulled out at the beginning of their conversation. She had Toyed with it, long enough for Timmy to wonder which of the many film canisters was it. He’d given her thousands of them, with notes, with films… and one with a ring. The canister seemed more interesting than Tim himself. But she looked beautiful, and Tim only wished and longed to go back in time, and have her smile at him like she used to. 

Instead they were barely even looking at each other.

“So, have you been exploring the city?” Tim asked her. 

Y/N shrugged and smiled. “Not...really,” she admitted. “We—“she cleared her throat. “I’ve barely had the time, you know? Always filming and then I am tired but—Tomorrow I might,” she told him. “Tom has a free day so—“

“Yeah,” Tim watched her. “Anywhere special you want to go? New York has always been your dream.” 

“Dunno yet, Tom probably has something planned, something big,” she smiled to herself. “He only keeps surprising me…” 

“So uh, you and Tom huh?” Tim had asked as smoothly as he could’ve. 

“I… well,” she shifted on her sit. “I guess.” 

“It’s okay, I knew it was coming,” he smiled. “I’m happy-“

“Timmy I’m sorry I—“ she looked at him, finally looked at him. 

“No, no, I’m happy, as long as he makes you happy,” Tim lied with the most convincing smile he could pull. 

“I’m very sorry Tim,” she sighed. 

He reached over for her arm, “Y/N, no, I don’t want you to be, really,” he squeezed her arm and then pulled back his hand. 

“Are you okay?” She looked at him. 

“I feel like I am, but I mean, you can’t really—I mean, I’m as fine as I can be,” he chuckled to himself. 

“Tim,” she gave him a sad smile. 

“I’m being honest, y/n, one can only be as cheerful as they can while they see the love of their life taken away,” he had said and he’d felt his heart become smaller as he said it. 

Y/N watched him. “You really think I’m the love of your life?” 

Tim looked at her, she timidly smiled. “I know it.” 

Y/N bit her lip. “How do you know that? Who the love of your life is?” 

Timmy watched her. Somehow that question felt like an old conversation, of the ones they used to have. He didn’t know why she’d asked it. But maybe his answer would get her back to her senses.

“Well, you feel it. You know?” Tim chuckled. “It’s that breathtaking moment y/n,” he explained as he looked at her. “I guess it’s the person that makes you feel like you’re watching your favorite movie, the one you know you’d never get tired of,”he looked at her lips and then at her sight, she seemed conflicted but she was listening. “The person you feel calm with, the one you only need a smile from and everything turns better,” he grinned. “It’s walking under the rain and feeling warm. It’s… you.” 

She looked at him, and then stared at the film canister again. 

“What’ve you got there?” He looked at it. 

“Ah, nothing,” she gulped. “It’s—Nothing,” she smiled at him. “But uhm, have you had time to explore New York?” 

“A little bit, yeah,” he chuckled. More than he wanted to, if he was honest. “I actually got lost in the subway, you know how distracted I am—“

“You’re kidding,” she smiled again. 

“No, no, but—“And he started telling her stories, like he used to do. And she listened, and she laughed and she smiled. 

And eventually, she put the film canister back in her purse, making Tim wonder what the hell was in it. But it didn’t matter, because she was finally smiling again, and with every single story and with every single sentence, he felt like he was falling back in love all over again. And hours went by, and they didn’t even notice how time had passed. And it felt like old times. Older...times. 

But eventually she kissed his cheek goodbye, because she of course had to go back to Tom. Who had walked back into the hotel. But maybe had imagined it, the whole conversation maybe hadn’t gone as espectacular. And this wasn’t a movie, the girl and the guy probably wouldn’t fall back in love just after a conversation at the bar, and maybe it wasn’t breathtaking.  And he saw her walking back up to Tom, and kissed his lips. Not his cheek, his lips. 

But Tim did have an oh shit moment, it was different from that moment when y/n had walked into the lecture, 16 minutes late. It was the oh shit moment when Tim realized it, the repetitive script we’ve all learned and adored from movies wouldn’t replicate in Tim’s life. Not for now, at least. Because y/n, for once, had liked the ice cream.

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[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights from David Gaider - PART 3

This information came from DG on a recent SummerfallStudios Twitch stream where he gave developer commentary while Liam Esler continued playing DAO from where they had left off in Part 1 and Part 2. I transcribed it in case there’s anyone who can’t watch the stream (for example due to connection/tech limitations, data, time constraints, personal accessibility reasons, etc). A lot of it is centered on DAO, but there’s also insights into other parts of the franchise. Some of it is info which is known having been put out there in the past, and some of it is new. There’s a bit of overlap or repetition with topics covered in Parts 1 and 2. This post leaps from topic to topic as it’s a transcript of a conversational format. It’s under a cut due to length.

The stream can currently be watched back here. Next week LE will be streaming a different DAO playthrough with commentary from another guest. Two weeks from now LE and DG will return to continue this playthrough for another stream session like this one.

(Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)

[wording and opinions DG’s, occasionally LE’s; paraphrased]

The Battle of Ostagar cutscene is one of the first big cutscenes that got made during production. When it was shown to the team for the first time, it was one of those moments where DG felt like “Awesome, this is a game!” Context: During the development of a game it feels more like doing a series of disconnected tasks and assets rather than working on a game, so seeing stuff come together at times like this is rad. The first time it was shown, it had temporary placeholder voiceacting.

Pathfinding is always a nightmare to do, especially in games which involve a party of NPCs. As soon as other characters are involved alongside the PC, it’s exponentially more difficult and takes up a lot more resources. The PC is the most complex thing going on visually on-screen, with so many moving pieces, and in party-based games you have four [etc] of them. So, some critique that’s made of the DA games in regards to this subject which compares it to games like The Witcher doesn’t really make sense, as The Witcher has a solo PC.

‘Weird mage hats’ didn’t really become a trademark ‘DA thing’ akin to their place of random pieces of cheese around the world until later games. For DAO, someone probably asked the artists to create “mage helmets”. Mage hats actually looked better in the concept art than they did in-game. What happened was that they were already modelled and then they didn’t have time to re-do them.

DAO was made for PC first. The plan from the get-go though was that it would be an all-platform release (PC/360/PS3). Games like these are always made for the “lowest common denominator” from among the various platforms that they’re being planned to release for. Games have to be made for the most stringent/basic of the platforms because this makes for less conversion rate. At the time of DAO’s development, the PS3 was getting weak graphically and getting old, and this was quite a limitation: “Why do we have to limit [crowds?] because of this one platform?” “Well, we just gotta”. The original models were a bit too detailed. Later on, the artists started making models that had lower polycounts that they could put in a bit more of. DA was never really focused on making environments realistic in an ambient manner (making environments less “gamey” and more lived in, like having crowded places). They could have put more emphasis there but this would have led to a resources issue. Ambience basically wasn’t a high priority. As a writer DG isn’t keen on this decision and naturally he wanted the world to look more realistic, but he noted that it’s easy for him to say this when this would be work that he didn’t have to do personally.

During DAO development, they might have just had a dev sphere originally that was called “tech design”. DG thinks this was later broken up into systems design, combat design and maybe level design. Level designers are the people that are the implementers of the plot. Narrative design is a branch of the level design spoke. System designers respond to requests from lead designers. Narrative designers and writers don’t interact with system designers much unless they have to. As an example of interaction here, system designers might come to writers and say, “Alright, so we’re doing combat, what are the sorts of things a mage can do in this world?” The writers would be like “Ok, these are the sorts of spells we imagined.” The system designers might then come back with “Ok, that fulfills 2 of the 10 things we need mages to be able to do in combat. Is it possible that mages could do [this]?” Sometimes it is, and other times it would be like “No, that’s really outside of the lore”. Still, sometimes said original-lore-breaking things would be added to the game a week later due to necessity and DG would be like “Oh ok”. This kind of stuff is an insight into how some aspects of the lore came to be or changed over time during development.

The system designers on DAO got a better idea of what could be done and what could not be done according to the lore as things went on. At first, DG had to keep telling them things like “It’s not that big a deal, but in the lore mages can’t teleport. Instant teleportation isn’t possible in the world”. The system designers needed a spell where someone could get from spot A to spot B really fast on the battlefield. DG said that that’s fine in itself, “have them turn into a cloud of bees or have a light that moves between the two places. We can use magic as a transition or as a speed thing, but what is against the lore is instant teleportation, to traverse distance like that”. At first the system designers weren’t on board with it, but they got on board with it later. 

This sort of thing doesn’t just depend on the system designers. It also depends on what the tech artists are willing to do. Sometimes a certain request made of them was too hard and they said they weren’t able to do it. Other times it was a matter of DG not communicating the request properly, or the tech artists had already done the work and so throwing out all their work to re-do it just because he didn’t communicate clearly wouldn’t have been cool. So sometimes the originally planned lore got contravened, and sometimes things other parts of the team implemented in the game became the new lore.

LE made an insightful observation at this point: You can’t think of game development as a cohesive series of decisions that everyone on the team is involved in. This simple isn’t how it works at all, especially on large complex projects. There are processes at some studios for decision-making, but most of the time, a bunch of decisions get made by system designers. Others get made by level designers, still others by narrative designers. Situations then arise where someone notices a certain decision and that that decision and another one contradict each other. This is where conflict arises and a solution has to be negotiated. This is why often in games we get elements in the end product that are dissonant, because it was discovered too late or by the time it was realized, it was too difficult to change. It’s actually a miracle that on a game of DAO’s depth and scope that all these things largely hold together. [My note: With this insight and the context below on documentation, it makes sense how BW sometimes appear to ‘forget aspects of their own lore’ or end up contradicting parts of the lore in different parts of the franchise]

Sometimes such things would be noticed in time and DG would go and say, “Can we not do that or do something else instead?” and the relevant parties would be totally accommodating and do it (depending on how much time they had or how much time it would take to remedy). Sometimes this worked out and sometimes it didn’t. For the most part, everyone wants to work together. DG couldn’t be involved in every aspect of systems design “like some kind of All-Watchful eye of lore”, so he had to rely on the people who were there knowing enough from the documentation. Not everybody reads every document however. There was so much documentation even back during DAO. DG can only imagine the sheer amount of world/lore documentation that now exists now in the run-up to DA4; he said he thinks that nobody at this point on the current team has read it all, as editor/lore-wrangler Ben Gelinas isn’t with BW anymore. Lots of legacy documentation accumulated very quickly. Sometimes, the old document would still be there. Over time it became harder for people to discern which was the most recent version of a particular document. Sometimes people didn’t update the relevant documentation after changing things. Lore documentation was particularly bad for this issue. BG wrangled all the documentation and created an internal reference wiki (essentially acting as a lorekeeper). He was constantly coming in and picking DG’s brain to clarify conflicting aspects or obtain the correct, in-date information etc (“Good on him”).

DAO was the first time DG was involved in voice-recording. Prior to that he was only on the receiving end, in that the recordings would come in and he’d review them as they did so. DAO is when BW set up their own VO department and where Caroline Livingstone came on. CL wanted DG and Mike Laidlaw to be more involved in the casting process. As a result, the writers then were to write casting scripts: like, ‘For Morrigan, can you write a 1 page script that goes through 3 big emotions? [like regular talking for a bit, then here’s a bit of heightened emotion such as anger, then here’s a part where they’re being funny if they were a comedic character] These scripts had to be kept short so that the recording that was made from it wouldn’t be more than 30-40 seconds in length.

For the initial VA sessions, DG and CL flew down to Technicolor studioin LA and they had all the major castmembers there (later on, recording sessions were done a lot more remotely; this became easier as BW’s setup got more sophisticated). The idea was that they would both be present live in-person for the first 2 or 3 sessions to help each VA find their ‘voice’, and for DG at the first session to sit down with each VA and walk them through who their character was, what DA was about, and help them figure out how their character should talk. Claudia Black was the first of these sessions and he was “a wreck” going into that one. It got easier after that however. CL gave directions into the soundproof booth and DG was present to give notes on things like pronunciation or the intentions behind some lines. He says he learned everything he now knows about VO direction from CL. The things and tricks CL can do to get a performance out of an actor are amazing. Sometimes an actor would get a bit fixated or stuck on a particular way of delivering a line. CL had atrick to help them past this; “I want you to clear your mind, and I want you to give me a version of this line that’s more yellow”. The idea is that they just had to break out of where they had been stuck in that mindset, and the thing was that it doesn’t matter what “yellow” meant, but what was important was what “yellow” meant to the actor. They could then take that new varied delivery and progress from there.

Alistair’s dialogue when the PC talks to Flemeth outside her hut was the first complex conversation DG wrote for DAO. It was the first one that had a lot of branching and fiddling to it. The hardest conversations to write are the ones with a lot of exposition, and when they do have exposition still making this interesting and natural. At this point in the game, the player has no agency, just reactivity. The devs talked a lot about this subject when they wrote the origin stories. Some of the stories allow the player to initially say no and refuse to join the Wardens, but you always end up being railroaded (the devs here ended up doing a form of the trope ‘But Thou Must!’). Do you give the player the option to say no? Is it important to allow them that option? At some point, writers have to accept that the player has some level of buy-in and is game to play. They discussed a lot where they sat on this and what is agency. “Maybe don’t worry about offering the player every possible choice, but about having reactivity.”

Loghain wasn’t okay with letting Cailan die. He didn’t sit and angst about it openly where the player could see, and once the decision had been made, it being Loghain, it was Made and Had To Be Done (he felt that it was something that had to happen). But he didn’t kill the son of the woman he’d once loved dearly as a random off-handed thing.

The Solas twist was planned from the beginning, from the DAO dev days. Such big things/broad strokes have stayed the same. However, some of the details have changed or been added along the way. They didn’t know for instance that Solas was going to be a companion; that was something they came up with when they were planning DAI. Flemeth’s true identity has never changed.

Zevran says Rinna was an elf, but WoT says she was a bastard child of a noble in line for the Antivan throne (the Antivan royal family being human). When asked if this was an oversight, DG said yes she was a bastard, but she may have been really far down the line of succession, i.e. technically in line, but would probably never have been allowed to take the throne in practise had that scenario ever actually arisen.

DA was maybe inspired a bit/some by ASOIAF. This was way before it was on TV of course. DG at the time had read the first book or so. He liked the fact that it was a fantasy setting but low-magic, and was about the people in the world and their politics rather than magic, prophecy and other high fantasy stuff.

It was only by DAI that the system designers decided that it was okay to think of banter as an “activity that players engaged in”. In previous games, the devs had inadvertently managed to ‘train’ players to immediately stop when companion banter fires so that they could hear it all (because if you do something else, it gets cut off). When the level designers put together the spaces, they accounted for what players would be doing i.e. how much time between combat. They didn’t however account for like “You’re travelling down this hall and there’s a banter for half of that space. This is an activity, so it’s okay not to put anything in there”. This is how the inadvertent training happened, when originally banters were supposed to be a thing that ran as you move around the world (as opposed to stopping and standing still). 

When asked if the Blight resulted from the creation of the Veil or pre-dates it: “I think you’ll probably have to wait on the game[s] for that answer, if it ever explains it”. He was also asked whether Arlathan is the Golden City. He won’t answer such questions naturally because they are “DeepLooooooore™~~ ♫”.

DG isn’t sure that he will play DA4 when it comes out. It’s not that PW and the team won’t do a good job, they will, it’s just that when DG plays RPGs he has an analytical mindset going on and finds it difficult to slip into the game and just enjoy. For DA4, as he was previously so involved in DA, there’ll naturally probably be an extra level of that with feeling like “What would I have done [for particular parts of the game’s design]?”. Alternatively he might instead feel like “Wow, this is awesome, here’s a game I would have made but didn’t have to do any work on!” DG stressed that it’s important to him to be fair about the work of his former colleagues - he wouldn’t want to come out and be like “I wouldn’t have made [this or that] choice”. He also noted that just because something might be a call he personally wouldn’t have implemented in the game, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad call. There are people out there where if DG intimated at all that there was an aspect of DA4 that he wasn’t keen on, he’s worried that they would pounce on it and use it as ammunition against the current team (who are his friends that he really cares about and wants to do well). He walked away from DA voluntarily and is happy his game will continue on. PW popped by in chat at this point and agreed that it’s definitely hard to play something that you used to work on.

Other assorted tidbits:

DG really opposed the part at the Battle of Ostagar where mabari are set to charge the darkspawn horde - “That’s not how you would use dogs [in war]”

There was supposed to be a cutscene where Flemeth rescues the HoF and Alistair from the top of the Tower of Ishal in her dragon-form. This was cut. DG remembered being angry about this like “nobody is gonna buy that you fall unconscious and then wake up in the hut totally rescued. [...] I guess I’m not always right”

When DG went to Beamdog there was a period where they thought about making a Baldur’s Gate 3. They put together a pitch and had a long series of discussions contemplating things like “What do we need from BG3? What do we expect it to have in order to have the BG name? What is needed and not needed to connect to from the previous games?”

DG isn’t sure who designed the DAO inventory system

PW in chat recalled a game writer from another company who was really ragging on DAI on the Christmas Day after release

Narrative designer and system designer are very different positions/roles with very different responsibilities

Simon Templeton as Loghain did all his voicework stuff in one take, which was very impressive

It would have been the marketing department that chose 30 Seconds To Mars for music. DA was really good at choosing up-and-coming acts for this that weren’t huge when they used their songs, but became huge afterwards

During work on Baldur’s Gate 2 was the most DG has ever crunched. He slept in the office a few times

“As soon as you get both Alistair and Morrigan in the party, that’s when it’s like ahh yes, this is a BioWare game”

Were Flemeth and Morrigan’s interactions with each other and the PC when Morrigan is being told to leave the Wilds and go with the Hero an act, considering that Morrigan did know about the OGB plan? No. That was The Plan, but said plan wasn’t like “Ok, she’s going to leave Right Now”

The elves and the inversion of the traditional elven trope are DG’s favorite part of the world/world-building

One of the original intentions for DAO was to make it so that the player wouldn’t need a healer in the party, or that there would be different kinds of healing, or that healing itself wouldn’t be a thing, but this just didn’t work out

The Imperial Highway used to be a really important part of the lore but it kind of got forgotten a bit

It’s kinda funny that after release some players expressed that Corinne Kempa’s accent as Leliana was “sooo fake”. It’s not fake, she’s actually a Brit that moved to France when she was young, so she has the exact type of accent that Leliana would have (Leliana was born in Orlais and is culturally Orlesian, but her mother was Fereldan and she considers herself as such)

They talked some about the need for documentation and how doing this can feel beurocratic and uncreative and how like you’re not working on a game or writing. PW in chat expressed that there was a year where they spent a lot of it working in PowerPoint and Excel, “so I feel this”

When they switched art directors to Matt Goldman, his first big complaint was about all the brown. He came to DG like “Is there a lore reason for or are you particularly in favor of the brown for story reasons?” DG was like “Uhh no” and Matt was then like “Ok good”

Console codes/commands aren’t usually stripped out of a game before release, they are usually still in the built, just disabled. The system itself is not removed but how to access said system is

BW doesn’t crunch as bad as we hear some companies do, and kind of prided itself on “not being terrible at crunch”. But BW’s “not terrible at crunch” is still crunch. We obviously don’t commend abusive family members for only abusing people on certain days of the week or whatever

Kate Mulgrew is American but she at times did the same thing a lot of the British VAs did, which was that the devs had a lot of struggle with getting them to say “darkspawn” correctly, with the emphasis in the right places. They’d say “dark SPAWN” as if it was two words with an adjective, and the stress put in the wrong place

Lack of children in DAI was a resources thing. They only had time to make a certain number of models. There was a series of meetings where they had to decide what things to cut. In the last meeting it was like ‘Here’s a bunch of things you don’t want to cut, we need to cut 4 of them’

They decided to put horned qunari back in DA2 because then they had the resources to do so. They then ended up having to explain why there were hornless qunari at the same time, and make this an in-world explanation as opposed to just ‘We didn’t have the resources, that was totally intentional’

Lots of players missed out on recruiting Leliana and/or Sten on their first playthrough and didn’t even know they existed/could be recruited. “Apparently we weren’t that great at pointing players in the right direction”

Tevinter is inspired by the Byzantine Empire (which wasn’t called that at the time incidentally, this is a name given by historians after the fact), what used to be the Roman Empire after the western part fell. This is the era Tevinter today is meant to encapsulate: decadent but clearly in decline, far away from the heyday and the heights of the former empire [source]

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

[Part 6]

[‘Insights into DA dev from the Gamers For Groceries stream’ transcript]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #morrigan #queen of my heart #alistair theirin #fav warden #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #solas

[paintedlight]

Supernatural Season 15 & Sufjan Stevens' “The Ascension”

Teaser: there’s a song on this album called "Die Happy” where the lyrics are just “I want to die happy” for 5 minutes and 45 seconds. yeah. yeah.

Disclaimer: yes it’s all a stretch and I’m overthinking it but also… am I? (yes) 

long post time! know that reading ahead may hurt you and yes it does get worse the further down the track list you get 💕 have fun kids

So just to start off, I think it’s funny that something Sufjan’s discography & Supernatural have in common is the 15+ years of the internet arguing if it’s gay or not, and the answer ending up being yes. PLUS there’s the obvious connection of American mythos + mythology + calvinist themes (I am hissing) + religious trauma prevalent in both. 

If you’re a fan of both like I am, it’s easy to connect them— notable connections being songs like “John My Beloved” and “The Owl and the Tanager” or even “John Wayne Gacy Jr.”, but I’m going to focus on Sufjan's 2020 album, “The Ascension” since even the arc itself seems so connected to season 15 of Supernatural, specifically. 

At least in my head it does <3 enjoy 

MAKE ME AN OFFER I CANNOT REFUSE

When interviewed about the meaning of this track, Sufjan explains that this song is about asking God, “what do you have to say for humanity?” That it’s about desperation, creation, and devastation. It’s about frustration with divinity. Also the vibes are 10/10. Need I say more 

RUN AWAY WITH ME

This song is beautiful, it makes me want to sit in some grass and stare at the sky. 

Some lines that make me Dean/Cas crazy are the two lines in verse 1 and verse 2 that mirror each other by being in the same place melodically:

Verse 1: they will terrorize us / with new confusion / with the fear of life that seeks to bring despair within

Verse 2: I will bring you life / a new communion / with a paradise that brings the truth to light within

Yeahhh so the words “Despair” and “The Truth” were mirrored in this song yes it was coincidental yes I’m clinging to it. It fascinates me 

But this song is about begging someone to stay with you.

sweet falling remedy / come run away with me / you’re all I ever need

VIDEO GAME

My first thought when I heard this song was about how it was such a song for enneagram 4s. If you don’t know what that means, I think Dean is a 4 and wrote a post about it here. 

AND @trapperjohnmcintyre also made the connection between these lyrics and Dean in this post, and honestly I don’t need to say much more than that??

The song is about feeling paranoid and angry that God is controlling your every move and you can’t escape it (aka hating the doctrine of predestination). Of course it’s also about not wanting to follow societal scripts. 

You just want to have an easier life instead of the weight of good and evil resting on your back!!!

I don’t want to put the devil on a pedestal / I don’t want put the saints in chains / I just want to make my life a little easier / I don’t want to play your video game

Also these painful lines, as a treat: 

I don’t want to love you if you don’t receive it / I don’t want to save the world that way

Oh, I almost forgot, also. At the end, the narrator gives up. He’s like well I guess I can’t escape. Gotta follow the procedure. Gotta be a puppet.

I don’t want it to go down that way / but in a way you gotta follow the procedure / so go ahead and play your video game

  LAMENTATIONS

I don’t have much to say about this one but this line always makes my heart ache idk:

I was only thinking of human kindness

TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

Here we gooooooo. Y’all aren’t ready.

Thesis: Tell me you love me despite the primordial darkness about to overtake me. And even if you don’t, I’m going to love you. 

15x18 Despair anyone?? 

I want to just paste the whole song but, here—

DIE HAPPY

Yep, "Die Happy" immediately follows "Tell Me You Love Me." Yes, the lyrics are just “I want to die happy” over and over for almost 6 minutes. 

First of all, the repetition mirrors the end of the song Fourth of July, from Sufjan’s previous album Carrie & Lowell, where Sufjan sings “we’re all gonna die” over and over.

Parallels, baby.

But I noticed something else about this recently though— in Die Happy, if you are listening to it in your headphones, there’s this weird sound that sounds like a wasp flying around your head (it made me uncomfortable which is why I noticed it, haha). After I felt unnerved for a moment, I had a realization— that this could be referencing one of Sufjan’s most beloved songs, “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out To Get Us!!” (yes that’s a real song title lol)

The Predatory Wasp is about how Sufjan fell in love with his best friend at the Bible Camp he went to as a teenager. The wasp is a metaphor for internalized homophobia and also his love and how he fears his love will hurt the boy he’s in love with. 

So, Die Happy references an iconic song from Illinois (2005) with these notable lines:

Tl;dr: 

I want to die happy vs. I can’t explain the state that I’m in / the state of my heart / he was my best friend

Here’s an Despair photoset with Predatory Wasp lyrics via @toneelspeelster. 

ATIVAN

So your best friend has just died happy by being in love with you. You feel like the primordial darkness is on YOU now:

I woke up in stereo—I spent the day in vertigo / I could not get the spirit off my back

You’re once again tossed in the waves of thinking that God is fucking with you. But either way you just want to be tranquilized at this point. 

Is it all for something? Is it all part of a plan / tranquilize me, sanitize me, Ativan

Is it all for nothing? Is it all part of a plan? / make my death wish, mind my business / do the best I can with what I am

Ativan asks, was the true leading woman all this time… substance abuse?? 

Ativan / my leading woman

Long story short, you’re drunk on communion wine, asking the shadows to come back.

fill me with the blood of Jesus / clean my plate 'til he receives us / separate the colors from the black / ... / tell the shadows near us to come back

 URSA MAJOR & LANDSLIDE

Not a lot to say about this (even though I love these songs) so I’m gonna skip mostly, but the narrator has decided he wants to love you, he can’t help it <3 

GILGAMESH

Oh boy. 

I mean you kinda know what’s coming because of the title. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world’s oldest piece of epic world literature, and Gilgamesh was “the first hero of human history.” 

In the world’s oldest story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are “very close friends” (their relationship is very homoerotic and this is barely disputed). Gilgamesh calls Enkidu his brother, and they are mutually selfless towards each other but when Enkidu dies, indirectly because of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh has a breakdown and mourns him like that of a spouse and then has to come to terms with his own mortality. 

The meta level of this is so obvious I’m not even going to go into it. Anyways… here are lyrics that make me want to scream! 

the repetition of “my heart”... the concept of singing a eulogy.... saying your heart is chained to Your Angel............ it hurts

DEATH STAR

Star Wars reference my beloved. Like many of these songs this has Fuck You God energy.

what you call the human race / expedite the judgement day / it’s your own damn head on that plate

vandalize what you create / ... / witness me resist your fate / it’s your own damn head on that plate

 GOODBYE TO ALL THAT

This song is a bop honestly 

When the lyrics were released a bunch of Sufjan fans contrasted Goodbye To All That’s here I am alone in my car / hopelessly infatuted / and I’m driving to wherever you are to Sufjan & Moses Sumney’s song, “Make Out in My Car”.

Yeah, I know, we’re all thinking of this:

Make Out in My Car is basically where Moses gave Sufjan a horny car guy chorus and told him to write the verses, and Sufjan proceeded to write the most liturgical shit ever (and we love him for it). ANYWAYS… Goodbye To All That also reminds me of Dean’s depression and the weirdness that started in 15x19 and goes into 15x20. For some reason he makes it seem more upbeat and happy than it is...

Despite this song being a bop, the lyrics are depressing. He’s alone in his car. He’s hopeless. He realizes it’s too late to have died a young man. 

He’s going to try to move on, even though nothing is left of him, he’s begging someone to turn around and show me his shadow.

He also references substance abuse again—

love me / and leave me / intoxicated

  SUGAR

The music video? Iconic. The mom of a family is making a pie, or she’s trying to. She ends up rubbing the filling all over her face, crushing the fruits, the oven catches on fire. 

But she does it! She makes the pie. 

Meanwhile the other family members are in their rooms, overindulging in sugar in all its forms. And then as she and her family eat around a dining table, occassionally being seemingly marrioetted by some unseen force, she looks angrily over her family, they all seem to kind of lose it, then the house starts to come apart until the chandelier falls on the dinner table. 

It’s the making pie + overindulgence in sugar + marionetted family metaphors for me ❤️ 

Ultimately, the song is about begging for affection, being desperate for domesticity, but you feel doomed, you feel like your defeat is predestined, that you can’t escape it.

You just don’t want to be heartbroken & you don’t want to be angry anymore!!!!

  THE ASCENSION

So you may be asking… does this guy get the domesticity he’s longing for?? Does he get his love back?? 

No. He dies. :/

The Ascension begins with just that. He’s dying.

THEN Sufjan decides to rhyme “confess” with “confess”, in two lines that mean almost opposite things:

When I am dead / and the light leaves my breast / nothing to be told / nothing to confess / let the record show / what I couldn’t quite confess

So does this guy have something to confess or not??? 👀

Moving on… 

He goes back to thinking about how his life was predestined all along, and now after all that, he’s dying. So he thinks about all the times he was kind of like this Mythological Icon. That he always had to be the one to show what was right, to lead by example. That that had been his entire identity. 

And he realizes he needs to answer for himself. 

Then he is frightened— realizing he was always asking what everything meant, what it all was for, but that all along he was just angry and depressed.

But even though he feels a like he should have just resigned himself to meaninglessness, that he only thought he could change the world for the better… it strengthened him to know the truth.

And even through the absolute shit of it all, and even though God & others did things from a place of so-called holiness and hopelessness...

He did everything out of love ❤️

So then he dies 🙃

AMERICA

So, as the end of The Ascension asked, what now? 

The album ends on this long track, which Sufjan describes as a protest against all that America has been and has become. 

It’s a protest against capitalism, of destroying humanity for the sake of some cold machinery. 

I have worshipped / I believed / I have broke your bread / for a splendor of machinery

And in true Sufjan fashion, he makes this song about protesting somehow both horny and religious, god bless

I have loved you / like a dream / I have kissed your lips / like a Judas in heat

I have worshipped / I have cried / I have put my hands in the wounds on your side / I have tasted of your blood / I have choked on the waters / I abated the flood / I am broken / I am beat / but I will find my way / like a Judas in heat

I am fortune / I am free / I’m like a fever of light / in the land of opportunity / don’t do to me / what you did to America / don’t do to me / what you do to yourself

  to finish out, here’s a DeanCas post by @eggcessive with lyrics from America ❤️ I HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY WEBWEAVING :)

#sufjannatural #sufjanatural #destiel meta #spn #deancas #sufjan #here it is.... my masterpiece #this didn't take as long as you'd think considering all of this has been on the tip of my tongue for months #<3 I hope others freak out along with me <3 I'm obsessed with the album and his voice #I feel kinda weird posting this bc this album also had like a ton of personal spiritual significance to me.... but it's fine #those things can be connected

[laora-inn]

Supernatural - 15x17. On Chuck, Cas, and love. Chuck’s true weakness

As all my SPN metas, it’s Destiel positive and happy end positive, don’t like - don’t read.

15x17 gave us a lot about Chuck and Amara relationship. Now I should tell, that inside the story they are not mirrors for some other SPN characters. SPN characters are supposed to be mirrors for them.

Or that’s how it was planned by Chuck.

From the start Chuck wasn’t whole. That’s where his disappointment in angels and humans comes from. That’s why, though he needs fans, the same time he despises them and can’t see the truth, which is obvious for them (i. e. for Becky).  Chuck doesn’t kill his fans. He just sends them away, ‘cause they are "annoying” and have their own demands. He prefers to ignore that. Just like channel execs preferred to ignore us when it came to Cas and DeanCas. 

Chuck sends his angelic fans away the same he did with Becky in 15x04, with the same words actually. “I didn’t kill him (Becky’s husband). He’s just far away”. Chuck ruins their lives with ignoring them - but also he ruins lives of those who he is interested in. Lucifer was his most beloved son - and Chuck gave him the Mark of Cain, which corrupted him... though Chuck’s main purpose there was to seal Amara, of course. 

That’s how his disappointment began. He sealed the part of himself and became BROKEN. Broke himself, actually.  In 15x17 Chuck says he was obsessed by fractals, repetitions of one form on different levels, and that’s true: in Sam and Dean’s story he just tries to repeat his and Amara’s one - maybe, to understand something. To fix himself. Not to be haunted of his own failures. That’s his self-therapy - but it didn’t work even a little for ages... until he saw something true. Until the story of Team Free Will began and his puppets suddenly weren’t puppets anymore. 

Why? I think we all Destihellers had known, but in 15x17 we got a serious confirmation.  These Sam and Dean are so special because of this Cas, because of his total and absolute disobedience. According to Chuck, that’s the only real difference between their story and the others’ ones. 

The reason of that is obvious - love. Cas’s perfect angelic devotion, but not to God. Here I wrote about Adam and Seraphina and the sacred oath reason - in connection to Cas.  Chuck doesn’t understand Cas’s (and love - the synonyms here) importance for his story. For him Cas “is something that always goes wrong” (Dean’s words from 15x03, fascinating *sarcasm*). Here in the end there are some thoughts about Cas’s being the greatest trickster of the show.

There are lots of Sams, Deans, Cases. But there is one Amara. In 15x17 she said her return because of the Winchesters was a part of Chuck’s plan - except her feelings for Dean, as Chuck confirmed. I suppose we can believe him - he chose these Sam and Dean to return Amara, to deal with her. Thanks to them he finally found the will to face her - not to make it looks like one sibling’s death/sealing is the logical reason for another one to live long and happy life (like for Dean in 5x22, after Sam’s sacrifice). Chuck used the story to heal his trauma - but he ignored Lucifer’s trauma, his desperate want to be loved, and the Winchesters’ story continued. Now I think that it was a part of Chuck’s plan - he liked these boytoys so much. And with considering them boytoys, his trauma wasn’t healed.  ‘Cause it wasn’t Amara who caused it. It was always Chuck himself.  In 15x04 he said that he hates himself. I have no doubts about it, but all he’s doing was making it even worse. Hurting others means deepening your wounds. To find the way you should stop. Just stop. And enjoy the moment, maybe - like Amara in 15x17 advised. 

But Chuck didn’t listen to her. Enjoyment means love, and he can’t love. Only manipulate. 

Unlike Chuck, Amara found her harmony. I assume that’s because she found love in herself, not outside. The love outside can’t be appreciated if your heart is closed, like Chuck’s. Well, Amara’s heart is open, and that makes her vulnerable I guess.  In the beginning of 15x17 Amara was reading “Norwegian wood”. I’ve also read this book and think that the main message here is: the real is always better than some dreams about. Just like Amara said to Dean about Mary in 15x15... though Dean seemed not to understand her.  Betraying Amara for Dean means betraying himself and letting Chuck, the vengeful father, who is ready to sacrifice his children in a heartbeat, win. Betraying her means Dean becomes Chuck’s mirror. He gives up his family not for his own freedom, but for Chuck’s.  ALL THIS STORY WAS CREATED BECAUSE CHUCK WANTED TO HAVE HIS FREE WILL. And he can’t. 

I assume somewhere in 15x04 he thought Amara’s consumption was the only way to become whole, to find free will, to feel joy, not disappointment. To be happy. 

In 6x20 we saw Cas’s praying to Chuck while sitting on a bench, with some flowers near. We know that was the moment when Chuck could stop Cas, prevent all this Leviathan story... unless he WANTED it. In 15x04 he said that he loved monsters, Leviathans especially. And by that time he certainly wanted Cas dead (as well as the channel execs, I suppose). 

In 15x17 we see Amara praying to Chuck while sitting on a bench, with a flower in her hands. She wants a balance with him. He wants her dead - not literally though. 

Did Chuck know that in 15x17 Amara would trap him? I think yes. He wanted that specifically.

Did he know that Sam would be alive by the end of 15x17? I think no. He was disappointed again, he WASN’T HAPPY even after Amara’s disappearance.  

Why wasn’t he? The Empty gave us a clue while making a deal with Cas: to be happy you must let yourself be happy. And that’s impossible without love, understanding, and TRANSFORMATION.

Yet Chuck didn’t understand that AGAIN. He said “kill each other, don’t kill each other - I don’t care” to boys only because he succeeded in killing Amara as a personality finally. So he didn’t need Sam and Dean as “mirrors” of his own toxic relationship with his sibling anymore.

But we - now we understand. Chuck revealed the secret himself when told about this Cas’s uniqueness.

To be whole doesn’t mean to manipulate and to devour, in fact these are the opposites. Maybe Sam, Dean and Cas ARE broken, but not as much as Chuck himself. Maybe they are broken only because of him and his trauma, his awful relationship with Amara. Maybe, unlike him, they found the real way to healing.  

Maybe their “cracks” are not like his. Maybe these “cracks” are the free will itself, the things that can change the convo, and they are also something Chuck doesn’t know about -  ‘cause he doesn’t understand them. 

He doesn’t truly understand love. 

The way Cas supports Sam while looking the way to save Jack. The things he says during Sam and Dean’s fight - small things, not important at first sight. They weren’t scripted by Chuck I think: Dean, don’t. Sam, why not? All these looks - from Sam to Cas before confronting Dean. From Cas to Sam and Dean. From Dean to Cas - Dean was looking at Cas several times while listening to Sam, for support or confirmation.

Cas couldn’t fight Dean there, he was so unsure. He didn’t even agree to buy Sam some time if Dean comes back earlier than Sam. But he supported Sam in his fight, said to him not to surrender, said, that Sam’s internal compass was functioning perfectly. That’s moral support only, but it could change things.

Dean also saw support in Cas, but Cas had doubts, he ASKED Sam, why not, and Dean just HAD TO listen. 

As a result they confirmed themselves as Team Free Will. All the three of them - they could escape the next Chuck’s trap.    Still I assume the crucial party in that belongs to Cas. He is something that always isn’t in the plan, something unpredictable.  Notice - when Sam, Jack and Dean deal with Amara, there is no Cas with them. But in the end of 15x17 it’s Cas who asks Chuck about Amara, and that wasn’t the part of his plan. I suppose this question was the reason of Chuck’s getting angry so much that he revealed the secret about this Cas as a kind of offence. Like it’s bad - to be unpredictable. To be a trickster.  To be real.

Chuck’s words about this Cas’s uniqueness influence Cas for sure. After them he looked at Dean TWICE (what for?!), and I think that’s possible that his latter question “What do you mean?” refers to these Chuck’s words especially. Cas was just lost in his thoughts when he heard them. Only when Chuck told about Jack’s death, Cas was brought back to reality. Coincidence? Hell no. 

Now Cas understood something thanks to Chuck, and that will play in 15x18 for sure. 

Also, in 15x17 we didn’t see any Cas+Empty interaction. Only Sam+Empty - but THIS IS CAS’S HELP TO SAM THAT MADE IT POSSIBLE.

So maybe Chuck knew about Sam coming to Death library. But did he know about Sam’s getting God Death book? We’ll wait and see. To conclude: Chuck can’t control love ‘cause he doesn’t understand it, doesn’t feel it. And that's the true weakness that will end him.  Chuck’s true weakness is revealed: he isn’t in love. With anything. 

#destiel meta #destiel-meta #Destiel #chuck shurley #supernatural amara #castiel #dean winchester #deancas #casdean #supernatural #Supernatural Finale #supernatural 15 #supernatural season 15 #SPN #spn 15x17

[herrnarkejaponica]

(Is it a whole week and a half before Christmas? Yes. Am I sending this to you anyways? Yes.)

They’ve barely been living together for two weeks, but already Ethan is out in the garden, pulling the dead weeds that had run amok after Mia had abandoned it. He thinks, next year, maybe he’ll grow tomatoes and cucumbers. Karl is sure to hate them, but all the more for him.

Inside, on the table, is a leather bound notebook. It looks identical to the ones Karl had lost in the Village, except newer and less beat to hell. On the inside is a note.

Hey,

Sorry I couldn’t get your old journals back, but atleast you can continue with this one? Maybe? Also maybe less notes on dissecting corpses?

But I promise I won’t read this one.

XX

Ethan

You are more than welcome to continue writing about my interesting body though

They each have their own ways of keeping busy. Karl just preferred things with metal and oil and wires over dirt and water and pulling out what looked like a goddamn forest’s worth of weeds. That preference totally had nothing to do with how a potted gift from Donna had died after barely a month, despite his remarkably sincere efforts to care for the damn thing. Nope, it was absolutely only because he liked tinkering, because he was more experienced with things that weren’t alive and in need of nurturing.

All of which to say, Karl was inside the house and surfacing from his recently-cobbled-together workshop in the basement, heading toward the kitchen, when he’d seen Ethan out one of the rear windows. It was that pause - watching how the man attacked the overgrowth of weeds with the same tenacity that had cut through swaths of lycans and Soldats - which allowed Karl to notice the notebook. On first glance, he wondered if one of his journals had somehow been recovered from the village’s remains. But as he stepped closer, he saw that the leather was too new, without the familiar wear or stains on the cover, and when he opened it the faint scent of fresh paper met his nose. One gloveless hand picked up the note, a habit from trying to get used to reading with only one working eye. Karl could hear the words in Ethan’s voice, and that made his snort carry a faint tinge of...fondness. Yeah, he could admit that much now without dressing it up as something else. In that same vein, an urge struck him, spurred in part by Ethan’s written assurance that this journal wouldn’t be pored through like those in the factory.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he carried the notebook from the dining table to the kitchen, where he could rummage through the mug of pens they kept by the phone. Another glance out the window, dark-rimmed gold following Ethan’s repetitive movements, then down to the journal’s first page. In the same angular script the blond had once thumbed through, at a time that felt so recent yet a lifetime ago, Karl wrote a simple entry:

Ethan Winters is a sentimental bastard.

A pause, as a decision was made.

Und ich glaube, ich fange an, ihn zu lieben.

#ic #[i am having EMOTIONS oh my god merry early chrimble to me 🥺 #speaking of holidays tho i hope you had a good hannukah!] #amanmolded #headcanons #[not me working in a sudden headcanon i got while writing this reply about donna gifting karl a potted plant that makes me Soft]