Bernadette's Death foreshadowing

Bonus edit: In a later chapter, he also tries to discourage her from fighting scarlet again which is interesting to me

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

dick grayson who needs to be useful and needed to feel loved vs reader who is hypervigilant of their own fault and tries desperately not to be a burden: fight

it ends in tears. unstoppable force versus immovable object. you don't want to make his life any harder because you can see he's struggling. he's just straight up begging. i said in last post tags he'd moan if you ask him to get you a glass of water. ask him to make you a snack and he'll just straight up come in his pants.

2010 Bahrain Grand Prix - Fernando Alonso

More vampire strange doodles i made last night while being worried out of my mind for A lvls :D

sits up in bed. so lana and ema definitely thought they were responsible for edgeworth "choosing death", right?

(the rest of this post was supposed to go in the tags, because it's not very well organised or written, but it got too long so. here are the slightly edited tags for your reading pleasure (or otherwise)):

i was going to make this solely about ema because she's the obvious one with her open adoration of edgeworth, but the thing about rfta is that it goes to great lengths to emphasise the connection between lana and edgeworth as well.

the sl-9 incident showed that lana grows attached to people deeply, hence angel starr's comment on how, when neil marshall died, 'she (lana) felt like her own brother had died.' with edgeworth, i think it was similar but worse. because he's not just a coworker or subordinate who's dear to her. he saved her life. and it cost him his own.

at the beginning of the case, edgeworth says he was mistaken for thinking that lana was always looking out for him post sl-9 (a statement interesting on its own because that's when everyone else says she grew distant), and, later on, he brings ema fingerprinting powder because lana asked him to. then, of course, there's the 'lady luck' comment he makes.

similarly, on lana's side, you obviously have the end of the trial when she says he did well, but there's also that additional moment post-trial where she's the only one to notice — in a group comprising her, ema, phoenix and gumshoe — that he's 'hiding', listening to their conversation. point is, there's enough to suggest that she might have been the nearest thing edgeworth had to a mia; his 'chief prosecutor' to phoenix's plain 'chief'. they're as close as two people can be in a relationship where one of them is constantly lying and the other is von karma's star pupil.

rfta is pretty straightforwardly depicted as the case which solidified edgeworth's resolve to do what he did; i don't think i have to prove that. rumours about him have reached new heights, his car and knife were involved in goodman's murder, he makes an unprecedented mistake in court by failing to connect the evidence room and carpark incidents, thus forcing the chief of police to enter the trial to do so himself, and he's publicly revealed to have relied on falsified evidence to secure a conviction in the sl-9 case, all of which only happened because of lana. jake marshall even claims that from the beginning — that if you trace edgeworth's rumours back to their source, you end up meeting one person: lana skye.

and it gets worse because at the end of rfta, she thinks he's fine!! she literally says, 'i was afraid the pressure would break you, but you rose above it,' and reminds him he's nothing like gant because he's not alone. she leaves the case thinking he will be okay. and then, what, like a week passes, and she finds out that he wasn't, and that he's gone, and it's her fault. even after she was freed from gant's control, even after she had finally stopped lying, she couldn't prevent herself from claiming another life. so much for 'lady luck', i suppose.

and the game reiterates this multiple times. gumshoe states at the start that edgeworth's ties to those higher up in the department have made him the subject of constant rumours, and phoenix says (in front of ema) that he shouldn't be held responsible for the forged evidence because that was all lana's doing, which then leads to edgeworth commenting (again in front of ema) that he feels as though 'something inside him has died.' it all goes back to lana. we can argue and say that it was technically gant's doing that caused all of this, but lana still took actions that led to it. even her complicated friendship with edgeworth isn't spared; it's that closeness between them that exacerbated those rumours. how could she not feel responsible in some way?

and with ema, it's rather obvious, isn't it? if she hadn't gone poking her nose into things, none of this would have happened or come to light. and, of course, she'd never choose anyone over her sister, not for anything in the world — it's simply not a question, but that's the problem, isn't it? it's not a question. it's not some hypothetical moral dilemma. it just is. she may not have killed neil marshall, but she still has one king of prosecutor's blood on her hands. and now she has to live with that. she just. has. to live with it. no matter if he chose otherwise.

moving on from that a little, i think it's actually wild how much of ema's journey to becoming a forensics investigator is paved with bad memories. neil marshall's death and her subsequent inability to testify are what drives her to begin pursuing it, her first proper investigation results in her idol's "death" and when she finally graduates, the person who saved her sister has been disbarred, and she can't even help because she isn't allowed to. all that pain and constant pursuit of her goals, and she's still the same ema skye, still that girl shrouded in darkness, always one step behind the truth, one step a little too late. no wonder she was angry in aa:aj. i would be furious.

I have a question ✋ Possible spoilers?

We see Halsin turn into a rat/mouse (?) when he leaves the Goblins camp after everything goes down.....why tf didn't he just do this in his cell to escape? Them bars are wide enough he coulda fit through an with how fast that man dipped, I don't see the goblins being real successful in catching him like that :?

The familiarity is not very comforting (Patreon)

call him cake cause he's got layers baby

my brother, crying sobbing: please just play the main story please just finish the main quest you can do everything else later I am begging you

me: what if I went from Akkala to Gerudo without warping to compare the town before and after the kid's arrival and compile resources. let's go

i legit don't get the appeal of viewing a character you like as a "100% unproblematic fave". y'all realize that a character can both be staunchly good with many positive traits AND have some flaws as well, right? to me, viewing a moral yet multifaceted character as faultless is like baking a cake with no salt. yeah, it's sweet, but it's too sweet because there's no salt to elevate the flavor! where's the depth in a character that is entirely perfect? where's the compelling motivations and character work? where's the humanity in that?

thankfully, i don't see much of this complete denial of flaws in the popular fanon of characters i enjoy, but what i DO see frequently is a shift in focus from characters' overall negative behaviors - behaviors directed both at themself and towards others - to depicting their self-destructive behaviors as their sole flaws. self-destruction is viewed as an "acceptable" flaw, unlike causing harm to others, and is often exaggerated if not invented out of whole cloth!

for an example of this distortion: there's a heroic yet flawed character i like with a high stress position that he wholly dedicates himself to, who probably loses a bit of sleep and is seen asking for and drinking tea ONCE to buy some time. what's the fanon version of him seen in many fics? well, his missteps and occasional emotional insensitivity have gone entirely out the window, and he's been transformed into a workaholic, sleep-deprived, caffeine addict who is incapable of caring for himself. he WILL collapse at some point in order to justify his love interest swooping in and insisting that this character, a fully grown adult man in charge of 1/10th of the entire army, learns ✨the importance of self care✨

i'm not arguing for every character to be deeply flawed - i love a good hero - but by making a canonically flawed character either 1) entirely beyond reproach or 2) a self-neglectful and/or self-flagellating martyr who has never hurt anyone but themself, you're sucking the life RIGHT out of them, and boring me to tears in the process.

".... You killed me"

@graveweaver I still can't believe you created such a pretty design and then expected us to not adore her

the bg3 fanbase is funny as fuck in a bad way for primarily shipping gale, who is the most garrulous man you can imagine, with astarion, whom gale goes "uh 😐 not really looking to talk with you man" at when prompted for conversation, and not with wyll, whose party admission gets a "gale approves" and then they proceed to compliment each other 24/7.

Every day i just want to write a post that just says "The Brigadier is so damn autistic."

but I then worry about what other people might say if I do that

but fuck it

The Brigadier is so fucking autistic, and nobody can change my mind

speaking strictly from a plot & writing perspective here, not a commentary on characters or who or who is not my favorite blorbo (they all are). it's gale time and I wanted to get down everything I thought about this go around with his romance & the writing before it escapes me.

so I once again had a ton of fun of course, the game is still a blast, and several arcs were way more satisfying this time around simply because I ... did not skip the creche, unlike my very first run (I was an idiot) (I didnt think it would be that important) (it really really was). love it 10/10. I cannot WAIT to do my gith run & really focus in on that because the lore there is just, so cool, and that subplot was really rich & rewarding this time around since I had someone who was not orpheus become a mindflayer instead.

as for Gale, Thank Fuck I started before they bugged him up again too much. but let's deep dive into The Material.

shoutout to Tim first of all, he's a legend, dreamboat, superstar. there are so many lines delivered so effortlessly when they would sound ridiculous in anyone else's mouth. he gives gale so much soulful intensity and subtle, nuanced gravitas befitting someone like gale; with enough of Gale's own moments of silliness, cheekiness, wry wit & understated sarcasm, to outright flabbergasted at times, I was Giggling every conversation fr. I'm not usually prone to the "I LOVE YOU" Romances that come earlier rather than later, but ohhhhhhh tim gives each line with all the weight & agony that you can feel inside Gale when it comes (the looming death; not knowing what the end may bring; not wanting to leave any regrets behind) so like. MWAH to him. MWAH MWAH. all the kisses in the world.

okay mandatory compliments to the actor aside. I came out of the whole thing with breadth of new appreciation for Gale as a character in terms of the... concepts, threads, that make him up, and act 2 is where he REALLY shines overall.

I didn't necessarily come away from it with the same... weepy...... done-no-wrong? interpretation of Gale that I've seen floating about. he's lovely. he's intense. he's got soul-crushing devotion on his mind, no doubt. but for every fracture of tenderness, raw sincerity, & off the cuff soliloquy, he's got a lot of interesting flaws/characteristics I'd love to unpick with a fine-toothed comb on some replays or rewatches. Still trying to turn over in my brain exactly what that is, but it's there, and I love it. will say I'm really glad I played it mostly in a vacuum rather than getting too into others' thoughts on him, because What I Had Seen on the Webbed Site had near put me off entire (seeing someone say he's not prideful or pompous at all... when he self-describes as pompous?) -- maybe it's my tendency to focus in on what makes a character tick, when are they sharper, or harder, or meaner, and I enjoy watching that play out a lot, but? yeah. I didn't come away thinking him a super soft mushy mwahmwah -- ROMANTIC, yes, but overall as a character not nearly so lovesick and in desperate need of some protector. in fact when you tell him you don't want to be his crutch, he says as much too -- you've helped him, but you're not the sole focus of his person or the only thing keeping him alive.

there's enough of the humanity in his cheekier moments (stop licking the damn thing!!) and plenty of tear-jerking aside all of that. gale my canon-depressive-episode, mildly suicidal, chronic pained up, still-kind-of-full-of-yourself king. I adore you I love you I cradle you softly in my arms. he charmed me entire! I think that the themes hey were trying to tackle are really interesting and nuanced and I do have some thoughts on the success of the game in actually tackling those, what is there is really wonderful. some gorgeous writing in act 2, especially, and it was sold so well by the voice acting & sincerity in the writing I was just like. PERFECT. 10/10. NEED TO WRITE 98 FLUFF PIECES RN. which does not happen often, to me, as a person.

with. some exceptions, going back to critiquing act 3 as a whole.

act 1 & 2 are both strong, really nice. however this romance definitely needed at least one or two more scenes in act 2 to pad out the space between awkward flirting at the party to "I like it when you're sweaty and bloody-- sorry who said that" to "I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU." -- these scenes should've elaborated on Gale's personal feelings; of mystra, of what's been asked of him, of Tav. they should've set in threads of Gale's anger earlier, rather than the jarring shift from late act 2 "yeah I'll kill myself" to "actually... mystra fucking sucks! lol!" in act 3 at sorcerer sundries. yeah babygirl, mystra DOES fucking suck, wish I could've listened to you as you arrived to these conclusions rather than connecting empty character lines between act 2 and 3. and act 3 desperately needed more space to talk gale in or out of the crown. because by the time we get to the end, if he's really into the crown, he's into it beyond the focus of all else. but in the scenes where you talk him off that particular ledge, it doesn't even take very long to do so, and leaves kind of a weird... gap of intention.

I feel like they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner, honestly. because Gale's personal quest literally cannot be resolved until 5 minutes before the end, any climax wouldn't have much space afterward to pad the aftermath. so the solution to that would've been more character focus scenes, more flavor text depending on how you've influenced gale, something that actually makes the choices feel rewarding -- some hurdles to cross too, checks of some kind. but there really isn't any of that, and so the conflict is almost nonexistent. you squirt gale with a water bottle and he gives up the crown with no real additional dialogue. or you tell him "ma...maybe???" and he's suddenly a power obsessed little freak (complimentary) with no recourse, and in either case, we never got much dialogue to get some insight into his personal thoughts on it. this doesn't make Gale a bad character, but it does leave the narrative to be lacking in some regard.

like, for example. Astarion gets dialogue changes depending on the quest outside of character-specific moments (such as a spawn Astarion changing his dialogue after you help Aylin with Lorroakan), post-quest conversations, PRE-quest conversations with his siblings, moments where he reveals more of what he thinks (such as "You're... you. no one is like that.") etc., Gale gets None of that. the only other characters who really do are Lae'zel and Shadowheart; everyone else is either shafted or resolved in the last few minutes too. I came out of this most satisfied as a player overall with LAE'ZEL'S conclusion (also at the end of the game!!) because we had gotten a few more moments where her focus is obvious and her motivations are clear.

anyways, those are just general writing issues. Act 3 overall is the weakest, most agree, and that's still true here. Sadly it kind of takes some of Gale down with it in this case, because his personal quest is both so removed from the overall plot (despite him being a literal fixture as the only character who knows anything about the crown & was decreed by a literal god to take out the absolute).

however none of this is related to Gale as a guy. as a guy I'm Fucking Obsessed With Him. taking him with me everywhere was so rewarding especially in act 1 / 2. his commentary & insights, when they were there, ranged from funny as fuck to genuinely insightful & interesting for the overall plot. the ideas behind him, the glimpses we get of the life he led before, and the life he wants to lead after with Tav -- or what he alludes to wanting to lead with Tav, thinking that he'll still probably die at the end of this -- are lovely, interesting, TOUCHED MY SPIRIT. he's such a neat version of how to do a character that is as endearing as he can be foot-in-mouth, and as intelligent as he can be a little belligerent. I looooved every moment I could talk with him about magic in act 1, see his passions (beyond mystra), argue with him about how to do something (I'M the magical wonder here actually and I get to make the shadowlantern), all of that really MADE the romance for me in the lulls where his Silence or the gaps in his writing were more clear. 10/10 would kiss that fucking wizard again and cry a little bit thinking about exploding with him aboard a giant alien brain while one of those "ITS YOUUU I LIE WITH" songs plays in the bg

Me: *idly browsing a website about Thieves' Cant for Astarion Fic Reasons™*

Website: Bat means a very common prostitute

Me: *suddenly rethinking the cute batstarion au while also debating about having my Tav nickname him 'bat' as a term of endearment because she loves animals and bats are adorable*