Heyyyyy. So I wanted to know how it will be if Atalanta and Vivien met darling’s parents, and the parents were like “ yes my daughter has told us everything about you” . And I mean like EVERYTHING like darling said told their parents everything about them( including how they treat darling) but you don’t have to add that if you don’t want to. Hope you’re doing well btw ☺️
Vivien is sweating bullets. In my version of the story, Darling has no idea about his murders because he generally only eliminates the scum of society or people who hurt/upset Darling. However, Vivien will immediately freak out and think that everyone knows what he did. His eyes are wide, he's sweating, he's fidgeting, he is literally doing everything to make himself seem more suspicious. And he worked so hard too! He put on a nice shirt and combed his hair all nice, AND he brought Darling's parents a cake he baked. He wanted to make a good impression so bad and now everything is ruined! He doubts Darling will visit him in the maximum-security prison he is definitely getting put in. Vivien's thoughts are spiraling when Darling's Dad says "She told us all about the fresh strawberries you grew for her :D She says you're such a great horticulturist". He just stares for a second, then he snaps back to his regular easy-going personality. But late that night he's lying awake in bed thinking that he needs to calm down and probably not commit any murders for a while. Just in case.
Atalanta brought a very expensive bottle of wine to meet Darling's parents. As the day grew closer, she researched them extensively, trying to discover anything they might bring up. She wants to make sure she seems perfect, and everything seems to be going okay, but the situation has an unidentifiable weird vibe. They all sit down to dinner and open the bottle of wine. I doubt Darling would actually say out loud what Atalanta has done; I think there's a higher chance the parents would read between the lines or make up their own terrible conclusions. When they say this, Darling freezes and Atalanta's carefully constructed smile drops off her face.
After a full 30 seconds of tense silence, Atalanta speaks, setting down her fork, "Darling, I believe I heard Abebe call for me. Could you go see what he wants?"
"But-"
"Darling." Atalanta shoots her eyes to the side, giving Darling a look.
Darling blanches, hurrying up from her seat to go check on the guards stationed outside the suburban home. When she leaves, Atalanta turns her attention back to her in-laws. She expertly picks up her wine glass, swirling the golden liquid a little.
"Now, I truly believe I heard you wrong. What was that you said?" One could never say Atalanta wasn't kind; here she was giving them a second chance.
"I'm going to the police about what you've done with my daughter," Your father hisses, standing out of his seat, "You won't get away with this, you bitch."
Atalanta takes a sip of white wine, the corners of her mouth turning up into a small smirk, "Oh Richard... Who's going to believe you?"
Your father turns an angry red and your mother tries to pull him back down, looking between him and Atalanta in fear.
"Thank you for having me in your lovely home," Atalanta stands up, inclining her head in respect to her elders, "I'll send my precious Darling in to say goodbye. I suggest you stay quiet, if only for your own self-interest. I am extraordinarily lenient with my Darling, but that benevolence does not extend much farther. I'd hate to have to arrange some sort of "accident". I expect Y/N to be back in the car in five minutes.
She smiles, showing off her perfect teeth, "Please have a good night and a pleasant tomorrow."
Atalanta walks away, leaving your terrified and fuming parents in her wake.
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thinkin thots about varus the eater,,,, when i read htn and was introduced to the whole 'RB induced insanity' and how the lyctors perceived the Beasts, i assumed it was your classic 'cosmic horror too large for the human mind to convey appears in form that teeters on the edge of reality' , but now with ntn telling us everyone sees an RB the same way, I'm being led to believe its more 'cosmic desire so large it almost ruptures the brain but is still ultimately recognisable' 1/2
(varun anon) what is that desire? it presumably changes from beast to beast, and because we don't know anything about the others apart from some descriptions (though i am curious about what a beast that is received as 'beautiful' by human standards[the one who was trying to drown mercy and only softly repeated 'die'] could possibly want, considering how we have alecto the haunted barbie doll and how much she hates being 'pretty') 2/3 now lmao
(varun anon for the last time i promise/lh) assuming that varun is presenting as their body pre-Oh-Fuckening, it means their cosmic desire is home!!!!!! it makes so much sense why they love none so much and are so ready to come to her aid
Yo, I had assumed the same thing, that the nature of a Resurrection Beast depended on the observer, not the Beast itself. But you're right, Varun proves otherwise! Why do all the Resurrection Beasts appear as different kinds of cosmic horror? Why a giant head? Why something beautiful that tried to gently drown them? Why a giant glowing blue orb?
If Varun is the ghost of Uranus, then that really is just... what it looked like in life.
Of course, there is the difference in location to consider. This is Varun periscoping, peeking out into the physical world, while the other Resurrection Beasts that Augustine and Mercy describe were in the River. We don't know what a fully realised Varun might look like.
So what does Varun want? Does it want to go home, is that why it looks like itself? If home is a place, the solar system, there would be nothing stopping it from going there. Like any revenant, it must have a thanergetic link it could follow back to its corpse. If home isn't a place but a time when it was alive, a part of its existence now ended, then home is beyond even it now.
Most revenants have links to their murderers, too, if it's looking for John: which it seems like it was, prior to the events of Harrow the Ninth. It isn't anymore.
There's only one reason for Varun to be hanging over New Rho, and that's Nona. It's looking for Alecto, the Earth, the last living representative of its kind. I had thought it was looking for her to enact vengeance on its behalf, and it does want that. It asked for it in as many words, the first time it possessed Judith. But...
“They concoct their own vengeance,” said the Captain. “Their justice is not my justice. Their water is not my water. I came to help. I am made a mockery. The danger is upon you, and you do not even know … they are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.”
There is clearly a wrong way to go about it, in Varun's opinion. Who or what the "they" is in this statement is not entirely clear, if it's even referring to the same thing every time. The 'they' coming out of their tower would seem to be the devils possessing people, the things that took Colum back in Canaan House. Is their justice not Varun's justice? If it doesn't want what the devils want, then what is its vision of justice, what vengeance does it want Alecto to enact?
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while only a minority share this view, i do find it somewhat tone deaf when people claim jay's ending is the best outcome for an abuse survivor -- either directly or indirectly implying everyone in the holt house was an abuser that jay, their sole little victim, had to get away from. for starters, none of his endings are happy ones. not even the fugitive path where he's holed up amongst nature, has a dog, and is bathed in solitude. maybe if you close your ears to what jay's saying during that scene you could see this as good for him, but his dialogue is stifled with an achingly loneliness, a sadness. this idea that he craved being alone in the wilderness is not one jay paints himself, it's only something that's said by tyler ; someone who clearly doesn't understand the younger on any level, much less grasps his desires. yes, jay wanted out, he likes nature, though no human can stew in their own space for years without this affecting them mentally. and that's not even taking into account that his entire life is over! he can't travel, he can't visit other countries or get lost in other areas of wood lands or plains, jay is infinitely stuck where he is. it's not a prison cell but it's a cage nonetheless, as the old saying goes : a golden cage is still a cage, after all. he tells zoe these beautiful sights have grown dull on him, laments about missing his family, vanessa, and is so chained by his want for connection he reaches out to a desert dream victim of all people. like, what about this muted cynicism, this barren home, seems happy? maybe he wanted this, some whimsical dream of this, before. now though? it's not what jay thought it'd be, and he lacks any power to change it. this is not some amazing ending for abuse survivors, it's still sad in a melancholy way, simply because jay is visibly unhappy with said circumstances.
but moving on to this, ah, ‘poor little victim in a lion's den’ narrative ... what? i think a lot of people fail to grasp how complex the holt household is in terms of toxicity and abuse. something that's very common nowadays due to how much people project rather than see what's in front of them. and don't get me wrong! projection is fine, you do you, we all consume and parse through media differently -- but this narrative is, by canon evidence, rather fictional. to be completely blunt, jay is not the only victim stuck in the holt house ?? the abusers have always been bear ( physical abuse, verbal degradation ) and sharon ( passive in the face of her kids' abuse, emotional manipulation ) ... and we are literally told point blank by the story itself and another character that these two favored jay immensely compared to their other children. now i'm obviously not saying that he has not faced trauma, he has! favoritism in a house like this does not shield you from the toxicity, sometimes that favor makes things worse, but he was protected to an extent, in ways tyler and dale were not. those two very clearly faced the brunt of bear's physical abuse ; for each other, for jay, and just overall caught their dad's ire more because they stood up to him. tyler takes a beating, a sight that's not at all new by his grim acceptance of this and the fact he states he's been doing this since young :
so, this is normal for tyler. getting beaten by his dad ( which isn't even mentioning the horror story bear can tell to ash, about how he literally threatened to cut tyler's ear or finger off ) and having his mom overall turn a blind eye to it, even going as far as to dismiss this fighting as childish behavior rather than what it is. and dale? we don't see much of him and bear in general, yet the second he steps up to defend tyler, with something as measly as a shove back, bear wastes zero time in hitting him so hard he's practically out of commission for the rest of the fight. he didn't even think about it, merely swung at dale as hard as possible on instinct alone before tyler hastily stepped up to defend him. what happens when jay tries stopping the fight, though?
both parties grab for him so they can toss him out of the way so he doesn't possibly get hurt. you can speculate bear was only doing this in order to finish his punishment on tyler, he'd deal with jay later whatever, although why not punch him like dale? why, out of all the moves on his belt, does he do the more merciful option? bear, who is nothing if not made of violence and has been molded to respect it? his fist that's raised in the air isn't for jay, since the next frame is jay shoved out of the way and him hitting tyler again ... hell, in dialogue where bear and jay are sitting on their porch, the youngest can even say bear beats on tyler and dale specifically. why not say “you beat on us”? like, the game is heavily implying that while jay is traumatized, there are some methods of abuse he simply did not face. one of them being the physical abuse prominent at home. and no, i'm not counting whatever pranks dale's pulled on jay ( like shooting him six times with a bb gun lmao ) because honestly? that's just older brother behavior, and we know that despite the morbid pranks, he still looked out for jay in the ways that counted. like protecting him from pa and to an extent tyler, something which, again, jay says himself!
back on topic a bit, the notion people seem to have of jay and his family seems overly simplified to me. people just looked at dale being his usual asshole self and went ‘abuser’, people looked at tyler's rather drastic and not usually like himself reactions to a high stress situation and went ‘abuser’, and that's a bit ridiculous to me. can't say i'm shocked! since so many people nowadays just see someone mean to their favorite character and decide woobifying said fave while demonizing their opposing force is exactly what canon intended. as dusk falls couldn't be a game more clear about it's main theme of family and the fact there's no purely good or bad people in this world, two statements that correspond directly to the holt family. are they bad for each other? probably! but that's a different discussion compared to, say, every single soul in that house violently abused poor jay and they should reap the consequences of that. dale and tyler, like their beloved younger brother, are also victims of abusive parents and a toxic home life. in turn, they both show signs of this abuse in ways that aren't entirely sympathetic or easy to swallow, especially when they've been dealing with it longer than jay and have never had their parents' favor the way he did. i see people get angry at tyler for the famous cabin scene, but nobody turns a critical eye to sharon ; who for all intents and purposes is watching this unfold without a care. she never physically stops tyler and her attempts to kill the fight are weak compared to her previously steely commands. and, honestly, the fact that tyler was that stressed about sharon getting on that bike so she can be protected, when she's the most capable out of the three of them, is way more strange than tyler's outburst -- when he's in a high stress situation, his baby brother's dead, and his life as he knows it is over. a life he didn't even have to begin with, since it was stolen due to his abusive upbringing.
whether this excuses what he did or not is entirely up to the player! i personally don't think it does, though i also understand where this is coming from and the game makes it clear this is not usual tyler behavior. throughout other people's views it's hammered into us that tyler has a cool head relatively, is the most sensible and smart out of his brothers. so, no, i do not think he was choking jay out all the time for his misplaced resentment -- i think his obvious disliking came from his stilted interactions with jay, and his lack of bond with him at all. we see in book one two times he reaches out to jay, demanding that he eats ( a minor, small thing to fret and worry about ) as well as panicking when he sees jay away from the rest of them during a shoot out. dale constantly looks out for jay as well, going as far as to take the heat from romero if they get caught and something as small as taking blame for jay's mistake in the barn scene. are his brothers more prone to violence and apathy? sure! yet they clearly love jay regardless. abusive households are not easy and see through. in fact in many cases the different levels of abuse the kids suffer does breed life altering resentment later on, envy that can damage these bonds permanently. honestly the holt family intrigues me deeply because of how well written they were as a unit, the effects of abuse and toxicity subtle and not overt in a ‘psa message’ kinda way. and these horrible relationships and ideals shared do not negate from the even more horrible fact that there is love in this messed up family, even bear clearly loves his sons, but that doesn't make it better. it almost makes it worse, seeing all the good intentions and care. knowing it doesn't excuse what they've done to each other nor does it make them better. they're a picture perfect family of an ugly wound! which is fascinating! i only wish more people saw that wonderfully shown depth rather than this bland and lukewarm take on the holts overall.
jay is a victim, he is traumatized, he deserved to one day spread his wings and put some distance between himself and his family ... but he was not the only one who deserved that ending, and he was not the only victim there. he was merely the only one with easy to parse trauma responses.
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[𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚜𝚊𝚔𝚒 𝚊𝚒𝚖𝚒'𝚜 𝚝𝟷 𝚟𝚘𝚒𝚌𝚎 𝚍𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚊] 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚍𝚒𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚐𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛
writing her vd was kinda hard tbh.. i'm still trying to figure out what i want her character to be like, at first she was supposed to be, like, a cute and cheerful girl who is also kinda creepy, but here she's more.. quiet, i guess? i like her vd a lot though! i actually got chills while writing the last sentence and one thing she says to eiji
also, after this vd i will post akio and aimi's interrogation! so again, you can send them questions if you want!
(divider link)
Aimi: ♪~
(door opens)
Miki: S-sorry for being late!.. We, um.. had some problems to deal with..
Aimi: Ah, it's okay, don't worry about it! I haven't even noticed that you're late actually.
Aimi: May I ask what happened though?
Miki: Um, I'm not sure that I'm allowed-
Eiji: Akio passed out right after we extracted his song.
Miki: Eiji-san, you're gonna scare her!
Aimi: Oh, really? Is he okay?
Miki: Y-yeah, it just turned out that he was, um.. m-more "fragile" than we thought.
Eiji: He's just weak, that's all.
Eiji: I don't think it happened because of the machine, he most likely just had some health problems before he even came here.
Eiji: Or he just knew that we will vote him guilty and got too scared, haha.
Aimi: I see..
Miki: But don't worry, I'm sure you're gonna be fine after we extract your song!
Miki: At least I hope so..
Eiji: Anyway, enough about that guy.
Eiji: So, Prisoner 002, Hanasaki Aimi. 16 years old, first year of high school, just like Prisoner 001.
Eiji: By the way, what do you think about him? Prisoner 009 is also still in high school, if I'm not wrong.
Aimi: Hm.. Akio-kun is a good guy! I can tell that he's.. well, not the most friendly person, but I'm sure that he just needs some time to get used to this place and other prisoners!
Aimi: And Kuroki-san is so nice to me! He treats me well and he always listens to me no matter what I say..
Aimi: Overall, I like this place a lot! I'm having so much fun with everyone!
Miki: You're surprisingly relaxed for a situation like this..
Aimi: Well, this is just some kind of game, isn't it? Oh, maybe this is a theme park or something like that? I've never been in a prison-themed park though..
Eiji: *sighs* When will you all accept that this is a real thing and you can actually die if we vote you guilty?
Miki: D-DIE?? Eiji-san, they won't actually get executed, right? RIGHT??
Aimi: Die, huh..
Aimi: Well, it's not like I mind.
Miki: .. What?
Aimi: If it means that I won't be executed alone and other prisoners will be with me too..
Aimi: I would be happy to die with my best friends by my side.
Eiji: ...
Miki: ...
Aimi: Ah, sorry for scaring you like this! Please, ask me anything you want. I will answer as honestly as I can.
Eiji: .. Right. So, about your crime.
Eiji: I'm looking at you right now and I'm trying to figure out what you did.
Eiji: .. You sure have a lot of injuries.
Aimi: Haha, yes, I do.
Aimi: I'm just a little bit clumsy, that's all.
Eiji: We just started and you're already lying.
Aimi: Huh?
Eiji: You got these injuries because of someone else and not because of your own clumsiness, didn't you?
Aimi: ...
Aimi: Haha.. Speaking from experience, Guard-san?
Eiji: !
Eiji: You-
Aimi: Sorry, sorry. It's just that you also look like you had to go through a lot.
Eiji: How.. HOW DARE YOU?!
Miki: Eiji-san, stop! She's already hurt, don't make it worse for her!
Eiji: .. Fine.
Eiji: (to Aimi) Give me your hairclip. The candy-shaped one.
Aimi: W-why do you need it?
Eiji: If I can't punish you physically, I'll just do it this way.
Eiji: And something is telling me this hairclip is important to you.
Aimi: .. W-well, if Guard-san says so..
Aimi: I would be okay with getting beaten though.
Miki: Eiji-san, please, leave her alone!
Eiji: SHE CAN'T JUST GO "OH, I WONDER WHY YOU HAVE TO WEAR ALL THESE BANDAGES"!
Miki: .. P-please, just give him the hairclip, Aimi-chan. You don't deserve to get hurt even more.
Aimi: !..
Aimi: "Aimi-chan"..
Aimi: I've never been called that before..
Aimi: Okay! Here, have my hairclip, Guard-san!
Eiji: ...
Eiji: You gave it to the wrong guard.
Miki: Why did you-
Aimi: Because you wouldn't look good with it, Guard 001-san!
Eiji: You did it just because she was nicer to you, didn't you?
Aimi: So, about my crime.
Eiji: Hey, don't ignore me!
Aimi: I.. can't tell you much about it. Sorry.
Miki: Why? Are you scared?
Aimi: Not really. I'm not scared at all actually.
Aimi: It's just that I'm not even sure if you can call it a crime.
Eiji: You're in Milgram and that means it is definitely a crime.
Eiji: And not just any crime, but murder.
Aimi: Murder..
Aimi: You're right. I did commit murder.
Eiji: I wonder who you killed though.
Eiji: .. Did you kill someone to get revenge on them?
Aimi: .. Haha, who knows.
Eiji: Was it one of your classmates?
Aimi: NO!
Miki: Aimi-chan??
Eiji: Finally, I was worried this interrogation will be boring.
Aimi: I was friends with all of my classmates! They loved me! We always had so much fun together!
Aimi: I.. I loved them.. I really did.. And they loved me..
Aimi: It.. It wasn't one of my classmates..
Eiji: .. Weird.
Aimi: What's weird?
Eiji: You see, sure, I can just say you killed someone because you were bullied and you wanted to get revenge on that person.
Eiji: Reminds me of that last prisoner.. But I doubt that he really was bullied, he was just mad that people loved someone more than him.
Eiji: But you just.. don't seem like that type of person.
Aimi: What do you mean by that?
Eiji: I can imagine you snapping and finally showing your bullies how angry you are at them, but something just doesn't add up.
Eiji: Did you notice it too, Guard 002?
Miki: No, I didn't.
Eiji: ...
Eiji: *sighs* Fine.
Eiji: In short, you're too weak to actually kill someone yourself.
Eiji: I can't think of anyone who could be your victim except your bullies, but again, you say that your classmates loved you.
Eiji: So that means you either killed someone from a different class or a different school..
Eiji: .. or someone helped you realize how bad your situation really is.
Eiji: Hey, Aimi..
Eiji: Did you also have an accomplice, just like Prisoner 001?
(bell rings, machinery sounds)
Eiji: I'm waiting for your answer.
Aimi: ...
Eiji: Aimi!
Miki: Eiji-san, she needs a minute-
Eiji: Prisoner 002, Aimi, sing your sins!
Aimi: I was told that it would be nice if they all just died.
═════════•°• ⚠ •°•═════════
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Several weeks ago, my retirement-age mother requested that I play Baldur’s Gate 3 for her because she has trouble with controllers/keyboards and wanted “to see what all the fuss is about with that cute wizard boy.” For context, my mother and I have done this sort of thing in the past with certain RPGs (dragon age, mass effect, etc.), but it’s been a few years since she’s personally requested a game like this. Basically, I control her Tav but let her make all the choices so she can determine how the story plays out without worrying about mechanics. She treats it like a choose-your-own-adventure book.
Anyway, here is a list of some of the things my mother has said and/or chosen to do throughout the course of BG3 in no particular order:
She is (obviously) romancing Gale. She is quite smitten with him and his passion for books and learning; she also thinks he’s polite and qualifies as “relationship material.” She also REALLY likes the things he’s said about his cat so far (my mom is a cat lady), so I know she’s gonna flip shit when we meet Tara in Act III.
She’s playing a normal druid Tav with a generally good alignment. Her favorite spell is Spike Growth because she thinks it’s hilarious whenever enemies walk into the AOE and die. I usually end up having to cast it at least once per battle per her request. Sometimes twice.
Contrary to her alignment, my mother tasks me with robbing every single chest, crate, barrel, and burlap sack we come across; this also includes people and their pockets. The party is always at max carrying capacity. ALWAYS. She doesn’t like selling things because “what if I need them.” The camp stash is in literal shambles. There is no hope of organizing it. She’s got like fifty seven sets of rags and a billion pieces of random silverware.
She MUST talk to every animal and corpse in the game. I think five hours of her total playtime so far (47ish) has been spent speaking to animals as many times as humanly possible. Like, I was thorough in my own playthroughs, but this is on a whole other level.
She did NOT get Volo’s lobotomy, but she did let Auntie Ethel take her eye in hopes of a cure for the tadpole. I did not understand the logic then. I still do not understand it now.
She is far more interested in fashion than equipment stats. Do you have any idea how much gold I’ve had to spend on dyes just to make things match? SO much. Same vibe as that “please someone help me balance my finances my family is starving” tweet but instead of candles it’s thirty thousand fucking bottles of black and furnace red dye.
We broke the prisoners out of Moonrise, but they got on the boat too early and bugged the fight by leaving Astarion and Karlach behind. Wulbren Bongle somehow got stuck in combat mode even after engaging the cutscene on the docks below Last Light; he he kept trying to run ALL THE WAY BACK TO MOONRISE nine fucking meters at a time while I frantically tried to finish the fight with the Warden, otherwise Wulbren would have run straight into the shadow curse. (I would’ve let him go; fuck Wulbren Bongle, all my homies hate Wulbren Bongle. But my mom didn’t know that, and she wanted to keep him safe. So.)
She had me reload a save like eighteen times to save the giant eagles on top of Rosymorn Monastery. Wouldn’t even let me do non-lethal damage just to get past things. I think getting that warhammer for the dawnmaster puzzle took us like an hour and a half alone. (Yes, I know you can use any warhammer, but SHE didn’t.)
She’s started keeping an irl notebook to keep track of her quests between play sessions. She writes down ideas and strategies when she thinks of them during the week, then brings them to her next game session at my house. I think she wrote about three pages on possible approaches to the goblin fortress alone.
She insists that I pet Scratch and the owlbear cub before every single long rest, no exceptions. Sometimes I have to do it multiple times until she is absolutely sure that the animals know exactly how much she loves and cherishes them. She has also commissioned a crocheted owlbear plush from a friend of hers and is very excited.
I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff I’m forgetting, but those are some fun things I thought of. She’s enjoying the game and is telling all of her retired friends to get it and play it for themselves. She asked me “what is Discord” yesterday and I think my life flashed before my eyes.
anyway shout out to my mom for being neat
Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5
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